Welcome to my 2022 list of games that I loved.

2022 has been another wild ride but I probably will give it the credit of being a little less cataclysmic than last year. Is this because I left Twitter? Maybe.  

Welcome to my 2022 list of games that I loved. 2022 has been another wild ride but I probably will give it the credit of being a little less cataclysmic than last year. Is this because I left Twitter? Maybe.

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Some supplemental awards first.

‘Oh, thank my stars co-op arrived’ award:

§ Halo Infinite

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  ‘Please stop releasing your games in December’ 2021 awards:

§ The Gunk

§ Tunnel of Doom

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‘You are a compelling game, but my word, your politics suck’ award:

§ Police Simulator: Patrol officers

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10. As Dusk Falls XBO, XSX/S

As Dusk Falls is pitched as having meaningful stories and heartfelt performances brought to life by motion comics. The game follows multiple people across different threads involving a heist gone wrong, telling the story from the robbers’ and victims’ perspective. As Dusk Falls’ other big pitch is that it can be played online with up to 8 friends, and each time a choice must be made each player places a vote with the ability to override all votes. As all my friends are complete misfits, this means that instead of anything being accomplished, characters in As Dusk Falls will spend most of their time doing the worst things. To its credit, the game does a great job of keeping things on track. I am pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to laugh this much, but As Dusk Falls certainly brings it when played with chaotic pals.

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9. Broken Pieces PC, XBO, XSX/S, PS4/5

Broken Pieces is pretty great. A 3D adventure with a focus on puzzling and some minor combat. Set in a remote French Village that seems to exist in a post-event world where it’s not entirely clear what that event was. The localization is all over the place and adds to the unnerving nature of the game. Broken Pieces’s peers are Deadly Premonition and Syberia. If either of those names make your ears prick up, then you have to try this game.

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8. The Quarry PC, XBO, XSX/S, PS4/5 Review here

Supermassive consistently release titles that hit my top ten. Never in the top 5, but I still look forward to playing them. The Quarry is no exception. Larger and a bit longer than its Dark Pictures compatriots, it starts slower but ends up being rewarding by leaning into a goofier horror story. One of the things I’m enjoying is that the writing team started to become aware of its own tropes and then learning how to subvert them. For example, they’ve loved giving the players a ‘Drew Barrymore’ character for the tutorial – someone that shows up briefly to get murdered or sidelined. Not this time, and it’s great to see the writing being experimental and finding new ways to spin the story. However, it’s the multiplayer that keeps things entertaining as the hot-seat means that I could not predict the story twists.

Below is a heavily spoilered example:

Later in the story, after The Quarry had set up two characters and framed them as the protagonists, things turn to a pitched battle with a murderous family, everything slowed down for a second and required one of my friends to make a pivotal shot… And he missed. Both the protagonists die. The story continued without them.

What a great game.

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7. Tunic – PC, XBO, PS4/5, XSX/S, Switch

I was unimpressed by Tunic’s demo, outside of the very nice, squidgy pastel-colored models that made everything look like it was made out of opaque jelly sweets. What I played of the demo felt like someone was just retreading Legend of Zelda. That’s not to say the full game of Tunic surprised me and didn’t ape Link’s adventures, but it’s doing so much more. The element of ‘aha!’ when a level circles around on itself made me appreciate how clever each layout was, and the unlocking of each piece of the in-game instruction manual leading to even more ‘aha!’ moments is inspired. Then, when I realized what the liner notes meant… Well, it was the first time I fully appreciated what made Fez so appealing to players. Finally, when I hit a pretty nasty bug right at the end that meant that the final boss was much harder than it needed to be, Tunic just didn’t give a shit that I made myself invincible and beat the boss without trying. The journey and the exploration was more important.

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6. Windjammers 2 – PC, PS4/5, XBO, XSX/S, Switch, Stadia Review here

Windjammers is a unique game in many ways, I played it in the arcades back in the ’90s and then again on emulators in the 2000s. The back and forth of throwing a disc in a sort of air hockey/Frisbee hybrid is so simple, but the tactics and mind games that emerge contain so much depth. All I had craved for the last couple of decades was a decent port on my preferred console, but DotEmu (a company that is very much on a roll after Streets of Rage 4) went one better. Not only did they manage to make Windjammers 2 bigger with more varied abilities, trickshots and techniques, but also better. Although the skill ceiling is higher, it doesn’t detract from the crazy amount of simple fun able to be had. It also helps that the online multiplayer is rock-solid too.

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5. Pick Pack Pup – PlayDate

Not only does this entry give me an opportunity to brag about getting a PlayDate earlier this year, it is also a way to celebrate my favourite entry of the first season of curated games. Pick Pack Pup manages to find a new spin on the ‘match three’ genre with the character having to connect items first to package them, then they dispatch the packages, the more dispatched at the same time, the better the bonus. The game finds new ways to change up the format as the story progresses with different objectives, and the challenge modes add extra incentive to return. The story itself is a criticism of Amazon (and capitalism at large). Entertainingly, the protagonist steals a rocket and goes to Mars. For me, the most charming part of Pick Pack Pup was that it was a compulsive 3-4 hour game, perfect for a plane or car journey, and it fit perfectly into the PlayDate’s weekly offering. For those who get a chance to try the diminutive crank handheld, make a beeline for this one.

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4. Elden Ring PC – PS4/5, XBO, XSX/S Review here

I mean, I am sure it isn’t much of a shock that Elden Ring is on this list. It’s a phenomenal achievement by From Software to pack so much into this game and still make it feel like it had a personality. It is also by far the most accessible in the franchise, with a ton of neat elements that made it so I could finally talk to some of my friends about the experience. There is something in there, though, that weirdly rubs me the wrong way – like, I am resentful that the game is basically Assassin’s Creed, only with its excel spreadsheet checklist of side missions hidden from the player. When I realized that I was ticking off a series of boxes (during a fire giant fight) it soured a game I think I otherwise might have considered perfect. Still, I have high hopes that From Software will go from strength to strength after Elden Ring’s performance and that leaves me with hope that I’ll finally get another Armored Core game. Never mind, Armored Core VI got announced this a great end of year for me. Get me a mech!

