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Catastronauts | Xbox One | Review

28/9/2018

 
Catastronauts | Xbox One | Review - Pass the Controller

Cooperation is a powerful thing; playing a game with other people can turn just about any experience into something ultimately more memorable and entertaining. As such, Catastronauts’ endearing brand of chaos is immediately gripping with even just a single fellow interstellar adventurer in tow.

Picture
by
James
Michael
Parry

Picture

@James_Parry

Picture
Developer: Inertia Game Studios
Publisher: Inertia Game Studios
Platforms: Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Steam
Players: 1 - 4
The game sees you taking care of a spaceship in an increasingly disastrous situation. After your inspiring captain/father figure/token moustache-wearer is abducted by aliens, you have the bright idea of taking on the culprits with some of the most unlucky vessels in the galaxy.

You’ll almost immediately find yourself under attack from laser cannons, which ignite fires all over the place, leaving you to juggle patching up the ship and returning fire quicksharp.

If you’re thinking this game has an Overcooked vibe, welcome to the most common comparison it has to contend with. Now on its second iteration, which added online multiplayer and lashings of new levels, Overcooked is the standard to match, having honed the “winning formula”, as Liam put it in our review, to give Catastronauts stiff competition right out of the gate.

Inertia Game Studios have avoided being put completely on the back foot, however, injecting plenty of energy into its world and characters with a simple, cheesily self-aware and endearing setup for the conceit of the game overall.

Points should be awarded for getting the community involved as well, engaging them to design characters for the game well in advance of its release, while also repeatedly putting the game front and centre in new, interesting and natural ways, particularly on social media.
The gameplay experience boils down to a series of quick, exciting bursts of panic, stress and terror in the best possible way.
Of course, a game can sound or look as good as you like (and in fact the soundtrack is suitably otherworldly too), but at the end of the day it’s still how it plays that really matters. Here the gameplay experience boils down to a series of quick, exciting bursts of panic, stress and terror in the best possible way.

Fighting game-style life bars at the top of the screen cause a creeping anxiety as they deplete in conjunction with the escalating action down below. With each level the stakes are further raised as new mechanics are introduced - giving you new ways to power up your weapons and unleash pain on your adversaries - as well as placing new obstacles in the way of keeping your spaceship in working order.

Catastronauts’ difficulty curve is steep, with an awful lot to keep on top of even in the earliest stages, to the extent that it could be a bit much for new players the first time around. The presentation is so playful and accepting though, even a total failure is met with a smile and urges to suit up again for another go.

Motivation to press on is, unfortunately, a little harder to come by when going at it alone. Solo you’re pushed for time twice as much (or more), needing to swap between two characters to be able to access all of the tools to keep the ship running. Much like Overcooked there’s no AI support here, so you can’t set a character off doing something and then swap between them to save time, which can shift the mood from excited, restless panic to something more aggravating.
If you have a group of four friends together, this is where the magic happens, bringing back nostalgic memories, for those of a more distinguished lifespan, of the golden age of couch co-op starring the likes of Mario Party and Goldeneye. Without your friends on hand though, there’s little else to turn to as there’s no online matchmaking here.

With the busy, end-of-year festive period creeping closer than we’d like to admit, Catastronauts feels like a perfect game to bring people together at a host of seasonal gatherings, nestled comfortably between some Mario Kart 8 Duluxe and Quiplash.

There’s plenty of good natured fun on offer here, and while the difficulty might prove too much for soloists, or even those in a pair, as a group of four the balance feels much more natural and lets everyone contribute.

For a fledgling indie outfit, the production quality and attention to detail Inertia have achieved here is almost staggering, with nary an illusion-breaking bug in sight, whilst everything has been thought through to give an overall rich and enjoyable experience.

Pros


  • Character & fun factor shine through with ease
  • Straightforward controls drive a well-executed, simple premise
  • Captures the energy & excitement that makes couch co-op so great

Cons

  • Experience suffers hugely when going solo
  • ​Difficulty could make the experience inaccessible to some
  • Doesn’t quite shake off its Overcooked comparisons

8/10
0 Comments

Downward Spiral: Horus Station | PS VR | Review

26/9/2018

 
Downward Spiral: Horus Station PlayStation VR review - Pass the Controller

Upstart developer 3rd Eye Studios have an incredible pedigree, its staff owning credits on a long list of classic films and games, so it should come as no surprise that Downward Spiral: Horus Station effectively channels sci-fi cinema - specifically the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris - whilst also crafting a mechanically engaging interactive thriller.

