標籤彙整: reviews

As soon as you start playing Gato Roboto, you know what kind of game you’re in for. From the moment you have control of Kiki (the “gato” from title), the action is clearly inspired by Metroid. The soundtrack, enemies, map, and even the visuals of the world are all drawn from that classic well. And in drawing from that well it manages to hit some of Metroid’s high points, but also struggles to find a unique identity.

After responding to a distress signal on an alien planet, Kiki and her human captain crash land. Injured from the impact, your human is unable to move, so Kiki must save the day by exploring and acquiring new abilities and weapons. You can climb walls and jump as a cat, but hopping into a robot suit gives you access to weapons and health that provide a fighting chance. The story is charming, as your captain gives you orders while commenting to himself that he doesn’t know if Kiki even understands him. You learn about the alien planet by discovering assorted recordings detailing what happened, and it sets up a final confrontation that leads to a satisfying narrative conclusion.

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Kiki jumps and shoots well, which is good because the handful of boss battles depend on having a good grasp of your abilities. The platforming between bosses is never challenging, but I had a good time sprinting through the assorted areas and tracking my progress, even though the map has a few shortcomings. Seeing the full map is not an option; it only shows your current location, and it also hides its secrets a little too well. I completed the map in its entirety, but struggled to find the last few secrets without any hints or teases for where they might be.

Beyond that frustration, the world of Gato Roboto is well-designed. You don’t backtrack too much, and the upgrades are all worthwhile, but you’ve seen them before. The staples are present, like missiles, a double jump, and upgrades to your core weapon, and they are delivered fast enough that it keeps the experience moving along. The only truly novel upgrade is a mid-air dash that gives you temporary invincibility, which helps tremendously with boss fights and speeds up general navigation.

Boss battles are a highlight, with each one serving as an exciting test of platforming and shooting skill. They are challenging enough that each took me a few tries, but not so hard that I ever got frustrated, which is an admirable balance to strike.

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You receive fair warning when you hit the point of no return leading to the finale, but I was bummed I couldn’t continue exploring after the final boss or even return to a save prior to the ending. The journey is ultimately a short one, clocking in at under four hours even with excessive exploring, which is also disappointing. The short length gives the game a fun and brisk pace, but it ends before it has a chance to establish an interesting identity beyond “It’s Metroid, except with a cat.”

Gato Roboto’s main shortcoming isn’t in its gameplay or design, but rather in that it all feels very familiar. Metroid is an often-used video game mold for a reason: It’s an incredibly rewarding template for exploring an interactive world. Gato Roboto imitates some of the best parts of Metroid, but it also comes up short in important elements like exciting upgrades. Apart from the cute twist of playing as a cat, Gato Roboto does little to innovate and feels like a decent game you’ve already played.

Score: 7.75

Summary: Apart from the cute twist of playing as a cat, Gato Roboto does little to separate itself from its Metroid inspirations and feels like a decent game you’ve already played.

Concept: Explore a Metroid-inspired world as a cat named Kiki in a robo-suit

Graphics: Minimalist to the extreme, the visuals use very few pixels and colors. The result is cute, if not unique

Sound: The music is appropriately eerie and alien, and Kiki’s 8-bit meow is adorable

Playability: Controlling Kiki feels great, and the boss battles challenge you to have a good grasp on your abilities

Entertainment: With its heavy Metroid inspirations, Gato Roboto can feel derivative. However, it plays well and the world and combat encounters are well-designed

Replay: Low

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Kids doesn’t tell a story so much as it explores the concept of groupthink. As you manage larger and larger crowds of hand-drawn, faceless young people, you probably won’t piece together a coherent plot. However, its theme isn’t subtle; going along with others can be inviting, dangerous, and sometimes your only option. The way Kids uses interactivity to get across its themes is amusing while it lasts, even if it doesn’t hit any particular high points along the way.

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During its extremely short runtime (15-30 minutes), you click your way through a series of scenes with groups of children, such as one in which a single child is pointing in a certain direction, and your goal is to get everyone else to follow suit. Another has you dragging your cursor through a massive crowd to get them into a clapping posture, then clicking to create an enormous clap-wave.

I wouldn’t exactly call these segments “puzzles,” since they aren’t very involved, but they’re satisfying to work through. Some of them, such as one in which you’re guiding kids through an esophagus-like tunnel by stroking it with your cursor (it’s as strange as it sounds) have a fun physicality to them.

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More importantly, they effectively communicate the ideas Kids wants to convey. The concepts aren’t too complex; click among a group of kids to create a chorus, and the joys of working with others to create something larger than yourself comes across. Control a single kid the rest of the crowd is repelled by, and you feel ostracized. The narrative thread that binds these segments is pretty loose, however, and there isn’t a single moment that elevates the experience above its premise. I related to the feelings and ideas Kids deals with, but it focuses merely on presenting them; it doesn’t explore them with any revelatory twists or insights.

