HIGH Ricocheting through the last 20% of “Weave” with sparks flying en route to a record time.

LOW The overly technical and slow “Palm” track.

WTF It is insanely goofy that the sharpest turns are the easiest.

The simplest kind of racing comes in the form of the slot car. There’s no drafting, no steering, no brakes — just a grooved track and a way to go faster. Little Laps leans into this simplicity. There’s no story, no characters, and little customization, just 18 tracks (all accessible immediately) and 15 cars (unlocked by getting achievements) run by two buttons, one to go faster and the other to restart.

Most of those tracks are attractive, if somewhat lacking in background detail. The colors occasionally grate on the eyes, however, especially in the track labeled “Night”. The various cars amount to being just skins, as there are no differences in handling — it’s a slot racer — or acceleration, which is universally sluggish.

The key quirk of Little Laps is that velocity entering the curve doesn’t matter. As my parents know well, a slot car will take off into the air if it hits a hairpin too fast, but in Little Laps any curve can be passed safely as long as the accelerator isn’t touched while the car is turning.

An amusing consequence of this feature is that it inverts expectations about handling. Gentler curves become dangerous places where it’s easy to keep the accelerator down a fraction of a second too long. Hairpins become prime opportunities to gain speed, since they can tolerate the pedal hitting the metal almost up to the last instant.

When this gets going it looks great. Cars throw off sparks as they drift through absurdly sharp corners and weave automatically through wild S-curves with their tires squealing. An available “best time” shadow provided a yardstick against my own performance and global leaderboards let me see my progress against other gamers.

I enjoyed playing Little Laps in small bites, and it’s well-suited to the rhythm of making a few quick attempts at a record time, possibly shaving a few tenths of a second off this lap. In case of a wipeout, I can just hit the reset button and get right back in it.

Or, that’s what one would hope.

The sluggish acceleration rate has another consequence, in that the key to a record lap is entering it with momentum. The first lap, starting from a dead stop, will never produce a record time after the first attempt. As I continued to optimize play, I sometimes found that I needed a second lap to get up enough entry speed to have a chance at a record.

This means that a player isn’t really right back in the action after a wreck. Each restart entails a sluggish first lap before there’s any chance at improving time. Sometimes that lap helped me calm down after a stupid mistake, but mostly it felt like a waste.

Worse, that slow initial run doesn’t offer the opportunity to learn anything about timing acceleration for record-lap tries. As I played, I often noticed myself being more conservative than was reasonable (even when I was trying for a record) simply because I wanted to avoid those wasted laps.

That dead start ends up being a real drag on the whole experience, which is a shame. Little Laps is a charming and zippy single-button racer, but in a stripped-down, minimalist experience everything has to be just right and here a major element isn’t.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Conradical Games. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on a home built Windows 11 PC with a single GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card, a Ryzen 7 processor, and 64 GB of RAM. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: As of press time this game has not been rated by the ESRB. It contains nothing worse than a car flying off a racetrack (with no visible wreck damage) and should logically be rated E.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game has no dialogue or story text. I found that the sound of tire squeals was helpful in judging when to let go of the accelerator, and accordingly found it somewhat more difficult to improve my times when I turned off sound.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. By default the space bar serves as the accelerator and R resets the race. Menus require the mouse. On an Xbox controller the A button is the accelerator and Y resets. Note: I found that when using a controller to move through the menus the cursor sometimes got “lost” and I had to back out with the B button.

The post Little Laps Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

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HIGH The story feels both boundless and handcrafted. 

LOW Some reused art assets here and there.

WTF A girl who wears a tomato mask  

I keep asking myself, have I really beaten The Hundred Line?

Sure I’ve completed the story — I’ve reached the end credits a little under 40 times now, acquiring nearly half of the 100 available endings. But those 60-or-so endings that remain… they vex me, I tell ya. Not only do they make me second-guess whether or not I’ve really completed The Hundred Line in any meaningful sense, but they also make me wonder whether I’ll ever fully conquer something this vast and labyrinthian.

In general, I hate how bloated games have become. I’m just not interested in titles that prioritize endless Content — to me, they feel like a futile and demeaning attempt to numb the player’s brain and senses. The Hundred Line is different, though. Its endless length is filled to the brim with a number of story routes which vary wildly in tone and genre, acting as a veritable index of modern videogame storytelling, and genre storytelling in general. I continue to be entranced by The Hundred Line’s endless possibilities, in awe of its gutsiness and ambition. 

Despite the bizarre turns the story takes over the course of its gargantuan runtime, the setup is (relatively) simple. The protagonist, Takumi Sumino, is living a blissful (yet boring) existence in the Tokyo Residential Complex, a futuristic, sealed-off metropolis. One day, Takumi and his childhood friend Karua are accosted by mysterious, cartoonish alien creatures called ‘Invaders.’ Takumi is then prompted by an equally mysterious robot to use a special power to fight these Invaders.

Afterwards, Takumi is transported to the titular ‘Last Defense Academy,’ a school that seems to stand within the ruins of a devastated Earth. Awaking at the academy with the robot, Sirei, and a group of quirky fellow students, Takumi is told they must defend the school for 100 days, protecting ‘something’ within the complex that is ‘critical to humanity’s survival.’ 

It’s difficult to summarize The Hundred Line without spoiling anything, given the ways in which the setup is expanded and twisted throughout the initial playthrough and all subsequent runs (which then allow the player to make choices that drastically alter the course of the story). However, to put it in a nutshell, it largely summed up as a combination of Visual Novel and Turn-Based Tactics.

