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Pooplers is far from alone, as anyone who has had the misfortune of scrolling through the Switch eShop can attest. It’s just the game unfortunate enough to land in my crosshairs. Much like Steam, the Nintendo Switch eShop has been inundated with cheap asset flips, knock offs, and shovelware While Nintendo’s apparent refusal to exercise any measure of quality control is beyond the scope of this review, putting Pooplers into a wider context feels necessary. It’s a tiny part of a much bigger problem.
Tank Mechanic Simulator was conceived, designed, and released specifically to find me and trigger something of a crisis.
Outbreak: Endless Nightmares is not only an insultingly bad roguelike; it’s an insulting and borderline plagiarized emulation of games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The idea of a survival horror roguelike is very solid, but this game exists as an example of what happens when good ideas fall into the wrong hands. I understand that Dead Drop Studios are a small team, and their love for the genre is clear. But Endless Nightmares is the kind of game that gives small-budget indie horror/survival titles a bad rap in the gaming community. With shoddy controls, uninspired environments, frustrating gameplay design, and tedious systems, the only scary thing about Outbreak: Endless Nightmares is the act of playing the game itself.
Taxi Chaos sought to emulate a 22 year old classic, thus having 22 years to learn what made Crazy Taxi great. Despite this, Taxi Chaos falls flat and fails to recapture the thrills and high-speed gameplay of its progenitor. At its high price point on the Nintendo eShop in relation to the content within, I cannot recommend Taxi Chaos in its current, shallow state.
Twin Mirror is Dontnods first collaboration with Bandai Namco and was developed by a separate team of senior developers. It may seem unreasonable to cast blame on this diversion from its previous team, but Twin Mirror stands as a far cry from other Dontnod titles, failing in almost every degree by its unwillingness to fully commit to anything. It wants to be a classic mystery but never offers up any questions that truly need answering. Twin Mirror wants you to care about its characters but never gives you any reason to even like them. It wants so much to be about its setting but fails to even conjure up a fraction of the sense of place that Arcadia Bay achieved. Ultimately, Twin Mirror is an amalgamation of lots of half-baked ideas that become bruised and battered as they fall from the promising heights of Basswood’s nature trail. Maybe from up there, I can spot a better mystery to play through.
Doom 3 VR Edition is a solid idea—a somewhat slower, more atmosphere affair that seems perfect for VR. Instead, we are left with nothing more than a quick cash grab. With its dated graphics, flat-screen cutscenes, and a lack of VR interactivity, Doom 3 VR Edition does so little to validate its porting into virtual reality that a few hours in I had a yearning to simply experience the game on a television. For any fans of this FPS then, sure, this is probably worth checking out, and with its relatively low £20 price tag coming with around 15-hours of content (including its DLC), it can’t be disputed that there is bang for a fan’s buck—especially as a VR experience. Yet Doom 3 VR Edition proves that the mere premise of VR isn’t enough to guarantee a fun experience. This is a game that deserved a more thoughtful repurposing to allow its players to feel a part of its world. Instead, I was left with an experience that made me wholly aware that I was wearing a bit of plastic over my face.
Just Die Already has a few decent things going for it such as the freedom and nice artstyle, it ultimately falters due to controls that often feel sluggish, an uninteresting soundscape, and a sense of humor that never really lands.
I went into The Ascent excited for a game to fill a cyberpunk-shaped hole in my heart, but came out feeling deflated with the thought that this was a big missed opportunity. The stunning landscape and excellent soundtrack can’t take away from the game, but the messy gunfights and cumbersome movement paired with accessibility issues makes this a very hard game to recommend.
Cris Tales is a mediocre JRPG-inspired indie that neither captures the strong characters nor the interwoven mechanics that make the genre so appealing.
There is a lot to appreciate here: the atmosphere and general presentation are super well done and were just enough to ensure that I was never fully against my time with the game. Yet the story did not do anything for me, and if you’re not into the story with a walking sim it is for sure a recipe for a bad time. There is an audience for In Rays of the Light, with the two endings providing a small reason to go back (as well as looking for some notes to expand upon the narrative), fans of the genre will be right at home here—while others may find the experience swiftly forgotten upon the credits rolling.
Destruction AllStars is like a well-oiled machine—it looks the part and does the job. However, once the thrills of landing the perfect slam or launching yourself from an imminent K.O. fade away, what is left is a relatively shallow experience that will struggle to keep you playing longer than a dozen hours. That may be fine for those swiping this up during its stint on PS Plus, but for anyone paying their hard-earned cash for this lacklustre experience, well… you’re in for an expensive ride.
Swords of Gargantua is a short thrill ride of an experience that tries to stretch it out to a length it simply doesn’t have the legs for. Between momentary bouts of motion sickness, dull and uninspiring enemy variety, and a flawed form of gameplay that strays far from the supposed “hyper-realistic swordsmanship” that was slapped on its trailer, I became entirely deflated from my time with the game and simultaneously disappointed that I kept playing at all. Those early hours reminded me of why I love VR so much, and just how well those short burst experiences work for the format. Alas, Swords of Gargantua is like a once-great TV show that simply will not end.
There were narrative moments I wasn’t expecting, and some were actually rather fun. For instance, I ended up picking up a cube in a lighthouse and spending 6 years in some kind of alien realm while the aliens gathered information on Earth via my body. That was a genuine surprise and perhaps my favourite of the endings I got. I will say that I had a certainly less frustrating time with The Innsmouth Case than I did with the last game of this genre I reviewed, My Aunt is a Witch. At the start, it was able to capture my attention and I was actually really enjoying the story, but it’s a shame that the repetitiveness and the number of different endings you could have just ended up in me losing interest completely.
So, if the gameplay isn’t ultimately worth playing the game to completion, the story isn’t worth experiencing, bugs cheapen the gameplay, and the art style is the only thing trying to redeem the experience, is it worth the buy? Well, at a nerve-wracking £15 on Steam and an eye-watering £25 on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, I cannot recommend it at the asking price due to the gameplay annoyances, lacking story, and remaining bugs. Many of the annoyances may feel cheap, but this beat ‘em up certainly isn’t retailed as such.
So where does it all land? Like I said at the beginning, it landed me at “interesting.” I genuinely have an incredible time with the gameplay, especially when I’m playing co-op. I think the different character abilities that come with the classes are all really well designed and work beautifully to create different combinations in combat, both within a single character class and with other players. The fun I have with the core gameplay, though, does not lessen the frustration and issues I have with the difficulty balancing, consistent network issues, and the ultimately poor story—which has a disappointing ending that could have been so much more. What we’re left with is a game that feels tragically half-finished, because it was halfway to greatness.
I can imagine that for some, King of Seas could be a very satisfying and relaxing game if you have patience and interest in a more realistic style of in-game sailing. But for me, it doesn’t have enough gusto to keep my interest, which is a shame because it promises so much and on the surface looks like such an exciting game.
Despite having heard for years that this is one of the greatest games of all time, I still walked away disappointed. Hopefully, the remake does this classic better.
With some patches and tweaks, this could be a strong shooter experience, but it has fundamental issues that will not be fixed so easily. Let’s see if DICE gets the support to do so; otherwise, this entry will simply be another casualty for a franchise in desperate need of a win.
After twenty-five years, Pokémon needs to innovate a lot more, even if it is a remake.
Red Wings is torn between its arcade ethos and its aim for historical accuracy. Perhaps it should have leaned further in one direction.