Megaquarium already released on PC in 2018; however, it is just now coming to home consoles; PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. In the sandbox mode, you can fully customize the experience by removing any monetary requirements, have every fish unlocked from the start, and more. You can even turn on side objectives, and alter the frequency for merchants. The campaign tasks you with following necessary objectives across various locations. Most of the time, you’ll be building out the ideal space for one or more specific creatures, and the rest of the time, you’ll have goals based on being profitable without specific requirements. The campaign is highly recommended if you haven’t played the game before, as the first aquarium you build takes you through all the essential tutorial information.

Building aquariums in Megaquarium is fully customizable, from freestanding expandable ones, to those that can be set within walls. Decorations, heating/filtration equipment, and of course, the local wildlife can be added based on your preferences. The first few that you design will be small, maybe featuring a handful of one type of fish, a couple of rocks, and perhaps a plant. Without a heating element, the tropical fish will not survive in the small glass box of frigid waters. Similarly, proper filtration is needed to ensure contaminants are filtered out. Staff must be hired to keep the location operating, from providing equipment performs at a satisfactory level, cleaning the floors, and feeding and caring for your new swimming buddies. The longer your staff stay employed, the more efficient they become at their job, gaining specializations that can really come in handy. Before long, you’ll be expanding your building, adding benches for guests to sit (who doesn't want a massage chair), vending machines, gift shops, and restrooms.

Without a doubt, these types of management sims typically don't get released on consoles due to having to development a new control method using a controller. Now, I’m not saying that there haven’t been games in the past that have pulled it off. Games such as Frostpunk (a strategy game) and Jurassic Park Evolution (a theme park game) prove my point. Heck, I even enjoyed playing Command & Conquer and even Theme Hospital back in the day on a Nintendo 64 and PlayStation controller respectfully. The use of the directional pad (d-pad) to navigate through the menus and keeping the analog sticks for camera control is easy enough to understand and operate. Not only that, but simply hovering over an object, opens contextual options to pick things up, rotate, or even delete. Grabbing an entire exhibit moves everything attached to it, both inside and outside of the tank. There’s a handy undo option if you delete the wrong item, and yes, it happens to the best of us.

Simply Put

Megaquarium is a robust management simulation game, and the only one allowing you to build your own aquarium. While PC players have been perfecting their exhibits for quite some time, the transition to consoles has been quite smooth. I thoroughly enjoy how the game operates using a controller, although without going through the tutorial, you may be a bit lost. Many advanced elements slowly creep into the experience, such as ensuring your bigger fish don’t eat the smaller ones, properly decorating aquariums to keep skittish fish calm, balancing the amount of a single species to keep them happy.

New Super Lucky's Tale is, without a doubt, the best game from Playful Studios and one of the best 3D platformers I have played in quite some time. Charming, colorful, cute, and full of character, I fell in love with the game, and this is coming from someone that played through both Lucky's previous entries. The frequent "dad jokes" from the adorable golem mailman is delightfully charming. Familiar, yet unique, New Super Lucky's Tale sets the bar for what can be done, if given proper time and effort to hone their craft perfectly. While visual sharpness has been sacrificed (obviously since the Switch won't output 4K), the significant redesigns and upgrades make for a much more enjoyable and, more importantly, a smoother experience.

Jinx and his evil cat minions, known as the Kitty Litter, betrays the Guardian Order, banishing most of the members in the process. The remaining few live on the run until one day, the Book of Ages, opens an unstable portal, sucking in Jinx, the Kitty Litter, and one would-be hero fox, Lucky Swiftail. This is where Lucky's adventure begins, living up to his sister's name as a Guardian, as you'll travel across six uniquely designed worlds. Each of the worlds inside the Book of Ages is under the control of the evil felines, and Lucky must gather the scattered pages in each location and ultimately confront Jinx. Super Lucky's Tale initially launched with four core worlds, and later added the fifth and sixth, Gilly Island and Foxington respectfully via downloadable content (DLC). New Super Lucky's Tale adds Gilly Island into the middle of the narrative and immediately begins the final world after the credits roll.

Much like the 3D platformers from my youth, New Super Lucky's Tale features hub worlds, where individual levels can be accessed, although there are pages to collect in the hubs themselves. The first thing you'll notice if you played the previous game is the fully rotatable camera capable of zooming in and out. In the last game, you had limited controls, pivoting the camera a set number of degrees until eventually, it wouldn't go past a certain point. The new freedom should help remedy all of the sensations of not knowing exactly where you are going to land, typically leading to you plummeting to your death.

Until now, Lucky has traversed on all-fours, like you know, a fox. The jumping mechanics in the last game were sluggish at best, and the double jump felt mostly useless. Playful Studios has redesigned the way he moves. No longer does he feel stuck to the ground, as he is now more agile, running around just on his hind legs. Jumping feels more accurate and predictable, especially with a vastly improved double jump. Not to mention being able to use your swinging tail to gain just a tad bit more reach. Lucky will now slide across hard surfaces when you attempt to burrow, further providing additional movement options. The differences between the two games are outstanding, and since completing the game, I don't think I could go back and play the game on Xbox One X.

New Super Lucky's Tale aims to be a family-friendly title, and as such, it doesn't provide much of a challenge, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. There are dozens of clover pages to collect across each world. While progress is gated based on the amount collected, I never felt that the game was artificially padding the experience. Within the hub worlds, there are additional puzzles, yielding pages as your reward. These puzzles may task you with spinning and moving statues into their proper positions, or even locking you in a ball to collect coins before reaching the goal. If there were puzzles that I could not solve (Joan is way better than me at the statue puzzles), I would simply skip and collect pages in one of the individual levels. Each of the levels contains four pages in total, based on collecting 300 coins, completing all the objectives, finding the hidden page (typically by a timed challenge to collect colored coins), and finding all of the letters to spell out L-U-C-K-Y.

The resigned game levels feel great; there isn't another way to say it. Everything has a much smoother flow than ever before, even the starting tutorial section. Once you open up a new world, the levels are no longer blocked off, allowing you to tackle them in any order. I have always liked the stark contrast between each world, featuring some of the expected world types; grasslands, deserts, tropical islands, and a haunted location. Sky Castle is full of doe-eyed little golems, farming earthworms are in charge of Veggie Village, Wrestful Retreat promoting sports entertainment (with a Yeti dressed like The Macho Man but called The Penultimate Warrior), and Hauntingham with its ghostly carnival. Gilly Island, which was original DLC, has some fascinating fish creatures that seem to enjoy house music very much, but I enjoyed the topical setting regardless. Foxington, played after you beat the game, sees Lucky completing trial to become a full-fledged guardian, like his sister. The 16 challenges are tougher than anything in the main game, featuring a retro-inspired visual treatment straight from the '80s.

Simply Put

New Super Lucky's Tale is bursting with charm and character, not to mention numerous improvements, and redesigned mechanics that enhance the experience. While not overly lengthy (roughly took me 12 hours), and relatively easy (except for Foxington), there are all-new levels, all of the previous DLC, and dozens of pages to collect, and outfits to purchase with your coins. Load times are a bit on the long side, especially when needing to restart a puzzle. It would also be helpful for the level to be listed when you pause the game and not just the hub world.

For the first time in the series, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 features a fully playable story mode, that surprised me. Not only was I not expecting so much effort and dialogue to be added to this mode, but it had a satisfying length to it that left me with a smile. I highly recommend playing through it first, mainly because it's entertaining, humorous, and a joy to watch characters from two of the most esteemed franchises interact together. Due to the ingeniousness and engineering of Dr. Eggman, Sonic, Mario, and Toad become trapped inside a retro-inspired video game device, however, through the clumsiness of Bowser, Dr. Eggman and King Koopa are sucked in as well. Your time becomes split between helping Luigi and Tails try and free their lost friends in the present by collecting gold medals in 3D events and competing in 2D 8-bit events inside the device (technically, back in 1964). The best part, everyone inside the device are represented by their earliest 2D sprites.

None of the 20 playable Team Mario and Team Sonic characters (10 from each series) are locked from the start; however, there are special guest characters that are only unlocked by playing through the story mode. These characters are exclusive to a single event, such as Diddy Kong (rugby) and Rouge (sport climbing); however, there aren't guest characters for every event. There are some lesser-known characters that I had to look up, mostly Sonic characters such as Zazz, and Jet from Sonic Lost World and Sonic Riders respectfully. The Mario guest characters should be more familiar to folks, as the Koopalings have been around since Super Mario Bros. 3. Regardless of who you choose, characters don't have actual stats, a first for a console release in the series. Instead, characters have specific advantages based on their character type: all-around, power, speed, technique. For example, in the 100-meter dash, speed-based characters, such as Sonic and Shadow, run fast, like really fast, while Bowser, a power character, has improved super moves. These only correlate to the Tokyo 2020 games, as the ten events from Tokyo 1964 are much more limiting.

