HIGH Engrossing building/optimization. Crispy isometric graphics.

LOW Writing is uninspired. Save system is cumbersome, UI cruft abounds.

WTF Carrying a dozen tennis balls and 50 heatsinks in my inventory like a freak.

Is there anything lower and lazier for game reviewer to write than “It’s like X plus Y?” Has any stock phrase done as much damage to the reputation of game analysis? Yet I find myself reaching for this shoddy, motheaten platitude, both in trying to situate readers on Little Rocket Lab‘s ludological wavelength, and in justifying my own inability to click with this well-made title which could be (and probably has been) described by at least one reviewer as “Stardew Valley plus Factorio.”

That’s an appetizing cross-pollination, for sure. Factorio is an endless optimization mandala, with hooks that bite deep into the compulsion-prone folds of the old noodle, but its suite of pleasures is cerebral, not emotional. It’s brilliant, but private and unapproachable — like a famous theoretical mathematician at a faculty mixer. Stardew, meanwhile, is eminently approachable, brightly upholstered with cute characters, bucolic atmosphere, and a lush evocative soundtrack — but mechanically speaking, Stardew is not the plumpest pumpkin in the patch.

If asked to imagine what a Factorio/Stardew fusion would look like, what it would play like, Little Rocket Lab would match it nearly exactly. This is the story of Morgan, a young engineer who returns to her hometown of St. Ambroise, finds it in poor shape (well, in as poor shape as an idyllic small town in a cozy-coded videogame can be), and sets about reviving it through the healing power of industry. She also wants to finish building the rocket her engineer mother began long ago.

Story is front and center in Little Rocket Lab. The plot is laid over, threaded under, and wrapped around the factory-building gameplay, like so many looping conveyor belts ferrying Meaning and Significance hither and yon. This is not the thing to play for those who want to be left to their own devices. Everything in Little Rocket Lab gets built because it’s needed, either by the exigencies of the main quest or the ancillary needs of the townsfolk of St. Ambroise, all of whom have a name and one lightly endearing character trait, as mandated by the Games Writing Accords of 1823.

Vibe-wise, everything here is indisputably wholesome – which is to say it’s all cute, good-natured, sweet, flat, and boring. I do not, generally, like the wholesome gaming thing. At its absolute worst (looking at you, Plucky Squire) wholesome games can feel simplistic to the point of patronizing — but to be fair, Little Rocket Lab gets nowhere near that particular nadir. The idea of a factory building experience with more of a plot is a great concept worth exploring. But the plot is just too simplistic and unadventurous here, and it actively inhibited my long-term enjoyment. The Factory can not be had without the Fiction.

That said, the factory can be satisfying. For anybody who has played a certain game or any that followed in its wake, it’s all building business as usual here – and that’s fine. For those new to the genre, Little Rocket Lab does a great job of introducing the basics and, without lampshading every little nuance, points the way to its Greater Complexities so that advanced players can roll up their sleeves a bit further than they absolutely need to to progress in the main quest.

In other words, for as much as I personally found it an inhibitor on my enthusiasm for Little Rocket Lab, the narrative emphasis is what gives the game its own particular flavor. This is not a factory meant to grow endlessly, unfolding out fractally forever until it has more lines of conveyance than a human circulatory system. No, Morgan’s factory is tied directly into the town’s revitalization. In contrast with the average factory title in which the player is left alone to manifest their brain onto the environment, in Little Rocket Lab, the factory must learn to live in symbiotic peace with the town of St. Ambroise.

Honestly, maybe I was setting myself up for disappointment here. Generally, I like my mechanics-forward games to be nigh-storyless, and I like my story-driven games to be complimented by a suite of bantamweight systems. The fusing of the extremes – heavy duty complexity with unavoidable, long-form story – can work, but I don’t think it works for me in Little Rocket Lab.

So, I don’t see myself finishing it, but I can see a lot of people loving it. Beyond the bland writing and the burden it places on progress, there are only a couple of other notable flaws.

The UI, while okay, is not as full-featured or intuitive as it should be. More annoyingly, players can only save by going to sleep at the end of each in-game day – not cool. Time ticks away at a Stardew-like clip, which is not 1:1 with real life time or anything, but it does mean that the minimum play session will be about 20 minutes long, and any unforeseen interruptions can mean losing progress – and progress in a factory builder is everything. Frankly this Save-Only-When-You-End-The-Day system is annoying in any life sim, and I think it is a genre legacy mechanic that the devs brought over without scrutiny. They have said they’ll be taking a look at this system in future patches, but as of the time of writing, it’s still an issue.

So, this is not an overwhelming amount of criticism. For players who want the deepiest, crunchiest, most byzantine and flexible factory builder out there without any distractions, Little Rocket Lab will disappoint. But for people who have tried the big names in this genre and found them daunting or chilly, and who are still looking for their entry point into the conveyor-belt and throughput analysis lifestyle, Little Rocket Lab may be the one.

It’s a really good game that I personally didn’t like very much, but I think — and kind of hope — I’m in the minority.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Teenage Astronauts and published by No More Robots. It is available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 20 hours of play were devoted to the game, and it was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is not yet rated by the ESRB. It’s a “cozy” game, so there is little to nothing objectionable here. The town itself has issues, and there are allusions to death, unhappiness, and other “mature” problems, but it’s all done with a light touch and with an inevitable wholesome spin. The mechanical complexity will be the main barrier to younger players’ enjoyment here.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All of the dialogue is text-based, but it cannot be resized. All of many factory-building considerations are conveyed visually as well as audibly. The experience is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The game supports both keyboard + mouse and controller, and both are fully remappable.

The post Little Rocket Lab Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Great production values and an ’80s MTV aesthetic.

LOW Writing that reminded me how old I am.

WTF Classic channel scrambling from the ’80s and ’90s is here, too.

Back when I was a kid in the late ’80s and early ’90s, I’d watch a lot of TV via cable, antenna, and satellite, depending on where I was living at the time. During this era, there were a number of weird and unusual shows that would always catch my eye, and that experimental vibe is what attracted me to Blippo+. It reminded me of this bygone and, frankly, halcyon era of absolutely bonkers TV.

Plainly put, Blippo+ is a full-motion video (FMV) intergalactic cable simulator — and yes, that’s a mouthful. As such, it’s not really a game in the traditional sense, but what’s here is still incredibly fascinating and entertaining to watch. Originally released as a Playdate console exclusive, what makes this new version unique is that it’s now in color, which the PlayDate is incapable of displaying.

There are a variety of channels and shows to watch on this fictional TV service. There are talk shows, science discussions (with brains in jars), psychic weather reports, kids TV, and so much more. Every program is on in real time, so just like watching TV back in the days before on-demand streaming, if something was missed, the only solution was to wait for it to repeat later. Thankfully, each channel only has about five minutes of content, so I never had to wait long to catch a show I was interested in.

