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Those who grew up playing skateboarding games will feel right at home playing Rekt! High Octane Stunts, with an added appeal for those who also enjoy car titles. The game combines fun challenges with a wide array of different tricks to let players have fun riding around each map either by themselves or with friends. Rekt! does suffer from a lack of variety in map types, which can get old pretty quickly, but it's a strong choice for gamers who want short, measured bursts of excitement or a quick distraction that doesn't require much investment at all.
There's certainly room for improvement in Ring of Pain, but what is here is an intriguing step forward for the genre that's just in time to celebrate the Halloween season. With a few content updates and a rebalance that lets players experience more of the game's arsenal more consistently, this could be a real contender. As it stands, it's an engaging mystery waiting to be solved, a gameplay loop that's perfect for shorter play sessions interspersed with more in-depth dungeon dives done elsewhere.
It's not a complete overhaul like other recent remakes, but with a new Age of Empires game to release in the future, it's more than enough to get players old and new on board with Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition.
Heart of the Forest is an engaging game that has a much-needed new perspective on the World of Darkness, as it steps away from the vampires and offers a different kind of horror. The experience is over a little too soon, but it's worth going through each path and seeing how each run-through plays out. Short runtime aside, Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest is an interesting exploration of environmental issues tied into a personal story of anger, and it makes the prospect of more World of Darkness titles in the future more exciting.
Until You Fall has all the cornerstones of a great VR game. It combines excellent gameplay with smart physics systems on top of a killer video game soundtrack. There isn't really a story to Until You Fall other than "kill everything in your path," but that is perfectly fine. Without a storyline, players instead get to focus on and become engrossed in one of the strongest VR games available on any platform.
Despite its difficulties, Croteam has created a worthy modern interpretation of its franchise in Serious Sam 4. The shooting borrows from modern classics like DOOM while retaining the unique battles that give the series its cult classic status, and the narrative mostly succeeds when it remains over-the-top and completely carefree. Serious Sam 4 learns from what didn't work in Serious Sam 3 and should be on the radar of not just series fans but anyone who enjoys a good, well-made FPS. Seriously.
There’s a reason the Sands of Salzaar fanbase put in so much unpaid translation modding work prior to this full release: it’s an inspired and engrossing RPG that delivers a fierce value for its modest price. It makes up for an occasional lack of polish with impressive and entertaining depth, and features an excellent soundtrack that somehow doesn’t wear out its welcome 50 hours in. While the game is narrative-complete, Han-Squirrel Studio’s attentive updates thus far means that more content could well be on the horizon, and a spirited mod community will only grow further with this English translation. Anyone wanting to lose themselves in a new sandbox RPG need look no further: Sands of Salzaar is it.
The Long Gate can be fun when it works, but a lot of the time it winds up being a frustrating experience for those without knowledge of circuits implemented in this fashion. This is not built for all gamers, and instead is better suited to those that understand a fair bit about math and engineering. Those with a in-depth understanding of how this circuitry works to begin with will get a lot more out of it, and probably have a blast with the more difficult challenges. The Long Gate's finer points are sadly lost on those of us without an advanced scientific background, however.
Hades is an exhilarating experience that meshes its various systems together in a way that's truly special. Zagreus' journey to escape from his father's kingdom is a memorable one full of brilliant moments, and this game is a must-have for fans of roguelikes or action games with brutal difficulty like the Dark Souls series.
Overall, The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk is a fun romp with creative combat and animations and gameplay that never takes itself too seriously. For players tired of RPGs where the entire fate of the world hangs in the balance, questing through Naheulbeuk with some of the least qualified and most relatable heroes around can be a refreshing change of pace.
That’s about as much as should be spoiled for a game which all fans of the first and many curious neophytes will readily purchase on sight. Spelunky 2 is, at the end of the day, more Spelunky, an unspeakably radiant generosity to the medium at large. Whether or not it’s perfect is beside the point, because it’s the very definition of a must-play game. While multiplayer could not be tested for this review, the addition of online co-op will likely set Twitch streams on fire, and the return of daily runs ensures that Spelunky 2 is a game that will happily remain installed for years to come, and may even improve with age.
The few times that the RNG in BPM: Bullets Per Minute actually managed to put together a set of weapons and abilities that allowed for significant progress, the game shined, but it's just not worth the hours of suffering failed runs and mistimed shots. To borrow the game's own 90s shooter comparisons, playing BPM is like diving into Doom on Ultra Nightmare before learning how to play an FPS. The fun is still there, but it's buried under so many roadblocks and complications. The frustrating end result is a game with a great idea that bungles just about every part of the execution.
THPS 1+2 feels constrained by the structure of the PS1 originals, but perhaps that was the right decision for now. It's been such a long time since any developer nailed the fundamentals of how to make a great Tony Hawk game, but Vicarious Visions has successfully brought back the original Neversoft magic.
If players are just interested in the story of Marvel's Avengers and like what they've seen in the commercials and prereleases streams, the game provides just that. There isn't much more than that, unfortunately, and the multiplayer side of things doesn't seem to offer that much more in terms of variety or novel experiences. As a standalone Marvel experience, this gets the job done, but it certainly wasn't worth the years of buildup or the epic placement it has as one of the top AAA games of 2020. It's less of an Avengers: Endgame and more of an Ant-Man and the Wasp, a perfectly serviceable comic adventure that will draw players in when there's a new story available, but probably not before.
While not perfect, long-time fans of the series and newcomers previously intimidated by its complicated gameplay will be able to enjoy expanding their dynasties in Crusader Kings III for years to come.
There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension is full of hilarity, it's an enjoyable experience from beginning to end. It may not re-invent the point-and-click wheel but any type of gamer can find fun inside this little indie-game package, and it comes highly recommended.
Struggling's difficulty and intense nature will have players on the edge of their seats gripping their controller as they helplessly attempt to flop Troy's arms away from danger. Or, if they bring a friend, it will incite some hilarious gaming memories. Struggling is easily an instant classic from Chasing Rats studio, and anyone who is up for a challenging and memorable experience should give this game a whirl.
All in all, Tell Me Why is another strong effort from Dontnod. The care it takes with its characters is to be applauded, and although it doesn't always hit the perfect spot with its themes the fact that it is discussing them at all is commendable. Those who enjoyed Life is Strange will get a kick (and a cry) out of its cast and plot, and at least it's not afraid to talk about uncomfortable topics in an age where so many developers are trying so hard to be apolitical.
Wasteland 3 takes players to a new location and presents them with equally unfamiliar challenges, yet still perfectly demonstrates all of the reasons why this series has had die-hard fans for over three decades, and is absolutely worth playing for anyone looking for their next post-apocalyptic fix.
Completing puzzles and unlocking the various ways the game plays with its central mechanic all provide the catharsis of truly understanding each new environment and admiring the clever ways the developer wrapped everything together. From a pure gameplay perspective, it's a bit clunky, but you could say that about the work of many of the great artists and composers. Manifold Garden may not be much of a game, but it's surely an adventure that's worthy of some attention.