Reviews
152
If you can look past the technical issues, the lackluster story, and some of the frustrating design decisions, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll get lost in Citizens of Earth’s beautifully bizarre world. During the first 10 hours or so, I definitely did. Unfortunately as the game went on, the charm started to wear off and the flaws started to stand out more than everything that I loved about the game.
Multiplayer issues aside, Elite: Dangerous is a pretty slick single-player game. If you can look past the always-online connection, this game is the next-gen remastering that space sim fans have longed for since the 1990s. Any faults it does embody are countered by impressively unique features that make it well worth breaking out your joystick once more.
For the $20 price of entry, The Dark Below provides some quality skirmishes and will keep players busy for hours, if that’s how you measure value. If you can fight your way up to Crota’s End, it might even be money well spent. Things are definitely getting better in Destiny. But dropping another third of the price of the full game for more opportunities to slowly slog through dull content feels like money is changing hands in the wrong direction.
Ultimately, that’s the point: Elegy isn’t about getting you to play games, but rather about getting you to be creative and explore your ability to express yourself. One has to assume the Dejobaan’s long-view goal is that eventually you stop playing, but keep writing. That’s a noble goal, and Elegy provides some fun, beautiful and interesting prodding in that direction. For the inspiration alone, it’s worth spending a little time on Dejobaan’s dead worlds.
I’m sure future patches will resolve these problems, and the majority of them tend not to be game-breaking. But it does prevent Dead State from feeling quite as polished as it could have been. That aside, Dead State remains a solid and engaging experience into which RPG and survival fans will sink hours. It may not have ended up being the first, but Doublebear has certainly earned its place among the zombie survival greats.
It’s a game that aspires to be more than what we traditionally expect, and one that has an intangible quality that makes it more than the sum of its parts. It’ll stay with you after you’ve completed it and call you back to explore its hidden corners to see what else you’ll uncover there.
There’s a lot about Far Cry 4 to like: it’s beautiful and huge, and little additions like elephants to ride and helicopters to fly can make it great. But it’s less than a sum of its parts, and often is bloated and confused. For as big a world as Kyrat is, it lacks life and cohesion; it’s fun as long as you don’t think too much about the wheel beneath your feet.
This might have been easier if The Witcher Adventure Game had a save feature, but no such option exists; if you have to close the game for any reason there’s no way to resume your progress. ...Having a quick-save option, especially on mobile versions where you prefer playing for ten minute sessions, would be ideal for players who want to play longer games but can’t commit the full amount of time.
Players showing up for an authentic-feeling “Game of Thrones” experience won’t be disappointed, however. Telltale manages to drop strong characters and tense situations into an on-going, highly developed and highly beloved universe, to the developer’s credit. ...At least, there’s a ton of potential for the next five installments in this series, and no shortage of twists and intrigue to be found in this inaugural outing.
Still, This War of Mine is an impressive attempt to use a video game to engage with a terrible, trying real-life experience, and as a dark simulation of that horror, it can be very intriguing. It’s not exactly a “fun” game, but it is one that might bring players a perspective they might never have considered before. ...It’s dark, it’s sad, it’s often crushing and difficult. It might not be fun, but it’s definitely worth experiencing.