#Xbox Series X|S Reviews

[brutalgamer]

WWE 2K24: 40 Years of Wrestlemania Edition (Xbox Series X|S) Review

The premier wrestling series returns to consoles and PC with a game that adds plenty, but doesn’t shake up its winning formula too much.

[tooaverageofagamer]

REVIEW: Inscryption – Daniel Mullins Games

Release Date: 19th October 2021 Available On: PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S Genre: Indie Game, Card Battler, Rogue-Like, Card Game, Story Rich, Puzzle, Horror

Review Length: Short (~600 words)

Review Spoilers: Minor

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Gameplay

Inscryption is an Indie horror, rouge-like, card-battling game. If you want to draw similarities with card-battle games, think of Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokémon cards, but a more simplified version that still requires some strategies. But with all the ways you could possibly play, you’d be sure to find your own cheesed style. Personally, I am not the best at strategy-based games or card games, the hardest card-battle game I’ve played was Club Penguins Card-Jitsu back in the day, but I found Inscrytion to be fun and immersive, even if a little frustrating at the start.

The game is played in ‘Acts’. Act One would possibly bring the most frustration to an average gamer or someone who just isn’t familiar with strategy card games, and as I am both; I was frustrated at the beginning. But, once you’ve ‘failed’ a few times in the first Act and find yourself falling into the game challenge more and more, it can become fun, and you can start to pay attention to the details that the game you and the game will slowly become easier as you gain insight into the fights and bosses presented to you.

The game is filled with puzzles, most are not necessary to the game, but it may help you have better cards to play with or unlock more of the lore of the game.

Once you’ve completed the game for the first time, you unlock challenges that can make gameplay more difficult, if that’s your masochistic jazz.

Story

As to not give away too many details as this is a story-dependent game that should be unspoiled for the average gamer.

At the start, you’re unsure of who you are and just assume you’re playing a blank-slated husk character that represents yourself, which is later proven different. You’re placed in a darkness-encased environment with a strange character that introduces you to their card game in an almost Dungeons & Dragons Games Master manner. The attitude this darkness-encased character has is kept throughout this Act. Once you’re allowed to explore your environment a little, you’re allowed to really intake your enclosure and partake in the puzzles it presents you.

The story is well put together, enraptures, and lets the player piece the story themselves without it being spoon-fed to them. As the game continues into its further Acts, you feel an “Oh woah what” sensation as you start to piece the story together with the snippets you gain access to.

You can unlock more background lore details to the story of the game in the later Acts, but it isn’t necessary to fulfill your average gameplay experience but might be fun to unlock in further playthroughs or if you want to have in-game downtime to explore.

I love both major and minor characters that are introduced to you as you play. They all keep the story heavy-duty glued together nicely. The characters all mesh and conflict with each other well. It’s a joy to watch their interactions with each other and the player, especially once the twists and turns start.

Art Style/Music

Inscryption is beautifully put together. The art style throughout the game changes dramatically, but it does not cause any conflicts to the player's gameplay experience as the Acts progress. I personally LOVE most of the art styles that present themselves in this game.

The music in Inscryption is beautiful to listen to and even have their own little easter eggs if you listen to them closely enough. Act 1, I believe, has the best themes for it environment and bosses, but Act 2 also have great themes also. Some of the tunes might be a bit jarring to listen to at the beginning with their sharp tones and rumbling bases. But once you really get into the vibes and understanding of characters in the game, they’re amazing to engross yourself into the world of inscryption and uncover its story.

[minor spoilers from tune theme names below]

My top songs from the Inscryption OST would be:

1. The Trapper

2. The Scrybe of Magicks

3. The Four Scrybes

4. Deathcard Cabin

The whole of the Inscryption OST is available on Spotify.

Final Comments

I honestly enjoyed Inscryption, especially once I really started to understand and get into the gameplay and story. The story and art styles are the real cream of this crop and really bring the story together.

I highly recommend this game to an average gamer or if you want to try out a card-battling/rogue-like game for the first time.

Cheers,

The Average Gamer ---------------------------------

If you want to chat or get Spoiler-esque game insights, feel free to PM me!

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Brok the Investigator

Adventure games and arcade games have tried since almost their very origin to mix together, with varying levels of success. On the low end, you have the assortment of adventure games that would throw in a badly programmed minigame to mix things up and more than likely add a little extra playtime. When done somewhat well, you have the Quest for Glory series and its emphasis on real-time RPG combat. If you want to go more obscure, there’s always Beam Software’s Nightshade and its ill-advised fight scenes. On another tangent, if there’s any two genres that’ve made a miraculous comeback as of late, it would be point and click adventure games and the beat-em-up. Return to Monkey Island and Beyond A Steel Sky proved that people would return to the genre just as much as games like River City Girls and Streets of Rage 4 did. Putting these two thoughts together, one might wonder what would happen if somebody put together the seemingly completely disparate combination of an adventure game and a beat-em-up. It sounds like a hard sell put on paper like that, but Brok the Investigator is here to try it, regardless. And it works, for the most part, aside from a few flaws in various areas.

