Tag: Review

  • Editorial: Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition is another awkward console port that I’m still glad exists

    Editorial: Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition is another awkward console port that I’m still glad exists

    Like the Beamdog “enhanced” ports before it, Aspyr’s Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition feels aimed at one of two audiences. The first are nostalgic gamers looking to relive their cherished memories, albeit at the potential cost of ruining them. The second group are likely younger gamers curious about the evolution of CRPGs, from the Infinity Engine classics – with their great writing, gorgeous 2D backdrops, and sprite work – into fully 3D worlds with more voice work, detailed character models, and flashy combat animations that felt increasingly at odds with dice-roll outcomes.

    Tellingly, Neverwinter Nights 2 was the only CRPG in the current enhanced roster that I never finished at launch (and that’s including Aspyr’s Switch-exclusive “remasters” of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2), and it took me a while to gather my thoughts. Regardless of my opinion, I want to start by praising the preservation value of these enhanced ports – especially on modern consoles, where backward-compatible libraries are becoming as important a feature as on PC. JRPGs emerged on the early consoles and have been extensively ported, remastered, or remade, whereas western-developed CRPGs only gained widespread popularity on consoles during the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 generation, after the release of real-time, action-oriented titles like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Mass Effect.

    Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Console Controls

    An obvious issue was that CRPGs were designed exclusively for PC at first, with many featuring real-time-with-pause combat built around mouse and keyboard inputs. Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition offers updated controls and a tweaked UI, a claustrophobic over-the-shoulder camera toggle, and solid performance on all consoles (including the Nintendo Switch 1), but these changes can only achieve so much. It remains awkward to play with a gamepad, and that adds a layer of frustration atop a game with no shortage of frustrating elements. That said, the native gamepad support offers greater accessibility and handheld potential for PC players.

    As for the game itself, Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition is a slow-burn RPG – even when compared to its sluggish 2002 predecessor that offered an official campaign and expansions that could feel like custom modules built on a budget with limited assets, rather than an epic, hand-crafted campaigns (though, to be fair, the Infinity Engine games also padded out their worlds with repeating outdoor tile-sets and copy-paste interiors, but I found the unique locations and set-pieces more memorable than in the later 3D games).

    Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Console Story Decisions

    For the 2006 sequel, Obsidian used the Electron Toolset – an evolution of the Aurora Toolset – to create a more diverse RPG, but still one clearly built from an asset library. It reintroduced a world map; ditched the formulaic hub-with-four-adjacent-regions design; restored full party management mechanics; and massively improved companion interactions with the player, NPCs, and each other. Unfortunately, at least where the main quests are concerned, the role-playing complexity and player freedom feels limited compared to the Infinity Engine titles. I appreciated the frequent cuts to what the villains are up to in the background, but the overarching quest is linear, significant choices feel artificially binary, and it retreads many familiar themes between a handful of memorable twists.

    Throughout the lengthy prologue and your formative hours in and around the titular city of Neverwinter, you’ll tick off a checklist of CRPG tropes. You’re the adopted child of a former-adventurer father who won’t talk about a past battle and the fate of your mother; the opening village fare has you and your tutorial companions participate in tests of melee, ranged, and magical skill before tragedy inevitably strikes; the opening hours before reaching the city of Neverwinter are a microcosm of mid- to late-game scenarios; and every conflict you can resolve without violence – through a mix of logical replies or attribute-checks – represents a potential ally against an overarching threat later.

    Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Console Companions

    There are a dozen companions – some you can romance – that cover an eclectic mix of archetypes. They have their own questlines and character growth that the player can influence – all of which pays off during the final battle. Examples include an angsty rogue looking for guidance; a brawling dwarf with a curious moral code and desire to become a monk; an aloof Elven druid who finds herself dependent on others in civilised lands she’d rather avoid; an overconfident, trash-talking sorceress that trouble follows; and an unhinged Gnomish bard with a fondness for lengthy conversations. Unlike the first Neverwinter Nights, they all play a more active role outside of their personal quests. They can calm or antagonise NPCs and will often debate with the player or among themselves when you’re trying to resolve a quest.

    That constant party interaction and frequent dialogue choices are highlights as the gameplay is, at least well into the second act, poorly paced and unbalanced. The frequency of levelling drops off quickly and too much time is spent simply running back and forth between quest givers. You’ll need to stop to loot, purchase, compare, and equip gear to stay ahead of the escalating and uneven difficulty curve, and it’s essential for players using a gamepad to frequently update the hot-bar, set up AI behaviours, and memorise the best buff and de-buff spells for auto-casting. Without a “story mode” difficulty, sudden spikes – such as early battles against mobs of backstabbing rogues – can kill pacing when most quests involve combat.

    Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Console Inventory

    If modern turn-based or action-RPGs are about incremental progress – the thrill of watching numbers go up – Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition is a reminder that most early CRPGs were about exceeding thresholds. Your attributes and gear modify dice rolls that influence total damage output and defence, sure, but only if you exceed thresholds. If you’re not fielding a mixed party, constantly using skills and magic, and resting between every battle to recharge them, you’ll spend an inordinate amount of time watching your party do little as they fail to exceed an enemy’s armour class, spell or damage resistance, and saving throws. There’s no denying the D&D 3.5 ruleset provided a lot of flexibility for character builds and party synergies, but those here for the story, character, and interactions will find it ends up dominating the experience.

    Going back to this type of RPG in 2025 is jarring, even as someone who played them throughout the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Despite the semi-linear progression – with new areas and quests opening up as the plot demands – the difficulty curve feels erratic. You can go from steamrolling a mage before they get a spell off, to watching your entire party wiped by a single bandit in plate armour, which forces you to be incredibly cautious and save-scum by default. It’s far from ideal, but if you are just after a taste of the Neverwinter Nights 2 experience, jumping into the standalone Storm of Zehir and Mysteries of Westgate expansions might be the better choice.

    Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Console Difficulty Spikes

    Despite ending on a negative note – which feels weird having readily sunk another 30 hours into it before writing this up – I am glad it exists, if only to preserve another RPG from a time when player choice, frequent attribute checks, and variable quest outcomes were the focus; not production values and hours of self-indulgent cutscenes that run on so long they trigger my console’s power-saving screen-dimming feature. Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition reminded me that the original marked the end of an era for CRPGs, soon to be replaced by more hands-on, gamepad-friendly, action-RPGs that would go on to permeate every other genre.

    Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition was played on Xbox Series S|X using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One, PS4/5, and Nintendo Switch 1/2.

  • Review: Caput Mortum (PC)

    Review: Caput Mortum (PC)

    WildArts Games’ Caput Mortum – apparently a variation of Latin for “Dead Head” – feels as indebted to 2010’s Amnesia: The Dark Descent as it does to its stated inspiration, 1994’s King’s Field. It’s a stylish, indie, first-person dungeon-delve that takes you into the ruined depths of a tower, in 16th century France, once dedicated to alchemy most foul. It combines diverse puzzle and monster encounters with retro-inspired aesthetics (and a retro control scheme for those who want it) to craft a well-paced descent into madness.

    Caput Mortum keeps direct storytelling to a minimum, with scattered notes and environmental details revealing the nature of the alchemists’ work, their barbarous attempts at creating life, and the tragic repercussions. Aside from the protagonist’s willingness to push ever deeper into the tower, they remain a mystery. A simple witness to events until the final moments – albeit with an alternate ending on offer for those willing to play through it a second time and piece together a secret code.