Kids is a fascinating example of conveying ideas through game mechanics. You won’t get much out of it if you’re trying to put together its disparate pieces beyond vague notions. But it’s undeniably clever in places, which makes it a curious look into how people can both uplift and hurt each other just by grouping up.

Score: 6.75

Summary: Kids is a brief-but-effective example of using game mechanics to impart concepts and ideas, even if those ideas are simple.

Concept: Control groups of children in various ways while getting a crash course in crowd dynamics and peer pressure

Graphics: Simple, black-and-white backgrounds and characters are plain but well-animated, with some effective use of contrast to build dynamic scenes

Sound: The soundscape is mostly silent, but the patter of feet and splashing of water stand out all the more for it

Playability: Manipulating people is simple, and most of the scenes feature intuitive mechanics that quickly become second-nature

Entertainment: Kids is a brief-but-effective example of using game mechanics to impart concepts and ideas, even if those ideas are simple

Replay: Moderately Low

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Strip away the thematic concepts and storytelling, and a game like BioShock focuses on creative problem-solving. How do I confront and control a space through the use of unusual tools, stealth, and outright assault, and come out the other end better for the exchange? Void Bastards explores that core dynamic with a procedural loop, focusing on opportunities for strategy and improvement, and eschewing characters and story with an almost nihilistic abandon. The result is a relatively pure flow of discovery and mastery for many hours, diminished only by an eventual sense of rote.

Mirroring the darkest corners of Douglas Adams’ sci-fi vision of outer space overwhelmed by bureaucracy, you play a smattering of mostly minor criminals who have been “dehydrated” into snack-sized bags of powder. When a hazardous nebula turns a transport’s crew feral, a mindless computer rehydrates you to get the ship out of danger. The relatively simple task is complicated by inane jobs set by the ship, like the need to laminate an ID card to authorize shipboard control, so it’s off to explore the wrecks of nearby ships (and their mutated crews) to find the requisite supplies.

Borrowing elements from the roguelite genre, each prisoner rockets off with the same crafted weapons, armor, and tools left behind by your last unfortunate expired protagonist. You manage food, fuel, and wandering spaceborne threats like pirates to avoid certain death in the void. Instead, you face certain death onboard the ships on which you’re gathering supplies. If you’re lucky, you return with the parts, only to face another bureaucratic hurdle. The dark absurdist humor shines through, even as the repeated deaths mostly lose their sting, since you’re still consistently progressing broader goals regardless of who you are controlling.

Each ship you visit is a strategic challenge, filled with perverse enemies, helpful supplies, and stations you can work to solve the puzzle. The helm has a map of supply locations, but you need to turn on the power generator in a different room first. The drill you need is in the Hab unit, but you need to deactivate the gun turret in the security room to reach it. Everything is interconnected, and I enjoyed learning the many ways to manipulate the varied ship configurations encountered through the smart procedural generation.

Along the way, the insane and mutated ship crews stand in your way at nearly every turn, each spouting incoherent ramblings that not-so-subtly jab at modern-day society. Matronly supervisors berate you for being late to your shift. Scrambling short-statured “Juves” gleefully scream profanities to see if they can shock you. Spooks sneak up behind you and disappear from view as you begin to attack.

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Enemies each offer their own challenges to avoid or defeat, and further complicate the riddle of navigating any given ship. Environmental factors like radiation, fire, and oil slicks add yet another layer of complexity. On top of it all, just as you master one enemy type or ship setup, you progress to more potent challenges. On that front, I appreciate the adjustable difficulty; roguelites can sometimes feel calibrated to only welcome hardcore players, but Void Bastards can be customized to welcome anyone from casual to veteran.

A thoughtfully imagined crafting system provides minor player-set goals in the midst of the set tasks that push the adventure forward. With enough recycled materials, you can create different weapons, protective armors, and other helpful equipment. From the shotgun-like stapler to the clusterflak gun, the weapons and explosives are silly and fun to use, even if it’s frustrating to be low on ammo for the weapon you currently need the most.

Void Bastards’ biggest dilemma is in the sense of repetition that emerges after several hours. Even with smart procedural generation, ship layouts eventually begin to feel too similar, and enemy configurations feel like frustrating road blocks rather than meaningful encounters. And while the storytelling does its job of reinforcing a sort of anarchic and cynical view of how meaningless life can seem, that theme doesn’t do any favors to helping a player feel invested over time.

Even so, there is an ending of sorts, and Void Bastards seems to recognize that it’s running out of steam within a few hours after the tedium kicks in. Even in those final hours, I was still impressed by the consistent tone, smart mix of stealth and action, and the tension of managing your characters’ lean chances of survival. Void Bastards is funny, misanthropic, and yet still fun to play, and even after arising from some pretty clear inspirations, manages to feel like its own mutated beast.

