HIGH The atmosphere is top tier.

LOW Repetition and recycled content.

WTF …Happened to my save file?

Like every games writer approaching the end of the year, I’ve started to compile a list of my top 10 games of 2025 in an effort to appease the algorithmic gods that give this writing hobby of mine some semblance of meaning. As someone who is less constrained by the new release schedule than many, I like to focus on my top 10 experiences regardless of release date, so I don’t have to overlook any titles that impressed me. With that being said, here’s a sneak preview:

Pacific Drive is likely going to take the gold.

Loading into the original title, I expected a narrative heavy driving adventure. What I experienced was an extraction-based survival challenge with a large splash of SCP and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

The player’s time is divided between maintaining their car’s condition by avoiding dangers in an anomaly-filled forest and looting every resource they can find in order to upgrade the car for even deeper ventures into a mysterious place called The Zone. I’m not a car guy, but I loved every second of my time exploring and learning about how the world worked, and by the time I was set to leave my garage for the final time, I had an appreciation for a game that tried something different and nailed the atmosphere it was going for.

With the recent release of the “Whispers in the Woods” expansion, I took the opportunity to grab my car keys and hit the road for another journey… and I have thoughts.

As an overview, the DLC adds an 8–12 hour side story campaign to the main title alongside new anomalies, new mechanics and a fully voice-acted narrative. The original mix of cozy and unnerving from Pacific Drive‘s initial release has been replaced with a spookier, more sinister tone as we learn more and more about a fanatical cult operating within The Zone. 

For players who read “Pacific Drive but spookier” and are already sold, then feel free to stop reading here. For everyone else, I can happily report the atmosphere in Whispers in the Woods has been amped up and the visuals continue to look phenomenal. However, there were a few bumps in the road… I was initially taken with the DLC, but as I started to settle into the new, poorly-explained gameplay loop, cracks started to appear.

There are two new main systems to contend with. Instead of collecting energy to form an exit gateway as in the original Pacific Drive, the player now needs to collect a certain number of “artifacts” that will be sacrificed at an altar to open an escape route. These artifacts each have their own quirk that will apply to the player and their car, with the effects ranging from good to ‘get rid of this thing as fast as possible’. I do like the fact that the player can no longer tell where the level exit will appear. Previously the escape could be trivialized by plotting a clear route, now the player needs to adapt on the fly, leading to far tenser rides.

Secondly, holding on to too many artifacts will gradually increase The Whispering Tide. If it maxes out “they” will begin hunting the player across the map, I will not be elaborating further because that’s part of the experience, but thankfully, this aspect can be offset this by equipping the remnant with attuned parts which will help hide the player’s presence from “them”.

In theory these are both fine systems, leading to more varied escapes and encouraging veteran players to update their car. Sadly, these new attuned parts are just glowing versions of existing parts, so I was forced to unlock everything again, minus the joy of discovery and added frustration because they are harder to repair. While different artifacts do have slightly different impact levels, the player almost always has the ability to choose either a positive one or an ignorable negative effect. This leads to the gameplay loop feeling very similar to the original Pacific Drive — simply collect enough circular energy sources to escape through a portal.

This repetition is not helped by the story missions being essentially the same task repeated seven times. Go to a new area and find an audio file, listen to it to unlock a trial with a special gameplay condition, complete the trial to unlock a new area, and repeat. The areas each have their own quirks and the trials often come with substantial restrictions, but I was left wanting when it came to the diversity I had hoped for from an expansion. The new anomalies are interesting but I had encountered the majority within a few hours of play and none caused me to change my approach to the maps, which are still heavily filled with well-known anomalies.

When it comes to the actual narrative, I prefer the story of the main game. However, I do want to acknowledge that the DLC offers strong voice performances to accompany the player throughout their journey. I was a disappointed to see there was less environmental storytelling than the first go-round and that it was almost all contained to audio logs, but the characters are at least interesting. For newer players, the story is completely separate from that of the original Pacific Drive, so players can drop in and out without concerns of spoilers.

I wanted to be able to write this review and profess my love for Whispers In The Woods as a reason to revisit one of my favorite titles of the past few years, but it left me wanting. On paper it’s more Pacific Drive with a Halloween skin, but I wanted more from an expansion. If it had been marketed as a smaller ‘trials’ pack my expectations might have been more in line with the actual experience.

There is clear care put into this expansion and it’s easy to see the vision Ironwood Studios had, it just didn’t land with me. However, I do hope they continue trying to experiment because I would love this studio to create a new experience as much as I love the original Pacific Drive.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

— Adam Sharman

Buy Pacific Drive: Whispers In the Woods — PC — PS — XB

Disclosures: This game is developed by Ironwood Studios and published by Kepler Interactive. It is currently available on PC, PS5 and XBX/S. This copy of the game was obtained via paid download and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 9 hours of play were devoted to the expansion, on top of 32 hours in the main game, and the game was completed. There is currently no multiplayer option.

Parents: The game has an ESRB rating of T due to Fantasy Violence and Language. Pacific Drive can be very unnerving when the player is unaware of the world around them and the expansion has a horror theme including ghastly enemies that can ‘charge’ the player as a mild jump scare, although their threat level is minimal. The visuals and soundtrack of the expansion further play into this horror element but no violence is shown to the player character.

Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes alongside a host of accessibility features.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game has subtitles for all dialogue, which is the sole way the story is conveyed. No audio is essential for gameplay and the subtitles cannot be tweaked beyond on/off. While some anomalies have audio cues, these are all accompanied by some level of visual cue. It can be helpful to hear certain anomalies without looking, but this has minimal gameplay effect. The car can develop quirks which include the horn being honked as an effect, which may be more difficult to identify for players with hearing difficulty, but this is a rare occurrence and there are ways to identify the quirk without hearing the sound.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls on both keyboard and controller.

The post Pacific Drive: Whispers In The Woods Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Playful environments and cute co-op puzzles.

LOW Clunky movement and not enough puzzle variation.

WTF How did two bricks make me tear up like this?

Hi everyone! Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com!

With so many games that focus on offering hardcore action and explosions, I find myself occasionally searching for something a little more laid back. LEGO Voyagers is absolutely in that camp, and my wife and I had a great time in its meticulously crafted world — this is a co-op–only experience that focuses more on exploration than adrenaline, and it’s great.

Two LEGO brick friends are on an island together, dreaming of space travel because they live so close to a rocket launch site. After watching a rocket crash-land near the island, players control this pair of single-bricks as they solve puzzles and salvage the abandoned spaceship parts. Platforming and puzzles combine together in completely LEGO-fied world that will lead players through canyons, factories, forests, and more. 

