Destructoid

In all seriousness Supermassive Games has carved out a nice little horror niche for itself and I’m okay with that. Man of Medan has some genre staples (both good and bad), including jump scares, an unsettling atmosphere, and clever camera angles (that, thanks to the medium, can be manipulated). The claustrophobic tanker hallways aren’t as technically impressive as the rolling vistas and mountaintops of Until Dawn, but they’re different.

Minoria is an uneven game that will serve as a rainy day Metroidvania if you can't get your fill. In any case it just shows the world how talented Bombservice really is, and how I'll be following them until the end of time.

Faith serves a few important purposes within the Life is Strange 2 story. It shores up some loose ends from the brothers' past, it proves the lengths Sean is willing to go to in order to protect Daniel, and it gives Daniel further autonomy by letting him make his own decisions. It's an exciting chapter that leaves everyone worse for the wear. That's the cadence we've come to expect from Life is Strange, though.

Remnant: From the Ashes takes too long to get going, but when it does, it lets it rip. The randomization element is too half-baked to really propel this project above the rest of its ilk, but Gunfire Games has some really good ideas that I hope to see employed more often in the future.

Control is a weird, enigmatic, perplexing masterpiece. It's also Remedy's most well-rounded work yet. Like Jesse levitating far off the ground, Control signifies Remedy is capable of ascending to great new heights.

Whatever criticism you can throw at Astral Chain, you can’t say it isn’t unique. In the first few hours, I was all over the place when it came to an assessment, as it can take some time to really turn it up. But when it does it just clicks, and I don't want to stop playing it.

I can't claim the content on offer is spare. It’s just that maintaining interest in what is available is a tough prospect. With matches taking around 20 minutes to finish, it becomes a slog to play for extended periods at a time. During my review process, I'd play for roughly an hour and then get bored, stopping for a bit and returning later. It only took me as long as it has to write this because I just don't feel compelled to keep playing.

I can't stress enough how much Telling Lies might not be for you. Most of it is literally spent watching people talk to a screen, to the point where the puzzle angle, no matter how impressive it might be, might wear down its welcome in minutes. For everyone else, especially avid followers of character-driven art forms, these are performances you can really sink your teeth into while you try to make sense of it all.

I'm emotionally torn on Oninaki because there's so much to like here: it has a lot of great ideas, it just doesn't execute them all as well as it should. Maybe Tokyo RPG Factory should look at changing their formula and scaling down to tighter 10 hour adventures. By cutting down the scale they can focus on what they do best.

Overall, Age of Wonders: Planetfall is a large, ambitious strategy game that succeeds in many ways but falters ever so slightly in its grand scale. If you can grapple with the scope it's well worth the purchase and time, offering a great sandbox that could be played for hours on end. Newcomers to the genre might want to try one of the earlier Age of Wonders games before seeing if they should truly take the dive into this massive commitment. Those who do won't be disappointed.