Planet Coaster 2 is good. But then Planet Coaster was good, and this is really just an iteration of that. Frontier Developments has found its niche and is now focused on driving that nail home over and over again. With Planet Coaster 2 you get lots of new toys to play around with and… well, that’s it. Whether you feel…
First and foremost, Dragon Age: The Veilguard isn’t a Dragon Age game. It doesn’t look like one, it doesn’t play like one, and while there are cameos that superficially resemble the heroes of the original series, it doesn’t tell a story like one either. Unlike actual Dragon Age titles, it’s…
There has already been a remake of Romancing SaGa 2. We have…
Neva’s biggest problem is that it’s an incredibly unsubtle work of art.…
Soul Hackers 2 is a throwback to the glory days of Shin Megami Tensei. There was a point where Atlus’ premier property focused on ideas rather than sheer style, and some real classics came out of that approach. SMT 3: Nocturne and the Digital Devil Saga duo were my favourites…
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Releasing a “Soulslike” in the same year as Elden Ring is, I would argue, unwise. You’re never going to come off well in that comparison and it’s only going to result in your game being judged more harshly than it deserves to be. In that context, Thymesia really should have…
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For the entire prelaunch hype cycle behing Stray, if you mentioned “the cat game”, people knew exactly what game you were talking about. It seemed like the perfect mix of cute & cuddly, since it was about a furrball, and a contrasting cyberpunk dystopian aesthetic, complete with funky (and also…
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I’ve yet to lose a match in Matchpoint Tennis, and that’s the game’s one substantial flaw. Unfortunately, that one issue effectively ruins it. What’s the point of a sports game that is so lacking in difficulty that there’s no risk of a loss? The entire genre is meant to be…
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The biggest problem with Fobia – St. Dinfna Hotel is that it lacks an identity of its own. The developers are clearly fans and students of the horror genre, stretching all the way back to Resident Evil, and have done a passable job of building a warm homage to it.…
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Spellforce III is one of those games that, even a generation ago, would have been inconceivable as a console release. The game’s blend of RTS and RPG mechanics would have been deemed too complex for a controller to bother with, and the developers and publishers alike would have assumed that…
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Big Bad Wolf, the developer behind 2018’s The Council, was the right developer to tackle Vampire: The Masquerade. The execution of Swansong isn’t perfect, but the effort to recreate the pen-and-paper experience is spot-on, and so, the team at Big Bad Wolf have achieved something that’s increasingly rare in video…
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Leonard Menchiari (RIOT: Civil Unrest, The Eternal Castle), is quickly becoming one of my favourite independent game auteurs. His work – regardless of who he is working with – has a kind of intensity and focus that is almost overwhelming and that makes it hard to tear your attention away…
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Many years ago now (back in 2013), when DigitallyDownloaded.net was still just a startup website and really little more than a blog, I was fortunate to land an interview with the good people of Paradox Interactive. To this day I remember that interview, and a big part of the reason…
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Ikai is so close to being something special. The premise of the game is strong, it has the occasional moment of inspired horror design, and you can tell that the developers entered into this with some genuine intent and vision. Unfortunately, at other times it comes across as amateur and…
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