While sat having a chilled out session of Dungeons & Dragons (or one of many available pen and paper games), the four main characters are teleported into a strange world. Waking up naked and alone, without a single tool or weapon at your disposal, you must find your friends and work out what the hell is going on. It doesn’t take long until your first job is to save a friend from the top of a tower, and the opening section provides you with the knowledge needed to play, thanks to a decent tutorial. After bumping into the physical embodiment of Destiny, you learn about three tyrants who must be defeated in order to return home.

There’s no audible dialogue, instead opting for conversational bubbles and the odd quip in text. The writing is fun and fundamental, and acts as a nice gap between the times you are out trying to gather enough resources for crafting. This is where Doom & Destiny Worlds feels laborious at times, as you’ll do a lot of grinding by breaking rocks, chopping trees down, and gathering materials for what you need. Certain elements of crafting and farming aren’t as well explained as they could be, and gathering so many blueprints can lead you feeling lost, especially in the early stages.

There’s a lot to get your head around, and with a messy inventory, it’s easy to get lost in there. Much of the learning is done on your own, and it would have been nice to have a little more guidance in how to craft items, or a clearer UI for how to build things. You can craft a whole manner of things from armour, weapons, and building blocks to traverse across the islands, and when you do begin to grasp these mechanics, Doom & Destiny Worlds can be fun. There’s just a lot to take in and a lot to manage, and with four characters all needing to be equipped with tools and such, it’s easy to forget where you are.

One thing I did like was how streamlined the combat is. While it can become repetitive, it’s easy to get to grips with. Each enemy has a health bar and an energy bar. The energy bar provides the ability to use certain skills, and while you and your foe has it, it needs to be broken down until the health can be depleted. Once the energy is removed, the health is the only thing keeping their hearts beating. it also acts as an extra level of defence against enemies, feeling just as much of a shield as a way to dish out certain spells and attacks.

Doom & Destiny is gorgeous. The pixel art allows the developers to get creative with the sheer amount of islands available, and I’m a sucker for this kind of art style. Heartbit Interactive has made a charming adventure, and I couldn’t help but fall in love with it. The music was wonderful as well, and provided the perfect soundtrack to my journey to find the tyrants and go home. It’s humour is great, and the relationship between the friends is relatable. As a DnD player myself, I appreciated how the nuances of the game were implemented into certain aspects of it.

It may become quite the chore to grind for resources or to craft a particular item, Doom & Destiny does reward you for your dedication. The art style and music is wonderful, and the world is vast and ripe for exploration. Combat is straightforward and often fun, although it can become repetitive when enemies keep rushing towards you. It won’t be for everyone, but the charming characters and opportunities to craft some cool equipment is present throughout.

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Dead Man’s Diary does have an interesting premise for the zombie game though. A self obsessed villain decided that when he died the Earth should no longer function, and set up a chain of nukes that pretty much destroyed everything. When this happened people started to hide in underground bunkers, but space was limited and supplies started to run low pretty quickly. After drawing the short straw our protagonist is kicked out of the bunker so others can live longer, so prepare for a whole lot of walking around in a desolate world.

Walking about is pretty much all you’ll be doing for most of the game, gathering supplies to make yourself shelter and to generally be healthy. There are four things you have to worry about in terms of staying alive in Dead Man’s Diary. Food and water are obvious, but there’s also radiation level (which you lower by taking Iodine Pills), and fever (which you lower by wrapping fabric soaked in vinegar and water around your legs). It’s standard topping-up-meter gameplay, but finding the items to do so is a chore.

The main reason for this is that there’s a chance that all the food and water you find is unsafe due to the radiation. This means scanning every single tin of beans and water bottle with your Geiger counter. And sadly, it takes ages to scan them. Most of the supplies you find end up being contaminated anyway, so it’s usually all for nothing. The worst aspect of this gameplay loop though, is that when you switch back to your torch afterwards you aren’t able to move until you release the controls entirely for a moment. I don’t think I really need to explain why that’s frustrating.

Dead Man’s Diary is split into distinct areas, and in most of these you’ll need to find the materials to build a fire and shelter before you progress. The grind of walking around environments where all the houses and alleys look the same is miserable, and you need so much wood, straw and metal posts to complete this tedious objective. After a few minutes of gathering, a handy white dot will start just pointing to the exact place you need to go, as if the developers knew how much of a drag this endeavour would be. You can turn this off if you want the true immersive apocalypse experience, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Once you’ve done enough collecting, it’s time for things to start kicking off. A loud noise will alert you to some sort of incoming threat (or sometimes will just happen for no reason at all) and you’ll need to find a safe space to avoid death. Whether it’s an angry bear or an atomic bomb, there’s only ever one place the game expects you to magically know where to go and if you don’t make it there as fast as possible then you’ll die. This will happen to you, and when it does you better not be expecting a handy autosave to ensure you don’t lose too much progress, because Dead Man’s Diary doesn’t like providing those.

It’s these little things that really ruin Dead Man’s Diary. Things like the sheer amount of invisible walls that’ll stop you from exploring and occasionally even trap you forever. Or your helpful white dot suddenly taking you to materials you don’t even need. In a game that’s already laborious, anything that makes it feel even worse to spend time playing is just not acceptable.

I also can’t talk about Dead Man’s Diary without mentioning the story and voice acting, which is cringe inducing. Cheesy and occasionally nonsensical lines are constantly spouted by the protagonist, and it’ll either be the worst or best part of the game for you based on how funny you find it.

As much as I didn’t enjoy playing Dead Man’s Diary, I can’t deny it has a few impressive elements. The visuals are way better than they have any right to be, and if you enjoy Skyrim style lockpicking you’re in for a treat. I’ll admit this doesn’t really feel like much of a selling point, but I like to give praise where it’s due.

Dead Man’s Diary is tedious, full of invisible walls, and often downright unfair. Whether you’re repeatedly scanning food to check for radiation or looking for the same old materials to build yet another shelter, I can almost guarantee you’ll be bored doing it. When there are so many better games with an apocalyptic setting, there’s sadly really no reason to play Dead Man’s Diary.

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The “story” this time around is just as boring and unexciting, with a bunch of teen or teen-adjacent space pilots on a journey through multiple galaxies while listening to cool songs and playing playground games. Within just a few levels I was rolling my eyes and jabbing the “skip dialogue” button, because I just feel this stuff was getting in the way of the actual gameplay, which in itself is pretty damn good.

By now, if you’ve played any Invector game then you know the drill. You have a spacecraft that flies along a fairly narrow space corridor, and you gather speed by hitting button prompts as you pass over them. At the lowest difficulty you’ll need to worry about LB, A and sliding the left stick to and from to shift left and right, while occasionally hitting the left trigger to boost when the meter is full.

At higher levels it increases the score threshold needed to pass a level, and adds new buttons into the mix. The jump from Casual to Normal still feels almost abusively steep, though, and even on the former setting the game will occasionally throw a sudden curveball your way, such as changing the mission parameters for one seemingly random level.

It’s a beautiful game though, even if you don’t really get to enjoy a lot of it because it’s whistling at such a speed. The colours are stunning, each environment carefully crafted to deliver a sense of pulse-pounding speed, as though you really are blasting through a cosmos of light and colour.

Obviously, though, it’s the soundtrack that makes the difference. With 40 tracks to fly to, there’s a superb selection of songs from Royal Blood to Tina Turner, few of which are repeated to the point of annoyance. Free-form single and multiplayer modes allow you to experience any song you’ve already unlocked as many times as you like, too. You can also extend the lifetime of the game by jumping into the multiplayer and challenging others to beat your score.

Invector: Rhythm Galaxy plays wonderfully well. It’s smooth and responsive, although it could use a little more rumble in the feedback. I played a lot of it on Steam Deck, where it looks beautiful, by the way, and it was smooth here as it is on PC. There is a sense here though that the series has kind of run its course. If you’re a fan of the genre and franchise then you may well advocate for more of the same each time, but the truth is that if you’ve played an Invector game before then you’ve kind of played this already. The songs may be different, but the gameplay is almost unchanged.

Controlling your spacecraft through floating rings, and hitting jumps and boosters just right still feels incredibly satisfying, but we’ve definitely done it before. It also feels weirdly anachronistic that one of the very best experiences that Rhythm Galaxy has to offer is playing a level over Tina Turner’s “The Best “, a song released way back in 1989.

Ultimately, Invector: Rhythm Galaxy is a very good rhythm game, of a calibre befitting a studio that has been making them for as long as Hello There Games has, but it’s also very safe and very familiar, doing little to freshen up proceedings besides adding an uncomfortably out-of-place narrative. There are some great tracks here, and it’s certainly beautiful to look at, but there’s not a lot here to really get your blood pumping.

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What happens next is the start of a strange, supernatural journey for our heroine. Regardless of which option you choose, an ethereal force won’t let Angie walk away, nor will it allow her to die. Even when you succumb and kick the chair away, the beam above cannot take the weight, and she lives to see another day. At this point, the decision is made to accept the offer of employment, with a view to earning enough to vicariously fulfil the dying wish of her late husband, and see the beautiful cherry blossoms of Japan.

The new gig is, on the surface, as a live-in carer to an old boy ensconced in the Devon countryside. This idyllic scenario takes a distinct left turn when Angie discovers a portal to another dimension behind a creepy door in the basement of the farmhouse. It transports her to the purgatory-like alternate reality known as Burnhouse Lane, where she is challenged by a mysterious feline to endure a veritable gauntlet of five horrific tasks, which if completed, will grant a cure to her lung cancer. As gaming scenarios go, this is a doozy.

Gameplay is a combination of side scrolling platforming and exploration set between Burnhouse Lane and the farmyard. There are puzzles, items such as keys to be found, and branching dialogue paths that affect the direction of the story. There are even combat sections that are evocative of other survival horror titles from days past – if you are a fan of the creepy and macabre stuff like this, then you will recognise these when they occur.

There is no dressing up the fact that there are some very disturbing sequences and adult themes at play, which I will not spoil here. There is a very good reason that you get a content warning when you boot this one up, something that Switch gamers may not be used to. Pikmin, this ain’t. It touches on things that some of you may find abhorrent or disgusting and unable to deal with.

As the plot thickens, things do also become a bit hammy and suspension of disbelief becomes impossible, particularly if like me you are English and know what actually goes on in the Devon countryside. Harvester would have you believe that it is a lawless land packed with firearms and crazed serial killers. It also becomes apparent that a lot of the game is actually taking place in the “real” world, as opposed to the vastly more interesting, monster-infested Burnhouse Lane.

This macabre, arcane horror is helped along nicely by the extremely effective soundtrack, which has a splendid post-rock feel, and is deployed with a light touch. Voice acting is a mixed bag, but there is some sterling work on display for Angie and kindly farmer George. The visual style is also a treat, employing a clash of styles which blends quirky hand drawn characters with backgrounds and environments that almost appear photoshopped.

The gameplay is not the most dynamic exploratory platforming you will ever experience, but it is soaked in atmosphere and intrigue, as well as being memorably disturbing to the point where I found myself thinking about it during a recent restless night. If like me you are like a moth to a flame for this kind of oddball folksy horror, then I would advise you to take a look – just be warned, it isn’t for the faint-hearted.

The post Burnhouse Lane review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

It’s a decent port, though. It tells the story of two warring Knights, Theoderich and Ulrich, formerly best friends until the latter claimed a powerful, evil relic at the tail end of the Crusades. The story is pretty good, though the telling of it suffers at the hands of an engine that struggles with the in-game cutscenes. Theoderich is a strong enough lead, if a little comparatively dull. All he wants is to live a quiet life away from war and bloodshed, but with Ulrich going off the reservation and raising an army to sack Britain, Theoderich has no choice but to get involved.

During fights you’ll be directing squads of troops around the battlefield. You’ve swordsmen, spearmen, archers, mounted knights, the usual assortment, and there’s a pretty simple loop of damage where one soldier type is more effective against another. Because the camera stays above the action, you’ll have a pretty good view of who’s doing what and where they are.

Each mission will have clear objectives as well as various side concerns. From all-out assaults to escorting VIPs, there’s a decent variety of missions across the 16 main stages. Your soldiers and hero characters all have unique abilities you can call upon, which never stray too far into fantasy. You won’t be summoning demons to fight or anything, but you can buff your squads, charge the enemy, or deliver precision volleys. You can even find loot such as special weapons and armour to outfit your men for war. It’s not the deepest system but it adds another layer of customisation and tactics.

Moving your squads around the battlefield is easy enough. You may well start an engagement in a position of advantage, but it does often last. Skirmishes are highly mobile, with enemies coming from all angles and directions. You’ll need to split your forces often in order to defend multiple fronts or flank the enemy where possible.

The Valiant plays great on a DualSense 5 controller. There aren’t a ton of button combos to worry about, and activating specials is as simple as hitting the corresponding button. I did find that it felt a little unresponsive at times, and my troops would just mill about a bit until I repeated a command. It’s also not always super clear to see what’s happening as the console version has no close-up zoom. Your men all blur in with the enemy after a while.

The console version launches with the main game, Skirmish mode, the online multiplayer, and the Last Man Standing horde mode where you just need to defend a trio of heroes against waves of enemies for as long as you can. It’s a great mode for those who crave a solid challenge, but the multiplayer will give you much more to think about. Adding other players into the mix is always a great way to increase the challenge, but arguably The Valiant doesn’t need it. It doesn’t add anything new to the overall experience, but rather changes the way you approach the core gameplay.

On PS5, The Valiant is just as playable and enjoyable as on PC, even if it’s not quite as good-looking. The control scheme works well, and there’s enough content across the different modes to keep you busy for a little while. There are better top-down strategy choices out there, such as the aforementioned Company of Heroes 3, but this is great if you’re a particular fan of medieval warfare. Whether you’re looking for an interesting if in-spectacular story campaign, or a challenge to stretch your tactical brain, The Valiant is a pretty solid option.

The post The Valiant console review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

My main takeaway from playing this one is that it actually does a surprisingly good job of simulating the technical aspects of running and working on a crab-fishing vessel. In keeping on-brand to the Discovery channel, Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe offers up some narration, which led me to wonder whether one day we will also see a Worm Dung Farmer sim, or Alligator Egg Collector: The Game.

There is an impressive, if somewhat banal, amount of depth to process, with multiple considerations to be made such as forming your crew (naturally, you do this by visiting a pub), buying the necessary supplies needed to entice the delicious pincered beasts, and then the art of actually netting the blighters. My knowledge of catching deep sea crustaceans is patchy at best, but it turns out that the best way to do this is submerge a crab pot, essentially a giant 750lb cage that crabs can enter but not exit, and play a waiting game as they become trapped. This means a degree of in-game waiting, too, before you get to the next step of processing and grading the crabs.

Now, the world of high-risk crab fishing has a pretty hardline set of rules and regulations. Equipment must be of a certain standard and tagged by the powers that be to prevent illegal and over-fishing. And it is also illegal, for obvious reasons relating to conservation, to flog crabs of the lady variety. What this means for Deadliest Catch: The Game players is that until you earn enough in-game clout to get some other AI mug to do it, you will have the ball-aching pleasure of spending long periods of time examining and sexing eight-legged sea critters.

Once you have sorted your crabs, you return to shore, cash in, and then upgrade your ship and crew to repeat the gameplay loop afresh, and hopefully catch even more crabs the next time around. It soon becomes very dull, very quickly, but is also annoyingly finnicky. There are a number of steps needed to be adhered to when lowering or cracking open a pot, with a whole bunch of different levers, pulleys and buttons to worry about. Accidentally dropping a whole cage full of hard-earned crabs is a real possibility if you lose concentration on the task at hand.

The presentation is as choppy as the seas upon which you carry out your arduous task. The graphics are merely functional, with some strange pop-up and clipping, weird character models and animations and unimpressive environmental effects. Considering the gravity and drama of the television show, which portrays one of the most dangerous professions imaginable, the dull music and lack of atmosphere or sense of peril is distinctly lacking.

Deadliest Catch: The Game had the almost admirable ability to make me not want to either take up crab fishing in real life, nor to find out what the eventual endgame of its videogame counterpart was. Unless you really must get heavily involved in looking at a shitload of crustacean genitalia, then my advice would be to have a look at the dramatic and compelling television show, which will make you think twice next time you hear rappers like Rick Ross boasting about chowing down on expensive crab meats, and be more inclined to hit up your local estuary and try to bacon-bait some little UK crabs into a bucket.

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As you can imagine, this has driven the cost of a PAL version into the realms of the ludicrous. More people should have had the chance to play this one back in the day, but timing is everything: Super Mario World had set the gold standard for the genre, and over the next 18 months HAL Laboratory spawned Kirby into the public consciousness. Thank goodness, then, that Bitwave have done the right thing and ported this charming platformer to modern consoles.

The most striking thing about Gimmick! Special Edition is how good it looks and sounds. The team producing it knew that they were having to compete with the superior graphical capabilities of the newer 16-bit machines, and managed to employ some clever tileset trickery to squeeze every drop of juice out of the ageing console. The art style is an evocative blend of cutesy influences from the era. There are shades of Jaleco’s magical Rod-Land, Taito’s Bub & Bob saga, and even first party Nintendo fare, but somehow it retains its own identity. The soundtrack is an eclectic blend of freewheeling jazz, pop and rock, with Sunsoft’s in-house composer Mashashi Kageyama taking a leaf out of literally nearly every 1980s footballer interviewed by Shoot! magazine in citing jazz-funk legend George Benson as an influence.

You take the role of super cute Yumetaro, a plushy whose child owner has been abducted to an alternate realm by the disgruntled remainder of her toy collection, seemingly borne of their jealousy towards how enamoured the kid is with the little green fella. To rescue his owner, Yumetaro has to adventure through over a half-dozen teak-tough platforming stages, employing use of the magical stars he carries above his head to take out enemies, but also to use as rideable platforms which can be used to reach hitherto unreachable areas.

You can ping the stars off the scenery and employ timing to hop on top of them, a bit like leaping on your own bubbles or rainbows in the aforementioned Taito classics, albeit with trickier physics and timing at play. There are other collectable projectile attacks to be had in the form of potions, and each of the six stages has a super-secret hidden treasure to find, as well as a boss character to defeat. Completing the game by simply acing the six levels and bosses will see your quest to rescue Yumetaro’s owner grind to a Ghouls ‘N Ghosts-esque halt, as you are sent back to the beginning. In order to get the true ending there are conditions to be met, which add a ball-achingly tough extra layer of longevity to what is already a tricky experience.

This is the ultimate remaster of the 1992 lost classic, and as such comes with a variety of extras, including some in-game achievements and art galleries. Best of all is a rewind function which really takes the sting out of some of the hairier platforming moments.

Unlike Cyber Citizen Shockman, which also allowed you to wind back proceedings, the actual physics, collision detection and platform positioning of Gimmick! Special Edition are on-point and, despite the high level of challenge, it never feels unfair and is very satisfying when you manage to ride a magic star all the way to some lovely treasure. It was a tad unfairly maligned at the time of release and stands up very well to some of the other NES and PCE titles of the time. This deserved a wider audience back in the day and is well worth your time if you are a fan of old-school platform hopping fun.

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Bullying is something we’ve either witnessed happening to those we know or to us ourselves. It can destroy confidence and a will to live, ruining lives and impacting childhoods well into becoming adults. Maybe we can blame the bully’s upbringing or the things going wrong in their own lives, but when those being affected are feeling crippled by that oppressive hold it has on them, crying in toilet cubicles afraid to leave, or refusing to get out of bed in the morning, it’s upsetting to see. Gylt starts off with a girl finding an alternative route home because she’s afraid of the bullies who are heckling and taunting her, setting the tone for what’s to come.

In the fictional town of Bethelwood in Maine, USA, Sally finds the town isn’t what it normally is, embodying the Silent Hill switcharoo, where weird creatures lurk in the shadows, streets now void of life. It’s spooky but not outright terrifying, and that’s fine. Gylt isn’t trying to be a brash and offensive bloodbath awash with mutilated bodies and shrieking banshees. The creepy monsters aren’t cutting you to shreds or impaling you with razor-sharp tendrils, but rather hunting you down and forcing you to start over from the last checkpoint, minus the grisly end. In an effort to avoid being spotted, you must sneak around the shadows, hiding behind bushes, crates, or whatever you find.

Each enemy has a field of vision, although you’re never quite sure what this is as darkness doesn’t always mean your invisible to them. It simply provides a better cushion of protection. They walk the same paths, so it’s easier to work out when they’ll start circling back towards you, giving you plenty of options to sneak past them and get to the next area of safety. You have a flashlight that can highlight a way through in the darkness, but it will also fend of monsters in a similar way to Alan Wake. These encounters aren’t particularly scary, and dealing with enemies can feel repetitive, but it doesn’t carry the same level of monotony other horrors have a tendency to exhibit.

Gylt has the occasional puzzle involving familiar tropes of the genre, such as finding certain keys or turning valves and moving climbable platforms, but they work well with the confines of the environment. You’re never stuck, and that simplicity makes for a nice flow to gameplay. The visuals look great on PlayStation 5, despite some of the darkly lit areas, yet environments like the arcade are brimming with vibrancy and offer a nice alternative to the gloom and eerie hallways of the school. It’s a pretty game, making the switch from Stadia exclusive to multi-platform very well.

As Sally searches for Emily, her missing cousin and another victim of bullying, the story fleshes out somewhat, although there feels like some omissions into the overarching narrative. It’s emotional at times, but some of the answers I had didn’t feel like they were answered. You can find letters and documents scattered around to provide some backstory, but I didn’t feel satisfied by the time it reached its conclusion. Others may feel different, and it may have a bigger impact on those that have been victims of bullying, but I didn’t get out of it the answers I wanted.

