GGRecon's Reviews
Soul Hackers 2 is an approachable and fun game overall, but far from fulfilling its potential. A beautiful visual experience and well-designed characters are not enough to make the weird pacing of the main story and its shallowness go unseen.
With its free-to-play status, Ubisoft has everything they need to make Roller Champions a resounding success, from beautiful design, an exhilarating concept, and the unique ability to have this stored on your hard drive for months and not fear of it becoming outdated. If it can capture enough of an audience from kick-off, there's no reason that Roller Champions can't become a sporting title that has you and your friends rolling in laughter for years to come.
Eternal Threads is a solid attempt from first-time developer Cosmonaut Games, presenting a sci-fi, time travelling mystery where you'll need to monitor how cause and effect influences the events around you. Its clear and engaging time manipulation mechanics make the meat of the game satisfying to engage with, and focusing it on the personal issues of everyday people grounds the experience. Despite the uneven presentation and lack of a major challenge, it makes for a worthwhile light puzzling experience.
Vampire: The Masquerade: Swansong makes choices and concessions that are necessary to deal with the expectations. It does a great job bringing the atmosphere and the aesthetic that one would expect from a World of Darkness title, based on previous games or sessions of the TTRPG. On the other hand, it works as an investigative game for players who are new to the series. Even so, it falls short in some areas, like some obtuse puzzles and bland characters incapable of expressing themselves. At the same time, these aspects only make the existence of a sequel or even a series of mystery games in the Vampire: The Masquerade world more exciting.
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim tells an ambitious and compelling story that takes an anaconda's worth of twists and turns, but it's careful to never overwhelm you to the point of exhaustion, while remaining grounded enough in its characters and concept to deliver everything with a bang. While the other half of the experience is pretty unremarkable in comparison, it doesn't prevent 13 Sentinels from standing high as an example of video game and science fiction storytelling.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok surely is an ambitious expansion, and for those that are looking for it, it provides an often engaging collective of content to sift your way through, buffing out your character with imaginative gear and mythically enhanced weapons. Put together with its new power sets and enemy types, fun boss fights, and a relatively engaging story, Dawn Of Ragnarok is worth checking out. However, beyond its layers of content and amicable entertainment levels, this is a mythical romp that sadly stays in its lane, and shirks its evolutionary responsibilities that previous entries have carried on so well.
Shadow Warrior 3 is a great return to form for Flying Wild Hog, and a much-needed comeback for the series after the middling reception of the second game. While the gameplay can falter early on due to the lack of challenge and intensity, it soon ramps up to create a bombastic experience that beautifully borrows from retro and modern shooter design. While your mileage may vary on the game's sense of humour, and the full package feels a little underdeveloped due to a lack of replayability - it's undeniably a whole heap of fun.
GRID Legends is the place to go when you're not sure what type of racing you want, but you know you want to drive fast. The vast array of modes and vehicle categories make it a jack of all trades sort of racing game, and while Gran Turismo 7 may appeal to the racing enthusiasts a little more when it launches next week, GRID Legends has a brilliant story mode and the chaotic nature of online racing means it's the prime racing candidate for a laugh with your mates.
Dying Light 2 does little to shake up the open-world formula, because it could be so much more, especially after the initial reveals promised so much. With that said, if zombie decapitations, sick parkour moves, and true next-gen graphics are what you're looking for then Dying Light 2 certainly fits the bill.
Ultimately, Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel is a must-play for fans of the franchise, and they'll fit right in despite the lack of beginner-friendly design. If you're new on the other hand, it's hard to recommend unless you can bear with the frustration that's sure to plague your first games and put in the effort to learn the myriad of mechanics. If you can overcome the hurdles, you'll be blessed with one of the most electrifying and rewarding TCGs on the market, with richly tactical gameplay, stylish presentation, and some of the friendliest monetisation that can be found in free-to-play gaming.
