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Lake is a truly beautiful narrative adventure. The sound design is excellent and the story progresses in a delicate way, with feeling. An oasis of relax in a chaotic world that is always in a hurry.
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Sonic Colours: Ultimate improves on the fine game released many years ago on Wii, but after all this time it was fair to expect something more, especially for the hedgehog's 30th birthday.
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No More Heroes 3 is a glorious sequence of boss fights, spectacular, fun and crazy, but surrounded by a really bland open world. If you're a fan of Travis it remains a recommended game, especially considering the previous games adopted a very similar structure, but everyone else would do well to wait for a price drop.
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Twelve Minutes takes advantage of a time loop to tell us an intricate story, managing to motivate player's creativity in trying to prevent seemingly inavoidable situations. Featuring a breathtaking voiceover, it lacks in credibility when it tries to amaze and horrify at any cost, while successfully managing to blow the audience away. It will give you a fulfilling afternoon, and if you love point and click adventures you shouldn't miss it. You can easily see the first two or three endings, but unlocking them all needs quite an effort.
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A remarkable sequel to one of the best Metroidvania ever made. Despite some minor flaws, Axiom Verge 2 represents a new building block in the fascinating and growing universe crafted by Thomas Happ. Can't wait for the next chapter.
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Incredible attention to detail, an impressive physics model and a focus on the bike maintenance make RIMS Racing a strong first entry for a new IP; however, the erratic AI and self-harming design choices reduce the overall enjoyment of the game. Also, day one DLCs are never a good look.
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The very existence of Psychonauts 2 demonstrates that good ideas have to overcome a thousand difficulties before being realized, but in the end they somehow impose themselves. It took years for the first chapter to overcome people's skepticism but, day after day, it has built up a fan base so large that we were finally able to play with a full-fledged, high budget sequel. And it's beautiful. Pleasant, original, colorful, compelling. Do you need more adjectives to be convinced?
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Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a valid cooperative shooter, one where you can just drop in and shoot stuff with glee, or put your coordination and teamplay to the test if you're looking for a challenge. There are friendly AIs, but they aren't great and solo play only works at the lower difficulties. Finally, while the game is competent and fun, it also shows its low budget.
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King's Bounty II is a decent turn-based RPG, but it's also one of the most derivative games out there.
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A year later, Ghost of Tsushima is still a great game, and this Director's Cut is the definitive version, especially if you own a PlayStation 5. It's a great experience, but it's mainly for newcomers: the improvements are welcome, but hardly enough to tempt veterans of the original.
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Road 96 is a nice revelation. The slow start gives the wrong impression of a game similar to many recent narrative adventures: well written, but without that peculiar something that can make it shine. Instead, its formula based on the repetition of the paths and on the procedurality of the encounters proved to be a great strength in the long run, capable of adding depth to the game and distinguishing it from its (valid) predecessors. More than this, it's the perfect game for summertime: a good song on the radio, the long road ahead of us, sunglasses on and a future where plenty of choices await.
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Sadly, Humankind isn't Amplitude Studios' magnum opus. Its interesting concept of civilization mix-matching is constantly let down by an uncompetitive AI and all sort of balancing issues.
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One of the most intriguing action-platform of the year. Greak: Memories of Azur is artistically gorgeous and its gameplay is simple but engaging.
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Foreclosed manages to condense in a single game a decent shooter, a basic role-playing game and, why not, even a bit of science fiction thriller, which doesn't hurt. The problem, however, is who exactly this game is meant for: it is too light as an FPS, too basic as an RPG, and the puzzles aren't deep enough for an adventure. It needs someone who wants to simply live a cyberpunk experience, as long as your expectations aren't set too high.
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Hades on PlayStation 5 is the essential masterpiece we all know, embellished by the 4K resolution and a mild use of the features of DualSense. A real must-have.
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The underlying gameplay is still so brilliant that it is painful to see it brought it down by obtuse and ancient systems that make the overall experience frustrating.
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Solid, no-nonsense roguelike with a comparatively rare sci-fi setting. Too bad it doesn't deliver the badass power fantasy that its inspiring material source (Doom) does so well.
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Boomerang X is a frantic and challenging arena shooter made to satisfy the needs of those interested in speedrunning the game or unlocking every single one of its achievements.
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Orcs Must Die! 3 does not innovate significantly – some might even call it lazy – but is an effective recollection of everything that made Robot Entertainment's franchise so great in the past, turned up to eleven.
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Vesper at first glance might seem like a Limbo with robots, it's actually a platformer puzzler with a really successful splash of stealth. Equipped with an artistic sector of great personality, thanks to the numerous checkpoints it can be faced in a casual way, a couple of screens at a time, or all in one breath in speed run mode, thanks also to the official stopwatch ready to witness your feat without the need for editing.
Review in Italian | Read full review