There are only ten 8-bit events, a couple which overlaps with the 3D games, but most are unique and you won't find elsewhere in the game. There is only one team-oriented event, volleyball, with the rest, including judo, skeet shooting, the 10-meter platform dive, and more are focused on individual competition. The 20 playable characters are cut down to eight, including the most basic four characters from each franchise. It does make me chuckle, seeing the 16-bit Sonic sprites competing against the original NES versions of Bowser and Peach. Strangely enough, the Mario characters that only appeared in Rio 2016 (Birdo, Dry Bones, Dry Bowser, Nabbit, Roy, and Toad) have been omitted from the game. At this point, after six games, how is Toad still stuck as a supporting role? Heck, where are the Mii characters?

During the course of the story mode, you'll play through 10 unique mini-games that are not able to be replayed elsewhere. These are equally split between 2020 and 1964, and surprisingly were a lot of fun. I would even go so far and say that some are better than actual events. One in particular in 2020, is essentially Where's Waldo? where you search for a correctly colored Toad holding a unique item. Of course, the main reason to play the game is the events themselves, especially against your friends. If you are new to the series, they don't last long, with some over in a matter of seconds, with the longest ones lasting only a few minutes. There are a handful of events across both eras that didn't leave a positive impression while playing through the story mode. It may have been the difficulty spikes in the story mode that have influenced my opinion, as replaying these events later through quick match was less of a hassle. Speaking of the difficulty spikes, some of the last few events require you to be almost perfect with your scores. Thankfully, if you lose three times during the story mode, in any event, you can elect to skip to keep progress moving forward. Yes, I did have to use the skip on more than one occasion.

There are only three dream events this year that are loosely based on actual Olympic events, but with a proper Mario & Sonic spin. Dream Karate feels like a mash between a simplified Smash Bros., and tile flipping game, where you need to knock down opponents on opposing colored tiles to score points. Dream shooting has you running around a Japanese temple, or monastery shooting targets and kites with gyro assisted aiming. Dream Race features modern Sonic style grinding on-rails, with a touch of Mario Kart with weapon pickups. The first time I fired a red shell, it immediately broke apart because of uneven terrain, so don't go into these games thinking it's going to be anything more than jazzed up mini-games. I had fun playing all three, but I wish there were more that were included, but given that there were none in the last game, it is better than nothing.

For all of the 3D events, you'll have various control methods, depending upon if you are using Joy-Cons or the Pro controller. Not wanting to deal with motion controls, I opted for using the Pro controller when playing docked; however, I did play in handheld mode as well. Mashing buttons and timing button prompts weren't a problem; however, I don't think I'll ever get used to or enjoy having to tilt the Switch while looking at it for aiming. If you have played the series before, you'll know what to expect with the events. The 100-meter dash has you mashing A as fast as you can to the finish line, while gymnastics requires precision, speed, and timing to nail the floor routine. Skateboarding is essentially Tony Hawk lite, as you pull off jumps and grind on rails at the skatepark. Some of the events control better than others, and I wish there was a way to customize the layout per event.

Most of the 1v1 style events, karate, boxing, fencing, are focused on feints and out-thinking your opponent, using a combination of high and low blocks with counter-attacks. Judo, a 2D event from 1964, follows the same principle, however, it uses a tilting mechanic to keep your opponent off balance. The marathon race, another 2D game, was a bit confusing during the story mode, as you must beat Bowser to the finish line. However, even after doing so, I still failed. While racing, you'll need to avoid obstacles and other racers, however, if you keep directly behind a group, you'll gain a speed boost. Every so often, a refreshment stand will appear, allowing you to collect a cup of water to replenish your stamina.

Simply Put

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is an enjoyable collection of Olympic event mini-games that feature local and online play. The story mode is undoubtedly the star this time around. Although it starts a bit slow, I enjoyed the interactions between the characters and the lightheartedness of the entire situation. I think there are some big holes in the lineup that certainly have been overlooked, as limiting guest characters to only a single event is just not fun. Even so, playing with friends locally is certainly the best way to play the games outside of the story. Sadly there isn't any way to set up a tournament or multiple events for multiplayer.

With nothing more than the bare necessities, you get to work, first reuniting with crew members one by one, by exploring the many beaches around the islands. Leading them back to your work-in-progress camp, you'll slowly expand your skillset. The game has no problem holding your hold for quite a ways into the game (as you begin fleshing out the base), giving you particular tasks to accomplish. Your tiny plot for growing crops grows as you progress, letting you plant seeds, keep them properly watered, and finally picking the ripe ones to cook. Fishing brings new ingredients to your culinary tongue, expanding your recipe list. The fishing mini-game is more akin to a rhythm-based game, requiring you to time overlapping ripples in the water to safely and swiftly pull the fish out of the water.

Every action in Stranded Sails, from swinging your ax, digging a hole with your shovel, to even running around the island requires energy. The only way to regain strength is to eat prepared food or sleep in your bunk. While it doesn't sound like a bad system, in practice, it is more frustrating than anything else. During the day, your leisurely pace doesn't waste much if any energy, but at night you'll be lucky if you can make it around one of the islands before collapsing. Perhaps it's supposed to represent the presence of the unknown lurking in the shadows. If you want to sprint around to get where you need to be faster, you can be sure that it will use even more energy. It certainly feels a bit like a mobile game experience where you'd pay to keep your stamina topped off. Yes, eating food can replenish it, if you don't wish to collapse and be sent back to your bed to rest, but it becomes quite tedious to have to deal with it regularly. Perhaps if the drainage rates were tweaked, I would feel differently.

The developers have come up with an elegant solution for moving through different inventories without interrupting the flow of the game. Using the right stick on the DualShock 4, you can easily swap between your cooked food items and your tools with ease. The directions-pad allows for easy access to some of the most used items, such as food and the map, as well as putting away any tool you were holding. Sadly, these aren't customizable.

You are left to discover new food recipes on your own, although new ones only appear when you have all the necessary ingredients. After selecting one of your unknown recipes, you'll drop items into the selector. If the elements are correct, you'll be presented with a new recipe to cook. If not, the game reveals that one or more of the items are wrong or in the incorrect placement. Even if you use the correct combination, such as tomatoes and onions (a simple 2 item recipe), if you didn't select the correct recipe, which you wouldn't know, it may be incorrect. Heck, you need to even ensure the items are in the correct position. I would have liked to see a bit more freedom, where using correct items unlocks the recipes without having to try each one manually. Eventually, you'll be cooking like a top chef, producing sustenance that yields higher levels of energy, such as seasoned seafood and vegetable stews, much to the delight of the crew.

One of the leading concerns is the time required to navigate the islands on foot. You are sent for onion seeds near the north end of the main island, then be forced to return to camp, only to be sent back to the north side to chop down trees for wood. The map can instantly return you to the camp. Still, the slow movement speed makes the trek all that more annoying, especially when you usually have to go a long way to enter the various places, and you're unable to drop down ledges. Cooking a stew for the crew each day can help decrease the cost of actions temporarily, as well as provide you with a boost in energy. It also serves as the only relationship building in the game, happiness. Keep using the favorite stew ingredients for each crew member, and you'll gain rewards, such as tool upgrades, additional farm plots, and much more.

Although a relaxing experience, there are enemies in Stranded Sails in the form of skeletons. The combat system is quite basic, and you'll automatically equip your sword when entering combat. Swinging your sword and getting hit expends energy, so ensure you have a stocked pocket full of refreshing food, or you'll have to retreat. Hot food can provide an increase to your damage output, and spicy foods help reduce energy lost when hit. If you know you are going to be heading towards a battle, its best to have at least one of each ready to eat.

Simply Put

Stranded Sails - Explorers of the Cursed Islands is a wonderfully colorful and relaxing experience for a more casual audience. It's not without its faults, and even after the 1.03 patch, the quest log will occasional not correctly update, and a gear icon appears at the bottom left of the screen that you can't interact with. I assume it's the menu icon that can be clicked if you are playing on PC, but why does it exist on consoles? The energy system can be frustrating during the opening hours, but once you gain access to higher-level food items, it becomes less of a hassle but still annoying. Even something as simple as removing (or reducing) the extra energy drain at night would be a welcome change. I did like the charming character designs and music that changes based on the locations.

With the original game being released on the Wii, this remastered version has completely removed the motion controls and replaced it with traditional Super Money Ball mechanics. The Wii release had 50 mini-games, most built around motion controls. Those have been whittled down to 10 of the most popular party games that work best with traditional controls. Monkey Target remains my all-time favorite, even if it isn't as good as it was in the first two games. Dangerous Route (I remember being popular) plays like a top-down version of the main game, except you are providing momentum to the monkeys themselves and not by tilting the environment. Monkey Snowboard fares the worst of the bunch, featuring awful hit detection surrounding the snowman populating the track and the walls themselves.

