Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue isn’t a bad game, it’s just that others of a similar ilk, like Danganronpa, do the social thriller visual novel concept much better.
EDENGATE: The Edge of Life is essentially a walking sim, however developers HOOK have described it as an interactive experience; either way, you know pretty much what kind of game to expect.
But is EDENGATE: The Edge of Life a narrative masterpiece that will keep you hooked, or does it ultimately fail to captivate?
Panda Punch is fine, we suppose. If you have a fiver in your pocket, and a love of (red) pandas in your heart, then it will tickle you for the hour it takes to gain its Gamerscore.
Everyone has football fever whenever a world cup comes around, so you can understand why developers PanicBarn tried to capitalise on this by releasing Soccer Story. Unlike most football - or ‘soccer’ - games though, it’s not a sports simulation, nor is it really an arcade-like sports offering. No, Soccer Story is in fact a physics-driven, open-world adventure RPG interpretation of the beautiful game.
While Crime Secrets: Crimson Lily gets points for its absence of sticking points, and its determination to improve the deduction sequences, it keeps missing out thanks to its creaky storytelling and pervasive blandness that felt like we were being force-fed dry toast.Â
The Rumble Fish 2 is a competent fighting game that is enjoyable in the single player or local Vs modes, yet crippled by a very poor netcode that makes online matches a bit of a lucky dip.
The shooting mechanic, general combat and the look of Heidelberg 1693 are all pretty good, ensuring that it is somewhat enjoyable. However, the lack of a dodge move and the weird jumping makes things a lot harder than they should be.
Live by the Sword: Tactics skirts too close to doing that bare minimum. It spends its resources in all the wrong places, focusing on game modes rather than developing the board pieces, abilities and game mechanics that would have made it sing.
My Fantastic Ranch is a sturdy, basic management sim that acts as a gateway to the genre. It also manages to satisfy a fantasy that a lot of younger players might have: to own and ride twenty-odd dragons and unicorns.Â
There’s no debate that Tonguç Bodur knows how to create a game, yet whilst Finding the Soul Orb has some good bones to it in terms of the linear narrative journey and artistic visuals, it isn't one of his best games.
