Emily Sowden
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GameSpewLatest Reviews
The concept is not original, nor is Stories: The Path of Destinies‘ mechanics but there’s just something so endearing about it that makes me love the game that much more. I needn’t insult anyone by commenting on its replayability. Safe to say you’ll get about 24 games out of it depending on whether you see it through or give up, and for the current price it’s not a bad deal. For a game that’s well-structured, well-planned and well-designed I could hardly be more thankful that I was fortunate enough to cover it. In such a short space of time Stories has rocketed onto my list of favourite indie games and if that’s not compliment enough then I don’t know how else to phrase it. It’s not perfect, but it is perfectly charming.
Superhot isn’t ground-breaking. It’s a fun game with a unique concept and I was fully immersed during my playthrough, but I like to look at the replay value of anything I review, especially when it comes to FPS games. Some people might find it addictive and they might get huge amounts of enjoyment out of playing through the challenges and endless mode, but for me, after playing through some of the after-game content I’m fairly confident that I won’t pick it up again, at least not for a while. Not because it’s a sub-par product but because there’s nothing else for me to gain in playing it. In the end, it’s a creative take on the FPS genre that’ll provide a few hours’ entertainment, but I’m not sure I can whole-heartedly recommend it based on its relatively high price point.
Firewatch may not be a game for everyone. If you’re a gamer who like nothing other than super-active games like Battlefront and Grand Theft Auto and… well… anything action oriented, this may not appeal to your personal tastes. Firewatch is something unique. It’s beautiful, engaging, and a little bit heart-wrenching at times. Ultimately, it gives us a wonderful experience that makes us want to climb through the screen, lie down in the grass and feel the serenity of that Wyoming wilderness, if only to escape life’s harsh realities for five hours.
I know myself and many other gamers will consider this an “interactive experience”, but it needs nothing else to make this game great. It’s a well-designed, intelligent and polished piece of work that won’t disappear into the mass of other games coming out over the next year. Until Dawn will be hard to forget and is a must-play for all gamers… except those with heart conditions, perhaps.
This game has carved a path for the next generation of survival games to venture down. As consumers, we hate making hard moral decisions but we love the freedom it gives us – to screw up because we screwed up, not because that was the way the game goes. When one of my protagonists dies it’s utterly devastating, sometimes to the point of which I’ll restart the game before it has a chance to save… but don’t tell anyone that. We’re bored of predictable, two-dimensial experiences and we’re bored of cheats that make “serious” games too easy. Every now and again we like losing because then when we win it’s the sweetest victory, though with This War of Mine it probably wouldn’t feel like a victory at all.