I was introduced to Suda51 through Killer7, and was enamored by No More Heroes and its sequel. After that, I feel like things fell into a bit of a lull. He did a lot post-Desperate Struggle, but I mostly remember Shadows of the Damned, Lollipop Chainsaw, and Killer is Dead.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy them; it’s more that I really love Killer7 and No More Heroes. Those games, I just found them to be fine. Enjoyable but not extraordinary. But that was a long time ago. My tastes have matured, I'm more open-minded, and I look at video games in a broader way, so I was looking forward to giving Shadows of the Damned another chance with the Hella Remastered v?er??sion. Some people really dig it, so maybe I just wasn’t able to appreciate it properly at the time.

Unfortunately, this time it’s no differen??t. Maybe I don’t give my past self enough credit, because another playthrough has not impr?oved my opinion of the game.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered (PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Switch)
Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture
Publisher: Grasshopper Manufacture
Released: October 31, 2024
MSRP: $24.99

I want to start by saying that Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is? not “hella�remastered. It is barely remastered. I’m certain that ??some things have visually improved, but I don’t think the geometry has been touched. I’d call the textures “cleaned up,�but I’m pretty sure they’re the exact same ones but maybe less compressed. There were moments when it would do close-ups of some objects, and the surface was just smeared and blurry. 

Shadows of the Damned wasn’t a terrible-looking game for 2011, but it wasn’t impressive, either. It wasn’t intended as some sort of technical showcase. But why call it a remaster when it just looks like someone turned the settings up from High to Ultra? It has extra costumes and Ne??w Game+. It runs at 4K and 60fps. Some of the visual effects have been improved, but it still looks like Unreal Engine 3 piss. A port is fine, especially for the price. Maybe call it the “Hella Definitive Edition.�But if you want to call it remastere?d, at least put a rug down.

Anyway, Shadows of the Damned is about a guy and his talking gun descending into Hell to make dick jokes for several hours. Not that there’s a problem with dick jokes. Destructoid was founded on the principles of dick jokes. I just want you to be p?repared for what you’re getting into.

Shadows of the Damned plays a bit like Resident Evil 4 if you suck some of the production ?values out of it. You play as demon hunter Garcia Hotspur as he takes his transforming pistol, Johnson, on a road trip through hell to rescue his girlfriend, Paula, from the Lord of th?e Underworld, Fleming. The goal is to reach a castle that always looms on the horizon, the Castle of Hassle.

That’s pretty much all there is to the story. You advance level by level and take out some baddies along the way. Much of the narrative meat is actually just backstory. Being a former demon himself, Johnson will explain the workings of the underworld while you occasionally come across books ??that reveal the pasts of the bosses you face. It’s not the most exciting storytelling, but it works. Its goal seems to be attempting a dark fairytale, but I don’t think that comes across very well.

However, the dialogue between Garcia and Johnson helps elevate i??t, so long as you can stomach the humor. It is packed with references to sex and genitalia, sometimes through double entendre and other times just overtly. Not all of it hits, and some of it completely missed me, but the duo is charming enough. They may not stop talking about their members and the members of others, but at least guys are able to bond over their dicks.

I wound up enjoying Garcia’s wholesome devotion to Paula. Although she’s heavily sexualized throughout the story, at one point even showing off her tits, Garcia is mostly just concerned with doing right by her. It’s a? subtle trait that sometimes gets lost beneath the heaps of dick jokes, but it’s appreciable when it comes up.

When you get into the gameplay of Shadows of the Damned, it winds up being unspectacular. A largely linear affair with a heavy focus on combat wit?hout a real hook. A lot of the setpieces revolve around a darkness that will envelop the area, which will damage Garcia if he spends too much ti??me in it, but otherwise, it’s headshots and weak points with a bit of dodging thrown in for good measure.

At least there’s gyro control for aiming. Or there is on the PS5 version, and I assume that’s true for the Switch. It helps in a lo?t of places, especially when you’re grappling with the Big Boner.

Everything about it is a mixed bag. The graphics are often really mun??dane and drab, then every so often you get an interesting character design. But then, even the interesting characters are smudged in dirt, which makes it difficult to really appreciate their design. It’s sort of the product of the generati?on it was released in.

The soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill) is pretty great, but like everything, it ki??nd of gets lost. It doesn’t stand out as much as it should and winds up being easily forgotten. It’s easy to forget that this game was made by some of the industry’s greatest, because it’s just kind of flat.

I’m not the only one who thinks that, and I don’t just mean that by looking at the original run of reviews. The hella original version was published by EA, and if you want a feel for the dysfunction behind the scenes, it’s what gave Suda51 his grudge against former EA CEO, John Riccitiello. Suda hates the guy so much that he named an antagonist in later No More Heroes games after him �Damon Riccitiello. That was his name in Travis Strikes Again. He toned it down in No More Heroes, calling him Damon ?Ricotello, as if that hides the influence.

Shinji Mikami stated back in a 2012 interview with CVG that he thought Suda51’s “heart was broken�by the constant changes EA requested for Shadows of the Damned. He said it wasn’t the game that they had envisioned by the time it came out. It’s not like they could have fixed it in the Hella Remastered version, because they had to change so much. Instead, Suda took some of the early drafts and made the comic Kurayami Dance with Syuji Takeya.

That’s not to say that Shadows of the Damned couldn’t have appealed even with those circumstances. While I appreciate the creative vision and detest the business end of development, it doesn’t always doom a production. But regardless of it, Shadows of the Damned is rather bland, even with its constant dick-waving. Maybe I’m naive, but I can’t imagine it turning out this way without executive oversight. Obviously, Suda51 is pr?oud enough about the game to consider it worth releasing again, even if it isn’t exactly a gloss-up.

I gave Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered a fair chance to win me over, but I feel the same way I did when I played it back in 2011: underwhelmed. It’s just now, all these years later, I’m a lot better at analyzing its problems and communicating them. It doesn’t help that the remaster is barely a remaster at all??. The buddy relationship between Johnson and Garcia as well as Garcia’s devotion to Paula have their charm, and the dick jokes do a lot of heavy lifting. However, it’s difficult to get over just how grey and humdrum the underworld is.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered appeared first on Destructoid.

I'm one of those strange people who enjoys playing betas for games when I get the chance. As a writer here it's in my nature to help people through stuff like guides, and I have an (at times) unhealthy obsession with gaming, so helping a developer make thei?r game better is a nice marriage of the two.

Yet like a lot of people, I also use these betas to help determine whether I'll enjoy the final product. I approach these cautiously as some issues are part of the beta experience, but it's a great way to judge whether the core experience is for me. That was exactly what I did with Wayfinder over a year ago, and I came away not entirely sold on the MMO style since its always online status and my inconsistent WiFi didn't mesh well. Even then, I struggled to see what being an MMO brought to the game. Judging by the initial reception to Early A??ccess, others felt the same.

However, while that's where I'd normally walk away never to touch the game again, Wayfinder is a unique case. Through the course of Early Access, the game has driven itself away from its MMO roots into something more tightly focused, driven by single-player and co-op ambitions over something much larger and more time-consuming. Despite some shortcomings being tough to scrub away, Wayfinder has brought itself up to being something far more worth the asking price. Not only th?at but a shining example of how some games are simply better without live service being tacked on.

Wayfinder (PC [Reviewed], PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5)
Developer: Airship Syndicate
Publisher: Airship Syndicate (formerly Digital Extremes)
Released: October 21, 2024
MSRP: $24.99

If you're unfamiliar with Wayfinder following its early access makeover (or simply never knew about it), it's a single-player or co-op action RPG where you play as one of eight Wayfinders, characters with unique abilities, strengths, and weakn??esses. While one character is focused on supporting the team with damage reduction and healing, others are focused on damage over time, target debuffing, or raw DPS. As a Wayfinder, your goal is to stop the spread of the Gloom, an interdimensional infection that claims all life it touches, plunging its regions into shadow and chaos.

This isn't the most unique premise, but where Wayfinder stands apart is oddly in how some of its roots are still upheld. It might ??be in a new genre, but much of its quest structure, dungeon layouts, and boss design are ripped straight out of MMOs. It feels closer to a single-player/co-op MMO than an action RPG honestly, even if that might contradict itself. I've never been into MMOs too extensively (unless you count my obscene amount of hours in Warframe) mainly because of how much pressure you can have in dungeons or raids with o?ther players. At its best, you might have one or two people not pulling their weight, and at worst, someone's spamming in the chat about how you didn't execute the exact button combos that they would've as if you're a different person and not their clone.

Stripping that away while still letting you queue up with random players is a game-changer since it lets you either be a one-man army or squad up and make some new friends. I ran my entire playthrou??gh solo and while some encounters were very challenging, it was always possible with enough effort and careful positioning. I also played on the second-highest difficulty, so perhaps I ask??ed for that.

No matter who you're playing with, the game has a lot for you to sink your teeth into. Leveling all those characters up can take upwards of a hundred hours if you work at it, and there's a lot of side content in case you're itching for more. For build crafters there's more than enough to customize between ability upgrades to enhance the way certain abilities play with each other, talents to provide incremental stat upgrades and new perks, and a whole host of "Echoes" to apply to your gear to give even more stat upgrades. It's a lot to sink your teeth into, but it never feels too overwhelming provided you understand your Wayfinder's strengths and weaknesses well. As one example, I focused my build on Venomess toward Weapon Power and Crit Rating, proceeding to do a ton of d??amage with each strike while applying endless amounts of poison. She was easily my favorite character of the eight, but I got some good mileage out of both Grendel and Silo as well.

Alongside some great character designs and progression, Wayfinder's dungeons are among some of the best in the business. While they can get tiring after the first dozen runs of a particular layout, these never seem to overstay their welcome as far as main story content goes. Even when you do have to repeat dungeons, there are plenty of ways it fres??hens things up such as modifiers that change how you approach that dungeon, procedural layouts that are different each time, and events that provide unique puzzles or combat encounters.

Yet despite the strengths of these dungeons, it's the bosses that steal the show. Thanks to its MMO origins, most of Wayfinder's bosses take on unique movesets that you wouldn't always expect to see with a game spo??rting a narrow focus like this. I don't want to give too many of the surprises away since learning these bosses is part of the fun, but each tends to provide unique challenges that reward careful dodge timing, positioning, and strong DPS. Normally I dread the moment I'm about to enter a boss arena in games, but this care and attention to detail made bosses easily some of my favorite content.

As a cherry on top, the game is presented beautifully. Voice acting is all well done and emotional, the soundtrack gets your blood pumping while offering some enjoyable ambiance for certain dungeons, and each of the regions is crafted beautifully. It's rare to see a game utilize a cartoonish art style and still turn out picturesque, but Wayfinder strikes that balance. Whether it be its dense forests interspliced with ruins, icy frost lands, or lush caves, it's hard not to stop and admi?re the scenery frequently.

While I could sit here and sing its praises, some of the stains from Wayfinder's MMO origins weren't washed out. Most notably, the plot and writing can best be described as a word salad. Exposition dumps are dropped onto your lap with the frequency of loot drops, while nouns are thrown so fast at you that it's hard to keep track of. Combine this with abandoned plot lines and a story that wanted to end after the second major area (though the third location is very nice), and it isn't the most compellingly crafted. You probably didn't look into Wayfinder expecting a narrative masterpiece, but it doesn't detrac??t from its faults.

Side quests also pale in comparison to the main quests. Many of the q??uests feel more akin to fetch quests or "go kill 10 of x enemy" type mission design that make them very forgettable. One notable side quest had me go into a dungeon with a specific modifier to collect two objects, then go into a non-modified version of that dungeo??n to interact with the NPC who gave me the quest. Then it had me do that again, and again, and again. Eventually, I gave up and went back to the main story, especially since I'd grinded out enough XP to be caught up fully anyway. It's easy enough to ignore, but I'd be lying if I said I hadn't seen far better elsewhere.

While not as big of an issue, Wayfinder's optimization and polish did cause issues at times too. I only had one crash in 30 hours, but the framerate varies wildly depending on where you are in the world. I had anywhere ?between 30-120 FPS depending on location and battles, meaning I needed to turn down some settings and limit it to 60 FPS just to get something stable. There were also plenty of bugs, like final boss enemies despawning after I died once or certain objectives not spawning unless I restarted a dungeon ful??ly.

My gripes aside, I'm pleasantly surprised by just how far Wayfinder has come since I first played that beta. From its lukewarm early access launch, the game has transformed into an experience that's well worth your time if you're a fan of the ARPG/MMO genres. It's the sort of game that brings me hope that, even if this isn't the spark, many more developers will see the value in pivoting their live-service ambitions into something more manageable for a small team. As Wayfinder shows, doing so can result in ??an experience that's not only better for the developers, but better for players too. I also pray for more single-player/co-op games with MMO elements, but I imagine those prayers will be answered rarely if ever. One can dream.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Wayfinder appeared first on Destructoid.

The Batman: Arkham franchise has had one hell of a run, from gliding onto the scene in 2009 with Asylum, to smashing directly into a brick wall with Suicide Squad earlier this year (Oh, and who could forget the confusingly not-canon Gotham Knights).

Now, for the first time since 2016, Batman has returned to VR with Arkham Shadow. I won't leave you in suspens??e! Things turned out pretty well this time.

Batman: Arkham Shadow (Quest 3 [reviewed], Quest 3S)
Developer: Camouflaj
Publisher: Oculus Studios
Released: October 21, 2024
MSRP: $49.99 (free with Quest 3 purchase)

I'll get right to the point, this is a legit "Arkham" first-person action-adventure game that will last you anywhere from 10-15 hours, depending on what you want out of it. If you haven't played any "AAA VR" games in a while, we're beyond the point of tech demos taking up space on digital storefronts. Arkham Shadow is basically on par with Arkham Asylum in terms of scope, complete with an interconnected m??ap to explo??re, Easter eggs, timed challenge rooms, and collectibles.

The idea is that you're still playing through a younger version of Batman voiced by Roger Craig Smith (through in-game dialogue we learn that it has been several years since Origins), pre-Asylum. I've always been a fan of Smith's take on the character, and his background as a prolific voice actor allows him to stretch the character in interesting ways that I won't spoil here. He's still a "younger" and generally angrier Batman, which nicely distances itself from the iconic Kevin Conroy portrayals. Setting it during this timeframe allows the team to inject a little more of their own flavor in, too, rather than striving to simply recreate the main Arkham trilogy.

This time around it's the week of July 4th, and Batman needs to infiltrate Blackgate Prison and stop a villain called the "Rat King," who is assembling the masses of Gotham to take on various city officials. Portions of Gotham City are available as an initial tutorial of sorts, acclimating you to the game's locomotion systems, as well as the bone-crunching combat mechanics (this time, you hear it up close). According to developer Camouflaj, Rocksteady developers were a part of the creation process of Arkham Shadow, and it shows.

What took me by surprise is how much this is painstakingly designed to feel like a mainline Arkham game. The countering, the sound effects, the atmosphere, all of it comes together in a way reminiscent of the Asylum/City/Knight trilogy. Speaking as someone who got in?to the hobby in earnest in 2015, VR has come a long way. It's still mesmerizing to play a game like this in 2024, with branching environments, puzzles that only make sense in the VR space, and an intriguing mystery that's on par with Rocksteady's other projects.

Where Arkham Shadow really sold me, as a Batman fan, was in its ability to integrate more actual detective elements into the storyline (and I'm talking beyond the returning detective vision concept). Rocksteady and WB Games Montreal already did this to great effect with Arkham proper, but it's nice to see the tradition carrying on. Other than Matt Reeve's recent The Batman effort, we don't see Bruce putting his detective skills to t?he test nearly as often as we should.

To be clear, the "freeflow combat" system that Asylum helped cement with other contemporaries like Assassin's Creed 2 returns, as do the stealthy "predator" sections. Batman has access to a grappling hook, explosive gel gun, batarangs, smoke bombs, and a decoder: among other gadgets that are accessible through the in-game XP and upgrade menu. Truth be told this is basically all you need for a fully Arkham-like experience, and everything is handily available by grabbing them on Batman's chest, arms, and waist. Some VR games can go overboard with too many gadgets (including over-the-shoulder gestures), but this amount of tools feels just right, given that all of them serve an actual purpose?? in gameplay.

Shadow is lovingly crafted by both Arkham and Batman fans alike, filled with Easter eggs and references. It's one thing to walk around the GCPD building in Origins and chuckle a?t a few signs, but it's something else entirely to meander through a locale in VR, grab a paper, read?? it, and then flip it over to read more. Getting around is really simple with the grappling hook (which can also bypass manually climbing ladders if that isn't your thing), and there are myriad accessibility options for folks who aren't used to full VR movement yet. Having to grab your cape and open your arms like an idiot to glide is also way cooler than it has any right to be.

Combat is simplistic, satisfying, and surprisingly therapeutic as an actual light workout. To attack someone you'll make a real fist, and swing at an enemy while looking at them. To "counter," all you need to do is hold out your hand toward an aggressor right before they connect, even if it's off-screen (which is indicated by an icon in your sightline). Sounds easy right? Well, it is, but it's also super fun to do once the Elite Beat Agents/Beat Saber elements pop in, like hitting combinations of punches to giant rhythm game-esque icons, or swinging in specific directions for finishers. All of these concepts, when meshed together, hel??p keep things interesting, especially once you start en??countering elite enemies.

I do have some hangups. Some of the game's cast doesn't really get to sing because of a lack of material, especially characters you're meeting for the first time in Shadow. The story tries to cram a lot in at first, but slowly pulls back and focuses on? Batman's investigation into the Rat King. I wish a few more characters were fleshed out or even added, but there is a distinct lack of restraint present here that's commendable.

Gameplay is also a bit janky sometimes, which can happen in select expansive games, not just in the VR industry. There were several times when enemies could see me over an object despite being completely obfuscated by it, and I had several clipping issues (namely with grates, which make their return to the Arkham s?eries in abundance). An?other problem forced me to quit the game and reload, putting me on the correct side of a glitched doorway.

While I get the skepticism over a VR Batman game (I was unsure how this would actually pan out when it was announced), Camouflaj has more than proven that they are a major player in the VR AAA space, and Oculus Studios has yet another feather in their cap with Arkham Shadow.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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A haunted video game is hardly a new concept. Even before the haunted Majora’s Mask cartridge central to the BEN Drowned creepypasta story, there was Polybius, an unplaceable arcade machine stalked by men in black. It’s?? a? fun concept. 

In 2016 Pony Island took the concept to an interactive level in a video game. It did so with a strong sense of humor, but it was effective in blurring the line between the player and the player character in the game. Tormenture is a lot like that with a smidge less humor and, as far as I can tel?l, less of a lust for metanarrative built from vague subtext.

But the concept of a haunted game isn’t enough to make a game compelling, so Tormenture faced the risk of getting lost under a pretense that has been done before. Croxel deserves mad respect since their careful pu??zzle design manages to shine past its attention-soaking veneer.

Tormenture (PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Croxel Studios
Publisher: Billete Cohete
Released: October 21, 2024
MSRP: $14.99

As alluded to, you play as a child glued in front of their newest game. It’s the titular Tormenture, an homage to the Atari’s Adventure. It’s even played on the Limbo 2800, a legally distinct Atari 2600. When I say “glued in front of,�I’m being almost literal. You’re free to look around the bedroom you’re sitting in and interact with the things around you, but your butt is stuck to the floor. You can’t get up to move, you can’t leave the room, and you can only touch the things the game lets you. It kind of sucks, but I understand the design reasons for it. In fact, there's an in-game suggestion for why you can't mov??e, just in case you can't fully suspend disbelief.

It plays with retro nostalgia quite well. From the fuzzy CRT with its bunny-ear antennas to the Guess Who? board beside you, it tries to take you back to the '80s. The depicted copy of Tormenture?? itself has been around. It looks to have been bought from a rental place (for $6.66, no less) and there are notes scribbled into the back of its instruction manual. Your avatar also maps everything out by hand in a notebook; a practice rarely needed today.

Most of Tormenture takes place in the game itself. Certain elements and puzzles from it bleed into the real world, but most of the puzzle-solving is classic Zelda-style. The game resembles Adventure pretty heavily and lifts some of its mechanics, even starting off with a prologue that looks ripped from the game itself. It follows the same one-button limited item interaction. You can pick something up, and you can drop it but you can’t really manually operate it. It also sticks to where it touches your square character, meaning you sometimes need to let go of it and circle around to put it at a good angle. If you’ve played Adventure, this will feel extremely familiar.

You may wonder what you can do with a simple, limited, one-button control scheme. As it turns out, quite a bit. It’s impressive that I never felt that Tormenture was limiting itself by following Adventure so closely.

Your goal is to collect four relics. Each is found in one of the game’s four main dungeons and guarded by a boss. Each dungeon has its own puzzle gimmick. One gives you a torch, and another hands you a magnet. It’s set in Adventure’s flip-screen format, and each dungeon is packed with puzzles that requ??ire careful observation. There’s very little combat. There are enemies, but much of the time, your goal is to simply avoid them. Very rarely do you need to use an item from one dungeon in another, and usually when you do, it’s simply to get one of the ?game’s 34 Easter Eggs. It invites constant experimentation, which goes a long way in keeping things engaging.

As I mentio??ned, occasionally, things from the game bleed into the real world. One of the earliest cases of this is wh?en you need to blow on the cartridge and re-slot it. Over the course of the game, you’re given snippets of information that explain the backstory behind the cartridge. There aren’t any cutscenes outside of establishing shots within the game, but it does a decent job of telling you what’s going on while you’re still nailed to the floor.