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Score: 8

Summary: Inspired by System Shock 2 and BioShock, Blue Manchu’s hybrid of action, shooting, stealth and strategy offers a darkly comedic adventure worth exploring.

Concept: Scrounge and scavenge derelict spaceships while employing stealth, strategy, and shooting

Graphics: Colorful comic-book aesthetics are juxtaposed with grotesque mutant designs to create a memorable visual style

Sound: The ambient voices and sound effects stand out, helping to inform the way you approach an encounter

Playability: Controls feel tight and responsive, and the wide variety of weapons and tools are intuitive to use

Entertainment: Void Bastards provides a clever twist on the gameplay model popularized by System Shock 2 and BioShock, now with a procedural element to aid in long-term engagement

Replay: Moderate

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Trover Saves the Universe comes from the undeniably strange mind of Justin Roiland, known as the co-creator of Rick and Morty. You won’t find those two animated characters anywhere in Trover Saves the Universe, but the sensibility and humor of that show (including the moments when it goes too far and gets gross) are on full display. The dialogue, story, and jokes are all well done, but the by-the-numbers gameplay delivers a familiar action/platforming experience, even in VR.

In this universe, you are an alien confined to a chair called a Chairorpian. Your two dogs are stolen by an all-powerful Abstainer, which he uses to give himself godlike powers. With your dogs in jeopardy, Trover is sent to help you recover them, which will also save the universe. The premise starts insane and maintains a high level of compelling ridiculousness.

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You are the Chairorpian, but you control Trover from the comfort of your chair as you work together to track down upgrades like double jumps and better attacks. You make your way through the universe by solving puzzles and beating up bad guys. The combat is straightforward and rarely requires more than simply mashing the attack button, and the puzzles and platforming rarely challenge, but controlling Trover feels good. Those elements feel like they’re only in place to move you through the bizarre story, and as a facilitator of that goal, the combat, platforming, and puzzle solving get the job done.

Trover Saves the Universe never takes itself seriously while telling its story, but maintains a cohesive narrative. Trover grows as a person, the antagonist has surprisingly sympathetic motivations, and it all ends in a satisfying way that is well-punctuated by Trover running around and yelling about the best ending ever. But while all that is happening, Trover and others constantly break the fourth wall, referring to the adventure as “the game” or complaining about the budget. Some line readings even feature the actors erupting into fits of legitimate laughter as they clearly struggle to not break. It gives everything about the experience a casual, improvisational feel and I laughed alongside the cast during many moments. I’m impressed with how the game incorporates absurdity while still telling a compelling story.

Sometimes the humor goes too far and delves into gross subject matter, but it always made me laugh by catching me off-guard. Its best jokes are the ones that play into the relationship between the player and video games. It pokes fun at how players do what they’re told regardless of consequence and openly complains about puzzles until Trover just bypasses them with brute force, as a few examples. Interacting with the assorted characters is also well done as they react realistically to you hitting them with your sword or walking away in the middle of a conversation. I particularly like choosing the obviously wrong answers when given the chance to respond yes or no to questions, as it always leads to interesting and funny dialogue.

Much like the rest of Roiland’s work, Trover Saves the Universe probably won’t be for everyone. The narrative and cast of characters are weird, but this is a game made by a team of people who clearly love the medium of video games, embracing its shortcomings for well-executed jokes and delivering satisfying and often hilarious moments throughout.

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Score: 7.75

Summary: The dialogue, story, and jokes are all well done, but the by-the-numbers gameplay delivers a familiar action/platforming experience, even in VR.

Concept: Justin Roiland, co-creator of Rick and Morty, takes you on a bizarre world-hopping action/platforming adventure to save your dogs and coincidentally, the universe

Graphics: Simple and imaginative, the worlds, and the characters who inhabit them, are colorful and downright weird

Sound: Justin Roiland’s great improvisational performance style is on full display, and the rest of the cast delivers an equally hilarious range of memorable voices and characters

Playability: Controlling Trover and swinging his sword feels good, but the camera perspective in or out of VR sometimes makes him a little hard to track

Entertainment: Combat, puzzles, and exploration feel familiar and unspectacular, but the bizarre story and hilarious dialogue set it apart

Replay: Moderately low

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In horror, mystery and uncertainty are useful tools. However, when properly deployed, knowledge and context have even more power to transform simple scares into pure terror. Imagine you’re walking through a haunted house. Doors spring open every few steps, each one hiding a faceless corpse, and in the background you can vaguely hear the singing of a creepy voice. That’s pretty scary. Now imagine that all of those faceless corpses are replaced by the bodies of your friends and family, and the creepy singing is the voice of your first-grade teacher. Suddenly, your personal investment makes predictable horror elements compelling and chilling. This is a lesson Layers of Fear 2 never learns. It may excel at jolting you with quick scares, but the narrative and stakes are so obscure that real horror can’t take root.