The production values are out of this world, and it’s evident that the team behind this project put a lot of effort into Blippo+, even going so far as to use analog cameras, costumes and the like to give the shows a period-distinct appearance that will be familiar to anyone old enough to recall the late ’80s and early ’90s. It carries a lot of nostalgia for me, as that era of TV was commonly experimental and weird.

For example, Boredome and Party Music Nonstop really made think about classic MTV shows. Countertop kind of reminded me of old sitcoms, but not necessarily any specific one. Each show was definitely influenced by something from American TV shows of the past, and it was such a lovely trip down memory lane. And I loved almost everything that was on each channel.

I think some of my favorite shows were things like Quizzards, a game show blended together with a Dungeons & Dragons session. Or Realms Beyond, which was an often comical minute-long take on The Twilight Zone. There was even a funny version of General Hospital, called Clone Trois, with clones taking on various roles, all played by the same actress.

I think the best show was Bushwalker, a peaceful hiking simulation with a knife and axe in each hand for some reason. The Exquisite Telethon, a literary experiment read by the host, and fueled by callers to the show, was also excellent.

Oh, and for anyone wondering if there’s a story surrounding all of this — don’t worry, there is. The narrative is told piecemeal over time, which is a great way to tell it, and it made me feel a bit like a character as well.

Blippo+ definitely evoked the nostalgic feeling of channel surfing on the kind of weird, risky old school TV before all the buyouts and mergers happened. There aren’t many problems with the experience overall, though there were a couple of minor grievances I had.

One program was the same dance through different camera angles, which needed more variation. Another was a channel with an AI character slowly going insane, and the Max Headroom-like character was a bit grating. I also wish that there had been a few more shows per channel. I guess wanting more isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I was always craving more to watch — five minutes always felt a bit short.

While Blippo+ isn’t a traditional video game, it’s still a great fit for gaming platforms. The programs are funny, and they expertly riff on the shows they parody. With the era of TV it evokes moving further and further into the past, it’s a nice reminder of what TV, video games, and all manner of entertainment can and should be — weird, and not afraid of trying something different.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Buy Blippo+ – Steam – itch.io – Nintendo

Disclosures: This game is developed by YACHT, Telefantasy Studios, and Noble Robot and published by Panic. It is currently available on Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PC. Approximately 6 hours were devoted to the game, and it was completed. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game has an ESRB rating of T for Blood, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, and Violence. Most of the sexual themes are innuendo, particularly the Zest “adult” channel, which is completely scrambled, save for the credits version, and even that isn’t all that sexual.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game offers subtitles in the form of closed captioning for the programming. (See examples above.) Subtitles cannot be resized. This game is not fully accessible, as the captions were small to read at times. Similar issues were found with the program notes that appear on-screen when a new program starts or when switching channels.

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

The post Blippo+ Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Fantastic combat system that is both modern and an homage to classic RPGs.

LOW Sluggish pacing in the middle chapters.

WTF “How about a hundred smacks on the ass?”

About a month ago I started seeing buzz online for Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter.

The Trails/Legend of Heroes series, despite its vast library, is one I knew very little about, but this remake of the first in the series seemed to check a lot of personal boxes — realtime combat that transitions into turn-based, a captivating art style, and a high fantasy setting harkening back to classic JRPGs. So, I booted up the free demo, and by the end of its generous eight-hour playtime, I was completely hooked and thirsty for more. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is a beautiful RPG with top-notch combat, memorable characters, and also serves as a perfect entry point into the long-running Trails series.

1st Chapter follows the story of sixteen-year-old Estelle and her adopted brother Joshua as they aim to become top notch Bracers — people who help protect the citizens of Liberl from monsters, thieves, and any threats to the kingdom. Over the course of their journey, they will travel across the kingdom to aid as many people as possible while balancing each other out perfectly — Estelle is captivatingly optimistic and reactionary, while Joshua is more reserved and calculated. As they blossom into powerful bracers, so do their feelings for one and other.

The story Falcom weaves is a complex one commencing with Estelle and Joshua’s hunt for their missing father, which eventually matures into a struggle for military power, treason from within the government, and other powerful forces at work behind the scenes. When firing on all cylinders, Trails is captivating and engrossing, simultaneously balancing the intimate and personal story of two kids trying to find their dad, and the larger, more sophisticated political drama. However, I found myself disengaged in the middle chapters because the focus shifted off both these potent storylines, and more into side characters that are ultimately important to the overall plot, though they feel gratuitous during their runtimes. 

Besides the sluggish middle section, another issue is that each chapter tends to focus on two characters that will join in battle with Estelle and Joshua, but their residence in the party is short-lived as they always depart at the end of each chapter, leaving Estelle and Joshua effectively starting from scratch. Each of these side characters are memorable — from over-the-top traveling musician Olivier, to the mysteriously powerful swordsman Agate, the cast is top notch. However, it felt like just as soon as I got to know the characters on a deeper level, they would set off on their own journey.

That said, all of the intermittent party members reappear in an epically-bombastic final act that ties everyone’s stories together quite well, but the thickness of the middle chapters does lessen the overall experience. Also puzzling was that some of these itinerant characters have voice acting while Estelle and Joshua do not, which did occasionally pull me out of the immersion. 

What does remain engaging throughout 1st Chapter’s runtime is the phenomenal combat system. When approaching wandering enemies, players can enter into a basic, but effective real-time battle complete with normal attacks, dodges, and a special meter that charges over time. Once the enemy’s stun meter is full, the player will have a huge advantage when they enter into turn-based combat, which they can slickly switch into with the press of a button.

In the turn-based combat, characters will have a range of options at their disposal, with different resources for each. The key to successful battles is knowing how to balance spells and abilities, and also knowing how to correctly position party members. For example, some buffs and healing spells are only effective when party members are positioned near each other, but certain enemies might abuse this proximity with powerful AOE attacks. Understanding both party strengths and enemy attack patterns is crucial. 

In addition to a traditional level-up system and equipment management, Trails adds a deeper level of preparation to combat with the orbment system. Each playable character has the ability to equip an elemental quart into a total of six slots. Depending on the element of the quartz and its proximity to other quartz, the character can obtain varying spells to use in battle. For example, equipping a water-based HP quartz will give the character healing spells, while a water-based mind quartz will give the character an offensive aqua attack. As the adventure progresses, players will obtain more powerful quartz to create incredibly powerful offensive and defensive spells. The level of customization here is high, and finding the correct quartz for each character is enticing. (There’s is also an auto-equip for those who want to enjoy battles without too much experimentation.) 

