Bloodroots Review – A Symphony Of Combos And Casualties

Rating: Mature

Reviewed on: PlayStation 4

Also on: Switch, PC

At the heart of Bloodroots rests a classic Western story of revenge: Work your way through an army of henchmen to reach the person who left you for dead. Your bloodlust has no bounds, allowing you to kill with anything you can grab, be it an axe or even a carrot.

Bloodroots is gory, violent, and manic, yet every action is about pinpoint precision. While it may sound like your typical hack ‘n’ slash game, it's all about making combo strings. If you are just a hair off in slaughtering a foe, you'll likely take an axe to the head, and more distressingly, lose the huge combo death streak you chained together. From this unique gameplay hook, Bloodroots delivers enthralling and frantic fun where you start runs and chop the same enemies to bits over and over again to create a perfect run in hopes of raising your rank on the leaderboards. For the older players out there, the runs are similar in flow to the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games where you're striving for perfection. If you slip up just once, you're back to square one to try again.

Each level (or run) lasts roughly a minute, yet you continually have your eyes scanning for different ways to down your enemies. A level may seem brutally difficult at first, but once you learn the lay of the land and figure out how best to handle the threats, the difficulty dissolves into a dance of precise movements more than challenge. A typical run unfolds with high levels of variance: You'll start by smashing someone over the head with a wooden oar, leap onto a barrel to roll over his three friends, use a sword to dart across a pit and stab someone in one motion, and then activate a flamethrower to light up a group of charging foes. Developer Paper Cult did a fantastic job of making each level feel distinct both in flow and the murder tools within it.

You suit up as the appropriately named Mister Wolf, a one-eyed killer who wears the skin of a wolf as a hat. The man at the top of his kill sheet is also outfitted in a wolf skin, making for a fascinating chase and finale. This story unfolds through comedic sequences backed by awesome classic Western melodies and amusing words penned by Nick Suttner (of Guacamelee 2 and Celeste fame). Paper Cult calls its vision of this lawless time period the “Weird West,” and it fits with goofy characters and even stranger weapons (like a giant boot you can use to squish enemies, or a shield you can catch and throw like Captain America).

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Even if you fall in love with a particular weapon, you can’t rely on it; your tools break almost immediately, usually only giving you between one and three hits. You then need to move quickly to find something else. Your fist as a default attack does the trick, but the timing window for success is minuscule, making it good for nothing more than a last-ditch effort to fend someone off. Securing a new weapon is just as frantic as the combat, since you don’t want your combo meter to drop. You can still finish the level without combos, but the real fun comes from seeing how big you can get the multiplier.

Bloodroots isn’t a huge game, lasting just four or five hours on the first playthrough, but it delivers plenty of longevity and replayability. The reason to go through levels again is mostly for personal feats, but there are a couple of unlockable hats, each with unique abilities – like a handy dash – that change up the flow of play.

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The game’s huge stumble comes in the form of Paper Cult’s decision to change up the flow of play with brief sequences that focus on platforming or hovering. The level where you are forced to hover in the air plays like Flappy Bird, with Mister Wolf bobbing up and down to avoid a gauntlet of spike traps. This section is incredibly challenging and overstays its welcome, adding unnecessary frustration to an otherwise carefully constructed action game.

Outside of yelling at my TV a few times, I had a blast with Bloodroots. Each level delivers edge-of-your-seat excitement, which, while leading to plenty of runs being restarted, concludes with the satisfaction of revenge being delivered through a bloody combo ballet.

Score: 8.5

Summary: This unique action game is all about precision and making huge chains of kills. It's a riot.

