Sony surprised players with the genre-defining Astro Bot Rescue Mission back in 2018. Japan Studio’s PSVR captured our hearts with fun platforming and brilliant use of the DualShock 4 controller. While 2020’s Astro’s Playroom was a glorified tech demo for the PlayStation 5, it still had the charm and soul of its predecessor and left me wanting more.

And more has finally come. With Astro Bot, Asobi Studio has created one of the best modern platformers in history, and definitely one of the best PS5 games going. Now with no virtual headset required! Platform mascot giants like Mario and Sonic really need to watch out for Astro, as he can stand toe to toe with them. Astro Bot is also a celebration of PlayStation’s history, and the game brings plenty of nostalgic memories to the fore. The game makes me feel excited about Astro’s future but also makes me appreciate the past.

Astro Bot starts off with our adorable and lovely mascot Astro as he flies in a PS5-inspired spaceship but gets caught by a giant green alien that rips it apart. Crash landing on a desert planet, Astro now has to scour different galaxies to find all the missing parts and put the spaceship back together again. While Astro Bot isn’t a story-heavy game, the setup is simple enough for a family-friendly adventure that lets the most important aspect do the talking: the action and gameplay. 

A journey across the universe

Astro’s unique abilities are built to complement the game’s colorful and astounding level design. From a chicken jetpack to clapping monkey cymbals, there’s always a sense of awe and wonder about how you’re going to progress through the levels or find a collectible with them. For example, there’s a level completely dedicated to a mouse ability that makes Astro small, and Asobi designed some really clever ways to hide collectibles. 

There are a few instances where you have to crawl under something while in Astro’s small form, then switch to being normal-sized again to uncover the secret underneath. Another ability has Astro curl up into an indestructible ball like Samus and cross dangerous areas that he normally couldn’t like an entire path filled with spikes. Astro Bot constantly rewards you for thinking outside the box and keeps you engaged throughout each level.

The main collectibles in Astro Bot consist of Astro finding other bots scattered throughout the universe’s levels. Some are plain, but many others are cameos from PlayStation’s first-party franchises and also quite a few third-party ones. There’s nothing more exciting than finding a cameo bot and discovering which franchise it's from. Astro can also find map pieces that help unlock new features, such as camera mode and a gacha machine. Don’t worry though, no real-world currency is involved. Instead, in-game coins are commonly spread around levels and can be spent on the gacha machine to purchase new cosmetics like costumes for Astro and skins for his ship.

One type of collectible I found annoying was the portals to Lost Galaxy levels, which act as a type of bonus level. In a few of the normal levels, you can find a portal that leads to a brand-new level in a separate galaxy. When this happens, the game treats the current level as complete, meaning you have to start it over even if you didn’t get to the intended normal end. It detracts from the game’s pacing a bit, especially if you’re trying to find as many collectibles as you can the first time around on a new level.

A little help

Astro Bot also takes advantage of the DualSense Wireless Controller to a huge degree. The haptic feedback feels lifelike as Astro jumps onto platforms with a thud. It doubles as an indicator of whether you’ve landed correctly, which is helpful for a platformer because you need to be as precise as possible. Elsewhere, every time Astro punches an enemy or shoots laser beams from his tiny legs, there’s a particular vibration that matches the action that runs through the DualSense, making the experience feel more immersive.

The adaptive triggers are put to good use too. For example, when Astro descends into a level riding his PS5 DualSense-shaped ship, you can hold down on the L2 and R2 triggers to fire off thrusters to move faster. Some of the collectibles can actually only be found this way, making it a compelling reason to start the level even earlier. A few of Astro’s new abilities, such as the frog-shaped boxing gloves, get a feeling of springy tension with the adaptive triggers when he’s punching enemies from a distance, too.

Fortunately, after completing a level at least once, on subsequent attempts you can spend a few coins that you’ve accumulated to summon a bird that puts out a signal when an undiscovered collectible is nearby. It’s a convenient way to mop up any remaining collectibles you missed the first time around and makes finding collectibles much less of a headache.

