NOTE: There are spoilers ahead for every game discussed in this feature.

Stray Souls

In Stray Souls you’ll take control of unremarkable teenager Daniel who moves into the dreary town of Aspen Falls after inheriting his recently deceased grandmother’s house. The prospect of a Silent Hill-alike was certainly enticing, but Stray Souls fluffs its lines by being a little too cookie-cutter. It certainly doesn’t nail the psychological trauma element it’s aiming for as Daniel’s actions and those of accompanying Martha can’t easily be explained. All this creepy stuff is happening, but they don’t seem phased at all. The spectre of Daniel’s grandma torments him, but why? Martha gives Daniel a gun, somehow? By the end, the lore is explained by a random note found in a police station. See, Daniel has ‘The Darkness’, with his grandmother’s haunting causing all the strange monsters to appear in Aspen Falls and the surrounding forest. Oh, and there’s a cult. It’s as inconsequential a backstory imaginable with zero context to explain the scary stuff happening despite its best efforts.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty

Soulslike Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty has a lot to like: it’s an inviting spin on FromSoftware’s blueprint with the challenge of certain encounters indicated to the player before engaging, saving them needless frustration, and a streamlined combat system forgoing the mental gymnastics required with Team Ninja’s other Soulslike Nioh. The story overall has merit too, telling a complex tale of multiple parties vying for control of an all-powerful magical elixir. It’s just that, the ending just… happens, with minimal challenge. The final three bosses are much easier than the side-quest boss Zhang Liao for instance, for once you’ve mastered deflecting his lightning-fast attacks, the remaining bosses are a walk in the park.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Numerous complaints surround the brevity of Call of Duty’s Modern Warfare 3 and its controversial open combat missions. That said, the Modern Warfare 3’s villainous Vladimir Makarov hatches a plan to blow up the Channel Tunnel between England and France, with Task Force 141 fighting for their lives to defuse the bomb and eliminate the terrorists. Thing is, there’s no jeopardy; we know Task Force 141 will succeed – albeit, as it happens, at a cost – but perhaps others who’ve suggested Makarov should be victorious have a point. This resolution would set up a true cliff-hanger. As it happens, Task Force 141 learn of Makarov’s latest scheme and thwart it within minutes. Makarov could be portrayed as a major evildoer, but Modern Warfare 3 instead prefers to depict him as an easily beatable, cartoonish villain.

Daymare 1994: Sandcastle

The story-driven survival horror prequel to Daymare: 1998 features a host of deadly enemies, tense encounters, and niggling environmental puzzles. The plot itself however is a befuddling mess, poorly paced acted out by largely unlikeable characters. There’s no motivation established for the character’s actions; it’s a feeling of procession as player-character Dahlia Reyes delves deeper into the not-so-surprising underground secret base. And the ending, whereby Dahlia is telepathically persuaded by her sister Helen to inject herself with the final sample of Ogre blood to presumably survive teleportation is too ambiguous. Why would she do this? Is Helen speaking under the influence of the ogre? How is Reyes even hearing her in the first place?

Quantum Error

Developer TeamKill Media should be applauded for their ambition; attempting to meld first and third-person action, cosmic shooting, and horror, all through the lens of a firefighter can’t have been easy, but alas the results of Quantum Error make all their efforts somewhat misdirected. Front and centre is the game’s convoluted story, masterfully failing to make sense of its dimension hopping, planet spanning madness. The story is told through poorly directed cinematics to boot, with surprise cutscenes interjecting the gameplay. It tries to do too much, and by game’s end its impossible to make sense of the events that have transpired.

Amnesia: The Bunker

The Bunker is a smaller scale Amnesia experience, with an underdeveloped story to go with it. It’s possible Frictional opted to tell a story lighter on lore to fit the overall more refined experience, but the plot is guessable, full of red herrings and unnecessary distraction. The biggest diversion though is that player-character Henri’s amnesia doesn’t have any relevance at all. He didn’t forget, he was simply in unconscious when all the scary stuff started materialising. The ‘bad thing’ that he did was to cheat at poker to avoid partaking in a night-time patrol. An innocuous undertaking for the usually decent Henri; had he not cheated and gone on patrol himself, the events of the game – kickstarted by Lambert consuming the mysterious spring water – would likely have happened anyway.