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by Sam Sant

Picture

@SlamShotSam


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Developer: 3rd Eye
Studios

Publisher: 3rd Eye
Studios

​Platforms: PS VR,
Oculus Rift, HTC Vive 

​Players: 1 - 8
Made with what the team call a “narrative-first” design philosophy, players are offered no express context when they’re first unleashed on the titular space station. Boasting a familiar retro 70s aesthetic, the richly detailed hull interiors soon reveal Horus to be derelict and its crew members dead. There are no cutscenes or dialogue here, and a very sparing use of in-game text, leaving the environments to evoke a thick and unnerving atmosphere.

Further to that, limited access to in-game maps and a complete lack of objective markers ensures you’ll need to scour areas and pick up on subtle path finding tells that’ve been integrated throughout. Clever touches communicate with the player via universally understandable game design “language”, narrowing sprawling areas to relatively linear paths in such a way that keeps them intellectually gratifying to navigate.

Driven by an enticingly understated ambient soundtrack - from HIM frontman Ville Valo, no less - Downward Spiral continues to stroke players’ intellect with mysterious cutaways to interpret and decipher. Within the realms of reality, while a range of light puzzles never pose significant roadblocks, you’ll be taxed by a creeping paranoia resultant of the station’s mechanical groans and seeming technological independence that make it seem as though the inanimate is out to get you.

Provided you’ve chosen to play with combat encounters enabled, it may well be, as what are presumed to be malfunctioning drones attack and leave you with no choice but to weaponize a suite of repair tools. It’s very Dead Space indeed, though where Isaac Clarke carries a real heft, the unnamed protagonist of Downward Spiral is quite literally weightless.
Downward Spiral: Horus Station effectively channels sci-fi cinema, whilst also crafting a mechanically engaging interactive thriller.
The entire game takes place in zero gravity, which, to allay your immediate fears, isn’t the least bit nauseating in VR. It does take a bit of getting used to, but you always retain the same upright orientation and, as such, you’re never subject to that hopeless feeling of not knowing where’s up and what’s down. Once you’ve gotten to grips with pushing off of scenery to float around, you’ll acquire a grappling hook - which has a smooth, gradual reel to keep things comfortable - and a gun that’ll boost you onwards by expelling a charged shot of hot air.

Now that you’ve properly wrapped your brain around the revised laws of physics, it shouldn’t be long before you learn to string these initially disparate tools together into one seamless combo. There’s almost a balletic element of performance to it, which, had Marvel’s Spider-Man not just launched, we’d have said made it the best movement system we’ve seen for a while.

In similar fashion, the gunplay (toolplay?) takes a little while to really flourish, but as a steady stream of new toys come to comprise a complete arsenal, you’re actively encouraged to swap them in and out to counter the introduction of bigger and badder enemy types. We’d definitely recommend leaving the combat feature turned on, especially considering you don’t lose progress when you die.

Having a few battle scars won’t go amiss if you’re looking to play multiplayer, either. The campaign can be played in co-op, but if you want to venture into the PvP Deathmatch and/or PvE Horde modes, you’ll have to give up your pacifist ways. You’ll also very likely have to bring friends, as finding success with the barren matchmaking is unlikely.

Bar a few jarring frame drops, which are admittedly a cardinal sin in VR, playing Downward Spiral with a headset and a pair of Move controllers is a pretty great experience. That’s a big caveat for those without the proper equipment, however, as it’s also playable on a television and with the DualShock 4. Should you be required to play the game in one of those ways, it‘s an immediate no go.
Perhaps it’s a symptom of having explored Horus Station both ways, but, by comparison to VR, it’s incredibly drab to play on a flat screen. While that’s inherent to a degree, having lost a dimension in the transition, also losing the intuitive and tactile motion controls is a final nail in the coffin. Downward Spiral is a game quite literally designed around reaching out and pulling yourself into its world, which makes a stand-in button press both cumbersome and unsatisfying. It also negates the scope for creating memorable little asides, like instinctively grabbing a dart and launching it at a nearby board, only to find it hanging at the exact point you let it go - duh!

It’s swell having options and all, though when they harm the experience for anybody playing in the optimal fashion, it’s questionable as to whether they’re justified. The game doesn’t auto-detect when it should boot in VR mode, which means you’ll need to use a DualShock to activate it from the main menu, as Move inputs aren’t tracked in TV mode; we can easily live with that minor inconvenience, but a not-insignificant annoyance stems directly from it. If that standard controller is then disconnected, the game will pause and throw an error up, even when you’re actively using the Move controllers instead, meaning you’ll need to remove yourself from the atmosphere Downward Spiral so painstakingly works to preserve in order to reconnect a pad you aren’t even using at regular intervals.

