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Assassin's Creed Odyssey is the video game equivalent of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy. There's a good story in there somewhere and a decent editor could trim the material and create a cohesive product. However, both experiences are stretched thin over unnecessary padding and diversions and by the time you're two-thirds of the way through…
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**Review copy provided by the publisher** Return of the Obra Dinn is the new game from Lucas Pope, the developer of the excellent Papers, Please. Both games have you solving puzzles to identify people, but the similarities mostly end there. Papers, Please had you solving simple puzzles as quickly as possible. Return of the Obra…
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Lara Croft has officially become the Tomb Raider. For the third time in five years. You'll have to excuse my fatigue, but I can't help but feel like I've played Shadow of the Tomb Raider before. Twice. Shadow's predecessor, Rise of the Tomb Raider, wasn't a bad game by any stretch, but it wasn't a particularly…
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Marvel's Spider-Man has a trophy for using the fast travel system five times. In any other game with an open world map as large as this one, I'd be popping that trophy in the first few hours. Therefore, it's a huge credit to Insomniac Games that I had to go out of my way to…
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During my three hours with Donut County, I used more emojis than I have previously used in my thirty-five years on this Earth. The mere inclusion of emojis would usually stop me from playing a game, let alone enjoying it, but I had a lovely time with Donut County, both in the main levels and…
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Quarantine Circular is another short text adventure from Bithell Games. Like its predecessor, Subsurface Circular, Quarantine Circular was released with little fanfare and for the low price of $6. Both games share the same DNA, but they aren't connected and you don't need to play Subsurface first. That said, you probably should, because Subsurface is…
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*Review copy provided by publisher* There's no way I'll make it through this review without comparing Not Tonight to Papers, Please, so let's get it out of the way early. Yes, Not Tonight is a hell of a lot like Papers, Please. Instead of working at a border, you're a doorman for local pubs and…
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Dead Living Zombies completes Far Cry 5's phenomenally disappointing season pass which never even made it to the mediocre highs of the base game. This expansion has some great writing and a premise that could have set it apart from all the other zombie games out there. Instead, Ubisoft settled for spawning in hoards of zombies…
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**Review copy provided by the publisher** Rogue-lites can be a tough sell. Many gamers—and I am sometimes one of them—are put off by the idea of losing all their progress on death and starting from the beginning. It's not everyone's idea of a good time and understandably so. Perhaps that's why developer Motion Twin touts…
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Tacoma feels instantly familiar to those who played Fullbright's debut, the excellent Gone Home. The lonely protagonist is in outer space this time, but otherwise, things are much the same. There's another empty location to explore as you slowly uncover what happened to the previous inhabitants before a twist reveals itself right at the end. Since Gone…
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**Free review copy provided by developer** While it might not look like it at first glance, Cultist Simulator reminds me of grand strategy games such as Civilisation or Crusader Kings. In addition to that addictive "just one more turn" mentality, you focus on creating your own path and making your own stories in a world…
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OnRush emphasizes driving fast. In addition to the regular boost, there's a special boost that has you going so fast you can barely see what's in front of you. And yet, despite this focus on speed, OnRush is not a racing game. Your precise goal depends on what mode you're playing but in most of…
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At the beginning of Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, an anthropomorphic wolf voiced by Sting tells you to travel around the depression-era United States collecting stories and telling some of your own. With a premise like that, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Where the Water Tastes Like Wine would live and die by…
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Far Cry 5 didn't know whether it wanted to tell a serious story or a silly one and, in the end, it settled for barely telling a story at all. Lost on Mars—the second piece of DLC in Far Cry 5's season pass—knows it's silly and milks it at every opportunity. It's hilarious at times,…
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I've never been a huge fan of the western genre. Firefly and Westworld are quasi-westerns, I guess, and that's about as close as I get to enjoying it. If the genre had more aliens, ghosts, and goblins, I might have developed more of a taste for it. West of Loathing has all that and it's…
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Cyberpunk stories often assume that body upgrades are commonplace in the future, albeit they are typically reserved for the rich, further widening the gap between the haves and have-nots. The Red Strings Club goes one step further and proposes a future where humans can upgrade their minds to remove negativity and emotional pain. One generous…
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I have a strange obsession with games that immerse me in post-apocalyptic nuclear wastelands. It's a weird fetish, but an undeniable truth about me nonetheless, dating back to my fascination with the first Fallout game. Immersion might be a bit of a buzzword, but in the case of Metro Redux, it's a well-earned label and…
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It's been fifteen years since the last mainline F-Zero game and I can only play the same old Wipeout games so many times. Fast RMX doesn't quite fill the futuristic-racer void left behind by those classic franchises, but it's a decent snack that'll keep me going until the main course eventually arrives. If Fast RMX…
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The history of Kickstarter-funded video games isn't exactly full of success stories. For every Shovel Knight, there's a Mighty No. 9. Much like movie tie-ins, you do occasionally get good games from Kickstarter, but for the most part, you should exercise caution and keep the hype to a minimum. We still don't know whether Koji…
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N++ fully earns the "Ultimate Edition" subtitle attached to its marketing. The original N was a Flash game from 2004 and was followed up by N+ for the Xbox 360, DS, and PSP. In 2015, Metanet Software released N++ for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and as of May 2018, the definitive version of this addictive momentum-based platformer…