Read more...

[thegamecollection]

STARFIELD - REVIEW ROUNDUP!

We have blast off! Or at least, those big name reviewers lucky enough to receive a code ahead of the official launch have!

So, where does Starfield land on the Bethesda scoreboard of hits and misses? Let's see...

GamesRadar - 5/5

"Starfield isn't really a game you play to complete, it's more about living whatever sort of life you want in the literal universe Bethesda has created. Whatever you're thinking of doing, you almost certainly can do it, and the scale is almost a release in a way – you'll probably never see or do it all, so just enjoy the moment. There's months, if not years, of discoveries buried away in here, and even after 80 hours I can't wait to see more."

Read the full review here.

GameInformer - 8.5/10

"It took me a long time to fall in love with Starfield, and even after I did, certain aspects didn’t work for me. But the things I didn’t enjoy are vastly outweighed by my enthusiasm for this new, original science fiction universe, the breadth of its adventures, and the appeal of its many interwoven stories. Go in with the expectation that it will take some time to find your footing in such a vast gameplay space, and there’s a universe well worth discovering here."

Read the full review here.

Gamespot - 7/10

"Starfield has its moments, for sure. Its satisfying gunplay makes combat exciting, especially when it's integrated into setpieces within its better, more captivating questlines. And although limited in its conception of space exploration, there's a novelty in poking around the galaxy to see star systems up close and personal, and occasionally finding side content worth chasing. However, it struggles to deliver a cohesive and memorable RPG experience amid the seemingly boundless sea of stars."

Read the full review here.

VideoGamesChronicle (VGC) - 5/5

"Starfield is undoubtedly an experience that players will stick with for years to come. It’s content-rich in a way that’s rare in modern gaming, and exactly the experience that people who’ve been hoovering up different versions of Skyrim for years have wanted. It doesn’t truly reinvent the wheel with its mechanics, but almost everything it does, it does so well, that it’s a truly engrossing experience."

Read the full review here.

IGN - 7/10

"It’s never a great sign when someone recommends a game on the grounds that it gets good after more than a dozen hours, but that’s very much the kind of game Starfield is, and I do recommend it. There are a lot of forces working against it, and the combination of disjointed space travel, nonexistent maps, aggravating inventory management, and a slow rollout of essential abilities very nearly did it in. It was the joys piloting a custom spaceship into and out of all sorts of morally ambiguous situations in a rich sci-fi universe that eventually pulled it out of a nosedive."

Read the full review here.

GAMINGbible - 10/10

"Starfield is without a doubt a monumental release - and not just because it's Bethesda’s first new IP in 25 years. Every now and then, a new game comes along that changes our perception of what the industry is capable of. Starfield is that game. This is beyond what we’ve come to know an open-world to be. Bethesda has created a universe that, despite its vast scale, maintains interest and an impressive attention to detail throughout. The journey you embark on will dazzle you, and I have no doubt that players will be gripped for months, perhaps even years to come."

Read the full review here.

Well, much like the universe, these scores are a mixed bag of fragments that are deemed rare, beautiful and striking to some... Yet turbulent and rocky to others!

Make up your own mind when the game launches on 6th September and pre-order here at The Game Collection!

Godspeed...

-Jack

[shinigami-striker]

A Bandicoot Bash | Thursday, 06.21.2023

Here's a video game review of what Game Informer has to say about Crash Team Rumble:

"Crash Team Rumble could be viewed as the natural progression of difficulty in the Crash Bandicoot franchise. It takes an entirely different type of preparation and offers a different reward, though. Crash Team Rumble's take on multiplayer platforming madness is unique, with enough depth to keep you on your toes after hours of gameplay. Those searching for a fresh take on the long-running series should give it a try." - 8/10 (reviewed the PS5 version)

[alicemichelle297]

Sonic Frontiers (2022) review

I really, really didn't want to get my hopes up for this one. Arguably, Sonic hasn't had a good game since 2011's Sonic Generations. On top of that, releases for this series used to be practically yearly but they slowly dried up and there hasn't been a proper Sonic game since 2017's Sonic Forces (and that was a nightmare). So you can imagine the anticipation for Sonic Frontiers was excruciating.

As a life-long Sonic fan, I had to get this game on day one, but I waited to share my thoughts until I could digest my experience and come back to it for a second look, confirming the thoughts that stuck with me. I wanted to be fair as well as thorough, so this is a longer post from me than usual.

Story

The story of Sonic Frontiers is simple and that's not a bad thing. Sonic, Tails and Amy investigate a location called the Starfall Islands because the Chaos Emeralds were mysteriously drawn there. When they arrive, they're pulled into an artificial reality called Cyberspace and only Sonic is able to escape (because of his speed, I think).

Sonic has to find a way to rescue his friends, presumably by running through more Cyberspace areas and taking the digital corruption into his own body to free them. Along the way, he discovers that Knuckles came here and got trapped on his own, and so did Dr. Eggman!