Although I would consider the first two games on GameCube as classics, it certainly is an interesting choice to remaster a game that never could live up to the originals. The newly added Decathlon mode tasks you with playing through all ten party games in single-player. Based on your score in each one, you are ranked on the online leaderboard. Time attack features an online leaderboard as well, tasking you to clear one of three courses. Unlike other games, you don't have direct control over the movements of each character. Yes, you can jump, but using the analog stick, you are tilting the world. The more you tilt, the faster you'll move across the environments. With a time limit attached to stages, you'll have to balance getting to the goal as quickly as possible with collecting bananas to ensure you have enough lives.

The primary mode in Banana Blitz HD features ten uniquely themed worlds (a total of 100 stages), each with eight puzzle stages, a bonus stage, and a boss. With the original game using motion controls, many of the stages feature safety barriers, which is in stark contrast to the less forgiving originals. Stages are, for the most part, simplistic. As you progress through the worlds, they become more elaborate, featuring spots where you can attempt to skip or bypass some of the environment by a well-placed jump. Without proper camera control, some of the later stages can be frustrating to deal with, especially when the camera isn't directly behind you, and you need to roll down a narrow platform to reach the goal. Stage 5 of Cobalt Caverns (world 6) in particular had me cursing at the screen more often than I would like to admit.

Collecting bananas is optional, however after obtaining 20, you'll gain an extra life. Bonus stages task you with collecting as many bananas as possible. Boss battles are the most frustrating, partly due to the wonky camera, and partly based on how easy it is for you to be knocked off a platform. Banana Blitz was the first time that bosses were added to the series. A pink colored weak spot appears on each boss, requiring you to avoid direct attacks aimed at knocking you off the platform. Most of the time, you'll need to jump to either deflect back objects or reach the actual damage location on their body. It never feels as precise as it needs to be, leading to a waste of lives. Making things more challenging is the fact the camera becomes locked to the boss, making it much harder to navigate across the generally small play area properly.

Disappointingly, there isn't any way to swap between one of the six monkeys after selecting the world. It would make more sense to add this functionality into the game if you are having trouble with a particular stage. As each character has unique stats based on bounce, size, speed, and jump, it would undoubtedly come in handy. Champion medals are earned in each world if completed without using a continue. Collect them in each world, and you'll unlock the final set of stages.

Simply Put

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD is a solid remaster of a sub-par Super Monkey Ball title. The visual style works for the series, and most of the party games that were included represent the best ones from the original release. The online leaderboard integration for the Decathlon and Time Attack modes is a great addition. There are unlockable outfits, and even Sonic the Hedgehog has been added to the game. All of the original music from the Wii release has been replaced due to licensing issues.

Stela’s phenomenal use of musical notes, accentuates the already anxiety-inducing chase sequences, and leaps of faith you’ll be making throughout. Each of the game’s unique areas are self-contained, with their own visual aesthetic, color scheme, enemy type. The rolling fog and muted sepia tones of a dying forest set the tense hide-and-seek moments as lanky black creatures with piercing eyes continually hunt you. Eventually, the monotone fires give way to breathtaking vistas such as blue-tinged snow caps, complete with borrowing beasts underground that are quite sensitive to sound.

Puzzles are generally on the easy to understand spectrum; however, timing and precision play a massive role in escaping a sure death. Boxes highlighted with red stick out in the environment, giving you contextual clues about what can be interacted with. Early on, you must find a way to shut out a swarm of deadly beetles, and later one, you’ll use light to keep flying bats from ripping you to shreds. There are plenty of moments where the camera pans out, showcasing the beautiful scenery. Often, you’ll have to avoid hazards during these moments, although the zoomed out perspective does make it harder to ensure you hit the precision required for your jumps.

Although there is an achievement tied to completing the game without dying, it may be nigh impossible to get the first time through. Many of the game’s intense moments seem to be designed around trial-and-error moments. Creatures can kill you in an instant, but checkpoints are well-placed, without having to retread previous areas. Certain moments can feel unfair, and one, in particular, required multiple attempts. It was due to requiring very tight timing on jumps, plus knowing the following mechanics. Stela has a deep focus on moving between the foreground and background, both for traversal and avoiding the unholy monsters hunting you. The puzzles are not too involved, typically having you to pull switches and dragging boxes around.

Simply Put

Stela is a beautiful atmospheric puzzle-platformer; however, it seems to emphasize style over substance. The musical score, however, is phenomenal, making almost mundane actions feel grandiose or anxiety-inducing. The first playthrough only takes a couple of hours, and once you know what to expect, you’ll be able to run through the game in under 90 minutes.

As the title implies, Tallahassee, Columbus, Wichita, and Little Rock have decided to head east towards Washington D.C., starting from Pacific Playland on the west coast and across the United States. The game only features ten story levels, each one lasting roughly 10-15 minutes. Without any checkpoints, if you die, you'll need to restart from the beginning of the stage. Five additional side missions appear on the map as you progress through the game. These byte-sized levels don't last quite as long and revolve around a single objective, such as collecting snacks in a supermarket or exploring a school. Completing these levels unlocks new characters. One thing the game does well is throwing plenty of zombies at you at once. It certainly feels like an old-school mindless shooter, although the game does have plenty of melee weapons that come quite in handy.

One thing is sure; there are ample weapon types for you to find hidden in car trunks, military caches, and the grocery freezers. From dual submachine guns, miniguns, katanas, and guitars, there are plenty of weapons in the game. Without any ammunition drops, you'll always be swapping between multiple weapons in every level. Even the melee weapons only have a limited amount of uses. If you run out, you'll have to use the slow-firing pistol. Hazardous and explosive objects can be used to your advantage, blowing up or setting launch groups of zombies on fire at once. If that doesn't help, you can always toss a few grenades, Molotov cocktails, or land mines.

Killing zombies raises your special meter, and every character comes with one of four unique abilities. For example, Tallahassee spins around like a top, killing anything that gets too close with dual chainsaws. Little Rock, on the other hand, can shoot and reload faster as well as heal wounds when activated. Without any way of stopping the ability once triggered, you'll need to ensure that you are safe enough to wait until it depletes. Yes, you can still be damaged while in this state, so ranged attacks can be deadly to Tallahassee while he spins around helplessly.

Besides the universal basic zombies, Zombieland: Double Tap - Road Trip digs into the sequel, adding some of the evolved zombies into the game. Besides clowns, which are Columbus's worst nightmare, there are plenty of puking sorority members, ninjas (very quick running zombies in hoodies), and the nigh-indestructible T-800s. It's great to see different types appear from both movies, but by the time you reach the end of the game, you'll have killed hundreds of these types across most levels. Just how many clowns are walking around Zombieland anyway? Strangely enough, zombies have adapted almost anything as a nesting site. These nests, such as porta-potties and ambulances, must be destroyed. Not to mention, they seemingly love to spawn out of manhole covers, which can weirdly appear in the backyards of suburban neighborhoods (yes, in the middle of lawns), as well as inside of stores.

Across the ten story missions, the narrative objectives, as the fearsome foursome travel across the U.S., is rather one dimensional. You are telling me that the highlight from the trip involves finding a restroom, a fresh supply of twinkies, playing firefighter in the suburbs, and helping an old lady cross the street (twice). It's as barebones as you can get, and you'll probably end up skipping through all of the dialogue between the characters. All of the voice actors try their best to mimic their movie counterpoints, except for Abigail, who is actually in the game. As you slaughter the undead, you'll gain skill based on your score to advance the stats on your current character across five categories, damage, ammo, health, speed, and special.

Simply Put

There are many different areas where Zombieland: Double Tap - Road Trip comes up short. A $40 price tag is just nuts for a 2 hour game with a barebones presentation and gameplay. Heck, the reload animation is your character looking downwards. That's it. The only time I died in the game was on the final mission when bugged out, and I became unable to shoot. The boot menu screen is only presented as a vertical graphic, and even the main menu doesn't fit the screen. It's plainly obvious that the game was rushed out the door to capitalize on the movie.

As you make your way up the escalator at the entrance of the park, something nightmarish occurs as the park deteriorates before your eyes. Without so much as an explanation, the day gives way to night. Probably because exploring a creepy amusement park is that much more terrifying in the dark. Chasing after Callum, you'll spend your time walking through the park, going on a few of the rides, reading newspaper articles, and hand-written notes. Collecting the written notes are entirely optional; however, they provide necessary details if you want to gain a better understanding of what is happening in the park and, more importantly, that status of Lorraine's mind.

It doesn't take long for you to realize that there is much more to The Park than a mother trying to find her son in a sinister amusement park. The first ride in the game, sets the mood, with a lengthy sequence, following the narrative of Hansel and Gretel using projected shadows on the walls of the ride. It's importance relies on the significance of the witch and the relationship to the young boy Hansel, foreshadowing the on-going relationship with the mother and her young boy. Later rides have a bit more of a scare attached to them, especially the roller coaster, featuring flashes of shadow creatures, and imagery akin to travel through a hospital corridor with bloodied messages written on the doors.