The world of Liberl is one brimming with history — it’s filled with collectable books that outline how the kingdom came to be, and mysterious towers hint at the many wars and struggles the country has endured. Trails does a great job at making the land feel lived-in and real, though I do wish the environments were a little more varied when exploring. The sun is always shining brightly over the samey-looking rolling meadows, with the occasional cave or forest thrown in.

Overall, I truly enjoyed my time with Estelle, Joshua, and their many companions in their quest to become senior bracers. Falcom does a commendable job creating a world and story that feels real for the majority of its runtime, despite a few occasional stumbles. As a newcomer to the series, the combat system captivated me from the first battle and never let me go. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter feels like a classic JRPG I might have grown up playing, yet produced in a modern and nuanced way at the same time. Thanks to the obvious pride and care put into this remake, consider me the newest fan of the Trails series. 

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Nihon Falcom & Nihon Falcom Corporation and published by GungHo Online Entertainment America, Inc. It is currently available on Switch/Switch 2, XBX/S, PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 39 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood, Fantasy Violence, Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco. The official description reads: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is rated T for Teen by the ESRB with Blood, Fantasy Violence, Language, Suggestive Themes, and Use of Alcohol and Tobacco. This is an action role-playing game in which players assume the roles of adopted siblings searching for their missing father. From a third-person perspective, players explore a kingdom, interact with characters, complete missions, and engage in battle with human and fantastical enemies (e.g., plants, robots, soldiers). Players use swords, staffs, guns, and magic spells to attack enemies. Players can use special moves that depict brief cutscenes of the attacks. Combat is highlighted by colorful light effects and impact sounds. Still-images sometimes depict bloodstains near bodies and on characters’ faces/clothing. One female character is designed with a somewhat revealing outfit (e.g., deep cleavage) and breast-jiggling effects; some camera angles focus on her chest. Story elements also allude to a romantic relationship between adopted siblings (e.g., struggling with their feelings, kissing). One scene depicts two characters under the influence of alcohol (e.g., flushed faces, slurred speech), with accompanying dialogue (e.g., “Come and drink with your big sister. You drink or I bring the whole place down”; “Wow, I really drank. Feels like it’s been forever since I last got to cut loose.”) One character is seen smoking a cigarette, and a side mission involves finding stolen cigarettes. The words “sh*t” and “a*sholes” appear in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There is no colorblind mode.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles, though they are not resizable. Audio cues are not needed for progression, making the game fully accessible. 

Remappable Controls: Yes, the game’s controls are remappable.

The post Trails In The Sky 1st Chapter Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Superlative physics. Big trucks. Gnarly vistas.

LOW Saber’s UI design continues to be nightmarish.

WTF A restaurant on one of the maps is named “The Smell Out”

In 2021, Saber Interactive made history when they released Snowrunner, the greatest videogame ever made.

Bafflingly, in the years that followed, developers continued to make games despite the fact that the ultimate expression of the art form had been achieved. Saber themselves have engaged in this quixotic act, first in 2024 with the release of Expeditions (a spin-off focused on exploration) and earlier this year, Roadcraft, a construction company simulator that, like Expeditions, has been met with a somewhat mixed reception by the Snowrunner community.

I am not active in this community but, by dint of having dedicated hundreds of hours to Snowrunner, I do consider myself an honorary member, in the same way that people are awarded degrees from universities they never went to for unrelated things they did elsewhere. As such, I came into Roadcraft expecting something half-baked and disappointing — but it is not half-baked, and it is not disappointing. It’s also not Snowrunner 2. What is Roadcraft? A sloppy, weird, frustrating, brilliant, addictive, fresh-feeling title that takes core elements of its illustrious predecessor and builds on them in wild ways.

Like Snowrunner, Roadcraft is a collection of freeform levels, sandbox maps with main and side objectives to complete. As the seemingly sole on-the-ground employee of an emergency response construction company, players are deployed to disaster-stricken regions and tasked with restoring basic infrastructure, thereby laying the groundwork for regular life to begin again. Thus, in comparison to Snowrunner, the gamut of possible tasks has been expanded beyond haulage — there quarries to be drained, town documents to be recovered, map-spanning pipelines to fix, and, of course, roads to be crafted.

It’s a drawn-out process, this making of roads, and requires both four steps and the specialized brawn of four construction vehicles. First, sand has to be poured, done with a dump truck. Then a bulldozer needs be brought in to plane the sand to a fine and even level. Next, a paver pours steaming asphalt onto the sand. Then, finally, a roller can be brought on-site to compress that hot, bituminous slurry into a smooth and tractable asphalt causeway. Road crafted.

Keep in mind that each of these steps (usually) needs to be done by the player, including bringing each vehicle to the worksite, which is often no small task in itself. Building a short stretch of road can take 20 minutes, depending on the terrain, and the roadcrafting in Roadcraft is a perfect synecdoche for virtually every job in the campaign. This is a slow experience, slower than Snowrunner, quite possibly the most ponderous game I’ve ever played. It’s Minecraft at molasses speed, terraforming at a pace that will, frankly, turn off all but the most degenerate of sickos“ which, happily, I am.

All of Roadcraft‘s vehicular and logistical misadventures are conducted on the deep physics engine that Saber has been working with across their four previous titles. These cumbrous trucks have actual weight, their suspensions rock and shift, tires deform over rocks and rubble. Players will learn to fear steep grades or narrow passes or tight turns. Building materials can and will tumble out of flatbeds into roadside mire. Constant attention has to be paid to both the player vehicle, and the environment. It makes things feel real, every small bit of progress earned in some bone-deep and convincing way that most other virtual accomplishments simply cannot equal. The physics system is what made Snowrunner the unbelievable thing it was, and it gives vibrant life to Roadcraft too.

And so, once acclimated to its, shall we say stately rhythm, the epic length of Roadcraft stops being vexing and becomes, instead, the central gyre of its charm and addictiveness. It is decompressed and utterly chill.

The relaxation is heightened by beautiful environs. The maps in Roadcraft are just stunning. It’s not a matter of fidelity, but of scene-setting. The vistas and setpieces players will stumble on as they crawl across these ravaged landscapes have an almost FromSoft level of stagecraft to them, lushly framed and baroquely, obsessively detailed. There are ruined towns half-submerged in water, a graveyard of rusted excavators sunk into a silt-clogged quarry, a cratered steel mill with broken, bare girders flung up into the air like the upturned legs of a dead spiders…

Some mechanical things are unbeautiful, to be sure. Quite a few things, actually. The Saber team has earned their place in gaming Valhalla, but they’re still incapable of making menus that that are not demonic. I’m not even sure how someone designs a UI this wonky — maybe by having a nightmare about a traffic jam in Hell and then, upon waking, committing that vision directly to interface code.

