John Walker
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Writing For
Rock Paper Shotgun
Eurogamer
KotakuLatest Reviews
Alwa's Awakening
The result is a really splendid example of the form, with enough original ideas of its own within the standard to make it interesting. It's a good, solid game, that's occasionally extremely tough, but always fair. The pixel art is lovely, and although the backgrounds are a little bland, animations...
Linelight
It's best played with the gamepad - for once because it's the ideal fit for the nature of the game. The analogue stick is a much more rewarding way to move your line around the paths than the keyboard, and mouse controls would have been a terrible idea. Still, it'd...
Lara Croft GO
Beyond those gripes, this is wonderful. Slick, beautiful, gently challenging and supremely well designed, it’s a stunning piece of work. Oh, and I need to make sure to remember to mention the music - ambient gorgeousness, which you can hear here. Sometimes I get annoyed with a puzzle, have to...
Tyranny
Muddled? I am. There’s so much going on here, but I never really feel like I’ve got a proper grip on it. It feels like a puddle the size of the Atlantic - this vast concept, but too gossamer to sink in deep. Huge stories, but minor roles in them....
Owlboy
What a treat. And a surprisingly deep one, with compelling moments you’ll want to talk about. It’s a pleasure to control, it has impeccable difficulty balancing to keep you moving forward while always feeling like you’re being skillful, and all in the prettiest of pretty pixel graphics. Triumphant.
Manual Samuel
So it's clumsy, no doubt, and not always in the ways it's supposed to be. But it's also good fun for the most part. And a completely unique idea. (Cue commenter who explains how the same idea was done on the Amiga in Russia only.) I didn't find the writing...
Lichtspeer
It's very funny, very sharp, and most importantly, a lot of frenzied fun. I wish there were more enemy types more quickly - it over-uses the same ones, and redresses them for later levels - but that's my only significant gripe. And you get to die an awful lot.
The Bunker
I’m not enormously impressed to see that the game is using quotes from previews as “reviews” on its Steam store page, because, well, that’s lying. £14 is a lot for two hours, and as I think I’ve perhaps covered above, it’s an abysmal game. The Welshest game I've ever played,...
Human: Fall Flat
Human: Fall Flat is unquestionably charming, and tremendous fun when it's not annoying me so much I want to find the developers and put staples in their toes. It's a logical next step for the Grow Home concept, and they beat Ubisoft to releasing it before Grow Home 2, so...
Song of the Deep
It's also really strange that this is a game by Insomniac. It seems to demonstrate none of the beautiful finesse found in the Ratchet & Clank games, nor the slick power of the Resistance series. In fact, it doesn't use their own in-house engine, but Unity. And they don't appear...
Nu Watson and Holmes look dangerously close to Downey Jr and Law, five years too late, and their new voices are bizarrely unenigmatic, if competently delivered. It’s not a reboot, nor a refresh, right down to the repeated locations and character models of the likes of Lestrade, but rather the...
SteamWorld Heist
I thoroughly recommend it, for those looking for something erring much more toward the more casual end of the strategy world, the only region of the genre with which I’m comfortable. It’s bright, breezy, light and fun, and perhaps, after all, that’s enough.