A lot of the real-world puzzles involve using something in the environment to get something to happen in the game. The stuff in the real world can be pretty basic, but some of it ??gets built up over the course of the game. You might find yourself pondering over the locked drawers, only to find they come into play much later on.

Tormenture manages to nail the sweet spot where the puzzles aren’t too cryptic, ??but they’re challenging enough to make your back feel pat-worthy. A few of them gave me pause as I wondered how I was able to figure them out so easily. For most of the runtime, I was rather impressed with how effortless it all see?med. There was one segment that I got hard-stuck at to the point where I thought I hit a bug, but it turns out I was overthinking it. I had to go back and review my gameplay recording to get a feel for where I needed to focus my attention before I noticed that the solution was within reach the whole time.

Backing up, I say I was impressed for “most of the runtime,�and I want to stress that because the final section of Tormenture is the “rest of�that I left out. Th??e main four dungeons are great, but once you have all the artifacts, things get shaky. Beyond running into multiple bugs that required me to reset the game to continue, the last gimmick item is extremely unwieldy. The last set of puzzles probably won’t stretch your brain matter very far.

And then there’s the final boss which was, er, torment. I guess you can take this as your spoiler warning, but I’m not talking about what th?e fight involves, just the problem I had. 

You can take three hits in Tormenture before you’re sent back to the last clock you touched. It doesn’t really communicate well when you’re on your last sliver of health, but that’s not the issue. The problem is that the boss battle is rather protracted. It refills your health between the first and second phases, but the second phase requires you to solve simple puzzles before y?ou’re presented with the biggest puzzle of them all: how are you supposed to beat this guy?

The solution wasn’t immediately obvious to me, so I had to experiment. This required me to go deep into the battle, and if I guessed the solution wrong, it was back to the start. No matter how proficient I became at the fight, some of ??the attacks are somewhat difficult to read, especially when the boss goes off-screen. Having to repeat and repeat and repeat became extremely aggravating to a controller-breaking degree. And then there are multiple endings, which I assume is based on how diligent you are in plumbing for secrets, so I’d maybe suggest poking at all the crevices before facing the big bad.

So, that’s disappointing, but it’s a small bruise on an otherwise great experience. As much as I want to put my fist through the drywall whenever I think of that last part, I was taken in by everything before that. An?d for all I know, the boss could be nerfed in a day-one patch t?hat also fixes some of the bugs I ran into. All my suffering for naught.

I want to stress that everything leading up to that section of the game is butter. Gravy, even. It’s a loving tribute to Atari’s early console and the games that defined it, and it provides a nostalgic vision of yes??teryear’s gaming laced with a bit of horror. The final act might be a bit too much torment, but it doesn’t crack the polish of the game’s bulk. It’s absolutely worth it, just maybe chamber a few swears in preparation.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Tormenture appeared first on Destructoid.

Bernband is a simple game, but its effectiveness cannot be overstated. It is, essentially, just a game about walking around. A walk??i??ng simulator that is actually just walking. No puzzles, no objectives, just walking.

What makes it meaningful is its atmosphere. It takes place in a small chunk of a futuristic city. A commercial center of bars and shops and narrow corridors and walkways. You can't talk to anyone or inte??ract with anything; you just wander aimlessly. You might discover a raucous bar, then wander lonely, empty corridors looking for whatever else might be happening. Many of the rooms and hallways are empty, simple, and grey. But, through the use of vivid lighting and surreal atmospheric sound, it made the alien seem familiar and weird. It tangibly conveyed a hot summer night after leaving a ve??nue.

I had never heard of Grunn until it released. Somehow, after watching the initial trailer, I saw Bernband in it. Maybe it was the protagonists' strangely placed hands or the gaze of random strangers, but I somehow knew it was from the same creator. And while it’s an entirely different beast than Bernband with a totally different focus, y??ou can see where the lessons have been applied.

Grunn (PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Sokpop Collective, Tom van den Boogaart
Publisher: Sokpop Collective
Released: October 4, 2024
MSRP: $12.99

In Grunn, you wake up on a bus in the countryside. After following the only route out, you find out that you’re a gardener. You’ve been hired to maintain the yard around a house, but suspiciously, you’re told that you’re not a??llowed to actually go into the house.

You quickly find that the only tool you have available is a pair of hedge trimmers. Clearly, the yard needs more work than that. Your only choice is to go out looking for more tools, but first, you need to get out of the yard, as a waist-hi??gh fence blocks your egress. It won’t take long before you notice that you’re being watched. You only catch glimpses, but you’re definitely being followed. And while there are townsfolk around to talk to, you can’t understand a word that any of them are saying.

The town is a dangerous place. If you stay outside too long after midnight, the darkness will swallow you up. Touch something you’re not supposed to, and things might end poorly for you. And death is death; you’re sent back to the start of the game to try again, though each one counts as an “ending.�Grunn keeps track of all the endings you’ve found,? so collecting them all is a goal if you think repeated failure is something to shoot for. Otherwise, there is a good ending.

Permadeath may sound pretty harsh, especially when it means you’ll be re-cutting the grass every time it happens, but Grunn only takes place across three-ish days. It is, to be honest, somewhat annoying to ??have to trim the same hedges every time the game kills me for my curiosity, but not enough to really ruin the experience. A loop takes about 45 minutes, and it took me around 6 hours to hit the good ending. I just became rather proficient at speedrunning my c??hores. Reminds me of when I was a teenager.

The multi-day loop works in Grunn’s favor, as it forces you to look at th??e cause and effect of your actions. There isn’t a whole lot of branching, but you may not recognize exactly what caused a mysterious portal to open in the garden and give you a quick way to the park. After a few laps through the game, you wil??l.

The overall goal of the game is unclear. It isn’t actually just to ensure the yard is in top shape for when the owners get back. You’re not trying to escape the town. The only way to discover what you should be doing is by just poking at things until something happens. You eventually learn to quiet the ghosts of the dead, and you may learn what th??e hell is up with those kids on the ferry. Many of the items you pick up don’t have an immediately discernable purpose, so much of the discovery is rubbing things on other things.

To help you figure out what can and should be done, you come across a number of polaroids scattered across the world. They don’t reveal what you should be doing with the subject d??epicted, but they at lea??st let you know to take a closer look.

It’s an odd formula that may sound mundane, ??and that’s because it is. You’re essentially a stranger to a quiet town. There’s weird stuff happening, but nobody else seems to really notice or care. Not that you can ask them. There’s obviously something dark going down, but rarely does it attack you directly. Most of the scares come from catching brief glimpses of someone watching from out of sight.

You’re sort of just existing in the snapshot of a world, attempting to preserve it as it is and exorcise the evil f??rom it. You know, while also keeping the flowers watered and the hedges trimmed. It isn’t exciting. It doesn’t have to be.

I’m not sure that Grunn is going to remain cemented in my mind the same way Bernband is. The goals here are a lot more modest and less bold. On the other hand, it is an enjoyable experience. No matter how many times I woke up in that seat on the bus, I was always ready to take on the game again. Gradually unraveling its mysteries while keeping the hedges trimmed kept me engaged. Without thinking too hard about it, Grunn is probably the most relaxing horror?? gam?e I’ve ever played.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer.]}

The post Review: Grunn appeared first on Destructoid.

For quite a long time after obtaining the console, Killing Time was the only game I owned on my 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. I started it up, played for maybe 20 minutes, and then decided I’d probably be better off with the PC version. I wasn’t entirely correct o??n that.

I didn’t even get around to playing the PC version, but I learned with the announcement of Killing Time: Resurrected that there are stark differences between the two versions. The 3DO version had digitized sprites of actors as enemies, while the PC version swapped them out for 3D renders, which�well, I wouldn’t say they’re worse, but you lose some of that 1995 charm, which Killing Time is packed with.

Nightdive is easily the best developer to take on a remaster of Killing Time. They’re probably also the only people that would. They’ve proven very adept at updating games while keeping the original vision intact. And gosh, Killing Time has a vision.

Killing Time: Resurrected (PC [Reviewed], PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch)
Developer: Nightdive Studios, Studio 3DO
Publisher: Nightdive Studios, Ziggurat
Released: October 17, 2024
MSRP: $24.99

It took me about four-and-a-half hours for me to hit the end of Killing Time: Resurrected. I started it late in the ??evening and finished it early in the morning, all in one sitting. I didn’t intend to. I wasn’t expecting to. But once it got its hooks into me, I was dete?rmined.

Killing Time was first released on the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer in 1995. For context, this was the year before Duke Nukem 3D and Quake, but you’d hardly believe it. Okay, that’s a bit disingenuous. Much of Killing Time: Resurrected is based on the ??1996 PC port, which fits in more with the time period. 

The map was entirely redone on PC, and the makeover was both substantial and phenomenal. Wh??ile elements of the 3DO version were retained, the PC v?ersion has convincing room-over-room, much better verticality, and more realistic dimensions. In some ways, I wish you could choose between the 3DO and PC versions of the world, but at the same time, I don’t think anyone would prefer the former.

On the other hand, the monster sprites were much better. As I mentioned, the 3DO version used digitized actors, which gives it a whiff of the FMV era. Nightdive chose the actors, making Killing Time: Resurrected the absolute best of both worlds.

As is typical with Nightdive remasters, everything was moved over to their proprietary KEX Engine. Lighting was redone, mouselook was added, and textures and sprites were upgraded. The latter change is the most impressive. The team had access to the original photographs of the actors to build off of?, while the PC monsters and textures were upgraded largely by hand.

The actors in their weird costumes clash against the environments, giving them a surreal “off�quality. You can practically smell the green screen on them. But had Night??dive somehow lost the off-ness of it, they would have also lost a lot of the charm.

Every so often, as you explore, you find little ghosts on the ground. As you approach, they’ll load a video of two ghosts acting out a scene from the past. FPS games of the �0s had a great deal of difficulty telling stories right up until Half-Life established the formula. Killing Time’s attempt is actually quite ef?fective. You pick up bits and pieces of the story �not necessarily in a chronological fashion. Through those scenes, you get a complete picture of what went down at the Conway Estate.

You play as some dude who arrives on Matinicus Island in pursuit of an Egyptian water clock. You quickly find that the island is overrun by duck hunters and clowns. It’s bizarre. Tess Conway loved to party, so all her friends were over when everyone suddenly disappeared b??ack in the 1930s. There are actual explanations for why there are so many clowns and why an endless supply of ammunition is scattered across the island. As ridiculous as the narrative is, someone thought long and hard about how to do it.

What amazes me about Killing Time: Resurrected is that it’s a non-linear world you explore, but it very much follows the key-hunt FPS formula set by Wolfenstein 3D.? It’s just done?? using a single level on a much larger scale.

The world design is an incredible flex. Despite relying so heavily on exploration, there’s about as much action as you’d expect from something like Doom. When I said there are a lot of duck hunters and clowns, I mean a lot of duck hunters and clowns. As you travel the estate, you’re constantly mowing them down in droves, dealing death to whole circuses of entertainers. To enable your rampage, the g??ame dumps ammo on you constantly. It’s possible to run out of buckshot, but that just means you switch to your Tommy Gun. There’s no shortage of gun food on the island.

This kind of sucked on the choppy 3DO version, but with the added mouselook, you can take on your opponents like any Doomguy or Nukem. Enemies stay dead regardless of where you go on the island, so you can completely lay waste to the housekeeping staff and clear the area. There?’s very little ?backtracking to begin with, but not having to wade back through enemies makes it even more tolerable. It also has the added side-effect of laying the groundwork for the climax.

Since my previous experience with Killing Time was a somewhat disappointing dalliance with the 3DO version, I was unprepared for how much I would enjoy the game. I knew it wasn’t going to be another PO’ed, but I wasn’t expecting it to be in bingeworthy territory. I ate through it, consistently entertained by the weird aesthetic and amaz??ed by the excellent level design. Damn.

This might be Nightdive’s most important remaster. While the developer has helped polish up already popular games like Quake and System Shock, Killing Time benefits far more from their tender touch. It was already great, but this remaster makes it easier to digest. It really brings out its highlights, allowing the whole thing to shine a lot brighter. If you have never explored Matinicus Island, Killing Time: Resurrected is easily the best way to do so,?? and it’s high time you did.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Killing Time: Resurrected appeared first on Destructoid.

Movies from the �0s will never die, thanks to video games. Well, and all merchandising, really. And sequels and remakes. But they turn up in video game form with such regularity you’d think the movies had just hit. Ghostbusters, RoboCop, tonnes of various tie-ins. It’s apparently fertile ground.

Licensed movie games were once embraced by the big-budget sphere of the video game industry, but unless it’s a multi-billion dollar franchise, they’ve become rare. This has allowed them to slip into small-budget productions with crossovers galore. Some publishers have begun making it their business model to focus on licensed titles, like Devolver’s new Big Fan Games label and, according to an in-game video, Retrorealms’s publisher Boss Team Games.

Retrorealms, currently consisting of adaptations of Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead, has brought up a question in my mind that I hadn’t really thought of in-depth before. What is the goal of a licensed movie ga??me? Not from a business standpoint but from a player’s.

RetroRealms (PC [Reviewed], PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Switch)
Developer: WayForward
Publisher: Boss Team Games
Released: October 18, 2024
MSRP: $24.99 each, $49.99 bundled

The most obvious business answer to the question of what a licensed game's purpose is would be a mix of profit and advertising. Movie games would often be released right alongside the movie itself as a way of building excitement. If you see something everywhere, regardless of how much you know about it, you’ll probably assume it’s pretty popular. If you’re a gamer, you might play the game and want to see the movie. If you’re a film�person�filmer, you m?ight watch the movie and want to play the game.

But, as a player, why would you want to play a licensed game? The answer might be different for many people, but it would ??probably involve wanting to further interact with the characters or universe they inhabit. Sometimes, we’re not ready to say goodbye to a beloved story, so we seek ways to further our experience. ?Other times, the reason might be to immerse yourself in the film’s world. Rather than simply live out the plot of a movie, you play a part in a completely different story based on what is established in the movie. Or maybe you want a different perspective on things, to see how they are interpreted by the developer.

I doubt that you just want to look at things that resemble the property that you love. Personally, I don’t just want to play a game where the worlds just look like recognizable scenes and the characters appear as they do in a movie. I want the gameplay to be informed by the concepts in the movie. The N64’s Goldeneye gave a lot of thought to how it would make you feel like James Bond. It gave you objectives to complete beyond just shooting dudes on your way to the exit. RoboCop: Rogue City wasn’t just another FPS. The developers considered how to make you feel like both an anal-retentive police officer and a tan?k on legs.

Both the Halloween and Ash vs. Evil Dead parts of Retrorealms Arcade feel like pretty standard platformers where you play as Ashley?? Williams and Michael Myers. That’s not the end of the world, but I feel they don??’t capture their source material very well.

Backing up, Retrorealms Arcade is sort of a platform for other games. While right now, there’s only Ash vs. Evil Dead and Halloween, there’s an indication that more will be added later. You can roam a 3D interior, interact with 3D replicas of props from the movies, and view beh?ind-the-scenes videos. You launch the games by stepping up to their respective arcade cabinets. This isn’t a complaint, but it looks less like an arcade and more like a �0s fast food chain with the arcade cabinets in the foyer.

One of the things that interested me about Retrorealms was the hub. I like the idea of the games existing within a space, but unfortunately, the space isn’t used to add context and body. It’s just a dusty museum with an unrealistic layout. I’d be more interested if it actually looked like an abandoned Chuck E. Cheese and gave some background on the machines themselves. Or a functioning Pizza Hut, I don’t care, but some 3D rooms with dioramas of the games aren’t that compelli?ng.

But that’s just the hub anyway, forgotten when you jump into the games. And the games are�fine. They’re purchased separately or in a bundle, and characters are functionally their own thing, so if you own both games, you can play as Ash in the Halloween machine or Myers in Evil Dead. There are two other characters you can buy separately: Laurie Strode from Halloween and Kelly Maxwell from Ash vs. Evil Dead. It’s a neat concept, and it would be a shame if this is how far we ge?t.

Where I’m really down on Retrorealms is the fact that the games are just so basic. The fact that they’re set up as physical arcade cabinets is confusing, because they don’t feel like arcade games. They feel like DS tie-in games, the sort that Wayforward often had a han??d in back ??around 2010.

In typical WayForward style, they’re certainly competent games. They feature some terrific pixel art and a great soundtrack. The problem I have is that 2D sidescrollers with terrific pixel art and a great soundtrack are a dime a dozen in the market today. We are so spoiled for choice to the point where I need a hook well beyond competent/pixel art/soundtrack, whereas that wouldn’t have been the case back when A Boy and His Blob came out on Wii. Now, I need something like an inventive twist on gameplay like Gunbrella, an infectious attitude like Pizza Tower, or era-authenticity like Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland. You can't slap the word retro on pixe??l art and think that's authentic. I can smell the difference?.

With the only unique aspects being a 3D hub and the ability to buy more characters, the bruises on Retrorealms are only more apparent. The levels are boring. Only a single simple gimmick distinguishes each of them, and?? I’d have trouble recalling where each one was placed??. The bosses are terrible, all over the place in difficulty. The story is practically non-existent, and what is there would probably be better off actually not existing.

The only inventiveness?? really comes from being able to switch into the Nightmare Realm at will. This is a more brutal mirror of the stage you’re on, with harder and more frequent enemies. It will also change the positioning of some walls and platforms, which is usually used in puzzles where you can obtain a ticket to unlock items in the museum or collectible MacGuffins of no immediately discernable use. Unfortunately, these puzzles also waver in difficulty, and I found some of them to be more effort than they were worth.

The characters all play uniquely, but when they’re against such drab b??ackdrops, they don’t have much chance to shine. Ash vs. Evil Dead and Halloween games are interchangeable: 10 levels across five backdrops. All the same boxy platforming, both visually similar. Not that I’d expect them to be ??vastly different, but that might have made the whole experience more interesting.

If anything, I found the included behind-the-scenes videos to be the most interesting part. Specifically, WayForward founder Voldi Way talking about his appearance in the 1980 film, The Changeling. There’s also a video where the developers cite their favorite horror movies, and none of them name Halloween or Evil Dead. Not that they need to, since that would pro?bably indicate that they aren’t all that well-versed in the genre, ?but I found it amusing anyway. Unfortunately, there are only four videos as far as I'm aware. I’d assume more get unlocked through various means, but I got an achievement telling me I watched them all.

Aside from that, Retrorealms Arcade just feels so unspectacular. Competent, sure. It’s not a bad time. It’s just not a particularly memorable one, even if you’re a fan of the movies within. It feels like W?ayForward made sidescrollers and put the characters in them rather than having the games informed by the characters. So, if you wanted to play a platformer like Michael Myers, then that’s what you get and very little more. There isn’t much meat to sink a knife into.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: RetroRealms appeared first on Destructoid.

Even though we still see some solid releases, the slasher niche in lo-fi horror is starting to dull. But if there’s one thing you can count on in the indie and alternative spaces, it’s diversity, and while Sniper Killer isn’t entirely out of the wheelhouse of Henry Hoare and Black Eyed Priest, developers of Bloodwash, it’s also not your typical fare.

Like Bloodwash, Sniper Killer is light on gameplay, leaning more on vibes to get its horror across. It tells a story that puts you in the boots of both the protagonist and antagonist, and while that runs the risk of falling into predictability, a dash of humor and surreali??ty helps keep things interesting.

Sniper Killer (PC)
Developer: Black Eyed Priest, Henry Hoare
Publisher: Torture Star Video
Released: October 17, 2024
MSRP: TBA

Sniper Killer opens in a bizarre way. You start as a model, arr??iving at an extremely sketchy job for an eccentrically sketchy dude. But before you can even get comfortable, you wind up as the first victim of the eponymous serial killer.

The game then puts you in the shoes of said killer and lets you get intimate with them. They’re receiving calls from some unknown person on the other end of a ra??dio. The messages tell them that taking out their targets is necessary for national security, but there’s a big question mark hanging over the antagonist’s sanity, and it remains there through the end.

The rest of the game plays out like speed dating with different characters. Sometimes, you’re the victim, but other times, you’re Detective Comardy, the officer in charge of stopping the Sniper Killer. ??This creates a somewhat enjoyable dynamic of performing the murder and then checking out your handiwork up close. And while it’s obvious what your objective will be when you’re playing the killer, each time you step in?to the shoes of Comardy, it’s hard to tell where things will go or how they’ll play out.

The alternating of roles keeps things fresh. One of Sniper Killer’s greatest successes is the tonal differences between characters. It is, as I mentioned, difficult to tell exactly how up a?? tree the murderer is. While the obvious logic would suggest that they’re merely acting out a fantasy, clues left around their safehouse, the fact that his targets are where they’re described, and visits from a creepy neighbor keep you guessing.

Things aren’t much better on Comardy’s side. The po?lice are only seeing random killings, but something feels off about them. When Comardy starts to find evidence that the killings aren’t as random as they seem, it rai?ses more questions before taking a more surreal turn.

