Includes RPS, Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Last reviewed: Denshattack! · 5 days ago
I can't get Fish Sticks out of my head. Not the food, but the stray cat with a squished face and stubby legs that I wrangled into my shack in Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel’s new roguelite strategy game, Mewgenics. The shop, the pub, the dentist; no matter where I go, I…
I was, like so many of my 1990s-born peers, a huge Sims girlie. I spent hundreds of hours as a teen and young adult making people I knew, characters from shows I was obsessing over, or original characters I wanted to experiment with, and diligently following their life paths and…
This could have been the Hidden Folks of murdering. And it's all there, underneath the mess, waiting for someone to rescue. Sadly that has, so far, not been realised.
On the whole, though, Okami is a delight from start to finish. It gives you the freedom to savour and indulge in every last drop of its ink-washed world, and its combat and story are both superb – particularly if you have even the slightest bit of interest in Japanese mythology.
Shadowhand is built entirely on a foundation of muddy luck. Sometimes the cards come up in such a way that you can combo twenty or more in a row. Sometimes you have to pass your turn over and over again, waiting for a useful 7 or 5 to show itself. That's why I find it unsatisfying.
You absolutely should play it if you've played To The Moon. If you haven't, you should blooming well go and play that, and then this.
SpellForce 3 is a game that, when pulled apart, doesn't always come out looking great, but that I've still really enjoyed.
A stunning puzzler like nothing you've played before.
It might not fully satisfy match-3 fans, then, but this is still a delectable puzzler wrapped in an engaging fantasy story, served with a side of so-so platforming. It's with great skill that Trinket Studios has managed to make that unusual combination work at all, even if I'm left longing for a more developed follow-up that makes the most of every one of its inspired ingredients.
Simple, satisfying, vertical and easy to binge on, like a tube of Pringles. Hyakki Castle feels like a generic alternative. It'll fill the gap for a while, but once you pop, stopping might be easier than you'd hope.
You'll have an example off the top of your head, but I'm struggling to think of the last twin-stick shooter that put a big emphasis on downtime between blasting, with NPCs, a decent chunk of story, and an RPG-style upgradeable roster of characters. That's what Tower 57 rather modestly offers, all through very pleasing chunky 16-bit art.
If you're in desperate need of a historical strategy romp, you could do a lot worse than Empire Divided, and it's the best piece of Rome DLC by quite a large margin, but barely a turn went by without me wishing I was bullying Elves or fighting the hordes of Chaos instead.
With how difficult it is to both a) learn all the mechanics and b) execute actions with Slade's lumbering movement, it's tempting just to move on, and to leave Outcast in the past.
If you want a new Lego game to sit down and play with your kids, or indeed by yourself, then this is the one you've been waiting for since 2013.
For those first few hours, Battlefront 2 struck me with gorgeous moment after gorgeous moment that's made me reevaluate what's possible with 2017's technology. It's a shame that the fighting frequently gets bogged down by chokepoints, and any long-term appeal is undermined by a progression system that can't shake the pay to win shadow which continues to loom over the game.
The most bizarre combination of ambition and the complete lack of it in one game. Astonishing, but flat.
Need For Speed Payback is really very terrible indeed