Concept: A hack ‘n’ slash action game that explores unique ground with combos based on speed and precision

Graphics: Color is used to in clever ways to highlight the emotion of certain gameplay and story sequences, like everything turning blood red. The enemy animations are also easy to read, allowing for quick response

Sound: Western melodies provide a calming backdrop for the loud cracking of skulls

Playability: The movements are pitch perfect. Performing combos is easy, but enemy formations push you to strategize your approach

Entertainment: The story is fun to follow, but the real joy comes from playing levels over and over again to create the perfect combo run

Replay: Moderate

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Tony Stewart's Sprint Car Racing Review – Strapping In For A New Ride

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Publisher: Monster Games

Developer: Monster Games

Reviewed on: Xbox One

Also on: PlayStation 4, PC

Dirt racing has value for developer Monster Games. Since it hasn’t always been included in the studio’s titles through the years, fans have demanded it. Dirt racing also has cred. Many famous drivers got their starts on dirt, tearing it up at local tracks throughout the country on a Friday night. So, it makes sense that Monster would partner with NASCAR star Tony Stewart – who has always supported dirt racing – for a sprint car racing game on dirt.

Racing is naturally more slippery on dirt, but I’m glad this title has more gameplay nuance than just slopping through the corners. It’s more about finesse than aggression, and you must consider your car’s HP and the banking and arc of the turns. The fact that the tracks are ovals might seem boring, but the shortness of the straightaways relative to a NASCAR track creates a fun rhythm; it feels like you’re perpetually turning the wheel in preparation for the next corner. The flow feels different than a regular offroad or rally game. I was often on the gas the whole race, managing the car simply through careful and timely steering inputs, tearing around the track and scissoring between the other cars. Unfortunately, this is negated during online races, where lag can cause cars to visually appear to teleport around.

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Starting out in the career mode, I gained an appreciation for what it takes to even eke out a mid-place finish through disciplined racing and avoiding contact with other cars. The mode contains three tiers of cars of escalating HP corresponding to the three racing series (midgets, 305s, and 410s), as well as upgradeable parts within each which you buy with your winnings and sponsorship payouts.

Progress through the mode is gradual, which I like. I didn’t win my first race until my second season in midgets, by which time I not only had better equipment, but I was also simply a better racer. Accordingly, I began to deal more with lapped traffic (on 50-percent race length) – another gameplay wrinkle that takes skill and patience to navigate. Eventually you can own more than one race car across each series and use your success in lower tiers to fuel your progress in the higher ones.

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The game’s career mode is appropriately wedded to the experience on the track, but it’s locked in a linear inevitability that puts a cap on the mode’s ultimate payoff. Eventually you can get enough money to buy the parts you need to simply outmuscle opponents. This isn’t necessarily bad; it works, but it also makes your progress through the mode predictable and without consequence. It doesn’t match the tension and excitement occurring on the track itself.

Dirt racing may be a sort of minor league to the big-time stock cars, but this game – while limited in some areas – taps into its own enjoyable racing rhythm and buzz.

Score: 7

Summary: Monster Games' latest racer contains some elements similar to its NASCAR series, but the sprint cars have a gameplay feel all their own.

Concept: NASCAR developer Monster Games takes you back to the roots of racing – sprint cars on dirt tracks, complete with real drivers and a multi-series career mode

Graphics: Frame stutters occur every couple of laps

Sound: The local track announcer is a nice touch, but he’s not used much

Playability: Maintaining optimal control and speed is a subtle task, making the simple dirt tracks trickier than they might appear

Entertainment: I enjoyed racing spring cars on dirt ovals more than I thought I would

Replay: Moderate

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Luna: The Shadow Dust Review – A Beguiling Beauty

Publisher: Application Systems Heidelberg, Coconut Island Games

Developer: Lantern Studio

Rating: Everyone 10+

Reviewed on: PC

Luna: The Shadow Dust is visually enthralling. The opening sequence shows a boy falling from the sky and entering a twisted tower that is both exotic and magical thanks to a gorgeous hand-drawn aesthetic. Luna looks like a picture book come to life, and its world is so warm and inviting that I want to cozy up under it like a warm blanket. Unfortunately, some of Luna’s point-and-click puzzles are so prickly they sour much of the experience.

