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Age of Empires 4 is a modern, faithful addition.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy delivers fun.
JARS has similar visuals to Creepy Tale 2, but the puzzles are much more coherent and enjoyable. Through some trial and error, players can beat even the hardest levels in the game within just a few minutes. JARS will keep players' interest with intriguing visuals, a variety of characters in hero mode, and a few challenging levels scattered throughout the main story.
Overall, House of Ashes is a fun horror romp. There's nothing subtle to be found here and the game is all the better for it, with exciting set pieces and a fast-paced story. It has its issues, both technically and with not really having anything interesting to build into its Iraq War setting, but it's still a hoot to play.
This chase-and-reprieve dynamic makes for a well-paced campaign which should take most players 12 hours or so to complete. The Eternal Cylinder makes for a tricky game to conveniently classify, and the mix of survival, exploration, platforming, puzzle, and action elements does sometimes collide with its clumsy and slippery controls. Adjustable difficulty settings are welcoming, but even on default mode there’s a generosity of checkpointing and saves, and rarely is an attempt punished too harshly; plus, when the permanent mutation system is later unlocked, it feels practically game-breaking. Warts and all, The Eternal Cylinder remains an accessible oddball adventure of one-of-a-kind sights.
Tandem: A Tale of Shadows is a short game, but each stage is well-crafted, with the puzzles being just difficult enough to make the player feel smart for solving them, while never being so obtuse that they become frustrating. The creepy world of toys and monsters in the Kane Manor is a lot of fun to explore, and learning how to change the shape of shadows to the player's need stays intriguing until the end.
The bottom line is that Disciples: Liberation is a fantastic experience. From the engaging story to the deep but approachable Strategy RPG combat, this is the type of game to suck players in until the wee hours of the morning. There aren't many games like Disciples: Liberation on the market these days, especially when the old champion, Might and Magic, has become an autobattler. Disciples: Liberation a welcome breath of fresh air that delivers hope for the future of the Strategy RPG genre.
With a lengthy campaign that supports every aspect of its genre-bending gameplay, The Riftbreaker feels like a momentous big-budget release. Thankfully, its amazing visuals that scale well from less powerful rigs all the way to the latest GPUs keeps its aesthetic an eye-popping selling point across multiple setups. The fact that it can also showcase that graphical prowess on the latest consoles and still provide a refined strategy experience makes this a special entry into the genre. EXOR Studios has delivered a surprisingly great single-player experience that offers dozens of hours of thoughtful play.
Overall, Wildermyth borrows elements from well-known tabletop games, and for all its stumbles, implements them with relative sophistication. It's an ambitious delve into an engaging fantasy world and a player-driven series of stories at its core, creating a customizable framework with almost endless potential. It's worthwhile to dive into for any player looking to find an online alternative to D&D, and thoroughly captivating whether playing alone or with a group.
Although Echo Generation might seem unassuming at first, it is packed with depth and interesting ideas. The distinctive combat stops the action from getting stale, making it more involving and exciting than many other turn-based adventure games. The compelling story and host of charming characters help to push everything along, with a few twists and turns along the way. Anyone who is a fan of turn-based adventure games could do a lot worse than trying out Echo Generation.
Overall, Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality is an excellent vision improperly executed for non-VR systems. Dedicated fans of the Doctor Who franchise will enjoy becoming one of the Doctor’s Companions, despite the eventual headaches that transpire from forced restarts. The journey’s story could be enjoyable with a few polishes, which Maze Theory and Just Add Water will hopefully add with future updates, but as it stands now, only those desperate for an adventure with the Doctor should pick up Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality.
Overall, Escape Simulator is a great way to experience an escape room without leaving the house. The smooth gameplay and realistically solvable puzzles make for an enjoyable experience. Player-created rooms will undoubtedly only add to the value and make Escape Simulator an easy purchase for puzzle fans.
On top of all of that, Inscryption’s arrival in mid-October makes for a perfect Halloween game. What seems most vital for the game's success will be to casually get it to people who won’t know what to expect, like fans of deckbuilders just looking for another to add to their pile. Still, even if players go into Inscryption expecting the unexpected, there’s entertaining depth to its mechanics and narrative, a form of storytelling that could only exist in a video game.
The most surprising part of the experience was becoming engrossed in a story that built without being noticed. The game opens with a letter that originally seems to just be a stand-in for the developer to welcome players to golf, but over time it transitions into something more personal and reflective. What was once a series of formal letters becomes something beautiful, a sincere back and forth between X and Y, the player and the writer. A Little Golf Journey is a game full of surprises and a gameplay loop that never gets old, and comes highly recommended.
At this point, consumers are likely well aware of whether EA Sports' NHL franchise is something that appeals to them, and NHL 22 won't change that. With that said, for the series faithful or someone that skipped out on NHL 21, there's a lot to enjoy in the current-gen polish that the Frostbite Engine and the more powerful hardware bring with them. At the end of the day, NHL 22 is the de facto hockey gaming experience and the energy that went into refining the current product was not spent in vain.
While there's something a bit disappointing about yet another entry to the Cthulhu mythos that doesn't quite manage to translate its best features into the video game medium, there are hints and moments of other smaller Eldritch creatures that keep things interesting. In particular, the way The Alien Cube ultimately handles its final moments is incredibly satisfying with its visuals. The story may not stick the landing for some, but the overall experience is dark, engaging, beautiful, and disgusting. The Alien Cube is a love letter to the genre and is a strong choice for the fans who are on the hunt for a non-literary medium that manages to get Lovecraft mostly right.
This all isn't to say that the entire game is a slog, but Into The Pit rolls out new content far too slowly. With player upgrades that are mostly changing numbers around and rooms that aren't hard to puzzle out, playing becomes an exercise in enduring repeated content before finally stumbling onto something that makes things feel fresh. Even then, what does unlock often isn't enough to truly fuel more runs. At the end of the day, Into The Pit is too repetitive to truly succeed as a roguelike and too skim on content to survive as an FPS without those trappings.
Overall The Sundew is a strong and engaging point and click adventure game with a compelling story and enough strong puzzles to keep players scratching their chins for its run time. Fans of the genre will find things to love here, and the fact that it comes from a one person development team makes it all the more impressive.
Creepy Tale 2 offers players a challenging adventure that can be frustrating at times. The levels are all designed to test the player's wit, and patience, but the level of difficulty fluctuates which breaks up the flow of the game as a whole. Although it can be difficult to pay attention to, the story is actually somewhat important, as players will get to decide how the game ends. However, the ending is very abrupt and doesn't offer an appropriate reward for the struggle of getting there. Creepy Tale 2 would benefit from something similar to MO: Astray's horror story-telling and puzzle mix, and as it stands now, all but the most dedicated horror and puzzle fans will want to give this one a pass.
When everything is flowing in The Good Life, it feels like a touch of Animal Crossing with alternatingly quaint and irreverent British pastoral television, all with a burgeoning murder mystery underneath. Unfortunately, some of its rougher edges seem possibly related to the Switch itself and, although loading times are usually on the shorter side, their frequent appearance interrupts the flow even more. The Rainy Woods residents are charming and strange and there’s a numbingly pleasant feel to smalltown life and chores, but stiff controls and muddled design make it hard to find a good rhythm in The Good Life.