Greyhill Incident

Owing to Greyhill Incident’s cliché story, underbaked characters, murky visuals, tepid gameplay, and extreme brevity, it’s premature ending might be its saving grace. The game’s only serviceable character Ryan is on a mission to save his son Henry from the clutches of the sinister greys, who for the game’s handful of hour runtime skulk nonchalantly through the rural farmland Ryan calls home. To save his son, he must be abducted. And… that’s it. We don’t see Ryan’s fate. Does he save Henry? Does he survive? Has his consciousness been transferred to his dog? Greyhill Incident’s climactic abruptness leaves too many pesky questions.

The Walking Dead: Destinies

It’s bad enough that The Walking Dead: Destinies has some of the most horrendous gameplay, stealth, writing, visuals, and cutscenes ever put into video game format. Yet somehow, for a game about your choices having an impact, it manages to have the same ending scenarios for Shane and Rick. The same attack on the prison with a tank (with Merle as the villain for Rick and the Governer for Shane). The same choice leads to either Glen or Michonne dying. Even the same fight in the circle of fire. The same bland evacuation from the prison, with either Shane or Rick leaving separately with Carl. It just comes down to which characters you’d like to see appearing in the same terrible ending rather than your choices having any meaning. At least Rick’s path has Carol 1v1ing a tank with an assault rifle, which is hilarious.

Flashback 2

This long-awaited sequel to the 16-bit classic has its fair share of problems. If you managed to get through to the end, well done you, as not only was there clunky combat, cliched atmosphere, lacklustre missions, and boring, blurry level design to lumber through, there was an unfathomable number of technical deficiencies which broke the game, meaning finishing it was an impossible endeavour anyway. Much like the original, protagonist Conrad is working to thwart an alien invasion, but the settings and story beats rarely deviate. It’s an execution so tepid that you’ll probably not even care what happens come the game’s end. Flashback 2 is a sequel we did not need.

Sonic Superstars

As with all 2D Sonic the Hedgehog games, story is told in between-level cutscenes. Except, in Sonic Superstars – the return to side-scrolling Sonic many long-term fans hoped would be a spiritual successor to Sonic Mania – even between-level cutscenes can’t explain all the crazy goings on in the Blue Blur’s latest adventure. Of the game’s multiple narratives, the Last Story is the most perplexing, with the release of a dragon, the origin of which is remarkably unclear. Eggman’s use of time manipulation is never explained either. A dumbfounding conclusion to an underwhelming Sonic game.

Redfall

Initial reveals of Redfall didn’t look terrible. The lighting, shadows and overall mood that Arkane Lyon was going for looked intriguing and could have made for intriguing supernatural action. Things took a turn when it was confirmed not to launch with a 60 FPS Performance Mode on Xbox Series X/S.

Nothing could have prepared us for the actual game, though, with its broken animations, lackluster facial animations, terrible effects, pop-in, bland world with lifeless textures and overall lack of polish. The 30 FPS mode wasn’t the worst on Xbox Series X, but the motion blur still isn’t ideal. Having no animated cutscenes throughout the game feels like the cherry on top of this dumpster fire of a presentation.

AEW: Fight Forever

When AEW: Fight Forever was announced, it was hyped as paying homage to WWF No Mercy on the Nintendo 64. You can feel that with the perspective and some of the idle animations. However, it also feels like it wants to be a major wrestling title with its price without doing the appropriate groundwork with its mechanics, animations, features and much more.

The animations during actual combat look and feel incredibly janky. Some wrestlers barely resemble their real-life counterparts, and the glitches and bugs, like wrestlers clipping into the environment or phasing through ladders, are just terrible. The fact that so much work went into nonsensical mini-games rather than polishing the overall presentation – like having full entrances, fleshing out Road to Elite or improving the character creator – says a lot about the overall focus.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

On the one hand, you have to feel bad for Daedalic Entertainment. It probably wanted to make an adventure game and explore different avenues for the legendary character, like the moral choices between Smeagol and Gollum. However, unlike Deponia, it went with an action-adventure focus in full 3D. It also focused on some of the least interesting parts of Gollum’s life imaginable, like spending time in prison guiding a bird and then, get this, guiding a fellow prisoner.

Throughout all of this, the facial animations, texture quality, environments, and so on look horrible. The performance is also horrid with all the glitches, clipping and whatnot. If priced lower, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum may not have received much blowback. Unfortunately, at $60, with day one DLC costing extra, it just looks so much more awful.

Crime Boss: Rockay City

When you’re watching glitzy, edited trailers for it, Crime Boss: Rockay City looks decent. The lighting and shadows aren’t the worst, and sometimes, the city seems to come alive due to multiple light sources. On closer inspection, the textures on environments, characters and weapons look off.