In addition to all I’ve described, Roadcraft is also wild, wooly, and full of ideas. It’s an exploratory and experimental title for Saber, and it feels like some of the systems are in their prototyping phase. See, for instance, the sub-game about drawing routes that NPC trucks then drive. I understand why it’s here, as it means that players have to find, and then make! – routes these smaller trucks, less capable than the player’s fleet, can traverse. However, the AI itself is bad. If the route waypoints are not laid with aching exactitude, the automated drivers can fumble, even if the trail for them to follow is an adequate one, which means players have to jump back into the Stygian abysses of the Roadcraft menus and redraw the route.

With that said, rough edges are to be expected in something that’s not only niche, but experimental. Roadcraft is not a game for everyone, and it’s not even for every Snowrunner fan — but that’s what makes it brilliant for those willing to tune in, and the number of potential fans is probably larger than one might guess. So, despite how eager I am for the return of the Chosen One in Snowrunner 2, I also will be keenly watching where Roadcraft goes. I can’t think of anything in the double-A space that’s more interesting, or has more potential, than this game.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Saber Interactive and published by Focus Entertainment. It is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox X/S. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 33 hours of play were devoted to the game, and it was not completed. No time was spent in multiplayer (but I think it’s safe to say it would be great).

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E and contains Mild Language. The ESRB summary is as follows: This is a simulation game in which players restore infrastructures in areas after disasters have struck. Players can operate trucks, cranes, and bulldozers to complete various tasks (e.g., clearing debris, rebuilding roads). The word “hell” appears in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All of the (sparse) dialogue is accompanied by on-screen text, but the subtitles cannot be resized. No action requires audio cues to successfully complete. I played the game with the sound down for most of my 30 hours with it, and didn’t have any issues. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: KB+M controls are fully remappable. There are four different gamepad control presets available, but they are not remappable beyond that. Steering Wheels are partially supported, but not ideal for this game.

The post Roadcraft Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH A unique take on the genre. Some unusual locales.

LOW Nasty stuttering often occurs in the late game.

WTF Sharp-eyed explorers will spot a neat Resident Evil Easter egg.

When we experience the death of a loved one, we’re often lost and might not know how to express our grief. For some, life may lose all sense of meaning. We may try like Sam, our young protagonist, to find answers anywhere we can — even if it leads to mysterious locations and danger.

Heartworm is a third-person survival horror set in the 1990s that follows a young woman seeking knowledge about the afterlife. She hears a rumor about a house that may have answers, but no one who’s gone in has ever returned. That’s not going to stop Sam though — but once she’s there, she’s soon trapped in a nightmare based on increasingly-warped locales from her past. In order to survive, she has to solve puzzles and learn more about herself.

Sam is only armed with a 35mm camera, but in this realm, that proves to be one of the most powerful weapons possible. By snapping photos, Sam damages the digital specters, mannequins, spiders, and more that stand in her way. Most enemies can be avoided, thankfully, saving those precious film rolls. However, escape isn’t always possible, as I did have to engage with a couple of enemies (excluding bosses) that would trap me, either by boxing me in or by erecting a circle of stones that would prevent me from fleeing.

When not dealing with combat, each of Heartworm’s three major locales gave a good glimpse into Sam’s past — but more importantly, her psyche. Sam, understandably, is feeling lost after the death of her only remaining family member. She’s also dealing with unresolved childhood trauma, as well as the earlier death of her mother.

While many parts of these areas are common fodder for survival horror — schools, hospitals, childhood homes, etc. — one caught me off-guard. There’s a peaceful and scenic wilderness that seems out-of-place at first, but it was a great change of pace from the tropes we often see in horror. In this particular case, it was fitting, as the seemingly idyllic location held unnerving memories for Sam.

Ultimately Sam’s memories are unclear, so this creates an intriguing idea about how memories are often unreliable narrators, and we sometimes can’t trust ourselves when we tell our own stories.

While piecing this all together, Sam will encounter some satisfying puzzles stashed throughout the nightmarish interpretations of her memories. One required me to run the bases of a baseball diamond to open the way to a pitcher’s mound. Another had me memorize specific words to use at a statue to open the way forward. These puzzles helped break up the exploration in a way that wasn’t simply getting keys, which I appreciated. They also helped fleshed out Sam as a character. The aforementioned baseball puzzle led to Sam discussing her recently-passed grandfather, who was a Little League coach.

While Heartworm‘s premise is good and I was interested in Sam’s journey, there were a number of issues that cropped up for me along the way.

The biggest issue was that a frame-pacing issue marred the late stages of the adventure. At times, Sam would start to jump around, making it look like she was teleporting across locations. This tended to happen when there was a lot happening visually on screen, and it unfortunately extended to the area with the final boss, where it never stopped. This issue was especially bad in later cutscenes, which also caused the video and audio to noticeably desync — sometimes pushing the audio 10-15 seconds ahead of what was happening.

There’s also an issue where the camera can sometimes be zoomed too far out, which made it difficult to see where I was. There was also one point at which I got stuck behind some terrain and couldn’t get back out. I had to reload the game, and lost quite a bit of progress as a result.

Finally — and this is more of a nitpick — but the first area is too slow and goes for far too long. An intro area shouldn’t be a sprawling puzzle hunt while players are trying to learn the game and find their footing. Also, the unlock method for the best ending can be hard to figure out, since backtracking to pick up needed items is impossible after certain points.

All in all, Heartworm is a fascinating look at memories, trauma, and our experiences in dealing with both. The limited combat options meant that the disempowerment of needing to avoid combat when possible helped to serve the feeling of unease. Unfortunately, there are some issues that bring down the experience as a whole, and I wish they would have been fixed before release. Even so, Sam’s quest for meaning in the face of anguish is a relatable one, and that’s where this adventure truly shines.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Buy Heartworm — Steam

Disclosures: This game was developed by Vincent Adinolfi and published by DreadXP. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PC. Approximately 8 hours was devoted to the game, and it was completed. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game is not rated by the ESRB. There are comments and memos from Sam throughout the game that imply that she is somewhat suicidal and suffered from childhood trauma in the past. Sam can be killed by various creatures, but blood and gore is nearly non-existent.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game offers subtitles. Subtitles cannot be resized. This game is not fully accessible. While closed captioning appears for some scenes, there are times when someone could miss an audio cue, like when an enemy is on the attack. Furthermore, some subtitles could be a bit difficult to read at times.

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

The post Heartworm Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Gorgeous stop-motion aesthetic. Perfect soundtrack.

LOW Shambolic menus and UI.

WTF YouTubers shouldn’t be allowed to do voice acting.

