THE SEXY BRUTALE (PS4)

The sexy brutale combines two excellent starting points: The "groundhog day" (you relive the same day over and over, meaning you can do anything you want knowing the world will be eventually reset) and the Abbey of crime (the NPCs are driven by a timeline, and they roam the world according to their schedules, independently from the player's decisions). Both are interesting enough - even separately - to lay the foundations of a great game

And for some reason, The sexy brutale is not. Certainly not bad, but it didn´t reach the fun state for me. My main issue was that I didn´t have enough info about what was happening in distant rooms, and also I wasn´t clear on what my goal was at any given time. You do get the name of who you`re supposed to watch over, but it wasn´t clear what they were doing, where and what should I do

Also, the story is a bit over the top. It combines a murder mystery night - much like any Agatha Christie novel - with fantasy, superpowers and ghosts. And it´s not that easy to follow, specially if you consider that players that want to avoid internet walkthroughs will likely wander around for long periods of time, making them forget of the overall plot. I ended up enjoying it because I did use a walkthrough, and so I kinda grasped the story better

On the plus side, the art direction is cute and distinctive. Chasing photo-realism is not the ultimate challenge for an artist in my opinion. Creating a new style is. The sexy brutale is not the first cartoony game around, but it stood up for me in its visual approach. And I respect the risk they took, not so many companies try to do something different nowadays

Do I recommend it? Sure, but only for players that don´t mind feeling lost, and are actually encouraged by that. Or you enjoy whodunits, cartoon games or indies that felt a bit short on their ambitions

FAR CRY BLOOD DRAGON (PS4)

Released initially in 2013 as a Far Cry 3 DLC, it was credited to be a highly unusual follow-up from the original IP: Not only the 80s setting but also a strong tongue-in-cheek type of humor. It was always on my radar, either for an impulse purchase or being on sale... which was recently the case

Aside from the 80s skinning, the game is fundamentally a Far Cry game. It is remarkable how little that IP has evolved in the last 10 years, to be honest. In terms of gameplay/features is basically the same than FC5, the last one I played. I even reused the same tactic for liberating garrisons: Drive a weaponized jeep inside, and shoot everything on sight. Only the dragons are new, and sometimes they behaved strangely, specially against some collisions/pathfinding

Still, the game is fun. I liked the B-series parody, and the humor style connected with me. It becomes repetitive after the first 2 hours, but I am generally ok with some farming. The story doesn´t make any sense, and it intends hard to not to. I enjoyed that, as well as the slideshow cutscenes (I believe that is 90s, actually)

Anyway, if you are into 80s nostalgia, comedy games and/or generic shooters I highly recommend FC Blood dragon. I miss when Ubisoft took weird risks like this