The enemies animate in such a rudimentary manner. All NPCs suffer from almost no facial animations, and the big-name Hollywood actors fare only slightly better, looking uncanny at best and wooden at worst. One could forgive this if the script was better or the gameplay was compelling, but alas.

Ravenbound

Ravenbound could have done something with its lore and presentation. Not many games dip into Scandinavian folklore with its dark themes and whimsical yet terrifying creatures. Unfortunately, it seems that developer Systemic Reaction’s reach exceeded its grasp. The massive open world feels dull and lifeless with the same enemy camps and the same-looking enemies with the same limited animations (right down to the same telltale charge before an attack).

Texture quality in the environments and on models is poor, while Ravenbound’s performance was very iffy at launch (visibility during rain while activating Ravensight was non-existent). All in all, its mid-tier presentation needs a lot of work and polish.

Wanted: Dead

Wanted: Dead is a game that badly wants to emulate the look and design of sixth-generation console titles. Which is fine, but it didn’t need to look this poor. The textures on characters and environments already look pretty average, but outside of finishers, the character models animate stiffly with little by way of facial animations. There’s a constant jank to it all, but at least it’s over-the-top and crazy, right?

It feels like the same problem as AEW: Fight Forever – that developer Soleil wanted to make a throwback title instead of polishing the presentation but slapped a “homage to the classics” label on it to excuse the same. “It’s supposed to look like this, you see!” Regardless, the overall result is awful, even with the random wackiness.

Farming Simulator 23

It should be reiterated – when I saw the critics panning this game, I had to do a double take because Farming Simulator is generally well-liked. Farming Simulator 22 sold over 1.5 million copies in its first week and has 94 percent positive user reviews on Steam. So how did we get here? Farming Simulator 23 didn’t release on Xbox, PlayStation and PC like other platforms.

It arrived on iOS and Android and was ported to Nintendo Switch. The production values are not up to par, and the overall scale, sense of freedom and feature set also suffer from this paring down. The worst part? Despite looking so middling, it runs terribly on Nintendo Switch.

Redemption Reapers

Considering the experience of Adglobe and Binary Haze Interactive on the stunning Ender Lilies, the shift to a more realistic style for Redemption Reapers is somewhat puzzling. Given the post-apocalyptic nature of this medieval world, the gritty monotone visuals make sense, but they still feel overly washed out at times. While the cinematics look decent, the environments look extremely dull.

Character models also feel low-res, with animations that could have been better. It’s harsh, I know, especially since it doesn’t have the biggest budget, but even Harvestella from Live Wire (who also worked on Ender Lilies) looks better.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty

It’s not that the aesthetic of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is bad. Team Ninja has always done good with its action hack-and-slash titles (except maybe Stranger of Paradise in terms of fidelity), and Wo Long’s showcase of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is quite good. Unfortunately, it’s weighed down by dull textures, lackluster facial animations outside of cutscenes and average-looking environments.

Its fidelity is probably on par with Nioh 2, which isn’t terrible, but considering the latter is a 2020 title originally exclusively for PS4, you’d expect some improvements at this point. Of course, the fact that Wo Long continues to have performance issues on PC also doesn’t help.

Greyhill Incident

Once again, when viewing the Greyhill Incident in trailers, it appears to be a low-budget B-movie-style game that could offer some fun and decent visuals. However, you’re exposed to wooden animations and awful character models during gameplay. The facial animations fare worse – the little grey aliens have very little, not even when taking damage or getting shot in the head.

Expected, but still lame, as their bored walking animations make you ponder their existence instead of feeling threatened. At the same time, while it does offer some interesting lighting and shadows, Greyhill Incident piles on the motion blur and washed-out textures. On the bright side, at least it’s true to the name with all the “grey” you’ll see.

Greyhill Incident

What could have been a B-movie horror game turns into an unfunny, painfully unaware low-budget horror game. Aliens invade your small town, and you go around “saving” people. You fight the aliens sometimes, and they’re as threatening as inflatables at a pool party. Throw in lots of awful dialogue, dumb objectives that are difficult to parse, a nonsensical plot, terrible voice acting and bugs galore, and the Greyhill Incident is just one of the absolute worst games of the year.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

How do you mess up a Lord of the Rings game, that too with one of its most recognizable characters? The Lord of the Rings: Gollum makes it look easy, focusing on bland events in Smeagol’s life with asinine mechanics and tedious objectives. The stealth is poor, and Gollum’s character is nothing like the books or films, not that the script does a good job of delivering something original. Such was the failure of this game that Daedalic Entertainment has stopped game development entirely, halting another Lord of the Rings title (rumored to be a sequel to Gollum) and focusing instead on publishing.

