Laura Dale
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Writing For
Destructoid 
Polygon Latest Reviews
Also, my zoo has a little train, where a handful of kids and adults can ride around the park seeing all the animals without having to peer through crowds. I was balancing saving endangered animals and making kids happy, which really feels like the aim of a well-run zoo.
I’m not playing as a good or a bad person — I’m playing a man with real talents and deep flaws, and I feel all the more connected to my version of the character as a result. I am a rock star, after all.
Ultimately, I left American Truck Simulator thankful that it was more of the same. Hop in a truck, drive where I'm told to drive and see some sights whiz past. As someone who sunk countless hours into Euro Truck Simulator 2, a fresh coat of paint, an unfamiliar set of sights and the challenge of driving on the wrong opposite side of the road left me confident that I'll be sinking just as many hours into American Truck Simulator. It's not all of America right now, but it's an exciting start.
If, like me, you fell off the Naruto bandwagon during the early parts of Ninja War, it’s a great way to put a few hours in and still know how the whole narrative ended up playing out.
Pony Island messes with players in unexpected ways that stuck with me for days. It took a number of unexpected turns that caught me off guard and was constantly filling me with a sense of inescapable unease. It wasn’t on my radar at all before it released, but at under $5 it’s a wonderful use of two hours of your life.
Ultimately, I came away from Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires extremely satisfied. The tactical elements outside of battle were well balanced as to be challenging while fair, and the combat carries over the best elements from the main game. It’s a bit of a specific niche it’s catering to — fans of Dynasty Warriors combat and long-term strategy elements — but if those two things are your jam, then Empires should have you hooked.
I came out of Human Resource Machine unsure who it was really designed for. It’s at times too simple for experienced programmers, and often made leaps too large for beginners to overcome without obtuse outside research. While I had a sense of accomplishment every time I made progress, said progress at times felt like I was an infant thrown into water and expected to swim straight away. I might manage it, but it’s not the ideal teaching method to leave me feeling comfortable going forward.
Ultimately, Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls just didn’t click for me the same way previous games did. Sure the narrative still has some strong moments, but it’s punctuated with third-person shooter gameplay that doesn’t enhance my engagement with the narrative the same way the first two visual novels did. If you’re a series fan, there’s a good, text-heavy, hands-off narrative to be explored here, but the gameplay sections really dragged it down for me.
It’s not a typical structure for a game, but the mechanics really do work in the context of the narrative. If you like the idea of an open-ended ’90s murder mystery with no guarantee you’ll find a solid answer to its mysteries, then I can’t recommend this highly enough. Her Story is a spectacular video game, and one of the most gripping personal narratives I’ve experienced in some time.
Kholat's narrative exploration is ambitious, and the real world base for its plot, the recreation of exploring a bewildering and unforgiving landscape and the audio-visual design were all superb. But for what it gets right, the mounting flaws in its design only become more evident and distracting. Kholat does so many things right; the fact it went this far off track left me longing for a grounded, solitary experience that IMGN.pro clearly never intended it to be.