Hopefully that’s something that can be hotfixed, as, when equipped with the right kit, we otherwise thoroughly enjoyed floating around the dark and mysterious halls of Horus Station. Unique movement, satisfying tools and an enthralling location sadly aren’t enough to salvage the experience for anyone without the PlayStation Move controllers and VR headset that are compulsory to a good time.

Pros

  • Unique & satisfying movement mechanics
  • Engaging shootouts with a variety of weapons & enemies
  • Effective environmental storytelling
  • Subtly guides you without holding your hand
  • Supremely immersive in VR with two Move controllers...

Cons

  • … Massively less so when played with a DualShock , be that in VR or even more so on a TV
  • Have to keep a DualShock connected, even when not using it
  • Occasional dropped frames stick out like a sore thumb in VR

7/10
0 Comments

The Council - Episode 4: Burning Bridges | Xbox One | Review

25/9/2018

 
The Council - Episode 4: Burning Bridges Xbox One review - Pass the Controller

Burning Bridges, the penultimate episode in the debut season of The Council, arrives at a tumultuous time for narrative-driven adventure games. Telltale, a company synonymous with popularising the genre and its incremental release format, are in the midst of a heartbreaking majority closure that’ll see many of the studio’s ongoing projects never reach their conclusion. This has, understandably, sewn doubt amongst the community as to whether investing in episodic games ahead of their completion is a good idea. In a case of bad timing, where developer Big Bad Wolf could have lain claim to the mantle with this latest release, it instead fuels the flames with their sloppiest technical work yet.

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by Sam Sant

Picture

@SlamShotSam


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Developer: Big Bad Wolf
Publisher: Focus Home
Interactive

​Platforms: Xbox One,
​PS4, PC

​Players: 1
Picking right back up where things left off in Episode 3, there’s once again the potential to very literally wear the consequence of your actions, should you have reached the suboptimal conclusion. Having undergone a blatant physical change, protagonist Louis should face constant difficult questions, really hammering home your failure, but, whilst he admittedly does on occasion, just as many characters pay the fact no attention. This isn’t out of politeness, instead only serving to make it transparent that they’d have delivered the same lines either way.

These narrative inconsistencies are forgivable to a point, but a worsened technical execution is hard to overlook. Performance across previous episodes already wasn’t great - clunky controls, choppy frame rate, bad animation, missing lip-sync, questionable scripting and delivery - but those not-insignificant issues are now compounded by further errors. The visual model for a sarcophagus was clearly open, yet dialogue referred to it as being closed, even requiring effort points to be spent on “opening” and further interacting with it, while at different stages throughout the episode characters became stuck in T-poses and couldn’t be interacted with as a result. On a personal level, as a completionist, perhaps most annoying of all was the achievement for hitting level 15 failing to unlock.

Still, as a game squarely focused around its story, none of this is reason for a complete write off. Gameplay is simply a means to an end here, and the fact that we pondered what might happen next after stepping away to go about the day is testament to the fact that Burning Bridges succeeds in embedding its narrative hooks. Mostly, at least.

“Aha!” moments start to bring things full circle as we approach the finale, now fully committing to the occult where the the previous episodes gradually began to lean in. Each outlandish revelation injects a hit of adrenaline and the result is a faster, often more engaging pacing without as many filler moments. Unfortunately, this does backfire in one pivotal scene that caps off the second of three chapters. The segment in question had the scope to be intensely raw and emotional, dramatically concluding an arc between Louis and the two characters to which we’re the closest, but instead falls flat due to feeling monumentally rushed. Things could likely have played out very differently, so your mileage may vary, but nonetheless all outcomes should at least feel whole.
Each outlandish revelation injects a hit of adrenaline and the result is a faster, often more engaging pacing without as many filler moments.
A replay to see what might have been may be in order, so it’s a good job that feels justified now more than ever as The Council loosens the buttons on its ruffled collar to have a little more fun. Less po-faced politics doesn’t mean that diplomacy is out of the window, however, rather that it’s now waged on an even grander and more bizarre stage than merely influencing world events.

