Even with such a name, The “Amazing” Alex isn’t an amazing game. Maybe clever at first, coalescing thoughts about The Amazing Machine of old, but soon a sour disappointment with puzzles based on luck and gratuitous trial-and-error with a broken interface and lack of depth will replace any fondness you might hold for the game.
I have no nostalgia for the old NES game of the same name, but Ducktales Remastered embodies the two side of videogames, old and new, in a compelling package that was an amazing blast to play through, I would recommend it if you enjoy platformers or nostalgia or just like ducks.
I was a bit skeptical when I saw trials on the iOS store, after all, games ported from consoles are either barely resembling their counterparts or control really badly when developers try to figure out a way to make the game work at all. Trials Frontier avoids these two things, but falls down in the free to play hole pretty quickly. It’s still a fun experience for a while, controlling well and adapted to touch controls. I even thought the systems it added (leveling, loot, upgrading your bike) were better than the bare-bones progression of the PC/Console game.
Yet another port of a console game, Trials works pretty well on the PC. It’s a bit awkward at first to use a random key as the thrust button and then use the arrow keys to tilt the bike, but after a while I got as good with it than I did with the console version.It still has the same issues, but it’s still a blast if you like that almost puzzle-ish arcade feel.
The Room 2 is the sequel to another puzzle game of the same title where you solve gigantic mechanical puzzles by sliding, opening, poking, turning, finding and placing objects on a fantastical device only to peel layers upon layers of additional puzzles hidden inside the first ones. It’s a pretty good game, but not as good as the original.
Guacamelee is an interesting metroidvania with a world-switching mechanic and a large swath of memes sprinkled around. I quite enjoyed it, even if it continued (with Vadis Story last week) a trend of PC games almost requiring controllers to play ‘properly’. After progressing through almost all the game, I was stopped by one fight that frustrated me to no end.
I don't know if there was something I was doing wrong with Fiz when I played it but the game didn't explain much to me. Although I had a poor time with it, Fiz is well done, devoid of microtransactions with a bunch of systems to exploit and some sense of discovery and a ton of content, I thought at first that I would play through the whole thing, but got annoyed after a short while and stopped.
It has been a while since I played a metroidvania and Valdis Story: Abyssal City didn't disappoint me for the largest part of the game. It's an amazing game with skills and equipment, and interesting alignment system, crafting recipes, challenging bosses and some nefarious platforming puzzles. I really wish I could've beat it.
Containment: The Zombie Puzzler is a little action-puzzle game where you have to swap differently suited citizens around zombies to kill them. Instead of matching 3, you have to box them in, and then the zombies die and new citizens march in and you get power-up sometimes. I can't say it grabbed me.
This is my last review for this year, and what a game it is! Well, Gone Home is barely a game, but it's an amazing experience. A bit like The Stanley Parable, it's quite difficult for me to have a look upon the gameplay concepts in it and not spoil anything. Playing Gone Home is like reading a good book.
Starborn Anarkist is a little dual-stick shooter where you complete challenges and defeat tons of enemies/bosses to unlock new gear to make your ship designs stronger to keep doing the same thing. You upgrade temporarily your offence/defence/speed during play sessions in some weird way.
State of Decay is a vast and complex game full of systems and things to do. I feel like the game is too open and maybe a bit too complex, leaving you with a short list of actions you can take and a ton of systems to observe and care about as some kind of real-time clock decays the world around you - I think?
Rayman Fiesta Run is a little running game where you jump, punch and glide across levels, trying to collect everything. I liked it quite a lot, even if some of its systems attempt to change the dynamic of the game - and fail at it - and the very shallow nature of the upgrades you get along the way disappointed me.
Monaco: What's yours is mine is a stealth game with a neat style and very French NPCs. I really don't enjoy most stealth games except when I feel like I have the tools at my disposition to be better than the guards or traps placed in them. I won't mind stealth if I have everything I need to pull 100% perfect sequences without endless trial-and-error. Sadly for me, MWYIM didn't feel like it gave me everything I required.
I had heard good things about EMPIRE: The Deck Building Strategy Game and decided to check it out! In my head, a strategy deck building game would have you start a campaign with very little cards and as you win fights you'd add more cards to your inventory until you beat the story. That idea sounded interesting in my idea; sadly for me my expectations weren't met. I was wrong about what this game was going to be, and what I got instead was too frustrating to keep me interested.
I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started playing Gunpoint, but it surely wasn't a puzzle game. I thought it was going to be a neat little 2d shooter with some platforming spliced in and an interesting story. I realized pretty quickly that it was a mix of stealth and puzzle more than anything. Great stealth and puzzles.
I'm on a bad streak of iPad games nowadays, okay, Devil's Attorney was great, but the games I've been trying out recently... They're not very good. Take Doom & Destiny for instance, I'm kinda baffled how a game full of RPG maker assets could land on iOS. Can you even use RPG Maker to make iOS games? Probably not, but this game feels like it. Also it's pretty immature and dumb, like Unepic was. I probably would've cared much more about it if it played the story straight.
Risk of Rain has great core gameplay mechanics. It's a platformer/roguelike where you pick a character then need to find teleporters to get back to your ship without dying. There are tons of items you can randomly find during your journey, each class has different abilities, there are tons of unlockables / challenges, the game is pretty difficult but rewarding and I really love its style. It has, however, a fatal design flaw.
Devil's Attorney is a nice little turn-based RPG for iOS. You play Max McMann, a shady defense attorney that'll defend anyone. You go to cases, fight with the skills you have unlocked, and then gain money to buy items and furniture that allow you to unlock more skills. The writing is very funny and even if the randomness breaks the game a little, I've enjoyed it so much that I beat it in a few days.
While I already wrote some words on Path of Exile a while ago, its recent re-release on Steam had me curious and I went back and tried it. I was supposed to write about Risk of Rain, but I spent most of this week and last week playing PoE. They've added some things, fixed others, and left most of it like it was before. My issue number one with the game - how floaty and unresponsive it felt - isn't a problem anymore...