Kate Robinson
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Children of The Sun has been out for a few weeks now and Kate Robinson had the chance to not only play the game pre-release for a review but she also tracked down the game’s creator, Rene Rother, at WASD 2024 to get a great insight into Devolver’s latest.
It's easy to forget that almost every game is made by a talented team trying their hardest to overcome obstacles in the pursuit of art. Critical and commercial flops are often seen as failures by publishers who would rather shun or even delist creative endeavours to save face, making it exceedingly hard for “bad” games to get the recognition they deserve as someone’s hard work and passion brought to life. Luckily, the cultural impact of the CD-i adventures has thrived thanks to a community of curious fans that continues to share the strange charm of these Nintendo offshoots.
SteamWorld Build is gratifying down to its very core, and its accessible city-building gameplay is broken up by a strategic and robust take on the Dig formula that lives up to a franchise known for its seamless design. The larger ambitions of Build occasionally cause cracks to form in its otherwise impeccably solid foundations, but these moments of instability are offset by a structurally sound experience that truly innovates on its respective genres.
After years of development, three more years in early access, pushing forward and delaying the release date at the same time somehow, Baldur’s Gate 3 is finally out in the wild… And it is massive. Kate Robinson dives deep on her time with the game so far and investigates if a game this big can stand under its own weight.
There's a lot to talk about in just the first quarter of such a gargantuan game. The world design and attention to detail are stunning, strategic gameplay in both exploration and combat scenarios is sure to keep anyone with even a passing interest in fantasy settings engaged, and the writing is so good that even the EULA agreement is worth reading. I can't attest to the conclusion, but if Larian manages to keep this momentum throughout, it'll be hard to see Baldur’s Gate 3 as anything other than the definitive fantasy RPG for this generation.
Cursed to Golf is easily one of the most accessible golf games around, expanding on ideas from modern, user-friendly titles like the Super Stickman Golf series, allowing anyone to pick up and play a potentially daunting premise. The risky yet rewarding gameplay that powers the greatest of golfing games has only been enhanced with randomised roguelike mechanics, hazardous level design and many other surprises that reveal the care and attention that has gone into pacing a satisfying journey through the layers of golfing hell. While there is some unusual activity seen in the strange camera angles projected at the start of courses and a UI that can block the shot information at certain heights (at least when playing on a Steam Deck). Missing out on what could potentially be the next reincarnation of the golf genre would be the real horror.
So, is it worth getting Embr if you only have a Switch? As someone who has had experience testing games in pre-alpha states, I probably have a stronger tolerance to bugs than a casual player, but for the average player, a lot of these problems would be hard to stomach for long. that said, I could imagine this chaos being subsided to a degree in a friendly multiplayer setting where such issues can add to a hectic environment. And while there’s no other game on the Switch quite like Embr, the game is also on other, better-suited platforms. Overall, it’s probably worth waiting until a sale occurs or some of the major bugs are ironed out at the least, though be aware that some of these issues, such as the sluggish controls, are likely tied to the limitations of the Switch’s ageing hardware rather than the causation of annoying but fixable bugs.
The world is dead. LET’S PLAY PUTT-PUTT! Kate Robinson lets us know just how fun it is to golf through a dying world in Golf Club: Wasteland.
2064: Read Only Memories is a Cyberpunk story unlike any other. Check out Kate Robinson’s review.