As The Hundred Line cannonballs through different genres and tones, even plot elements that were initially relegated to the background take on new dimensions of significance and pathos. The characters, who can initially feel like caricatures (a ditzy samurai, a morbid goth girl obsessed with lurid videogames, etc.) acquire additional texture as the player spends more time with them, many acting as a sort of secondary ‘star’ of their very own route. It all feels like staring at a painting from different angles, a ritual that becomes comfortably familiar while still having the capacity to surprise and delight. 

This dizzyingly panoramic effect is increased by the fact that, in many cases, the individual routes feel so distinct that each is like a self-contained story unto itself. Certainly, some routes and some endings feel more like ‘True’ endings and routes than others, but The Hundred Line seems open to the idea that the player should shape their experience, in a manner that can only be accomplished in the medium of videogames. Even if the player decides to move on before clearing all 100 endings, they will undoubtedly find a route that feels like a cathartic stopping point.

The Hundred Line’s gargantuan visual novel story is frequently broken up by tactical RPG sections. Players have a pre-determined number of moves each turn, called ‘AP’ with which they can move any unit as many times as they like. This shared pool of moves is the key to The Hundred Line’s excellent gameplay, enabling its best feature — a sort of Shin Megami Tensei-esque extra turn system. By killing larger enemies, the player can gain AP. Also, every attack contributes towards building a ‘Voltage’ gauge, which, when full, grants the player’s units the ability to launch powerful Area-of-Effect attacks at no AP cost, among other possible effects. 

It’s easy to see how these pieces fit together. Combat revolves around efficiently targeting sets of elite units, gaining Voltage, and looping powerful attacks. Often, the player can burn down a huge wall of units in a single turn, which feels both joyously appropriate from a narrative perspective (defending a lone human outpost from an endless barrage of Invaders) and continuously novel from a gameplay perspective. Even though there are a limited number of enemies in The Hundred Line, the play continues to engage as the challenge to ‘solve’ enemy setups with greater efficiency ramps up. It’s a freeform and highly encouraging form of player experimentation — more like a puzzler than tactical RPG, almost. 

Both the story and the gameplay, in fact, are united in a sort of easygoing, confident attitude — they both welcome the player into a playful garden of limitless variations, inviting them to take their time and experiment with the systems and narrative possibilities at their own pace. Unlike many modern titles, The Hundred Line is huge content-wise because the developers just felt that it should be, and it’s not attempting to hoodwink the player with hours upon hours of empty, padded content. Each writer for The Hundred Line’s numerous arcs clearly had their own vision, each slice feeling like a necessary part of The Hundred Line’s grand mosaic. 

Even if I never completely beat The Hundred Line, even if I’m never able to see what that entire mosaic is supposed to look like, I’m just glad I got to play around in its world for a while. 

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Too Kyo Games and Media.Vision, and published by Aniplex. It is currently available on PC and Switch. Approximately 115 hours were dedicated to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes. 

Parents: according to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, and Violence. The official description reads: This is a role-playing game in which players follow a man recruited to an academy tasked with protecting humanity from destructive invaders. The game contains visual novel elements largely presented as still-screen images and sound effects. Cutscenes sometimes depict instances of violence and blood: characters stabbing themselves with swords as blood erupts from their wounds; a character decapitated off-camera; a knight figure cutting its own throat, resulting in large spurts of blood. Gameplay combat is turn-based, with players selecting movements and attacks from a menu screen to battle colorful demon enemies; players use swords, axes, bats, and fantastical guns to defeat enemies. Some scenes depict/discuss sexual themes: a woman covered in cake imploring a character to eat it off of her while she moans; a character telling players’ character “let me grab them b*obs!” A handful of scenes depict characters partially nude, with hair/arms/weapons covering their breasts; one character is depicted with partially exposed buttocks. The word “f**k” appears in the game.

Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes available. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. All the dialogue (and other essential information) is delivered via subtitles. In addition, there are no essential sound cues within the combat system. Thus, all elements of the game are fully accessible without sound. 

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

The post The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Creative, thought-provoking worldbuilding that I will not soon forget. 

LOW A music-based game that forces players to dodge off beat still feels counter-intuitive. 

WTF Videogamedunkey is in this?? 

When I first started writing for GameCritics, one of the first titles I had the pleasure of reviewing was a strange looking title called Everhood. 

In my time with it, I was flabbergasted by Everhood’s commitment to storytelling, larger than life philosophical themes, and moral ambiguity — all of which have stuck with me. Four years later, when I saw Everhood was receiving a sequel, I jumped at the chance to see what else developers Jordi Roca and Chris Nordgren had up their sleeves. I’m happy to say, Everhood II takes all the successful elements of its predecessor, dials them up to eleven, and creates a superb experience that oozes with personality, comedy, and mystery. 

Everhood II takes its protagonist into a realm past death, riddled with danger and mind-bending realities. The player will befriend an enigmatic raven who encourages them to defeat an entity known as the Mind Dragon in order to escape this perilous dimension. Along the way, the player will travel across space and time, meet zany characters, and make critical decisions that will impact not just their story, but the entire cosmos. 

Though all of this sounds far-fetched, one of Everhood II’s greatest strengths is its cryptic, yet thought-provoking worldbuilding. Each of the realities the protagonist will visit feel lived-in, and are filled with memorable characters. From a battlefield decimated by the war between fruits and vegetables, to a digital circuit board riddled with viruses, exploring each setting without knowing who was truly friend or foe always kept me engaged.  