This first-person experience sends players through a linear series of corridors and rooms that are ostensibly in a luxury ocean liner – but the aesthetic doesn’t hold its form for long. That’s not a bad thing; like the original Layers of Fear, a big highlight of this sequel is how it toys with your perception of your surroundings. Sometimes you’re in a forest, sometimes you’re in a house, and sometimes you’re in a dreamscape. Doors slam behind you, and when you turn around to check, new hallways appear where blank walls were before. This instability is exciting and the visuals can be striking, producing a few well-designed moments that I won’t spoil here, along with plenty of jump scares.

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If you’re content with the shallow thrills that come from unexpected loud noises and quick flashes of disturbing images, then Layers of Fear 2 might be satisfying. If you want an oppressive atmosphere and creeping dread, those things never quite develop. You control an actor aboard the ship to star in a film, but your unraveling sanity blurs the line between reality and imagination. This setup raises questions I was eager to have answered, but the answers don’t enrich the tension. Instead, you scour the environment for collectibles like drawings and notes, and use those to assemble a fuzzy outline of a narrative – a process that doesn’t arm you with the relevant information at the right times.

Stories don’t always need to be explicitly communicated. Some games benefit from an ambiguous delivery, but Layers of Fear 2 isn’t one of them. It feels like a six-hour trailer for a real game, teasing significance with vague foreshadowing and ominous dialogue like, “There shall be a vast shout. And then, a vaster silence.” But those threads don’t converge in a compelling way, so at moments that seemed important, I was often left wondering what was happening and why. Players can eventually find those answers through new game+ and thorough exploration, but nothing kills a scary moment like relying on after-the-fact clarification to explain why the moment should have felt scarier than it did.

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Beyond that narrative disconnect, Layers of Fear 2 also has some gameplay issues that are far more aggravating than fun. While you’re usually walking and poking around, a half-formed monster chases you at multiple points. These sequences are exercises in learning through failure; you can expect to die several times as you flee, and when you finally escape, it’s with a sense of resignation rather than victory. I was also frustrated by the conclusion, which factors in your actions to determine which of three endings you get. However, when you are making significant choices (or what you are even choosing) is poorly communicated, so the final scenes feel arbitrary – not like the end of a path you’ve decided to travel.

Watching people react to fright can be funny, and the original Layers of Fear found an audience among streamers because of its abundance of jump scares. This sequel has many similar moments, and they are more interesting and paced less aggressively, so players aren’t desensitized so quickly. At the same time, Layers of Fear 2 shares its predecessor’s narrative shortcomings; it drops multiple clues that hint at a unifying story, but the bungled delivery and atmosphere prevented me from connecting to anything beyond the surface scares.

Score: 6

Summary: Layers of Fear 2 may excel at jolting you with quick scares, but the narrative and stakes are so obscure that real horror can’t take root.

Concept: The past and present converge as an actor explores a ship that isn’t bound by the rules of reality

Graphics: Though many rooms and hallways look similar, several areas are gorgeously foreboding

Sound: Creepy effects help the jump-scares land, and the few key voice performers (including “Candyman” star Tony Todd) do good work

Playability: Navigating the world is simple, but environmental interactions (like opening doors) can be inconsistent – which is a problem if you’re being chased by a monster

Entertainment: Surprising moments succeed at sending occasional shivers down your spine, but the game doesn’t bring you deep enough into its world to inspire fear

Replay: Moderate

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More than any developer, Media Molecule has been driven by a singular goal: to empower players to make and share their own games. LittleBigPlanet focused this concept on the 2D platformer, but clever players spent years devising ways to stretch and twist their creations beyond the genre’s confines. With the release of Dreams, Media Molecule obliterates those confines completely, giving players a broad and flexible suite of development tools to create whatever their hearts desire. Dreams may not strictly be a game, but the tools are easy and intuitive enough to make the creation process fun for everyone, which delivers a wealth of entertaining experiences noncreators can enjoy.

As someone who spent hours tinkering with LittleBigPlanet’s editors but never published a single level, I didn’t hold a lot of hope for what I could create in Dreams. At best, I figured I’d muddle my way through the myriad tutorials, then spend most of my time “surfing” the creations of other more talented players. Instead, the reality has been the reverse, my skepticism replaced by continual astonishment at the possibilities Dreams offers.

Foundational controls make sculpting and moving objects in 3D space a breeze, a visual programming language eases novices into computer logic, and a streamlined interface lets you hop between editing and playing prototypes instantaneously. You still need to devote several sessions to learning the ropes from Media Molecule’s video tutorials, but I can’t overstate how smartly designed everything is, and it makes the creation process feel less like work and more like experimental play.