The main hero in Luna is a nameless boy who explores a massive tower alongside his cat-like companion. Each new level of the tower is filled with new discoveries and curiosities. When I entered the main hall, I pored over its murals, which seemed to tell the story of an ancient society plagued by a shadowy evil. Inside a labyrinth library, I marveled at the small details on every bookshelf. In a tiny medieval-style kitchen, I could practically feel the warmth coming off the hearth. Each new room brought new visual wonders, and I was excited to explore every inch of this mysterious tower. 

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Each room also contains one or two puzzles, which you must solve to progress. Many of these puzzles are incredibly rewarding, requiring out-of-the-box thinking. For example, in a room full of animal skeletons and lab experiments, I discovered a way for my cat-like companion to platform across a series of shadows projected on the wall to reach a lever that opened our exit. In another room, I used a special door to warp between seasons and help a tree grow fruit. When Luna is at its best, you feel like you’re uncovering a secret magic trapped inside the world.

Unfortunately, Luna is bad at clearly communicating your goals. It uses outlandish and vague puzzle logic, which often left me confused and frustrated. One puzzle requires that you feed a rat certain food to make it remove a barrier from the room. However, the solution to this puzzle involves jumping on the rat, which doesn’t feel logical, so it took me a while to work it out. Another puzzle has you walking through a series of doors to illuminate wall paintings; I resorted to brute-force trial-and-error here because the connection between the doors and the paintings never became clear. 

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Part of my challenge in understanding Luna’s world comes from the fact that developer Lantern Studio tells a wordless story. After finishing the game, I pieced together several of the big narrative beats, which involve the boy’s journey to fix a past mistake that led to his master’s downfall. However, several moments are missing key connective tissue, and the story ultimately doesn’t leave a lasting impact. It’s fitting that there isn’t a single line of dialogue in the entire game, because most of my frustrations with Luna’s puzzles stem from rarely understanding the game’s language.

If Luna had not been so obtuse, it might have been close to greatness. I loved the atmosphere and the little touches in this world. Many puzzles are a joy to solve, but the bad ones are so poorly constructed that they tipped my frustration over the edge. As much as I wanted to love Luna, I felt like the game was pushing me away.

Score: 7.5

Summary: Luna looks like a picture book come to life, but some of its point-and-click puzzles are so prickly they sour the experience.

Concept: A boy and his cat journey up an ancient tower and solve a variety of puzzles

Graphics: Luna has a striking style that leaves a lasting impression thanks to its hand-animated visuals

Sound: The piano-driven soundtrack feels magical, setting the perfect atmosphere for this bizarre adventure

Playability: Navigating Luna’s world is incredibly easy, but some puzzles are hard to solve because the game doesn’t clearly communicate your goals

Entertainment: I wanted to explore Luna’s world and soak in its sights for hours. Many of its puzzles are rewarding, but a few stinkers mar the experience

Replay: Moderately Low

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Kunai Review – Swinging Low

Publisher: The Arcade Crew

Developer: TurtleBlaze

Rating: Everyone 10+

Reviewed on: Switch

Also on: PC

Metroid has inspired countless games, and they all balance aspects of the classic formula differently. Some are focused on the thrill of exploring sprawling maps, while others emphasize an arsenal of creative weapons. Kunai includes those elements to a degree, but its main priority is mobility. As a tablet-faced robot, you use the titular kunai to attach ropes to most surfaces; this lets you easily swing, climb, and launch yourself through enemy-infested areas. Though this is a fun twist on navigation, it isn’t enough to carry the whole experience. In exploration, combat, and boss fights, Kunai falls short.