Gylt is enjoyable albeit familiar. with many mechanics seen in a fair few games before. Puzzles are relatively easy to solve, but they offer a nice break from the stealth elements, always giving you something to do while searching for your cousin. While the story is enjoyable, I feel like it could have done more in explaining things. It’s gorgeous to look at, touching upon a style of horror seldom seen in the medium, and despite it being on Stadia for almost four years, the transition to modern consoles has done it the world of good.

The post Gylt review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The main premise of Crash Team Rumble is quite simple. Two teams of four must collect more Wumpa fruit than the opposition, reaching the goal of 2,000. What makes things more complex – bringing the thrilling elements to it – is how you can take on different roles within your team. There are three roles at present, and each has a role with specific goals, and if everyone knows their role and sticks to it, matches can be fun.

The first role is the Scorer, and they’re responsible for collecting the fruit and delivering it to the scoring platform. Characters like Crash are faster than their teammates and can also carry more Wumpa. They have decent abilities to fend off enemies who want to try and attack them, however, the Blockers are much better at dishing out damage. Dingodile and Dr. N. Brio fall into this category, and their job is to hurt the enemy, protect the scorers, and try their best to defend their platform or prevent the opposition from depositing their Wumpa.

The final role is the Booster, and in my opinion, the most important. Not surprisingly, I found few players wanted to take on this role, just as players rarely want to be a Healer in Overwatch. Few people enjoy support roles, but I found them to be the most flexible. Coco and Dr. Neo Cortex play a pivotal role in building scoring multipliers by jumping on sets of gems, turning them the colour of their team. They can also activate map-specific bonuses such as the ability to heal all of your team or spawn a bonsai tree that’s home to a ton of Wumpa fruit.

In theory, players should stick to these roles. In the majority of matches I played, teams stuck to their roles for the most part, but it loses its enjoyment if players stray from them. Toys for Bob has been meticulous in how these roles all work together, so it’s a shame if players want to deviate. Of course, this isn’t a fault of the developer, but it loses its appeal when matches populated by strangers aren’t working together. Voice chat is integral to playing in unison, and if you’re risking matches with people you don’t know, the same level of enjoyment isn’t present.

Luckily, each player has a power-up that can be charged over time. These can range from a Flytrap Spitter that acts as a turret of sorts, and whenever an enemy is in range it’ll dish out a handful of damage. The Wumpa Stash increases your deposit bonus; Power Drain zaps the rate at which the enemy team’s fill their power-up gauge; and the Gasmoxian Guard is fantastic at dealing enemy damage and making it hard for the opposing team to drop off Wumpa.

Crash Team Rumble is fun to play as far as the controls go. The platforming elements are fluid and responsive, and I never had issues with movement or getting around. It also looks good, with the various maps all designed wonderfully. My main concern is how the Battle Pass progresses far too slowly, something I mentioned in our preview. The content within the battle pass isn’t that exciting either, unless you’re a diehard Crash fan, and the rate of progressing takes a lot of successful runs. There’s still some cool stuff, but having to pay for a game that still feels limited and then the battle pass, I’d have expected more.

Crash Team Rumble is much better than I first thought it would be. Matches can be a lot of fun if everyone sticks to their roles, and the maps look great, but are also designed in interesting ways to make use of character roles. As it’s a live-service title, I hope Toys for Bob is dedicated to keeping it fresh and it doesn’t become another victim of a low player base; though suggestions are this might already be happening. Despite a battle pass that takes a lot to progress through, there’s an enjoyable experience here.

The post Crash Team Rumble review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

When it gets down to brass tacks, action inside the ring is relatively simple and addictive. Despite it being clunky at times, that feel of No Mercy and WrestleMania 2000 from the N64 days has been faithfully recreated, and more often than not, the gameplay is straightforward. The fundamentals are easy to master. You can punch and kick to deliver short combos, and lock in a grapple to perform a handful of moves. You can Irish whip an opponent into the corner or the ropes, and perform a few simple aerial moves off the top rope.

The move sets aren’t too varied, but it’s the ease of performing that makes it engaging. Some of the basic moves like picking up an opponent off the mat or turning them round for a grapple from behind aren’t detailed anywhere, so I had to work them out for myself. It’s a little frustrating, especially as some of the best signature moves are performed from behind. However, once you work it out, matches can flow reasonably well, and when you incorporate diving moves like the Tope Con Hilo et al, action is frantic. One of the coolest aspects of AEW: Fight Forever is how you can keep performing signature moves without losing the ability to do so.

For example, in one of my first matches, I played as Kenny Omega and hit a Dragon Screw Suplex, followed by a V-Trigger, then another couple of Dragon Screws. In a game that doesn’t take the realism too seriously, it adds one of the most realistic aspects of professional wrestling to it. Many matches will see a signature move performed a couple of times in succession, and it’s good they’ve incorporated it here. To perform a Special, or finishing move, you simply have to taunt the opponent with the right stick, then get in the correct position and flick the right stick again.

With most of the signatures and specials, you’ll get a quick replay that adds to the arcade feel, and it’s wonderful to watch. My biggest gripe, though, is that matches can be won in under a minute. Now I know this does happen, but AEW is known for its epic matches, and these quick finishes diminish the grandeur of getting Bryan Danielson to step up against the likes of CM Punk or Jon Moxley. It’s not the worst thing imaginable, but I often refused to pin an opponent because I wanted the matches to keep on going. The way you get to the point of pulling off a fancy move is by building momentum, and this can be done by executing different moves or gaining buffs for specific actions during a match.

It has a nice flow to it, and in 1v1, AEW: Fight Forever is excellent. Tag matches are also a lot of fun, as are the triple threat and 4-way matches, however, the real stars of the show are the Lights Out and Exploding Barbed Wire Matches. These are the moments where it doesn’t take itself seriously. Lights Out offers players a ton of different weapons to use against an enemy, such as a mop wrapped in barbed wire, a football helmet that can be thrown on an opponent, a baseball bat with nails attaches to it, golf clubs, and the more traditional weapons like steel chairs and tables. You can reach over the barriers and pick up a weapon quickly, making these matches even more enjoyable.

As for the Exploding Barbed Wire Match, after a certain time, the barbed wire that’s replaced the ring ropes will explode, greatly damaging anyone close enough. The Casino Battle Royale is also in AEW: Fight Forever, as are ladder matches, giving fans plenty of match types. It would have been cool to see trios matches included, along with the Iron Man match, Blood and Guts, and a few others, but in many ways, it feels like the game isn’t the complete package.

AEW: Fight Forever has a limited roster. Some professional wrestlers are being added, but there’re some notable omissions like The Acclaimed and Swerve Strickland, and future DLC additions like FTR, Keith Lee, and Hook should simply be a part of the original roster. I’m hoping that other professional wrestlers will be added later down the line because it does feel like it’s missing some key members of the roster. In other ways, AEW: Fight Forever feels massively out-of-date, and that they got to a point where they had to stop updating or else it would never be released, however, Ortiz and Santana are nowhere to be seen.

The Road to the Elite mode acts as a career of sorts, and Omega’s influence is felt right through it. He’s a massive fan of the Yakuza series and developers Ryu Ga Gotoku, and a lot of interactions have a similar humour and presentation. It’s silly at times, but I loved it, probably because I adore Yakuza as well. The mini games are also a ton of fun and again, feel like they’re a respectful nod to RGG as well. It only lasts for a year, but each block is made up of four weeks where you can go for a meal at a local restaurant or sightsee at specific places depending where Dynamite is being held; do some training at the gym; appear on a talk show; and even compete on Dark and Rampage, followed by competing at one of the four major PPVs.

Each week, completing these tasks help to improve your motivation, energy, skill points, and cash. The higher your energy and motivation, the better shape you’re in for your weekly match on Dynamite. The more skill points you have helps to upgrade your created wrestler’s (although you can play though the career as an AEW wrestler), and cash can be spent on unlocking weekly perks, however, I never felt like I needed them as the time I had across the week gave me enough opportunity to maximise things like how motivated or recovered I was. When it comes to the weekly match, stories from AEW’s early years feature, such as Inner Circle and MJF’s rivalry.

It is in these moments that it feels out of date the most. I get it’s celebrating its beginnings, but showing video packages of Taz introduce the FTW belt feels like a lifetime ago. Maybe I’m being too picky, as the actual flow of Road to the Elite is nice and quick, arcadey, and funny. Watching Hangman and me pose in front of the Lincoln Memorial, or getting a boop from Kris Statlander while eating my New York Hot dog shows how it doesn’t take itself seriously, as well as paying homage to RGG Studio. There’re also a ton of Easter eggs and in-jokes, including a few references to WWE thrown in for good measure.

The custom suite isn’t packed full of options, but there’re some decent enough options in the custom arenas. The custom wrestlers are limited, though. I couldn’t find a decent beard at all, and I hope these get added to the in-game store. By the end of my year in the career mode, I had so much cash I didn’t know what to do with it, so fingers crossed more stuff gets added. While it doesn’t feel unfinished, it does feel outdated at times, but thankfully it’s so much fun to play.

The gameplay in AEW: Fight Forever isn’t going to blow fans away, but it does remind me of the times spent on my N64 pulling off quick and simple moves that look awesome. Some of the wrestlers don’t look like who they’re supposed to be, but the characters are more cartoony than lifelike, and I’m fine with that. This isn’t a polished 2K WWE-style game. Fans might not like that, but I honestly enjoyed getting involved in matches. It’s quick and easy to jump in, and I hope more gets added to it over the coming months. It would be a shame if, after a few DLC drops, that’s all we get.

While AEW: Fight Forever does feel a little empty and outdated, jumping into a match as Chris Jericho, Orange Cassidy, and Britt Baker is so damn cool. I love this company with all my heart, and while I might have been down on it at certain points, I’m in no way disappointed. I just pray to TK and Yuke’s that there’s more to come from it down the line. Still, the developers have reminded us why they were so good at making wrestling games fun, just like what All Elite Wrestling has done for the sport as a whole.

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After finding yourself dead in the middle of a junkyard, you play as a spirit with no memory of who you were or what happened to you. It’s a simple premise at first, but one that grows into a much bigger conspiracy that has you hooked throughout. While some of the gameplay can drag due to its linear nature of solving puzzles and tons of dialogue, it was still enjoyable, and the various people you encounter along the way are full of surprises. In order to complete certain puzzles, you must possess different objects during ‘Trick Time,’ and these can range from a spinning Christmas decoration to a screwed up piece of paper.

Each area is self-contained in Ghost Trick: Phantom detective, and you can travel to a new location through the phone wires. At each area or chapter, you’re tasked with solving a certain puzzle. I’d have liked to be able to try different methods in order to do so, but it’s more a case of finding the one way to solve whatever your presented with. Thankfully, they’re varied enough, keeping things fresh as you press forward. Some are much more complex than others, and some are as simple as knocking a pair of headphones into a fish tank.

Other puzzles join together to create longer conundrums to solve. One had me trying to get a rat from the attic to fall down to help a posh, terrible mother find her dictionary that you need to possess. As she moves you over to her table, you can then take control of a desk lamp that makes her mess up her typing (she’s writing a smutty novel, obviously) and throw a piece of paper into a bin, with you having to possess the paper at the right time so you go flying across the room with it. Some objects can’t be used, acting as a pathway to a more useful one, however, there’re plenty of ways to get the attention of the living and complete these puzzles.

While most of the challenges give you as much time as you need, there are specific sections that rewind back to four minutes before a death (and there’s a lot of dying), where you have to find the solution quickly or else you’ll fail. You can of course replay these until they’re solved, yet they offer a nice bit of pressure in order to progress. As you get used to moving around the screen and switching between Ghost mode (the time when you can move around as a spirit and possess objects) and the real world, Ghost Trick: Phantom detective is at its best.

One of the biggest downsides for me was the amount of dialogue you have to read in order to actually play. This could be story-building, or it could be a conversation, a thought going through someone’s head, or even Sissel’s (that’s you!), always popping up when you’re eager to start solving the latest puzzle. While some of the writing is funny, it’s also unintentionally so, however, there’s just too much silliness, even for me. If you can get past these awkward moments then there’s plenty of enjoyment when it lets you play.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is gorgeous to look at, and every environment is packed full of detail. The character animations are smooth, and while this is a HD remaster of a Nintendo DS title, it looks great on a PS5. The music is always funky and upbeat, with a vast soundtrack for you to enjoy as you play. You can check out a fancy gallery to listen to the excellent music, as well as unlocked artwork. It’s presentation is one of its biggest plus points, and I never grew tired of the visuals or the score.

If, like me, you never got to play Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective back in 2010, then now is a great time to experience one of the most inventive point-and-click puzzlers ever made. While there’s plenty of dialogue and little freedom, the variety in how to solve puzzles and get through the story is varied enough to hold your attention, and with a killer soundtrack and beautiful visuals, it still holds up almost 13 years later.

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The series as a whole was not exactly groundbreaking in terms of dynamic platforming, but did stand out due to the anime-inspired characters. Whilst it’s sequel had more of a straight up Rockman/Mega Man feel, the first game in Winds platforming mini-saga is more of a scrolling hack and slash platformer, with a nice structure that allows you to choose your destination through the game using a Super Mario World-esque map.

You play the role of one of male/female due Tasuke or Kyapiko, who have been given crazy cyborg fighting upgrades by a mad scientist, so that they can take on the nefarious the rogues gallery of classic baddies. There are Gundam style robots, cybernetic monkeys (a real mainstay in games of the time, see Strider and King of the Monsters if you need further evidence) and even one dude who looks like a knock off of Darth Vader. Beating stages and rescuing citizens in distress allows you to buy stuff in shops to upgrade your character. But each boss you take down will also give your hero a permanent upgrade too – such as an improved energy bar, or boosted defence.

The stages look like you would expect from a 1989 PC Engine game – decent pixel art, some interesting, if heavily recycled enemy sprites and bosses, some of which have really lovely designs. The music is very much of its era, but suits the action perfectly. There is a two player coach co-op, and some lovely comfort options such as the now-standard scanline filter mode.

So far, so good….except for the fact that, sadly, the game just isn’t a very good one. The problems surface immediately and tell you that you are in for a bad time. The physics are all to-cock, with the inertia of movement an absolute pain. Acceleration is slow but once you do build any momentum it is hard to slow down. Dinky little platforms and this kind of setup are a terrible mix, and negotiating even the most simple level can be a traumatic lesson in pain. Throw into the mix some of the most outrageous collision detection I have experienced for many moons, and you have a game that is hard to recommend to anyone but the most hardcore PC Engine fans out there.

But then, thinking about it, this kind of title and its annoying unpolished controls were ten a penny back in 1989, and I would have probably still played it to death just out of sheer determination and spite. I can remember other platformers around then having similar issues, with the NES Turtles game being a prime suspect; and I must have spent weeks on that excruciating mess.

So what I am saying is, this is a great little piece of history, a gaming museum piece, and a labour of love that deserves a bit of respect, even if it is a pain in the arse at times. For the meagre asking price, you get some nice artwork and renderings of the original packaging and manual, the aforementioned filter and screen curvature options, and even have the ability to rewind gameplay which, admittedly, does take the sting out of some of the more precarious, anxiety inducing leaps of faith. But all told, if it’s better gameplay you want, then track down the far superior sequels.

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It’s a side-scrolling action-adventure game with more than a gentle dusting of Prince of Persia that won’t eat up much more than three or four hours of your week. What threatens early on to open up into a sprawling Metroidvania keeps things refreshingly tight, presenting a solid action game with a cool core mechanic and a handful of new ideas.

If there’s anything that feels undercooked though, it’s the narrative. Nocturnal tells the tale of Ardeshir, a soldier who has returned home to find the island he grew up on ravaged by a terrifying entity known as the Mist. With his family slain and his sister missing, Ardeshir must brave the horrors of the dark with only a huge flaming sword and infinite restarts to help him.

I joke, obviously, but the truth is if you want to learning anything about the world or the Mist or the Sacred Flame Ardeshir uses to imbue his sword, you’ll need to explore every nook and cranny. What story there is is told in tiny scraps of text split across twelve collectibles, which you’ll need to find and arrange. It’s more than a little annoying, especially as the mysterious old woman who keeps turning up would be an ideal exposition tool instead.

The fact that the devs even refer to it as a “love letter to the original Prince of Persia” should tell you everything you need to know here, though. Nocturnal is beautiful, fluid, and a joy to play, even if it does occasionally throw just a little too much at you.

As Ardeshir you must ignite your blade to carve a path through the darkness and defeat the tortured souls claimed by the Mist. The flame has a short timer which you can extend by spending Ash on a small upgrade tree. Once the light goes out, you’ll begin to take tick-damage until you expire or you cab reach another torch. Most are unlit, and the focus is on spreading the flame from point to point to create pools of luminescence that weaken your enemies.

The various contraptions such as lifts and doors are also powered by fire, necessitating speedy platforming between points. The jumping and dashing is precise, but when you start mixing it with sword swipes to light torches and activate ledges, it can become a little difficult to nail the timing. Likewise, there are times when you’re thrown into combat with multiple enemies and a rapidly dwindling flame, which feel frantic and desperate as you try to stay alive and reignite your blade.

A three-hit combo, i-frame dodge, and handful of special abilities make combat feel slick and rewarding, especially when you manage to fight your way out of a pile of enemies. The flames heal can heal you, but will be extinguished when they do so, forcing you to think carefully and adding an element of danger even to restoring your health.

About a third of the way in you’ll unlock a throwing knife for use in puzzles and combat, which will also ignite when it comes into contact with fire. This gives you more combat options – as does a powerful move that you unlock for the back half of the game. Nocturnal has cool ideas throughout, too, such as being able to set fire to dried vines and tapestries to create light and reveal puzzle solutions.

There’s a definite sense here that Nocturnal may have been envisioned as a Metroidvania once early in development. For example there are sometimes multiple routes, but it’s fifty-fifty if you pick the route that leads to a secret or the route that locks you into the critical path. Sadly, there’s rarely a way to tell which is which, either.

A small but well-thought-out skill tree allows you to improve your stats and abilities as you travel, and the core conceit of having to literally fight against the darkness trying to choke you is such a powerful and respectful homage to PoP that I couldn’t help but smile even when it became frantic. It’s never too stressful though, as regular checkpoints reduce the amount of retreading you’ll do even when it gets tough.

After only a few areas and a handful of boss fights, Nocturnal ends without much flourish, and left me wondering if it’s a secret proof of concept for a much grander sequel at some point down the line. For all that I appreciate the brevity, I kind of hope so, because Sunnyside have something very special here that could easily stand with the best if it had just a little more story and content.

The post Nocturnal review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Dr Fetus has been thwarted by Meat Boy more than enough times now, and he’s got a new plan to deal with this platforming problem once and for all. By cloning the square red hero he’s hoping he can abuse his power to do those dark deeds he’s so famous for, but this scientific endeavor isn’t exactly simple. The Meat Boys he’s producing just aren’t quite right, so to try and weed out the good ones Dr Fetus is throwing them all into deadly test chambers and hoping the best evolve into something resembling his rival. It’s a gloriously stupid concept, but it gives you a reason for the upcoming chaos.

Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine is at its core a Puyo Puyo game, but if you’re not familiar with this particular puzzle game then this is how it works. Sets of two coloured clones slowly descend from the top of a stage, and your job is to rotate and place them together so that at least four of the same colour stick together. When this happens they’ll disappear, let any clones on top of them drop down, and give you more room to place more blobs.

This probably sounds pretty easy, but the real trick is learning how to place the clones so you can set off combos of matching colours. The easiest way to do this is by placing colours on top of each other so that when a set of clones is cleared the ones above them fall into place and connect with matching Meat Boys, but it’s easier said than done. High level Puyo Puyo gameplay is particularly mind blowing when you see the chains and combos start popping off, but Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine is less about high scores and more about bloody carnage.

What makes this Meat Boy spinoff different to other puzzle games are the hazards that litter every single stage you’ll be presented with. Saw blades, swinging chainsaws and spooky ghosts litter every single level of this colour matching puzzle game, and are hell bent on ruining your carefully planned combos. If you happen to hit any of these hazards with your descending puzzle pieces you’ll immediately lose the level and have to start from the last checkpoint, but if they hit any of the clones you have placed on the ground they’ll just destroy them and leave you with less to match with. Navigating the hazards and making matches is hard work, and unfortunately not a whole lot of fun.

There’s definitely a reason why most puzzle games don’t have the constant threat of your coloured pieces being sliced into a pile of viscera, and that’s because it massively takes away from thoughtful gameplay. Even in the first world of Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine it’s rare you’ll find a moment to put together a clever combo of clones, because there’s either not enough room to set it up or there’s a saw blade waiting to clear it away after a few seconds. Even dodging the obstacles as your pieces fall is annoying, and the punishment of having to start over after one accident with an enemy is way too punishing. I ended up turning on invincibility on the accessibility menu so I could actually enjoy the game, but in doing so was basically just playing standard Puyo Puyo.

There are a couple of clever ideas in the game that are supposed to mitigate the difficulty somewhat. One of these is the temporary invincibility you get when you manage to pull off a combo. This would be really helpful if setting up combos was easier with all the hazards, but it’s a start. There are also checkpoints in the middle of stages that ensure you don’t end up losing too much progress when you die, and getting enough matches to trigger them is pretty manageable. Each level will still feel like a grindy war of attrition as you slowly manage to make your way closer to the next checkpoint, but it at least makes it plausible to make it through a level.

I’ve been hard on Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine, but it isn’t without its charm. One part of the game that’s undeniably great is the soundtrack, which is consistently banging. There are also some interesting elements that change as you progress in the story, like the designs of the clones as they evolve. It’s a cool visual twist that fits the narrative, and although not exactly important to the game as a whole I thought it was really neat.

Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine makes a great case for why you shouldn’t add dangerous platforming hazards to a perfectly good puzzle game. All the intricacy and combo planning that goes into a good round of Puyo Puyo is lost when dealing with Fetus’ saw blades, and I just ended up feeling frustrated. If you’re a real puzzle game whizzkid who’s looking for a challenge then maybe you’ll have more fun than me, but otherwise it’s worth keeping Puyo Puyo and Meat Boy as far apart as possible.

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This bundle of retro games is predominantly made up of the four classic Sonic games that we all know and love. Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 3 and Knuckles and Sonic CD are where you’ll spend most of your time in this collection. These (mostly) fast paced platformers are as much fun as you remember, with corkscrews, loop the loops and springs aplenty littering the colourful stages and ensuring you have a fun time spinning about. If somehow you haven’t played a Sonic game before, the blend of satisfying momentum through a stage and hazards to deal with is truly 16-bit magic, and you should get to beating Robotnik as soon as possible.

Another great reason to have all these wonderful Sonic games in one place is because it means you can have fun with all the different bonus stages. I absolutely love the various levels housing Chaos Emeralds in these titles, from the spinning mazes of Sonic the Hedgehog to the tunnels of rings and mines from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. A fantastic feature of Sonic Origins Plus is the ability to retry these stages when you fail at the cost of a measly collectable coin, which means gathering all the gems and turning into Super Sonic is more manageable than ever.

There are a few other helpful features that make the games less punishing too when you’re playing the Anniversary versions of the main titles. One of these is the removal of lives entirely, meaning that death no longer has a consequence other than pushing you back to the nearest checkpoint. You can also restart stages at any time, which is great when you miss out on gathering enough rings to unlock a bonus stage. Finally you can save your game at any time and play something else, which doesn’t exactly sound like a feature but back in the good old days you had to beat Sonic in one sitting or start over.

The ability to play a few dusty old games probably doesn’t fill you with the urge to spend £35 on a new video game, but there are a few extras that add some value to the package. My favourite of these are the missions, which are specially designed mini stages with objectives to complete and a time limit. The variety of these missions is pretty fantastic, with some showcasing Knuckles flying to kill enemies, as well as pacifist missions and specially designed mazes that’ll really test your skills. You’ll be rewarded with those precious coins for getting a good rank too, which you can spend over at the museum.

The museum houses all sorts of artifacts from the history of Sonic, from concept art to videos of live concerts playing the themes we all know and love. It’s a cool thing to explore for hardcore fans of the series, but after unlocking some of the cooler animated story scenes and music I still had a whole lot of change that I wasn’t bothered about spending on pictures of crabs.

Pretty much all these features were available in the original Sonic Origins when it was released last year, so why buy the new Plus version of the game I hear you ask. Well the main reason for this is supposed to be the added Game Gear games. These twelve portable titles originally released on Sega’s ill fated handheld back in the day, and it won’t take you long to notice their limitations thanks to that. Honestly these additional games are barely worth playing, with massive framerate dips, subpar level design and horrendous sound quality. There are much better versions of some of the games included on other systems too (like Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine and Sonic Spinball) so including these piss poor versions feels like a bit of a kick in the teeth.

The other new feature of Sonic Origins Plus is the addition of Amy Rose as a playable character. Playing as the adorable pink hedgehog brings a couple of very minor changes to your moveset, but for the most part she’s pretty close to a palette swap of Sonic. I like the idea of adding a new character to the collection, but it’d be nice if her addition had shaken up these classics a little bit.

When playing Sonic Origins Plus, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d played loads of better collections of Sonic games in the past. When I bought Sonic Mega Collection on the GameCube in 2002 it included most of the games you’d want to play from this bundle alongside classics like Ristar, Sonic 3D Blast and Mean Bean Machine, so the selection here just feels a bit lackluster. The games are still great of course, but especially for a more complete version of Sonic Origins it feels way emptier than it should.

My final issue with Sonic Origins Plus is one that can’t really be helped, but is still very unfortunate. The music in Sonic 3 (which for those who don’t know was initially developed in part by Michael Jackson) can no longer be used for licencing reasons, and it just isn’t the same without the tunes from my childhood. Obviously there’s no easy fix for this, but it’s a shame nonetheless.

Sonic Origins Plus is a great way to play four fantastic games, but the overall package is a little bit weak. The new additions to the Plus version are weaker still, making it hard to recommend even the budget priced upgrade let alone the full package. Despite this though you simply can’t deny the quality of the fantastic games in this collection, and if you’re desperate for a way to play them on modern consoles then you’ll probably still be happy spinning your life away.

The post Sonic Origins Plus review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

You’ll then proceed to tackle some more escapes centred around each of the three main suspects in the murder plot. Once you’ve completed each one, you’ll then be summoned to try and figure out who is responsible for the attempts on the headmaster’s life as part of the grand finale.

Gameplay remains pretty much unchanged from the main Escape Academy game. You’re pitched against various puzzle environments, where you have to move around and solve puzzles, crack codes, discover lock combinations, and more. There’s a set time for each one, although should you run out of time, you can always ask the game to add some more on for you, which is particularly useful if you’re right near the end and close to escaping. The hint system also returns, providing cryptic clues to progress to the next section of the puzzle, normally revealing just enough information to get you back on your way. Using hints or time extensions hinders your performance grade at the end though. So those looking for a sweep of A plus scores should try and steer clear of these and crack the escapes on their own.

And that feels perhaps slightly more plausible this time around. Escape from the Past feels slightly simpler compared to the Escape from Anti-Escape Island DLC, or indeed perhaps the more taxing parts of the main game. That’s not bad in itself, but those looking for the definitive challenge with this DLC may feel slightly disappointed. Sure, the countdown timer and large escapes add to a sense of anxiety and pressure. But in reality, most Escape Academy veterans shouldn’t struggle too much with the puzzles in Escape from the Past.

It’s difficult to say whether the timer just feels a little more generous or the puzzles just click now after so much practice, given this is the third time sampling the grey matter-whirring puzzles of Escape Academy. Either way, I definitely didn’t feel as pressured whilst playing, or nervous I’d run out of time as I did with the previous DLC. That’s not to say of course that it wasn’t fun. Escape from the Past is more Escape Academy in a good way in that the puzzles are varied, warrant exploration into all the nooks and crannies, and each task is a fair one, never feeling obtuse or forced. More often than not, you’re clear about what you need to generally, it’ll just be the how that stumps you for a while.

Escape to the Past is an interesting setting too because we’ve been here before – well technically after, chronologically – and so you’ll likely be familiar with a lot of the puzzle rooms you’re traversing. Sure the decor and clues are all mixed up, and some tweaks have been made, but you’ll remember a lot of these areas from the original game. And coupled with the fact you play as Solange, it’s a nice nod for fans of the story.

The flipside of that of course is that the puzzle rooms don’t feel as “new” as they usually do. And whilst there’s the usual “Oh that’s this area” each time, I still think the new and different areas in Escape from Anti-Escape Island felt fresher because we were exploring them for the first time. That said, the climactic moment of the the murder-mystery puzzle is well done. It requires you to piece together evidence making you feel like a modern-day Poirot, admittedly still with some dashes of Escape Academy bonkers puzzling thrown in too. It’s a nice little twist that gives the DLC purpose and a point of difference from the main game and other DLC.

Escape from the Past, then, is a nicely-crafted slice of escape room fun. It boasts the same level of quality, variation, and balance of head-scratching despite being fair puzzles that you’ve come to expect from Coin Crew Games in Escape Academy. It did feel slightly easier this time around, but the puzzles definitely will still stump you for a while. The murder mystery angle reaches a satisfying crescendo which leaves you in the driving seat to solve, and gives Escape from the Past its own vibe, despite looking very familiar thanks to its historical setting. This DLC is well worth a look for all Escape Academy fans.

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As is traditional in any farming game, you start your botanical adventure as a young whippersnapper who has inherited a farm. This time it’s because some relative has passed away, which means that the family dream of owning a successful farm falls to you. After getting a bit of help from the community you’re expected to get your hands dirty and sort out some produce to sell, so grab a hoe and some seeds and go hit the field.

If you’ve indulged in a bit of virtual farming before you know what to expect from the fruit and vegetable side of the game. First you’ll need to use your hoe on the soil to prepare it for planting, then pop a seed in and water it regularly until it starts producing food. It’s about as basic as farming gameplay gets, but when coupled with a need to manage your limited stamina every day it can become a little more strenuous.

It’ll take a while for you to really have to worry about getting too tired to finish your chores, but you should still prepare for this moment by learning to cook some stamina boosting snacks. You’ll find recipes for tasty meals dotted all over the village, but you can also experiment by cooking a couple of ingredients together and hoping for the best. Shoving a few vegetables together in a saucepan will probably produce some sort of tasty soup, but once you start finding scary mushrooms and dairy products it becomes a little trickier to freestyle your way to culinary greatness.

If you want regular milk and eggs for the kitchen (or just to sell for cold hard cash) you’ll need to get yourself some animals for the farm. At the start of the game you’re given a cow you can milk daily for a tasty sellable beverage, but with a bit of love, food and space to roam your livestock will become happier, produce higher quality goods and potentially even breed to give you even more furry or feathered friends. As long as you remember a few simple rules (like not letting your animals outside when It’s raining) you’ll have an endless supply of money and tasty food just waiting to be collected each morning.

An idyllic farm life is nice, but it’d be nicer with someone to share it with. Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life has you covered in this department, with a whole host of potential spouses just waiting to be swept off their feet if you give them enough gifts. Each love interest has different present preferences, so you’ll need to learn what your bae likes if you want them to move in. I personally went for the aloof girl who liked my fish because it was easy to get these for her, but if you’d rather pick flowers or whip up a tasty treat to impress someone then that’s an option too.

The first few days at the farm will probably seem a little boring, but before you know it you’ll discover all the extra things you can get up to to fill the hours of the day. Fishing is an easy option with plenty of opportunity for making money, but you can also go to the archaeological dig site and find some precious artifacts or head to the notice board and solve some of the problems of the other village people. Whichever route you take, with a bit of hard work you’ll soon start turning a profit which means more seeds for the garden, more animals, and plenty of kitchen upgrades to invest in if you really want to live the high life.

As much as I’d like to pretend that this loop of farming and chores is engaging in Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, it doesn’t take long for the whole experience to start feeling a little tedious. Everything just moves a little bit too slowly, and none of the side activities, festivals, or locals can distract from that. The lack of a hook to really pull you deep into this picturesque world just means it feels like a chore to play the game, and I think a lot of that is because of the outdated source material.

Not all aspects of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life feel old fashioned though. The character creation features the option for a non-binary character (which definitely wasn’t available on the GameCube!) and all the romance options are now available to you regardless of the gender you choose. It’s a relatively small change that doesn’t really affect how the game functions a whole lot, but it’s lovely to see a remake focusing on making the game more inclusive the second time around.

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life is a perfectly adequate farming game, but compared to some of the fantastic modern options out there it’s really hard to recommend. There’s just not a whole lot of interesting progression hooks to keep you invested in this world of countryside industry, and although the updated gender and relationship options are fantastic everything else about this game just feels dated.

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Let’s be clear for a moment, though: this is very possibly the best Aliens game we’ve ever had. It knocks spots off titles like Colonial Marines and Fireteam Elite. Dark Descent is to Aliens what Isolation is to Alien, and that means both good and bad news – though mostly good.

For example, it still paints the Colonial Marines as tough but dumb hombres more likely to charge headlong into the unknown than analyse a situation for five minutes first. It still has a plot that relies on people making the worst possible decision at every moment. Case in point is how Aliens: Dark Descent begins. You play initially as Maeko Hayes, a Weyland-Yutani administrator aboard Pioneer Station, in orbit around the planet Lethe. When a xenomorph and a bunch of face huggers get loose aboard the station, Hayes’ first thought isn’t to run like hell or even sound a station-wide alarm. Instead, she goes and investigates. Alone. Without a gun.

It’s in service to the gameplay, of course. This section acts as a tutorial as you control Hayes around the darkened corridors towards the main control mainframe, looking for a way to stop the aliens getting off Pioneer station and down to the surface of Lethe. Sadly, it all goes completely arse-up and Pioneer is all but destroyed, as is the USS Otago, a huge military transport vessel analogous to the Sulaco, which crashes on Lethe along with Hayes and Jonas Harper, a marine sergeant thrust into a position of leadership because everyone above him is dead. They soon learn that Lethe is already infested, and if you ever want to get out you’ll need to work with Harper’s surviving marines, physicians and engineers to salvage parts and get the Otago starside again.

It’s a classic Aliens set up, and Lethe may as well be LV-426 based on the way it looks and feels. But it’s deliberate, evoking the sense that all of Weyland-Yutani’s facilities are churned out on a production line with little thought for the people who will live and work in them. What’s crucial here though is atmosphere, and Dark Descent nails the ambience of James Cameron’s 1986 masterpiece at every turn. Much of the game takes place in the corridors of various colony settlements, abandoned mines, refineries, science facilities, off-planet locations, and even the windblown surface of Lethe itself.

What makes Dark Descent feel so authentic though is the marines themselves. Ostensibly you are Hayes, directing the squad from the Otago while Harper provides support from the ARC. This allows him to move around the map at your command so you can ferry marines to the objectives, pick up survivors, and provide ground support with the ARC’s huge pulse cannons. While the hub activity between missions feels very XCOM, the missions themselves actually remind me more of Red Solstice 2: Survivors, eschewing turn-based tactics for slow-burn exploration and creeping terror interspersed with fast-paced, desperate firefights against the Xenomorphs and… other enemies.

Having played every Aliens game back to the ZX Spectrum version, I wasn’t prepared for Dark Descent to be as tense as it is. Usually these are games designed around shooting galleries, as Aliens gallop at you in groups eagre to choke down your hot lead. While they do their fair share of zerging here, most of the time you’ll be dealing with single drones that can pop out of vents or appear on your motion tracker, hoping you don’t make enough noise to attract more. When higher category Xenomorphs enter the fray, you may well spend some time playing cat and mouse to avoid them altogether.

The mission structure is interesting though. There are multiple objectives in each area, and you’re sometimes allowed to complete them in whichever order you choose. Because your marines are only human, they will get tired, scared, and stressed out. You have limited medkits containing bandages and mood stabilisers, but once your marines are in a state of panic you need to get out as quickly as you can. At this point they become irrational, missing shots and fumbling reloads, and if they’re tired and exhausted they can be dragged away by drones and never seen again. Worse, they will develop traumas such as pyrophobia, paranoia, and PTSD that you’ll need to treat case by case.

Of course, you have more than a few tricks up your sleeves, too. You can deploy sentry guns, mines, or pull out flamethrowers and handy shotguns for close encounters. As with XCOM, marines who survive missions will earn XP, which means you can promote them and alter their class. Snipers, medics, teckers, officers, smartgunners; all are available and critical on mission. Bear in mind, though, that death is permanent in Aliens: Dark Descent. Lose a marine and don’t have a good autosave to reload, and they’re gone forever. You can’t save-scum as all saves are automatic, and it can get incredibly hectic when a horde attacks you. Sometimes you’ll need to buy yourself some time by welding a door, which can also grant you a shelter to relieve stress and, with the right perks, heal or resupply your squad.

What makes it tactical is that everything requires a currency. Medkits to heal, tools to weld doors and hack terminals, Command Points to use shotguns, flamethrowers, mines – or to lay down suppressive fire, which is like a mobile version of the overwatch mechanic. As you move around mission areas a counter will tick away until the Xenomorphs come for you en masse. When this happens, deploy whatever defences you have and dig in. You can either slow or pause time for breathing room, but every time this happens it feels desperate and terrifying. If you’re unprepared or all in strung-out shape, you’re better off leaving and coming back later.

The story weaves in and out of your missions, and in the central hub you’ll upgrade, train and customise your soldiers, develop new weapons, research the xenomorph threat, and treat the wounded and traumatised in the medibay or therapy room. In order to make things happen you need to advance the day, and each day that passes sees the infestation escalate. This is your Death Clock, and when time is up, it’s game over, man.

So you’ll develop strategies that see you get in, complete objectives, and get out, salvaging as many supplies, medkits and ammo packs as you can, ready to refresh and try again the next day – but always with the knowledge that every dalliance brings you a step closer to destruction. Of course, completing major story objectives can knock the infestation level down a little, as can some of the random choice-based events that occur whenever you advance time.

That being said, the story will move on when you complete certain tasks. It tells an interesting tale too, dealing with not only the xenomorph threat but also secrets hidden in Hayes’ and Harper’s individual pasts, as well as a doomsday cult that worships the alien. It’s pretty par for the universe, but I found myself engaged with the two leads throughout. And your marines, too, become familiar to you as you play, so that when you lose a character you’ve named and shaped for hours, it hits harder.

Aliens: Dark Descent does struggle a little in the visual department, however. While environments and animations are great, the character models aren’t so impressive close up. The lip-synching in cutscenes is also weird, and characters have a bizarre rubber mask look. One guy in the first few scenes just looks like a Spitting Image puppet of Elton John. It’s a little weird, but not a major issue as you’re rarely dealing with characters up close.

The audio kind of makes up for it, too. From the iconic chitter of the M41-A Pulse Rifle to the beep of the motion tracker, Dark Descent nails the sound design throughout. There are sounds that have come to be considered quintessential to the franchise and they’re all present here. By God though, does it need some more dialogue lines in mission. You can only hear “Come on, team!” so many times before it starts to annoy.

But Aliens: Dark Descent is more than just another game wearing Aliens clothes and mimicking its catcalls. It’s a genuinely tense experience that strives to make use of the license at every opportunity. The way your marines can retreat while shooting, the lines of dialogue lifted from the movie, and the look and feel of the environments, weapons, and enemies, all combine to produce something incredibly faithful to the source.

It’s only really let down by glitches that may well be patched out in launch week but which did hamper my enjoyment a little. Occasional crashes, progress bugs, visual glitches, and noticeable framerate slowdown and texture pop-in plagued me throughout, and I dearly hope Tindalos gets it sorted sooner rather than later.

Anyone waiting for a genuinely good video game adaptation of Aliens can finally breathe a sigh of relief, though. Far more than any FPS or squad-based shooter, Dark Descent feels like something worthy of the name. It’s not perfect, of course; the technical issues require swift attention, and there are moments of frustration thanks to your squad’s occasional clumsy pathfinding, or sudden spikes in difficulty that you just can’t see coming, but it’s also one of the most immersive and exciting tactical shooters I’ve played, and a worthy successor and tribute to Cameron’s sci-fi classic.

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So this Precision Drive technology. Are they just fancy buzzwords akin to FIFA’s HyperMotion, or does it actually offer something that’s noticeable while playing? Well, I felt the controls were clunkier last year, and while they were an improvement on the series, F1 23 is a huge step up. Regardless of whether you’re participating in F3 or F1, the changes are pretty obvious. Gliding around the track at breakneck speeds isn’t as intimidating, and the ability to overtake and get up close to other drivers won’t strike fear into you.

Weaving on longer straights and even going into corners offers up a ton of precision with the smallest flick of the left analogue stick, and breaking feels more responsive. These are powerful cars, and Codemasters has found away to balance precise handling with managing their power. It feels easier to overtake despite the dangers still being present, as acceleration is more accessible across all areas of the track, however, breaking is balanced and provides more control, especially going into tighter corners. There’s a focus on grip coming out of corners as well, and it feels as though the developers have listened to feedback from last year.

In terms of the latest chapter in Braking Point, the concept is much the same, however, there’s more reaction to both your performances on the track and off. It didn’t seem to matter how you performed before, as the cutscenes and feedback were all prepared for simply completing objectives. While this is still the case with the cutscenes, your actions are highlighted on your social media feed and in the newspaper headlines. For example, one of my objectives was to finish higher than the cocky Devon Butler, but I ended up landing the podium in second place.

This was pointed out on my feed, as various people were tweeting commenting how impressed they were despite the issues surrounding Konnersport Butler, the team I was racing for. Other objectives such as fastest lap are also mentioned, along with reactions to other happenings going on throughout the season. Aiden Jackson’s story now follows him racing for a new team who are having their fair share of engineering problems, not to mention being a teammate of Butler, owned by his manipulative father, Davidoff. It also introduces F2 maestro Callie Mayer to the frame, and watching everyone’s story unfold was rather fun.

In the past, EA hasn’t always got it right, but there’s proof that when it hits, it hits hard. Take for example the first entry into the NFL’s Longshot storyline; evidence that story can find a place in sports games. Braking Point 2 is no different, and while some of it is a tad predictable, and how much Jackson starts off rather arrogant himself, I still liked it. As various characters, you’ll choose how to respond to certain questions from the press, offers from the media, and conversations with team mates and employees. Seeing Casper Akkerman return was also cool, especially with his inclusion into Konnersport.

The Career mode feels similar to last year, although there have been some refinements to reflect the real-world ratings of teams and drivers. There’re more racers to choose from, and the inclusion of the 35% race distance and red flags can now be selected for the most up-to-date, realistic experience. You can also participate in the Las Vegas and Qatar circuits for complete immersion in the sport, and the general animations feel more varied that F1 22, adding new visuals along with an immerse commentary set up. While there aren’t any massive additions, it feels as though Codemasters have gone for balance and refinement, which both seem to have been easily achieved.

F1 World seems to have combined the lacklustre F1 Life and its online elements to provide a bulkier experience. You can unlock supercars, create your own, and customise your appearance and your home, while at the same time take part in races that reflect the real-world season. Unfortunately I couldn’t try the mode out due to pre-release, but I love how it looks, and making the mode feel more important and a lot more substantial is definitely a step in the right direction.

Whether you’re looking for the most realistic F1 experience in how it controls and looks, EA Sports F1 23 has nailed it. Races are thrilling and the attention to every little movement to the controller is reflected instantly, providing complete control on the tracks. Visually it’s impressive, both with how the courses look and how the animations are presented, and the sounds of the cars on the circuits are more than impressive. If you felt like last year’s entry wasn’t quite enough, or didn’t offer you the best racing experience it could, this is definitely a big step in the right direction.