These little bricks will jump, roll, and attach to larger LEGO pieces while on the hunt for the crashed rocket parts. While most of the puzzles they’ll need to solve to earn these pieces are simple, they’re effective in how they integrate into each level, and how they utilize multiplayer functions into the challenges.

For example, one puzzle had me control some platforms, flipping them between horizontal and vertical, while my wife had to use another by leveraging momentum. In other parts of the adventure there are vehicles that transport LEGOs to complete a puzzle. Working together with a partner to drive a truck (one steering, the other controlling speed) made for an enjoyable comedy of errors, and was ultimately satisfying when we finally got the truck where it needed to go. 

While my wife and I absolutely had a good time with LEGO Voyagers, there’s no denying that it’s a bit on the shallow end since many of the puzzles amount to repeating the same challenges — finding blocks to make a bridge, to complete a road, and so on.

Some of the puzzles feel a little misjudged, as well. Some took too long, some were too awkward, and some were both. The vehicle puzzles I just mentioned, while amusing, ended up also being annoying due to how long some of the sequences went on.

There were also some puzzles that were difficult thanks to their execution. In the factory, for example, I controlled a crane magnet that could pick up specific LEGOs. My wife had to pick up the correct piece with her character, wait for the me to pick it up and put them on a different conveyor belt so she could grab more LEGOs, and then I had to pick them all up again to go to a third location. Controlling all of those pieces plus my wife felt awkward and took much longer than it should have.

Ultimately, Voyagers lands in a weird place for me as far as recommending it goes, and also with who I would recommend it for. The simplicity and repetition of the experience means it’s hard to recommend to older players who might be looking for a little more meat on the bone. On the other hand, it might not be right for a younger audience due to the execution issues with some of the puzzles. Despite landing in this mixed middle ground, I did have an enjoyable time with my wife, and we walked away with fond memories of it, so for me Lego Voyagers gets 6.5 stuck together bricks out of 10.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Light Brick Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive. It is currently available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 3 hours of play were spent playing the game, and the game was completed. The game must be played completely in multiplayer.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E. No specific disclosures here, just a couple of people roaming around as Lego bricks in a Lego world. Good for all ages!

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There is no text in-game. Audio is not needed for gameplay. The game is fully accessible.

Controls: Controls are not remappable, and there is no control diagram. Players will move with the left stick, jump with A, attach and detach to blocks with X, and make noises with B (not required for gameplay completion).

The post LEGO Voyagers VIDEO Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The chain tires – snowy roads be damned!

LOW Inadvertently locking myself out of the true ending.

WTF The snow-covered frozen corpses I kept finding.

If I showed up for the first day of work and was greeted with empty city streets, caustic shopkeepers, and sub-zero temperatures that apparently send me to a bizarre void world after several seconds of exposure, I would probably turn around and go home – which is probably why I’ve never been hired by the Easy Delivery Co. 

As a fresh-faced recruit, players will brave blizzards and uncanny townsfolk as they cruise snowy mountains delivering packages and piecing together the truth behind a mysterious village.

The core loop of Easy Delivery Co. is simple enough – select a job, head to point A to pick up, deliver to point B, get paid.  Structured as a semi-open-world courier simulator, charting a route across three primary burgs is left to the player’s discretion.  Longer distance deliveries net higher payouts which, in turn, can be redeemed for gasoline, vehicle upgrades, and supplies to guard against the cold.

Weather plays a key role in Easy Delivery Co., with any time spent outdoors presenting the danger of rapid hypothermia (and a quick return to that spooky void world – Yikes!)  Purchasing items such as logs to build a fire or coffee to keep up one’s cold tolerance and speed are crucial for surviving the long, cold nights.

Aesthetics are crucial for Easy Delivery Co.’s success and, thankfully, it more than delivers with its abrasive lo-fi ‘90s styling forming a rock-solid foundation for its foreboding world.  Jagged, warping power-lines crisscross vacant streets.  Tires spin, straining doggedly against slushy terrain while kicking up chunky white pixels in their wake.  High beams click on in the waning daylight, taillights rendering as warm halos in dithering snowfall. There’s a fuzziness to the whole affair – a juxtaposition of warmth and chill that is at once disconcerting as well as curiously comforting.

The narrative is, for the most part, told indirectly through conversation with the denizens of Mountain Town and the surroundings hamlets.  The player has one ally, MK. They’re apparently the only lucid character in the area, providing context for the proceedings and also acting as the primary quest giver.  The townsfolk in Easy Delivery Co., seemingly confined to their storefronts, are generally standoffish.  Some are downright hostile, but most just seem depressed and lonely as they reveal their neuroses and desires in casual conversation.

While uncovering the secrets at the heart of the wintry town and its melancholy inhabitants becomes the primary objective, the narrative ultimately ends up feeling like a bolster for the tonal elements, as opposed to an end in and of itself.  I appreciated the pervasive unease and slow rollout of details, though I didn’t end up feeling terribly invested in the outcome, with the climax hinging on an emotional connection I never experienced.

Further buoying the stellar presentation is Easy Delivery Co.’s strong mechanical core.  Controlled from the third or first-person perspectives, players will spend much of their time in their (surprisingly nimble) mini ‘kei’ truck, but on-foot journeys across the unforgiving tundra are occasionally necessary.

The kei truck proves a faithful steed, and I relished every opportunity to manually open its tailgate as I loaded a package (dutifully closing it behind me), kicking on the headlights and puttering into the wavering dark.  There is a reactivity in its handling – bouncing on its suspension over bumps, or losing traction as I hit a patch of snow or ice. It was rarely enough to jolt me off course, but just enough to demand my attention.

For the most part, Easy Delivery Co. lives up to its titular difficulty, but there is a subtle hostility in certain aspects of its design. 

The most notable of these is the map system, or lack thereof.  There is no mini-map, and while a full map can be accessed from the menu, it contains no indicators as to the player’s whereabouts — only a waypoint for the destination.  While the level design isn’t terribly complex and a healthy smattering of road signs helped keep me on course, I couldn’t ever shake the feeling of being vaguely lost. 

Overall, Easy Delivery Co. is a resoundingly successful marriage of tone and mechanics.  The developers demonstrate a keen eye toward player engagement, offering just enough depth to require my focus, but not so much as to distract from their haunting world.  While the narrative ultimately falls a bit flat, the quiet moments of brewing tea by firelight and harrowing drives through blinding blizzards will stick with me long after I make my final delivery.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Buy Easy Delivery Co. – PC

Disclosures: This game is developed by Sam C and published by Oro Interactive. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC.  Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: At the time of this review, this game has not been rated by the ESRB.  While there is no violence, blood, or gore there is spooky imagery that might be scary for younger or more sensitive audiences. Additionally, while there is no explicit sexual content, there is mildly suggestive dialogue during conversations with certain characters. 