He's confronted by Sage, an A.I. created by Eggman, who tells Sonic his efforts are wasted. Not only does she try to stop Sonic, but so does the ancient technology left on the Starfall Islands by an alien race called... well, the Ancients.

The premise is pretty thin, but it's also all it needed to be for an open-world concept like this. Just an excuse to go from point A to B and play more levels and collect more tokens.

This game's saving grace in the story department is that it was penned by Ian Flynn, head writer of Sonic comics from Archie's Sonic #160 to the end of that series, and then the first 30 issues of the IDW Publishing run. The man knows these characters better than anyone else on Earth. In fact, when they announced Flynn was writing it, Sonic Frontiers became a guaranteed purchase for me.

The downside is it seems Flynn was only given leave to write the dialogue. The overall premise and structure, what characters would appear, etc. was already dictated by SEGA. Given that that's all he had control over, Flynn does an exceptional job to make it work. Sonic and co. have never been so well characterized.

Flynn manages to pull connections to Sonic Forces and earlier games to sneak in small character arcs for our main cast. He directly tackles the fan backlash to Tails' nervous breakdown in Forces and makes it into a moment of self-doubt for Tails, who now feels unreliable. Sonic reminds Tails, and us, that he's been a hero to rely on before– like when he saved Station Square from a missile strike in Sonic Adventure. By the end of the game, Tails resolves to go on an adventure on his own and re-establish himself as an independent hero.

Knuckles' time as Commander of the Resistance is referenced in his actions leading a battalion of Kuco and in the fact that his character tokens are shaped like military medals. This is more subtle, but it works for me.

On top of it, he reflects on being the last echidna and how his determination to work alone leads him to struggles he can't handle on his own. Just through dialogue, Frontiers reinforces Knuckles' hard-headedness as well as his strength of friendship with Sonic, who would do anything to help him even though they're still considered rivals.

Granted, most of this characterization is actually in a short animation released as a "prologue" to the game, explaining how Knuckles got to the Starfall Islands on his own, but I'm choosing to include it in the game's review.

Probably most impressive is that Flynn was able to connect this arc for Knuckles to how he appeared in the Free Comic Book Day issue of the IDW Sonic comic, in which Knuckles resolved to explore Angel Island and find more of its secrets. Are we finally in an era where Sonic trans media properties will connect and carry story arcs between them? (I mean, probably not but a girl can dream).

Amy on the other hand gets both the most and least rehabilitation. Flynn has been working for years now to re-establish Amy as something other than "girl who is obsessed with Sonic." In the IDW comics, she's taken on a role more similar to Sally Acorn in the Archie Sonic comics: leader of the Resistance who makes the plans and executes them. Frontiers doesn't reference Amy's time as commander of the Resistance or her establishment of the Restoration after the Resistance is disbanded, instead focusing on her romantic nature. Rather than being obsessed with Sonic, she's clearly obsessed with the idea of romance. This is a small upgrade but it's something. I still think it reduces Amy to "my personality is girl" as Game Grump, Dan Avidan pointed out years ago.

New character Sage is an interesting case. She endears herself to the player pretty easily but I'm not sold on her role as Eggman's "daughter" through the little story we got between them. I find it funny that Evan Stanley (current writer of the IDW comics) also developed a surrogate daughter character for Eggman at the same time, apparently by complete accident. However it's hard for me to ignore that Belle is a much more interesting take on this idea than Sage is. I will grant that Sage's character design is cooler, though.

Sonic makes off-handed mention of other games' stories, including Station Square as mentioned earlier, Lost Hex, and a handful of other situations. He also makes a passing reference to Tangle from the IDW comics. This only highlights more that other elements of that story– which are presumably the events directly before this game and between Sonic Frontiers and Forces– aren't mentioned. No mention of the Restoration, Jewel, Whisper, the Metal Virus or any other comic elements. I wonder why Flynn was allowed to reference Tangle at all if the comic storylines weren't being canonized. Or for that matter one other non-canon character I won't spoil here.

Sonic Frontiers actually makes attempts at world-building, which hasn't really been done since Sonic Unleashed, 14 years ago. I won't spoil any of the specifics but the origins of the Chaos Emeralds, Chao and Chaos are all addressed in the course of Frontiers' story.

Something I didn't notice until really late in the game is that the main objective will take you to most of the story scenes with Amy, Tails, Knuckles and Sage, but there are additional scenes that can be found in the zones which are presumably optional, but some of the events of these optional scenes are referenced in the required scenes, so if you do them out of order it doesn't connect properly.

Gameplay

OK, that's great Alice, how's the game actually play? Overall: not too shabby.

Sonic Frontiers is broken up into two different gameplay styles: the open zone hub world areas (akin to Sonic Adventure's "adventure fields only much larger) and the linear cyberspace stages (similar to the levels of Sonic Forces, Colors, etc.).

