Search Results

I can always appreciate a good, slow, contemplative puzzle game. However, I can’t say I’ve ever played a game that is part meditative, and part exhilarating in the same way as Jusant. Justant is a third person adventure game. In it, you play as a person determined to climb a tower of rock that extends into the sky. You’re not really given too much of a reason why you’re climbing this rock face besides “because it’s there.” At least at first. Jusant tells its story through clues you discover in a civilization that lived in the tower, but left after the rain stopped and all the water started to go away. You aren’t ever told why you need to climb besides there’s no other way than up. Along with you on the ride to the top is a cute little blue water creature called a Ballast.This little guy does more than just look adorable–you can use it to highlight secrets or points of interest in the environment to discover. You can even use your Ballast to interact with the environment. For example, it can revive plants, creating handholds that allow you to climb to areas you couldn’t access before. While most games just have players press a button to grab a ledge and then press up to climb, Jusant has mechanics that are a little more involved than that. Each trigger on the controller acts as each hand–you pull the trigger, and that hand grabs the nearest handhold, and vice versa. This isn’t always the most precise system, as your character’s hands don’t always go where you expect, but that happened only a few times. There are scenarios which require you to consider which hand to use, or require you to swap hands–but once I got used to the controls, it felt like second nature, even when the handholds got more complicated. Stamina is also a consideration, as you can't just climb forever. However, running out of stamina isn’t a death sentence, because you’re always clipped into a safety device–whether it’s a piton you place yourself, or a designated safe zone in the rock. I never played another game that handles climbing quite like Jusant does. Climbing in video games is often at the threat of death. Not in Jusant. Instead, failure is met with the opportunity to try again–not a grisly death scene to ruin your good vibes. During your climb, you can place a set number of pitons that act as sort of checkpoints. If you fall, you can just reel yourself back up to your last safe location and try again. Because there’s no threat of dying, climbing in Jusant doesn’t feel as nerve wracking as in other games–even as you’re climbing to incredible heights. I’m afraid of heights, but knowing that I can’t fall to my death doesn’t invoke that fear at all, so I can focus on the climb. And climbing in Jusant is damn fun. It was a joy to explore off of the beaten path just so I can find my way back up to where I was–it’s that satisfying. While fun, climbing stays pretty simple: There isn’t much variation in the way you can use your character to climb–and there are no skill points to spend to level up or anything like that. However, there are a few things in the environment that change how climbing works, like the flowers that you can revive with your friendly Ballast–and more. Jusant is fantastic from beginning to end, but it does have some issues. My biggest complaint about Jusant revolves around its end. I don’t want to spoil too much, and while I thought the very end was absolutely beautiful, the conclusion with the mountain itself is a bit anti-climb-actic. Okay, sorry, I really wanted to throw that in there. But there are other little things about Jusant that stop it from being a perfect game. While I appreciate the semi-novel climbing mechanics, they ultimately felt unnecessary. Handholds were mostly always available, and I eventually found myself mindlessly spamming Left Trigger / Right Trigger until I got to where I wanted to go. There were just a few times that I had to carefully consider where to put my hands. On top of that, sometimes the hands would bug out and do all sorts of crazy things visually. 2023 is shaping up to be one of the best years in gaming in a really long time. It’s inevitable that some great games are going to be lost in all of the noise, but I hope Jusant climbs to the top to get the recognition it deserves. It’s a slow burn punctuated by exciting climbing sequences, and definitely one of the standout games of this already standout year. Jusant is available today on PC via Steam and on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and the Windows store. A Steam key was provided to us for this review

I first became familiar with Junji Ito’s work while browsing the web late at night–which turned out to be a big mistake. When I found out that there was a game being made using Ito’s work as inspiration, I was excited to see what was in store. After finding out it was all being done as a text-based throwback, I was even more excited to see the finished product. World of Horror is a point and click horror adventure game that is heavily inspired by Junji Ito, while also containing Lovecraftian monsters and other horror inspirations. Ito’s art style is definitely the most prevalent, and the different cases you solve could come straight from Ito’s manga. Okay, not quite–since Ito tends to be a bit more creative. However, the creep factor is till there, and is somehow enhanced by the low-fidelity presentation. In World of Horror you play as one of 14 playable characters, just trying to make their way through the increasingly terrifying world. Your goal is, ultimately, to stop whatever ancient evil you’re currently up against. It will be an uphill battle, however. But you can recruit some help along the way–and they make great sacrifices to horrors you may not want your character to interact with directly. There are all types of horrifying things to run into in World of Horror. Some of these events will resolve on their own. Others will require you to make choices–with these choices potentially lowering your health (stamina) or increasing your curse level, etc. There are combat events that have your character directly battling with unspeakable terrors. These combat encounters are turn-based, and allow you to cue up a certain number of actions or attacks before executing them–and hoping you can kill them before they kill you. While World of Horror says it’s an homage to pre-VGA mostly text-based adventures. I used to play games like that when I was a kid (yeah, I’m old as hell) but I don’t remember them being so busy, visually. The tutorial even makes mention of that. That means World of Horror is a hard game to wrap your head around–especially if you’ve played nothing but games with HD graphics your entire life. This isn’t to knock on World of Horror’s art style. In fact, I would love to see more games take more chances in their mechanics and presentation. World of Horror requires a bit of a learning curve. World of Horror does a great job in its homage to classic old school adventure games. There are a few different ways you can experience this: through 1-bit or 2-bit mode, which changes the visuals overall. There are also a few color filter options that let you experience World of Horror in the most comfortable way–or just how you prefer it. I can’t say I’ve ever played a game quite like World of Horror. It has a mixture of genuinely unsettling moments mixed in with exquisitely executed jump scares. It feels more like a board game than an old school adventure game, but that’s okay–it’s still very fun to play. It’s also very difficult, so be prepared to die a few times before you figure out what’s going on, or at least go in at a lower difficult to get a hang of its unwieldy UI. World of Horror is available now on Steam A Steam key was provided to us for this review.