Unfortunately, as deft as the narrative is in some places, it could be a lot punchier. There isn’t a great deal of tension, and while it establishes a decent mystery, it never fully delivers on it. Certain aspects of its plot never get the payoff they should have. The City itself, a gritty place that has seen its share of carnage, could be better explored. There’s an indication that it will wind and twist itself up, but the climax feels like it just arrived because it had to. It's like there was no clear vision of what Sniper Killer was really going to convey. It’s not that there isn’t a? decent story here; it just feels like there was more potential than what was delivered.

The gameplay itself is, unfortunately, rather shallow. Adventure, investigation, and even stealth mechanics don’t amount to much. There isn’t much in the way of puzzles, so while early missions may challenge you to find a vantage point as the killer, the method is usually obvious. Later missions require carefully picking out your targets and landing your shots, which is a b?it more enjoyable but still not very engrossing. The best mission requires you to hit targets that aren’t human, which requires a bit more t??hought. There’s variety, at least, even if it’s all rather flat.

Meanwhile, Comardy’s investigations don’t require any real detective work. There are moments when you are back at the office and need to pin evidence to a board, but it finds its own place without you needing to make any deductions. These scenes only serve to give you a look into the?? character’s thoughts, which are mostly confused and not very insightful. He has other moments of gameplay that I won’t spoil, but while they’re narratively interesting, they also lack some needed depth.

As for everyone else, they’re interesting narrative vignettes that serve the story well. They round up the perspective of the killer. While Comardy scenes make him seem like a maniac, and the sniper scenes suggest that there may be a reason to the madness or madness to the reason, the victim moments simply show him as a monster. Sniper Killer could have?? easily excluded these? scenes, but it’s stronger for including them.

Sniper Killer manages to s??tay entertaining for its 2-3 hour runtime. In terms of shortform horror, it’s a capable tale that is a welcome diversion from being pursued by a killer or, alternatively, being the killer. We get both here, which winds up being a rather intriguing approach.

The frustrating part about Sniper Killer is that it is so close to catching onto?? something truly inspired. The character changes allow for a full view of the human side to all the creepy horror while it casually avoids walking into clichés. It’s surprising at times, surreal in some moments, and grounded in others, which is the perfect mix for a good horror experience. But it doesn’t quite capitalize on its brilliant parts, which is a shame. The shot is on target, but it should maybe adjust its sights if it wants to hit center mass.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Sniper Killer appeared first on Destructoid.

I’ve been playing the Mario Party series since it started in 1998. My mother and I used to play the stick-rotation mini-games with the palms of our hands. We both got blisters. We tried to call a truce and ou??tlaw the practice, but in the heat of competition, someone wou??ld break, and it would be back to blister-city.

The series is something I can play with my parents and family. Because Mario Party is 80% luck, 15% cruelty, and 5% skill, winning isn’t a foregone conclusion for me. Even with my decades of extensi??ve experience, my victory isn’t guaranteed, so it’s more fun for everyone. I may never be able to pay my parents back for my upbringing, but I will not hesitate to rip a star from their grasp.

The series has had its ups and downs. Even if we could glean fun from any entry you can name, some are more beloved than others. Super Mario Party, we weren’t too hot on. It had four boards, and you hit the bottom of it way too soon. I always hoped we’d get DLC for Mario Party Superstars, and was a bit disappointed when Super Mario Party Jamboree was announced. My skepticism was unwarranted: this is the best Mario Party has ever been.

Super Mario Party Jamboree (Switch [Reviewed])
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: October 17, 2024
MSRP: $59.99

If you’re not familiar with the Mario Party series, it’s a cross between a board game and a video game. You pick a character from the Mario?? series, roll dice, and take them around the board. The goal is to gather coins that you can trade for stars and other items and events. The person who ends with the most stars, wins.

When everyone completes their turn, you’re all taken into a short mini-game to compete. These are all very simple, sometimes involving direct competition, whereas others have you collect as many coins as possible. Some spots on the board will also start mini-games that have players put their coins down in a winner’s pot, and others are duals between two players. Win??ning mini-games doesn’t guarantee you’ll win, however. It’s all about the stars. If you have 200 coins and no stars, the person who has one star will cinch the win. On the other hand, if two players have the same number of stars, the most coins decide who wins the tie.

To win, you really have to play the board. You have to be locked in on reaching stars before anyone else and take advantage of every opportunity to steal them from others. There are optional bonus stars at the end, rewarding players for sometimes random accomplishments, giving players one last opportunity to steal the game. There are lots of opportunities to screw over other players; Mario Party can be extremely vicious.

One thing I really want to stress is that this variation of Mario Party doesn’t really follow the deviations made for Super Mario Party. Character-specific dice aren’t included, and it reverts to the 1-10 dice blocks. However, rather than the old standard 20 turns, the default is now 10. You can pick up Jamboree buddies, which we’ll get to, but they’re not quite like the allies you could gain in Super Mario Party. Instead, t?hey only stick with you for three turns and can cause a lot of stuff to trigger twice, such as buying a star or even suffering Bowser’s wrath.

Super Mario Party Jamboree feels a lot closer to the original format, which is probably the intention after Superstars. There are board gimmicks, but they don’t entirely overshadow the central formula. If there’s one thing I’m glad they kept, it’s the amount of characters from Super Mario Party. Somewhere north of 20. I mean, I’m always going t??o play as Luigi, regardless of who gets added, but itâ€?™s nice to have a bigger cast for variety’s sake.

There are also superfluous side modes, like one where you cooperate to fire cannons at Bowser and a few motion controller activities. There’s also a weird story mode where you explore under-construction boards and help with t??heir setup. They’re okay distractions, but I don’t think they’re going to distract from the standard Mario Party mode. That’s fine. I’d probably be upset if it felt like resources had been take??n from the board gameplay, but considering how strong it is, the side activities are just a bonus.

Speaking of motion controls; they’re optional. That’s not to say that every m??ini-game can be played without them, but rather that you can just toggle them out of circulation. This reduces the pool of games that might come up in any given round, but at least it means that you can play on a Switch Lite or Pro Controller if that’s your preference.

Speaking of “pro�there’s a “pro mode�in Jamboree that should ease things for anyone who hates the luck aspect of Mario Party. What it does is set a number of factors to be more static. For example, there are no hidden blocks that would randomly award somebody a star or coins. When you send out a Boo to rob a player, they always return with 15 coins, but you can still pay them to steal a star. There’s only one bonus star at the end of the game, and its criterion is announced at the beginning of the game. There is a limited number of stock at th??e item stores. A game is also locked to 12 rounds.

I’m no doubt forgetting to mention a few rules, but the important takeaway is that it’s a mode for people who want to take things more seriously. As I said, there’s still an aspect of luck when dice rolls are involved, but there’s less to get in the ?way of any strategizing. It’s a welcome inclusion for anyone frustrated by random chance and want their skill?? to play a more prominent role in their victory.

And speaking of skills, if there is one thing that bothers me about Jamboree, it’s the fact that a lot of the Jamboree Buddy games rely on skills that my family can’t match me at. Unlike Super Mario Party, you don’t gain allies simply by landing on a designated spot on the board. They appear occasionally, and once you reach? them, it begins a mini-game where everyone competes. The victor gets the buddy, regardless of who actually reached them on the board. The person who triggered the mini-game does get an advantage,? but it’s not so immense that it’s insurmountable for everyone else. It would be less fun if it was, I suppose.

But the problem is that many of these mini-games are much longer than standard ones and involve reflexes for platforming or rhythm. Not to brag, but my family can’t compete with my expert-level Rock Band skills and Champion’s Road honed platforming. Not in the same way that they can in games about cutting a steak perfectly in half. I normally win ?the most mini-games anyway, even if that doesn’t mean I always win the game, but this feels like I will always have the best chance at companionship.

Understandably, that’s more of a problem in my personal circumstances and isn’t going to bother everyone. Jamboree Buddies don’t completely skew the overall outcome of the game, as they only provid??e a temporary advantage to a player and can actually wind up hurting more than helping. However, it’s also strange that these mini-games are so much longer than standard ones. It feels like everyone gets dragged into them, and the game stalls temporarily. It’s almost disorienting when they happen.

Circling back to my personal circumstances, it’s important to note that if my family didn’t play Mario Party with me, Mario Party Jamboree would be effectively worthless. You can play just about everything single-player, but the series is only really exciting if you have someone to play it with. That hasn’t changed with Jamboree.?? You can play it online, but I ??feel that something is lost when you’re not in the same room as the people you’re stealing stars from. Torpedoing someone’s success just isn’t the same when you can’t hear them mope and/or scream.

If you do have a reliable group �preferably one who you already play Mario Party games with �then Mario Party Jamboree is probably going to be your new go-to. In many of the recent entries, I feel a lot was phoned in. Not enough would be changed, but some aspects would feel weaker or even unwelcome. However, while Jamboree mainly just builds off the original framework, it’s a lot tighter and more rounded than we’ve seen since the N64 days. I’ll admit it can be hard to get excited about yet another Mario Party, but this one is absolutely worth attending.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Super Mario Party Jamboree appeared first on Destructoid.

Europa is a beautiful indie gem wit?h its illustrious visuals and environmental storytelling. While the gameplay might be lacking in some parts, the narrative journey certainly makes up for this aspect.

This game tells an emotional story ??with stellar voice acting? from the narrator Earl Fisher, who plays the kid protagonist's father. As we continue through the game, we get more information about the lore by picking up notes, and the plot has a great flow with twists and turns towards the end. It also tells an environmental message but it doesn't strike at the heart enough to be effective.

Europa (PC [Reviewed], Switch)
Developer: Helder Pinto, Chozabu (Alex PB), Novadust Entertainment
Publisher: Future Friends Games
Released: October 11, 2024
MSRP: $14.99

Flying through the air is bliss in Europa. You get a real thrust of power from the jetpack, letting you leap high distances. It controls very well too. You'll be able to get collectible crystals from the top of wrecked buildings in the environment and find other secrets around each level with the j??etpack.

Most of the game involves you collecting objects lik?e a flicker of light energy or interacting with mechanisms in each area ??to move forward. They're fairly easy to spot most of the time, but it still feels rewarding to spot everything you require, especially with the exhilarating flying mechanic.

Fun, yet easy puzzles in Europa

There are some puzzles here and there. There's a fun, albeit easy, puzzle, which has you rotate blocks in a clockwise manner to reach three areas of the map. Additionally, there are platforming challenges that involve blocks disappearing after each second jump. Europa won't challenge you, but they're rewarding to complete just like finding each object in the levels. I'm not usually a fan of puzzles in games, but even I have to admit, it would have been great to have more difficulty in Europa.

One of the weakest parts of Europa is its enemies. They seem thrown in as the main character only gets dazed, not knocked out by his foes. There are turrets that fire projectiles at you but they're fairly easy to dodge. Whenever they do occasionally land a shot, it feels so weird when a huge projectile hits the child and it barely phases him. Some stingrays shock you and do nothing else other than being a mild inconvenience. The enemies are just annoying and ruin the flow of the gameplay. It gets repetitive too and can be quite annoying to get interrupted when you're trying to push an object into the corre?ct place.

While the enemies do get repetitive, the game's environments do manage to change up the formula when you head into a new biome. There's enough added to the mechanics to keep Europa fresh for its 3-4 hour playtime.

A stunning game through and through

The game runs surprisingly smooth, and throughout its 3-4 hour length, Europa didn't have any noticeable bugs, framerate drops, or any other graphical issues. There are big environments with little pop in here and there, and some particle effects hang around the character's jetpack that pop on screen. Europa does something very similar to Journey, in which you can see the end goal, the human civilization on a floating island, on almost every level. As you proce?ed through the story, it gets closer and closer, leading you up to the wintry top of the mountain.

Europa is gorgeous. The visuals are bright, the torn architecture and robots that remain from a war years ago stand out, and the artistry of the game's skylines like the Northern Lights-esque night are breathtaking. There are some wonderful set pieces as well like seeing the island of Europa in the distance, flying sections with a colossal robotic creature, and visages of a war gone by. It certainly gives the fantastical vibes to Studio Ghibli's work, especially Castle in the Sky.

While not as compelling as Austin Wintory's Journey soundtrack, Europa has a stirring score to complement the beautiful visuals. The piano-led music leads to how you're ??supposed to feel in the moment, and towards the end, it genuinely gave me goosebumps in my arms.

Europa is a delightful work

Overall, Europa is a wonderful indie title that is a breath of fresh air from the triple-A fare of this busy season. The art style is striking, the storyline is intriguing, and moving around in the sky is satisfying. While the game can be repetitive at times with its annoying enemies (that only stun your character), Europa is worth ??your time if you want to take your gaming slow for a few hours. It is fai?rly short at 3-4 hours, but there are collectibles you can try to find that can extend your playtime.

[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]

The post Review: Europa appeared first on Destructoid.

Remaking Silent Hill 2 is a paradoxically enviable and unenviable endeavor for anyone. I imagine that most developers with their fingers in the horror genre would love to get all handsy with what has long been considered one of the pinnacles of the art form??. On the other hand, it invites endless scrutiny from its legions of passionate fans, and you will never, ever please everyone.

In fact, attempting to improve on the original is ??suggesting that it wasn’t already perfect. It wasn’t, but the sentiment is somewhat understandable. Without getting to the most granular of details, it’s hard to tell what compromises the original team had to make and what did and didn’t live up to their visions. What was informed by the technological challenges of the time? No answer is going to be correct in every fan’s mind.

So, the direction that the Silent Hill 2 remake chose is ?adding a lot?? while also changing very little.

Silent Hill 2 (PC, PS5 [Reviewed])
Developer: Bloober Team
Publisher: Konami
Released: October 8, 2024
MSRP: $69.99
If you’re new to the Silent Hill series, I want to tell you that you don’t need to play the first game to get into this one. Not only does it have a different protagonist with different goals, the story h??as a completely different focus. It still involves a guy looking for someone, but that’s mainly because in order to get a character?? to stay in a clearly unsafe environment, they need a strong motivation, and love has made fools of many.

In this case, we have James Sunderland looking for his wife, Mary. He receives a letter from her, telling him to meet her in the titular town of Silent Hill. The problem is, as James tells it, she’s been dead for three years. However, ??even thoug??h he is unsure why, he travels to the town anyway to try and find her.

When he arrives, he finds it shrouded in fog and completely deserted. And not recently, either. It looks like the place has sat to rot for quite a while. Worse, he quickly discovers it’s full of monsters. Nonetheless, he’s set on finding Mary, and won’t let anything stand in his way. Then things just get progressively weirder from there. The big twist to Silent Hill 2 is one of the most spoiled in video games, but I’m not going to add to that resonance. Besides, if you want t??o know more about its depth and execution, it’s been covered repeatedly by people far more d??evoted than me.

If you’re nearsighted, your place is in Silent Hill, where it’s always foggy, and if it’s not foggy, it’s dark. 23 years of added horsepower have certainly made things look a lot more active and detailed. Much of the time, the Silent Hill 2 remake looks fantastic. All of the time, it heightens the atmosphere of the original. It’s not quite as foggy, but the billowing plumes of white that block your vision still capture the right feeling. From one side of the street, you might only be able to make out the faint outline of the roof on the other. It’s even better when it’s dark, where th??e small pinpoints of light struggling to illuminate in the distance give the town an even more pronounced feel of otherworldly desolation.

The downside to this is that it’s a bit of a technical mess. I played it on PS5 and favored quality over performance, but the hit to the framerate isn’t really my problem. My biggest issue was with temporal ghosting, which is a common problem with Unreal? Engine 5 games. Often, I just found this distracting, but sometimes it would affect gameplay by making some creatures visible in the dark just because of the ?streaks they’d leave behind as they moved.

There’s one particular fight in a meat freezer (you know the one if you played ?the original) where the enemy would move in the gloom, maki??ng them hard to track. However, because of the ghosting, I could usually see exactly where they appeared and where they were hiding. I suppose in Silent Hill you can explain everything away as the work of whatever supernatural power is controlling things, but it looks gross and clearly isn't an intentional stylistic attempt.

The original Silent Hill was exceptional in a lot of areas, including art, atmosphere, sound design, and especially narrative, ?but the combat was legendarily terrible. Thankfully, it wasn’t really at the f??orefront of the game. There was a decent amount of it, but also long swaths without an enemy. Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that combat has been significantly improved. The bad news is it’s now a major focus.

There’s a lot going on with the combat. There’s an auto-targeting system going on for melee, which means James will often swing at things around him, even if you’re not directly pointing at them. The downside is that he sometimes will interpret an intended swing at an upright enemy as a stomp to one laying supine, but it’s rare enough that it’s not a pr?oblem. Meanwhile, for firearms, you can aim like any other over-the-s??houlder action game, but James is about as unsteady as you’d expect from someone sleep-deprived and unfamiliar with guns.

You can also dodge, which is key. It essentially sets James up with a short moment of invulnerability, where he’ll react to whatever is? coming at him, even when it’s extremely improbable that he’d be able to get out of the way. Sometimes, this causes an attack that clearly hits him to miss, but it’s probably better than it is undepen??dable. It feels pretty good, and that’s what’s important. I’d definitely take the new fighting system over the old.

But that, unfortunately, leads me to my biggest complaint about the game, and that’s the length. The original experience was about 7-9 hours, whereas I clocked in at 18 hours on t??he remake, and that inc?ludes a bunch of dicking around the town. Some will understandably consider the substantially added length a good thing, but I don’t think it’s earned.

The narrative hasn’t been much expanded, which is definitely for the best. Everything plays out exactly as it did in the original, with a few additions and minor tweaks. But everything between the narrative moments has been bloated out. You’ll spend more time wandering the apartments and hospital fighting the same small handful of enemies and searching rooms that sometimes only include a monster, a bottle of health, and nothing else of interest. It’s worth noting that the bulk of the added length is in the interior sections. If they had instead focused on extending the moments you’re wandering the town immersed in the mystery, it probably wouldn’t have felt like such an issue??.

Length is rarely a positive thing in horror games. The longer you play in a game’s world, the more comfortable you become in it. You feel more capable. You’ve seen the monsters enough to know how to deal with what the game throws at you. Surprises lose their effectiveness, tension turns to discomfort, and it becomes hard to stay invested. Some complain that Alien: Isolation is too long (and I agree), but I at least feel that a lot of that mid-game malaise pays off when the last twist is revealed, whereas the added fluff in the Silent Hill 2 remake just feels like content for content’s s??ake.

Whether or not that’s a problem will depend on your tolerance. Largely, while I felt that it was a detra?ction, I don’t feel like it’s a massive issue that completely ruined the game for me, it’s just an unnecessary self-inflicted wound that gets in the way of what most people are her??e for: seeing a beloved classic benefit from modern hardware.

Largely, the remake of Silent Hill 2 was a success beyond my expectations, but I had my expecta??tions securely in check. Truly, much of its success comes directly from what was already established by Team Silent in 2001, but retaining the atmosphere while upgrading the visuals is a feat in itself. I also found that the redone cutscenes, while largely being shot-for-shot reproductions, have a lot more nuance with the added facial animations and details.

Some restraint when it came to the length of the remake would have done wonders. But aside from the needless bloat and technical problems, there’s still a lot to like. Remaking Silent Hill 2 could have gone horribly wrong, and maybe this modernization won’t replace the original for some, but it’s at least a wort?hwhile new perspective.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Silent Hill 2 (2024) appeared first on Destructoid.

Historically, expansions in the Diablo series have been very solid. Both Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction and Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls added new areas, content, and classes, focusing on adding more and building up what players love about the ??base game rather than making drastic change??s.

Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred follows a similar formula. It expands on the base game with a new area, Nahantu, some new content and systems, and an all-new class—not just to Diablo 4, but to the franchise as a whole—the Spiritborn. But all these new features are just ??the tip of the iceberg in terms of content with this expansion.

If I had to use one word to sum up Vessel of Hatred as an expansion, it would be big.

Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred (PC [Reviewed], PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Released: October 8, 2024
MSRP: $39.99

Vessel of Hatred picks up right where the Diablo 4 story ended. Lilith and Inarius are no more, and the Cathedral of Light is decimated. One of the three Prime Evils, Mephisto, Lord of Hatred, has been trapped in a soulstone by Neyrelle, a scholar who has decided to set out towards the lands of Nahantu on her own with very little indication as to why. However, it's apparent that Mephisto himself?? is influencing her, as shown by a bloodied wolf following Neyrelle in the epilogue of the base game. If you've already played through the base campaign, you can jump right into the expansion story with a new or existing character.

The story in Vessel of Hatred puts you on the path of tracking down Neyrelle, heading to the new area of Nahantu to find her. The opening cutscenes introduce us to the Burned Knights, a militant fanatic faction formed from the remnants of the Cathedral of Light. The Burned Knights play a pivotal role in the story, as they are also trying to hunt down Neyrelle, seeking vengeance for what happened to their order, and Inarius in Hell at the end of Diablo 4.

I'm still a bit torn on the pacing of the story in Vessel of Hatred. Not so much with the actual progression of the story itself throughout the roughly 8 hours it took me to get through it. In fact, my time with the campaign felt like it flew by, though that's probably just because the length of the campaign in an expansion is obviously going to be much less than the beefy 30 or so hours I put into Diablo 4's campaign.

My concerns lie more with the overall pacing for Diablo 4's bigger story at hand. I expected Vessel of Hatred to be about Mephisto, but it's really all about Nayrelle. With Diablo 4 set to receive annual expansions, I hope things won't be moving too slowly. If the plan is to dive into Mephisto more over the course of seasons, that's one thing. But if we're to go through several Mephisto-centric expansions year after year, I only hope I'm still around to see when we might finally encounter the big guy. You know, Diablo.

