PJ O'Reilly

Pure Xbox

PJ O'Reilly·Sep 6, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

Marvel's Avengers is sprawling and spectacular, messy and bloated all at the same time. There's a surprisingly fun and lengthy campaign here, excellent writing and acting and some of the best superhero brawling in the business. It excels at allowing you to really feel like you're fighting alongside your favourite superheroes as you decimate enemies and destroy scenery, but it loses some of that swagger as it enters its online endgame. There's a half-baked gear system, convoluted menus and questlines and some technical issues that make fighting online feel a little rough around the edges at this point in time. However, with a couple of patches, with the right support down the line in terms of new heroes, costumes, bad guys and story beats, Crystal Dynamics could be on to a winner here. This is a properly solid start and a pleasant surprise.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Sep 4, 2020

Critic50/100

Agreement—

Jump Force is a good time for a short time; a simplistic button-masher that looks and sounds great in action but can't deliver in terms of providing players with any more than a handful of hours of dumb fun before it all becomes a bit of a bore. If you're a huge fan of the shows involved or you like your fighting nice and easy you'll get more than most out of things and jumping into an online battle – if you can find one – adds a little spice to the mix but, overall, this is a disappointingly dull, one-note affair that doesn't do its roster of ever-popular characters any sort of justice.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Aug 30, 2020

Critic90/100

Agreement—

Hypnospace Outlaw really is like nothing else out there; at once an excellent puzzle game, razor-sharp satire and meticulously crafted slice of early-internet nostalgia that you can spend hours absolutely lost in. It's frequently hilarious stuff that's impeccably well-written across the board, managing to successfully bring the crazy, lawless, early rush of creativity that formed the pre-Y2K era of the internet convincingly back to life. It delivers a truly extraordinary recreation of the GeoCities era of the internet that absolutely nails its '90s aesthetic to present a living, breathing world that's a joy to spend time browsing around, soaking up the atmosphere and reliving the anarchic early days of the internet as you slowly untangle the puzzles at the heart of its narrative.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Aug 24, 2020

Critic90/100

Agreement—

Evergate is a wonderfully designed puzzle-platformer that starts off strong and goes from strength to strength over the course of its campaign. Every new world you encounter here adds a new twist to proceedings, gradually becoming more complex as it layers mechanics on top of one each other, enabling you to experiment and come up with your own unique ways to bound across its intricate levels. Speed-running here, for us, feels like it was tacked on for no real reason but, besides this one little misstep, this really is an essential purchase for puzzle/platforming fans and a standout example of its genre on Switch.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Aug 20, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

Peaky Blinders: Mastermind makes clever use of its licence, incorporating Tommy Shelby's knack for scheming and planning into the core of its time-manipulating gameplay as well as working each and every one of the gang from the hit TV show into proceedings. It's a shame that it takes quite so long for it to up the ante to the point that missions are really satisfyingly complex but what's here is certainly both fun and highly replayable for those who want to perfect each job on offer and grab gold in every mission.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Aug 18, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

Inmost tells its dark and troubling tale with plenty of style and there's an expertly handled mixing of narrative elements and satisfying gameplay mechanics for the most part that only really loses its way in the final stretch, unwisely wrestling control away from players and brute-forcing a rather neat and tidy ending that's at odds with how deftly the multi-layered story is handled early on. This and a few control niggles aside, however, are not enough to derail what is a genuinely haunting and memorable experience that's well worth checking out.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Jul 30, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

Rogue Company is a solid, if pretty unspectacular addition to the online shooter genre.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Jul 19, 2020

Critic60/100

Agreement—

Vigor has the potential to be a decent experience on Switch and there's no doubt it's central gameplay loops of stealthily scavenging for loot whilst avoiding other players and making a successful escape can be tense and absorbing. However, as things currently stand, there are a few too many bugs and technical issues for our liking and we'd recommend players wait for the FTP version to drop later in the year when some of these issues should have been worked out.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Jul 17, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus successfully fuses deep and rewarding turn-based strategy with impressively flexible customisation and some truly excellent world-building.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Jul 4, 2020

Critic60/100

Agreement—

Urban Trial Tricky mashes together elements of the Trials series, Tony Hawks and Joe Danger resulting in a fairly decent motorbike stunt experience that's fun when you're speeding around and pulling off ridiculous tricks, but is let down by some shoddy level design and an overall lack of finesse. If there was more space to manoeuvre and environmental obstacles and general placement of objects had been more carefully considered, this could have been an absolute blast. As it stands, it's a fairly decent time in short bursts that slides into infuriation a little too often to heartily recommend.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Jun 30, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

Ninjala is a good-looking and impressively tactical free-to-play arena fighter. It's currently lacking in modes and maps, there are problems with how the lacklustre opening tutorial goes about onboarding new players and the rock-paper-scissors aspect of proceedings is sure to be controversial but, overall, the game is off to a pretty strong start. We can't wait to see where GungHo takes its cast of pint-sized bubblegum protagonists in the coming months.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Jun 29, 2020

Critic60/100

Agreement—

Blair Witch starts off strong, throwing its players into a setting that comes with some pretty terrifying baggage for anyone who's familiar with the film upon which it is based. It's got a handful of fun mechanics, including the absolute star of the show, Bullet, and its story comes on strong towards the end, injecting the final third with some real tension. However, this is also a game that plods along for the most part, making no real use of its spooky setting, instead hemming players into small areas and forcing them to partake in a string of simplistic and rather hackneyed puzzles and busywork at the expense of any real tension. Overall then, Blair Witch is something of a mixed bag; it's not the worst horror game we've played recently, but it also doesn't do enough to earn a hearty recommendation.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Jun 27, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Trials of Cold Steel III is another excellent addition to a franchise that gains so much of what makes it absorbing from the huge amount of background detail and world-building that's been achieved in earlier entries in the series. Newcomers should be aware that taking the time out to play Trials of Cold Steel I and II is advised to get the absolute maximum amount of enjoyment out of this one but, even if you're jumping in fresh, there's still plenty to love here once you find your feet. With a massive cast of well-written characters and tons of excellent combat and exploration spread across its epic running time, this is a top-notch addition to the Switch's library of JRPGs.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Jun 26, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia takes the exact same core gameplay of its 1998 predecessor and transports it into a brand new storyline whilst giving the whole thing a modern lick of paint in the process. The story, although an improvement on the original game, is still pretty bland stuff for the most part and battles are certainly where this one finds its main groove. Those fights may be a little on the slow side and are inherently repetitive affairs, but they're still rather enjoyable nonetheless and give you a reasonable amount of choice in how you take on your enemies and evolve and upgrade your troops. There's a ton of content here and, in the end, the whole thing feels like a pretty successful celebration of what made the first game a cult classic in the first place. It's not going to be to everyone's tastes, however, and if you like your strategy action to be a little more intense, you might want to stick with something like Wargroove or Fire Emblem: Three Houses instead.

Nintendo Life

PJ O'Reilly·Jun 20, 2020

Critic60/100

Agreement—

Warborn takes the tried and tested Advance Wars formula, adds a bunch of huge Mechs, some overwrought '90s anime-inspired cutscenes and a story that sees you take control of four different commanders as you seek to restore order to the Auros system. There's nothing inspired or unique here; Raredrop Games is playing it safe and straight down the line, but fans of the genre, and most especially fans of massive Gundam-esque robots, will get a solid (if unspectacular) experience out of what's on offer with this one. Just don't expect any surprises.