The longer the search goes on, the more you have an understanding of what Lorraine is suffering from and what struggles she is trying to overcome. She has some serious issues around being a mother, which has has been prescribed medication. Naturally, I'm attempting to keep this as vague as possible, as the whole purpose of the game is to get a better understanding of Lorraine. She frequently alters her mood in her inner monologues, from sadness, to regret, to fiery anger. There are some very unsettling moments, especially in the last few moments in the game. Still, one, in particular, involves the sideshow area after reading about all of the severe work-place injuries, guest accidents, and even gruesome deaths.

As a Funcom developed title, The Park takes place in the same world as the MMO, The Secret World. If you are familiar with it or have played it before, you'll get a better understanding of some of the world's lore and characters, but it's not something that you need to know to play through the game. Being ported to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 months ago, I was hoping that the Nintendo Switch build would fair better than its console counterparts. Instead, the weaker of the three seems to perform much worse than expected. The visuals are worse than the console versions, with the draw distance is largely unforgivable. The grass, which is everywhere in the park, almost appears directly in front you. I also had a triggered event fail, where a door that was supposed to open when obtaining the flashlight didn't open. Quitting the game and loading my save was the only way to remedy the solution.

Simply Put

The Park's best moments come from the sense of dread and uneasiness in an abandoned amusement as you search for your kid. I wouldn't call it a scary experience, although there are a handful of jump scares, it's more unnerving than anything else. The climatic area drove home the narrative; however, if you were rushing to the end, you may not appreciate the message it is trying to convey.

Playing an unnamed generic looking character (who strangely resembles me), you are regularly referred to as rook, rookie, newbie, and cadet. While there are moments where you are alone, generally, you'll have one or more of the original four main Ghostbusters beside you. Sadly, Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis don't reprise their roles, and instead, the game revolves around Ilyssa Selwyn, an expert in Sumerian and pre-Sumerian cultures. More importantly, she is the curator for the World of Gozer exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, opening just in time for Thanksgiving. When Gozer and Ivo Shandor are involved, you know the city of New York is going to be in trouble.

It's not long when the Ghostbusters' favorite ghost Slimer breaks free and makes his way back to the Sedgewick Hotel. The disgusting green blob isn't the only ghost haunting the five-star location. Ghostbusters: The Video Game plays closer to Gears of War than anything else, using a tight third-person camera view. Instead of lancers, you'll be slinging proton packs, along with some additional new attachments. Even the roadie run, when you crouch run and the camera follows close behind you exists in the game. Your proton beam serves as your primary weapon against ghosts, weakening them enough to trap. Of course, they won't be confined that easily, either by trying to escape, fly right through you (sliming you in the process) or by tossing objects across the room from a safe distance.

Once ghosts are weak enough, you'll switch to the capture stream, allowing you to slam ghosts against walls, ceilings, and the floor to prepare them for your muon trap (ghost trap). While caught in the traps pull, the specter will try and free themselves, as you attempt to wrangle them into the center of the trap. You have an unlimited amount of traps, and you can even capture multiple apparitions in the same one. You do have to worry about overheating, which can be upgraded, making ghost capturing slightly more complex. The rest of each level is populated with smaller and generally faster lower level apparitions, which don't need to be trapped, like floating books. These can be cut down by merely weakening them enough that they disapparate. As you progress through the narrative, you'll unlock additional attachments, such as a shock blast, the slime blower from Ghostbusters II to dissipate black slime, and the meson collider.

Each one also comes with an alternate firing method. The boson dart is an extremely volatile burst of boson particles, which can quickly overheat the proton pack. The stasis stream can freeze ghosts in midair those to the use of dark matter. The slime tether can help solve environmental puzzles by bringing objects closer together. Don't forget; there is an achievement for tether a ghost directly into a trap. The composite particle system (meson collider) works best when using both firing methods together. Using the meson collier, you can hit your target, serving as a homing beacon for projectiles launched when using the overload pulse. Besides your proton pack, you can activate the PKE meter, which is used in a first-person perspective for finding collectible artifacts, and scanning for hidden passages. Make sure to scan every single ghost type for additional lore and a list of weaknesses.

The game is the same as it was back in 2009, except now features a smooth 60fps as well as support 4K on PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X. The visuals do look much better than the previous release; however, all of the pre-rendered sequences in the game look very blurry due to the lower resolution from Xbox 360 and PS3. The Nintendo Switch version isn't as well off than its counterparts, looking like a straight port of last generation's game, running at 30fps, and at a much lower resolution. The developers have commented that the game's multiplayer component won't be included with the launch of the game, but it will be added sometime after release.

Simply Put

Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered may be the same game it was ten years ago, but I couldn't help but smile while playing through it once again. Running around the Ghostbusters HQ (the firehouse) and interacting with Vigo the Carpathian, listening to voicemails, sliding down the pole, hearing the banter between the other Ghostbusters, everything is such a joy to experience. Even though the gameplay feels largely borrowed, it works beautifully within the confines of the Ghostbusters IP. Not to mention, the game's narrative was written by Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, essentially making this game the closest thing to a third movie (not counting the 2016 reboot).

Unlike most (if not all) endless runners, Into the Dead 2 has clearly defined narrative-based missions. James, our protagonist, crashes his truck on the way back to his sister and daughter. Between each new mission, you'll learn of her struggle, fleeing from invading zombies and the battle to keep Maggie (the daughter) alive. It's not breathtaking but has enough substance to keep you moving forward. I should also mention that the side stories are locked until you complete specific levels, so if you have the Ghostbusters downloadable content, you'll need to play through all 60 levels of the story first. Speaking of, the physical edition includes the Night of the Living Dead and Ghostbusters add-on content, while those who purchase the game digitally, can buy the bundle, or the base game and DLC separately.

Every level sees you run towards the endpoint automatically, but you'll need to strafe either left or right, avoiding obstacles, burning wreckage, and groups of zombies. Ammunition is quite scarce and resets at the start of each level. Caches can be located by looking for the green smoke off in the distance, and generally, you'll be able to maneuver yourself to run through it. The view distance isn't too great, so things have a habit of appearing right before your eyes, so there is a good chance you won't have enough time to even react to an ammo crate that appears on the far side of the screen. These crates randomly provide a small number of bullets for either your primary or secondary weapon. It's a common sight to only get a few (like 3 or 4) rounds for your handgun, which doesn't help much. For this reason, avoidance of zombies is key to survival, along with saving your shots for those pesky runners that get too close.

The core gameplay mechanics have stayed the same in Into the Dead 2, but almost everything else about the game has been redesigned. Instead of collecting weapon parts, you'll unlock new weapons by collecting enough stars and then purchasing them with gold. Besides the two weapons that you bring with you, you'll have a trusty companion in almost every level. It's not long before you rescue the first dog that loyally follows you across fields, towns, through forests, junkyards, and rail yards all teeming with the undead. Your new best friend will even take down an enemy every so often, but it seems so random that it is hard to predict when it is going to occur. As you progress through the narrative, you'll unlock new companions, purchasable with gold. Each one has a different use, such as being more aggressive when attacking, or even one that collects additional ammo. At times you'll have another human soldier running beside you, along with a triggerable special ability to mow down anything in your path.

After every level, you'll rummage through a backpack for loot, yielding three different options (the mobile version had three packs with one item in each). You can either select a handful of gold or temporary weapon boosts. These boosts can yield faster firing rates, increased starting ammo, special ammo types, such as piercing or explosive ammo, etc. Gold (and some weapons) can be unlocked by earning enough stars by completing objectives. These objectives include getting a specific number of kills with a particular gun, hopping over multiple barricades, and more. The game also has various endings, tied to the number of stars that you have by the time you reach the final mission. Replaying previous levels for gold is a slow grind. Arcade mode and the side stories are the best way to earn gold; however, gold earned from the arcade mode is a one-time reward based on the chosen difficulty. It can undoubtedly help you upgrade or unlock a few items, but eventually, you'll have to grind out missions.

The side stories provide a touch of variation on the game's formula by changing out the setting. You'll take control of 3rd platoon Corporal Garcias venturing through treacherous swamps, or take James through a frozen and unforgiving mountain, and more. The side stories provide an excellent source of gold, weapons, and companions. The two licensed content packs are available at launch. Content unlocked, such as the proton packs and Slimer from Ghostbusters, can be used in any level in the game.

Simply Put

Into the Dead 2's transition from a heavily microtransactioned mobile game to the Nintendo Switch is not without issues. First and foremost, the game's price tag may be a bit hard to swallow for what was a free-to-play mobile game. Yes, the game plays better without the despicable mobile game philosophy of nickel-and-diming the player, but its cost is way more than expected. The view distance isn't that great, so it's frequent to see zombies appear in front of you, slowdown occurs both during runs and in menus, and the gold grind is very slow. Even so, I thought it was a decent experience when played in short bursts. It's just disappointing that licensed DLC is locked until you get deep enough in the main story.