Not only can anyone piece together a prototype out of primitive shapes, they can also make it beautiful with Dreams’ ground-breaking art tools. Much of the magic lies in Flecks, small artistic brush strokes applied to the surface of every object that result in the game’s evocative, dream-like aesthetic. These Flecks can be colored, unraveled, and animated as you see fit, and can turn a simple hemisphere into a lush, grassy knoll in seconds. If you’ve ever felt the frustrating sting of having a drawing fail to live up to your imagination, Dreams delivers the opposite sensation – I’ve routinely been surprised by how much better my creations turn out than I expected. Every facet of Dreams, from sculpting to painting to the application of animations and effects, features this same ease of use.

No matter how easy Media Molecule makes it, more people will want to just play games than create them. Again I was skeptical of what Dreams would have to offer, and again I was pleasantly proven wrong.

Part of the entertainment of playing other people’s games stems from the novelty of knowing they used the same tools as you (“How did they make that?!”), but I’ve also played plenty that are fun in their own right, from simple puzzle games to clever platformers to throwback arcade games. One user’s riff on Geometry Wars is so polished you could easily mistake it for the real thing. A 3D Bomberman prototype already looks better than any official title Konami released in years. At this point, most offerings are bite-sized experiences or works-in-progress, but Dreams has only been in early access a few weeks, and the amount of content is expanding exponentially.

All Dreams creations are uploaded to the Dreamiverse, which is essentially Media Molecule’s take on what the Internet should be: a communal space full of positivity, sharing, and collaboration. Media Molecule tries to surface the best content for surfers via tags and filters, but more important is the ability to make and share collections. Once you find a creation you like, you can see what collections users have added it to, then jump directly into their other picks. I’ve spent hours falling down rabbit holes within rabbits holes this way, and other players’ creations are more than just entertaining; they are inspiring.

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Even with a healthy selection of tutorials, Dreams pushes you out of the nest a little too early, leaving you to figure out some of the more advanced gadgets and variables on your own. Media Molecule also offers little guidance in the way of actual game design lessons, a role the studio is uniquely qualified to provide. It’s no wonder many players have focused on creating clones of other games instead of tackling their own ideas. Dreams’ ongoing development may very well fix this, as Media Molecule says it intends to add more tutorials and masterclasses, but I hope it also fleshes out the number of gameplay templates, genre examples, and design exercises.

Dreams is an idealistic vision of game development, where people create, collaborate, and share games purely for the love of gaming. No Dreams game may ever reach the polish of a triple-A title, but they also lack the cynical business side of game development, where test groups and microtransactions take precedence over unbridled creativity. The prospect that we’ll someday see future developers who got their start in Dreams seems inevitable, but also moot – in a very real sense, Dreams players already are game developers. We may have longer to wait for the official release and Media Molecule’s single-player story levels, but Dreams is already a magnificent wellspring for those who love playing, creating, and thinking about games in all their many forms.

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Score: 9.5

Summary: Dreams’ robust design and sharing tools offer endless possibilities to creators and a growing tidal wave of fun, hilarious, and moving gameplay experiences for players.

Concept: Give players a robust toolset to create and share their own games, or specialize in one aspect of game development

Graphics: Dreams’ ingenious Fleck system allows non-artists to create visually arresting scenes in minutes

Sound: The included library of instruments and effects provides plenty of flexibility, but the ability to record and upload your own sound banks is next-level

Playability: Dreams’ gyroscopic controls massively simplify the movement of objects in 3D space, but they have raised accessibility concerns for some players

Entertainment: With an ever-growing wealth of content, few games continually surprise or amaze like Dreams

Replay: High

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On their way toward Mexico, brothers Sean and Daniel have had harrowing experiences change their lives and complicate their relationship. This episode continues following the ups and downs of their bond as the boys take refuge at a hippie camp and marijuana farm. It’s a wild premise, but new characters are boxed-in stereotypes and the episode struggles with poor pacing.

While the last episode focused on harnessing control over Daniel’s telekinesis power, this episode is more about embracing freedom and individuality. Among the hippies, Sean is discovering more about himself, and his younger brother resents him for it. Your decisions, particularly how you interact with Daniel, have been crucial this whole journey, and this episode is a fascinating culmination of the web of choices with a thrilling conclusion. However, the road to that end is sloppy and forgettable.

It starts off on a good foot, with a flashback taking place three months prior to the incident that led the brothers to flee home. I enjoyed trying to make amends with Daniel after treating him unfairly, as well as understanding the weight Sean bears by acting as a second parent after their mother’s departure. The flashback does a good job of showing some of the roots of the boys’ relationship, giving the impression that their core bond can overcome anything.

Unfortunately, the middle parts of the episode aren’t as compelling. The setting, which takes place in a Californian forest and on a weed farm, is much more interesting than the events that occur within it. You spend most of your time doing painfully boring tasks; washing dishes, carrying water tanks, and trimming marijuana buds. That last chore is performed through a minigame where you perform timed button presses to continue onto the next plant. The minigame isn’t interesting, and the chatter from other characters during it is equally mundane.

