In an interview with IGN in 2020 Senior Producer Fleur Marty commented about Gotham Knights, Warner Brother's newest Batman game that it's, and I quote:

"is very much not designed as a game-as-service."

Now I don't blame him for this comment, it's part of his job when doing PR rounds to help sell the product. I can only imagine with the negative outlook the title was receiving that the Eye of Sauron at Warner Brothers was watching intently. The thing is the reason I don't believe him is to give credit to the talented people that work on WB Montreal as I refuse to believe they would design such an awful system if it wasn't a live service game initially that was repurposed. Now I like the premise of it, playing as the sidekick's when Batman is gone and the launch trailer is superb at really emphasizing that feeling. I like the idea of having the game co-op and having upgradeable RPG mechanics but the way it's implemented is just dreadful.

So it's an open world game similar to it's predecessors where Gotham City is the playground. When you are let loose to explore there are basic repetitive crimes on the map where you can scan to find them then interrogate criminals to find pre meditated crimes and it's utterly pointless. Simply finding them organically exploring would have been better and more interesting. When stopping crimes sometimes there are chests that have resources in them or blueprints for new gear you can make. The resources are just various shades of colours with huge numbers that are never explained. Playing with a friend to tell them I'd found "some green" which I already had 100,000 of just means nothing and is extremely unexciting. I had random unexplained resources coming out of my ears, blueprints for weapons and armour I'd never use equally spilling out of my bat belt pouch. To compound matters further creating one of these items you can do on the fly but you can't equip it until you return to the Belfry which the game makes you do constantly. It just seems to want to break it's own flow all the time with these "not designed as live service" mechanics.

The game generally is a bit of a rough state in various areas. The movement around the city will have you feel constantly stuck on objects like perches and lampposts that Batgirl seems to glue to with the worlds strongest adhesive like she'd made a lifelong commitment she refuses to break. Bless her. Additionally there are constant little things like the lack of a proper jump being only contextual leaving questions if it will actually work, running into other players or walls kills all momentum and you freeze for no reason, a choppy frame rate and playing online co-op auto stops my headset working in private chat forcing me to mute and unmute again in mid conversation for just no reason. All small things, nothing stopping the game being unplayable but they can get frustrating over time.

The thing is if you strip those mechanics out and look past the niggling technical issues there is actually the foundation of a good game here. When playing specific story missions and it's focused on the plot and unique locations it's really good. I like the characters and narrative, there are some touching scenes and funny moments. There is the framework of a great game here just held back by an obviously difficult development and initial design pivot regardless of what Fleur Marty may have been stating on his PR rounds. My friend and I did have fun playing it regardless and certainly don't regret it. Riding through Gotham on a bat-cycle launching into the air to land on an unsuspecting criminal and doing a finisher with a brutal kick to the jaw is really satisfying. I also loved playing as Batgirl and wanted more of that ever since the Arkham Knight - A Matter of Family DLC. Whilst it just doesn't reach that level of quality it was still fun, just extremely flawed.

Worth a try if you're curious as it's constantly on sale, hard one to recommend but it's not as bad as some people make out I feel.

+ Story premise is really good.
+ I like the characters and story beats.
+ I like the presentation though it's not as dense and gothic as it's predecessors.

- Upgrade and open world systems are just awful, clearly was designed as a live service game that pivoted in development but the damage is there.
- Combat and movement isn't smooth enough.
- Some minor bugs and frame rate issues.

"The enemy of this place is not the Golden Rule, but human failings"

I first heard of this game when it got released as there was a positive word of mouth spreading around it but I was very surprised to find out it had in fact started out as a Skyrim mod before expanding into a game in it's own right. Even with the positive reviews around it I still hesitated due to my dislike of the Elder Scrolls games but fortunately due to a user here duhnunuh and his perpetual steam giveaway I was given the chance to try this out. Having finished it 100% in two days my reservations were extremely unfounded. It's fantastic. I found myself absolutely engrossed in the city and story around it's Groundhog day time loop premise.

The Forgotten City is a hard game to actually discuss though as much of the joy of playing it is making the discoveries as the narrative unfolds. A couple of parts really made me go "well dam!" as I played through it. The short spoiler free version is that you wake up next to a river in modern times before stumbling into an underground Roman ruin whilst searching for a man who had entered it prior to you. Once in there you realise it's a one way entrance and you are now stuck inside except for a portal that takes you back 2000 years before when the city was still a vibrant community. To get out you need to find out why it became the ruin it was in your time and prevent it from happening.

Though it does have plenty of options, branches and endings the game is actually more linear than it appears overall with talking to all the residents of this ancient Roman city to unlock more information, items and quests to constantly progress with loop shortcuts built in once enough progress is made. It's a clever little game but the cast of characters and usage of history and myths is what really makes it such a winner for me. I love historical settings and though Rome is often used in large scale war games and gladiator titles it rarely gets as intimate a background as this. Conversations of normal people of the period, gods and politics all mixed in but each conversation actually serving a purpose to push the story along towards it's conclusion. The characters all have their own lives and backgrounds and although some are more important to the overall narrative than others they all feel like people rather than background models in the world. The small setting allows for the characters to each have their own personality, worries, history and flaws.

