Latest EDGE magazine review scores

The latest edition of popular but stringent UK video game magazine EDGE is now with subscribers and Issue 384 contains a number of reviews. The biggest game reviewed in this month’s edition of EDGE is the long-delayed Dead Island 2. EDGE awarded the gory title a 6/10, though they note that the game is in a more robust shape than they had initially anticipated. Here’s all the reviews in EDGE 384.

Dead Island 2
“But if, as the end nears, its unswerving focus seems less of an asset than in its early hours, Dead Island 2 has emerged from development hell in more robust shape than we could have expected. Certainly, there is enough potential in a refined and updated version – one that finds room for more immersive sim-style experimentation – to leave us pondering something that seemed unthinkable going in. Dead Island 3? It doesn’t seem quite such a terrible idea after all.” [6]

The Last Worker
“At its worst, The Last Worker’s narrative fritters away a provocative premise. The game’s broad position is one with which we’re inclined to agree, but the story never deepens its points beyond the initial pitch. It certainly lacks the lived-in nuance of what Norco and Citizen Sleeper, for example, have to say about the gig economy. While there are reasonable observations about corporate euphemism and borrowed ‘progressive’ aesthetics, these are ultimately inessential to the real thrust of the plot, which sticks to a well-trodden path – before forking, at – the game’s close, in three potential directions.
…
but the events that unfold have a measure of nastiness to them that feels just right, with a climactic twist that actually seems to have something to say about all those big issues The Last Worker promised to tackle at its outset. These are important topics which are at the front of many minds right now, and we can’t help but wish we’d played the game retrospectively suggested by that ending, one that really does its ideas justice.” [6]

Deceive Inc
“The team mode is all well and good, but it’s in solo play that Deceive Inc shines. Here, you’re given space to consider every gesture and interaction, and to let your brain run wild with all the gestures and interactions you’re not seeing – the fellow spies gathering intel in the next bathroom, or passing by in the lobby. The trappings of high society barely conceal the violence yet to come, and the air crackles with anticipation.” [8]

Everspace 2
“Outside of such surprises, though, the loop loses its early lustre thanks to the sheer number of times it’s expected to circle. There are seven solar systems in all, and only so much of what we find within distinguishes itself from those first ten hours. On a couple of occasions, we take advantage of the save states supplied with our review code that allow us to skip ahead a little, and our overriding feeling is that we haven’t missed much. The story moves on and the numbers get bigger, but the enemy and mission types remain largely static. While Rockfish has created an accomplished open- world experience among the stars, then, it really needn’t take up quite so much space.” [7]

Have A Nice Death
“Yet for all its qualities, in a post-Hades world, we find it hard to get deeply invested in a Roguelike that has so little in the way of narrative stakes. Outside of a few incongruously bleak gags, such as a suicidal employee who battles you with a noose (see ‘Too much rope’), Have A Nice Death tends to keep things light – but as amusing as his struggles can be, the Grim Reaper’s goals aren’t particularly compelling. There is little reason to care about his need to clean up the company, so while its parody of office culture works well enough, it can sometimes feel a little outdated. If its satire had more bite, if its story cut as deep as Death’s weapon of choice, we’d perhaps feel more motivated to commit to his quest. As it stands, this well-crafted and frequently funny adventure will keep you entertained in the moment, but won’t exactly haunt your thoughts once you’ve set down your scythe.” [7]

Terra Nil
“If Terra Nil aims to encourage us to cherish the natural world (the button marked ‘Appreciate’ that lets you admire the fruits of your labours after the big cleanup certainly suggests as much), or at least to think more seriously about how we might have a positive impact on our environment, it often falls short. Once you’ve moved onto the next phase of a plan, you no longer have to concern yourself with the small matter of maintaining that delicate equilibrium: having inadvertently missed a bonus objective to attract migratory birds to the polar region, we raise the temperature to 19 degrees, which has surprisingly little effect on the thick snowfall or the ice floes upon which a colony of penguins happily waddles about. And though the game’s meditative vibe is perfectly pleasant, its anti- humanist worldview is as bleak as any postapocalyptic adventure. Rather than suggesting ways we might work symbiotically with nature, it simply shows how we might make the world function without us before leaving it behind forever. Yes, the planet looks prettier than it did before we arrived, but this is a rare act of beautification that leaves a bitter aftertaste.” [6]

