JumboJenkins

As a Scot, I was so excited to play this game, credit to The Chinese Room, they knew where to put their marketing. But I am shocked about how much people are loving a game which, for me, has nothing going for it apart from great voice acting, and nice atmosphere.[ PROS: 1. Unique setting. 2. Genuine and fantastic voice acting. 3. Authentic monsters, in as much as they still feel like the people they were before they turned into tentacle lasagna. CONS: 1. Truly a walking simulator -- the most interactivity you have in pressing the button that appears in front of you. 2. Weak moster AI which makes stealth areas remarkably not scary. Monsters will often be right in front of a massive hole they can easily grab you through and will just sit there because the video game said they can reach inside. 3. No character development. 4. A story in which largely nothing of note happens. Almost all of your objectives involve going to some room, to turn some valve, or hit some button, because someone told you to. Ironically it feels like a completely normal day working on an oil rig. 5. No lore. Yep, that's right, no audio logs, no documents to find out about the world you're in (apart from maybe 1 or 2 in the entire game). With such light player engagement, no lore, and menial tasks making up the majority of the gameplay, I found it impossible to care much about what was going on. Although even I will admit the presentation still makes some scenes hit their mark. As other people have shown, if you like walking sims, this might be for you. But for me? I'm pretty upset I spent £26 on a 5-hour game with no lore, no world-building, no character development, a mediocre story, and barely any gameplay.

Was extremely impressed with GRIME. Expected to play it for an hour or 2 and then forget about it. Ended up being one of my favourite surprises of the year. It's a Metroidvania with all the best parts of Dark Souls. The story and setting are surrealist and sombre, with great atmosphere. The game is challenging but did not once feel unfair. The bosses, in particular, are all fantastic -- they all provide a test of your skill, but not so much so veins are going to be popping out of your forehead from stress. The story is vague (like Dark Souls) but is not so obtuse that you won't even care what's going on. Importantly, unlike Dark Souls, the NPCs talk to you normally and not like their dialogue was written by an 18th-century poet who ends every sentence in crazed laughter -- which added a lot to the world for me. I will say, however, that the game isn't the greatest looking. Some animations can look pretty janky and you can see the seems in geometry in some places -- but I never had any crashes so I won't complain too much. It only took 9 hours to beat which was a really pleasant length but by the time I got to the end I had already pretty much explored every nook and cranny of the map, and there was so many upgrades left that I couldn't touch I felt like I was missing something. Overall -- a fantastic indie game that I hope gets more content/a sequel. The world is very interesting, the mechanics are endlessly satisfying, and I've started up a second playthrough to try a different build already! I wish the studio the greatest success with this game, they deserve it.

An excellent Ratchet game, easily one of the best in years. Old school fans, like myself, will take problem with the extreme kid-centric nature of the game's writing. Many characters go through personal troubles in a very teenage-angst kind of "oh gosh oh gee I just don't know if I can do it" kind of way" which can, very often, outstay its welcome. The humour of the originals won't be found in this but, the game is much more "quirky" than it is comedic. But the game exudes so much charm, endless detail and love for the franchise and the pastime of videogames itself that it can coast on that alone. Although I really do wish they would return to the dry wit of my childhood. The presentation is incredible, the gameplay is easily the best it's ever been and it made me excited for the genre of video games itself. It actually made me feel (a bit) like a kid game. Highly recommended.

Excellent gunplay and starts off strong with writing in the beginning chapters. But quickly falls off in both writing a level design quality after. The 'open-world' is a lot more a series of corridors that have optional areas that branch off and don't contain much of anything bar upgrades, no real interesting character or story moments to discover. Conflicting characters have very weak, unsatisfying resolutions, which is a shame since their setup is quite fantastic. The middle chapters are frankly just a little bit dull, especially since the story is pretty much a direct rehash of the original. Quality peaks once again at the end but it feels very much like wasted potential after what the game offers you in the opening hours. On PC it was very well optimised and ran great for me on an old GTX970. Multiplayer was rather dull but wasn't something that I tried more than once.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

An absolute mess of pacing, story-telling, writing, character-development and every other skill required to communicate an idea. Few worlds stand out as charming (Toy Story and Big Hero 6) and when the game forgets to talk to you about hearts/light/darkness/vague metaphor device 4 and just lets you run around and hit things then there is fun to be had. While the Pirates of the Caribbean is an unwanted revisit when it allows you to explore islands with Goofy and Donald I found myself wishing that was more of the game. Worlds are all visited and left in one sitting with no narrative reason apart from "Sora you are weak get stronger" (that's the plot btw). Sora controls very awkwardly, the first thing I noticed when playing the game was Sora can even run in a circle with stuttering and skiing all over the place. Gummi ship has been expanded into an ugly semi-open world map. There is a lack of content and most of your playtime will be filled with endless upon endless cutscenes. Most of which are boring. I skipped the second half of all of the Frozen cutscenes because it was just a retelling of the movie with no bearing on the rest of the game. When it's fun, it's quite fun. But when it's not, which it very often isn't - it's awful.