Jack Bampfield
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GameSpewLatest Reviews
At this point in time, Anthem feels like a title that needs more work. I want to like it, but damn does it make it hard. Like the games that came before it in this genre, I’ve no doubt that Anthem will get better and bulkier with updates over time, but if Bioware takes too long in getting there, I fear most of the player base will have moved on. For what it’s worth, Anthem does show a lot of promise, and I do sincerely hope that Bioware can get new content out efficiently while addressing the various problems currently plaguing the game. In a few months’ time I’d love to be able to say that Anthem is significantly better, and the best this genre has to offer. But as it stands now, it’s a long way from that point.
But those are very small niggles that barely dent the excellent experience that WarGroove offers. It’s a game certainly worth its asking price, there’s no question of that. It packs in a challenging campaign, brought to life with characters that are hard not to love, but it’s the level editor that really sets WarGroove apart. If it’s your jam – like it is mine – then Wargroove offers literally endless potential. And even if level designing isn’t really your thing, it’s still a lot of fun to play around with.
In the end, Battle for Azeroth makes some great improvements in the levelling experience, but faults in its class design and the less rewarding Azerite system mean that overall, it takes too many steps back from Legion. It’s clear that Battle for Azeroth is an expansion that’s had a relatively short beta period, and many players find themselves unhappy – the messy Warfront launch typified this. Patch 8.1 needs to pull a lot of leg work to get several specs where they should be. More work needs to be done, and Blizzard is very aware of that, so there’s still hope that Battle for Azeroth may becomes greater than Legion. But so far, not so much.
So, the PC port of Monster Hunter World isn’t perfect. But despite its flaws, no other game compares to the thrill and sheer wonderment that beating a monster in a perfectly co-ordinated group can bring. In its purest essence, Monster Hunter World is simply about killing monsters to make better gear to kill bigger monsters. But boy, when it all comes off – which it does impressively frequently – no game comes close to it.
After completing We Were Here Too, I couldn’t help but wonder if it took the series anywhere new, or whether it could have simply been classed as an expansion to the first. In the end, what I wanted from this title was more; I wanted to do more puzzles in this world, in this unique way, and that’s exactly what We Were Here Too delivers on. The first game was free-to-play but this one isn’t — and if charging a fee is how we get more from this series then that’s alright with me.
For players coming at Gigantic as a completely free-to-play experience, I can see exactly why they’d not play for very long. It doesn’t take too long to make enough in-game currency to unlock a hero, but again, you never know which one is yours until you find it, and that may warrant a lot of play time till those players do. The gameplay itself though is expectantly fast paced, but with an auto-picking skill points system and good descriptions on hero abilities you can still feel effective in your first game. The time to kill is long enough that a team wipe or double/triple kills feel rewarding, especially as with dead opponents you can gain more power and control of the map during their respawn time. For a genre that is continuing to grow thanks to the monumental success of Overwatch, Gigantic is a bigger splash than I expected.
Planet Coaster does have its share of issues, however. There are annoying pop-ups; in my case constantly telling me about litter, that no amount of bins and janitorial service would seemingly rectify. The game crashed on me a few times (don’t tab out while the game is autosaving on the fastest simulation speed). The camera can also be a pain to navigate sometimes, but at the end of the day all of these issues are barely even minor blemishes on what is otherwise an excellent simulation game. Planet Coaster gives you such an incredible degree of freedom in creating what you want that any obstacles just become part of that meticulous process of building the perfect park. You’ll undoubtedly spend hours trying to get everything at the right angle; making sure everything is smooth and perfect, persevering through the hiccups that befall you because, at the end of the day, that’s how a great simulator game should feel. You want the theme park you envisage, and to be corny, the only limit in Planet Coaster is your imagination.
Furi isn’t exactly perfect, but with its unique visual and audio design, there’s plenty to like. Being July’s PS Plus game, it’s a damn fine addition to your collection, but at £18.99 I feel it might be a bit steep; there’s just not enough to offer good value for the player. That said, if you’re someone who enjoys boss battling in an impressively designed game than perhaps that seems a fair price to you. Either way, I enjoyed playing and completing it in about the five hours I did on my first run.
Overwatch may but not 100% perfect, but I haven’t had this much fun in a multiplayer shooter in about a decade. It’s my new go-to game when I’m not doing anything else; I imagine I’ll soon be hitting hundreds of hours on it, and I haven’t sunk that much time into a multiplayer shooter since Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It’s already a fantastic package, with plenty more upgrades to look forward to such as the incoming ranked mode, and I’m eagerly awaiting more heroes as that is where the game really shines paired with its gameplay. There has been an FPS-shaped hole in my gaming over the past few years; Overwatch has come along and filled it quite nicely, and I think it could be there for a long time.
I’d love to write more about my time playing The Witness, but so much of it needs to be experienced first hand to truly appreciate what it has to offer. It isn’t a perfect game by any means, but it’s an unforgettable experience. It nails the puzzles for the most part, but there’s a feeling someone needed to just pull Jonathan Blow back a bit and say, “hmm, perhaps no with that”. The air of pretention is off-putting, and the conclusion doesn’t do the experience justice, but if you can look past that, The Witness is a masterpiece when it’s at its best – and it’s there a lot. In a year’s time, maybe even five or 10 years’ time, someone will mention The Witness and I’ll think, “God, that was a great game”.