HIGH The last monster is a doozy.

LOW Having to do a boss fight six times because of an AI glitch.

WTF Is that a wading pool full of dentures?

Despite what feelings they might have about a Little Nightmares they didn’t make, the developers at Tarsier should be proud that they created a franchise with vibes so iconic that it’s possible for another studio to make something that is so instantly recognizable as Little Nightmares.

For all of its flaws, no one can make the argument that Little Nightmares 3 doesn’t feel like Little Nightmares. It hits all of the important franchise beats – there are creepily adorable main characters, an oppressive, oversized world, and monstrous entities wholly focused on the heroes’ demise.

What it lacks, by comparison, is a sense that these elements meld together to form a whole — because right now, Little Nightmares 3 feels more like a series of levels than a coherent experience.

Set in a horrible dreamworld recognizable to anyone who’s played any of the others in the franchise, LN3 follows children on a journey through four distinct worlds — a necropolis, a dusty wasteland where birds are slaughtered, a disgusting candy factory and a Dark Carnival where the displays are as upsetting as the attendees. Finally things move to a final level that I won’t reveal, save to say that it is seemingly tied closely to the series’ oblique mythology.

Hopefully one of my major issues is clear based on the list of levels I just outlined – namely that LN3 has no coherent flow to its progression.

While individual levels might have a sense of rising action – players invariably meet that level’s threat about a quarter of the way through and then have to deal with three further encounters before vanquishing it or making good their escape – there’s never a sense that an overall tale is being told. Low, the lead character, has a map that he consults before using his powers to teleport to new areas, but what these areas have to do with one another, or the goal he’s attempting to eventually reach never become clear. At the end of the adventure, I was left with more questions than answers.

To its credit, on a moment-to-moment basis LN3 works well. The puzzles are cleverly designed and clearly laid out, and the AI is good enough so that if a player doesn’t have a live co-op partner, they should have no trouble completing the many two-person objectives. I played most of the campaign in single-player mode, and almost never found myself getting stuck because the computer partner was too slow or confused about what to do.

That said, LN3 really does play better when two live players are involved, and it’s delightful being able to speed things along by having two people working on puzzle elements simultaneously. As such, it makes the lack of single-screen co-op feel like an oversight. There are a few locations when two characters have to separate, but they’re few and far between, and the success of things like It Takes Two and Split Fiction have proven that split-screens work just fine. At least they aren’t forcing players to buy two copies – as long as the host has a copy of LN3, their co-op partner can simply download the demo and play with a Friend’s Pass.

In a large sense, I don’t have many complaints about Little Nightmares 3. Each new area is beautifully realized, the monsters are scary, and the skin-of-the-teeth escapes are as thrilling as one would hope. However, as I closed in on the end, I couldn’t help but feel that it all felt vaguely hollow. It’s definitely a Little Nightmares title, but it never feels like it has anything to say, or that it’s building to something profound. Even the ending was underwhelming, although given that it has to be compared to the sadistic gut punch in Little Nightmares 2, that was probably always going to be the case.

Little Nightmares 3 might be the least of the trilogy so far, but anyone who wants to have a new experience in its horribly bleak and oppressive world will still find this a great opportunity to do so — it just doesn’t come together as darkly perfect as it should.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Supermassive Games and published by Bandai Namco. It currently available on PC/PS5/XBS-X/SW. Copies of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 10 hours of play was devoted to the single-player mode. The game was completed. 2 hours were spent in Multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game was rated T by the ESRB, and it features Violence and Blood & Gore. This is a disturbing world full of violent imagery, but it’s presented in such a cartoony and grotesque way that I suspect even younger teens won’t find it excessive. Be prepared to be haunted by some of these creatures, though. That will happen.

Colorblind Modes: The game does contain colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I played almost the entire game without sound and encountered zero difficulties. All information is provided via text, which can be resized. The game is fully accessible.

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

The post Little Nightmares 3 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Creative and accessible platforming.

LOW Kinda dated. 

WTF Wait a minute, where’s Ms. Pac-Man?

The late ’90s were an exciting time for gaming, as this period saw the rise of 3D experiences on home consoles in a few different flavors. Things like Super Mario 64 blew everyone’s mind as developers successfully translated 2D gameplay into fully-open 3D platformers. Other games, like Crash Bandicoot, found a different balance in merging 2D and 3D platforming with a more focused, controlled approach toward level design.

This latter type was the case for Namco’s Pac-Man World, starring one of the world’s most famous game icons. Now, almost twenty-two years later, World has returned with a remake subtitled Re-Pac, throwing a fresh coat of paint on this classic. The goal is to conquer six worlds and save Pac-Man’s friends and family from Toc-Man, an evil robotic version of the hero. 

Gameplay-wise, Pac-Man World: Re-Pac is played from a third-person perspective with a fixed camera angle. Levels generally play from a side-scrolling approach, much like a standard 2D sidescroller, though there are 2.5D elements of foreground and background. The gameplay is now-standard stuff that plays like an old-school title, for better or worse.

Similar to most 2D games before it, the goal of each level is to simply make it to the end. The platforming itself feels great, and Pac-Man also has an assortment of abilities, like a ground pound, a roll that lets him get up slopes, and he’s also able to launch his iconic pellets after he collects some across each level.

Speaking of collecting, every stage features fruit scattered around. Collecting them allows Pac-Man to open doors to access bonuses and secret levels modeled after the original maze structure of old-school Pac-Man.

