Flashback 2 Review

Flashback fans curb your enthusiasm, because Microid's 2023 Flashback 2's not even a 2D cinematic platform game. This PS5 pseudo 3D adventure doesn't have any of the subgenre's gameplay traits that Push Square noted when reviewing a title like Another World. It also doesn't continue in the tradition of great sci-fi themed video games, so this buggy, slowdown ridden mess will be a shock to the system for Flashback fans, which breaks their Conrad B. heart.

Yes, there are countless Far Cry comparisons.

is a game that promises a lot just by existing. Developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, it's a very AAA take on a very blockbuster film franchise, hellbent on creating a beautiful world that's almost impossibly dense with vivid life. Much to the game's credit, it rises to the challenge of rendering Pandora's splendor with care, and a share of somewhat pedestrian elements never manage to overwhelm everything that it does right.

Short of somehow growing a Na’vi neural braid and jamming it directly into the base of James Cameron’s skull, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is pretty much your best option for taking a virtual tour of the stunning alien moon of Pandora. This open-world shooter serves up a mind bogglingly large slice of the fantastic fictional universe to explore, from staggeringly dense forest areas to picturesque open plains and properly intimidating mountain ranges both on land and suspended impossibly in the skies above. However, hidden amongst all that beauty is a disappointing amount of bloat, with copy-pasted enemy outposts and facilities that made venturing off the main story path far less rewarding than it has been in recent landmark adventures such as Elden Ring or the last two Legend of Zeldas. I still largely enjoyed the 25 hours I spent trying to fend off a resource-hungry human invasion, but I wish the environment itself had presented me with more compelling reasons to fight for it beyond its surface-level splendor.

In the time of always-online requirements, game-ruining microtransactions, and DLC, sometimes players may be left yearning for the days when things were a lot more simple. That's something that HyperMegaTech! is certainly aiming to help with, thanks to the extremely portable Super Pocket handheld consoles.

The city builder genre was quite unique when 1989’s SimCity hit the scene. It was a game with no end, something rarely (but not never) seen in those days. But there are only so many times you can maximize the density of your residential zones before it loses its grip.

The concept for Dredge sells the game in just one line, “Fishing, but by H.P. Lovecraft”, an intriguing mash up that turned out to be just as good as it sounds and scored 8/10 in my review. The new DLC pack The Pale Reach is a bite-sized morsel of more of the same, not adding anything new to the game but giving you further opportunity to explore the unsettling world of demonic eyes and fishing nets.

After a little over two months, many have developed a love-hate relationship with one of the biggest titles for 2023. And, as with many blockbuster games, much praise and criticism has been levelled at Bethesda’s Starfield video game. Before its release and reviews, the hype and eagerness of fans to get their hands on the game was palpable.

The Like a Dragon series loves its comforts. Set in between Yakuza 6 and the impending 2024 game Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name doesn’t come out of the gates and uppercut the player with an all-out original experience. Instead, it tides everyone over until the next release with familiarity. Where it does shine, though, is in the same department as always: The story.

Who had a Robin Hood action-adventure video game on their 2023 bingo card? Well, Gangs of Sherwood brings the infamous outlaw and his band of merry allies to the medium, promising a barrel of action-packed combat and co-op good times. Unfortunately, the results are mixed to say the least, showcasing how the original delay in the game’s release wasn’t enough time to turn this from meh to magic.

I wasn't expecting to hook me like it did, but Hibernian Workshop has combined nearly all the most entertaining aspects of games like ,, and in such a way that it has done something unthinkable in 2023 — it's gotten me interested in roguelikes again. It's not a perfect game, but with an undeniably addictive gameplay loop, great characters, and the addition of local 2-player co-op, it's impossible to call anything less than a great time.

Gangs of Sherwood is a game that must have been made 20 years ago, but then somehow got released in 2023 using some kind of magic that transformed it with current graphical technology. It’s important to note that I mean this as a compliment, not a derision of the game. It just has me feeling nostalgic for the Xbox 360 era of co-op games when I had a wealth of friends who also had too much spare time to play with.