Open Zones

The open zones are broken up into five different islands, which consist of 3 different biome themes: three forested/grassland islands (Kronos, Rhea and Ouranos Islands), a desert island (Ares Island), and a volcanic island (Chaos Island). Each open zone contains platforming challenges, puzzles, and portal gates that lead to the cyberspace stages, as well as vaults that hold the Chaos Emeralds.

The player has to collect a variety of tokens and keys: character tokens, which unlock stories for each of the side characters; and portal keys, which unlock the cyberspace levels. Through combat and other challenges, the player collects vault keys, which unlock the Chaos Emeralds.

It can be a little intimidating to see so many different collectibles, but rest assured everything you do in the game gives you some kind of key or token and, as long as you're running around doing something, you will get enough of each to complete the storyline objectives. I never had to grind for any of these collectibles to progress the story.

Surprisingly enough, the open zones do not use any kind of tower to unlock map progress. The map in Sonic Frontiers unlocks by completing the combat challenges and puzzles so, as long as you're running around and doing something, the map will fill in on its own. Some of the earliest gameplay footage released showed Sonic climbing a large tower, which was assumed to be a tower just like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, etc., which would need to be scaled in order to unlock portions of the map and other activities. Ironically, the one shown in that trailer is the only such tower on the island and it doesn't unlock anything. You can just climb it for fun.

Running around the open zones generally feels good.

Although, because the terrain is so varied, there are some handling issues. Sonic seems to be magnetically attached to the ground, so when terrain becomes uneven, he will "glitch" at odd angles to adhere to the ground. At speed, this can also cause the camera to twitch back and forth, or at worst cause Sonic to spontaneously launch into the air. This is kind of annoying, except boosting and launching yourself in this way can actually allow you to fly over large chunks of the environment and even cheat your way into areas that would take a lot of effort to run to as intended. I'd categorize this as "good for speed runners" but also "sloppy presentation" for the rest of us.

Also a weird addition to the game is the drop dash from Sonic Mania. Sonic doesn't have access to a regular spin dash in this game, however, so being able to initiate a spin dash in mid-air is a bit confusing.

The biggest issue I have with the open zones and honestly the game as a whole is that the Sonic level design elements are very poorly integrated into the environment, by which I mean they aren't integrated at all.

The zones themselves have a more photorealistic art style, but there's random grind rails, springs, and rings just floating in the environment looking the same way they have in Sonic games for the past 15 years. The rails aren't even attached to anything, they're just floating in the air. They could have at least put on some kind of "anti-gravity technology" on the bottom of the rails to explain why they're just hanging out there. But even better would be to attach them to the actual environments like they originally were (most of the time) in Sonic Adventure 2, the game that debuted rail grinding.

Overall, the open zones look a bit like someone dumped a bunch of Sonic game assets into Unreal Engine, which is not a good look for a game that retails at $60. Especially for as much as it reminds me of a fan game like "Sonic Omens."

Cyberspace

Cyberspace stages are more similar to Sonic Unleashed's "daytime stages" or what fans have taken to calling "the boost formula": a linear level in which you can boost (hold a button down to go fast) through most of the level.

Cyberspace in Sonic Frontiers alters the behavior of boosting in some key ways. For one thing, it's now on a stamina wheel a la The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (and that is the only comparison I will be making to that game) instead of limiting it to how many rings you pick up or random power-up capsules like in previous games.

The most noticeable change, however, is that Sonic is no longer shrouded in a blue aura while boosting; instead, a subtle "sonic boom" effect appears in the air when boosting starts. This removes some of the visual clutter from the gameplay but it unfortunately removes a visual cue that you're still doing it. Sometimes jumping or other actions cancel the boost out, even if you're still holding down the trigger. I lost count of how many times I thought I was boosting only to realize I was running at normal speed.

Boosting in mid-air causes Sonic to arc upward slightly, allowing you to bridge some gaps in mid-air. This used to be accomplished by using the Homing Attack in mid-air, which is more or less useless now. Even if you hold the trigger down to boost in mid-air, it won't allow you to continuously boost. Instead, the mid-air boost is more or less a short mid-air dash. And you can't continue to boost when you hit the ground from a mid-air boost, so you have to consciously release the trigger and then hold it down again to continue boosting.

A weird decision that caused me endless frustration was to actually alter the jump physics between open zone and cyberspace. There's just as much platforming in each environment– and the same type of platforming at that– but Sonic's handling during a jump is completely different between the two, which caused me to die hundreds of times just from misjudging my ability to move in the air.

A nice quality of life improvement I didn't know I needed is that Frontiers allows you to initiate a homing attack from the ground instead of jumping in the air and then homing in. This is accomplished by moving the homing attack to the X button (on Xbox) like it was in Sonic Unleashed, rather than pressing A twice as it was in every other Sonic game ever. On a practical level this was probably done to separate homing attack from the double jump, which returns from Sonic Forces.