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. I did not experience any issues when playing this game without sound, all audio cues are accompanied by visual indicators.  This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Certain functions are remappable.  While the primary controls cannot be altered in this game, the “Accept” and “Back” buttons can be reversed in the options menu.

The post Easy Delivery Co. Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

This is a transcript excerpt covering the score awarded to Promise Mascot Agency on the So Videogames podcast, Episode 436. For the original coverage of the game, please listen to Episode 435.

BRAD: Okay, only one circle back this week, but it’s kind of a big one. This is for Promise Mascot Agency. I went into all of the details in the last episode. I’m not going to repeat all of that, but just in case anybody missed it, this is a third person open world game, although the map is kind of small, and I say that as a good thing. You play a disgraced yakuza who got set up to take the fall for a deal gone bad. You’ve got to go out to this town, out in the hinterlands to kind of make good. You’ve got to run this mascot business in order to make money and support your yakuza family back home. So you’re out in the sticks. And this mascot business is just in the dumps. It’s not making any money. It’s the building they’re in is converted to a, quote unquote love hotel. You can figure that one out for yourselves. And this whole game takes place in a world where mascots are actually what they look like.

So, for example, you know, if you go to a sports game, you might see, like, you know, those guys who are like doing the cheerleading down on the field and they’ve got like a big furry suit on with a giant head. You know, maybe it’s the bear if you’re a Chicago Bears fan or it’s a a Seahawk, if you’re a Seahawks fan or something like that. In this world, whatever mascot is, that is exactly what it actually is. It’s not a guy in a suit or a girl in a suit. It is an actual thing that it looks like. The very first mascot you get is a giant block of tofu. And that’s what he is. He is literally a giant block of tofu. You get one that’s like, um, uh, like an eel, which is like, uh, like the kind of eel you put on sushi, but is his chest is cut open and flayed out to be like the pieces that you put on sushi. It’s horrifying. But that’s what he is. Um, there’s like a cat who is covered in jizz like he is. He’s got. I don’t know what his name is, but I called him bukkake Cat because that is exactly what he looks like. And his pastime is watching adult films and doing adult content videos and stuff like that. So, like, you get these weird mascots, and they are those creatures because this world is, like, tinged with the supernatural or whatever.

So you go around collecting mascots, you recruit them to your agency, and then you send them out on these jobs to make money. So every time a store opens or there’s a big sale, use cars going on sale or something, you send one of your mascots out there to kind of be like the attention getter, and I do like the opening ceremonies and stuff like that. So you’re doing that to earn some money. But the open world is also there. In this game, you are always in your truck. It’s like a little, little one of those little cutie cutie pie, tiny Mitsubishi pickup trucks that I think are just adorable. I would love to have one of those. Um, and you drive around, you never get out of your car, so you’re not doing any running, jumping, fighting or anything like that. You’re just simply navigating from place to place. And I think it works really well in the beginning. You can only drive, but then you can like get some adaptations where your car can go in the water, which is fun. You get turbo boost so you can get from place to place faster and faster. And the favorite one might like the best thing. And this is one of the best things I’ve done all year, is you get a pair of glider wings and with the glider wings combined with the boost, you can basically take off anywhere as long as you’ve got about five feet of flat road in front of you, and that you always do, you can always pull it off.

You can just like land and take off and land and take off and fly across the map. And something about that. Oh my god. So fucking just, like, therapeutic and just so fun. Like half, half the enjoyment. Okay, maybe not half. 25% of the enjoyment of this game was me flying in that fucking Mitsubishi with the wings on it. And just, like, taking off, just like going places and seeing the clouds go by, being over town and then like you come in for a landing, you look for a nice piece, straight, straight piece of road and you just come in and then you pull the wings in and the car kind of plops down on its tires. Good. Safe landing. Fuck. It’s the best. And it’s I don’t know what makes it so good. It’s just like incredibly satisfying. I just I loved the flying. So getting around town in the car is, is quite good. I think it’s very fun. You drive around, you meet people, talk to people. There’s lots of crazy characters in this game. You get lots of wacky stories and weird things happening. You do a bunch of fetch quests for people that kind of force you to cover the map, which is fine. Um, lots of tangible rewards for doing it. Like very often you’ll get something that really means something.

There’s a couple of things that are just kind of fluff, but overall you’ll get things that really help you out, mostly in the mini games that pop up with your mascot. So while you’re driving around town, you will often get a call from one of your mascots who you have dispatched, and they’re like, yo, boss, I’m having some problems. Uh, for example, maybe their suit is or not their suit. Their body is too wide and they can’t get through a door. Or maybe they’re doing a cash register demonstration and they push the wrong button, and money is exploding out of the cash machine. Or maybe, uh, there’s a scary dog who is barking at the mascot, and they need to get away. Like, all these problems are small scale and hilarious. Uh, but what happens is there’s this card system. I’m not gonna get into the weeds here, but there’s a card system where you do quests for villagers. They give you their cards. These cards can assist your mascots when they’re having problems. And it becomes like a little very simplistic, straightforward kind of numbers game where the mascots difficulty will be like, I have a problem that’s 20 big, and then you need to flip through your cards and try to see if you’ve got 20 worth of solution for them. I’m very, very, very drastically simplifying this, but just know that the card game I think is really fun.

I always enjoy doing it. I never skipped one the entire game and once you do that, it gets you some rewards. If you help a mascot out, you get more money, blah blah blah. So the story just kind of goes and goes and goes. I think it’s just really fun. Open world is small and compact. Lots of interesting things to see. I think the mascots are fun. The story is like super wacky and crazy and overall it’s just a really good time. I think my only complaints for the game is I think the fast travel comes a little bit too late in the campaign, although I will say, to be fair to the game, I think it depends on what order you can do things. I found myself doing things in an order that was perhaps not what everybody else did, just for whatever reason. I guess my brain works that way. And so I got fast travel pretty late in the game. Not a big problem because I really just loved flying around in the truck. But every once in a while I would be like, okay, I just want to fast travel here really quickly. Um, and you have to activate each fast travel point. And because I had gotten it so late in the game, I, you know, I didn’t naturally activate these. As I progressed progress through the campaign, I kind of had to go back to the spots that I thought I would need the most and activate those manually, a little bit of a drag that kind of sucked.

The only other complaint I have about this game is kind of a it’s kind of a minor one, I guess. So the writing in this game is really good. I like the characters. I think it’s very funny, but I think there is just too much of it. Um, there’s a bunch of Yakuza info that I found very hard to keep track of and hard to keep straight. Sometimes you’ll talk to somebody and you think you’re going to have this, like short conversation. It ends up being like nine pages of like, nine, nine speech bubbles worth of text or something. And there’s a few times when I was like, okay, this is just like too much info. It’s good, it’s good. The writing is all uniformly good. I think the characters are fun and everything. I don’t have a complaint about that. It’s just like too much sometimes. It’s kind of like, you know, you have a piece of like New York cheesecake. You’re like, damn, this is a shit, I love this, I love New York cheesecake. It’s so good. But you don’t want to eat 15 pieces of it. You want to have like, one, maybe two if you’re having a good day. Uh, but, like, you know, 15 pieces is too many.

