Jeff Goldenberg > Games

"This is a 4 player co-op game that can be played locally or online. It contains most of the elements of a typical R&C game, with many corners cut and some adjustments for multiplayer. The UI is not quite as good and there are many repeated elements where it seems you are doing the same action sequences against different backgrounds. All players appear on one screen, not split screen. Qwark is much larger than the other characters and can sometimes block out the other characters. Despite all of this, the game is still quite fun and extremely challenging towards the end. Story and voice acting are still top notch. Worth playing with friends and something different than the usual single player R&C."

"This game is far by the longest in the series, and it features most of the elements of all previous iterations. The new feature involves controlling time to solve puzzles. The puzzle elements in the Clank chapters are pretty cool and fun. There are a lot of boss battles. Too many, really. To fully beat the game there are 3 successive boss battles at the end, though the story is complete after taking out two. The final battle is optional (winning it gives a special reward). The weapons are not as interesting or as powerful as in previous titles. The story was OK, but a little thin and I just wasn't as interested as I was in previous games."

"This game is supposed to be the 2nd in the Future series, but it's really more like 1.5. The game is not very long or big in terms of places to visit. It has most of the elements of a typical R&C game, but this time the emphasis is definitely on swarm and boss battles. There are a lot of them, and some of them are quite hard. Nothing particularly wrong with the game, but it definitely isn't the best in the series."

"Pretty fun 3D block puzzle game where you are shown an object and given a bunch of differently shaped blocks you need to use to build the object. I actually played this on Xbox One and unfortunately this was just a straight cross-build of the iOS game, so the controls and UI are clearly designed for touch control and not really a game console. You'll feel like you're using your gamepad as a mouse."

"This is an adventure/shooter which draws from games like Uncharted and Tomb Raider, but it's actually quite different. Meant to be played online co-op with upto 4 players, it can also be played solo. If you do play solo, it is extremely challenging. The campaign features 9 chapters, which all more or less follow the same pattern: Explore a bit, fight off undead enemies, look for collectibles, look for hidden vaults, solve puzzles to get in to the vaults to get more collectibles, fight 1 or 2 swarm battles, fight 1 or 2 big bosses, on to the next level. You can only carry one handgun, one rifle, one explosive, one magic weapon and one healing elixir at a time. However, throughout the levels there are chests that can be opened by paying some gold that contain very powerful rifles. These rifles come with limited ammo and cannot be reloaded. Once out of ammo, the gun disappears. In some levels, managing use of these super-guns is critical. All in all the game is mostly on rails and only the big boss fights are challenging. Still, the presentation is very well done and the challenge kept me interested until the end."

"Looks great, plays like crap. The only good thing about it is the library of community-created courses."

"I totally enjoyed this game. Well-made, decent story, graphics, sound, voice acting, controls, length, balanced difficulty. The only annoying thing is the game has no trophies."

"Really amazing puzzle-action game. A must-play!"

"This is a "reboot" of the original first Ratchet & Clank. All-around, it's a good game. Nothing bad about it, but not amazing either. Not very difficult. Good casual fun. The story and gameplay have been significantly changed from the original game, all for the better."

"Loved the first game but this one was really nothing special. Story makes no sense. A skilled player can probably finish the game in 5 hours."

"I didn't get to play this when it came out in 2001. I played the PS3 "HD remaster". I found the game to be decent in terms of design and gameplay, but the story is threadbare and the textures were pretty low quality for an "HD remaster". The camera and movement controls can be very annoying compared to newer games. The variety of game mechanics is very limited compared to more modern games. Still, it makes for an enjoyable 8-10 hours."

"While not completely un-enjoyable, this game is a technical embarrassment. Released in 2019, this game looks and plays like a (PC) game from the early 2000s. Terrible UI, unbearably long and frequent load times, few character models, no variety in gameplay. Obsidian just rehashed Fallout New Vegas and their other older games while somehow managing to make this game less than half as good as any of their previous ones."