In a way, Nahantu is a stark contrast to what we've come to expect from Diablo in every way. Instead of darkness and death, Nahantu is a massive jungle—a little brighter, more vibrant, and full of life. There are some darker parts, both visually and in terms of tone, but for the most part, it's a breath of fresh air to explore as an environment. I even found the new dungeons and Strongholds to be a nice change of pace. And the new main hub, the city of Kurast, nestled in the jungles of Nahantu, is actually pretty cozy. I'm sorry, Kyovashad, bu??t I'm AFKing in Kurast from now on.

I played through Vessel of Hatred as the new class, the Spiritborn. Never before seen in the Diablo universe, essentially a monk and shaman hybrid: I was skeptical about it when it was first announced. Well, I'll admit that I was wrong. This is the most fun class in Diablo 4, and I'm afraid I'll have trouble playing ??any of the others now.

The Spiritborn is built around four different Spirit Guardians. First is the Jaguar, which focuses on fast fire elemental attacks. Second is the Gorilla, a defensive juggernaut built around tanking and mitigating lots of damage. Third is the Eagle, which utilizes lightning attacks mixed with the ability to quickly move around the battlefield. Finally is the Centipe?de, the poison-centric Spirit Guardian that deals damage over time a?nd debuffs enemies.

I tried to dabble in all of the Spirit Guardian skills to some extent to get an overall feel for them, but found myself mostly going into Eagle and Centipede. I love anything DOT-related, so the Centipede is right up my alley, but being able to zip around and chain lightning attacks with Eagle-focused skills was a lot of fun, too. With some skills, I felt as though I was playing an elemental variant of Monk from Diablo 3. With others, I felt as though I was playing an ARPG version of Udyr from League of Legends. I think that's what makes the Spiritborn feel so good; in a way, it f?eels like multiple classes in one.

I'm no theoryc?rafter or anything when it comes to builds, but it feels like you can really mix and match the four Spirit Guardians or just focu?s on all the same skills of one and still have a good time. Obviously, there will be min-maxers that will prove me wrong and point out the mathematically superior builds, but I think you can build how you want with the Spiritborn and still be able to get things done.

After completing the Vessel of Hatred campaign, ?you can continue to level the same way you did in the base game, via world events, Helltides, dungeons, etc. However, there are ??also two all-new forms of content in the expansion: Dark Citadel and Kurast Undercity.

The Dark Citadel is an endgame experience built co-op with 2-4 players. I only got to do one Dark Citadel run, but it was a ton of fun. You and your team progress through a bigger dungeon packed full of enemies, having to occasionally split up and each focus on different areas before coming back together to take on challenging bosses. It's another way to progress at the endgame, which is a welcome addition to Diablo 4. Progressing through the Dark Citadel will net you weekly rewards, including loot and Dark Citadel-exclusi??ve cosmetics.

Meanwhile, Kurast Undercity is a time-attack dungeon where you can both level and farm late-game items. Both of these add to the ARPG grind cyc?le, and it was a good move by Blizzard to add new forms of content that will become an integral part of the experience instead of just expanding on the existing options—l?ike dungeons and Strongholds, just to name two.

These are the main new features in Vessel of Hatred, but ??there are many smaller additions that help polish the overall Diablo 4 experience, and all of them are well-executed in the expansion. Mercenaries, a popular s??ystem f?rom previous Diablo entries that allows you to recruit NPCs to join you in your adventure, has been added. You have a unique rapport with each of the mercenaries you recruit, which increases as they join you in combat, letting you unlock new rewards and even unlock and progress their own skill trees to further increase their effectiveness.

All of this new content is complimented by major base game overhauls coming alongside the expansion. These changes will affect everyone, including those who don't purchase Vessel of Hatred. The Max Level is now 60 instead of 100, but ??the Max Paragon Level is now 300 instead of 200. The difficulty system has been revamped, letting you play any non-Torment difficulty right out of the gate at Level 1. As such, ??all top-tier gear can start dropping starting at Torment 1, but drop chances go up with each Torment Level increase. This is a great change as it allows you to start farming your best gear earlier while increasing your farming efficiency as you become more powerful.

To top it all off, Vessel of Hatred launches alongside Season 6, titled Season of Hatred Rising. It looks like a meaty season that adds the colossal Realmwalkers to Diablo 4, which you might remember encountering in the Battlefields of Eternity in Diablo 3. There is so much content packed into this expansion that I can't even begin to picture what Diablo 4 ?may look like years down the road if the upcoming content pieces are all of this size and caliber.

Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred is exactly what I want out of an expansion, bringing in more content and new systems that build on the base game and move it forward in a meaningful way. Outside of some slight concerns with the pacing of the story as a whole, everything Vessel of Hatred brings to Diablo 4 is well-executed and a worthwhile addition. There's no fluff with this expansion. It's just more Diablo, made better.

The Spiritborn is quite possibly the most fun class in the franchise's history, and after some minor tweaking, I think the Dark Citadel and Kurast Undercity will help flesh out the late-game grind. Paired with all the revamps and improvements the base game has received through its first five seasons, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred has Diablo 4 in its best form yet.

The post Review: Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred appeared first on Destructoid.

The closer you move to reality in a racing game, the faster I lose interest. I love racing games, or just driving games in general. I play them all the time, and I have for most of my life, but I have no interest in the Gran Turismos of the world. Even Forza and The Crew are pushing it. It’s not really until you hit Burnout territory that you can get my attention.

But I especially love racing titles from the time before polygonal 3D took over. OutRun, Rad Mobile, the incredible Cool Riders: games that had to rely on graphical tricks and math to make their roads stretch to the horizon. One such method was Sega’s “Super Scaler�technique, which would stretch, shrink, and rotate sprites to make them look like they’re closer or further from the screen. This resulted in games like the aforementioned Rad Mobile and, more importantly, 1988’s Power Drift. That’s where Victory Heat Rally gets its design.

When it had its successful Kickstarter campaign in 2020, Victory Heat Rally was all in on the Super Scaler visuals. A lot of that has been lost in the final version, but the result is a clear love letter to a beloved corner of th??e arcade.

Victory Heat Rally (PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Skydevilpalm
Publisher: Playtonic Friends
Released: October 3, 2024
MSRP: TBA

Despite its name, Victory Heat Rally is a mix of circuit-style tracks, rallies, and side modes. If you go through the campaign mode, you’re dropped on a map screen that has you go through each of the cup’s tracks individually before getting more competitive in a Grand Prix. You can also play classic Ar??cade GP and Time Trials, but those kind of feel like side activities with Championship mode as the focus.

The vibrant visuals front the entire game. Early footage of the game’s development showed a closer adherence to the Super Scaler motif, with its tracks made of segmented sprites. That was dropped somewhere along the way in favor of a smoother look to the tracks, and while a lot of the scenery is still 2D sprites, there are a number of 3D elements to the environments. Because of the sacrifices, it doesn’t look like a lost arcade game from a bygone age. Though, you can play with a pixel fi?lter, which I p?referred.

But the spirit is still there. Tracks are veritable rollercoasters that dip and climb and loop around themselves. The camera tilts as your car turns hard around corners and shakes on hard bumps. It’s also fast. Very fast. The visual style is largely excellent, and the bright colors and chibi proportions give it a unique feel, even against older titles from where it gets its inspiration from, such as Power Drift and Choro-Q.

As a racing game, Victory Heat Rally plays a lot like recent Mario Kart games without any weapons or items. There’s a lot of emphasis on drifting around corners (or just as much as you possibly can), as doing so will give you a boost. It’s exactly like Mario Kart’s drift system, wh?ere you build up levels of “sparks�based on the speed and tightness of the turn. It works well, but it can get a little weird at times.

I think this is partially based on my choice of gamepad. I was playing with a PlayStation Dualsense, which has an analog trigger. Occasionally, my drift would reverse direction if I went directly into an opposite turn rather than use the boost I had built up. It’s just a theory?, but I think this might happen if you ease off the drift button (the trigger) b??ut don’t let it go entirely.

I had a lot of frustr??ation with gamepad controls, and I think this started after a recent update to the pre-release version because I don’t remember having issues when I started. Most frustratingly, when going through menus, it would register button presses mult??iple times, so if I wanted to select a track to see what medal I had on it, it would sometimes go directly into the starting grid, forcing me to open the menu and quit the race.

For that matter, I don’t feel like I should have to select a race to see what medal I have on it. There should be a quicker way; at the very least having it shown on the world map itself. You need a certain number of points accumulated t??o access later GPs, so I’d have to go back through previous events individually to see w??hich ones I only had silvers on. And to make matters worse, going off the edge of a map is supposed to take you to the next cup, but often would just take me to some random cup that might even be in a completely different driving class. It became frustrating in the later stages of the Championship mode.

The frustratio??n is compounded by the incredibly uneven difficulty curve. Occasionally, I’d hit a rally whose target time was much tighter than seemed reasonable. I’d feel like I ran a perfect race in a higher-end car, just to find I was a second or two off from gold. So I’d run it again and again, and each time would get the same result. And this started happening as early as ??the second class.

That may just sound like a skill issue, but when I’d encounter the tra?ck again in the context of a GP, I would absolutely wipe the floor with the computer drivers. In fact, regardless of whether or ?not I’d struggle with a rally race, I never lost a single GP, which are set up as the real events. The challenge should stiffen toward the end rather than be a breeze outside a few random events.

The occasional spike in difficulty led me to abandon my perfect go?ld run attempt, so I haven't entirely finished the game. The last GP I came to seemed to require a gold on every track just to participate, and I wasn’t willing to try and scrape off the fraction of a second I needed to complete some of the rallies. My frustration had already peaked, though I could see myself going back ??later after I’ve cooled.

A lot of this poi??nts to a simple lack of polish. It’s stuff that could conceivably be patched later on, and it’s nothing end of the world right now. ?It can get in the way of the good-feel racing, but not nullify it entirely.

However, another problem arises further into the game, which is that, despite its outward style and garish colors, there’s a weird monotony in Victory Heat Rally. A lot of the cars you can drive look the same: a series of boxy coupes broken up by the odd curvier number. I could honestly not tell the difference between some of them, which took much of the fun out of unlocking new characters. Adding liveries to their design might have been enough to add a dash of personality, but most are just flat paint job??s. Speaking of which, additional colors have to be unlocked for each individually by winning enough?? races. And you can’t pick; they get unlocked in a linear fashion.

The tracks tend to run together as well. They’re all smoothly curving rollercoasters with lots of elevation. Well, not all of them. You can certainly tell the difference between a snowy one with slick streets and an airport theme with narrow roads. However, they often lack hooks like you’d find in, say, an F-Zero track. There are no unique hazards to be fou?nd, few with 90-degree turns, and not many ridiculously long jumps. I think part of the problem is that they go by so fast. Most of them feel great to race on, but there are so many of them, and they begin to blur together.

The soundtrack has a similar issue. The tunes are mostly enjoyable, chirpy, and hi??gh-energy, but you’ll miss them if you blink your ears. There’s also one singular song mixed in that I absolutely loathe. I think it only came up twice in the whole game, but it was enough to make me consider turning off the music entirely.

In general, I really enjoyed Victory Heat Rally. But anytime I’d sit down with it, frustratio?n would build until I would have to take a break. And it isn’t frustration with the racing itself, either. When wheels are on the pavement, everyt??hing is fine. It’s energetic, quirky, and full of fun, drifting action.

It’s the house that was built for the actual racing that is the problem. Beneath the vibrant colors and retro sensibilities, it’s disappointingly unpolished and monotone. Getting through the championship took me short of 6 hours, but it feels like it would be better off being half that with better attention to detail. As it stands, Victory Heat Rally ?isn’t the bumpiest ride I’ve been on, but it would benefit from a tune-up.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Victory Heat Rally appeared first on Destructoid.

Almost one year after releasing Throne and Liberty in Korea, developer NCSoft has teamed up with Amazon Games to publish the free-to-play MMORPG in the Western market. Throne and Liberty is a pretty important MMORPG to both companies as it is NCSofts first non-mobile-focused MMO in about a decade—Rest In Peace Wildstar—and for Amazon, it's certainly hoping to help fill the hole of recently canceled Bandai Namco MMORPG they were set to publish in the west, Blue Protocol.

At its core, Throne and Liberty is a free-to-play MMORPG with a focus on guild content via massive-scale guild vs. guild PvP, and open-world public event PvE that can host hundreds of players participating at once. It's an ambitious outing to bring the social aspects back to the genre; and for the most part, it succeeds. For better or worse, Throne and Liberty in many ways feels like a modern-day Lineage, and ?for many fans of the genre, that's a breath of fresh air.

Throne and Liberty (PC [Reviewed], PS5, Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: NCSoft
Publisher: Amazon Games
Released: October 1, 2024
MSRP: Free to Play

You start Throne and Liberty like most MMORPGs: creating your own character. Some would argue this is the most important aspect of an MMO. The character creators itself is pretty expansive, allowing you to customize your character's appearance through a variety of sliders, changing things like hair and facial features. However, two key typical MMO character creation choices are missing from T&L: race and class.

Humans are the only option in Throne and Liberty; sorry, no elves or orcs here. And while class diversity is traditionally a staple point for MMOs, in T&L, your combat gameplay and diversity are instead based on your weapons. There are seven weapon types in total: Crossbow, Dagger, Greatsword, Longbow, Staff, Sword & Shield, and Wand. You can equip two weapons at once, mixing and matching the skills for?? each of the weapons to create your own combo builds.

I started off with Crossbow and Dagger as it?? seemed like a pretty deadly combo for PvE. Using a mix of skills from those two weapons I was able to burst down enemies from afar, then switch into a deadly flurry of attacks with my daggers as they got closer. As I reached the higher levels I found that I enjoyed the ranged style of gameplay more, so I replaced my Dagger with a Longbow. I know, I know, it seems like an odd choice to be using both the Longbow AND the Crossbow. But both weapon types have specific skills that complement each other, and I've found the synergy between the two while blasting enemies at range and kiting them around very enjoyable.

At a glance, the tab target action combat may seem rather basic. After all, this has been the pretty standard combat for MMO for a couple of decades now??. But there are innovations to the system. For starters, every weapon comes with a unique defensive skill, that is bound to the 'Q' key on PC by default. Each of the skills lasts for a few seconds and will reduce incoming damage you take when active. However, if you're?? able to execute a well-timed use of the skill, you can completely parry and negate damage while also automatically dealing damage with a follow-up attack. It creates a very dynamic and fluid real-time combat system in both PvE and PvP while still using the tab target premise.

Little innovations like this mixed with the overall high level of polish that makes T&L succeed so fun. NCSoft isn't trying to reinvent the wheel, but rather present a very high-quality wheel with fun improvements to make the? tried-and-true systems feel ??more fun and intuitive.

While the questing experience is rather par for the course—you know, the standard go here, kill this number of enemies, repeat—there is enough variety scattered throughout to make the journey a lot more bearable than most MMOs. Every hour there is a rotation of content throughout the entire world of T&L, which repeats every three hours.

So at midnight, every region has a special event called a Dynamic Quest that takes place, and scales players to that region's appropriate level. Dynamic Quests are area-wide public quests that are meant to be completed by a large grou??p of players to get the best rewards. For example, the Dynamic Quest in the region called Nesting Grounds is the Lantern Seed Festival. Players must work?? together to complete a variety of tasks across three different phases to successfully host the Lantern Seed Festival.

Suppose the players at the event are able to complete all three tasks quickly enough. In that? case, the remaining duration of the event spawns a special boss fight that players can continuously kill until the event ends to earn bonus rewards. After the event ends, all players who participate will receive level-appropriate rewards including experience, which always makes them worth doing. These Dynamic Quests will spawn every 3 hours starting at midnight,?? giving players the opportunity to join in on many throughout the day as they level and reach new regions.

Then, every three hours starting at 1AM, unique World Bosses spawn throughout all of the regions. In the lower-level regions, several portals open up at the World Boss spawn locations, allowing players to form massive groups before going in and attempting to take down the boss before the timer runs out. In the higher level regions, World Bosses will spawn in either a Peaceful or Conflict phase. In peaceful, the encounters ar?e the ??same as the lower-level ones; make a group and go kill the boss. But when a World Boss spawns in the Conflict phase, the area around the world boss is open PvP, meaning you'll have to fight with other players while also trying to kill the boss. It's a unique experience, albeit a bit of a hectic one.

An important element to any F2P MMORPG is its monetization. Throne and Liberty is in a unique place compared to similar releases in the genre. There are two main types of currency: Sollant and Lucent. S??ollant is essentially Gold, earned by killing enemies, completing quests, doing dailies, etc. You'll use Sollant when upgrading or crafting new eq??uipment, leveling up skills, or buying consumables from the vendors.

Lucent, on the other hand, is the "premium currency". You can purchase Lucent directly wi?th your hard-earned cash—currently ranging from $9.99 for 500 Lucent up to $99.99 for 6,000 Lucent—or can obtain it by completing various in-game activities. You can even get rare drops simply from killing mobs that you can then sell on the auction house that other players? can buy with Lucent.

That's where things get a bit weird when it comes to the "Pay to Win" discussion that plagues all F2P MMORPGs. Directly in the cash shop, the things you can purchase with Lucent isn't too bad. There's a battle pass with a free and paid track, with the paid track costing just 500 Lucent. You'll get a handful of upgrade materials, skil??l growth books, and a couple of cosmetics. Nothing too crazy, and all farmable outside of the pass other than the cosmetics. Outside of the pass, you can only buy cosmetics, dyes, rename scrolls, and server transfer tickets.

But where things get a little dicey is the auction house. With the Auction House using the premium currency of Lucent, paired with the option to just swipe to buy Lucent, players can in theory buy a ton of Lucent and just buy all th?e gear and upgrade materials they need to power level their gear without having to actually play to get such upgrades.

The argument most will make in regards to monetization is that it's "Pay to Skip" rather than "Pay to Win". There's a ceiling to how high you can upgrade even the best gear the game has to offer, and even someone playing completely free?ly will be able to farm out the materials to reach that ceiling. The difference is that someone who throws a ton of money at the game will be able to reach it quicker. It's a hard balancing act because obviously an MMORPG has to make money, and lots of it; they aren't cheap to develop. Going the F2P route makes things even trickier, as the developers can't rely on subscriptions to fund future content releases. That's probably a discussion for another day, but it's also something very important to mention as for a lot of people the decision to play an MMORPG is often influenced by its potential future. No one wants to invest a ton of time into their online character if the future isn't bright.

I've enjoyed pretty much everything I've done in Throne and Liberty so far. The combat is fluid and fun, and the world is massive and beautiful. Whether it's working with my gui?ld to complete guild activities, grouping with randoms to complete dungeons and world bosses, or even just exploring the world, I've had a good time. It's been a long time since I've logged out of an MMO and immediately looked forward to logging back in.

Throne and Liberty feels like a step back in the right direction for MMORPGs, reviving a lot of the social features that seem to be missing from modern entries in the genre. While you can certainly still play solo, T&L gives you the opportunity to socialize and play with others in every aspect of its gameplay, even while leveling. It's a refreshing feeling for the genre that reminds me a lot of the classic days of MMOs, comparable to EverQuest and the original World of Warcraft release.

Like most MMORPGs, the fate of Throne and Liberty will rely heavily on the decisions NCSoft and Amazon Games make in regard to future content. Nothing beats a solid MMORPG launch; and so far, at least the Early Access launch has been incredibly smooth. But the ability to keep meaningful and fun content coming is what keeps players logging in and overall making the MMO feel worth playing. In its current state, you'll be hard-pressed to find an F2P MMORPG with as much content and polish as Throne and Liberty. If you've been looking for something that p?uts the MMO back into MMORPG??, this could be just what you're looking for.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Throne and Liberty appeared first on Destructoid.

It’s hard not to fixate on playing as Zelda in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Link has been the mainstay player character in the series since its inception, barring some?? sm?aller moments and the collective hallucinations that were the CDi titles. So, this has been a long time coming.

But it would take more than simply being able to wear a dress to get me excited. Zelda is about as blank-slate as Link. Her personality changes depending on the needs of the game, and most of the time, she still manages to be the most boring person in the room. Thankfully Echoes of Wisdom is more than just a dress-wearer. It instead mixes elements from the series to create something distinct with a?ppropriately mixed results.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Switch [Reviewed])
Developer: Nintendo, Grezzo
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: September 26, 2024
MSRP: $59.99

You start off playing the familiar green-skirted hero, Link. You’re given a tutorial on exactly how to Link, which would be a clever misdirection if Echoes of Wisdom didn’t give away the plot on its cover. With your sword and shield, you fight Link to the Past-era Ganon?, but on the edge of success, the ground opens up and swallows Link.

Zelda, who was inexplicably captured before the events of the game, then steps into the player character's shoes. It seems that Hyrule has been getting swallowed up by sinister-looking rifts, sucking in whoever was standing there at the time. As Zelda, you need to find a way to close them and rescue the people (including Link), along with your insanely generic assist partner, Tri.

The big twist on the Zelda formula is that you can conjure items into the environment, and typical gameplay has you figure out how to use them to bypass obstacles. In that way, it’s a lot like Tears of the Kingdom. Even despite its top-down perspective and less complicated physics engine, it also feels a lot like Tears of the Kingdom, which is fine. It invites a lot of comparison to a much larger game on the same system, but at least Echoes of Wisdom has classic dungeons.