Stray Blade

Stray Blade does have some potential with its lore and art style. Unfortunately, this is quickly undone thanks to the annoying protagonist, frustrating combat where you can dodge some attacks and parry others (not both), poor and limited enemy design, progression-blocking bugs and more. Improvements have reportedly been made to the combat post-launch, but its other flaws still stick out.

Redfall

Arkane Austin’s Redfall could have capitalized on improved communication and paved the way for other high-profile Xbox exclusives like Starfield and Forza Motorsport. Instead, it crashed and burned, packed to the brim with bugs, dumb AI, a sparsely populated and boring world, lackluster enemy variety, stupid vampires, terrible weapons, horrible dialogue – and, of course, performance issues on PC. Playing on Xbox Series X/S is torturous, thanks to no aim assist or advanced control settings. Top it off with no matchmaking, and this “co-op experience” just sucks.

Crime Boss: Rockay City

With the initial announcement, Crime Boss: Rockay City appeared to have poured most of its budget into big-name Hollywood stars. Unfortunately, it didn’t give them much direction or compelling dialogue, and the gameplay feels completely superfluous. Missions feel like little more than shoot-outs against tanky foes, and the campaign is forgettable at best. What could have been a pulpy take on Payday’s heists ends up as a bug-riddled, cheesy mess.

Ravenbound

Despite Systemic Reaction’s previous titles, like Generation Zero, being middling, I was genuinely stoked for Ravenbound. A rogue-lite set in a fully 3D open world based on Scandinavian folklore sounded interesting. The actual game was a different story, with baffling design decisions for combat, the Hatred system, exploration, long-term progression and more. Underwhelming performance and bugs didn’t help either, and it all just felt so poorly put together. Like Stray Blade, there have been improvements, but it’s got a ways to go.

Beyond Contact

Though published by Deep Silver, Beyond Contact passed completely unnoticed when it was released last April. It’s a sci-fi survival open-world title with base-building and real-time combat with a bright aesthetic, which is all good, but it messes up so much. Most materials do nothing, base defense is poorly balanced, farming is way too much work for little rewards, and the less said about the combat and tanky enemies, the better. Beyond Contact could have been interesting and settled for being fundamentally mediocre.

Rendezvous

With titles like A Space for the Unbound highlighting the game development talent in Indonesia, it hurts to see stuff like Rendezvous. It’s marketed as a “2.5D cyber-noir pixel art action-puzzle adventure.” Sure enough, its aesthetic is very sharp and eye-catching. However, it offers little beyond that than annoying puzzles and stealth to go with its boring combat and half-hearted narrative.

Mia and the Dragon Princess

Wales Interactive has a reputation for FMV-style games, with some standouts (The Complex) and duds (I Saw Black Clouds). Mia and the Dragon Princess sadly falls into the latter category. The story, about Mia and the mysterious Marshanda as they meet and go on the run, is baffling and full of throwaway characters. There’s a lot of fight choreography courtesy of – I kid you not – “Ginger Ninja Trickster”, and you can make some choices which don’t lead to any satisfying conclusion. Is it a good or bad thing that it’s over quickly? You decide.

The Last Worker

In The Last Worker, players control the last human worker who struggles in a world of automation and corporate greed. So it’s a shame that the protagonist Kurt isn’t particularly likeable or the writing very interesting. Some solid gameplay could have saved it, but unfortunately, The Last Worker offers awful mini-games and some poorly handled themes. Not even VR and unique mechanics can help.

Clive ‘N’ Wrench

Dr Daucas has stolen Professor Nancy Merricarp’s blueprints for time travel. It’s up to Clive (not that one) and Wrench, a monkey and not a talking wrench, to venture through time to stop Daucas. Making a compelling 3D platformer can be challenging, and Clive ‘N’ Wrench sadly fails where it counts. Controls and combat are terrible, and the performance leaves much to be desired (watch out for projectiles from enemies running at a different frame rate). It may have been something with more time and polish, but unfortunately ends up awkwardly skirting by.

Colossal Cave Reimagined

A 3D remake of the 1979 text-based adventure, Colossal Cave Reimagined comes from Ken and Roberta Williams, known for legendary adventure games like the King’s Quest series under Sierra Entertainment. Sadly, it’s let down by underwhelming visuals and outdated design, like annoying mazes and instant deaths. While the puzzles are decent, the remake feels unnecessary at best and downright frustrating at worst.

