Going in without any nostalgia was going to be interesting as I felt the Battlefront remasters were held up entirely by nostalgia, and so having had no previous experience with it, would Bounty Hunter hold up in 2024 or should it have been left in 2002?
The vibrant music, tasty pixel art visuals, and platform-based side-scrolling action presented in super-smooth 8-bit fashion all had me twirling my moustache in anticipation, but upon actually playing the game – it became clear that there were too many factors working against my enjoyment to really make this a keeper.
Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic begins with a story involving a witch and her evil animal cohorts teleporting away, with Roxy following in pursuit – leading to a series of pinball challenges wherein a balled-up Roxy will need to bounce around myriad tables to collect all of the available gems in order to proceed.
Bio, Inc is not that game, and nor is it a sequel. Neither is it made by Ndemic Creations, instead coming out of software house DryGin Studios. However, it is (to me, at least) a spiritual successor to Plague, Inc and shares a lot of its mechanics (and both have shared origins as mobile games), but with a few significant differences. It’s hard not to make comparisons between the two games, but I’ll do my best. Because I love you. Anyway, elephant done.
Life in medieval times was tough. The local lord or royal type wouldn’t think twice about forcing peasants to work for 28 hours a day in the fields, before sticking a spear in their hand and making them go and stab a peasant from a neighbouring village. All in the name of expanding the fiefdom and extending the empire of their glorious leader.
And Rising Lords lets you be that ‘benevolent’ ruler. This game has been loitering on PC for a few years, going through lengthy development stages before launching on consoles in its current form. A form honed and perfected to be a sleek mix of Risk-style battles and Civilisation-esque resource management, right? Right?
Wrong. Sadly.
Enter Arizona Sunshine 2. The first game released in 2016 across multiple VR platforms and, while an utterly boilerplate zombie shooter, at least delivered on its promise of letting you mow down hordes of the undead with a variety of high-powered weaponry.
We’re now eight years on and the sequel has finally arrived. So, what’s changed?
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I have never played any of the original series, although I have heard of them, and had an idea of what they were about - but I never went ahead and gave them a go, so with this release, it seemed a perfect chance to jump in and experience them in all their new Unreal Engine 5 glory.
I’m happy to say that the gameplay is the game’s biggest strength; it’s fun, brutal, and packs a punch. Matches are about building momentum and damaging your opponent, you use a combination of strikes and grapples - strikes are a combination of punches and kicks, which can be chained together for maximum effect; grapples can be done in a variety of positions and take many forms, they are easy to execute and have a nice variety. There is a nice fluidity to all of the combat giving a fast pace to matches.
Redemption Reapers opens with a very engaging cinematic, it’s very effective and does a good job setting up the narrative whilst sowing intrigue. It introduces us to our band of mercenaries, ‘The Ashen Hawk Brigade’ who have taken up the fight against The Mort - a destructive band of orc-like creatures who have swept through the land, decimating village after village.
It’s an interesting setup and I was definitely invested quickly, the problem came about three-quarters of the way through my time with Redemption Reapers, when I realised the opening had been the most impactful thing so far - and though I was enjoying my time in this world, it never managed to recapture that initial interest.
I don’t know because I’ve never watched it. I’ve seen it, but I haven’t watched it. The main reason for this is that I am a native of those lands, and after about 10 minutes of it, the accents grated on my nerves so much that I turned it off, never to watch it again.
You get flashes of both, but it doesn't come together in the way I would have hoped.
But, for professional reasons, I was obligated to play the game prior to release and was sent a code by WB Games in order to do so. So here’s what I thought after coming to this game with zero excitement and a powerfully icky feeling at loading it up for the first time.
….It’s fine