Cyberspace suffers from not having enough level themes, just as the open zones suffer from reusing the theming of Kronos Island. There's dozens of levels, but there are only four level themes: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary and a new Eternal Highway design.

Eternal Highway at first glance is too similar to Speed Highway, in my opinion. It really stands out when one of the levels actually rips the level layout of Speed Highway Act 2 straight from Sonic Generations.

On that note, some of the levels are original layouts, but most are inspired or directly ripped from past games, albeit with a different level theme. Rooftop Run from Sonic Unleashed is ripped whole cloth but re-skinned to look like Sky Sanctuary. Sky Rail, Metal Harbor and Green Forest from Sonic Adventure 2 are ripped and re-skinned in the Green Hill Zone style. Chemical Plant Act 2 from Sonic Generations appears in zone 1-5, using the Chemical Plant theming so it's perfectly obvious, just as Green Hill Zone Act 2 from Generations is recreated in 1-4 with the same theme.

At first it's kind of charming, but on another level it feels lazy. This really makes it obvious that Sonic Team were rushed to deadline and simply didn't have the time to make new levels, relying on the big hits from their past instead. I'm not mad at it, I love Metal Harbor and Sky Rail and it's actually nice to play them with all the modern advancements in graphics, but it also makes me want to close the game out and boot up Sonic Adventure 2, which is also installed on my Xbox so it's 3 clicks away. I assume that's not what they want me to do.

Combat

I never thought I'd be talking about combat in a Sonic game. For the uninitiated, "combat" in Sonic's history has consisted of "jumping on an enemy" like Mario or "homing in on an enemy in mid-air" like a missile. With some notable exceptions like Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) or Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (2014), Sonic doesn't really do combat.

I think it was a wise decision to keep the combat very simple. There is a skill tree, which unlocks with skill points gained from just passively playing the game and fighting, but it remains a button-masher no matter how much you upgrade. There's even a skill unlock which allows you to auto-combo by mashing the same button so you don't even need to memorize the two-button combinations.

This game also adds in a parry mechanic but it's far from being skill-based. The game doesn't tell you this, but you can just hold the parry position indefinitely and whenever something hits you, it will trigger the parry. You don't need to be timing it out at all.

There are some other RPG elements like upgrading your stats: speed, ring capacity, defense and strength; but you absolutely don't need to. The difficulty curve never necessitates any stat upgrades, and thank God for that because upgrading is a chore. You have to seek out specific NPCs to upgrade each stat one level at a time. To go from level 1 to 99 will take you over an hour (and I'm not exaggerating, someone timed it). This is the very first thing that needs to get patched out.

Titans

Ok, here's the real star of the show: the titan boss fights.

Each island is defended by a titan: a giant robot a la Evangelion which can only be defeated by transforming into Super Sonic. This information is best communicated when Sonic first tries to face the titan Giganto, which promptly picks Sonic up in his giant hand and throws him through several ruins and into a mountain, leaving an impact crater like it's Dragon Ball Z.

When you collect six Chaos Emeralds on each island, the titan fight will become available. You scale the surface of the titan and claim the seventh Chaos Emerald, which is being held in a vault on the titan's head. Sonic transforms into Super Sonic and the music queues up.

Now the music of Sonic Frontiers, overall, is fine. Actually a lot of the cyberspace levels have great beats with this very funky electronic thing going on, but the titan fights crank that up to 11. The vocal sting of Giganto's theme, "Undefeatable," is a show-stopper.

This, combined with the visual scale of the titans, the fact that the entire island is your arena for this battle, and the visual spectacle of Super Sonic in this game, spells out the most hyped up boss fights of Sonic's 30 year career.

Super Sonic smolders with golden light and when you attack using the same moves you unlocked in the open zones, there are now golden light after-images of Super Sonic, his fists, and his feet/shoes. Think Bayonetta's combos with her partner demon's giant fists flying in for a hit.

You're immune to all damage while in the super state, however you can be knocked back which eats up your time. You gradually deplete your rings (about 1 per second) while in Sonic's super form, and when the rings run out you revert back to normal and automatically lose the fight, making titans more or less a timed fight.

Giganto makes the best impression, but Wyvern is also a visually stunning fight as it takes Sonic on a flight path around Ares Island, dodging mountains and ruins that reach into the sky, all while the titan shoots laser beams and missiles back at Sonic.

The third titan, Knight, is a bit too gimmicky for my tastes, as you have to parry a shield toss from the titan and then ride the shield in a ricocheting path to hit and stun Knight so you can continue fighting as normal.

The final titan, Supreme, is unfortunately just Giganto again except he has a Gundam-sized rifle to shoot at Sonic. On the bright side, it's the shortest of the titan fights so it doesn't overstay that cold welcome.

Presentation

Sonic Frontiers makes a great first impression because it's such a bold new direction for Sonic. Once the initial excitement wears off though, the seams start to show.

