Category: Reviews

Given all the games I was covering in July, I had no time to look at the first DLC for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, which released on July 16th, 2024. Although I have to say it was partially Ubisoft’s fault, because just like the base game, their marketing efforts for this DLC were a bit lacking. In fact, I could not find a launch trailer for the DLC on the official Ubisoft channel in July. They only put out one trailer in June, during the Ubisoft Forward event, and that was it. I also didn’t see the DLC mentioned in my regular news sources, which may suggest that a lot of media outlets either didn’t receive review codes, or they were not really interested to cover it. Either way, it’s safe to say that this DLC didn’t get a lot of attention at launch. And I guess this lack of a marketing push was intentional.

That’s because the sky breaker is a pretty safe and standard DLC for a standard Ubisoft AAA game, which doesn’t really offer many surprises, and is happy to give you more of the core experience of the base game. And that’s the short version of the review. If you liked the core experience of Frontiers of Pandora, this DLC simply offers more of it. There’s no new enemies, no new game-changing mechanics or any surprising story twists to talk about here. It’s quite short, running between 2-3 hours for the main story and around 2-3 hours more of side content. For some people, that’s exactly what they’re looking for from a DLC. For others, it might be a bit of a disappointment that Ubisoft didn’t use this DLC to try something fresh and unique like they sometimes do with their Far Cry DLCs. To find out more, let’s get deeper into the review. Minor spoilers ahead.

This week, I was originally planning to do a 15-minute rant about subscription price hikes, but that felt boring even as I was writing the script. Then, I kept seeing a lot of praise online for this new title on xbox game pass called Kunitsu-Gami Spirit of the goddess. Developed by Capcom, it is an Action Strategy game, and it can even be called a tower defense game, except instead of a tower, you are defending a Maiden. That’s what the game’s description calls her by the way.

As usual, here’s a summary if you’re not going to watch the video: Path of the Goddess is a must-play if you’re the sort of gamer who wishes we ought to see new ideas in the market. Well, here’s one of the industry giants experimenting with a new-ish idea, with a heavy dosage of Japanese culture and some really well-designed, action-packed levels. It’s a visual feast, and the strategy part of the game is kept simple enough to appeal to a wider audience. The game definitely struggles to maintain the pace towards the end, and involves a lot of backtracking in order to progress efficiently, but overall it is a quite excellent title that is one of the more interesting releases in 2024 so far.

If you’re not going to watch the entire video, here’s the summary: Flintlock The Siege of Dawn is the perfect 7 out of 10 game to play on Xbox game pass. The story is forgettable, and exists only to lead you from one boss fight to the next. The gameplay loop is a bit of an interesting mix between melee and ranged combat which you may or may not like. Everything else about the game is really average, but since it is quite short, you might consider investing some time in this if you don’t have anything else to play at the moment. Now on to the full review.

This was originally going to be an early impressions video for Flintlock the siege of dawn, similar to videos I’ve done for The First Descendant and Zenless Zone Zero earlier this month. I only made early impressions videos for those two previous games because I wasn’t too interested to finish them. But halfway through my playthrough of Flintlock, I realised that I was actually interested to finish the game, and that’s what I did. It helped that the game is quite short, and I was able to finish it in a little over 7 hours. And these days, if I’m able to finish a game, I consider it to be at least a decent game. That’s what Flintlock is – a really decent game, which has a few moments of fun, but is wrapped in such a mediocre package that the 7 out of 10 scores that it is getting seem justified. Before we get into the details, here’s a warning that this review will include some spoilers from the game, and while I don’t show any footage from the later stages of the game, I do talk a little about the final boss, without going into too many details.

Brocula is a cosy life-sim title from Destroyer Doggo, a one-person studio. In this game, you play as a vampire called Brocula, who, after waking up from a centuries-deep slumber, must now quickly adapt to the money-driven society around him, in order to retain the rights to live in his castle, and also to repair said castle, which isn’t in such a great shape. Along the way, you have an army of bats to help you with various tasks, and you also run a cult, whose followers keep you alive by offering you their blood, because at the end of the day, you’re a vampire, and you need blood to survive.

I already put out a video on this game with my initial impressions, in which I said it was off to a good start. For this complete review, I spent a little over 30 hours playing on Xbox, and discovered almost everything that the game has to offer. There will be some spoilers in this video, and the only things I don’t show are some events that happen towards the end of the game.

Video games based on movies don’t exactly have the best reputation, but that doesn’t mean things can’t change. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora comes so close to providing a complete package that it really is the new standard for movie adaptions. While critics have been giving this game average reviews, I believe that the main problem is the source itself. Let’s find out more in this review.

Looking for a game to review from Netflix’s catalogue, I picked Raji: An Ancient Epic. Originally released in 2020, Raji has been one of the few games from India to have a multi-platform release, and has picked up praise for its traditional Indian setting and decent story. But how does it hold up as a mobile game, and why should you pick this game from Netflix’s catalogue? Let’s find out.

Mineko’s Night Market is the latest in a long line of life-sim games that are becoming quite popular as a genre these days. These are games that focus on the player spending time in a relaxing, non-threatening environment where there is little or no violence, and the gameplay loop is intentionally kept simple enough to play at the end of a long day without much thought. After the success of Stardew Valley in 2016, we have seen quite a few such games, but Mineko’s Night Market does add a few twists to the formula, some of which are quite welcome, and some which slow down the experience quite a bit.

Jusant is a breath of fresh air in the crowded gaming calendar of 2023, and I mean this literally, because the game asks you to climb a tower and get lots of fresh air along the way.

Coming from the creators of the critically acclaimed Life is Strange franchise – Don’t Not Entertainment – this short climbing adventure provides a relaxing journey that borrows heavily from the indie-game formula, but still manages to leave its own mark.

Over the years I have tried many times to get myself to play a Yakuza game from start to end, and have always failed, because I simply didn’t connect with the core gameplay loop of watching a long cutscene and then getting into a fight, with some mini-games sprinkled on the side. The series, now called Like a Dragon to match the original Japanese name, has only been growing, with multiple games coming out in a short span of time. With The Man Who Erased His Name promising a shorter story and launching day one on game pass, it felt like the perfect time to give this series a try again, and this time, I finally got a good understanding of this franchise’s formula, and even appreciated it a bit.