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 Think The Office, but with cults and the occasional demon.

LOW The combat mechanics feel floaty.

WTF A vampire priest purging demons — just another day in Poland.

I’ve always found the absurd to be wildly entertaining. Maybe that’s why Priest Simulator: Vampire Show pulled me in like an unholy sermon I couldn’t walk away from. It didn’t ask if I was ready, it just threw me headfirst into the madness.

This isn’t about quiet reflection or slow world-building. It’s about being a vampire-killing priest in modern-day Poland, armed with a cross, a shotgun, and an attitude problem. The world is bizarre, the humor dark and unhinged, and the gameplay a chaotic mix of first-person combat, exorcisms, and satire-heavy storytelling.

From the moment I loaded in, I knew Priest Simulator: Vampire Show was different. The aesthetic was grimy in the best way, like a cursed VHS tape found in a church basement. The mockumentary-style presentation, complete with character interviews and absurd cutscenes, only added to its unhinged charm. It’s a fever dream wrapped in a game engine.

It plays like a traditional FPS but with a religious twist. Instead of just mowing down enemies, I was purging them using holy relics and an arsenal of weapons that ranged from crucifixes to hammers. Telekinesis let me hurl objects at enemies, sending them flying across the room like an exorcism scene gone horribly wrong. That said, while the combat was indeed entertaining for a while, it did start feeling repetitive — apparently there are only so many ways to punch a demon in the face before it loses its charm.

I must also discuss the exorcism mechanics. Some moments were brilliantly chaotic, like wielding a massive censer to banish a demon before watching it erupt into a glorious burst of light. But at times, these sequences felt frustrating. Certain exorcisms required precise movement or interaction, and when clunky controls got in the way (like fumbling with weapon swaps mid-fight or getting stuck on debris) it turned what should have been intense moments into tests of patience.

When everything clicked, though, it was pure, ridiculous fun. One moment I was sprinting through a decrepit town, blasting vampires with holy energy, dodging fireballs, then leaping into a car to run down a demon mid-exorcism. It was the kind of over-the-top, “is this really happening?” gameplay that made me laugh out loud.

Despite the chaos, the story somehow managed to stay engaging. The writing is sharp, dripping with satire that pokes fun at organized religion, pop culture, and everything in between. One mission had me hunting down sacrilegious graffiti artists, while another involved illegally selling holy water on the side. The experience thrives on its irreverence, and it works because it never hesitates to go all-in on the absurdity.

It’s not all exorcisms and face-punching, though. PS:VS also let me renovate my own church, turning it into something more than just a place of worship. Upgrades range from practical restorations to, well, installing an aquarium or a DJ booth. It’s weird, but in a way that fits perfectly within this offbeat world.

Musically, Priest Simulator: Vampire Show leans into its eerie, industrial vibe. The soundtrack pulsed with a strange energy that made every moment feel just a little off-kilter. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but that seemed to be the point. Haunting choirs mixed with distorted synths made it the background score to a church rave gone wrong, and anyone expecting angelic hymns was in the wrong place.

At its best, Priest Simulator: Vampire Show is an unapologetic, genre-mashing ride through the absurd. It didn’t hold my hand, and it definitely didn’t take itself seriously. On the other hand, the longer I played, the more the gameplay loop started to wear thin. The novelty of the premise carried me far, but the repetition and occasional mechanical hiccups chipped away at my enthusiasm. Even so, the sheer commitment to weirdness made it hard to walk away completely. For those who thrive on the bizarre, this one’s worth a trip to the confessional.

— Faiq Ilhan

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Asmodev and published by Ultimate Games S.A. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PC. Approximately 6 hours was devoted to the game, and it was not completed. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game is unrated by the ESRB. In it, players will attack enemies with guns, blades, telepathic powers. The game also strongly parodies the topic of religion. There are swear words littered throughout normal dialogue.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind Modes are not present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles, but subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. Audio is needed to complete the game, but there are visual cues like highlighted items along with text hints on-screen.

Controls: Controls are remappable, with interchangeable hotkeys. It plays similarly to an FPS game where the left mouse click controls the left hand and the right mouse click controls the right hand.

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HIGH Seamlessly interweaving high art with toilet humor.

LOW Unclear point-and-click limitations.

WTF The protagonist’s matchmaking skills should put him in jail.

How far will someone go to receive their inheritance? Can the promise of millions turn someone from a lowlife into a stand-up guy? And would all that effort be worth it? Death of the Reprobate does its best to answer that question, stringing together an adventure full of misfortune and crass humor animated with a virtual flipbook made from thousands of Renaissance-era paintings.

In the latest entry of Joe Richardson’s artsy point-and-click titles, the plot is simple. The story begins with the tyrannical protagonist Malcolm the Shit administering cruel and unusual punishments to his subjects. Suddenly he finds out his father, Immortal John, is on his deathbed — but the player has no interest in him, just his inheritance.

Upon their meeting, John finds his son so ungrateful and miserable that he commands him to do seven good deeds before he can receive his inheritance. From this point, the rest of the experience asks the player to solve puzzles, talk to chatty NPCs, and travel the painted world of Death of the Reprobate.