Curse of the Sea Rats

A Metroid-style title with hand-drawn animations and somewhat cute visuals, Curse of the Sea Rats ultimately wastes its potential. The rats may as well be human, without any unique mechanics designed around them (much less interesting scenarios for each of the four playable characters), and the world design is as confounding as it is boring. Cap this off with balancing issues, where some enemies are far more challenging than the bosses, and you have a fairly lop-sided, dull adventure.

Farming Simulator 23

At first, I did a double take on seeing Farming Simulator 23 rated so low. How could this be, especially when the previous entries were so beloved? It’s because this year’s iteration launched on mobile devices and ported to the Nintendo Switch. The result is a pared-down experience with limited freedom, fewer features, horrible performance and visuals, and a much higher price tag than the mobile versions.

The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR

Considering how well-received Until Dawn: Rush of Blood was on PlayStation VR (read: not very well), there was concern that The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR could repeat those mistakes on PlayStation VR2. Unfortunately, it’s worse, even with powerful technology and new features like eye tracking for scary blinking moments. It doesn’t present an interesting story or offer much beyond rudimentary rail shooter segments. Performance issues also bog the entire thing down, which isn’t something you want to highlight on Sony’s next-gen VR.

REDFALL

Redfall always looked like it was going to be very different from Arkane’s traditional offerings, but the general expectation was that, given the studio’s innate talent and impeccable track record, it would at least be a good, well put together game. In the end, it definitely wasn’t. Not only does Redfall almost completely lack the strengths one usually associates an Arkane game with, it’s not even good at the new things it tries, with everything from its open world and its co-op gameplay to its loot mechanis coming with major issues. Add to all of that some significan technical hiccups, and what you have is a game that woefully falls short of expectations for an Arkane joint.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: GOLLUM

Let’s be fair here, no one really expected The Lord of the Rings: Gollum to be anything more than middling or passably enjoyable at best- but we also didn’t expect it to be literally one of the worst games in recent memory. Daedalic Entertainment’s stealth action-adventure game took its sweet time to finally release, and when it did, it stumbled with its first step and fell flat on its face. Nothing about The Lord of the Rings: Gollum works. It has boring quest design, little to no exploration, broken combat and traversal mechanics, and a deluge of technical and performance problems that make it nigh on impossible to get through. You don’t play The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. You endure it.

LAYERS OF FEAR

For a while, Bloober Team has been pumping out psychological horror games that range from middling to genuinely good, and this year, the studio went back to the very beginning to bring back Layers of Fear. Combining, connecting, and reimagining the first two games while adding its own new content on top, the new Layers of Fear looks excellent and has a fascinating premise- but as is often the case with Bloober, it doesn’t do justice to that premise. It ends up being a fairly dull, repetetive, and rote game that relies on its visual prowess to the exclusion of almost everything else. We can only hope the Silent Hill 2 remake fares significantly better.

TCHIA

We’d had our eye on Tchia for a while before it launched, with Awaceb’s tropical action-adventure game looking increasingly promising with each of its pre-launch showings, and though the final product is certainly not without its merits, it didn’t quite live up to our expectations. Yes, it has a gorgeous setting, and making your way around the island is fun, for the most part. But the game’s mechanics and systems never quite manage to get their hooks in, leaving us with a pretty but fairly unremarkable experience.

CRIME BOSS: ROCKAY CITY

Over the years, many have tried their hand at the co-op first person shooter heist genre, and very few have managed to enjoy the kind of success that the Payday series has seen. Crime Boss: Rockay City was certainly eyeing that throne, and with its star-studded cast of actors, it looked like it might actually take a big swing. The actual game itself, however, was not only disappointing, it was just downright terrible. Whether you’re playing its single player roguelike campaign or diving into its co-op offerings, the game’s aggressive mediocrity taints every second you spend with it, with its awful voice acting, bland design, repetitive loop, and boring core gameplay dragging down the experience into the doldrums.

RAVENBOUND

Ravenbound has a promising premise on paper as an open world roguelite set in a world inspired by Scandinavian folklore, but when you actually get down to playing the game, you realize that it’s woefully underbaked in almost every way that matters. Its world is a vast one, but given how empty, bland, and vapid it generally feels, exploration ends up being significantly de-emphasized. Combat can get repetitive instead of decent enemy variety, while the game also does itself no favours with its poorly balanced difficulty curve. Add to that an unfortunately healthy dose of technical issues, and you get a pretty underwhelming game.