The main hook at the start is fighting against the initially-overpowered Mind Dragon, and upon the player’s defeat, traveling back to previously-visited worlds that will allow the protagonist to get stronger and more prepared for an inevitable rematch. However, each time a world is revisited, it changes drastically. Whether it’s the passage of 1000 years, or a town that once celebrated you as a hero but has now come to see you as the enemy, the choices made in-game will greatly affect the setting of the next environment, and perhaps the overall arc of the story itself, highly encouraging multiple playthroughs!  

Music-based combat as a concept remains mostly unchanged from the first Everhood. The player is on a five-note grid, and will have to dodge, absorb, and reflect incoming notes from their enemy. Though I found the musical tracks in the first installment to be mildly underwhelming, Everhood 2’s soundtrack is filled with psychedelic tunes that get the blood pumping with synth-based choruses when they’re not perfectly reflecting the personality of the opposing foe. 

However, the main issue I had with the first Everhood‘s battle system remains unchanged here in the sequel. Though the opponent is hurling notes in time with the music, it’s the player’s responsibility to dodge these notes when they arrive, and they’re usually off beat. There were times where I felt it was difficult to fully resonate with the music because I intuitively wanted to press buttons in time with the tunes, but succumbing to this urge would lead to my untimely death.  

Also, for an experience so entangled in its philosophical themes, music isn’t central to the plot, so it begs the question of why this combat system was picked in the first place. 

Apart from my modest frustrations with the combat system and a few too many time-shattering events to keep track of by the time I made it to the endgame, Everhood II is a triumphant follow-up to an already strong title. I will not soon forget the chaotic worlds visited, the eccentric friends made along the way, and the thought-provoking questions raised by my travels through the spirals of time. 

Rating: 8.5 out of 10 

Disclosures: This game is developed by Jordi Roca and Chris Nordgren and published by Foreign Gnomes. It is currently available on Switch and PC. Copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes. 

Parents: This game was rated E+10 by the ESRB, and it contains Fantasy violence and mild blood. Themes of death, conflict, morality, and philosophy are intricately woven into the game’s core. I wouldn’t recommend the title to anyone younger than their early teens. 

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes, but there is an image sensitivity mode for those who might be sensitive to flashing lights or bright colors. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game is fully subtitled. Though the speed of the text can be changed, the size cannot. The game is music-based, and though one could get away with playing it without sound, that lack of audio input adds another level of difficulty to the combat.

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

The post Everhood 2 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Joining the surprisingly robust genre of sci-fi survival games about the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Chernobylite 2 takes the warped-landscape scrounging of the original and supersizes it, putting the player in the role of a mercenary working for an interdimensional colonial exploitation project.

In the original Chernobylite, we learned that the titular mineral, a byproduct of the Chernobyl disaster, had amazing properties which allowed for expanding human potential, creating horrible monsters, opening doorways to other dimensions, and more.

Chernobylite 2 starts the action in one of these alternate dimensions, where the cheap energy that Chernobylite offers has allowed people to build a peaceful utopia. Of course, that utopia is entirely dependent on the continued access to the aforementioned mineral, and when the dimension’s supply runs low, a project is undertaken to travel to other dimensions and raid them for their resources.

The plot kicks off when one of these raids goes horribly wrong and player’s ship crashes, stranding them and the rest of the crew on a world ravaged by the beasts and anomalies Chernobylite creates. Awakening after a stint in suspended animation, it’s up to the player to figure out exactly what happened to their expedition, and hopefully to find some way home — at least, that’s the part featured in the demo. I’d imagine the actual plot is going to feature all sorts of twists and turns, as well as an eventual indictment of interdimensional strip-mining, although that remains to be seen.

While the first Chernobylite focused as much on base management as it did survival, the demo content suggests that Chernobylite 2 is going to hew more in an action-RPG direction.

As the demo begins, players are encouraged to try out three character archetypes — a melee class that clobbers enemies with swords and focuses on parry-based combat, a ranged class that deals largely in firearms, and a mystical class that uses Chernobylite-influenced technology to warp reality. So, a fighter, archer, and mage, basically.

In addition to the combat I encountered, I ran across a few skill-checks — my high agility allowed me to squeeze through a gap keeping me from having to figure out how to open a door, but I lacked the technical knowhow to repair a turret, forcing me to use valuable resources when bizarre creatures attacked during an ersatz tower-defense sequence.

The simplified scavenging system (which has the player scrounging up types of resources en masse without strict inventory limits) is back, and it’s just as good as it was last time. Base building has also returned, with the player forced to gather enough resources to construct facilities before they can use that same pool of resources to upgrade their equipment. Is it largely a trick to give the player an excuse to head back out into the wasteland and fight monsters for scraps? Absolutely, but it’s a good one.

Chernobylite was an occasionally-punishing survival adventure that, from my point of view, made me focus too much on management when what I really wanted was to explore a genuinely fascinating locale. The developers at Mill 51 seem to have heard that complaint and are expanding on all of the best parts of the first game, giving players more of the adventure elements that worked last time, while now downplaying some of the fiddlier elements.

The glimpse I got of Chernobylite 2 offered a creepy and foreboding world full of terrifying foes that were satisfying to fight, and it was compelling enough that I’m excited to get a look at the larger world that the game will offer.