As one can tell from just a glance, the main selling point in Death is the art style. Quite literally, every single scene is taken from of an existing Renaissance-era painting and animated to fit in with its characters, which move in a vaguely puppet-like manner.

Death’s gameplay consists of solving problems for the residents of the hamlet where the protagonist’s father is living, which usually involved me finding items and giving them to certain NPCs. These “good deeds” ranged from breaking up a couple to match them with other partners, helping a tired maid turn her well into a hot tub, and scouting for a hunter as he killed the entire population of birds in the area. But, while it’s interesting to see how the art interacts with the puzzling in clever ways, some of the solutions won’t be obvious to average players.

In one example, there’s a small house that contains a father with four screaming children. I had to grab a bucket, put it under a cow, give the cow strawberries, then it excreted “strawberry milkshake” from its behind, after which I gave it to the kids. It’s not like I don’t understand the humor here — because it is objectively very funny — but not in a million years would I think up a solution like that on my own.

This frustration goes hand in hand with the limitations of the point-and-click genre. There are tons of items that Malcolm has to pick up and use in unfamiliar ways, such as putting a pumpkin on top of a chimney to smoke out a conclave of wizards. Even when I did solve a puzzle correctly, I never felt smarter for it — it was more like luck. The player is  allowed open access to hints in the form of a Turkish man smoking a hookah next to the tavern, but using hints made me feel guilty for not giving it my all and toughing it out. That said, it was often a struggle between knowing when I had truly exhausted my options and when I had simply given up too early.

Despite being frustrated at times, those issues were minor compared to the art style and Death of the Reprobate’s other selling point — the humor.

The world “reprobate” is defined in the Calvinist religious tradition as “someone destined for damnation,” and Malcolm embodies this in almost all of his interactions. He tries to help the people out of the predicaments that they’re in so he’ll contribute to his good deed count, but he ultimately knows that no amount of goodwill he gives will help. These caricatures are so comically abhorrent and stuck-up it’s hard not to laugh with most dialogue options. For example, Malcolm tries to play matchmaker with the men in the town and his client is so picky that she chooses her ex. Another is when a dad fakes a fishing trip with his kids with Malcolm’s help, only to have his kids call him a deadbeat (among other things.)

Those were just two examples, but every character is just a testament to how strong the writing in Death of the Reprobate is. Richardson somehow interweaves physical comedy, dumb gimmicks, and clever wordplay together to create an intricate (and crass) world full of weirdos. This perspective seems to suggest that while the Renaissance was a time full of artistic revival and scientific ingenuity, people were also really stupid and gross.

Death of the Reprobate offers both artistic complexity and simple humor. It’s a journey full of laughs, jeers, and disgust — and at the end of the day, isn’t that all someone could want from a trip to an art museum?

Rating: 7 out of 10

— Jack Dunn

Disclosures: This game was developed and published by Joe Richardson. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 3 hours of play was devoted to the game. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game has not been rated by the ESRB, but it contains Nudity, Blood and Gore, Violence, and Strong Language. This is not a game for kids.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available for this game.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are no audio cues that will affect gameplay, as the game is entirely text-based. The subtitles cannot be resized. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The game’s controls are not remappable, as it only uses a mouse in the point-and-click style of play. There is no controller map.

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HIGH Pulling off a perfectly-timed string of hits without hesitation.

LOW Where is the last guy on this level?!

WTF The balancing of the last two stages!

It’s been a minute since Hotline Miami came crashing in with its sublimely disturbing tale of bloody, ruthless murder amid twisted conspiracies. It was a tough act to follow, and even its own sequel couldn’t carry the torch of its unnervingly-cathartic action paired with puzzle-like structure. However, Children of the Sun might be considered the next real contender for that crown.

Players star as a nameless teenage girl gifted with immense psychic powers, on the run with her injured father. When he succumbs to his injuries, she goes on an absolute bloodbath against the cult responsible for her abilities, and for mortally wounding her father. With a sniper rifle, she’ll hunt down their leader – a psychopath in sunglasses who apparently thinks he’s Jesus reincarnated, judging by his outfit choices. The cult is terrorizing the local area, so stopping them is arguably the right thing to do… but exacting revenge is still a harrowing task. 

Despite how intense the subject is, Children of the Sun is a surprisingly simple shooter. Players are set on a linear, semi-circle perimeter that they can walk back and forth across. While walking the perimeter, they can aim down their scope to mark enemies, and once they’re ready, they pull the trigger and fire a single bullet.

Players then guide their bullet with the heroine’s psychic powers. With each strike, they can pivot it in any direction, chaining an ever-escalating bodycount until every member of the cult is six feet under, all of it achieved with just a mouse. It’s incredibly smooth to control. Other than some balancing limitations for how much each bullet’s arc can be altered, pulling off brutal headshots has never been easier.

Over time, the heroine’s powers evolve to allow for adjusting the shot’s course after it’s fired, first subtly, then more, and the finally upgrade enables a brutal charged shot that requires enough distance to pierce the defense of the heavily-armored enemies.

Wild birds and fish can be used as ‘bonus’ targets that link the bullet into deadly chained hits across great distances, letting the shell effectively leap from one vantage point to the next. Also, clever environmental trickery rewards not only with faster kills, but can lead to achieving bonus objectives themed around each stage. It’s still just killing bad guys, but sometimes with an extra flourish, like using explosive to kill them, or getting two kills with one shot.

