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Heroki is a serene platformer where you take your time and discover every secret at your own pace without much danger involved, making it a relaxing experience. It has pacing issues in that it takes a long time before you get to do anything different, but if you're fine with that, play Heroki between some of the more hectic titles out there.
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a charming, fun and well-made game with plenty of humor and excellent gameplay. It's an example of how you can expand on a tried-and-true formula in a way that makes it distinctive and exciting. The only thing that drags it down are some bugs and occasional difficulty spikes that feel more frustrating than fun. If you're a fan of XCOM-style games but want a new approach, you should absolutely try MYZ, which is one of the best surprises of the year.
When looking at the episode alone, The Council: Episode 5 - Checkmate is fairly weak. Its brevity feels rather unfulfilling, and that feeling is only reinforced by some of the abruptness of the decisions made here. When looking at this episode as the conclusion of the season, the abrupt changes aren't enough to cancel out the intriguing story that has developed over the course of the season. Despite the low score given to this episode, the game as a whole lives up to the promise of being different and interesting, and there is hope for the development team's next effort (whatever it may be).
Wizard of Legend may not be your all-time favorite roguelike dungeon crawler, but it's very good at what it does. The fast-paced, action-oriented angle is exciting, and the addition of co-op makes the game as fun as solo runs. The item system suffers from a lack of descriptions until it's too late, but the many combinations you can conjure up give the game some replayability. Both genre fans and newbies will like Wizard of Legend.
At the end of the day, Astro Bot Rescue Mission is an incredibly fun platformer that plays great and is even greater in VR. While not consistently mind-blowing, it often surprised me by its inventive level design and VR implementation, making it easily the title to own if you want a quality experience that is as innocent as it is fun to play.
As long as you can accept its learning curve, Battery Jam is a fine multiplayer game. There are plenty of things that can be done, and it takes a while to get everything down before you can start playing and enjoying yourself. Once you understand the game, you'll find that there's some depth to the chaos, and even though there's no real meat to the game beyond local multiplayer, you'll enjoy the short bursts of fun it provides as a buffer between other multiplayer titles in your possession.
This is what makes Fallout 76 painful: many worthwhile moments surrounded by a game with just as many nagging issues. The bare-bones plot and general lack of direction mean you must make your own fun. It's set in a largely static world that doesn't care about the choices you make, and the few times when you can impact the world may be lost to you or circumvented by others with a mere server hop. There's fun to be had if you enjoy the thought of poking around a Fallout wasteland with a friend. Otherwise, very little here feels new, and it feels like a lot of content is missing in comparison to previous games in the series.
All in all, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Owltimate Edition is a well-made and enjoyable platformer. It doesn't break the mold, but it does what it does very well. It's easy to pick up and a lot of fun to play. There are some minor flaws here and there, but nothing really drags down the game. If you're a fan of old-school platformers, then you'll likely enjoy Giana Sisters. It's not quite on par with some of the greats, but it's a comfortable and fun romp for players of all ages.
There is no doubt that Darksiders III is a flawed product, but series fans who are accepting of the changes will find it to be a good entry in the series. The camera is a source of constant frustration since it causes a number of issues where you get sucker-punched in combat while you're still relatively weak. With that said, the combat becomes enjoyable once you come to grips with the Dark Souls-style system and the more open level design takes the sting out of having to fight through closed spaces for most of the game. One has to wonder how different the possible fourth game could be.
This review began before with a parallel to early man, so why stop now? Narcosis, in its own way, brings humanity's drive for survival to the forefront of the player's mind, showing that the will to live is truly a harrowing war of attrition. The game is unrelenting in its goal of putting you into the shoes of someone haunted by the depths of the sea, both figuratively and literally. The story is simple but well-written, with even the flavor text of the fallen co-workers showing humanity in a couple of sentences each. The visuals are good, the controls are formidable, and the audio is stunning. Sure, the gameplay and story can be a little slow, and the narration is somewhat gauche and not well mixed, but these are minor issues in an otherwise intriguing, original game that shows the potential of human helplessness in a visceral and highly informative way. Narcosis is a mystery that plays on how little we know about our own world, as the game aggressively reminds us with elements of supernatural terror.
