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Average Game review score: 0
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1 game reviews
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    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Shadows of Doubt
    Yet in all its clockwork detail, I admire it all the same. Buying into its world, bugs and all, has yielded the satisfaction of cases closed and the comedy of killings that completely stumped me. It took me 9 hours just to find the killer of the tutorial mission. For in-game days all I had to go on was an initial - A. Then for more hours, only a first name. After endless dud leads, dopey mishaps, and one bullet in the back by a security guard who found me snooping in her office, I finally found a surname and address for my suspect. I gasped a zealous "gotcha!" at my screen, and understood that something about Shadows Of Doubt felt special. It might not match the prints of the grail-esque single city block. But I think the immersive detective sim has found its first true killer. [RPS Bestest Bests]
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Little Nightmares III
    Scores are obviously anathema to what we do at RPS, although I'm not so strong a person that I can avoid pointing out that if someone were to show me a picture of original series protagonist Six right now, I'd nod sagely and say "indeed". Again, there's a couple of really inspired scenes and more than a couple of arresting sights here, good enough to drag me from 'meh' to 'oh damn!' a few times. It plays like what it is, really: a cover act. A tribute. A flatpack knock-off of a trendy piece. Good quality. Well built. You could hit it with a wrench and it'd barely shake. Then again, I do have to ask whether it's a good thing that I find myself assessing a game like a piece of furniture.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Shenmue III
    This is an often boring and sometimes brilliant game, where the brilliance depends on the boredom. If that’s too risky a pitch for a full-priced ticket on Suzuki’s time machine, maybe try the originals first (both are on Xbox Game Pass for PC). For better and for worse, Shenmue III is a perfect continuation.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Megaquarium
    It’s a tricky balance to master, relaxing but complex, yet Megaquarium manages to do it while making it look effortless. It’s a breezy, upbeat management game that nonetheless gives you lots to play with and plenty of room for experimentation. Plus, the fish are all cuties.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Devolver Bootleg
    Ask yourself this: Do you really need more empty irony in your life? Do any of us? We of course do because it’s a wonderfully effective way of numbing ourselves against the self-created horror that is the reality of living on borrowed time due to various catastrophic extinction scenarios of our own making. But hey, maybe a nice bit of sincerity might ease that along, too.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Etherborn
    So effective was the musical and visual direction that I gasped in genuine awe at a key moment in the finale. It may not be a long game, for a faster-witted player than I would get through it in an afternoon, and pretty games may not be all that scarce… but this is more than just pretty. It’s a carefully directed, genuinely beautiful game well worth your time.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Assassin's Creed Valhalla: The Siege of Paris
    Repetition stings more here than it did in the main campaign as traditionally Assassin’s Creed DLC has been a place for designers to test out weirder ideas. Think of Syndicate’s hunt for Jack the Ripper, or getting a suite of magic powers to fight a godlike George Washington in AC3, or taking a visually spectacular tour of the afterlife in Odyssey. If anything, The Siege of Paris’ run of strong missions and knottier story feels like what Valhalla probably should have been in the first place; a tantalizing glimpse of a better game penned into an eight hour DLC. It only dips its toe into the giant, plastic skull full of red wine; time for a bolder developer to take the plunge.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Overland
    Overland isn’t that one friend on a road trip who has packed emergency supplies, and has the itinerary worked out to the hour. It’s the scarred, weather-chafed drifter you picked up along the way, and who’s seen things, man. The guy you’ll end up asking for just one more story, even though the last one they told stung so hard you swore you’d never ask again.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    State of Decay 2
    And after all this, there are the bugs. Bugs bugs bugs. Characters vanishing, cameras swiveling, cars becoming lodged in barriers, shotguns becoming lodged in spines, doors that look wide open but are really closed, ambulances flickering in and out of existence like a dying filament. The majority of the bugs are visual hiccups, but a couple are complete blinders, such as the time my onscreen health, stamina, ammo and minimap all vanished in the middle of a fight with a tank-like juggernaut zombie. Or the time I threw a pipe bomb and it simply froze in the air centimetres in front of me, then exploded.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    State of Mind
    It’s a real shame. If State of Mind was more minimalist in its plot, and focused on exploring and completing character arcs rather than absurd thought experiments, if it dealt with one or two of the themes of posthumanism, instead of six or seven all at once… we might have had something really special on our hands.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Miasma Chronicles
    At the core of Miasma Chronicles, then, is a nugget of precious metal. It demonstrates a strong understanding of what makes turn-based tactics games tick, and when you get down to the nitty-gritty, it’s full of the knife-edge decisions and risk-reward gambits the genre is renowned for. But around that core there’s too much that doesn’t quite fit, or isn’t quite up to snuff. If The Bearded Ladies are going to stick to type in the future, their balance of stealth, tactics and post-apocalyptic fiction could do with a new strategy.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Shadowhand
    Shadowhand, by contrast, is not for me. I’ll put Pip and Adam’s love of the previous game, which looks to be the same mix of cogs and odds, down to a monumental clash of tastes. Where they found that blend of petticoats and card-plucking soothing and thoughtful, I found this one boring in the extreme and stylistically overblown, floating through a brief few hours with it in a somnambulic state (I couldn’t bear to finish it) occasionally roused enough to tut at an uncooperative deck or the hackneyed dialogue.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Maid of Sker
    Maid Of Sker is more frightening when it’s not trying to scare you. The story, the atmosphere and the music are well-crafted enough that they would almost be enough on their own, but its obsession with chucking monsters at you ends up destroying a lot of that good will. Perhaps, in looking sideways at Capcom’s desk, Maid Of Sker copied even the answers it didn’t need.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    New Tales from the Borderlands
    Look, I know making almost any game is a labour of love, but I spent like a week being sad and not knowing why, until I finished this game and realised I was happy because I didn't have to play it every day after work anymore. All this does is prove that Gearbox cannot be trusted with their own IP anymore. The very existence of New Tales From The Borderlands is a more effective critique of corporate structure and the pitfalls of capitalism than any of the content of any Borderlands game. Apart from the best one. Just play Tales From The Borderlands.