The game has just over 140 different species of fish scattered throughout various locations. Each one has its own unique characteristics, from the kind of water they swim around in, to the type of lure and bait that works best to attract them. It is also important to note that the weather and time of day have a real effect on when/where certain fish will likely bite. Although some fish are quite common, the special ones require a particular combination of gear and fishing techniques.

Before venturing to a location, make sure that you have done your research on the kind of fish that will be available. More importantly, find out what they like to eat. Pick the proper gear from your garage, or choose from the thousands of equipment found in the store. Coveted fishes are usually massive and require equipment that will not easily break under pressure. Bringing the right balance of gear and the right amount of bait can change the outcome of a trip entirely.

Once you leave a fishing spot, you will be rewarded with in-game currency for all the fish you have caught. This currency is used in almost every aspect of the game, from buying equipment, licenses, and paying for travel costs. You may find yourself stuck in one location, catching the same type of fish over and over if you happen to waste away all of your earned currency. Another way to make a small boost in credits is to sell your inventory or by signing in to the game daily.

The combination of gear, location, and fishing techniques, make Fishing Planet an authentic experience. Consequently, it also creates a steep learning curve for beginners. The game offers a great list of training missions to help players ease into the game. It is not mandatory to follow them, but it does make the game have a more linear structure. If that is not enough, there is also a massive community that has been an excellent source of tips and tricks to use since the original release.

Using a controller when fishing is very smooth and intuitive, but using it to navigate the menu screen is a frustrating experience. The numerous buttons to click to get to the proper place makes managing inventory a chore, as well as causing unnecessary equipment purchases.

Fishing Planet is an always-online game experience. However, it does not require you to have PlayStation Plus, considering the base game is free-to-play. There are online tournaments you can join, or you can set up private games for you to play with your friends.

Simply Put

Overall, once you get used to the nuances of the user interface, and managing your money, Fishing Planet is the best fishing simulation game out there. It has an extensive collection of fishing equipment, species of fish, and locations. The steep learning curve can be a deterrent, but fishing is all about having patience and fortitude.

This heavily story-driven narrative is filled with frantic combat, exploration, and a procedurally generated series of dungeons that will keep you guessing every time you venture out into the vast world. This hack and slash role-playing game is reminiscent of the old 8-bit games you could sit next to a friend and play all day. It even comes with a local cooperative mode for two-player efforts.

Overall, the gameplay is very simplistic. The left thumbstick is for movement, and while attacks can be controlled with the right thumbstick, the button square button can be used as well. It's more dependent upon your character at the time and if you want a twin-stick style experience or a more direct action title. Cross provides you with a dodge (which has a cooldown), and r1 and triangle will activate either your character's attacks or any equipped items. L1 changes based upon your character - John, for example, uses a shield to block incoming attacks. This takes up stamina, which upon depleted, will cause you to lose your block. Since every character is different in their attacks, their abilities, and "how they handle," it may take a few tries to find that specific character that suits your needs.

The variety of characters is what gives Children of Morta most of its replayability in my eyes. Sure, levels change each playthrough, but it's the characters themselves, their different combat mechanics, and the fact that leveling the family as a whole nets you better bonuses. There's a definite distinction between character classes as well - tanks, ranged, and close-range rogues. John, your first character, is a tank and capable of both dealing and taking some decent damage before falling, but he's got his flaws. Getting mobbed makes it easier for the tank-types to die as attacks are directional. This similarly applies to the rogue as it uses a close-range attack. The ranged characters, with the ability to both move and shoot, make it easier to stay at a safe distance even if you do sacrifice some of your health.

The game's character progression is neat: spending skill points unlocks the next tier of skills, as well as a family skill that boosts everyone simultaneously. Since dying doesn't truly mean the end in this game, it's not a bad thing to croak halfway through a level since you'll carry your experience over. Some of the attacks provide area attacks with excellent damage, while others will boost stats permanently. Once again, it's all based upon which character you're using at that time. In addition to the character progression, you can earn morv (essentially gold), which in turn can be used to upgrade the Bergson's over time through either armor/weapon upgrades or research into the history surrounding the corruption.

Children of Morta is tough. Classically difficult, even. But it's tough in a way that makes the game fun - dying doesn't send you back to the "new game" menu. It's part of the process, and any morv you collect is saved each time. Since each level is procedurally generated as well, no attempt will be the same as your previous ones. The only thing that might repeat is your self-loathing at being killed by a goblin again and again. Levels are split into floors, with a boss at the end. Minibosses will occasionally appear as well, but as you make your way through the dungeons, it's the big baddies that will really be your target. Expect them to take a few tries potentially, especially if you're not adequately leveled enough or your loadout isn't a good combo. The first boss took me three tries, and I only happened to win by a lucky loadout. It both decreased my overall health for a significant damage boost with another token that boosted my health dramatically, and I still almost died. This element of luck in the game can thoroughly ruin your level at times, but it never really ruins the experience.

Simply Put

Children of Morta reminds me of titles like Secret of Mana crossed with recent procedural titles, such as Enter the Gungeon. The inclusion of local cooperative play opens up the experience for two-players to battle together. Tack on a fun story where you learn about each family member's past, their fears, and the driver for them to help, adding a flair to the game. While combat can be a bit of a pain and dying repeatedly is still never a good time, the game still offers a substantial experience.

Both Ian McShane and Lance Reddick reprise their roles from the movies, as Winston, the owner of the Continental Hotel and Charon, the concierge, respectfully. Keanu Reeves, however, is not the voice of the titular character. The talented voice actor Troy Baker fills the role of the game’s antagonist. Serving as a narrative prequel to the film series, John Wick Hex is set before Mr. Wick meets his future wife, Helen, back when he worked for the Tarasov Mob (a small part of The High Table). A visual timeline represents every action taken in the game for John Wick and his enemies. Each of the linear designed levels are constructed on top of a hex-based movement system. Time pauses after you’ve completed any action, movement, or locate a new enemy.

Each of your actions takes precious seconds or fractions of a second to complete. Since your turn and your foes happen at the same time, you can see how long your action will take when compared to what your enemies plan to do. There are definite moments where you feel like you are John Wick, taking down a group of enemies by combining close-range shooting, takedowns, and strikes. Heck, you even have the option of throwing your gun, dodge rolling, picking up another weapon from a downed foe, and using the rest of the clip to take out his friends. Although the speed of the game is determined by how quickly you make decisions, the precision behind the choices is what hooked me. Yes, it is not as fast-paced as a pure action game, but I still felt like the ultimate assassin with sequences almost playing out like they would in the movies.

Ensuring that you don’t move directly in the line of sight of an enemy with his gun drawn, you must take notice about how long each action takes. At first, things may seem slower than it should be, as you take extra time to eliminate any mistakes. Everything that you’ll need to know is displayed in the timeline, so any errors are purely on your decision making. Of course, being a tactical strategy game, there are percentages to shooting, based on distance and line of sight, etc. Most of your actions take a specific portion of your focus bar; however, it can be refilled by choosing to do nothing.

The seven chapters in the game are broken up into a handful of different levels, where your health and equipment carry over till the end of the chapter. A careless maneuver near the end of the chapter means you’ll have to restart back at the beginning. At the completion of a level, the game presents you with the option of watching a cinematic replay. As neat as it was to see all of your actions play out continuously, the jerky hex grid movements and animations. Coins can be spent on a bunch of various temporary buffs, or by stocking weapons or bandages for your next run. Ones that reduce the cost of Focus for specific actions, like the dodge roll (which I shamelessly abused), were a definite favorite of mine. Added additional firepower depends on how you want to tackle a level but generally isn’t needed considering you can pick up weapons off the ground from dead enemies. There is an additional expedited game mode, that penalties you from taking too long for each of your turns.

Simply Put

Although John Wick Hex doesn’t play like you’d expect considering the source material, it still is a fun and entertaining title. The narrative is kept on the lighter side, really only existing so that you have a name to hunt through each of the chapters. The actual gameplay is delivered intriguingly, something I would never have thought of.

With the decision to use a bright and colorful visual style, this action-adventure-RPG was inspired by The Legend of Zelda and Metroid franchises. There are plenty of unique areas to explore; however, I wouldn't say that the game employs a true open-world, as each area requires a (sometimes lengthy) loading screen. Sky 9 Games, a Toronto-based studio, initially planned to fund their first big PC and console project thanks to Kickstarter but canceled it after teaming up with Curve Digital. The light-hearted adventure attempts at being humorous throughout with Rusty's action/expressions, and the dialogue was written for each of the non-playable characters. However, I found that most of the "jokes" missed the mark. It is as if the developers were trying too hard in spots, and trying to force cheap humor tactics were none were needed. I rolled my eyes with almost every NPC I came across, flailed their arms around mid-conversation. Also, why doesn't it look like many people are wearing pants?

