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If you're a fan of games like AudioSurf and own a Vive, you owe it to yourself to pick up Audioshield. It's an incredibly polished VR imagining of the generate-music-into-levels concept, and it was only let down by the physical realities of how gross VR gets after energetic use by multiple, sweaty people.
It would be easy for me not to recommend MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies. The game is smothered by a poor camera, an excess of short load screens, a forgettable campaign, simplistic missions, portions of undubbed dialog and an overall lack of polish. But even with all that, I still managed to have a bit of fun pulverizing the bad guys with a little help from some scantily clad girls online. Is it $40 fun? Hell no, but you should keep it in mind if ever it goes on sale and you've had your run of other, more superior hack-and-slashers.
Valkyria Chronicles Remastered is just as great of a game as it was eight years ago. Having it perform better and run smoother is a gift. A few things hold it back from perfection, but I'd rather have a war game strive for something new and risky like this than go with safe boilerplate action sequences. I'm happy Sega took a chance on this one. And maybe if enough people pick this up, the next game in the series will come this way.
All told, there's a decent game in here somewhere, but it's bogged down by annoying difficulty spikes and movement and aiming controls that never feel quite right. Even without those issues, Rocketbirds 2 does little if anything we haven't seen before. Its premise and world can only take it so far.
This is a game for anyone who has already enjoyed the grand strategy genre or anyone who has always wanted to. There is a strong sense of accomplishment from starting an empire and guiding it along the path you choose, even if it eventually ends in failure. Stellaris is easy to comprehend and exciting to execute, which is a perfect combination for a genre notoriously difficult to break into.
Nearly 14 years after first bursting onto the scene, Melty Blood has aged to the point of near-perfection. While a few aspects of the package leave something to be desired, the fact remains that, at its core, this is a supreme fighter with a diverse roster and deep, compelling mechanics that merit your attention.
No hyperbole, Kathy Rain is yet another milestone in this resurgence of old-school point-and-click adventures. It’s a fantastic thriller, a remarkably deep and adult story about grief, transition, religion, and the personal decisions that make or break us, while being an engrossing adventure game for veterans and newcomers alike.
Stunning art direction; satisfying game feel; a willingness to shake up third-person action conventions, to know when to introduce variety, or let a foot up off the gas; excellent dialogue that reveals a lot without oversharing; and a heck of a conclusion. A thief couldn't ask for a better end.
I'm not sold on Battleborn's commitment to the MOBA genre but there's something fun there underneath all of it. I'll probably hop on occasionally to play Capture throughout its lifetime while the bulk of my efforts are spent on more polished shooters.
I never want to stop playing Pocket Card Jockey. This game hit me the same way Tetris hit millions around the world back in the 80s. In fact, I want this game to be the next Tetris. I want Pocket Card Jockey on every Nintendo system. I want it on the Wii U. I want it on the NX. I want it on the iPhone, Kindle Fire, Apple TV, Windows and TI-89 graphing calculator. I want it everywhere, just hook it to my veins. I'll admit it: I'm addicted to this game, and if you try to make me go to rehab I'll say neigh, neigh, neigh.
Only for the most hardcore VR enthusiast, Bazaar gets the job done if you're looking for cheap thrills for an afternoon. Like most tech demos, it could stand to have most of its facets expanded upon (full-on flight would be cool), as developer Temple Gates Games is definitely onto something.
I have to stress how exceptionally polished it is across the board. The designers nailed the clean, friendly presentation, and early on, I was so ready to love the game because it makes such a wonderful first impression. But at its core, there's a lack of depth to keep this from being much more than a fleeting joy. It's the kind of oddball party novelty you play once with a group, get your fill of, and don't touch again until the next distant get-together.
There's a fascinating story here, but it's seemingly stretched out just to justify a price point comparable to That Dragon, Cancer, at the expense of quality.
I'd estimate the entire game took me around seven or eight hours maximum, though it could be finished quicker by skilled players. The deciding factor on whether or not Chronos is worth the $50 asking price is probably how much you love Zelda games or how hard up you are for something that feels like a fully-realized game for the Oculus Rift. Even with satisfying combat, an art style reminiscent of Guillermo del Toro, and virtual reality, I can't help but feel $50 is a smidgen too expensive. I guess that is the price you pay as an early adopter of VR.
But this review isn't about what other people might think, it's about what I think. To me, what matters most is if I had fun or not, and I had a lot of fun with Ray Gigant.
The main place Hitman continues to struggle is on a technical level. On the PlayStation 4 I'd need two hands to count the crashes I've experienced all week (plus one freeze necessitating a hard reset) and while the long load times aren't as much of a problem this time given the extra slack I found the lax coastal town to offer, it still does put a ding in a game that otherwise encourages you to try new things at the risk of failure. On the whole, though, Sapienza feels more robust than Paris, with even more gag costumes and slapstick deathtraps, leaving me even more confident in IO's move toward this new model, even if the American voice actors' pronunciation of "Falcone" physically pains me every time.
Vivian Clark is at least an interesting experience. It's not one that I want to return to, ever, but spending time with it always kept me on my toes, thinking about what could be next. Unfortunately, the actual mechanics are poorly implemented and fail-states are way too common, making what should be a laid-back, almost euphoric experience more like throwing your head against the wall.
Forget Crysis, The Climb is Crytek's best achievement in a long while. Is it worth $50? That depends entirely on how sold you are on VR.
King’s Quest: Once Upon a Climb isn't the most enthralling tale I've played, but I'm still very much all-in on the series and was grinning throughout. It's a nice slice of life with a likable cast, and with the goodwill this reboot has gained so far, that's all I need.
Despite some repetition and a handful of weird glitches, it'd be hard for me not to recommend Stories: The Path of Destinies. The "Goosebumps" kid in me was just too excited to have branching narratives from a developer that had fun with the concept instead of using it as another box to check in its marketing plans. I'd gladly return to this wonderfully weird world, but if there is a next chapter, I hope that there's more to see.