Tag: review
Farthest Frontier Early Access Review
Red Matter 2 Review
We’ve seen countless Cold War-inspired games but Red Matter 2 just might be my most memorable. Sure, there’s no Tim Curry with his barely restrained laughter at cheesy dialogue (a la Command & Conquer: Red Alert) and I’ll give you no awards for guessing who the fictional nations of Volgravia and the Atlantic Union are based on, yet Vertical Robot’s sequel to its 2018 VR puzzle adventure game offers something special. Red Matter 2’s thrilling interplanetary exploration hides an intriguing story that questions how far one nation would go for victory, and combines it with an emphasis on puzzle solving, object interaction, and environmental storytelling that could only work in VR.
Like most sequels to story-driven games, I’d recommend playing the original Red Matter before starting this one, but that isn’t essential – all of the required knowledge is explained in the introduction, which welcomes newcomers gracefully. Playing as Volgravian agent Sasha Riss once more, our journey begins straight after the last one ended, with an escape from an Atlantic Union prison base. The only other major character is a fellow Volgravian agent, Beta, who mostly provides exposition over voice comms. Individually, these two aren’t that memorable beyond some minor character development; it’s what the pair uncover that developers into an enjoyable mystery.
Discovering a distress signal from a friend previously presumed dead, Sasha’s investigation becomes intertwined with Volgravia’s research into red matter, a mysterious substance with destructive potential. It’s also caused endless supernatural incidents which Volgravia’s keen to keep hidden as we slowly uncover a wider conspiracy. While several reveals felt a touch predictable (including, unfortunately, the ending), I was never disappointed with where the story went.
It progresses naturally, without any unexpected surprises. Sasha’s mind being transferred to another body sets the tone immediately, making it less of a twist when supernatural elements come into play. This isn’t the longest adventure, taking six hours to beat, though Red Matter 2 benefits from that in that its gameplay never outstays its welcome.
If you’ve played the original you’ll find familiar design: like before, Sasha’s space suit comes with a pair of handheld devices that can swap between grips, flashlights, scanners and, eventually, a gun. The controls are intuitive, and the fact that the in-game devices perfectly reflect the Meta Quest 2 controller’s buttons does great things for a sense of immersion. Picking up items feels precise and realistic, meaning you can’t just lift a heavy box like it’s made of air – Sasha isn’t some cosmonaut Superman, after all – but you could drag them out of the way or place them onto a trolley.
I particularly enjoyed Red Matter 2’s more subtle applications for these devices, too; one moment had me cracking a vault’s four-digit code without any visible hints. Instead of putting the answer in front of my face, it increased controller vibrations upon selecting the correct number, which worked effectively. These devices factor into puzzle solving well, improving immersion and simultaneously complementing the environmental storytelling.
Travelling between several locations, Sasha only meets the odd robot and some holographic projections, with actual human NPCs mostly absent. Occasional chatter with Beta aside, this means Sasha’s reliant on your observation skills to piece together what happened. Most areas are littered with translatable notes, diagrams indicating how certain devices work, and well-hidden objects. Some of these puzzles would benefit from greater signposting though, because spending 20 minutes trying to find a power source isn’t ideal, and I got stuck a few times on tasks like this. I also believe Red Matter 2’s puzzles would benefit from a wider variety, because flipping circuits to restore power for the fifth time gets slightly dull. But most often it’s done smartly, and so whether it’s figuring out obscure clues for a safe combination or finding the correct frequency for a mining device, taking your time is key and rushing through accomplishes nothing.
Sasha’s also equipped with a jetpack which leads into some occasional platforming – I was fine with it but I could see how that may sound nauseating for some. Fear not, though: Vertical Robot’s been accommodating with comfort settings. Smooth movement remains the most immersive choice for me, but the jetpack can be set to teleportation instead, letting you point and click to blink over to where you’d like to be in an instant. Seated mode is another option, so you don’t need to stand for six hours, and it comes with such options as adjustable walking and turning speeds and optional blinders that’ll place a vignette around your screen. Finally, you can select your dominant hand for greater accessibility.
Truthfully, my only major gripe is with combat, which doesn’t rear its head until halfway through the story. Volgravia’s base contains two types of enemy drones: humanoids which can only be hurt by shooting specific, irritatingly small weak spots like the shoulders, and floating mechanical eyes that make up for a lack of armor with an annoying level of mobility that makes them difficult to hit. You’ll also find a few pesky turrets that’ll shoot Sasha on sight.
Using motion controls to handle a gun requires a steady aim to use them well. That’s fine with less intense segments like puzzle solving, but during Red Matter 2’s gunplay? Not so much. I’ve long believed VR is a great format for shooters, particularly with arcade shooters like Robo Recall and Zombieland: Headshot Fever, but in the best games out there enemies aren’t usually this frustrating to hit. Precise shooting and guesswork was often required for where they’d go next and unsurprisingly, getting in at close range risks death, leaving these segments feeling rather drawn out. Thankfully, combat isn’t frequent enough for this to majorly detract from Red Matter 2 as a whole – and mercifully, you can turn down the difficulty on the fly if it gives you too much trouble.