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3. Gunfire: Reborn Switch – PC, PS4, XBO, XSX/S, Android, iOS

With one of the most forgettable names ever (frequently referred to as ‘Ghostmaster: Remix’ or ‘Gunblast: Remaster’ in this household) Gunfire: Reborn is a fantastic co-op, first-person shooter with roguelite elements. Each run allows the player to pick a class, accrue levelling-up points, better weapons, and scrolls that can buff/debuff, and the developer seems to delight in allowing the player to create utterly broken builds that allow players to go on rampages. The four player co-op elements (once players are higher level) allows for people to see the great range of different builds like the dual-wielding dog and the glass-canon bunny rabbit, while mixing and matching different styles. It’s on Game Pass right now, and even if you don’t have friends you should be playing it.

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2. Roguebook Switch – PC, Mac, XBO, XSX/S, PS4/5, Stadia Review here

“A top ten and I only have one roguelite on here” I saym as I realize I haven’t written about Roguebook. Every year I find a game that hits me like meth — hitting me with wide-eyed nights of hours slipping by in some sort of fugue state as I play ‘one more game’.  What Roguebook improves for the Darkest-Slay-the-Monster-Train-Dungeon formula is that it lets the player feel like they have more agency in their path towards the bosses, and there feels like there’s an ability to course-correct a half-failing run with the two hero system. The most roguelite addicted have complained that there is not enough variation in deck discovery, but that wasn’t something that bothered me as I climbed through the ranks while unlocking more cards. Charming, and a fantastic entry point for people curious about deckbuilding roguelites.

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1. Severed Steel – Switch, PC, XBO, XSX/S, PS4/5

I booted up Severed Steel before writing this to check if I was really going to make it my game of the year and got into a new game+ playthrough. Played in first-person, perspective this is a game that muses on what it would be like if Max Payne was just an endless stream of slow-motion violence set to a propulsive beat. Every level requires jumping, sliding, wall running and shooting — it’s like Cliff Bleszinski made good on his comment about how worried he was we hadn’t seen the gunplay in Mirror’s Edge and then built a game that had flawless gunplay/parkour. It’s just a cacophony of good times.

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Most Disappointing of the year: Plague Tale: Requiem

I am still enjoying Plague Tale, and I will likely finish it, but the disappointment I feel is that it seems that the developers and I have very different ideas of what we wanted from this game. Plague Tale: Innocence was a surprise – a gorgeous title on a budget that squeezed just enough gameplay into its cutscene heavy adventure that kept me engrossed. This first entry offered up a range of tools for stealthing and killing, but rarely had big enough areas to explore the possibilities with them.

What I had hoped for the sequel was that Requiem would build on this solid foundation and provide more open areas to fully realize the promising stealthy/fighting dichotomy. Instead, Requiem is about a lot of walking and talking and ‘push forward to win the game’ setpieces. These are impressive, they just indicate that, given a bigger budget, there will be even fewer interesting things to do in the next game and more emphasis on bombast. I hope that is not the case, because I love the world.

The post AJ’s Top 10 of 2022 appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

This is my fourth year of doing a Top Ten list for Gamecritics. If you are interested in my recommends from previous years, then please go check out 2017, 2018, and 2019.

Honestly, my opening piece from each of these entries is feeling more and more like a prophecy of doom, with 2020 actually beating 2019 for terribleness. Well done.

Game of 2020 I stopped playing in Early Access almost a year ago:

Deep Rock Galactic — PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series 

Deep Rock Galactic remains a fantastic game. The developers have added more content, revised the existing content, and constantly iterated. A four-player co-op First Person Shooter about 4 dwarves digging their way through caverns in search of loot, it features lots of mining and shooting that culminates each level with a madcap dash away from vicious monsters. It works perfectly in cross-platform play between Win 10 and Xbox too. Don’t miss out on the v1.0 release.

The ‘Please Stop Releasing Your Games in December 2019, This Is Killing Me’ award goes to:

• Humankind: Ancestors
• Untitled Goose Game
• Pathologic 2

The Games I played a lot of that were not released in 2020:

Honestly, most of these games have seen updates from the developers in a way that has made them even better than their original release. I’ve probably put more hours into these than some of the games on my official top ten:

• Children of Morta — After coming to Game Pass and then releasing an expansion, this is a co-op must-play roguelike experience with a well-integrated story
• Metal Gear Survive — When Brad is wrong he is wrong, but with MGS he was very right. Best Metal Gear game outside of MGSV.
• Human Fall Flat — Best played with others, I don’t think I’ve laughed as hard in my life as I have playing this game. Pure joyous multiplayer anarchy. The developers have continued to support the game with new levels.
• Gears 5 — I wrote a recent review and it’s already out of date since the new campaign expansion dropped — the developers haven’t stopped updating. Exceptional game.
• PUBG — I’ve finally slowed down on playing this one, but it still has frequent, excellent updates. With new people starting on maps mainly filled with bots, this is the best time for inexperienced players to get in.
• State of Decay 2 – I loved SoD a great deal, but kept my love for it low-key because I worked on it. SoD2 sort of came and went and then came back again, thanks to long-haul support for the title and new stuff being added constantly. Probably the best zombie survival out there.

…And now for my official Top Ten of 2020!

10> Tell Me Why Win 10, Xbox One, Xbox Series

I’m scared that DontNod are going to “do a Telltale” and run out of steam with their story/adventure titles. However, they continue to put out good and varied work. Tell Me Why follows twins reuniting after ten years as the brother returns from time served for killing their mother in self-defense. Dia Lacina wrote a great article about how ‘boring’ the portrayal of the characters are, but I found the mundanity of the interactions exactly what I wanted from this slow, tender story of familial reconciliation. Like the Before series of films by Richard Linklater, it’s the intimacy and honesty of the dialogue that kept me coming back, especially in a year devoid of close human contact.