The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR
“Like many fairground rides in the modern era, Switchback gives the impression of something that has seen better days. For all the limited scope of its on-rails action, it’s far from a graphical showcase for the hardware. Most levels are blanketed in a foggy twilight that helps to hide rough edges at a distance, but also emphasises the gauzy ‘mura’ effect that has also been a source of irritation among consumers with other early PSVR2 releases. And up close, it’s hard to miss the shabbiness of its character models – a persistent problem with a cast of monsters that are all too eager to get in your face. This might matter less were they more dynamic in motion, but Switchback’s hordes merely shamble blindly towards you, swallowing bullets until suddenly it’s time for them to drop dead. VR has inherent gains for shooting mechanics – not least the novelty of being able to freely aim with two hands, untethered from the direction in which you’re looking – but also a stricter requirement to sell the impact of those shots; these zombies barely flinch.

Supermassive has knowingly made a throwback here, both to Rush Of Blood and to games that came well before. The result, though, feels old-fashioned in the least complimentary of ways.” [4]

Dredge
“These creatures are just the beginning of the strangeness that awaits beneath the surface, from rocks that hum beneath your touch to leviathans that disguise themselves as… well, that would be telling. But as the days stretch on, and your excursions push out farther from the safety of the starting town, it becomes increasingly apparent that catching one of God’s mistakes is really no different from pulling an especially large trophy fish. Once your boat has been trashed a few times, the sight of a predatory fin creeping through the water rather loses its edge. In stories like this, the real scares live in the shadows, at the edge of view. And after a dozen hours puttering around Dredge’s archipelago, learning to put a precise dollar value on what should be unknowable terrors, the darkness no longer holds any real mystery for us. Perhaps it’s a sly comment on the all-too-real horrors of industrial fishing, but we come away from Dredge knowing how to make everything fit into the day: simply never sleep, and sail through the night with a full hold of human-toothed cargo and nothing but numbness in your heart.” [6]

Paranormasight
“That twisted sense of playfulness seeps into the narrative structure and puzzle design. Discoveries in each of the three main story threads – one following two detectives keen to retrieve the curse stones before more deaths occur, another centring on a bereaved mother, the third involving two schoolgirls investigating the suicide of a classmate can affect events in the – others. Sometimes it’s a matter of moving characters to certain locations at a given time, but often it’s more involved: you might suspend one chapter to find a phone number in another, with some clues known only to you popping into a character’s head as if you’re all somehow inhabiting a shared consciousness. It doesn’t so much break the fourth wall as move effortlessly through it as a spectre might, leading to conundrums that rival the dearly departed Cing’s finest work: one more act of resurrection in an ingeniously constructed ghost story.” [8]

The Wreck
“It’s all bound up in Junon’s own creative process, as these thoughts are tapped out as a screenplay on her computer. This isn’t a particularly writable tale, though: from the start to the one big decision at the end, the only real control you have is winding back and forth through these scenes, picking out words embedded in the environment that reflect her feelings. It feels less like you’re shaping the story, then, and more as though you’re helping Junon push through her creative block, feeding her suggestions – not enough to really warrant a co-writing credit, but perhaps as a creative consultant. The resulting tangle of ideas and themes doesn’t pack the tear-jerking wallop for which it’s clearly striving, but in so openly confronting the complex emotions surrounding trauma and loss it captures moments of messy humanity that cut through the wreckage.” [7]

Can Of Wormholes
“Luckily, you can undo as many moves as you like a borderline essential feature for a game that seemingly has a bottomless number of fresh, confounding riffs on its single core idea. But patience brings regular epiphanies, and in the event that you’re particularly stumped by a level, you can call up a pictorial clue that gives you a gentle push in the right direction without actually solving the puzzle for you. This might well be one of the finest hint systems (certainly in this type of game) that we’ve ever seen and by the time you’re slicing fellow worms back into pill form so you can gobble up and embiggen yourself once more, it’s impossible not to marvel at the unhinged delights that Taylor has concocted here.” [9]

Raiden III x Mikado Maniax
“Raiden III x Mikado Maniax arrives with a scattering of modernising features on top of the online leaderboards, including the ability to switch in remixed music, as well as the likes of wallpaper art. The game itself has received a much-needed visual polish, meaning that the action is clear and readable even when the pace builds. Cutscenes, alas, don’t seem to have benefitted from quite so much care, but they are few and far between, and of course incidental to how the game plays. Ultimately, while the Mikado Maniax reworking of Raiden III may not be abundant in terms of new features or modes, it does provide access to one of the most exciting, distinct and dramatic genre works – which may, with luck, earn it the attention in the west it has long deserved.” [8]

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