I’d like to say that my predictions for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Game weren’t true, and that it was extremely popular. It’s gotten a bit of a bump for spooky season. While The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Game doesn’t capture the same sense of dread the film invokes, it does have some exciting moments as you try to escape with your lives. Screenshot: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Game So Gun media has a thing with horror movie IPs and asymmetrical horror games, that’s apparent. Their previous entry into this niche sub-genre, Friday the 13th, developed by Illfonic, didn’t do so great after a lawsuit destroyed any chances of that game getting further updates. That’s was a bummer, but The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Game sounded like a great follow-up. Developed by British studio Sumo Nottingham, Gun had new talent working on yet another horror IP–so what could go wrong this time? I would love to say that asymmetrical multiplayer games were more common, but sadly, there hasn’t really been any great examples since Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2 and Evolve. There’s an argument to be made for Dead by Daylight, but it doesn’t quite capture the feel of a team working against another team. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Game does scratch the itch for that a bit. Screenshot: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Game In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Game you can play as four survivors trying to make their way out of the house of the murderous Sawyer family. Or you play as the family themselves in a 4v3 format (four survivors, two family members and Leatherface) Each survivor and family member has their own strengths, weaknesses, and abilities to exploit. It’s all pretty run-of-the mill, and makes some characters shine over others. There are also environmental hazards and obstacles that either the survivors or family can exploit, depending on the context. For instance, survivors can run under obstacles that might block family members, while the family can open/lock doors–or even just bust through obstacles. I would love to speak to the longevity of this game, but The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Game servers are mostly empty. They have even turned off crossplay between PC and console players due to hackers running rampant on PC. So if you own the game on PC, you’re just shit out of luck until these issues are patched out. And by that time, who will care? This game doesn’t have the longevity to last past a few months. It’ll have a DLC or two and then get lost to the next streaming sensation. Screenshot: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Game Something that Dead by Daylight did right was have a general IP. There are only so many ways you can exploit The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And while the game did a great job in its visual recreation of the movie, it didn’t really capture the feel of the film.Sure, it kinda looks like the movie, but the claustrophobic horror and dawning realization of the family’s depravity are all lost to character select screens and character abilities. At least Friday the 13th had schlock built in. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre invoked an acute sense of dread that would be hard to recreate in a game, let alone an asymmetrical multiplayer game. At least I know this game will never be popular enough that Leatherface will make his way into Fortnite. Hey, it wasn’t all bad. I did get to go to a pre-release party and meet Kane Hodder and some of the cast of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as well as some actors that did work for the game. I also met some influencers with questionable marketing suggestions and $75 dollar an hour consulting fees. Also, we didn’t get prerelease keys, and smaller publications were relegated to getting post-release keys, guaranteeing that we’ll lose out on the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Game’s moment. Because that’s all it really had, just a flash and it was gone, off of the radar of most gamers, and into obscurity where it belongs. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Game is available now for Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, and for PC via Steam.

All of the items on this 31 days of horror have so far been about monsters or supernatural entities that have you on their radar. Carrion flips the script and turns you into an insatiable, tentacled flesh beast–and it’s fun as hell. Carrion is a side scrolling action meets puzzle platformer that has you playing as a teethed and tentacled flesh creature. Your goal is to free yourself from the research facility where you’re being held–while devouring your enemies along the way and acquiring new abilities. As you make your way through the facility with the goal of escaping, you’ll not only meet terrified scientists but also armed guards–even those equipped in armored mech suits. Even as an amorphous ball of flesh, you can be killed. To combat this you’re fast, and can get to places the humans can’t–allowing you to jump out of air ducts to devour them–or you can pull them in and eat them there. There is a lot of flesh eating in this game, I should point out. As the monster you move inhumanly fast, and can run through a group of hapless people in moments. And if they know you’re around, armed humans will be more cautious–while the scientists cower in fear, and cry. It’s very dark, but you’re a hungry ball of flesh–and you have to eat something. The more you eat, the larger you get as you take on more and more mass. And the amount of mass you have surprisingly makes a difference. As a larger mass you can take more damage, but you can fit through smaller spaces if you have less mass. Luckily you can shed mass willfully and without having to take damage. In fact, you can leave your chunks of flesh behind so that they can be re-aquired later to bring you back up to size. Fleshily. While there have been games where you play as the antagonist, nothing quite captures playing a body horror, Aliens-adjacent flesh beast like Carrion does. If you’re tired of being scared this Halloween season, and instead want to bite back, there’s nothing quite like Carrion.