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I continue to care deeply for Sean and Daniel, but their new hippie friends are forgettable, predictable, and painfully stereotypical. They are a group of dreadlocked young adults with tragic backstories who follow alternative lifestyles, but they come across superficial rather than deep. Two antagonists who run the weed farm are problematic as well, fitting neatly into their cruel archetypes without offering anything more substantial. They’re villains who are nothing more than narrative devices to push the story toward conflict.

Despite poor characters, I enjoyed some of the thematic moments of the episode, including its juxtaposition between freedom and oppression. Sean tries to tell himself he feels free, but the monotony of the weed farm feels like a prison. Daniel also struggles with who he is and what he wants, and the two butt heads about it throughout the episode. While Daniel wants more time with his brother, you can decide whether Sean goes along with that or follows his own path. Both choices come with big consequences, and the growing rift between the brothers is intriguing and dangerous – especially since Daniel’s gift is uncontrollable during emotional turmoil.

The episode also does a great job of handling Sean’s sexuality and letting players decide how (or if) he explores it. You can choose from two different love interests: a young girl named Cassidy or a young man named Finn. You can opt out of both, but pursuing a relationship brings added complexity and tension to the final scene. Furthermore, because Sean has identified as straight his whole life, exploring his sexuality through Finn can, for now, only go so far. This creates some agency for the player without sacrificing Sean’s established sexual identity – something we don’t see often in video games. Sean’s queerness is a fascinating layer that Dontnod balances realistically as the young boy fumbles through his journey of self-discovery.

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While the last episode lacked gripping choices, this episode is the exact opposite – at least in the last 20 minutes. Your choices, not just from this episode but from the journey as a whole, impact an explosive cliffhanger with multiple variables. I can’t spoil anything, but I was glued to the screen during these moments, though I was also disappointed that it took so long for the episode to get there.

Sean and Daniel’s relationship continues to be the best part of Life is Strange 2. Will they continue to grow apart or will they find common ground despite their differences? I’m eager to leave behind the hippies and weed farm, and see what comes next for the Diaz brothers.

Score: 7.25

Summary: This new chapter in the Diaz brothers’ journey has an explosive conclusion, but suffers from painfully stereotypical characters and poor pacing along the way.

Concept: Sean and Daniel continue their tumultuous journey to Mexico while making a pitstop at a camp run by hippies

Graphics: Beautiful redwood trees and gorgeous Californian landscapes make this episode aesthetically pleasing

Sound: A blend of folk and indie music continues to bring a good balance of emotion to heartfelt scenes

Playability: Navigating through environments, playing quick-time event minigames, and drawing in Sean’s notebook are all easy to control

Entertainment: Despite a thrilling conclusion, this episode suffers from imbalanced pacing and annoying characters

Replay: Moderately High

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As a franchise, Total War is known for realism, with lowly axemen eating barrages of arrows as trebuchets tear into city walls. Then the Total War: Warhammer games bent those rules, and now that bending continues with Total War: Three Kingdoms,  albeit in a less extreme fashion. This installment embraces Chinese fantasy in the era of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, with larger-than-life commanders and their reigns. History-driven battles take a backseat to lively hero duels and big personalities. The experience is more enjoyable if you’re willing to suspend your disbelief and engage in a massive rise to power with a bit of wondrous awe – as if someone was regaling a crowded feasting hall with an embellished tale, rather than coldly narrating from the annals of a historical text.

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On the real-time battlefield, the moment-to-moment tactics are a bit underplayed because of the focus on the legendary commanders and their skills. With various commander types to pick from, hooking them up with weapons, armor, and horses and tapping into their special abilities to turn the tide of battle feels flavorful and suitably epic. Watching two magnificent lords tear each other apart in a crazy one-on-one in the middle of a huge fight doesn’t feel like traditional Total War, but it’s pretty satisfying all the same. Battles are often won and lost on the backs of these epic encounters, which can leave the little men out. 

One of the ways to play, called Romance mode, also has less of a realistic emphasis on how your armies consume resources and supplies; it’s more about letting you get in and play around with your whimsical warriors of note. A separate option, Records mode, lets franchise purists dial back on the fantasy elements, with none of the insane powers and more realistic resource management for armies, but the major draw (and the place where the interesting innovation is happening) is on the fantasy-tinged side of the battlefield.

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Three Kingdoms is beautiful on the turn-based map and beyond. Cherry blossoms bloom on your development tree, snow splashes softly across the land, and awesome animated cutscenes punctuate world events and major occurrences, capturing the pure romantic notion of ancient China. Your road to emperor through a combination of military might, city-building and expansion, and shrewd diplomacy is paved with elegant and exquisite detail that make it one of the most aesthetically appealing titles in the entire series.