As aforementioned, the game features side quests that you'll acquire from talking to characters in the wilderness and the town areas. The very first quest you receive requires you to collect a cloak for someone by the name Jerry, who just so happens is in a porta potter and refuses to leave. Oh, and the quest name is Call of Doodie. I'll pause here for the laugh track. All of the game's dialogue is text-based, with characters making everything from generic noises to outlandish whooping noises as if wild animals possessed them. As you explore the overworld, where you will spend most of your time, you'll come across dungeons and plenty of platforming puzzles. These thematic dungeons, and tucked away in areas that require way too much ground to cover to reach. I understand the desire to try and flesh out the massive world, but it became tiring and repetitive to continually go through multiple areas for every little piece of a quest. This is especially true due to the confusing map system and lack of true mini-map. The compass system works to a degree; however, you may have to spend ample time just trying to get where you need to go. As you unlock special powers, you'll come across pathways in previous areas that are now accessible to you.

Although the platforming seems simplistic, there are times where you jumping needs to be extremely precise. Most of the puzzle solution revolves around jumping across floating platforms or pillars or using your wall-run ability to navigate across larger sections of the current area. The timed crystal challenge is reminiscent of the red coins in Mario titles, requiring precise movements to collect everything and earn your just treasure chest. The biggest issue with the sheer amount of ledge grabbing, rolling, and jumping in the game stems from Rusty's constant sound effects. Instead of hitting the mark, it always sounds like all the movement is just going to make him hurl. Hidden throughout the landscape are massive keys to collect as well as singing slimes that can unlock additional inventory slots.

The combat mechanics in the game are adequate; however, they aren't as smooth as they should have been. The starting weapon sets in the game are laughably weak, requiring you to wail on foes far too many times. The amount of hits it takes to take them down decreases as your sword is improved, but having the beginning portion of the game requires you to hit skeletons anywhere from 9-15 times. If the game's combat focus were one-on-one battles, that wouldn't be a concern; however, the game continually throws large groups of skeletons, slimes, and other foul creatures at once.

Throughout the first dungeon, you'll slowly be acclimated to new mechanics, from lock-on targeting, blocking, parrying, and more. Blocking and lock-on use the same button, so anytime you are targeting a specific enemy, you'll be ready to block basic attacks. Parrying requires you to be already targeting a foe, and perfectly time the button press right before you are hit. Even after hours, I'm still having trouble doing it consistently. Charge attacks can deal more damage, especially if you utilize your special power and unleash it with your attack. However, getting hit once breaks the charge, and you most likely will get hit during and immediately after your attack animation. If you can land consecutive hits without getting hit, your sword and shield glow with additional power.

The first special power you unlock gives you control over the wind. For exploration purposes, you can manipulate platforms or bridges by activating spinning fans. In terms of combat use, certain enemies have impenetrable barriers that can only be broken by using your magic powers or by parrying. Otherwise, your wind powers can very briefly stun foes, knocking them back slightly in the process. It was enjoyable to knock them into a campfire and watch their health chip away. Bosses are a bit more complicated, featuring different phases, with varying tactics. Rusty's health, which expands after defeating a boss, can be diminished by specific attacks; however, bandages can require your maximum health back to normal.

Simply Put

Sky 9 Games' first attempt at an epic adventure with A Knight's Quest doesn't quite hit the mark. I wouldn't call any of the game's mechanics or implementation broken, but things tend to feel uninspired. The light-hearted nature of the adventure is appreciated; however, the attempted humor in the narrative is more cringe-worthy than anything else.

The remaining few that once populated city streets of London’s have fled to the north, however, a howling blizzard has separated the convoy, killing many in the process. Only a lucky few have survived, reaching the site of the generator only to find it abandoned. What happened to those that built the generator? Why makes you think you’ll survive where others had not? With everyone in your group looking to you for answers, you must build tents, stockpile resources, hunt for food, and above all else, keep the fire burning in the generator.

The coal-burning steam generator serves as a bright symbol for your new home. Instead of defending it against a marauding opposing army, the steadily plummeting temperature and management of your limited resources serve as your main adversaries. Each member of your newly formed settlement can be assigned a task, and ideally, you’ll be shifting responsibilities around when a crisis occurs. Workers spread out from your circular town, dredging through the snow to reach loose coal and veins, wooden crates, and deformed pieces of steel. An ample supply of coal is necessary for the generator to produce enough heat to keep the populace and all of the surrounding buildings warm enough. Life will cease to exist without it.

Workers and engineers operate on a daily schedule; the day begins at 5:00 am where they will try and finish any construction projects that were carried over from the day prior, before heading off into the newly fallen snow to gather supplies. As the sun goes down, they will return to the center of your community, eating, sleeping, and spending time with their families. For this reason, you’ll always need to be mindful of the coal reserves, and how much burns throughout the night, since you won’t be able to gather more until the morning. Of course, food is a necessity, and hunting lodges can be built for a select few to collect raw food that needs to be processed in a cookhouse. Most of the buildings require workers/engineers to be assigned manually. The UI brilliantly provides all the necessary information. Everything from the total number of attached workers to the efficiency percentage breakdown when not using the maximum amount of workers. If you somehow have a massive surplus of food rations compared to the total population, but coal reserves are dropping. Perhaps operating at 60% by reassigning a handful of workers is the best approach. It is this dynamic of being flexible with your townsfolk that ensures that you’ll overcome any of the challenges ahead.

Although there have been more releases as of late, strategy games on consoles were once looked down upon as second-rate ports of the popular PC genre. Frostpunk: Console Edition, however, almost feels like a different experience thanks to the redesigned control mechanics that feel right at home when using a controller. The command hub radial menu can be accessed by simply using the left trigger, allowing you to select anything using the analog stick or switch category types with the shoulder buttons. It is not the first strategy game on consoles to employ this style of UI; however, it is highly accessible. Although the speed of the game can be sped up or paused with the directional pad, the game transitions to standard time when a significant event occurs and the start of every workday at the aforementioned 5:00 am. The temperature overlay can be turned on at any point, giving you vital information about the warmth in different parts of your base. There are six different levels of warmth, ranging from comfortable to very cold and freezing. Snow appears to build up more heavily on buildings with less heat, providing a neat visual treatment to your growing circular settlement.

As you are continually fighting against the cold, which seems to always drop to unbearable temperatures at the most inopportune times (a weather forecast at the top of the screen display all relevant information), keeping homes and workplaces as warm as possible helps prevent illness. Some buildings may not even operate if the temperature becomes too low. Regardless of the scenario, you choose to play, more becomes available once you reach 20 days on the first one, your citizens look to you for proper guidance and challenges. They are not so much worried about the right choice, but one that can be acted upon swiftly. You may be tasked with providing shelter for all or some members within a given period, which, upon completion, raises the overall hope and lowers the discontent of the populace. Laws can be enacted once every 18 hours, allowing you to alter the direction of your settlement. There aren’t any wrong decisions, as each option will significantly affect some of the population. If workers become scarce, they risk not being able to stockpile enough coal to make it through the night. You may opt to enact a 24-hour work shift doctrine to survive.

Do you look to enact child labor to help support your mining endeavors? Are dead bodies buried within a cemetery or left out in the wildness to be covered up in the snow? What about amputating gravely ill individuals at medical tents to swiftly free up slots for others? Everything affects how your society evolves and how you are perceived as a leader.

Eventually, you’ll research more advanced buildings and technology, further expanding the amount of warmth throughout your sprawling city, and even escaping the crater to search for vast frozen wasteland for other survivors and resources. These expeditions can undoubtedly save you from starvation or lack of heat. If you can locate and bring back ample resources, however, there are always choices that are involved. For example, you may have an objective to find the rest of your convoy and bring back twenty or more members. Letting them make the journey themselves may save you time, but may see higher fatalities, versus slowly escorting them to ensure their safety. Ignoring the challenges will raise the despair or lower the hope mechanics in the game. Keep the hope of your citizens is too low, and you’ll find yourself exiled. If discontent towards you grows, you’ll have to deal with rebels against your leadership.

Although your city initially starts small, it isn’t long before you are carefully deciding what research to do first. Pick the wrong one, and you may have just wasted valuable resources that may jeopardize the survival of your townsfolk. Each scenario provided can be tricky, tasking you with setting priorities and making decisions that may see few suffer for the greater good of the collective. Frostpunk also includes an endless mode across four maps, with two paths and customization options. One for survivalists with scarce resources and frequent struggles, and the other for constructors with amble resources and a more relaxed experience.

Simply Put

Frostpunk: Console Edition is a brutal yet highly satisfying survival city management game. At times, you’ll agonize over your choices, heck, I couldn’t get one in particular out of my mind, even after turning the game off. The console version feels excellent to play thanks to the highly thoughtful control mechanics that make use of every possible button efficiently. Be warned, opening the Xbox guide menu does not automatically pause the game.