Buy Chernobylite 2: Exclusion Zone (Early Access) – PC

The post PREVIEW: Chernobylite 2: Exclusion Zone appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

We tried reaching out to the publisher through PressEngine and got no response.

We tried reaching out to PressEngine and got no response.

We even sent a DM to one of the people who created PressEngine and got no response.

PressEngine shows us as having received code and we are obligated to cover it, yet we never got a code that worked and could not get in touch with anyone to resolve it.

So, I created this post and submitted it to PressEngine’s automated coverage page as a way of trying to show that we did our due diligence and were unable to proceed.

I guess the lesson here is that limiting and automating all avenues of PR contact might not be the most effective idea.

The post A Game About Digging A Hole appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The ending of the second act.

LOW The final boss.

WTF Getting decimated by a Roomba was not on my 2024 bingo card.

The puzzle-platformer genre is a crowded one. Long the haven of indie developers and home to many luminaries, it takes a lot to stand out here, but A Tale of Paper: Refolded brings a solid core mechanic and strong storytelling to the table. However, uneven execution and a general sense of fragmentation prevent it from living up to its potential.

Divided into three roughly equal parts, each with its own end credits sequence, A Tale of Paper: Refolded could almost be approached as three separate titles. Each portion has the player controlling a small papercraft character exploring a roughly human-sized world. As they progress, they will find origami instructions allowing the character to fold into new forms, thereby granting additional abilities. Most of these are centered around traversal — a frog to jump higher, a paper plane to glide across gaps, an anvil to smash into the ground, and so on. They feel good to control, and there’s a joy in fluidly stringing these abilities together during elaborate platforming segments.

The core conceit is a clever one, and harbors enormous potential. Unfortunately, none of the abilities feel unique or novel — each maps cleanly onto familiar moves from other titles in the genre, and I was rarely surprised or excited. Furthermore, beyond the traversal, A Tale of Paper: Refolded centers heavily around puzzle solving, most of which involves flipping switches to manipulate the environment and don’t incorporate the paper folding mechanic at all. While navigating the environment relies heavily on the
origami form abilities, it feels like a misstep to not incorporate them more holistically and creatively.

Narratively, A Tale of Paper: Refolded finds stronger footing. As mentioned, the campaign’s three sections provide three distinct experiences.

The opening act, with its musty attics, Limbo-inspired spider chase, and shadowy sewers make strong use of horror imagery. The second, taking place in and around a planetarium, has the player bounding across the surface of Mars using sci-fi and fantasy tropes to deliver a much lighter tone. The final act, with its playful floating mechanics and dark, ornate interiors serves as a blending of the first two but brings a new spin through musical theming.

Despite the aesthetic and tonal differences, all three center around themes of loss and yearning. While the narrative is wordless and opaque, the developers are deft visual storytellers and make thoughtful use of the environments and mechanics to reinforce the melancholy emotion. There is a universality to the material that is immediately relatable, and I found many of the moments surprisingly poignant and affecting. By the time I’d reached its third act and the thematic elements started to coalesce, I began to see the larger picture and my initially-chilly disposition started to wane. However, several questionable design decisions ultimately soured the experience.

Up to this point, A Tale of Paper: Refolded had been a relatively frictionless experience — the developers clearly placed emphasis on conveying feeling rather than challenging their players. So imagine my surprise when, at the end of the third act, I encountered a multi-phase, one-hit-kill, hyper-aggressive boss encounter! I fought it no less than 30 times before claiming victory, and its very existence felt completely at odds with the rest of the material.

The other major issue comes in the form of a puzzle about memorizing and matching trumpet sounds. Being required to memorize and repeat nearly identical musical tones caused me to spend a significant portion of playtime on this section. Furthermore, this section would be impossible to complete for Deaf or hard-of-hearing players, as there are no visual components to it.

It should be noted that the third part of A Tale of Paper: Refolded that contains the boss fight and music puzzle is unlocked after completing the main campaign and activated as a separate menu item from the title screen. I’m unsure if this section was intentionally difficult, possibly created as a challenge for players looking for more? But regardless, the difficulty spikes come out of left field and seem counter to the rest of the content.

A Tale of Paper: Refolded is a fractured product, but one that’s not without redeeming qualities — it’s hard for me to call anything that evokes a genuine emotional reaction a failure. The developers are clearly passionate and proud of their work, but the dissolution at its core proves too much of a hurdle for it to fully overcome. In the end, it remains a journey worth taking, but it was a journey that I enjoyed in spite of its mechanical side, rather than because of it.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

— Ryan Nalley

Disclosures: This game is developed by Open House Games and published by Digerati
Distribution. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S, PS5, Switch, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 4 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 E and contains Mild Fantasy
Violence. Generally, this game should be appropriate for all ages. There is some spooky imagery,
but it is of a mild and cartoony nature.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game contains no dialogue, and as such there are no subtitles.
As mentioned in the body of the review, there is a puzzle in the later stages of the game
that requires sound to complete. As of the time of this review, there are no visual cues to
assist, and when playing this section without sound I was unable to solve the puzzle. Therefore, this game is not fully accessible.

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

The post A Tale Of Paper: Refolded Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The cyberpunk aesthetics are on point.

LOW The combat is underwhelming throughout.

WTF Later weapon unlock challenges can be excruciatingly laborious.

Oh no! There’s a great big floating space station known as the Arc, and it’s been taken over by a malfeasant AI virus which wasted no time in swarming it with bloodthirsty robokillers and techno-murderers! This sure sounds like a pickle for anyone swept up in the chaos, but fortunately another nicer AI was able to stay corruption-free and wisely downloaded the player into various clone bodies so that they’re able to fight back and regain control of the Arc. Whew!

