March2024
Review Pepper Grinder (Switch) - A Cracking Platformer That Drills Down & Strikes Gold
All driller, no filler
Way back in the ancient days when the Game Boy Advance was Nintendo’s main handheld, Game Freak (yes, the Pokémon people) released a creative little platformer called Drill Dozer. Placing you in the role of a slightly crazed girl who tears through stages and foes alike with a powerful drill, it quickly established itself as...
December2023
Review Terra Nil (Switch) - Satisfying Climate-Cleansing Strategy, With Some Switch Issues
Make a little life in your spare time
Video games are usually based on a power fantasy. We wish we could slay the dragon, overthrow the evil king, or run faster than any hedgehog ever should. Possibly the biggest power fantasy of all, though, is offered by Terra Nil, which allows you to tackle the overwhelming existential dread of climate change...
September2023
Review Gunbrella (Switch) - Witty, Winsome Action-Platforming With A Great Hook
Rain 'n' gun
Gunbrella opens, as so many noirs do, with a murder. Our protagonist, who goes unnamed until the second act of the game, sees his house aflame while he’s on his way back from gathering mushrooms. He rushes home to a gruesome, albeit pixelated, scene: his wife dead in a shock of blood. From there, we jump right into our hero’s...
August2023
Review The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood (Switch) - A Bewitching Narrative Deckbuilder
Shuffle the hand of Fate
Note: The review text below makes only very brief mention of this game's heavy themes without going into detail, but please note that this game contains references to suicide and self-harm. The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is the latest gem from Deconstructeam (The Red Strings Club) and it’s a spellbinding narrative...
June2023
Mini Review Bleak Sword DX (Switch) - A Surprising, Stripped-Down Soulslike
A grimdark pixel world full of detail
If you’re looking for something grim, dark, and pixelated, then Bleak Sword DX is here to scratch that itch. It is difficult to pin down exactly what genre this game belongs to. It takes the core mechanics of a Soulslike and strips it back to its bare essentials. The deceptively simple graphics betray a...
January2023
Mini Review Trek To Yomi (Switch) - Arrestingly Cinematic, But A Trek All The Same
Slog to the Nether Regions
Years in the making, Trek to Yomi is the vision of indie developer Leonard Menchiari, backed by Polish studio Flying Wild Hog and publisher Devolver Digital. Essentially a side-on slash 'em up, its hook is its spectacular aesthetic: feudal Japan and the samurai code recreated through cinematic camerawork in striking black...
December2022
Review Inscryption (Switch) - This Ingeniously Devilish Deckbuilder Is Still Ace On Switch
Going off-scrypt
The delight of Daniel Mullins’ games is the way they obliterate expectations. If there’s a problem with having such a distinctive creative voice, though, is that we've been trained by his previous games to expect the unexpected. And that's why Inscryption's arrival on Switch is such a treat: as the first of Mullins' games to hit...
September2022
Review Return To Monkey Island (Switch) - An Impeccable Encore For An Adventure Gaming Icon
Look behind you! A three-game series!
In 1990, Ron Gilbert created the seminal point-and-click adventure The Secret of Monkey Island. It grabbed hearts and hasn’t let go for 32 years. In 1991, he concluded Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge on a bombshell cliffhanger. In 1992, he departed Lucasarts, and the secret third part of his trilogy went...
August2022
Review Cult Of The Lamb (Switch) - Animal Crossing Goes Bad In This Satisfyingly Stressful Sim
"Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
Devolver Digital has always had an eye for some delightfully odd gaming experiences. Play as an ape escaping its captors while freeform jazz blasts in the background. Rob pretentious rich people as a con man in 18th century France. Eviscerate houses full of goons as a drug-addicted ninja with PTSD. The latest in...
June2022
Review Card Shark (Switch) - A Wonderfully Witty WarioWare-Esque Affair, With Cards
It's not about a shark
They say cheaters never prosper, but clearly they’ve never played Card Shark, a wonderfully tense, goofy little game that’s all about keeping your cool under tremendous pressure as you basically rob people blind. The act of pulling off the con is shockingly simple, but maintaining one’s composure to ensure that...
December2021
Review Loop Hero (Switch) - A Creative And Incredibly Addictive Distillation Of An RPG
You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?
When you get right down to it, almost every game consists of a very simple loop. For example, every Mario 2D platformer ultimately is nothing more than having the famed plumber jump over obstacles and run to the right. We’re rarely focused on the repetition, however, because it’s the new things that...
November2021
Review Death's Door (Switch) - Much More Than The Sum Of Its Zelda And Soulslike Parts
Ready to play the reaper's game?
Despite all the innovation that frequently takes place in the indie space, there’s an awful lot of games that are content to just do what’s already been done. It can be easy to become jaded, then, when a lot of these copycat games turn out to be worse than their clear inspiration. After all, who wants to waste...