The game starts with a short, but an excellent tutorial that I recommend everyone take the time to play through. It helps gear you up for the challenges of the game, and it does an excellent job of explaining several pieces. I went through it twice, which certainly helped as a refresher for some of the bits I got confused about the further in the game I went. It was well worth the extra time.

The game will initially place you on the "world map." This map represents one of the sectors of Warsaw. The areas of Warsaw you'll visit are large and sprawling, filled with random enemy encounters, chance events, and random loot spots on top of your objective. Moving around is simple, using the left mouse button (LMB) or arrow keys to move your tiny squad around the tight corners. It's possible to maneuver around enemy patrols, but watch out for your ability points (AP). You start every mission with 100 AP, and if it drops to 0, you fail the mission. This makes it a requirement to manage your resources, AP, and inventory as you move about the map. Upon completing a mission, you'll gain whatever rewards were listed for it, on top of all the loot you managed to acquire.

Additionally, time will progress based on the mission screen; things occur between your time in the field and returning to the hideout. You'll end up handling a small, randomized event that'll dictate an outcome before seeing how your war efforts have impacted the momentum of the resistance. Just as an example, after the tutorial alone, I had two separate events occur. One gave me a bonus set of ammunition, and the other caused a more substantial impact on my resistance efforts. It provides excellent replayability, knowing not only will my missions and mission areas will change, but also that events are randomized.

Combat is an intriguing mix of turn-based strategy and lane-based combat. Both sides have two lanes (upper and lower) and four slots each. This gives your side of the battlefield eight spots where characters and obstacles set up shop. This structure is the core of the combat system. As characters can move locations, attack based on what spots their skills allow, and sometimes require. Combat, as I mentioned, is turn-based. Every member of your party and the enemy party is granted an action each turn. The game then does one action from each, before the next turn starts. It's possible to use all of your actions with a single character until their stamina runs out (everyone starts with three stamina bars).

Attacking uses ammunition, which a character's skill will explain to you in the bottom part of the menu. Much like other tactical strategy games, you're giving a full list of details regarding your attack. This includes the accuracy to hit, potential damage, ammo cost, what setup is required to actually carry out the attack, etc. And much like the X-COM series, expect to miss consistently even with a 95% accuracy rating. I think I missed more shots than I took; however, that is possible. I'm not saying I expect to be a proficient killer given these are randomly recruited soldiers and civilians taking on a well-equipped and well-trained fighting force, but I was shocked a few times at just how much I missed. Providing an additional set of challenges for combat are the obstacles and status effects. Barriers can absorb some damage until they eventually break, and status effects can be applied depending on the attack or ammo used. Effects like suppression will prevent you from using skills or attacking, while bleed and fire damage will continue to impact you over time. These statuses can also stack, meaning it's possible to have multiple effects in play simultaneously. It sucks to watch your health drain quickly because of the effects at the end of a turn.

Between combat and missions, you'll spend some time at your hideout. Here you're able to review your party members (both the unique ones and randomly recruited civilians), check on supplies and different sectors of Warsaw, remember the fallen, or start up your next underground efforts. The game revolves around supplies, which are earned from keeping control of various areas of Warsaw or through missions. While at the hideout, these supplies are used to recruit various members, buy/trade/repair equipment and ammunition, or provide assistance to beleaguered boroughs of the city. You'll also end up having opportunities to recruit new soldiers to your outfit, helping to flesh out your capabilities as you take on the Nazi occupation forces. Your units will also level up from commendations, unlocking new abilities as they get through the three levels.

The game isn't procedurally generated, but the randomized events are a blessing, in my opinion. Missions will change between restarts, skills can be rearranged, and the civilians, already randomized, will vary from game to game. As I mentioned, this replayability is one of the best parts of the game on top of the challenging combat and story/setting. The bow on top is the eye-catching, hand-painted art that really makes things pop. Detailed sprites and environments are both bright and colorful, yet dreary and telling of the factual backdrop of this game. Attacks are brutally depicted and without even being outwardly gory, still managed to present the visceral nature of what you're doing. It's not Wolfenstein in terms of the over the top antics and depiction, but it's still impactful.

Simply Put

WARSAW is a solid tactical strategy role-playing game. It suffers from some of the same antics that drive me crazy in other games in the genre, with a bizarre way of calculating hit ratios. The randomized events and absolutely stunning graphical depiction of the game more than makeup for it. For those doubly interested in World War 2 and tactical strategy, this is a great title to look into.

Without spoiling the events that transpired in the previous game, The Surge 2’s narrative picks up immediately following the game’s ending. You awake from a coma months after your flight crashed due to a mysterious storm outside of Jericho City. The dystopian city is in ruins, overrun by the nanite-based disease that CREO failed to contain. Instead of limiting you to CREO’s facilities like in the first game, here, the entire city is your playground. There are non-playable characters to converse with, intriguing side missions to complete, and plenty of unique areas to explore.

With the expanded environment, I found myself getting easily turned around, way more so than in the previous game. However, it does offer you a chance to explore every dark alley and passageway for new implants (enhancements) and audio logs. It also gives you ample foes to cut limb from limb (literally), which earns you abundant tech scraps for leveling or upgrades. There are still shortcuts that make it easier to travel back to safe zones and to reach bosses without having to retread through entire sections of the game.

Combat focuses on a mixture of horizontal and vertical attacks, instead of the light and heavy attack buttons that other games in the genre utilizes. Instead, quick taps signify a light attack, while holding down an attack button unleashes a much more powerful attack, one that can break through shielded enemies. Combos combine the use of both types of attacks, and you’ll learn which work best, depending upon where you are targeting. The limb targeting system returns from the first game, letting you chose to focus on a specific limb, and hopefully remove it from the body. Doing so earns you a schematic for the exact piece of armor or weapon the enemy had equipped. It still feels strangely satisfying to see heads, and body parts flying in almost every direction in slow motion. Energy temporally earned by successfully attacking foes can be converted into saved stim heal.

Each weapon type comes with its own set of combos and attack patterns. A one-handed sword will generally have a faster attack speed than a massively heavy two-handed hammer. Thankfully, you can set different armor loadouts while at a medbay. Weapons can be swapped with the press of a button giving you the freedom to alter your plans as you are exploring. Without a doubt, the game is still quite difficult, and you’ll need to use your evade and block if you wish to survive and not lose all of your tech scraps. A new directional parry mechanic can stagger just about any foe, but I never quite got the hang of the proper timing. Instead, my drone buddy served as my protector, and I eventually didn’t even bother trying to parry. Unless you opt to play offline, tags from other players populate the world, leaving hints, tips, or tricks throughout the landscape. Foes may be flagged as a revenge target, if they recently killed another player, letting you retrieve materials for the other player who perished.

Simply Put

The Surge 2 builds upon the formula from the first game in the series with some notable improvements. The Surge 2 is still a grind-heavy game, especially if you want to fully upgrade your gear, and acquire full/partial sets for their sweet bonuses. The game features a much stronger narrative, a well-designed character creator, and an exciting cast of NPCs to meet throughout your adventure.

The game opens with De Sardet, the protagonist and future Legat of New Serene, learning the ropes from the dedicated mercenary of the Coin Guard, Kurt. It has befallen onto you to find a cure for the deadly malichor plague that has ravaged its way through the city of Serene. After a heartfelt goodbye to your mother, who won’t survive the disease long enough to see the fruits of your quest, you make your way through the city. Serving as an introduction to the various political factions, and getting accumulated to the game’s mechanics. It doesn’t take long for the folly of man to ire its ugly head, as you learn of guards pinching merchants for coin, and sons being sold off to The Nauts; those with the power to navigate the high sea.

Regardless of the class, you select initially; you’ll have access to basic light and heavy attacks, as well as a special attack, and your first ability. The first choice you make affects your starting stats, weapon of choice, and gently guides you when it is time to make stat improvements. The warrior class specializes in melee attacks, the technical class controls enemy movements with crowd control options, and the magic class can deal long-range damage with a wide array of magical spells. As you gain experience, you’ll level up, and with that, earn skill points to spend on new abilities. Powerful fury attacks use a varied amount of stored meter, and items and firearms can be mapped to be easily triggered. Although you’ll only face against several enemies at once, dodging and parrying is a must, especially during boss encounters. Even on the easiest difficulty, De Sardet can perish in a matter of a handful of hits, leaving you to chug health potions. A secondary weapon slot allows you to equip a different weapon type, and a kick can stagger enemies, leaving them unable to defend against a quick fury of attacks.

Once you reach New Serene, the game takes off the training wheels letting you explore the mysterious island of Teer Fradee. Your cousin takes his place as Governor, leaving you to play ambassador to other nations and natives inhabiting the island. Once you leave the city area, you’ll notice that the game isn’t one cohesive or seamless open-world. Instead, the game is divided into decently sized hub areas. Reach the edge of a map or find a fast travel point, and you’ll have to choose where you want to travel next. Every time you do so, you’ll get the chance to swap out companions or replenish your inventory thanks to traveling merchants.