ArcRunner plays out as a third-person roguelike shooter. Players are initially ill-prepared for the trials ahead, lacking decent abilities or power-ups to assist them, but each run will allow them to pick up a currency (Nanites) which can be spent to make their character sturdier and deadlier, making the next run just that much easier until they’re able to storm through the entire campaign in a single attempt.

The upgrades tend to be pretty standard fare, but the ability to heal a portion of lost health, doing more base damage with each attack or having a life support system to jolt players back after catching too many bullets still helps tremendously when the difficulty starts ramping up.

There are three classes to choose from in ArcRunner, though one is initially locked behind story progression. The solider class carries an energy shield and a hammer, allowing it to smash groups of bad guys with melee while also taking cover as needed. The ninja is a stealthier option, able to carve up foes with their katana and utilize firearms while zipping around breaking line of sight with an invisibility cloak. The unlockable hacker class can hover around and infect enemies with viruses to suck out their energy, recruit them temporarily or overload their systems.

Once out of the garage and set loose on the deserted, rain-slick streets, it’s time for ArcRunner to get started for real… which is unfortunately where its various weaknesses become apparent.

First off, it’s pretty mediocre action at heart. Enemies spawn in waves and show little sign of intelligence, wobbling around taking potshots while the player typically strafes around, firing back with weak-feeling weapons. Pistols, machine guns, shotguns or even more exotic options like bows and electrical beams coursing through enemy groups… it doesn’t matter what weapons are used, they all lack impact. Sure, enemies blow up and fall over, but it feels curiously empty overall.

Speaking of the enemies themselves, they’re largely forgettable. Drones, grunts, snipers, mechanical ninjas and more… it’s not accurate to say that they all feel the same given that each enemy type has a different approach to combat, but within their given style they never show any signs of shaking things up before shuffling off their robotic coil leading to overly predictable battles.

By default there’s a strange aim-assist option which seems to lock the cursor in place relative to the enemy’s hitbox. In shooters I’ll often use character movement instead of camera movement to strafe foes into my reticle and remove them from existence. ArcRunner‘s default aim-assist makes this borderline impossible, actively pushing the reticule away from the enemy I’m trying to get into my sights. It’s not a huge problem, but only because it can be tweaked or turned off.

ArcRunner also features some of the most redundant bonus challenges I’ve ever seen. Upon entering an area with a special chest, players will be tasked with, say, killing ten enemies with melee attacks in order to open it. Simple to the point of absurdity. Then there’s killing a certain amount of enemies in midair, which ultimately equates to hitting the jump button a nanosecond before shooting them. There are a few challenges that aren’t quite so soul-crushingly dull, like when an orbital cannon unexpectedly shuts down in the docks biome and the player has to avoid incoming asteroids until it powers back up, but for the most part these challenges are inane and do little more than pointlessly slow down the proceedings.

The multiplayer option does improve things somewhat, allowing players to revive fallen companions rather than having them sent straight back to the start of the campaign — a handy thing when the endgame features insta-kill traps such as pitfalls, murderously lethal laser grids and other such delights. I appreciated that another live person was on the field with me, but it’s not enough to save ArcRunner from mediocrity.

Needless to say, I’m disappointed in ArcRunner. The concept is cool, the music isn’t bad and I’m a fan of the visual style, but its overall execution is extremely lacking. It’s not even that it’s bad — it’s just plain boring. From the underwhelming combat system to the slow start of each new run (and the fact that a full run takes around two hours doesn’t help!) it just can’t stack up against the competition, whether we’re talking shooters, roguelikes, or both.

Rating: 3.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Trickjump Games and published by PQube. It is currently available on XBO/X/S, PS4/5, Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. 3 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Violence. The official description is as follows: “This is an action game in which players assume the role of an android trying to cleanse a space station of a virus/infected AI. As players make their way through sections of the space station, they use futuristic blasters, electric rifles, and laser swords to destroy waves of fantasy enemies (e.g., infected drones, robotic sentries). Battles are fast-paced and accompanied by frequent blaster fire, impact sound effects, and explosions. Boss encounters with larger robots depict more protracted combat in arena-style environments.”

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available, although the aiming reticule can be recolored.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. Kinda. There’s no spoken speech to subtitle, but any dialogue is conveyed through text. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. I didn’t find any lack of audio cues that would hinder players. There are enough visual clues to tell where enemies are attacking from, for example. In my view, it’s fully accessible.

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

The post ArcRunner Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH What a journey!

LOW Rough edges during gameplay.

WTF Performance issues? Seriously!?

Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance is a real-time strategy game from Slitherine, the publisher behind recent RTS titles Starship Troopers: Terran Command and turn-based Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector.

Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance begins where everything is about to end; in the wake of Judgment Day. Players assume the role of Lieutenant Alex Church, a commander of a unit falsely marked as deserters by superiors called the Founders. The Founders are what remains of the U.S military after the events of Judgment Day and the story follows Church in his attempt to gather scattered human resistance groups under a single banner while trying to clear his name, with the ultimate goal of getting back to fighting the real enemy.

The story is the most rooted and well-worked part of the game. Not only is the setting — the very first days of resistance against the machines’ takeover — something never experienced before in the Terminator franchise, but Defiance also sheds light on the events that led to the creation of the resistance forces and other factions that were never previously explored. Players’ decisions to make allies or enemies of these factions will also have lasting effects in the story during later missions.