While these aspects are solid, Re-Pac has a heavy reliance on backtracking for collecting bonuses. While most of it is optional, it’s still annoying. Thankfully, the experience is solid overall, with fluid play that’s approachable and challenging at the same time. While I do wish there was an option for unlimited lives, I did like the addition of an “easy” mode, allowing for blocks between platforms to prevent players from falling, and this mode also lets Pac-Man hang in the air a bit longer while jumping to avoid mishaps. 

Even if the gameplay is ultimately simplistic, I still love it. It’s retro platforming at its finest, and getting into the groove of jumping through each level was great. What really struck me, however, was the level of design and creativity on display. Sure, it’s cliché to have familiar themes like a pirate level and factory level in a mascot platformer, but the colorful visuals and bubbly music make it work.

However, even better are the boss designs and mechanics. Much of this genre struggles with boss encounters — some opt for great spectacle with a low challenge, and others go vice versa. Re-Pac manages both. My absolute favorite is a Galaxian-themed fight played from a top-down perspective, shooting pellets at enemy ships while arcade music is blasting in the background. Having to avoid getting hit with projectiles while maneuvering as one would in the original arcade game is damn cool, especially since Galaxian and Galaga are my favorite Namco arcade titles. Others include an enjoyable racing minigame and even one where Pac-Man is running away from the screen as we see the boss’s perspective in a first-person view.

Pac-Man World: Re-Pac might be a bit basic at times, but it nails the mechanics and delivers on the production. It feels like exactly the kind of thing I would have enjoyed as a kid — which basically means I also enjoy it now as a platforming-crazed adult. I’m glad Namco is looking to its classic catalog in this way, and I’m hoping it means we get more from them in this style. Pac-Man fever? I have it.

Disclosures: This game is published by Bandai Namco and developed by Now Production. It is available on PS4/PS5, Switch, XBO/X/S and PC. This copy was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PS5. Approximately 10 hours were spent playing and the game was completed. 

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E for Mild Cartoon Violence. The official description is as follows: This is platformer game in which players assume the role of Pac-man on a quest to rescue his friends. As players traverse 3D platform environments, they can collect items (e.g., dots, fruits), use a dash and bounce attack to defeat skeletons, and collect power pellets to eat ghosts. Enemies generally disappear in a puff of smoke when defeated. In some sequences, players can pilot a spacecraft to shoot down enemy ships in arcade-style fashion.

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

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: Subtitles and visual cues are present, but cannot be adjusted. This game is fully accessible without sound as no audio cues are relevant to successful play.

Remappable Controls: The controls can be remapped.

The post Pac-Man World Re-Pac Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Simple gameplay paired with immaculate vibes.

LOW Might be too simple at times.

WTF The menu music reminds me of the Green Acres theme.  

As a gamer, I enjoy the ability to revisit stuff I missed when I was younger, specifically in the genres I love.

I don’t need to gush about platformers since I’ve done so multiple times, but I grew up playing most of the heavy hitters starring Mario, Sonic, and Donkey Kong (of course!) but the franchises that eluded me still pique my interest. Specifically, Namco’s Klonoa series is one I never got to dig into. Experiencing it mainly via YouTube videos and retro reviews, I always wanted to play through these platformers that debuted on the PSone. 

Thankfully, Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series gives me that opportunity with a fresh coat of paint. Remastering both Klonoa: Door to Phantomile and Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil, the Reverie Series seeks to reintroduce this underappreciated mascot to a new audience. 

Both titles are platformers presented in 2D perspective with enemies, characters, and environments rendered in 3D. Players control Klonoa as he runs, jumps, and grabs enemies across two games and dozens of levels, and his main attack involves a magic ring which pulls enemies towards him. Once grabbed, he can either use them to boost himself up to high platforms or throw them at other enemies. Hell, he can even throw them towards the foreground, echoing the likes of the Yoshi games. 

Gameplay is simple, as the vibe of both games seems aimed at a younger audience. That clearly extends to the stories as well, presenting very simple scenarios that involve bubbly music and adorable character designs. 

Platformer diehards might lament the lack of a true challenge or dynamic gameplay mechanics, but these aren’t games about landing tricky jumps, solving a myriad of puzzles, or even collecting MacGuffins — they’re largely about the aesthetics and emotions. 

For example, most of the plot in Door to Phantomile feels like it was ripped out of a Saturday morning cartoon. Klonoa is a carefree youngster thrown into a grand adventure. Throughout its fairly short runtime, players are presented understated music, muted visuals and a sense of serenity. I was in love with how gorgeous it looked, and even if the actual graphics were a bit dated, the strong art style got to me. It’s almost like watching a Studio Ghibli film that is both meant to appeal to children while still resonating emotionally with adults. 

The climax of Phantomile is also one of the most emotional in any platformer, catching me off guard with a profundity that left me choked up. The sequel, Lunatea’s Veil, similarly has emotional moments while also presenting the same understated approach that isn’t often replicated in the genre. 

Having not played wither Klonoa before this review, I was expecting a bubbly platformer that was a product of its time, but instead, I was floored by how beautiful Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series was, and by how strongly it connected with me on an emotional level. I hope see more of this in the genre. 

Disclosures: This game is published by Bandai Namco Entertainment and developed by Monkey Craft. It is available on PS4/PS5, PC, XBO/X/S, and Switch. This copy was obtained via publisher for review and was reviewed on PS5. Approximately 15 hours were spent in both games and both were completed. 

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10 for Mild Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, and Use of Tobacco.  The site reads: This is a collection of two platformer games in which players assume the role of a rabbit-like creature (Klonoa) trying to save fantasy worlds from peril. Players traverse platforms, collect coins and power-up items, and engage in occasional battles with whimsical enemies. Players use a magical ring to zap enemies; players also avoid being jumped on or getting hit by rocks. Boss battles contain more frenetic gameplay, with laser fire and small explosions. In one scene, Klonoa briefly shakes a cat character to make it drop a special item; the cat responds with mildly suggestive innuendo (e.g., “Watch where you’re grabbing, you perv!”). One character is depicted with a tobacco pipe in his mouth. The word “damn” appears in the dialogue.

