At launch, Street Fighter V was roasted by critics and players for a lack of single player content. The Character Story mode included was a slap-dash mess of corny voice acting set to bad art and one-round fights against brain dead AI that only lasted two hours. Beyond that, you were left with an infuriating Survival mode that was awful to play, yet pivotal for unlocking colours.
Capcom hopes to address this deficiency with A Shadow Falls. This free DLC add-on adds a four-hour story filled with fully-rendered cutscenes along the lines of what Mortal Kombat has been doing lately. Is this a worthwhile addition to a game sorely lacking in content?
Start with Scrabble. Keep the tiles, but remove the board and replace the letters with shapes. Now you have Qwirkle. While this concept sounds strange at the outset, it’s actually brilliant when you think about it. By removing the board and the vocabulary barrier, Qwirkle focuses on the best part of Scrabble, which was the ways in which you could strategically place tiles in ways that garner the most points. Don’t you love it when you’re able to play one word that actually spells out two words because you placed them in just the right spot? That’s what Qwirkle is all about, without needing to memorize a dictionary.
The harvest is in and it’s time to celebrate! In Lanterns: The Harvest Festival, players act as artisans, decorating the lake around the castle with colourful lanterns. The player who earns the most honour by the end of the process is declared the winner. This isn’t a process that I’m familiar with in real life, but it does make for a neat and fairly light strategy game that sort of evokes the feelings that come with Ticket to Ride and Carcasonne.
Paperback by Tim Fowler puts players in the shoes of aspiring writers. Pouring over each word, players compete to become the most famous writer of the bunch by completing work on paperback novels. No, you won’t actually have to write novels to win the game, but your vocabulary will be put to the test in a game that is equal parts Scrabble and Dominion. Are you ready to become the next J.K. Rowling, Stephen King or Nicholas Sparks?
In Third Person 