    A minimalist approach works for a game that is maybe 3-4 hours long for a first playthrough. Discovering the fate of the alchemists, their creations, and the nature of the voice calling out to the protagonist kept me pushing forward and exploring every corner of the tower for notes and hints of past events. It helps that despite the late ‘90s-style early-3D environments, each level of the tower feels visually distinct and atmospheric, packed with incidental details, new threats, and tension inducing-audio. The ambient audio keeps you on edge, audio cues let you know when you’re close to being spotted, and the soundtrack features simple but unsettling loops that had me thinking of Monolith’s F.E.A.R.

    Caput Mortum Retro Visuals

    Gameplay is all about deliberate movement and manipulating a single hand that interacts with the world, carries around puzzle items or keys, and wields a small selection of weapons that double up as tools. The basic controls and gameplay systems are easy to grasp, while clear guidance – either in the form of actual notes or visual cues – meant I rarely felt lost while solving puzzles, defeating basic enemies, and avoiding those I could not.

    If you’re after an authentically frustrating retro experience, the default controls offer a keyboard-only setup or gamepad layout that forces you to adjust your viewpoint by using keys or bumpers and triggers. These archaic controls ramp up the tension as simply aligning your view to track an enemy or strike at a weak point is artificially difficult. It felt like a novel throwback for the opening levels of the tower, but I would recommend just picking the modern gamepad or keyboard-and-mouse setup as the combat – which is never more complex than baiting an attack animation before striking back – is the least interesting gameplay mechanic.

    Caput Mortum Combat

    Instead, exploration and puzzling, sometimes while avoiding unique threats, are the highlights of Caput Mortum. Every level below the tower presents you with a new puzzle blocking your path, often requiring multiple steps, and slowly increasing in complexity the deeper you go. Small levels with a simple two-part key hunt give way to clue hunts, pattern-based puzzles, and alchemical formulas needed to create compounds and explosives. An early encounter with a curious homunculus has you using the hand controls to match gestures to avoid attacks, while a later encounter has you navigating dark drainage tunnels by flaming torch, pursued by a charred and deranged stalker.

    Caput Mortum’s brisk pacing also benefits the gameplay loop. Each level introduces a new puzzle variant or threat, and no stalker-style sequence lasts long enough to frustrate you. There are some anachronistic elements that don’t hold up – like having to swap between a free hand and weapon, or anytime extensive hand gestures are required reveal clues and solve puzzles – but as puzzle and encounter designs are rarely repeated, these issues never stuck in my mind. It’s also worth noting that while game warns you that it only saves once you enter a new level of the tower, there were autosaves after solving major puzzles and before entering dangerous areas.

    Caput Mortum Environments

    Wrapping up, Caput Mortum is both exactly what it markets itself as, and it serves an example of what indie games excel at: providing a compact but no less satisfying experience that provide the same thrills as their AA or AAA peers – just without the bloated playtimes that have come to blight that sector of industry. I played through and enjoyed it over two sessions; I’ve started a second run to unlock the alternate ending; and, when I’m done, I’ll have that increasingly rare sensation of finality that so much of the video game industry seems desperate to avoid giving me.

    Pros:

    • A compelling decent into madness told through notes and environmental storytelling
    • Simple but satisfying puzzle and encounter designs that rarely repeat
    • Retro-inspired presentation that generates an unsettling atmosphere
    • The brisk runtime benefits both the narrative and gameplay loop

    Cons:

    • Some puzzles require more elaborate hand gestures that are tedious when using a controller

    Score: 9/10

    Caput Mortum was reviewed on PC using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher.

  • Review: Turbo Kid (Nintendo Switch)

    Review: Turbo Kid (Nintendo Switch)

    Once upon an apocalypse, in a 1997 wasteland, there was a kid, his friend, and a bad guy trying to control everything. With his BMX and Turbo Glove, the “Kid” had no choice but to take on the bad guy in a no-holds-barred, gory brawl. But, when the dust had settled and the damage was too great, the Kid rode away into the Wasteland sunset to explore what was left of the world.

    That, boiled down to its essence, is the synopsis of Turbo Kid, a low-budget SF/Superhero movie that, most likely, many have never heard of nor seen. That makes reviewing a videogame based upon said movie a rather amazing thing in of itself. Not only because it’s based on a movie that came out in 2015 and promptly disappeared into the cult market, but because movie tie-ins have a checkered past. The chances of a good adaptation are, as we’ve sadly come to accept, pretty thin on the ground if not backed by massive studios.

    Turbo Kid Story

    We throw around the expression “labour of love” around a lot when it comes to entertainment and this is one of those times where it shows throughout the experience. Developers Outermind Inc., have joined forces with the original movie team to create an experience that channels the essence of the movie, while expanding upon it in significant ways.

    The world feels bigger and more detailed, with a history behind it that shines through in what you’re told, along with the many visual clues showcasing this new version of post-apocalyptic 1997. There’s a new cast of odd characters, even weirder situations, and a more fleshed out take on the world revealed through impressive visual storytelling.

    The game doesn’t set out to recreate the movie in playable form, instead it continues where the movie left off with the Kid riding out into the Wasteland. He doesn’t get very far though before he’s ambushed and robbed of his weapons and bike. Thus begins a new journey to get his stuff back that eventually dovetails into a new threat for the struggling survivors of this world.

    Turbo Kid Character Selection

    The Kids journey is canon, though there are two playable characters you can choose from: the Kid or his friend Apple. Apple’s journey is a non-canon one and, even if you haven’t watched the movie, it’s not hard to guess why.

    There’s a lot of story on offer here, either to give context to what’s happening or merely to add some humour to the proceedings – usually through the sidequests which are fun to do because of how they play out versus the rewards. There’s a giant mutant rat looking for sweet, sweet turtle meat; a mysterious voice educated on bygone cult movies; and a sad tale of a robot looking for meaning, amongst others.

    Turbo Kid Platforming

    While the story alone is worth the price of admission, we’re lucky that it’s been paired with some truly addictive gameplay.

    Turbo Kid is as Metroidvania as it gets, following the common gameplay designs to a tee. There’s the expansive world to explore, replete with blocked off passageways and doors that can only be opened with new abilities; a variety of enemies that make exploration challenging; hidden pathways to find; and bosses to fight for the aforementioned abilities.

    While that is as traditional as it gets, Outermind have managed to implement whatever digital magic it is that makes a genre you’ve played a thousand before times feel just as exciting and fun as your very first go around. Turbo Kid managed to grab me right from the get go and never let go.

    Turbo Kid Environmental Hazards

    As expected, the Kid’s BMX plays a huge part in traversing the landscape once you’ve reacquired it. Thanks to the magic of technology, you can teleport it to you anytime, anywhere. Once you have it in your arsenal, it becomes even more apparent just how much like a BMX track the world has been designed to emulate. The labyrinthine layout makes great use of half-pipes and jumps to get you around and reach those hard-to-get to areas. You can pull off tricks on your bike and engage in races for various upgrades, such as spiked tires that help you scale walls and ceilings. And it plays just as much a part in the multiple-stage boss fights as your Turbo Glove does.

    While the bulk of your upgrades will be familiar – such as Air Dashes and charged shots – the game lets you customise passive abilities through a chip system which gives you extra abilities or enhances standard ones, such as letting your BMX’s spike wheel ability last longer. You can only equip three chips at a time though.

    One control aspect that took me a bit of time to come to grips with is needing to hold down a button to crouch. Holding down a shoulder button for precision aiming was fine, but having to hold one to crouch went against years of ingrained muscle memory of just pressing down on a D-pad or analog stick to crouch in a 2D game.

    Turbo Kid Silver Ghost Boss

    Visually Turbo Kid is a gorgeous pixel art game featuring wonderful animations for both the characters and background elements. As I’ve stated before, the visual design does a ton of heavy lifting in breathing life into the world while telling you it’s backstory.