9> The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope PC, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series * GameCritics review here

Little Hope is very much about who you play it with. It’s a horror game primarily, but picking up to five people to play with elevates some of the narrative shortcomings. Does your friend decide to have your character shot? Maybe! Does your girlfriend panic and get people murdered? Yes, and it imitates horror movies perfectly. Our official review says the ending is awful but I feel like it might be one of those cases where the choices made beforehand will make a difference in terms of impact.

8> Ring Fit Adventure Switch

I lost my ability to work out in a serious way this year, and Ring Fit came along as a good intermediate. Combining workouts with a levelling system, skills, potions and more was the perfect thing for me and my partner. We’ve been working to motivate each other with this stupid flexible ring and going from strength to strength. Literally.  

7> Windbound PC, Stadia, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series * Gamecritics review here

I actually had to delay my writeup for this top ten to see if I encountered some of the complaints in our review. I am happy to say that most of what Daniel took issue with is no longer present, or has been balanced since then. Windbound ended up being a deeply calming game about sailing a makeshift craft from one island to another, finding food and crafting items. For those interested in only that aspect there’s a non-roguelike option, but I was happy to die and start again from scratch just to get the wind behind my sails.

6> Rogue Company PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series * Gamecritics review here

A third-person spin on CS:GO but with special powers, Rogue Company is slickly made — it’s quick to get into and easy to enjoy, but with plenty of depth to keep coming back to. Now that it’s gone free-to-play and has a full suite of cross-platform connectivity across every console and PC, there’s never been a better time to jump in. Support also seems to be ongoing with a new character released only a few weeks ago. This is the perfect comfort food for me, and I’m still playing as we move into the new year.

5> West of Dead PC, Mac, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series * Gamecritics review here

An isometric roguelike with a strong visual style, a great musical delivery, and a solid vocal delivery from Ron Perlman. It plays quite differently from other roguelikes, and although there are a few things that could be improved, it remains a standout in a year full of strong roguelikes.

4> Undermine PC, Mac, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X * Gamecritics review here

A top-down roguelike with a delightful ‘one more go’ quality to it. The thing that had me most engrossed was the feedback of the pickaxe throw and the fact that the game was keen to never punish the player for exploring and using consumables. Fine-tuned to within an inch of its life Undermine may not get the same dedicated fanbase as Hades, but deserves it.

3>Beyond Blue iOS, PC, Mac, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series * Gamecritics review here

One of my highest-rated games this year. A love letter to the ocean and the creatures that live in it, Beyond Blue is a game I wish more people were talking about. It’s an incredibly peaceful experience that was pretty much everything I wanted.

2> Spaceland PC, Mac, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series * Gamecritics review here

I linked Brad’s review to Spaceland because I was starting to feel a little vain linking to my own reviews, and also he gave it a higher score than I did. Spaceland is economic with its level design and characters, but that’s because every single one of them is fantastic. 28 levels of pure turn-based tactics perfection with characters that will be make playthroughs significant and divergent. I look forward to whatever the developers do next, and if people are looking for an underrated, compact turn-based game reminiscent of Incubation, then look no further.

1> Fast & Furious: Crossroads PC, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series * Gamecritics review here

As Garth Marenghi once said: “I know writers who use subtext, and they’re all cowards”.

Fast & Furious: Crossroads is as dunderheaded as the series that it is seeking to emulate, it wouldn’t know subtext if it was injected full of NOS, and I love it for that. What impressed me is that the voice directors/producers attempted to deliver meaningful performances in a game that should have been an ‘also ran’, and they went above and beyond — I actually hope to see some of the characters make it into the mainstream films to continue their stories. In the same way that I think that Beyond Blue understood what made underwater exploration tantalizing, I think Slightly Mad Studios understood what people are looking for from a game about Dominic Toretto and his family. Mechanically shaky in places, but spiritually perfect — if I thought our editor would have let me get away with a 10/10 score, I would have gone for it.

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HIGH Canny game design.

LOW The challenge, or lack thereof.

WTF Even as a tribute to Diablo, it didn’t need to actually quote it.

I do like a good aesthetic, so I was instantly fond of Book of Demons as its cardboard cut-out look reminded me of playing elaborate, incomprehensible paper games during childhood. Fortunately Book of Demons eschews my childish obtuseness for accessibility.

An adventurer (a warrior at first, but a rogue and mage become available later) returns to their town to find a demon causing trouble. Naturally, the player has to go into a nearby dungeon under the local cathedral and murder everything.

Book of Demons is an isometric dungeon crawler in which the player is limited to fixed paths while monsters roam freely. The player’s character will auto-attack slowly once enemies are in range, and the player can choose to hold down an attack button to speed attacking up.

The character has three item slots to house potions, spells and passive abilities and the player is free to customize them and expand the number of slots as the game progresses. These slots can hold potions and spells with charges that can be replenished, or passive abilities that ‘lock’ portions of the player’s mana but offer constantly-active effects. This system leads to a good amount of flexibility in character build, and I chose defensive abilities that allowed me to take hits and soak up damage, along with a passive that increased the number of enemies I could hit at the same time.

Combat gains a bit of complication with enemy types that are immune to attacks until their shields are broken, enemies that can’t be hit too quickly, others that explode when close, or those more easily killed with different types of damage. However, things never get too complex and in terms of input, the action is limited to two buttons — a nice touch.

In addition, there are a lot of details like this to appreciate. Things like visual indicators on the floor to tell a player where they’ve been and whether they’ve fought every monster and collected every reward in that area, pressing a button to be instantly transported to the exit when a floor is cleared out, and being allowed to set the length of a dungeon run based on how much time I want to put in during a session. At every turn, the developer seems to aim for making Book of Demons as accommodating to a beginner as possible, and really benefits from it.

While this design and all of its features are great, I think my real grumble here is that, at the end of the day, Book of Demons is just another dungeon crawler. Players who haven’t been through a dozen of these will likely be far more excited about it than I was — and this really isn’t a knock on the game itself — but after playing so many of these, there isn’t enough to make this one stand out in the genre other than the accessibility and friendliness to newcomers.

