The Games Machine

Pumpkin Jack is a hilarious 3D adventure platformer, with clear and obvious references to MediEvil. But while the pace is good and the aesthetics charming, the repetition of the same gameplay loop becomes tedious already halfway through the game. The controls are also a bit slippery, but Pumpkin Jack is still a very enjoyable action platformer.

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Cloudpunk is an original and fascinating game, on PC. This Nintendo Switch port, on the other hand, is a bit of a technical mess.

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The underwater combat in Aquanox: Deep Descent certainly feels right, however the lousy enemy AI, the consequent generally low difficulty, and several naiveties in the gameplay formula do not allow the game to be enjoyable from start to finish. It doesn't help that the plot and dialogue writing is abysmal. The end result is unfortunately an all too generic, sometimes soporific, submarine shooter.

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Monster Truck Championship finally does justice to the crazy world of monster trucks with a good title, genuine and fun, absolutely standard in the structure but made unique by a control system and physics designed ad hoc, not always perfect but tasty for racing fans looking for different sensations.

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You can see sparks of an excellent game here and there, but the full potential got lost along the way. Still, not so many tactical action games around – beggars can't be choosers!

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The Survivalists is a fun survival sandbox which can be played both as an arcade adventure, hunting for every treasure and secret hidden around the island, and with a more casual approach by trying to just build some kind of boat and leave. Plenty of situations to face, a huge amount of structures, artifacts and recipes to unlock and experiment with. Each run will be an unique adventure. Monkey training is the icing on the cake. Pretty, fast and responsive, it will keep you in front of the screen for a long time. The game also features a multiplayer mode that unfortunately I couldn't try.

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The child in me was happy with the first turn of my TIE Interceptor, but the adult in me also has to recognise a very straight-forward campaign and a surprising lack of multiplayer modes. But what's there is pretty good, thanks to a phenomenal flight system, clever maps and strategic progression system. Oh, and VR support.

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Don't trust art of rally. Even if it looks like a cute, tiny, aesthetic arcade racing game, it is actually a love tribute to the history of rally, from a rally lover to rally lovers all over the world. Underneath his neat visual style and his top-down visuals lies a great rally sim, stripped of every needless detail and still playable by any kind of gamer thanks to a vast array of camera and difficulty options.

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There are no special technical annotations. The game flows smoothly and without any particular hitches, with an audio/video compartment virtually identical to last season.

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With RIDE 4 the virtual centaur goes to heaven. The latest Milestone work is simply what every fan of two wheels and video games needs, the top for rideability, bike park and track selection. The driving pleasure at the center of a project that also technically shows itself in dazzling form, soon becoming a refuge for those who love two wheels. It is therefore a pity that the purchase of new cars depends on advances in a career anchored in classic game design concepts, not to say old, yes fun but penalized by naivety such as too mechanical an AIS and penalties all too severe for trivial errors. Despite these critical issues, we are in front of one of the best courses of the generation, very much cared for in presentation and gameplay. A consecration.

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Kirby Fighters 2 can be a nice introduction to fighting games, especially for children. But don't get deceived: the first levels might be easy to beat, but the later ones will prove challenging even for those familiar with the genre.

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A karaoke based game with the best and most famous songs from Queen. If you love singing and you're not scared by Freddie Mercury's challenging voice, you'd have a go with this.

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Awesome. A game that basically does not add anything to the platform genre, and still manages to be original and innovative by mixing all the ingredients with mastery. Despite the extreme difficulty it is never frustrating, keeping you in front of the screen for another run, and then another one and one more, while you promise yourself the next run will be the last. Recommended for both hardcore gamers aiming for the best score, and a more casual audience looking to have fun, and who don't mind if they will only see a small part of the game. After all, how many of us have ever finished Bubble Bobble?

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Crash is back again with one of its best adventures that feels and plays like a modern instant classic. Welcome back good old Bandicoot!

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Joy, cheerfulness and the gleeful sounds of carnage accompany us in the carefree fragfest that is every battle, but still Serious Sam 4 feels old: it's like going back to the nineties without anything having changed. In its simplicity, Serious Sam 4 is the very essence of old school shooters, condensed into a dozen hours of gameplay. It represents first person shooters as they were in the beginning, in the fabulous beauty of their original sin: a bloodthirsty naivety made of exaggerated weapons, alien bits and frenetic battles against unreal hordes of enemies.

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There is no middle ground for BPM: either you love it, or you hate it. Personally, I feel this game crosses the line between challenge and frustration, offering a learning curve that is almost impossible to climb if you are not a true FPS lover. The soundtrack is excellent and the bundle with it is worth your money, but if you're not a very, very patient person with lightning-fast reflexes and an excellent sense of rhythm, you better look somewhere else.

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Mafia: Definitive Edition is a remake done with plenty of passion, and the charisma it oozes shows it. Hangar 13 rebuilt a great classic without losing track of the original work. Lost Heaven is a shining jewel and there's plenty of fun to be had. Character animations and the driving system can be a bit wonky sometimes, but those are minor issues in what is overall a great remake.

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Vader Immortal: a Star Wars VR Series is practically a video game amusement park attraction, and I mean that in terms of lenght as well. But it's still an enjoyable experience that will delight every fan of Lucas' opera omnia for a couple of hours.

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A great idea and a lot, a lot, a lot of repetitiveness. The change in style and setting could bring a beneficial breath of fresh air to the WWE wrestling produced by 2K, instead the game made by Saber was lost due to an excessive trivialization of the fighting styles accompanied by a system of microtransactions quite invasive.

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Tennis World Tour 2 improves upon its disastrous predecessor, but cannot completely make us forget its flaws because it's based on the same creaky structure. It can be fun, but you shouldn't expect perfection.

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