Brendan Caldwell
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Writing For
Eurogamer
Rock Paper ShotgunLatest Reviews
It's telling that the missing feature I desire most is not an emote or a graphics setting or a - pffft - "mandatory pass". But just some way to auto-rematch, so I don't have to tap Y at the end of every game within a 10-second countdown to re-enter the queue for another game. This is how moreish (and perfectly named) Rematch is. My biggest complaint is that I'm sick of the game asking "Do you want to play again?" Of course I do.
I've been thinking about this idea a lot as I finished To A T (it clocks in at about 4-5 hours). It is full of moments when the controls change, and you must move them in some new way to brush your teeth, eat food, or whirl like a ballerina. The immediacy of game controls is something that necessarily gets lost the further this game travels into it's almost entirely non-playable final episode. But it otherwise resists the trappings of modern games that remove us from that body-to-button fee...
As survival games go, however, I cannot call it "bad". Fair warning: there are weird glitches and choppiness (one bug saw me backdashing every time I exited the inventory screen). And I had to abandon playing on a controller because of the obnoxious virtual cursor in menus. But this wasn't enough to interrupt my bloodsucking. Awakening is dense with lore, and loyal to the childlike "sand is lava" flavours of Dune. I've enjoyed it for the strength of its world, and I admire how straightforward...
There are some potholes, sure. That story is borderline insufferable, tutorials don't do a great job of explaining things, and there's some bugginess. I only got a fraction of the cash I was supposed to earn from some missions, for example, which made it difficult to progress up that ladder of nice vehicles. But even so, I'm left with the impression of a racing game punching far above its weight and landing an impressive number of blows. If I knew more about drifting as a motorhobby, I might ...
If I had lots of free time, I would probably enjoy it a lot more. But I don't, so tipping over with a cargo bay full of steel beams makes me frown, where it might have otherwise made me laugh. This, I think, is another issue. RoadCraft is a podcast game, in the same vein as Truck Simulator or Elite: Dangerous. There's a big place for games like this in the world, sims that excel in delivering a specific kind of wonderful and comforting boredom. Slow tasks that act as a reassuring sedative in ...
A hungry gullet of a game, Monster Hunter Wilds will devour your time if it gets its claws in. But an overbearing story might make you impatient to ride straight to the moreish endgame.
A modern control scheme and HD textures clash awkwardly with the boxy old levels of Lara's past, in three of her least interesting adventures.
A free-wheeling RPG road trip that pushes all the right buttons. Manage spare tires and drink endless coffee while you trundle to the other side of a pixel pleasant country.
With more dicey systems and crew management than the first Citizen Sleeper, this sequel risks losing some of its storytelling heart, even if it remains a well-crafted sci-fi world.
A rich roguelike RPG so deep you will need to bring a thousand torches just to get to the bottom of it.