It’s still delicious, but it’s too much. Kind of the same thing here where I think the writing is really good, but I think less is more. So that was really my only complaint, because by the end of the game I was like, okay, I get it. I don’t really want to hear more about the Yakuza. I don’t really care that much about, like, who’s screwing what over and which family and the curse on the town and stuff. I mean, I think it was all good. I just needed less. So keep that in mind. It’s not a big deal. You can skip through the text. It’s fine. Fine, fine. But like, overall, I think Promise Mascot Agency has been one of the surprise hits for me this year. I think, um, I don’t know if it’s going to be in my top ten right now. It is, but there’s still like quite a bit of year left to go. I mean, I can imagine a scenario where it might get bumped out of the top ten, but the fact that I’m even considering it for the top ten really kind of tells you how good it is. It’s just really fucking fun to play. And when I would play this game, I had a very hard time stopping playing the game. I would want to do just one more thing. I’m just going to get this one more marker. I’m going to go talk to this one more person.

I’m going to go do this one more mini game. Oh I got to do this. One more mascot drop off. I’m going to do this. One more thing. I just want to fly, you know, like it just kept going and going and going. I found it very, very hard to turn that game off. And when I was playing it, I found it very hard to just, like, stop doing it. So it’s got that special sauce that I think works really well and overall I had a great time with it. This is absolutely a surprise hit for me. I had a wonderful time. I would definitely recommend it to anybody who wants something really quirky, super Japanese, super weird, a little bit of open world stuff in there. I think it really fits a great niche for me. And also, again, big shout out to John over at gaming in the wild. He is the one who convinced me to play this game. I saw the PR for this game and I did not play it because I knew it was coming from the people who made Paradise Killer, and that game did not click with me on any level except for the aesthetic. I love the visuals, didn’t like anything else in that game, and so I skipped it. Uh, speaking of Promise Mascot, I’m like, yeah, I’m not, you know, probably not gonna play this. I didn’t like their last one.

I’m not gonna worry about it. But John, uh, John really convinced me, and I’m glad that he did. So shout out to you, John. Thank you very much for for turning me on to this. I absolutely would not have played it without your influence, and this has been definitely a treat for the year. So overall, finish the game. I did almost everything in the game. I didn’t do every everything because there’s a bunch of little pickups that are just like, whatever. Um, there’s a couple little doodads I kind of skipped. But like all, like all the important stuff I did finished all the side quests that, like, had characters attached to them. I mean, I did like everything major in the game, and plus I rolled credits. Oh, and special shout out. Not going to spoil it here, but the ending of Promise Mascot Agency was fucking awesome. Like, you get a choice of what you want to do at the end. And again, not spoiling it, but like the choice I wanted was there. They let me do it. I wasn’t sure they’re going to let me do it, but they did. And then it resolved in exactly the way that I wanted it to. And I was like, fuck yeah, that’s fucking amazing. I love that you could do this thing, which I’m not going to spoil, but let me just say, it really was the cherry on the cake, so good call, Promise Mascot agency I was very happy with that ending.

So overall I think it’s time for a full so videogames review and for Promise Mascot Agency I’m going to give it a solid 8.0. You can take that to the bank. This is one of the good ones this year.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Buy Promise Mascot Agency – PC – PS – XB – SW

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Kaizen Game Works. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5, XBS/X and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 25 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood, Drug Reference, Language, Suggestive Themes, and Violence. Older teens only, I think. Despite the cheery cartoon appearance, there are loads of sexual innuendoes and violent references. It’s not very graphic except for a few isolated scenes, but the sentiments are thick and there is some salty language.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options, but there are “color correction” options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue is subtitled, but text cannot be altered or resized. No audio cues are needed for successful gameplay. This title is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable, though some functions can be altered. There is no control scheme. Menus are navigated with the sticks and face buttons, and when driving in the world, the left stick controls the truck while the right stick controls camera. Acceleration is R2, Brake is L2. The D-pad is used for various options, such as pulling up the map.

The post SVG REVIEW: Promise Mascot Agency appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The atmosphere is off the charts.

LOW Having hitchhiker penalties without hitchhiker bonuses.

WTF Chain smoking cigarettes to combat a child peeing.

Hi everyone, Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com.

A new ride, a tank of gas, an invite to a music festival, and an entire summer ahead of me. What new adventures await? I have all summer to find out. Keep Driving aims to capture that sense of freedom and adventure by placing players behind the wheel of a new car with endless opportunity ahead of them.

In this resource management RPG, players will travel across procedurally generated roads with the ultimate goal of meeting up with friends at a music festival. Players will collect resources and items, obtain skill cards, pick up hitchhikers and upgrade their car in order to keep driving. As players obtain different items like food, extra gas cans, a spare tire and so on, they have to organize the items inside their trunk to make it all fit — imagine the inventory system of something like Resident Evil 4 and you’re on the right track. If there’s not enough space in the trunk for an item, players will have to either throw something away to make room or put the back seats down to create a bit more space.

Both items and skills come into play in Keep Driving’s version of combat. As players drive around the world, there will be random events that players must deal with — muddy roads, being stuck in a traffic jam, cameras looking for speeding drivers, and more. These events will threaten the player’s four attributes, gas, car durability, money, and energy, so preparing for the unexpected is a key part of play.

If players can’t deal with road events with the items they have on hand, they might incur a more serious situation, like the car running out of gas or breaking down. Things like this will stop the trip and force the player to take more drastic action, like walking to a gas station if they have the money and the energy to do so. If all else fails, players can take a chance and call their parents which may give them the resources they need to keep going, or it will end the game if their parents don’t pick up. 

One other resource, and a unique one, are the hitchhikers.

These passengers to be picked up run a wide gamut — you might find a musician who requires room for his guitar, a convict on the run from the law, a “free spirit” party girl, and more. If you decide to give one a ride, they come with additional skill cards players can use for road events. However, they can also have some drawbacks as well. For example, The Convict makes the player drive faster, which results in fewer road events between destinations and a higher chance to get pulled over by cops. The longer hitchhikers stay in the car with the player, the additional skills will be unlocked for use. 

The hitchhikers aren’t just resources, though — I’d say they’re the soul of the game.

