Nathan Birch
At this point, I can say Meet Your Maker’s raids provided decent tooth-gritting satisfaction, and building my own Outpost deathtraps was simple, devious fun. I’m just not sure if Meet Your Maker’s building tools have the necessary versatility to give the game long-term legs, particularly when combined with limiting mechanics that make more elaborate Outposts a chore to complete. I hope to be surprised, but if the game can’t attract a dedicated community of talented creators, Meet Your Maker may find itself at the pearly gates before too long.
WWE 2K20 is a slap in the face. I'm sure plenty of passionate people worked on this game, but the fact that 2K Games was willing to release it in such a sorry state shows they believe WWE hardcores will blindly gobble up whatever they shovel at them. WWE 2K20 is ugly, broken, uninspired junk, written and presented with contempt for pro wrestling and its fans. I know buying the annual WWE game is a tradition for a lot of people, but I strongly urge you to reconsider this year. If 2K and Visual Concepts can't do better than this, it may be time to hang up their boots.
Skully is a masterclass in bad platformer design. Characters that are a chore to handle, sloppy level design, lousy camera controls, irritating puzzles, and a general lack of personality combine to create a profoundly tedious experience. If challenge is literally all you care about (even if it's wildly unfair), Skully might be worth a shot at a steep discount. Everyone else should spare themselves the headache.
Eternity: The Last Unicorn is a less-than-magical mix of misplaced PS1-era nostalgia and shallow Dark Souls mimicry. Nearly everything about the game, from its fixed camera angles, to its clunky combat, to its copious backtracking is broken or irritating in some way. If challenge is all you're looking for in a game, perhaps Eternity: The Last Unicorn is for you. Everyone else will likely find it as fun as a sharpened horn to the eye.
Remothered: Broken Porcelain is a textbook example of a bad horror sequel that mostly sticks to its predecessor's formula, without really understanding what made it work. Between a jumbled story, shortage of tension, annoying new mechanics, and a flagrant lack of polish, Broken Porcelain in a follow up only a mother could love.
Extinction presents a handful of decent ideas, but they're executed with all the precision and grace of Godzilla stomping through Tokyo. Buying this sloppy, ugly, derivative, repetitive, technically inept, and unfairly difficult monstrosity is guaranteed to leave your weekend in ruins.
I honestly didn't hate Hello Neighbor, but an interesting setup and good intentions don't make up for sloppy design, unwieldy controls, AI that isn't half as smart as advertised, and myriad of other issues. A very specific type of player who loves finding secrets and proposing fan theories may be able to overlook Hello Neighbor's problems, but most will want to bury the game in the backyard.
Past Cure is a bizarre experience. It feels like a half-dozen different games crudely stapled together, most of which are bad. Yes, the game is ambitious, it reaches for the triple-A brass ring, but the end product is unfocused, unpolished, and, for long stretches, exceptionally boring. Past Cure? More like Past Bedtime.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has a sprinkling of that classic Rocksteady charm, delivering polished visuals, fluid traversal and combat, and some snappy repartee, but the whole experience is bogged down by dreary, repetitive mission design, empty live service elements, and a feel-bad story that’s mean-spirited to the point of feeling oddly resentful. Perhaps most damning, not even the thing promised in the game’s title – fighting and dispatching the Justice League – ends up being particularly fun or memorable. Those who really want to see what becomes of the Arkhamverse may not be able to resist picking this up, but I suggest waiting for a steep discount before subjecting yourself to this tedious team-up.
The best thing you can say about New Tales from the Borderlands is that it makes you appreciate just how good the folks at Telltale Games were at what they did. While Gearbox’s latest is more technically impressive than Telltale’s series, stale, irritating characters, a slapdash plot, and choices that don’t feel like they matter turn the game’s brief runtime into a slog. These Tales are new, but they’re definitely not improved.
While Kirby’s Dream Buffet offers some fleeting fun and excitement, a lack of multiplayer options, laggy online action, poor splitscreen performance, and an inflated price tag combine to sour what could have been a tasty multiplayer snack.
Necromunda: Hired Gun has a certain grungy charm and offers up some clever ideas, but unrefined core mechanics, messy level design, and a shameful lack of polish ultimately add up to Necro-no-fun-da. Hardcore Games Workshop fanatics might still find something to enjoy here, but I recommend you don't hire this gun at anything but a steep discount.
PixelJunk Raiders has a unique vibe and some interesting ideas, including smart implementation of Stadia's State Share feature, but it isn't anywhere near as fleshed out or polished as it needs to be. Cheapo presentation, clunky combat, unbalanced roguelike mechanics, and a lack of variety combine to extinguish the game's promise. PixelJunk Raiders may stand out like a minor oasis on the desolate Stadia release calendar, but there's a much wider, more vibrant world of roguelike-flavored games out there to explore.
The Falconeer doesn't do anything glaringly wrong, and yet, the overall experience doesn't really click. The game looks lovely, controls well, and offers surprising depth considering it was created by a single developer, but an uninvolving world, repetitive missions, and combat that isn't as visceral as it should be grounds its potential. Like many flights, The Falconeer is kind of exciting when you first take off, but by landing time you just want the experience to be over.
WWE 2K Battlegrounds is clearly a rush job, but the game's simple, fundamentally sound action can be a real breath of fresh air at times. Unfortunately, that air is tainted by overbearing microtransactions that feel particularly crass given the game's cartoony, kid-friendly aesthetic. Battlegrounds could have been a contender if 2K had truly believed in the game, but once again, the publisher only seems to be interested in wrestling open fans' wallets.
The Resident Evil multiplayer curse continues. Resident Evil Resistance presents some promising ideas, and messing with people as the Mastermind has its moments, but unsatisfying action, clunky level design, a lack of content, and manipulative microtransactions snuff out the game's potential. Sadly, trying to wring more than a few minutes of fun from Resident Evil Resistance is futile.
The Suicide of Rachel Foster tackles challenging subject matter and bravely invites comparisons to recent indie favorites, but all the ambition in the world can't make up for an unengaging story, clunky gameplay, and some unfortunate tone-deaf moments. If you loved Gone Home or Firewatch, you're better off just playing them again – Rachel Foster is a ghostly shadow of those classics.
Dangerous Driving is, at best, a rough early prototype of a proper Burnout successor. The basic mechanics and sense of speed are there, but they're badly undermined by bland track design, infuriating AI, a lack of features, and a host of other issues. Those feeling nostalgic for Burnout would be best served taking the classics out for another spin, rather than taking a chance on this lemon.
If you're going to clone a unique, yet flawed game like The Banner Saga, it's crucial that you significantly improve the experience in some way. Ash of Gods: Redemption doesn't, replicating its inspiration's problems, but not its singular vision. Ironically, folks who have never played The Banner Saga will get the most out of this glorified fangame – those who have will likely find Ash of Gods a gray, lifeless imitation.
Road Redemption delivers exactly what it promises – an accurate recreation of decades-old racing games that maybe weren't all that hot to begin with. If you legitimately love and have continued to play Road Rash all these years, by all means, give Road Redemption a shot. You'll probably enjoy it. If the 16-bit era was before your time, or you haven't touched Road Rash since you returned it to Blockbuster Video in 1993, be prepared for a bumpy ride.