I tended to mark every enemy I could see before firing my shot, but the sometimes-frustrating irony is that later stages will hide some enemies in such a way that a player can only find them after their bullet is in the air. Most of the time this works out fairly enough, but I’d be lying if I said there weren’t a few instances when a hidden straggler was just too out of the way, testing my patience.

Nowhere was this more evident than the final two stages. I won’t spoil what happens, but it’s so trial-and-error that it feels built to pad out the runtime and desperately needed a mid-level checkpoint. I totally understand why in smaller stages, with only six to eight targets, that there’s no room for error. Starting over takes seconds. The final stage takes substantially longer, not as a test of skill, but a test of enduring tedium. There are also two weird back-to-back minigames that are mandatory, inspired loosely by Pac-Man and WarioWare. I couldn’t begin to explain why they’re there.

The silver lining to all of this is that most of the frustration is drowned out by wonderful little touches and clever design wrinkles. Without even trying, I binged the entire campaign in one sitting. There were points where it made me feel over the moon with glee at a perfectly-chained series of strikes, and times when the plot left me deeply disconcerted in just the right way.

It’s not gonna be a game for everyone, but for some, it’ll be an unforgettable ride.

Final Score: 9 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Rene Rother and published by Devolver. It is currently available on PC. This copy of Children of the Sun was provided via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Four hours were dedicated to the single-player campaign, and it was completed.

Parents: Though not yet rated at the time of review by the ESRB, this game is full of M-level mature content, including Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual References and Use of Drugs. You’re essentially playing a serial killer villain with psychic powers. Everything is both graphically violent and morally ambiguous at best. Though you only kill with a sniper rifle against stylized, low-detail enemies, the context is in no way distanced from the player’s mind. This is not a game for kids.

Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes available. Certain enemy designations are indicated by slight color gradient variations when marked by the player. This may cause difficulty in tracking targets for those who are colorblind, though there there are other distinguishing factors to set various enemy types apart.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game features limited subtitles, and otherwise relies almost entirely on visual prompts for how to proceed. Regardless, it’s a reasonable experience to play without sound, and I would say that it’s at least near-fully accessible.  

Remappable controls: No, the controls are not remappable. The entire game can be played one-handed with a mouse or controller.

The post Children Of The Sun Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Beautiful soundtrack. A fresh spin on the puzzle genre. 

LOW Countless components to puzzles can make completion a bit tedious. 

WTF The NPC dialogue is wild. 

I’m not usually one to dabble in the puzzle genre. I’m not great at them, and they remind me a bit too much of educational tasks that were forced upon me in my youth. That being said, I decided to try my luck with Paper Trail and was pleasantly surprised. Its innovative use of paper folding as a mechanic is a fresh take on the puzzle genre, making for a unique gameplay experience. 

Paper Trail is a puzzle-driven adventure game about Paige, a young girl who is dead set on going to university despite her family’s wishes to keep her from leaving their little town of Southfold. A budding astrophysicist who likes to “bend the space-time continuum,” Paige makes the difficult decision to run away from home to pursue her dreams. 

Every level consists of several 2D puzzles which resemble various parts of the world presented as flat sheets of paper – paths, village scenes, forests and more. Players will be faced with obstacles, and in order to progress past them, they’ll need to ‘fold’ parts of the world to change the geography, picking up keys, unlocking doors, and collecting origami souvenirs along the way. 

Paper stages are typically folded vertically, horizontally, and/or diagonally, and as Paper Trail progresses, players are expected to fold each landscape in a myriad of interesting ways. The folding component of Paper Trail is very cool, and unlike any other puzzler I’ve played. Conceptually, Paper Trail has certainly upped the ante on what is possible within the genre. 

Paper Trail becomes increasingly more complex over time – there are boulders that must be moved before a page can be turned or folded, and certain bridges require the pages to be arranged in such a way before Paige can move forward. This made completing certain stages a bit tedious, and many times, I had to restart levels to fix the messes I made. The Swamp and Forest levels were especially difficult for me to get through, which is a bit embarrassing given that they’re so early.

There is a feature that reveals the answers to each puzzle should players get stuck (thank god!) but all of these moving parts prevented me from relaxing into a good zone with the gameplay. I often had to think – hard – and while in-game assistance was available, I was too stubborn to use it regularly since relying on it too much felt defeating. 

Despite any frustrations I may have had with the puzzles, Paper Trail is visually stunning, and the soundtrack even more so. Each level is saturated with color, the music compliments the landscape beautifully, and vignettes between each level were easily my favorite part. In them, players must fold the paper on the screen to construct a lovely image that accompanies a moment in Paige’s memories and current journey. Each bit of Paige’s present aligns with a moment in her past, which is a smart and imaginative way to play with temporality. 

All in all, Paper Trail is a beautiful, thoughtful experience. This interesting approach to puzzle construction sets it apart from other sin the genre, and its audio-visual landscape only adds to its charm. While completing some of the levels was a struggle and having so many mechanics at once was difficult at times, Paper Trail remains a pleasure to venture through and solve. 