Previously we’ve said that the series’ micro choices prove more affecting than macro-scale decisions, but here that sentiment is flipped on its head. Many character decisions are arbitrarily black and white - good or bad - and underbaked this time around, whereas choosing how best to govern humanity, through equal moral greys that hold a mirror to modern society, is perplexing.
The Council - Episode 4: Burning Bridges Xbox One review - Pass the Controller
The Council - Episode 4: Burning Bridges Xbox One review - Pass the Controller
Throw in an elaborate new location and a couple of exciting abilities that’ll help to decipher even the most secretive guests, for a cost, and it’s commendable that Big Bad Wolf aren’t afraid to mix things up a bit at this late stage. The team of former Ubisoft developers also settle on a nice middle ground when it comes to puzzle design, having historically either spoon-fed answers or left players a little in the lurch, here uniformly making them taxing whilst allowing for a degree of circumvention through sleuthing or the smart investment of effort points/use of consumables.

​
With an abundance of problems both old and new, Burning Bridges is an undeniably messy experience. If you’re a purely mechanics-focused gamer, there’s absolutely naught but a veiny, enraged brow in store, but, that being said, you probably don’t fall into that camp if you’ve made it this far. Anyone that can forgive the many foibles in favour of being spun an intriguing yarn should still apply; we’re certainly eager to see how things conclude when the finale (fingers crossed) launches later this year.

Pros

  • Finally lets loose & goes a bit bonkers
  • Moves at a fair clip, nixing filler
  • Makes you care about events outside the manor
  • New abilities are rejuvenating
  • Gathers loose ends in preparation to tie them off

Cons

  • Significant scenes can play out with a squib
  • Established relationships fall by the wayside as priorities shift
  • Significant technical issues

6/10
0 Comments

Unforeseen Incidents | Steam | Review

13/9/2018

 
Unforeseen Incidents Steam review - Pass the Controller

From the moment we were greeted by Unforeseen Incidents’ foreboding title screen, filled with flashes of lightning and lashes of shimmering rain, we suspected we were in for a treat. Being solid fans of point-and-click gameplay since first encountering the iconic Monkey Island series, we were looking forward to having our minds playfully tickled by the brand of puzzles that have you jolting awake in the middle of the night having finally deciphered them. If that sounds like a brain-bruising nightmare to you, rest assured that, in this instance, you’ll face grounded problems that are woven into a delightfully engaging narrative.

Picture





by Amy Mallett

Picture

@amy_mallett

Picture
Developer: Backwoods
Entertainment
Publisher: Application
Systems Heidelberg
Platform: PC
Players: 1
As the journey begins, we’re introduced to the dulcet tones of Bobby on Backwood Radio, along with the startling news that a small suburban area called Yelltown has fallen prey to a mysterious epidemic. Zombie enthusiasts pipe down - this virus is closer to, let’s say, ebola, in that it’s a potentially fatal disease that, whilst not turning members of the public into undead degenerates, has an alarming number of similarly grizzly symptoms. Bleeding, coughing, oozing, weeping - it’s nasty business.

From here, players assume the role of a local handyman with a shrouded family history. Whatever tragedies may have affected Harper Pendrell, he seems more than content tinkering with various old electronics and engineering bygone relics such as broken consoles and TVs. The beginning of the game feels a little stunted, with Harper wandering around playing IT consultant to a his childhood friend, a Scottish scientist by the name of Professor MacBride. Things hit their stride when Harper meets a dying woman in the street and unwittingly stumbles into a diabolical conspiracy, the kind where one should really be armed with more than just a multi-tool.

We’ll get our aforementioned and only real major gripe with Unforeseen Incidents out of the way early: the story is brilliant, but the pacing can be totally off. Pure adventure games are all about wandering around solving puzzles, but there are rather drawn-out sections here that feel like they dwell a little too long before allowing us to rekindle our love affair with the story. The concepts themselves can be wonderful, but, whilst on your quest to collect A, so that a character gives you B, before those are combined into C, it’s easy to concede that more could’ve been done to feed your curiosity.
Adventure games are all about wandering around solving puzzles, but there are rather drawn-out sections here that dwell a little too long before allowing us to rekindle our love affair with the story.
It’s a credit to how good the cutscenes, dialogue and storytelling are that we rather selfishly wanted more of them. The soundtrack evokes a soft melancholia, with piano drops and violin swells. The dialogue is self-aware and the voice acting is sharp as a tack; so often does Harper seem to perfectly narrate the player’s thoughts, sarcastically breaking the fourth wall in that cheeky Sam & Max way, or playfully scolding you for suggesting something daft in order to solve a puzzle. The amount of times we caught ourselves smirking at Harper’s reactions to hilariously misguided attempts to make progress is beyond measure.

