TheGamer's Reviews
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood shows us what women can be when they are free to be who they are, liberated from arbitrary restrictions on their lives. It is a feminist, progressive, intersectional game, one that celebrates women in every form. It made me feel connected to the world around me, and that’s a huge accomplishment.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the asymmetric horror game fully realised. It weaves the horror of one of the slasher genre’s most guttural and unsettling movies with the thrill of Dead by Daylight’s action beautifully and stands a chance at finally offering a true competitor in the genre.
Stray Gods can be inconsistent in its musical numbers at times and presents a selection of irksome technical issues, but these foibles are trivial to overlook when Grace’s journey fires on all cylinders. It is marvelously written with a beating heart lined with poignancy, which at every turn expresses the joy, fear, and unpredictability of human life you can’t help but feel represented by. Much like Grace, I’m a lost, lost girl with little direction in life, but sometimes a game like this comes along and convinces me it’s only a matter of time until I’m found.
Like with the platforming, the map exploration and Metroidvania mechanics can be a bit too simplistic in execution and mostly tell you where everything is and how to get it. Seasoned platformer fans might find things too easy, but if you can accept that lack of challenge and take Illusion Island for the joyful adventure that it is, then you'll find that it's a good, simple time, with satisfying mechanics, a love for Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy, and a gorgeous world to explore.
Overall, fans of The Expanse will enjoy this story. I’m curious about what happens in the next couple of episodes, and that’s exactly the sort of narrative pull that I was looking for. But you might also get frustrated with the game at times - it’s not a flawless experience by any means, and I really wanted more from it.
Pikmin 4 isn’t quite the best game in the series, but it’s certainly the most confident. With this new entry, Nintendo has decided to wipe away much of the past tedium in favour of ensuring moment-to-moment gameplay is more enjoyable than ever. But eradicating its past frustrations also removes much of the challenge and depth from the game’s battles and puzzles. Commanding its multicoloured armies and pilfering this planet of its treasures while gathering a motley crew of comrades kept me enraptured for hours, just don’t come into this expecting the harsh journey back home to be little more than a leisurely stroll.
Full Void is on the short side, but that’s no bad thing. There’s only so much you can do to keep someone invested in a dystopian narrative that does little to explain the world it resides in, and this adventure thankfully provides mystery, suspense, and climax in quick succession. I clocked in at just under two hours and came away satisfied. While the metaphors at work err on the self-indulgent side and the gameplay is relatively shallow, Full Void delivers a memorable experience about how it feels to have your childhood ripped away by forces you can’t control.
Master Detective Archives: Rain Code delivers masterful craftsmanship of mysteries that players will delight in unravelling. Though the more hands-on gameplay mechanics aren’t groundbreaking and can feel a bit too easy, the strength of the narrative alone and cleverly created whodunnits make this a must-play for Danganronpa fans and anyone who loves channeling their inner detective.
If you love Crash Bandicoot and you've been waiting years for what once was Wumpa League, there's probably just enough there to convince you that this is a good game. But it's not. It's a bad game. They shouldn't have made Crash Bandicoot into this thing, and deep down all of us know it.
C-Smash VRS is an interesting revival of a forgotten classic, perfectly suited for the virtual reality medium from the active nature of the gameplay to the futuristic visuals. However, it conspires to make the experience frustrating with precise controls, harsh timers, and a lack of solo play modes despite the (doomed to be mostly unused) multiplayer option having a far greater range. It's not quite 6-Love, but it's just about 6-Like.
Final Fantasy 16 is a bold new benchmark for the series that puts emotional complexity and courageous world building at the forefront. Clive Rosfield’s epic journey is defined by constant bouts of hurt and tragedy, but it’s also lined with an inescapable aura of hope in how our heroes are fighting for a world worth saving. Every person you meet and village saved from ruin are worth protecting, with heartfelt dialogue and ferocious combat mixing together in service of an RPG that, while flawed and glacial in some spots, I’d struggle to label as anything other than a triumph.
Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life remains one of the best that the series has to offer, managing to preserve what made it so special in the first place with its unique emphasis on an aging town and cast of characters, while also raising the bar with new content and improvements. While more recent titles in the series tend to offer distractions in the way of more mechanics and options, A Wonderful Life is a return to form that focuses more on the life sim and farming aspects that fans fell in love with all those years ago.
Diablo 4 has a solid foundation, but Blizzard is going to have to keep finding new ways to justify this slower take on the series forever, or else revert back to the mindless grind of D3, which isn’t what I want to see. Players are going to push for faster gameplay and less friction, and it's going to be up to Blizzard to stick to its guns here and maintain the vision of Diablo 4, while also managing the natural effects of power creep over time. It’s an unenviable position, but I respect the hell out of this team for choosing the path of most resistance and pursuing a unique identity for this game, especially in light of what Diablo Immortal is and what Overwatch has become.
As a fighting game, Street Fighter 6 is pretty much flawless, but it’s the little details across the board that make it clear that this is a fighter for everyone and not just fans of the genre. A wild statement for a series that’s always felt more hardcore and impenetrable than the rest. Whether you’re a newcomer playing with Modern controls or a veteran with a fight stick and a vendetta, Street Fighter 6 feels like the most approachable and welcoming fighter I’ve ever played without ever once sacrificing its potential complexity and fighting spirit.
Sunshine Shuffle feels thin, yet overextended at the same time. Had it doubled down on its greatest asset – its characters – it could have been something great. As it is, the story is over far too soon, and all that’s left is a middling card game you could play with less faff pretty much anywhere else. It’s great to see Poker Night At The Inventory live on, but Sunshine Shuffle forgot that the poker was always the least important part of it.
Decarnation is a well-written, spine-chilling adventure, but it would have been better off as an animated film instead of a game. The interactivity felt forced, but its writing, characterisation, atmospheres and settings sparkled, leaving me unnerved to the very end. I rooted for Gloria, and though her journey to finding inner strength was a bit trite, I was with her till the very end. This piece of art was self-conscious in so many ways, reflecting the darkest natures of human beings - I just wish it had been more of a game.
Planet of Lana is a delightful puzzle platformer that hits that sweet spot in more ways than one. It’s not too challenging nor too simple, and though it could have delivered endless levels of similar ideas, it only takes enough time as it needs to tell the perfect story of friendship and survival.
However, if you don’t care about the story and you just want a really good puzzler, Humanity might be for you. Apart from over 90 story levels, the game has a Stage Creator function that allows users to submit their own levels. This gives you a huge number of levels to access even after you’ve finished the game, giving it a much longer shelf life. You can also play it in VR - I chose not to do this because VR gives me migraines, but the visuals of the game are pretty cool and worth seeing in VR if you already own a headset. I wish Humanity’s marketing had focused more on its puzzles than its story, because it’s fairly clear to me which is stronger and I came away a little disappointed. The game’s mechanics evolve very well with the story’s narrative, and it’s a lot of fun. I’m just not sure its story was worth telling.
There is a lot here for a young kid to enjoy, especially one who is tuned into Lego. The tracks have solid variety, both in terms of aesthetics, obstacles, and various challenges (like lacking destructible items to fill the boost bar), but it barely matters when you'll win every race until you hit a progression wall that asks you to grind out cash generation or pay to skip it, and then start winning again. It's creative, but it's also a bit of a mess. Lego 2K Drive mixes Forza Horizon and Mario Kart together, but it's not as good as either of them, and doesn't bring much new to the table either. There are building blocks here for Lego to use for future IP-less games, but this doesn't quite put them all together in a way that will interest anyone who isn’t still in primary school.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a masterpiece that not only equals what came before, it does everything in its power to surpass it..