July2021
Review Boomerang X (Switch) - Frantic First-Person Action That'll Keep You Coming Back
Ninja glidin’
Boomerangs are cool, right? Over the last few decades, we’ve seen a number of bonkers-looking video game weapons such as Cloud Strife’s Buster Sword, Samus’ hand cannon, and even Mario’s very own F.L.U.D.D device. But when it comes to real-life weapons, nothing quite screams cool like a deadly, razor sharp boomerang. It’s a...
June2021
Review Sludge Life (Switch) - A Crude, Delightfully Disposable First-Person Graffiti-'Em-Up
Basic sludgeanomics
Thug life. Slug life. Thudge life. Sludge Life. It’s a pretty simple A-to-B transition when you really look at it. Okay, it’s not. At all. But you try and open a review for a game like this... and what is there to say? Sludge Life is a game where you do stuff. Exist at your own pace. In this game, you — as Marge Simpson...
January2021
Review Olija (Switch) - A Cinematic Adventure Packed With Atmosphere
Return of the Obra Flinthook
Olija is, at its simplest, an action-platformer with a harpoon that lets you grapple up to different areas. If you played the fantastically dynamic Flinthook – or you've used Zelda's Hookshot – then you'll recognise the mechanic: shoot hook, dash to hook, repeat. The harpoon can (and should) also be used as a weapon,...
November2020
Review Serious Sam Collection - Two-Thirds Enormous Fun, One-Third Crushing Disappointment
Seriously below-par
The central joke of Serious Sam is that he isn't very serious at all. And nor are his games. In fact, they're extremely silly, and if they don't start behaving they're not going to get any sweets. Yes, Croteam's long-running flagship FPS is a gleefully daft blaster that revels in throwing as many enemies at you as possible,...
October2020
Review Disc Room - A Meat Grinder Of A Game Which Packs A Real Challenge
My god, it's full of discs
In 1977, the United States launched the Voyager program, in which NASA launched two probes into deep space as a sort of “bottle into the cosmic ocean”. Aboard these two probes, golden phonograph discs were included bearing images and sounds relevant to all cultures and forms of earthly life, and these were placed...
September2020
Review Witcheye - A Fun Platformer That Sadly Can't Shake Off Its Smartphone Origins
Magic eye
There's some kind of witchcraft going on with Witcheye, and we're not just talking about the title character. Here's a 2D platformer that doesn't involve any jumping whatsoever. Spooky. At the outset of the game, you take control of a witch who turns herself into a free-flying eyeball – because witches – in order to chase down a...
July2020
Review Carrion - A Shockingly Violent Metroidvania Where You're The End Boss
Carrion screaming
We haven't played a lot of games that made us feel like a monster. A real predator. The measured and ultimately law-abiding stealth of the Batman: Arkham series had its power-fantasy moments, but nothing that made us sit back and think for a minute about what we've done. Enter Carrion. Taking control of an amorphous,...
June2020
Review Ruiner - An Exceptionally Stylish, Brutal And Bloody Top-Down Shooter
Get them, Puppy!
Originally released back in September of 2017, Reikon Games' Ruiner is an ultra-stylish, ultra-violent isometric action affair than flings its players unceremoniously into the role of a nameless, faceless cyborg assassin on the trail of his missing brother in the future metropolis of Rengkok. This is Hotline Miami filtered through...
March2020
Review Exit The Gungeon - Fine-Tuned Action That's Less Compelling Than Its Forerunner
Beating a hasty retreat
Having created one of the finest indie roguelikes of recent years in Enter The Gungeon, some might have wondered how developer Dodge Roll would follow it up. The answer, of course, is to Exit The Gungeon. This is no direct sequel, but rather more of an extended epilogue. Having faced and killed their past, our four...
January2020
Review Stories Untold - A Chilling Horror That Toys With '80s Nostalgia
Stranger things have happened
Stories Untold is a chilling collection of four interconnected vignettes that make up a twisted little journey exploring the true nature of nostalgia and the very fabric of memories we all hold so dear. It examines how we remember and reconfigure things from our pasts and how digging down into what we, on the surface,...
December2019
Review The Talos Principle: Deluxe Edition - Still A Fine First-Person Puzzler Five Years On
We must believe in free will - we have no choice
In the beginning, there was light. The Talos Principle opens with a peaceful looking, beautifully serene and gentle flight above the clouds - though all is not as it seems. Onscreen text informs us that a program is loading - and it's here that the game's robotic protagonist awakens, in a seemingly...
August2019
Review Heave Ho - Hauls Itself Up With The Best Couch Co-op Games On Switch
To me! To you!
Given the nature of the Switch’s detachable Joy-Con, the console has plenty of couch co-op titles worthy of cracking out with friends. A few examples really stand out, like the delightful Overcooked series and Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, but there is arguably nothing that has quite managed to match the sheer joy that
Review Hotline Miami Collection - Ready Up For Some Of The Old Ultra-Violence On Switch
Shut up and Drive
You’ve died. You keep dying. But every death imparts a new piece of knowledge. Sneak through that corridor. Use a door to take that guard out. Smash his brains out on the floor, then use his baseball bat to take out the gunmen in the next room. Blast the Doberman as its passes, then take the remaining enemies out before making a...