Exploration is where Red Matter 2 truly shines and that’s lifted considerably by its retro-futuristic art style, quietly nailing the tense atmosphere of these abandoned bases. Between crawling through dark vents and hallways breached by red matter, it can feel like you’re walking through a horror game – but rest assured, you won’t get jump-scared here. After testing both the PC and the Quest 2 versions, I was wowed by how realistic the graphics are on Quest 2. This is by far one of the best-looking games you can play without a PC tethered to the headset.
It’s not just these quiet moments in the base which left me impressed. While visiting one of Saturn’s moons you can head down an outdoor walkway, and seeing the stars above and the mighty gas giant below was wonderful. Seeing how small you are in the grand scheme of things really gave Sasha’s journey a sense of immersion only VR can capture, a feeling which remained just as impressive when visiting Neptune’s moon, Triton.
Midnight Fight Express review: the superb Game Pass brawler that taps into your inner John Wick
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Brawlers haven’t seen as much moving and shaking as other genres in recent years. They seem to be mostly stuck in a phase of trying to recreate and perfect what came before, and not so much push things forward.
Punching, kicking, and grappling are easy to enjoy in most of them – but few really feel like they came out in our modern era, and fewer yet want you to be the star of your action movie quite like Midnight Fight Express.
I’ve had my eye on Midnight Fight Express since before it even had an official title. Back in the beginning, solo developer Jacob Dzwinel would share brief GIFs of cool stunts and beat-downs, and everyone would lose their minds. I remained skeptical; many games look sharp in carefully-edited trailers, and anyone good enough at a game’s combat can produce gold.
Sidmouth Folk Festival 2022 Review
We Are OFK review: an emotional music biopic that’s a bit too Silicon Valley
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Luca Le Fae has had it. His work as a writer for Leviathan Games, one of the biggest game developers on the planet, may pay well, but it’s creatively unfulfilling. A fateful encounter with his old acquaintance, Jey Zhang, at a party may just provide Luca with the escape he has been looking for. Jey, a successful music producer, remembers Luca as an incredible songwriter and asks him if he has any samples he could send her. Suddenly the unthinkable, a single, an EP, perhaps even actual stardom, seems within Luca’s grasp, but life has a tendency to get in the way even when you’re ready to take the chance of a lifetime.
We Are OFK can be described as a 3D visual novel or a mildly interactive five-part TV series you just happened to buy on Steam. The first two episodes are available on launch day, with episodes three to five releasing weekly after the game’s initial release. Each one comes with its own opening, which really sells the feeling of catching a new episode of a miniseries each week. With each episode, you follow the story from a different band member’s point of view, from their initial decision to be band-adjacent to taking their first wobbly steps in promoting themselves as artists. Joining Luca on his journey are pianist Itsumi Saito, who works in social media management at Leviathan, and Luca’s housemate Flores, an audio-visual effects artist.
Tower of Fantasy review: Genshin Impact’s newest rival will be lucky to survive the winter
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Tower of Fantasy seemed to ignite in hype and popularity overnight, right? Sure, those invested in this particular brand of RPG may have been aware of its arrival for some time, but who could have expected it to capture so much attention — to become the topic of conversation in gaming spaces. Off the back of this hype, I jumped in eager to see what’s going on among thousands of other like-minded folks.
While initially great, the heat and hype radiating off Tower of Fantasy whittles away quickly. It’s a flashfire, catching your eye at first before smoldering to a quick and disappointing conclusion, burning up your time (and perhaps your wallet) in that fleeting moment.
But what is Tower of Fantasy? First off, it’s not a brand-new game by any means. Released in China some time ago, the action-RPG has now been released globally for both mobile platforms and PC. It falls into the category of ‘ever expanding and ludicrously profitable open world Gacha ARPG’, a genre currently dominated by Genshin Impact in the west and with more and more titles with shared DNA trickling over.
Thymesia Review
Rumbleverse Review
Thymesia Review – Hunter Homage
A lot of games have drawn inspiration from the works of From Software, with varying degrees of success. While many developers look to emulate that high degree of challenge that comes from the likes of Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro, they often miss the fact that it’s From’s thoughtful, tight gameplay and deliberate encounter design that makes these games fun, not just a punishing difficulty. Thymesia, a 3D action game that draws heavy influence from some specific From titles, manages to strike that balance successfully, creating a Souls-like that taps into the same rewarding moments provided by its biggest inspirations.
Thymesia draws most obviously from two of From Software’s games: the aggressive, horror-inspired Bloodborne, and the fast-paced, duel-focused Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. And to be sure, developer Overborder Studio owes a lot to its inspirations. Like Bloodborne, Thymesia is about a lone warrior wandering into a plague-stricken world where everyone infected has turned into a maddened, bloodthirsty killer. It has a similar atmosphere to Bloodborne and even its protagonist, Corvus, looks a bit like a Yarnham Hunter–more accurately, Hunter of Hunters Eileen the Crow.
Like most Souls games, Thymesia drops you into the middle of a weird situation without much explanation and leaves you to figure out what you’re facing as you explore its world and kill the people you find there. It all takes place in a kingdom called Hermes, which is apparently located in the canopy of an enormous tree. The world has been beset by a plague that infects people and animals, mutating them and turning them into monsters. Until now, Hermes managed to deal with the plague through the study and use of alchemy, but something has gone wrong, Hermes has succumbed, and nobody knows what to do.