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It’s only made a handful of changes over the original, but Octopath Traveler II is a 60-100 hour journey that’s well worth experiencing.
Atomic Heart has been steadily building up steam for the longest time now, but the final product hasn’t quite matched up to the hype.
Like the series it was inspired by, Wild Hearts takes players on a challenging series of nature-themed bosses with 8 intuitive weapon types, alongside a host of seamless gameplay and co-op features which help keep the combat front and centre.
Wanted: Dead is a fun, but challenging adventure. It brings together brutal swordsmanship and deadly third person shooting in one uniquely packaged experience. The combat is easy to understand and it does feel great, and its difficulty is definitely the drawcard here. Unfortunately, the combat can feel a little too simple at times and the level design can seem slightly same-y. The story feels tacked on, and most of the voice acting is B movie levels of terrible. Overall, Wanted: Dead is quite entertaining and will give you a good few hours of challenging gameplay.
It may be quite shocking to hear this, but Hogwarts Legacy isn’t just a cheap tie-in game that some salty sceptics thought it’d be. Whether it’s the rich spell-based action, fun schoolyard activities or sky-high exploration of Hogwarts, fans of Harry Potter will certainly find something to enjoy here.
SpongeBob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake is a really bland affair! It’s disappointing and uninspired level design, that often feels like it drags on way too long, mixed with its really dated gameplay mechanics makes for quite a generic platforming adventure with stiff controls. Whilst the narrative is entertaining and does its absolute best to be a redeeming factor, it just isn’t enough to be a selling point for The Cosmic Shake. I am honestly saddened to say that SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is quite a dull experience and is not worth picking up.
Dead Space has eclipsed the original release with an array of fantastic additions, but doesn’t lose sight of what made the 2008 version so revered.
Mahokenshi is a surprisingly good adventure strategy deck builder. The gameplay systems are simple and easy to understand, yet still provide a significant amount of challenge. The narrative is a bit of a disappointment, providing you with merely a very short blurb before throwing you into each level. However, this can largely be overlooked, because the gameplay is honestly quite addictive at times. The board game style level design is really charming, and works perfectly for Mahokenshi. Overall, it is a good game that is worth giving a go, even for just a few hours.
Fire Emblem Engage calls upon many renowned characters from the series 30 year history, with a battle system that features a highly flexible progression system and quality of life changes that make a noticeable difference in combat.
A tense, twin-stick shooting experience awaits for those who adore the roguelike genre and all the uncertainty that comes with it… whether that’s positive or negative, I’ll leave up to you. But just know that once Lone Ruin sinks it’s teeth into you, those marks will be tremendously hard to remove.
The numerous additions included in Crisis Core Reunion are impressive. However, even if the combat is more enjoyable, graceful and weighty with fewer stoppages to boot, the repetitive gameplay loop of battling down long hallways does start to fizzle out. The story will please rabid fans of Final Fantasy VII, but for everyone else, the general narrative only gets good around the 70% mark. A little too late for most.
Overall, Wavetale is definitely a fun adventure game that is really relaxing. With its simple narrative and relatively short playtime, roughly 3-4 hours, as well as its interesting surfing gameplay style, Wavetale achieves almost everything it sets out to do. It is a charming game that will entertain you for a few hours. Nothing more, nothing less.
Hello Neighbor 2 is a big step up from the original in more ways than one. Puzzles feel more intuitive, neighbour AIs act smarter, the story is easier to follow and the graphics are admirably stylised. While some of the original’s issues are still present, like the paper-thin plot or immersion-breaking bugs and glitches, the game is still worth playing for those who love environmental puzzles or enjoyed the first entry in the series.
The Callisto Protocol isn’t the greatest horror title ever, but it still has some wicked cool moments to witness. There are stutter issues with the frame rate on PC, the combat does get repetitive and the story is largely forgettable, but the general atmosphere and hand-crafted set pieces are worth experiencing.
Need for Speed Unbound is an average-at-best arcade experience. With the headlights firmly set on street racing, It’s hard to enjoy the action when the turning controls are just not quite there, but the focus on tailing, drifting and near-misses to gain NOS is highly engaging. Well, except when a random NPC driver casually rams your car out of nowhere. Still, there is an extensive amount of customisation and a few open-world activities to take part in like time-trial deliveries, speed gates and escaping cops, though not to the same extent and depth as Forza Horizon 5.
Soccer Story has some fun and varied gameplay to keep you occupied between binge-watching the World Cup. This title does follow along with Golf Story’s DNA, albeit it does just enough to keep the festivities distinct and fresh as the football-themed campaign progresses. Even though it can get annoying having to constantly scavenger hunt and backtrack for things in large areas, hence the lack of a fast-travel option is severely frustrating.
Evil West is an incredibly fun game, with many ways to dismember enemies or electrocute them with gusto. The story flows very well from mission to mission and the boss battles are incredibly engaging. The world also looks stunning, being drenched in a gothic/steampunk atmosphere that’s highly rewarding to play.
I can’t remember the last time I played a game that was as linear and repetitive as this, but Gungrave G.O.R.E really takes the boredom cake. Yes, there are some cool mechanics like reflecting rockets and using soldiers as meat shields, but unless you enjoy mindlessly shooting thugs for days, it’s best to steer clear.
The Devil in Me is a rock-solid entry in The Dark Pictures Anthology. Featuring some tense scenes of fear and paranoia, a disorienting dynamic mansion and a serial killer on the loose for good measure. Just don’t expect this game to be a SAW-inspired death trap fiesta.
Whilst Pentiment promises to give players a fascinating narrative that takes all choices and actions into account, whilst exploring the themes of Politics and Religion in Europe in the 1500s, the uninteresting introduction, as well as the countless meaningless interactions throughout the title, makes itfeel much too long for what it is trying to achieve. There is an interesting plot to uncover here, but you will have to sift through quite a few hours worth of tedious dialogue with the occasional unnecessary minigame thrown in for ‘good’ measure.