It's bold to dish out a product with so many obvious absentees of the most fundamental components to a video game, but The Quiet Man goes one step further in presenting itself as this artistically-flash, cinematically-deep experience it's all too proud of itself over without ever working for that accolade.
Anyone who's been keeping tabs may not be all that surprised to find Square Enix once again in a precarious spot that is in part baffling but more so predictable given recent history.
With the brilliant heights that remakes of Resident Evil 2, for example, achieved last year, it felt inevitable that a remake like XIII would stand as the exact opposite result in that regard.
It's evident, even from as early a point in what is a dismally short but unsatisfactory game as this, that Gleamlight is both unpolished and unfinished.
If there were any doubts in people's minds that games sporting pixelated or "nostalgic" aesthetic were somehow immune from being rotten or otherwise bad, The Revenant Prince finally puts that great myth to bed once and for all.
Even with its exhaustive, laundry list of issues, it's telling when a broken game of this magnitude still manages to rustle up some semblance of potential.
It's clear what sort of tone or manner of presentation Vane is going for despite its short run-time and undeniable vacancy of explanation.
I won't hold it against Calvin Weibel's skill and prowess with basic game design, because for all the obvious negatives I'm insistent to bring up, Doors is so clearly and obviously an interesting premise that revolves around logic, reverse psychology and trickery.
From a studio having delivered far better and should in all likelihood have done so once more, Redfall is an uncharacteristically poor and cobbled-together brand of tedium.
Where Forspoken should've been a striking and appealing fresh start for Luminous Productions, the end result sadly is a game not only bland and unpolished, but deprived of a reason to care for its unfolding mystery.
Sequels that don't quite match the lightning-in-a-bottle status of its originator are nothing new.
While the short run-time of around two to three hours isn't inherently the root of the problem, one can't help but note Godstrike is in dire need of a better, fleshed out experience than the one provided.
In a game that bills itself as a choice between stealth and combat, it doesn't take long for the deceit to reveal itself and you realize this is ill-suited and insufficiently-handled for either one of the two gameplay styles.
It's astonishing to see just how far off the mark Disintegration is in terms of how it looks and plays.
That a game of such brief investment can't muster the strength or effort to get even the basics right is perhaps the most damaging thing you can say for a game like this.
Disappointed would be the wrong — and likely more forgiving — term to describe one's feelings coming out of The Station. Disheartened is a more fitting definition; worse than its length or the severe lack of effort put into its environments that expand beyond the puzzle-solving (easily the game's best and only salvation of a plus-point) is the otherwise safe and stale retreading of a formula that has been repeated many times in sci-fi themed games and executed much better in ways more thematically interesting.
Despite its ambitious stride to tell a gripping tale of a father/husband striving desperately to look for his missing family, Husk's end delivery is anything but.
There are always going to be games released that don’t quite meet the high’s you’re led to believe prior to getting rigorously stuck into the depth of gameplay and technical stability underpinning the experience.
Inevitably, Rising Islands can be identified quite easily as a title riddled with far too many lack-luster components and even its core gameplay can’t prevent it from feeling both under-baked and underdeveloped.
There is indeed a one-more-game pull to Zotrix's gameplay and if you're willing to take apart its mission-based structure as slices of a cake, there is a somewhat commendable attraction to the way its resource and upgrade management system plays out like a carrot dangling on a stick.