This game follows best friends Zoe and Kaito. If you played Road 96, you’ll recognize Zoe as the rebellious runaway who plays a big part in taking down the despot of the fictional country of Petria. Fans of the original Road 96 will also be happy to see other familiar faces in a handful of cameos throughout the game.

"It carries the same visual DNA as Road 96, for better or worse. Itas heavily stylized so it looks great in stills, but everything feels… unrefined in motion."

Kaito, on the other hand, is probably less familiar to most people. While he’s new to Road 96 canon, he is an existing character from Lost in Harmony, DigixArt’s first game from 2016. You’d gain a fair bit of insight if you’ve played that game and are familiar with the characters and themes because Road 96: Mile 0 kind of just throws you into his narrative. The opening moments of Mile 0 have Kaito remembering his late friend Aya as if she is a person the player would have a connection to, although that wasn’t the case for me. While you can still level with a character being sad about a friend that was lost in a tragedy, I felt like I was missing something, like there was a piece of dialogue or a cutscene I had skipped, which was a little jarring.

Similarly jarring is the game’s presentation. It carries the same visual DNA as Road 96, for better or worse. Itas heavily stylized so it looks great in stills, but everything feels… unrefined in motion. There’s a lot of dialogue between characters, and the attempt at lip-synching on display unfortunately looks to be more like random lip-flapping. This is a shame because what is actually being said is strong and even powerful in some cases. Character movements and animations are also pretty far below what I would consider the standard even for this genre of game, which gets a pass in many cases due to its focus on story rather than presentation. Movements are stiff and wooden, which did a lot to keep me from being fully engaged with the game during the regular exploration/dialogue gameplay.

Thankfully, that’s not all there is to do in Road 96: Mile 0.

Whereas Road 96 made an impact with its roguelike gameplay and the many different activities and diversions you could get up to, its prequel seems more content to inject gameplay and even occasionally deliver some story through a particular style of gameplay: a rhythm-based “runner” (your character is usually on some kind of skateboard or roller blades) that feels a lot like Sayonara Wild Hearts with shades of Sonic Adventure. There are lots of cinematic pans around your character while they are on a linear path, lots of loop-the-loops paired with dramatic zoom-outs, and plenty of jumping or ducking to avoid obstacles.

I don’t think this is a suitable replacement for what constituted gameplay in Road 96, but I can’t deny that it’s pretty fun. Each of these stages has some awesome music backing it up, and the shift from reality into more fantastical, bewildering scenarios is a delight. Going from being chased through the streets of a neighborhood by Zoe’s new bodyguard to having that very same bodyguard grow into a kaiju-sized pursuer was fun to see, though I question how these scenes are actually playing out in reality.

"Each of these stages has some awesome music backing it up, and the shift from reality into more fantastical, bewildering scenarios is a delight."

These running or skating stages and their associated QTE moments can increase significantly in difficulty as you progress through the game, which is good. I never got bored with these segments. However, I also never had an instance where I died more than two or three times on any one troubling section. The intended paths and actions are pretty well-telegraphed after you mess them up the first time, and most failures can be boiled down to bad timing. Additionally, restarts are lightning fast so you never lose too much time on a failure. The overall balancing of the difficulty and handling how failures work is well-done.

There are a few other forms of gameplay throughout the game, including a pretty hilarious on-rails shooter where your bullets are newspapers, but the majority of them are these skating segments. Something else that was changed from Road 96 to Mile 0 is the “health”, or more accurately the status bar on the top left of the screen. Whereas this meter indicated a character’s stamina or restfulness in the previous game, it now represents Zoe’s certainty about the political state of Petria. This is where the best parts of Road 96: Mile 0 come into play.

The unlikely friendship between Zoe and Kaito and the politics surrounding their respective situations are the driving forces behind Mile 0. Zoe is the daughter of a powerful government employee and lives a good life in a big house, and Kaito’s family are workers who are viewed and treated poorly amongst the higher class while living in an apartment below street level.

We know Zoe’s ideological stance throughout the original Road 96, but seeing and playing through the events that got her to that point was very interesting. One skating section in particular has Kaito trying to convince Zoe that things are not great in Colton City, and that President Tyrak is basically evil. As you skate and avoid obstacles, you get to see the same city from each of their perspectives, culminating in a visual where the two interpretations are split right down the middle as Zoe is no longer sure of what she believes. It’s really powerful, and that entire segment has a track by The Midnight playing over it which only amplifies the emotion.

"We know Zoe’s ideological stance throughout the original Road 96, but seeing and playing through the events that got her to that point was very interesting."

These scenes and ones like it are what make Road 96: Mile 0 really work, even when the parts surrounding it don’t quite seem like they do. But then again, the entire game is built around making decisions that push Zoe in one way or another, but the nature of the game being a prequel means that we already know what happens to this character after these events. This makes the decision-making feel less important and maybe even a little misleading in practice, though it works for the game’s relatively short runtime. Mile 0 can be completed in roughly half of Road 96’s 8+ hour runtime.

This review covers the PS5 version of the game, and it’s worth noting that the framerate didn’t feel entirely smooth. This is of course not super important for an adventure game, but the style of the game paired with the power of the PS5 should have resulted in a smoother experience, which leads me to believe the issue is down to optimization. The strange storybook-style pop-in that appeared in the original Road 96 is also present in Mile 0, though it is less significant.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

My experience playing Crime Boss: Rockay City has been something of a roller coaster. At first glance, I thought the game was going to be a level-based shooter with GTA vibes and a similar style of writing. That’s not what the game ultimately is though, and the truth is much stranger. Is Crime Boss: Rockay City worth your precious time and legally earned, not stolen money?

To begin, Crime Boss: Rockay City is not exactly a run-of-the-mill level-based shooter. It does have a number of maps that missions play out on, but a more appropriate descriptor would be “action roguelike”. In fact, the game’s campaign actually bills itself as a “unique roguelike experience”, something most people will probably skim over.

"The enemy AI is not very bright, and as long as you’re crouched you have so much time to get out of their line of sight before you’re “spotted” that you could essentially crouch-walk through entire missions without being discovered for the most part."

But before you dive headfirst into the campaign, the game strongly suggests you complete the tutorial. In it, my initial expectations were turned upside down when I was presented with a tutorial that surprisingly outlined a heist game, where you go into an area with a squad of four characters that you can switch between and disable security, infiltrate a facility, steal the goods, and get out before the cops show up.

Instead of immediately shooting up the place, you’re shown that you can threaten civilians and security to make them surrender and avoid conflict, and then zip-tie them so they don’t become an issue during the heist. In fact, I don’t think you fire your gun once in the entire tutorial, or at least I didn’t. From this first taste, Crime Boss seemed like it would be a thoughtful game where patience and strategy are rewarded, one where you don’t need to leave piles of bodies in your wake.