You can also create an?y non-boss enemy in the game, and there’s som??ething deeply satisfying about fighting alongside a Moblin. Zelda herself is mostly relegated to pulling something heavy from the ether and hurling it at her foes. Not far into the game, she obtains the ability to essentially transform into Link and fight more familiarly, but the transformation is on a rather short timer, meaning you can’t just choose to play as Link for the whole game.

On the other hand, you can fill that bar using a properly mixed smoothie, which Echoes of Wisdom is strangely obsessed with. Throughout your adventures, you’ll be tripping over apples and blocks of butter, which you can then take to a friendly Deku Scrub to mix into a usable item with a variety of properties. It’s a bit like the cooking system in Breath of the Wild, but far less deep.

The obsession with smoothies has another downside, which is that Echoes of Wisdom thinks that ingredients are a worthwhile reward. There’s not much more deflating than completing a sidequest or climbing to an out-of-reach treasure chest and finding that it contains five cacti. I’m not expecting a heart pi??ece every time I find someone’s cat, but I was carrying an entire grocery store of unused food by the time I finished the game.

It’s going to sound like I’m really down on Echoes of Wisdom for a lot of this review, but I want to stress that this is because it doesn’t really hold up to the comparisons that it sets itself up for. It uses the world of Link to the Past with its borders extended and parts of it jumbled around a bit, but it never comes close to matching it. Its echo system has a way of making you feel clever, but it’s nowhere near the level that Tears of the Kingdom does. However, it’s a ?decent gam?e in its own right.

I’m happy to see the return of the art style used for the Link’s Awakening remake. I think the toylike look of it is very charming, and it does a good job of evoking the 2D games of the series. However, like Link’s Awakening, the framerate is extremely inconsistent. That hasn’t been changed. Traveling the world means seeing the game?? start to chug frequently. It’s bad enough that a sudden dr?op in framerate threw me off during a mini-game and resulted in me failing it. Not the end of the world, but never something you like to see.

I was never married to the overworld/dungeon format of pre-Breath of the Wild games, but it’s nice to see Echoes of Wisdom return to it for variety’s sake. Usually, dungeons are also preceded by segments in the “Still?? World�where chunks of landscape float in empty space, sometimes at unusual angles. The challenges here are usually not as intricate as the dungeons themselves, but they’re decent appetizers.

For that matter, the dungeons are a bit of a letdown. Unfortunately, they chose Link to the Past’s wor?ld as the setting, because the monotonous delves really stand in stark contrast to the thematically-focused ones of the SNES title. Despite having completed the game just last night and having cleared the whole thing in a brief timeframe, I would struggle to tell you how each dungeon differentiated itself. I could tell you how the Zora one is unique, but nothing beyond that.

This may be a side-effect of the echo system; it’s hard to fine-tune puzzles when there are so many things to account for. When experimentation is encouraged, it’s? hard to prevent shortcuts. There was ??one recurring puzzle where you needed to place a block on two tiles simultaneously. I was able to figure out a method that bypassed however the designer intended you to solve it that worked every time.

But in the absence of a solution to that self-inflicted pain, most of the puzzles are figuring out how to place an object on a switch or simply traversing difficult terrain. As a result, everything becomes monotonous, and that feeling continues to grow as you proceed. I became very proficient at traversal and s?witch operation, so everything became routine halfway through.

For a game that encourages the player to use their creative imagination, there’s a noticeable lack of imagination in the design of Echoes of Wisdom. It feels like the development team was pushing against limitations that weren’t there and came up short. As I said, in its own right, it’s a decent game, it’s just not a particularly memorable Zelda game, which is sort of ironic.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom puts a new spin on the series�formula but never quite finds itself. I like coming up with creative ways to use as bed as much as the next person, but I’d prefer if the challenges were more consistently creative in return. Instead, things just bled together until I could have just played on autopilot. It t?akes more than a dress and a bed to keep things interesting.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer.]}

The post Review: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom appeared first on Destructoid.

I’m not sure where to begin with Judero. To quote Marty MacChicken, “It’s so ART, I’m scared to have an opinion.�I was going t??o take a pass on it entirely after recognizing that it is heavily Scottish, and I know very little of Scotland. But I ??can, at least, tell you that I didn’t have to know anything at all.

It’s not about Scotland. I’m not even entirely sure what it is about. It might be, quite literally, about reaching the Glass Mountain for some reason, but it’s laid beneath cryptic, ornate dialogue about life and living. But while I’m somewhat embarrassed that I didn’t quite grok Judero’s meaning, I don’t think Judero would care. Judero kno?ws what it’s about, and it’s not afraid to have fun wi??th it.

Judero (PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Talha and Jack Co
Publisher: Talha and Jack Co
Released: September 16, 2024
MSRP: $17.99

Front and center with Judero is its art style. I’ve said before that I hate the sudden trend of games that use a stop-motion style where frames are removed to make it look like the physical animation style. It’s something that cropped up in the wake of Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, and it doesn’t work well unless the entire game has a diorama aesthetic. But Judero isn’t stop-motion in that style. Judero is literal stop-motion.

Every 2D object in the game has been hand-crafted and animated. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of photographed models in front of a bluescreen and animated a frame at a time. When you walk indoors, this, for some reason, switches to hand-drawn figures. It creates a very surreal and unique look, and I can honestly say I’m not a ??fan. 

I saw videos of Judero pop up quite a few times while it was in development, and I found the aesthetic off-putting. It has a sloppy, uneven quality to it. It may be intentional, as?? the lighting isn't even consistent, but that doesn't make it easier to look at. Many of the characters are dolls with visible joints and ugly piles of clay for faces, and others are hastily hand-drawn. They clash against the simple 3D back??grounds and there is no thought given to perspective correction. It looks horrendous, and I really wouldn’t have it any other way.

Judero reminds me of the argument some AI grifters have about generative AI “democratizing�art. That’s idiotic. Art is already "democratized." There are no barriers to expressing yourself. If you wanted to tell a story, you could draw faces on your thumbs and film them acting it out. Don’t have a camera? Then just perform for your friends. Or even just yourself �art has nothing to do with popula?rity. You don’t even have to be good, and you don't need to learn a thing or practice; you just need that spark of creativity. You need something to say, but if you were tragically born without a personality, then I’m sorry, a robot won’t replace that for you.

Judero is a game made of programming, crafting supplies, and something to say. The developers had an idea, and they ran with it. The fact that the visuals are so repulsive not only gives the game a surface identity but also lays bare the intention beneath. What exactly it’s try??ing to say, again, I’ll admit that I don’t re?ally know.

There is p??otentially a lot of Scottish folklore here and maybe some history, but I wouldn’t recognize it. However, as I mentioned, you don’t need to be familiar to get absorbed into the world. It takes place in an undefined time period in a placeless area that can only be defined as “Scotland.�Walk into any house, and you never ?know what you’re going to get. You might discover three women singing “House of the Rising Sun�while sewing. Maybe there’s a freakish person outside who tells you about microdosing hallucinogenic mushrooms. Other times, you’ll hear a fairytale or just an unprovoked sad story.

Much of the time, it’s poetic, but not always. Much like the art style, the writing is uneven and lacka??daisical. It just tarries wherever it feels, fulfilling whatever whim seemed to be on the artist’s mind at the time. It’s unmoored??, which makes it difficult to ever feel fully invested.

And don’t look to the gameplay to save you. The world is sparse and full of invisible barriers. Judero can possess creatures to solve puzzles, but you’re often just whacking them with a stick. There’s perhaps less depth in combat as, say, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, but without the interesting world and puzzle design to ho??ld it up. It’s never uncomfortable to play, but it’s hardly a foundation to build a tonal miasma on top of.

At the very least, it’s paced well. Each of its four acts is comprised of a large, open environment, usually with each objective branching off in its own direction. The third is the largest and has you sailing a ship from island to island wit?h an orangutan at your side. The variety and rate at which it changes does a lot to ease getting through the 5-6 hours that it will likely take you to see the end.

That’s rather key since the narrative doesn’t have enough comprehensible depth. There aren’t really any characters that you can get to know, aside from the hyper-competent Judero himself, a practical Scottish Kazuma Kiryu. The world is so bizarre that it’s difficult to really find grounding. The main c?onflict is someone straight-up telling Judero what he should be doing and him going to do it.

That makes it very difficult to really tell you why Judero is such a successful game and why you should play it. It might be because its anarchic and chaotic design is an antidote to the impersonal and overly polished games that make up the largest sector of the market. There are enough “inspired by�games that try to replicate the successes of others and few that are as nakedly human. Judero says a lot in its tumultuous mix ?of sadness and whimsy, thoughtfulness and playfulness. What it’s saying is a bit of a mystery to me, but I hear it talking, and I could listen to its voice all day.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Judero appeared first on Destructoid.

The concept of blending un?likely genres continues to take shape in the g??aming world, proving that titles don't need to be known for that one thi?ng. In my experience, it's brought out some of the best gameplay, ??from Dave the Diver's restaurant and fishing mechanics to the Yakuza series' many genre-bending elements.

I thought I had seen it all until Blue Rider Interactive's Apartment Story threw me for a loop with its combination of Sims-esque and narrative thriller gameplay. Although a somewhat cozy game like The Sims seems unusual for this particular genre, Apartment Story is definitely onto? someth??ing here, and it certainly had my interest piqued.

Apartment Story (PC [Reviewed])

Developer: Blue Rider Interactive

Publisher: Blue Rider Interactive

Released: September 26, 2024

You begin the game as Arthur, a 27-year-old man with little to no money in his bank account. Well, he actually has a negative balance, but hey, no judgment here. His wellness depends on his life stats, including Hunger, Sleep, Mind, Toilet and Hygiene. You'll also need t?o keep track of your electricity usage by managing the amount you ?use throughout the day.

It almost felt like I was initially doing a typical Sims playthrough, performing mundane tasks around the place, like tidying up the apartment and making some grub. Might seem a little monotonous to some, but I did enjoy it a lot toward the beginning. Sometimes, it's just better to make meals in video games th??an to think of what to cook up in real life for the hundredth time.

The only real goal at this point is to wait for your old roommate, Diane, to pick up her belongings. Things really kick into high gear after she shows? up, and the two of you party together. I almost forgot I was playing a narrative thriller as I got caught up in their conversations about the good old days. But then I got gripped back in once she spille??d the tea about a man utterly obsessed with her.

Lo and behold, that same man shows up at Arthur's doorstep and threatens his life for speaking to her. I was shocked, to say the least, but not about his sudden arrival. It was the fact that he had messed up my perfectly ??cleaned apartment I had worked so hard to keep tidy. Yet, before I could comprehend what was happening, the man simply walked away to leave me in a state of fear.

This is where the blending of two different gameplays truly begins. You'll switch back and forth between taking care of Arthur's health and plotting what to do about the bad man. As much as I was excited to see where this would take me, I was a bit disappointed with the result?s.

The more I kept up with Arthur's life stats, the more I realized how out of place they were. I mean, a man shows up and ??threatens my life, and now I'm eating a bowl of cereal like nothing happened? Seems a little strange to me.

On the other hand, I do understand why it was incorporated to show the importance of keeping one's health up during an intense situation. You can see that when Arthur can't perform regular tasks once his stats are at an all-time low. This element reminded me a lot of Indigo Prophecy's sanity meter, where the character could end up in a psych ward with low stats. A mechanic like this may have benefited its ga??meplay, making the life stats feel more crucial.

The in-between times also felt tedious as the game went on. The point-and-click interactions started to become dull after an endless amount of cleaning. All I would do is get Arthur's stats up and aimlessly wait until Apartment Story's thriller side came into play. A??t the least, the horror part got my blood pumping, given that the mysterious man could attack Arthur at any moment. I wish the game honed on? this moreso than the slice-of-life part. Maybe the developers could've added in a jumpscare when you're showering or placed hidden secrets for you to discover. Just something to make the downtime more exciting.

I probably would've got more into it if the story was more fleshed out. There was definitely some traction at the beginning with the unique dynamic between Diane and Arthur. All we really know about them is that they were old roommates wh??o are the epitome of a 'Will they? Won't they?' relationship. But outside of that, there's not much to them that made me want to dig in more.

The narrative does reach a high point toward the end, like any thriller would. You'll get to its conclusion pretty quickly, as a single playthrough only really lasts around 90 to 120 minutes. I like having a game that doesn't require too much time, and I think if it had done anything more,?? it would've overstayed its welcome.

All in all, Apartment Story's merging of Sim's life stats and the thriller genre is an intriguing aspect that I would love to?? explore more. I just wish it could've been executed better by increasing the thrill of the gameplay. It's almost like the concept was there, but it didn't quite hit the mark.

What did wo?rk, though, was its retro PS2-style graphics. While I do love me some modern graphics, it's nice to go back to the past with the game's blocky style.

So, if you feel like getting a quick fix for a thriller, try out Apartment Story. It's not the most gripping tale, but it does try something new with its unique stat management system. The game doesn't take up too much of your time, making it perfect for a one-night playthrou??gh.

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I’ve often wondered: if Dead Rising had released a few? years later, would it have done as well? Releasing in 2006, it was at a time when people were just getting acquainted with the Xbox 360 and the new generation of hardware. Games released in that window often get a bump, both critically and sales-wise.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a massive soft spot for the original Dead Rising, partially because I played it during the 360’s honeymoon period. It was a convincing display of what would be possible in the new console generation with its hordes of zombies. However, I had my frustrations with it. Enough that my attempts to return to it years later never went very far. Well, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster addresses almost all of those complaints.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster (PC [Reviewed], PS5, Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Released: September 18, 2024
MSRP: $49.99

If you haven’t played Dead Rising in the past 18 years, I’m going to remind you that it has a ridiculously dark opening cutscene before the game even starts. After that, it introduces Frank West, and less than an hour later, you might be dropping Servbot heads onto zombies or driving a lawnmower over them. It feels like one of the designers really hated the writer and wanted to undermine them at every turn. As such, Frank West has a character arc where he goes from seedy paparazzi to determined hero while also chugging back entire jugs?? of creamer.

The story involves said seedy paparazzi arriving in Willamette, Colorado, pursuing a story about strange happenings in the town. Upon arriving, he finds?? it infested with zombies. He clearly exists in a world where zombie movies exist, so either he’s never seen one, or he has terrible eyesight, because he drops onto the roof of a mall for closer inspe??ction.

Despite having no idea what the situation is, he asks the helicopter pilot to pick him?? up in exactly 72 hours. Then, as he watches the helicopter pilot get chased off by the military, he just assumes that the guy will totally be back at the promised time.

Anyway, the mall gets filled with zombies, and Frank? West searches for answers among the tide of undead. Weirdly, despite Willamette being a town of over 50,000 people, the answers are located exclusively in the mall.

The mall itself is a sandbox. With rare restrictions, you can roam and explore it as much as you want. The whole town has shown up, so it’s packed wall-to-wall with walking carcasses, but with ??society temporarily suspended, you can help yourself to whatever you want to wield as a weapon.

It’s fun. The freedom the sandbox provides was always the best part. It leaves lots of room to exp??eriment with the many, many things you can find. Frank West’s camera providing extra experience points for certain compositions just gives more incentive for screwing around. You will also no doubt learn where all the best stuff is, going back whenever you need more wine to chug.

What got stuck in the craw of?? many, back in 2006, is the fact that you’re on the clock. Frank West is expecting his ride out 72 hours after he arrives, and there is an in-game day/night system constantly ticking. The main story objectives have to be done within a certain time and within a certain window. If you miss them, you’re lining yourself up for the bad?? ending.

On top of that, people will occasionally materialize.?? These take the form of survivors and psychopaths. The survivors are hapless people who have taken shelter in the mall. You can, optionally, save them and take them to the security room where everyone is holed up. The psychopaths, you can’t reason with. They’re also optional (for the most part) and take the form of boss battles. Your ending doesn’t depend on them, but there are bonuses you can get for taking care of them.

What annoyed me most about the original version of Dead Rising wasn’t the time limit. In fact, I think the timer is a great mechanic that add??s a sense of urgency. No, it was trying to get the survivors to safety that vexed me greatest. Eventually, I just stopped trying to save them at all.

The survivors in Deluxe Remaster are not a whole lot brighter, but they’re much better at, well, surviving. I’m not entirely clear on what entirely changed with them. They will still follow you directly into a zombie ?horde, but they’ve got a Teflon coat on. Zombies donâ€??™t seem as eager to attack them, and they can easily slip through even tight packs. The result is that saving survivors is actually an enjoyable experience. Instead of avoiding them, I would plan my route through the mall to grab as many as I could to take back to the security room.

Speaking of the security room, the second most annoying problem I found with Dead Rising 2006 was Otis. This is largely because I originally played it on an SDTV where it had the notorious problem of having an unreadably small font for subtitles and Otis di?d not have a voice-over. He'd call constantly about survivors and mall locations, and I couldn't even read what he was saying. Now, not only can I read the subtitles, but Otis talks. He’s no longer a nuisance, but a friend.

Deluxe Remaster is a much better experience overall. The big graphical glow-up manages to make things look a lot more modern without losing? the overall feel of th?e original, but the subtle tweaks are what really make it so much more enjoyable.

There are some changes that got highlighted by others that didn’t really bother me. The voice actors, for example, have changed. TJ Rotolo was replaced by Jas Patrick as the voice of Frank West, which doesn’t sit well with some. I understand why some fans ??would be disappointed, but I barely noticed the difference. Likewise, one character was changed from what could be interpreted as an offensive stereotype into something more generic, and another had their lines replaced with something subtler. Personally, I don’t think these are big, upsetting changes, even if I don’t really think they’re necessary. It all depends on where you’re coming from.

One place that I did? have an issue was with performance. While playing on the PC version, I found that things ran very well for the most part, except it would hitch and stutter frequently. Usually, if a camera angle changed, it was accompanied with a visual pause. I’ve read some possible fixes online, but have yet to try them. There’s also a good chance you won’t see these at all, considering that PC environments vary substantially. It wasn’t even a deal-breaker for me, but it was intrusive.

For me, the benefits of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster’s modernization far outweigh the problems. As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I was fondly lukewarm of the original version. Deluxe Remaster makes enough changes that I can say without reservation?? that I enjoy??ed it. A lot.

When Dead Rising launched in 2006, it was an inventive game. It felt like a game that was informed by the new possibilities afforded to it by the new generation of hardware. But it had a lot of problems that were easier to overlook through the lens of the time period. Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster retains the things that made it great while addressing everything that held it ?back. The graphical upgrade just helps it shine brighter.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Nothing terrifies me like tight spaces, heights, and never-ending seeming dark holes. Also, there are few games I’ve been wanting more than a serious platforme??r capable of ma??king older audiences feel the childlike wonder provided by the classics.

I read that Lorn's Lure could be that game. The first video I saw of it showed the main character getting ready to? make a deliberate plunge into a hole in the ground; one I feared could be long enough to cross the entirety of the Earth.

Lorn's Lure seemed like a challenge I’d have to go through, to get the platformer I’d be?en hop?ing for.

Lorn's Lure (PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Rubeki Games
Publisher: Rubeki Games
Released: September 20, 2024
MSRP: $14.99

Upon first glance, Lorn’s Lure is very simple. You can jump, slide, and climb over platforms until you reach the place the game wants you to get to. From the outset, the only tool at your disposal is climbing gear y??ou'll use to somewhat freely climb many walls in the game.

I say somewhat freely because, like where Portal only lets you portal on white walls, Lorn’s Lure only allows players to climb on vertical walls made of climbable rock. The pickaxes allow you?? to move up, down, left and right for a limited time while you put yourself in the right spot to safely drop down or jump onto?? the next platform.

This alone would’ve been good enough to keep me engaged till the end of the game, but I was pleasantly surprised to unlock more more mechanics that enhanced my climbing abilities and the fun I had climbing. There's wall running, wall jumping, and a grappling hook to traverse the areas like Pathfinder from Apex Legends.

The rest works just as you’d expect. Fall into a bottomless pit, or onto the gr??ound from a high enough altitude, and you’ll get the option to r??estart from the last good position you were in, or from the start of the chapter.

On the graphical front, Lorn’s Lure cold trick you into thinking it’s a PS1 game with upscaled textures. Still, the humongous size of the play areas would likely melt Sony’s OG console in one second. Lorn’s retro look only adds charm and a welcome sense of eeriness, to a game that wants the player to feel like they’re trapped ?in an infinitely alien, indifferent, and sometimes surprisingly beautiful world.

Lorn’s Lure also takes a cool minimalistic approach to storytelling. The set-up is done by small cutscenes show th??e vastness of this world. Then, you can scan areas of interest to learn more about the haunting mega structure where your character �and many others before them �have found themselves trapped for hundreds of years.

The world of Lorn’s Lure will seem familiar to anyone who’s read BLAME. Just like Tsutomi Nihei’s manga, it puts the main character in a high-tech hell-scape vast enough to make any being, living or imaginary, feel tiny. I love that choice for a platformer. It conveys a grandeur never before seen in the likes of Tomb Raider or Uncharted. Those series have shown us a fair amount of large areas, but they have always been just as focused on showing us tiny details. In Lorn’s Lure, you never feel like you’re just exploring a level �y?ou feel like you’re exploring a p??lanet.