When Judero, the first game by Talha and Jack Co., released last year, there were a handful of brief “hey look at this” stories from the big outlets, and there were some reviews, but by and large this utterly unique, drop dead gorgeous stop motion videogame assembled over what must’ve been painstaking years of labor was largely dropped by the journos, enchained as they are to the SEO Wheel of Pain. In any just world, Judero should have been fawned over, awarded many accolades, and gone on to make the developers a hefty passel of money.

We don’t live in a just world, of course, and Judero scraped together merely a small cult of appreciators. It was large enough, however, to make the Kickstarter for Talha and Jack Co.’s second game, Mashina, a success.

Knowing only that it looked beautiful and having never played a stop-motion videogame before, I jumped on the opportunity to review Mashina when it released. I was surprised to discover that beneath its beautiful handmade exterior, Mashina is a straightforward mining title, descended directly from Motherload, with only minor tweaks to the undeniably addicting-but-simple core established by that browser game all the way back in 2004. Surprised, but not displeased. Mostly.

For those who haven’t played Motherload or its few modern derivations, here’s the basic structure — there’s an overworld players can walk around in, with shopkeepers and quest givers, before jumping into the underground and digging through dirt, rocks, and other subterranean cruft of varying densities, unearthing precious minerals that are stowed away and later cashed in. Said cash can be used to purchase upgrades, which allow more efficient mining, which allows for larger future profits to buy more expensive later upgrades — we see where this is going, and where it’s going is to a pleasant, albeit mostly mindless, way to lose a handful of hours. These kind of mining titles aren’t idlers, but they are kissing cousins to that genre, gently massaging some low and lizardlike nodule in the Gamer Brain.

As I said, Mashina does make some tweaks to this hoary, dirt-encrusted formula. Mashina herself, the player character, doesn’t have a fuel or oxygen gauge, which are common limiters in this type of experience. Really, the only things stopping a player from digging down indefinitely are limited inventory space, and the need to go topside for the drill upgrades necessary to bite through more ornery materials.

Another quirk? Minerals aren’t added to the inventory automatically. Instead, they have to be picked up manually and fit into a Resident Evil 4-style gridventory. There’s actually a skill available that does the sorting without player input but, as someone who is creepily ardent about RE4, a tasteful Tetris-enjoyer, and general grid appreciator, I never invested in it, preferring to do all the sorting by hand, as God intended.

Okay, I have expended all the words I wish to regarding mechanics, because the real draw of Mashina lies in its aesthetics. Almost every graphical element is comprised of real-world objects and crafts. All the characters are hand-fashioned, stop-motion dolls, and their various paraphernalia made from the sort of odds and ends that turn up and live forever in junk drawers. As such, one of the undimming joys of this title is seeing new characters, drills, trinkets, and other props, and what they’re crafted from.

Also, the soundtrack is a continual delight. There is only one way in which Mashina resembles Grand Theft Auto, and that’s in its implementation of an in-game radio with different stations, each with their own host, music, and vibe. It’s not the most tonally diverse collection of songs, as there are presiding elements of lo-fi, shoegaze, almost-too-precious indie folk across all stations, but not a single tune crosses the line into twee. It’s really, really good stuff — so good, in fact, that while digging games are usually a prime choice for muting and watching something on the ol’ second screen, I always gave Mashina’s soundtrack my full attention.

“Story”-wise (heavy quote marks in effect) the overworld is full of other Bobots who want Mashina to do things for them, and they all have quirky personalities. That sounds groan-worthy, but this is genuinely quirky, original and full-hearted goofiness, not the manufactured preciousness that passes for quirky in a lot of cozy games. The ‘bots here come across less like uwu-coded dopes and more like a gaggle of preoccupied weirdos, each firmly ass-in-saddle on their own personal hobbyhorse, and that’s cool.

If the aesthetic, music, and character were stripped away, truthfully Mashina would be a middling entry in the mining genre. It’s not deep, not especially streamlined, hardly innovative even relative to the circumscribed bounds of its niche genre. It’s also easy. The menus are terrible. The building mechanics are underbaked. The economy collapses within the first few hours. The menus, I repeat, are terrible. Mechanically compared to any other mining game of repute — none of which are that complex or rich — Mashina comes up short.

But — and this is probably the only time I have ever said or felt this — the mechanical guts and all the other stuff that goes with it – don’t really matter.

Mashina’s simplicity fits its mission, as Talha and Jack Co. have chosen the correct genre. Anything more complex or demanding would need heaps more polish and fathoms more depth to be feasible, and a commensurate extension of all its precious intangibles to go along with it. However, Mashina is about a bunch of robo-dweebs relaxing at the end of the world, and it wants to help players relax in their own collapsing reality.

I respect it as art much more than I respect it as a game, and taken as a whole, I love it as an experience. Nice work, Mashina.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Talha and Jack Co. and published by Judatone Games. It is available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 6.5 hours of play were devoted to the game, and it was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is not rated by the ESRB. There’s nothing inappropriate in this game whatsoever. There is no violence, the only “enemy” is just a robot with the wrong switch flipped — it goes back to being nice with the click of a button. Some of the humor is too oblique and weird for younger players to understand, but it’s nothing parents should worry about them being exposed to.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All of the dialogue is accompanied by on-screen text, but the subtitles cannot be resized.

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

The post Mashina Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The atmosphere is superb, and the puppets are comically feral.

LOW Some severe frame rate drops. Plentiful healing dials the tension down.

WTF Have you ever seen a depressed puppet?

Many survival horror titles thrive off of unexplainable cosmic horrors, the aftermaths of outbreaks, and other unpleasant events. My Friendly Neighborhood challenges the norms of the genre with a setting that’s less than threatening — a TV studio for a children’s program. Hardly scary, right? But that’s where most players will be wrong.

In My Friendly Neighborhood, players assume the role of Gordon J. O’Brian, a handyman sent to a studio to stop the broadcast of the titular show from playing over the news and other programs. Upon entering the studio grounds, he finds that not only are things amiss technically, but almost all the puppets are moving around on their own and attacking anything that gets near them.

In typical survival horror fashion, Gordon has to navigate numerous areas from a first-person perspective while scavenging for limited supplies, weapons, and keys to open new paths. What sets MFN apart is that almost all the weapons are something other than ordinary firearms — they’re typically shaped like a normal firearm, but they fire letters instead of bullets. These give Gordon’s adventure a lot of charm, as it’s comical to watch letter B’s and X’s getting shot at the puppets.

The tokens I found during play were also interesting — they could function like an ink ribbon used to save the player’s game in classic Resident Evil, but they could also be used at healing stations to refill my health completely. They also acted as currency, being exchanged at vending machines for various boosts. This made these me have to use my one item for saves tactically. If I was low on tokens, I’d have to choose between being able to save and being able to heal if I was low on items.

As for the main antagonists, these manic puppets would chase me down the moment I got too close. If they caught me, I’d receive a harmful hug and then be tossed violently to the ground. In a nod to the subject material, the violence here has been scaled back.