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

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles for character dialogue and plenty of visual cues, though the text cannot be adjusted. Otherwise, the game is fully accessible. 

Remappable Controls: The controls cannot be remapped. 

The post Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

House of Ashes is Supermassive Games’ newest title in the Dark Pictures Anthology, a series of interactive horror movies.

Where the previous titles featured ghost ships and haunted towns, House of Ashes heads in a more visceral and action-packed direction — the player takes control of a special forces team at the tail end of the 2003 invasion of Iraq who’s looking for chemical weapons in the Zagros mountains, but they find something more terrifying than they could have imagined.

Thanks to the courtesy of Bandai Namco and Supermassive Games, I had the chance to play the House of Ashes preview and, long story short, any hesitation I may have felt towards the game has been completely dispelled.

To give a bit of meta backstory about this specific title, there’s been a cloud hanging over House of Ashes in the Dark Pictures fan community because after two games in a row featuring monsters which were, in one way or another, figments of the main characters’ imaginations, people weren’t willing to take the developers’ word that HoA was going to feature actual beasts. However, every bit of promotion has shown more and more of the monsters, and this preview is no exception.

Of the demo’s six scenes, three give the player a chance to run away from, fight, and even kill monsters. At this point the conversation is definitively over — there are actual bat monsters filling the rough-hewn caves and sprawling temples, and they’re gorgeously designed.

Amazingly, though, the monsters aren’t the most impressive aspect of the demo. No, the thing that drew my attention was how great the storytelling was.

After an opening movie set up the first couple of chapters, I was dropped into the action as a marine trapped in an ancient tunnel system. After just a couple of minutes of looking around, I’d caught a few glimpses of strange creatures, reunited with a squadmate, and nearly suffocated a man to keep him from attracting unwanted attention. While I’m sure the developers have packed the most attention-grabbing sections into the demo, the action and character moments are undeniably great.

The demo also does a fantastic job of getting the player on board with the entire cast in a short amount of time — there are six chapters, giving the player the chance to walk in each character’s shoes at least once. There weren’t a ton of conversation scenes in the demo, but the writing I saw was top-notch. Each character gets a clearly-delineated starting worldview, which the player can then decide to change or stick with, via the series’ standard branching conversations. Whether it’s a married couple talking around the reasons for their separation or a 60-year-old audio tape of an archaeologist going Lovecraft-level insane, the scripting is some of the best we’ve seen from the series.

While the action hews closely to the series’ standard timed choices and QTEs, the exploration sequences are completely changed by the decision to give the player control over a third-person camera locked on their character. Now the player is free to search each area without the game’s engine directing them down a particular path.

This has enabled the developers to craft huge, open levels, which they’d always avoided doing in the past — likely because camera placement becomes a problem in rooms the size of football fields. With the camera locked to the player, on the other hand, there’s no limit to the kind of expansive locations they can allow the player to explore.

The only real drawback is while that fixed cameras can transition naturally into cutscenes, it’s a little jarring when control is stripped away from the player so that an action scene can start. It’s not a huge problem, but it feels awkward compared to the fully-cinematic feel that previous entries offered. On the plus side, the developers have massively increased the range at which important objects light up — it would otherwise be too easy for players to miss the clues that let them figure out what’s really going on in the lost caverns.

House of Ashes is poised to be the high point of the Dark Pictures series thanks to terrifying monsters, fantastic location, great characters, and action scenes as impressive as anything they’ve offered so far. I’ve said for years that Supermassive Games have been consistently raising the bar for interactive movies, and this proves they’ve done it again. Anyone who ever wanted to play Aliens meets The Descent (with a little bit of Enemy Mine thrown in) can count themselves lucky — this Halloween they’ll be able to do just that.

House of Ashes will be released on Xbox, PlayStation and PC platforms on October 22nd.

The post Preview: House of Ashes appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The wrenching final battle.

LOW A puzzle built entirely around sound.

WTF The game’s cover reveals a huge mid-game twist.

Little Nightmares II opens, as its predecessor did, with no explanation for its world or rules. A little boy with a box on his head escapes a trap in a dark forest, then moves onscreen right because that’s the only option available. There’s no context provided, nor any opening monologue to explain the situation — just the understanding that if the boy doesn’t keep moving forward, something terrible will catch up to him.

An apparent prequel, Little Nightmares II takes place in a big city where the boy and his sometimes-sidekick Six make their way through one horrid ordeal after another. The content is equally divided between clever environmental puzzles and harrowing chase scenes, and once again the player controls a tiny person in a giant world where a piece of everyday furniture becomes an obstructing monolith, and average doors are impassable barriers with knobs far out of reach.

LNII‘s art design is captivating. It’s as if the player is moving dolls around a miniature playhouse, and the warped scale gives a chance to consider each texture and gnarl in the wooden floors and furniture. The smallest rathole becomes a secret pathway, and the diminutive heroes’ stature establishes tone perfectly — the world contains nothing but threats.

Also successful are the villains. From the bag-headed hunter to the teacher who can find her students no matter how well they hide, these monstrous pursuers are genuinely disturbing, especially when the penalty for failing to escape is to see the boy be devoured. These tense chases are well-balanced, and each escape route is clearly flagged. They’re not easy by any means, but they’re fairly built and almost never force the player to memorize a long sequence of surprise instant-kills.