Like Chained Together, Lorn’s Lure could probably prove a hit among the speedrunning community. I don’t doubt it will, because this is a better looking and much more mechanically challenging title. Still, I was a bit surprised to learn Lorn's Lure actually feels like a puzzle game of sorts. It starts off as simple as any other platformer. Then, it has players clearing the way of obstacles, or finding ever-more intricate ways of completing the supposedly simple task of getting from point A to? B.

Even with its awesome mechanics, what makes Lorn’s Lure truly shine is its level design. Its dauntin?gly vast spaces make the player feel helpless when thinking of a way to get to the next checkpoint. Then, once they clear their minds, the game makes players feel like a true post-apocalyptic sci-fi raiders once they've finally overcome yet another o??bstacle.

Lorn’s Lure will need you to be quick on your feet, to be precise in both the spacing and the timing of your jumps. Even if you’re just trying to escape the megastructure, Lorn’s Lure will provide quite ?the challenge. But, once you’ve already beaten its main challenge, the game is still filled with collectibles placed in even har??der-to-access areas.

Fortunately, Lorn’s Lure doesn’t waste your time. The developer knew this would be a very intense trial-and-error affair. Players can, at any point, restart their run to the last time they had secure footing on the platform closest to the objective, with no loading screen involved. I’ve tested the restart option a lot �you guess whether I did so intentionally or not �and it works very well. Too many platformers struggle to record the player's last good position before a fateful misplaced jump, or record a platform where they'd been previously, wrongfully making it the restart position. Lorn's Lure is free from that sin.

As for what I didn’t like, the massive size of the play area makes it sometimes difficult to understand where to head next. The game’s plot conveniently introduces a guiding glitch in our character’s eyesight, but it isn’t visible at all times. Players can toggle a mar??ker at all times to know exactly where they need to go, but I’d rather just have a diegetic cue like the one the game intended.

Still, that’s more of a nitpick than a huge problem. In terms of what I liked but many might not, well, Lorn’s Lure is very challenging. The trial-and-error nature of the entire game might put some off. I totally understand players might not want to die more times to one single jump than they would to a boss in Elden Ring??. Even I felt deeply frustrated at some?? points, but the frustration would vanish as soon as I'd found myself past each of the most demonic jumps. Many players may not re-energize so easily, and I totally get that.

But, if you’re into challenging platformers like the remaster of the original Crash Bandicoot, then you’re very likely to enjoy this one. Alongside with the aforementioned Chained Together and Jusant, Lorn’s Lure proves that the world of pl??atformers still has a lot of mechanics to be tried out. It’s also revealing just how inhospitable and utterly terrifying platformers can be �in the coolest of ways.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Lorn’s Lure appeared first on Destructoid.

Do you have room in that brain of yours for some temporarily useful information? Do you want to learn about the household threats that go unseen? If so, Home Safety Hotline has the job for you.

Originally released earlier this year, it’s now being released on consoles. Being an OS sim, it’s always a weird fit on ??a controller, but I needed the excuse to circle back to it for review, so I’ll take it.

Home Safety Hotline (PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch [Reviewed])
Developer: Night Signal Entertainment
Publisher: Torture Star Video
Released: September 20, 2024
MSRP: $19.99

Home Safety Hotline has you logging in for the first time as an employee of the t?itular company. The company provides information and support for home owners, giving them assistance in times of need, whether that’s because they have cockroaches or their house is on fire.

You’re given a list of common problems and take calls from clients. They’ll give you a description of the issue they’re having, and you need to identify what’s going on and provide them with the correct information by simply selecting it. It progresses through the days of the week, and each day provides your list with additional problems. You need to be as accurate as possible, otherwise you’ll?? be fired.

While this starts off with mundane problems like black mold, supernatural encounters begin creeping in. Things get weirder and weirder as you go. You’ll still get the odd person calling in about something like termites just to throw you off, but often, they’ve been referred to you because you’re the experts in dealing with the supernatural. In this, Home Safety Hotline walks the line of horror and humor.

It’s a very simple, straightforward concept. You simply get a description and pick the answer. For Home Safety Hotline, it’s all in the pr??esentation. It’s presented like a Windo??ws 95 program, with the date reading 1996. It’s not exactly analog horror, but it’s the same idea.

The calls run the gamut. You get customers who had a bad experience previously and are now irate, ones who are confused that they were told to call you??, and then there are some th??at are tragic. “How do you tell someone their dog is dead?â€?my husband asked me as he watched over my shoulder. “By email,â€?I replied.

But the clients can be misleading. While for some, the answer is obvious, others will deliberately contain information to throw you off. There are also moments where your database has technical difficulties, and you can’t double-check information in a possible answer. If you get one wrong, you aren’t immediately notified, even if that was your last chance. It comes a few calls later, where you’ll be reprimanded by your supervisor or contacted by a now-pissed, unsatisfied customer. It may just be a quiz in the end, but these are the small ways that Home Safety Hotline keeps things compelling.

The downside to this is that the calls are always the same, and always in the same order. As far as I know, there are no random elements to the main story mode. If you get fired, you just repeat that day over, so it’s just listening to the same calls and adjusting your answers to finally make the grade. There’s no replay value in that sense, but some of the things that get unlocked after completing it make up for this?.

My main issue with Home Safety Hotline is that it just doesn’t feel optimal on console. With its OS interface and scroll bars, it was made with mouse controls in mind. Functions on the screen are mapped to buttons, ??so it works reasonably well, but it loses some of its authentic feel. Scrolling, in particula?r, kind of sucks. 

To get through a lot of menus, you just use the d-pad to scroll, but it moves one press at a time. If you want to get from the top to the bottom of the list, you can only get there by pressing down over and over again. There are also visible problems with scrolling through menus. The information pane jumps the first time it hits the bottom of the visible area, and once your email inbox fills up, it won’t scroll down to whatever’s off-screen. I spoke to Mr. Puppy Combo (head honcho of Torture Star Video, the publisher), and he let me know that a patch is?? on the way, but whether or not it will fix these issues, I can’t confirm.

It’s not the end of the world, but it did bother me. For anyone who only has the option of playing it on console or simply wants a Switch?? version they can play on the toilet, then it fits that need.

Aside from that, I enjoyed Home Safety Hotline. The main story runs at 2-3 hours, but it also includes its first DLC, Seasonal Worker, which adds 60-90 minutes of runtime. Alongside that, t?here are some neat bonuses once you finish. Truthfully, I’m not sure the concept could get much farther than that, so it’s good that it doesn’t overstay its welcome and instead just provides extra if you haven’t had your fill.

I’m sure I’ve said this multiple times, but it is a very simple premise that boils down to a quiz with associated research, but it presents it with love and pizzazz. It’s very much greater than the sum of its parts. With its mix of the weird and mundane, it has a winning personality. It probably won’t blow you away, and the console version is perhaps not the most optimal way to play it, but it’s an enjoyable?? day job.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Have you ever played a game that delivers on its core concept so thoroughly that you don’t think it could possibly be improved? It doesn’t necessarily have to be the most compelling concept; it could be quite mundane, but it convinces you that no matter how much budget could get thrown at the idea, there’s no way to top it. That’s Parking Garage Rally Circuit.

I’m not trying to tell you that this is the best racing game of all time. I rarely speak in such enthusiastic hyperbole. However, I will say, with some confidence, that Parking Garage Rally Circuit is the absolute best Sega Saturn-style parking garage drift racing ga?me ever released.

Parking Garage Rally Circuit (PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Walaber Entertainment LLC
Publisher: Walaber Entertainment LLC
Released: September 20, 2024
MSRP: TBA

Parking Garage Rally Circuit is what I’d describe if you asked me to guess the synopsis of The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift based on what I remember from the trailer I saw back in high school. The only image I h?ave of that movie is cars drifting up a ramp in a park??ing garage. I’m not even sure if I’m remembering that correctly.

I love drifting. Or, at least, I love arcade-style drifting. I mostly judge racing games entirely by how well the drifting in them feels. But as much as I love drifting, I love retro hardware more. More specifically, I’m passionate about people’s passion for older hardware. I love to hear people talk enthusi??astically about old consoles and computers, even the crappiest ones imaginable. I love it more when people try to represent it as authentically as possible.

One of the first things that greet you upon starting up Parking Garage Rally Circuit is a number of graphical preset options prese?nted like different versions of the game, such as the original hardware or PC port. While this essentially just? changes options like scanlines, aspect ratio, and draw distance, it puts those things in the context of the time period. If you don’t care for authenticity and want to be boring, you can individually tweak settings to your liking.

However, even if you widen your screen, you’re not going to fully lose the aesthetic of chunky polygons, fake transparency, pixelated textures, and a selection of ridiculous ska tunes. Parking Garage Rally Circuit is really committed to mid-�0s racing games. It’s not Sega Rally Championship �it’s not trying to be �but it looks the part.

But looking the part is one thing. Racing games need to play well. It’s not really the sort of genre that can get by on artistic intent. Unless it’s Road Trip on PS2. Thankfully, Parking Garage Rally Circuit is like butter.

As I mentioned, I’m a bit of a drift queen. In video games, anyway. I don’t even have my license in reality. However, I was able to get a feel for Parking Garage Rally Circuit very quickly and was drifting up parking garage ramps like that Tokyo Drift trailer in no time at all.

As the name implies, each of its 8 tracks are set inside parking garages. Sort of. I think the last level is technically a ferry, but I digress. You might wonder how much variety you could possibly get from that theme. As it turns out, it’s a lot. Each parking garage is in a different city and range from simple two-story structures to sprawling complexes. Hazards like snowplows and falling boulders mix up the tight cornering, and hazardous jumps across towe?ring structures keep you concentrated on your steering.

You don’t race against live competitors, j??ust their ghosts. That is to say, it’s a time trial, with your goal being to reach the top time. As much as I like running people off the road, I’m not sure a grid would really work in such tight environments. The challenge of carefully drifting? through extremely narrow turns is enough to keep you focused. If you’re feeling competitive, there is multiplayer, but, again, it’s all ghosts.

The only real downside I can point to in Parking Garage Rally Circuit is its brevity. There are eight tracks, and after you get a medal on each one of them in a class, you are provided with a new car with different perform?ance and pushed through the tracks again with slight variations. It’s decent on paper, but it only took me a little under two hours to clear. I had a healthy pile of gold under my belt, but still more to clear. Your mileage will vary.

On the other hand, there are also secret cheat codes buried in the game. I’m told there are 10 of them, but I was only provided with two. I was not able to guess any others, but they’re supposed to be discovered and proliferated by the community. These unlock “secret cars, tracks, or gameplay modifiers.�/p>

Despite its brevity, Parking Garage Rally Circuit packs a huge punch. It’s not just its perfectly emulated retro aesthetic or its near-flawless execution of its central concept, either. It’s just so damned happy to be here. You can feel the passion behind it, and that energy is felt in all its facets. It knows what it is, and it’s laser-focused on presenting it in the most finely-tuned way possible. I cannot fathom any game topping it in the niche of racing games contained entirely within parking garages. I’m not really sure what the best way to wrap up this review is, so let’s try this: Parking Garage Rally Circuit is miles more fun than parallel parking.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Parking Garage Rally Circuit appeared first on Destructoid.

I've been excited about The Plucky Squire since Devolver Digital first announced it back in 2022. Even though I don't usually love platformer games, I was instantly drawn to its peculiar, dimension-bending mechanics and a pa?rticular type of art style I've been familiar with for years.

I was worried at first, too. I've had my heart broken one too many times, banking on my admiration for its style, only to wind up with a messy, incoherent, or straight-up boring ordeal. There was a small part of me harboring hesitancy, hoping this wouldn't be t??????????????????????????he same. Thankfully, making an optimistic-fueled gamble with my time paid off, and I walked away happier than ever before after venturing out of my comfort zone. Well, except during a few puzzles, but that lies?? entirely in my problem-solving abilities.

The Plucky Squire (PC [Reviewed], Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5)
Developer: All Possible Futures
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Released: September 17, 2024
MSRP: $29.99

Throughout The Plucky Squire, you play as a famous hero named Jot whose goal is to thwart the villain, Humgrump's, plans of spreading evil and chaos across the land of Mojo. While it starts as your typical 2D RPG experience of defeating monsters and chapter bosses, you'll soon learn where the game's meat and potatoes come from: Jot and his friends are all characters in a book, and thanks to ?Humgrump's magic, you can hop between ?dimensions and advance your journey in the real (well, game) world.

I'll come right out and admit it: the jumps between 2D and 3D maps were already enough to sell me on the game before I even hopped in and checked everything out for myself. The last time I experienced anything remotely similar was when I played Super Paper Mario. I went in already feeling eager to play, and that only continued to grow as The Plucky Squire proved just how far you can push creativity and gameplay experimentation once you combine ???multiple game genres under one title.

When I say multiple genres, I mean it in the best way possible. At its core, it's an action-adventure game that feels like your standard "hero saves the day" premise, but there's a whole lot more you'll find as you continue forward. I even got to play a brief rhythm game along the way, initially catching me off guard but making me chuckle as I realized what was going on. You can spend a few minutes fighting enemies, only to find yourself back on the desk flying around the map using rockets. There are a ton of seemingly random elemen??ts thrown into the mix, but it makes for some hilariously entertaining moments.

With that said, the game relies on this a lot. The Plucky Squire takes around 9-10 hours to comple?te, and during this, you're introduc??ed to so many features that, on occasion, it gets a little hard to remember everything. You'll also briefly use several one-off abilities for various bosses or puzzles before they disappear, leaving you either wantin??g to try it again or being thankful you never have to do it again. I found most of them? quite fun, but a few had some funky mechanics that were a tad difficult to control. Sometimes, a trusty sword is all you really need. Either that, or I'm not meant to wield a bow.

Speaking of combat, expect to fight a lot. In both the 2D and 3D world, you're constantly up against random enemies and surprisingly unique chapter bosses. Something All Possible Futures and Devolver Digital pulled off particularly well here is giving you a reason why all these monsters are just kind of here. You also have unique battles for nearly every boss, so you won't have to worry about mindlessly slashing your sword around for minutes straight each time. If anything, my only wish was to have more to do in the 3D world, as most of its ??excitement came from later chapters.

I could say this about a good chunk of The Plucky Squire itself. On one hand, it's a book that follows a linear story of having a brave hero set off to defeat an evil villain. At the same time, there's barely any opportuniti??es to venture off the beaten path and set off on brief side adventures or exploration. The puzzles add some variety and opportunity to explore. Beyond this, you're set on one particular path with no way to differentiate one playthrough from another unless you go back to find every collectible.

Fortunately, this leads to a major plus: the story. The entire game takes place in a storybook and the world beyond it, and it manages to weave everything together perfectly. This is where linearity also serves as a strength to make the plot easier to understand, digest, and immerse yourself in without getting too distracted. Every aspect of The Plucky Squire �the visua?ls, landscape, characters, and even audio �is all fine-tuned to fit and enhance the story. Whether you're looking for beautiful art, comedy, or occasional sad moments, you'll see all of it here. T?here are even plenty of puns, which I was more than happy to appreciate.

It is clear right from the start that this is Jot's? story, though. While this doesn't come as a surprise, especially with him being the Plucky Squire himself and the main protagonist, the other characters are either there to give you information or follow you around as Jot does everything. A few eventually help you out later in the story, but for the first few hours, they almost serve as distractions rather than companions. Some locations give a similar vibe, acting as places you can run around in? and check out but not necessarily interact and immerse yourself in. They're just kind of there, whether you like it or not.

Even with that said, I really enjoyed exploring the ga??me's environments, especially the 3D landscape. Getting lost in all the clutter reminded me of how messy my desk usually is and got me to do some organizing. I've forgotten ?just how many times I accidentally found collectibles because I went behind the wrong bottle of paint, wooden block, or tree, but it cracked me up every time it happened. You can even change the world through word manipulation, making for some wacky shenanigans if you grab the right words later.

The Plucky Squire manages to expertly craft an adorably interesting story full of lovable characters, enjoyable narration, and near-perfect para??llels between its 2D and 3D worlds. While some parts need just a bit more polish, it exceeded my already high expectations and gave me nearly a dozen hours of laughs, fun, and mental exercise. Plus, well, seeing its cast of cute little characters suddenly turn into buff badasses is a great bonus.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: The Plucky Squire appeared first on Destructoid.

It’s hard to really figure out what Starstruck: Hands of Time is abo??ut based on trailers or screenshots. Half of it is a rhythm game. Half of it is an adventure. The other half is about smashing things as a giant hand. Actually having played through it, I still don’t really know what it’s about.

Starstruck: Hands of Time (PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Createdelic, LLC
Publisher: Createdelic, LLC
Released: September 16, 2024
MSRP: $19.99

Starstruck has you sent back from the future to try and prevent a somewhat-unexplained apocaly?pse. Your robot companion hones in on a pair of humans, both aspiring musicians. One is Edwin, who lives in the shadow of Dawn. The other is Dawn, who lives in the shadow of her brother.

Finally, there’s your hand, which you use to interfere with the flow of time. Do you remember that Simpsons Halloween special where Homer travels back in time and, while he initially tries not to affect the future, eventually gets frustrated and just starts smashing things? That’s what you’re doing with your hand. Initially, your computerized companion says something about not creating a paradox before realizing that, wait, you’re actually trying to crea??te a paradox, so you might as well smash everything.

It’s fun. It’s barely necessary in terms of narrative, but just being able to lay waste to the environment is fun in a Katamari way. It even challenges you to destroy as much as p??ossible and locate hidden things in the environment, which encourages you to just replay these segments. Messing with the timestream could have been depicted in a number of ways, and this is such a great way to do it?.

The most immediately striking thing about Starstruck is its art style. Most things are presented as a diorama that mixes mundane objects, disparate toys??, and plasticine figures. But it gets even better than that, as it also incorporates video elements, laying them behind the player-controlled models, which gives them a surreal effect.

There is some unevenness to the art style, but it makes good use of it. I think that, at least once, it uses the fact that you can’t really tell why something looks the way it does to la??ter reveal what it represents.

When I played the demo of Starstruck: Hands of Time a couple months back, I was deep into packing for a move. Now that I have room to breathe without inhaling cardboard, I got out my Rock Band 4 Fender Jaguar. It made me want to play Rock Band 4 more t??han anything, but it also improved the feelin??g of the game. Sort of.

There’s no strumming. You just press the fret buttons in time with the prompts. I’m not sure how much you know about playing a guitar, but it’s very much not that. You lift and press the strum bar to move to the higher and lower pitches. It’s kind of awkward, especially at higher difficulties where you’re pressing chords, er, multiple buttons at once. It’s still fun to play, regardless of whether you’re on keyboard (that is, a computer keyboard, not the piano type) or a Rock Band/Guitar Hero guitar.

Speaking of which, it looks like the Guitar Hero 2 (360 version) Xplorer guitar ge?ts recognized by the game and bound automatically. For my Fender Jaguar, I had to bind the buttons, but it wasn’t difficult and worked fine.

I was actually excited every chance I got? to pull out the guitar, which, thankfully, comes up rather frequently. It’s a major part of gameplay. I said in my write-up of the demo that I hated the music, but thankfully, it turned out to only be that one song that I didn’t like. I mean, I still didn’t like the lyrics much whenever they came up, but the soundtrack, in general, is really enjoyable. You can play the songs separate from the story, and I would totally do that.

The adventure aspect of the Starstruck, on the other hand, is a smidge weak. I wasn’t looking for things to rub on other things, but there isn’t a tonne to really do in the world. There are guitars that you can find and equip for visual reasons, and there are optional songs to take part in (at least one, that I recall), but not a whole lot. And I think there’s a bit of a missed opportunity to ?get more intimate with the game world.

Which actually leads me to my main issue with Starstruck: its story?? isn’t entirely well told. I really?? want to temper my words, because I want to be clear that it isn’t bad. It has a lot of value and inventiveness. It’s just that it seems unfocused. So much so that, when all is said and done, I’m not sure what the core message is supposed to be. Was there just one? If not, then the other themes get diluted, and nothing gets full closure.

There’s symbolism like the heavy presence of ouroboros, the illusion of immortality through art, and being true to yourself. It brings up so much and explains s??o little. It spins its tires on plagiarism and by the end of it, I wasn’t sure if it was saying that it’s bad or unavoidable. Or maybe I’m not supposed to focus on that. Maybe it’s about the fact that you need to be yourself, because becoming famous by simply copying someone already successful will leave you feeling hollow. Or that all your heroes live in the shadow of someone else. Or maybe it’s both, as well as some sort of statement on the difference of fa??me and infamy.

The fact that it doesn’t really punctuate itself might have a lot to do with the fact that the narrative can’t tell if it’s more interested in the characters o??r the message. The characters themselves are all unique, and their problems are c?learly stated, but you don’t live with them. You don’t really spend enough time with their issues to get a good understanding of their problems. I’m curious about Edwin’s TV-addicted parents. You see Lucy’s problem demonstrated, but the depths of her despair was a complete mystery to me. Likewise, I don’t understand the antagonist. I don’t get their motivations or their, er, status.

Not understanding or not being able to fully grok the?? point could just be me. I feel I’m typically receptive enough to recognize artistic intent, but I can’t possibly say how others will connect or interpret it. However, I still think that better attention to the characters would have paid off massively.

With that said, it’s told with enough visual and verbal flair that it doesn’t significantly matter. Starstruck knows how to set a scene effectively, so regardless of whether you fully understand the subtext, it’s easy enough to follow t??he grander plot and be entertained by its storytelling.