    From the enemies that heft weighty spiked shields around to those ambiguous, drill-headed characters in the background drilling through garbage, Turbo Kid is gorgeous to look at. The art style reminded me of that classic 1991 2D adventure game Another World, though a more direct inspiration can be found in that other phenomenal 2D action platformer from 2021, Narita Boy. And it’s all rounded out with a pretty good soundtrack to boot.

    If I have any issues with Turbo Kid, it would be that boss fights, while inventive, can feel a little bullet spongy. It’s the one area in the game that did frustrate me occasionally, but on the whole, Turbo Kid is a case of the stars aligning to buck the trend of poor movie tie-in adaptations. It’s addictive, impressive, and a whole heap of fun that kept me hooked from the opening to the finale. Turbo Kid isn’t just amazing, it’s bloody brilliant and one of the best games I’ve played this year.

    Pros:

    • Fun and addictive gameplay
    • Fleshed-out world
    • Gorgeous visuals and animations
    • Labrynthine maps
    • Great soundtrack

    Cons:

    • You need to hold a shoulder button to crouch
    • Bosses can feel like bullet sponges

    Score: 9/10

    Turbo Kid was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC and Nintendo Switch 2.

  • Review: Dead of Darkness (Nintendo Switch)

    Review: Dead of Darkness (Nintendo Switch)

    Dead of Darkness is the kind of title that screams pure pulp horror. The kind of title you’d expect to see plastered on the cover of an ‘80’s direct-to-VHS horror. You know the kind, on the shelf in the dark corner of the store that you’d rent for the weekend, watch on repeat with your best mate, and then talk about for years even if wasn’t any good. Yeah, it’s that kind of pulpy, badass title.

    But instead of a movie, it’s strapped on to a 2D survival-horror title. The sort that we might call a love-letter to the greats of genres past. Dead of Darkness takes us back to that time when survival-horror ruled the roost and you couldn’t take two steps outside your front door without been accosted by any number of games trying to cash in on the genre’s success. The game is bathed in the tropes of old school survival-horror, from the story to the various gameplay mechanics. It’s like a mash-up between Resident Evil and Alone in The Dark, with a bit of cosmic folk horror thrown in for good measure.

    Dead of Darkness Cutscenes

    Like any good pulp horror story, Dead of Darkness provides us with a colourful cast of characters and a significantly ominous location. A damaged ex-cop turned drunken private eye? Check. A mysterious, isolated island chock-full of secrets? Check. A strange family that aren’t all that they seem to be? Check. Armies of monstrous abominations stalking the darkness? Double-check to infinity and beyond!

    Set in 1985, Dead of Darkness throws you into the shoes of a reluctant P.I. When a letter arrives asking him to come to Velvet Island for answers surrounding his daughter’s death, Miles Windham doesn’t hesitate to grab the next ferry out. But things on the island are about to go from bad to worse when a scream shatters the dead of night.

    Dead of Darkness Combat

    Instead of throwing us into a classic whodunit, Dead of Darkness propels us headfirst into a creature feature as monstrous forms roam the island and mansion hallways, tearing apart anyone foolish enough to get too close. The shambling horrors are only the beginning though and, as the night crawls on, nastier creatures come looking for a snack too. Does the island harbour the truth Miles needs? Will he even survive to find it?

    The only way you’re going to know that is to run through Velvet Islands death trap locations. And, thankfully, the games story is it’s single, strongest element pushing you forward. This twisty, turny tale is powered by some great voice acting as well, though be warned, like Still Wakes the Deep, there’s surprisingly adult language chucked your way at times. And while the usual Resident Evil-like ne’er-do-well corporation conspiracies do make an appearance, the bulk of the narrative – also fleshed out through plenty of letters – is a really good tale and well worth the time to explore.

    Dead of Darkness Boss Fights

    Gameplay is traditional survival-horror to the tee, just in a top-down, isometric 2D world. There are plenty of items to collect, locked doors needing specific keys, there are puzzles to solve, and not enough ammo to go round. Some of the best moments are built around puzzle solving, which lets you combine clues with items to do so. While there’s nothing in here that will cause the old brainpan to overheat, they’re nice filler to the rest of the gameplay, which is as traditional as can be – though not always for the best.

    Item management, along with an unhealthy amount of back-and-forth between locations, will be taking up most of your playtime as you struggle to manage what you need for a specific task versus what you need to keep yourself from keeling over. One nice addition to the map system is that any room you haven’t cleared or collected everything in, remains coloured red on your map, along with doors that need specific colour-coded keys. This way, you’re never lost as to where you still have to explore or complete an objective.

    Dead of Darkness Visuals

    The problem, of course, is that inventory space is limited to a measly eight slots. You can chuck items into the storage crate in every save room, which synchronises its contents across all crates, but it doesn’t stop you from having to run around picking up and dropping off items all of the time. Your weapon selection may be limited, but you’re going to have juggle that along with ammo and health pickups, which left me with only two open slots most of the time. And, because monsters can respawn or get swopped out for different ones in areas you’ve already cleared, you don’t want to be left short of ammo.

    Ammo is certainly in short supply. Not so much because there isn’t enough to pick up, but more because enemy damage seems to be randomised. When your regular flesh-eating zombie things can take between three to five pistol shots to go down, those seventy rounds of ammo you’ve picked up disappear pretty quickly. The shotgun, thankfully, packs a nice, meaty and disgusting punch, especially on the more common grunts that it turns into misty gibbets with ease. Weapons can be upgraded, but that random element means that I didn’t notice as much difference in stopping power as I would have liked. There are multiple difficulty settings to choose from but, honestly, I only noticed about a one bullet difference between normal and easy most of the time.

    Dead of Darkness Storytelling

    The amount of back and forth does damage the games pacing as well. During a second playthrough, after a consistent and unavoidable crash was patched, I found the pacing more enjoyable as I already knew where to go and what to do, thus cutting the tiring backtracking. This did wonders for improving the pacing. While I admire the developers desire to make a truly retro experience, certain elements were best left in the past.

    One of the other aspects I enjoyed, even if it meant sacrificing an item slot, was the sanity meter. Every successful monster attack doesn’t only damage your health but your sanity. There are items to help restore it, but the game does throw in some cool insanity effects when it starts to get low, like creepy voices and the game seeming to “crash”. Beware though, if your sanity drains completely, you can die.

    Dead of Darkness Shotgun

    Combat may divide players. As with classic games, you can’t move while shooting or reloading, so you have to use the environment to your advantage during combat and boss fights revolve around observing attack patterns. In general, combat just feels very basic. It’s effective but doesn’t get the blood pumping. And while there’s guts and gore galore, Dead of Darkness isn’t very scary at all, even with some insta-death sections that I could have done without. This may be a buzzkill for some, but the general overall enjoyment of the game goes a long way to making up for a lot of its flaws.

    Another potential issue for some will be the pixel art that, although nice to look at, is far less detailed than what we’ve come to expect from many indie games lately. It does a bit of disservice to the monster designs and animations but, like the combat, the visuals are serviceable.

    Overall, Retrofiction Games’ Dead of Darkness is an ambitious title in the 2D survival-horror genre. While the combat may be passable and the pacing could be better, it’s buoyed by a great story, good voice acting, and fun puzzles that mostly manage to capture the best parts of survival-horrors past.

    Pros:

    • Great story
    • Fun puzzles
    • Good voice acting

    Cons:

    • Pacing hampered by too much back and forth
    • Combat is just okay
    • Insta-death sections were painful

    Score: 7/10

    Dead of Darkness was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One/Series S|X, PS4/5, and Nintendo Switch 2.

