Genshin Impact sent ripples through the gaming industry in 2020, and Honkai: Star Rail has already successfully repeated the same feat. Currently the biggest gacha game on the planet per Sensor Tower revenue rankings, this turn-based RPG takes many of the same systems from HoYoverse’s fantasy open world and bends them into a more bite-sized package. The result is a game that’s more manageable to make progress in, but still utterly life-consuming if you want it to be.
Scorn Review (PS5) | Push Square
03.10.2023 - 00:37 / pushsquare.com
Scorn was announced by Ebb Software way back in 2014, so we've been waiting a while. After a successful (if critically mixed) launch on Game Pass last year, the game is ready for PS5, but is that a good thing?
The answer to that is mostly a «yes». Inspired by the visual style of legendary artists H. R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński, Scorn has one of the most focused and impressive art directions we have ever seen in a game. With a grotesque, oppressive atmosphere, the game convincingly brings its horrific biomechanical world to life. The disgustingly wet sound design and darkly ambient soundtrack further enhance everything. However, this comes at a cost, as the game mechanically vacillates between adequate and poor.
While the title is primarily a puzzler, the level design isn't of sufficient quality to make solutions gratifying. Any time the title deviates from hyper-linearity, you'll be wondering if you're going in the right direction. Some of the multi-stage puzzles are great, but there's a degree of obtuseness to everything that makes the approach irksome. Figuring out what the game wants you to do is a sizeable portion of the 4-5 hour runtime.
The game has combat, too. You'll accumulate a handful of weapons, all of which sprout out of a nasty bioweapon that becomes more a part of you as you play, but the gunplay is rarely satisfying. While a great excuse to show off some truly horrible creature design, it feels like a superfluous afterthought. The game could have functioned just fine as a horror-adjacent walking simulator.
What you get out of the game is what feels like a really great artistic idea, which the team committed to fully. And after the art was done, they tried to place their gameplay ideas anywhere they happened to fit. The end result is a visually arresting, but haphazardly designed experience.
Graham is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. His interests are quite varied, meaning that he can feel at home in almost any genre. While he's most comfortable with smaller indie games, it's by no means all that he enjoys.
Nice review, @gbanas92 but I don’t really think this one is for me. I had the chance to play it on XSX via Game Pass and I didn’t bother, so that tells me something.
I think a 6/10 is generous for this one. For me, I’d say 4/10. This is one of those Day 1 Gamepass titles that was an absolute disappointment at release. Like, Xbox showcased this!? It’s a game that really only has visuals (which are mostly gross, but also very well done) to go for it and not much else.
@somnambulance so true. Aside from visuals it is a poor game with dull gameplay and awful story. Just sad feeling of wasted time.
It still available on GamePass for those that would like to try it before buying it.
A
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14.10.2023 / 09:43
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