FORSPOKEN

A big new AAA open world IP from Square Enix? To say that people were curious to see how Forspoken would fare would be an understatement, even back when it was called Project Athia, though unfortunately, it didn’t even come close to matching expectations. A premise that’s interesting on paper is let down by annoying characters and poor writing. An open world that should have been begging to be explored ended up being empty and uninteresting. The combat system, while flashy and enjoyable, failed to make up for deficiencies in boring quest design. The fact that Forspoken failed to meet Square Enix’s commercial expectations was, ultimately, not surprising in the slightest.

THE LAST OF US PART 1 PC

Frankly, we’re still baffled that this was allowed to exist. Naughty Dog, more than almost any other studio in the entire industry, is associated with an obsessive level of attention to detail and quality assurance. Polish and Naughty Dog go hand-in-hand- which is why it’s so surprising that The Last of Us Part 1’s PC port might be one of the worst PC ports in recent memory. Even looking at brief clips and individual screenshots, it was hard to believe that something this broken had been allowed to release. When you actually played it, it quickly became apparent that the state of the game was somehow even worse. It’s a real shame, too, because this will forever be remembered as the manner in which this legendary franchise made its PC debut.

LEGO 2K DRIVE

Unlike many other games on this list, LEGO 2K Drive is not without its merits. Its world is vibrant and colourful, it has an impressive suite of customization options for building any kind of car you want, and, as you’d expect from a LEGO game, it’s very kid-friendly and easy to get into. It is, however, also quite vapid. What you see is very much what you get, and with that lack of depth, LEGO 2K Drive ends up like a shallow experience that runs out of steam too quickly, whether that’s because of its how uninteresting open world exploration is, or its lackluster optional content, or any number of other issues.

LEAP

LEAP isn’t exactly a game that’s grabbed a whole lot of headlines, so to say that expectations were high wouldn’t exactly be fair. But this is still very much a game that doesn’t do justice to its interesting premise. The sci-fi competitive FPS boasts slick visuals and cool traversal options, but all of that gets bogged down in its tedious gameplay loop and how unsatisfying its moment-to-moment gameplay largely feels. Especially in a genre that’s this competitive, LEAP fails to make a mark in any meaningful way.

STRAYED LIGHTS

We don’t want to be unfair on Strayed Lights here, because for a game developed by a small team with a unique vision, it does actually get some things right. The story, the music, and the aesthetic, for instance, are legitimately solid and worthy of praise. There’s plenty else in the game, however, that drags the experience down, from its frustrating combat to the lackluster platform to its technical issues. The fact that there are parts of the game that are genuinelty good makes the parts that aren’t feel that much more frustrating.

STRAY BLADE

You’ll never see us turning down the chance to play a new Soulslike, especially one that’s trying to shake up the genre’s formula the way Stray Blade was promising it would. But though there’s something to be said about the idea of viewing the genre through a less gloomy lens, the actual execution of many of the game’s core pillars leaves a lot to be desired. The clunky controls, uninspired level design, and technical issues combine to make Stray Blade quite a frustrating experience, even if it isn’t one that’s totally without its merits.

CRASH TEAM RUMBLE

Again, in the name of fairness, it’s worth pointing out that Crash Team Rumble is definitely a game that you can have plenty of fun with- especially for fans of the series, given how well it translates that Crash feel into a MOBA experience. As it stands right now though, it’s also pretty barebones, with its launch offerings, especially in terms of the modes on offer, being quite limited. Of course, we’re hoping that Crash Team Rumble will be supported so well that including it on this list in retrospect feels like a mistake- but with live service games, you can never tell how long of a lifespan to expect.

GREYHILL INCIDENT

A small production in every way possible, criticising Greyhill Incident would almost feel unfair under most circumstances- but unfortunately, there’s plenty to criticize in this game. The core premise of a survival horror game where your main enemies are aliens is certainly an interesting one, but from its awful dialogue to its painfully shallow mechanics to the mind-numbing level design, Greyhill Incident messes up (to say the very least) in too many ways to be anything more than a disappointment. And even that might be a generous description.

RISEN (PS4)

In the many, many years since its launch, the original Risen has amassed a reputation as one of the RPG genre’s proper diamonds in the rough, though with its 2023 port, there was way more of the rough than there was of the diamond. Janky animations, disappointing and minimal updates to the gameplay and visuals, clunky combat, and technical problems combined to paint the ageing experience in what wasn’t exactly the most flattering light. Maybe this is one flawed gem that should have been left in the past.

Greyhill Incident puts you in the shoes and tinfoil hat of a local named Ryan in the rural town of Greyhill. Immediately, strange occurrences begin happening around your home late one night. Upon investigation, you meet Bob, the town’s very own alien conspiracy expert and the two of you witness a flying saucer descend into a cornfield and several slender alien figures disembark. Before long, the aliens begin abducting people and causing havoc around town. It’s up to Ryan to sneak around the streets, bushes, and cornfields of Greyhill to find and save his friends.

