GamePitt's Reviews
Shining Resonance Refrain looks like your standard JRPG with all the common elements; Grinding, Anime boys/girls, Bikinis, Monsters, and Good vs Evil, but there is so much more to it if you choose to invest your time and patience into learning the various aspects. The story isn’t going to blow you away as you’ll probably guess what’s going to happen next if you’re an avid JRPG fan, but the overall enjoyment you receive whilst playing the game only gets better the more you progress and unlock.
Super Mega Baseball 2 comes in swinging at the sport of baseball against the likes of MLB The Show. While not a huge baseball game fan myself, it offers a very welcoming hand into the game to get started as well as offering something for avid fans of the sport.
All-Star Fruit Racing is a fun family-friendly multi-platform kart racing game. I had a blast playing it as it reminded me of a lower budget Mario Kart yet with its own personality and charm. The combat mechanics, when using Fruit Mode, are a little daunting at first yet once you have used it a few times, it’s actually really innovative and it actually lets you collect up to four abilities at a time or less if you wish to combine them ala Magicka style. The voices and laughing do become irritating for adults after a while, although kids may not think the same as young children usually like words and phrases being repeated.
The Spectrum Retreat is a challenging, first-person puzzle game set within the near future. As you awake and being to explore the Penrose hotel, you will begin to unlock your memories through the various colour-based logic puzzles and various interactions you have with the mysterious Cooper. You must solve each of these ingenious puzzles as you uncover the truth behind why you are in such a place and who is behind your imprisonment. The Spectrum Retreat has AAA quality voice acting, an amazing soundtrack and the perfect amount of mind-bending and thought-provoking puzzles all contained within a single package.
The Crew 2 is a hard game to critique. It has so many things going for it, from the diversity in gameplay, the plethora of available vehicles, and the overall fun and excitement it creates. However, it’s matched with equally disappointing aspects such as the pointless free-roam mode, the annoying photo-mode challenges, the indestructible obstacles, and the annoyingly ‘perfect’ AI. It initially feels like the game is ‘pay to win’ as you are unable to afford the better vehicles for the events you are entering. This is until you dedicate a few hours to the game and begin to realise that after a while the game will progress at the level you are, thus opening up new events and offering more money in line with what you need.
Railway Empire: Mexico is a great first piece of DLC for the brilliant Railway Empire. Not only do you get a new Scenario, a massive Free Mode and Sandbox map, two new locomotives, and two new resources, but you also get access to the night mode which allows you to play any map in the dead of night. Other than the scenario, the DLC doesn’t really offer any new features or mechanics. However, the game has received numerous updates since launch which has added a multitude of new features for free which has really changed the way you play the game and the strategies you must utilise.
The Exorcist: Legion VR is the scariest game of the year so far on PS4/PSVR. The developers have gone above and beyond and delivered a game which not only achieved what it set out to do (scare the pants off you) but it also looks amazing in the process as well. I’m not a fan of the clunky control scheme and the blinders are something I would like to see less of (pun intended) due to the fact a large majority of us don’t get motion sick and would rather play the game with no restrictions.
Le Tour de France, from Cyanide Studio and Focus Home Interactive, is back again for its usual yearly iteration in the form of Tour de France 2018. It’s a cycling management game in which you can build your own dream team in the world of cyclists whilst you micro-manage the in-depth career.
Riddled Corpses EX is the perfect example of how a remastered game should look in this generation of gaming. Fabrice Breton (COWCAT) has taken everything good about the original PC version of Riddled Corpses and improved, tweaked, fixed, and added things in order to deliver a solid twin-stick Rogue-like shooter with very addictive gameplay. Sure, there is a bit of grinding and some people may think it’s a bit monotonous or repetitive, but I had a blast playing for seven hours straight as I popped on a few podcasts and albums and pushed my way through wave after wave of disgusting pixel beings! The Cross Buy (with an extra platinum) is an extra bonus for us Sony gamers and for all the trophy hunters out there, just be aware that you’ll probably need about 10-15 hours in order to work your way through each iteration of the game.
LEGO The Incredibles is a fun family-friendly new addition to the ever-growing LEGO franchise. The game doesn’t really bring many new features and mechanics to the table, but it does expand on some which were present in previous games. The game is a lot shorter than recent titles, clocking in at around 6-7 hours for the main story, but once you add in all of the overworld activities and collectables, you easily hit around 30-40 hours worth of gameplay. I particularly love how they have built in a way to easily see which character have the ability you are looking for, a much-needed addition to the LEGO games. Unfortunately, the game is plagued with pop-in, a not very exciting rendition of both movies (played in reverse order for some reason), and probably the worst flying/swimming/driving mechanics to date in a LEGO game.
