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A Plague Tale: Innocence is a stealth-adventure game that greatly succeeds in setting up an intriguing story and building an engrossing, oppressive atmosphere: it’s a game that excels in mood and tension. Unfortunately, it’s also one that is bogged down by an increasing amount of silliness and an underwhelming ending.
Our young protagonist, Amicia de Rune, is the daughter of a French lord and lives with her family in a wealthy state in the 14th century. She’s introduced to us as a hunter, going out with her father and her dog, Lion, to look for game. Eventually, they come across a bizarre sight: a destroyed area of the forest, where a dark hole seems to hide some vicious [...]
“Time marches on and sooner or later you realize it is marching across your face.”
Lake is a game about a specific time in some people’s lives, usually when they are in their thirties or forties and suddenly realize that everything has passed in the blink of an eye. It was just yesterday that they were going to school, worried about grades and homework, and now they’re adults with bills and responsibilities. Their childhood friends are now married and with kids, living in another town. They were so busy working, studying, producing, and meeting deadlines that when they finally stop to take a breath, they realize that more than a decade has gone by. It’s a game about nostalgia [...]
Chorus is a competent space combat shooter that offers fast-paced action and a fascinating if underdeveloped story. The lack of mission variety can hold the experience back, but the game’s space dogfights are usually exhilarating enough to make up for it.
The protagonist is Nara, a former ace pilot of the Circle, a religious group that is wreaking havoc in the galaxy, trying to make people submit to their doctrines by force and killing those who refuse. She is a deserter in hiding, working as a simple scavenger for a man named Sav in the reclusive settlement of the Enclave.
Nara chose a job that wouldn’t let her forget her past deeds: while scavenging, she often comes [...]
Battle Chasers: Nightwar, a turn-based RPG based on Joe Madureira’s fantasy comic, boasts a beautiful art style and a serviceable, if repetitive combat system. Unfortunately, its barebones story leaves much to be desired: Nightwar may look and play alright, but the narrative element that could have improved the experience is just not there.
The story follows a group of misfits, led by a girl named Gully, who wears a pair of magical gauntlets from her dead father, who was once a great hero. This puts a target on her back, but fortunately, she has some friends (the swordsman Garrison, the golem Calibretto, the rogue Red Monika, and the wizard Knolan) to protect her. These [...]
Don’t let the charming, cute look of Tunic fool you: this game is more akin to Dark Souls than to the remake of Link’s Awakening. Its welcoming aesthetic is a ruse, locking you into a harsh and cryptic world, where enemies are merciless and the way forward is often concealed. It’s a game about secrets hidden in plain sight, about discovering things that were always there in front of you all along – you just didn’t know how to spot them.
In Tunic you play as a nameless fox, who wears a green tunic and brandishes a sword and shield. The game wears its inspirations on its sleeve: its aesthetic and top-down perspective harkens back to Zelda while the way you save, heal and, most [...]
Based on a Russian novel of the same name, written by Dmitry Glukhovsky, Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter that focuses on atmosphere and worldbuilding. It provides a tense and memorable experience due to its striking setting and quirky details, but its bare-bones story, filled with paper-thin characters and a noble, but naïve anti-war message, ultimately rings hollow.
The world of Metro 2033 is its selling point. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic Russia, where people were driven underground by hordes of devilish monsters and demons. They live in the subway, with scarce resources, and are under constant attack from creatures and other desperate humans. While the [...]