This is probably the last major character update–and possibly one of the last major updates for Warhammer: Vermintide 2. This four player co-op game was the best of its kind until Darktide came around to usurp the throne. But I had a blast going back into Vermintide 2 to check out the new Necromancer career. Vermintide 2 is still an amazingly fun game. I think we’ve been waiting just over a year for Fatshark to finally release Sienna’s final career. I was convinced for a while there that they were moving onto Darktide completely, and letting the fourth career slot for Sienna remain empty. But the Necromancer is here–and out of all of the possibilities I saw thrown around for Sienna’s final career, Necromancer definitely wasn’t one of them. Necromancers, thanks to Diablo 2, are usually associated with magic casting characters that can potentially have a small army of undead following them around and doing their bidding. And that’s exactly how Vermintide 2’s Necromancer works. It was something I didn’t believe could fit into Vermintide 2 gameplay seamlessly the way it does. It’s really impressive how well the Necromancer and her abilities fit into the established Ubersreik 4 (or 5… it doesn’t matter). The talent tree for Necromancer doesn’t give you much wiggle room. Your skeletons are always a part of her build, since it’s her ultimate ability. You can choose to upgrade that, or put more points into her casting abilities. I decided to go full undead army raising, and it’s surprisingly effective. Monster encounters became easier to manage with a group of skeletons putting on melee pressure while the other players can hammer away at it–or take care of other threats that pop up during the fight. The skeletons have three modes: fight, defend, and travel. You can direct them to attack or defend. The only problem with this, is that her item that controls the skeletons is shared with the potion slot–making it easy to accidentally drink potions when you’re just trying to set your skeletons on a defensive line, or get them to attack an enemy. The skeletons you summon can also go where players can’t: if you have them attack a distant enemy, they can use the same paths the enemy takes–so that means over unclimbable ledges, etc. The Necromancer career also comes with two unique weapons – the soul staff and the scythe, or technically the Soulstealer Staff and Ensorcelled Reaper. At first, I didn’t really like the reaper’s swing pattern–but it didn’t take me long to get used to it, and now it’s one of my favorite weapons. The Soulstealer Staff is one of Sienna’s most unique weapons, and allows you to fire bolts of fire. It also has a secondary mode that works a bit like the Psyker’s head pop from Darktide, it just requires you to keep line of sight of the enemy. While I’m excited to play Sienna’s new career, it might be a little too late for my group. I know there are others out there that still primarily play Vermintide 2 and even prefer it over Darktide–but with Darktide’s new class overhaul, it’s hard to find time to get back to Vermintide 2. Which is a shame, because it scratches a different itch than Darktide, and it’s one of the best 4 player co-op games ever. And the Necromancer career is the perfect excuse to go back and kick some Skaven (and northmen) butt.

I think Inside is probably one of those games that lives rent free in my head. It’s one of my favorite side-scrolling games of all time, with developer PlayDead’s Limbo occupying one of the top spots right along with it. However, Inside takes all of the lessons from Limbo and applies them to make a nearly perfect narratively driven side scrolling adventure. Inside may have been released in 2016, but it really doesn’t feel like it has aged a day. This moody, dark, side scrolling puzzle platformer has you playing as a boy, running away from an unknown government (?) entity while having bizarre encounters that only get weirder as you go. And the thing is, despite having a clear narrative there are no words exchanged–and nothing is really ever explained. Which just adds to the mystery, and the eerieness. One of its greatest storytelling feats is being able to tell such an intriguing story without giving anything away. As far as gameplay, Inside is extremely simple–you can jump, run, and interact with objects, often through pushing buttons or being able to push/pull objects. This is something taken from PlayDead’s earlier game Limbo, that had similarly simple controls in a world that has a lot of expression, but no clear answers. In Inside you’ll often find yourself at a place where you have to overcome a hazard, or bypass an obstacle either through timing or by solving a puzzle. Most puzzles in Inside are solved through logical deduction. Physics in the game work as you would expect them to work in real life (mostly). There’s no real way to describe what you’ll encounter in Inside without spoilers–and it’s best to go in blind, and enjoy its atmosphere. The atmosphere is really what makes Inside stand apart, and its soundtrack and sound design help with this immensely. The art style is also nearly impeccable, and doesn’t rely on flashy graphics to convey what it wants. Inside is more likely to age gracefully than other games. It’s hard to discuss Inside while staying spoiler-free. It’s one of my favorite games of all time, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants a horror game that is drenched in atmosphere without jump scares.

