December2023
Review Hammerwatch II (Switch) - Feels Like A Rough Draft Of A Fantasy Epic
Be ready to fight powerful enemies, and terrible menu design
Gather forth, mighty heroes, for there is a world to be saved. Evil dragons are lording over humanity while a necromancer has usurped his brother’s throne. We need adventurers with great skill and power to fight through dungeons and battle monsters to give the world a spark of hope...
July2023
Review Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise Of The Dragons (Switch) - Likeable, But Lacks Its Peers' Punch
Streetlight people
When violence is the core vice of most video games, and in the case of Mortal Kombat, viscerally so, it’s worth exploring how it translates to sensory player feedback. Double Dragon Gaiden works well in terms of negotiating increasingly difficult enemy gangs with creative use of your expanding moveset, but, while the series'...
April2023
Review Teslagrad 2 (Switch) - A Fine Follow-Up That Leaves You Wanting More
Lighting strikes twice
When the original Teslagrad released in 2013, the indie game scene was in a very different place. Long before modern Indie Worlds and Nindie Showcases and games from small developers put out by billion-dollar publishers, indie games still felt very much independent. The original game — recently re-released in Remastered form...
December2022
Review Kukoos: Lost Pets (Switch) - A Charming 3D Platformer Perfect For The Whole Family
Going Cuckoo for Kukoos
Despite the Nintendo Switch’s reputation for being a family-friendly console, the number of truly kid-focused games on the platform are surprisingly few and far between. And if you take licensed games out of the discussion, the number falls even more. Currently, outside of some notable titles like New Super Lucky’s Tale...
October2019
Review Beast Quest - Don't Be A Hero, Stick With The Books
Positively beastly
If you’re of a certain age, the Beast Quest books were likely a staple of your childhood. Having first launched in 2007 with Ferno the Fire Dragon, the series has been going strong for twelve years and shows no signs of slowing down. Including the first four books scheduled for publication next year, there are currently an...
Review Zombieland: Double Tap - Road Trip - Undead, Unfunny And Unnecessary
Braindead
High Voltage Software’s Zombieland: Double Tap - Road Trip keeps alive the great video game tradition of absolutely terrible, overpriced movie tie-ins. With a campaign that clocks in at around about the two-hour mark, extremely basic twin-stick shooting action, bland graphics, inexplicably long loading times, rotten narrative segments...
August2017
Leave this Troll under the bridge
There's evident potential in Troll and I. Initially developed as part of a crowdfunding program run by Square Enix, it is an intriguing action game starring a Scandinavian boy named Otto who, after finding his village aflame and being separated from his mother, stumbles upon a large creature during his hasty retreat...
September2015
Review Crab Cakes Rescue (Wii U eShop)
This cake is a lie
The Wii U's library is bursting with quirky, innovative, fun games. Crab Cakes Rescue is not one of them. From the moment you start up Crab Cakes Rescue, its lack of polish is readily apparent. For starters, it runs in a 4:3 aspect ratio, leaving unsightly black bars on either side of the screen. The title is lifted directly from...
November2014
Review Safari Quest (3DS eShop)
Safari Meh-st
As consumers of entertainment, we all generally gravitate towards the extreme sides of the spectrum. When a product is amazing, it's really amazing — and we can't say enough about it. When a product is awful, it's really awful — and we're going to let everyone know. That's why it's such a disappointment when a product falls...
April2014
Review Atlantic Quest (3DS eShop)
Aquatic amusements
All prefaces about there being too many match-three puzzle games available on the 3DS eShop have been exhausted. While it still rings true that there is an overabundance of them on the digital marketplace, there's no use beating the dead horse that this genre and joke have become. The fact is that people love tile matching games,...
December2013
Review Deer Drive Legends (WiiWare)
Legends of the Fail
There’s a new WiiWare game available in North America. Let that sink in for a moment. After nearly nine months of silence, a new title emerges from the depths of Maximum Games's back pocket and lands squarely on the WiiWare service as Deer Drive Legends, the light gun shooter that you probably haven’t been waiting for...
October2013
Mystifyingly bad
Porting games has always been common practice for most third-party companies. It goes without saying, but it makes good business sense for a game publisher to enable its software to reach as wide an audience as possible. And it's something that most of us don't have a problem with; if a company makes it easier for us to play its...
August2013
Review Deer Drive Legends (3DS eShop / 3DS)
Bang bang, he shot the Doe, bang bang...
When the 3DS was launched, it's perhaps unsurprising that a few developers decided it'd be the perfect platform for what would previously be considered "light gun" games. There's no gun with the portable, of course, but the stylus has been proven again and again as a more than useful alternative, affording...
April2013
Review Puzzler World 2013 (3DS)
Worldly goodness
There’s a good chance that you already know whether or not you're going to purchase Puzzler World 2013. Whether it's because you’ve played a previous game in the series, you’ve read our review of the DS version – which is, for all intents and purposes, the same game – that released in Europe late last year, or if it’s...
Review Puzzler Brain Games (3DS)
Brain candy
Like Nintendo’s Brain Age series, Puzzler Brain Games is a collection of daily brain training activities designed to stimulate the mind and keep you mentally alert. Though instead of feeling like a curriculum of exercises you’d learn in school, Brain Games is presented in a game show-like format and is a more light-hearted affair...
Review 50 Classic Games 3D (3DS)
Destined to be forgotten
At first glance, 50 Classic Games 3D looks reminiscent of Nintendo's 42 All-Time Classics (Clubhouse Games in North America) for DS. But those hoping for a spiritual successor to the original hit are in for a bit of a disappointment. This is because 50 Classic Games 3D is woefully lacking in quality, depth and — most of...