"Visually and technically impressive, but not a very deep story resulting in a rather short game, or rather, interactive story is more like it. Mind you, the game is designed to instill multiple playthroughs by being able to branch the story in about a dozen places. I found the story to be completely predictable, at least the version that I completed. Compared to previous Quantic Dreams titles, there isn't much new and the game plays pretty closely to Heavy Rain. Which isn't really a good thing since Beyond Two Souls was a far superior game. It's as if they didn't learn anything about the bad parts of Heavy Rain, which were not present in Beyond, but are back in Detroit. It was still a mostly enjoyable 10 hours spent."

"Ugh. This game is a mess. Similar to the first one, graphics and voice acting are great, but that's about it. The story is poor. Gameplay is boring and uneven. At least this time around trophies are more reasonably obtained."

"First off, the artistic production value in this game is very high. The graphics are beautiful, the voice acting is for the most part really well done and the story is pretty decent. Unfortunately, you'll only get the whole story if you go around collecting the *hundreds* of optional artifacts and then read, listen or view each of them. This is not how games should tell a story. On the plus side, the game is extremely huge. If you're a completionist, you'll easily get 100 hours out of the base game not counting the expansions. Now for the bad. There isn't a whole lot of variety in what you need to do to complete the game. Even though I played the game in late 2020, there are still significant bugs in the game. Sometimes the bugs get in your way, sometimes they actually help you. My biggest complaint is that the variety of weapons are a joke. They are all pretty much the same, and the most powerful one is the very first one you get! The next thing that bugs me is that you cannot use the environment when battling the machines. These are the things that kept me from really loving the game and giving it five stars. Still, it was enjoyable enough and helped me kill 100 hours during the pandemic. Outside the pandemic I'm not sure I would have played this game."

"The game has a pretty cool edgy presentation and everything seemed well-done but the gameplay didn't keep me interested for very long. I just don't like this type of game but I can see how others may really like it."

"Compared to the previous Trine games, this one is more like the first one than the second and third installments. The art style has changed a bit, but still similar. This outing the main focus was on puzzles. Everything else took a backseat. And the puzzles are quite good. Platforming and monster fights offer very little challenge this time around. Like the third game, this one is pretty short. If you enjoy puzzle solving, you'll probably like this game."

"Unlike the previous two Trine games, this one is is in 2.5D and is somewhat open-world. It's an interesting departure from the first two in the series, but it has some problems. Controls are sometimes difficult. The game is incomplete. Devs ran out of funding and published what they had, which is somewhere between 50 and 75% complete. Still, it was pretty enjoyable."

"Puzzle platformer. Similar to the first one, but much longer and considerably more difficult."

"At about 12 hours long, there isn't as much game here as in the earlier Uncharted games, but not far from the later titles. Being the 5th title in the series, it seems that Naughty Dog threw together a simple story and decided to "remix" every interesting element of the previous games. Aside from main characters Nathan, Sully and Elena not being in the game, you'll definitely have a sense of deja vu if you've played the whole series. That being said, what they've put together works, and it works really well. Each of the re-used elements are definitely better implemented than their originals. I enjoyed the puzzles in this game more than the previous ones."

"Graphics, msuic and gameplay are decent and it feels like a Castlevania game, but I just didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would."

"The single player story is about 18-20 hours long. Pretty much follows the same formula as the last game. Run around the world finding clues and chasing down a mythical treasure all while avoiding a former partner and his hired mercenary army. This time the story revolves around pirates and along with buddy Sully popping up once in a while, your partners in crime are your long lost brother and your wife. Lots of exploring and platforming, some ridiculously simple puzzle solving and occasional gun battles. The story borders on soap opera territory. The soundtrack is orders of magnitude inferior to previous outings. This franchise isn't what it once was, especially since original writer and producer Amy Hennig left. Still, it is somewhat fun and definitely pretty."