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As Nintendo's second big release on the Switch following on from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I have no trouble believing that this will solidify the console's rapidly-growing reputation of offering far more than people thought it would prior to launch. It might be a flawed experience, but that's almost irrelevant when you consider just how much of it there really is on offer. This is how you do a "HD remaster".
If you missed LEGO City Undercover the first time around and enjoy this unique brand of adventure gaming, know that this release is one of the most entertaining and original LEGO games in quite some time.
There's a lot to like in Vikings, even if the game's never able to effectively articulate how it's different to the genre's greats. It manages - just - to be more than a by-the-numbers Diablo clone thanks to the creative energy that went into its bosses and environment design, but it relies too heavily on that, and the assumption that you'll be playing the game in multiplayer. As a single player experience, the limits on what Vikings can offer become distracting; making it good for a lazy afternoon of grinding fun, but not something that you'll remember over the longer term.
It's a good package of entertaining games, and is presented beautifully, but it's also not essential.
Kona is a trip worth taking. It's a beautiful, moody showcase of the snowy wilds of northern Canada, and a slow-burning mystery steeped in atmosphere. Play it for the journey, not the destination.
Goichi Suda's love letter to Noir is so striking and vivid that it's a game I'll not soon forget. By turns shocking, darkly humorous, confounding, and always creative, this was Suda-san's first game as an independent game developer, and through it we see so much of what would become Suda's trademarks; that same transgressive attitude, the same love for classical film and literature genres, and that same intensity in his storytelling (that will ultimately get overlooked by most critics).
Mervils: A VR Adventure relies too heavily on a gimmick it doesn't even use properly, and that's the very definition of a limited experience.
If you can get a multiplayer game going there's a bit more strategy involved, I guess, but there isn't much of a community wrapped around this one, leaving Korix feeling like a game that had a good idea buried away in there, but fails to give people the VR strategy experience that they'll be looking for.
What Virry really is is a series of micro-documentaries that show you, close up and in VR, a range of different animals as they live in their natural environment. It's the closest you'll get to a zebra, let alone a lion, and while that's going on, a commentator will share some basic facts about the animal and the threats that it's facing.
There might not be much depth here over the long term, but for some short bursts of frenetic action, it absolutely has the lightgun genre nailed.
Fated: The Silent Oath is exactly the kind of game that VR was made for, and it's nice to finally see the technology put to work on small, intimate, emotive character drama. The good news is that this is the first part of what's planned to be a multi-episode game, and I'm really looking forward to spending more time in this world, with these people.
Talk about a piece of media that can capably transport the player directly into the 1990s of ice hockey games, Old Time Hockey does exactly that. From the one-colour loading screens, to the sound effects, right down to the chosen font, Old Time Hockey is a fun yet flawed experience. In a time where many developers are looking back to the 1990s as inspiration for their games, Old Time Hockey stands out as one of the success stories.
Despite its potential and the love poured into it, Eekeemoo: Splinters of the Dark Shard is a broken mess that I wouldn't recommend to anyone.
MLB The Show 17 is the only AAA baseball game in town, but the series is clearly not content resting on its laurels. With notable improvements in several areas and increased accessibility to try and hook newcomers, baseball fans should find a lot to like about this year's release. Play ball!
It's probably just as well Sony gave this thing away for free with PSPlus memberships. It's the only hope the game has of actually keeping an audience (because it's a multiplayer-only game, it needs a large and sustained community).
Andromeda is still Mass Effect, and for some that might be enough, but this avenue needs more to be held in similar esteem. It does reach a satisfying conclusion, at least as far as the buildup warrants, but it takes the long way around. It does hit something that feels like a fresh, Mass Effect-patterned beginning, but a lot of the sophistication in plot that's alluded to is left up in the air.
Perhaps it is the requirement of balance that made me love a game with such randomness behind it, as balancing my turns or the cards made me feel powerful in a world of beautiful chaos. I think Loot Rascals actually taught me something, which isn't something I say often about video games.
Taking over the role of police chief to run Freeburg would have been a great simulation/management game on its own, but then add layer upon layer of villainous folk and reasons to go over to the dark side, and the game becomes a fully immersive experience that requires great difficulty to put down.
A Rose in the Twilight is, in its entirety, a metaphor for the rose itself; it's a truly beautiful masterpiece, but it's also a gothic kind of beauty, in that it's more than happy to stab you sharply, even as you appreciate everything about it. It's a ravishing, masterful work, that will be played by just a handful, but hopefully remembered for a long time to come.
It is strong at establishing an atmospheric story, aided by outstanding graphics and a highly talented, very natural voice cast who know not to over-act. It falls short on some technical fronts (translation, some over-familiar tropes and cumbersome narrative viewpoints), but these do not decisively mar the enjoyable experience.