Each area is well-designed and features plenty of things to discover if you take the time to explore. Chests can be found almost everywhere, whether you are out in the wild or running through city streets. For this reason, I highly recommend selecting lock picking as your initial skill. Each questline in the game feels like a mini self-contained story but remains linked to the overarching narrative. With two companions at your side, encounters in the game are mostly uneventful, but that is mainly due to the smallish groups your face. Not only that, but there isn’t a wide variety to the enemy types in the game. Be careful not to move too far from your foes current position, as you’ll cross an invisible barrier, resetting them in the process. There is even a tactical pause, slowing down the action if you find yourself overwhelmed, but unlike other titles, you can’t control your companions. You can, however, fully customize/swap out their gear and further build your relationship with them by completing quests. Yes, you can even romance them if that interests you.

Loot is based on the standard color rarity scale, with higher-tiered items offering upgrade options. There are two different paths you can take to upgrade your gear, either crafting yourself or by visiting a blacksmith. These upgrades not only improve the stats of the selected piece but adds striking new visual flair. I was happy to boost the armor rating on my chest piece, but seeing it visually reflected is an outstanding detail. Of course, at times, I was purely motivated with looks over form, but there is nothing wrong with looking stylish while exploring a new world.

Simply Put

Greedfall is one of the most ambitious games that has come out of seasoned developer Spiders. Although it is their best work, technical issues continue to be a running theme with their games. The voice acting is mostly impressive, and the narrative is well-written; however, the game’s lack of transitional animations can be quite jarring. With that said, it feels like Spiders is on the verge of greatness. The narrative is strong, and the world-building is quite remarkable, but the execution isn't quite ready for prime time.

There are a variety of locales in The Sojourn, each one serving as a unique chapter of the game. The first dozen or so puzzles in the game serve as a tutorial, gently guiding you through the essential elements and functions you’ll be using in every subsequent puzzle. The goal of each of the puzzles involves freeing a wispy glowing light; however, most puzzles are broken up into two separate parts. These optional objectives, redesign puzzles front before your eyes, adding new platforms, and challenges. Also, there are entirely optional challenge puzzles that you can seek out if you are looking to test your understanding of the game’s mechanics.

If you intend to follow the main narrative, don’t expect The Sojourn just to roll over and let you easily breeze through. Even without attempting the additional challenges, I found some of the puzzles to be quite stimulating. It is undoubtedly a game emphasizing logical thought process, positioning, timing, and patience above all else. The hub locations change (and I can’t compliment the visual design enough), from a circular designed library lavished with gold, to an underground cave, but all of the actual puzzles areas are quite similar in terms of visuals, besides different backdrops. The stone building blocks may alter their hue, but you are almost always floating above an endless chasm in a surreal type environment.

The Sojourn is a tale of two worlds, one of light and one full of darkness, and knowing this, and how to harness the powers of both worlds is a necessary step. Either by walking into a shimmering pool of light or by staying within a projected tunnel of light can you interact with the dark realm. While in this state, pathways become visible, and you can harness the power to swap your location with statues in the blink of an eye. Musical harps build temporary platforms, and magical booths can harness the light to open gates and duplicate statues placed within. Rotating mirrors can redirect tunnels of light for you to venture across, and replaceable relics allow you to activate statues without having to first step into the glimmering light. These are virtually all of the mechanics you’ll use across the 10-12 hours it will take to complete the game, more so if you attempt all of the optional objectives and puzzles. It’s not so much as needing to complicate the game with continually adding new mechanics overly, but how the game melds them together that is uniquely impressive.

I relished the time I have spent playing The Sojourn. Developer Shifting Tides has seemingly perfected the art of gradually introducing new mechanics to puzzles, ensuring you combine the usage of each before learning something new. It has been an absolute pleasure going through dozens of puzzles and reaching the eureka moment to release the little glowing light, and then task my brain with trying to alter all the existing pieces to collect the scroll. The scrolls themselves offer words of wisdom, encouragement about life, and how to be a better person. I would have liked to see a rewind or undo style feature, as a single poorly positioned swap, may require you to start the challenge over. With that said, all of the puzzles aren’t time-consuming, and probably can be solved in a matter of a few minutes (if not less), if you are sharp as a tack. You can fall off the ledges in the game; however, you respawn precisely where you were.

Simply Put

The Sojourn is a well-designed, thought-provoking first-person puzzle title, with colorful scenery and magical soundtrack. The guiding narrative about self-reflection and discovery told through blindfolded statues, and the scrolls are subtle enough to get the point across and profound sufficient if you look inward upon yourself while playing. The slow pacing of the game is almost metaphoric to life, giving you a reason to slow things down, take it all in, and live in the moment.

Devil's Hunt certainly knows how to give players a taste of what is to come, putting them right into the action with a fully capable and decked out Desmond. The tragic events that led to this transpire shortly after, given you context to what you witnessed at the start of the game. It doesn't take long before your life, which seemed to be going well, based on the expensive sports cars, luxury accommodations, and hot girlfriend come crumbling down. Losing your first illegal underground boxing match is only the start of your bad luck, as you find yourself caught between the eternal struggle between demons and angels. You are the Savior and Destroyer, and it is your choice whether to save humanity or damn them to eternal torment. At least, that is what you are told throughout the seven-hour adventure, but there aren't any choices for you to make.

Being based on the novel, Równowaga, written by Paweł Leśniak, the game's narrative is quite linear. Rocking sweet looking glowing red arms, you'll spend most of the game punching and clawing at demons and those unworthy of keeping their soul. Although Desmond can utilize both light and heavy attacks, combat tends to feel clunky at best. Without a target lock-on, you'll be pulled towards enemies, similar to how the Batman Arkham games operated. However, the combat in Devil's Hunt is not as smooth or rewarding. Skills are divided between the three unique skill trees or schools. Executor focuses on damage dealing, Unholy allows you to heal and use ranged skills, and Void controls engagements with your demonic powers. Once unlocked, you can swap between the three schools on-the-fly.

Using specialized skills interrupts the flow of combat, immobilizing Desmond, for the most part. This wouldn't be too much of an issue if skills didn't have the tendency of not working. One of the first powers you acquire, sees you flinging horizontal flaming arcs directly in front of you. Most of the time, they would go right through enemies, having no visible effect, and not dealing any damage. Melee attacks seem to suffer from the same lack of feedback.

I understand that every attack can't interrupt or stagger, but visible feedback of your attacks is sorely lacking. It doesn't help that Desmond is unable to block, and only specific attacks can be parried. Instead, you must dodge most attacks, but having a slight cooldown on dodging, leaves you open to incoming attacks. Enemies can (and will) attack off-screen, leaving you indefensible, but worst of all most attacks knock you to the ground. Your ultimate demonic form never feels overpowering, mostly because you'll glitch and be stuck in place. Although there are finishers, that see Desmond brutally kill other demons, there is one skill in particular that almost instantly kills anything. As long as you are not interrupted, the soul-stealing ability can take care of most enemies. It's not entirely worth the risk, as you will almost always be facing a handful of foes at once, probably to counter the inclusion of that skill.

There aren't actual puzzles for your solve while exploring, but occasionally you'll come across blocked paths, requiring you to locate seals to shatter. Without the ability to jump, your movements are somewhat limiting. Anytime you come across a half-wall, you'll need to interact to climb up/down. There are collectibles for you to find along the way, mostly in additional paths that don't lead anywhere. Occasionally you come across teleportation pads requiring you to locate a matching location, typically above or below you. While the environments on Earth are visually lacking, aesthetically, the depths are Hell are quite spectacular. It is just a shame that you spend half the game trudging through dull streets, and warehouses, and forced to return to Desmond's pad continually.

Technical bugs are quite rampant throughout the entire game. As you navigate through tight corridors on Earth or in Hell, Desmond easily becomes stuck along surfaces. It doesn't matter if it is a wall or an object in the environment; the movement system is clunky at best. Playing through the game with a controller, it was tedious at times navigating through the game's tight corridors.

During one of the boss encounters, which I won't spoil, you are forced to complete it using your demonic form. However, there isn't anything to tip you off, and instead, the boss regenerates health constantly until you trigger the proper sequence. On another occasion, Desmond carefully crossed a plank but didn't transition back to his normal walking animation after reaching the other side, forcing a reload. There are additional minor nuisances, such as missing dialogue, and poorly timed transitions, leading to an overall unpublished product.

Simply Put

Devil's Hunt's battle between the forces of Heaven and Hell can be visually stunning, but highly unpolished at times. Stiff animation and various bugs mares the rather great voice acting in the game. It's a shame that the game's protagonist feels one dimensional, and the game never digs deep enough into his choice of being the Savior or Destroyer. Many of the smaller bugs can be overlooked, especially with the low price point for the game, but the forced restarts and game-breaking glitches need to be a top priority.