The Games Machine

Gotham Knights has a lot of small issues, but the game works and it offers one of the best depictions of the Bat-family outside of comics.

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The Last Hero of Nostalgaia is the Dark-Soulest of all Soulslikes. The idea of using lore as a game mechanic is interesting, but in the end maybe too easily applied on the experience. Overall Nostalgaia is a Dark Souls child with no regrets about it, but with some over-simplification and some battle-related issues.

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Batora: Lost Haven is both a hack n' slash and a twin stick shooter, depending on the enemies we have to face, and very often it is both genres mixed together. The main component of the game is the fighting system forcing you to frantically switch combat modes, but there is also an exciting story to follow, with charismatic partners and some moral choices that affect both plot development and character growth. A great isometric action RPG, with awesome boss battles and multiple endings to increase its longevity.

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Chaos, bullet hell and brutality. These are my three tags to describe Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood & Teef. A horizontal scrolling twin stick shooter with a gameplay reminding old arcades like Green Beret and Contra, filled with devastating weapons, avalanches of enemies armed to the teeth and die-hard bosses. The game only requires skill in aiming and shooting while dodging storms of bullets, and although it may not seem that much these days, in this case it's absolutely fine, you simply have to turn off your brain and have a blast crazily dismembering enemy orcs.

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A cool puzzle-platformer where cloning and killing ourselves is mandatory to reach our goals, with nice looking pixel art graphics and a great atmosphere.

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The Valiant is a decent enough game. It most likely won't amaze you, especially if you've played other small-scale RTS games before, but its campaign is the right amount . And if you've liked Dawn of War 2 in the past, you'll feel right at home.

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Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is not just one of the best exclusives for Nintendo Switch, it is a game capable of evolving significantly compared to the previous chapter, reaching an absolute playful level. A hilarious, light-hearted, creative but also well-kept work, with an artisanal level design and constantly growing for the duration of the adventure, exactly like a combat system that is pure joy, tactically deep and at the same time hyper-dynamic, comic and at the complete disposal of the player's creativity.

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LEGO Bricktales does only one thing, but it does it well: it allows you to play with LEGOs as you would do in your room, without placing constraints on your imagination. Its main limitation is a somewhat stubborn control system and a camera that is not easy to handle, but the final result repays the effort. The added value is a really appreciable technical compartment, which recreates small dioramas with enormous charm, based on historical LEGO sets that will lead to tears anyone who was young in the 80s/90s. It could mark the beginning of a new era for LEGO games, and that would be great news.

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Scorn is a half-won bet: aesthetically beautiful, with clear references to Giger's art, but all the substance and game mechanics are barely sketched.

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Vertigo's main problem, probably, it'is his ambition. When you choose such a cumbersome source of inspiration, the risk of ending up crushed by it is real. The Pendulo game wisely chooses not to retrace the path traced by Hitchcock, but to borrow the main theme. Unfortunately, however, it manages to keep the interest high only in the initial stages, then a under-the-bar acting and questionable narrative choices prevail over originality. You could appreciate the attempt, not so much the outcoming.

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Developed by one man only – Jason Smith – Cultic is an excellent old school shooter. The campaign isn't particularly long, but the second part will come as a free update in the future (hence the 'Chapter One'), and there's also a fun survival mode that will let you hone your skills.

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This sequel is not revolutionary as the first chapter: it is simply what who wanted a more up-to-date PvP structure needed. The 5 vs 5 gameplay works and is smoother, but in the new era of the franchise seems like there is less space than before for casual or not competitive players.

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I was skeptical about a Switch release of NieR Automata, a game Square Enix was unable to get run smoothly on PC. But somehow Virtuos achieved a miracle, making possible to be 2B even on the Nintendo hybrid. I was expecting a Waterloo-like disaster. The outcome instead is Austerlitz.

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Maybe 16 years ago Kamiwaza was a good and engaging action-stealth game but time has not been kind with it and now this remastered version doesn't have a meaning to live in 2022.

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Life is Strange: Arcadia Bay Collection arrives on Switch with all the necessary optimizations. A clever operation to propose two excellent titles also to Nintendo users, while not lacking some technical flaw, with a camera that does not always work and very long uploads. For the rest, the adventures of Chloe and Max are still in good hands and shine despite the years.

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Moonscars is a souslike (although 'lite' would better describe it) with a very evocative visual style and well-written characters. The gameplay is also good, but it suffers from a certain lack of enemy variety and a poor balance of character options, especially egregious when it comes to special weapons. Still, it's not a bad game by any means, but the competition is fierce in the 2D metroidvania / soulslike genre and standing out is not an easy feat.

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A great game that shows what R-Type could be like, if only it was coded in 1958! Blast the freaking aliens like it there's no tomorrow, with this stunning shoot 'em up action in black & white, with great FMV intros in every level.

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Valkyrie Elysium's combat system is sufficiently complex and entertaining, which is good, considering that what remains of the game is quite forgettable. A decent game for fans of the tri-Ace saga, but certainly not essential. Also because, if you're hungry for Norse adventures, there's a certain god of war waiting for you at the end of November...

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Electronic Arts greets the FIFA brand with an edition that is not perfect, but that still deserves a wide promotion. Wrapped within an aesthetic component that, thanks to HyperMotion 2 technology, convinces in every element, the game structure offers slightly slower games than in the past, with a weakening of the dribbling in favor of a more choral maneuver. There is still room for improvement in terms of gameplay, and some aspects (for example, the behavior of the goalkeepers) need to be adjusted through patches, but overall the games flow in a pleasant and fun way. Well, without major upheavals, the options sector, which as usual offers a range of variants that satisfy anyone, starting from those who want to live an experience of spectacle and lightheartedness up to those who want to manage an entire team.

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In recent years, the old-school FPS genre has been undergoing a kind of rebirth; and if the results are games like Prodeus, we should be glad it has. Solid gunplay, excellent soundtrack, and graphics that might be old-school, but never feel dated: this is an excellent debut for Bounding Box Games. Granted, it's not flawless and the checkpoint system especially raises some eyebrows, but Produes is definitely a game worth checking out if you're into old-school FPSs. And even if you're not, honestly.

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