Rating: 7.5 out of 10 

— Taylor Pryor

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Newfangled Games. It is currently available on PC, XBO/S/X, PS4/5, Switch, iOS and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5.  Approximately 8 hours of play were devoted to single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is rated E by the ESRB, and has no content descriptors. Although the puzzles in Paper Trail can be complex, the assistance button makes it more accessible and kid friendly. There is no objectionable content here.

Colorblind Modes: The game has no colorblind modes. 

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles that can be resized. Game progression is not contingent upon audio cues, and low-motion cameras are available. Therefore, Paper Trail is fully accessible. 

Remappable Controls: Certain functions in the game are remappable. Controller vibration, cursor sensitivity, and speaker settings can all be altered, and controller triggers can also be adapted if necessary.

The post Paper Trail Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The game’s aesthetics and visual style.

LOW The slow-paced start and abrupt ending!

WTF Why do I need a supercomputer to run this?!?

Alan Wake 2 is Remedy’s next and incredibly ambitious project, and it comes in the form of a third-person survival horror that nails it in some areas and misses in some others.

Alan Wake 2 starts 13 years after the events of the first. While the titular writer has been missing since then, a murderous group calling themselves the Cult of the Tree have killed many people in the Cauldron Lake area where both games were set. FBI agent Saga Anderson and her partner are assigned to the case, hoping to shed some light on these killings.

Just like the first, Alan Wake 2 is a third-person survival horror, with both action and puzzle-solving. In the action segments, the player will use a flashlight to make ‘dark’ enemies vulnerable before engaging in gunfights with them. Due to its narrative-focused nature, the world has a semi-open design. Players are
largely free to explore different regions, but a loading screen awaits them when transitioning between areas. Switching between Alan and Saga is only possible in safe rooms where the game can be saved.

While there are different types of upgradable weapons, the combat is nothing special. Enemies use ranged and melee attacks against the player and attacks can be dodged to stagger foes and earn some breathing room. That said, one twist during Alan’s portions are that not all entities in Dark Place are hostile. Because Alan never knows which of the shadows calling his name is his next adversary, the player will often find themselves on the edge of their seats when roaming.

More innovative than the combat is Wake 2‘s narrative. The script follows two interconnected stories and characters in two distinct worlds. In one we accompany Alan in his attempt to find a way out of the supernatural Dark Place he’s trapped in, and the other is Saga and her detective work in the real world. It seemed to me that it would be tough balancing both fantastical and ‘real’ elements while keeping the two narratives connected throughout, but Remedy nailed it.

During Alan’s portions in a nightmarish New York-like setting, everything relies on environmental storytelling. Billboards warn about the inevitable failure of Alan’s mission. Neon lights of the shops on corners act as waypoints, glowing in the darkness of the rainy night. Graffiti on the walls points towards hidden stashes or skill points. On Saga’s side, her detective’s intuition is used to guide the player. She can go through the pieces of evidence found throughout the world in her virtual “Mind Place” to reach a conclusion and plan the next place to go or the next person to find.

Saga’s Mind Place can be accessed at any time via the push of a button, and presents like a small hut in which she walks around and interacts with casefiles and pieces of evidence. For example, if she puts the right real-world evidence next to the right mental question she has about the case, the question is answered.

Though the idea of the Mind Place is great, it’s not well-rooted, as players can go through most of the story without consulting the pieces of evidence Saga finds, and as the story unfolds over time, Saga will automatically file them into correct cases and come to a conclusion saying “I already know how this ends”.

While Alan doesn’t use a Mind Place, he can change the world around him by writing about it in his “Writer’s Room”. He can turn a lively ballroom into a scene of grisly murder by adding cultists to the story and then following their bloody trail of blood to the next key object needed in his quest. The general mechanics of Alan’s Writer’s Room is like Saga’s Mind Place, with the only difference being that when Alan puts a theme (murder, for example) next to a place (let’s say “ballrom”) then the world around Alan changes and new paths or items are revealed.

In terms of pacing, Alan Wake 2 suffers from opening hours that are almost completely devoid of any action. Things starts with Saga examining a crime scene in Cauldron Lake, introducing the detective work mechanics and how the Mind Place works. By the time her introduction is finished, the story switches to Alan and his intro, which includes solving puzzles by changing the environment with the Writer’s Room. The need for two intros is inevitable based on Remedy’s basic structure and the differences between the two leads, yet, the way they’re set one right after another with a heavy focus on puzzles in both is questionable.

Unfortunately, without spoiling anything, I can say that the ending of the adventure is underwhelming. Though the plot is full of surprises, the last hour boils down to being a fetch quest, and most of the anticipated action is done via cutscenes which rob the player of feeling like they’ve gotten the job done themselves. 

Artistically, I have no doubt that Alan Wake 2 will frequently in any conversation about pushing boundaries. The game not only uses live-action cinematics in conjunction with CGI, but there are parts of gameplay when the Dark Place and the real world overlap. This is achieved by using a live-action sequence and overlaying it like a photo filter on the environment — not only a great idea to show how the two words (and narratives) affect each other, but it’s a truly unique visual experience. Character facial animations are also perfect, and it’s a rare treat to see a studio so committed to motion capture rather than auto-generating animations, as I found the performances far more realistic and emotionally engaging.