Astro Bot’s main campaign can be completed in between 10-15 hours. Completionists, however, might be looking at 20 or a little bit more hours to conquer everything the game has to offer, including finding all its collectibles. The game isn’t difficult by any means, but there are a few surprises at the end that might make you want to pull your hair out. So in rare instances, player skill is involved.

The relatively short run time for Astro Bot might leave some wanting more, especially since it’s a full-priced game, but those hours are filled with some of the best modern platforming gameplay ever. You won’t regret a single hour or penny. 

Accessibility

Astro Bot has a good amount of accessibility options, such as the ability to change all the gyro controls to stick, in order to accommodate those who can’t perform motions. There are also plenty of visual aids like aiming reticles that can help players perform specific actions easier. Camera options allow you to do things such as recenter the camera.

Should you play Astro Bot?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

How I reviewed Astro Bot

I played about 22 hours of Astro Bot on PlayStation 5 with a DualSense Wireless Controller, and I’m currently on my way to earning the Platinum trophy. I played it through my PlayStation Portal as well when I was cleaning up the rest of the collectibles after beating the main campaign.

I played the game on an Insignia 50" Class F30 Series LED 4K UHD TV, using the Razer Leviathan V2 X Bluetooth gaming speaker. I also recently revisited Astro’s Playroom to check out the new content updates Sony added in, mainly finding the new collectible bots. Astro Bot takes all of Rescue Mission and Playroom’s ideas up a notch. 

First reviewed August/September 2024

Loud, boisterous, and gleefully violent, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 delivers a thrilling power fantasy. Saber Interactive’s third-person slaughter-fest invites you to step into the power-armored boots of a 10-foot-tall superhuman Space Marine as you carve your way through hordes of alien Tyranids and Chaos cultists. Crunchy, bloody, and immensely satisfying, Space Marine 2’s core gameplay loop distinguishes the title, ensuring that occasional moments of ambitious overreach or old-school jankiness are easily forgotten.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a lovingly maintained relic of a bygone era. To stomp through its gorgeous, detailed levels is to bask in the third-person glory days of the late 2000s. The pressures of 2024’s open-world-saturated design environment are nowhere to be seen here. Space Marine 2’s punchy single-player campaign and generous co-op missions are linear, well-structured affairs. This allows for an attention to detail when it comes to encounters and level design alike and, while this may be off-putting to some, those wishing to nestle into the comforting embrace of a traditional action game will find their desires met.

However, this is not to say that Space Marine 2 rejects the advantages of modern design approaches either. When it comes to realizing the immense scale of Games Workshop’s beloved Warhammer 40,000 dystopian sci-fi universe, Space Marine 2 makes generous use of modern hardware. Awe-inspiring vistas come almost every minute in Space Marine 2. Looming gothic structures loom across busy battlefields populated by swarms of enemies. The Space Marines themselves tower over human and alien foot soldiers alike, a sense echoed by weighty animations which capture the sheer bulk and presence of these immense killing machines.

That said the game occasionally bites off more than it can chew. The scale of its ambitions cause some sections of the campaign to feel rushed. For instance, while they look great at a distance, many of your mortal human allies during the campaign use canned and dull animations - a stark contrast to the gorgeous and deliberate movements on show from the Space Marines themselves. Allied tanks stay quiet, their massed machine guns pointing at the enemy seemingly never to fire. Additionally, though chocked full of unlockables, Space Marine 2’s co-op mode asks for a serious amount of grinding from players, leading to a stolid progression system that lets down the otherwise joyful co-op missions.

Party like it's 2011

Missteps aside, the combat loop at the core of Space Marine 2 reaches lofty heights. At its best, it induced in me a Doom-like flow state of action and re-action, with controls shifting seamlessly between ranged attacks and melee cut and thrust. This alone is an exceptional achievement. 