Outside of the dialogue and conversations you will spend your time exploring the location. The game is called the Forgotten City but it's more a small village or town than a city. There is still plenty to explore and see however with temples, markets, forums, caves and secrets. There is some occasional basic combat in first person which is kind of weak though extremely limited with only one section really requiring it as the main point is the mystery. If I'm really nit-picking flaws, some of the animations for their faces and how characters stand can pull you out of the immersion a little as they stare at you cross eyed. The thing is I actually do think it's a fantastic looking and sounding title overall. It has great art design, vistas, music and voice acting to pull it all together cohesively, especially for a game made by a core group of only 3 people from scratch off the back of a mod idea.

Overall I think this is a game that will stay with me for a long time that occasionally I will just think about. Whilst I like a great many games in a variety of genres there are only a few for their story that really stand out to me for the overall experience. Games like Soma, Mass Effect, 13 Sentinels and now, The Forgotten City. "The many shall suffer for the sins of the one?" No, no, no. The many shall enjoy due to the work of a few.

Recommended.

+ Great historical references, narrative and characters.
+ Gorgeous art design.
+ Just an engrossing experience.

- Combat though limited isn't that fun.

Polyphony Digital at the time of of writing this review have made 17 games since their founding in 1994. 16 of these are racing games with Omega Boost, a 3D mech action game being the one outlier in their repertoire. With the lead programmer on Omega Boost being Yuji Yasuhara (Panzer Dragoon Zwei), the mech designs by Shoji Kawamori (Macross, Visions of Escaflowne, Transformers) it's kind of amazing this is somewhat of a hidden gem considering the pedigree behind it.

And the thing is, a gem it really is. This is the first time I've played it in the 25 years since it's original release and it's amazing how well it holds up. The most impressive thing about it is actually the control scheme. It's simple yet highly effective at allowing players to traverse 3D environments having dog fights with a variety of enemies. It essentially uses 5 buttons. Boost, fire, special, hover and lock on. That's it. Your mech, The Omega Boost will always move forward unless you hover which will lock you in place from auto moving. This with the lock on that will auto target you facing the nearest enemy allows for a surprising degree of control in aiming, moving and shooting all at once that still holds up better than some more recent games. Once used to them you can strafe around targets, stop to fire, boost away and reacquire all with ease.

It has a very arcade feel to it with only two main weapons of a rapid fire gun and homing lasers when held down called boost. You get a special with a bar that builds up that does great damage but can only use sparingly but there are no other options or upgrades so to speak. There are 9 levels in total and each one you get scored on for how quickly you can beat them and the amount of enemies killed which can unlock more boost lock on segments to hit more targets at once. The game probably takes an hour or so to beat if you play straight and know what you are doing but it took me longer due to the aforementioned roots above. You only get 5 continues and only recover a chunk of life at the end of each level rather than starting full. I can think of no reason to do this other than to create an artificial difficulty. Honestly, I found it really pointlessly annoying as I would have almost full health but not quite at the start of each level. Just why?

The levels themselves are pretty varied and have this great chunky mechanical industrial feel to them that PSX visuals did so well. Initially I thought this would be a purely space based shooter but very early on you end up fighting ships in planet atmospheres watching them explode onto the planet as you destroy them, artificial tunnels with giant robots, sand plains with floating embers like a giant fire in the darkness as you fight a variety of enemies with some really creative bosses. I really hated the final couple of levels though with a needless difficulty spike. One of them has an annoying timer to beat two bosses then a very tough mini boss rush to finish that feel a little thrown together with no level before them. Maybe on sequential play throughs that would be easier but with only 5 continues and having to start the whole level over if you die it's just needlessly brutal.

The story is kind of basic. Essentially you are trying to go back in time to prevent a catastrophe where humanity are losing a war with an AI. It's presented in cutscenes that use a mixture of live action actors and CGI. The opening video if left to play seems to have a surprisingly high budget of a command centre, getting into the Omega Boost and flying off all to a completely out of place rock song. The rest of the music except the end credits sound more like something from Nier which I feel fit the aesthetic far better. The music feels bizarrely inconsistent in places though I like the actual cutscenes themselves, extremely 90's and I mean that in the best way.

So even with it's minor flaws, Omega Boost is a pretty crazy intense game that looks amazing. To think Polphony Digital made this cool 3D mech game and then went on to make nothing but racing games forever more will never not feel like wasted potential to me.

The US TV advert for Omega Boost as an extra.

+ Controls are really fluid, they hold up amazingly well.
+ Varied levels and fantastic visuals.
+ Some great music....

-....Also some really out of place music. It's like someone's put their rock track over the opening and ending videos for no reason.
- Brutal continue system and life recovery between levels just take some of the fun away from actually playing the game.