And then you jump into the real game, and those new expectations also get turned on their head and thrown out a window.

The game’s intro is loud and bombastic, with plenty of bullets, blood, and bodies. This is what we were shown before the game’s release, though it’s not really what the whole game is, and later missions only get rowdy if you want them to. Seriously, the enemy AI is not very bright, and as long as you’re crouched you have so much time to get out of their line of sight before you’re “spotted” that you could essentially crouch-walk through entire missions without being discovered for the most part.

I was able to do that for many of my missions, which also revealed one of many bugs and glitches in this game: enemies just pop into existence when the getaway car arrives, but not in places where it would be discreet. I had enemies materialize just a few feet away from me once I had enough loot to exfiltrate, breaking immersion immediately. While sneaking is an option and it’s incredibly easy to do, it seems that the developer’s intent is probably to have the majority of missions devolve into shootouts pretty often so that you miss these magical henchmen.

"The more attention you draw and the more trouble you cause, the more highly-equipped police will show up until you inevitably get overwhelmed by enemies who sometimes feel invincible. It disincentivizes getting into action and feels unbalanced."

When the bullets do start flying, it’s a mixed bag. There’s a confident smoothness to zeroing in on enemies, and the guns I used felt appropriately powerful with decent feedback so my comparisons to level-based shooters held up in that regard, but then you have the GTA-like heat system. The more attention you draw and the more trouble you cause, the more highly-equipped police will show up until you inevitably get overwhelmed by enemies who sometimes feel invincible. It disincentivizes getting into action and feels unbalanced.

And that’s not even the worst of it.

The game is structured in such a way that you only spend short bursts of time actually on missions that quickly become repetitive and boring, with the rest of your time being spent in cutscenes or managing different facets of becoming a “Crime Boss”. You hire crew, sell goods you steal in missions, and expand your area of influence with Turf Wars. The issue is that there are only a handful of models for the crew members, resulting in you having multiple of the same people with different clothes which is jarring to see, selling your wares is just a menu, and Turf Wars are tedious.

What’s even worse, is that since the game is a roguelike, crewmembers who die in missions are gone for good, and if you happen to take the protagonist out on a mission and he dies, the entire run is over. This is standard for the genre, but when a game feels as buggy and broken as Crime Boss, it’s very off-putting. The game is only occasionally fun to play, which is worsened by what was supposed to be its headlining feature: its cast.

As you probably know from the trailers, Travis Baker is played by Michael Madsen, an actor known for his roles in movies like Kill Bill, Species, Reservoir Dogs, and The Hateful Eight. Mr. Madsen is sixty-five years old now, though his in-game model represents a de-aged version of him as he was in his mid-thirties. And he’s not alone! This game also stars a few other de-aged stars you might recognize from the 80s and 90s, including Kim Basinger, Michael Rooker, Danny Glover, Danny Trejo, and Chuck Norris. The entire cast was clearly hired for the purpose of nostalgia rather than their voice-acting abilities.

"The entire cast was clearly hired for the purpose of nostalgia rather than their voice-acting abilities. To the aging actors’ credits, they aren’t given much to work with in terms of writing."

To the aging actors’ credits, they aren’t given much to work with in terms of writing. The story is structured and presented as an early 90s action film, perhaps as a means of making the younger versions of its now aged cast make more sense, but it unfortunately also has all of the poor representation, objectification, and ham-fisted dialogue those movies are known for, And not even in a fun way. There is also a forced attempt to be “wacky” that doesn’t do the game any favors. A scattered number of scenes and lines elicited a singular chuckle from me, but the vast majority of those were thanks to the comical disinterest you can hear in Chuck Norris’ voice as he patronizes you about how you messed up your run.

This game was reviewed on PC.

To begin, let’s discuss what you’re hit with as soon as you boot the game: its presentation. Deceive Inc. utilizes a not-so-subtle 60s aesthetic that lines up pretty well with its spy theme. The characters and environments are vibrantly colored, and their designs exist somewhere in between a Pixar film and a Telltale game. All facial features and body types are cartoonishly exaggerated while avoiding a look that might be too silly.

The game’s start screen is the all-too-familiar live-service menu with your selected character front and center, several options along the top, and your game mode selection as well as the “Play” button in the bottom right. It’s certainly functional, I just wish fewer games immediately gave the impression that they’re trying to be Fortnite from the moment you start them.

"Deceive Inc. utilizes a not-so-subtle 60s aesthetic that lines up pretty well with its spy theme. The characters and environments are vibrantly colored, and their designs exist somewhere in between a Pixar film and a Telltale game."

Thankfully, the gameplay is a far cry from Epic’s genre-defining game. It’s possible to jump straight into either a Solo or Team match, but Deceive Inc. heavily recommends that you play through the tutorial before you get into the real deal, and for good reason. The tutorial is about fifteen minutes long, and walks you through the many systems that make up every Deceive Inc. match while also infusing some light humor that I think landed pretty well.

In terms of systems and gameplay mechanics, there are enough to almost seem overwhelming on paper, but everything works well and feels intuitive when you’re actually playing the game. At the beginning of each match, Players select a customizable spy. Each one is a unique character with its own weapons and abilities, and there are three available from the start. There are five more spies that can be unlocked through progression at the time of this review. Two of these are Vanguard spies (the all-rounder class) and one is a Tracker spy (the sniper/recon class), though there are more classes as you unlock more spies.

From there, you are dropped into one of several massive open maps with up to 11 other spies, and you’ll begin the first phase of the match: Insertion. In this phase, you are tasked with completing several objectives that are scattered throughout the area and collecting intel while staying incognito. How do you manage this? By using the game’s flagship feature, a camouflage system that allows you to copy the visage of any other human character. Once it is activated, your cover can be blown if you fire your weapon, but standing still for several seconds is enough to recharge it and gain that cover back.

This “cover” system is not just used to deceive your opponents though, as you will also need to tail and take on the appearance of several different special NPCs in order to gain access to crucial areas. Characters like guards, staff, and technicians all have their own high-security areas, and if you stray into one of those places without the proper disguise your cover will be blown, and leave you open to attack by enemy spies.

"I played the game on Xbox, and aiming with a controller felt not very responsive, and the guns I tried (from the available three characters) had just a touch too much delay between shots to be helpful."

Speaking of enemy spies, this is where the majority of your time is spent playing Deceive Inc. Any NPC could be an undercover spy, and an itchy trigger finger will cause you to shoot a civilian and blow your cover at the same time. The NPC AI seems to be tuned with this fear in mind since I accidentally murdered many innocents thinking they were a spy trying to take me out first due to a sudden pause or erratic turn, which would inevitably get me killed by a much more skilled spy than myself. Being spotted by those same super spies while attempting to be inconspicuous was also a common occurrence.

