Taken for a Quickie | Rad Rodgers17/3/2018  We’ve taken a saucy peek beneath the façade of this love letter to 90’s era platformers as part of our regular first impressions series, so go on, don’t be shy - read on for the juicy deets!
Is it easy on the eyes and ears as well?
Very much so. It’s incredibly sharp and vibrant, spilling over with loving little details from background to fore. Add in punchy retro sound effects that mix with a thumping modern soundtrack, and you have a presentational powerhouse. Seems to have it all - presumably it comes recommended? Rad Rodgers is chucklesome, satisfying sexiness wrapped in an attractive price point (£15.99 on Xbox One and PS4, £17.99 on Steam). If that sounds like your bag, there’s no reason not to get involved. Taken for a Quickie | Past Cure14/3/2018  Join us down in the funk-bunker as we get vigorous, personal and brief with German developer Phantom 8’s new third-person story-driven action game, Past Cure.
Third-person action, you say? For the most part, yes, though Phantom 8 do also shoehorn in some puzzle solving and survival horror elements as you play out sequences both in reality and in Ian’s dreamworld. The bad news is that everything fails: the third-person shooting is naff, the puzzling is as dull as an Ed Sheeran tune, and the telekinesis/sanity bending mechanics are just utter dross. Every aspect is a rip-off of a better game, or a story element taken from a better film. So it doesn't play well? Honestly, it’s clunky, gutless and devoid of fun - voice acting notwithstanding, but we’ll get to that - quite the killer triple-threat. It’s obvious that Phantom 8’s intentions were well placed on paper, but the finished form falls well short of modern standards. What about the presentation? Once again, it’s plain to see the minimalist chic that Phantom 8 are aiming for, but it just looks flat. The frame rate doesn’t help matters, chugging along whether you’re in the thick of an action sequence or just walking around. The real winner, however, is the wondrously bad voice acting. Every cast member appears to have attended The Kevin Costner Conservatory of Thespianism, spinning all manner of emotionally charged lines in a vacuum-bag of monotonous drivel - we do hope Phantom 8 didn’t pay them much... Well, all sounds swell thus far… Anything else to be wary of? Endless, vacuous cutscenes. Seriously, where a standard narrative-focused game allows the player to explore environments and discover information for themselves, Past Cure instead slams in a non-playable sidebar. Want to see Ian walk across a path for three seconds? You’ve got it! Also: The main character’s name is Ian. Ian!  Hard to recommend, then?
At its current retail price of £24.99, it’s simply impossible to recommend. Whilst it’s almost commendable that Phantom 8 tried to mash all these different styles together, it just never works. If you’re a real sycophant, wait for the price to drop to around a fiver and dive on in. |
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