Tearaway takes its developers’ aims further by coupling the tactile nature of touch screens with constant prompts to bring the player’s face, surroundings, fingers, and creativity into most every gameplay scenario.
This uneven mix of humor and design keeps “High on Life” from ever feeling like a natural combination of video game and traditional comedy, even if there are plenty of moments where glimpses of some better blend of the two elements appears. What’s here is worthwhile for audiences curious about the concept of a comedy shooter, but it’s too uneven and stiflingly desperate to please to recommend beyond that.
Though pandemic fiction may seem like the last thing audiences need right now, the catharsis “Requiem” provides is a valuable salve. It reminds us that others, today and in the past, feel or have felt our same confusion, fear and grief.
Unfortunately, though, the narrative is a black hole of missed opportunities, surfacing time and again to remind players of what’s missing from the experience even as they try to forget and just enjoy what does work. If only “Stay Human” could navigate its story of post-apocalyptic morality with the same deftness as its assured, acrobatic protagonist.
If this tone takes center stage in the back half of the story, combined with plot developments that add some momentum to the proceedings, it may be easier to overlook the game’s weaker aspects and appreciate it as a compelling narrative work. At this point, though, the town of Redfall is sucked too dry of liveliness for players to be invested in whether its vampires triumph or not.
Still, disregarding the downtime spent on its charmless characters and bland plot, there’s an undeniable thrill to the fighting. If only the rest of the game packed as memorable a punch as its protagonist does when beating the insides out of Evil West’s vampires, it would be easier to recommend. As it stands, it’s not much more than a series of better-than-average monster-pummeling arenas interrupted by uninspired storytelling.
Stick it to the Man is a game that seems almost too obviously referential to a subversive subculture to look as bright and be as assertive as it is. But that doesn't stop it from being as boldly weird (and ultimately super funny) as it is.
I have a feeling that even [Gaiman's] most devoted fans will be disappointed with the experience.
The promise of Daylight—never feeling safe because random scares defy predictability—ends up seeming like the main cause of its problems instead of a genre-changing bit of design.
the end, it's kitsch. It's a Soviet-themed Lego set that renders a monumental socio-political phenomenon into little else but a toy. And an exceptionally boring one at that.
Without either a compelling cast or plot, there's little to draw the player into the mundane gameplay.
This is a game that doesn’t seem to care at all about the very real horrors of modern Central and South American history—that presents a dire international problem as something that can be solved through the clean precision of four American badasses pulling off sync shots. Whether out of neglect, a lack of understanding or a deep callousness, it turns the suffering of the people who right now live under vicious cartels into a playground for a forgettable sandbox shooter. Its audience needs either a willful ignorance of—or a disturbing outlook on—the world around them to be able to play Wildlands without a deep sense of unease.
Despite the promise of its setting and philosophically informed morality system, Broken Roads fails to set itself apart from or come remotely close to matching the many post-apocalyptic games it's inspired by.
There are a handful of good stories to be found in Andromeda, but they’re hidden away, worthwhile moments tucked within hours and hours of disposable ones. In an effort to be as comprehensive as possible in tone, styles of mission objective and purpose, the game ends up feeling as impossibly vast as nature but as rigid and artificial as a computer system.
There's the outline of a great game one whose aesthetic would likely attract audiences young and old—but it only ever appears in glimpses.
A certain type of player will find a lot to enjoy in simply puzzling out their location and trekking toward the objectives.
Zombi's unique take on survival horror isn't enough to compensate for an otherwise bland experience.
The same design elements that give the experience [of playing Betrayer] such a wonderfully palpable sense of dread are misused to the point of tedium.
As superb as the experience of simply exploring [The Vanishing of Ethan Carter's] eerie environments is, unravelling the plot's mystery isn't terribly enjoyable.
Wrong Number, more than a direct continuation, is an expansion and affirmation of Hotline Miami's themes.