While I wanted to avoid those hugs, the real threat came from the fact that puppets often reanimated after leaving an area. Thankfully, I could permanently restrain a downed puppet by using tape. However, tape was pretty rare, so I had to use it strategically — and within this scarcity lies MFN’s smart design.

With such so many puppets around but no way to permanently remove all of them, a threat remained. Even ammo was limited, so I had to take into account where and when to use items and weapons. For example, I could easily juke some of the slower puppets, but could spend my precious tape on those that were faster, and therefore harder to get away from.

Even when disposed of, the puppets would still chatter to themselves about topics ranging from the innocuous to the insane. This scripting gave them lots of character and juxtaposed them with the Sesame Street Muppets that they’re obviously based on.

Something else I greatly appreciated about MFN were its numerous secret items weapons and areas. Apart from these things, there were also hidden ways to permanently and peacefully deal with puppets, and this usually involved finding specific items or backtracking through previously explored buildings. For example, in the earliest area, a large Big Bird-like puppet will prowl an area and stomp on me if I got close. When I found an item that they were looking for, they stopped moving around and were no longer hostile, removing their threat to me. However, in some cases, I had to wait to help them until I was able to explore an area further with new items from other locations.

For those that finish My Friendly Neighborhood, there are cheats that can be used in subsequent playthroughs, enhancing replayability. One gave the player a one-hit kill weapon that violently jettisons puppets into the nearest wall. Another unlocked “Neighborhorde” mode which focuses on arcade-style score attack. There were also a number of unlockable characters with their own loadouts. Including a chicken man with grenades.

In general, MFN is well-designed and well-made, though there were a few issues.

The biggest offender was a drop in the frame rate in a couple of smaller, crowded rooms. Thankfully, these instances were extremely limited. There was also no way to auto-sort items in the menu, leading to me spending time rearranging things to make space — annoying.

Another issue is that healing items were a little too plentiful. I constantly had bottles of healing juice stuffing my already-crowded inventory. While having access to heals isn’t a bad thing, survival horror thrives when there are limitations. Between those items and a machine that could heal me to full health in safe rooms, I felt like the potential tension was dulled a bit.

Overall, MFN is an excellent survival horror title that attempts to, and mostly succeeds at, changing up the standard survival horror formula. While it could stand to have a few more teeth, I was still pleasantly on the edge of my seat the entire time. In a genre with too many developers copying each other’s homework, My Friendly Neighborhood offers a break from the norm with color and charm, and I suspect that fans of survival horror will want to play along.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Buy My Friendly Neighborhood — Steam — PlayStation — Xbox

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by John and Evan Syzmanski, and published by DreadXP. It is currently available on XBO/X/S, PS4, PS5, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher, and reviewed on PS5. Approximately 10 hours were devoted to the game, and it was completed with the true ending. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game has an ESRB rating of E for Mild Fantasy Violence. Most of the weapons are some sort of typewriter-like instrument that shoots out letters, rather than bullets. The characters are never killed, but temporarily incapacitated. When attacked, the player is shaken and thrown about. While the rating states that this for everyone, young children (particularly viewers of Sesame Street) could become scared by the content. The puppets will also occasionally talk about wanting to commit violent actions. There are also cigarettes and bottles of alcohol in one area. As such, I would say that this is a game better suited for older kids, possibly teens.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game does offer subtitles, but only for cutscenes and dialogue from Gordon. Subtitles cannot be resized. There are no closed captions, which can make it hard for players to know that a threat is in the room. For example, all the puppets chatter when they’re conscious, and they’ll speak or vocalize differently when pursuing the player. This is a potential tell that could be missed by players with hearing issues. This game is not fully accessible.

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

The post My Friendly Neighborhood Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH It’s a Zachlike by Zach. Wonderful theming.

LOW Might be too easy for the hardcore Zachheads

WTF Pachinko+Solitaire (but it rules)

If pressed to name the game designer I admire most, I’d probably say Zach Barth. Not because I enjoy his games the most (although I enjoy them a great deal) but because the Zachtronics oeuvre — beginning with SpaceChem with 2011, and concluding in 2022 with Last Call BBS — is probably the most consistent, artistically coherent body of work in the field.

Big claim, but it’s true. The Zachtronics titles are the result of intense focus — of a team working entirely within their own self-discovered ludological world, cultivating a hitherto-unexplored corner of puzzle design so sui generis that we came up with a new name for them — Zachlikes. Every Zachtronics release (excluding a couple outliers) built off a core concept of open-ended, discovery-based automation and/or programming puzzles, in which players uncover their own unique solutions to each problem at a pace that, too, belongs to each player personally. Every Zachlike borrows pieces and parts from the prior ones, but adds something of its own, pilfered in its turn by the next one.

After Last Call, Zachtronics disbanded — or rather metamorphosed into Coincidence, a company that’s the kind of outfit someone starts when they’ve made enough money to liberate themselves from the capitalist mill-wheel and can do whatever the hell they want. Coincidence released a couple of card games, an educational title to teach arithmetic, and even something called “Zach Attack!,” a scratch card-based logic affair. But sadly, nothing that could be called a Zachlike — until now.

Kaizen: A Factory Story is not just something made by Zach Barth, but is a genuine Zachlike in the classical tradition. Not the most adventurous one, nor the longest, certainly not the hardest, but Barth and his crew are fully and gloriously back on their bullshit here, right down to the requisite solitaire game-within-a-game.

Kaizen takes place in Japan in the late ’80s, when the country was riding an economic boom that resulted, amongst other things, in virtuosic consumer electronics manufacturing. As David Sugimoto, a young business graduate from Indiana who goes to Japan for a sales job but ends up shepherding production factories instead, players create assembly lines for appliances, computers, video game systems, and more — it’s a comforting, nostalgia-laced parade celebrating the most appealing of era of product design before later variants of the corporate psychosis leached all character and quality from consumer goods. (Do we really think anyone is going to look back fondly on the way the PS5 looks, for example?)

The Zachtronics games don’t get enough credit for their atmospherics. Story and setting are peripheral, but realized with great taste and an eye for the historical (or fantastical) milieu being evoked. ’80s Japan is a low-hanging fruit in terms of aesthetic, but Kaizen pleases from top to bottom in this regard. The sonic landscape is a boppable city pop homage, the color palette and clean linework lifted straight from Nagai Hiroshi, and in the puzzles themselves, non-copyright-infringing homages to landmark electronics and appliances are rendered with an almost touching accuracy, down to the particular density of computer polymers, or the brushed metal of a camcorder square chassis. Even the degree to which the little red Power LEDs are recessed into the frames seems wholly convincing and accurate. This is the least abstracted, the most tangible, Zachlike puzzle pieces have ever been.