I love Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, and I have since day one. Even so, I acknowledged in my review that it’s not quite the game that Fatshark had promised–and it had so much more potential. It was also heartbreaking to see the fanbase hate on it, since it had so many good things going for it. Since the class overhaul, the community is singing a different tune–and even praising Darktide for things that have been in the game since day one–and that warms my cold, cynical heart. However, the class overhaul was necessary to turn Darktide from wasted potential to the best modern four player co-op game you can play right now. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide–or just Darktide–is a four player first person perspective cooperative game set on one of 40k’s hive worlds that has a bit of a Chaos problem brewing. You play as a character arrested for whatever reason you decide in your backstory, and forced to fight the Emperor’s enemies as a pawn for the Inquisition. It’s seen as a suicide mission, and your character isn’t expected to survive–but as they complete more missions, they gain more trust and eventually get accepted into the ranks of the Inquisition. There are four classes in Darktide: veteran, zealot, ogryn and psyker. When the game first released, each class had a set of inherent skills and you could further hone them into the character you wanted by choosing a few key talents. That entire system has since been thrown out, and now each of these classes have three robust branching paths they can take to build their character–or you can even choose to turn your character into a hybrid of two classes. The class overhaul significantly changes the potential for each class. Instead of each class being defined by their ultimate ability and a few other details, you can make the class into exactly what you want it to be. Each character now has access to three different grenade types (for the Psyker, this is three different casting abilities instead.) For instance: I always loved the Ogryn’s weapons, but in the original class system I was forced to play an Ogryn with few ranged abilities and emphasis on melee. Now I can build an Ogryn that is all about shooting his oversized guns–and it’s glorious. There has also been an overhaul to Darktide’s weapon procurement and upgrade system. There’s still a lot of gambling involved, but now you can switch weapon Blessings out without fear of locking your weapon. It’s still possible to get a “brick” weapon–one that meets max weapon level, but is stuck with bad perks. But it’s by no means necessary to min-max in Darktide to succeed–and those trying to find the perfect weapon are just wasting their time. I would have liked to see more levels come along with the patch, but the levels that we have are still pretty great. While some of them are just alternate routes that have you running “backwards” through a level, the design of each level is fantastic–just like I said in my original review. There are often multiple paths forward, and if you take an alternate route you can usually get to where you want to go–instead of being met with a dead end. Levels are also dripping with atmosphere, and gives the sense of claustrophobic dread. Despite Darktide having great gunplay with impactful weapons and having melee that is one of the best melee combat systems in any first person game I’ve played it was missing something. The class overhaul turns Darktide from a good game into a classic I will play for years. It creates a way to make fun new builds that just weren’t possible in the previous class system.

Okay, I’ll say it: this is better than Deathloop. I’m biased, because I loved Prey, but I also loved its setting. Mooncrash is the last good thing that developer Arkane Austin has produced. Especially compared to the abysmal Redfall. Mooncrash is less horror than Prey, and more roguelite. But you’re on a space station full of killer robots and angry mimics: close enough. Prey: Mooncrash was a surprise. It was announced and released during this year’s E3 and it’s for a game that hasn’t been making many splashes since its release over a year ago (check out our review of Prey here: it was the first full game review to appear on Third Coast Review!) and it has since sort of drifted into obscurity, overshadowed by bigger Bethesda franchises and announcements. That’s what made Mooncrash feel like it came out of left field for me, but it got me to revisit a game I had thought about properly in months. Prey: Mooncrash isn’t just a mission set in the Prey universe. Instead of retreading the same formula as the main installment, Mooncrash went a completely different direction and opted to feature rogue-lite elements. It’s probably not what anyone expected, but it turned out to be a pretty genius move. It’s a variation on the Prey formula done in an extremely effective and fun way. If you’re looking for more Prey, you might be disappointed, as though Mooncrash does retain some of the base game’s stealth, exploration and looting, it’s presented in a completely different form factor. The premise of Mooncrash is interesting: you’re working for a company that is in direct competition with the Transtar corportation called Rasma. Your goal is to use a simulation to navigate the Transtar lunar base—a sort of sister facility to Prey’s Talos 1. The lunar base is having the same problems as Talos 1—the Typhon have escaped containment and most personnel are dead. In Mooncrash your objective is relatively simple: escape from the moon. How you choose to do that is largely up to you—sort of. You start with one character, and as you explore around the moon base you will not only discover the fate of the test subjects and personnel, you will unlock different items via fabrication plans, gain points to spend on later runs, and find different characters to unlock, with there being five playable characters total. Eventually, as you unlock more characters, more abilities will open which will allow more exploration of the facility. Using Neuromods on a character unlocks that ability permanently, so even after a successful escape—or an untimely death due to the Typhon threat—you will keep your abilities once you reset the simulation. Until the simulation is reset, though, you can continue to move