Book of Demons isn’t likely to hold the attention of hardcore dungeon crawl enthusiasts or those who don’t care for loot-heavy titles like this one. However, players who are new to this style of game or those looking for something on the simpler side would be well-served to check this one out.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Think Trunk and published by 505 Games. It is currently available on iOS, Mac, PC, PS4, and XBO. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBO-X. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood and Violence. The game is hardly deserving of a teen rating — the blood splatters that appear when a character gets hit are rendered as paper and don’t look particularly gruesome, there is no real swearing and all the enemies are made out of paper and look non-human.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.  

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are a couple of moments that are tough without sound — some button prompts appear offscreen as enemies cast abilities, which is a little challenging on harder difficulties. Text cannot be resized, and the colors cannot be changed.

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

The post Book Of Demons Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The art style.

LOW The UI.

WTF The love of pumpkins.

Wartile is a strategy title attempting to do something different with the turn-based template by looking like something that should be turn based, while not actually being that thing, and also including a card-based element to boot. The approach is refreshing in a certain sense, but the end result isn’t as engaging as it might appear at first glance.

Wartile tells the story of a Viking village worried that they’ve fallen out of favor with the gods, so they send two warriors to sacrifice a goat. From there the two encounter aggressive Norse men, demons, witches and the like as they dig deeper into why their people have been forsaken.

Each level is beautifully rendered as a hex-based boardgame. When not in combat, moving characters (which look like miniatures mounted on bases) and performing actions is more or less a standard turn-based affair. However, once characters enter combat, a timer appears and controls how often a character can move. The pieces auto-attack enemies near them, and it’s up to the player to manage special abilities. Visually, it’s like watching a match of speed chess as the pieces trundle around and engage with each other in quasi-real time.

As in most miniature games of the kind that Wartile resembles, height differences and positioning matters, so there’s often a fair bit of jostling on the player’s part to find the most advantageous spot for each figurine, and higher ground is usually the wisest place to be. There are also a few other elements that allow the player to sway the game in their favor.

Each unit has a choice of special abilities that can be used regularly – things like stunning an opponent, drawing all units’ attention, or buffing all allies. And, as mentioned, there’s a card-based system as well – temporary cards can boost abilities, and in addition, there are other cards that can be bought with in-game currency and used to provide even more variety in support. On top of all this, there’s a leveling-up system for the units, gear to be bought or found, and higher-level challenges as the player’s group increases in capability.

So far, all the boxes necessary to create a solid game seem to be ticked, but Wartile just never comes together.

In large part, the combat struggles to find its own identity in a way that feels meaningful. Although it tries to incorporate a realtime element, it lacks the ‘plate spinning’ urgency of a true Real-Time Strategy while also sacrificing the measured, tense thoughtfulness of a deeper Turn-Based Strat. 

It can occasionally be exciting to see units scramble for position and hit anything that goes near them – they auto-attack, remember – but for a lot of the time, it was just me waiting for my pieces to cut through enemies while I occasionally popped a buff. There was one interesting horde-inspired map where my team was holding out against waves of enemies that had me moving back and forth trying to hold the best position, but that was a rare one-off when the mechanics were working in tandem with the level design to create something interesting. The majority of play, however, is walking along a linear path, triggering an encounter and then waiting to win.

Wartile also extends its length by reusing maps, which didn’t help the feeling that I was just drumming my fingers waiting for each encounter to be over.

Finally (and this might  seem to be a bit nitpicky) the UI design isn’t up to the standard set by the rest of the presentation. The text and box cut-outs look like placeholders, and text is often quite small. It might look alright played close to a computer screen, but when sitting on a couch several feet away, it’s hard to read.

It is a massive shame to feel like I can’t enthusiastically endorse Wartile – it has a winning visual style and the seed of a novel idea, but that seed doesn’t bear a fully-formed fruit.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Playwood Project and published by DECK13 Spotlight. It is currently available on PC, PS4, and XBO. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher, reviewed on the XBO-X. Approximately 9 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ and contains Fantasy Violence. This game features characters portrayed as miniature figurines. Animation is minimal and there’s no gore, salty language or sexual content.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game is fully playable without sound. Text cannot be resized (it’s small!) nor can the color be changed.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. For a bit I thought there was no controls screen (don’t hide it in one specific menu guys!).

The post Wartile Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The worldbuilding.

LOW The stories.

WTF That was a werewolf/BDSM myth I didn’t want…

I’ve not given text adventures much time over the years and I must admit to having incredibly limited knowledge of the genre, which is unfortunate for Coffee Talk as I feel less qualified to review. Are the things I don’t like about the game, a staple of its type, or is this a badly executed version of it?

Coffee Talk is an interactive novel at heart, with the game presented in expressive pixel art of assorted colorful avatars. Most of it involves reading through text prompts, punctuated by a minigame in which different hot drinks must be mixed. Set in incredibly near-future Seattle, the player takes on the role of a coffee shop owner that stays open late into the night, making chit-chat and delivering delicious drinks upon request. This is a alternate Seattle though, so instead of just humans there are werewolves, orcs, and even entities from outer space gracing the establishment.

Whoever wrote the script shows a deft hand when it comes to imagining what the world would be like if it was inhabited by fantastical creatures. Vampires take on jobs as advertising models for anti-ageing creams, elves are immortal hipster-slackers, and succubi have to deal with the stigma associated with their kind.

The soundtrack by Andrew Jeremy nails the mood of a stylish coffee place, and is pitched at the same kind of people that listen to lofi Hip-Hop beats while they work late on coffee-induced benders. 

But then there are the stories. At first, the humdrum conversations are endearing — a cop with a cold and a father/daughter pair with a complicated relationship (both of whom can turn into cats) are bookended by requests for beverages. The problem I had was that once the premise was set up, I wasn’t that interested in the continuation.

