himynameistim

The stories actually quite good and the two timeline aspect works well, but the LGBT stuff really gets in the way with how overblown it is. Despite having nothing to do with the main story every side bit of info on a person eventually comes back to their sexuality and it’s often the first bit of info you find out about. There’s a dash of mental health thrown in but by the final chapters even those characters revert to a relationship story. I’m all for representation in games and other media, welcome it in fact but this isn’t the way to do it.

Following in from Resident Evil 2 I found the third instalment to have overall better graphics and cut scenes, however the story was a bit of a let down. A lot of the game is spent running away from the same creature which gets tiresome. Puzzles felt easier (maybe that’s because they’re essentially the same format) and overall the game is quite short at about 8.5 hours.

Out of Xbox’s short low gameplay narrative experiences (Hellblade, South of Midnight) this was my least favourite, but it’s worth a play. For the first half I didn’t really get the point of it. The world looks amazing and the lighthouse is cute, but I couldn’t work out who the game was for. However around 2 hours in something happens and the whole thing gets far more interesting and builds to a satisfying ending.

I played Returnal for quite a long time and all it left me thinking was how games need difficulty modes. What I played was great, but if your going to make someone spend 1-2 hours to reach the boss, you need them to defeat it within 5 attempts and you certainly need at least the 3rd to feel like they were getting somewhere. This wasn’t my experience, I could have spent another 10 hours trying it, but by that point I’d had enough replaying everything before it.

Compared to the first game this is better in every aspect. The story is engaging, the Christmas setting is wonderful and being spider man never gets old. It gets called a smaller game but realistically this is the length games should and would be if they were edited well.

Swinging through New York is most certainly the high point of this game. Being spider man is a lot of fun and the city is scattered with recognisable locations from the MCU. Sadly the story and side missions are overly long proving more doesn’t mean better. The actual story is also fairly poor. The twists can be spotted within 5 minutes of the start of the game so you really just waiting for them to happen rather than any surprise moments.

It has to be said the first game was average gameplay with an amazing Story which is why it translated so well to TV. Part 2 is an ok game, but it’s really just riding on the emotions from the first day and the best bits are the flashback scenes where return to the characters how you want them. Narratively I get what they’re trying to show, and they show it well. It’s just not the story I want and without the first game I don’t think it’s a story anyone would be interested in.

I wish there was an easier mode for this game. It’s a great game and whenever I’ve lost (which is a lot) I’ve felt like it was fair. The problem is im not at the end of act 1 and it’s already going past the point fun defeats into everything taking hours to get past and I know it’s only going to get worse until I reach the point I can progress no further.

This is a good game but a couple of things stand out to me that let it down. First dodging is so much more important than the turn based bits it sort of raises the question of why both having them. Second and most importantly the difficulty is all over the place. Some levels are so easy to the point that you can just shoot people and then never get a turn. But you then face a boss that’s so hard that there’s no skill level that makes sense. Having a skill tree and an open world also makes no sense. The result is your never at the right level, you either die instantly but when you come back later it’s easier than story mode. The storytelling however is excellent.

To call this game turn based is slightly disingenuous. First and foremost it’s a game about reaction time to dodge. Secondly it’s got a nice story. Thirdly it is set against a turn based backdrop, but it’s important to know your decisions do not matter. Dodging matters. If you don’t dodge, you die. Simple as that. Doesn’t matter if you have shields, heal each other etc. if you don’t dodge on anything but story mode, you die. If you do dodge though, you win. Dodging means no damage so you win. Your decisions will affect how long you take to beat the opponent but ultimately it’s all down to the dodge.

The first thing to be aware of is this is an interactive story with gaming elements to make it feel more alive. But rather than the typical find stuff and dialogue trees narrative games typically have, there’s fighting, chase sequences and a few others. The more I played the more I got into the story, the more variety I saw in gameplay and the higher my rating went. The game is also stunning to look at taking facial animation to the next level, but that’s completely overshadowed by the sound. The use of stereo headphones is superb, but even if you took the voices surrounding her away, even the background music for each scene is a work of art. Lastly, I didn’t find the game short. At around 14 hours I felt it was the right length.

After playing Bloons on iPhone and loving it I decided to pay the extra and get it on Switch as the one thing that could improve it is a bigger screen. Imagine my surprise when a port of a touch screen game doesn't have touch screen controls!!! Instead there is the most awkward controls I have ever used that completely remove all enjoyment from the game. At £12.99 for 3 minutes play it's essentially the most expensive game I've played.