The new features are welcome, and the game definitely looks nicer, but apart from that, it’s the same experience. If you had your fill of the title on the PS4, there’s not a whole lot to come back for. However, if you’re just diving into the game now, this is the version you want.
Observer: System Redux is a legitimately impressive overhaul. At long last, the PS5 has allowed Bloober Team's ambitions with this title to be properly realized. New quests slot into the experience wonderfully, Rutger Hauer's performance remains impeccable, and the game just generally has a lot more to offer this time out. While an overreliance on jump scares and a plot desperately in need of some trimming hold the experience back from true greatness, Observer's fancy new PS5 incarnation at long last feels like the title it was originally intended to be.
The Pathless is an incredible experience, and easily one of the best launch titles available on the PS5 in what is already an excellent selection. A wondrous, beautiful open world with innumerable locations and secrets to uncover is placed alongside a moving narrative further heightened by an unexpectedly tender relationship between player and bird. And that's to say nothing of the game's exquisite use of colour, or the beautiful and wickedly unique soundtrack. The Pathless excels on all fronts.
Fuser is, frankly, a staggering technological achievement. The game takes the act of making music, an incredibly challenging thing to accomplish, and practically trivialises it. You don't need to have any kind of prior knowledge to make meaningful music with this title. The game walks you through everything with a perfect learning curve and near-limitless flexibility. It remains to be seen if it will court a large enough player base to confirm its existence, but as it currently stands, this title is yet another unexpected jolt of inspiration for the rhythm game genre, which even just a few years ago looked all but dead. Between the brilliance of rhythm titles in VR and now Fuser, the future is bright indeed.
NHL 21 is absolutely a step forward. We won't be able to see if this improvement is a one-time thing until next year, but as it stands, this final release of the generation is also its best in that span. With a long-overdue update to the Be a Pro mode, alongside the pretty fun HUT Rush and the changes to Franchise, the series took a bigger step forward than it normally does. Sure, there's a give and take quality to many of the alterations, but the overall product is a net positive. It won't be scooping up an endless stream of awards any time soon, but this series has been in far worse shape in the past.
Ultimately the game feels like the first draft of a really great idea. Add some polish, and we’d love to see what it could become.
But with all these setbacks, perhaps the age old question of 'Can you run Crysis?' should be refrained. Maybe we should instead be asking, why would you want to?
If you’re already a fan of Alan Wake, this is a brilliant experience that provides more juicy tidbits from the beloved property. If you’re new to Alan Wake, though, this is not the right starting point.
Ultimately the result is a fun world, with fun characters that absolutely nails its boss fights, but settles for adequacy on all other fronts. As the first game from a new team, it’s not bad, though.
Descenders is a solid experience if you're looking for a time waster that you'll return to over and over. While constant screen tearing issues hamper its presentation quite a bit, the game has solid controls, as well as simple though endlessly entertaining mechanics. While the controls aren't the tightest we've seen, they do everything adequately and contribute to the fun. Add in the wide range of biomes to race through, including some more wacky ones towards the end of the game, and it makes for one fun package. And that's to say nothing of the fun little gimmicks, like the first-person mode and the trials-style courses. Descenders has everything you could possibly want in a downhill cycling roguelite.
While the gameplay is solid, we came away more impressed with the art direction and sound design than expected. The lightly stylised, cel-shaded look works for 1971, with the organic environments looking especially nice. The sheer variety of locations is impressive, too, including an oil rig, airbase, canyon, and nomadic village. Meanwhile, the exploration music is absolutely beautiful, though the combat soundtrack gets a bit repetitive.
Monstrum crafts a genuinely frightening game of procedurally generated hide and seek.
Daymare: 1998 is a low budget release with an ambition that outpaces its production values, but it's still a good attempt. There are stumbling blocks – hit detection, boss fights, animations – but the lighting is good, the soundtrack is great, and the exploration is satisfying.
We found ourselves constantly craving more information, only for Below to not provide it.
Something that hasn’t aged quite as well are the shooting galleries. The enemy spawns feel too abundant on some levels, causing the gunplay to get a bit too monotonous. This is especially true on 'The Lost Levels' which are brand new bonus missions meant to connect “old” Doom to “new” Doom, but end up overstaying their welcome.