Each puzzle is a work assignment — assemble a rice cooker, a computer, or a bidet. Starting with separate, sometimes unfinished components, players have to utilize different apparatuses to modify and manipulate these pieces into a finished product. Mechanical arms push, flip, and grab components; electric saws remove material; welders and riveters fuse disparate elements together. All of these mechanisms are assigned behaviors on a timeline at the bottom of the worktable.

The challenge comes from the physicality of all of these pieces. An arm can’t be in the way of another arm, the saws will cut whatever passes through them indiscriminately, etc. As the Zachlike-likers know, much of the frisson comes from solving these micro-problems to reach a viable solution. After that, any solution can be tweaked to optimize for the three different metrics — time, cost, and size — and every solution is ranked on and compared to other players’ solutions with the signature Zachtronics histograms.

This is the proven, beloved Zachlike format, and it works just as well in Kaizen as before. All this being said, there is something every so slightly insubstantial about this particular entry.

It might be the first Zachlite, much easier and shorter than installments in the established Zachtronics canon. The Zachlikes are always joyful pain to me, as there is not a single neuron in brain with any sort of engineering bent, and I usually crawl through these games at a sub-testudinal pace — but I blazed through Kaizen. Sometimes I solved a puzzle in less than five minutes. Once, I noticed that another player had come up with more or less the exact same solution that I did — something that has never happened to me with prior Zachlikes. The difficulty does ramp up, but even later on there’s this nebulous feeling of limitation — almost as if the devs were holding back.

I feel safe saying it’s intentional — in other words, not a symptom of fatigue or disinterest on the dev’s part, but rather a purposefully lighter take on the core Zachlike themes. It’s an approach I understand, even if I personally don’t endorse it. I may not be good at Opus Magnum or Infinifactory, but their bracing, permissive difficulty is part of what I love about them, and the relative lack of challenge in Kaizen gives it less mechanical character than its older siblings, and, I would guess, less staying power in the long run. If those prior games are vast, rich, brain-pain buffets, Kaizen is a light, spritzy cerebrum sorbet.

Does that mean that I would recommend Kaizen to the Zach-curious out there? Yes and no. It’s a delightful experience, but I think newcomers would actually be better served doing what I did and jumping in at the deep end with one of Kaizen’s classic predecessors. Kaizen is best, I think, for the already-converted. It’s not on the same level as the older titles, but it’s a delightful dose of most of what made them special. A summer treat for the sickos.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Coincidence and published by Astra Logical. It is available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the game, and it was not completed (I got hung up on the excellent Pachi-Sol solitaire minigame for while). There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is not rated by the ESRB. There’s nothing troubling, dark, unpleasant, or violent in this game whatsoever. The vast majority of time is spent looking at a table of components and mechanisms, and the closest the game comes to toilet humor is in having players assemble a bidet.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Dialogue for the dozen or so cutscenes are accompanied by subtitles, but the subtitles cannot be resized.

Remappable Controls: The game is keyboard and/or mouse only. The controls are not remappable. Everything can be done with the mouse alone, but there are intuitive hotkeys (CTRL+Z for undo, etc.) for faster solution editing.

The post Kaizen: A Factory Story Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Classic compulsive Monster Train cardplay, crunchier than ever.

LOW Higher learning curve than the first. Some unclear interactions.

WTF Which one of you sickos put all these waifus in the train???

Though lots of strong roguelite deckbuilders have followed in the wake of Slay the Spire, Monster Train is the only one to have staked out a space equal to Mega Crit’s genre-establishing release. It managed to do this by being, emphatically, its own thing, accomplished by taking a mere handful of mechanical waypoints from Spire and then building out an entirely original vision on top of that framework. This is, in some narrower, less foundational way, the process by which we saw FPS titles like Duke Nukem 3D and Blood carve out separate, full identities away from the “DOOM clone” designation.

Monster Train was fresh, it felt new within a new genre. People cottoned to it, unsurprisingly, so it’s no surprise that it got a sequel. But, it is unusual because Monster Train 2 is the first sequel to a major roguelite deckbuilder we’ve seen. In fact, the larger roguelite space is light on sequels overall. It’s a genre in which the exemplars generally live forever (or near enough to it in gaming terms) growing not so much older as denser, either through official content infusions or the ministrations of dedicated communities.

In other words, whether or not Shiny Shoe realized it, they were blazing new trails for the roguelite deckbuilder genre and setting precedent for what to expect from the sequel to a foundational text.

As a sequel, Monster Train 2 is classical in its approach, focused on refinement and amplification. Many elements are carried over more or less unchanged, and there was a moment when I nearly became disappointed — almost underwhelmed — with it. But the more I played, the more I could appreciate the judicious improvements, creative expansions, and, most importantly, the enormous generosity of content. When it came fully into focus after a few hours, Monster Train 2 impressed the hell out of me.

Remember, much is the same. Monster Train 2 takes place on a four-tiered train. The lower three levels are where cards — monsters, spells, and a few new things — can be played, while the uppermost fourth level houses the Pyre Heart, the train’s energy source. Each round enemies will enter from the lowest level, and any existing enemies in the train move up one level. Any goons that get to the Heart will attack it until they’re killed, but if they reduce the Heart’s HP to zero, it’s game over.

(Please, I beg, do not make me explain the story of Monster Train 1 or 2. I know there are people out there who care about this series’ goofball lore about a war between the spangled, melodramatic cartoon characters of this particular heaven and hell, but I’m definitely not one of them. There’s a train, there are monsters in it, and really, isn’t that enough?)

It certainly starts in a familiar way but the most important refinement here is the fancy new Deployment Phase.

Before the first turn, players are given all unit cards marked with a blue banner, and can place as many of them as they have energy for. Then the first standard turn occurs. This may seem insignificant to someone who hasn’t played Monster Train 1, but it’s a seismic shift. It cleans up one of the most ambiguous mechanics in the original — draw priority — making it much more legible, and much more strategic. Arranging the Deployment Phase units is a delicious tactical aperitif before hefty main course of locomotive card battling.

Monster Train 2 also delivers five brand new clans to play with. In Monster Train 1, the clans were unlocked in order of complexity. That’s true here too, but the introductory clans start with more complicated, oblique elements than were on offer with the first title’s Hellhorned and Awoken. All five clans have unique keywords, and two of them have a bespoke, overarching mechanic separate from the words on the cards.

In other words, things start out dense, and get denser as the player goes along. This is not a criticism, but I think Monster Train 2 is targeted at people who have played the first one a decent amount. Despite the bright, googly art style, this is a mechanically crunchy game afroth with calculations and considerations that are easier to grok with some Monster Train-ing under the belt already.