I’ve played and reviewed a lot of games this month, and there was a point where I felt breathless beneath a pile of them. However, the one I wanted to play most after starting it was Starstruck: Hands of Time, but it was also the one I needed to push down in priorities since I had more urgent deadlines. I think it says something that I had to restrain myself from playing it? too soon.

It wound up being 4 hours for me, and that includes a bit of time I spent just playing the songs, searching for guitars, and repeating the smashy sections. There are?? multiple endings, but they are based mo??stly on decisions you make toward the end of the game, rather than any sort of branching narrative.

It wasn’t until the last act of the game that the fires of my enthusiasm met with a damp log. It wasn’t enough to put me out entirely, but it did take down the heat. Starstruck sets itself up for a homerun and winds up just making it to fourth base. It filled out the paperwork correctly, but forgot to sign and date the bottom. Uh, what I’m saying is that with a bit more time? dedicated to its storytelling, it could have been the complete package. As it stands, you might be impressed by its personality, but you won’t necessarily be starstruck.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Capcom is digging back into its vault and finally unearthing one of its most asked-after classics, packaging its pixel-era Marvel crossovers into a single game with the Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection. It's a compilation that would, indeed, like to take you f??or a ride.

While this collection is probably most notable for making Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 conveniently playable, it's also a tour through a fascinating, arguably foundational, era of Capcom's brawler development. So, to tackle its disparate parts, we've put two reviewers on the case. First off, I—Eric—will dig into the multiplayer fighting game aspect, from X-Men: Children of the Atom up through Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. Then Zoey will weigh in with expert knowledge on The Punisher, the side-scrollin??g beat 'em up packaged in with the bunch.

Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics (PC, Switch, PS4, PS5)
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Released: September 11, 2024
MSRP: $49.99

Wanna learn how to do an infinite?

It’s still a little surreal to see Capcom’s Marvel crossovers playable on a modern platform. Once Arcade1Up put out its Marvel cab, it felt inevitable that some kind of port would follow. But even for preservation’s ??sake alone, t??his collection is a big deal.

When the collection bears the name �em>Marvel Vs. Capcom�on the title, you know what the focus is. Everything here centers on Capcom’s legendary series of crossovers, starting with a few core Marvel games and building into Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.

Seeing these games in sequence like this really helps illustrate how Capcom built these characters and concepts up over time. You can see the first iterations of Cyclops and Wolverine duking it out and how those fighters shifted over the years from X-Men: Children of the Atom all the way through to MvC2.

Laying out the lineage like this is a nice touch, and thankfully, it’s pretty easy to play through a few rounds on every game. Though the lobby system is a little finicky for my taste, it certainly functions just fine, and the netcode felt solid in the matches I ran with someone across the States from me. Playing a first-to-three in Marvel Super Heroes and then swapping over to an X-Men or MvC is pretty smooth, making it easy to jump around through C?apcom’s development timeline.

While the history is nice to see, there are obvious standouts. X-Men Vs. Street Fighter is a personal favorite of mine, and it’s been done well here. The original Marvel Vs. Capcom hold?s up well, too, and it’s neat to see how the tag and assist systems evolved in these crossover fighters over time.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is the star of the show, though. It’s been years since I spent hours trying to climb in the Xbox 360 port, and many more since I first put a quarter in an MvC cab, so I do think it’s important to stress: Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is one hell of a game.

I mean this in a few ways, too, because as fun as it is to play so many characters that feel so powerful, the line can quickly veer into something busted. It’s a rite of passage to go online in MvC2 and get bowled over by an Iron Man infinite or someone running a classic composition of god-tier fight?ers??.

All the nastiness is here in spades, and for the sickos who want that, I think they’ll find it. Even as a critic, I’d still recommend the absolute MvC diehards check out in-depth reports from the likes of Justin Wong to see whether the granular details have translated well. But for someone like me, a casual MvC fan who just wants to play my favori?te version of Jill Valentine and fight my friends, it’s a solid offering.

A few modernizations could help onboard newcomers, like the increasingly popular one-button specials option. It’s nice to see a good training mode in here, too. All of this points to a collection that could revitalize competitive interest in MvC; while the diehards have been using alternative methods for some time, this is another point where putting?? these games on a modern pla??tform helps out.

Sadly, even modernization doesn't help all of these games shine as brightly as others. The aforementioned standouts are there, and I'm pretty sure if you're buying this collection, you're buying it for Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. Everything else is gravy on top. But after a handful of rounds in some of the other games, I felt fine not running more, especially when they had fewer character options compared to the massive MvC2 lineup.

Ultimately, this collection feels like a time capsule of Capcom history. Putting all these games together clearly illustrates the through-lines, showing how Capcom and Marvel built a working relationship over years of fighting game crossovers. In that respect, it might feel a little lacking in variety. Rather than a smorgasbord of differing styles, it’s focused on a lineage, the way previous collections like the Street Fighter 30th laid out decades of iteration on a core con??cept.

But it’s this focused encapsulation that makes this collection so endearing for me. So much artwork and music has been packed in, alongside options that make it easy to tinker, train, or just experience the explosive wonders of MvC2 for the first time. I think if you’re a fan of fighting game history, this collection is a no-brainer. I wouldn’t recommend it to someone looking to “get into�fighting games, but I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who gets rosily nostalgic every time they hear “I wanna take you for a ride�ring out through their speakers. - Eric Van Allen

It's punishin' time

It’s always a cause for celebration when a licensed game somehow gets rereleased in modern times. While the Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection centers around the mashup titles, The Punisher sits at the beat-’e??m-up lunchroom table alone. A surprising addition, but one that deserves attent?ion.

Without thinking too hard about it, Capcom was the best when it came to belt-scrolling brawlers. 1994 was a good year to be a fan, as that was when Alien vs. Predator and The Punisher were released. While AvP is probably the better game overall, The Punisher is no slouch.

You can play as either The Punisher or Nick Fury. I have no idea why Nick Fury is here, aside from the fact that he’s one of the few Marvel char?acters who will use a gun. I thought it would be explained in the opening demo, but it isn’t. I’m not sure why a government agent would join a vigilante in a full assault against an organized crime family. If that sort of thing was allowed, they probably could have just killed the Kingpin a long time ago.

Anyway, that’s all The Punisher is. It starts off by having you beat up thugs in a casino. Then you just follow the trail of thugs until you get to The Kingpin. You go through various crime-y locations,? such as a bus, a mansion, a waterfront warehouse, and an underground grow-op. There?? are bosses at the end of each. You know the drill.

Perhaps the biggest twist to the beat-’em-up brawler that The Punisher brings is that if a thug pulls a gun on Mr. Punisher or Mr. Fury, they’ll pull out their pistols and respond in kind. That sounds like they were trying to say that they only shoot thugs in self-defense, but you can later pick up Uzis and assault rifles and kill indiscriminately. I guess it doesn’t count when you’re using guns you pi??????????????????????????ck up off the ground: It’s the five-second rule for mu??rder.

Overall, The Punisher is a solid brawler. The art style is one of the best pa?rts, especially for the perpetually seething Punisher. You can practically see the veins popping out of his head. The levels feel kind of short, but the entire game clocks in at just over 40 minutes. When you get tired of the smorgasbord of fighting games that make up the rest of the collection, it makes a pretty great palette cl?eanser. 

Or maybe you’re just tired of kicking the crap out of your friend and want to team up for a change. You can briefly immerse yourself in the camaraderie between Mr. Punisher and Mr. Fury a few years before Mr. Punisher shoots Mr. Fury in the back. - Zoey Handley

Gather ye stones

On the whole, the Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection does exactly what it sets ?out to do: take these classic crossovers, apply some modernizations, gather up some historical assets, and package them all nea?tly together.

It's not the most wide-ranging appeal, but for th?ose within that niche, it's hard to find too many complaints. There's rollback netcode, some fantastic games, and a Punisher beat 'em up for when you'd rather co-op than fight. If you're a nostalgic fan of the originals or someone curious about one of the most storied games in fighting history, this collection makes it easy to take a ride back in time.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting ?Collection: Arcade Classics appeared first on Destructoid.

Few horror games are more influential than Silent Hill. P.T. maybe? But that was a demo for Silent Hills, so it sort of still counts. Okay, to be most specific, Silent Hill 2 is incredibly influential, which leads us to Hollowbody.

The PS2 was the best platform for horror. It was the last platform where a girl could feel safe to avoid monsters while dressed in her finest, shortest skirt. Dudes could search for their missing wives in the outfit she picked out for them. Combat barely functioned in most instances. Hollowbody longs for those days, as do I.

Hollowbody (PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Headware Games
Publisher: Headware Games
Released: September 12, 2024
MSRP: $19.99

The big difference that Hollowbody brings to the Silent Hill 2 formula is its semi-futuristic setting. You play as Mica, who is enjoying her future dystopian life when her very special friend Sasha goes missing. Sasha left to find some answers about what happened to the “Western?? Cities,�which suffered some strange biological event that forced the government to nuke it from orbit. It was the only way to be s?ure.

The whole event was covered up really well, leaving some people to wonder what had happened. You start out playing as Sasha as some creepy stuff happens, then you switch to Mica, who is piloting her awesome flying Ferrari over one of the Western Cities. She’s condescending to her AI cruise control for the ??last time, and it gives out on her, leaving her to crash in the battered remains of an English suburb. From there, the sci-fi thing ki?nd of becomes marginal as you wander the ruins of a desolate town.

The setting is easily the best part of the entire game. Not that an empty town is anything new, but it makes good use of lighting and grey grime to sell the idea that this was once a lovely place to live, but is now decaying in isolation. The constant rain leads to a great atmosphere, ev??en if it kind of disappears when you’re indoors. The camera will occasionally fix on a well-com??posed view. A lot of the horror is derived from the mystery and tragedy of what happened in this place, and that gets sold well, visually.

However, beyond that, I think Hollowbody really has trouble finding an identity. It really sometimes fe??el like PS2 Game: The Game, and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it is a bit disappointing. As I mentioned, the whole future angle is actually rather subtle, and it tells its background in ways that you’d probably expect. There are written documents and what are essentially audio logs. 

Environmental storytelling is there, but there’s little commitment to it. A lot of places feel the same. There’s a part in the game where you enter one house, then need to cr??oss the street to another, and they might as well have been the same house, given how the occupants both decorated and died. Even interactable objects in environments aren’t as prevalent as you might expect, despite the fact that Mica has a comment for every video phone she sees. Some areas, such as a number of apartments in one section of the game, don’t feel necessary at all. They don’t add to the atmosphere, they sometimes don’t hold any useful supplies, and they’re not narratively interesting.

The level design, in general, isn’t all that stellar. One section of the game has you trek through a l??arge public park, find a locked door, and then hav?e to backtrack through the park, back the way you came. It’s a long, boring hike, and nothing really changes to make it interesting again.

Then there’s a sewer section. I’d say this feels very PS2, but sewer levels never really went out of vogue. They were boring then, they’re boring now, and aside from some disorienting camera tricks, they’re boring in Hollowbody. Also, it does the thing where it asks, "Do you want to pick up this item?" but you have unlimited inventory space. Explain to me why I wouldn't want to pick up the key. What would possibly be the co??nsequence?

There are only two really solid puzzles in the entire runtime. It took me a bit over four hours to complete the game, and while that may se?em short, more could have been made from it. The section in the apartments is way longer than it needed to be.

The opening is a long stretch without monsters, which can be an effective way to build tension, but Hollowbody doesn’t capitalize on this. For a moment, I wondered if there were supposed to be monsters but I had hit a bug and they didn’t spawn. Eventually, they show up, but it wasn’t after a period of teasing that some??thing dangerous was lurking. The enemies just show up. I think there’s a narrative reason for it, but the isolation isn’t used well.

Even when they do, they aren’t much of a threat. Not that I expected Hollowbody to turn into an action game, ??but I did think there’d be some hostility. Enemies shamble in small groups, and their only advantage is they can sometimes attack with little warning. I completed the game with over 100 pistol bullets remaining and a pocketful of shells. I began losing health more frequently at the end, but that’s largely because I was stubbornly using melee ??attacks.

Speaking of which, I found three melee weapons in the game, and I have no idea if one is better than another. I had this problem with Rule of Rose, so maybe it’s period accurate??, but it feels strange that I couldn’t tell the difference between a guitar and a makeshift axe.

The story is fine, but that’s mostly all in the background. I love a good “everyone died, no one knows why�plot, and Hollowbody does it uniquely in some ways. However, what goes on in gameplay is less stellar. What irked me the most is that Mica gets phone calls from a mysterious voice throughout the?? game. They kind-of sort-of act as the antagonist, and having them call up the protagonist to taunt them really ruins their mystery. Not that you immediately know who’s on the other end of the line, but knowing that they’re a passive-aggressive dick is enough.

It feels like the setting was well established, as was the central premise, but actually getting the characters from point A to point B turned out to be a struggle. Not all that much really happens to Mica beyond a couple of plot points and a voice in her ear. We don’t really learn all that much about her relationship wi?th Sasha, aside from a few warm and regrettable memories. The story doesn’t really feel like it’s about he??r or her friends.

I also feel like the endin?g was a foregone conclusion. However, I did get one ending out of a few. I’d be interested to know how things turn out in the others. Maybe there’s a better payoff in one of the others. As of right now, I’m not even sure what the criteria for them is.

Hollowbody isn’t bad. It’s a solid effort for a solo developer. There is a lot of skill on display, though I think it should have been planned in a more holistic way. The flow could be better, the narrative co???????????????????????????uld be tighter, and the level design needs work. Nothing about it is disastrous, and if you’re a fan of PS2 horror, it can be worth a look at its abbreviated runtime.

It’s just not the most memorable experience, either. Hollowbody stakes its identity on being a PS2-inspired horror game and has trouble building on that and finding its own ident?ity. The world it depicts is enticing, but it struggles to find a story there. On the other hand, it’s not uncomfortable to play. It’s enjoyable for what it is. It’s not completely hollow, but it’s far from solid.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Hollowbody appeared first on Destructoid.

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 brings the Warhammer 40K universe to life in glorious, blood-soaked detail. This game puts you into the heart of the action in a major conflict with a story that has all the twists and turns of any go??od galactic incursion in humanity's Imperium. While there are a few issues here and there, it's a triumph of a translation of the miniatures tabletop game into a video game that feels like it has something for everyone.

In Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, you shoot, rip, and shred your way through a chunky 10-12 hour solo campaign that's a rush or ridiculously meaty combat and iconic encounters from start to end. It also packs in PvE and PvP multiplayer modes that, together, do a great job? of easing you into the core mechanics before asking you to go out and mas??ter them for what you'll undoubtedly end up calling "glory for the Emperor."

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 (PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5 [reviewed])
Developer: Saber Interactive
Publisher: Focus Entertainment
Released: September 9, 2024
MSRP: $59.99

Give me a worthy adversary

The campaign in Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 goes hard. You play as Titus, a disgraced Space Marine who rejoins the Ultramarines to help defend a system from a Tyranid invasion. This nasty foe descends on a world using sports and evolves quickly to defend itself from whatever strategies its enemies are using, before liquify??ing all organic matter and moving onto the next world.

Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment have done a great job of taking what they learned from the swarms of zombies in World War Z and using it to make the Tyranids a formidable threat. The smaller Xenos among the Tyranid ranks rush toward you and explode in satisfying bursts of blood, while the larger warriors among their r??anks work their way through the gore and provide a real challenge.

This is where Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 feels very different from World War Z, which surprised me a lot, but it suits the source material much better. You can only gun your way through so many enemies before you've got to pull out whatever melee weapon ?you have equipped, preferably a Chainsword, and cut through them and fight until you wear the stronger foes down to a weakened state. From there, you can trigger an execution for a grotesque and glorious finisher, of which there are dozens to discover.

Executions reward armor recharges and health, and by the end of the campaign, you'll have?? mastered the careful dance between staying back and hammering enemies with gunfire, and getting stuck into the hordes with nothing but a Power Sword.

Your melee weapon is also important for parrying those p??esky enemies who leap the crowd and dig into your armor. Parrying is an essential skill you must learn to deal with bosses and minor enemies alike, ensuring that on higher difficulties, you don't get mauled before you're even at the tricky part.

I have to say, I didn't expect this?? level of complexity from the game's combat, but it fits really well. If the game was all big guns and the occasional execution, it would be dull. The combination and refined combat that's been developed here? both feels and looks so good that I could play for hours without ever feeling fatigued.

Missions have great checkpointing, which always means you'll have enough ammo and grenades, but you never feel safe because you have too much. Bosses stretch you to your limits, especially the Lictor Tyranid early on, but you'll?? grow to understand?? exactly how to defeat them with the game's unique blend of gun and swordplay before too long.

When I say the story goes hard, I really do mean it. At one point, you're in the belly of a Forge World when the power goes out, and your character can hear Tyranids in the walls. Later in the campaign, you hoist a flag high and stand your ground among other Ultramarines against impossible odds, making for the most Warhammer 40K scene I think I've ever come across in a game.

Between missions, you'll return to a Battle Barge to get new intel and refit Titus with weapons you've unlocked. The thing that stuck out for me here, and in other quieter moments on the three major worlds you play across, is the chatter between NPCs. Listening to characters discuss topics such as a human toolbox recalibrating their eyes or watching a sermon to the Emperor, to which mighty Space Marines kneel and listen, felt amazing. It's as if I was transported into the world of Warhammer 40K, something I've been trying to achieve since I first started paintin??g a Necron army when I was ten years old.

Even something as simple as walking feels brought to life with the weight an Ultr??amarine should be, sparks flying from his boots on metal and small objects shattering as he walks through them with the arrogance a space warrior should have. The dialogue feels like several people polished it because it feels like it's been pulled from the universe. Every line is deliberate, with no embellishment o?r over-explanation. You understand more from these words than you do in some entire paragraphs from other games, and I think that helps gel every other element together to make newcomers feel at home in this far-flung futuristic version of our galaxy.

I don't want to spoil the game's midway twist here, but suffice it to say that it feels like it was ripped right out of the pages of White Dwarf or the Black Library. You begin the game knowing nothing and having only one objective, and end it? doing something else entirely with a set of revelations weighing heavily on your shoulders. It's incredible to experience as a fan of the univers??e, and it's thrilling even for those who aren't because of the regularly occurring epic moments that are impossible not to be pulled in by.

The other side of the story

The second of Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2's three game modes is a multiplayer companion to the campaign. In Operations mode, you'll tackle missions that fill out parts of the story you see in the campaign, but don't get to play through. This is where you understand how a Hive Tyrant took so long t??o kill, or what was going on when the vox blackout occurred.

The missions themselves are short and very replayable. I couldn't put the game mode down once I'd started, thanks to the balanced rewards you get for every mission and the exhil??arating risk of?? hopping into a mission you know so well on a slightly tougher difficulty level.

There are a few new mechanics in Operations missions that make them stand out, such as regular enemies who can now call in reinforcements and puzzles that you need to solve while also fighting back against the hordes of enemies eve??ry m?ission throws at you. For the most part, though, they're designed to be pure multiplayer fun, and that's exactly what they are.

While yes, there's definitely some point to seeing the other side of these stories, the real reason to play is to experiment with different Space Marine classes, weapons, abilities, and earn XP. This mode is where I saw all the multiplayer elements from World War Z?? bleed through, and that's an extremely good thing for any ga??me to have.

Each class offers a unique experience in-game, with various special a??bilities such as healing and an overpowered melee attack for a short time, a Jump Pack, or even a shield that can protect you and your allies. Each class has a huge skill tree that you'll earn perks in and can purchase to unlock their benefits over time to craft the best builds for the toughest missions on the highest difficulties.

Every weapon also has levels to grind, unlocking more perks and making you a more efficient killing machine with every hour you sink into Operations. Of course, the biggest draw of multiplayer in Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 is unlocking new cosmetics. You can't craft your own Chapter (a company of Space Marines) without first gaining access to every color and part to customize, and then you can go nuts making the mos??t obscene or beautiful warriors the galaxy has e?ver gazed upon.

Stem corruption

The final part of Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2's offerings is a PvP mode called Eternal War. It plays into all the same progression systems as Operations mode, but is solely focused on?? PVP. I didn't know what to expect going into this? mode, part of me really thought it wouldn't work, but it's thoroughly enjoyable and fits well within the universe.

One team plays Space Marines, generally seen as the forces of (relative) good, and the other is Chaos Space Marines, who are bad by all accounts. There are only a few modes to play around with, but it's the combat that saves this game mode. Player health has been tweaked to meet weapons in the middle, so you're not obliterating one team ??with a single class.

Jus?t like in Operations and?? the campaign, you need to use melee, grenades, and long-ranged weapons to win. However, I noticed a spawn camping issue while I was playing. For some reason, the game took too long to shift where my team was spawning from, so we lost a lot of points to two Heavy Space Marines who simply fired at roughly where we'd appear for a minute or so.

Eternal War is definitely the weakest mode in a game t??hat sets the bar incredibly high. There's something to love here, and it's a nice distraction from all the PvE missions you'll be grinding, giving you something else to master and a reason to mess around with your builds and cosmetic styles in the Battle Barge before returning to a harder mode in the campaign.

In both Eternal War and Operations, I experienced server issues in Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2. These came and went, and might just have been down to the player base being limited to those who have an early access edition of the game. I did see the developer reaching out to fans explaining that it's working on the server issues, so I feel that these are likely more prevalent but are something that could be? f??????????????????????????ixed with time.