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In our preview, we acknowledged that MotoGP 23 is going to be a tough cookie to crack for new players. While this is still the case, there’re various options known as Neural Aids that can help you drastically, if a little too much. On the most easiest setting, all you have to do is use basic turning to remain on the track. Acceleration, breaking, and controlling the bike is practically done by the game itself, meaning you have little control over the bike. It’s a good feature if you’re coming in fresh, but the stabilisers feel well and truly stuck to you without any real wiggle room to move.

If you feel too constricted this way, the next setting is much more relaxed, but the difficulty spike is rather large. Learning every aspect of the nuances of handling is going to take time, along with many falls off your bike, but if you’re willing to stick to it, there’s a challenge that once conquered, makes MotoGP 23 a thrilling racer. It’s tough, especially when the new dynamic weather plays a part, but learning the importance of when to break, take advantage of tight corners and long straights, and track layouts, is all part of the fun, and teaches you to become a better driver.

The dynamic weather is an excellent feature in MotoGP 23. You might start a race with the weather being a touch overcast or even sunny, and after a couple of laps the heavens will open and you’ll be forced to change how you race. With rain pouring down onto the tarmac, it’s easier to lose control. In one of my races in the Career mode, I had the red flags stop the race due to dangerous driving conditions. While it was frustrating as I’d fought hard to take the lead, I like how the real-life elements show themselves.

The Career mode is the best feature of MotoGP 23. Starting as a rookie, you’ll race to win and rise the rankings, all while having to deal with other racers through social media. Certain people will message you, be it a rival or someone within your own team, and how you respond can affect the way they race against you on the track. Do you want to create a salty atmosphere and risk aggressive driving, or play it safe and be nice? The option is yours, and while I noticed some of these choices come in to play, it wasn’t always obvious. There are also objectives like beating a rival in a competition or finishing in a certain position, giving you something else to work on while playing.

As you progress through your career, you’ll be able to upgrade your bike, choose teams to race for, and more, giving you plenty of things to think about in-between races. While the career has improved since last year, the racing is where MotoGP is at its best. What makes this better is how good it looks. Tracks around the world are intricately designed, as are the bikes and their racers, but so too is the weather. When it rains, you’ll see rain drops on the screen which can affect how cautious you have to be, all in all creating a realistic experience.

The haptics on the DualSense are remarkable, with every small bump or terrain change felt, along with gear changes and throttle being felt in the controller. A lot of focus has been put onto how MotoGP 23 performs on modern consoles, and it’s more than noticeable. While there aren’t a ton of modes to choose between, you can still create your own Grand Prix, take part in time trials, and go online against other racers. There’s also a ton of customisable options for your racer, adding a personalised touch to proceedings.

MotoGP 23 is an improvement on last year, with a Career mode that’s trying out new features to make each season feel different to the last. The dynamic weather is a standout, as it forces you to change on the fly when the rain starts to fall, and the visuals elevate the feature while also leaving you impressed with how good it looks. While it still features a tough learning curve, there’re aids in place to make the transition between difficulty levels easier, helping to offer a smooth racing experience whatever mode you’re in.

The post MotoGP 23 review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Essentially what Metalhead has delivered is a terrific balance of humorous, over the top cartoon charm, and a surprisingly deep set of gameplay mechanics that improve on the previous entries in the franchise and makes it a must buy for fans of America’s favourite pastime.

Whether or not you are familiar with the sport, the fundamentals of pitching, hitting and throwing are all implemented in a way that makes gameplay enjoyable, intuitive, and accessible. Striking the ball effectively is a simple case of getting timing right, whilst pitching is handled by using a simple aiming cursor. Being able to change the difficulty can make things easier and more simplified depending on the skill level of the player, meaning this is truly one that can be picked up and played by all.

There are a ton of features that offer all-new experiences or build on existing Super Mega fare. The level of customisation is frankly ridiculous and puts most fully licensed sports games to shame. The Shuffle Draft is one such winsome addition, which allows you to pick a roster that includes the fictitious (and nearly always highly charming, and hilarious) Super Mega stars with genuine licenced MLB legends like 25 time All-Star and in-GOAT-conversation Hank Aaron. There will also be over 200 other Legends that will be rotated in and out of rosters in the online Pennant Race mode.

The Franchise Mode is sensational, and one of the most enjoyable I have played in ages. You now have to be extra mindful of the chemistry within your team, and how the decisions you make will affect the morale of your team. An excellently implemented “loyalty” meter can swing both ways depending on how you deal with your charges. In keeping with the rich vein of humour that runs through the entire game, some of the player reactions will genuinely crease you up.

If you can develop a squad with pockets or cliques of players that share the same chemistry then it can give you buffs on certain traits. In game currency points enable you to upgrade the stats of players, and you can do so at whichever pace you wish: saving them to use down the line and rely on the chemistry and your own skill, or splashing them all in one go for instant baseball gratification.

However you decide to play, this is a superb looking title that is brimming with hilarity and comedic timing, with something for everyone. The presentation is whimsical and enticing and capable of drawing you in, but Super Mega Baseball 4 has massively addictive hidden depths that bely the cartoony feel, and for me place it amongst the best sporting titles to have dropped this year. It begs to be played in couch multiplayer with a few cold ones over the summer, but the franchise play will keep you going way beyond that. A home run.

The post Super Mega Baseball 4 review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

You play as a French soldier called Henri Clément during WWI who, after evading German fire, winds up on his own in a bunker plunged into darkness. After attempting to find your bearings, you realise you’re not alone. A nightmarish creature is stalking you, and when you first start to become aware of his presence, things go from bad to worse. As much as I hate this level of tension, I’m also enamoured by it. I struggled with Alien: Isolation for the same reason, except this time, you have less help on your side. There’s no handheld monitor, only your wits, and take it from me, they’ll end up being cut to shreds.

The first time I heard the growls of the beast through the crumbling walls, I felt my heart stop in my chest. I stopped dead in my tracks and tried to pinpoint whereabouts the sounds were coming from, but just like that, they fell silent. I had a crappy little dynamo flashlight that made a lot of noise every time it needed winding up, a revolver with a single bullet, and little else. You feel helpless, even when you start to gather other resources like flares and grenades, and that anxiety and fear is down to the exceptionally built moment-to-moment action.

You’re supposed to struggle at first. You’re supposed to feel like you haven’t got a chance of surviving. Every idea you have is either going to work or fail miserably, but the more you play and the more you experiment with particular outcomes, you start to gain a bit of confidence that everything is going to be alright. Of course, that confidence is dashed when the roars of the monster get so close and you run frantically back to the light, the safe space, or anywhere to get away from those horrifying noises. The first time I got caught, I audibly shouted myriad curse words at my screen, followed by pausing and stepping away for a while.

Amnesia: The Bunker is petrifying in the best possible way. Why did I continue to play when I knew that I could die at any moment? Why put myself through it again and again? Simply put, it’s incredibly smart. Despite it being rather dark at times, it pushes you to improvise, utilising the environment around you and the tools at your disposal. The freakish entity isn’t a fan of the light, and there’s a generator that can be re-fuelled with gasoline, and you have a stopwatch that syncs with the generator to tell you how much time you have left.

If you stray to far from the generator and the lights go out, there’s more of a chance you’re going to get caught. Using your flashlight is going to attract its attention if it’s relatively close, so is opening cupboards and doors, pulling cranks or running, and there’s little you can do to slow it down. You’re not entirely helpless, as the revolver can scare it off with a well-placed shot, but bullets are few and far between. You can use the fuel to pour onto the ground, then light it up to place a temporary barricade of fire, or place explosive barrels at certain spots that can then be blown up, and lead it towards wired explosives.

If for some reason you get injured, an untreated wound can cause you to lose blood, leaving a nice trail for the beast to follow. However, this can be used to your advantage if you’re happy to play with fire. I did it by mistake, but by bleeding all over the floor, I led it straight towards a barrel, and when turning around I was able to shoot it and send the monster fleeing. You have to use your initiative wherever you find yourself underground. While there are multiple options for you to escape, that sense of dread is always there, and it might be too much for some. I had to step away multiple times because I couldn’t cope with the anxious exploration, but it’s this fear that made me want to keep playing.

While exploring and searching through desks, cabinets, and other areas, you’ll start to piece together a narrative of what’s going on in Amnesia: The Bunker. It provides some background to the experiments being performed underground and to the various soldiers that have been a part of it, and while I found it interesting, the real story is the one you create for yourself. You learn about Henri, but it is how you play, the choices you make, and the encounters with the beast that will end up giving you the memorable moments of your own personal tale. There are rooms that require codes to get into, other sections of the bunker that will let you find new ways to survive, and countless documents and letters that sometimes offer clues.

Amnesia: The Bunker is not for the faint of heart. You’re always on edge and never truly safe, but it gives you multiple ways to escape being mauled by the beast and find a way out, all while setting the scene through various photos and documents. No items remain in the same place, meaning you can’t go back to an area and expect to find that item you need on a second attempt, and the claustrophobic nature of the gameplay is always ready to mess with your head. Frictional Games has set a new standard for horror games while pushing the boundaries of the Amnesia series to a whole new level.

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If you haven’t played a Katamari game before, the concept might sound a little unusual. You play as a little green fella called The Prince, and the aim of each stage is to push a ball (the Katamari) around the environment and roll up as many objects as possible. As the Katamari grows due to the amount of cakes, bottles of super glue and small children stuck to it you’ll be able to assimilate bigger objects, usually to a fairly ridiculous degree. It’s an extremely satisfying process, only made more entertaining by the silliness of the environment, lovely (updated) visuals and wacky soundtrack.

Controlling The Prince and his big ball of bits is rather unusual too, but once you get used to it the control scheme really works. To move forwards you hold both sticks forward, and can steer by releasing a stick or turn sharper by pushing the sticks in opposite directions. There are a few fancier manoeuvres too, like a dash done by pushing the sticks in opposite directions repeatedly. I know it sounds a little odd, but in the end it gives you a great deal of control over your Katamari.

You might be wondering why The Prince is so dedicated to rolling up objects. Well once a Katamari reaches a certain size it can be sent into orbit to become a planet obviously. This time around though The King of All Cosmos isn’t sending you on missions with the purpose of making planets, in a very meta twist you’re actually just taking requests from fans of the series and the planets are more of an afterthought. It’s nonsense at its finest, and the King especially is a truly wonderful character to interact with.

Once you’ve found a fan to help, you’ll be sent to a level to roll up some bits and bobs. Your standard stage of We Love Katamari Reroll sees you dropped into a location like a school, bedroom or zoo, and given a time limit to reach a certain size. It almost always feels like there’s easily enough time to accomplish this task, but at the end of each level you’ll set high scores and be generally moaned at by the King of All Cosmos for your poor performance which might make you go for a replay.

As someone who hadn’t played this particular game in the series, I was surprised by how many stages of We Love Katamari Reroll strayed from this tried and true path though. There was one stage where I had to light a campfire with my Katamari which meant avoiding water and constantly moving to keep the fire burning, in another stage my Katamari was replaced by a slender sumo wrestler who needed to bulk up for a fight so had to be fed as many kilograms of food as possible. My favourite stage though is set on a racetrack, and although it seems like a regular “get big” challenge you move ridiculously fast and do laps of the course while absorbing all the other racers. The variety is fantastic, and no matter what you’re doing it’s always a whole lot of silly entertainment.

There’s one part of We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie that’s entirely new too, and that’s the Royal Reverie bit. This mode takes you into the memories of The King of All Cosmos, when he was just another small dude pushing a Katamari. These five brand new stages are all pretty challenging, with some wild conditions to fulfil if you want to beat them. Personally I thought the difficulty of these made them the least enjoyable part of the game, but if you’re a long time fan starved for ball rolling content then you might feel differently.

It’s the little things that make We Love Katamari Reroll special. Things like when you finish a stage and can find out how big your Katamari is by comparing it to everyday objects. I absolutely want to know that my big stupid ball is as big as 54,609 pencil sharpeners, and the fact you can keep spinning a slot machine to change the comparison object is genius. I also love dressing up my little prince in unlockable accessories, and taking selfies mid level for no reason whatsoever. We Love Katamari Reroll knows it’s completely daft, and embraces it with gusto.

There’s not a whole lot to complain about in We Love Katamari Reroll, but one aspect of the game did irritate me a little. The King of All Cosmos likes to pop up and talk while you’re in the middle of a mission, and when he does this he blocks the whole screen. Honestly it’s not a particularly big issue, but it was enough to interrupt my good times a little.

We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie is a lovely remaster of my new favourite game in the Katamari series. The nonsense the series is known for is here in full force, and the variety of missions is fantastic. The new content isn’t incredible, but if you missed out on this game on the PS2 then you’ve got a hell of an opportunity to rectify that.

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You play as either male or female Agent 11, a Bourne/Bond-esque super agent tasked with infiltrating and dismantling six global gangs or agencies from the inside – often by smashing in faces and snapping femurs. There’s no spy work at play here beyond slapping the shit out of everyone who gets in your way.

It’s structured like a turn-based tactics game, with you allocated a set amount of movement and action points referred to as Momentum. Moves are dished out on cards, and you’ll begin each fresh run by selecting a deck with a certain theme. The default focuses on a mix of offence and defence, but others have specialisations or mixtures. You will need to unlock further options through progressions, so if you find yourself muddling on a little, hold tight and push through as you’ll eventually have a decent choice available.

I found most of the more successful runs to be book-ended by difficulty, particularly before I had unlocked enough new decks to vary my tactics. The challenge ramps up fast, too, as the game throws more and more enemies at you in small spaces crowded by vaguely defined furniture and scenery. The cards give you a good variety of attacks and defensive moves, but you must build up Momentum before you can spend it. This means playing certain cards tactically where possible, though there are times where you’ll have to make do.

Ultimately, you’ll be aiming to take out your enemies as quickly as you can, utilising the surroundings if possible. Smash their heads off a pipe or convenient for all works a treat, or booting them out the nearest window. The cast of enemies have various strengths and weaknesses, and it’s up to you to identify them and use them against your foes. For example, some enemies will attack with wild haymakers, and so luring them within range of their buddies will cause a chucklesome “accident”. Some have firearms and other weapons that you can manipulate and exploit.

The roguelike nature of the default difficulty means you’ll replay a lot of earlier missions (which you can skip after a certain point), but this has the upshot of getting you intimately acquainted with the mechanics of each enemy and card you can pull. You can also allow for replayable missions if you’d like a less strict challenge.

Another inspiration from John Wick Hex is the action replay when a mission is done. Ostensibly this is to show off your cool moves and level-headed tactics, but it suffers in the executions. It’s not smooth enough, and even with the dynamic camera on it judders and stumbles in motion. It doesn’t produce the kick-ass fight sequences it aims to, but it’s still a nice touch to have.

Fights in Tight Spaces has a solid core concept that mostly works in practice. It’s held back in some ways by its difficulty, which often demands perfection from the player and so leaves little room for real experimentation or risk-taking. Yes you can ultimately try different decks and combinations, but one wrong move can destroy you and so you’re discouraged from using tried and tested methods for each type of enemy.

Still, it’s a fun and stylish take on the turn-based tactics genre and blends deck-building and roguelike progression in a unique way that feels like it almost has a genre of its own. The replay system needs some fine-tuning and the difficulty may put you off at first, but it’s a decent game for those after a different kind of challenge.

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You split your time between two protagonists: lowly engineer Carter Diaz and decorated First Officer Jara Rydek. As the former you’ve been part of the crew of the U.S.S Resolute for a while, having been around six months before when an warp drive experiment almost obliterated the ship, and killed 20 crew members including the previous First Officer. As a result, tensions are high as Starfleet prepares to return the Resolute to active service despite the concerns of her crew. As the latter, you’re attempting to fill the shoes of your popular and highly thought-of predecessor.

It’s a narrative juxtaposition that mostly works, although Diaz often comes across as the slightly bumbling well-meaning sidekick to Rydek’s hyper-competent, no-nonsense leader. As both you’ll need to make decisions that impact how the supporting cast view you and, subsequently, treat you. A dangerous anomaly early on allows you to find your feet where the narrative is concerned, setting out your stall early doors in terms of who you’re likely to get on with better. From stiff upper-lipped Science Officers to enthusiastic fangirls, or from old friends joining the crew to a stuffy Vulcan Engineering Chief, there are plenty of faces to get to know and plenty of decisions to make.

Oddly, I much preferred the character stuff to the gameplay sections. You’ll often be asked to solve engineering issues as DIaz, for example, which are often so simple as to become a little tedious after a while. You also can’t invert the controller axis, which really irritated me when I was called to fire a phaser or pilot a ship, or even sneak around in some of the clunky stealth sections.

Star Trek: Resurgence is at its absolute best when you’re living out your Star Trek common fantasies, making split-second decisions on the Bridge or when out investigating alien worlds, solving problems that only you can solve. But as soon as it attempts to cut this with action-oriented gameplay the limitations of the engine simply can’t be ignored. Stealth in particular feels weird and awkward, and if you only had to deal with it once or twice I’d ignore it, but it becomes fairly frequent later on.

It’s a shame, because the setting, characters, writing and events are a Star Trek fan’s dream. Environments, particularly on the ship, are faithfully created, and all the technical jargon flows like a waterfall. Warp bubbles and tricorders and dialithium crystals may not mean much to the layman, but Trekkies will feel comfortably at home.

Where Star Trek: Resurgence really struggles, though, is in the visual department. It just doesn’t look very good, strongly resembling something like Mass Effect: Andromeda where character models are concerned. Dead-eyed stares, out-of-place expressions, weird pauses between lines of dialogue, and an overall woodenness to the animations compound to take you out of the moment time and time again. The models themselves are also far too uniform, and regardless of species every body shape is the same and only the head and hands appear alien, giving the impression that everyone is just wearing Halloween costumes. Starfleet in Resurgence seems to have a rigorous recruitment drive that requires everyone to wear the same size uniform with zero exceptions.

But as I said, die hard Star Trek fans will see past these imperfections and enjoy the ride. From escorting political ambassadors to heading into the unknown as part of a shore team, commanding a ship from the Captain’s chair to fiddling with the engines of an actual Federation Starship, there’s enough here to let you live out more or less any Star Trek fantasy you want to – within limits. A few famous faces from the greater universe also pop up from time to time, but it’s more fan service than crucial characterisation.

All in all, Star Trek: Resurgence offers a genuine thrill for big fans of the series, and more of a curio to anyone else. It’s neither as tightly crafted nor as good-looking as a Telltale game, but leans heavily on similar systems. Characters are largely well-written, and it feels authentic and true to what Star Trek is, but if you’re not much into the universe there’s little here to really hold your interest.

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The X Slayers are a powerful group of radical people who have sworn to fight the Psyko Sindikate. Our awesome protagonist Zane is a member of this badass group, and has pledged to defend the people of earth “even though they’re bleep-holes to us and don’t even deserve it”. When the Psykos find the Slayers’ secret base all bets are off, and only Zane remains to get revenge on these punks.

So you’re probably thinking this sounds like an awful story, and not necessarily that weird. Well, bizarrely, what makes this game interesting is actually the “developer”. This boomer shooter was masterfully crafted by the fictional character Zane Lofton from Hypnospace Outlaw. In that game he was your typical 90s teenage internet troll, and this is the video game he was drawing pictures of when he wasn’t bullying people online. Now in modern times Zane has found these old design documents, and enlisted a friend to help him make the game reality.

The end result is finally here. Slayers X is your typical DOOM/Quake inspired FPS, with 2d pixel enemies, big guns and a whole lot of gore. The pace is fast, the secrets are hidden, and the bad guys are plentiful. If you’ve played any of these classic shooters you’ll feel right at home, but at the very least Zane controls really well and is packing plenty of heat to deal with the Psykos.

You’d think given the fact that this game was “created” from the mind of a dickhead teen that it’d have some fairly outrageous weapons to use, but honestly they’re pretty standard. You start with double pistols, then as you progress through the levels you’ll find a shotgun, machine gun and rocket launcher to fill out your armoury. It’s for the most part a decent selection, but not necessarily a daring one.

There’s one gun that’s an exception to this rule though, and that’s the Sludge Launcher. This crossbow-like contraption fires globs of sludge which explode on impact like grenades, and also attracts rats which gnaw on the baddies. Some of the more standard guns have some interesting elements too, like the shotgun that fires glass instead of shells which means you can gather extra ammo by smashing shit up.

The enemies you use these violent tools on are, however, a little disappointing. There’s not necessarily a shortage of enemy types (from walking turds to demonic heads) but they’re all fairly stationary which makes fighting them feel a bit dull after a while. Even when the levels got fairly hectic later on I rarely felt worried for my health, and knew that as long as I just kept firing my explosive ordnance into the crowds I’d be okay.

The main reason for this game’s existence wasn’t to create the greatest FPS of all time, though, but rather to demonstrate what would happen if you allowed an awful teenage boy to create a video game. This means constant references to turds, one liners that disrespect the enemy’s mother and a whole lot of bragging about how cool the protagonist Zane is. I expected to absolutely love this downright stupid idea, but it turns out that even though it’s done ironically it’s still incredibly cringe-inducing to walk past shelves full of turd cereal and diarrhea burgers. The same can be said for the cutscenes that feature a main villain who constantly brags about banging your recently deceased mum. I guess I just don’t have a lot of nostalgia for my days of being an intolerable little shit.

There is one sin that Slayers X commits though that is far worse than any of the attempts at comedy. This sin is the fact that the glass shotgun feels way too weak, and shotguns are pretty much all I ever use in boomer shooters. It isn’t the only weapon that feels a bit pathetic either, which is a real shame.

Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer is a ridiculous concept for a video game, and it turns out there’s a good reason for that. The teenage boy inspired comedy just didn’t land for me at all, and the boomer shooter gameplay is just okay. As a massive fan of Hypnospace Outlaw I was really expecting to love this bizarre spinoff, and to say I was disappointed would be an understatement.

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For a relatively short game, Convergence packs in a serious amount of gadgets, powers and collectibles. It’s a MetroidVania at heart, as you bounce back and forth around small, compact areas, utilising Ekko’s suite of trinkets to get from A to B – and sometimes C.

The story focuses on the rivalry between two organisation, the Ferris Gang and the Poingdestre Family, who are locked in conflict over a rare mineral scattered across the city of Zaun following the explosion of a huge Spire. Joining forces with a slightly dodgy future version of himself, Ekko has no choice but to answer the call and put an end to both gangs before they can do permanent damage to the city.

Equipped with various time gadgets, Ekko is a pretty resourceful kid. Able to rewind time to undo damage or get out of scrapes, he is also able to combine a multitude of traversal moves to get around. You can wall-run, rail-grind, wall-jump, even teleport, and you’ll steadily unlock more and more powers such as the ability to slow time, and activate distant switches with a well-aimed throw.

Combat is a fast-paced affair, with a simple enough mix of melee attacks, parrying, and dodging through enemies. Red attacks can’t be dodged or parried, and later encounters become dense with enemies and projectiles. It’s not quite a bullet hell, but it feels close at times. You will need to utilise all of Ekko’s considerable abilities to survive.

Regular boss fights pit you against the controlling forces of the gang and the family as well as their toughest minions. It’s usually a case of pattern recognition and timing, but it’s easy to rely too much on the rewind mechanic and leave yourself open to attacks. Silly mistakes are costly in these boss battles, but the rewards are plentiful.

There are tons of collectibles to find in hidden chests that allow you to exchange goods with Ekko’s friends. You can customise your appearance, unlock special moves and skills such as a ground slam, and even assemble gadgets that can be equipped to increase Ekko’s innate abilities such as attack speed and survivability.

Convergence: A League of Legends Story doesn’t do anything really new or unique, but it’s a beautiful, fast-paced adventure nonetheless. It reminded me a lot of F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch, another superb steampunk-inspired Metroidvania. It’s aesthetically beautiful, incredibly stylish with some great animations that really convey the sense of speed well.

It’s all so wonderfully fluid, too, so racing from one place to another and solving puzzles to reach hidden chests never stops being fun. Some sequences require fast fingers and precise timing, holding platforms up with the power of time or slowing huge presses in a steampunk factory so you can dodge under them without being flattened.

Occasional issues with precision can mar the experience a little, though. Ekko has a time splitting technique that does massive damage to nearby enemies and it has an inexplicable tendency to just trigger on the other side of the screen – unless I missed a tooltip somewhere. Also, the platforming can sometimes feel a bit imprecise and fiddly, especially during challenge sections where the game is hurling enemies at you in quick succession.

Once again, though, Riot Forge demonstrate a commitment to this universe that goes far deeper than simply making bank. As with The Mageseeker and The Ruined King, Convergence is a fully fleshed-out experience that feels like it could exist completely separately to the larger franchise. It’s slick, good-looking, and very well-made, and developer Double Stallion have done an amazing job imbuing Zaun and its environs with colour and personality.

If you’re a fan of MetroidVanias, feel free to jump in with or without prior knowledge of the larger League of Legends universe. It’s a fantastic game in its own right, only held back by a few inconsistencies in the platforming. It may not bring anything truly new to the genre, but Convergence is a great time nonetheless.

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In Japan of old, two siblings have been raised in a secret village to become the mightiest warriors since birth. This is because the Empress Himiko has plunged Japan into an age of chaos and misery, mainly because she’s possessed by a god who’s a real piece of work. After one last bit of training Ayame and Kensei are sent off on a quest to take back the country from evil and make all the civilians happy again, which might not be the most original of stories but it certainly gets the job done.

As you may have guessed from the name, you actually play as two characters in Chronicles of 2 Heroes, and this doesn’t just mean switching between characters when you fancy it. This is because they both have abilities that you absolutely must use to make it through even a single screen of the game. Ayame can jump and throw kunai, whereas Kensei can attack with his sword and do a horizontal dash across long distances. You read that right, one of the characters in this platformer can’t jump, so it’s a good job you can swap between the two with a cheeky press of the X button.

It’s a really fun mechanic, and means you’ll constantly be switching siblings to make it past tricky platforming puzzles. Maybe there’s a big line of flames that only Kensei can dash through, but on the other side there’s a punk with a bow whose arrows you’ll need to jump over. Swapping characters is instantaneous, so once you get used to how often you need to tag in your other hero it becomes second nature and feels amazing.

The basic abilities of the duo are fine, but it won’t take you long to start unlocking a shed load of other moves to play around with. Ayame gets a double jump pretty quickly which changes the game, whereas Kensei soon unlocks the ability to slice through enemies in his path when he dashes. The medallions that unlock these skills come thick and fast, and always lead to a new selection of tricky platforming challenges.

Honestly, tricky might be an understatement. Within the first hour of playing Chronicles of 2 Heroes I found an optional route leading to a health upgrade that was probably the toughest section of a game I’ve played this year. With constantly spawning flying enemies and vanishing platforms over a pit of flames I died over and over again until I finally made it to my reward, and it felt a little excessive for the opening area of a game. I suppose I could’ve skipped this area and proceeded down the main path, but I don’t really want to imagine how hard the rest of the game would’ve been with one less heart. The difficulty only gets worse later in the game too, especially when the checkpoints start to drift further and further apart.

Perhaps the mechanic that got me killed the most in Chronicles of 2 Heroes though was the parry. Both Ayame and Kensei can parry attacks, but in totally different ways. When Ayame uses a parry successfully she teleports behind the source of the attack, which means you can reach otherwise inaccessible places with ease. Kensei’s parry reflects projectiles, which although less flashy is very helpful against some tricky enemies. The idea of these different damage negating abilities is great, but in practice it’s another story. The window for parrying attacks is actually pretty long, but is way way before anything actually makes contact with your character. Trying to wrap your head around this timing is an absolute nightmare, and because of this the sections where you have to parry feel awful.

Chronicles of 2 Heroes describes itself as having MetroidVania elements, and that’s a very accurate description. Every so often you’ll see a path you can’t access with your current setup, and will need to come back later (using a handy teleporter) if you want the upgrade or hidden collectable cat that’s hiding at the other end of it. There’s not full on backtracking through areas, but it’s definitely worth remembering any suspicious bits of a level you go past.

It’d probably be easier to keep track of the places you want to return to if the map was a little more useful though. The whole thing is just a purple mess of squares, and has no points of interest marked on it whatsoever. You also can’t zoom it out far enough to see more than a small area, scrolling around on it is sluggish, and it takes a few seconds longer to load than is ideal. It might sound like a small aspect of the game to nitpick, but it’s really bloody annoying.

It might sound like I have a lot of complaints about Chronicles of 2 Heroes, but I actually really enjoyed playing it. It definitely helps that the 16-bit aesthetic is lovely to look at, and that the soundtrack is chiptune joy. It’s so close to being an absolutely great title for fans of tough as nails platformers, but a handful of issues hold it back from that.

Chronicles of 2 Heroes: Amaterasu’s Wrath is full of fantastic platforming and clever ideas, but has a few dodgy elements that prevent it from being truly great. The map and parry are just plain bad, and the difficulty is a little excessive especially at the very start of the game. The two character system and amount of upgrades you get for each of them is really impressive, but it probably won’t be enough for most people to forgive its issues.

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Diablo 4 has been a long time coming. The third game was originally released as a PC exclusive in 2012 and despite its long-running seasonal model, fans have been waiting for a full-blooded sequel for some time. Not content with a full remaster of Diablo 2 nor fully sated by the money-grabbing Diablo Immortal, we’ve been waiting impatiently for a proper continuation of the series for eleven years. And here it is, in Diablo 4 – but is it everything we wanted it to be? Very probably almost.

This new entry is set some time after the events of Diablo 3. The Prime Evils are still imprisoned, but a misguided sect has resurrected Lilith, the daughter of Mephisto and niece to the titular Diablo. The opening cutscene wastes no time in establishing this world as violent, bloody, and pitch dark, and the rest of the game continues apace. As the Wanderer, your fate is tied to both Lilith and her father, as you must race to stop her from consuming his trapped soul and becoming powerful enough to control or destroy all of Sanctuary.

The campaign story does a solid job of pulling you through the massive open world, introducing new characters and reminding us of a few old ones along the way. You’re primarily aided by Lorath and Donan, former Horadrim mages who are all that remain of the once-powerful order that has battled against the Prime Evils for centuries. There are few major surprises in the narrative, but as in previous entries, the story isn’t afraid to get very dark, very quickly, and it’s certainly an entertaining, if bleak, tale. The action will shift into cutscenes quite often, offering much more of a cohesive plot than in previous games, but now and then you’ll be treated to a full CGI cinematic and each one is, as usual, breathtakingly well made.

Of course, this being Diablo 4, the story is secondary to the gameplay in every way. Those familiar with the series or the genre will know what to expect. You create your character from one of five classes, and begin as a lowly nobody who will eventually become a god-slaying powerhouse regardless of class. The campaign leads you from place to place completing multi-branching quests within a 6-Act arc, but dozens and dozens of side quests, world events, hidden shrines, altars and dungeons will vie for your attention every step of the way.

Diablo 4 is a huge game. Indeed, Sanctuary is a huge world, and even after almost 35 hours, with the campaign finished, I hadn’t uncovered all of the map when I jumped into the endgame. Blizzard have promised that each of their upcoming seasons will have a new theme and self-contained story which will revisit areas all over Sanctuary, but there are lots of reasons to simply explore. There are 120 optional Dungeons, each one quite large with multiple objectives and boss encounters that reward powerful loot and Aspects, which are unique effects you can apply to your gear to make it Legendary. Added to this are single-room cellars and sprawling Strongholds.

These Strongholds, such as the village of Nostrava, are long-form, higher level challenges but well worth doing for the loot and Renown they grant. Renown is a measure of your overall fame in each of Sanctuary’s main areas, and is earned mainly through exploring and uncovering fast travel Waypoints or the hidden Altars of Lilith. It’s worth grinding, too, as Renown grants things like skill points, and extra health potions for all of your characters.

It’s hard to talk too much about the loot economy. The build we played for review wasn’t the final version (for example the real money storefront wasn’t live or even present – though we were given a glimpse of how it should work), and so it’s hard to know whether Blizzard will tweak drop rates. Rare items seemed to drop most often after around level 25 (the soft cap is 100), with Legendaries being much less common. It did feel like items dropped far below my current level a lot, which meant I was upgrading my gear more often than changing it. Which may be deliberate, as there’s more of an emphasis on improving what you have than constantly swapping gear out. The transmog system allows you to break down any new item to unlock it as a cosmetic skin, so you won’t get bored of looking at the same set of armour for hours.

Diablo 4 often feels at odds with itself in terms of accessibility, though. While there’s a host of new or improved features such as the transmog system, the mount, and being able to transfer unique effects between your gear, it’s really not very kind to new players. The onboarding isn’t great, very little is tutorialised, and things like Aspects, Strongholds, and even some of the skill effects aren’t properly explained. Veterans, particularly those who played Immortal, may have an easier time, but newcomers will likely be scratching their heads over exactly what Overpower does, for instance.

And yet, despite some small issues in terms of design, Diablo 4 is still a fantastic game with so much content to get into. Once you beat the campaign you can choose to skip the story with subsequent characters, and start tackling Whispers of the Dead quests, which is this game’s answer to Diablo 3‘s bounties. These are events that pop up on timers for you to travel to and complete in order to earn Grim Favors, which you can turn in at an endgame vendor for special rewards. After beating the game in World Tier II, you can opt to tackle a Capstone Dungeon and unlock the next difficulty tier to keep the challenge feeling fresh and worthy of your might.

Everything can be attempted in co-op, with up to three others. Monsters scale with you and the game will favour the host’s world state, but it’s a great way to get through tougher content. While you will see other players out in the world, this is promised to be minimal, though you can see other players in towns and safe zones to socialise and trade items. Interestingly, the difficulty scales with you in every area, so even returning to Fractured Peaks at level 50 won’t be a total pushover. It’s a great way to ensure that nothing ever feels trivial, and even if it does get too easy you can always up the world tier or grind Strongholds and World Bosses.

If there’s one huge, glaring issue though, it’s the forced online aspect. In real terms, there’s no reason for this game to have an always online requirement. It may help Blizzard track analytics and will certainly ensure that the storefront and Battle Pass are ever-present, but in terms of benefit to the player, well, there is none. If anything, it causes issues with stability and performance. Although Blizzard assures us that crashes and rubber banding won’t occur when the servers are live at launch, I’m not convinced. Without an always online requirement, these things wouldn’t be an issue at all. It’s especially frustrating as a solo player who isn’t interested in microtransactions that you’ll be forced into a suboptimal environment for reasons that even Blizzard can’t fully explain with a straight face.

Sadly, this aspect simply holds back what is otherwise an excellent game. I played through with a Barbarian having taken a Rogue and Necromancer to level 20 during the Beta test, and then jumped in again as a Druid after I finished the campaign, and I can honestly say that every class so far feels great. There’s so much build variety that I was constantly respeccing my skills and adjusting my character, eventually settling on a Thorns/Bleed build that made mincemeat out of almost anything. Yet it never felt super easy on World Tier II.

It’s also a stunning game. The atmosphere is exceptional throughout, each area truly standing out with its own personality and ambience. From the frozen north to the deserts of Caldeum, from Kejhistan to swampy Hawezar, it never stops impressing. Even individual dungeons, caves, and towns feel different, and while many enemies are re-coloured later, there’s a rich variety of design. But perhaps more impressive than the visuals is the sound design. Not only does every score evoke a sense of the grandiose and the macabre, but the ambient sound is also spectacular. Playing with headphones, you can’t help but be immersed. Corridors echo with faint cries for help, creatures scurry in the shadows, growls and howls peel across the walls towards you. Outside, the wind and rain lash the world, as fires crackle and ancient signs creak in protest against the weather. It’s some of the best sound design in the genre, and never fails to convey the grim essence of Sanctuary.

Whatever your views on the online element or the premium store when it goes live, it’s hard to argue against the fact that Blizzard has built a game for the fans. Newcomers will muddle through and eventually pick it up, but veterans will feel right at home with Diablo 4. Despite a few odd design choices and a campaign that arguably goes on a few quests too long, there’s so much here to get into that it’s difficult to muster any real complaints where the gameplay is concerned. Loot economy and build diversity are impossible to really analyse until after launch, when more people are in the endgame sharing details, but it’s unlikely to disappoint at release.

Diablo 4 is no great evolution of the franchise, but it’s a solid entry nonetheless. It may not reinvent the wheel, but what it adds to the experience is, mostly, very welcome. There’s more scope for building a character truly unique to you, more content than any game in the series has ever offered at launch, and a hugely addictive, rewarding gameplay loop that will continue to evolve season after season. If you can make your peace with the online element and get your head around some of its more complex systems, Diablo 4 is an incredible adventure in a dark, compelling world.

Note: We played a pre-release version of Diablo 4 on a low-population server, and our progress was deleted after the review period closed.

The post Diablo 4 review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Which is why in 2015, developer Nightdive Studios released an updated version of System Shock that made it once more accessible to PC gamers. It garnered such an interest that the same devs decided to take the concept further, and remake the entire game. The result is this: System Shock Remake, a faithful-to-a-fault homage to that ancient sci-fi horror classic.

It casts you as a hacker lost aboard Citadel Station, where a rogue AI called SHODAN has unleashed murder and mayhem. Like in Bioshock, the cause of the disruption isn’t immediately apparent. There are blood and bodies everywhere, shambling zombie-like enemies, and a lot of cameras and security turrets that really, really don’t like you.

To the more vehement fans of the original, it’s worth saying that the Remake does a solid job of recreating the gameplay and mechanics of the original, but it’s kind of a warts and all deal. While the puzzles remain intact, along with the layout of each area and the placement of enemies, certain things have been enhanced and modernised.

The combat, for example, is faster and more fluid, but it remains the weakest link in the chain. Melee weapons lack impact, and the shooting – particularly with the first few guns – feels wishy-washy at best. Enemies move towards you without much intelligence, and they rarely even strafe to avoid fire. It has all the feeling of an old school boomer shooter without the “boom”. Weapons hiss and fizzle, and nothing feels precise enough to be considered thrilling.

What is thrilling, however, are the hacking sections that see you “enter” the computer system. The game switches neatly into what feels like a space shooter, as you fend off digitised defences while connecting nodes by shooting at them. While it’s easy to get turned around and even easier to fail, these sections at least feel exciting.

Exploring the station – when not in combat – is compelling enough. You’ll need to piece together what happened from the scraps of info you can find, and while the mystery itself is nothing original, it does foster a genuinely tense and creepy atmosphere. Sound design is solid, too, which helps immerse you in the environment even when you’re just poking around the corners looking for clues or snatching everything off the shelves.

For a game purporting to be a remake, there are some frustratingly awkward systems at work, though. For example, the inventory is awful if you’re playing on a controller (and it’ll be interesting to see how that’s handled for the console version, coming later). It’s clunky and unwieldy, and I really can’t work out why when there are so many solid examples of inventory systems out there. For now, it’s far better experienced with mouse and keyboard, again: like the original.

It does look pretty beautiful though. It’s all deep reds, bright yellows, and dark blues, evoking a 90s-era Cyberpunk aesthetic that sings on the screen. The slight pixelation of the graphics is a gloriously creative touch, too, invoking your nostalgia while still looking modern and flashy. Many of the puzzles have a similar look to the original, and solutions you struggled to find 29 years ago remain intact here, so there will be no shortage of guides and walkthroughs that will get you through even with the updated visuals.

One thing that desperately needed an update is the signposting – in that there is none. New players will constantly get lost in Citadel Station with very few clear clues on where to go next or what to do. You will kind of just do things as they became available to do, hacking things for reasons you won’t really appreciate, or smashing zombies and cyborgs to bits because they are there to be hit or smashed. Again, fans or veterans of the original probably won’t have this issue, but newcomers may find it too obtuse to be enjoyable.

Regardless of which elements work and which fall flat, the System Shock Remake is a tricky game to whole-heartedly recommend. If it’s for fans of the original, it doesn’t really add anything to the game they already love. If it’s for newcomers who never played the original, then no amount of fancy graphics will cover up the dated mechanics, lacklustre combat, and clunky menus.

Perhaps if you’ve always wanted to play it but never had the chance, there’s something here for you, but otherwise the System Shock Remake occupies an odd little middle ground between a true remake and a graphical remaster that makes it more of a curio than anything else.

The post System Shock Remake review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Our godly protagonist Gaia has a tough task on her hands, because the Earth is all but ruined. Guided by the voice of a big tree (obviously) it’s up to her to free the ghosts of all the now extinct animals on the planet, and fight back against the pollution. This isn’t an easy task though, because we really did a number on this poor world.

Now from that description of the story you’d probably assume that this was a narrative based game, maybe with a bit of wandering thrown in for good measure. Nope, After Us is a full blown 3d platformer set in this currently miserable location. You’ll spend the majority of your time in the game jumping between abandoned cars and climbing ruined buildings, all while looking for the best collectables in video game history.

Finding the ghosts of extinct animals is just delightful, because when you release them from their slumber they appear about the world. This means cute dogs, majestic oxen and playful pigeons will bring the linear levels to life once you free them, with plenty of them happy to provide some petting opportunities too. Dashing through caves full of furry friends is my idea of a good time, and watching the sky fill up with spectral fish in certain sections truly is a sight to behold.

In terms of actual gameplay, After Us is no slouch either. Gaia has plenty of movement abilities to play around with right from the start of the game, like running, double jumping and even an air dash. As time goes on you’ll unlock moves like the ability to climb certain surfaces and grind on vines, and before you know it you’ll be getting up onto all sorts of desolate structures on your quest.

The platforming in the game is perfectly serviceable, but could definitely be better. Gaia is very floaty to control, and getting her to land where you want her to can be a bit of a challenge. Alongside this she will also die when she falls from a high place (which happens way more often than you’d think) and there are patches of evil goo that kill you instantly if you get close to them. These platforming niggles and environmental hazards aren’t too much of an issue early on, but as the game progresses the added difficulty brings them to the forefront.

Despite these issues the platforming is for the most part enjoyable, which is more than can be said for the combat. The enemies in After Us are known as The Devourers, and they’re essentially greedy zombie humans who have sucked the planet dry. To take them out you have to fire your magic floating orb at them, while dodging their attacks. The main issue with this is that your projectile based offence rarely hits the target, and when it does it barely deals any damage. Inevitably this just means that a Devourer will manage to grab you mid-fight and you’ll have to mash X to escape. To call this combat loop tedious would be an understatement.

It isn’t all bad for After Us though, visually the game is absolutely stunning. The tragic environments of the decimated world are truly a sight to behold, from the highways of floating cars to the dusty wastelands packed with decaying buildings. Perhaps the best visual moments though come from you using your nature powers to cover nearby surfaces in grass. Standing under a pylon and covering it in lush green plants never stops being satisfying, and is occasionally even important to progress.

I should mention the technical issues I experienced playing After Us, because they are pretty noticeable. When loading in new areas the game often freezes for a few seconds before letting you continue, and this happens pretty regularly. It’s hardly going to ruin the experience for you, but it did take me out of the action during some fairly special moments.