Combat also has some issues — things feel clunky in part due to the inventory management system. 

Weapons and usable items like med packs can be assigned to eight ‘quick select’ menu slots assigned to four physical buttons on the keyboard and controllers. In order to select an item, the player should push the corresponding button either once for the primary item or twice for the secondary. This single or double-clicking method of switching is a frustrating pain during combat that made me choose the
wrong weapon or item in the heat of the fight many times. It’s strange why the devs chose to not go with something more standard like a radial ‘weapon wheel’ or even an older-school solution such as a “next/previous weapon” button.

One final thing to discuss are the technical aspects of running Alan Wake 2 on PC, where I reviewed it. The game truly takes ray tracing to the next level with various notable effects like reflections within reflections. The benefit is hugely atmospheric, but these great visuals come with great costs.

It’s impossible to get a solid 60FPS with Ray Tracing (even on 1080p resolution) without using DLSS and frame generation on an RTX 4080. For people who don’t know what this means, take it as Alan Wake 2 certainly being the next Crysis when it comes to testing and benchmarking PC hardware in upcoming years. However, the sad truth is that other current games use the same top-notch Ray Tracing technologies while offering much better performance and demanding less investment on the hardware side.

Alan Wake 2 is a unique experience thanks to the innovative blending of photorealism and traditional visual design, as well as a narrative deeply entwined to gameplay mechanics to an extent rarely seen before. It is not a perfect experience, but it is innovative enough to inspire gamers and devs alike for years to come.

Score: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Epic Games. It is currently available on  XBX/S, PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 18 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 M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, and Strong Language. The official rating summary reads: Combat is highlighted by realistic gunfire, explosions, and blood-splatter effects; shooting enemies sometimes results in exposed entrails and large wounds. Cutscenes also depict instances of violence/blood… a character is depicted nude, with exposed genitalia and buttocks.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and/or resized. There are some necessary audio cues in puzzle solving sections. There are some audio cues used in puzzle solving sections that are not accompanied by visual cues. This game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Controls can be remapped.

The post Alan Wake 2 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH An wonderfully atmospheric game with an incredible soundtrack.

LOW Issues with the cursor. The late game plot slowdown.

WTF The distillery section is extremely jarring.

Kentucky Route Zero (KRZ) was always something of an enigma to me ever since I first saw it. It seemed like it had Twin Peaks vibes, and I expected it to be silly and whimsical, much like Disco Elysium. However, what I discovered was a mesmerizing, haunting, and bizarre adventure centered around the theme of abandonment. It was like exploring an old, decrepit building in search of the stories it can still tell.

KRZ is an abstract point-and-click adventure, with some choices that can alter the conversations, but never derail the central plot. Throughout the course of his work as a deliveryman, main character Conway picks up several new companions who will each step into the narrative spotlight from time to time. Conway himself is world-weary, Shannon approaches worried and pragmatic, Ezra is a curious and precocious child, and Junebug is caring, but with an artist’s rebellious streak. Each character that travels with Conway adds a unique and personal voice to each part of the story.

The plot starts off with Conway carrying out his final delivery before retirement. Before long, the mundane task turns into a full-blown mission that blends sci-fi with the supernatural. The campaign is split into five acts, with narrative segments in between, and each part of the tale deals with some aspect of abandonment. One might assume this theme would create a dreary atmosphere, but the mysteries and turns it took kept me curious for more.

While on the topic of mysteries, KRZ does have plot elements that are never fully resolved, but that ties well with the overarching theme — life doesn’t always offer closure, and people have to either reflect on what could’ve been, do what they can with the pieces left behind, or simply move on. The cast of KRZ all try to make sense of the events they go through, what their futures are, and what they leave behind. There is hope, but also a great deal of grief, despair, and an underlying sense of aimlessness.

The story is also filled with many striking visuals and wonderful musical numbers. The aesthetic style is fairly simple, but with a pleasing, almost papercraft, feeling to it, along with some vector-style graphics throughout the travel segments. It almost felt as though I was playing a long-forgotten game from the ’70s.

One particular point where the visuals come together with the audio was during the middle of Act III. At one point, Junebug sings with lyrics that the player chooses. Her generally plain outfit changes into a majestic dress, and the ceiling peeled itself away to reveal a sky with shooting stars. This created a beautiful scene where I was briefly taken away from KRZ‘s hopelessness, if just for a moment. I had to take a moment to sit back and simply take it in.

While the visuals and music contribute to KRZ‘s strongest suit, the atmosphere, that isn’t to say that there aren’t some issues.

KRZ’s biggest problem is that the cursor sometimes doesn’t highlight what it should, and that’s key in a point-and-click like this. For example, an object close to the player would not be highlighted, and instead an exit or another object on the other side of the screen would be highlighted. One wrong click, and that would waste time as my character would move to that part, or even sometimes exit back to the previous screen.

There are also parts where the story does meander a bit, and the action slows a bit too much. In the last act, and in some of the post-act vignettes, the narrative comes to a near-crawl — the ‘epilogue’ is a lengthy ten minute unskippable text segment. Act V also has some issues with helping players understand what is moving the plot forward. In one instance, I was not aware that I was supposed to be letting some conversations play out while I was exploring.