Tabby, your ninja-like hero, battles through a bleak world populated mostly by other machines. You find your sword and kunai almost immediately, and they are the foundation for your adventure, mixing close-range combat with acrobatic navigation. The sword-slashing is simple and functional, but your movement is a fluid hybrid between the signature styles of Spider-Man and Doc Ock. The game encourages you to use your momentum as well as multiple anchor points to freely maneuver horizontally and vertically, which is entertaining. The combination initially feels great, but it starts to seem more like a gimmick as the action fails to take the concept in new directions. Apart from encountering some frustrating platforming sections and surfaces that your kunai can’t stick to, this part of your repertoire doesn’t grow to meet its potential, and instead remains disappointingly static.

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Tabby walks a gradual path to power, collecting additional abilities as he travels from one zone to the next. Tools like shuriken, machine guns, and a double-jump are improvements, making it possible to reach new areas, but Kunai doesn’t make the process satisfying. Most of the items you collect to expand your arsenal feel less like powers and more like keys in disguise. For example, your electric shuriken opens a specific kind of door, but I rarely had an excuse to use that weapon for any other purpose. Firing down with the machine gun helps you cross gaps, but it is underwhelming as an offensive option. This means that your abilities seem like they were primarily designed to overcome trivial progress-gating obstacles, and they don’t do much to impact your overall combat style, even once you upgrade them.

The different maps have names that sound exciting, like Haunted Factory and Crypto Mines, but they don’t feel distinct enough once you’re in them. With a minimalist art style and muted colors, the various zones blend together over time. Moving from a greenish area to a brownish area is technically different, but the limited enemy types and sparse details never convey a sense of exploring uncharted territory. The thrill of discovery is similarly dull, since the hidden areas you can uncover usually just contain hats, which are dumb-looking cosmetic items. This completely kills the desire to revisit maps once you get new powers, because you know you won’t find anything worthwhile.

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Boss battles are another weak spot. Most rely heavily on repetition, so they become endurance bouts rather than true tests of skill. In one fight, you need to climb a mountain while evading attacks in order to score a few hits on the boss. If you succeed, you are knocked back down the mountain only to repeat the process three more times. After that, the next phase has you outrunning the boss in a race up the mountain where a single slip-up results in a one-hit kill – and failure at any stage results in starting the whole fight over. Not all bosses lean on this frustrating pattern, but the ones that don’t aren’t much better; those are too easy, serving mainly as testing grounds for a new item you just acquired in an adjacent room.

With various weapons, mobility enhancements, and a sprawling series of connected maps, Kunai appears to have all the right components, but they aren’t assembled into a cohesive whole. Swinging around the world is a cool novelty, but that alone isn’t enough to propel players through the blandness that pervades the rest of the game.

Score: 6

Summary: With various weapons, mobility enhancements, and a sprawling series of connected maps, Kunai appears to have all the right components, but they aren’t assembled into a cohesive whole.

Concept: Control a ninja-like robot who swings, slashes, and shoots through various connected zones

Graphics: A limited, muted color palette conveys a consistent-but-boring visual style

Sound: The music and effects support the action without being memorable

Playability: Launching your ropes and swinging from them is fast and intuitive, but the hit detection with your sword and guns is imprecise

Entertainment: The novelty of traversal doesn’t last, leaving you with a generic adventure inspired by Metroid

Replay: Moderately Low

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AO Tennis 2 Review – Too Many Unforced Errors

Publisher: Bigben Interactive

Developer: Big Ant Studios

Rating: Everyone

Reviewed on: Xbox One

Also on: PlayStation 4, Switch, PC

Flow is important in tennis, but it’s hard to get in the groove in AO Tennis 2. Rough spots in the gameplay, including wonky animations and that dreaded feeling that some outcomes are pre-determined, undermine a game that nevertheless includes an admirable career mode. It’s not a loss in straight sets, but it’s a defeat nevertheless.

Players’ movements don’t always synch up with expected shot animations, which can produce some surprising outcomes. You and your opponents can seemingly teleport a short distance to all of a sudden make a shot – an issue that is even more egregious online. Players also give up unexpectedly on balls that look like they can be chased down. Perhaps this phenomenon influences the title’s high number of outright winners, where a player hits a clean, unreturnable shot. When these occur due to strategic rallies and/or a well-hit and placed shot, that’s great. However, too many times these happen seemingly out of thin air.