As players drive between destinations, there will occasionally be bits of dialogue that come up between the player and any passengers they’ve picked up. Bit by bit, they start revealing their past and their stories, fleshing things out in simple, but effective ways. They don’t become friends for life, though. Hitchhikers eventually ask the player to help them accomplish their own goals, and completing them may mean they leave the car, and there were many times when I was sad to see one go. 

Another aspect that solidifies the experience of Keep Driving is the goal of getting to the music festival. Actually getting there is just one of a handful of final outcomes, but it doesn’t matter which one the player ultimately wants to pursue on their playthrough. One time in the middle of a run I got a letter from my grandmother asking me to come visit her at the hospital. I detoured, and when I got there, she told me that there was a plot of land she wanted me to have as an inheritance, triggering a new destination to open up on my map. Quests like these are clearly marked to let the player know if following them will end a run, so my choice boiled down to getting my inheritance or continuing to the music festival with friends. That freeform feeling of choosing your own adventure is really the spirit that Keep Driving is trying to capture, I think. 

The gripes I have about Keep Driving are minor. There are a few minor bugs here and there, like one time when I tried to change tires on the car and the spare tire was displayed outside of the inventory space. Another glitch was when I got penalties for having hitchhikers, even though they weren’t in the car. Otherwise, the randomness can sometimes make a run last much longer than it needs to. At one point I had to spend nearly an hour driving between two cities in an effort to make the game spawn a car upgrade I needed for a specific ending. Minor issues all, really.

Overall, I was hooked by the atmosphere and easy-to-learn management of this summer road trip. In a time where games can be a wonderful escape from current world events, Keep Driving brought me back to a younger time when a car meant freedom and opportunity, and a reminder of those good times was more than welcome. As such, Keep Driving is an easy recommendation for sure!

For me: Keep Driving gets 8.5 liters of gas out of 10

Buy Keep Driving on Steam

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by YCJY Games. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 10 hours of play were spent playing the game, and multiple endings were completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is not rated through the ESRB. There are numerous references to drugs and alcohol. There are some sex references in one of the endings, and there is significant cursing in some of the music tracks and some of the character dialogue. Not recommended for young children.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind Modes are not present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles, but subtitles can not be altered and/or resized. There are no relevant audio cues needed for gameplay. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable controls: Controls are not remappable, and there is no control scheme. Currently the game only supports keyboard and mouse, with the mouse controlling everything. The developer has said that controller support will be coming in a future update.

The post Keep Driving VIDEO Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Sublime physics. Rad trucks. An ocean’s worth of content.

LOW Lots of menu friction. Frustration is part of the game.

WTF Some of the truck stickers are… interesting…

Snowrunner is about hauling heavy materials from one dirty and/or snowy and/or wet place to
another place, likely also dirty and/or snowy and/or wet. It’s also (as of June 2024) one of my most played
games, ever. Neither open-world titans like Elden Ring, nor luxurious JRPGs like Persona 5 or Dragon
Quest XI have taken up even half as much of my time as this contemplative, repetitive masterpiece about
lugging stuff around in big ol’ trucks.

Snowrunner is an open-world driving game which puts players behind the wheel of all sorts of trucks,
then tasks them with making deliveries across a spread of treacherous, wild landscapes — flood-ravaged
Michigan, rural Russia, the snow-entombed outer reaches of Alaska. Each region is comprised of several
interconnected zones. Loading screens separate one zone from another, but players can mostly go
wherever they want, whenever they want.

Activating watchtowers highlights noteworthy things in the immediate vicinity, like quest givers and truck parts, but in Snowrunner, exploration never stops. These maps are dense, and players must continually ferret out safe routes, experiment with shortcuts, and strike off for the far corners in hopes of finding more quests or specialized upgrades. By the end of the tutorial, players will have experienced the loop that’ll define the time that will be spent with Snowrunner, and what a loop it is, with such a rich mechanical texture.

Whenever I play the enormous, triple-A, third-person open-world titles of today, I have this nagging sense of unreality. My screen’s filled with huge, lush-looking worlds, and yet they feel so unconvincing. I can traverse so much ground so quickly, with so little friction. Nothing is simulated, everything is merely a
prop. For my fleet-footed avatar, there’s no meaningful difference between a dirt road and the paved thoroughfares of a city. Physics systems and environmental considerations take a back seat to pure
embellishment, and that’s where these games lose me. Their worlds feel like little more than a few
microns of paint flicked on a flat canvas.

Snowrunner’s compact maps, by contrast, feel thick. They feel old. They feel like they have geologic
history. Powering through a flood-battered road in Michigan, I not only feel the churn of mud under my
wheels, but the compacted stone and dirt beneath that mud. Branches in the road buckle and flip as I
trundle over them. Snow turns to slipperier slurry under my tires, gravel shimmies and spits under my
truck’s weight, sediment-choked river water pushes sluggishly against my cabin as I try to ford a river. It’s
all wonderfully tactile.

Then there are the vehicles themselves. Such beautiful, ungainly monsters, each imbued with heft and
character. The manifold differences between a spry little Scout vehicle that can almost hop from rock to
rock, and a hulking, top-heavy, experimental arctic exploration tractor can be felt distinctly in the way
they navigate these rugged environments.

Snowrunner’s environment and vehicle physics makes believing and spending time in its remote, lonely
worlds nearly effortless. They individuate every single trip taken, imbue every short and long haul with their own moments of drama. Even the most elementary jaunt holds the potential for disaster or, at least,
complication — and that is, actually, also why someone might not love Snowrunner. Its systems purposely induce a sensation of surmountable frustration, not unlike the way horror games use their mechanics to instill fear or discomfort. Emotions we label as ‘negative’ in the broader world can enhance our enjoyment of art, in the context of that art. However, purposeful negativity is not going to work for everybody.

Consider Snowrunner’s first “boss fight” — a muddy field in front of a Michigan farmhouse. Getting into the field isn’t too difficult, but getting out of it with the underpowered early game trucks is A Project. I fought against that farm mud for hours, battling with wheel and winch to gain mere inches on the morass. When I finally rolled my inadequate, mud-spattered truck back onto the tarmac, it felt worthy of an epic poem, at least. I loved it.

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, though. I got a friend to try Snowrunner one night after weeks of singing its praises, and I’ll never forget the texture of his frustrated silence over Discord as he struggled in that same mud. And no matter how much of a glutton for Snowrunner’s particular punishments I am, there have been times when the frustration overstepped its bounds. Whether it was a truck that tipped over mere yards away from its destination, an icy canyon that swallowed up three separate vehicles, or an arctic explorer tipping over for the dozenth time, I’ve terminated more than one Snowrunner session out of sheer game-induced pique.

However, this excess frustration is the by-product of the type of thing Snowrunner is trying to do — of the kind of experience it’s trying to be. Without the potential for actual frustration, the moments of triumph and success would lose some of their shine. It all would matter less.