Space Marine 2 boasts a panoply of over-the-top weapons, each of which feels like a violent, adolescent fever dream brought to life. Brutal automatic rifles stand alongside deadly plasma weapons and precision laser snipers. While the selection in melee is a little more limited, it is no less captivating. Warhammer 40,000’s iconic chainsword (that’s a sword that’s also a literal, actual chainsaw) is captured lusciously. Its blades roar with each attack as the weapon’s side radiators billow with excess heat. On the other end of the spectrum, we have the Thunder Hammer, a heavy, deliberate weapon specialized in crowd control through massive swings crowned with explosive detonations. 

In contrast to what you might expect from a third-person action game, Space Marine 2 does not use a cover system. Instead, Space Marines recover health by slaying enemies in dramatic executions. These brutal over-the-top animations elicited excited shouts of “bruh!” from myself and anyone else who chanced into the living room at the time. Smaller targets can be executed with a well-timed parry, while larger foes must be beaten into submission with crunchy melee attacks or ruthless barrages of gunfire. This fluid process does a great deal to feed into the power fantasy at the heart of Space Marine 2, refining the system as it was first introduced in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (2011). 

Bruh? Bruh.

Space Marine 2 builds on its predecessor in every conceivable respect. The battles are louder, the setpieces more dramatic and the central campaign more audacious - with the notable exception of its lackluster finale. 

Throughout the roughly 12-hour-long main campaign, you play as Demetrian Titus - the star of the first game. A roller coaster rather than a sandbox, Space Marine 2’s campaign takes advantage of a linear mission structure to dole out gorgeous cutscenes and satisfying setpieces at an impressive, if occasionally overwhelming, pace. You’ll fight through alien-infested jungles, ancient facilities, forgotten tombs, and towering megacities to defend humanity from a sinister conspiracy and an alien menace. 

Despite this breadth, the campaign rarely loses its grounding, thanks, in part, to the supporting cast. For most of the campaign, you’ll be followed by two subordinates who’ll back you up and even revive you should you fall. Their constant presence adds a sense of camaraderie, reinforcing the sense of siblinghood at the heart of Space Marine culture. 

Co-op mode doubles down on this sense of camaraderie, offering six exciting missions which each slot into the story of the single-player campaign, adding plenty of extra context and worldbuilding. However, though these missions fully capture the well-paced ebb and flow of the campaign missions, the fact that there are only six available at launch makes the co-op feel like an ancillary feature, subordinate to the main story. 

You want it darker?

What is never subordinate, however, is the rich Warhammer 40,000 setting which is lovingly and impressively presented throughout. Die-hard fans will notice references to significant events throughout the canon which help to place Space Marine 2 in a wider context. That said, the title remains remarkably accessible for a newcomer. The first few hours of the campaign gently dole out key concepts, ensuring that the exposition never gets bogged down in unnecessary minutia. Space Marine 2 also boasts the most dramatic and impressive opening crawl and prologue mission that I’ve ever seen for a Warhammer 40,000 game.

What’s more, the writers take the opportunity to deliberately crack the image of the stoic, Space Marine killing machine through occasional glimmers of human dialogue. While you shouldn’t expect hyper-developed characters, these Space Marines feel well-rounded. This is especially true in softer moments of conversation. Some of the dialogue between the supporting cast (whom you control in co-op mode) is so earnest and wholesome that it veers towards the homoromantic.

This sort of hidden depth is a hallmark of Space Marine 2. While its characters, storylines, and set pieces lack the depth of more story-heavy action-adventure titles like The Last of Us, they absolutely contain more than meets the eye. Coupled with an exceptionally satisfying combat system and a heartfelt dedication to the source material, this quality helps lift Space Marine 2 comfortably out of forgettability and easily into the realm of the genuinely entertaining. While elements of Space Marine 2 may feel rushed or overstretched, the title stands on its own two feet, distinctive, bombastic, and proud.  

Accessibility

Space Marine 2 offers bare-bones accessibility features, sporting a colorblind mode and adjustable subtitles. Players can also toggle off-screen markers allowing for clearer gameplay - useful for those with visual impairments. There are also a range of difficulty modes. 

Unfortunately, the title offers little else when it comes to accessibility. An adjustable parry window or an option for automatic parries would have been most welcome. An option for colour cues to distinguish between heavy and light melee attacks is also conspicuously absent. 