Movement is a problem when it comes to changing direction. Whether you have the movement assist on or off, your player is occasionally unresponsive. In tennis you must keep moving to prevent from being caught flat footed, yet the game isn’t always up to the task. I don’t expect to be able to joystick around the court unabated, but it’s disappointing when you anticipate your opponent’s shot correctly and still aren’t able to make a play on the ball because the game is not responding to your input. 

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AO Tennis 2’s gameplay has redeeming qualities when it’s not working against you. Points can be saved or won by choosing the right shot type at the right moment. Slice shots take less time to execute, providing a way out when you’re rushed, and the key to winning points is often to push for precise shots. Shot depth, placement along lines, taking a chance with a more aggressive shot, and getting the correct shot timing can make a big difference. Setting up your opponent with your shots before putting them away is also important, and I needed different strategies when one approach wasn’t getting it done (even though the drop shot is overpowered).

Raising player attributes like speed, stamina, and ability to hit certain shot types are integral as you play harder opponents and play on higher difficulties. This dovetails nicely into the career mode, which is the game’s highlight. The mode’s task of balancing a weekly tournament schedule with rest and training sessions isn’t unique, but I like how cleanly the pieces fit together.

It’s important not to get behind the fatigue eight ball, lest it lower your stats as you get further into a tournament, affecting your abilities just when you need them most. Careful planning and rest keep fatigue in check, but so does paying for a retinue of support services, including a coach, physiotherapist, sports scientist, photographer, and more. These positions help keep you in tip-top shape, reduce the effects of traveling to tournaments, and boost the effects of training. These aren’t simply one-and-done upgrades, however, as money from tournaments and sponsors fuel these annual expenses. The fact that your money also raises your attributes keeps you on the tour’s treadmill, striving for that next rung up the ladder.

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Real-world sponsors such as Uber, Lacoste, and Häagen-Dazs give the mode a fun boost, and developer Big Ant takes this a step further with its creation and import tools. These let you bolster the existing licensed player pool, add replicas of real-life stadiums, and create your own sponsor logos. The community has already taken up the charge, creating real-world player lists you can import to bolster your career experience. You can even take these online, but unfortunately that mode consists only of quick match and create a match, with no matchmaking or larger structure apart from a leaderboard.

Despite the strength of its career mode, it’s too bad AO Tennis 2’s gameplay isn’t more dependable, because the genre has needed a new light for several generations. However, this game can’t muster the consistency needed to be a credible threat.

Score: 6.5

Summary: Developer Big Ant keeps improving the series' career mode, but the gameplay is what really needs the work.

Concept: AO Tennis 2 builds off the improvements in 2018’s AO Tennis International rather than actually being a direct sequel to the first AO Tennis, which also came out in 2018

Graphics: Player faces are decent likenesses, if emotionless

Sound: There are no match commentators, but at least the chair umpire reads the score in French where appropriate

Playability: The sometimes-unpredictable animations and unresponsive controls can be frustrating

Entertainment: The career mode and creation tools are the best parts of AO Tennis 2, but the gameplay struggles to keep up its end of the bargain

Replay: Moderately High

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Legends of Runeterra Review - Colorful Card Combat

Publisher: Riot Games

Developer: Riot Games

Reviewed on: PC

Also on: iOS, Android

The free-to-play digital card game space is a constant battle for discovery and long-term viability. With Legends of Runeterra, Riot is entering a battlefield filled with numerous competitors. An amalgamation of parts constructed from bits of Magic: The Gathering, Hearthstone, Gwent, and even Valve’s Artifact, it’s a carefully constructed recipe bursting with League of Legends flavor and personality.