There are multiple endings for each character depending on whether they get the drinks they want or need, but I felt indifferent. For example, Freya is introduced from the outset as a struggling writer using her job as a means to work on what she really wants to do — write a novel. Knowing how hard it is to get a paying writing gig, I found her quite frustrating as I couldn’t help but think she was in a position of privilege that most would envy. Some of the others fare better. The werewolf nurse Gala is particularly interesting, but his denouement is signposted almost from the start.

There is a semi-interesting turn at the end of the game with some meta commentary which might intrigue some, but I found it a little twee.

The part of Coffee Talk I enjoyed the most was the Endless mode available in the main menu. This mode takes the drink mixing/making and spins it out as a timed challenge mode. Each successful drink adds time, and the longer it lasts, the more obtuse the clients’ demands get. I would have happily played a fleshed-out version of that as a roguelike for hours, but sadly, it was only designed as a slight diversion.

I am very much not the target audience for Coffee Talk and I think that fans of interactive fiction may enjoy this quite a bit, but for me, the formulaic stories betray the strong world building.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Toge Productions and published by Toge Productions. It is currently available on Mac, PC, PS4, Switch, and XBO-X. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBO-X. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T. The game deals with mature themes, such as sexual relationships, abuse and drug use. There is almost no violence but some kids might find the werewolf frightening. The game earns its Teen rating.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game is fully playable without sound. Text size cannot be altered and the colour of it cannot be changed.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. There is no screenshot of the controls. The left stick moves around around the screen options, the A button confirms selections, the B button cancels options, the RB button fast forwards through dialogue

The post Coffee Talk (XBO) Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

AJ Small

It’s a safe bet that anyone who mentions Disintegration will likely mention Halo in the next sentence due to the developer’s history with that franchise, and it’s probably why people are paying attention to this game. Anyone being honest, though, will then mention that this title (at least in the closed beta) has more in common with Overwatch.

Disintegration is a first-person shooter/squad command hybrid, and in the closed beta that ran on January 28-29, I was able to play two game types: Zone Control and Retrieval.

Zone Control requires a team of 5 players to control as many points (of three available) as possible over time, and Retrieval requires people to capture a device and then fight to reach a control point. Conversely, the the defending team aims to stop them.

Disintegration has the player directly controlling a gravcycle — basically a flying hovercraft — and commanding ground units for extra firepower and abilities. Each gravcycle has its own special strengths and weaknesses. The “King’s Guard” model can generate area-of-effect healing, while the “Warhedz” cycle can fire a short-range volley of grenades, suck up a great deal of damage and wields a charged beam.

The idea here is to balance out a team, use the ground units efficiently and work together to control areas, or push forward and pressure the opponents.

My personal experience in the beta was limited by a small number of available players and a lack of communication since no one spoke. Without the ability to chat, it was hard to gauge how good certain classes worked together. However, what I can speak to are how the two Unique Selling Points don’t seem like winning ones.

The gravcycles themselves felt clumsy, jittery and unreliable in tight moments. Time-to-kill is quite long and I found myself wishing I had something more tactile and responsive. The units, with my limited understanding, are a fiddly distraction only useful to do things my cycle couldn’t, like picking things up in Retrieval, or something as simple as taking a bullet aimed for me. There’s potential for the tactics to become deeper and clearer, but it wasn’t present yet in this beta.

Is it good? From my beta experience, I didn’t find it to be bad, but I don’t think it’s for me, so I hope that the singleplayer campaign will offer something for those who go it alone.

Dan Weissenberger

Like AJ, I also spent some time playing Disintegration‘s recent closed beta. Unfortunately, I find myself agreeing with most of AJ’s complaints, and only differ in my response to the gravcycle combat.

Perhaps this can be attributed to my longtime love of arcade-influenced flight sims, but I found the cycles a pleasure to pilot. After making it through the well-constructed training sim, I was able to zip through the Disintegration‘s urban canyons quickly and efficiently, dodging between buildings to avoid incoming fire, and popping up broadside of enemies to quickly wipe them out. So long as I was able to focus on the ship-to-ship combat, I had a great time with Disintegration.

More’s the pity, then, that the game wants players to focus on managing the team of droids that follow them around the map like needy puppies, ordering them to complete objectives as they clash with other robots. Not only does this not work in practice, I’m not entirely clear what the idea behind it was. If the robots acted with any kind of autonomy and the player was only responsible for big picture strategizing — i.e. set them to guard, or choose which path to the target they should take — then I could see this working. However, players are asked to micromanage basically everything the robots do.

The droids need to be told where to run, which enemies to attack, and even exactly when and where to use their special attacks. Disintegration is basically asking a gravcyle pilot to also play an RTS while in the middle of a dogfight.

I could see this kind of gameplay working in a singleplayer campaign if players could press a button to slow time and enter a ‘command mode’ to issue orders before jumping back into the fray, but during a fast-paced hovership battle, this added gameplay element is nothing but a distraction and I found myself playing more effectively when I ignored my ground troops except when they were required for an objective.

There’s a strong core to Disintegration. Zipping around piles of scrap and past crumbling buildings is a pleasure, and there’s a type of hovership for every playstyle. With a little work and tuning, the devs might end up with a decently-thrilling solo adventure rather than the muddled multiplayer experience they’re currently offering.

Disclosure: GameCritics was provided closed beta codes for the purposes of this preview.

The post Disintegration Preview (Closed Beta) appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH A smart story in a tight framework.

LOW The acting.

WTF Finding sex offenders is pretty easy on the internet.

Snooping through the stuff of others has always contained a certain allure – as long as RPGs have existed, rifling through private info has been almost as crucial as leveling up. Recent media has taken this idea and added a modern twist.

For example, games such as Life is Strange and Her Story have the player rooting through personal effects to find deeper meanings. Recent films like Searching and Unfriended explore how this desire intersects with technology that impacts our day-to-day lives. Fitting roughly in the center of this Venn Diagram is Simulacra – a horror-themed FMV game centered around the player finding a mobile phone.