As mentioned before, the level design elements are not integrated into the environment and it makes the place look unpolished. On top of this issue, there's a lot of pop-in. You will constantly see grind rails pop in, in the distance. It's not exactly distracting but it is noticeable.

In my opinion, the rendering distance is too short for the scale of this game and what results is that navigating the islands by actually looking around for what to do next is impossible. You have to open your map and place a marker on where you want to go next to have any hope of getting there. You can't reliably look around to spot the next platforming challenge, for example, because the rails haven't loaded in yet and they won't until you're within a few meters of them.

There is occasional stuttering and frame rate drops, which for a game like this on modern hardware should not be happening, and that tells me this game was rushed to deadline before it could be fully optimized, which Sonic Team has not been shy about admitting. The visuals are far from cutting-edge, so there should be no issue running it at a good frame rate on an Xbox. I can't comment on the PC or PS5 versions but, from what I've seen elsewhere online, it runs about the same on other platforms. I assume this means the game targets the lowest common denominator: the Nintendo Switch.

The animations are better in this than they've been in previous titles, though still nowhere near the expressiveness of actual animations like Sonic Boom. Even so, this goes a long way towards making Sonic and co. look more like characters that live in a stylized world rather than people in mascot costumes which can't make expressions with their eyes and can't move their limbs around too much for fear of tripping and falling in the middle of Disney World.

Most of the combat animations have a good sense of power behind them, although if you look closely at them or in slow-motion you'll notice that Sonic isn't actually moving very much, it's mostly visual effects like wind and blue lights. It gets the job done.

One nitpick I have (or another one, I guess) is that Sonic acts like he's injured, hobbling over for most of the game as a result of being corrupted with cyberspace, but this doesn't get worse as the corruption progresses. It's the same pose no matter how much cyberspace we're talking about.

Art Style

The art style of this game is a mess. The islands look like they're attempting a photo-realistic, Unreal Engine vibe, but Sonic and friends still look like stylized video game characters.

As far as I can tell, these are the same character models used in Sonic Forces, which isn't actually a bad thing, but they've all been re-textured with a "fur texture" that looks more like felt. I gather this was inspired by the success of the Sonic movie by Paramount Studios and its use of a fur-textured C.G.I. Sonic in a live-action world.

Adding to the movie inspiration is a blue electric aura which surrounds Sonic when boosting at full-power. It's not a bad thing, but I personally prefer the games version of Sonic to use more of a wind elemental effect. I think it's better for movie Sonic to be "electric Sonic" and for games Sonic to be, I don't know, the "Knight of the Wind" (to drag in a reference to past games, kicking and screaming).

The islands' biomes are a mixed bag as well. I think the forest theme of Kronos Island is very appealing. That probably comes down to blue Sonic on green backgrounds doesn't clash and green is relaxing anyway because of color psychology.

Ares Island, on the other hand, I cannot stand. The sprawling sand dunes lose visual interest after about two minutes, and the obsidian terrain of the volcanic Chaos Island isn't much better.

The Verdict

Ok, you hung on this long. Is Sonic Frontiers good? Yes (for a Sonic game).

This game does a lot to address concerns fans have had for years, and it especially gets credit for trying to take the series in a new direction after over a decade of the same old, same old.

If we grade on the curve of comparing this only to past Sonic games, it's a knockout. If we look at it just as a video game that competes with every other game on the market, it's average.

I love Sonic probably more than any other media franchise, so I have major blinders on. They won me over just by paying lip service to the comics and sprinkling in a couple new ideas.

I will give credit for the responsiveness the game's director has shown online and I'm hopeful based on the promises already made of future updates and DLC. I think this will take the game from average to great, without having to grade on a curve.

This review was written based on the Xbox version played on a Xbox Series S. This was not a review copy.

Sonic Frontiers is available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series S|X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

[savingcontent]

Gotham Knights Review

For seven years, we’ve had a Batman and Arkham-shaped hole in our hearts. Now that we have Gotham Knights, that hole is not quite filled with something as meaningful or impactful as what the Arkham series offered. This is an open-world action RPG with an emphasis on loot and crafting, a departure from expectation. There’s a good game in here, but WB Montreal makes you work for it, and while you…

[wolfleblack]

Star Wars: Outlaws is better than you think, but still not great- Review

Based on the many reviews out there it would be easy to write Star Wars: Outlaws off entirely as a bad game, or at the very least, a wholly mediocre one that will likely be on sale for half-price in a month or two, based on Ubisoft’s usual business plan. The reviews don’t actually do the game justice though: sure, Star Wars: Outlaws does a lot of things wrong, but it also has some genuinely great…

[b3crew]

REVIEW | "Sam & Max: The Devil's Playground" | B3crew.com

Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse is the Freelance Police at their very best, rivaling Hit the Road both in its creativeness and sense of humor.

[gbhbl]

Game Review: Willy's Wonderland - The Game (Xbox Series X)

Had this been released the week of the film’s release, it would have at least made sense. A crappy attempt to cash in on brief popularity. Yet here we are, three years later, scratching our heads as to why this was made and why it was released in such a poor state.