All of this said, however, Kentucky Route Zero is an absolutely amazing adventure that is packed with personality, and bolstered by stunning visuals and music. Some long-in-the-tooth plot segments slightly diminished my enjoyment, but the story always remained moving and intriguing.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

— Justin Grandfield

Disclosures: This game is developed by Cardboard Computer and published by Annapurna Interactive. It is currently available on Switch, PS4/5, mobile, XBO/S/X and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher, and reviewed on PS5. Approximately 11 hours were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There is a “multiplayer” mode, but the option is listed as just passing the controller to someone else.

Parents: This game has an ESRB rating of T for Language and Use of Drugs. The ESRB rating summary contains the following information: “This an adventure game in which players follow a story about a secret highway running through underground caves in Kentucky. Players explore a variety of environments while engaging in dialogue with other characters. One scene depicts a doctor administering an anesthetic drug (Neurypnol) on player’s character; the screen/text blurs and distorts from the effects of the fictional drug. The dialogue references painkillers and pills (e.g., “…unless you’re planning to sell painkillers on the side…”; “She offered to share the pills…I didn’t want to stop taking them.”). The word “sh*t” appears in dialogue.”

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game offers subtitles and closed captioning. (See examples above.) The text size can be changed significantly, but will affect all text on screen. It is strongly recommended to put on captions, as some of the musical numbers’ lyrics are only visible when this option is selected. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable.

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HIGH The sheer amount of detail and care put into each map. 

LOW Way too much filler. 

WTF The AI’s passionate hatred of goats. 

The format of Crime o’ Clock lends itself perfectly to a monotonous, repetitive experience — the player is thrust into the role of a detective in the far future, working alongside a sophisticated AI named Eve. The detective is tasked with solving crimes in the past that never should have occurred and are now disrupting the normal flow of time. They solve these crimes through interacting with a diegetic, computer workstation-esque interface. 

There’s really nothing wrong with a game about a fictional ‘office job’ leaning into a certain kind of monotony as the player repeats the same simulated tasks over and over — this monotony can, in fact, serve to highlight moments of beauty and grace. In the Case of Crime o’ Clock, unfortunately, the repetition of both gameplay and plot elements is so acute, so overwhelmingly hard to ignore, that most of its positive qualities quickly become buried in a sea of mind-numbing busywork. 

In order to carry out their aforementioned detective work, the player is mainly tasked with finding different objects within large, extremely detailed isometric images, representing different frozen moments in time that occurred during the event in question — it’s a bit like the saved web pages in the Wayback Machine. For example, the player might be asked to identify an initial crime scene, with the computer telling them the approximate area it’s located in. Once they’ve identified the crime scene, the view might shift to a different moment in time, and they’ll be asked to find additional clues near the crime scene, and so on. 

At its core, it’s simply a fancy version of Where’s Waldo, but the unique twists it brings to that tried-and-true formula serve to sustain the player’s curiosity — at least, for a time. 

Crime o’ Clock  is rendered in a simplistic, cartoony style, with many of the humans represented by cute anthropomorphic characters that carry on their own lives parallel to the stories the player investigates. I won’t lie, I let out a bit of a groan when I saw the pair of Rick and Morty lookalikes in the first level, but I was tickled to see them teleporting around the map every time I shifted through time, being chased through a replica castle before making their narrow escape through a portal.

Given that the player will return to the same ‘maps’ (corresponding to different time periods) many times over the course of the campaign, it’s inevitable that they will spot people that were involved in cases they have already solved, going about their newly-peaceful lives as the world continues to advance. These small moments of recognition, along with the playful way in which Crime o’ Clock lays out its alternate vision of history — Atlantis existed, there was a ‘Great Goat Guerilla’ at some point, etc. — thoroughly enchanted me for the first few hours. 

…And then I realized how many hours were left. 

Even before I clued in to how long Crime o’ Clock was probably going to be, I was beginning to tire of the repetitive minigames it kept throwing at me. Between selecting spots on the map Where’s Waldo-style, the player’s AI partner will often ask them to solve small puzzles to progress the investigation that are meant to correspond to, say, hacking a computer interface, or checking a glass for poison. The problem is, Crime o’ Clock has very few minigames on offer. Multiple minigames are variations on the same simple matching game, and while they slowly ramp up in difficulty, their repetitive nature along with the sheer length of Crime o’ Clock relative to its simplistic mechanics (and the fact that there is zero penalty for failure) means that the player will master them all long before they’ve reached the end credits. 

At first, I appreciated these minigames for their slight tonal contrast with the Crime o’ Clock’s regular rhythm, but as the hours wore on, their appeal fell away completely, and I could only see them as padding. Really, Crime o’ Clock’s entire structure began to feel like padding, the repetition serving to elaborate on mechanics that warrant a one or two-hour experience at the absolute most. In the end, I began to feel a hopeless sense of dread pass over me, always shocked to find out just how much I had left to do. 

Thankfully, Crime o’ Clock’s final level returns to its strengths somewhat, using the Where’s Waldo format to drive home its ideas in a way that felt satisfying — but the level, too, felt just a little bit too padded, circling around its central point one (or two, or three) too many times.

