Recent reviews by Mantlewood

A surprisingly fresh yet true Darksiders entry, the third installment implements the souls currency and upgrade mechanics of Dark Souls, but that's about it. The combat remains fast-paced and very slashy, though very punishing of mistakes. Environment design is fantastic - the world of Darksiders 3 is beautiful in its post-apocalyptic ruin.

A couple basic misteps are taken in the design. For example, early in the game a skill is given to the player before the obstacle it is designed to overcome is introduced - a pretty key no-no. These flaws seem few and far between however, and overall proves an enjoyable experience.

A incredibly surpising but welcome departure from previous Ubisoft titles, the open-world of Watch Dogs 2 isn't a huge map of question marks to spent tens of monotonous hours on, but an environment populated with rich, well-written story missions. At no point during Watch Dogs 2 did I feel I was doing 'busy work' - every moment was a rich, meaningful experience.

The flow of this content is supported by the incredible hacking mechanics. To simply call this game a 'stealth' or 'action' game is to deny the credit due to all the interesting, varied and useful hacking abilities on offer. The huge variety of approaches you can take to solve a problem feels so liberating, while none of the methods ever feel overpowered nor useless. It may be quite a big call, but I think it may event beat out Deus Ex (2000) on this front.

The choice to make the protagonist anything but silent is fantastic! It may not be for everyone, but I for one felt like I had so much more agency and connection to what was going on, because my character actually expressed those emotions! The only moment the protagonist's vibrant personality backfired was when he told another hacker "I aint no hipster" while he was wearing the red skinny jeans, purple button-up shirt and rainbow beanie I'd dressed him in just prior - a momentary bump in what was otherwise a hugely relatable character performance.

And finally I have to mention the cast of NPC personalities that make up the core of your hacking ring. These characters are (for the most part) well written, and VERY well acted. The game did a great job making me feel invested in these people and this group. That alone is reason enough to recommend this game.

I've been disappointed by Ubisoft games for years now, but Watch Dogs 2 completely flips that on its head. I hope this development team gets to stick around for a while because they do some really great work and I can't wait to see what comes out of this team in future... and I hope they get to retain their creativity they demonstrated on this title.

I don't consider this to be a "throwback" or "homage" or anything of that kind. Her Story is a completely new, unique and untapped method of interactive storytelling that I found absolutely fascinating. This title is definitely not for everyone, but it has been a long time (if ever) that I have been to engrossed in a story. By its very nature Her Story makes you care about what is happening. Caring about, understanding and absorbing the story IS the gameplay since it is the only way to progress. I found this an incredible breath of fresh air after decades of "hint" buttons superfluous story that may as well be ignored.

This title, with such minimalist pseudo-gameplay has, in my opinion, been the first to chart new territory of storytelling in an interactive medium since Spec Ops: The Line and Telltale's The Walking Dead, both back in 2012. And where those titles hesitantly tease and hint at new territory, this one dives into it face first to either sink or swim.

What fascinates me about this game is that each event that happens to one of your characters has no/little inherent significance - the power of each event and the narrative as a whole is whatever the player reads into the sequence.

I've had a doctor character lose faith in herself after a failure lead to the deaths of multiple townsfolk, only to regain her confidence out of necessity when the town needs her. I've had a rich socialite who cares for nobody but himself spiral into a depression after seeing the horrors that the Yawhg results in. None of these narratives are explicit - I am able to give them their own stories based upon these modular events that the game is constructed from.

A strangely large amount of fun, and fascinating at that.

For the most part I really like this game. Character development is very deep and interesting for an indie RPG and the combat, while not incredibly nuanced, is fun and challenging. On the other hand however, the game's marketing material tout that you play as a band a criminals and miscreants - even the name of the game hints at this. However the game appears to reward you for being the 'good' guy and punish you by omission for being the 'bad' guy, which is surely counter productive if you want your players to be nasty 'Blackguards'. However that's just my opinion.

I can't recommend this game in its current state. There are far too many bugs and design issues that should have been weeded out during testing. Another testament to how pointless and anti-consumer the early access system is. The game is simply not worth the asking price as it is. However once these problems are fixed and perhaps the game comes down in price a little, I'd happily recommend it. At its core it's a very enjoyable game.

Spec Ops is a surprisingly intelligent game camouflaging itself as a typical third person military shooter. There are so many layers to the plot - the surface plot with twists and turns and surprises, the subplot with its own messages, then at the deepest layer is the subtext which in my opinion is what the game is *really* about.

It's difficult to convey what the game does subtextually, but suffice to say that normally a violent game like this would be steeped with what some pretentious game reviewers call ludonarrative dissonance - a strong disconnect between the plot and the gameplay. On the contrary, the narrative and gameplay in this game are tied together - they comment on each other. The purpose of this game and the messages it attempts to convey are the sum of the narrative and the gameplay.

Hard to believe, but this actually manages to top Walking Dead in some ways. While the choices in Walking Dead were mostly difficult, you tend to go into the game with preconceptions and influences - you know more about a zombie apocalypse than the characters. These somewhat influence your choices. However, going into The Wolf Among Us without any prior exposure to the IP means I had no preconceptions or influences - only what I saw in the moment. I don't know if Bigby is a unforgiving hardass or a reformed villain trying to be a decent person and so I'm able to shape him the way I want, without needing to conform to either prior knowledge of the character, or prior knowledge of the setting.

A brutal and engrossing mystery, this game pulls no punches and nothing is off-limits. Amazing.

The one criticism I have of the game is that there's a choice in Episode 1 where what seems to be the 'logical' choice, ends with negative repurcussions. If this is a true choice you should either have the opportunity to come out ahead on either path, or the 'good' choice should be able to be deduced from the information given. Otherwise the choice is just a coin flip to see if you pick the 'good' path, because paying attention to information and applying good prioritisation skills apparently isn't rewarded.

As long as Blacklight: Retribution exists I see absolutely no reason to pay $90 for CoD or similar games. Takes the idea of CoD, adds mechs, gadgets and future-armour and combines it into a game that is exactly as amazing as it sounds.

Neither Diablo nor Torchlight ever managed to draw me in. Diablo just didn't have the weight or the fun factor and Torchlight was a random mess (albeit a fun one). Van Helsing is a game that seems to manage to bring these two sides of the coin together. It's not the best game in the world, but rocking around Eastern Europe with a rifle shooting werewolves is pretty darn fun.

This game makes Amnesia look like Sesame Street. Scary as hell.