This makes Unforeseen Incidents’ puzzles both a delight and a frustration rolled into one. It’s a strange ebb and flow, as one minute you’ll be flying high whilst lamenting the wasted years in higher education, as you were clearly born a genius, then, around two minutes later, you’re stumped and rapidly approaching rock bottom whilst being presented with amusing dialogue to keep you sweet. The main offenders here are very mechanically complex puzzles, which may well be fine if you’re practically minded and love your tinkering, but, if you’re anything like me, you’ll just have to call your dad and ask him how to repair a fan belt or whatever.
All in all, Unforeseen Incidents offers a challenging and engaging take on the point-and-click genre that fans of a good mystery - who also have the patience to persist through some of the more difficult puzzles - should definitely download. Give yourself the gift of feeling like you’ve earned a great story, and a pat on the back for being dead clever.

Pros

  • Well-crafted puzzles vary in complexity
  • Your hand isn’t held, making solutions feel earned
  • Engaging story with superb voice acting & a haunting soundtrack
  • Beautiful, hand-painted environments & distinctive visual style

Cons

  • Poorly paced at times
  • Some of the more technical puzzles may be alienating

8/10
0 Comments

Another Sight | Steam | Review

10/9/2018

 
Another Sight | Steam | Review - Pass the Controller

​Is it just us, or does it feel like too much emphasis is put on looks these days? While modern PCs and consoles push resolutions in the millions of pixels, there’s a lot to be said for a game which focuses on achieving a distinct visual style, more than just pure visual firepower. In those rare cases, how a game looks can enhance or even define the experience, bringing up the quality of the product overall, rather than just being something which might be pretty to look at, but is otherwise bland.

Picture

​by James
Michael
​Parry

Picture

@James_Parry

Picture
Developer: Lunar Great
Wall Studios
Publisher: Fish Eagle
Platforms: Steam
Players: 1
One such diamond is the rough is Another Sight, a 2.5D puzzle-platformer which boasts a bold, almost impressionist art style when you play as one of its two protagonists. While not quite blind, as first impressions might suggest, Kit - short for Catherine (but no one calls her that) - is a young girl whose story begins with her lost in the murky bowels of Victorian London. Kit’s vision of the world is reliant on sound, with elements being highlighted by a guiding droplet of water or, more likely, a distant meow from her furry cat companion Hodge.

Visually, Hodge’s perspective offers a standard view of things - though the levels themselves do have an otherworldly element to them - while Kit sees almost complete blackness, save a rainbow-coloured sphere around her, which expands and contracts slightly depending on how much of the environment she can sense.

This can lead to some frustrations during platforming segments of the game, which are admittedly light, as you struggle to encourage Kit to jump from one ledge to another, as she’s only able to jump when she can “see” where she’s going to land. Ironically, the end result of this inaction is more often than not for her to slip down into a bottomless pit - hardly putting her best foot forward.
It’s really the puzzle elements - introduced by the opposing perspectives of Kit and Hodge - and beautiful visuals that’ll draw you in here.
Comparisons to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland are certainly easy to draw, in terms of setup, but the game is very aware of this and has Kit namecheck and dismiss them fairly early on. The curiouser and curiouser part of it all is that Kit begins to bump into famous historical figures, each having an effect on the landscape that’s relevant to their most notable skill, for example an impressionist painter imposing a screen filter.

The gameplay itself is a little less robust, with most levels just having you backtrack between one contraption and another, but the fact that the two protagonists navigate so differently brings more variety to working through each level’s challenges, which get progressively more elaborate as the game goes on.

Though Another Sight is pretty to look at, technical issues do show through occasionally, with the transition from gameplay to cutscene being a particular stand-out culprit of “dead eye” syndrome. Really, the story could’ve been told without hopping between the two, which makes you wonder why developer Lunar Great Wall Studios made that creative choice.
On the topic of narrative, the story unfolds gradually as you explore a fictional subterranean London. It’s not immediately clear whether Kit is really there, or if a lot of what she’s seeing (or sensing) is actually a dream, but the unravelling of this particular question is central to the overall plot, and its various twists are enough to hold the experience together.

That said, it’s really the puzzle elements - introduced by the opposing perspectives of Kit and Hodge - and beautiful visuals that’ll draw you in here. Perhaps not enough for those in search of any truly unique gameplay experiences that might have been conjured up by this particular odd couple pairing, but, regardless, if you’re after a puzzle game with a bespoke visual twist, you can’t go much wrong.