your characters who are not dead, or who have not escaped through it . The facility itself doesn’t reset after a run, either, unless you specifically tell it to. That means that anything your character has repaired, looted, etc. will remain in that state until the simulation is reset. You don’t have unlimited time with each character to explore the facility, though. From the moment you enter the simulation, you’re battling a timer in the form of worsening corruption level. There are 5 levels of corruption, and once it gets too high you are kicked out of the simulation and it resets. Corruption doesn’t only act as a timer, it also acts as a difficulty modifier: the higher the corruption level, the harder the enemies get. Not only that, but changing from one corruption level to another will respawn enemies that were previously defeated. There is an item that you can loot, buy, or create that reduces your corruption level, though, so you aren’t entirely beholden to the timer if you plan well enough. Planning for a run is half the fun I had in Mooncrash—whether it was outfitting my character before running them through the moon base, or planning on who I was going to utilize for what purpose and what exit they will ultimately be taking. Mooncrash allows for a fair amount of optimization when it comes to how to approach an escape run, but there’s a catch: each simulation reset means the lunar base may be slightly different from your previous run: some entry doors will be broken, stairs that were previously broken may be usable, etc. There are also a series of environmental hazards that can afflict an area like fire, radiation, or even lack of power or oxygen. The story in Prey: Mooncrash is compelling. In fact, it was my main motivating factor in completing all of the 27 objectives that you are expected to eventually perform once in the simulation. These range from escaping the moon, to scanning a certain number of Typhons, to eventually finding a way for all five of your crew members to get off the moon simultaneously. Completing more objectives gives you access to more story outside of the moon base simulation. I found little I didn’t like about Prey: Mooncrash. It was definitely a surprise—and an addicting one that I had trouble putting down. If you ever played Prey or similar games and wondered what it would be like if you had put your ability points into hacking instead of repair, or into combat psionics instead of weapon proficiencies, Mooncrash allows you to play in multiple different ways, and even forces you to try different loadouts as each character you can play as has their own strengths, weaknesses, and abilities available to them. The only thing I really wished Mooncrash had was the ability to set the simulation to exactly what you want it to be. The ability to manipulate variables to make the facility harder or easier to navigate, at say, the expense of being able to complete objectives, would be great for planning purposes. Also, I wish the moonbase was a little larger. As it is right now, there are three major departments—Moonworks, Pytheas Labs, and Crew Annex—which are all centered around a reduced gravity moon crater. Any additional size probably adds a ton of variables to anyone trying to find the best run through the moon base, but I just like the world of Prey so much I just want more. Also, the story, despite how compelling it was, didn’t pay off as much as I was hoping, and only gives us the slightest peek into the greater Prey universe. If you liked Prey but aren’t considering Mooncrash because it’s too much of a variation on the main formula, you should reconsider. Mooncrash is an extremely fun, tight experience that can easily add hours and hours of playtime on top of the already meaty Prey. Prey: Mooncrash is available now as downloadable content to the base game. This article was originally published on June 18, 2018 at this location.

Prey is a phenomenal game, and it has really held up over the years. It really does the empty space station sci-fi horror thing pretty well. And it’s definitely a better game than developer Arkane’s misfire this year with Redfall. It sucks when you release a terrible game during one of the best video game years in recent memory. But yeah, Prey is great, and it has some pretty spooky moments. Go get scared. Prey has had a long and storied development. Originally being developed by a different studio as a follow up to 2006’s Prey, it took on a life of its own when it was handed to Arkane Studios, who are best probably known for the Dishonored series. One thing that was immediately apparent was that I’ve played this game before. Not exactly this game, but there are many things familiar about Prey. It feels like a spiritual successor to 1999’s System Shock 2 and it borrows heavily from other games that would use that formula such as the Bioshock series. People who have played those games will find the mechanics, and sometimes the themes, to be familiar. Prey is a game that can’t help but be compared to others, but Arkane Studios have done a great job of putting it together. Minor plot spoilers follow. Prey is a sci-fi horror shooter that takes place in an alternate future of 2032 mostly aboard an orbital research space station named Talos-1. The setting is both sprawling and fully realized. Each section of the station has a purpose and has a worked-in or lived-in feel. Talos-1 is adorned in a gorgeous retro-future aesthetic and reflects a world where John F. Kennedy didn’t die but was a monumental influence through mankind’s foray into space. You play as Morgan Yu, your choice as either a male or female protagonist who is being subjected to seemingly unethical scientific tests and is suffering from narratively convenient memory loss. Things go awry when a malevolent alien presence called the Typhon make their appearance. Smaller Typhon possess the ability to mimic common objects which can lead to paranoia whenever you come across things – you never know if that scavengable piece of gear is really a power supply or really an alien in hiding that’s trying to kill you. This makes for some tense gameplay early on before you are equipped with weaponry to handle them easily, but the mimics serve mostly as jump scares towards the end of the game. Unfortunately, the rest of the Typhon