The puzzles are just as good as the chases, with a refreshing lack of contrivance to the obstacles that stymie the player.

Since most of Little Nightmares 2 is built around the idea that the world itself becomes a puzzle for anyone it wasn’t designed for, the player will have to create routes suitable for a tiny person. From pushing luggage around to use as stepping-stones to throwing cans of soda to hit activator buttons, there are hours of sneaky ways to transform basic navigation into challenging brain-teasers.

Both puzzles and chases are supported by a gorgeous physics simulation. Everything in LNII has believable weight to it, and it makes every interaction a joy to behold. There’s one sequence in particular where the boy must set off a field of bear traps before he can cross a depression, and watching the chain reaction of traps triggering each other off was delightful.

Sadly, this near-perfect run is marred by one incredibly ill-conceived puzzle at the end of the campaign. It’s a classic ‘teleporting doorways’ puzzle in which the player has to go through a series of doors in a specific order to unlock the next area. The problem is that the way to tell which door to go through is by listening for the sound of distant music. There is a visual cue, but it’s incredibly easy to miss unless the player is sitting a foot away from a large monitor. Anyone with hearing issues or playing on mute will find themselves completely stumped by the last puzzle in the game.

Also, while I don’t mind a mysterious opening, I do take some issue with the fact that LNII‘s story remains completely opaque. All of the narrative comes via environmental design — players get clues from the way homes are decorated and from what’s been left behind. The world obviously had something terrible happen very recently — everything is in utter disrepair, and it’s all bleak and decaying, but just a bit more information as to who, why or how would have been appreciated.

Little Nightmares 2 lives up to its name. The journey is challenging and frightening, but haunting is what it does best thanks to powerful imagery that will ensure players will keep thinking about this short journey long after they’ve finished. It’s an emotionally wrenching tale, but it’s absolutely one worth taking.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Tarsier Studios and published by Bandai Namco. It is currently available on Switch/XB1/X/S, PS4/5, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 7 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Violence and Blood. I’m not sure how this thing ducked under an M rating. While there’s not a ton of brutal violence, there’s plenty of evidence of its aftermath of it. There’s a large number of references to suicide as well, so take that into account before handing it over to a teen.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I played most of the game without audio and encountered no difficulties other than the puzzle mentioned above in the review. There is no text in the game other than menus and onscreen button prompts. Text cannot be resized or altered.

Also, here is a guide I created to help players get past the music-based puzzle:

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

The post Little Nightmares II Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Fantastic writing and production…

LOW …hampered by distracting lip-sync issues.

WTF How was I in the minority when it came to making that choice?? 

Twin Mirror, the latest adventure from Life is Strange developer Dontnod, opens with main character Sam driving through a fictional West Virginia town. A former journalist with a lot of guilt hanging over his head, he’s returning to his hometown to attend the wake of a dead friend he hadn’t spoken to in years. 

Seeing an opening like this, filled with interesting camera cuts and incidental music playing out of the car radio is a rare thing. It’s a somber start and watching Sam ignore texts from someone asking if he’ll be at the funeral adds to the intrigue. The cinematography is varied and manages to speak volumes, even when characters aren’t saying anything. 

When play begins, players control Sam as he investigates a conspiracy surrounding his friend’s death. Like most adventure titles, this involves talking to other characters, gathering clues and solving the occasional puzzle. It’s pretty standard stuff, but the big twist is the Mind Palace.

In this mental construct of Sam’s, players see certain events and memories in an imagined second world. Fragments of past memories manifest into tangible events that players can interact with. The Mind Palace also acts as a way to piece together evidence. One such instance has Sam figuring out how a bar brawl went down after he became too drunk to remember what had happened, and visualizing how one character landed a punch while trying to deduce what caused a piece of furniture to get knocked over is quite interesting. 

Aside from the Mind Palace, Sam also speaks to an internal voice referred to as “Him”. This other figure can only be seen by the player’s character and will sometimes chime in on major choices, with this input drastically affecting the way the story plays out. He will sometimes encourage Sam to confide in certain characters while suggesting he lie to protect others. Either choice can take the narrative to different places, but I felt like every decision had a definite impact. The ending I got was bittersweet, but felt like a logical and satisfying conclusion to my actions. 

During Twin Mirror I talked to almost every NPC and learned about each of their roles. Sam’s ex-girlfriend brought up lots of bad memories, talking to the editor-in-chief of the local paper taught me about classic novels and the local cop made me uneasy. All of this was valuable as the writing, performances and presentation are some of the strongest I’ve seen recently.

Unfortunately, despite this quality content, Twin Mirror struggles with immersion thanks to distractingly bad lip-syncing — most of these characters don’t look like they’re saying the great lines they’re reading in strong voices.  

Regardless of the bizarre lip movements, Twin Mirror is an excellent adventure game. Not only was I enthralled by its mystery, I was absolutely enamored with the presentation. I wasn’t expecting something so filmlike and cinematic, but I walked away delighted and I can say that some of its powerful scenes will stay with me for a while.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Dontnod and published by Bandai Namco. It is currently available on XBO, PS4, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the singleplayer mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB this game is rated M and contains Drug Reference, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol, and Violence. The official description reads as follows: This is an adventure game in which players assume the role of an investigative reporter (Sam Higgins) returning to his hometown. As players progress through the storyline, they interact with locals and are presented with various dialogue and action choices. Some selections result in acts of violence, recreated in Sam’s mind: a fist fight, a character shooting a man in the chest. Blood sometimes appears underneath corpses and on characters’ clothing. As players explore the town, they can interact with a drug dealer and find an empty sachet (i.e., dime bag). During one sequence, players can choose to set a character in the High state and recreate a car crash. One bar sequence depicts a child holding a half-empty glass of beer in a bar; accompanying dialogue states, “Put that down. Kathy, what is your underage child doing drinkin’?” The words “f**k,” “sh*t,” and “a*shole” are heard in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no coloblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Dialogue is subtitled and there are plenty of visual cues and text to guide players through gameplay. I do wish the game did a better job of communicating that some audio was inaudible via closed captioning. The subtitles can be resized. This game is fully accessible.