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I thoroughly enjoyed Life is Strange, but given how it ended, I wasn't exactly screaming out for a sequel. The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is a free prologue tasked with getting us interested in whatever the hell is going to happen in Life is Strange 2. Well, mission accomplished. Captain Spirit wastes no time…
Continue reading ➞ The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit (PC)
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Much like the sport it's based on, Golf Story is initially relaxing and enjoyable enough: a pleasant way to spend a lazy afternoon. However, after a few hours, Golf Story begins to get boring and the mind starts to think about all the more interesting things you could be doing instead. Both the game and the…
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In House Flipper, you renovate run-down houses and sell them for a profit. Your first purchase will probably be a bug-infested one-bedroom house but before long you'll be buying mansions with garages bigger than a San Francisco apartment. There's an inherent satisfaction in turning a property from something you need a hazmat suit to enter into…
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*Free review copy provided by the publisher* Genre mashups are a tricky thing. When they work, they can be some of the most memorable games ever made, taking players by surprise and making you wonder why no-one thought of doing it before. Portal is a good example, melding first-person shooting with puzzles in a way…
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Subsurface Circular is a visual novel about talking to strangers on a train. Basically, a British person's worst nightmare. It ends up being a relaxing and thought-provoking experience where you talk to androids and solve a mystery without ever moving from your seat. At ninety minutes long, Subsurface Circular doesn't overstay its welcome and if…
I've spent more time than I'd like to acknowledge thinking about the games that might be revealed at E3 2018. There's no point keeping these predictions in my head because then I can't be smug and annoying if I get any of them correct. Anyway, here are my predictions. Most of them are a bit…
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Far Cry 5's first piece of DLC—Hours of Darkness—shifts the focus to stealth with a reworked perked system that's an ideal fit for a short piece of DLC. Unfortunately, not much else has changed. Hours of Darkness feels like a fan-made mod for Far Cry 5. There's barely any story to speak of, no interesting…
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Detroit: Become Human offers a fascinating glimpse into a possible future where the US is rife with prejudice and discrimination. A future where people are angry about the loss of job opportunities and direct that anger towards those they feel took their jobs. A future where politicians are in the pockets of large corporations, putting the…
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On May 2, 2017, The New York Times stated the following in an article about gamers: This quote was also included in a tweet which was rightly lambasted and laughed at by gamers and people with common sense. Stereotyping is rarely accurate or productive, especially when you're talking about 150 million people. For context, there are about 126…
Continue reading ➞ The Other Problem with that New York Times Article About Gamers
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"Ares, you tricked me into murdering my family. They weren't supposed to be among the completely innocent people I was brutally murdering for no reason." Yeah... the new GoW will have to go some way to make me give a shit about Kratos. https://t.co/dWjIbRIVBd — Chris Davis (@cdavis_games) March 26, 2018 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js That's a tweet…
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Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom has everything it needs to be a great JRPG. There's a deep combat system, charming characters and environments, and an interesting fantasy premise. It could have been really good, maybe even great. Instead, Level-5 spread the quality too thin, mixing it with half-baked concepts such as skirmishes and kingdom…
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Last year, Ubisoft made huge changes to its Assassins' Creed franchise with the release of Assassin's Creed Origins, which I gave a four out of five. Thanks to Origins, I'm excited to play Assassins' Creed games again. Far Cry desperately needed the same treatment. Instead, Far Cry 5 is merely a minor evolution in a series that hasn't…
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This re-re-release of Okami doesn't add much to either the original game or the 2012 HD version. There are no extra characters or cosmetics, no added DLC, and no galleries of concept art. All this latest version of Okami does is upgrade the visuals to 4k (assuming you have the hardware). Fortunately, Okami doesn't need…
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*Review copy provided by publisher* Devil May Cry transitioned from being a Resident Evil sequel to one of the best new IPs on the Playstation 2. It inspired three sequels, a reboot, and the God of War and Bayonetta franchises. In other words, it's a series that has earned some respect. Unfortunately, this HD Collection is…
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Fair warning: this review is longer than usual and descends into analysis territory at times. An earlier draft was much shorter, but I didn’t feel comfortable putting my criticisms out there without concrete examples. Despite spending a lot of time focusing on the negatives, I don’t hate Iconoclasts by any stretch. It’s average. Iconoclasts is…
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Sometimes all you need is a push. I was tempted by the previous Yakuza games and even had Yakuza 5 downloaded on my PS3 at one point. I never played it. It can be hard to jump into a series so late and nothing I saw made them look like must-play games. Then along came…
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I died over 500 times completing Celeste's six-hour story mode. I died another 500 times on just one of the post-game challenge levels. If I’d have known this before playing Celeste, I would have deleted the game and never bothered. I like a challenge but there’s usually a limit to my patience with hard video…
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Video games can—and indeed should—deal with sensitive subjects like mental illness. Celeste and Night in the Woods tackled depression, however including sensitive such topics carries an inherent risk and isn't something to be taken lightly. If the developer doesn’t do its research or messes up the implementation then the illness can come off as a…
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Ubisoft's latest financial results provide further proof that major publishers are shifting from selling "traditional" $60 games to selling what Ubisoft refers to as "live service" games i.e. ones with recurring revenue streams. DLC, microtransactions, and loot boxes make money and a lot of it. When I was a wee lad, publishers made money by…
Continue reading ➞ Ubisoft to Create More “Live Service” Games
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Shadow of the Colossus is the perfect response to gamers who complain about the glut of remakes and ports of old games to new consoles. Shadow of the Colossus was on my list of shame for twelve years. I couldn’t afford the game when it first came out in 2005 but I made a mental…