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If you already love League of Legends, you can find a lot to enjoy here, but that familiarity is not a requirement. Champions from League form the backbone of many decks, and Riot has done an excellent job translating the spirit of the characters into card form. The hyper-annoying Teemo, long-known for hit-and-run tactics and mushroom traps in League of Legends, becomes a stealthy and equally annoying treasure in Runeterra, infesting your opponent’s deck with a deadly stream of poisonous mushrooms that function as a lethal clock. Heimerdinger’s turret-spawning antics can take a blank board to one overflowing with dangerous machinations. Tryndamere commands the late-game with overflowing strength and barbarian tenacity. Ashe’s signature frozen arrows turn even the mightiest army into a frigid, meek menagerie. Like their League of Legends counterparts, playing with the different champions often changes the rules, and you really feel like you’re playing a different game each time as you build around their strengths. This lends a good deal of variety to the same base goal of reducing a life total to zero.

These champions all feature level-up requirements that you can build a deck around, which makes it easy to identify strategies to cobble together archetypes. For instance, Teemo starts off by popping five mushrooms into the opponent’s deck if he hits them. But after 15 mushrooms have been placed, Teemo levels up, causing his taps to double the mushrooms in the opponent’s deck on a successful connect – making a connection a dire, game-winning pop instead of a couple of shroomies you can ignore.

Outside of the cool quips and animations that occur during these champion level-ups, the core of the strategy lies in two major elements: synergy and timing. You’re encouraged to build decks that use up to two factions, based on locations from the League of Legends universe. You can easily build a focused deck from one faction that does something well, but grabbing cards from a second faction can cover your blind spots and make something more effective. If you’re making a Frejlord deck focused on huge followers and buffs, you may want to add some Shadow Isles cards to give you some removal potential to take out enemy threats.

On the surface, one could mistake things as a simple game of “playing cards on curve” as your mana goes up, but the element of passing rounds and actions makes timing a much more interesting proposition. When you do something can be more important than the action itself. If it’s your turn to attack, do you do it right away when the opponent hasn’t had time to put something large on the board to block, or do you wait until after you’ve played something huge of your own? If you try playing a big, game-ending beastie at the start of your turn, you could be walking right into an opponent’s trap; maybe they can blow up the entire battlefield with a spell and cause you to lose everything. On the other hand, if you attack right away, you could be leaving a ton of extra damage on the table, making your turn far less effective. Knowing and guessing what your opponent might play at any given time is a huge factor that can make or break games. Chains of spells, actions, and reactions to any given situation form extremely satisfying interactions that let you flex your brain instead of simply dumping something new on the board each round.

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Currently, your activities are rather limited, whether you’re climbing the ladder in standard matches or engaging with the draft format, Expedition. Expedition lacks the variety other card games offer, as it essentially has you building around archetypes from small, constructed card pods instead of having a wide field to select from. However, this mode is incredibly accessible for novices and newcomers. Standard matches are fast and fun, but you end up facing off against many of the same archetypes over and over. A.I. matches are available, but there’s no real single-player content to speak of or any engagement outside of the two core offerings.

This is a free-to-play game, with a catch. In a strange twist, how many cards players can purchase per week is limited (in addition to your standard free progression). That means it’s likely no one has every card, and the best strategies have not yet been codified. This keeps the metagame fresh and full of experimentation, since you have to use what you have without cobbling together all the best decks immediately. However, it remains to be seen whether this approach will give new arrivals an inherent disadvantage in the future.

Legends of Runeterra has a lot to offer as it enters the digital card game ring. Exploring the League of Legends universe in card form is enjoyable and addictive, and slicing an opponent down with a Fiora flourish or a Thresh-hooked hero is a blast.

Score: 8.25

Summary: The League of Legends card game successfully translates a vibrant world.

