GGRecon's Reviews
From the moment you fire up Robocop: Rogue City and see his cruiser’s bumper scrape up the ramp, it is clear who the game is for - if you’re a fan of the 1980s classic you’re in for a treat. Otherwise, the poor performance and uninspired gameplay make it hard to recommend the game to someone who isn’t already a fan of OCP's finest. One thing you can’t take away from Teyon is they have delivered a true-to-the-film Robocop experience, but whether you'd buy that for a dollar is up to you.
Alan Wake II is Remedy’s most significant achievement so far, and if it can carry the same aura into the winding halls of the Bureau in Control’s upcoming sequel, then there is little doubt that Remedy Entertainment will deserve to be heralded in the upper echelons of single-player mastery with the likes of Insomniac, Santa Monica Studio, and Naughty Dog.
With a unique art style, gorgeous soundscapes, and a world you’ll want to keep exploring, Jusant is one game I’ll likely remember and regard highly for quite some time.
Song of Nunu will certainly be a fun and cosy adventure for players looking to get started with League of Legends, veterans of the series excited to see the story expanded, or a younger audience looking to experience a family-friendly platformer.
For hardcore competitive players, the gameplay improvements might be enough to coax them across. As for the regular fans who want the next evolution in UFC games, I'm not so sure they will find enough here to justify the purchase. If you have been away from MMA games for as long as I have, UFC 5 is a fantastic way to jump back in - but UFC 4 might be just as good.
The more I played Super Mario Bros Wonder, the more I fell in love with its whimsicality and endless redefinition of what Mario can be. It’s a glorious reimagining of Nintendo’s most iconic franchise. It takes the ingenuity and innovation that made Mario’s 3D escapades some of gaming’s greatest achievements and finally introduces them into the side-scrolling world. Wonder is everything I wanted it to be, and might be the most inventive 2D platformer Nintendo has ever made.
Ghostrunner 2 is exactly the kind of sequel you'd want after the first game - expanding on the concept with more gameplay options, encounters, and mechanics to great effect...Not all the improvements are straight home runs, and some bugginess does occasionally frustrate - but they aren't big enough deals to distract from what is an overwhelmingly fun gameplay loop.
While Hellboy Web of Wyrd is not the strongest example of a roguelike, the depth of its combat and themes more than make up for it. As perfect a representation of the Hellboy comic art as you could get in a 3D video game, Web of Wyrd is the best Hellboy game ever made, and an excellent entry point for new fans.
Lords of the Fallen has a lot to offer but is largely held back by technical issues throughout, and the further I progressed through the game, the more striking these problems became, escalating from a few dips in framerate to hard crashes and glaring pop-in.
Cities Skylines 2 is more of the same in the best possible way, giving players an abundance of quality-of-life improvements and new adjustments to keep the city-building fun going for years to come. While it doesn't quite have that one new blockbuster feature, nor does it revolutionise the genre in the same way that the original did back in 2015, it is still a brilliant game that you should not miss out on. Unfortunately, it does come with a barrage of performance issues that dampen the experience in a number of ways and only get worse the bigger your city grows.
There’s something here for fans of classic Sonic fans to enjoy. Playing through each level feels varied, and there’s always the option to retread your footsteps in a fresh pair of shoes. However, Sonic Superstars ultimately gets bogged down in how it regularly sidetracks the player, tripping them up at almost every conceivable opportunity. There are glimmers of brilliance that occasionally shine through, but the overall experience was a tiresome one to play through.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is the triumphant continuation of an already spectacular series that raised the bar of superhero games. With a story that takes turns that I wouldn’t have expected, fluid combat with haptic feedback considerations, and an expansion of an already flawless and dynamic way to traverse the map, I was smiling all the way to the end from a thwipping great time!
Total War: PHARAOH presents an interesting window into the time and place of a tumultuous historical period while handing you the reigns to make your own story out of it. While learning the ropes takes some work to get into due to poor use of tutorials and the overwhelming amount of extra mechanics in the campaign layer, buried underneath is an excellent gameplay formula that continues to stand the test of time.
Detective Pikachu Returns is a charming sequel that relies on its beloved IP to get by, delivering a story that's more engaging than most Pokemon adventures but falling flat with uninspired gameplay and dated visuals. If you’re looking for a game to truly test your mystery-solving skills, you might want to take your detective hat elsewhere. Come for the cute Pokemon chats, instead.
Mechanics and narratives thought too bold and bright for some have been transformed into mere child's play by Geometric Interactive in a strong contender for the title of the best indie title of the entire year, and the team has proven that Carlsen's strokes of brilliance in INSIDE and LIMBO were far from flukes. The streak continues, not only proving the dev team to be strong by itself but also making clear that COCOON is the start of something truly incredible. The game is a triumph, and if it's a benchmark of what to expect from the team going forward, then they're about to be the smartest video game team on the planet. The future is here, and it's being carried around on the back of a bug.
Ultimately, I’m having a hard time trying to fathom why Ubisoft is selling Assassin’s Creed Mirage at a discounted rate. Sure, it’s much smaller in scale compared to the three RPG epics that came before it. However, when comparing Mirage to the greats like Assassin’s Creed 2 or Brotherhood, I almost certainly don’t feel shortchanged for my time. There are mild qualms with its accessibility (as a visually impaired person, I found picking out small pieces of evidence extremely tricky), and the occasional tailing missions are still as dull as they were a decade ago. On the whole, though, Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the definition of a return to form. It’s stripped out all of the franchise's accrued bloat and brought everything back to basics, resulting in the first truly stealth-focused Assasins’ Creed game in years. I truly hope this isn’t the last we see of this formula.
Forza Motorsport is the best kind of racing simulator. It understands that some players sometimes just want to sit down and smash out a few laps in a Bugatti without having to think too hard about it. In the same breath, it’s also capable of letting you challenge yourself to become a better racer and provides a comprehensive number of tools to enable and encourage you to do so. Presented in a way that is truly player-first, and wrapped up in one of the most fully-fledged packages of cars and tracks I’ve seen for a long while, Forza Motorsport sets a whole new standard for racing games. Whether you’re a casual racing fan or a hardcore motorhead, this should be a permanent install on your Xbox for years to come.
There still remain many of the progression problems with Ultimate Team that are likely to never leave though, and while we are all used to them now, it doesn't make it any less frustrating to deal with as a 'free-to-play' player. Menus are also a big sticking point that I hope improves soon, and fans of Career Mode and Clubs will once again likely feel left out in favour of the bigger brother that is Ultimate Team.
The Lamplighters League is a fun turn-based strategy game that keeps things fresh with its pulpy aesthetic and characters, and a solid gameplay loop that's not afraid to dish out the consequences of your actions. While the decision to add a real-time element to missions doesn't fully pan out, it's not enough to diminish the game's best qualities.
Time will tell if Starbreeze can build upon the baseline it has built. As it stands, PAYDAY 3 is worth dipping your toes into for the curious, but almost certainly worth waiting a while longer to see if it reaches its full potential.