In terms of gameplay, Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance plays more like a real-time tactics game than a Real-Time Strategy, as there are two phases: preparation and deployment.

During the preparation phase, there’s a map of the world with various cities and faction bases to visit. From here, players manage their army or choose the next mission via two main resources. The first, “Provisions”, is consumed by the army when it moves around the world. The bigger the army, the more provisions it consumes daily. The other resource is “Goodwill” which acts as in-game currency to be spent on weapons, equipment, machinery, or hiring new military personnel.

With this in mind, the economy of Defiance is based on finding a balance between having enough provisions to keep the army supplied and then acquiring more advanced units to keep up with the pace of combat. While provisions can be bought with Goodwill Points, Goodwill Points can only be acquired by completing missions. This is where the economy gets flatlined because there’s no way for the player to calculate the income of Goodwill Points or maintain a constant influx of this vital resource.

In most RTS-likes, the main currency can be acquired through generation points (mines, etc.) or a trading system (selling harvested resources, and so on) but in Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance, if all the Goodwill Points are spent at some point, players can’t expand the army and must either finish the next mission with the same units and equipment or return to the beginning of the preparation phase and work a solution out with what little Goodwill Points they’ve got at that time. The lack of a base building/unit production mechanism coupled with the problematic economic cycle is the greatest enemy of the game, far deadlier than a swarm of T-800s.

In the deployment phase, players can control ranged units and vehicles. Some units, like snipers, are best at dealing with infantry while others such as rocket launcher squads are great at taking care of armored vehicles. Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance tries to have a realistic approach toward combat in that all units and vehicles have a limited supply of ammo and fuel, requiring players to manage their supplies even behind enemy lines. When the ammo or fuel of a unit is depleted, they can no longer engage with the enemy or move until they’re resupplied by ammo/fuel trucks. In contrast to the problematic economy, this feature is clever, and adds a deeper strategic layer by requiring constant awareness of not only the threats imposed by the enemy, but potential disruptions caused by mismanagement of supplies.

On the other hand, Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance trips up again, this time on a smaller scale. The player is able to issue commands to units. For example, infantry can go to prone for reduced visibility, and most units are equipped with kit like smoke bombs or EMP grenades. While the idea behind these mechanisms is a nice one, the execution is confusing.

For example, selecting a specific squad in the heat of the battle and giving them special orders is difficult because of how packed the friendly infantry units are, as they tend to stand next to each other. Even if a specific formation is selected for a group, that formation is lost when the units move to a new location.

Other problems I had during my time with Defiance were in regards to its technical side. Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance suffers heavily from performance issues, especially in the final mission. Aside from long loading screens, even my RTX 4080 couldn’t run it in constant 60FPS, and it frequently dropped below 30FPS in more populated areas. Unit pathfinding is also troublesome. In some instances, single individuals from a unit fail to follow the same path as their fellow squad members and fall behind. In other instances, units are obscured by landmarks such as bridges or skyscrapers, and can’t be directly selected.

Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance is Slitherine studio’s first foray into developing an RTS-style title, so keeping that in mind (while hoping for future patches) does make me inclined towards giving them some leeway on the irritations. So, while it definitely has some rough edges in terms of gameplay, the narrative foundations and concepts are strong — on that basis alone, I think this is an easy recommend to Terminator fans and those looking for an RTS campaign with a few twists.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Slitherine. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via Publisher and 25 hours were dedicated to the single-player campaign. The game was completed. There are multiplayer options available.

Parents: This game has no ESRB rating. It contains mild language. It contains mild language and some violence. Robots and humans fight and kill each other in the game, but there’s no blood or gore.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can’t be altered or resized. There are some necessary audio cues in the game such as sounds made by each enemy unit that are not subtitled. The game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Controls can be remapped.

The post Terminator: Dark Fate — Defiance Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Disclosure: This is an article written and released by Ubisoft, and sent to GameCritics via Ubisoft PR. While we don’t usually run PR releases, given its focus on accessibility and our lifelong dedication to same, we’re happy to share this information. The article can be seen in its original format here.

Star Wars Outlaws is coming to Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC via Ubisoft Connect on August 30 (or on August 27 for Ubisoft+ Premium subscribers and owners of the Gold Edition or Ultimate Edition, which you can preorder now.) This open-world Star Wars game lets you play as cunning scoundrel Kay Vess, who, along with her loyal companion Nix, becomes one of the galaxy’s most wanted after a job gone wrong and must fight, steal, and outwit her way through the Outer Rim’s criminal syndicates.  The Star Wars Outlaws development team, led by Massive Entertainment* in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games, is providing a first look at some of the accessibility features that will be available to players.  

To find out more about accessibility in Star Wars Outlaws, we spoke with Audio Director Simon Koudriavtsev at Massive Entertainment, Lead Gameplay Designer Fredrik Thylander at Massive Entertainment, and Presentation Director Damien Belleville at Ubisoft Annecy.  

What was your approach to accessibility on Star Wars Outlaws? 

Damien Belleville: Star Wars is for everyone, so we tried to design the game in a way that as many people as possible can enjoy. 

From our experiences on previous games we already had some clear goals from the very start of development, and were able to tie those in with the creative vision for the game. We built upon them through collaboration across disciplines, and by learning directly from players with disabilities through workshops, specialist external consultants, and user research.    