If you manage to avoid detection and complete objectives, you might last until the next phase of a match: Insertion. This phase is usually marked by unlocking a secure area that contains some kind of secret document or other item that needs to be stolen. The stress and anxiety are ratcheted up in this phase, and you’re much more likely to get into a shootout. Which, unfortunately, is not one of Deceive Inc.’s strong suits.

Deceive Inc. is a budget-priced indie game, so it’s unfortunate that I have to grill it for a mechanic that so many games have down-pat by this point, but aiming and shooting feels pretty bad. I’m assuming it’s by design as a means of discouraging rampant warfare, but sometimes it does become necessary and it usually ends up leaving a bad taste in the mouth. I played the game on Xbox, and aiming with a controller felt not very responsive, and the guns I tried (from the available three characters) had just a touch too much delay between shots to be helpful. Especially when you can be in a match with spies that dual-wield pistols for super-fast fire rates. The weapons just don’t feel very balanced across characters.

The issues with the gunplay are magnified when the third and final phase of a match begins: Extraction. At this point, one spy has the package and has to make it to the extraction point without dying, and their location will be pinged on every enemy spy’s radar periodically. The targeted spy can in turn see through other spies’ cover with their navigation vision by spending intel. This turns the end of a match from a spy vs spy game into a cat vs mouse one, but, again, the guns don’t feel great to use. This is kind of alleviated by the inclusion of spy gadgets, which are broken up into four categories: defense, traps, deception, and recon.

"Deceive Inc.’s gameplay is thrilling and packed with anxious excitement for the first half of every match, but is then soured by a second half that relies too heavily on unbalanced gunplay."

You unlock better gadgets as you gain levels, but from the beginning, you have an inflating bounce mat, a turret, and a remote-hacking spyglass. These are good enough to evade and distract other spies when you need to, but there are better gadgets like a shield umbrella, goo pods, and a holographic decoy at higher levels. I feel that the gadgets are more in line with the game’s theme and feel better to use than the guns, but there is a lack of focus on them overall which is unfortunate.

Deceive Inc.’s gameplay is thrilling and packed with anxious excitement for the first half of every match, but is then soured by a second half that relies too heavily on unbalanced gunplay. This is a shame because it does mostly deliver on its promise of a tense spy-thriller action game, but locking better weapons behind higher levels and not properly balancing what is available does a disservice to the rest of the experience.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.

With Dredge, developers Black Salt Games have created a world that is as multi-faceted as the game itself. It’s simplistic and beautiful thanks to its Unity Engine foundations, colorful models, and flat textures. The gentle-yet-effective reflections on the water help a fair bit as well. The first time I saw the sun rise over Little Marrow and reflect its radiance in the waters between Greater Marrow and its smaller neighbor, I was instantly hooked.

"The first time I saw the sun rise over Little Marrow and reflect its radiance in the waters between Greater Marrow and its smaller neighbor, I was instantly hooked."

But then the sun goes down, and that very same world morphs into something straight out of H.P. Lovecraft’s nightmares. There are unfathomable monsters, spontaneous storms, and an ominous, disembodied evil that permeates the waters and islands of the archipelago you’re tasked with exploring, and the only constant source of light is the often distant lighthouse of Greater Marrow. Dealing with these horrors and the ramifications of facing the unthinkable is stressful, but also great fun and very unique in how it’s presented within Dredge.

Your journey into the depths of madness begins when a thick fog rolls in without warning, causing a fisherman to wreck his ship on the rocks by The Marrows. Upon waking, the player character is greeted by the first of many characters you’ll meet throughout the game: the mayor of Greater Marrow. He’s a generous chap, and goes so far as to loan you one of his older boats in exchange for a small portion of your earnings until you pay it off. In addition to paying off the boat, that money also goes towards revamping the town and making more facilities open to you.

He warns you not to stay out fishing too late, and I wish I had listened to him this first day.

During daylight hours, Dredge is a cozy fishing game. There is a series of mini-games that make up the fishing, which depends on the type of equipment you need to use to catch different fish at different depths. Most of these mini-games are comprised of “stop the marker in a designated area as it moves”-style affairs, and I found their mechanical simplicity to be very satisfying. I could fish in Dredge all day, but there are a few systems in place to keep things moving and the stakes high.

"I could fish in Dredge all day, but there are a few systems in place to keep things moving and the stakes high."

First, there is the concern of limited inventory. The tiny boat you start out with only has so much space for your catch, so you’ll end up making frequent trips back to a dock to sell things and free up that space. Though, the equipment that is not just important but required for several aspects of the game also takes up this precious inventory space, which is a bit of a nuisance in the opening hours. This includes the boat’s engines, fishing equipment, and lights.

Speaking of lights, this is where the other system designed to stop Dredge from being a straight-up cozy game comes into play. As you move through the waters and fish, time passes by. And when the sun goes down, everything goes pitch black. Later in the game, this can be remedied with big, powerful lights equipped to your boat, but at the beginning, all you have is a candle. Making your way back to Greater Marrow in the dark without crashing into rocks would be hard enough on its own given the limited light, but that coupled with madness-inducing darkness and the creatures that hide in it makes things considerably worse.

Dredge has a sanity meter, which is represented by an eye over the time indicator at the top of the game screen. The more time you spend in the dark and the more terrors you encounter, this eye becomes increasingly red and agitated, and increased levels of madness make you more susceptible to spooky happenings or progress-slowing events. These include such things as having your catch eaten up by a flock of possessed birds and being pursued by sea monsters or sentient water spouts. Rest and light can reset your sanity, but there are points in the game where sanity, or the lack of it, opens up more story and gameplay opportunities which provides some enticing risk and reward.

This cycle of peace and panic is the core of Dredge’s gameplay, and it’s enthralling. That’s not all this game has going for it though, as are multiple upgrade systems, a resource-gathering mechanic, and side quests galore given to you by a host of interesting, well-written characters.

"This cycle of peace and panic is the core of Dredge’s gameplay, and it’s enthralling."

For the upgrade systems, there are crafted upgrades for your boat that require you to dredge up or collect things like metal, wood, and cloth from shipwrecks or random fishing spots, and there are improved parts that can be researched and unlocked for purchase using research units you find or are gifted with for completing quests. I found these systems work well, and thankfully you can access upgrades and new parts at other islands as well, not just Greater Marrow. It’s a pretty big map with no fast travel, so having to head back for improvements would have been annoying.