Released in 2021, Willy’s Wonderland is an action-comedy horror film directed by Kevin Lewis from a screenplay written by G. O. Parsons. It stars Nicolas Cage (alongside Emily Tosta, Ric Reitz, David Sheftell and Beth Grant) as the Janitor of abandoned family entertainment centre that just so happens to be inhabited by eight murderous animatronic characters. If you’re thinking this sure sounds…

[tooaverageofagamer]

REVIEW: Cult of the Lamb - Massive Monster

Release Date: 11 August 2022 Available: PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Genre: Indie, 2D, rogue-like, dungeon crawler, management simulator. Review Length: Medium (~1.4K words) Review Spoilers: Mild

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Story

You begin your story in Cult of the Lamb as a little lamb (informally named 'Lambert' by the community), the last of their kind, by being executed by The Bishops of the 'old faith'. You avoid the end of your life because of an imprisoned, banished deity known as 'The One Who Waits' who promises to resurrect you if you make a deal, where it’s now your goal to free him from his imprisonment chains by The Bishops. 'The One Who Waits' gifts you a demonic crown to hold and bring forth your powers.

You partake in rouge crusades through different 'Lands of False Prophets', to defeat the four Bishops to free the disgraced to whom you owe your life.

In the name of 'The One Who Waits', you form a cult, gathering followers and proving that you can manage this cult by providing for your follower's needs. Practising rituals to favour your followers and your own gameplay technique, to further gain the power to roll and cut through The Bishops' lands with a steel woollen fist (hoof?).

While the game is mainly focused on its gameplay rather than its story, the plot is still enjoyable. It is a simple and straightforward story that still adds to the overall experience. As you fight deeper into the dungeon floors, you meet various unique characters. Interacting with them is always interesting, even though you might feel some are a bit similar to each other personality-wise.

Gameplay

Cult of the Lamb is a cutesy-looking, rogue-like indie game about forming and managing your own cult to gain 'devotion' from your followers to become more powerful to master your way through the main four levels available to you.

There are difficulty settings in this game, so I’ll be speaking for an “average” difficulty play-through; no zero-hit speed run attempts here!

Even with a recommendation from the game itself to play with a controller, I played with a keyboard and mouse so I’ll be speaking from that POV also.

To start off, I usually find dungeon crawler rogue likes difficult to manoeuvre, but I found Cult of the Lamb very accessible to an average gamer and even when I was frustrated at certain points, I always found myself inspired to continue on with the fight.

Weapons are provided to you in 6 main classes, Swords, Axes, Daggers, Gauntlets, and Hammers. It is total luck of the draw which weapon you are provided with at the start of a run, which some may find annoying if they believe they are more proficient in one weapon over the other, but I like to think that this way allows a player to get a feel for every class of weapon that could be thrown their way, not allowing them to feel stuck. Weapons can be swapped out during a run, depending on the randomly generated rooms and floors that the game hands you.

Curses are also provided to you at the beginning of the run and can be interchanged as the run goes on through shops and loot drops. Curses are spells that are used to cause extra damage to your enemies, poisons, pushbacks, projectiles, and more are available to unlock. There are a total of 25 curses that can be unlocked as you play.

Tarot cards are a game mechanic that makes you feel every run is different and makes you develop a strategy for every card you're dealt with. Tarot cards could provide you with extra health, damaging rolls, better loot, and much more. There are 43 tarot cards to unlock and become available as you continue your runs. You collect Tarot cards as you continue your run, from chests and from shops that are randomly generated on each floor.

Relics are introduced a little later in the game, they can be discovered in a shop or randomly from a loot chest. Relics can be recharged after use, but some relics are classed as 'fragile', indicating it's a single use.

Once you've completed a dungeon by defeating its boss, you can replace them as many times as you want, for as long as you want, as the dungeon then becomes infinite with many floors and many chances to gather valuable resources for your followers back at camp.

You have 3 save files available to you, allowing you to play many saves in different ways.

I personally found the controls a little hard to manage at the start, but thankfully at a certain point, you feel like you suddenly develop an almost muscle memory of your movements and tactics (and slightly sore fingers from long play sessions - I am weak, yes) as you flail through the dungeons. You feel like you developed multiple play styles in such a short time, that you feel like an almost above-average gamer!

If you feel overwhelmed by the mechanics I just listed, that you might feel like it would be too confusing for you to understand, do not worry - I felt the same for a little while! Once you've gotten through about 2-3 hours of gameplay, you start to feel more comfortable. Even if you don't in that rough timeframe, the game has no time limit. Take your time, and have downtime chilling with your followers!

In this downtime from your average dungeon crawling, manage your cult's stomping ground and meet interesting characters. Characters who provide you with quests to help you gain more stylish (100% polyester sadly /j) cloaks to advance your playstyle and let you sinfully gamble for a bit of extra gold. Build your campgrounds up in decorations, resource mines, burial grounds, and more with the devotion you gain from your follower's worship.