Eventide 3: Legacy of Legends isn’t the most climatic or dramatic ending to the amazingly detailed series I would have hoped for, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad game. The location once again look beautiful, the story is interesting, the settings are perfect and the soundtrack is spot on. However, what let it down a little for me was the repetitiveness of some of the puzzles from previous Artifex Mundi titles, the lower quality voice acting, and the lack of a climactic ending or bonus chapter to tie things up a little better. That being said, what the game does do, it does well as it gradually gets more difficult as you play until all the safety wheels are off and you’re on your own. Definitely a high recommendation to all Artifex Mundi fans and those who like casual puzzle games.
Lumines: Remastered is a musical masterpiece, an addictive puzzle, and a fiendish rhythm game all presented in a simple, yet elegant, package. When you’re not trying to unlock new ‘skins’ in the challenge mode you’ll be either facing off against an opponent or trying your luck at one of the many pre-defined puzzles. As you progress you are rewarded with new songs, colour pallets and designs (skins), which boosts your determination to unlock them all and give it “just one more go”. Lumines: Remastered looks and plays perfectly on a big screen and I imagine it will be even better in handheld mode on the Switch, it’s just a shame the Vita missed out this time.
Aragami and its expansion are very strict in adhering to the stealth approach and it's what I enjoyed most about the game. Some may find this mechanic off-putting and feel dated that you can't blast your way out of a tricky situation but in doing so, it truly makes you feel like an assassin where one mistake will lead to failure. It's an absolute must for anyone that enjoys the classic stealth genre. It's a very smartly designed game in both its level design and mechanics and has a story while not ground-breaking it kept me well-captivated. It's unfortunate that the game does lack the polish in its technical performance but ultimately Aragami succeeds in creating the Tenchu-like game I've been craving but in its own unique and gorgeous style.
From the legendary creator Mr. Yasuhiro Wada (TOYBOX Inc.), comes Happy Birthdays: a sandbox game in which players create cube-shaped worlds that give rise to diverse and unique lifeforms. With careful experimentation, players can shape the geography and alter the temperature of each world to create the conditions for life and witness the birth of an entire ecosystem!
Survive! Mr. Cube is a casual roguelike game with its emphasis on combat being more than it’s overall story. Don’t go into the game expecting it to be a brutal game which will take you many hours to platinum and keep you trying over and over until you reach the final boss. The game is more for those who like the idea of a roguelike but would rather stay alive longer and get the sense of progression within their current playthrough and not the next. That being said, when you do inevitably die, you are given a new character and weapon and sent out into the world to fight once more. The game is charming and I had a lot of fun playing through it.
Through the Woods is a decent indie game built around Norse folklore/mythology that has been slightly integrated within the story of a mother and her estranged son. Throughout your journey to recover your child, you will encounter creatures which you must stealthily bypass and uncover things about yourself and the woods which may be a little uncomfortable for some people. The two main downsides to the game lie within its integration of the two stories and the length. With more time, we would have had more development on the characters and gave me a reason to care about them, with more integration then we could have seen how the random occurrences linked to the mother.
Illusion: A Tale of the Mind is a fun puzzle-platformer with some very frustratingly strict timed segments and confusing puzzles. The overall story of the game, the setting, the audio, and graphics are all amazing and work really well together – It’s just a shame that our protagonist walks as fast as a snail as she takes in everything that’s around her. Issues aside though, the game was fun to play and interesting to follow. I’d recommend this to people who like puzzle platformers where the emphasis is on the story and the four puzzle types I mentioned in my review. I also love a good story with an emotional aspect, Illusion: A Tale of the Mind didn’t fail to deliver on this either.
The Lost Child is both a great game and a very frustrating one. It does a lot of things really well, the dungeon crawling, the story, the voice acting, the combat, and the puzzles themselves. Yet, it also has issues with the lack of tracking your investigations well, the difficulty spike at certain points, the too-frequent random battles, and the vagueness of some of the riddles. However, as a whole, the game was great to play through as it only got more interesting the more you got into it, and it was very satisfying to both solve the puzzles and unlock 100% of each floor.
All in all, this game is very enjoyable to play and I would highly recommend it. It’s very easy to both just pick it up and play for a few minutes or sit in and binge on. I personally think this game would be appropriate for all ages as I fully believe that a younger person could pick this game up and run with it. The game isn’t complicated and is very easy to just run around and explore as you attack anything that moves and pick up anything shiny!
OnRush is a different type of racing game, you aren’t trying to come first or be number one, you’re trying to complete set objectives as part of a six-man team. The four modes offer a lot of variety when combined with the many different stages, vehicles, time of day, and seasons. The only downside I had was the randomness of whose cosmetics you receive it the in-game loot crates and the lack of a standard ‘race’ mode. Whether you’re playing it in single player or multiplayer, you will find hours upon hours of entertainment as you smash, crash, boost, and rush your team to victory.