The upgrade curve in Dredge is also satisfying. The slow boat with limited equipment and a pathetic excuse for a light source can be upgraded into something much more substantial in a short amount of time, depending of course on how much you focus on upgrades versus the many other aspects of the game.

Finally, when you aren’t fishing, collecting, or dodging nightmares to maintain your sanity, you’re probably talking to the many characters who live on different islands around The Marrows. They are all represented by character portraits, but the quality and style of each of those pieces of art convey the personalities and demeanors of the characters. Each character you meet also seems to indirectly deliver a piece of information that further fleshes out the situation in The Marrows as well as the overall story. Mysterious shipwrecks, a mayor gone mad, a person trying to get away from everything and start a new life on another island, a son lost to the sea. Each character has a unique story, and one that is worth seeing to its conclusion.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

And now, just over two years since Valheim made its Early Access debut on PC, it can now be enjoyed by Xbox players across the entire range of Xbox consoles. Porting a game of this scale with mechanics that were inherently designed for PC is a tricky process, but not necessarily one that we haven’t seen before to varying degrees of success. Thankfully, Valheim makes the jump mostly intact, with only a handful of issues.

"Valheim makes the jump to consoles mostly intact, with only a handful of issues."

This review covers the Xbox Series X version of the game, which to me appears to be the full Valheim experience. The gameplay mechanics people have spent so much time with and the graphics that either put you off completely or captured your imagination are still there in all their glory. With this information alone, it is safe to say that if you didn’t like Valheim on PC, you won’t like it on consoles either.

The same arduous, slog of an intro is still present, and without any way to transfer saves from PC to console you’re stuck dealing with it all over again no matter how much time you’ve already put into the game. It’s an unorthodox thing to wish for, but a Witcher 3-style cloud cross-save system would have really helped Valheim’s value proposition. It was like pulling teeth going back to zero after spending dozens of hours building up my character, and I realize that’s much less time than others have spent in the game. I can’t even imagine what that experience would be like for veteran players.

While there is unfortunately no cross-save, Valheim does fully support crossplay between all platforms the game is currently available on. This is always a welcome feature, and even more so for Valheim if you have PC player friends who can help you through the first few hours.

In translating Valheim from PC to console, you would think Iron Gate Studios would have made some changes to the interface and menus to be navigated more efficiently with a controller. What we have in the current version of the game is not necessarily bad, but does take some getting used to and is definitely not as fast or easy as using a mouse and keyboard.

The interface is essentially unchanged, but now there are button prompts floating in the corner of many menu options to allow for quicker navigation. Or at least it’s supposed to in theory, anyway. I defaulted to flicking the analog stick or pressing the directional buttons most of the time. I’m not a fan of the analog stick-controlled mouse cursor many console games have adopted, but I see their value now and I wish Valheim had just used that system instead.

"In translating Valheim from PC to console, you would think Iron Gate Studios would have made some changes to the interface and menus to be navigated more efficiently with a controller. What we have in the current version of the game is not necessarily bad, but does take some getting used to and is definitely not as fast or easy as using a mouse and keyboard."

In-game, the Y button brings up your inventory and crafting menus, but you need to use the right and left bumpers to switch between panes and interact with different options on different menus. When you’re in a quiet meadow, this is usually fine. But when you’re suddenly under attack from boars, dwarves, and necks all at the same time, the simple act of trying to craft a club can result in a gravestone with your character’s name on it.

I played the PC version of Valheim for some time on a Steam Deck, and this is the same solution the game had at the time. So seemingly nothing was done to make menu navigation better for its big console debut. This is a shame given how much of the game’s creative processes revolve around sifting through menus. Also, using an analog stick to aim and build structures feels kind of rough and not as smooth as it probably should be, but you could probably dial in the analog’s sensitivity to suit you better.

Thankfully, everything outside of the crafting controls feels fine. Switching between tools and items and then equipping them is handled by the D-pad, your light and heavy attacks are bound to the right bumper and trigger, and sprinting and sneaking are toggled by clicking in the left and right analog sticks. All of these are logical layouts and work just fine in practice and once the tedious inventory and crafting navigation clicks, playing the game is the same delight it was on PC.

You’ll notice pretty immediately that Valheim looks gorgeous on Series X. The lighting and depth of field effects are just as impressive as they ever were, and the framerate seems pretty stable by default even though it seems to be visually on par with the higher PC settings. A quick scanning of the settings menu revealed that the Xbox version of Valheim has two graphic mode settings: Quality and Performance.

"You’ll notice pretty immediately that Valheim looks gorgeous on Series X."

Quality is the default setting which seemed to run fine and looked great, but testing out Performance mode made it the clear winner in my eyes. The game becomes instantly smoother, with little if any loss of graphical quality. It wasn’t clear to me what actually changed to allow for the buttery smooth framerate, but I would guess it was probably some Level of Detail settings or foliage complexity. Whatever is lost in turning on Performance mode is worth it though.

While Valheim looks great in either graphic mode setting, there were still a few issues I noticed in terms of presentation. The most noticeable of which was the graphical pop-in. There was a point where I walked up to the water’s edge from a few dozen feet away, and textures and details continued to pop into existence up until I hit the water. It’s not something that affects gameplay and I hate to nitpick things like that, but it’s worth mentioning if that kind of thing bothers you.

As I stated before, if you didn’t like Valheim on PC, the Xbox console port is unlikely to change your mind. However, if you’ve never experienced the game and you have access to an Xbox but not a PC, this version of Valheim is definitely worth checking out. It has feature and content parity with the PC version, crossplay support, and the unparalleled sense of adventure and discovery that the original game has. Both versions are also still in Early Access, so they will benefit from ongoing updates, improvements, and expansions. If you’re also an Xbox Game Pass subscriber, Valheim is available through that subscription on console just as it is on PC, which makes it a no-brainer for users of that service.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.

This sci-fi competitive FPS is brought to us by Blue Isle Studios, a name that probably scratches somewhere at the back of your memory and conjures up a certain feeling of uneasiness. That would probably be because Blue Isle’s first game was Slender: The Arrival. Not a AAA experience by any means, but a mostly effective indie horror game that used its limited resources effectively.

Since that debut, Blue Isle have released a couple of games that would probably be described by most as “average”, but at least they had some kind of spark or creativity behind them. So, why the history lesson?

LEAP is their latest game, and somehow their least inspired one as well.

"From the moment you start LEAP, it feels pretty barebones."

From the moment you start LEAP, it feels pretty barebones. The Overwatch-like start screen presents players with LEAP’s handful of features, including its class customization, daily challenges, and the marketplace where you can purchase things like keychains for your guns, taunts, and other cosmetics with in-game currency. It appears that this currency is earned only from gameplay, as I didn’t see any options to purchase it and the PlayStation Store doesn’t have the game marked for microtransactions. This is a point in LEAP’s favor since it’s commonplace for paid games to have microtransactions on top of the cost of entry.