Talking about your followers, give them tasks to bear, sacrifice them, get them high, and maybe even marry your favourite! maybe marry your other 5 favourites too! Depending on the route you go with unlocking the rituals you can conduct, give your cult following the life they probably didn't want! Don't worry if they say they want to leave, just reteach them your ways in jail gentle reformation lessons!

For Twitch Streamer, Cult of the Lamb might be a good game to have your viewers feel a little bit involved in your content! Integrate your game with your Twitch account to allow you a few engaging features!

Here is a few highlights of this feature:

Viewers can use Channel Points to fill up your Twitch Totem Bar. When full you will receive a reward!

Viewers can vote to Help or Hinder events will happen automatically.

Allow viewers to enter a raffle to create your next follower. The winner can design the follower and it will display their Twitch name above the follower always.

3-Twitch exclusive follower forms become available!

Art Style/Music

The cute, cartoonish style of Cult of the Lamb is a joy to look at and experience, even with the game's slightly dark undertones, it never ruins the mood, I say it only enhances it. You might draw a few similarities with the style of Don't Starve Together by Klei Entertainment. In fact, the two developers have done crossovers in their respective games!

The coloured lighting and dark shadows shown in the game largely enhance the unknown or middle-of-nowhere feeling of your camp and the dungeons you traverse. The strong outlines of the artwork, from the bushes, the rocks, the poop, it doesn't cause any eye strain to the player.

The music in Cult of the Lamb is mystical sounding, which enhances the daunting moments, and the moments of stressful movements you have to perform. Some of the more psychedelic-sounding music might be a bit off-putting or unsettling to some players when you first hear it, but once you settle into the gameplay, the music almost drowns out over your constant internal attack planning.

My top songs from the Cult of the Lamb OST would be:

Start a Cult

Knucklebones

Silk Cradle

The Cult of the Lamb OST can be found on Spotify.

Final Comments

Cult of the Lamb can be both chill and stressful. Once you get comfortable with your multiple available playstyles, the stress almost melts off and becomes a type of determination to finish your story. I did feel the story was just over and done with suddenly once the final boss was defeated, but I wouldn't use that to discredit the other 99% of the game.

The replayability is fresh and each play-through feels new. It's a suitable game to start off with if you're not familiar with rogue-likes and want a bit of story attached to it.

Cheers,

The Average Gamer

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If you want to chat or get Spoiler-esque game insights, feel free to PM me!

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Syberia: The World Before

Well, we got a Syberia 4. However, it looks like this really will be the end of the series this time, not because of this entry being bad (it’s quite the opposite), but because of Sokal’s passing during its development. This is the last game he’s worked on, and everything the game does makes sure to wrap up every lingering thread and plot line (though if you wanted to see the detective character, you had to go get a subpar DLC for 3). All the while, it managed to explore a brand new mystery, deconstruct and examine Kate as a character, and give one of the biggest emotional gut punches you may ever experience in an adventure game.

Read more...

[jcmarchi]

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes And More Assemble On Xbox Game Pass This Month

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/eiyuden-chronicle-hundred-heroes-and-more-assemble-on-xbox-game-pass-this-month/

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes And More Assemble On Xbox Game Pass This Month

April’s second batch of new Xbox Game Pass titles has been revealed. The headliner is the long-awaited Suikoden-inspired Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes, which hits the library on launch day. Other anticipated indies include the Soulslike Another Crab’s Treasure and the hotly anticipated strategy city-builder Manor Lords, which enters Xbox Game Preview.

Check out what’s joining and leaving Xbox Game Pass as well as our reviews for applicable titles. You can also see the games that arrived during the first half of April here. 

What’s Coming 

Harold Halibut (Xbox Series X|S, PC, Cloud) – Today

Orcs Must Die! 3 (Console, PC) – April 17

EA Sports NHL 24 via EA Play (Console) – April 18

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (Console, PC, Cloud) – April 23

Another Crab’s Treasure (Cloud, Console, and PC) – April 25

Manor Lords (Game Preview) (PC) – April 26

Have a Nice Death (Console, PC, Cloud) – April 30

What’s Leaving on April 30

7 Days to Die (Console, PC, Cloud0

Besiege (Console, PC, Cloud)

EA Sports NHL 22 (Console) | Our Review

Loot River (Console, PC, Cloud) | Our Review

Pikuniku (Console, PC, Cloud)

Ravenlok (Console, PC, Cloud)

[androidaddictsx]

PowerA Moga XP-Ultra Controller Review and Testing

The Moga XP-Ultra is the first licensed wireless controller for Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One which also supports Android and Smart TVs.

The Moga XP-Ultra is the first licensed wireless controller for Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One which also supports Android and Smart TVs. With the included detachable full-sized grip and mobile gaming clip, select from up to four gamepad configurations for gaming at home and on-the-go. Buy the Moga XP-Ultra (affiliate links)Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/47kufHBAmazon US:…