 Should you play Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2? 

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

How I reviewed Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

I played Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 for roughly 16 hours, taking time to complete the campaign, replay some of my favorite missions, and play through almost every co-op mission with both AI allies and other players. Since the game was in a pre-release state, there was an insufficient pool of players to evaluate the PvP mode. 

I reviewed the game in performance mode on PS5 using a Dualsense Wireless Controller on a 48-inch LG C2 OLED 4K TV. The game ran smoothly and, while there were some frame rate drops, these were few and far between, amounting to less than half a dozen over my 16-hour playtime.  

Why should Phoenix hog the spotlight? Why are we always trying to find the good in people? Why don’t we wear a quaff red suit with more ruffles than an 18th-century aristocrat? What if we just want to send some bad guys behind bars by uncovering guilt, rather than saving people?

What if I just want to be a pompous prosecutor with a pompadour? Ace Attorney Investigations Collection might be the for you.

This latest Ace Attorney remastered collection from developer Capcom completes the set of bringing every game in the beloved franchise to modern consoles, and for those of us in English-speaking territories also brings the final untranslated adventure in the series to the West for the very first time. 

This set houses two games in the Nintendo DS-era spinoff starring Miles Edgeworth as the protagonist (Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit), but two Switch games (also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC) of which only the first ever made its way outside Japan upon its initial release. Poor sales led to the second game remaining unlocalized from 2011 until now. 

Enhanced Interrogation

A few enhancements have been brought to the collection over the original adventure. All art has been redrawn for HD screens, although those who love the pixel-art walking animations of characters in investigation sequences can use them if desired. With the new art remaining the only option for dialogue and the pixel art backgrounds standing up to scrutiny poorly on larger screens, however, the new art was certainly preferable. A gallery allows you to revisit old illustrations and listen to music (including orchestral arrangements of some songs) at will, with character designs and bonus illustrations also a welcome bonus.

The major appeal of this new title is the move from the courtroom to the mind and machinations associated with the role of prosecutor. In this role, you’ll investigate the scenes of crimes - murder and otherwise, though the latter will likely lead to murder at some point. This is Ace Attorney, after all - and uses logic and reasoning to find the true culprit and bring them to justice.

Notably, in this game such justice is inflicted all without entering a courtroom, as you freely move Edgeworth through crime scenes using the analog stick to seek out clues and speak to suspects. Speaking to suspects involves testimony and cross-examination using evidence that plays identically to such scenes in the court in mainline games, but you won’t see Miles standing at the prosecutor’s bench during your time in the world of Ace Attorney Investigations. 

For those used to the point-and-click puzzling through environments associated with mainline entries in the series, the ability to control these pint-sized protagonists at will and wander around environments in search of anything suspicious is an unusual feeling that takes some time to adjust. The actual mechanics of finding points of interest to add clues to your evidence is functionally identical otherwise, as is speaking to characters and examining evidence, but it serves as a way to differentiate the two characters and their approach.

Acting as a prosecutor rather than a defense attorney, your arsenal of tools to uncover the truth alongside your approach to each case is different from those of Phoenix Wright. Alongside clues, you’ll pick up on pieces of logic that will be added to a bank of logic statements. Collect a bunch from your investigations and you’ll be able to combine them to create new leads or deepen your understanding of a case, perhaps finding the thing you need to uncover the truth in the process.

In the third case of the first game involving kidnapping and murder inside of a theme park based around the lovable police mascot, it’s possible to piece together the existence of three used cups in the kidnapper’s hideout alongside a trio of folding chairs to reveal that there are actually three kidnappers involved in the case instead of the original two you first believed, a vital clue in unmasking the real culprit.

While a cool idea in theory, it also reveals the biggest flaw with this game’s unique approach: it’s too simple. At their best, Ace Attorney games thrill through their challenge, the complex investigations spanning a mass of environments, interrogations, and cross-examinations, confounding conundrums that only become clear of a culprit at the very end. Here, logic rarely involves more than a few statements that can easily be pieced together and, by consequence of them being highlighted as logic statements in the first place, only make it more clear what the key pieces of evidence are when you confront and cross-examine statements from witnesses and suspects later.

