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Vietnam could make a great setting for a Far Cry game but it has to be handled with more care than this. I appreciate that at $12 this is not supposed to be a full Far Cry experience, however I still expect more than a glorified two-hour fan-mod. The next two pieces of DLC will have to offer big improvements to make Far Cry 5‘s season pass worth the money.
Subsurface Circular is a visual novel about talking to strangers on a train. Basically, a British person’s worst nightmare. It ends up being a relaxing and thought-provoking experience where you talk to androids and solve a mystery without ever moving from your seat. At ninety minutes long, Subsurface Circular doesn’t overstay its welcome and if anything I wanted the experience to last a little longer.
Yoku’s Island Express is a beautiful combination of pinball and metroidvania. It doesn’t require you to be particularly skilled at either and lacks the challenge often associated with both of those genres. However, I thoroughly enjoyed bouncing Yoku and his dungball around Mokumana Island and the collectibles are rewarding enough to have me working towards 100% completion.
House Flipper isn’t ready to be placed on the market. For a game that is all about customizing a property, you have far too few options to chose from and there’s a complete lack of cohesion between furniture and colors. House Flipper is appealing enough to tempt in buyers for an open viewing, but a closer inspection reveals the obvious shortcomings. As a buyer, you should either negotiate hard for a discount on the selling price or wait until the quality of the game meets the buyer’s asking price.
Captain Spirit ends on a rather obvious cliffhanger, however there’s more than enough here to have me eagerly anticipating Life is Strange 2. I’m convinced the death of Chris’ mom isn’t quite as clear-cut as it first appears and I’m looking forward to helping Chris uncover the truth. It’s always tricky to score a free game, but I enjoyed the 90 minutes I spent with Captain Spirit and recommend you give it a go.
Golf Story has so much charm that I feel guilty for being bored. Likewise, I feel a touch guilty for writing this critical review. However, while the dialogue was witty enough to keep me going until completion, it wasn't enough to drag Golf Story out of mediocrity.
The Ultimate Edition subtitle is fitting because it’s hard to see where the N formula goes from here. With over 4,000 levels in N++, not including community created ones and those you create yourself in the level editor, there’s not much need for another sequel or special edition. That makes N++ an easy recommendation, especially on the Switch where it is perfect for short pick up and play sessions. Yes, as much as it pains me to say it, N++ is “perfect for the Switch.”
There's a big difference between being inspired by something and flat out copying it. Curse of the Moon copies Dracula's Curse and does a good job of it. So much so, that if you're a fan of Dracula's Curse, you might not even need to play Curse of the Moon. Compare that to Shovel Knight, which combined the best parts of series like Mega Man, Mario, and Ducktails, to be an excellent game in its own right which I recommend to everyone. Personally, I prefer the Shovel Knight approach to retro-inspired games, although Curse of the Moon is a great way to revisit a classic without requiring so much skill and patience to see it through to completion.
Fast RMX isn’t quite the new Wipeout or F-Zero game that I so desperately want, however it is a damn good futuristic racing game and a bargain at $20. Its budget status shows up in a few places, such as the subdued music, barebones online, or lack of a notable difference between the difficulty modes. However, Fast RMX is exhilarating at top speed and rewards track mastery while minimizing annoying RNG elements. The three race tournaments make it perfect for short play sessions and it will help tide me over until a new Wipeout of F-Zero.
Next year’s Metro Exodus looks phenomenal and I suspect there are a fair few people who haven’t played 2033 and Last Light yet. The Redux collection is the perfect way to fix that problem before diving into what could be one of the best games of 2019.
The Red Strings Club might not be **the** cyberpunk game you’re waiting for, but it’s well-worth your time. Like any good cyberpunk story, it poses tough questions about our potential future and the extent to which we adapt our own bodies and minds at the cost of corporate control. Like any really good cyberpunk story, you shouldn’t expect to get all the answers.
West of Loathing is a wonderfully charming adventure where the stick figures that populate the towns have more character than most of the life-like models in big-budget productions. You’ll spend more time reading than fighting, but when it’s this funny you won’t mind too much.
Lost on Mars‘ only redeeming feature is the humor and even that won’t be to everyone’s taste. There’s no variety to the enemies or indoor environments and the campaign is especially disappointing, being no more than a quest for collectibles. It’s hard to understand how DLC that takes you to Mars with a funny sidekick can end up being so unbelievably boring. Lost on Mars is another piece of skippable content in a season pass that is looking like a waste of time.
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine contains charming stories, wonderful illustrations and voice-acting that fits the game’s slow-paced and relaxing nature. And this is where the budget ran out. I have to assume that after paying Sting, the writers, and the illustrators, there was no money left to design the over-world and flesh out the short stories. This leaves Where the Water Tastes Like Wine being half of a great game that requires you to wade through the weaker parts to get to the good content. It’s an eight to ten hour game when it would have been better as a four to five hour one.
OnRush is a thrill and, appropriately, provides a real adrenaline rush for short play sessions. The lack of depth would have made for a great budget release and perhaps if it had been sold at $20 or $30 it wouldn’t now have empty multiplayer lobbies. As it stands, OnRush is good fun in short bursts and that’s about it.
Cultist Simulator is one of the most interesting games I’ve played in years. It can be too slow at times but the hours disappear while playing. There’s always the desire to study one more book, go on one more expedition, or take one more trip to the Mansus. You never know what you might find.
Tacoma shows that with great writing and voice acting, you can become attached to characters you only know through colored body outlines and a couple of pictures. I even wanted to know more about the crew’s family back on Earth and I was desperate to dig further into the corporate structure of Venturis and the overall state of the global economy. Tacoma is enjoyable enough that it left me wanting more, even if the experience didn’t hit quite as hard as Fullbright’s groundbreaking debut.
Dead Cells might not be the Metroidvania it half-heartedly professes to be, but it is a phenomenal rogue-lite and probably the best game I’ve played this year. The constant feeling of progression should be enough to tempt even those who don’t usually enjoy the genre while still being intense enough for those who lap this stuff up.
And so ends a terrible season pass. As with Lost on Mars, the only redeeming quality with Dead Living Zombies is the silly humor. However, this isn’t enough to get through the low-quality zombie hoards or motivate you to pump bullets into mutation stations. At least it’s all over now. I can delete Far Cry 5 from my hard drive and forget about it just like Ubisoft did judging by the effort put into this DLC.
It’s inevitable that Not Tonight‘s strong political views will put some people off, although it’s hard to imagine who would be offended at such obvious satire unless their own views are a little too closely represented for comfort. Not Tonight made me laugh and feel awkward on a regular basis, often both in close proximity. It has moments of tedium but it’s worth sticking with for the laughs that follow those periods of downtime.