  • Review: Heartworm (PC)

    Review: Heartworm (PC)

    If you critique Heartworm for what it is – a mostly one-dev passion project brought to fruition with the help of a niche indie publisher – it’s excellent with only a few forgivable flaws. It’s a compact homage to survival- and psychological-horror games of the PlayStation 1-era, notably Resident Evil and Silent Hill, with a story that ruminates on our fears and anxieties around the meaning of life and death.

    Despite a ranking system and achievements related to completion times, Heartworm has an intriguing but once-and-done story I won’t discuss in much detail. You play as Sam, a young woman with a debilitating fixation on mortality, who sets off for an abandoned house that urban legends say has a doorway to the afterlife. No one who enters the house has ever returned, but Sam – haunted by past traumas – thinks she has little to lose.

    With three major areas to explore and a casual playthrough lasting 4-5 hours, Heartworm moves at a brisk pace with mostly logical puzzles and only a handful of mandatory battles. The narrative is driven by stylish retro-inspired cutscenes, Sam’s frequent monologues, and no shortage of flavour text and notes that reveal her thoughts and those of others who have taken the journey before her.

    Heartworm Block Puzzles

    The surreal and sometimes nightmarish environments she explores are clearly manifestations of her own memories and fears, full of opportunities for Sam to comment on her life and experiences up to that point, but there are lingering threats that seem connected to earlier travellers. It makes for a setting that’s more unsettling than horrifying, so that Heartworm is more a journey of discovery like the original Silent Hill 2 and not some gruelling feat of survival.

    If you are a fan of classic or retro-inspired survival-horror, Heartworm will feel familiar and, at times, a little generic – most notably when it comes to the boss fights that feel more “gamey” than something essential to the narrative themes. Each area is sprawling and interconnected, with the way forward blocked by both conventional and bizarre locks that force you to hunt for actual keys, key-like objects, or clues to solve puzzles you might recognise from three decades of survival-horror games.

    Heartworm Inventory Management

    The opening abandoned house and a hub-like cathedral hanging above a void set the tone and test your basic puzzling abilities. A gloom-shrouded neighbourhood has Silent Hill vibes and introduces roaming enemies – teleporting static ghosts and a giant spider – that you put down using Sam’s camera. The woodlands section feels eerily serene, aside from the rabid dogs, deer, and terrifying statues. The final multi-level clocktower mansion leans heavily into Resident Evil – sometimes literally – with elaborate key hunts that, in turn, lead to Silent Hill-esque environments, such as an abandoned hospital, school, and subway, filled with leaping chained creatures and twitchy mannequins.

    The combat and boss fights in Heartworm rarely challenge you, as there is plentiful film for Sam’s camera, the ability to snap the camera behind her shoulder for easy third-person aiming, and no shortage of basic healing items that you can combine to form stronger medpacks. It’s all familiar fare and most enemies are easily avoided if you just keep moving. The combat is engaging enough but the focus is clearly on solving puzzles and hitting frequent story beats.

    Heartworm Third-Person Combat

    That said, Heartworm has the potential to frustrate if you’re not paying attention or when using the default pixelated and dithered visual style. If you’re a fan of semi-fixed camera angles and “authenticity”, Heartworm can provide that chunky, upscaled 240p look. If you disable the pixelation and dithering effects, you instead get a good approximation of what modern emulators can produce running early 3D games. Either choice looks great, and the visuals are complemented by unsettling ambient audio and haunting music loops that generate a ton of atmosphere. However, as much I loved the pixellated look, the extreme aliasing makes spotting pick-ups and environmental clues difficult.

    Another issue is that the size of many areas can make backtracking tedious if you’ve missed environmental clues that feature in later puzzles. This applies to a handful of optional puzzles to gain a camera upgrade and secret memory photos – at least one of which is required for the good ending that feels most consistent with Sam’s evolving attitude. There is a file system for documents and a modern map system that highlights both doorways and rooms with remaining items, but I’d recommend you treat Heartworm like a classic survival-horror game and take notes as you go.

    Heartworm Retro Visuals

    Looping back to my opening line, Heartworm gets so much right as a compact indie game that a few flaws did little to detract from what is otherwise an exceptionally well-made homage to both survival-horror and psychological-horror classics – just one with a more pertinent story that anyone could relate to. The good ending variations are perhaps a little too simplistic given the complexities of mental health issues, but Heartworm – much like Crow Country, My Happy Neighborhood, and Sorry We’re Closed – is another game in the genre that could broaden the audience by tempering the horror with more heart.

    Pros:

    • A compact homage to survival- and psychological-horror classics
    • A brisk and intriguing story that deals with anxieties and fears around the meaning of life and death
    • Plenty of excellent puzzles and competent survival-horror combat
    • A stunningly “authentic” retro-aesthetic

    Cons:

    • Backtracking can be tedious if you miss something
    • Optional secrets determine the ending scene
    • Sam’s evolving attitude and the positive endings might feel too simplistic given the content matter

    Score: 8/10

    Heartworm was reviewed on PC using a code provided by the publisher.

  • Review: Robocop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business (Xbox Series)

    Review: Robocop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business (Xbox Series)

    Robocop: Rogue City slowly grew on me even though it felt too inconsistent and unpolished towards the end. It was another RPG-shooter hybrid from Teyon that I’d add to a list of great “7/10” games – the type I’d sooner replay than many objectively better “AAA” blockbusters when weighing up fun vs. time investment required.

    Like Terminator: Resistance before it, Rogue City nailed the look, sound, and tone of the original Robocop film – even if the gameplay structure and storytelling was a generation behind. Fittingly, Unfinished Business feels like the chunky expansions you would see on PC or consoles during the 2000s. It offers a new story in a fresh setting, but it has clearly been built using the same template, it repurposes many assets, and it retreads a few set-pieces.

    Robocop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business Prologue

    Dead or dead, you’re coming with me!

    As a standalone expansion, you don’t need to play Rogue City, but it gives the opening sequence more impact and provides a shared trauma that links Murphy to the new antagonist – a relationship that’s fleshed out in the first exciting flashback mission. There’s an attempt to connect new characters to the original Robocop program that I don’t have a problem with, but Teyon has taken the lazy route of killing off most of the officers you got to know in Rogue City to avoid continuity issues with the films.

    I thought the opening would be used to generate a degree of sympathy for the antagonist and their motivation, but as they’re clearly responsible for attack on the station and go on to commit more atrocities against civilians, there are no grey areas that leave the player questioning Robocop’s trust in established law. The scientist working alongside him fares slightly better, but her redemption arc feels rushed.

    Robocop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business Flashback Mission

    Once again, Unfinished Business does an incredible job using the environment design, audio, and soundtrack to recreate Paul Verhoeven’s vision of the future, but the voice work is inconsistent (including some of Peter Weller’s lines), many NPCs look dated, and the lip-syncing is terrible throughout. It also feels like Teyon rushed the ending again, relying on increasingly short and badly edited cutscenes.

    There is world-building banter, environmental storytelling, and a handful of side missions that highlight how morally bankrupt and corrupt the OCP is, but the delivery feels disjointed as you shift between narrative-heavy sequences and the sensation of being locked into room after room full of enemies. There are a handful of recurring NPCs that they can die or offer slightly altered conversations based on your choices, but the lack of an evolving Detroit district or Metro West hub strips out one of the best elements of Rogue City. Despite a strong start, the story begins to feel like an afterthought that was hurriedly pieced together for the ending.

    Robocop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business Auto-9 Combat

    Putting the corridor back into corridor-shooter

    As with Rogue City, it was easy enough to forgive the storytelling flaws given how much enthusiasm Teyon shows for the IP, but how much you enjoy the gameplay loop will depend on how much you enjoyed the gunfights. If you tackle everything on offer, aim for a high rank in each mission, and play on harder difficulties, Unfinished Business is maybe 10 hours long – a little over half the length of the base game at half the price.