"The most maddening element of the game is its focus on stealth, mostly because the stealth mechanics at play are frustrating beyond belief."

In theory, that sounds like a thrilling and horrific adventure. But you’d be horribly mistaken, at least as far as Greyhill Incident is concerned. While the game is being released on multiple platforms, this review is focused on the “Abducted Edition” PS5 version of the game. Let’s start with the gameplay. Like other walking simulator-style horror adventures, you move around the world from the first-person perspective. You collect a wind-up flashlight that is mostly no good to you as it near-instantly alerts aliens to your presence, and you find a policeman’s revolver as a method of self-defense. Only finding ammo for it is like pulling teeth. Bullets are few and far between and they’re hard to spot. You’ll never find a full box of ammunition. You’ll be lucky if you find two tiny rounds lying on a table in a house. They don’t glow or do anything to help draw your attention, they literally blend in with all the other dark objects in a home. The other primary method of defense is a baseball bat. Apparently, Ryan enjoys the sport and this seemingly Signs-inspired weapon is put to use. Though it’s woefully ineffective.

Perhaps, the most maddening element of the game is its focus on stealth, mostly because the stealth mechanics at play are frustrating beyond belief. Aliens will spot you with ease, they walk faster than you do. If you sprint, your stamina runs low. You might be able to get away or hide. Most often, however, the aliens would pluck me out of my hiding spot in a garbage can or an outhouse. But if you attempt to hit an alien with the bat, the action timed with the controller response lags. You need to time your swing a bit before the alien even reaches you and attempts to abduct you. Swinging the bat is slow, it takes nearly 8 seconds to swing the bat three times – the number needed to temporarily knock an alien to the ground.

"Greyhill is shrouded in a fog, making everything painfully hard to see. The flashlight would come in handy if you weren’t afraid of attracting alien attention."

While waiting for your second and third swing to land, you have to dance around the spaceman like a lunatic so he won’t try to grab you. Swinging the bat very slowly three times apparently makes Ryan winded as his stamina drops drastically. Sprinting after knocking an alien to the ground isn’t in the cards and the alien often gets right back up and power walks back over to you to do the whole dance all over again. When an alien does grab you, the game literally tells you to “spam R2” in order to get away. If an alien grabs you too many times in quick succession, then it’s instant game over. If you’re lucky and have at least two bullets on you, two shots to the bulbous noggin of any of these creatures will kill them.

Coming to tutorialization, the game takes a vastly minimal approach here. While you get an idea of what you’re supposed to do based on the dialogue, there’s no directional indicators or cues that help guide you. If you pause the game, very vague instructions appear on screen. “Go to Brandon’s house,” one instruction might say. Great, where’s Brandon’s house? It’s not at all helpful. You might find yourself wandering a bit and trying to fend off the frustrating alien assaults simply attempting to find which way to go. To make matters worse, Greyhill is shrouded in a fog, making everything painfully hard to see. The flashlight would come in handy if you weren’t afraid of attracting alien attention.

As an indie title, it’s easy to forgive the lackluster visual presentation, rigid character models, poor animation, and campy voice acting. But the dialogue and narrative at play are cringe-inducing at best. All of the NPCs are cliché cutouts of what you might expect from any classic alien invasion film. From the town’s eccentric conspiracy theorist camping out in an RV with a tinfoil hat to the NPC whose entire house is adorned in accolades, it’s all quite stereotypical and ridiculously campy. And what are the aliens doing with humans you might ask? Well, they’re experimenting on them, of course, through the classic butt-probing technique. That’s right, you’ll find plenty of bloody probes and hear the terror of humans who are being subjected to such throughout. The entire affair is so embedded in classic alien invasion tropes and character cutouts it’s laughable. That’s no joke. I found myself laughing throughout most of the experience instead of being terrified as the game intends.

"You’ll find plenty of bloody probes and hear the terror of humans who are being subjected to such throughout. The entire affair is so embedded in classic alien invasion tropes and character cutouts it’s laughable. That’s no joke. I found myself laughing throughout most of the experience instead of being terrified."

