Digitally Downloaded
HomepageDigitally Downloaded's Reviews
I’ve never felt weaker than in a game that literally casts you as an alien overlord.
The unfortunate thing about Battalion Commander is that if it was one of those free-to-play mobile games, I’d probably have fun with it I could see some others even enjoying it enough to toss it a couple of coins in support. Sitting on trains or in doctor's waiting rooms, or standing in queues, I often go to my phone to keep me occupied and this kind of game would have fit the bill perfectly. But if I am to sit in front of my PlayStation 4, I’m not going to want to play something that requires minimal effort, no narrative and five minutes of my time. Simple as that.
The bits I liked (multiple colours, classic puzzle gameplay) are completely overshadowed by those I don't. There is a severe lack of preset puzzles to keep me returning for more, a fact that two additional modes don't actually manage to compensate for.
Now I genuinely do not feel the need to own a physical pinball table, which was something I had been contemplating before. That’s how good this is.
This game’s obvious new feature is its HD art, and, more than just being beautiful, the ability of this art to enhance the characters and world makes Shantae: Half-Genie Hero the most impressive take on the whole fantasy Middle East setting since the utterly brilliant Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.
It's definitely not my cup of tea and will be an unfamiliar journey for anyone who's a fan of so called "hardcore" platformers, and yet I don't see Feist appealing to fans of narrative platformer fans either. Pick this one up if you want something different, but be warned – it's got barbs.
Crystal Rift possesses all the potential in the world, and I certainly hope the game performs well enough that the development team is able to go back to the drawing board and come up with a more comprehensive and nuanced structure for another crack at the VR dungeon crawler. Because, as I said at the start, for all its many flaws as a game, Crystal Rift has absolutely sold me on the idea of the VR dungeon crawler.
Dead Rising 4 takes a few steps forward in terms of the gameplay mechanics, but also takes a giant zombie-infected shamble backwards in regards to the narrative elements. Taking away the ticking clock, making the maniacs nothing more than a mere annoyance instead of the stuff of nightmares, and having civilians easily rescued really pulled away from what I liked in the previous games. Dead Rising 4 is fun, but it’s also a little hollow and it’s lost a significant chunk of the series’ soul.
Laser Disco Defenders is missing a lot of components from being a phenomenal game or even a fantastic top down shooter. Some of the groundwork laid by the developers leaves room for excitement, but there just isn’t enough carefully crafted content to back up the solid mechanics. It’s a dance which ends too soon, and it comes as a hard recommendation.
Like any sort of anti-art, it shatters the foundations of the medium so that we can look at those pieces, in isolation, and understand their value as a whole. It throws a spanner into the whole argument around games as art, paradoxically affirming the artistic merits of the medium in a way that few other games ever have.
The gameplay itself is vintage Shin Megami Tensei and doesn’t really need to be anything else.
Unfortunately, pretty pictures aren’t enough to save it. There’s a premise with a lot of potential in Enigma, but it’s squandered on cliche characters, uneven pacing, and rough localisation.
Home consoles aren't great platforms for hidden object games, but as we saw with the Mystery Case Files game on the Wii some years back, it can be done. Clockwork Tales' inconsistent tone, lack of self-awareness, and generally poor presentation let down an otherwise standard example of the genre, which means you'll need to be a really big genre fan to derive much value from this.
Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS is in almost every way a better quality release to the already-superb Wii U game. A better introduction and tutorial, and the superb Super Mario Challenge mode show that there’s been significant work done to this version to improve it over the Wii U title. However, the inability to upload and share levels that you’ve created is unforgivable. It rips the soul of the original Mario Maker right out of the game, leaving a shell of a game that does very little to encourage you to make interesting courses
Each level is significantly more difficult than the last, and you’ll find you need to replay old levels over and over again to earn stars to upgrade towers to give you a fighting chance at the next level. Eventually you unlock the ability to upgrade the towers to offer additional effects; the water tower can freeze enemies, the fire tower can burn them, but it’s too little, too late. All of this would be almost okay if 4 Elements also wasn’t one of the most unrelentingly plain-looking games, with terrible sprites representing enemies, and bland level design to back it up.
There are dozens and dozens of different elemental monsters to discover, and that’s half the joy of the game. The other half is the bright charm and personality of Alchemic Jousts. It’s not the deepest strategy game you’ll ever play, but it’s one of the most charming that you’ll see for some time to come.
This kind of game flies by okay as a little mobile time waster, but a PlayStation 4 experience needs to offer much more than this.
I’ll be throwing a fair amount of money at Let It Die because I believe the game deserves a premium price, and Goichi Suda is a visionary game maker who has never failed to surprise and delight.
Calling All Units doesn’t set out to do anything new, it’s pretty much an online only version of Need for Speed: Pursuit. The new mechanics of chasing down others online with a group of others is indeed fun, and for the most part the online does work. The story does nothing exciting whatsoever, but it does teach the new mechanics and how they work. Fans of The Crew will likely get something out of this, but it's not nearly enough to turn The Crew into an essential game, either.
The overriding focus of any point-and-click adventure game has to be on the excellence of the story, well fleshed-out characters, as well as puzzles that are germane to the story and enhance it. On all these counts, I believe Demetrios delivers, notwithstanding a few minor stumbles. It is particularly welcome on the Vita platform, which lacks a wider range of games in this genre. The game runs smoothly with minimal loading times, and the bubble icon looks very cool indeed, to boot.