After Us is a beautiful game with an important message about how we live our lives as consumers, that ultimately struggles to provide engaging enough gameplay to stick the landing. Setting ghost critters free and exploring the world is enjoyable, but the floaty platforming and dodgy combat really let it down.

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The story told in The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a faithful one, and when it isn’t hampered by its various issues, I found it interesting how he was able to escape the belly of the beast under the Dark Tower of Sauron to being captured by the elves in Mirkwood. While it’s a constant battle not being put off by the voice actor’s portrayal of Gollum, the acting is strong by all characters. Andy Serkis did such an incredible job in the movies that anyone else is going to have a tough time playing him, and while not based on the films, it was impossible not to wish Serkis was at the helm of the character’s journey.

While that’s more a personal issue with not hearing Serkis, the voice acting is still strong. The constant bickering between Gollum and Sméagol is great, and knowing what we know from the books, Daedalic has been faithful in the source material, managing to tell a strong story featuring potentially the most interesting character in all of Tolkien’s work. It was also cool to see other facets of The Lord of the Rings feature throughout, whether involving particular elves or creatures within the darkness. There’s always a neat reference for the player to enjoy, and I shan’t ruin them for you here.

As Gollum, you’ll climb up huge structures, sneak past those who seek to capture and kill you, command companions, solve the odd puzzle, and more. Moving is sometimes loose and unresponsive, and the animations of certain actions feel off. When climbing, certain areas aren’t visible, and you only know to jump because an option to do so appears in the corner of your screen. While the stealth sections can be fun, I found enemies were just too dumb for their own good. Trying to lure out an orc by throwing a stone right at its feet didn’t illicit a response, and neither did throwing one at a huge metal pot.

When you have to command someone to move, you only get select positions to move them to, and it feels like an arbitrary addition to the gameplay. The controls lack polish and fluidity, and whatever I was doing, I could never put my full trust in the systems at my disposal. There are constant checkpoints so overshooting a jump or falling from too greater height can allow you to jump back in sharpish, so there is a way to mitigate some frustrations. There were times when I enjoyed certain moments of gameplay, especially when trying to climb up high into the Dark Tower and follow my trusty bird to steal some keys.

Sometimes I started floating on something I was trying to jump over and was unable to get off until it was too late, and crawling through small spaces was awkward. The whole concept of constantly battling between the two personalities of Gollum and Sméagol offered some clever breaks in gameplay as you can choose certain responses to those you have to talk to, and I like how you see his familiar traits of sneakiness and guile play into the story. You have to try and convince the other of the right course of action, but again, this could have just taken place organically.

The visuals are another problem at the heart of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. From the rough animations to texture popping, it doesn’t take advantage of the PlayStation 5 at all, whether in Performance or Quality mode. I had moments where Gollum was speaking yet his mouth didn’t move; cutscenes break suddenly into gameplay moments far too abruptly (although this has been sorted somewhat via a patch), and the same two aspects interchange randomly. There were sound issues, too. I had dialogue just stop halfway through a sentence, and characters talking over each other. The loading screens came out of nowhere and suddenly ended a cutscene without seamlessly transitioning.

I really wanted to love The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. While the story is its strongest feature, the technical issues hound almost every facet of it. From the visual glitches to a lack of polish in its gameplay, it’s hard to recommend this to those looking forward to venturing into Middle-Earth once more. While I’m sure future patches will fix some of the issues, I don’t think it’ll become a title that will stand up against some of the other great Lord of the Rings games we’ve seen over time, and as a lifelong Tolkien fan, I’m upset this wasn’t the game I wanted it to be.

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The bulk of Railway Empire 2 takes place in the campaign, where you’ll get to experience the rise of the locomotive across the world. It provides an extensive tutorial where you’re given a ton of guidance for how the fundamentals work. Sometimes when games are this detailed, you can be overwhelmed by what to do and how to manage your empire. While there is a lot you’ll have to learn, the campaign doesn’t rush you, and you always have plenty of time to do what needs to be done. There’s also a ‘Tips and Tricks’ menu that offers all kinds of details to help you along the way.

The main goal of Railway Empire 2 is to build railway lines to transport goods like wheat, meat, and cloth across the continent as cost effectively and efficiently as possible. You start by building two railway stations, tracks to join them, assigning railway routes, building gridirons to allow an effective flow of travel, and issue trains to get the job done. Maintenance and supply towers need to be build along the tracks, and making sure your lines don’t have lots of tunnels or bridges is the best way to save money. You’re always weighing up cost with efficiency, and this makes what you do one of the most engaging elements.

It’s been made easier to lay down tracks in Railway Empire 2 which is vitally important as its the basis of everything you do. Railway stations can have up to eight lines, meaning you can connect them to various mills and yards that produce key resources, along with joining up cities across the globe. You’re given constant guidance as to how much a line will cost so as not to dip into your budget too much, however, as you progress, you can take out bonds and pay it back, buy out the competition, and thrive in a multitude of ways to make sure your funds are always topped up. You can also expand your stations to include a wealth of options to improve both productivity and appeal.

Making sure you have hotels at stations allow passengers and mail to change trains. Warehouses help to keep more stock of valuable materials so they don’t impact supply runs. Productivity needs to be at an optimal level for your cities to grow, and as your population grows and you complete the various tasks throughout the campaign, you’ll be given the ability to research new trains, buildings, and more via Innovation Points. I’m describing it at its most basic level, but the attention to detail and level of crafting in how you go about thriving in the locomotive world is fantastic. You can even hire saboteurs to damage rival train companies, and while this doesn’t have to be done, it offers yet another way to approach how you build your empire.

Railway Empire 2 doesn’t have the greatest of visuals, but there’s so much detail. From high above the map, you can see a the country and its various cities and supply points, but when zooming in, you can see people going about their lives, intricacies in the designs of train stations and the trains themselves, and more. I loved using the camera view of the trains to go from one place to the next, pulling the horn and relaxing as we picked up our next shipment of corn. It was a nice break from the dealings of my company, but those business decisions were equally as exciting. Hiring employees, trading, buying properties – I enjoyed it all.

Outside of the campaign, there’re a ton of scenarios for you to dive into, along with a free play mode that allows you to set your own parameters. Gaming Minds Studios has given players a ton of options for how to play, and whatever mode you favour, building your empire is both exhilarating and engaging. Some players might be put off by the wealth of options, but take your time to learn its intricacies and there’s hours of gameplay to enjoy. Making mistakes is part of the process, and after a few small stumbles, I was able to make the most out of Railway Empire 2.

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It casts you as a space marine of the Ultramarines chapter sent on a mission to investigate corrupt Adeptus Mechanicus on the forgeworld of Graia. After your dropship crash-lands on the Chaos-infested planet, your mission is fairly simple: kill the ever-loving shit out of every xeno, heretic, and slathering Chaos beast that so much as looks at you funny. Actually, scratch “funny”. Hell, scratch “looks at you”, too. Just kill them all. If there’s time, maybe gather that intel for the Inquisitors while you’re there.

Armed with a chainsword on the left trigger and a selection of weapons from the titular Boltgun to a powerful plasma rifle, and equipped with a spread of devastating grenades, your only real mission is to get out alive while making sure everything even slightly non-human looking has a really bad day.

I’ve been getting genuinely fatigued with the constant wave of “old school boomer shooters” that think the best way to take Doom’s crown is to dress up like Doom, break into Doom’s dressing room, and hope no one notices the new “king” is looking a bit anaemic and not walking right. Boltgun doesn’t do this. Boltgun takes the crown right off original Doom’s head and promises to return it in a few days, thanks.

Whatever alchemy Auroch Digital have worked here, it’s potent. Boltgun feels frantic and exciting, violent and cathartic, but so straightforward that it never feels like work. There are no gimmicks, no attempts to innovate on a tried and tested formula, and yet somehow it doesn’t feel trite. The 360-degree shooting has a modern bent, with auto-aim locking to leaping, jumping targets and making your life easier. But beyond that, everything is so superbly old school.

You can alter the graphics if you like to be less pixelated and much smoother, but it has no effect on the gameplay. Either way there’s an impressive level of detail in the environments, and the enemy design is great. It’s easy to tell exactly what you’re shooting at in just a glance. Of course, this being a Warhammer 40K game there are skulls everywhere; in the decor, on your guns. I feel like furry dice in this universe would just be little dangling skulls.

Strafing and dodging bullets, grenades, fireballs, and acid spit is the order of the day. If anything, there are moments when it becomes a little too frantic. Surprisingly, the default difficulty is Easy (though there’s also an accessibility mode that lets you turn off death), and I had to up it to Medium early on because it felt a bit too much of a cake-walk.

Boss fights in Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun are presented without too much fanfare. You’ll suddenly run into an enemy with an usually long health bar, often with a few extra skulls on it, natch, and after you kill them they often become regular enemies in the following stages. Most levels will have you “purge” an area, and the screen will go a shade of red and you’ll be required to obliterate everything until the screen goes back to normal. This is where the game ramps up in difficulty for a few minutes, and you can’t hoover up health and Contempt (that’s Armor, to you and me) as fast as you lose it.

Often during these sections you’ll be given one of several power-ups such as a one-hit-kill buff that lasts 30 seconds or a damage boost to your boltgun. It’s not quite the same as the berserk mode in Doom as you can still get flattened if you stand still too long. This is the big issue though: it’s very easy to get turned around due to vast sections of each level looking the same, and you’ll backtrack a lot through very similar environments.

More than once I started to feel just a little motion-sick charging around the missions looking for a colour-coded key or corresponding door, and although the missions are fairly linear, it’s not always easy to tell which direction you should be heading in. You have a servo-skull floating around with you that will often tell you if you’re going the right way, or if there’s a pick-up or secret nearby, but who’s got time to read when they’re dodging nurglings and pink horrors all over the shop? One day boomer shooters will come up with a different progression system to coloured key cards, but today is not that day.

Boltgun is a frantic old-school shooter that puts all its emphasis on cathartic fun. As such, the mindless violence can sometimes come into direct conflict with the not-so-intuitive level design, and it’s easy to get turned around and lost during hectic gunfights. Add this to the forced backtracking and key-finding, and the dopamine can take a serious knock now and then. Although, there’s something to be said for the sheer sense of weight and power you exude. Your marine feels like an 8-foot armour-clad man-tank and who could really ask for more.

Despite that, though, Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is a game that knows exactly what it wants to be. It sets out its stall early and rarely deviates from the plan, but what could be considered just another also-ran Doom-alike is saved by awesome shooting and a healthy regard for squibbing Chaos Terminators. Is it new and fresh? Not really, but it’s great fun all the same.

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It being a roguelite, this is the function by which you’ll return to life each time. With every new incarnation, Rene must travel the streets of Paris, choosing which faction to side with. There’s the Church, the Tribe, the Prince, and the Rebels, which seem to be the narrative choice anyway. Most of your primary allies are part of the Rebels, such as Ana and Maximillien.

Combat is slick and fast-paced, arming you initially with only a basic attack and a dodge which you can turn into an evasive roll with a long press. But you unlock more and more skills using Liberté’s fairly unique deckbuilding system. Each Deck can contain up to 40 cards, including dupes. To begin with you have a Ranged, Melee, and Rogue (stealth) deck, but you’ll very quickly be customising your own. As you venture out on behalf of Lady Bliss, seeking answers to question after question, you can choose a different Deck with each run.

You can build them however you like, but you can only take up to two of any card. These are both active and passive skills which will auto-assign to one of your buttons. The selection is impressive, with over 100 to find or craft throughout. From a single powerful pistol shot to summoning a lightning storm or healing your wounds, the variety is astounding. There are also items such as bombs, poison flasks, and food that conveys various benefits, sometimes for the duration of the run. In order to play a card, you will need Mana, a resource gained primarily from “burning” unwanted cards, though this can force some tough decisions when you’re low on Mana and desperate.

Combat feels a lot like, say, Diablo, as you mix and match these skills to gain distance, deal damage, or stay alive. Instead of a timer, skills require a certain number of hits on any enemy to recharge. It’s a fantastic system that promotes active play instead of just hanging back while you wait for a cooldown and it’s something I’m sure we’ll see in more games going forward. The only real downside to combat is that, now and then, I found my character would pause, or a button command wouldn’t register and I’d suffer damage. This is a major issue later as healing items are quite hard to come by.

As you progress you will unlock new skins for Rene. There are three, and while they all play differently at a basic level (Ana for example uses dual pistols instead of a melee weapon), you will switch back to Rene for character interactions and you’ll always talk in Rene’s voice. It’s a bit weird, to be honest, but often you won’t survive long enough to fret.

The Bliss gets worse and worse as you play. This bizarre corruption gets into people and animals, and can produce deranged zombies or monsters. Periodically you’ll come upon a statue of Lady Bliss, and you can choose to enter her domain to battle the monsters she produces or unleash the Bliss upon the city, causing your enemies to get stronger but boosting Rene’s connection to the magic. Entering the Bliss will put you against high-level enemies and takes serious resolve to get through.

Each time you complete an Act you’ll receive a Bliss Curse and it’s only here that I felt the difficulty skewing against me. These Curses can make your run an actual nightmare, adding damage effects to enemies, causing them to come back as zombies or flesh-eating maggot swarms. These Curses stack up to an insane degree, and they just don’t feel balanced by the cards in your deck.

Perhaps the biggest issue with Liberté is the lack of variety in locations, particularly early on. Even advancing through Acts sees you return to the same streets of Paris over and over. It mixes up bosses, events, objectives, enemies, and which vendors you come across, but for a solid three hours I played the same stretch of Parisian street, the same cathedral, the same Bliss gardens, and it really did start to grate. As a result, it’s probably a game best played in shorter sessions. You can always opt to play local multiplayer, too, if you like. This makes it feel considerably more arcadey, though the overall thrust of the gameplay doesn’t change. If anything, the screen just gets much busier and spotting your character among the enemies and attack effects can be a challenge.

Like Hades, the story in Liberté continues as you play. You will often visit the same areas and talk to characters, revealing more of the story. And each run will give you multiple chances to choose between the four factions to earn Favour and complete challenges. Favour is used to unlock crafting materials to forge new cards from blueprints, or unlock new skins and cards. Everything you unlock persists through incarnations, and so there’s always a sense of progression and you can continue earning Favour and unlocking items and cards even after the campaign story is done.

Liberté feels unique. Deckbuilding and isometric combat may be nothing new, but this combines the two wonderfully well. The story is intriguing, the characters are well written (if not always well acted), and the combat is fast, smooth, and rewarding. It does occasionally glitch and certainly needs more variety in locations throughout, but besides that Liberté is an exciting, fresh adventure in a compelling world and deserves to put developer Superstatic well and truly on the map.

The post Liberté review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Apart from the occasional word from the young female protagonist, there’s no dialogue or conversation. Every thought or feeling is portrayed through Planet of Lana’s art and music, along with some moving animations between the moments where you’re playing. It tells the story of a girl who’s searching for her sister who, along with most of their village, have been captured by an army of machines. At first they seem like the big bad enemy, but as time goes on, a deeper meaning and history behind them begins to unravel. It’s smart, poignant, and rarely falters in its narrative.

There’s a clear inspiration from titles like Limbo and Flashback, with an art style familiar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. These help present an air of familiarity throughout the relatively short playtime, but Planet of Lana feels very much like its own game. As I raced across deserts on the back of a machine, wandered through dense jungles and forests, and explored abandoned buildings and caves, I was in awe of how fantastic everything looked. A lot of attention has been put into making everything so pretty, and it’s just one of the things I loved about it.

Another is its clever puzzles. Some are relatively straightforward while others are more layered. You befriend a little critter called Mui who helps you turn off electrical currents, knocks down ropes for you to climb up, distracts machines so you can get by, and more. As you start to understand more about the world, especially the bond between it and the animals, Mui starts to harness a specific power that can communicate with other creatures. It can form a connection which moves them into positions where you can climb on them, help you to raise and lower lakes, and even calm and control a gargantuan being where you can run across it.

There’s an organic feel to these puzzles, and developer Wishfully manages to get the balance between constant challenges and breathing room just right. You might have just had to solve a tougher puzzle involving certain musical notes or the banging of metal pipes, but afterwards you have time to appreciate the environment and prepare for the next puzzle. There’s always a new puzzle to solve, but you never feel bombarded by them. Planet of Lana is a relatively relaxing experience which allows you to appreciate the story of nature, family, and freedom even more.

The journey to find your sister is filled with plenty of drama and excitement. You’ll be left with a smile on your face for much of the time, although there are the odd times you’ll be filled with worry and a dash of anxiety. Mui is such a cutie, too. It’s interactions with the world and with you are so sweet, and there’s seldom moments where you don’t just want to pick them up and give them a cuddle. Planet of Lana is wonderful in almost every way, and I was gutted when the credits rolled as I could have played it for much longer.

As Planet of Lana reaches its final climax, the visuals really step up, as do the puzzles. It constantly improves in how you tackle each challenge, and while I loved much of it, some of the movement does feel a little slow. Running could be faster as could climbing, but then that might make it too easy. Regardless, everything works in harmony to present a stunning adventure with plenty of puzzles to solve, making this puzzler well worth playing, especially as it’ll be dropping on Xbox Game Pass upon release.

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After having a tutorial nightmare in a dingy demon world, our heroine protagonist wakes up in a hospital room. Once you’ve read a couple of notes stuck to the wall it becomes rather apparent that this is some sort of insane asylum, and that various psychiatrists have been investigating you specifically. Like most people locked up you’d rather be free, and the only way to figure out the root of why you’re here is by investigating your nightmares. I didn’t love the idea of the asylum from a mental health representation standpoint, complete with screaming in the corridors and scribbles on the walls, but it does provide a sort of safe house when you’re not in your nightmares.

The nightmares are essentially randomised stages of a DOOM or Quake style FPS, full of sinister demons and weapons to blast them with. There isn’t a whole lot to explain about how this works (you just point at baddies and shoot) but the controls and pacing just feels glorious. This is exactly the speed I want in an FPS, so you should expect to be doing a lot of twitchy shooting.

The weapons you’ll use in the nightmares aren’t just your standard guns though. The staples are all there (pistols, grenade launchers, the very best of shotguns) but there are also guns that shoot beehives, books that fire stones from between the pages, and even a sword and shield for some melee action. You never know what you’re going to get when you drop into a level, and can only keep a single murder tool with you at the end of a level so expect to try out a lot of different combinations.

Even when you find weapons of the same type, they’ll usually end up having different modifiers to vary things up even more too. Some weapons have a percent chance to stun, some might leech health, and others will send enemies flying away from you. It feels great when you find a rare weapon with all the best buffs to beat back the demon horde, at least until you lose it forever.

I know Roguelike elements can be a bit of a deal breaker for some people, but Nightmare Reaper doesn’t go overboard with them. Failing a level just kicks you back to the hospital instead of ending the run, and you’ll also gather currency to permanently power up your protagonist. The systems just aren’t overly punishing, and you feel like you’re always getting stronger as you go.

I need to talk more about the upgrade system though, because it is wild. When you load up the upgrade menu you’re greeted by something that looks suspiciously like the Super Mario Bros 3 world map, and if you have enough money you can play one of the 2d platforming levels that will upgrade a stat. The platforming is very basic (you can do a single jump and nothing else) but it’s a fun change of pace that I really wasn’t expecting in a retro FPS.

I wasn’t sure how much I’d appreciate the old school DOOM aesthetic of Nightmare Reaper, but they really captured those pixely monsters and sinister stylings. The best visual moment is when you die, because your character just stares at her bloody hands until they revert to normal and she wakes up in her room. It’s just a nice touch, and thematically it really works.

I’ve got a lot of good things to say about Nightmare Reaper, but it has a fair amount of issues too. Perhaps the biggest of these is how dark so many of the early environments are. Even with the brightness on the Switch turned up to full there were rooms where I couldn’t see where I was going, which obviously isn’t ideal.

There are some issues with the balance of the game too, especially when you spawn into a level. On an early stage I only had a knife to keep myself alive, and the first room had an enemy that was way too tough to take down with a flimsy butter knife and I died immediately. There are also some rooms with traps that just decimate you with hundreds of flaming orbs until you can deactivate them, and they aren’t fun to deal with and usually end in disaster.

Nightmare Reaper is a great FPS Roguelike, with fast paced gameplay and a whole host of weird and wonderful weapons. The environments can be a little dark and the balance is lacking, but it’s hard to get too upset about it when you’re throwing ninja stars at zombies.

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The premise of LEGO 2K Drive’s main campaign is pretty simple: take part in various competitions with the goal of conquering each area’s Grand Brick Arena tournament. You’ll participate in these races to earn a checkered flag, and when you’ve got enough, it’s time for the big one. Each race sees you try and defeat a rival with a somewhat humorous name and story, and while the act of racing is great thanks to the fine handling, your opponents tend to stay at your throats until the finish line.

Even when you’ve stuck to every corner with precision, made full use of your boosts, and blown opponents sky high with your power-ups, it sometimes feels like it’s for naught. You don’t feel rewarded for out-driving opponents as you would in other kart racers, and sometimes you can lose first position at the last hurdle through no fault of your own. Despite this issue, I loved the racing itself. While you can harness the ability to drift, there’s also a quick turn option that helps navigate some of the tighter corners.

Normal turning is sluggish, so making use of both drifting and sharp turning is vital. One of the coolest features of LEGO 2K Drive is the ability to seamlessly transition between off-road, open road, and boats. Whether exploring the world or in a race, your vehicle will automatically change depending on the terrain. Flying off a hillside and landing into the water below doesn’t mean you’ll crash and have to start over. Instead, you’ll transition to another vehicle and just keep on racing. You can also make use of a speed boost which is really handy, with the gauge built up faster by crashing into things.