Rigid Force Alpha is a good kind of throwback. It may look and sound modern, but it has a good grasp of what made some classic shooters become evergreen entries for fans. It has a good spread of weapons, and the difficulty feels fair as long as you're good with its limits. It may not be able to construct a good story or present much that would be considered unique to the genre, but those who crave old-school sensibilities will enjoy Rigid Force Alpha if they have the patience to get through some initial booting issues.
Taken as the sum of its parts, FIFA 19 is the most complete and beautiful soccer game around. Upon closer inspection, the latest entry doesn't shine as brightly. There are some admittedly great additions to this year's offering, but they don't add enough to the game to make it worthwhile for returning players who are invested in single-player content.
In truth, the real value of Turf Wars is entirely dependent on the final piece of DLC scheduled to hit a month from now. Provided it delivers on an exciting finale, all of the rough spots in the tale will be worth it. Until then, your enjoyment of the Turf Wars DLC will be entirely dependent on how excited you are to fight loads of enemies and how invested you are in the characterization of one of your allies. Overall, it isn't great, but it does enough to keep things intriguing until the final installment.
Moonlighter creates an excellent dungeon-crawling experience for fans of the genre. It combines rogue-lite elements with procedurally generated dungeons to create an adventure that's packed with surprises. Collecting loot to sell in the store adds a new side to dungeon-crawling experience that we don't often see. Selling in the store is multi-dimensional, as we must take supply and demand into consideration. Sometimes by trial and error, we learn the true value of things to assist us in our progression. Progression can be slow due to clunky combat that causes us to die frequently, and a lot of grinding is required to achieve better upgrades. Moonlighter does an excellent job of getting the player to want to delve deeper into the dungeons, since venturing further yields greater rewards. Intricate details and visuals give Moonlighter a memorable style. Enemy designs provide an ample challenge for the risky adventurer, but the story falls short because the narrative isn't memorable.
The honest truth is that despite being a lot older, Orochi 3 is the game I'd prefer to play over Warriors Orochi 4. It feels more fully featured, more well-designed, more interesting to play, and it has a more interesting cast. If you're burned out on Orochi 3, then Orochi 4 might give you a nice fix. It's not a bad game — just a very by-the-numbers entry in the series. Fans of the franchise will probably get their usual enjoyment out of it, but there's little to strongly recommend it over most of the recent Warriors games.
Fans of the Battlefield franchise will find that despite its flaws, Battlefield V warrants a return trip to World War II. If we look at raw numbers, there's less content than before, but the quality of the maps remains the same, and free DLC is on the way. Some old modes, like Frontlines, feel like a slog, while new modes like Grand Operations feel quite quick despite having longer intended play times. The game looks gorgeous, but it still has some graphical issues that need to be ironed out. Despite all of this and a number of bugs that are already being addressed by DICE, BF5 still manages to retain all of the traits and quirks that make the Battlefield series feel exhilarating.
The Spyro Reignited Trilogy is a fantastic remake of the original Spyro trilogy. It expertly toes the line between loyalty to the classics and updating the originals. I would absolutely put it in the high end of remasters, and I felt it did an even better job than the recent Crash Bandicoot remaster. The only real flaw is that it's still a port of PS1-era games, so if that play style isn't up your alley, Spyro Reignited probably won't change your mind.
Iro Hero is a decent game with a poorly thought-out execution. The game is difficult but almost unforgiving, as longer-than-usual levels and a high enemy count mean you'll start at the beginning of stages far more often than you'd like. The mechanics are barely explained in-game due to the ill-conceived layout, and the story suffers the same fate as well. With an inconsistent presentation to boot, Iro Hero is a game that's solely for hardcore genre fans, as everyone else will barely make it out of the first stage before deleting it in favor of other, better-executed shooters.
All in all, Hitman 2 is the series at its best without shooting for the stars. It's an incremental update to a working formula that is fun to play, but it can sometimes feel underwhelming. Based on its level design and gameplay opportunities alone, Hitman 2 is one of the best entries in the series — and that's all you need to know if you're a fan of the franchise.
LEGO DC Super-Villains offers a lot of great things to like, despite my small quibbles. The title makes up for redundant core gameplay with its sheer variety of playable characters, robust character creation suite, and abundance of side content to complete. Meanwhile, its relatively by-the-books story is bolstered by phenomenal voice acting and classic LEGO charm. It may not be the mature, gritty super-villains game that many would like, but LEGO DC Super-Villains is still worth your time and money.