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

The post Twin Mirror Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH It faithfully embodies the spirit of the films…

LOW …Which is definitely not for everyone.

WTF They really thought people were going to play Multiplayer, huh?

To give proper context for this review, readers should know that I am currently working on a powerpoint presentation explaining why the Fast & Furious franchise is the greatest Anime/Superhero work available. It started out as ironic enjoyment of the franchise, but it’s extended into annual rewatches and a genuine love for all things fast and furious, much to the chagrin of my girlfriend. So, if you do not like the films, then skip this review and safely know that the game is not for you.

Fast & Furious: Crossroads is the newest attempt to translate the incoherent, joyous madness of the film franchise – something the previous installment (F&F: Showdown) had no understanding of. In this regard, Crossroads is a vast improvement.

The main story has Dominic Torretto and Letty Ortiz (Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez) stumbling onto a plot in Athens involving the original highway men, the Tadakhul, that leads them to Barcelona, then Morocco, and finally New Orleans. As they go, they pick up newcomers Cameron and Vienna, as well as series staple Roman Pierce (Tyrese Gibson).  

The campaign is split up into different types of car-based antics, the first being a satisfyingly explosive chase with an armored vehicle that requires the player to switch between Dom and Letty to take out sections of the vehicle while performing takedowns on the escort cars — the spinouts are satisfying slow-motion destruction.

From there the pace constantly changes. In one scene the player is simply required to drive to a pickup point and fix a car, while another is a more traditional lapped race. Later, Crossroads emulates famous scenes from the films themselves, a standout being Roman Pierce dragging a giant metal ball through a dockland area and using it to smash opposition in tribute to the safe-dragging chase through Rio De Janeiro in Fast 5.

Each character comes with a boost, the ability to sideswipe enemies (a hat tip to Tigon Studios’ previous game The Wheelman) and a special ability like a harpoon, a hacking device, or a rocket launcher. Each has useful applications, and the best moments in Crossroads required me to switch from one character to another while using their unique abilities. Smartly, the devs never dwell on one scenario long enough for it to become boring.

The entire Crossroads campaign is a love letter to the films. Nods are made to previous events, and some lines tie in to next year’s entry. Vienna Cole has the Camaro that Bryan drove onto a boat in 2 Fast 2 Furious, there’s a dutifully reproduced truck heist from the first game, and more.

What surprised me most about Crossroads was the way the writers perfectly understood the films — they are ridiculous, but the characters take it all deadly seriously.

This is perfectly embodied in Sonequa Martin-Green and Asia Kate Dillon’s performances as Vienna and Cameron respectively. Both actors are clearly having fun with their parts while being chased by cops or escaping stone avalanches. There’s a warmth to their banter, and even as they’re presented with ever-sillier scenarios, they are each other’s found family.

Similarly, Tyrese Gibson is along for the ride. A behind-the-scenes feature reveals that he improvised some of his performance, and it works. Michelle Rodriguez and Vin Diesel show up and occasionally deliver a good line too — I’ll never forget ‘I ain’t chasing him, he’s running from me’ as the best/worst bit in the script.

It’s been impossible for a fan like me to avoid seeing the critical reception Crossroads has received, and it feels like a misunderstanding of what the game is delivering — it is not a car simulator or an arcade racer, it is a Fast & Furious emulator.

As a fan of the franchise and as a player I want to pull off ridiculous stunts – if I want to wrap my car around a piece of masonry, magically bounce off and carry on without much speed lost, Crossroads delivers. The challenge level is certainly easy, but the sensation of nitrous-fueled boosts through swamps to catch a hovercraft are meant to be experienced without constant restarts and ‘physics’ getting in the way. Realistic simulation is not what the Fast & Furious films are about.

The only thing I can concede in terms of criticism is that Crossroads can look rough around the edges, and doesn’t exceed what one might expect from an Xbox 360. Also, for a game that has Vin Diesel’s own development studio involved, they should have improved his character model.

Overall, Fast & Furious: Crossroads is a fabulous celebration of the sloppy, sometimes-inexplicable dumbness, sometimes-inspired madness of the films it shares a name with, and I loved every minute of it.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Slightly Mad Studios and published by Namco Bandai. It is currently available on XBO, PS4, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via paid download and reviewed on the XBO-X. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. No time was spent in multiplayer modes — I was unable to review this portion of the game as it was insufficiently populated

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes,  Language. There is a lot of swearing in this game, the suggestive themes are limited to some affectionate kisses and a few comments about sex. I didn’t have anywhere to put it in my review, but the game continues the films’ trend of diversity with Asia Kate Dillon’s character being non-binary and referred to as ‘they’ throughout and the game basically doesn’t make a big deal of it, it just is. All the violence is bloodless.  

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game is fully playable without sound as there are no significant audio cues necessary for play. Text cannot be resized, nor can the color be changed

Remappable Controls: Certain functions are remappable, and the Y-axis can be inverted.

The post Fast & Furious: Crossroads: Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Yakumo. Or maybe Eva? Nah, it’s gotta be Yakumo.

LOW The combat’s just average, and there’s a ton of it.

WTF Who thought walking through dozens of memories at a snail’s pace was a good idea?