you encounter aren’t as imaginative. They were scary at first, but once the initial awe wears off, fighting an ink monster that shoots fire at you instead of an ink monster that shoots electricity does nothing to ramp up the tension. You have free roam of the space station Talos-1 which, while easily one of most exciting parts of Prey, can also be the most tedious. You will acquire access through the different parts of the station through exploration and story progression. You will find yourself constantly having to backtrack – either to fulfill a mission objective or to discover an area that you didn’t previously have access to. Eventually your explorations will have you travelling outside the station into the black of space using your spacesuit, which you can use to fast-travel between sections of the research station. Despite the exploration being so rewarding, actually traversing the space station is where the tedium comes in. Talos-1 is not seamless. It is divided into several sections that are behind time consuming loading screens. Each loading screen is a progress bar followed by a loading icon resulting in two loading screens. I assume this was an attempt at making the load times seem shorter. I only mention this because I have never encountered a game that gives you two full loading screens for every occasion. I tested these loading times between various platforms and often found them to be at around 30 seconds on my PC and up to almost 2 minutes on Xbox One. The Xbox One version also had noticeable performance issues I did not see on the Playstation 4 version. You have a selection of weapons and abilities to deal with the Typhon threats you encounter. You'll collect Neuromods, a product of the Talos Corporation that serves as a way to enhance your abilities. These neuromods can be spent to learn new abilities or empower your old ones, and range from the abilities to hack certain computers, keypads and turrets to being able to be more effective at combat. Eventually you will be able to gain the Typhon’s alien abilities, such as the power to use telepathy to move objects or even mimic a coffee cup. The conventional firearms in Prey aren’t nearly as exciting, nor do they feel like they pack much punch. There is also a crafting system that allows you to create ammo, health kits, and even such items as Neuromods and weapon upgrades. Hacking is its own mini-game, and is often immersion breaking. One moment you could be creeping through the dark being pursued by unspeakable horrors, and the next you’re playing a lively game of techno-pinball. It could be forgivable if it was fun, but it was something I always wanted to end as quickly as possible. Despite being firmly rooted in the horror genre, Prey’s horror is in the atmosphere. Your ability to fight off most threats, the frequency of encounters, and the generic nature of most Typhon make fighting them something that gets in the way of exploring Talos-1. The prevailing theme in Prey revolves around a series of ethical dilemmas, with this theme being introduced at the very start of the game. These decisions have an effect on the story, in a small but significant way. Prey is comfort food. It’s well-tread and familiar territory, but so masterfully crafted I can’t help but recommend it. Despite generic enemies and lackluster weapons, Talos-1 itself is so fully realized it will give you hours of fun just to explore. Prey‘s flaws, meanwhile, are few and forgivable. If you are a fan of sci-fi horror and first person shooters, you can’t go wrong. This article was originally published on May 10, 2017 at this location.

I have thirty minutes to write this before my deadline, but that’s okay: I have speed on my side. That’s what it feels like after playing Ghostrunner II, the follow-up to developer One More Level’s fantastic Ghostrunner. If you’re here, you probably like cyberpunk, parkour, speedrunning or sci-fi ninjas doing all of the above. And Ghostrunner II has what you want. Ghostrunner II is a first person sci-fi action game and follow-up to critical darling Ghostrunner. After the events of the first game, the tower has been secured after the first game’s uprising. In charge is a motley crew of once-resistance fighters turned leaders of the remnants of humanity. You’re back as Jack, robot ninja with a heart of gold and some severe katana skills. Slice your enemies, deflect projectiles, and otherwise be a pain in the side of the Asura and their campaign against the new caretakers of The Tower. There’s even a motorcycle! It doesn’t get any more cyberpunk than that. If you’re familiar with Ghostrunner’s style of movement and combat, there’s not much difference here, it just does more–and each ability that is added on feels like a natural progression of the first game’s skills.Enemies still die in one hit, but so do you. Sometimes it only takes a single failure to redo an entire sequence, and that makes Ghostrunner II extremely difficult at times. But it never punishes you with that difficulty, and always puts you back to a location where you can pick right back up at the most fun part of the action. Combat and parkour (essentially jumping puzzles) are your two main antagonists in Ghostrunner II–but you’ll also face the occasional boss. Bosses, like the game’s combat sequences, require you to play perfectly to a certain point. Some of the bosses in the first game made you restart the entire sequence on failure, but Ghostrunner II seems to have embraced the checkpoint system more thoroughly–especially on the default difficulty, which I chose to play for this review. Something Ghostrunner II does everything more than the first game: That means crazier moves, harder (and bigger) bosses, and some insane acrobatic sequences–it also means more lore. In fact, Ghostrunner II loves having you speed through its levels, but then asks you to slow down in between so you can learn the goings-on of The Tower. These were not my favorite sections, but it gave you a great opportunity to see a little bit more of Ghostrunner II’s world, which I have no complaints about. If you want to beeline to the person that starts your mission, or cut through any dialogue, you have that option. If you’re into speedrunning, Ghostrunner II has that built-in. It has its own system of recording your time on each