The first thing witnessed upon unlocking the phone is disturbing corruption followed by a garbled message from a woman named Anna, owner of the phone, that pleads for help.

The entirety of the story is spent interacting with an interface that simulates the phone itself by sorting through Anna’s emails, recovering videos from cloud servers, answering private messages and dabbling in her social media accounts as a means of trying to figure out what happened to her.

Things are at their best when playing voyeuristic detective. For example, one must figure out whether someone they’re texting is a sexual predator. I deduced his name and age from his “Spark” (read: Tinder) profile, then after a moment of inspiration I went to his “Jabbr” (a faux-Twitter) account and stalked his thread until I found out he was looking for a dentist in the area and then pinned down where he was from. After that, I was able to look him up on a sex offenders database – or at least, someone that fit his description. In another situation, I learned the answer to one of Anna’s security questions by texting her best friend and pretending to be her – morally dubious, but utterly engaging.

Simulacra’s weaker parts are very gamey and involve solving puzzles to restore images and rearranging words to form sentences on ‘corrupt’ Snapchat-like messages. The game spends so much time trying to immerse the player in the idea that they are the person holding the phone that this does not feel congruent with the rest of the experience.

Interspersed between these highs and lows are some decent jumpscares. As the player browses through this woman’s past, present, and possible future, messed-up images and harsh sounds will appear. The distance between these unsettling moments was long enough that I had almost forgotten them and relaxed before the next one came, so they frequently caught me out. They also tie into the plot, so I won’t say more.

Unfortunately, the acting, writing, and controls in Simulacra are all let-downs.

The script itself is a tough sell at first – it was hard to have empathy for Anna or the two men that I interacted with (via the phone) the most because Anna is self-obsessed, Greg is kind of an asshole, and Taylor is just plain weird. However, as the story progressed that lack of connection to the characters actually played well into the idea that perhaps I shouldn’t trust any party.

In terms of the FMV performances, the actress that plays Anna carries Simulacra with her short, candid recordings, but the rest of the cast come off as enthusiastic but amateurish. The controls, however, are more problematic. The interface was clearly built with real phones in mind, but this doesn’t translate efficiently to a controller. Punching in names on a keypad is generally fine, but it’s far more irritating when doing so under time pressure, for instance.

Despite those issues, Simulacra remains compelling throughout, and the engaging, inventive mystery kept the story buoyant and compelled me to see it through.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Kaigan Games OU and published by Wales Interactive Ltd. It is currently available on iOS, Android, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch, XBO. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBO-X. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Sexual Themes and Strong Language. This game earns its M rating. Apart from the mature themes that involve abuse of a partner, sex and violence, the game also has many moments of jumpscares and horror.

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

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game has subtitles and appears to be fully playable, however there might be some sections involving phone calls where the text moves quickly that might cause struggles. The text cannot be changed in size or color.  

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. There is no screenshot of the controls. The mobile versions will be touch-based, but on the Xbox, Left Stick was used for navigation, A button for confirming various actions, B for cancel, Right Trigger to activate certain context sensitive actions, X button quit the application open at the time, and Y button returned to the ‘Home’ menu of the game.

The post Simulacra Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH A return to form for the series.

LOW Missing some of the quirky weirdness of past installments.

WTF How is that seal so cute with its Midsommar head dress?

The Trine series has had a bumpy ride. After the first two entries built their platforming action on inventive physics-based puzzles in a 2D environment, the devs switched to 3D exploration and garnered some pushback from the fanbase. Those concerns appear to have been resolved for this, the fourth installment.

Trine 4 continues the adventures of Amadeus, Zoya, and Pontius — they’re a wizard, rogue and knight that have been fused together by a freak accident. The player can swap between them at any time, so finishing each level relies on their unique abilities. Amadeus can summon objects to access higher ground and create bridges, Zoya can use her arrows to freeze, set on fire, or tether things together, and Pontius’s brawn and shield deflection is used for combat and light puzzles. In this iteration the trio must track down an errant prince, but everything is not as it seems.

As mentioned, Trine 4 returns to the series’ traditional side-scrolling 2D view, but using lavish 3D models and backgrounds. The visuals are absolutely gorgeous with lush alpine views giving way to dreamlike castles and gloomy burrows.

The gameplay continues to set the player up for platforming puzzles and light combat based on the synergy of the trio’s abilities. The spin this time is that a number of the mechanics are streamlined, while the multiplayer aspects have been expanded. This manifests itself mainly in the way the Wizard controls — previously it was possible to generate malleable objects that led to some lateral solutions, but now the shapes and sizes are predefined. This removes the quirky charm of completely botching a puzzle but still making it through, but at least now the routes (in singleplayer, anyway) feel prescribed.

As for the multiplayer, in Trine 2 having a partner was an exploit of sorts, as it allowed players to take advantage of broken traits and practically fly through levels instead of engaging with the challenges. These loopholes have now been closed, and section feels like it’s meant to whether one, two,  or three players are attempting it. In fact, in some instances adding players feels like increasing the difficulty.

Playing with a partner, there were so many moments where I felt like we hadn’t found the right solution, but a combination of something like bouncing water off of Pontius’s shield onto a platform floated by Amadeus onto a plant at just the right angle would bloom a petal that acted as a step to jump from, or some similar variation. It’s kind of messy and perfect at the same time.

The levels themselves are broken up into bite-sized portions that regularly save, so it’s easy to put Trine 4 down and then pick it back up whenever. It is also, as a whole, a great deal longer than I was expecting. I’m not sure whether this is a good thing, but anyone hanging their hat on the story might find that it drags. On the other hand, those who are in it for the moment-to-moment play will enjoy the elaboration on the series’ basic skills and some real head-scratchers in later areas thanks to abilities like being able to levitate platforms, summon multiple objects, and duplicate shield deflections.

Fans of Trine‘s previous entries may feel like this entry is a bit overfamiliar, but for those coming to the series for the first time, Trine 4 is a good place to start. This sequel might not reinvent its wheel, but in this case that’s not a bad thing.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Frozenbyte and published by Modus Games. It is currently available on PC, PS4, Switch, and XBO. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBO-X. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. 4 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ and contains Fantasy Violence. The game is mild in terms of violence, there are some darker themes but nothing that pre-teens will have a problem with.