While competitive racing is the main draw, there’s still lots to do while exploring. It feels as though Visual Concepts have taken a page out of Forza Horizon‘s book, as there are various challenges littered across the map. They’re quick to enter and provide a slew of challenges, such as beating a certain time or getting the most air following a jump, all rewarding you with XP to level up or cash. There are side quests that can be undertaken to unlock various customisable stuff, along with new cars and other rewards.

Tons of collectibles are scattered across the world as well, giving you plenty to do once the story is over. LEGO 2K Drive also has minigames to participate in, from saving villagers from zombie cowboys that eat up your vehicles to blowing up aliens, and there’s even a Squid Game-inspired red light green light challenge. There’s a lot of content here, and if you love how it feels to drive, then all this content will provide loads of optional stuff to do while trying to become the best racer around.

One of the best features of LEGO 2K Drive is the ability to fully build a car of your own from scratch. Brick-by-brick, you’re free to build cars you unlock or ones from your own imagination, and it’s a great feature that rewards you for creativity. Racing around in your own invention is pretty cool, and it’s one element that has been missing from a lot of TT Games’ LEGO entries. You can build various loadouts of cars and boats from unlocked vehicles or creations, and all have different stats, allowing you to select various loadouts depending on where your focus is.

LEGO 2K Drive is for everyone. While it definitely feels like it’s aimed more at kids, there’s a satisfying gameplay loop for older players as well. The creative side of it will definitely appeal to lifelong LEGO fans, especially when you get to read various manuals to help build pre-existing creations, and the wealth of side content is impressive. The handling is tight, but the more competitive aspects such as power-ups and one-upping the opposition could still do with a little work. It’s a solid starting point if it’s to be a franchise for the future, and even though the humour isn’t as witty as other LEGO games, I still raised a smile every now and again.

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The heart-warming and emotional tale of Tin Hearts follows an inventor called Albert Butterworth. Set in Victorian times, it follows his life as an inventor along with both his wife and young daughter. Although it starts off relatively sweet and happy, the fantastic score (composed by the talented Matthew Chastney) has a sense of foreboding filled with bittersweet and melancholic melodies. At a point in the story, you start to see where Albert’s journey is heading, and without spoiling anything, I’d suggest you grab the tissues.

Tin Hearts’ story is compelling and poignant, helped by the wonderful music, but it is the creativity in its puzzles that provide a lot of its charm. Each stage takes part in a particular place, be it your daughter’s bedroom, the garden, or basement, and new ideas are introduced throughout. You guide a select number of toy soldiers from the box they begin in and to a doorway somewhere in the room. The soldiers cannot deviate alone, so you must place toy blocks in their path to change their direction.

Later in the story, you can take charge of a sole toy soldier and move them around freely to help you get to the doorway at the end, but you’ll need to create a safe space for the other soldiers who are moving around on their own. You’ll be able to use toy canons to shoot down airships or ladders; fly across large areas thanks to pinwheels and fans; bounce on toy drums; and move toy trains that have blocks and drums attached to them, adding to the variety and complexity of the levels. Further gadgets and contraptions become available, too, but I won’t spoil them here, however, get ready to harness that electricity!

There’re different ways to reach your goal, along with secrets and achievements that allow you to replay in order to find them all. Some of the levels are designed across huge spaces, but it’s rarely frustrating thanks to the help you’re given along the way. You’ll unlock the ability to pause, which is a great tool as it’ll show you the soldier’s future path, letting you plan ahead and see where they’ll end up moving to within reason. Forgetting to pause or losing track of your soldier’s movements may happen, but you can rewind back and start from wherever you want.

This help doesn’t make Tin Hearts easy at all. Levels are still a challenge, especially later down the line, but they’re a gift that let you enjoy the story without getting annoyed by the difficulty of the puzzles. As you progress, you’ll unlock memories of Albert’s story, letting you view moments that happened in the room you’re in, or hear letters that have been sent by people that play a role in your family’s fate. I know I’ve mentioned the music already, but it’s such a beautifully written soundtrack, constantly supporting the emotional weight of the story.

As Albert is known as a fantastic inventor, so too should Rogue Sun be for their puzzles. There’re always new ideas added, whether in a new gadget being given to you, or fancy new ways to solve a puzzle. My only issue is that some of the viewpoints are awkward, and moving or aiming the canon and pinwheels can be tricky and slow. Despite this, Tin Hearts manages to become such a pleasant game, and the need to complete a puzzle to get to the next story beat becomes a constant goal. I fell in love with it instantly, and I never wanted it to end, despite shedding a tear or two.

Tin Hearts is inventive in its puzzle designs, and the visuals are brimming with colour and creativity. The music is excellent, and it constantly gets better the more it goes on. I rarely struggled yet was always challenged with each new stage, and despite some awkward camera angles and controls, I never wanted to put the controller down. Story will always be paramount in my ideal game, and Rogue Sun has delivered one that hits all the right notes, telling a moving tale of love and family.

The post Tin Hearts review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The concept is certainly similar. In the main scenario (for there are now three to choose from) your colony ship, the titular Alien Dawn, crash lands on a distant world and there are, initially, only four survivors. Whereas RimWorld let’s you choose from a selection of individuals with randomised personality traits, skills, and attitudes, Stranded lets you select from a remade roster of well over 20, with a huge spread of stats. Picking survivors with skills like Cooking, Construction, Intellect, and Combat make your life easier, but you’ll never cover all the bases.

For example, if you leave the difficulty settings alone and plumb for a random seed (the cipher by which your randomised starting location is chosen), not having a qualified healer is going to really hurt you. Likewise, come winter you’ll need a tailor to make better clothes for everyone. You might also need a competent farmer to grow crops, a crafter to make weapons and armour, etc. Everything matters, even down to picking someone with a musical talent who can keep everyone’s hopes up. No survivor is useless, but some are much more essential to a mission than others.

You can set different parameters, of course. You can opt to crash on a desert planet that suffers extremes of temperature, or switch on game rules which make everyone happier, remove the threat of alien attacks, or increase the number of survivors you can add to your group. Periodically while scavenging the spaceship debris or heading out on expedition you might happen upon a randomised Survivor who you can welcome into your camp. They’ll come with their own benefits and issues, but ultimately will always be another mouth to feed.

Of course, that’s not always an issue for long. There’s a lot of ways to die in Stranded: Alien Dawn. On default mode you’ll be attacked now and then by hordes of giant beetles and, later, huge scorpions. Building defences like walls, watchtowers, and turrets will hold them back, and later you can craft actual mechs and robots. But even if you disable these attacks, you can have people killed by disease, animals that attack in self defence, freak weather conditions, and so on. And you can’t replace people. It’s possible to eventually have just one survivor left to do everything, at which point you’re pretty much doomed.

Keeping people alive is, unsurprisingly, about developing routines. Someone needs to plant seeds and harvest crops, someone needs to cook, and repair damage caused by thunderstorms, animal attacks, and falling space debris. Someone else needs to be responsible for crafting, hunting, defending the colony. You can micromanage these activities, directing each survivor individually, or assign specific tasks to the survivor most suited to them. Likewise, you can set working, sleeping, relaxing, and hobby times for each person.

Certain personalities will clash, others will flourish. Some of the survivors have pre-determined relationships. There’s a trio of sisters for example, a few married couples, parents and their grown-up children. These relationships determine how the characters care for one another, how quickly they comfort a survivor on the verge of a meltdown. And you’ll need to move quickly yourself if this happens. Each survivor has a task they are interested in, which improves their happiness more quickly and allows them to level faster, and some have things they will flat out refuse to do even if their life depends on it.

They can venture as far as you’re prepared to send them for the sake of exploration and resource gathering, but living off the land won’t last long. You’ll need to establish a camp, farm land, perhaps tame and raise animals. The amount of crafting options is fairly staggering, as you research and unlock more and more workstations and methods of producing food and supplies. Eventually it’s absolutely possible to build everyone their own house with working electricity, and establish a little village protected by turrets and mechs, but that will take some considerable time and investment.

Should you desire a different challenge, you can select one of the other scenarios. One requires you to create a trading outpost lucrative enough to buy the planet you’re on; the military scenario allows you to take up to 6 survivors on a mission to establish a new relay on a distant world. The base gameplay is always roughly the same, but the end goal changes the way you approach the challenge before you.

Hopefully there will be new biomes introduced later. At the moment it’s limited to a fairly clement valley that will only really change in winter, or a desert world. It would also be nice to see a different type of enemy as opposed to giant bug swarms, but this is a survival sim with a thoroughly addictive gameplay loop. It borrows heavily from RimWorld and, indeed, The Sims, but Stranded: Alien Dawn meshes the borrowed elements together into something that feels both unique and immensely rewarding to play.

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As a custom made witch you’re tasked with finding a way to get rid of the pesky miasma that’s destroying all the farmland. Armed with magical powers and your charming familiar Huckleberry the cat, you set off to the edge of the miasma to set up a farm and do a bit of dangerous exploring into the sinister infected land.

Before you get to do any of the saving the day, you’ll need to set up a base camp and have your kitty companion teach you how to farm. It’s not particularly tricky to grow and harvest those veggies, you plant a sapling into some fertile soil, give it a little water and then after a couple of days you can manually pluck off any fruit or veg from the plant. At least that’s how the suckers do it, the rest of us use magic.

You see you can channel your magic through a crop to make it grow instantly, which as you can imagine is a pretty handy skill for a farmer to have. If you overdo it with the magic though the plant will blither and stop producing delicious goodies. It’s an interesting system in theory with some risk and reward to dabble in, but once you realize that the sweet spot of channelling twice works in almost all situations then some of the excitement is lost.

There are a couple of aspects of farming that just take too long as well. Moving your cursor around the plant to harvest any crops is unnecessarily cumbersome, and channelling is a chore too. To channel your magic into some corn or an apple tree you have to move your cursor slowly over orbs that surround the plant, and it just feels needlessly sluggish.

You’ll need the food from the plants to fill your belly, health and mana though, so it’s certainly a worthy cause. Hunger goes down pretty damn quickly and once it’s fully drained your health is next, so keeping that belly topped up is key. Once you’ve got a grill though the meals keep hunger locked up till lunch, and it’s not too big of an issue.

Another important cause in Homestead Arcana is upgrading your camp, which you’ll need some materials to do. You’d think this would involve some sort of chopping or mining, but all the parts you need grow on plants too so you’ll just be doing more plucking. I’ll admit when I first saw a plant growing metal ore I thought it was a novel idea, but eventually you realise that it just means there are less things to keep you interested in the game.

There are only so many materials that you can find in the area around your farm, and eventually you’ll have to take that first trip into the miasma. Aided by a plague doctor mask, you’re able to survive for a few minutes (which can be upgraded later on) in this dangerous environment. The miasma has a whole host of materials and recipes to find at the farms that were abandoned within, as well as monsters you’ll need to avoid if you want to keep your goodies. Eventually it becomes clear that with the right sort of fertilizer you’ll be able to push back this dangerous toxin and restore the world to its former glory, so that’s exactly what you start doing.

Alongside the main quest, you also get side objectives in the mail which can provide you with items and cash to spend at the merchant. Some of the handiest upgrades come at the cost of a good chunk of silver, so making the best items to sell for a tidy profit and completing the tasks you’re given is key if you want to move on up in the world.

It’s worth mentioning the performance issues I experienced when playing Homestead Arcana. On the Xbox Series S this colourful farming game has some pretty significant issues with the framerate (particularly when in the miasma). I also struggled to get the game to run without crashing and generally running poorly on Steam Deck (which admittedly can’t really be held against the game, but is worth keeping in mind if you want to do some farming on the go).

Homestead Arcana looks lovely and has some good ideas, but is ultimately just a bit of a slog to play. The farming takes so much longer than it needs to (whether you use magic or not), there’s a lack of interesting things to do, and it has some technical issues on Series S. In a marketplace that’s currently packed full of farming games, it’s just not one I could comfortably recommend right now.

The post Homestead Arcana review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The competition was stripped of its world championship status in 1977 because of the sheer number of deaths, and now racers participate because they want to, not because it is a part of winning a title. As high as these risks are, and as punishing as the courses can be, people still participate. Whether it’s down to the thrill of the race, bragging rights, or pure unadulterated passion for the sport, RaceWard has encapsulated this world renowned TT in all its glory, laid bare for players to see. From the moment you’re let loose on the island, the dangers present themselves, and the adrenaline is what kept me so enamoured by it.

Handling in TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 is superb, but the learning curve takes time to master. It feels like you’re handling something both delicate and powerful, and managing the high speeds on the longer stretches with sharp turns amid dense woodlands and busy streets is no easy task. Bikes are weighty, and every turn requires precision and careful consideration so as not to cause an unnecessary crash. The animations of when you do clip something, or miscalculate manoeuvring and fly into the scenery are brutal, highlight just how fragile it can feel when racing.

When you do start to become familiar with the handling and the layouts of the courses, it’s very rewarding. It took a good few hours to balance the speed and power of the bikes, but when you’re going so fast aware of the dangers, yet are still managing to stay on your wheels, it’s one of the most exhilarating experiences I’ve had in a racing game. Sometimes it can be a little too sensitive, especially when riding over the edge of a muddy embankment or some gravel, causing you to almost lose control and even fall off, but it will start to click. Learning the nuances of the courses and the different bikes is thoroughly enjoyable.

TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 gives you a ton of freedom to explore the island when not racing, allowing you to get familiar with every road, straight, and chicane. While the visuals aren’t as impressive as other racers, there’s been a lot of detail put in to recreating the Isle of Man. Truth be told, you don’t have a lot of time to enjoy the scenery anyway, given you’re so focused on trying not to fall off your bike. As you do explore the open roads and participate in various time trials and races, the sound design is fantastic, especially with how the DualSense has been used on PlayStation 5.

The throttle roars through the controller’s speaker, and the vibrations when speeding across the terrain can be felt in the palm of your hands, helping to immerse you in the thrills of competition. Every gear change feels like a pounding heartbeat, and the power of the bikes connect deeply with you as you’re playing. It’s yet another step in making you aware of both the excitement and the dangers of the TT, while showcasing the improvements made on the previous entry in the series. A fair amount of work has gone into making players aware of the competition and giving them enough to do in the process.

As you make your way across the island, there’re various icons that represent something for you to do. You can participate in either the Supersport or Superbike 2022 Season, and once you’ve decided if you want to race with a lighter or more powerful bike, you’re free to participate in a variety of challenges. Face-Offs see you race against a single component; Time Attacks give you the opportunity to beat a set time; Temporary Challenges don’t last forever, but give you another opportunity to set your best time; and Custom Events created by you or others can be undertaken as well. On top of these are the unofficial qualifiers and race events that make up your season until you’re ready to go for the iconic race itself.

The island is also filled with Discovery Points that provide background to the Isle of Man TT and its famous location as well, celebrating the rich history of the event. There’s plenty to do in TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3, and you’re rewarded for you victories and achievements, allowing to upgrade your bike’s components such as the chassis, suspension, and engine, increase or decrease the amount of fuel in the tank, and more. Having a better bike means a higher chance of success, and the reward loop is as satisfying as it gets.

TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 is both brutal and thrilling, highlighting the dangers of the races you’ll find on the island whilst giving you one hell of a racing experience. It is difficult to begin with, and even after getting familiar with the gameplay, it still has frustrating moments, such as spending over 20 minutes in a Time Attack only to fail to beat the time. You’re putting in a lot of time into certain events because of the distance they cover, however, practice leads to success, and as you start to get better, there are few racers out there that make you feel as good as this.

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After being thawed out of a block of ice found on an old ship, an Indonesian pirate finds herself in modern day London with no idea why she’s here and no way to communicate with the locals. What she does know is that there are some real bad dudes after her, and after causing a ruckus at a buffet trying to fill her belly the police aren’t her biggest fans either. Fortunately for this pirate of the past she has a run in with a kind young barmaid called Mia, who soon gets to work trying to help her out.

Mia works at a pirate themed bar known as The Smuggler’s Den, which isn’t exactly the classiest establishment. After being coerced into unclogging the massive turd in the toilet, she finds a certain pirate hidden among the bins out back. Because she’s a caring individual (and because I refuse to help the police even in a video game) Mia hides her in the bar, feeds her, and eventually tries to learn more about her despite the language issues. It doesn’t take long for the duo to become close, and as long as you make the right decisions they may even end up changing each other’s lives for the better.

There’s only one aspect of the game you have any control over, and that’s when you’re choosing between two options of what Mia will do next. Mia and the Dragon Princess has plenty of branching narrative paths to explore, with all sorts of antics to uncover. Whether you’re deciding whether to be polite or snarky to a co-worker or figuring out how to confront a thug with a weapon, your actions will have serious consequences.

More often than not the situation at The Smuggler’s Den means that violence is just around the corner, which means you’ll be treated to one of the fantastic fight scenes that this FMV treat has to offer. I was blown away by how well put together these action packed sequences were, with a mix of impressive combat feats and silly moments that reminded me of some of my favourite Jackie Chan family comedies. It’s just not something you see very often in the FMV genre, and is a serious breath of fresh air.

One of my favourite aspects of Mia and the Dragon Princess is how willing it is to kill off characters. I was fairly successful in my first playthrough and didn’t realise quite how brutal the game is willing to be with all your favourite characters, but my second run was an absolute bloodbath.

These characters are a joyous mix of campy humans, from the barman who mixes cocktails with semen based names to the tour guide who is paid by the owner of The Smuggler’s Den to exaggerate the historical significance of the establishment. The performances are as ridiculous as you’d expect from an FMV game like this, and with a script that includes phrases like “bruised banana ballsack” and “fire escapes are for fannies” it’s a perfect fit.

By checking out certain scenes, you’ll unlock parts of an audio tour that’s narrated by the tour guide from the game. This is accessed from the main menu; it’s a nice and thematic bonus, and means you can find out a little more about some of the mysteries you’ll uncover on your journey.

There’s not a whole lot of negative aspects to talk about in Mia and the Dragon Princess. The game is very short (with a single playthrough taking around 30-40 minutes) and the basic multiple choices mean it isn’t a particularly involving experience. Just don’t expect to be playing this game for long or to have to use your brain a whole lot.

Mia and the Dragon Princess is a wonderful FMV action adventure, with ridiculous characters, exciting fight scenes and genuinely funny writing. It isn’t the longest of games and doesn’t have particularly engaging gameplay, but for a fun frolic into the world of FMV games you could do a hell of a lot worse than spending an evening with Mia and her mysterious buddy.

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Yes you read that right, Omega Strikers is a 3 on 3 game of air hockey, but with a vast selection of different heroes with abilities that change the game. Some just hit the core (which is essentially the puck) really hard or from a distance, others require a bit more planning to use. One character can throw down a blockade that the puck bounces off for the ultimate defence, another places her slime buddies on the field that automatically blast the core toward the enemy goal. It takes a while to learn the different character’s abilities, but once you do this game is magic.

To ensure the matches aren’t over before they start, each goal is blocked at the start each round. To open the enemy goal so you can score the big one, you’ll need to first hit a couple of targets near the goal. These targets differ depending on the pitch you’re playing on; one stage might just have two blocks you need to hit in front of the goal, another might want you to hit some triangles to either side which could lead to some wild bouncing you can use to your advantage.

After the short tutorial gets you used to your first and simplest character, you’ll probably jump into quickplay for a battle online. This basic three on three contest is perfect for beginners, with the first team that scores five goals winning the match. One especially nice aspect of quickplay is that if nobody scores for two minutes then the speed of the core is ramped up massively, making the games nice and quick (which is perfect for trying out new characters).

The range of heroes you can play as in Omega Strikers is just wonderful, with all sorts of unusual powers and strategies to use against the enemy team. Some characters fire projectiles to strike the core from a distance, some can cast buffs to boost the rest of the team, and one can even turn invisible and reappear to get a surprise shot off for a cheeky goal. Hell, if all this goal scoring isn’t for you, you can even play as a hero that can deal massive damage to the other team and eliminate them from the game for a while.

Once you’ve found the right hero for you, you need to decide if you’d rather play up front or as the goalie. I expected to be all about those goals, but with the right character defending against the enemy offense is a blast. Some characters are better in certain roles than others, but you’ll soon get the hang of that and be ready to start playing Competitive.

It’s only when playing this ranked mode that you’ll get to see all of what Omega Strikers has to offer. The MOBA elements become apparent rather quickly, when you get to vote to ban a character for the other team. Alongside this significant addition are the power ups you get to pick from between sets. A selection of eight are available to choose from for all players, but the order they’re chosen is based on who has been playing best. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and the other players will have left a power up you want, but choosing from the dregs can be pretty disappointing so you’d better play well.

The range of buffs on offer are often pretty game changing. You might get an extra use of one of your abilities without having to wait for a recharge, or perhaps you’ll move faster if you can avoid being hit. By the time you’ve selected a few of these power ups you’ll be unstoppable, and will often need to adjust your play style accordingly.

If all this sounds appealing then you’re in luck, because you don’t need to spend a penny to get started with Omega Strikers. The majority of my time playing the game was as an entirely new user who hadn’t dropped any cash on the game, and I thought the starting heroes and amount of time it takes to unlock the others was really fair. You’ll never have the coolest cosmetics if you don’t pay, but Omega Strikers is more than playable for free.

The only issue that the free to play nature of Omega Strikers brings is a currency one. Especially when starting out the menus full of different types of moolah are beyond confusing, and I never really knew what the different rewards I was getting for completing daily and weekly quests actually were. I still found the menus to be a mess even after hours of play too, and often gave up trying to find my rank or character affinity levels after a few minutes of flicking through nonsense.

This complexity does mean that there are plenty of hooks to keep you playing regularly though. The aforementioned daily and weekly quests are well worth completing (and mean you’ll keep coming back for more) and there’s also a Battle Pass to level up full of cool outfits, emotes and player titles to unlock.