level and how many deaths you suffered at the hands of–checks notes–gravity. You can even set the timer and death count on your screen to keep that information handy, or so your stream chat can see how much you suck at this game (in my case. I’m sure YOU’RE fantastic, you beautiful person.) But that’s the thing: Ghostrunner II–like Ghostrunner before it–does an excellent job of putting you in the shoes of a super elite Ghostrunner. Anybody picking up this game will immediately feel like a hyper fast ninja that can wall run, use a grappling hook, etc. *Glances at clock* damn, I still have twelve minutes to spare. I am become speed, writer of fast reviews. But it’s not hard to extol the fantastic Ghostrunner II and its lightning fast movement and combat. If you want to check out the Ghostrunner series or are itching to play this sequel, you won’t be disappointed. Ghostrunner II is an absolutely fantastic follow-up. *Hits timer* Woo, 23 minutes. A Steam key was provided to us for this review Ghostrunner II will be available on 10/26

Despite the fact that Layers of Fear keeps coming up in “best of “ lists when it comes to scary games, I just couldn’t get into it. There’s unmistakable talent in Bloober Team, and Layers of Fear was one of the first games of its type. I could be wrong about this one, and you should check it out for yourself. Most of the gameplay in Layers of Fear involves walking while looking at items and suffering the occasional jump scare. There are some puzzles to solve, but these are sparse. When people derisively describe walking simulators, I don’t know how the Layers of Fear series isn’t mentioned more often. It doesn’t feel like a game so much as a haunted house. While it’s effectively spooky, it never comes close to invoking true terror. Instead, it’s just trippy imagery and walking. Rinse and repeat for hours. While the developers were no doubt going for an unsettling depiction of characters descending into madness, there isn’t enough to ground the player to what’s real. And because of that, there aren’t any narrative stakes.Even failure (when it’s possible to fail) is just a temporary setback. If the majority of the game plays out like a nightmare, after a couple of hours it starts to lose its effectiveness. Despite the dominantly boring gameplay, there are actually some moments that got my heart racing. This is when Layers of Fear truly shines. However, these truly scary moments are too far between with long stretches of often nauseating psychological torture that ended up being torture on me. Even the story in Layers of Fear is lost in all of the howling and madness. Any pretense of subtlety flies out the window within the first few minutes of gameplay, and you’re forced to suffer through ham fisted portrayals of tragedy and angst. For instance, in The Artist segment of the game there is a moment where the character is remembering feeling alienated because of their status as an artist, so the next room has a fish flopping on a saucer with the words “out of water” written on the wall. Layers of Fear isn’t particularly effective in its gameplay or storytelling, but it sure is pretty to look at. Bloober Team has used every bell and whistle available to them in Unreal 5 to make these games look better than they ever have before. With Ray Tracing and HDR support, Layers of Fear is one of the best looking games I’ve played this year. However, that’s really just putting lipstick on a pig. I know there are people that absolutely love Layers of Fear (2016) and I wish I was one of them. I feel like I missed the boat, and was subjected to so many imitations that I can’t appreciate Layers of Fear (2016) for how groundbreaking it was. Sadly, that means my patience for Layers of Fear wore thin, and I could only play it in short bursts. Even then, I felt like I was twisting in the same never-ending corridors hoping to find an exit. Luckily, it really only takes pressing the Esc key and quitting to desktop to get out of that nightmare. Layers of Fear is available now on Steam and the Epic Games Store as well as for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X A Steam key was provided to us for this review This article was originally published on 06/15/2023 at this location.

Man, coming back to my review over a year later and seeing my optimism is a little heartbreaking. I knew Dying Light 2 wasn’t great on release–but based on Techland’s treatment of Dying Light I thought we’d see something better. It’s a shame that Dying Light 2 didn’t meet expectations story-wise, and then didn’t meet DLC expectations either. However, there’s still some fun to be had in Dying Light 2–and it’s the perfect season to go back and check it out. I’ve been a massive fan of Techland’s brand of zombie slaying for over ten years, starting with the release of Dead Island. That game was known for having you build creative weaponry to kill zombies. Techland followed up Dead Island with a spiritual successor Dying Light, which proved that the best way to survive the zombie apocalypse isn’t just with crazy weapon modifications — but with prodigious use of parkour. Dying Light 2 Stay Human is a first person action adventure game and the follow-up to the massively popular and insanely fun Dying Light. In Dying Light 2 you play as Aiden, or as I like to think of him, Kyle Crane 2.0. Aiden is looking for his sister, and to find her, he travels to one of the last cities on Earth. To accomplish this, he’ll have to navigate two factions trying to survive, and come face to face with his past. He’ll also have to fight through hordes of ravenous infected, and groups of armed thugs that you can defeat with the power of parkour. If you’re coming into Dying Light 2 hoping for great melee combat and fun parkour, you won’t be disappointed. Combat in Dying Light 2 will be familiar to anyone coming from Dying Light. You equip yourself with (often homemade) melee weapons to dispatch infected “biters” and any aggressive non-infected people you might come across. The melee combat feels great, which is good, because you spend the vast majority of your time in Dying Light 2 swinging a melee weapon. Melee combat sticks and slices where appropriate, and is one of the best examples of first person melee combat I’ve encountered. The weapons of Dying Light 2 play a