A cel-shaded open world adventure that features deep lore abounds in this release from Yellow Brick Games (comprised of a team featuring several ex-Ubisoft developers), Eternal Strands excels in performance and world-building; but lacklustre, weightless combat and certain design elements gives this the faint air of a game that started in a more MMORPG style that pivoted to a single player experience.
Eternal Strands casts the player as Brynn, a mercenary accompanying a group of travellers trying to find out the secrets of a long-lost civilisation. Your camp with the travellers acts as a hub, whilst Loomgates scattered around the land allow you to teleport to different areas of the world, each with their own biome, items, and enemies. The opening anime-style cinematic is impressive and engaging, although it hints at a slightly goofy humour that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the mostly po-faced game, where dialogue with the fully-voiced cast of characters is rich, but mostly eventless and dry. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of lore and world-building to discover and learn, more that doing so isn’t a particularly engaging aspect of the game.
This is the second title by Sat-Box that I’ve covered in just a few weeks,,and I have to say that their budget, family friendly titles are winning me over. In the same vein that Sugoroku Casino Party was a fun, digital board game with its focus on multiplayer action, Burger Race is a fast food take on the Mario Kart formula...at under a fiver!
A simple, accessible game, Burger Race allows for up to four players – in split screen – to select from a range of fast food items on wheels (or rather, cucumbers and tomatoes) and race around the nine tracks on offer, picking up the various boosts and weapon pick-ups scattered around the circuits en route.
The last time I played a Dynasty Warriors game was Dynasty Warriors 2 on the PlayStation 2 around 25 years ago. Now at the time of playing it on the PS2, I loved it at first but after a while, the repetition wore away at my enthusiasm for it. In 2021 Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires was released but it came out to a lukewarm reception as it went down a more strategic route for the gameplay elements and this didn't seem to hit well with the target audience. 4 years on and we have a new Dynasty Warriors on the next-gen consoles and I'm glad to say it doesn't disappoint!