Diplomacy, espionage, and trading are easy to work with and essential to ruling your ever-growing sphere of power off the battlefield. A streamlined system allows for single-click dealing and negotiations if you just want to get on with the next turn. Managing your relationships is critical, and it feels good to be held to your alliances and contracts or face fairly significant consequences. Myriad opportunities arise to make fun choices outside of your standard building and battling – faking my own assassination attempt to boost my image was a fun little side moment. Your characters also build and destroy reputation with each other in battle, so you can separate those that don’t get along and put friends and family together. Your court is always ready to give you bonuses by installing commanders in various roles and positions.

While those looking for the pure historical war experience may find themselves wanting a bit more, with such a critical emphasis on the commanders and their supreme battlefield presence, those willing to indulge in a more prodigious past have lots to enjoy. With strict historical adherence out the window and a bit of a streamlined tactical combat experience, Three Kingdoms still has a lot to offer the strategy enthusiast.
 

Score: 8.5

Summary: A captivating dive into warfare and political intrigue.

Concept: Unite the kingdom and become emperor in a world based on the Chinese epic Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Graphics: From snow-scattered landscapes to beautiful cutscenes and animations, the graphics immerse you in a captivating and compelling land

Sound: The sounds of clashing swords and prolonged sieges are standard, and solid music accompanies the brutal battles and political intrigue

Playability: With countless choices to make (some even a game begins), the game is inherently complex with many layers of customization and strategy, despite massive onboarding options

Entertainment: Three Kingdoms is a striking addition to the Total War series with plenty to love, though it takes a slight dip in on-the-field tactical choice

Replay: Moderate

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The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise was built on a foundation of speed. That longstanding marriage lends itself well to the racing genre. Team Sonic Racing carries on the legacy of the Sega All-Stars Racing series from last generation, but adds new team-based mechanics and a sole focus on characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog universe. While the new teamwork elements create unique ways to compete on the speedway, they don’t elevate the experience enough to rise above the middling racing action.

Speeding around as Sonic and company is fast and enjoyable from the first lap. Easy and approachable controls lower the learning curve, making it so anyone can pick up and play with little introduction. While the driving mechanics aren’t particularly deep, new team components and a collection of 21 well-designed tracks full of alternate routes and shortcuts give you reason to dig past the surface of this kart racer.

You choose from a roster of 15 characters with unique attributes split into five teams. While I prefer speed-based characters like Sonic and Shadow, I like experimenting with the other classes. Technique characters like Tails and Chao can avoid getting slowed down by rough terrain, while power characters like Knuckles and Big the Cat can plow through obstacles.

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Within this system, teams have multiple ways for teammates to help each other; from passing items to your teammates to skimming a wiped out teammate to give them a boost, you have plenty of ways to pick up a downtrodden teammate. Every team-based action builds your ultimate meter, which has race-changing implications as your entire squad is made temporarily faster and invincible. I love the idea of working together with my team to ensure they all finish near the top, but it doesn’t always pan out how I’d like.

While the team mechanics are a net positive addition to the kart racing formula, watching a weak link bring you down in a race is frustrating. In a handful of races where I finished first, I offered nearly all my powerups to my lagging A.I. teammates, but they still finished in the lower rankings. Since your overall placement takes your entire team’s rankings into consideration, my high placement wasn’t enough in these cases.

If you want to compete on your own, you can do so in standard races. However, stripping away what makes Team Sonic Racing different highlights how it is a competent-yet-unremarkable racer. Drifting around a corner to get a boost feels good, and the game has a solid sense of speed, but the uneven team mechanics are all that sets this apart from the other kart racers. Even the suite of 14 Wisp powerups are mostly just generic takes on Mario Kart’s items. It’s unfortunate since the team mechanics deliver a unique feel, but Team Sonic feels bland outside of that fold.

The Team Adventure story mode is an inconsequential narrative told through still character images over background environments, making the uninteresting plot even less engaging. While the story is boring and nonsensical, I like the structure, which grants you stars and keys for competing in races and other events in a hub world. While simply doing well in the events is good enough to progress, the mode also offers optional objectives like finishing first individually or not using any powerups. I always tried for the highest score, but I didn’t fret if I missed an objective or two; outside of completionism, there is little incentive to complete these bonus tasks. However, I love the timed minigame-style events in Team Adventure mode, like Eggpawn Assault, where you need to destroy as many A.I. robots on the track as possible, or Daredevil, where you drift close to Star Posts in an effort to score style points.

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If you’re sick of racing against the A.I. and want to throw down against other players, you can do so locally with up to four players, or online against a full race of 12. Competing with human players on your team makes for more exciting moments, like activating your ultimate to come from behind and win. Custom lobbies allow you to set your own rules online outside of the typical casual and ranked matchmaking, helping bolster the online offerings. By the time I wrapped up Team Adventure mode, I was excited to play against human competition, so I’m glad it ships with an enticing online suite.