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Spacebase Startopia
    Spacebase Startopia isn't here to rock your world. It's here to gently wrap a friendly arm around you. It's a game that does exactly what it needs to do, and does it well. I can take off my rose tinted glasses and offer it an assured Han Solo-style salute.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Steel Rats
    It’s by no means a terrible game, but it whiffs on too many elements for the admittedly cool aesthetics to carry the day. There were moments of pure fun, like escaping from the docks as a robot-controlled ship ripped up everything behind me with a massive anchor chain. But there were just as many infuriating, controller-tossing moments that managed to destroy any goodwill the fun times had built up.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Night Call
    It’s a game with two key strands that feel forced together when they don’t really work in tandem. I like both ingredients in theory, but they don’t coalesce successfully, like how a vinaigrette salad dressing will separate into oil and vinegar until you shake it up again. Except balsamic dressing is obviously delicious. Night Call isn’t quite that. It’s not bad, though. A honey-mustard, maybe?
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars
    Quotation forthcoming.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Agents of Mayhem
    Agents Of Mayhem is huge, and so incredibly ambitious, but more often than not, it misses the mark. The lack of combat feedback is a tragedy, and one that is ruinous, but for me it’s the disappointment of the writing that feels like the biggest letdown.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    The Spectrum Retreat
    The Spectrum Retreat may be the perfect holiday resort, but I can’t really say I’ve enjoyed my stay.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Serial Cleaners
    Serial Cleaners has a relatively quick runtime, made up of a few chapters that conclude things before it outstays its welcome. While an array of cleaners and strong level design can't quite turn the game into a devour-in-one-sitting affair, it's still a burst of stressful fun and an anecdote generator if you're either a chaotic cleaner or more methodical with the hoover.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Stela
    The trial-and-error approach to deaths and puzzles mentioned above didn’t help, as it made me feel I was having to really work for what I was increasingly convinced would be a slim narrative reward. In the end, I wandered off for metaphorical celery, and it took me the best part of a month to come back to Stela in order to finish this review. I’m glad I did, as it still had some astonishing sights left to show me. But it was a close call.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Demon Turf
    Flaws aside, Demon Turf pulled me in as a long-time platforming fan. Thanks to that competitive gameplay, great sense of humour and appealing art style, Fabraz’s latest stands apart from the rest of its 3D platformer competition. If you’re after a new jumping fix, I’d recommend it.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    The Gunk
    The Gunk is good rather than great, then, but given it's on Game Pass you'd be silly to pass it up. Maybe it's just the time of year, but watching each region unfurl in a bubble of light and colour, not knowing what it's going to look like until the last minute, feels very much like pulling back the windows of an Advent Calendar, with each de-gunking revealing yet another jaw-dropping treat for the senses. It's Christmas comfort food for lazy afternoons on the sofa, and at just under five hours, it can be done and dusted in just a couple of sessions, too. Very good vibes indeed.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Mecha BREAK
    In some sense judging Mecha Break for these free-to-play foibles is a pity. Because buried beneath the weedlike mass of microtransactions, the noise of lootboxes opening, the lecherous lingering over chests and butts, and the legion of screens popping up to flummox you with unintelligible currencies, there is a slight but glowing core: a decent multiplayer action game with a lot of admittedly cool robots. It is a shame this core is housed in the greebly shell of a desperate salesbot, hawking at you every step of the way. Mecha Break upsells to you even as you leave - quit the game, and there is an advert to follow it on social media. Mate, I can barely follow what you said in the briefing room.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Steelrising
    Despite the story and side missions being interesting enough to make you want to finish Steelrising (and they are), despite the world being pretty-ugly (and it is), despite the combat having the ingredients to be interesting and cool (and it does), you still might end up annoyed and a bit bored by it all. And it's worse because it's so almost better than that.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Pathway
    I think it’s a generally inoffensive game with extremely charming presentation that’s badly suited for the ritualistic plonking down of oneself in front of a chunky desktop PC, but would probably be a welcome distraction on the Switch.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Astria Ascending
    Altogether, the combat is just cumbersome enough to make every fight feel like a drag, and a poor imitation of more sophisticated systems you've seen elsewhere. It's something I'd probably be willing to put up with were it buoyed by an exceptional story and lovable cast of characters, but Astria Ascending fails on all counts. By all means give it a go on Game Pass if you're desperate to see what it's like, but be warned: this is not a game that respects your time. There are far better avenues to pursue if you're after an engaging JRPG. The only thing you'll achieve by taking this particular detour is a one-way street to disappointment.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    911 Operator
    It’s a couple of evening’s worth of exploring a concept and buying a few upgrades for under a tenner. I don’t not recommend it on that basis – the single greatest thing about PC gaming is that it’s a medium which will explore every niche, and I was glad for a brief nose at this one. It is a bit crashy in its current form through, and that paired with the feeling that it needs a little more meat on its bones makes me more inclined to suggest waiting a month or two.
    • 68 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Recompile
    Despite it's so-so action, Recompile is a brilliant adventure and unlocking its mysteries is a blast. It could be a bit clearer when steering you to the next step, but the strength of its platforming and puzzling more than makes up for it. Love me some hacking and code now.
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