    That sounds fair, but 80% of the gameplay is a succession of shooting galleries, with the role-playing elements like investigations, dialogue choices, and character build often inconsequential. Even the walk, talk, and investigate sequences – which includes two dull flashbacks from the perspective of other characters – are paired back in complexity. They felt like padding that added little to the overall narrative that couldn’t have been covered in a brief cutscene.

    Robocop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business Drone Battles

    Part of the problem is that Unfinished Business is oppressively linear and, by virtue of the OmniTower setting, a literal corridor shooter with limited diversity and few memorable locations. You infrequently get the chance to pick one of two corridors; you can unlock a handful of shortcuts to briefly backtrack; and you encounter small hubs with simple sidequests that usually fall along the critical path. Even when you receive two or more objectives in different areas, you can’t progress until you’ve cleared them all, and the order in which you tackle them changes nothing.

    Robocop starts with the basic abilities of each skill tree unlocked this time, but character progression only affects the combat difficulty and never offers an alternate path or quest outcome. The same holds true for the dialogue choices and there are no ending variations. Now Rogue City’s narrative was never as divergent as it seemed, but you could shape Murphy’s personality. Unfinished Business feels too linear and too rigid in comparison.

    Robocop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business Grenade Launcher

    On the upside, the gunplay still feels immensely satisfying and treats Robocop like a walking tank. He shrugs off small calibre fire while picking out priority targets among common gangs and armoured mercenary forces, while he wades through waves of drones and Otomo androids proving part-man is better than all-machine.

    Aiming highlights enemies and hazards in a glorious, pixelated, retro-green; each pull of the trigger looks, sounds, and feels impactful; and there is plenty of exaggerated gore and meaty sound effects befitting the source material. Secondary weapons still feel redundant or too situational – including the new Cryo Cannon – when you have Robocop’s iconic Auto-9 Pistol that can be upgraded to annihilate almost everything. During the final hour, after a brief stint controlling an ED-209, I simply walked forward with my finger on the trigger, watching hundreds of enemies’ crumple or explode as the iconic theme played in the background.

    Robocop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business Headshots

    There will be trouble…

    Before wrapping up, there are two technical issues that need addressing. You might think linearity would make checkpointing a non-issue, but the autosave system is frustrating for the wrong reasons. The tiny and short-lived icon is easy to miss, and I often spent 10-15 minutes shooting through waves of enemies, rescuing an NPC, and completing objectives, only to exit and continue my game later and find myself back the beginning of the combat sequence. The other issue is that the Cryo Cannon – visually spectacular as it might be – tanks the framerate on even the premium consoles, to the point it affects input responsiveness.

    Those technical gripes aside, I ultimately enjoyed my time with Robocop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business despite flaws it shares with its predecessor. If more Robocop power-fantasy is what you’re after, Unfinished Business delivers with its satisfying gunplay and creative combat scenarios that spice up an otherwise repetitive gauntlet. On the other hand, if you enjoyed Rogue City’s downtime on the streets of Detroit or in the Metro West precinct, defining Murphy’s personality and relationships, Unfinished Business might struggle to hold your attention during long sessions spent plodding through corridors and shooting things.

    Pros:

    • The expansion once again captures the look, sound, and tone of Robocop’s dystopian future
    • The shooting is still immensely satisfying and lets you feel over-powered
    • The soundtrack is still incredible and elevates every scenario

    Cons:

    • The narrative quality and pacing are inconsistent
    • Non-combat gameplay mechanics have been paired back
    • Your dialogue choices and character build mean little

    Score: 7/10

    This review was originally published on Nexushub.

    Robocop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business was reviewed on PS5 using a code provided by the publisher. It is also available on PC and Xbox Series S|X.

  • Review: Ruffy and the Riverside (Nintendo Switch)

    Review: Ruffy and the Riverside (Nintendo Switch)

    Playing Ruffy and the Riverside has been like jumping back into the past. Like way, way back into the good old days of PS1, PS2, and, more specifically, N64 platforming.

    There’s an earworm of a soundtrack that embeds itself in your mind, an expansive world to jump and run through, tons of quirky characters to meet, gorgeous visuals bringing the world to virtual life and, the most important ingredient to stand out in a crowded market, superb gameplay innovation that turns a fun time into a must-play title.

    And that is exactly what Ruffy and the Riverside is: a must play platformer for all platformer fans who want the nostalgia of the past running on modern engines and hardware. But Ruffy and the Riverside is so much more than nostalgia-in-a-box, it’s a joyously addictive exercise in taking a simple concept and spinning it into a defining gameplay mechanic.

    Ruffy and the Riverside Switch Visuals

    Sure, the basic action-platforming rulebook is at play here, with melee attacks, a gliding system, and a butt smash to deal with certain enemies to go along with traditional platforming shenanigans. There are platforms to pounce around on, spiked traps to avoid, and puzzle areas to navigate. But what really shines a light on Ruffy’s already colourful world is the main gameplay trick: the “Swap”.

    Ruffy has the god-level ability to transform one object into another by swapping textures around – essentially changing its look and properties. This really simple concept elevates a good platformer into a great one, creating a myriad of charmingly inventive gameplay moments. These range from the more obvious uses of the mechanic to think-outside-the-box moments that are always a highlight.

    Ruffy and the Riverside 2D Puzzles

    Need to get to the top of a cliff but can’t find a path there? Just copy a vine texture and turn that waterfall in front of you into a giant vine to climb. Stone pillars blocking your path? Turn them to wood and punch ‘em down. Need to cross a body of water? Why not make use of that ice floe just to your left?

    These, of course, are the more obvious uses of Ruffy’s power designed to help you move across the world, but you’ll also solve simpler puzzles by changing the markings on rocks or turning a pillar into a magnet to break the chains holding a door closed. The world has been designed to make use of the Swap mechanic at just about every moment, with some changes more permanent than others and some more beneficial.

    Ruffy and the Riverside Texture Swap Puzzles

    But it’s really those think-outside-the-box moments that breath such fresh air into the genre with their more elaborate puzzle solutions, such as turning a stone pillar blocking your path into wood and the water spout just beneath it into fire to bring a fiery end to the obstacle, before turning that fire spout back into water and riding it up to your goal. The game is full of these kinds of puzzle sequences which, I must admit, occasionally had me scratching my head. But they were never too tough to figure out in time, and always left me with a “Damn, that’s cool” smile on my face.

    Of course, if you are struggling to figure them out, the NPCs are always willing to help you out for a few coins. Though I’d argue against it, because part of the charm of Ruffy and The Riverside is seeing just how much creativity you can get away with. There are obviously limitations to what the Swap mechanic can achieve as, if there weren’t, you’d probably be able to break the game in ways the developer hadn’t conceived. Still, it’s rather surprising at the level of leeway you’re given to play around with the world and its textures and properties.

    Ruffy and the Riverside Environments

    The world itself is rather large and perhaps a little too full of things to do and collect. Seasoned gamers who love that stuff will find plenty of collectibles to scour high and low for, while the rest of us can focus on every little platforming, puzzle, or racing sequence on offer.

    Visually, the game is gorgeous and really looks like a an N64 game presented at an ultra-high resolution. And I mean that in the best way possible. The world and its segmented areas are gorgeously colourful and exude personality. The art style, which goes back to that 90’s blocky aesthetic while using 2D sprites in a 3D world, is just stunningly realised, bringing to mind classics like Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie. It’s all backed up with some wonderful 2D animation for the games oddball characters and a soundtrack (and sound effects) that really stuck around long after I’d finished playing.

