Rob Larkin
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Gaming NexusLatest Reviews
There is a simplicity to the core gameplay of Hardspace: Shipbreaker. Movement and momentum add an element of skill to every action. The difficulty ramps over time but treats you well to ease you into the escalators. Combining the strategy of breaking the ship with the skill of positioning yourself in place to do so, Shipbreaker wraps it up well with a clever main story to maximize - well, reduction of debt. But most of all, it's calming and fun, set in a world that feels similar to the many wonderful other sci-fi stories that have captured us over the years. Hardspace: Shipbreaker nets you a unique opportunity to inhabit a small corner of those worlds a shift at a time, for a job well done. "Live, Laugh, Salvage."
Destiny 2 has tried to be many things over its four and a half years, and while it seemed there has always been a step back for every two steps forward the game would make, The Witch Queen is one giant leap ahead. With this expansion, Destiny 2 is quite simply at the best game state it has ever been, and offers so much to do and reason to do it that every player that ever loved this game should give it a shot to rekindle exactly what it was that sparked that passion in the first place.
Horizon Zero Dawn was one of the best games of the last console generation. I'm not sure I see any reason why Horizon Forbidden West won't go down as one of the best of this generation.
Don't come into Loop Hero with expectations simply because you've never really played anything like this before. Whatever those expectations might be, they're probably wrong. But do come into Loop Hero as it embodies so much of what makes games great: storytelling, engaging interactions with a digital world, the rewards of looting, world building, strategy, but most of all that ceaseless desire to just dip in for one more run.
It follows the formula of a Call of Duty game, but delivers each element just a bit worse than it's predecessors. Call of Duty: Vanguard is a game that will surely grow and improve over time, but what we have at launch is something that at least fails to cater to what I was hoping for in any aspect of the game. The single player campaign is ridiculous even if it does deliver some moments of high action; the multiplayer is a mess, at least for someone with my skillset; and zombies is simply unfinished. It'll get better, but what we've got right now just isn't all that good.
Action roguelikes is a genre seeing a bit of a surge of new entires lately, and Hades is as good or better as anything you will find in that field. It offers an overall experience in storytelling and gameplay that is top-notch regardless of genre. It's this incredibly unique type of game and play loop that turns your every failure and death into a reward of unlocking more story, injecting more humor, and inviting you to take a stab at one more run. It's won numerous game of the year awards on PC, and there is no reason for those accolades to stop with the port to consoles. Just don't forget to give Cerebus a pet on your way to the next run.
Biomutant attempts to channel many inspirations into a compelling package. It does much of that extremely well, excelling at world building and creating a fluid combat system to drive the experience. The one area it falls short is in tying it all together with an engrossing narrative. It not only fails at the narrative, but even worse, fails at the very mechanics of delivering the story. Wander the world on your own initiative and experience a great game; follow the path of the main quest and suffer the letdown of a mediocre tale, told poorly.
Curse of the Dead Gods is a finely polished roguelike that embodies the best elements of the genre. It has a battle scheme that is simple to grasp but requires skill to master. It balances the progression of each run with penalties to maintain a steady, yet shifting, challenge. It brings a few elements over that a roguelike purist might scoff at, but does so purely to the benefit of the game, and aids a progression system that feels meaningful while not demeaning the overall challenge. It nails that hallmark of the roguelike where you always feel like maybe dipping in for one more run.
The single-player and campaign modes are actually really great stuff. But like nearly all Call of Duty games, that is the content you'll breeze through within your first week playing if even for just a few hours a day. The bulk of the ride ends up being multiplayer and zombies and that is where the problems really lie. This is a game that I'm sure will eventually get the extra content, balancing, and bugs worked out along a series of patches and end up being much better than it is today. But unfortunately the buggy, laggy, unbalanced, and content-sparse game we get at launch is the only one I was given to review. And the balance of the excellent single-player with below average multiplayer ends up for an average overall experience.