Another cool feature LEAP offers is crossplay between PC and PlayStation gamers, which opens up the competition pool considerably. If you prefer to not be decimated by keyboard and mouse users though, crossplay can be turned off from the start screen.

As for actual game modes, selecting the play option on the start screen brings up a few options: Special Operations, PVP, Server Browser, and Practice. LEAP doesn’t appear to force the tutorial on you, but I would recommend checking it out anyways before getting into the real game modes. There’s a little bit of nuance to the controls that I had some trouble with initially.

Now for the three main game modes. Special Operations is the mission-based co-op option, PVP offers up to forty-person battles (although I never saw a battle of that size), and Server Browser which allows players to find an open server with a specific set of parameters that can be set with filters. All the game modes you would expect are represented, with equivalents for capture the flag, team deathmatch, control point, etcetera.

"Functionally, LEAP is fine. It has everything you would want in a competitive FPS, and it’s not bad looking either. Just a little bland."

Functionally, LEAP is fine. It has everything you would want in a competitive FPS, and it’s not bad looking either. Just a little bland. The graphics are simple and the designs of the character models are forgettable. It’s definitely not pushing the PS5 hardware in any way, but there’s enough detail and visual interest to keep players engaged. Where LEAP doesn’t manage to stick the landing, is unfortunately where it matters most: its gameplay.

I played a round of Special Operations first, which didn’t really set high expectations for the rest of the experience. These missions are supposed to be co-op with online partners, and this first round did say that it had found a match for me, but I was still dropped into the mission by myself. This ended up not being too much of an issue as it seems that difficulty is balanced depending on how many players are in a match, because I was essentially a one-man army, taking shots from all sides but only sustaining minimal damage.

In another game, this might have been fun or empowering. But in LEAP, it really just felt like a shooting gallery. Enemy drop pods crash into the ground at a rate that should be overwhelming, but the enemies that exit that wreckage seem to just walk toward you or stand still and fire. There are no interesting tactics or much enemy variety at all to speak of. They’ll either have machine guns, sniper rifles, or rocket launchers, and that’s it.

Taking down wave after wave of mindless enemies was particularly easy in Special Operations thanks to the egregious aim assist. If you’re aiming at one enemy and decide to set your sites on another without destroying the first one, getting your reticule to move off of that first target feels bad. The aim assist is too sticky and unyielding. There’s no way to lessen the effect of the auto-aim, but you can turn it off. I didn’t notice this issue in PVP, which is a good thing. PVP matches were moderately fun if only because they bypassed the monotonous wave-based nonsense Special Operations devolve into.

"What’s not fun are technical issues, and I experienced a few of those in my time with LEAP. Connection issues are something you used to have to just accept with a game of this type, but other games have made great improvements in this area that LEAP doesn’t seem to take advantage of."

Both Special Operations and PVP matches take place in large open maps that were clearly designed for the larger matches LEAP advertises. I didn’t see matches of more than eight to ten players though, so the maps felt needlessly vast. But at least LEAP includes a few interesting ways to get around: mounts called PVs, and Attack on Titan-style grappling lines. I only used a hoverboard, but I saw some wild vehicles like a robo-moose, a rocket-powered innertube, and a very cool glider to name a few. So at least there’s a solid amount of variety in this area, even if they all control the same.

I found the process to summon your PV to be a little fiddly, and it just explodes when you begin firing which makes it unavailable until you respawn. Thankfully the grapple lines are always there for you, and they’re a ton of fun to use. It’s not as smooth as the Attack on Titan games and it’s definitely not as good as Spider-Man’s web-swinging, but being able to point in a direction, latch on, and zip forward was fun every time. Taking potshots at enemies as you zip by them is also very fun.

What’s not fun are technical issues, and I experienced a few of those in my time with LEAP. Connection issues are something you used to have to just accept with a game of this type, but other games have made great improvements in this area that LEAP doesn’t seem to take advantage of. I had several matches that were plagued with lag to the point that I left and tried to join a new one. When your entire game hinges on its online experience, the amount of trouble I experienced is game-ruining.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

After a short intro and a pretty decent character creator, players are dropped into a version of China that is in peril during the late Han dynasty. Blood in the streets, villages reduced to smoldering embers, and demonic creatures prowling the wreckage has become commonplace. Players take on the role of a soldier who falls in battle, only to be mysteriously revived by a powerful magic item in typical Soulslike fashion. That item and its significance are explained through the story that is presented through the occasional cutscene. Unfortunately, the story is also pretty messy and not very well-written. It does serve just fine as a means of ushering players from one level into the next, though.

"Combat in Wo Long is fast-paced, and it’ll definitely punish green players repeatedly for not taking stronger enemies seriously and paying attention to enemy patterns, which are all well-animated and appropriately telegraphed."

From a glance, Wo Long seems like it’s taking after Team Ninja’s Nioh series, utilizing similar gameplay mechanics and a fictionalized, pseudo-historical setting that is amplified with plenty of demonic and supernatural entities to spice things up. Others have also compared it to Sekiro from early gameplay demos. However, while Wo Long does have some things in common with these games, with a little mastery of its core defensive function it might feel closer to a standard action game for its target demographic.

Combat in Wo Long is fast-paced, and it’ll definitely punish green players repeatedly for not taking stronger enemies seriously and paying attention to enemy patterns, which are all well-animated and appropriately telegraphed. The enemies themselves are also inventive and cool, and might even give other Soulslike games a run for their money in terms of monstrous creatures.

There are thirteen weapon types to use which run the gamut from swords and spears to heavier weapons like hammers, and even ranged options like bows. These weapons scale based on the virtues you dedicate upgrade points to, which also determines what type of build your character has. Each weapon also has a unique moveset and special attack. All of these things are pretty common for Soulslikes, but Wo Long lacks the mechanical depth in melee combat that other games have, namely Sekiro.

There is a parry/reversal system that looks awesome and feels great to use, but that’s really it in terms of defensive maneuvers. There’s no need to account for different types of unstoppable power attacks because you only need one button to deflect everything, even normal moves. There is a block that is tied to a posture system that gets depleted and can eventually break, but there’s no real incentive to use it unless you build your character around blocking.

However, there is a magic system that introduces a level of strategy for certain fights. Magic in Wo Long is based on the five elements, or “phases”, and can be used to counter enemy attacks of the opposite phase. Mixing in magic with the flashy melee combat and deflection maneuvers was a little too much for me to keep track of, but it seems well-designed enough that veteran Soulslike players could revel in it when it is a viable option.