    If you haven’t figured it out already, I’m smitten by the games infectiously joyous charm.

    Ruffy and the Riverside Platforming

    That said, it’s not a perfect blast-from-the-past as the original Nintendo Switch occasionally struggles when there’s too much being rendered onscreen. There’s some frame rate jitters and a bit of a sluggish feeling in the controls during these sections. To keep the frame rate high, I imagine, distant vistas fade in an out depending on the camera angle your distance from those areas, giving a bit of a fog-of-war feeling to the proceedings, while making sure the zone you’re in gets rendered in full.

    Ruffy and the Riverside is easily one of the better, nostalgia-tinged platformers of late. It’s gorgeous visuals and enthusiastic characters are elevated by one of the more fun gaming mechanics in recent years that will have you spending hours swapping around textures and properties just to see what can be done. Performance issues on the original Switch aside, developer Zockrates Laboratories has developed an impressive and fantastic debut title that platforming fans should play.

    Pros:

    • Super fun texture swapping mechanic
    • Gorgeous N64-inspired visuals
    • Stunning 2D art and animations
    • Impressively large world full of things to do

    Cons:

    • Some performance issues on the Nintendo Switch

    Score: 9/10

    Ruffy and The Riverside was reviewed on a Nintendo Switch using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One/Series S|X, PS4/5, and Nintendo Switch 2.

  • Review: The System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster is a respectful update that had me yearning for a proper remake (Xbox Series)

    Review: The System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster is a respectful update that had me yearning for a proper remake (Xbox Series)

    Nightdive Studios’ System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster gives modern gamers, across all current- and last-gen hardware, a chance to play or replay one of the progenitors of the immersive-sim genre now running on their flexible KEX Engine. What you take away from the experience, however, might depend on your expectations going in and your interest in video game history.

    It is important to note up front that this 25th Anniversary Remaster still provides much the same gameplay and visual experience as 1999’s System Shock 2 Classic that’s still available on PC storefronts. There are subtle quality-of-life and visual enhancements you might assume were always there; accessibility is improved with competent gamepad support (for PC too); and the PC version retains modding support. Although it’s not how I would recommend experiencing System Shock 2 for the first time, the co-operative mode returns with cross-platform play. It’s a respectful remaster, though PC players with modding experience might find it unambitious.

    First-time players coming from the System Shock (2023) remake might struggle with the gameplay and visual regressions in this tale of yet another cybernetically-enhanced, amnesiac protagonist going up against a resurgent SHODAN and her former creations. Nevertheless, I would argue System Shock 2 stands alongside games like 1998’s Half-life as timeless, having established the foundations of a genre. The biggest issue is that unlike the games it inspired – think 2017’s Prey, 2012’s Dishonored, or even its spiritual successor, 2007’s Bioshock – the combat feels incredibly dated.

    System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Janky Combat
    Monkey meet (floaty and unsatisfying) wrench.

    There is mechanical complexity, with different weapon types, specialised ammunition, and Psi powers best suited to organic, robotic, or hybrid enemies, but the audiovisual feedback is minimal and unsatisfying. It’s more RPG than shooter, with tangible progress measured by how big a chunk of a health-bar each attack removes before triggering a canned death animation. Experienced players could exploit the limited AI and level geometry for easier kills, but new players will find survival a function of their player build, loadout, and resources, not their mobility and aim.

    Regardless of whether you’re swinging a melee weapon that clips through enemies, firing an energy weapon with muted sound effects, or casting a Psi power with underwhelming particle effects, a degree of auto-aim and visible enemy health-bars are needed to offset simple hitboxes, inconsistent hit reactions, and the lack of visceral impact. This weakness would be fatal for a dedicated FPS, but to System Shock 2’s credit, it becomes less significant when you consider the number of other systems and modifiers at play during any given encounter.

    System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Ammunition Types
    Shredding enemy health bars by using the correct ammunition type is mildly enjoyable, and so too are the new weapon models and reload animations.

    Starting at the beginning, a gamified class-creation tutorial guides you through the basics and introduces three military paths. The Navy career (my preferred choice) offers hacking, repair, and maintenance buffs – all handled through a simple mini-game – that make using conventional weapons, specialised ammunition, and hacked security systems optimal. For those wanting a more direct approach to combat, the Marine career boosts strength, endurance, and weapon skills, which make melee brawls and using heavy or exotic weapons with splash damage feasible – just don’t expect many opportunities to bypass threats.

    If you’re looking for a less conventional experience, the OSA career offers over 30 psionic powers across five tiers. There are mundane alternatives to resistances, weapon repairs, and healing, but you’ll also find creative and potentially game-breaking options like remote hacking, invisibility, organic mind-control, and teleportation. Even the simple direct damage powers offer a unique mechanic that allows you to overcharge them during casting – albeit with the risk of damaging yourself if your timing is off.

    System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Hacking Turrets
    They’re not as robust as I’d like, but hacked turrets are a great way to even the odds or keep corridors clear for backtracking.

    Regardless of your early choices, every career can invest cyber modules (typically granted as a reward for completing objectives) to boost primary attributes, weapon skills, tech skills, or psi powers. Depending on the chosen difficulty – which modifies health, psi-points, and the cost of upgrades – it makes sense to prioritise a few to stay ahead of the escalating difficulty curve, but multi-classing is viable if you thoroughly explore for additional cyber module stashes.

    You can tailor your build even further with four OS upgrades for powerful passives; energy-draining armour and implants; and there is no shortage of consumables to keep you alive during protracted fights or when navigating hazardous areas. There are also organic and robotic components to research for new weapons and damage buffs against enemy types – though a dedicated research skill and backtracking to chemical storerooms for research material still feels like poorly-implemented padding.

    System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Upgrades
    Although not mandatory, every class benefits from investing a few points in Strength to wear better armour, and Cyber Affinity and Hacking to temporarily disable security systems.

    Exploration is still a key element of gameplay, even if the level design and quest structure lack the degree of flexibility seen in modern immersive sims. The menu interface tracks overarching objectives and even the steps taken towards completing them, but clues on how to progress are still found in scattered audio-logs that are often easy to miss. Keycards, keypads, and environmental hazards gently guide the player, but even with a detailed map, System Shock 2 is a game in which you need to take note of text logs and environmental signposting to avoid frustration.

    That said, methodical exploration is how you come to appreciate what all good immersive sims excel at: rewarding or punishing player agency based on how cautious or reckless they are. The decks of TriOptimum’s Von Braun starship and the UNN Rickenbacker are not as large or maze-like as Citadel Station, but the first two-thirds of the game will take you through them more than once and it becomes difficult to avoid combat. You will often open new paths between the interconnected map segments, and there’s incentive to return with improved skills to access new gear or cyber module stashes.

    System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Recreation Deck Map
    For new players, there’s an early OS upgrade that provides the schematics for both vessels and makes it a lot easier to find locations mentioned in text or audio-logs.

    You slowly come to recognise which routes bypass patrolling enemies; which rooms near central elevators are best used for item storage; and which upgrade terminal, recharge station, surgical bed, or vending machine is the safest to return to when you need to restock. The narrative moves forward as you complete objectives, but the more you explore, the more audio-logs you find that expand on secondary story arcs. These delve into the discovery of the parasite known as The Many, the corruption of the Xerxes AI, the internal strife and downfall of the crew, and the return of SHODAN.

    As with the original System Shock and its remake, fear of the unknown gives way to empowering familiarity – but that is not to say System Shock 2 is forgiving of reckless play. Aside from robust melee weapons that serve as a last resort for late-game enemy variants, weapons degrade with use and ammunition, psi-hypos, and the nanite currency – used for hacking and vending machines – are effectively finite.

