Games

Dear Esther’s story is told by enigmatic voice messages that eventually contradict themselves, causing disorientation and confusion. Its setting is eerie, enveloped by a dreamlike atmosphere that rejects common logic. It’s a fascinating game that only falters when it tries too hard to make us replay it. The gameplay in Dear Esther could not be simpler. Our character is stuck …

The Turing Test is a puzzle game that is often at odds with itself, packed with design decisions that work against the discussions present in its story. It’s a game that contradicts itself at every turn. You play as Ava Turing, an engineer on board a space station above Jupiter’s Europa, who one day is awakened from cryosleep by an …

Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories, the 3D remake of the GBA title Chain of Memories, is a strange, disjointed, complex beast. It continues the story of Sora directly from where the first game left off, but with even more bizarre characters and plotlines, while introducing a new combat system that is as cumbersome as it is unbalanced. The story starts …

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is Monster Hunter at its best. Containing an unpretentious but well-written story, and a lot of new bosses, equipment, and locations, the game’s only problem is that it has been built around too many luck-based systems. In Monster Hunter 4, the player controls an avatar completely devoid of personality, whose function is merely to represent them …

Rhythm Thief & The Emperor’s Treasure is a game that offers musical minigames punctuating an adventure about an art thief. Despite this interesting premise, however, the game suffers from a poor selection of minigames and a story with serious problems of structure and cohesion. The story revolves around Raphael, a young thief who, accompanied by his dog Fondue, wears a …

“It’s not my first lost city,” protagonist Nathan Drake says to his brother at a certain point in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, which is symptomatic, as this is a gorgeous but ultimately safe sequel that offers familiar set pieces, locales, and characters: it tries very hard to marvel the player with its visuals and spectacle but, just like Nathan …

Narrative-wise, God of War: Ascension is as redundant a prequel as the PSP games, bringing a story that adds absolutely no new layer to its protagonist’s struggles. It follows the series’ formula closely, maintaining a sense of scope and epicness by providing exciting and grandiose set pieces, but ultimately falls short on purpose: Kratos will do incredible things once again, …

Fire Emblem Engage is one of the most bizarre, funny, and challenging entries in the franchise. It marks a stark change in tone from the previous game – the ambitious and brilliant Three Houses – and makes up for its weird narrative shortcomings with great map design and new mechanics. Alear – we can choose their gender and rename them …

The first Titanfall felt like a prototype: a great prototype, but a prototype nonetheless. It had a bizarre campaign carelessly thrown inside multiplayer battles and, despite building a solid gameplay foundation, presented nothing that came close to using it to its full potential. It was a barebones game that was bound to become outdated as soon as its sequel launched. …

Observer is a first-person cyberpunk game with a horror twist that quickly loses its appeal: the main horror scenes build an unbearable atmosphere but drag on for too long, repeating the same tricks over and over again. The game’s protagonist is a Polish police detective called Daniel Lazarski – played by Blade Runner’s Rutger Hauer – who, after receiving a mysterious …