Concept: Take on an opponent in fast-paced card matches with characters from the League of Legends universe

Graphics: Card art is great, and the level-up transitions and animations give a little extra oomph to a game that generally boils down to numbers

Sound: Voices add an essential bit of flavor to major and minor characters, with sturdy (if repetitive) sounds and score

Playability: Those who already are immersed in the world of digital card games will be familiar with most mechanics immediately

Entertainment: Cool animations, League of Legends flavor, and smart gameplay elements that reward strategy make Legends of Runeterra a solid addition to the genre

Replay: High

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7th Sector Review – A Puzzler With A Spark

Publisher: Sometimes You

Developer: Sergey Noskov

Rating: Teen

Reviewed on: Xbox One

Also on: PlayStation 4, PC

A television set comes to life, static filling its screen. Within the noise, you can barely make out a humanoid figure. Moving the analog stick makes this faint specter move, but it’s trapped in this small box with no clear objective or interaction point. This is 7th Sector’s first puzzle, and it’s a bit of a doozy, at first making me think my game may have glitched out. Developer Sergey Noskov gives you no indication of what you need to do in this moment. Almost every puzzle is free of guidance, which can lead to moments of frustration. But more often, it leads to the satisfaction of having the insight to figure something out on your own. This is a game that lives and dies by its obtuse design.

After the first puzzle is solved in a fairly unconventional way, 7th Sector only gets stranger. You don’t take control of the human you saw or anything even close to a typical game character. You become an ordinary electrical spark. It can’t emote or do anything other than travel along cables to devices that it can bring to life. As the spark moves through the world, you see a dystopian cyberpunk story unfold in the background, catching glimpses of robots warring with humans and even more distressing and fascinating things. This is a clever way of telling a story, but it doesn’t deliver much excitement or build up until the final act, which concludes with a great reveal in the vein of The Matrix.

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The spark of note is used effectively for clever navigational puzzles along a side-scrolling setting that push you to figure out how to reach other cables or to open doors. Just when it seems like the puzzles mostly revolve around figuring out patterns or using the correct timing, Noskov (who is a one-person development team) throws math at you. You are asked to solve fairly simple math problems, like figuring out which group of numbers adds up to 220 (a specific number used often in 7th Sector), but you are also presented with division and multiplication tests. If a math problem is too hard, you can randomly click numbers to brute-force the solution without negative consequences (as I did once). That said, by the time the credits rolled, I looked back on the math and found it connected nicely to what Noskov is trying to reveal in the story. It’s quite clever.

Just as I was getting used to controlling my emotionless blue spark, the gameplay changes completely to power up a robotic ball, which you then control. Outside of more math, the puzzles become entirely different at this point, yet just as fun and directionless, only now involving more physics-based actions. Just when it seemed I had the ball gameplay down, the spark jumps into another robot. This one is much bigger and has guns, which leads to some combat amidst even more puzzles. The combat isn’t great, and is easily the weakest part of the game, but it is used sparingly and is only mildly frustrating.

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The spark moves on to other entities as well, but it wouldn’t be fair of me to spoil where this adventure goes next. In the three to four hours it took to complete 7th Sector, I was eager to see what would happen next, all while cursing math and not knowing what I needed to do. I got stumped a few times, but the puzzle spaces are small and most of their interactive elements are easy to spot.

I’m a big fan of Playdead’s Limbo and Inside, and 7th Sector scratches the same kind of itch, but in much stranger and mathematical ways. It’s a journey worth taking, but just know you’re often left directionless and perhaps in need of a calculator.

Score: 7.5

Summary: Robots, electricity, and math all come into play in this unique side-scrolling puzzle game.

Concept: A side-scrolling adventure that delivers little direction in its puzzles, yet makes you feel great when solving them

Graphics: The dark cyberpunk setting sells the mood, and the backdrops effectively tell the story

Sound: The score is appropriately empty and eerie. Sound is sometimes used to help guide you through puzzles

Playability: Outside of having to solve math problems, many of the puzzles are clever one-offs, meaning you almost always have new challenges to look forward to

Entertainment: The story delivers a nice payoff at the end, making the difficult puzzles worth the time

Replay: Moderately Low

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