While I’ll defend the mechanical frustrations, nobody should go to bat for Snowrunner’s menu design. The
word “eldritch” comes to mind. Snowrunner sequesters all quests and map info in a series of semi-nested,
often redundant lists. These may be navigable to elder cosmic intelligences, but they inflict only misery and vexation on human minds. After 200 hours of wrangling with Snowrunner’s menus I still forget how they work sometimes. It’s is a complicated game full of nuance and its menu design makes the learning curve even steeper for those new to the Lonesome Trucker Lifestyle.

I mention these downsides out of reviewerly duty, and against my inclination to blindly proselytize,
because on a holistic level, Snowrunner is a real masterpiece. Its beautifully granular physics systems
create not just an atmosphere, but a world in which players can lose themselves for happy hours, hauling
logs and steel beams and slabs of concrete hither and yon. It’s therapeutic, it’s deep, it’s engaging, and it’s indisputably unique. Everyone should try it.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

— Ben Schwartz

Disclosures: This game is developed by Saber Interactive and published by Focus Entertainment. It is
currently available on PC, PS4/5, Switch, and XBO/X/S. This copy of the game was obtained via paid
download and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 180 hours of play were devoted to the single-player
mode, and the game was not completed. 20 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E with no listed content descriptors. The official
description reads: “This is an off-road driving simulation game in which players can drive a variety of
trucks across natural snowy, rocky, and muddy terrain. Players can monitor fuel usage and install modules
(e.g., winches, chains, log carts, trailers) as needed.” The entire game is spent in a truck which can be
damaged, but no harm comes to the player character. There is no combat or violence of any sort.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game does not offer subtitles. However, there is no spoken
dialogue, everything ‘plot-related’ is conveyed through text in the menus (the text cannot be resized). All
relevant meters are displayed on screen at all times, and context-sensitive prompts are displayed when
necessary. I’d say it’s fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Certain functions are remappable. Keyboard + Mouse and Steering Wheel inputs
are fully remappable, while controllers can only be remapped into four different preset configurations,
with added universal options for swapping the left and right trigger functions, inverting the Y axis, and
adjusting the right stick sensitivity.

The post Snowrunner Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH This may be some of the best game-feel of the decade.

LOW Honestly, the soccer minigame kinda sucks.

WTF Feeding your pet fish… fish-fries.

Have you ever pressed a button in a game and felt genuine joy from the act? Nothing is accomplished, there’s no end achieved, yet it’s so satisfying? That’s Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip for me, time and again. It’s bright, colorful, and just the right level of eccentric.

The story centers on the titular Terry trying to drive to space to become famous. In order to do so, he takes a job as a taxi driver and… then never does his job, yet his boss continues to happily upgrade his taxi as he collects “SUPER JUNK” that improves his car’s boost meter. Why is he doing all this? Because his parents decided to punish him for not doing well in school. I think it’s fair to say he doesn’t really get the point of the ‘punishment’ as he meanders about the island.

Along the way, players get to know all of the island’s inhabitants, some of whom are even more unhinged than Terry. Every conversation is bursting with personality, feeling like a classic cartoon brought to life. I loved it when they let me choose Terry’s punchlines, as there’s some truly outrageous responses. There’s some hilarious satire as well, from the world’s most ethical criminal to panicking government employees and a pair of exhausted small business owners grappling with the consequences of Terry’s chaos.

Okay, so it’s funny and over the top, but what is it? Well, at its core, Tiny Terry is a 3D platformer… yet it also isn’t. Players aren’t going to just run around gathering up loose bits of trash. To gather up all the junk necessary to upgrade Terry’s car, there’s an absolute litany of minigames that turn the game on its head. Even Terry’s various tools, like a bug catcher, shovel, and lead pipe serve multiple purposes, either for movement or completing quests. The entire experience is sheer spontaneity.

There is an open world island to explore, with sandboxy elements, but regardless of the chaos Terry causes, it’s not a kid-friendly crime sandbox game either. It’s an inherently amorphous experience where players find the fun through sheer novelty and variety of tasks. Death isn’t a concern either — the worst that can happen is losing some of Terry’s cash, which is easily replenished through quests and scavenging for buried treasure with a shovel.

One minute, Terry’s freely navigating the 3D world to hunt down chimes for an arthaus mushroom sculpture. In the blink of an eye, he’s in an isometric soccer game, smacking his opponents aside without penalty. There’s a dedicated questline about dueling Terry’s rival in top-down bumper car combat, and these are just a few examples.

In the span of the six hours I played, I robbed crabs, helped a failing restaurant, tried to convince a man that he was literally on fire, dug up six trash cans buried in all manner of places, collected and ate bugs, fed Terry’s fish, dismantled the concept of monetary value, stole cars for a child, bought synthetic gummy pets, discovered how mud can be used to generate electricity, attended a public gathering, paid $660,000 for a used top hat, played soccer with a lead pipe, achieved enlightenment — and I’m still not done because it’s just so packed with things to do!

The most incredible part is how it all feels good to do — it’s smooth, rich, and precisely balanced. This alone is an achievement, as nailing great gamefeel can be a nightmare, but Tiny Terry does it time and again. This is a project worth studying just for how effectively it ensures every action feels pleasant to perform.

Despite saying all of this, my words aren’t even beginning to do justice to the absolute anarchic madness that is Tiny Terry. Nothing can prepare one for what lies in store across this incredibly charming, unrelentingly creative experience.

Honestly, the only thing that stunk out of all m time with it was the soccer minigame. I get what developer snekflat was trying for, but the AI opponents are a bit too good at competing with Terry given the forced camera angle and no ability to dribble — players can only kick-shot and smack with Terry’s pipe. I managed to score high enough to beat the minigame’s criteria but it’s easily the least enjoyable part of the adventure by a country mile. (Also sometimes Terry’s car can get stuck on geometry a bit too quickly.) Everything else is darn-near flawless, as far as I’m concerned.

Tiny Terry is concise yet vast, comically snarky yet endearingly heartfelt… it has to be seen to be believed, and it’s everything I didn’t know I wanted, in the best way possible. So, for anyone needing a mental vacation and a few hours spent not worrying about the world? This is the ticket.

Final Score: 9.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by snekflat and published by Super Rare Originals. It is currently available on PC. This copy of Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip was provided by the publisher and reviewed on the PC. Six hours were dedicated to the single-player campaign, and it was completed.

Parents:  This game is not rated by the ESRB, but only contains for Mild Cartoon Violence. If your child is capable of watching something just a wee bit spicy like Gravity Falls, they’ll be fine here. There’s nothing adult, and everything is extremely lighthearted. The only dark joke is “Burning Bernie”, who the player will periodically find on fire (Bernie will express no concern) and who will eventually turn into ash offscreen. Terry will respond “this is sad” and then collect Bernie’s glasses. This is the only real moment of dark humor in the entire game. 

Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game features subtitles and otherwise relies almost entirely on visual prompts for how to proceed. However, there are wind chimes to find which rely on audio cues, so I’d say this is Not Fully Accessible.

Remappable controls: Yes, the controls are remappable.

The post Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Solid racing and a gorgeous retro aesthetic. 

LOW Slight rubber-banding.

WTF Sega needs to get back into the racing market. 

Back in 2018, Brazilian developers Aquiris Game Studio released Horizon Chase Turbo — a solid arcade racer with a retro style. Taking inspiration from classics like Sega’s OutRun or the original Top Gear on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, this title tasked players with competing in different races around the world, from the sunny vistas of Los Angeles to vibrant Dubai. Now, after a little over five years and some exciting DLC releases (including one based around the late Formula 1 legend Ayrton Senna), Aquiris returns with Horizon Chase 2. 

Initially released on iOS in 2022 and the Switch in ’23, this retro-themed arcade racer finally makes its way to Xbox and Playstation consoles. Following the first entry’s well-polished formula closely, players race through several events spanning the world. the races are either standard runs, or a few laps against eleven computer-controlled racers. 

The cars handle like a dream, with snappy braking allowing for some over-the-top drifts around corners and a solid boost mechanic that’s limited to three uses. Every race sees the player competing to place in the top three, but other challenges are present, such as collecting tokens scattered across the course, beating certain times or attempting to complete races without using boosts. 

Vehicles range from supercars, pick-up trucks, SUVs and even coupes, modeled after real-life brands and models. Players might also recognize cars that look eerily similar to a brand new Ferrari or a pick-up that parallels Toyota’s Tacoma line.

Every car has its own set of stats that can be upgraded by earning XP from completing races. Other rewards include coins that let players change cosmetics, like car liveries or new rims. The varied garage and mix of car attributes meant that I didn’t stick to just one car during my playthrough, but instead I experimented with different ones. For example, the size of a pickup passing through other racers much easier, while the small form factor of a coupe made it easier to drift in tight corners. 

There are a few gameplay quirks here, of course, like some inconsistent AI during the main World Tour mode. There were more than a few instances where I came close to taking first place, only for a nearby opponent to suddenly gain an almost impossible burst of speed. It feels… odd… but it wasn’t an issue that took too much away from my enjoyment.

Horizon Chase 2‘s presentation is as refined as the gameplay, and the colorful aesthetics of each track coming alive. Palms trees and sunshine dress the beaches of the Florida Keys with impeccable summer vibes, while Death Valley features shortcuts along its desert roads and barren vistas. This strong palette recalls some of the best racing from the 16-bit years, only now rendered in 3D. The music is just as good, and those who enjoy retro-style synth are in for a treat. 

As this version is a port of a Switch title, Xbox and PlayStation players can look forward to performance improvements. I played the original Switch version at launch and loved what I played, but framerate drops on the handheld were abhorrent, and soured the experience. Thankfully, those issues are remedied in this release, and a solid 60 FPS running speed finally delivers on this great game’s potential by making it as smooth as silk.

While it doesn’t revolutionize the groundwork set by its predecessor, Horizon Chase Turbo 2 remains a great racer that gets plenty right. With a solid career mode, a varied,, colorful garage and some of the best retro aesthetics ever, Horizon Chase Turbo 2 is an easy winner for arcade racing fans. 

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is published by Epic Games and developed by Aquiris Game Studio. It is available on Switch, PC, XBO/X/S, PS4/5 and iOS. This copy was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PS5. Approximately 8 hours were spent in single-player and the game was not completed but the game was previously played and completed on Nintendo Switch. There are multiplayer options but no time was spent on them.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E. No rating information is online but the game is quite harmless. Parents should note that there is nothing in this game other than racing. No car wrecks and no violence here. 

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are not present in the options menu.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are speech bubbles that randomly pop up throughout gameplay but they cannot be adjusted. No subtitles either (there is no dialogue) but pop-up boxes containing information are present. Other visual cues are on screen as well, making this game fully accessible. 

Remappable Controls: The controls cannot be remapped but there is a control diagram. 

The post Horizon Chase 2 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Parallel parking like a boss.

LOW Police AI is asleep at the wheel.

WTF Hitting pedestrians only costs 100 Euros!

In the hectic streets of Barcelona, My taxi driver’s journey unfolds in Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator – a simulation that promises both realism and adventure.

Taxi Life puts the player in the shoes of a business owner starting a taxi company in Barcelona. The objective is to grow the company by completing fares, purchasing new vehicles, upgrading said vehicles, hiring drivers and sending them out to complete even more fares to eventually become the taxi king or queen of the city.

Besides driving customers to and fro in standard rides, there are other activities in Taxi Life that provide XP which can be used to invest in perks that make building a taxi Empire a little easier. “Places to discover” usually lead to graffiti paintings. “Interesting architecture” tasked me with visiting famous sites like the Triumphal Arch of Barcelona amongst others. “Challenges” are more demanding fares, mostly requiring speed, coupled with minimal collisions.

Barcelona feels alive in Taxi Life, rendered with good attention to detail, albeit artificially light traffic. From iconic landmarks to narrow alleys, the city is a joy to navigate – except for that one time when I made a wrong turn down one of the many one-way streets because I didn’t notice the sign. That wasn’t so joyful.

Also, I did get speeding tickets for driving too fast, as there are speed cams peppered throughout the city. However, the fine of 20 Euros wasn’t enough to dissuade me from from putting pedal to the metal when calculating time saved plus the earnings from a fare – speeding was often an obvious choice. 

The driving mechanics (speeding or not) offer a decent experience, with some quirks like over-steer and delayed reactions to sharp turns. There are varied camera options including cockpit, dash and hood. It would have been nice to have more options for a third-person camera because the one offered is a little too close to the car.

The vehicles in this game are generic – no name-brand sedans here! – and all I saw were designs similar to vehicles I’ve seen in real life. No doubt the cost of licensing was at the forefront of this choice to skip real models, but thankfully the lack of licenses doesn’t take away from the immersion factor.

Also, the perk tree is worth taking the time to study before investing perk points. Level-up options include boosting the speed at which XP is gained, greater availability of VIP Jobs that pay more money, lower costs for maintenance services like towing, mechanics and cleaning, and so forth. My personal favorite perk provides the ability for drivers I hire to cost my company less in terms of salary while raising their efficiency. These all add a layer of strategy to what might otherwise be a straightforward taxi experience.

