Developed by Quantic Dream, Beyond: Two Souls is simply a mess: its narrative doesn’t work, thanks to a disconnected structure and shallow, boring characters, and its gameplay even less, offering a tiny, inconsequential level of control over the events.

The protagonist, Jodie Holmes, played by Elliot Page, has spent her entire life in the company of a spiritual entity named Aiden. Harassed by her father and shunned by society, Jodie ends up growing up in a laboratory, studied by the kind scientists Nathan Dawkins (Willem Dafoe) and Cole Freeman (Kadeem Hardison). However, when the CIA demands her help, Jodie realizes that she is only being used by the government and runs [...]

Developed by Tequila Works, Rime is an adventure game that offers a fantastical setting dominated by a melancholic atmosphere, which gives allegorical undertones to the journey of its young protagonist. The game’s level design, however, is problematic in the way it discourages exploration with an abundance of points of no return.

The story begins with a shipwreck, when a young boy wakes up on the shores of a mysterious island. Towering above him is a gigantic tower with the symbol of a lock carved into its top. The boy proceeds to find a way to reach it, being occasionally accompanied by a fox and followed by a shadowy figure in clad red.

The game’s [...]

Assassin’s Creed Rogue is Black Flag with a new coat of paint. Offering the same systems and overall structure, it shares the exact same problems that plagued its predecessor: it’s shallow, bloated, and repetitive. Its story follows suit, showing some promise at the beginning, but quickly falling into the same pitfalls, packed with one-dimensional characters while having little to say about anything.

The story follows the Assassin Shay, who – as the title suggests – betrays his brotherhood and allies himself with the Templars. Changing sides, however, doesn’t change Shay’s mission, only his motivation: he still must search for Precursor sites, finding alien artifacts, [...]

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance is far from being one of the best entries in the series. It has some good ideas, making exploration a more engaging part of the experience, but its narrative is too sparse and unfulfilling, having nothing new to say about its themes while refusing to advance the overarching story until the last moment. In that sense, Dream Drop Distance is much more akin to Re: Coded than something meaningful like 358/2 Days.

The plot exudes that yawning-inducing stench of a filler. Sora and Riku are summoned before Yen Sid and told they have to pass a test to be granted the title of Keyblade Masters. This “Mark of Mastery” exam is supposed to prepare them [...]

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order wears its inspirations on its sleeve. It takes some bits of level design directly from Bloodborne, tries to emulate Uncharted’s set-pieces, mixing them with a Metroidvania structure while copying Metroid Prime’s 3D Map, and finishes the project with a Star Wars coat of paint. Fallen Order, however, fails to build a cohesive whole, not quite matching the quality of any of the games that inspired it.

The protagonist is young padawan Cal Kestis, who survived order 66 and is trying to lay low working as a scrapper, salvaging ships, until the day he is forced to break his cover to save a friend’s life in an accident. The Empire is right onto him, [...]

Astrologaster is an excellent comedy set in the Elizabethan era. It’s full of wit and whimsy: its characters are always introduced with a song, its themes are carefully developed and subverted, its twists are made to be silly and humorous. Boasting some great writing by Katherine Neil, the game more than makes up for its simple visual design.

The protagonist is doctor Simon Forman, a man who doesn’t let boring details like not having a medical license stop him from practicing medicine and calling himself a doctor. Simon uses astrology to help people, seeing in the sky the solution to their various plights. His growing success, however, starts to bother the College of [...]