This is tremendous stuff, a game that could absolutely have been released alongside Raven Software’s mid-90s fantasy shooters and held up. (Although people would have been mystified by the lighting tech.) Admittedly, you can get Hexen for a buck-fifty right now, but there’s a good chance you already did. Hands Of Necromancy is a welcome addition to that fold, and developers HON Team have become a name to follow.
What a treat. And a surprisingly deep one, with compelling moments you’ll want to talk about. It’s a pleasure to control, it has impeccable difficulty balancing to keep you moving forward while always feeling like you’re being skillful, and all in the prettiest of pretty pixel graphics. Triumphant.
The game is clearly enormously detailed, a real passion piece, and one I fought and fought to enjoy. It didn't work out for me. I suspect it may for others.
It's a dreamy, gentle, melancholic game, created with tangible passion. It's utterly beautiful, and while not nearly challenging enough, it's entertaining to play.
The key is, I do enjoy playing it. I'm still far from finished, but have played for an awfully long time. For a tenner, that's a lot of game. It's somewhat obnoxious, but special for just getting on with being a game.
It's a comfortable game, lots to do, very silly, definitely fun to play. But it's also sitting still, putting its feet up, rather than surprising us with something delightfully new.
What we've got here is a mildly absorbing romp through an extremely generic setting, delivered with no sense of aplomb.
I reached the point of only sighing or shouting in frustration, despite sitting in front of a gorgeous-looking game with a ton of potential.
So, so much effort has gone into this. But sadly, to little entertaining result.
But wow, I've enjoyed it.
It's unquestionably smart, almost intolerably cute, and splendidly novel. I'm not quite convinced the balancing is right, and think the levels become too cluttered, too quickly. But it remains completely lovely to play despite it.
It remains a joy. It's calming, pleasurable, cute and tricky. It's Spelunky for people who don't like restarting all the time. But it's also its own distinct notion, with its focus on progression over difficulty. SteamWorld Dig is a really lovely, very fun time. What a great thing for a game to be.
On its own, out of nowhere, I'd likely be pleasantly surprised by a not-terrible game-of-the-movie, especially one aimed at kids. But in context, I can't believe you've played every single TT Lego game, and would far more strongly recommend you go fill in one of the gaps.
For where it falls short, it far more often had me crouched in a shadow, heart racing, waiting for the perfect moment to dart past a guard's routine. It may be the fourth best Thief game, but it's a damned fine game in its own rights.
It'll make another billion dollars, and they're already making the next one that will be exactly the same, and the incredible potential will yet again consume its own fetid tail. The circlejerk of life.
Lego Jurassic World ends up being a middling entry for TT's enormous franchise, but a middling entry by them is still enormously better than most other family games.
Most of the game is about painfully slowly walking your paper person to the next glowing spot on the ground, and pulling at the big glowing circle that appears, then painfully slowly walking back again.
Everything in this sequel is bigger, more elaborate, more detailed, and absolutely better. Which, after such a lovely first game, is quite the thing.
There's no story worth hearing, there's no immediate hook that makes this different from anything else, and nothing special about the combat or the questing to make me care.
But instead it's the rusting chassis of an ARPG, after it's been stripped down for parts and left, abandoned in a disused yard, where it really ought to be forgotten.