Patrick Hancock
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Writing For
DestructoidLatest Reviews
Despite my qualms with certain challenges and the last boss, I cannot get enough of Risk of Rain 2. I love the characters and discovering secrets while setting new goals for myself. As someone who mostly bounced off the first game, the sequel sucked me in like a Primordial Cube (an in-joke, hah!).
So, is the Blair Witch game a good fit for a franchise many have mostly written off by now? As a fan of said series, I would say yes. It absolutely has its faults, with the poorly paced gameplay and story elements being the worst offenders, but the amazing set pieces and psychological horror do a great job of raising the heart rate of anyone willing to venture through the forest. Ultimately, there are a lot of interesting ideas here, but they simply don’t come together like they needed to in order to make the best of them.
I had my doubts going into Dicey Dungeons, despite the pedigree present. I was worried the core reliance on random dice rolls would create a frustrating experience for the player. And while I’ve had those moments, I always felt that I could look back and say “that’s where I went wrong” and not “the random numbers just didn’t work out in my favor!” That alone is an incredibly feat. Stack it on top of six incredibly unique character mechanics, episodes that force the exploration of alternate playstyles, and an expertly crafted aesthetic, and you have another absolute slam dunk from Terry Cavanagh.
In the end, Mordhau is a goofy yet realistic medieval combat game that caters to a ton of different players. Many will grind games in order to best perfect their skills with their favorite weapon. Then there’s me, who literally runs around the battlefield playing a musical instrument that adds absolutely zero gameplay value to the team. That’s the beauty of Mordhau — the individual moments tend to outweigh any of the design flaws or technical glitches that are present.
This sums up Generation: Zero pretty well. There are some genuinely cool moments buried among the slop. If this were an Early Access title, I’d be very content saying to keep an eye on it as it nears release. Considering that this game is being released like this, I will instead warn not to waste any money on this unfinished title. I look forward to a potential 2.0 release, because I really want the game that was intended to come to fruition.
There’s a lot to love with Wargroove. I definitely have my qualms with some of the campaign mission design and plot, there is so much here to love. I can’t say that it’s a completely innovate entry into the genre, but I think it’s safe to say that Wargroove is a title that needs to be in every turn-based strategy lover’s catalog.
Just Cause 4 is not a better game than its predecessor. In many ways, it feels like the same game, just with a new continent to explore. For some, this may be all they ever wanted, but for the rest of us, it’s just not enough. The formula starts to show itself early and can feel monotonous only a few hours in. There will always be joy in the mass destruction of the Just Cause 4 games, but the games seem to rely more and more on “making your own fun” instead of pushing the player into exciting and unique scenarios via the mission structure and overall game design.
A lot could be tightened up to make the game feel more snappy and responsive in almost every aspect, especially when it comes to moving inventory items. Moonlighter is incredibly captivating on the surface, but there is a lot of frustration just waiting to be uncovered.
Frostpunk is such a bizarre game. Playing through it mechanically and logistically leads to a relatively standard resource manager. However, by investing yourself in the town and the people within it, you allow in the crushing weight of the decisions you’ll have to make and the emotional consequences that follow. They may not be affecting real people, but treating it as such is what this game is all about. It’s an emotional roller coaster that will likely leave you more defeated after “winning” than when you first started, and that is incredible.
Into the Breach is a mechanically perfect game that is surrounded by mediocre design decisions. I absolutely adore the tactics-style gameplay and how simplistically the game can convey so much information. But with the only run variance being the three pilotable mechs and the potential upgrades, things just start to feel “same-y” after not too long. For those, like myself, who can easily fall in love with intelligently designed mechanics, there is a lot to love about Into the Breach, but it’s not as well-rounded as it could be.