If Odyssey Interactive continue to update Omega Strikers long term then competitive air hockey could keep me coming back for years. New heroes and maps would absolutely shake up the meta and freshen things up if done right, and I’m hopeful that this could be a multiplayer game with a long life and happy ending.

Omega Strikers is a fantastic and innovative multiplayer game, which is easy to jump into but has plenty to master. Learning how to best use different characters is seriously compelling, and those progression hooks kept me coming back for more every single day. With a bit of luck and regular updating, this could be the multiplayer success story we’ve needed in 2023.

The post Omega Strikers review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Currently there’re only a handful of characters to choose from, some being from the more random pockets of the Disney World. Sure, there’s Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, but there’s also the likes of Elizabeth Swan from Pirates of the Caribbean. Other characters from Hercules, Beauty and the Beast, and The Jungle Book make up the slim pickings at present, but as it’s a live service game, so there will almost certainly be more added, such as Monsters Inc; which is currently part of the game.

Let’s get the currency out of the way because, quite frankly, it’s a downright awful. There are blue and purple tokens which all serve to unlock new stuff. Gold tokens are part of the Battle Pass-style progression, whereas the others can be spent in the Shop. Multiplayer tokens are unlocked online and can be used on other stuff, then there are chests which can be opened and unlocked to offer new outfits and car parts as well. Then there’s racer shards (are you lost yet?) which level up your character’s star levels, but not their stats; that of course comes from another type of upgrade. It’s ridiculous how much is thrown at you, detracting from the actual enjoyment of just getting in your kart and driving. There’s even more to manage on top of that, but to go into it now would only melt your brain further.

The racing in Disney Speedstorm is decent enough, but nowhere near as smooth or satisfying as Mario Kart or even Crash Team Racing. Whenever you get walloped by an item or fall off the track, it’s easier to get back into the race. But not here. It feels like a constant battle to win, and even after some solid handling and drifting throughout a lap, it can all come undone and knock you back five or six places, leading to frustration. Each racer falls into a different category, and upon reaching a higher racer level, you get your own specific power-up. You can also boost by building your gauge up after riding across panels on the course. Drifting feels satisfying, and is probably one of the better implemented mechanics.

It has the foundations for a strong racer, but it needs balancing. Disney is for everyone, and there will be kids playing this. My two daughters joined me for a couple of races, and even played through Disney Speedstorm’s single player introduction mode. Both were confused by what all the jargon meant and the AI being far too smart for its own good. They’ve played countless hours of Mario Kart and are no strangers to the genre, yet like me, they struggled in races and got frustrated by how it punishes you, even when your driving is perfectly fine.

The courses have some nice variety, such as the Hercules-inspired track which is filled with some nicely linked corners allowing for drifting marathons, and the Jungle Book one has some aerial platforms leading to shortcuts. Each course has different parts to it, but the films they’re based upon are, like the characters, limited at present. If Gameloft find a way to ease up on the multiple amounts of currency and try and focus on the fun that it presents, we might actually have an arcade racer to rival the better ones on the market.

In its current state, Disney Speedstorm has far too many menus, upgrades, currency, and confusion to warrant reccomendation. Sure, the racing is fun, if too punishing when it doesn’t need to be, but hopefully that will get balanced out the more we get into the Early Access period. It’s also worth mentioning that the soundtrack is pretty fantastic, utilising some of the better Disney songs and giving them a completely new spin, utilising electronic and dubstep genres to try and make the racing more exhilarating.

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Benedict Fox is a detective bound together with a demon, investigating the death of his father. You’ll split your time investigating the home in which he died as well as exploring an alternate world known as Limbo. There are many clues to be found, with certain items helpful in solving puzzles and unlocking new paths, and it all comes together nicely. The puzzles can range from finding a set of keys to uncovering layered codes through ancient and supernatural texts, with many of them taking some time to work out. There’s a great sense of satisfaction when completing these puzzles, though, and it’s something that makes your adventure more exciting.

Throughout Limbo, you’ll encounter a range of monsters that require you to wipe them out. By using melee attacks, you’ll then be able to use your pistol, but it feels unbalanced. Enemies are also pretty repetitive to kill, and if you don’t parry at the correct moment, your life will start to deplete pretty quickly. I never relished a battle, always hoping the exploration would be my primary focus, but these fights are littered across Limbo. By defeating them, you’ll earn Ink that can be used to upgrade certain abilities back at the mansion, as long as you regularly deposit it at certain portals or else you’ll lose it upon death,

Traversal is pretty standard. To get to higher platforms or across chasms, you can double jump (and later triple jump), but doing so can be unresponsive. Your demonic friend with shoot a tether to certain areas which allows you to jump more than once, but I found it didn’t always connect and I’d have to repeat the process again. It becomes second nature to keep an eye out on a purple spot on higher platforms as that indicates you’ll reach it, but the option should always be there. Pressing jump twice and only performing a solitary hop does become frustrating.

The art style is gorgeous in The Last Case of Benedict Fox. The mysterious Limbo is filled with occult inspiration, occasionally filled with a familiar object from the mansion like a bed or a sofa, reminding you that these two words are connected. Rivers of purple ooze, messed up versions of rooms from the mansion, runic symbols, and other odd goings on fill up the world between worlds, and I did enjoy uncovering a new area. Sometimes it becomes tough to locate a new area as certain paths aren’t as clear as they could be, but generally I didn’t struggle too much in knowing where to go.

I found the story of The Last Case of Benedict Fox rather interesting for the majority, with new characters coming along and helping to create more threads to the narrative. It’s early 20th century soundtrack adds an eeriness to it, much like it did with titles like Bioshock. Its sound design is pretty fantastic in general, helping to build the atmosphere and provide some horror elements akin to the likes seen in those old Goosebumps books from your childhood.

There’s plenty to like about The Last Case of Benedict Fox, with a strong story and a wonderful art style. Some of the puzzles are tough yet ultimately satisfying, and the risk and reward of knowing whether to drop your Ink into portals or push on keeps you on your toes. Combat feels unrewarding and repetitive, and sometimes the traversal can be unresponsive, but ultimately, Plot Twist has delivered an engaging adventure that draws you in from the start.

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That’s not to say Redfall isn’t enjoyable, as there are times when it feels great. There’s a freedom to how you explore the world over both maps available. For example, there are multiple ways to break into a house, be it via the roof, a side window, or by lockpicking the back door – a variety of options let you play how you want. Once inside, there’s lore scattered everywhere, along with cultist bags and ammo crates that can offer random items like toilet paper and watches for currency to spend on a whole manner of things, to new weapons with varying degrees of rarity.

The gunplay and moveset is also enjoyable at times, although there doesn’t seem to be a huge range of weapons to choose from. Handguns, assault rifles, shotguns, and sniper rifles are your main guns, but there’s a UV gun that freezes vampires temporarily, and a stake launcher that does huge damage and actually feels overpowered at times. While using all of these how you want, with three slots available to slot your weapons of choice into, it allows you to take on Redfall however you choose. The biggest issue in combat is the enemy AI, which is, frankly, pretty terrible.

Soldiers and cultists wouldn’t move if a bullet from my sniper rifle hit a nearby target. If I ran into a gang of enemies, they’d just stand there or run in the opposite direction (and sometimes towards me) without firing a single round. Other times, they acted as bullet sponges and were dead after a single shot, or would take a fair amount of damage before they dropped dead. It was never clear how powerful they were, even as I levelled, as even though my health grew in hit points, I’d still lose similar chunks of the health gauge. The lack of excitement when fighting standard enemies never offered a tense encounter, and even when I wanted to try and take out larger groups quietly, the lack of stealth options was disappointing.

Sure, I could go into a building while crouching, and I could definitely sneak up behind someone. The problem was, I couldn’t silently take them out. Instead, I’d just melee punch them in the back of a head as if smashing a window or some wooden planks, potentially alerting nearby enemies much easier than if I was firing the already mentioned sniper rifle. Vampires offer more variety in their design and attacks, and for a while you’re aware that every shot counts, but if you get the right gun (or that OP stake launcher), they start to lose their fear tactics. If you become overwhelmed by a lot of them, you can’t outrun them. I would end up running across most of Redfall and they wouldn’t stop pursuing me, meaning I’d have to stand and fight if I ever wanted to get some peace and quiet.

For a studio that prides themselves on smart mechanics and top notch enemy AI, these issues hampered the majority of my enjoyment. Playing solo is only fun for so long. You can’t switch between the four characters, so once you begin the campaign, then you’re stuck with them until it’s done. Luckily I chose Jacob who’s great with a sniper rifle and for recon, but teaming up with friends and seeing how cool some of their abilities are (Devinder’s teleportation is awesome) meant I couldn’t quench my envy and dabble with the rest of the characters.

When you are playing in co-op, Redfall is fun for a while. Playing off each other’s abilities and building a bond provides small buffs in combat, but it was here where I witnessed the biggest bugs of all. Framerate dropped considerably when a Rook (a hulking vampire) appeared on the back of a wave of red lightning, and my friend even disappeared, leaving only a floating gun in his wake. In single-player, I noticed tons of texture pop-ins while making my way across the map, and pretty much every time I switched weapons, the textures on my gun wouldn’t load in straight away. 30fps runs fine, but for a title releasing on Xbox Series X, you’d expect 60fps to be ready at launch. My co-op partner experienced worse bugs, too, including his hands disappearing, and being stuck on geometry, only being fixed with fast travelling away.

Missions are relatively bland in Redfall. Most of the main missions consist of go here, kill the vampires, find this item, and leave. In our preview, we talked about how good one of the missions involving a doll house was, and it absolutely is. That’s why it’s frustrating that this one mission is still the only one I can really remember as being good. There’s other stuff to do, like clearing out Vampire Nests that take you to the heart of the vampires in an effort to grab some impressive loot, and side missions can be activated from a repetitive process to unlock safe houses. Each safe house has one mission to complete, then an under boss, who seem far too easy to dispatch, where you pick up their skull for a reason that should have been made clearer from the start.

Loot seems rather unbalanced as well. There doesn’t seem to be any regularity to it, whereby you could pick up a higher tier weapon early on, then see nothing for hours. There are customisation options for the stakes attached to weapons needed to get rid of vampires, backpack and outfit cosmetics, but again, I didn’t find many for a long time, and there’s no clarity on the map to show you where these good drops would occur. Touching on the map, you have to place waypoints for every mission as they don’t show up as you’re playing. These little touches would help the quality of life a lot, yet with all the other issues, it’s another thing to add to the list of issues present.

It’s a shame, as there there are times when you forget about the problems Redfall has in favour of enjoying what Arkane is known for. There’re some great places to discover, and some of the level design, while not on the same level as the recent Deathloop, makes you want to explore. It’s just that the issues I faced pop all too frequently, whether it’s the enemy AI being poor, or technical issues ruining certain moments of gameplay. Xbox hasn’t had a wealth of excellent titles ever since the Series X|S launched, and this one feels like another disappointment to add to the list. I wanted to love this, I really did, but after all the problems, I don’t foresee me returning any time soon.

The post Redfall review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Combat involves keeping an eye on the string of notes that fly across the bottom of the screen, timing your button presses accordingly in order to execute attacks on your opponent, or even block/parry when you both hit in unison. Missing notes leaves you wide open to damage, whilst maintaining perfect accuracy will see you grind down your enemy. It is conceivable that two well-matched foes could go on nearly endlessly, however the longer a battle continues, the more complex and bonkers the difficulty gets. 

Adding to the fighting game flavour are the inclusions of Super and Ultra attacks, which are triggered using what one would describe as conventional inputs (quarter circles, et al), and have all manner of different effects, including dealing damage, marking your counterpart with a load of unblockable random notes (a bit like when you annihilate your foe with gems in puzzle games), healing your own vitality, or even speeding up their notes temporarily. In theory, this is a cool system but sometimes it can be tricky to know when to pull them out of your arsenal so as to not compromise your underlying control over the rhythm, whilst executing them may also be a pain for those less experienced with fighting games. When your opponent is about to attempt special attacks, there is also a reversal mechanic available; the circular indicator in the middle of the screen will flash to tell you what kind of attack is about to be unleashed – and you can counter it by executing a more impactful attack of your own should you wish. The trouble is, like much of the stuff in God of Rock extracurricular to the core rhythm action, it is distracting and you quickly get yourself into more grief than it is worth by taking your peepers off your commitment to maintaining accuracy.

Arcade mode is quite easy to beat unless you ramp the difficulty up a few notches. God of Rock shines brightest when you are playing against another human opponent. The online lobbies are superb and it is dead simple to get a game going with minimal loading fuss and intuitive options for rematches and stage/song selections. 

Despite its bonkers idea, it is still a very likeable affair. The characters are beautifully designed, with some clearly based on real-life superstars like Elvis and David Bowie. They have some sleek cutscenes and interesting backstories behind their entry into the tournament that forms the backdrop to the action. Whilst there are no licensed tunes, to have 40 completely original and mostly eclectic compositions is bloody impressive even if some of them are a bit samey. You have to tip your hat to Modus for at least attempting something different, and I genuinely feel that with some thought and a few tweaks – maybe even separating some of the combat sequences – then they could have a proper banger on their hands if they ever decided to revisit this rocktacular universe.

The post God of Rock review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

One fateful day, our customisable protagonist wakes up on a place called New Wirral Island with no recollection of how they got there. Plenty of other colorful characters inhabit the island, but none of them know of a way to leave this mysterious place. The majority of them have given up all hope of returning to their life in the real world, and instead have focused on making life on New Wirral as enjoyable as possible. This isn’t easy though, mainly due to the violent monsters that roam the land.

Fortunately some of the early arrivals on the island were able to work out how to use these monsters to their advantage. It turns out if you record these beasts onto cassette tapes, you can transform into them at any time and beat up your enemies in turn-based combat. It’s an interesting way to switch things up from the usual collection of adorable critters, and makes for a couple of interesting changes in battle.

Each Cassette Beast you collect has a variety of elemental abilities it can use on a turn of battle with the AP it gathers throughout a fight, and you’ll always have two beasts available at once thanks to bringing an islander ally with you everywhere you go. If one of your monsters dies in combat you can switch to another on your next turn, but until then your enemies can attack your character directly and potentially take them out of the brawl entirely. This means when fighting other transforming humans you can either take down all their monsters one by one or focus your AP on one big strike and beat their human form down before they can morph.

Speaking of morphing, you and your partner have the ability to fuse together to turn into one superpowered beast any time your fusion meter is full. When you do this the two monsters you control are fused into a completely new combination of the two critters, with a massive power boost and double the AP to spend. The fact the developers actually created unique monster designs for each of these is ridiculously impressive, and makes using this powerful ability as often as possible even more tempting.

Like most RPGs Cassette Beasts features elemental types on its moves and monsters, but using the right one doesn’t deal the extra damage you’re used to. Instead any time you hit any enemy with a super effective move they’ll be weakened by a specific status effect. For example burning a metal type monster with a fire move will cause it to melt and take burn damage every turn, whereas smashing an earth type monster with a metal move will lower its defence for three turns. Unfortunately this works the other way too if you’re not careful, like when using poison on a metal type and granting them additional contact damage by coating them in toxins. All these different effects add an extra layer to the combat which is really engaging, and the game does a great job of letting you know what will happen with each attack.

Recording new monsters so you have a powerful team of six is crucial if you want to succeed in Cassette Beasts, and works in a fairly familiar fashion of weakening an enemy first and being given a percentage chance of getting a successful recording. There’s another reason to gather new critters though, and that’s because certain ones will grant your character the power to use different movement abilities outside of battle. The first of these you get is a glide that’ll help you reach certain platforms, but before long you’ll get a dash that breaks boxes and even the ability to swim. These are incredibly useful, because so much of your time in Cassette Beasts is spent exploring.

Cassette Beasts is anything but linear, and after the quick tutorial opening you’re free to wander in any direction and look for anything of interest. The map is designed perfectly for this, with plenty of areas rewarding you for exploring once you’ve got the right abilities and a whole lot of points of interest to check out. Primary objectives include but are not limited to – taking over the offices of evil Estate Agents, finding captains of the rangers and beating them in battle to prove your worth, and finding mysterious subway stations that might just help you find a way off the island.

The subway stations especially are fascinating, usually full of mysterious puzzles and something called an archangel. These monstrosities are absolute nightmare fuel, with the power to manipulate the world and cause glitches to the very game. Visually the otherworldly bosses are 3d in a 2d world, and all require a specific strategy if you’re going to beat them in battle. I don’t want to spoil anything more about these horror monsters that made their way into a monster collecting game, but I loved every one of my encounters with them.

I cannot understate how many clever ideas are packed into this wonderful monster collecting game. There’s an item called Fused Material that you can collect on your adventure that can be traded for permanent upgrades to your character like a better chance of successful recordings no matter the situation or the ability to hold more healing items. I also really like how your monster’s abilities work. Everytime you level up a beast they’ll learn a new ability in the form of a sticker, and these can be peeled off and replaced at any time so you can customise your moveset to your liking. You’ll even find stickers in chests on your adventure too, and there are some really creative strategies to be discovered by combining the right ones.

I should take a moment to mention the fantastic visuals and audio of this game too. Visually it’s the monster designs that impressed me the most. Wiith 120 beasts to collect and the ability to combine them all with fusion, it’s wild that they all look so visually appealing. The music is fantastic too, with banging battle themes and delightful laid back tunes (with actual lyrics) in the coffee shop you use as a base. There are even a decent amount of voice lines that help bring the game to life, which just isn’t a common thing in this genre.

I have so few complaints with Cassette Beasts, the only real issues I had seem to be very Steam Deck specific. Despite launching in a Verified state, at the time of writing the game I experienced a whole host of crashes and areas with significant frame drops. I’d like to hope these issues are Steam Deck specific, and that the game can be patched to make the game better there down the line too.

Cassette Beasts is easily the best monster collecting game I’ve ever played, with fantastic combat, wonderful monster designs and a whole lot of exploring to experience. Other than the issues I experienced with the current version of the game on the Steam Deck, I have no complaints with Cassette Beasts whatsoever. If you’ve ever had any enjoyment playing a Pokémon game before, you owe it to yourself to grab your tape deck and try the pinnacle of this genre as soon as possible.

The post Cassette Beasts review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

After a cataclysmic event called the Razing, humanity was almost completely wiped out. Now years later, our hero Renee is trying to help keep the peace in the world. After her village is ruthlessly attacked and her master killed, Renee sets off on a big ole fantasy adventure. There’s a whole lot of nonsense words to deal with and plenty of waffling about the afterlife and the goddess, but once everyone has cut the chatter you’ll be unleashed on the world.

Afterimage is a fairly straightforward game from the get go. Renee starts with a sword and the ability to do a backwards dash to avoid damage, and the name of the game is kill things before they kill you. It doesn’t take long to start gathering more offensive weapons though from a variety of classes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The great sword is slow but hugely powerful, the dual blades are the opposite, and the whip has great range and deals a whole lot of hits in a short period of time. Renee can equip two weapons at a time to two different buttons, which means you’ll be able to mix and match your favourites and call upon them when they’re needed.

Outside of combat you’ll get access to plenty of new tools as you progress too. Afterimage is as traditional a Metroidvania as they come, with plenty of upgrades to unlock and plenty of loot to go back and collect from prior areas. The upgrades aren’t especially mind-blowing (abilities like an air dash, a slide and a double jump) but they do the job of helping you access new places and making Renee feel like a whole new protagonist.

Although less exciting than the new movement abilities, you’ll also spend a lot of time upgrading Renee by killing enemies, gathering experience and leveling up. With each level up you’ll gain a talent point, which can be spent in the talent tree to boost your stats or unlock new weapon abilities. What’s really weird about this skill tree though is how much of it is blocked off until you reach a higher level. Multiple times (especially at the start of the game) you’ll unlock everything you can for the level you’re at and have points to spare. It doesn’t really feel important to choose what you upgrade wisely when you’ll just end up with all of them.

This is just one of the many weird aspects of Afterimage. Another is how the map works. When walking around the world your map doesn’t automatically fill in, and you’ll need to get to one of the save point trees to have the areas you’ve wandered through reveal themselves. It’s an interesting idea, but ultimately just makes the game a little more frustrating that it needs to be when you wander too far off the grid.

The exploring is still great though, despite the map issues. There are a ton of late game areas accessible early on, and any time you enter a new themed location you’ll be told the recommended level to survive there. This means that if you’re feeling really daring you can just wander about in an area meant for Renee at level 82 almost immediately, and there’s nothing quite like sneaking your way to an overpowered weapon or item and using it forever. I imagine speed runners could really have a good time breaking Afterimage.

With the good comes the bad though, and one of the first moments I rolled my eyes while playing was when the game punished me for dying by making Renee drop all her experience in the spot she was slain. There wasn’t a single part of me that thought this gorgeous game with the gentlest soundtrack needed to borrow mechanics from FromSoft, and it just feels so out of place here.

Outside some of the peculiar design decisions, I think the main issue with Afterimage is that it’s just rather familiar. The power ups and weapons aren’t particularly inventive, and there wasn’t a single moment I was taken by surprise. Afterimage is very much a Metroidvania-by-numbers; it’s fun enough to play but it feels very safe.

The main hook of Afterimage is absolutely the visuals. The 2d art is undeniably gorgeous, reminiscent of its genre peer Ori but a little more vibrant. It did sometimes feel like the environments were designed more with visual appeal in mind than for actually playing the game, and there were multiple times during my playthrough where I tried to jump on objects that were apparently just set dressing that ended badly.

Afterimage is a gorgeous looking Metroidvania, but it’s a little lacking in creativity. Beating up fantasy creatures with weapons and exploring the world is enjoyable enough, but the different power ups and upgrades are very familiar. It also has some odd design choices that don’t really land, like losing your experience on death and the map not filling in automatically. Afterimage isn’t a bad game, but with so many great Metroidvanias releasing every month it is a hard one to recommend.

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