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

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game is fully accessible without sound. The text can be adjusted and makes a significant impact on subtitle sizes, fonts colors cannot be changed. No audio cues are needed for play.

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

The post Trine 4 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Looking back at the last two of these I’ve done (2017 & 2018) I realize that I’m sinking into a theme with these intros, so this time I’m not going to do that.

Instead, I’ll just note that it was really interesting for me to look back at each of the games from my list and then mentally review where I was (I’ve lived in three different countries last year) and who I was playing them with while I wrote this. Each of them evoked very different mindsets and emotions based on the climate and the environment at the time.

But first, before the best of the year…

Best trend: Game Pass has been a boon to me as a player. There have been so many games that I was uncertain about (Clustertruck, Outer Wilds, Crackdown 3, Afterparty, My Friend Pedro, Bad North, Hue, World War Z and many more) that Game Pass allowed me to mess around with and, in most cases, really enjoy. Having something that works flawlessly, whether I am in South East Asia, Europe or North America was a godsend after the way Microsoft locked down its film content, and how Nintendo and Sony put a wall around their digital game content. My hope is that Game Pass continues into the next gen of consoles and continues to provide both AAA experiences and indie gems at a reasonable price for consumers, while also inspiring other publishers to do the same. Death to region locking!

Best game from last year that shouldn’t have been released in December, seriously when do reviewers have time to look at it?

Kingdom: Two Crowns PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, Mac

The original Kingdom might be one of my games of the decade, the sequel (in what seems to be a trend for sequels) rolls back the difficulty and makes it a better entry point for newcomers. It also adds two-player splitscreen and makes priorities differ, allowing for more breathing room. As a simple, accessible, side-scrolling RTS with only two inputs, I think it’s close to perfection. 

Runners up: Rival Megagun, Donut County and Mutant: Year Zero

Now, with those out of the way, here are my top ten!

10> Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan PC, PS4, Xbox One

Gamecritics review here

I almost didn’t play this and then ended up looking for a good Halloween title to play with friends. This one takes the format from Until Dawn (horror game based around QTEs and making choices) and then leans into the way people played it — sharing a controller on a couch and looking away when one of the players has to go into a darkened room. I think the anthology approach fits this experience better, and the shorter run time makes the chapter we played feel more like a movie than the very long Until Dawn. The problem I still have with it is that the game wants you to play like you’re the director of a horror movie by conjuring up characters’ grisly demises, but the way it positions you in the game makes you feel like the protagonist — it’s a little too easy to keep everyone alive.

9> Cat Quest II iOS, Android, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One

Gamecritics review here

I came for the cute cats and dogs battling other cute cats and dogs and stayed for the wonderfully relaxing action-RPG dungeon crawling. This game is incredibly smart in how it simplifies loot collection and leveling up, and there aren’t reams of barely-distinguishable gear — instead, finding the same equipment type levels up what you already have. This means less time in menus and more time running around hitting and shooting things. The co-op is great and perfect for someone with a partner, sibling or child that wants to adventure but would like someone’s help.  

8> RICO PS4, PC, Switch, Xbox One

Gamecritics review here

Slow motion, door-kicking action from a first-person perspective. Having 24 minutes to crack a case mean 24 minutes of shooting everything and everyone. Both the singleplayer and splitscreen are worth the time once the game’s rhythm and flow are figured out. That said, while it’s quick to understand, but I have yet to master it.

7> For the King PS4, PC, Switch, Xbox One

Gamecritics review here

One of the gems on Game Pass, it’s a wonderful procedurally-generated RPG/board game hybrid. The singleplayer is good, but it comes into its own when there are 2-3 players taking on each of the characters. There’s also meaningful progression that kept me coming back to try quests with new encounters and new playable classes. It could have used a good tutorial, and maybe a fourth player, but otherwise it was a delightful experience.

6> Void Bastards PC, Mac, Xbox One

Gamecritics review here

I may never forgive Cara Ellison for her review of EDF 2025 (this is a joke) but her writing and vocal deliveries, on Void Bastards would go some way to assuaging my fanboy ego. A first-person shooter with roguelike elements, the game combines horror and a very British sense of humour that suits its art style. I absolutely loved playing it and said that the game does not outstay its welcome, but there is a part of me that wishes that there was just a little more of it to return to.

5> Metal Wolf Chaos XD PS4, PC, Xbox One

Gamecritics review here

Metal Wolf Chaos and I share a long history together. Basically, if I hadn’t introduced the game to two young Canadians I worked with, there’s a good chance it would have remained an interesting curiosity that people like me would order from Japan and pay 130 bucks to own. As such, it was impossible that this HD remake wouldn’t end up on my top ten of the year. That said, I think it holds up with a swarthy charm when it comes to the gameplay, and the story is still solid. The president of the USA gets in a mech and goes stomping across a nutty Japanese vision of what America is, and somehow nails it.

4> Samurai Shodown PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Gamecritics review here

There was a period in my life where I would sit down and immerse myself in a fighter. The last time was over 10 years ago, when I got really into SNK vs Capcom 2 and Samurai Shodown V and I’d pretty much given up on being sucked into another fighter until this year’s Samurai Shodown. Focusing on limited combos and punishing mistakes with devastating single slashes, each match is short and brutal. if a player learns ‘footsies’ (the art of attacking and provoking attacks) they can even make themselves viable at a mid-level without any complex inputs. With this and the new King of Fighters, SNK is making me excited to play fighting games again.

3> Fade to Silence PC, PS4, Xbox One

Gamecritics review here

Back in June, I wrote that this was likely to feature prominently on my top ten list, and I wasn’t wrong. A survival game in the arctic wastes of a post-apocalyptic Earth, it did a good job of putting me in the shoes of a desperate survivor. That desperation wasn’t always intentional, though — some came from the inordinate number of bugs present in the review build. I could talk about all the times I put my controller down and went for a walk instead of screaming at a crash, but I haven’t stopped thinking about Fade to Silence in the last eight months and I hope Black Forest get a chance to expand on what they’ve created here.