We worked to ensure that aspects of our gameplay, audio, visuals and interface were as accessible as possible by default, but being a game with several overlapping gameplay styles and features, it was not always possible to come up with a one-size-fits-all solution. That’s why, from the very beginning, we worked to include a lot of options for the player to tinker with, making sure that they can tailor the experience to their tastes or needs as much as possible.  

For example, based on your needs (or how immersive you like your games) you can edit the player guidance by putting markers in the world, in the compass, or a mix of both. If some gameplay beats require precise inputs and that’s not your strong suit? No problem: You can tweak their difficulty and required precision, or turn them off altogether. If you’re having trouble reading or navigating the world, you can recolor some textures or lights in game, or you can enable configurable gameplay high-contrast modes that allow players with a wide variety of visual impairments to enjoy the game. Our subtitling system is also something that we’ve put a lot of work into, and subtitles are on by default, but if there is some aspect of what is shown or how it’s presented that you would like to customize, then you can do that too.  

We really tried to cater to as many people as possible to ensure that players could enjoy Star Wars Outlaws in a way that’s comfortable for them.   

Audio descriptions for cinematics are a major accessibility feature in Star Wars Outlaws, providing narrated tracks to describe to the player what is happening in cinematics. Who is this feature intended for, and what was the production process like? 

Simon Koudriavtsev: Audio descriptions for cinematics were identified as one of the most sought-after features during an accessibility workshop we had during development. Star Wars Outlaws will be the first Ubisoft game, and among the very first titles in the industry, to support this feature.     

Audio descriptions are an optional extra narration track describing what is happening visually on screen. It can easily be enabled in the audio settings menu, and the volume will be adjustable by the user. It can be used by a wide range of people, from situational reasons like not missing out on what’s happening if you have to look away from the screen for a moment, to making it more accessible to people with low vision or people with some cognitive disabilities who may benefit from having the action described as well as shown. While the gameplay isn’t fully accessible to people without sight, the audio descriptions may be useful to any blind players who are choosing to play with sighted assistance..    

The production process was essentially a very close collaboration with a company called Descriptive Video Works. They assisted us in casting a great voice actor, provided description scripts for us to review, and after approval, recorded the narration based on videos that we sent over.   

Tell us more about the user interface in the game – how adjustable are the menus, font size, contrast, and other UI features? 

Damien Belleville: We tried to build the game with the least obtrusive UI possible. That being said, we didn’t want that to happen at the detriment of accessibility.  

That’s why, by default, the menu structure is built with a simple but deep hierarchy, allowing each screen to show just the right amount of information with clear purpose, making sure we don’t have to write too many things in too small or too cluttered a manner. Our menu navigation is also based not just on color, but mostly on luminosity, so much so that you could even interact with and understand the menus if they were in black and white. 

Palette-wise, the colors we picked are accessible to common forms of colorblindness by default. However, you also have access to a wide range of parameters and presets to make sure the game stays readable if you need to tweak it further to meet your needs.  

Regarding the HUD, you can opt in for stronger backgrounds behind elements to make sure you can get optimal contrast. You can also customize the layout and what appears – for instance you can hide or show controller layout reminders, have a center-screen dot, or have markers appear in-world, on the compass or a mix of both.  

There are also three sizes of text you can choose from, ranging from smaller fonts if you’re playing very close to your screen, to huge ones if reading feels more comfortable that way. You can also swap the most “decorative” typeface to a super-readable one if preferred.

Finally, let’s talk about gameplay. Star Wars Outlaws features multiple forms of gameplay with different controls for exploration, stealth, combat, flying a ship, and riding a speeder. What assist features have you included that specifically address each of these types of gameplay? 

Fredrik Thylander: We want Star Wars Outlaws to be an accessible and intuitive game across all the different types of adventures, vehicles, and experiences players will encounter across the Outer Rim, so ease of use and accessibility were at the forefront of all control layout decisions that we made.

Firstly, for the speeder, we have made sure that the controls are intuitive for anyone who has played a driving game, with throttle and steering where you would expect them. On PC, we support both mouse and keyboard steering, or even switching to a controller when using the speeder.  

For space, we knew that the challenge was greater due to the freedom of movement, and our approach to making this as intuitive as possible was inspired by Star Wars films: Use a horizon. We always help orient the player to return to a comfortable upright direction, and don’t require the separate use of yaw, pitch, and roll that one would find in a simulation, but rather let the players intuitively point the ship where they want it to go, and it will perform the actions on screen to achieve that. This means it plays very similarly to the boots-on-ground character controls. There are of course separate inputs available for manually rolling the ship should the player wish to do so. Likewise, players that want a more freeform flight experience can turn off the horizon auto-alignment.  

On top of that, we have assists that:  

• Help the speeder, Kay, and the ship avoid obstacles rather than get caught on them if they snag on objects they pass.  
• Help steer the ship to stay on target in pursuit mode (left trigger) when trying to shoot at enemy ships, while still requiring the player to adjust the targeting to ensure the blasters hit.  
• Aim assist for the blaster on a controller. In fact, this feature also helps Kay stay on target when free-firing (not aiming down sights) in a way that lets her fight in a more characteristic scoundrel run-and-gun style.  

So, all in all, we relied on intuitive and recognizable control schemes for different aspects of the game, which should make it as frictionless as possible for even novices to get used to speeder, ship and on-foot controls. For those that want to customize their experience further, we have options for that too.  

ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES LIST 

VISUALS  

• High contrast settings – remove all color from the background, apply colors to important gameplay elements (e.g., ally, hostile aware/unaware, interactable, climbable surfaces), and with a choice of colors and transparency. 
• Colorblind accessible by design wherever possible. 
• Visual intensity configurable through a range of settings, including screen shake, depth of field, motion blur (general, camera, and per-object), and chromatic aberration.  
• View angle (FOV) configurable separately for default and while aiming. 

AUDIO  

• No audio reliance – important information is communicated by other channels in addition to sound. 
• Subtitles for dialogue and background chatter, with speaker names and optional directional arrows, and configurable size, background, and colors.  
• Configurable dynamic range for control over the volume difference between loudest and quietest sounds.  
• Choice of audio channels – stereo, 5.1, 7.1, 7.1.4 (support for ATMOS overhead speakers).  
• Separate volume sliders for master, music, effects, voice, cinematics, controller, and menu narration.  
• Dynamic audio mix with rules to ensure there are not too many sounds playing at once, for example by removing lower-priority sounds from the mix when in cinematics or during dialogue, and enemy weapon sounds prioritized based on threat level; and audio – level drop-off for persistent sounds such as speeder and ship engines.  
• Audio descriptions for cinematics – an optional narrated voiceover describing what is happening visually (English language only). 
• Positional audio cues showing the direction of nearby discovery opportunities, such as loot or side quests. 

CONTROLS  

• Auto-walk to keep moving forward until a button is pressed. 
• PC supports keyboard & mouse, controller, and virtual keyboard via windowed mode.  
• Keyboard & mouse remapping.  
• Controller presets.  
• Sensitivity individually adjustable across mouse, controller, camera look, hip-firing, speeder, and ship. 
• Camera inversion across X and Y axis, configurable separately for on-foot, speeder, and ship. 
• Configurable deadzones – both inner and outer for both sticks. 
• Adaptive trigger intensity (Dualsense only). 
• Motion aiming (Dualsense only) – aim using the controller’s gyroscope, with settings for inversion, sensitivity, smoothing strength, and aim option to use roll for horizontal look. 
• Auto-align camera to horizon and movement direction. 
• Toggle sprint.   
• Fine control over vibration strength, with sliders for each type of information (e.g. weapons, melee, Nix, damage).  
• Change holds to presses – an overall setting that affects a wide range of gameplay holds.  

STEALTH & COMBAT  

• Multiple difficulty presets with an extremely forgiving ‘story’ setting. 
• Individual difficulty settings for enemy difficulty, player health, and wanted difficulty. 
• Aim assist toggle, strong by default 
• Option to hold rather than repeatedly press to fire blaster. 
• Different playstyles supported through unlockable blaster-fire modes 
• Adrenaline rush feature to allow targeting of enemies with low precision and time pressure. 
• Auto-perfect reloading option.  
• Stealth assists– threat sense, awareness icons, and visualization of enemy footsteps (on by default but can be turned off)  

NAVIGATION & TRAVERSAL  

• Fast travel between discovered locations. 
• Safe climbing – not possible to accidentally fall. 
• Auto ledge grab, with no overly long distances to jump.  
• Straightforward grappling with large hit areas and auto-dismount.  
• Auto object avoidance and ledge guard on foot and speeder. 
• Health regeneration for environmental speeder damage. 
• In-world map markers can be toggled on permanently. 

SPACE  

• Damage from colliding with objects can be turned off. 
• Stuns from ion weapons can be turned off. 
• Self-righting to automatically bring ship back to the horizon. 
• Incremental throttle – tap up/down instead of holding. 
• Choice between hold or toggle for speed boost and shooting. 
• Flexible combat style including strong aim assist and pursuit mode to adjust view and speed to follow targets. 
• Motion-sickness considerations through design of enemy maneuvers and speed adjustments. 

MINIGAMES  

• Individual difficulty settings for the timing, precision, and level of visual assistance for each minigame.  

NIX  

• Additional vocal and visual cues from Nix for nearby enemies, loot, etc. 
• Nix orders allow automated interacting, pickpocketing, attacking, and picking up, including during stealth, through large low-precision target areas. 

MENUS & HUD  

• Accessibility presets for finding and turning on common combinations of accessibility settings. 
• Menu narration for menus and HUD including HUD readout of distance and compass direction to current objective with configurable speed, voice, volume, and which elements to read out. 
• Colorblindness presets to adjust the colors of interface and gameplay elements that use color (usually alongside other methods) to communicate information.  
• Clear default fonts.  
• Larger and smaller text options.  
• Replace stylized titles with regular font.  
• Increased contrast option, for higher-contrast background and colors.  
• Replace holds with taps across the interface.
• Control reminders of some important controls directly on the HUD. 
• Configurable HUD with control over how often elements are shown; whether to show compass, map orientation, center dot size; and whether to add a plain contrasting background behind all HUD elements. 

Star Wars Outlaws is launching on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC via Ubisoft Connect on August 30, and can be played up to three days early with a Ubisoft+ Premium subscription or by preordering the Gold Edition or Ultimate Edition. You can preorder now at the Ubisoft Store and receive the Kessel Runner Bonus Pack, which includes cosmetics for Kay’s speeder and her ship, the Trailblazer, plus access to an exclusive mission with Jabba the Hutt called “Jabba’s Gambit.” For more on Star Wars Outlaws, check out our interview with the narrative director.

— Chastity Vicencio

*Development partners include Ubisoft Annecy, Bucharest, Chengdu, Milan, Montpellier, Paris, Redlynx, Shanghai, Stockholm, Toronto

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