In the end, Expeditions: Rome rises above the previous entries clearly, with more polish and refinement than ever before. The game may not fully achieve its aims due to some underdeveloped systems and inconsistencies in the design, but as a historical role-playing experience, it stands unrivalled. It's a must-play for anyone with an interest in Ancient Rome, and it offers more than enough for fans of CRPGs.
The problem is that Scarf doesn’t deliver on the platforming side and, unlike the fantastic Journey, Scarf never reaches that satisfying conclusion where all those small introspective and grand sweeping moments add up to a crescendo that sticks with you even after you stop playing. Instead, Scarf falls a little flat and, while there is a lot of fun to be had, it doesn’t quite stand up to those games that inspired it.
PixPil deserve to have a stellar career ahead of them following the release of this game, and as long as they can keep releasing games that have even half of Eastward’s visual individuality, compelling narrative and satisfying pan-smacking action, then the studio will be without a doubt one to keep an eye on. The apocalypse might be old news now, but Eastward shows other games exactly how it's done when it comes to presenting dystopia in a charming, fascinating light-hearted way.
That’s perhaps the biggest takeaway from FIFA 22 this year; on the surface, pretty much nothing has changed, but when you pick up the controller and resume where you left off from 21, you notice how different it feels. It is more than a roster update, but it’s not quite enough to warrant being a must-buy. The only problem is that for a football fix, you have no other choice this year given eFootball’s poor reception. A very middle of the road experience and the football video game equivalent of Man City winning the league - exciting for those that love it, but very “meh, who cares” for those who aren’t die-hard fans.
Back 4 Blood isn’t Left 4 Dead 3, but it is so evidently an evolution of the genre. When things go right and you have a deck that works for your build, plus the Game Director doesn’t screw you over with the corruption cards, then the game feels amazing to play. Far more often than not however, you’ll be left frustrated and tilted because too many enemies have spawned so there was literally nothing you could do. Back 4 Blood is the best multiplayer zombie game on the market right now, but the competition is weak and if you’re a solo player, steer well clear.
For fans of the Anthology, or for fans of horror in general, House of Ashes is definitely a must-play considering its relatively short playtime. Here’s to hoping that the next instalment in the series, The Devil In Me, brings along some characters that are a little more developed and likeable. The Until Dawn shaped hole inside me hasn’t been filled yet, but I have faith it will be soon.
Forza Horizon 5 checks all of the boxes that it should, but it is let down by a lack of innovation. You are racing the same types of races, with the same types of cars, across a map that looks different but doesn’t feel different. Developer Playground Games has leaned on what it does best, and that makes for a fast and fun experience, however, wherever the series takes car-lovers off to next, it will have to look much further into the horizon for inspiration.
Demon Turf should be remembered fondly in a few years time as a solid platforming experience. The core of the gameplay loop is close to perfection, with the combat tirades and checkpoint system letting it down. Movement mechanics are tight and satisfying, along with well-designed levels that challenge the skills the player will have built up over the course of a playthrough. It’s got a loveable presentation thanks to its melding of 2D and 3D art, bright music, and the majority of its art design and aesthetics. It doesn’t do much to shake up the platformer or collect-a-thon, but it nails the important aspects of each one to craft a deviously fun romp through the Demon World.
The redeeming aspect about Halo Infinite is that underneath the unnecessary open world format and cookie cutter story missions, the core gameplay is Halo at its best. While it's much faster paced than the Bungie-era, Infinite improves tenfold upon the disappointing 343 releases so far. The story is nothing to write home about but engaging in a full blown scrap with a squad of Banished feels brilliant. This is largely down to the new tools at Master Chief's disposal, along with the added weapon variants. Few things are as satisfying as grappling a grunt and electrocuting all the surrounding enemies, then finishing them off with a sweep of a Sentinel Beam or perfectly placed Mangler shots. The downside is how this is surrounded by bloat, in a new direction for Halo that doesn't quite land on its first outing, despite being incredibly polished and excellent from one skirmish to the next.
Once Human might be the first crafting game I find myself coming back to regularly thanks to solid combat fundamentals, a perfectly-tuned crafting loop, and a level of polish that’s often all too rare in the genre.