"Mixing in magic with the flashy melee combat and deflection maneuvers was a little too much for me to keep track of, but it seems well-designed enough that veteran Soulslike players could revel in it when it is a viable option."

While you might go into Wo Long being extra careful, the parry/deflection-focused melee combat that makes up a majority of the game quickly boils down to pressing the deflect button to gain the upper hand and putting enemies down. It’s still fun, and it creates more than a few moments of extreme hype with slick animations, but there’s no real depth to combat beyond that in most fights. Well, there is an AI companion system that allows you to bring up to two warriors with you who get stronger the more you use them, but the friendly AI is not very useful outside of being a distraction for enemies in most cases.

Instead of a large, open world, Wo Long features several linear levels with side paths and shortcuts that lead to a boss character at the end. There’s enough visual variety in these locations to be moderately interesting, but the level design of each place is not up to par with similar games, mostly due to that linearity. There are diversions and distractions to mask it, but each stage is almost a straight line, and doesn’t take that long to traverse if you can get around enemies.

One of the interesting things that Wo Long brings to the table is the morale system. Every enemy as well as the player character has a number set within a colored circle, which denotes their morale level. Enemies with higher morale will be tougher to take down and could possibly one-shot you, but every kill you get upgrades your own morale and makes you effectively more powerful. This stat decreases upon death, but there are several Marking Flag locations that allow you to raise a flag to lock in a certain morale level, up to a maximum of 20 if you’re able to find all of them. These Marking Flag spots look similar to Battle Flag posts, but the latter act as your bonfire/respawn point.

You could look at the morale system as a method of forcing a “grind” in order to be powerful enough to take on a boss, and it can become that if you miss a few Marking Flag posts, but it doesn’t seem to be intended that way. The morale system instead feels more like a way of encouraging players to explore every nook and cranny of every level (which isn’t hard given the aforementioned linearity), and take down every enemy you find, including powerful sub-bosses. Those with enough skill will probably be able to bypass this system entirely, so it also seems to be in place to help more casual players get through levels.

"Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a fun Soulslike that, while still providing a challenge, will be a breeze for seasoned Soulslike players."

In the midst of exploring locations and doing battle with human and monster foes, I noticed a particularly frustrating issue. Sometimes, inputs just wouldn’t register. The first few times my character ignored my plea to use a healing item in the middle of combat, I thought it might have been my PS5 controller. I’ve tested it with other games, but it seems to only be Wo Long. I don’t know if this is a widespread issue or not, but it definitely added to my stacks of legitimate deaths with ones that felt unfair. Especially when a deflect input didn’t go through.

There is also a massive focus on loot and gear, which creates a problem that was also present in Nioh- equipment management. Inventory screens are just a jumble of numbers and minor percentages that don’t really affect gameplay that much from what I could tell, and only serves to confuse and overwhelm. If you like micromanaging stats down to the smallest percentage, you’ll love it, but I opted to pick the largest numbers and dump everything else.

Ultimately, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a fun Soulslike that, while still providing a challenge, will be a breeze for seasoned Soulslike players.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

Yes, absolutely.

There are plenty of reasons for this, but one of the most apparent is the difference in presentation. Sons of the Forest keeps the DNA of the previous game, and even begins with a similar aircraft disaster that leaves you stranded on the island at a few possible different locations. However, it looks way more impressive.

"Sons of the Forest keeps the DNA of the previous game, and even begins with a similar aircraft disaster that leaves you stranded on the island at a few possible different locations. However, it looks way more impressive."

The Forest was in Early Access for four years, but the graphics never seemed to really improve much. Sometimes it looked pretty good, but most of the time its presentation was immersion-breaking or even silly. That has never been a problem in my time with Sons of the Forest.

Human companions, cannibals, mutants, and animals all look and act extremely lifelike, and the dense, lush forests you explore are just as good-looking, allowing for more consistent immersion throughout. The labyrinthine dark cave systems also make a return, but I couldn’t bring myself to explore those too much. They’re every bit as spooky as you’d hope. I found myself spending much more time building safe houses next to calm, babbling streams surrounded by all of the wildlife of the island, which is relaxing enough to almost make you forget about the horrors that are constantly moving at the corners of your vision.

The addition of changing seasons creates even more visual variety along with plenty of additional gameplay mechanics that weren’t present in The Forest. The need to periodically adapt to the changes new seasons bring keeps things interesting and prevents players from getting too comfortable. Those food sources and shelters you set up in the Summer? Those are all but useless or non-existent come Fall and Winter. You’ll need to stay warm and dry while also dealing with more aggressive cannibals and mutants, who are just as desperate for resources as you are.

At least this time around, scrounging for resources and building shelter is much less tedious thanks to the addition of your AI companion, Kelvin. Kelvin is in pretty bad shape after the helicopter crash, which seems to have left him with burst eardrums. He can’t hear anything, so instead, you write notes on a notepad and show him using a very intuitive and inventive system. You can only tell him to do a handful of things, but I never found myself wishing there were more orders to give him. It’s very well-designed. In my playthrough, Kelvin was mostly assigned to the drudgery of collecting sticks and stones or moving logs. Processes that are extremely boring, but necessary to get to the real meat of Sons of the Forest: crafting.

"The addition of changing seasons creates even more visual variety along with plenty of additional gameplay mechanics that weren’t present in The Forest. The need to periodically adapt to the changes new seasons bring keeps things interesting and prevents players from getting too comfortable."

Sons of the Forest uses a completely revamped crafting system that is incredibly immersive. The process of building sturdy shelter is no longer tapping a button to watch things pop into place to fill in an outline. Now, the player character has animations to place logs and even chop them in half if the construction calls for it. There is also a new freeform method of building that can be used alongside the previous game’s blueprint system. If you want to get really creative and build complex structures, you can even add on to blueprint constructions with the freeform system. The added complexity of the freeform system takes a little bit of time to get used to, but the possibilities it provides will make that time more than worth it for creatively-minded players.

The inventory screen has also been improved. Instead of the blue tarp with your various items scattered all around it, you now have an organized mat with pouches and places for just about everything you collect, with separate containers for guns and other important items. Having things more organized is much more visually pleasing, but it also creates a separate problem. You collect SO MANY THINGS that your inventory mat is massive out of necessity. Crafting resources are exiled to the outside corners of your mat, so you’ll be panning down and around more often than not when crafting. Watching your character actually sharpen sticks and bind them together to make spears makes the inconvenience worth it though, and I don’t think there is a better way Endnight could have implemented this style of inventory screen.