In terms of immersion, despite some shortcomings, the nuanced interactions with passengers are a welcome addition. These can sometimes lead to more or less satisfaction from customers, so be careful when responding to them. For example, when an occupant asked me what fun activities were available in Barcelona and I suggested the beach, and then I kept referencing the beach even after they said they weren’t interested, they became irritable and lost some of their ‘patience’ (represented by a bar) which directly influences their final rating of the ride.  

While the voice acting is passable, it lacks the polish expected from a modern title. However, the well-written dialogue compensates, providing believable and sometimes humorous interactions with passengers. I once did a bad fare and the customer said “I hope your driving improves, not that I’ll ever give you another chance to show me.” Multiple language options including English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, Arabic, Catalan Spanish, German, and French cater to a diverse player base.

While what I’ve listed so far all contributes to a solid sim experience, there are some rough patches. For instance, there are only four radio stations offering techno, light pop with a dash of Jazz, some rock (although for the life of me I cannot see how rock music could possibly facilitate calm taxi driving) and finally some classical – the closest one will get to chill music for what can be a tense experience. I would recommend turning off the music entirely in Taxi Life and firing up one of Yo-Yo Ma’s renditions of Bach’s Cello Suite No.5 instead.

Another issue for me was that while Taxi Life strives for realism, it falls short in some aspects. Believable vehicle damage adds to the immersion, but a lack of consequences for traffic violations feels unrealistic. Hitting pedestrians netted me a 100 Euro fine, which is a pittance considering the thousands I easily stacked up in the first few taxi fares I completed. One would expect a heavier hand with such serious infractions. Running a red light right in front of the police was particularly jarring as it does not net a fine of any kind.

Vehicular accidents are the same way. Besides the damage to the vehicle, nothing else happens. No fine, no police report, and no ding to the customer patience meter. Real-life fender benders usually ruin a person’s day, yet in Taxi Life, it has the same weight as bumping into someone in line at a coffee shop and accidentally making them drop their bag. Annoying, sure, but no big deal. For a simulator (as opposed to an arcade experience) I feel the devs did not spend enough time on this.

Finally, the mispronunciation of Barcelona’s name is a detail that may irk locals and some travelled folk like myself. It’s pronounced Bar-the-LOH-nah, and not Bar-sur-Loh-nah.

Taxi Life ultimately offers a mixed bag by blending realism with a fantasy upgrade system. While the attention to detail and perk system impress, issues like the lack of expected consequences detract from the experience.

As this is my first foray into videogame taxi driving apart from Crazy Taxi, I can only guess how it might stack up against others in the same vein. However, what I can say is that I suspect it will scratch the itch of most simulation gaming enthusiasts, and I found it worth the time and effort needed to build my taxi empire – just be prepared for something clearly on the simulation side of things, with no arcade-style action here.

Rating: 6 out of 10

— Patricio do Rosario

Disclosures: This game is published by Nacon and developed by Simteract. It is available on XBO/X/S, PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E. There are depictions of Mild Language. The official description reads: “This is a simulation game in which players drive a taxi in the city of Barcelona. Players can pick up passengers and drive to destinations in a timely manner while following traffic laws. The words “damn” and “hell” appear in the game.”

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are not available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Taxi Life offers no options for audio accessibility other than subtitles. The game is playable without sound, as there are no necessary audio cues needed for play. Taxi Life is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: All controls can be remapped, making Taxi Life fully remappable.

The post TAXI LIFE: A City Driving Simulator Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Immersive driving experience.

LOW Losing hours of progress after one slip-up.

WTF It crashes harder than a caffeine addict at noon.

Expeditions: A MudRunner Game is, in short, the perfect thing to play while listening to a podcast — its brand of terrestrial adventure is slow, methodical and deliberate. Meters can stretch out into kilometers when the terrain is at its trickiest, and the thrill of completing an expedition on a meager ration of petrol is exciting.

Expeditions is a game where the player drives a rugged vehicle from one part of a map to another while traversing a series of different obstacles along the way, ranging from steep climbs up mountains to crossing mighty rivers that can wash away even the most powerful SUVs. On top of navigation, fuel management must be carefully considered, especially on rough terrain or on long journeys where the vehicle might become immobilized without proper planning.

While this all might sound a bit daunting, once I adapted to MudRunner‘s pacing and mission
structure, each challenge became like a little puzzle punctuating the generally slow
movement through valleys and forests. For instance, on one mission I had to use my drone to
locate the parts of a crashed aircraft, while in another I had to photograph derelict buildings that were in need of restoring. Both required a different set of tools and methods to complete.

Besides the vehicles themselves — burly rides like the Cocto Canyon SUV or the ten-wheeled Step
310E — the player also has a few tools to aid them like binoculars, an aerial drone for
reconnaissance, a sonar scanner to judge water depth, and a winch to fasten onto trees.
Binoculars aside, I found each and every one of these tools to be vital on my journeys –
they ensured that I was well-prepared to take on whatever obstacles stood in my way
without robbing me of challenge. Simply having the correct information didn’t make the
terrain any easier to navigate.

With the exclusion of the tutorial area, the bulk of MudRunner is set in a desert biome whose
rocky terrain requires thoughtful maneuvering, along with a forest biome whose treelines and
rivers act as natural guardrails to herd the player down the right path. Both are beautiful in
their own way, and each has little nuances to keep things fresh — features like a mighty river that will
wash light vehicles, or an old shanty town that gives off budget Western film vibes . Aside from some texture pop-in, the presentation of the environments is well-executed, by not only being picturesque,
but also by giving drivers enough visual cues to successfully arrive at their destination.

Unfortunately, at the time of this review, Expeditions suffers from a bug that crashes the game when using the drone — extremely inconvenient when trying to survey an area to proceed. Unless it’s been patched by the time this review is published, prospective players should beware, as launching the drone when on the cusp of finishing an expedition could inadvertently end it in disaster.

Expeditions: A MudRunner Game is the sort of daunting, technical adventure that can be humbling at times, but for those who can pick up on its rhythm and learn its brand of skillful driving, this might just become the best podcast game of all time.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

— Fumo Chabalala

Disclosures: This game is developed by Saber Interactive and published by Focus Entertainment. It is currently available on XBO/X/S, PS4/5, Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via Publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 20 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode. The game was not completed. There were no multiplayer modes at launch.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E with no descriptors, although I did find that it had some slightly suggestive humor — things like implied drug usage during a mission briefing, or a cheeky Breaking Bad easter egg featuring a suspicious RV.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game does not offer subtitles. However, it also doesn’t have any spoken text, and during the actual gameplay there are visual prompts for things like damage taken to inform the player of any collisions. Even without haptic feedback, the player can easily identify when they are stuck since the visual cues are very legible. I’d call this fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

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