The Games Machine

When it comes to porting triple A titles to the Switch, Panic Button is an experienced and capable developer, and Apex Legends on Nintendo Switch is an impressive technical feat. This time, however, the challenge might have been too great, and the compromises required of the player too excessive.

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Silver Chains is an intriguing game set in a good old mansion haunted by ghosts and evil spirits. Its eerie atmosphere will keep you on the edge of your seat as you unravel the mysteries of this ancestral home and the madness that devoured it. Unfortunately, the experience is also marred by a framerate that frequently dips below 30 fps and bugs that will force you to load an earlier save state.

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Everhood is simply incredible. A carnival populated by masks that have lost their humanity, a deep, rich tale, enhanced by a gameplay that mixes rhythm game, adventure and RPG. A gem that deserves to be played by as many people as possible.

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Flame of Ambition is an excellent introduction to the daedric theme that will be further developed with the next big expansion, Blackwood. The two dungeons are entertaining and are characterized by good level design and interesting mechanics, especially when it comes to the Black Drake Villa. We're definitely excited to see where The Elder Scrolls Online brings us next June.

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Behind the appearance of an idle game with a weird palette lies a deeply strategic title, which requires a careful management of resources and the ability to foresee the moves of our hero in advance. Its simplicity makes it a game for everyone, while its complexity will make it a real challenge for veteran adventurers and RPG players. The camp management, the gathering of materials, the weapons and enemies statistics, the unlockable classes and the combinations of memory cards make Loop Hero one of the best strategy games of recent times.

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Lust from Beyond is a more-than-average first person adventure dealing with difficult topics, such as psychiatric diseases, sexuality and the very idea of a cult based exclusively on physical pleasure. It does so by building an almost convincing narrative structure, without skimping on the crude representation of sex and violence, managing to maintain a difficult balance with all the other components of the game. The technical quality, however, is fluctuating, with 3D models that seem to come out of some game 20 years ago, animations at the limit of decency and sudden "coughs" of the script.

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Monster Energy Supercross 4 is a racing game with deep sense of rhythm, fun and exhilarating. It might lack significant new features, but it's damn entertaining and its qualities are undeniable.

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The Next (Current?) Gen patch of Crash 4: It's About Time ups the resolution to a majestic 4K, guaranteeing stable 60fps in every situation. Plus, it's completely free.

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A-Train: All Aboard! Tourism might seem a lighthearted game suitable for beginners, instead the last of Artdink's productions turns out to be the exact opposite. It's a complex and articulated managerial title, full of micro-management elements and with a particularly steep (perhaps too much) learning curve. That's because, despite the presence of two exhaustive tutorials, there's always the risk of being disoriented by an unnecessarily confusing interface.

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The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante is an interactive novel in which interaction is reduced to the bare bone, allowing us only to turn the pages of the book and choose our next moves from a list of options. So it should not be evaluated as a game but as a story. And from this point of view it is a brilliant tale, which manages to capture attention from the very first pages, making us suffer for the unfortunate protagonist. Like all products of this kind, however, after the first intense run you will only want to see the multiple endings, skipping most of the rest of the story.

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Cyanide & Happiness: Freakpocalypse is a game made for C&H's fans, rather than point&click lovers, and it's okay. The game's mechanics act as a stimulus, prompting the player to talk to all the characters and examine every single part of the setting, enjoying the surreal dialogues and absurd descriptions that dot the game. I don't know if everybody can appreciate it, but if you like dark humor and you're not afraid of BDSM teachers, bullies and delusional weirdos, this is a point&click adventure that may fit your lovely taste.

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Curious Expedition 2 is a fun roguelike that quickly turns out to be a matryoshka of unpredictable adventures. It's a nice tribute to the adventure novel à la Jules Verne, and one that knows how to reward its players. It doesn't dare as much as I would have liked narratively, but there's still plenty of fun to be had.

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Into the Radius is an ambitious STALKER-like VR game, so deep in its sci-fi survival features that it feels like a real "Roadside Picnic Simulator". The development team is very small and, in technical terms, the experience is very far from perfect, but also capable of immersing you in a scary and iper-realistic Zone.

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The Climb 2 remains too unbalanced in muscle activity to really perform the task of the only fitness game in VR. If that's your purpose, it must necessarily go hand in hand with other "sports" virtual reality experiences, including the well-researched FitXR and VRWorkout.

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Is there the perfect "Zeldalike"? Rogue Heroes would be the perfect example, as immediate in the first few minutes as it is complex and deep if you decide to try to complete it 100%, with a top-down perspective view made of pixel art and a story that leads us to travel in a world as varied as it is hostile. Although it does not achieve the excellence of its mentor, it stands out for interesting gameplay choices such as village management and an approach oriented to the open world experience. To play secret after secret alone, or in ramshackle runs with friends despite the repetitiveness of some sections and some graphic uncertainty.

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Curse of the Dead Gods is a roguelike hack'n'slash with fast-paced action, and an immediate but also very deep combat system.

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Bravely Default 2 is a classic JRPG that certainly doesn't reinvent the wheel, but its intriguing combat system and the customization offered by the many classes available can make it interesting for fans of the genre.

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Tokuro Fujiwara strikes again by taking Ghosts 'n Goblins back to its roots. As difficult as it gets and as inventive as it gets, this is a return in style for Arthur fans.

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Capcom Arcade Stadium provides a generous bunch of golden-age arcade titles (with a little too much Street-Fighterism), paired with a vast assortment of options and gorgeous presentation.

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Surviving, nowadays, is hard. It's DAMN hard. So it's good to find a survival game like The Wild Eight that does not enjoy punishing the player without reason. I still don't know if this softer approach is an attempt to offset some design issues (like the combat, or the clunky inventory) or if it was meant to be like this since the beginning. Anyway, The Wild Wight feels like a survival game approachable even by players that usually don't like survival games so much, and at the end of the day this feels like good news.

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