For the next part of this review, I’m going to level with you a little bit. I only played the original The Forest for a handful of hours over the course of many years. The gameplay and concept are incredibly compelling, but I found it… very scary. Cannibals rushing you through bushes, flying flesh monsters, mutant creatures combining like Voltron into nightmarish configurations, it was a lot.

Sons of the Forest is way worse.

I can’t tell if this is because of the much-improved graphics or enemy AI, but horror hounds will likely salivate at the messed-up things Sons of the Forest has in store. Your initial introduction to the island is handled by monkey-like cannibals that scurry around on all fours while also climbing and leaping from tree to tree. These actions were enough to put me on edge, but just stopping to watch these things made something else apparent: they’re intelligent. They aren’t initially hostile, but they will circle you and make sounds to summon their friends and outnumber you. Running away is usually enough to lose them, but when you’re building a base and you hear rustling and barks from deep in the forest, the sense of dread is unmatched.

"Sons of the Forest uses a completely revamped crafting system that is incredibly immersive. The process of building sturdy shelter is no longer tapping a button to watch things pop into place to fill in an outline. Now, the player character has animations to place logs and even chop them in half if the construction calls for it."

There are also more organized groups of cannibals that manage to be even more imposing, giant cannibals with immense power, terrifying pale eyeless flesh mutants, the horrible vertical maw with legs from the trailers, and plenty of other things I didn’t have time to analyze because I was too busy running away. It’s much safer at my fortified base by the water.

All things considered, Sons of the Forest is an immediate success, and the game is not even complete yet. More content and gameplay improvements will no doubt be made over the course of its stint in Early Access, which means it will probably get better over time. Endnight clearly took the things they learned from their time developing The Forest and used them to make the definitive version of the game they set out to make almost a decade ago.

At its current price, the value that Sons of the Forest provides is rare these days, and it is absolutely worth your time.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Other games that use Soulslike mechanics as the basis of their gameplay tend to lack some kind of spark or personality. They are functionally fine, but often feel uninspired, lacking any kind of identity outside of their mechanics and setting. Scars Above manages to avoid these pitfalls and separate itself from similar games in a number of ways. Specifically, it doesn’t rely on its Soulslike mechanics to keep players engaged, and it expands on those expected gameplay elements with some unexpected mechanics that give it a unique personality.

These surprises can likely be attributed to the game’s developer, Mad Head Games. The Serbian studio was founded in 2011, and its legacy prior to its acquisition by Saber Interactive in 2020 consisted of primarily hidden object/point-and-click narrative games. Scars Above is Mad Head’s first big third-person action game, but their legacy shines through in a few interesting ways. Most notably is the sense of tactility present in almost every interaction.

"Scars Above is Mad Head’s first big third-person action game, but their legacy shines through in a few interesting ways. Most notably is the sense of tactility present in almost every interaction."

In the game’s intro, you are tasked with retrieving a laser welder from a case in order to craft an important tool. Instead of walking up to the case and pressing a button to add the welder to your inventory, you need to click on each latch to unlock it, then the lid to open the case, and finally the welder itself to pick it up. Then, you use a 3D printer to print another part, take everything to another desk, and complete a series of mini-games to put the pieces together and calibrate them into a tool that becomes essential to your survival a few minutes later. This process of putting things together, opening containers, and being engaged with processes that most other games would gloss over was a standout feature for me.

I wasn’t expecting this level of interactivity from a third-person shooter right off the bat, but it makes sense coming from a game studio that created point-and-click games for a decade. The many sequences like this one serve to establish the sense of tactile science that carries the entire game. It also thankfully makes Scars Above feel unique, which is an important thing to demonstrate when everything leading up to its launch has looked so familiar.

A female scientist protagonist, roguelike elements, third-person shooting mechanics, and a sci-fi setting with a healthy dose of cosmic horror. There’s no getting around it, Scars Above looked like it was going to be a Returnal knockoff from the jump. Thankfully, it feels less like a knockoff and more like it was heavily inspired by Housemarque’s sci-fi shooter in action. There are still a few things that made me squint my eyes in suspicion a little bit, including some eerily similar environmental design and the intro sequence right before the title card. That short part plays exactly like a Returnal restart cutscene, complete with a zoom-in to the protagonist’s eyes intercut with distressing visions.

"There’s no getting around it, Scars Above looked like it was going to be a Returnal knockoff from the jump. Thankfully, it feels less like a knockoff and more like it was heavily inspired by Housemarque’s sci-fi shooter in action."

What Scars Above unfortunately didn’t inherit from Returnal is its stellar production value. The environments and enemies are impressively detailed, but the human character models are pretty lifeless and uncanny looking, with terrible facial animations and lip-syncing. In fact, just about every animation in the game used by both the human characters and the alien creatures you encounter feel off, with a level of jank that feels like a game from the early 2010s. It’s a little unfortunate, but this is Mad Head’s first game in this style. It’s a big jump for an indie studio to go from hidden object games to a game of this scale, and the jank eventually becomes part of its charm. The rest of the game also makes up for its presentation shortcomings quite a bit.

Once players gain control of protagonist Dr. Kate Ward following the crash of her team’s spaceship, the action picks up pretty quickly. You regain the “tool” you built in the intro, now a powerful gun that can fire rounds imbued with different elements to take advantage of enemy weaknesses and to solve puzzles, and your bag of tricks is expanded in short order. Instead of scrounging for supply items scattered around the surface of the planet, you pick up recipes for useful items that can then be crafted on the fly with a resource called fiber, and you gain abilities from fallen boss characters like a temporary shield that runs off of your suit’s battery.

Within the first hour, Kate feels exponentially more powerful and equipped to handle the dangers of this alien planet, but not solely because of the new gadgets and craftables that get picked up. A big focus of Scars Above is taking the time to scan and learn about the various processes of the strange planet, and harnessing them for yourself. In this game, knowledge is power.

Some of these scanning sequences are similar to Returnal where you just hold a button and the scanning is done for you, but there are many instances where you are presented with something in a more traditional point-and-click manner, and need to manually poke and prod around to scan important parts and see how they work. Kate will sometimes use the information gained from these scans to craft a new upgrade or element for her weapon. These slower sequences are implemented very well, they make it clear that Kate is first and foremost a scientist, and they stop Scars Above from feeling too one-note or generic. But you won’t spend the entire game scanning and crafting.

"What Scars Above unfortunately didn’t inherit from Returnal is its stellar production value. The environments and enemies are impressively detailed, but the human character models are pretty lifeless and uncanny looking, with terrible facial animations and lip-syncing."