major role. Unfortunately, I didn’t have as much fun modifying and finding new weapons in Dying Light 2 as I did its predecessor. While combat feels great, finding high quality weapons isn’t as exciting as it was in the previous game. And while you can’t repair weapons like you could in Dying Light, the weapons in Dying Light 2 last far longer—I think I completely replaced my weapons five times or less in my playthrough. Weapon modifications aren’t as exciting in Dying Light 2, either. Previously, you could turn a mundane sword into a fire belching weapon of doom (for example). While that’s possible in Dying Light 2, there are a few more steps. Each weapon has several modification slots, which allow you to mix and match weapon mod types. However, weapon mods themselves must be applied through the use of blueprints, and these blueprints must be upgraded through a special vendor called a Craftsmaster. It doesn’t seem possible to find ridiculously overpowered blueprints in the wild—you have to grind out every upgrade. I ended up beating the game with a couple of basic weapon mods I kept throwing on my weapons—but if I had more time before the review embargo, I probably would have spent more time upgrading my weapon mods, and scouring the city for materials. The City—humanity’s last bastion—is a parkour playground. It makes sense in-lore, since people have had 15 years of experience with surviving against the zombies with parkour. It has ramps and platforms that make getting around a blast. There are lots of activities to partake in, too—from running challenges, to side quests. I even managed to find a few interesting locations off of the beaten path. The City is huge, and full of goodies and secrets to uncover. The City itself also changes as you play and align yourself with one of the two major factions. The more sections you grab for one faction, the more faction-specific changes to The City you’ll see, either in forms of ways to protect yourself or ways to stay off of the street level. Dying Light 2 has a lot of familiar gameplay for those returning for the sequel—but some significant changes. The biggest one is the paraglider. This upgradeable tool allows you to use The City’s awesome verticality to your advantage as you soar high above danger. There is also a grappling hook that works much differently than the original game’s—it’s no longer possible to grapple to the ground to save yourself from falling to your death, for instance. Instead, it acts more like a grappling hook should, merely allowing you to swing from one point to another. Just like in the original Dying Light, the infected are far more dangerous at night. The super dangerous Volatile infected type return, and while they seem even deadlier than they did in the first game, night just isn’t as scary as it was. Even with Howlers causing other infected to chase you down, night time never approaches the same level of peril in Dying Light 2 as it did in the first game. The skill tree returns from Dying Light, and it works much the same way as it did in the previous game. You can increase your skill in either parkour or combat by merely jumping and climbing or engaging in combat, respectively. The skill tree is a little disappointing, and while there are a few essential skills to grab, I rarely found myself anticipating my next cool ability. One of the main draws of Dying Light 2 is its story. I feel like one of the weakest aspects of the original was its lackluster story, and even after teasing a robust narrative that relies on character choice, I still felt underwhelmed. Dying Light 2 sure tries earnestly to invoke emotion, and to connect you to its characters—but even good voice acting by a stellar cast can’t elevate hammy dialogue and juvenile characterizations. Another major selling point for Dying Light 2 is the effect play choice has on its world—and I would say that’s true, but only to an extent. Often when I made a choice in Dying Light 2, it felt like the “right” one. Choices that are supposed to come off as morally grey, to me, felt like a choice between helping a group of desperate people who happen to be jerks, or authoritarians that are nicer but just trying to use Aiden to gain more control. These choices are usually between two major factions: the authoritarian Peacekeepers, and a group of loosely organized survivors called “The Free People.” These “Free People” aren’t really a faction as they are just “everyone else,” though the game treats them like one. While Dying Light 2 tries to paint these two factions as morally grey, one faction stood out to me as the most obviously evil. Dying Light 2 had the potential for great, impactful storytelling, but its inclusion of a third faction, the Renegades, completely undoes any nuance and conflict having two morally grey factions would. Instead, the Renegades act as almost Saturday morning cartoon style villains, screechy voices and all. It’s strange that Techland would take all of the effort to make a story that had the potential for some tough choices, only to throw in a group of cartoonishly evil psychos. Choices do seem to matter in Dying Light 2, however — at least, most of the time. I would have loved to go through a second playthrough and make all of the opposite choices to see how much the outcome would change, but I didn’t have the time. I’ll just have to save that for my impending co-op playthrough. Dying Light released all the way back in 2015, but Techland is still releasing updates for it. Thankfully, they have come out and made a similar pledge for Dying Light 2, with DLC (both paid and free) planned for the next five years. With five years of promised support, there is some seriously exciting parkour meets zombie killing days ahead. Dying Light 2 may not have lived up to my expectations in regards to its story, and I would have liked a few more exciting weapon mods, but it excels at absolutely everything else. The City is large, beautiful, varied, and interesting. Traveling around The City is pure parkour bliss, and combat is equally fun. I’m already champing at the bit for more Dying Light 2, and can’t wait to jump in with friends—and sink my teeth into their upcoming DLC. Dying Light 2 is here, and it’s exactly what I wanted. This article was originally published on 02/02/2022 at this location.