    System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Shodan Reveal
    Given her image is plastered all over the marketing materials, it should come as no surprise SHODAN makes her return, leaving the player caught between an untrustworthy genocidal AI and parasitic hive mind organism.

    A lack of resources coupled with a few dubious and unaltered quests never impedes progress, but it can kill the pacing. Looping around the recreation deck looking for codes hidden in artwork was as tedious as ever; consuming my last nanites to hack a vending machine that then forced me to buy a quest-essential item was infuriating; and hunting eggs in convoluted engine deck of The Rickenbacker was only marginally less tedious than the aforementioned artwork code hunt.

    As such, the System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster offers both anachronistic fun and frustration – to the point I was enjoying it but simultaneously thinking how much better a full-blown remake like System Shock (2023) would be. The visual enhancements, like improved textures, ambient occlusion, and more intricate weapon models make a significant difference when compared side by side, but it ultimately looks and plays like the early 3D FPS-RPG hybrid it is.

    System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster The Many Boss Fight
    If you disliked The Flood levels in any of the Halo games, you’re going to find the finale of System Shock 2 equally frustrating.

    As fan of the genre and the original, it feels like a smartly remastered and well-priced excuse to replay it, but I have doubts new fans of the IP coming from the System Shock (2023) remake will find it that playable. On the other hand, those with a gaming history going back a decade or two could treat it as a playable history lesson, showcasing the origins of many mechanics, scenarios, and storytelling methods you’ll have seen in later games.

    Pros:

    • A smart and respectful remaster that preserves System Shock 2’s timeless qualities and a few flaws
    • The updated textures, ambient lighting, and new weapon models don’t gel with the original designs
    • Competent gamepad controls and a multi-plat release improves accessibility
    • There’s only one cyberspace section at the end (which I guess some might consider a negative)

    Cons:

    • It ultimately looks and plays just like the late ‘90s early 3D FPS-RPG hybrid it is
    • Some laborious objectives remain unaltered and can drag down the pacing

    Score: 8/10

    System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster was reviewed on Xbox Series S|X using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One, PS4/5, and Nintendo Switch 1/2.

  • Review: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of The Zone Trilogy Enhanced Editions (Xbox Series)

    Review: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of The Zone Trilogy Enhanced Editions (Xbox Series)

    My experience with the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl, released way back in 2007, was a brief affair of unrealised possibility. An experience quickly neutered by the numerous bugs and awful performance. It was a game I always meant to get back to but never did. The game spawned two expansions in the following years; Clear Skies and Call of Prypiat and, in 2024, a Legends of The Zone Trilogy that bundled all three games arrived as a refined package for last-gen consoles – with backward-compatible performance modes for current-gen consoles.

    This release was a timely affair, coinciding with the long-awaited and highly-anticipated sequel, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. A little over a year later, the “enhanced” Legends of The Zone Trilogy has arrived as an alternative to the PC originals, and offers a few embelishments for modern consoles. The question is, does this update make it worth braving the radioactive and mutant-infested wilds of The Zone again?

    Before we get to that, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is, if you have never played it, an FPS survival-action hybrid that dips its toes into the scientific-horror genre. As the name implies, it’s set after the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown that, in this universe, has given birth to The Zone, a large expanse of land now haunted by radiation pockets, deadly anomalies, and all manner of nightmarish, mutated creatures. Into this inimical landscape have come the titular stalkers; soldiers, mercenaries, and all manner of folks for whom the draw of The Zone is too much to ignore.

    In the original, you play as an amnesiac stalker, on a journey to find and eliminate another stalker named Strelok, who once made it to the mythical centre of The Zone. What has he done to deserve this fate, and how does it tie into the ongoing expansion of The Zone? All these questions, and many more, may be answered in your journey.

    The prequel, Clear Skies, and direct sequel, Call of Prypiat, throw you into the boots of different stalkers, fleshing out events that led into Shadow of Chornobyl, and setting the scene for the sequel, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl.

    Despite new mechanics and quality-of-life improvements in the subsequent games, the one thing that remains consistent is the unforgiving, hardcore, role-playing experience. The life of an unprepared and reckless mercenary is short, and life in The Zone is shorter still.

    While most FPS at the time were content to continue as blistering fragathons, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games chose a more RPG-like and survival-focused approach. Supplies were in short, well, supply. Armour would deteriorate. Weapons would jam. Pockets of radiation and anomalies littered the landscape, so you had to keep an eye on your Geiger counter and detector while simply exploring.

    Gunfights against mutants and other stalkers were tense affairs that could result in a lot of autosave or quick-save reloads. Even if you found exoskeleton armour and a decent shotgun, you were no Duke Nukem, and running around in the open was certain death.

    Finally, there was the quest and reputation system to keep you pushing deeper into The Zone. All three games are full of primary quests and no shortage of secondary tasks to earn money and move the story along. All of which results in a lot of back and forth across the relatively large and dynamic world. Add in a quest failure system and NPC’s that could be killed, and you have a game that requires careful thought to how you approached its world and tasks.

    Now while I use the term “roleplaying”, it’s not in the traditional videogame sense. There are no skill trees to upgrade or new abilities to learn. Improved weapons and armour can be picked up or crafted in the later games. Instead, roleplaying is about how you approach the game, its many combat scenarios, and a few mission choices. It’s about immersing yourself in the experience and taking responsibility for acquiring gear and stockpiling sufficient ammunition and consumables before heading out.

    By today’s standards, what S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was attempting with its gameplay may seem commonplace but, at the time, it felt groundbreaking and its influence can be seen in the Metro IP and no shortage of other first-person survival games since then.

    The “Enhanced” editions boast a number of changes, from bug fixes to an enhanced UI, gamepad support, and other quality of life changes. Beyond resolution and framerate optimisations for current-gen consoles, there are a myriad of visual tweaks.

    Water quality and surface shaders result in a more realistic appearance for fluids, with wetness shaders to make the world look that much more muddy. Skyboxes and atmospheric effects have been enhanced too and look fantastic, with a more painterly look to the clouds that better match the various weather settings and locales.

    Legends of The Zone Enhanced Lighting Upgrades
    The field of view has been expanded if you want it, and textures for characters, clothing, weapons, and the environment have also received an overhaul, featuring more noticeable details such as creases on cloth and the wrinkles on character faces. Perhaps the most significant change was to the lighting system, which includes new effects and global illumination. Rounding out the visual enhancements are screen space reflections that look great on water surfaces in a few maps.

    There is a big caveat though. If we’re comparing the Legends of The Zone Trilogy – even before this latest update – to the original PC S.T.A.L.K.E.R. release, the difference is night and day. But if we’re comparing it to last years console release, it gets a little muddier. In short, this release is going to feel most impactful to PC players who have only experienced the vanilla games, are looking for official gamepad support, and aren’t interested in modding the game.

    Unless you’re starting off with Clear Skies or Call of Prypiat, both of which give you a nice view of the new water effects and reflections in their swampy starting areas, the bulk of the additions will be barely noticeable to returning console players.

    Nowhere is this more true than in Shadow of Chornobyl. While the updated character textures are noticeable in direct comparisons, aspects like the changes to the lighting system either don’t stand out much, or don’t interact with environments and NPC’s in the way you’d want them to. As an example, in the opening scene that has you chatting with the merchant Sidorovich, you’ll immediately notice how the lighting emphasises the polygonal nature of his face but does not illuminate it correctly as it moves.

    As later and more refined releases, Clear Skies and Call of Prypiat interact better with the new visual features, while Shadow of Chornobyl probably needs a more substantial overhaul of assets. These are 18-year-old games after all, and it would take a full remastering to bring them up to modern visual standards.