The game outlines early on that Dr. Kate Ward has some shooting experience in her past, but she is not a soldier. Because of this, combat in Scars Above is just as much about smart use of gadgets and supplies as it is about careful aiming and strategic dodging, which creates a pretty engaging experience. The various alien enemies and monstrosities you face hit hard, and more often than not I only barely survived combat encounters. For me, Scars Above really nails the feeling of desperation as a regular person forced to fight for their life, but it isn’t gruelingly difficult. Even extra difficult combat sections were much easier on the second try after learning the enemy layout and planning your approach better.

In terms of performance, I only had a single issue with Scars Above. This review covers the PS5 version of the game, and the frame rate seems to hold pretty steady even when things get hectic. I didn’t notice any serious frame drops or stutters. I did, however, have the game completely crash in the intro sequence. It gave me a bad feeling so I was braced for more lost progress due to semi-frequent crashes, but I only ever saw that one.

There is a lot to like in Scars Above. If you can get past the issues with the character models and animations, there is a really fun, unique sci-fi shooter with an interesting story to experience.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

Immediate parallels were drawn between Atomic Heart and many other modern shooters, citing the “utopia gone wrong” narrative and complex combat that makes use of both weapons and special powers. And after playing the game, I can tell you that those comparisons are mostly accurate. However, while the gameplay is solid, the game falls short in other areas. Does that mean Atomic Heart isn’t worth your time?

"Atomic Heart, for better or worse, is a game that is obsessed with spectacle."

Atomic Heart, for better or worse, is a game that is obsessed with spectacle. The developer’s need to “wow” or shock you is palpable throughout the game, and while some of it works, some of it comes across as strained. Atomic Heart is the studios’ first major game and one that is also incredibly high profile, with seemingly the entire games industry anticipating it. Of course, it’s easy to imagine that this largely new, untested studio would believe it has something to prove.

Everything up to and even slightly after the title card drop is dedicated to introducing you to Atomic Heart’s world, and it is every bit as visually impressive as the trailers would have you believe. The designs of the world, people, and robots you encounter are breathtaking, and the graphical fidelity on display is very impressive. That much is clear from the game’s spectacular opening.

However, your first foray into Atomic Heart is also marked by walking through a crowd and being bombarded with a cacophony of conversations, all seemingly happening at the same time. This sequence happens only in the opening (you don’t deal with groups of humans for the rest of the game), but it left a pretty bad taste in my mouth almost immediately. I literally felt like clutching my head, screaming, and running somewhere quiet.

The rest of the opening was comprised of several, long cutscenes where the game takes its time to show you its gorgeous world and sumptuous graphics. Everything is visually breathtaking, without a doubt. But these sequences went for far too long for my liking. By that point, I was fifteen minutes into the game without any kind of real gameplay outside of walking and interacting with various things. This shows up a few times throughout the game, but its worse at the beginning.

"The level of environmental detail and the way they are used for storytelling is fantastic."

When you actually gain control of Major Sergei Nechaev, nicknamed P-3, the protagonist of Atomic Heart, things pick up very quickly and begin to get interesting. The level of environmental detail and the way they are used for storytelling is fantastic. Things like the spiral masses of polymer that can be swam through as whispers of the past echo in your ears, and the metal tentacles that stick out of walls to suspend corpses in their grasp inspire wonder and fear in equal measure. Mundfish’s art direction team must have worked overtime on this and it shows.

In playing Atomic Heart, you can almost feel the games that inspired its developer breaking through. Sci-fi gunplay and powers combo and Dead Island’s melee combat take center stage, but there is also a weapon crafting system reminiscent of Fallout 4 that plays a huge part in the game’s progression. Five to six hours in, the game takes on a typical open world approach, complete with towers to scale and cars to drive in order to get around. That turn completely changes how the game played compared to the aforementioned first few hours. Overall, these inspirations are implemented and combined in a way that feels unique to Atomic Heart. Even if you can see where the individual threads come from, it doesn’t take away from the game’s experience.

What does take away from the Atomic Heart experience is its writing. The core story and how it plays out is captivating, but the presentation and dialogue of some of the main characters falls pretty flat. For instance, there are attempts made to make Major Nachaev a likable character, but he comes across as just the opposite. Similarly, a character named Granny Zina feels like she was positioned to become a fan favorite, but just comes across as weird initially. To make matters worse, the weak English voice acting for both of these characters only amplifies how confounding and off-the-mark their dialogue actually is.

Thankfully, Atomic Heart makes up for that mess in its gameplay, and this is where it really shines. Melee is brutal and crunchy, the weapons have great feedback, and use of the powers in the midst of everything else feels great. Everything feels smooth until you are insta-killed because of a fumbled QTE. However, managing groups of highly unsettled, out-of-control robots by mixing up your powers and weapons is thrilling, and dealing with the range of epic boss encounters is just as, if not more exciting, especially as you come across new weapon recipes and start building up your arsenal. There’s some light puzzle work interspersed with the action, and it’s serviceable. It does its job of breaking up hectic rounds of combat, but it’s nothing to write home about.

"Melee is brutal and crunchy, the weapons have great feedback, and use of the powers in the midst of everything else feels great."

As a crafting/survival game, Atomic Heart has also found a way to take the tedium out of resource gathering. Thanks to P-3’s trusty and fashionable glove (named “CHAR-LES”), you can sweep through a whole room and gather everything by holding down the interact button. It’s a supremely welcome addition, as is the “detective vision” scanning function also offered by the glove, which shows enemies, resources, and other useful things through walls and obstacles.

In order to use those resources for crafting, you’ll need to visit a fridge-like robot named NORA. When you first meet it, it is clear that NORA might be the weirdest character ever put in a video game, to the point of being off-putting. I kind of got the feeling that NORA was meant to be funny, but I was never on board with its characterization. Not every crafting bot has NORA’s AI, thankfully, but she still manages to pop up pretty frequently with plenty of things to say, including some really uncomfortable one liners.

There seemed to be an attempt at explaining NORA’s behavior, but an unfortunate design choice caused me to miss most of that conversation. You see, for the majority of the game, Agent P-3 and his glove have frequent conversations. Most of the dialogue they share is just a bunch of non-sense (almost everything P-3 says is either cringey or poorly delivered), but some of it is plot relevant. Due to the length of those conversations, it is possible for them to get cut off if you move into an important area mid-conversation. That’s what happened to me, and while I would have loved to know the explanation for NORA’s characterization, it just wasn’t possible in my playthrough.

"The actual game (when you are allowed to play it), is really very impressive, and it only falls slightly short of the promise of its hype."

Keeping in mind that this is Mundfish’s first major game, it is easy to forgive the issues there are with Atomic Heart. The actual game (when you are allowed to play it), is really very impressive, and it only falls slightly short of the promise of its hype. It’s not quite game of the year material, but I think Atomic Heart will hold its own in the gaming conversation for quite a while.

This game was reviewed on PC.