Others provide functionality, like Twilen, the opportunistic merchant who sells Ori shards, equippable stones that provide our hero with active skills or passive buffs. You won't need to interact much with Wellspring Glade's inhabitants to finish the story, but you'll unearth a treasure trove of side quests and secrets by dedicating time to the village. The more grounded, yet still clever, conversations with these new characters adds an extra layer of connection to the game's world.
Maybe the most damning thing I can say about Close to the Sun is that the main story it’s so interested in telling—the story that everything else on the Helios funnels you back toward—just isn’t the least bit surprising. All of it borrows pretty heavily from the BioShock playbook, and all of the plot points it trots out have been done better (and far more shockingly) elsewhere. The portrait of Tesla it presents seems conflicted—and I hoped Close to the Sun would attempt to close the distance between the egomania that would prompt a man to build statues of himself and the gentle humanity Tesla shows elsewhere — but the game doesn’t do anything to dig into those contradictions. That’s the consequence of all those chase sequences. Close to the Sun just doesn’t have the time to dig into anything. It’s got somewhere else to be.
If you want a game that captures the fantasy cowboy life, let me point you in a different direction.
Though Maid of Sker has an intriguing premise, it is very often a frustrating chore to play.
Felix the Reaper is an exhaustingly tedious puzzle game that attempts to set itself apart with the patina of a quirky thematic approach.
It is Bloober Team’s least scary, least interesting game. There needs to be more to Blair Witch.
In the end, there isn't much here that feels fully developed. While The Caligula Effect: Overdose has some interesting ideas, none of them really work. I suspect that after some time with The Go-Home Club, players will be longing to go home to the cozy comfort of a classic JRPG. Better to avoid this simulation from the start.
Windbound drops you in a world of wilderness and open water but fails to make exploration compelling.
It's a shame that The Callisto Protocol is so uninteresting at its core. Though it looks gorgeous on the surface, a dozen hours of nothing special can have a clarifying effect.
Afterparty falls short of the standard that Night School set with Oxenfree. While it boasts a strong setting and brilliant set-up, it leans heavily on writing that just isn’t strong enough to shoulder the load. I still can’t wait to see what Night School does next, but Afterparty feels like a watered-down take on Oxenfree. Here’s hoping they can mix up something a little stronger for the next round.
The story and characters and shooting that make Wolfenstein shine are still all here. But, the structure has shifted those elements around, producing something that just doesn’t feel like Wolfenstein anymore. If you like loot-shooters and would like to play one with a Nazi-killing coat of paint, Wolfenstein Youngblood is basically that. But, if you come to Wolfenstein for well-realized characters and pulpy stories, Youngblood is defined by their absence.
Essentially, Steel Rats answers the question it sets out to ask. Cool as it sounds, if you stuck a circular saw on the front wheel of a motorcycle, it might slash the tire, or sever the brake line, or spark through the spokes. As good as Steel Rats is at world-building, it often fails when it lets you take control. Sometimes the answer it finds isn't the answer it needs.
When looking back at my time with the game, I don't feel horror at its revelations. I feel disappointment in light of what it could have been concealing, and simply wasn't.
In The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope, Supermassive Games refines its tech and aesthetic but stumbles on storytelling.
Alone in the Dark is, interestingly, a more communal game than I tend to expect from survival horror. You're frequently running into the other inhabitants of Derceto. I enjoyed talking to them, though the writing isn't especially good, but the game never really delivers on its title and all that company prevents it from ever really getting scary. This is a solid enough retread if you've played through Dead Space and the Resident Evil remakes and want more. But it won't bring many converts to the genre. We'll have to settle for being alone, together, in the dark. Which sorta defeats the entire point when you think about it.
Ultros is a fascinating new Metroidvania where bombs and missiles are replaced with gardening tools.
Though this is the weakest map in the Hitman 3 lineup — excluding, maybe, the experimental train level, Carpathian Mountains — it’s still a Hitman level, i.e. pretty good. It doesn’t hit the standard IO Interactive has set for itself (and it will be a shame if this is the last map Hitman 3 gets), but that still makes it more interesting and worthy of exploration than the vast majority of video game levels I've played this year. IO is playing with interesting ideas, but this iteration just isn't there yet.
Playing 8-Bit Hordes then is a bit like walking a tightrope with boredom on one side and frustration on the other. There are occasional moments when the game offers an exciting balance. But most of the time it fails to watch its step.
In short, Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics has some new ideas, but mostly retreads familiar territory. The game invokes unknowable forces beyond our comprehension. But, it does so with mechanics that are, by and large, known quantities. Who would have suspected that scaling the mountains of madness could be this rote?
But, for now, Wreckfest just doesn't live up to the promise of its name. The destruction is technically impressive, but oddly distancing. It awes with flying debris, but rarely exhilarates.