    One the upside, these enhanced Legends of The Zone versions of the game are a free upgrade to all owners of the PC originals (on Steam and GOG) and for consoles bar the original Nintendo Switch at the moment – something I expect may change with the arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2.

    While the enhancements may not be as visually enthralling or noticeable as one would hope on console, they’re still nice additions to a classic collection of games whose PC originals are looking a bit long in the tooth – particularly for those who don’t want to navigate the trial and tribulations of modding (and just because you’ve been doing it all your life, that doesn’t make it easy for others).

    GSC Game World also deserves credit for simply ensuring these iconic and influential games remain accessible on as many platforms as possible. Regardless of your feelings on the visual “enhancements”, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of The Zone Trilogy Enhanced provides some much-needed fixes while keeping the spirit of the original games intact.

    S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of The Zone Trilogy Enhanced was reviewed on Xbox Series S|X using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC and PS5.

    Pros:

    • It’s a solid choice for PC players who want gamepad support and dislike modding
    • The spirit and atmosphere of the original games is untouched
    • New water shaders and screen space reflections look great in a few areas
    • The new skyboxes are wonderful and better match weather conditions

    Cons:

    • Console players will find most enhancements difficult to spot compared to the 2024 release
    • Shadow of Chornobyl doesn’t always work well with the updated lighting

    Score: 7/10

  • Review: Trident’s Tale (Nintendo Switch)

    Review: Trident’s Tale (Nintendo Switch)

    It’s time to man the mizzenmast, batten those hatches, and get a new plank to walk, because the briny seven seas be calling again. Aaargh, me mateys! Me cutlass be ready for a new pirate adventure and the burying of treasure!

    Developer 3DClouds is attempting to fill that piratical itch with Trident’s Tale, a swashbuckling, seven seas-crossing tale of piracy, treasure hunting, and skeletons. You play as Ocean, a pirate wannabe who can’t wait to leave her island home. But when Ocean finds a hidden piece of the legendary Storm Trident, she puts herself in the crosshairs of a nefarious group of undead pirates also looking for all the pieces.

    The Trident, you see, contains the power of a god and, if all the pieces are united, that power goes to the wielder. To survive, Ocean has to assemble a crew, find the remaining pieces, and become a legend in the process.

    Trident’s Tale cribs it’s ideas from games that have come before about the golden age of piracy. As Trident’s Tale is an all-ages game that feels like it was made with kids in mind, those inspirations have been trimmed back to present an easy-to-get-to-grips-with adventure that spends as much of its time on land as it does at sea.

    The gameplay is split into two distinct sections, both beholden to the idea of exploration. There’s a third person, on-foot adventure mode that combines melee combat with light puzzle solving and a healthy dose of platforming. There are, of course, ship sequences that see you explore a large, watery map full of islands and other ships – many of which you can scuttle to continue funding your voyage.

    When you’re not swaying all over the poop deck (that’s real, look it up), your land-legs will be getting a good deal of use on the islands you can explore, either for side-quests and items, or to progress the story. There are resources to collect for a simple crafting system, basic platforming in many locations a nice sense of verticality, and lots of melee combat to go around. The undead will hound your every move. Thankfully, you have a trusty cutlass and pistol to deal with them.

    Ocean has access to light and heavy attacks, a dash to get out of the way, and a pistol that is probably the most useful item in her arsenal. Each weapon has its own special ability, such as the pistols default ability to stun enemies briefly. Scattered across the game are recipes for new weapons, armour, and ship upgrades that use those shiny chunks of bone and iron you’ve been collecting. You can also simply upgrade your existing ones.

    Ogh, and what would a pirate be without a crew? As you travel across the world, you’ll recruit more scallywags to your cause who, thankfully, provide more than just snarky quips while sailing. These crew members give you access to magical attacks for use in both melee and naval combat. A song that heals you while stunning enemies? I’ll take that please!

    Ocean spends a lot of time sailing the seven seas so blue, so it’s nice that ship control and combat have been simplified as well. You raise your sails to get moving, with three settings for speed, and can pick up floating crates in the ocean to gain more resources. There are many islands to explore, either to continue the story, explore temples, find even more resources, or engage in side-quests.

    You can dock at harbours to make life easier or, if you’re close to an island, abandon the helm and dive into the cooling waters for a quick swim to shore, all of which is handled seamlessly. You can always fast-travel to your ship and islands you’ve already explored, which makes backtracking a breeze.

    Where naval combat is concerned, the direction you’re looking aims your cannons. The only complication is adjusting the height of your shot for a broadside or judging the distance when using the front or rear cannons. When an enemy ship is on its last legs, you’ll get a boarding option that just nets you more resources before it’s scuttled. Sadly, there’s no actual boarding of other ships or fighting their crew which was a bit of a letdown.

    The story is passable Saturday-afternoon, pulp fare with a humorous take on proceedings. How much that humour lands will depend on the player though. While I wasn’t too chuffed with much of the dialogue, I did enjoy some of the cringy pirate dad jokes during the loading screens. The voice acting is passable as well and the narrative gets the job done even if it doesn’t truly immerse you in the world or the supposedly high stakes.

    Sadly, Trident’s Tale comes with some serious waterlogged issues that spoil the adventure. Some of those issues are design-related, but the rest are down to poor performance that seriously hampers the experience on the Nintendo Switch.

    The camera position in combat when locked on is a complete pain as it drops low behind your character and obscures the actual combat, blocking your view of both the enemies and their incoming attacks. I stopped using the lock-on and kept the camera at a 3/4 view of the action, which made combat far more palatable as there’s a degree of auto-aim that’ll make sure you don’t miss.

    This introduces the problem of the environment blocking the view depending on the area, but it’s less frustrating than the lock-on issues. on that note, the lock-on disengages as soon as you turn your back to an enemy, so pretty much every move that dashes back and out of harm’s way renders it useless. For a few battles where you really need the lock-on, this is a pain.

    Most significant are the games visuals and performance issues that I’ assume’d hope are limited to the Switch and maybe the last-gen consoles. Bluntly put, this is another case of Unreal Engine and the Switch not mixing politely.

    The stylised art style is nice enough, but the games resolution on Switch is so low that it really hampers visual clarity. Most of the time, it just looks very hazy, with everything from characters to foliage looking blurry and aliased to the point where it can even affect ship-based combat when your circular crosshair gets lost in the visual noise.

    Pop-in, as we’ve come to expect from UE titles, is also present, with smaller environmental assets and props popping in mere feet from the player character. At one point, I wasn’t sure if the circular blob masquerading as a tree was meant to look that way or the textures simply hadn’t loaded in.

    Finally, there’s the overall framerate which can create a sluggish feeling experience, particularly in combat against multiple opponents, where inputs don’t always register. It’s not unplayable mind you, but it feels like the Switch version of the game needs more optimisation. Surprisingly, the developers have managed to implement some fairly nice looking screen space reflections on water surfaces. It does help to make the water look nicer, but I’d gladly see this effect sacrificed in favour of a higher resolution and a more stable frame-rate.

    Even with all these issues, I still found myself enjoying much my time with Trident’s Tale, especially once I ditched the lock-on for combat. There’s a fun, all-ages adventure here just waiting to be given a chance – but I don’t think the Switch version is the best way to experience it.

    Pros:

    • Simple fun designed for all ages
    • Exploration and naval combat feels rewarding
    • Plenty of crafting recipes to find

    Cons:

    • Runs at a low resolution on the Nintendo Switch with severe pop-in
    • The poor framerate results in sluggish controls
    • Some terrible dialogue
    • A frustrating lock-on camera

    Score: 5/10

    Trident’s Tale was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC, Xbox One/Series S|X , and PS4/5.