Some interesting story developments can't save the first episode of Batman: The Enemy Within from being a tired, simplistic reuse of Telltale's usual techniques.
Tacoma's top-notch story and presentation are arranged into an inappropriate structure that will dull the experience, even for fans of exploration games.
For Honor's tactical, forceful swordplay is extremely well-executed, especially for a first attempt. It's just a shame it's attached to so many distractions, including a bewildering story mode.
There’s a dream sequence in Memoranda that involves number-eating cats attached to trees, and the fact that its outright surrealism makes it less abnormal than the rest of the game says a lot about the title as a whole. Its story and atmosphere can be enjoyed with a specific mindset, but its gameplay can only be tolerated at best, so while this game has a potential audience, its hold on them will always be tenuous.
Needless to say, Killing Floor 2 is everything that a lot of us have spent years trying to convince parents and politicians that all video games are not: a gleeful orgy of pointless violence. Of course, gleeful orgies of pointless violence have a definite place in any gamer’s catalogue, so if you never tried the first Killing Floor and always wondered why it’s been so ubiquitous on Steam for several years, you could do a lot worse than this sequel. Whether established fans should make the switch depends mostly on whether you think a largely technical upgrade is worth another $30.
The platformer is probably the only genre in which the entire experience can change depending on what terrain the player character is walking on. Case in point: Metrico, a puzzle-platformer that purports to take place inside a series of graphs and charts. Originally released for the Vita, it caught the ire of reviewers for its insistent and unnecessary use of the handheld’s various input methods. Metrico+, now on Steam and PS4, swaps out those features, creating a more straightforward but still fairly original title. Unfortunately, it also reveals a secret that the discussion about its controls previously hid: Metrico’s core gameplay wasn’t great to begin with.