Team Sonic Racing delivers a fun, easy-to-play experience that bolsters its adequate gameplay with distinct flavors to help it stand out from the rest of the genre. Unfortunately, the core gameplay provides mediocre action, limiting the fun of the otherwise promising racer.

Score: 7.25

Summary: Team Sonic Racing implements interesting ideas, but ultimately fails to stand out in the kart racing genre.

Concept: Hop in a car as Sonic and other characters from the franchise and speed around various tracks in a kart racer with a team-based twist

Graphics: All 21 tracks look great in motion, with a ton of action on screen. When things get too chaotic, the framerate suffers

Sound: Sonic games typically have strong soundtracks, and Team Sonic Racing is no different, with its collection of original compositions and modern nods to the hedgehog’s past

Playability: Even in a pick-up-and-play genre like kart racing, Team Sonic Racing’s smooth and simple gameplay is accessible to players of all skill levels

Entertainment: The team-based mechanics help Team Sonic Racing stand out from other kart racers, but Mario Kart is in no danger of losing pole position in the genre

Replay: Moderate

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The middle ages were harsh. Deadly plagues ravaged entire villages, bandits laid in wait to pillage weary travelers, and those who survived even common illnesses could be undone by the era’s insane medical practices. But the version of the 14th century in A Plague Tale is even deadlier. After the murder of their parents, two kids discover how sacrifices must be made to survive in the wild. Sadly, A Plague Tale manages to be both a harrowing journey and a bit of a slog.

Asobo’s recreation of France circa 1349 is visually breathtaking, and its heartbreaking survival tale about two young orphans was so compelling I couldn’t look away. Amicia de Rune is a 15-year-old girl entrusted with the care of her kid brother Hugo. Meanwhile, Hugo is a sheltered, wide-eyed child stricken with a debilitating illness. Their journey forces both kids to wade through rivers of black, flesh-eating rats while dodging bands of patrolling Inquisition soldiers. Aside from a few awkward dialogue moments, A Plague Tale’s narrative is emotionally driven and earnest, and I was quickly absorbed by the political conspiracy that consumes these two kids.

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As Amicia, you spend a fair amount of time holding Hugo’s hand, helping him climb over ledges, and shielding him from environmental dangers. I never felt burdened by Hugo’s presence; on the contrary, I felt something close to a sibling bond as I sheltered him from trouble, and I grew nervous every time I sent him off on his own into small crawlspace to unlock a door or fetch a torch. Hugo is an adorable and innocent child, and the relationship between these two kids is genuinely touching.

While A Plague Tale’s narrative had me racing towards the credits, the basic gameplay is full of speedbumps. One of the biggest threats to the de Rune children’s safety is a plague of black rats that scurry through the shadows and threaten to overwhelm any living creature. The rats are terrified of light, and most environmental puzzles involve finding fire and using it to create a safe path. A simplified crafting system allows you to create consumables such as explosives or rat bait, and I liked being able to control fire, but I rarely felt a need to scour the environment for crafting materials, because you often find the necessary components only a few feet from every puzzle. Also, most puzzles usually have an obvious solution, so instead of feeling like I was cleverly engineering my way out of a jam, I felt like I was just going through the motions.

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When you’re not dealing with rats, you’re dodging Inquisition soldiers who have orders to separate you from your brother and drop your corpse in a rat nest. Amicia is equipped with a sling and can hurl rocks like bullets at enemy temples, and the generous auto-aim helps compensate for its clumsy controls. You’re generally better off running and hiding from a fight, but the stealth mechanics are weak. While I never grew tired of extinguishing an enemy’s torch and watching the rats swarm them, most stealth sequences tested my patience more than my wits. Enemies have basic patrol routes and the environments are so small that you often only have one route to your destination. As a result, throwing rocks to distract enemies has all the tension and pacing of hitting the button at a crosswalk.

A Plague Tale is a double tragedy. On one hand, Amicia and Hugo’s tear-filled journey through rural France is marked by adversity, but the bigger misfortune is how this powerful story of sibling love is soured by simple puzzles and clunky stealth mechanics. A Plague Tale is a forgettable game wrapped around a memorable adventure.

Score: 7.5

Summary: A Plague Tale excels in its narrative and setting, but the moment-to-moment action is uninspired

Concept: A group of battle-hardened children struggle to survive a plague-ridden world during the middle ages

Graphics: This recreation of 14th-Century France is vibrant and detailed. The rat swarms are appropriately creepy, but sometimes struggle to accurately navigate the environment

Sound: This voice acting is impressive for a cast full of kids, and the score helps drive home the tension at the right moments

Playability: Combat is a bit clumsy but functional. Sadly, the stealth sequences are boring

Entertainment: A Plague Tale excels in its narrative and setting, but the moment-to-moment action is uninspired

Replay: MoModerately Low

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