Pros


  • Delightful visual styles give the everyday world character
  • Kit & Hodge’s different perspectives reinvigorate levels
  • Accessible keyboard controls & added controller support

Cons

  • Switching characters can be a bit choppy at times
  • Easy to get frustrated by Kit’s slow pace, especially when you know the way ahead is safe
  • Puzzles may be a bit basic for some

7/10
0 Comments

Two Point Hospital | Steam | Review

5/9/2018

 
Two Point Hospital | Steam | Review - Pass the Controller

There’s a fine art to taking a beloved franchise and using it as a base to produce something new that can stand alone. Whether it’s The Last Jedi dividing a fanatical Star Wars audience or the latest superhero flick not being true to its source material, the process is fraught with danger and potential fan backlash. How reassuring to our faith in humanity then that Two Point Hospital is every bit the worthy standard bearer for a welcome return to the 90s’ management sim boom.

Picture

​by James
Michael
​Parry

Picture

@James_Parry

Picture
Developer: Two
Point Studios
Publisher: SEGA
Platforms: PC,
Mac, Linux
Players: 1
Best of all, it leapfrogs (or bullfrogs...) the technical constraints of that bygone era to deliver a title with graphical and performance settings up the wazoo, including a stonkingly high frame rate slider which goes so far in specific numbers we're pretty sure it's a gag.

In fact, the humour is something which gave the original game it's trademark Britishness, so you'll be pleased to hear that’s been brought through in top form. Over-the-top ailments - which you, as hospital administrator, must put doctors on the case to diagnose - are the most obvious example, though, tragically (or fortunately, for patients), Bloody Head and Slack Tongue aren't running rife in Two Point County.

More than that though, it's the little animations and character interactions that make the game stand out if you look a little closer, such as the frustrated nurse struggling to get her computer to work, or a lonely monobrow snaking its way around the hospital halls, waiting to be zapped by your all-seeing crosshair of doom.

​Despite the nods to
Theme Hospital, the game isn't at all closed off to newcomers, taking cues from the likes of The Sims in character personality traits and the ability to play with time, which can make things a lot less frantic. Offering up just a handful of conditions and different areas to manage in the first few levels, you won't be worrying about minor details like hygiene or temperature in your hospital until you've got to grips with the basics.
Two Point Hospital is every bit the worthy standard bearer for a welcome return to the 90s’ management sim boom.
A major plus this time around is that you have multiple locations to manage, so you can always revisit an earlier level and beef it up with more advanced equipment and items to boost your overall organisation's revenue. This metagame is a welcome addition, but, so far, hasn't seen different locations interact or crossover.

Repetition and busywork are the quickest way to kill the fun in a simulation game, but fortunately, thanks to the slow introduction of mechanics and a startling amount of depth when you start to dig into the more detailed menus on the information tab, Two Point manages not to be afflicted with this disease.

Given there are humans responsible for Theme Hospital involved with the project, it's no surprise that this and probably every other review mentions the game's connection to what was a mainstay of 90s PC gaming. Despite that, Two Point proudly stands on its own, with more than enough fresh ideas to make it feel like an entirely new game.

​
There are a few foibles to throw amongst the superlatives, however: AI behaviour of characters can be questionable at times, and in some aspects there's a lot of manual clicking of items to make sure they’re dealt with - particularly for the janitors, even though you can manually enable and disable specific tasks.

​Other elements seem very much up to chance as well, such as the panic-inducing emergency requests, which see six or eight patients with the same condition come in for treatment at the same time. In these instances, it often doesn't seem to matter how slick an operation you’re running - there are always casualties. You might have a plus-sized ward with enough empty beds and a more than capable senior nurse, boasting the relevant treatment specialist skills, but still find patients dropping dead on you. A less than encouraging outcome.

Still, these moments are few and far between, and the potential to add in new elements post-launch is now far more likely than in the CD-ROM era.

If you're looking for a surprising diagnosis for this game, then you'll need a second opinion, as we're here to confirm - despite a few minor flaws - that the Two Point fever sweeping Steam right now is every bit as intoxicatingly contagious as it's cracked up to be. If they'd got the original tannoy voice back, it might somehow be even better.

Pros


  • A welcome adrenaline shot of nostalgia
  • Improves on its inspiration and brings the genre bang up to date
  • Technically well put together and bags of options to tweak

Cons

  • Sometimes chance plays into things a little too much
  • Emergencies with zero deaths seem near-impossible
  • AI occasionally has a mind of its own

10/10
0 Comments


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