At the very least, I appreciated the creativity on display — the final level really hammered home the fact that the devs had a vision for the story of Crime o’ Clock that directly incorporated the unique format they chose to use, rather than offering a haphazard story applied to the gameplay after the fact. The whole thing feels a bit messy, but there’s a unique vision within it that might be brought to light with a bit of careful pruning… but I suppose we’ll never know. 

Rating: 4 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Bad Seed and published by Just for Games and Merge Games. It is currently available on PC and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 16 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 E10+ and contains Mild Violence. The ‘mild violence’ mentioned by the ESRB is rendered in an extremely stylized cartoon style, and only the aftermath of said violence is ever really shown. 

Coloblind Modes: there are no colorblind modes available. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered or resized. All the dialogue from the AI or other characters is fully text-based, and every game element is easily findable through the game’s interface. There is a sound-based minigame, but it is accompanied by a visual component that makes it quite simple to complete without sound. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, the game’s controls are not remappable. Every interaction in the game is completed using the left mouse button. 

The post Crime O’ Clock Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Petting the dog! Players must pet the dog.

LOW Spending too much time getting Chaz to the sax in “Crouching Bassline, Hidden Saxophone”.

WTF Why do these people take their instruments everywhere?

Music, like games, is an individual taste. Some people love metal, some love jazz. Backbeat,
a game about a woman who finds her muse in funk, comes with its own unique gameplay
concept. I wanted to join in on the jam, but for me this mashup of puzzler and stealth-strategy
struck a discordant note.

Having lived through the mid-’90s and experienced the mainstream ascendance of R&B and
rap during that time myself, I was somewhat nonplussed by the focus on funk, and even
moreso in the context here. Funk music is intricate, but it’s not a natural stylistic fit for a
cerebral puzzle (better suited to baroque, perhaps) and its in-your-face attitude seems poorly
suited to a stealth title.

The story of Backbeat — a “Battle of the Bands” tale that wouldn’t be out of place in a late-
century teen comedy — doesn’t seem to connect to anything it asks the player to do, either.
And, with few exceptions, the “stealth” requirements of the levels don’t even make sense in
the context of the immediate plot.

That’s typical story/game conflict, though, and easily forgiven if the gameplay offers
something compelling. Backbeat’s levels ask the player to route different characters (who
mostly have different stride lengths and special abilities) around ‘alert’ zones within a certain
number of moves. The characters travel different numbers of tiles per move and use up
different amounts of a timeline in doing so, producing a puzzle of geometry and time.

The player also has to manage resources, most of which go up or down based on when the
characters mark the timeline by changing directions or taking actions. There’s “stagger”,
which depletes when multiple characters mark the timeline simultaneously, and “align”, which
requires the characters to mark the timeline at certain points. Obviously these are in tension.
This is even more so with “solo”, which requires that only one character at a time use an interaction point in the level, and “assist”, which needs certain pairs of characters to use interaction points simultaneously.

Managing these meters along with the awkward movement of the characters and the alert
zones and the finite timeline provides Backbeat‘s challenge, which ramps up very fast and
stays high until to the end. The difficulty is amplified by the almost pathological resistance to
providing the explicit numbers behind what it’s asking the player to manage. Everything is
displayed as bars and radar graphs, leading to a lot of trial and error due to the lack of clarity.
It also seems like (though because of the above, I can’t be sure) the various resources max
out, so for example, one can’t stock up stagger at the start of the level to balance out
simultaneous marks at the end.

Unfortunately, the result is that each level is a grind. The player has to figure the routes right,
then adjust the timing so the resources don’t get depleted, then readjust the routes for the
timing of other characters. The reward is that one can then, finally exhausted, look at a
disappointing level score before entering an overlong dialogue scene. There’s no moment of
delight to reward a good solve, and almost never any moment of excitement in the course of
it.

What I want out of a puzzler is the moment of revelation when a solution becomes clear. What
the characters are getting out of their adventure here is the joy of playing music together, but
the sloggy grind of actually playing Backbeat doesn’t provide the first and can’t mirror the
second. Although the game makes a respectable effort to connect the resources it’s asking
the player to manage to the mechanics of a successful funk session, it never finds the joy
inherent to the music. This is the right game for someone, surely, but not for me.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Ichigoichie.It is currently available on Linux, Mac, PC, PS4/5, Switch and XBO/X/S. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on a home-built Windows X PC equipped with a AMD Ryzen 2700X processor, an ASRock X470 motherboard, 32 GB RAM , and a single GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card using driver 531.68. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E. No content warnings are noted. There are references to violence and alcohol but otherwise I noticed nothing objectionable.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available. Interaction points are linked to their outputs by colored symbols (unfortunately, often green, red, and yellow) and some required interaction points are designated solely by colored symbols and outlines (and not mentioned in the level’s starting information). The timelines are color-coded as well.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue in the game is in the form of text, although the text cannot be resized. The background of the text can be altered but examples are not shown while choosing. Despite its theme, the game has no essential sound cues, although the level-ending musical overview cannot be skipped.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. On PC, movement and interaction in Backbeat are primarily controlled with the mouse, although sometimes the shift key must be pressed at the same time as a mouse click, and certain hotkeys (space, q, e, c) control actions in the levels. Sometimes button presses are mandatory in the menus as well.

