Adam Barnes
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GamesRadar Latest Reviews
For all the interesting and novel things that Gord brings to the city building genre, it's just not coherent nor determined enough in what it's trying to do to create something with the necessary confidence to compete with the countless options available to genre fans these days. The result is a game with a strong start and a compelling world, but one that cannot build upon those strengths to retain interest over each new settlement and its repetitive gameplay.
Lego Bricktales is a relaxing and entertaining way to spend your time that does manage to recreate that tranquil vibe of building something, anything, out of Lego. It has its appeal and that's not weighed down too heavily by the lackluster exploratory parts, but with a little more attention it could've really explored what it means to play with Lego bricks creatively.
Serial Cleaners' main problem is that it's kind of a wasted opportunity. There's room for a game like this on the market, and it's stylishly presented enough that it could easily garner an audience of obsessive stealth-loving cleaners. It just doesn't achieve the necessary tension to make it a compelling stealth game and its mechanics are too open to abuse to reward careful play and smart decisions. As a result, the potential thrill that it could have been is lost.
As a RTS Homeworld: Deserts Of Kharak doesn’t actually have much new, but it’s still one of the better releases for the genre in a long time. In many ways it feels like a modern Westwood classic, but most importantly it evokes the same feelings of complex strategy that you might have had when playing the original Homeworld games.
Thea: The Awakening is something of a surprise, really. From an unknown indie developer comes a game that blends RPG and strategy together very well, in a fashion that means one doesn’t dilute the strengths of the other. It is complex, sure, and perhaps that will be off-putting for as many as it will be endearing for, but there’s an original game here - one that ought to appeal to fans of both spectrum of genres.