Investigations are also disappointingly streamlined. Rather than spanning numerous environments and crime scenes that intersect to unveil the truth, you’re locked into a single environment at a time to investigate for every clue before moving to the next in a railroaded fashion that feels lacking in freedom and control. Together with logic, it makes much of the game feel formulaic.

Rook-ie Mistake

At least, it feels too simple at first. This is a game of two halves, quite literally in this case. For much of the first game in this spin-off duology, I had yet to encounter prior to this review, I found myself somewhat saddened by how simplistic I found the experience compared to the puzzling heights of The Great Ace Attorney or twisting tales of the mainline titles. Towards the end of the first game, I finally saw the potential of the idea, before the second game expanded affairs further with new mechanics that completely transformed the title into one of the most dynamic in the series to date.

In the second game, Miles Edgeworth uses a new talent to get the truth out of his adversaries: Mind Chess. Rather than your typical ‘health bar’ that reduces whenever you use the incorrect piece of evidence, you instead enter a new Matrix-like environment where you converse with your opponent-of-sorts in a more dynamic fashion. As they share their side of events you can choose to retaliate with words or bide your time in the hope of leaking more information, at which point you can shoot a pawn at their words to break their defenses and, eventually, Checkmate them into bringing more information.

In a way that even the most enthralling in-game cross-examinations fail to achieve, the achievement of this mechanic is in its bringing of the intensity and pressure of a real interrogation to the series. A time limit forces you to act and react to statements on the fly, with real consequences if you mess up. It’s easier to fail, but more satisfying to catch their knight in the act or corner them with a well-timed counter to their words backed up by the facts of the case that force them to confess or share new evidence.

If I were to call the first Ace Attorney Investigations a decent, entertaining experience but perhaps the weakest title in the franchise, its sequel bursts into Western markets as one of the stronger entries to date for this mechanic alone. As cases become more brooding and dark the mechanic opens up new avenues to seek out the truth, and alongside featuring the better of the two overarching stories single-handedly makes a case for the collection’s existence solely for being the reason this title has its first English localization after 13 years. 

Accessibility 

Alongside language options, the game provides options to turn off screen shaking and flashes, remove controller vibration for those with sensitive hands, and adjust the transparency of the text box. Autoplay of text is also possible with a chance to set the amount of time text remains on screen after fully rendering before proceeding to the next text box.

Should I play Ace Attorney Investigations Collection?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

How I reviewed Ace Attorney Investigations Collection

I played the game on a Nintendo Switch OLED model primarily in handheld mode, although sections of the game were also played on an ASUS VG27AQL1A gaming monitor in docked mode. I primarily played the game with AirPods for audio and put in roughly 30 hours of time to the experience in total across both games.

First reviewed August/September 2024.

As the first new entry in the Famicom Detective Club visual novel (VN) series in almost 30 years, Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is nothing short of a triumph and easily one of the best Nintendo Switch games right now. Building on the strong foundations laid by the underappreciated remakes of the first two games, The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind, released back in 2021, Emio - The Smiling Man is a wonderful example of how you can successfully modernize a franchise while staying true to its roots.

Ostensibly, not much has changed since the remakes. You still play as the same young detective, though now as a 19-year-old rather than a young teenager, who is tasked with solving a sinister, almost supernatural case. You interact with the world through a series of prompts found on a small command menu, such as “Call/Engage”, “Ask/Listen”, “Look/Examine”, and “Think”.

It’s a very old-fashioned way to interact with the medium, unfolding much more like a traditional choose-your-own-adventure novel than the mechanics of other investigative VN franchises like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa. It certainly takes a little bit of getting used to at first, but is an incredibly rewarding system once you get the hang of it. Each scene is effectively a little puzzle, requiring the right combination of commands to progress.

This is perfectly encapsulated in one memorable moment where our hero arrives outside a bar. The player can hear screams coming inside. The absence of the usual “Travel” option, which would normally allow you to open the door and go in, is your cue to hit “Ask/Listen” so the protagonist can notice the sound and proceed with the appropriate level of urgency.