The post Backbeat Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Suplexing alligators, hell yeah!

LOW Defensive options in combat often feel inaccurate and clunky.

WTF Did I miss the reasoning behind Doctor Naomi being turned into a tree?

No More Heroes 3 is a game aimed at established fans, with storyline threads continuing from every entry in the series including the Travis Strikes Again spinoff. As such, any potential newcomers using NMH3 as a jumping-on point may be wondering just what the hell’s going on as the curtain rises.

Long story short? Protagonist Travis Touchdown talks about an 8-bit game he never completed, aliens invade the earth and blow up various cities, then Travis embarks on a quest to become the number one intergalactic assassin so that he can challenge their leader to a one-on-one duel with the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance. All in a day’s work, right?

Unfortunately, despite having a strong cast of potential characters from past games in the form of Travis Touchdown, Shinobu Jacobs, Bad Girl and Badman, No More Heroes 3 wastes absolutely no time in establishing that Travis is completely on his own as the only playable hero. It’s a shame to immediately sideline these fan favorites, but at least Travis himself remains as deadly as ever.

Once again returning primarily as a third-person combat melee-focused game, the general beats of play will be familiar to returning players. Having signed up for an intergalactic death match where Travis has to work up through the rankings and take out each ‘boss’ along the way, he now has to earn an entry fee prior to each deathmatch by killing various low-level benchwarmer flunkies and doing odd jobs in the open world. Mowing grass, chasing down delinquents on his bike and picking up trash from polluted waters is all par for the course — as is suplexing the occasional giant alligator.

Massive fights against trash mob enemies as seen in past iterations are largely gone now, replaced by smaller-scale skirmishes against harder foes. Combat feels different, with Travis dishing out heavier sweeping hits smashing into enemies, and an improved variety of animations. Travis is still able to perform wrestling moves on stunned opponents and must recharge his beam katana mid-fight as its power dwindles, but he also has a shiny new Death Glove which gives him new options on a cooldown timer. At first it’s just a basic dropkick, but he soon learns to force throw enemies, slow them down or pepper them with digital bullets.

It’s not all good news though. While offensive actions typically feel solid and rewarding, Travis’ defensive options are massively underwhelming. The only aspect which feels satisfying is pulling off a perfect dodge to slow down time and counterattack. Everything else is rough as hell — blocking is inconsistent and drains battery power from the beam katana. The standard dodge seemingly has no invincibility frames and doesn’t pass through attacks that players might expect it to, and it often rolls in weird directions whilst locked on to an enemy. These might might not sound like huge sins but it’s clunky as a whole, and having to mash Travis back onto his feet with repeated button presses after being knocked down is incredibly outdated design.

On the plus side, the boss battles remain freshly interesting, some of which have extremely unexpected twists. From musical chairs and giant operatic robot space battles to quirky takes on various genres of videogame, there’s a lot of imagination on show here. Some of them don’t quite work, though. The showdown against Jesse Baptiste VI  is the most obvious offender due to periods of invulnerability, and one artistically-censored conversation (which amusingly, presumably, takes the piss out of Final Fantasy 7) is followed by an approach that’s downright dull to play through. That said, most are more interesting and going from a horror scene with deadly musical chairs to an impromptu rap battle, many of the massive tonal and gameplay shifts are a delight to see unfold.

No More Heroes 3 winds up being something of a mixed bag in the end.

The combat’s solid aside from certain encounters where the lack of defensive tools causes frustration. The variety in boss battles and unique encounters runs the gamut between being thoroughly inspired and soul crushingly insipid, and even the overworld where odd jobs happen is cute in a retro way… while ultimately feeling more pointless and lifeless than it did in the original. In short, No More Heroes 3 often falls short of its true potential, but that’s not to say that it never shines.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Marvellous Inc. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S/PS4/PS5/Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 10 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 M and contains (Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language and Suggestive Themes. The official description reads as follows: This is an action game in which players assume the role of Travis Touchdown, an assassin battling aliens while trying to reach the top of the Galactic Superhero Rankings. From a third-person perspective, players use a beam katana to engage in frenetic melee combat against alien and human enemies. Combat is highlighted by large blood-splatter effects, dismemberments/decapitations, and screams of pain. Finishing moves can trigger a zoomed-in perspective and slow-motion effects. Cutscenes depict further instances of intense violence: an alien ripping the arms off a fallen foe; an character crushing the skull of an enemy; a bound man repeatedly slashed, then decapitated. Camera angles sometimes focus on female characters’ revealing outfits and anatomy (e.g., low-cut tops, short skirts); some areas allow players to zoom in on female figures with upskirt detailing. During the course of the game, players’ character uses a masturbatory gesture to charge their beam katana. The words “f**k” and “sh*t” appear in the dialogue.

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. The game is essentially completely playable without sound. Several optional chips make finding hidden items easier with a beeping noise becoming more frequent as you approach them in the open world, but it won’t hinder general gameplay. In my view, this is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. This game does not offer a controller map diagram, but most of the time movement is on the left stick. Camera is the right stick. Jumping is A. Dodging is B. Attacks are X and Y, Locking on and blocking is left trigger, using Death Chip attacks is L1 and a face button.

The post No More Heroes 3 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.