By the end of the game, you maybe start to care about Ryan and his mission to save a few different people. But the closer to this story is completely unsatisfying and leaves every thread dangling in the air with no resolution. It’s almost like a sequel game was planned – as strange as that might sound. Speaking of the ending, despite the game’s frustratingly slow, robotic, and aimless gameplay, I managed to see the credits roll after a mere two hours. Perhaps, that might be the game’s only saving grace – that it ends prematurely. Still, for the price of this game, the offering is meager – even more minuscule than most add-on, DLC, or expansion content in other games. It’s impossible to justify the $30 price tag for a completely unsatisfying slog that only lasts two hours.

Greyhill Incident truly feels like a lackluster attempt to mimic classic films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind. While the idea isn’t at all preposterous or bad, this particular offering suffers from frustrating, underdeveloped gameplay, poor character, and story creation, and painfully dark and muddy visuals. You’re better off making your own tin foil hat and watching UFO documentaries.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

"With Greyhill Incident, we’re not only having an indie survival horror game which covers the unique and classic alien/UFO topic, but also having one which isn’t a fully stealth, run & hide game."

Survival horror games are obviously big right now, but we don’t see an awful lot of them where you’re straight up crossing paths with aliens as the primary enemies. What led to that creative decision, and how would you say that sets Greyhill Incident apart from others in the genre?

Yeah, there are a lot of survival horror games with zombies and so on but there aren’t any which cover aliens. It’s a shame that there weren’t any survival horror games which cover aliens before. Many gamers, especially alien/UFO fans, including us, waited years for something within this topic. With Greyhill Incident, we’re not only having an indie survival horror game which covers the unique and classic alien/UFO topic, but also having one which isn’t a fully stealth, run & hide game. In Greyhill, players are able to defend themselves using weapons.

How will Greyhill Incident approach combat? We know that players will be starting out with a baseball bat and a pistol, but will there be addition weapons to pick up later on in the game?

Combat isn’t the main focus of Greyhill and we wanted to keep the player’s resources very limited. The revolver and the baseball bat are the only weapons Ryan has and they should only be used if there isn’t any other way out.

What can you tell us about Greyhill Incident’s stealth mechanics? How much freedom will players have during encounters with enemies in how they want to approach situations between combat and stealth?

The player has to manage the ammo as it’s very limited. So the player will have to use it wisely. But of course, it’s up to the player, they could use it balanced over the game or save the ammo in the beginning to play more offensive later in the game.

"With Greyhill Incident we’re telling an invasion story which focuses on the Greys who invade an outlying village."

Given the fact that the primary enemies in Greyhill Incident will be aliens, what should players expect from the game in terms of enemy variety, and the unique threats they will pose and how players will have to deal with them?

Greyhill Incident focuses on the “Greys”, the kind of aliens most “abductees” described after their encounter. With Greyhill Incident we’re telling an invasion story which focuses on the Greys who invade an outlying village.

How much of an emphasis will the game place on exploration? Will levels be large enough to provide players with plenty of opportunities on that front?

Exploring is a big part of Greyhill. It’s not an open world game, but the open areas of Greyhill are big enough to let the players approach plenty of ways to solve the tasks.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of the game be?

An average playthrough will take the player roughly four and a half hours.

"Exploring is a big part of Greyhill. It’s not an open world game, but the open areas of Greyhill are big enough to let the players approach plenty of ways to solve the tasks."

What frame rate and resolution will the game target on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S?

Between 50 and 60 FPS.

Splinter Cell Remake

The Splinter Cell brand is home to some of the best stealth games of all time, but with recent entries not performing as well as the developer expected them to – the franchise was put on indefinite hold. But now, the developer is hard at work on a full fledged remake of the original for modern consoles and PC. The remake is being developed using the Snowdrop Engine, and Ubisoft has clarified that the team will be focused on keeping the core stealth experience intact while modernizing the game for a brand new audience. While we are yet to see the game in action, the Splinter Cell remake is sounding really promising at the moment.

Sons of the Forest

Instead of a full release, Endnight Games’ survival horror sandbox sequel is launching into Steam Early Access on February 23rd to add more features over time and get feedback from the community. There’s already tons to look forward to with this launch, whether it’s the map that’s four times larger than the first game, AI companions, revamped building mechanics, or all the little secrets. Even if it needs some more time to be fully “complete,” Sons of the Forest should be an incredible experience when it arrives later this month for PC.

ANGER FOOT

There might be plenty of first person shooters coming out in the near future, but we doubt many of them will be as gleefully weird as Free Lives and Devolver Digital’s Anger Foot. There’s a lot of fast-paced running and gunning here, of course, and that’s looking suitably exciting, but Anger Foot’s USP is the fact that kicking enemies is just as central to the gameplay. Combining your movement, fast-paced shooting, and kicking action might come together very well in what’s looking like a very intriguing game.