2> Vigor PC, Xbox One

Gamecritics preview here

I have a feeling that I’ll go back to Vigor in the New Year and actually write a full review. The preview pretty much covers everything that a reader might need to know, other than the developers messing around with the economy to make people spend real money and that there are now new maps and guns that change the dynamic of the encounters. Otherwise, Vigor is still as good as it was when I previewed it.

In fact, I actually uninstalled Vigor because it got its hooks into me to such a degree that I wasn’t getting enough sleep, I was playing on my lunch break instead of eating, the tension of shoot outs were draining me, and I was having trouble thinking about anything other than the strategy for the next upgrade in my shelter.

Vigor felt all consuming and would probably have been number one if I hadn’t dipped into Game Pass on the next title, which I had heard good things about…

1> Slay the Spire PS4, PC, Switch, Xbox One

Gamecritics review here

In some ways Slay the Spire and Vigor should share the top spot, as I see them completing each other. Vigor is tense and harrowing, whereas this RPG card battler is relaxing and therapeutic — it’s a bit like a tumbler of mellow, warm whiskey by a roaring fire after a treacherous trek through a frozen countryside. What Slay the Spire gets right is that, as a single player card battler, it has no problem with letting me create game-breaking builds, and in some ways it encourages it. I think Brad’s review is right in that sometimes the randomness results in a dud playthrough and can feel a little unfair, but that’s balanced out by the times when I combined my cards to let me block 999 damage against a boss and felt invincible. Incredibly satisfying and endlessly replayable.

The post AJ’s Top 10 of 2019 appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH High-tension multiplayer stakes.

LOW There is only so much my heart can take.

WTF That Spider boss is too realistic.

It’s been an interesting year for multiplayer games with experiences that elicit fear out of the possibility of death, especially on console. DayZ finally came out, PUBG continues to go from strength to strength, Vigor was a blood pressure-raising delight when it came out of early access, and now it’s Crytek’s turn with Hunt: Showdown exiting the Game Preview program after being on PC since 2018.

Hunt is a multiplayer FPS that blends PvE and PvP with roguelike elements and permadeath set in a series of creaky Bayou settings where zombies and monsters hang out in addition to other intrepid hunters.

If that sounds like a handful then the overly-busy UI combined with a control system that is clearly a port of existing PC schemes do little to help with that initial confusion. There are layers upon layers of muddled options to tweak and multiple currencies to contend with. Fortunately, the tutorial does a good job of explaining in-game objectives and setting the (often terrifying) mood.

The map is open-ended and the main objective of play is to kill a monster and harvest it. The secondary objective is to kill a roaming enemy.

Finding a monster requires tracking down three clues placed in the environment. The hunters have a ‘second sight’ ability that highlights the clues in blue, and the larger the blue glow, the closer the player is. Once all three clues are found, the target’s hiding spot can be targeted. Killing it will offer a huge experience boost that can then be spent on unlocking traits like carrying extra gear or extra immunity to poison.

That might sound simple enough, but getting through the swamp and its decaying fishing villages and settlements is complicated by wandering undead – things like half-rotted hellhounds, bloated corpses that secrete poisonous worms, and of course, garden variety ghouls.

…And then there are the human players.

Since Hunt is an online multiplayer game where everyone has the same objectives, players on all sides will be drawn to the same clues and bosses. Knowing that there are other humans in every map adds an extra level of tension as players are rewarded for killing others and, in the beginning, a death means earning only half of the experience earned. Hunt eases the player in ‘gently’, but once a certain threshold is reached, deaths have a more severe penalty – permanent loss of a character and all the traits they’ve accrued.

As a result of this structure, Hunt is hugely tense game impacted by the atmospheric levels and fantastic sound design that accentuates the gunfire, the moans of zombies, and eerie moist sounds in the environment. These sounds are dialed up even further when it’s nighttime on the map and the player has to rely on a limited field of view to navigate. Every crunch of glass and every murder of crows scattering suggests someone around the corner with violence in their hearts. It is isolating and terrifying in equal measure.

In addition to the audio, the gun handling received a lot of attention and it feels satisfyingly precise in typical Crytek fashion – the recoil and punch of the handguns is particularly gratifying, and the shotguns drop creepers with a wallop. When those guns hit, they hit.

Hunt: Showdown‘s map is big, and there are abundant opportunities for emergent stories to happen when players are immersed in the experience.

In one match I was ambushed by a player, and I had to run across a bridge to avoid their fire. Before they could give chase I heard groaning. When I looked back, I saw a fire-wielding zombie attacking my attacker and forcing them to engage. I circled around, waited for the fight to end, and then shot the player in the back and collected their gear.

During a co-op mission with a partner, we found a spider boss inside a ruined two story building. As we were both trying to summon the courage to go in and confront the skittering horror, two other players snuck up behind us. One took out my teammate, and the other climbed onto the roof. As we traded shots, the local threats were alerted by the noise and converged on our position. I barely got away, and felt like I was on the verge of death the entire time.

Despite a healthy amount of competition roughly covering the same territory, Hunt: Showdown manages to find its own fresh take. It’s not as polished as it should be and the interface needs work, but as an experience it carves a niche for itself within this blossoming genre.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Crytek and published by Koch Media. It is currently available on PS4, XBO, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBO-X. There is no single player mode. 12 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore and Violence.The M rating is very justified — all the monsters are suitably repellent looking, the violence is explicit, and the setting is creepy. This is not suitable for young teens.  

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

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This is a game that will be incredibly difficult to play without sound. A lot of things like distant gunshots have no visual indications, and it can be hard to tell where incoming fire is coming from. Text size cannot be adjusted and there are no font color choices. This game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Certain functions are remappable and the game has four different controller configurations.

The post Hunt: Showdown Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.