John Walker

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Sep 7, 2016

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It’s definitely bloated, needing a brutal hand to strip out a few dozen of the weaker puzzles. Because in there are challenges that are not only good, but sometimes great. Really satisfying to solve. It’s that they’re too frequently diluted down by a series of chambers far more entertaining for the brief banter between TOM and Ava at the start than the process of completion. As such, it falls a good distance short of the two mighty games it emulates.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Sep 1, 2016

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It’s utterly beautiful, and it sounds so wonderful, but in the end it feels too hollow. As a piece of visual art it deserves extensive celebration. As a game, it needed to be slightly more: slightly more purposeful, slightly more involved, slightly more communicative.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Aug 23, 2016

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It’s a perfect game for playing with kids (although try to keep your sniggering at the cactus willies to a minimum, in order to avoid awkward conversations). What we don’t have is Ubisoft Reflections reaching for something new, something innovative, something surprising.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Aug 3, 2016

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Kelvin is one of the most competent and solid adventures I’ve seen in forever, without resorting to the intrinsic nastiness that imbues too much of the output from developers like Daedalic. It looks just lovely, a bold and distinct cartoon style that’s something I want to see more of.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Jul 25, 2016

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Human: Fall Flat is unquestionably charming, and tremendous fun when it’s not annoying me so much I want to find the developers and put staples in their toes.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Jul 19, 2016

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It’s a clumsy, dull, shallow, lacklustre trudge through cold soup. And fails at the most important aspect of any game in the genre: making me want to have another go.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Jul 14, 2016

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It’s wildly derivative, which is such a peculiar thing to see from such a developer, but I’m glad it exists. It’s just… well, it’s fine.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Jul 7, 2016

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Clearly others are adoring this, so read around. I certainly will be now to try to work out what on Earth was going on last week. But I completely didn’t get this. It has a few decent puzzles, all of them boringly repeated. It looks lovely, when it remembers to, but mostly doesn’t.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Jun 30, 2016

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This is, for children, adults, anyone, a really lovely thing, funny, silly, and tremendous fun to play. If you've a kid who just got into Star Wars via the new movie, goodness me this can't be recommended highly enough. But at the same time, and I've been the one fighting off saying this for years longer than many others, it's getting stale. I

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Jun 21, 2016

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In the end, Breached is just too small in every aspect to feel satisfying. I’d love to see this fleshed out into something with more ambition and more purpose. As it is, even at the reasonable price of $7, it feels too fleeting.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Jun 14, 2016

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This is a disaster, and the biggest surprise about it is that Ubisoft thought it worth releasing.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Jun 10, 2016

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Nu Watson and Holmes look dangerously close to Downey Jr and Law, five years too late, and their new voices are bizarrely unenigmatic, if competently delivered. It's not a reboot, nor a refresh, right down to the repeated locations and character models of the likes of Lestrade, but rather the weirdness of the series continuing its morbidly fascinating spiraling descent into lunacy. If I find myself carrying on, I'll certainly let you know what happens next, but in the meantime, yeah, avoid.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·Jun 7, 2016

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I thoroughly recommend it, for those looking for something erring much more toward the more casual end of the strategy world, the only region of the genre with which I'm comfortable. It's bright, breezy, light and fun, and perhaps, after all, that's enough.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·May 17, 2016

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It's got this weird bubbling heart underneath it, a clear desire to be a great game despite not being able to reach it. It's packed, varied, and so bloody enormous. It's a real muddle, and a muddle for which I've developed a real soft spot.

Rock Paper Shotgun

John Walker·May 9, 2016

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I had a splendid time with Kathy Rain, and thoroughly enjoyed a game where I couldn’t see where it might be heading.