A faithfully promising concept with an ultimately (at the very least) questionable execution.
It's a shame that a mechanic as promising as playing as a toddler — and all the repercussions surrounding it — is underplayed here, as tied in with a psychological leaning in horror, Among the Sleep could have offered a fresh take in what is a painstakingly underused concept in games. [Hardcore Gamer separately reviewed the PS4 (2.5) and PC (2.0) versions. Their scores have been averaged.]
As promising a foundation there may be here, Foamstars sadly finds itself buried beneath a malaise of lackluster content and an underdeveloped world alike. Occasionally enjoyable and suggestive of greater potential the foam-centric mechanics can be, as both an offensive and defensive tool alike, it's everything going on in and around the core gameplay, that ultimately makes the experience feel hollow and at worst, jarring to deal with. From its all-too-cheery presentation, to its laughably one-dimensional attempt at instilling personality into its world and characters. Right down to the horrid monetization practices at the very start of its life-cycle. A commitment to further updates and new content may stave off a small amount of concern, but it's hard to see where Foamstars' longevity will land. By no means the worst attempt at a multiplayer-centric experience by way of its handful of hopeful, admirable elements here and there, but still one that could've been far better given the promise.
What could've been a comical, perhaps novel, approach to tackling themes of corporatism, consumerism, activism and comfort in the familiar alike, The Last Worker instead can only muster up a mediocre clutter of half-baked ideas that rarely feel properly fleshed out.
Confused, contradictory and all too reliant on what came before, fantastic visuals that may stand as one of the current-gen's best can't save what's a terribly underwhelming release with The Callisto Protocol. A game that tries so desperately to be acknowledged for its own identity, all while relying on its most blatant and obvious of call-backs.
While the daily ongoings of Rainy Woods and its surrounding environment can rustle up a brief oddity or two, Swery and co's latest round of eccentric antics with The Good Life sadly doesn't go far enough in its set-up to feel all that compelling.
On the surface, Recompile might look and sound like an interesting, potentially unique, proposal.
Who's to say what the real, developer-side cause is for Scarlet Nexus' failings.
Without a key mechanic to keep gameplay fresh, or even a story that's both fleshed out and well-structured, Twin Mirror fails to find any kind of hook beyond the fleeting intrigue in how it all ends.
Crushed beneath a monotony of drones to trash, muffled dialogue to decipher and environments to float amidst, there are brief pleasantries and welcome respites in Marvel's Iron Man VR. Distractions that unfortunately amount to the only genuinely welcome highs in a VR effort that, commendable an effort it is to move out of the regular shooting gallery format, are wound up in one too many technical follies and lackluster mission objectives for the implied liberties to feel substantial.
There have been plenty of outings over the past few years that take the basic template of golf, as a sport, and manage to transform into something else.
While you can't fault the visuals and the effort put in to try and mask the evident budget limitations, that cutting of corners vibe is sadly something that plays into The Complex one too few many times.
Like a lot of middling and so-so titles in years past, the "so-close" conclusion that something greater, more impactful — or at least enjoyable — has gone horribly amiss is always far more regrettable than an otherwise rotten-to-its-core excuse for a game.
It's a shame that a game of such promise and ambition ends up in such a questionably lacking state as this, for Genesis Alpha One wields a fair number of interesting ideas, mechanics and spins on such things as roguelike exploration and base-building methodology that work wonders when feeding back into the core premise of managing all aspects of a ship journeying through space.
Though its pixellated visuals and bright environments do provide brief pleasantries in the first hour or so, the little variety in its missions and very reason to stay invested other than grinding until the climax results in a game caught between two minds, committing, sadly, to neither one in the process.
Unfortunately for all the minor smiles and well-orchestrated music that accompanies one's travels, The Longest Five Minutes feels mostly like a sterile assembly of classic JRPG's least-appealing necessities.
Uurnog Uurnlimited is a great example of poor execution.
Ultimately, Alwa’s Awakening feels like the foundation to what might have been a rather more substantial revisit of the glorious 8-bit like so many before it.
Yet in the end, for all its slick, admittedly-impressive detail with its visual assets, Hyposphere tries too hard to impress from the surface without considering anymore for what lies underneath its many high-resolution environments that play out more like demonstrations than fully realized, fully finished video game levels.
As expected, Resident Evil 6 — four years after its original release — remains one of the series’ most underbaked, underdeveloped and downright unappealing entries in a franchise that has claimed far greater heights in terms of gameplay and presentation.