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An altogether gripping tale of corruption and deceit, with a thoughtful twist and a historied setting. Knee Deep’s characters are likeable enough, from the enigmatic head of The Church of Us, to the disgraced professor who did time for getting high, and sleeping, with a student he thought was 18. While there's a fair view tropes and clichés, the writing and acting is generally of a high enough standard for me to let it slide. If it wasn't so slow to play, it'd be a damn near flawless example of how to sell a game based purely on story and dialogue.
Resident Evil 7 is a horror game that has jumped on the bandwagon of “run and hide” survival horror and added their own twist. And they’ve done well. The unsettling and intimate environment, the crazy “Texas Chainsaw” family, and the realistic scenery all combine into one to create a truly immersive and terrifying experience.
In an era of innovation for RPGs, Godseekers is lacking in a lot and even struggles to play to the strengths of the more thrilling main series. Unless you’re a die-hard Dynasty Warriors fan, you should seek another tactical RPG that’ll likely do a more interesting spin on the genre.
All in all, Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers tickles my fancy both for more Musou content, and for a decent Tactical RPG in a way that I couldn't imagine any other game would do simultaneously. I just wish they would leave the wishy-washy supernatural stuff for the more ridiculous Warriors titles.
Ultimately Rise & Shine just didn’t hit the spot for me. Failing to reach the end I often found myself frustrated with no real satisfaction. There was never a grand pay off for my achievements and several bugs relating to dying would often result in completely killing the game and starting several checkpoints back.
Metrico+ should serve as a pleasant surprise for Xbox One owners looking for something to tax the brain, whilst whiling away the time until the big releases start to roll through again. However, it’s actually a game that I’d recommend at any time. It’s a unique mix of puzzling and platforming in its own right, but tie in the abstraction that permeates every aspect of it, and it’s a surprisingly intriguing package.
Music and art help set a strong atmosphere are very important for platformers, to help them stand out from the crowd, and I feel that's one area where Hunter's Legacy shines.
The Flame in the Flood is a fantastic survival game with an equally fantastic score and art style that will challenge your decision making and patience to within an inch of its life - in a good way. There is plenty of replay value to be had as you won't find everything there is to uncover in the first few playthroughs.
Outbreak's outward appearance of a survival horror game is inadvertently inaccurate. The traditional tropes are there, but the conventional style of gameplay that we associate with survival horror has been tampered with. Outbreak requires you to build your “perfect run” strategy for each level rather than taking it slow and steady. This isn't what I expected, and isn't all that bad, but delivers a completely different style of gameplay than initial impressions would have you believe.
If there was a little more time spent with developing the overall story and much more time spent creating visually desirable environments, I would heartily recommend Sylvio. However as it stands, I’d steer clear. You’d have a better time recording your own ghostly sounds in your basement than playing Sylvio.
It may have worked fairly well as a mobile game that you play for 3 minutes at a time, but brought to the home console scene its issues become glaringly obvious. It’s even missing fairly standard quality of life inclusions.
Ultimately my time with Final Fantasy XV was spent chasing the very few highs I found among a lot of mediocrity and poor design choices. Realistically, nobody ever enjoys filling their petrol tank, ever. And it’s this obvious lack of thought in design choice that rings true with large sections of Final Fantasy XV, I just failed to see the point in it all.
The Dwarves is a game that takes time to get to grips with and much longer to master. There will be plenty of game over screens for all players of all skill types and will ultimately have players fall back on the same strategies over and over again, until they succeed. If it doesn't work the first time then try, and try, and try, and try...
At this point, all that remains of Dead Rising is the name. A once interesting and promising franchise has been neutered, changed for a more palatable creation. Dead Rising 4 could have been something, anything, but instead chooses to be a “cash in” on holiday season and a further diluted formula.
As a fan of Dishonored, my disbelief in how Dishonored 2 performed on my end was eye opening to say the least. Maybe a few patches down the road could make Dishonored 2 more malleable to a consumer like myself but until then I’ll be setting my second playthrough aside and moving on to better and more serviceable games.
I think the concept concocted by Mimimi Productions alone was what made Shadow Tactics a worthwhile game to make, and even more worthwhile to play.
Watch Dogs 2 might be the best soundtrack and scenic open world game from Ubisoft in recent memory, but inconsistent theme and my failure to really resonate with the central themes prevented me from enjoying it.
Overall, Neptune Flux is more suited to being described as an experience than a game.
Titanfall 2 doesn’t just improve on the original, it leaves it in the dust as it speeds ahead laughing. Leaps and bounds ahead of its competition with a brilliant story to boot. The only thing holding Titanfall 2 back is the release date, it feels like were this released in the summer it would have just a few more players online.
If you’re a Schmuck for Shmups then you may enjoy what Xenoraid has to offer. With a short campaign and a bland Survival mode, you're enjoyment of Xenoraid may not be long lasting.