I've seen Saber Interactive take World War Z and foster an amazing community around its PvE missions, with new content added regularly based on player feedback. Based on what I've seen from the developer so far, I have no doubt that it plans to do the same with this game but kick things up a notch. We already have a roadmap ?for season 1 that includes things like new enemies and a horde mode, which I can't wait to see, as well as even more fancy cosmetics to unlock.

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 is a great game in its own right, and it will only get better with ongoing support. But you can get a lot out of the title without ever engaging with the online elements. The story and lore on show in the campaign are a great reas?on to get this game alone, and everything else is just a giant, Battle Barge-sized c??herry on top.

I can't praise this game enough. It's as if the Emperor himself oversaw its development, pulling on the threads of time and space to bring the right people together at the right time to make it. There are flaws, sure, but it's a damn good game and a flipping fantastic Warhammer 40K game. If you even remotely enjoy the universe, this will blow your mind. As I mentioned at the top, though, you can go into this game with no prior knowledge and still have the best time with it because the experience is solid, the world is compl??etely rea??lized, and the gameplay is highly engaging.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

While El Paso, Elsewhere was among my favorite games released last year, this year’s offering from Strange Scaffold has left me somewhat cold. That’s okay. Clickolding and Life Eater were pretty experimen??tal and they just didn’t gel with me.

I was going to overlook I Am Your Beast. Something about its trailers didn’t gel with me, either. At this point, I can’t even remember what it was that made me stick my nose up? at it. That’s because when I actually sat down to play? it, it didn’t take long to gel with me at all.

I Am Your Beast (PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Strange Scaffold
Publisher: Strange Scaffold, Frosty Pop
Released: September 10, 2024
MSRP: $19.99

You play as Alphonse Harding, who is very violently opposed to doing one last job for his employer, the COI. He was, supposedly, told many times before that doing one last bit of wetwork would free him from his employment, and now he’s just done. Jaded would be putting it lightly. He reac?ts to being pulled out of retirement by killing every one of h??is co-workers in the area. When more get sent in, he kills them, too.

I Am Your Beast is pretty loose with its narrative. It’s hard to really get a feel for the stakes, as it’s largely just you in ?a forest, killing anyone wearing khaki in the area. The job, your employer, and the goals behind them are left pretty vague. They sound cynical, but so does everything else. The enemy soldiers are extreme??ly blasé about the whole “being killed by a hyper-competent mega-soldier�thing. It either sounds like an expected outcome or an annoying inconvenience.

Harding is also voiced by Xalavier Nelson Jr. (the director at Strange Scaffold), and he’s largely just the same character as James Savage from El Paso, Elsewhere. He speaks in a low, overly-calm voice with a cutting, lighthearted edge. If Alphonse Hardi??ng had turned out to be James Savage having a nightmare at the end of the game, I probably wouldn’t have been surprised. I mean, I really like that voice. The?? dialogue is fun, and the delivery is great. It’s just�the same character with a different backstory. 

The narrative also lacks depth, mainly delivering cliches of action movies with hyper-competent, nigh-invinci??ble protagonists �my favorite kind of action movie �and it’s really hard ?to tell if it’s taking itself seriously.

The game itself, on the other hand, clearly doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s an action game of the highest speed. You’re challenged to complete simple objectives and exit the level as quickly as possible. Sometimes, this involves killing all the enemies, and other times, you just need to touch a few laptops. Ho??wever, your expedience is what is really important.

I’m having some difficulty recalling a movement system I enjoyed as much as I Am Your Beast. While it has some parkour elements, it’s not focused around them. You can climb trees and cross wires, but you can’t, say, run on walls. There’s no diving like in Max Payne (or El Paso, Elsewhere, for that matter.) There is also no b??ullet time to help yo??u make sense of the chaos.

Where it’s successful is where most games find their success in combat: it’s very readable. It’s easy to tell what object you’re about to grab from the environment, and whenever you hit an enemy in the face with something, you know that their weapon is going to come flying out of their hand directly into your path of movement. It makes picking up a branch, throw??ing it at an enemy, stomping on their head, catching their knife, and then hurling that at another enemy both possible and intuitive without needing to boil it down to dedicated interactions or QTEs.

It’s clearly a game based around the philosophy of making the player feel powerfu?l. Enemies will bark out ridiculous, panicked statements like “Harding’s using headshots!�just to fluff up your ego. Marketing material calls it “he's-in-the-walls player fantasy,�which feels appropriate.

It doesn’t last very long, though. Or, at least, it doesn’t maintain that momentum for long. I clocked in at 2 hours. It pulls the brakes on you a couple of times, the first requiring you to complete a certain number of optional objectives and the second requiring an S rank on at least one level. The cutscenes, which are almost exclusively big dialogue subtitles displayed across a pan over a forest, actually take up a large am??ount of runtime. My husband complained that ever?y time he looked at my screen, all he saw were subtitles.

However, the main narrative serves just as a foundation for the gameplay. It encourages you to complete side objectives and try and increase your rank on each level. It doesn’t really reward you very well, but being able to act with its frenetic combat is its own reward. That’s actually quite refreshing since a lot of games these days prop themselves up with minuscule prizes to keep you interested. I Am Your Beast just lets the fun do the talking.

The soundtrack is also enjoyable, but because the game just felt like a flash of entertainment to me, it was hard to really take it all in. It’s the same composer as El Paso, Elsewhere, and I kept listening to that soundtrack after the game was done, so I’m happy. Xalavier Nelson Jr. lends his ?vocals to a few tracks again, which I enjoy, even if it furthers the feel?ing that he’s typecasting himself.

I Am Your Beast is weak in some areas, but not significantly so. A large portion of it is just fine, but what’s good is really good. It manages a combat system that is fast and chaotic while still remaining intuitive, which is an impressive feat. Part of me wonders if something like this could be applied across a wider, longer game without diluting it. As it is, I Am Your Beast appli??es it perfectly, making it a short-lived but impactful exper?ience.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: I Am Your Beast appeared first on Destructoid.

I’ve been space trucking since I was a teenager and discovered Elite 2: Frontier and Frontier: First Encounters. Later, it was Freelancer. Somewhere along the line, I lost the love of moving freight through the vacuous unknown. That was, until Star Trucker.

Often, the actual delivery portion of any given space game is optional. There’s usually piracy, combat, maybe mining. There are lots of ways to make a buck in the endless expanse of the universe. Star Trucker, on the other hand, is entirely about trucking through the stars. It’s more than just press?ing the pedal down; but all its additional features are in service of your delivery.

Star Trucker (PC [Reviewed], Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: Monster and Monster
Publisher: Raw Fury
Released: September 3, 2024
MSRP: $24.99

Star Trucker starts you off broken down a??t the side of the, er, road. One of the very first things you do is put on a space suit and eject from your cab to patch holes in your truck. More than anything, the biggest challenge you’ll face in the cold expanses of the universe is maintaining your vehicle.

One thing that Star Trucker is not is Euro Truck Simulator 2. While it can be relaxing, you won’t find any room for meditation, as controlling your vehicle isn’t as simple as turning on cruise control and keeping it between the lines (though, there is cruise control if you want it). It leans to strike a balance between realism and fun, which means the physics take into account the zero-G environment. You have to ensure there is air in your cab and? that the interior isn’t being overwhelmed by the temperature of the exterior.

Most of the functions of your truck are tied to a battery or UCC. You have to change out the batteries when they deplete and swap out the UCCs when they fry. On top of that, there are air filters that need to be routinely changed. Also, you need to make sure your gas tank is topped up, and the hull isn’t full of holes. It can get stressful, and I bring this up early because I want you to know what Star Trucker is, because it may not be what you’re expecting.

The money you make from the freight you run is probably going to go right back i??nto your truck. Batteries are expensive, and air filters are ridiculous. ??You won’t be able to just take dangerous jobs, show off your mad skills, amass a pile of wealth, and pile your cab full of supplies. It’s almost unavoidable you’ll always be struggling to keep the gravity on. At least on the recommended difficulty setting.

This is going to be a sticking point for a lot of folks and is likely, to some de?gree, a balancing issue. While I prefer it when a game keeps you under pressure for its runtime, it could get a?nnoying. Air filters will become the bane of your existence because they cost about as much as a mid-complexity, long-range drive. That’s if you can get them.

Prices on all goods fluctuate as a wa?y of enabling you to run additional commod??ities and make money on the side. This also affects batteries and air filters. Sometimes, you’ll limp your way into a market and find that air filters are priced up 25% and out of your budget. That’s if you can find them at all, because they’re sometimes just not in stock. In my experience, it’s when you need them most that they’re out of stock.

I had moments where I was swapping in and out of my space suit to make the most of the remaining oxygen-generating power of my life supp??ort system. Other times, I had to choose between replacing the gravity core or oxygen. As I mentioned, I prefer it when a game never loses its effectiveness in keeping me under pressure, but it was starting to get frustrating??.

Another advantage to its miserly manipulation of commodities is the way it forces you to become intimate with your truck’s functions. You can, for example, shut off the lights inside your cab to preserve power. You can reduce the heat in systems with reasonable temperatures in order to further reduce consumption. Had penny-pinching not been a necessity, I may never have played with?? the dials on the dashboard??.

On the other hand, beyond keeping your tr?uck in running order, there ?are upgrades and cosmetic options you can buy. However, the cosmetics are so expensive I never bought a single one. And I can’t imagine why. They go up past $10,000. And none are better than the other, so the price range is a real head-scratcher. I never bought a cosmetic. Painting your truck is cheaper and has a more visible effect, so why would I spend good air filter money on a hood ornament?

The upgrades also don’t seem to make a whole lot of measurable difference. Your fuel gauge will predict how many KM (or miles, if you’re into that sort of thing) you’ll get out of your? tank, but I noted that I could get 93km on a full tank, and when I upgrade the fuel efficiency, I could get�93km. I don’t know if that’s an ac??curate measurement �it’s hard to gauge the distance you’ve traveled in space �but you’d think I’d be able to see the difference.

There’s a ma?in questline to go through, which is a neat addition. There’s a selection of truckers who all want your help and will provide you with upgrades as you proceed. There’s actually a decent amount of diversity in the missions. One has you rip a reactor out of a space colony before it goes critical. Another has you picking up discarded cargo. The story isn’t anything I’d consider special, but it’s more than I would expect from a game about space freight.

My only issue with the story missions is that, while they’re necessary for progression, they don’t provide any monetary reward. You have to take a break from trying to scrape together air filter funds to actually take part of the main quest, because they won’t pay you. You do eventually get items t??hat are necessary to progress further in the game, but these feel like milestones, not rewards. It leaves normal story missions feeling thankless. Screw these other truckers, they can’t even spare an air filter?

I also want to note that all hauling is done through little nodes. You can cruise to a jump gate and then jump through to the next node, complete with an extravagant little hyperdr??ive process. Some of the areas have suggested highways that you can take for safety purposes. You can go "off-road" if you want, but there are often debris fields. You can avoid the little pieces of space junk with some careful driving, but it's likely to slow you ?down. Cleverly, it's a bit like actual off-road driving.

I know that this is all sounding negative, but I actually really enjoyed Star Trucker. While I ran into some bugs, and maybe the balance isn’t entirely where it should be, I think the team at Monste??r and Monster did a good job of taking a big, detailed concept and fit??ting it into a game without much bloat.

Despite that �or maybe because of it �I do have things I wish were included in the game. For example, while the game’s philosophy seems to involve playing as a person instead of just a truck, your person doesn’t have any needs. You don’t have to sleep, despite there being a bed in the cab, and it would have been really useful for passing time on deliveries that needed to be within a specific timeframe. I also would have loved to walk around in space stations and enjoy a delicious space burger in a space diner, but I understand that space d?ining is a much more massive time investment than it sounds.

I also wish there was more to repair work than just swapp??ing out batteries and air filters. Fixin??g fuel leaks or replacing the space brakes. I kind of get the feeling that something like that may have been in the design document but they ran out of time to implement it, but that’s just speculation.

As it stands, I thought Star Trucker was a good time. Not an ideal time, a??nd I don’t think it will be everyone’s cup of Space Joe, but I think it does what it ??sets out to do. The creators had a vision they wanted to achieve, and I think they hit near enough to the mark to call it a success. As long as you know what you’re getting into, it’s a worthwhile experience. It might occasionally grind your gears, but it’s a breath of fresh air with the right filters.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Star Trucker appeared first on Destructoid.

I never really watched Rugrats. I don’t think I could relate. I was never a baby. At least, not that I remember. So, it wasn’t the license attached to Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland that drew me to it, but rather that it’s a newly developed NES game. I don’t know babies, but I do know the NES.

For the console version, there is a modern fronten??d you can play with. It makes the graphics look more in line with the cartoon. Beyond just overlapping the 8-bit backbone, everything is animated in a way you might expect from a mo??dern 2D platformer, complete with background effects like parallax scrolling. However, it’s all built on top of a game made to run on hardware that first hit the market in 1983. That’s how it plays; it’s an NES game.

However, if Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland had released, say, back in 1991 when the cartoon hit the air, we’d probably still be talking about it with an amount of reverence similar to Duck Tales.

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland (PC, Switch [Reviewed], PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, NES)
Developer: The MIX Games, Wallride
Publisher: The MIX Games, Limited Run Games
Released: September 10, 2024
MSRP: $24.99

So, again, I don’t really know Rugrats. Even as a �0s kid, I maybe only saw snippets of the show and never watched an episode. I wouldn’t have been able to match names to the characters. The storyline involves the babies wanting to play a new Reptar video game, but since they’re deadbeat babies without jobs, they can’t afford it. So, ??they just imagine it instead.

There are six levels to choose from off the start. There’s no suggested order to them, even though there’s not quite equal when it comes to difficulty. However, the babies don’t get new abilities, nor is there a Mega Man-s??tyle boss weakness system, so it really doesn’t matter where you go first. They’re all areas around the house, but while they start off in the physical realm where parents dwell, the levels quickly turn into more video-gamey environments.

The gameplay has obvious inspiration from a few different titles, but the most significant is Super Mario Bros. 2. S??ome enemies can be thrown, and the desert level reeks of Subcon. However, the flow of the game is completely different. It’s not a clone of anything, you just dig up tiles of dirt and pick up enemies. It feels rather distinct.

When I looked at the dem??o earlier this year, I had some concerns about its inclusion of co-op. The concern was mainly that two of the giant player sprites would take up most of the horizontal limit on an NES, leaving little room for enem??ies without a great deal of flicker. The developers got rather creative to avoid this. 

There aren’t all that many enemies, for starters. Much of the challenge comes from strategic placement of foes coupled with short but tricky platforming sections. It’s also a rather slow game, using flip-screens to break up segments of levels. Enemies are often typically placed at different heights, which helps avoid taking up more of that precious sprite limit. There is flicker (which is kind of amusing on Switch, though there’s no option to turn it off), but it’s a totally acceptable amount and nowhere near Super Dodgeball territory.

You could also change over to the HD style, which the game actually starts in. Both music and the art can be swapped over. I didn’t like it quite as much in HD. It starts off zoomed in to a 16:9 aspect ratio, which cuts off the top and bottom of th??e screen. Worse, the backgrounds become fuzzy when zoomed in, while the player characters do not. I’m not sure if this is a Switch problem exclusively, but it’s not pretty. Thankfully, you can zoom to a 4:3 ratio where everything looks better.

I mostly played in 8-bit since I’m old (not 8-bit old). Part of this is because the art style is more readable. You can tell exactly how high each baby wi??ll jump and where the edge of a platform is. It’s not that I struggled with the HD graphics. I just love the NES. We’ve established this.

The 8-bit soundtrack is especially good. It’s not that it’s infectiously catchy, like something from Mega Man 2, ??but it makes good use of a variety of instrumentation effects. Each level has a distinct sound to it, but no tune really feels weaker than the other?s. The HD versions are fine, but with the added range of sound, it feels kind of flat.

There are three levels of difficulty to choose from, with the default letting you swap between the four playable babies at any time: Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil. Each one has different stats for lifting and jumping (again, not unlike Mario 2), and if one takes too much damage, you can swap to another to preserve them. That is, however, aside from the highest difficulty where you pick one baby and are stuck with them for the entirety of the level. It’s n?ot as difficult as it sounds, and might be preferable to hearing the pause noise repeatedly. It’s? not a bad noise, but it’s one that I’ve heard too many times.

The bosses are also not terribly impressive. Some are reasonable, but others badly needed tuning. Even the final boss, while an interesting concept, isn’t particularly exciting. It’s nothing egregious, but if I had to point to one place in Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland that c?ould use improvement, that’s where my pri?orities would be.

And you have to understand that Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is an NES game that adheres to all of the NES restrictions. The HD options are nice; it’s like a modern remaster being released simultaneously. But if you aren’t fond of vintage platformers, then this is going to be a hard sell. It’s a short-ish experience, and it’s not Mega Man.

However, as far as NES games go, Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is as solid as they come. I said this earlier, but if this came out during the NES�lifespan, it probably would be well-remembered. Maybe not as well as one of the system’s absolute classics, but at least in the same niche as Little Nemo: Dream Master. Released today, it’s another very curious case of a n?ew licensed game getting released on an old console. That’s already very exciting for me, so the fact that it’s also a well-tune?d game is just gravy.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland appeared first on Destructoid.

Over the years, I've been watching Astro Bot's career with interest. Th????e series had humble tech demo origins, and now, it's a full-on mascot platformer.

This little bot has a lot of potential, and now with a full game under its wing, developer Team Asobi has managed to knock it out of the park ??�and then some.

Astro Bot (PS5 [Reviewed])
Developer: Team Asobi
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Released: September 6, 2024
MSRP: $59.99

Astro Bot may go the traditional "level select" platformer route, but there's a lot under the hood as you continue through the roughly 10-hour core adventure. I'm not going to spoil basically anything from said adventure, including all of the cameos, Sony homage levels, and challenge-esque bonus stages, so don't worry about that. No need to fear: Astro Bot is far more than just cameos and Easter eggs. It stands on its own as a breezy??, and occasionally challenging platformer.

The general flow, and wordless setup, will be very familiar for those of you who orbit this genre (especially Mario, and specifically Mario Galaxy, which this takes a few cues from). Astro Bot is just minding their own business when poof, a big bad shows up and wrecks their ship. It's up to them to assemble a crew of robots (the main collectible in the game) to fix the downed craft, then take off for a fin?al confrontation. Along the way, all of the bots you pick up (which range from regular old NPCs to deep-cut cameos) will be hanging out in the hub, which also serves as a way for players to change costumes, find secrets, and generally hang out.

The hub is straight-up adorable. You can lightly interact with the unique bots you??'ve saved, all of whom sequester themselves with folks from the same franchise. Every half an hour or so, I'd find myself going back to the hub just to see what they were getting up to, and buy them more goodies with the game's core currency, gold.

You can go back to the hub at any time through the game's world map screen, which houses a few secrets of its own, amid a host of optional and required levels, all capped off by a boss fight in each zone. It's a cute way to add a little more agency to a rote-level select concept, and the secrets aren't so esoteric that you'll be pixel-searching. Again, Astro Bot is all about ease of play, baked right into its ??DNA.

As the titular hero, Astro Bot has all of their old tricks at their disposal, which consists of two core moves: a punch/spin, and a double jump/hover mechanic that also shoots lasers out of their boots to damage enemies. The game does a lot with just these two concepts, and you d??o not need any prior franchise knowledge to p?ick it up and play.

Where Astro Bot really brings out the big guns is with the individual levels themselves. Most (but not all) have a fleeting power-up gimmick, like a chicken robot that serves as a vertical jetpack, or a pair of frog boxing gloves that are linked to L2 and R2 fo??r left and right-hand punches, respectively. It also houses one of the best "shrinking mechanic" levels I've ever played.

Because Astro Bot rarely lingers on one single mechanic, I found myself wanting to dive into optional levels on a constant basis. The game offers a constant sense of discovery, within the levels themselves and as a central tenet of its design. Of course, the levels look lovely, and expand upon wha??t was offered with the pack-in for the PS5's launch.

??Although I wouldn't say that the DualSense functionality is a selling point, it does still feel incredibly snappy to control Astro Bot itself, and the little sounds and haptic feedback are once again tied to whatever terrain you're stomp??ing around on. This creates a cacophony of sound, especially as I was blasting the game's catchy soundtrack.

Astro Bot is also completely reasonable when it comes to divulging its secrets. If you're missing one bot, puzzle piece, or warp from a stage, you can go back in, get that missing link, and quit immediately: you'll keep that collectible without having to finish the level. You can even dive back into a level you've already completed, and buy a power-up for 200 coins that helps you sniff out those last remnants you need to 100% a world. It's very, very, chill, which gels perfectly with the general tone of Astro Bot.

If you're a platforming fiend, you'll probably be 100%ing the game either way, and that'll take roughly 15 hours to hit everything (again, the story is around 10 hours; less if you're looking to rush through). At no point did I ever feel like it overstayed its welcome, and for this review in particular, I ended up snagging 260/300 collectible bots (FYI, you need 200 to fight the final boss and finish the ?game proper?ly). I'm going for the Platinum this week, and free DLC aimed at "speedrunners" has been teased for later this year.

Astro Bot on PS5 feels? like the culmination of every Team Asobi project before it. Given how many mascots Sony has lost over the years (this game's constant cameos certainly reminded me of that!), I'm completely on board with them adopting the little bot as their new face. They've earned it.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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