Code Vein‘s been a long time coming. Originally planned for release in 2018, this anime take on the Souls formula has built anticipation during its numerous delays, and it’s finally here. I can say that it was worth the wait, but it’s not a runaway triumph either.

The storyline revolves around a bunch of vampires — sorry, ‘Revenants’ — who are trapped inside a hostile part of their world cordoned off by an impenetrable barrier known as the Misama. They’re also slowly going insane due to a lack of available blood sources.

After creating a custom protagonist from the exceptional character creation tool, players are thrown into Code Vein in the least auspicious manner possible — starving, barely able to walk and on the edge of permanently slipping into a murderous frenzy. Fortunately, there’s an anime girl with a large chest and inappropriate clothing at hand to prevent this, but we’re soon forced into an eternity of thralldom instead.

However, in an entirely expected twist, the main character has… the power to save the world! Yes, the protagonist can clear away concentrations of miasma at select points dotted around the map, allowing the embattled Revenants to venture out of their prison. They’ll fight ferocious enemies, and along the way they’ll also absorb the memories of fallen Revenants. It’s a decent narrative conceit which allows them to learn skills and information from their fallen owners — one which also has a notable effect on the story for players who like to explore thoroughly.

While recovering these memories is a neat twist, Code Vein‘s overall storyline suffers from common anime tropes — things like extolling the power of friendship, delivering inspirational speeches and delving into the pasts of characters in intensely sappy, melodramatic fashion. Honestly, it’s so sappy that it makes it hard to care about much of what happens (except when it comes to Best Boy and ultimate bro Yakumo.)

Mechanically, Code Vein is a third-person stamina based brawler which anyone familiar with Dark Souls or Bloodborne will be right at home with. Players can choose from an assortment of weapons, ranging from oversized two-handed warhammers to dinky little bayonets, and then they’ll engage whatever shrieking horrors the world throws at them — and carefully, if they wish to survive.

There’s also an assortment of classes, known as Blood Codes, which allow the player to swap their playstyle at will. Even better, skills from one Blood Code can be mastered and utilized with any other, so flexibility in character build is actually extensive here — from slinging spells at distant enemies to bulking up on HP or two-handed attack power, there’s a suitable approach for every type of gamer.

It’s dangerous to go alone, however, so helpful AI companions are always available to lend a hand — and lend a hand they do, given that they’re incredibly reliable. They’ll heal the player when downed, engage enemies in an intelligent fashion, take a hell of a pounding before dropping out of the fight, and generally prove their worth in a multitude of different ways. Human players can also be invited for online co-op, though the effectiveness of these companions isn’t as guaranteed.

While the vampiric, dark art style of Code Vein is kinda awesome, it does fail to sell its world in one crucial way — I simply never came across any ‘Oh Shit’ moments while playing.

Despite attempting to portray its world as a merciless, terrifying nightmare, it often comes across as a lighthearted knockabout, even when taking on the deadliest enemies or gazing upon the most hellish vistas it has to offer. This lack of gravity isn’t helped by the lightweight combat, which suffers from a lack of heft — smashing someone with a warhammer should have skull-crushing impact, but it often feels like whacking them with a stick. More work on enemy hit reactions would have done wonders.

The environmental design averages out to being decent, with dull sewer style areas butting heads against gorgeously-rendered snow-capped mountain hideaways. While some of the map layouts feel a little too much like sequences of long corridors populated by enemies, they all feature an abundance of secrets to discover, as well as a number of sidequests that pop up in previously-completed areas.

In the end, Code Vein may not be all that we might have hoped for, but I enjoyed my playthrough and didn’t want to stop before credits rolled. In fact, I was so invested that I actually restarted my game twenty five hours in after realizing that I could influence the storyline through my actions, and had no regrets in doing so. Despite the fact that it doesn’t reach the top of the Soulslike genre, it’s a worthwhile entry that lays very fertile ground for a sequel that goes further.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Shift and Bandai Namco Games and published by Bandai Namco Games. It is currently available on PS4, XBO and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 55 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed with the best ending. One hour of play was spent in co-op multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Partial Nudity and Violence. It’s not particularly extreme overall — the rating basically boils down to the characters looking good and enemies getting stabbed.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are audio cues for nearby enemies that do not have a visual cue. Subtitles are available and can be customized to show up only during gameplay, only during cutscenes, during both, or they can be turned off completely. They are a little on the small side during gameplay, however and there’s no way to resize them. Also, FYI that turning off cutscene subtitles also cuts off subtitles during memory walks. This is weird because it’s technically more of a gameplay sequence than a cutscene, and also inconvenient as the dialogue volume during these moments tends to be lower and more easily drowned out than elsewhere in the game.

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

The post Code Vein Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Blowing enemies away with super attacks, then seeing the result from outer space.

LOW That’s one insufferably drawn-out story mode.

WTF Android 21 has one hell of an eating disorder.

It’s fair to say that I’m basically clueless about the Dragon Ball franchise. I’ve never read the manga, nor watched even a single episode of the anime. That said, it didn’t take Bandai Namco long to get my attention when they announced Dragon Ball FighterZ last year. After all, Arc Systems Works were involved in its development, and as the creative force behind the excellent Guilty Gear franchise, it’s clear they know how to make a damn fine fighting game.

That said, after spending twenty or so hours with FighterZ, I find myself in the slightly odd predicament of thinking that it’s a gorgeous and highly accomplished brawler that I’m simply not blown away by.

