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The Finals is one of the most interesting PvP shooters in a long time. A truly unique and refreshingly simple concept that worked out for the better. It is fast paced without being annoying and puts solid teamwork at the forefront of its main game mode. Although there is a lack of content and balance isn’t perfect, The Finals is well worth trying.
Anthology of Fear is one of the most mind-numbing and unremarkable horror games that I’ve played this year. It’s nothing more than a walking simulator, with very few actual moments of tension or effective scares. Not to mention a story that only serves to frustrate and confuse. There are so many better choices out there, so I recommend steering clear of this one.
I wouldn’t consider The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to be the best asymmetrical multiplayer game I have ever played, but the sheer fact it has managed to carve a somewhat entertaining gameplay loop, whilst maintaining a steady playerbase for nearly a third of a year, is already very impressive. Playing as the cannibals is obviously more fun than being a victim, and the progression system is a bit unnecessary, but it could have been a lot worse.
Super Crazy Rhythm Castle has its fair share of issues, namely on how its strongest selling point, having to deal with a tyrant with a childish tantrum, can also be one of its most frustrating aspects. It’s a fun rhythm game if you’re in the same mental vibes as itself. If so, you’ll be able to enjoy a very unique mixture between Guitar Hero and Overcooked, covered in some cute visuals and random sense of humor. It might not be the best party game out there, but it certainly is one of the more unique titles to be released in recent times.
Yeah, this one is impossible to defend. The Walking Dead: Destinies is just truly bad. Granted, it might not be the worst game I’ve played in 2023, by a mile, but it’s a borderline charming exercise in incompetence. With poor combat mechanics, uninspired level design, and an enemy AI so (fittingly) brain-dead you can literally complete levels by simply walking by a horde of zombies, this game fails at being scary, tense, or even a great companion piece to The Walking Dead franchise.
Tevi didn’t disguise what it was: a 2D exploration game with bullet hell elements. I knew this going in, and I was ready for it. The parts that aren’t boss battles showed me a fun world with some great characters, decent crafting and a light meal of a metroidvania: pleasant to map out but it won’t fill you up.
Thief Simulator 2 is not a bad game, per se. Far from it in fact, with its engaging central premise and core ideas giving a satisfying stealth experience that we don’t see often. However, everything feels surface level and just a little too janky. It reuses way too much of the original and doesn’t making any significant improvements where it was really needed. But there is still some fun to be had with it, if you’re looking for a basic stealth experience.
As a whole, I did enjoy my time with Sniper Elite VR: Winter Warrior, but I can’t stop thinking this was probably supposed to have been released as an expansion to its predecessor rather than a standalone title, due to its short duration, identical graphical style, and very specific winter-themed setting.
Most of the visuals are pretty good, and the story is a really dark, anime style story. Everything else slacked and was saved entirely by those two sections of the game. I enjoyed a good chunk of the story, when I didn’t have to restart everything, but in all honesty I never finished it because the second time I lost my save file I was about 6 hours into this story trying to see something and suddenly everything disappeared on me again and I decided I wasn’t going to go through another 6+ hours of the same story just to not care about some of the same characters again. Don’t use the skip button, it’s bugged.
As a game to dedicate hours of your life at a time, Strike Force Heroes isn’t very interesting. For as much as its gameplay loop is decent enough, it lacks a bit of depth and substance. Now, as an arcade-like distraction, this game shines. It’s great to pick up and play, to simply join a match and proceed to blast everyone near you with your carefully crafted character build.
To say that LEGO Bricktales impressed me is an understatement. The idea of playing with LEGO bricks in a VR environment was already great in my head, but I was completely taken over by how ClockStone Studio managed to mix diorama-like adventure segments with building puzzles in such a natural and addictive manner. I can’t even believe this wasn’t developed first and foremost with VR in mind; the transition was absolutely perfect.
Persona 5 Tactica is another masterful inclusion in the P5 collection of spin-offs. It’s a mish-mash of inspirations that weirdly works spectacularly. In no world did I think that Splatoon would be a factor or that I’d experience the closest thing to an anime interpretation of XCOM. What I adore the most is how, no matter how egregious the ideas seem, they all coalesce together beautifully. It kept me guessing, and I was engrossed until the very end.
Getting lost in the absolutely gorgeous world of Pandora and having fun with the brutal, tribal-like combat make up for the weak story and the fact that, at the end of the day, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora does suffer from some of the traditional Ubisoft open world tropes.
Dungeons 4 was the gaming palette cleanser I didn’t know I was looking for. Its story is nonsense told very well, but its gameplay loop is practiced, iterated, and masterful. Mission and map design is unique with varied and distinct units. It could be easy for the game to be too much or complex is instead the first RTS I’ve ever played with a controller that actually felt comfortable.
As much time as I try to put into Modern Warfare III, and as many chances as I try to give it, it’s just way too rough. This feels like an early access version of the game. It’s missing way too much that would make it it’s own game in its own right, including original maps, an original zombies experience (with maps that aren’t just the DMZ map), and a campaign that is actually engaging. Playing four hours of a campaign you don’t really have any interest in isn’t worth $70.
If the intention of this collection was to preserve the (mixed-at-best) legacy of the original Jurassic Park‘s tie-in releases, then I feel more worked should had been put into it. As it stands, this is not a terrible first attempt from Limited Run Games in terms of remastering and emulating games, but they do need to improve upon the amount of extras and title variety included in their compilations.
Born of Bread is all the ingredients of Paper Mario put together in a different construct, and yet there’s something there that just doesn’t gel quite right. If someone had told me it was akin to Bug Fables or Costume Quest, I’d feel differently and mark it higher. But the constant hammering that this is supposed to be akin to the games of the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube makes a high water mark that simply cannot be reached. It’s a lovely title, of that there’s no doubt, but the final product just doesn’t rise to the occasion: it’s just a bit more than half baked.
Even though The King of Fighters XIII: Global Match is, by and large, the same game originally released in 2011 for Xbox 360, with just a handful of technical improvements, that’s not exactly a bad thing. Granted, it suffers from having a particularly small roster (for KoF standards, that is), and its story mode is a waste of time, but it’s still a top-notch King of Fighters game that’s well worth your time if you want a brand new fighting game fix with some juicy rollback netcode.
With such a paltry amount of content and limited gameplay loop, there’s little else that can or should be said about Pickleball Smash. Even if it’s not glitchy or broken, it’s just really boring. There’s not enough substance to keep you entertained for more than a few minutes at a time. The pickleball ruleset also doesn’t translate very well to an arcade-like environment, with matches possibly lasting for a damn eternity if players keep breaking each other’s serves. There is no reason to grab this over any other racket-based sports game, even if you, somehow, prefer pickleball over tennis.
This is one of those games that comes along every once in a great while, and I can’t recommend it enough to absolutely everyone. Whether or not you’re well versed in the genre, you should absolutely hop onboard and get ready to sail the Sea of Stars. If not for yourself, do it for Garl.