The upside to this is that the weirder, twistier, more offbeat strategies of these clans are wonderful puzzles for all the Train mavens out there. I’m partial to the Underlegion, an army of myconids with a unique “Troop” keyword that allows for massive stacks of little fungoid footmen to overwhelm opponents. The Pyreborn, a race of classic red dragons, lean into one of my favorite traditional draconic characteristics — greed for gold. Their spells and units play with the economy in unique ways.

Other existing elements have been tastefully embroidered. There isn’t just a single, standard Pyre Heart, for example — more than ten different Hearts can be unlocked through play, each with different stats and traits. There are equipment and room cards now too. Equipment works just like you’d think, and the most complicated new clan, the Lazarus League, plays with these cards in some wild ways. Rooms provide a powerful effect on one entire train floor, and there are also some new units with baked-in abilities, activated manually, with attendant cooldowns between uses.

All of this adds up to a sequel built directly and unabashedly on top of the original, but in such a way as to feel fresh, compelling, and surprising all over again. Every hour I spent with it, some new idea, mechanic, mode or flourish unfurled itself. I don’t have space to go into the alternate game modes, covenant ranks, or other surprises (and wouldn’t if I could) but take my word for it — this title is absolutely stuffed with things to play with.

Monster Train 2 is more Monster Train — but it’s more in the most considered, intelligent possible way. Highly recommended.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Shiny Shoe and published by Big Fan Games. It is available on PC, PS5, Switch and XBX/S. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 27 hours of play were devoted to the game, and it was completed (at the basic level, with many covenant levels and unlocks left to get). There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E 10+ and contains Alcohol References, Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood and Mild Language. The core gameplay features a lot of monsters fighting each other, but it’s mostly bloodless. The monsters themselves are, for the most part, pretty tame in their designs — although a few of the later clans’ creatures can be gory and/or creepy in ways that might be upsetting to younger players. In terms of bad language, sometimes the game says “Hell yeah,” but that seems to be about it.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are present, including a preset deuteranopia mode as well as the option to customize the colorblind settings.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game has subtitles for the (very few) voiced sequences. Most of the dialogue in the game is text only. The subtitles cannot be resized, but the UI can be set to a “Large” configuration.

Remappable Controls: The game offers fully remappable controls for Mouse and Keyboard, but not for gamepad. The gamepad controls function much like they do in other deckbuilders — the A button confirms, B button goes back, the X button ends the turn. The left stick moves between cards in the hand and units on the field when necessary. The only unusual element of the gamepad controls relative to other deckbuilders is that the right analog stick allows for moving between the different floors of the train.

The post Monster Train 2 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Some of the locations are visually stunning…

LOW …But the game engine makes parts of them look terrible.

WTF There’s an extremely pixelated SpongeBob sticker in one map.

While it’s common to find a photo mode in big budget or picturesque experiences these days, there aren’t many titles focused solely on photography. So, when I heard about Lushfoil Photography Sim, I had to check it out. Thankfully, it mostly delivers.

In Lushfoil Photography Sim, players are tasked with taking photos from specific viewpoints within various locales, starting with a lake in Italy before moving to scenes in Japan, the French Alps, the Himalayas, and more. However, photography isn’t limited to the “quests” and shutterbugs can often take whatever pictures are desired in this first-person mini-vacation.

As the requested pictures were taken, more areas opened up, and not only were there all-new areas to explore, there were also new variations of maps I already had accessible. For example, the first location had a later ‘winter’ version to explore, and each unlock provided me with new weather and lighting conditions for photos.

The locations are all well-chosen, giving a variety of environments to suit any aesthetic. The Castle Rock Beach and Fushimi Inari Taisha were among my favorites, due to how gorgeous and vibrant they were.

The main camera I used was the digital SLR (single-lens reflex) and I was impressed with the options included. Photo modes in video games generally offer basic features, such as aperture and shutter speed, but Lushfoil goes all-out and offers many options found in modern professional cameras, such as ISO brightening and darkening tools. This made my photo safari feel far more realistic than expected.

There were extra tools to find, such as a camera drone, which could allow me to take photos from a higher elevation. Beyond that. There were some neat ‘throwback’ items, such as a film-based SLR camera and a ’00s era point-and-shoot camera. I only wish I could have found a disposable camera!

Completing a single map’s requests unlocks a GPS that helps locate any remaining collectibles. For those who leverage it to 100%, taking every requested photo and finding every collectible unlocks a ‘god’ mode, which essentially allows players to change the weather and other settings.

While this is a great foundation for a photography-focused experience, there were quite a few issues with Lushfoil that hold it back.

For a title that’s all about the visuals, it was a surprise to find that the graphics tended to be iffy. For example, the map in France had many background areas that were flattened images, or that offered jagged textures when viewed from afar. Some textures also had some unintended effects, like artifacts on objects that moved around. Reflections on water would also not appear on taken photos. Further, bloom and fog tended to make things too washed out, and there was some smudginess on finished images.

While there were plenty of great scenes, there were also some locales that were boring to photograph, such as a decrepit house, surrounded by a sense of lifelessness. Also, throughout the experience there were never any people in any of the areas, and even animals were rare. It sometimes felt like I was photographing dioramas, not real places.

The menus also gave me issues. Glitches would occur regularly, such as selecting one image, but then seeing another appearing on-screen, especially when deleting images. While exiting and re-entering the menu did help, this was tedious and annoying.

Speaking of images, I could only save around thirty photos. This is an absurdly tiny number of images for a photo game, especially when some have to be kept while progressing toward unlocking new locations. Photos also act as one of the fast travel systems between locations, so I had to be selective with what I kept.

There were also a number of performance issues to contend with, the biggest being frame rate drops and stutters occurring when traveling. It was a consistent stutter every few seconds, and very annoying. Long load times also meant I had to waiting 20—30 seconds every time I transitioned to a new map.

Lushfoil Photography Sim has a lot of rough edges that need work, and it’s rather unfortunate, as many of the areas offer stunning views and photo titles in general are rare. There’s definitely a vision here, and I can’t deny that this photo safari has charm. However, for a title that only aims to do one thing right, that thing needs to be perfect — and it’s far from it.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Buy Lushfoil Photography Sim – Steam – Epic – PlayStation – Xbox

Disclosures: This game is developed by Matt Newell and published by Annapurna Interactive. It is currently available on XBX/S, PS5, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PS5. Approximately 9 hours were devoted to the game, and it was completed. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game has an ESRB rating of E. The ESRB website states: “This is a simulation game in which players assume the role of a photographer taking pictures of various environments. Players explore locations around the world, photograph places and structures, and search for collectibles along the way.”

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game does not offer subtitles. There is no spoken dialogue. Text cannot be resized. This game is not fully accessible because text for tool tips and tutorials can be too small and difficult to read.

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

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