Chasing the bag

The underlying systems may not have changed hugely, but Emio - The Smiling Man is both considerably more intuitive and more engaging than the remakes of its predecessors. As much as I enjoyed The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind, anybody who has played those games will know that they proceed at a frankly glacial pace. This is especially true of the first few hours, which can honestly be a little painful to sit through. Of course, this is the almost inevitable result of their age, having originally launched in 1988 and 1989 respectively for the Famicom.

Still, I was delighted to find that Emio - The Smiling Man opens with a bang and maintains that momentum for its entire runtime. The narrative begins with a schoolboy found dead, seemingly strangled, and with a creepy, smiley-faced paper bag placed on his head. It soon becomes apparent that this case is inextricably linked to the urban legend of Emio, a paper-bag-wearing killer thought to target crying schoolgirls, and a series of similar unsolved killings from 18 years ago.

You are joined in your investigation by Ayumi Tachibana, another employee at your detective agency, and occasionally switch over to her perspective for a fresh look at events. This provides a refreshing change of pace and it’s surprisingly interesting to just observe the differences in how certain characters interact with the Tachibana compared to the protagonist. There is also a wide cast of supporting characters, each masterfully written with complex, varied motivations. 

The subject matter of this installment is considerably darker than that of the remakes, with its fair share of grim reveals and disturbing moments. The plot is littered with red herrings and does a formidable job maintaining the suspense until it all culminates in a brilliant, dramatic conclusion that resolves almost all of the narrative’s biggest mysteries in one fell swoop. The end credits are then followed by a truly delightful surprise that immediately had me diving back in for more.

Out and about

The overall tone may be quite bleak, but there are still plenty of amusing moments that stop things from ever becoming too oppressively miserable. Many of these are contained in easily-missable interactions, which reward you for experimenting with all of the tools at your disposal. I got a good chuckle the first time I called Tachibana on the in-game phone in the middle of a face-to-face conversation, for example, which prompted a suitably baffled reaction.

Despite this, the entire story is wholly linear which might disappoint those who prefer more exploration in their detective games. You’re occasionally asked to put your own investigative skills to the test by answering questions though, either by selecting preset options or inputting your own response with an on-screen keyboard. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but does add a pleasant extra layer of interactivity.

It also helps that background and character art are simply phenomenal across the board, with a wide variety of truly beautiful locations to pore over. Character sprites are well animated, while backgrounds are filled with moving details that really bring them to life. From the gentle swaying of trees in a light summer breeze to the passing buildings as you drive down a busy road, everything is just dripping with quality and polish.

My one complaint, bar the slightly repetitive background music, is the noticeable lack of any touchscreen support. Playing in handheld mode, these scenes are practically begging to be explored through the “Look/Examine” function. Dragging the on-screen cursor around with the thumbsticks works, but this really seems like a missed opportunity to channel some of that nostalgic Nintendo DS adventure game magic.

For this to be my only issue really goes to show what a brilliant experience it is. Whether you’re a visual novel veteran or someone new to the genre looking for an engaging, high-quality introduction, Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club simply cannot be missed. 

Accessibility

Sadly, there are no dedicated accessibility features in Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club. The settings menu does offer the ability to change the speed with which text is displayed, which may be useful to those with slower or faster reading speeds.

Should I play Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

How we reviewed Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club

I played Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club for just over 14 hours. In that time I completed the entire main story and went back to the beginning to start a second playthrough. Throughout my time with the game, I played on a Nintendo Switch OLED console in both handheld and docked mode. In docked mode, I made use of a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller. For audio, I relied on my trusty pair of Final VR3000 earbuds for a seriously immersive time. 

While I was playing, I compared my experience to that in other visual novels such as the entire Ace Attorney series, The House in Fata Morgana, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie, Needy Streamer Overload, and more. I also evaluated how it stacks up against other detective games, such as the Sherlock Holmes games from developer Frogwares, Disco Elysium, and Paradise Killer among others.

First reviewed August 2024.