Upon loading Dragon Ball FighterZ, players are thrown into a slightly odd avatar-based lobby system that doubles as the main menu of the game. There are a fair amount of modes available whilst wandering around, including genre standards such as Arcade and Story options, as well as online and local arenas for throwing down with other players. Fights are comprised of tag team 3-on-3 bouts, with characters swapping in and out to assist the active character by extending their combos or interrupting the opponent’s. They’re also good for swapping them out to let them regain some health.

The 24-character roster’s decent, I guess, even if most of the cast are too samey for my liking. Many of the fighters look too similar due to their clothing, coupled with the near-perfect replication of Akira Toriyama’s art style. Some characters like Goku or Vegeta also have alternate versions of themselves. Female characters are almost entirely absent from the lineup, with only Android 18 initially available, and Android 21 unlocking after finishing the story mode.

Dragon Ball FighterZ‘ controls are a little different from traditional 2D fighters. The main attack buttons aren’t there to throw out individual hits, for example – they generally chain into additional attacks via repeat presses. On the PS4, tapping square performs a normal combo, triangle ends with a super attack, circle throws out heavy blows that bounce opponents off the wall, and the X button hurls fireballs. There are also a ton of movement options such as double jumps, air dashes, a homing dash, and the ability to tag other characters in for assists or to join in on coordinated supers designed to blow the opponent straight to hell.

Frankly, I’m not entirely sold on the proliferation of auto-combos here. Part of the excitement of a good fighter comes when a player attempts a tricky, hard-to-execute combo with high damage potential, and there’s a chance that they could flub it halfway through and get punished for the mistake. When combos boil down to simply tapping triangle numerous times… well, it’s far less likely that either player will mess something up that simple.

It’s not that there’s no scope for advanced players to excel however – when accounting for assists, manual super-assisted attacks, jump cancels and all the other tricks FighterZ has, there’s a terrifying amount of potential to overwhelm opponents who only have a basic grasp of the system. However, at low levels it leads to matches feeling rote, and almost automated in their approach. The homing dash every character has adds to this issue, given that most of the online matches I played were spamming it to ludicrous levels.

Unfortunately, the online matchmaking feature is currently borked. It takes way too long to find someone to fight against, with matches routinely taking five minutes or more to connect whilst sitting in queue. For some fighters with lower player counts this is par for the course, but Dragon Ball FighterZ‘ lobbies were stuffed absolutely full at the time of review. I have no idea why, but it simply has trouble connecting into actual matches. Get ready to twiddle much thumb while waiting.

Speaking of which, the story mode is a thundering disappointment. Initial impressions were fairly positive thanks to the excellent graphics during cutscenes and a fairly unique semi-RPG approach to battles — fighting multiple matches will gain EXP used to power up selected characters and make things easier for them further down the line. Numerous buffs and perks can also be acquired, such as auto-regenerating health or doing more damage per attack.

Unfortunately there are two glaring issues holding Story mode back. First, the script is absolutely terrible, filled with mediocre dialogue and a weak plot. Second, the whole thing is insufferably drawn out with an insane amount of matches against cloned versions of the main cast. Spread over three story arcs and shown from three separate points of view, it takes about eight hours to reach a final conclusion that doesn’t feel even remotely worth the effort it took in getting there.

Dragon Ball FighterZ is an odd one. It looks incredible and has a fair amount of depth below its auto-combo surface, but it failed to get its hooks into me. The single player modes aren’t particularly engaging, and the broken online makes engaging in the multiplayer take way longer than it needs to. Those lucky enough to have a thriving local fighting scene are the real winners here until the servers are sorted out. FighterZ isn’t entirely my thing, but it’s easy to see that it’s as well-made, polished, and fanservicey as humanly possible. Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Arc Systems Works and published by Bandai Namco. It is currently available on PS4, Xbox One and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 14 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. 5 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated Teen and contains Cartoon Violence, Mild Language and Mild Suggestive Themes. There’s nothing in here that would freak out the kids, in my opinion, though the fact that one of the android characters looks humanoid and acts a bit like a cannibal might raise an eyebrow or two. She turns enemies into candy, then chows down on them so… yeah.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game’s more or less entirely playable without aural cues, though split second advantages may be missed due to characters audibly warning of upcoming attacks. Subtitles are readily available.

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

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

The post Dragon Ball FighterZ review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Solid emulation quality and a wealth of configuration options.

LOW No supplemental museum-style content, HD rumble is uneven, challenge modes aren’t interesting.

WTF Why let players rotate the display without rotating or reorienting the controls to match?

“Can’t I just download this game off the internet?”

If there’s any release that’s guaranteed to spark tiresome discussions about the monetary value of a videogame, it’s a classic collection. On top of the endless hand-wringing about the convenience (and morality) of emulators, there’s always been an expectation of obsolescence for older titles — an old wound from misguided traditions of treating games as software where achievement was primarily measured through technical advancement. Naturally, a classics collection inherently complicates that discussion through the commodification of its selections under a single — and often cheaper — price point.

Earlier entries in the Namco Museum series, however, demonstrated that a collection can also be an act of canonization — a quotation of history and purpose that carries meaning in itself. Through their virtual museum spaces (which predated some of the ‘walking simulators’ that have become more popular in recent years), the early Namco Museum releases provided a wealth of supplemental material, such as scans of merchandise and other promotional items, that allowed the player to have a glimpse of the world and the time when these classic works captured players’ imaginations.

For the Switch edition of Namco Museum, however, all of the supplemental material is gone and new features centering on configurability and the unique capabilities of the Switch have been pushed to the forefront. All of the arcade games included here offer a wealth of options for tweaking the experience including various scanline filters, analog dead zone tweaking, and single-slot save states. Additionally, each game has a challenge mode, which is usually a time-limited mode where players try to complete a particular task as many times as possible, but they aren’t distinctive enough from the core game to be all that interesting. If the player’s primary concern is how the original games play rather than why they should play them, then the options presented here are solid enough.

The most notable game in this edition of Namco Museum is Pac-Man Vs., the revered 2003 GameCube enrty with asymmetric multiplayer that allowed players to play the role of ghosts working as a team to chase after Pac-Man. Much of the buzz surrounding Pac-Man Vs. over the years has come from a sheer lack of access — there aren’t many ways to play this game and the Switch’s ad-hoc multiplayer (which requires a second Switch for full four-player action) provides the most compelling and accessible setup.

Once players finally make it into a session of Pac-Man Vs., though, they will be disappointed to find that its unique premise doesn’t develop into anything more than novelty. The limited vision that forces the ghost players to work together is a decent hook for local multi, but the scoring mechanics only reward the individual player that catches up to Pac-Man, which creates friction against the rest of the design. Since play completely stops whenever one of the ghosts finally catches Pac-Man, this friction feels even more emphasized and it makes the overall pace of play for each session feel a bit stilted and awkward.

The emphasis on local multiplayer continues with the inclusions of Tank Force and Sky Kid. With Tank Force, it feels like Namco dug into the vault for something that would double as a curio for history aficionados — this is the first time the game has ever been released in North America — and its cooperative play and maze-like levels create something that feels like a proto-tower-defense game, years before that genre would become a cliché. Meanwhile, Sky Kid offers a pleasant variation on the scrolling shooter with some interesting recovery mechanics — not only can players save themselves from a crash with frantic button-mashing, cooperative partners can rescue each other by shooting their falling partner in mid-air.

Sky Kid isn’t the best shooter on the compilation, though — that honor goes to Galaga, and despite being relentlessly repackaged and re-released over the years, the 1981 classic still feels as sharp and as vibrant as ever. The distance from the ship to the iconic enemy formations makes every shot fired a keen test of precision, and the progression of enemy attacks into faster and more aggressive pursuits turn those shots into increasingly precarious gambles. Even when the element of danger is removed from its “challenging stage” intermissions, Galaga still demands perfection from its players by emphasizing shot accuracy as the primary determinant of higher bonus scores. The HD rumble burst that chimes for every enemy destroyed is an unfortunate distraction from what otherwise remains a masterpiece of single-screen shooting.

Another notable inclusion that fares surprisingly well is 1988’s Splatterhouse, a gruesome horror-themed brawler that almost assuredly raises the ESRB rating on the entire collection to a hard T by simply being included. There is a sluggish, methodical physicality to everything in Splatterhouse and all the configurable enhancements to the presentation do a wonderful job of embellishing the brutality. The level design can be surprisingly ambitious at times for a side-scrolling brawler thanks to branching paths and evocative background art, but they only go so far in disguising the game’s single biggest weakness: the uneven design of the bosses, which are either punishingly difficult or incredibly tedious.

Of course, uneven difficulty spikes are hardly uncommon for arcade games from this era, and both of the Rolling Thunder games included here fall into the same trap. Rolling Thunder 2 is another multiplayer-focused rarity — though the Sega Genesis port made it stateside in 1991, this is the first time the original arcade game has been released in North America — but, even with a second player, the sidescrolling designs fall into the same stop-and-pop rhythms as its predecessor, requiring players to carefully memorize levels and enemy placements to make progress.

Pace of play becomes a bigger issue for the other classic maze games in the collection, such as Dig Dug and Tower of Druaga. Druaga in particular is unceremoniously dropped into this collection with only a hint system that reveals the mystery item to be found on each level — a player-friendly surrender that concedes the wonder and discovery at the heart of Druaga’s incredibly punishing design. It’s difficult to imagine the uninitiated sampling Tower of Druaga and leaving with an appreciation of its history as a beloved dungeon crawler that inspired Japanese arcade communities to collectively uncover all of its mysteries.

Ultimately, by neglecting to tell the stories about these games, Namco Museum on Switch leaves its selections in the unenviable position of selling their legacies to contemporary players on gameplay alone. Namco Museum would have prospective players believe that these selections are valuable, timeless experiences, but the reality is that no game is timeless — every one exists in its own moment, a photograph with its horizons safely tucked away in the background. For players that have the memories, maybe a faithful recreation is enough. But the rest? They’ll be left wondering what all the fuss was about. Rating: 6 out of 10

— Steve Gillham

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Bandai Namco. It is currently available on Nintendo Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Nintendo Switch. Approximately twelve hours of play were devoted to the single-player modes across the collection and no games were completed. Three hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this collection is rated T and contains Blood and Gore, Suggestive Themes, and Violence. Splatterhouse is filled with gory imagery throughout its enemy designs and environments, which often include animations of bloodied victims and pulsating corpses. Additionally, its violent combat often results in brutal kills where enemies are decapitated or spray blood upon death. Rolling Thunder 2’s default background also includes pin-up style art that is suggestive, though players can select a different border in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Galaga ’88 has bonus “Galactic Dancin’” levels where the enemy formations are tightly choreographed along with musical accompaniment. Players cannot lose a life during these bonus levels, but deaf/hard of hearing players will have to rely more heavily on carefully timed memorization to produce higher bonus scores. Tower of Druaga has an optional hidden item that plays a tone to hint to the player that they are walking in a direction on the map where a key is located, but this item is not required to complete the game.

Remappable Controls: Yes, each game in the collection offers fully remappable controls, including dead-zone adjustment for the primary analog stick. However, these controls will not rotate or shift along with any display rotation, which means that a screen rotation will require a Joycon to be disconnected from the Switch for standard controller usage.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

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