December2022
Review The Outbound Ghost (Switch) - A Heartfelt But Ultimately Thin Paper Mario-Like
Pale imitation
Described by developer Condradical as "Paper Mario + Undertale" on the game's Kickstarter page, The Outbound Ghost garnered some attention with its aesthetic and gameplay along with its premise: the residents of the town of Outbound all quite suddenly died. Many of them have lingering burdens that keep them from moving onto the...
July2022
Mini Review Severed Steel (Switch) - A Heart-Pounding FPS That Makes You Feel Like John Wick
Get equipped with: Time Stopper
Following movies like The Raid and John Wick, the genre of ‘solo badass fighting endless amounts of enemies’ has skyrocketed in popularity. Almost parallel to that style of film, the genre has also become prevalent in games thanks to the likes of Sifu and Superhot with their intense trial and error gameplay; where...
March2022
Mini Review A Musical Story (Switch) - A Trippy, Funk-Dipped, Oh-So-Groovy Rhythm Game
Funky see, funky do
Why is it that YouTube has lots of hits for “Guitar Hero blindfold” but none for “Guitar Hero earplugs”? It’s music – you don’t need to see it. With A Musical Story, Glee-Cheese Studio have taken a punt on the idea that music is something you do indeed listen to. What kind of music? With a brown-galore colour...
July2021
Death to Heavenly Peter!
The very first moment you lay eyes on The Procession To Calvary you'll probably be reminded of the iconic British comedy series Monty Python, thanks to the use of cut-up, pre-existing classical artwork. However, while this is a huge part of the game's visual appeal, its sense of humour is actually more unique than that, and...
October2020
Review UnderHero - A Solid Anti-RPG Platformer With An Eye For Undertale
Zero to Hero
Five years ago, the indie gaming scene was changed forever with the release of Undertale, a sort of ‘Anti-RPG’ that focused on mocking traditional RPG tropes as much as it did celebrating them. Suffice to say, it resonated with a lot of people and it’s clear that the uniquely unconventional design had no small effect on UnderHero...
Mini Review Super Blood Hockey - Violent Sports Action That Gets Tired Too Quickly
A Gordie Howe hat trick
What’s sport without a bit of blood, eh? Whether we want to admit it or not, we all feel a tad bit of satisfaction when some pansy footballer finally gets a bloody nose after taking one too many dives, or when a boxer gets so messed up his face becomes a physical embodiment of 2020. Hockey is undoubtedly one of the more...
April2020
Mini Review Snakeybus - All Aboard For Some Undemanding But Enjoyable Action
A lengthy bus journey
As vehicular nomenclature goes, 'Snakeybus' is just about as apt as 'Boaty McBoatface'. Your primary means of locomotion in Snakeybus is a bus that's well and truly snake-like. It's a snakey-bus. Not that it eats mice or hisses at you or anything. Rather, your physics-defying vehicle stretches out to improbable, city-enveloping...
June2019
Review Golem Gates - A Unique Twist On The RTS Formula That Takes Away More Than It Adds
My Precious?
Golem Gates, the second game from indie developer Laser Guided Games, was originally released in March of 2018 on PC and now makes the jump to Switch with its unique BattleForge-esque twist on the usual RTS formula, adding a deck-building mechanic which see players contend with the random nature of how attack cards are dealt out in...
January2019
Review Omega Strike - A Metal Slug-Style Metroidvania That Offers Throwaway Fun
Three's company
With so many games styled as ‘2D Metroidvania platformers’, any title hoping to make even the smallest of impact these days needs a USP that really makes it stand out from the crowd. A striking art style. An engaging and original story. New and innovative mechanics. Just something. Sadly, just being a decent and enjoyable...
December2018
Review Uncanny Valley - A Commendable Take On Old-School Horror Let Down By Its Own Design
Who watches the (night)watchmen?
Horror, when done right, can be a truly wonderful thing to behold - especially in the interactive realm of video games. Find the right mechanics, marry them to a setup that sells its dark heart, and find a balance that doesn’t undersell or dilute its scares and building sense of dread. Uncanny Valley comes close in...
September2018
Review Fall of Light: Darkest Edition - A Shambling Dark Souls Wannabe You'll Want To Avoid
The night is dark and full of errors
A dark and dreary medieval world. Lots of obtuse and cliched references to dark forces and evil people doing predictably evil things. Slow melee combat with a focus on stamina management. Shrines that become spawn points when you die. Enemies that revive every time you’re resurrected. Sound familiar yet?...
August2018
Review Spectrum (Switch eShop)
Limited palette
Is a platformer still a platformer when you don't actually jump on any platforms? That's just one of the (rather pointless) questions we found ourselves pondering whilst playing Spectrum. It says a fair amount about the general Spectrum experience. For one thing, that question references the fact that this is an odd sort of...
Review Unexplored (Switch eShop)
Crawling in the dark
While Unexplored finds itself in plenty of company on Nintendo Switch - the console is currently inundated with various takes on the procedurally generated roguelite - Ludomotion’s cyclic experience manages to offer something a little bit different. Yes, it’s top-down. Yes, it’s a dungeon crawler. And yes, it’s...
July2018
Review Paranautical Activity (Switch eShop)
Shooting itself in the foot
Paranautical Activity is the kind of game that will likely place your Nintendo Switch, your Joy-Cons or your Pro Controller in serious danger. Few games can incite blood-boiling rage and white-hot fury as much as Code Avarice’s low-fi mashup of FPS mechanics and roguelike systems. You’ll have fun here and there, but...
June2018
Paint the town rainbow
Don’t let the colourful palette in INK deceive you, as friendly as it might look, this is a game – originally released in 2015 – inspired by fast-paced and challenging platform titles such as Super Meat Boy. With failure inevitable, it’s all about learning from your previous mistakes as you work your way through...
May2018
Review Don't Die Mr Robot! DX (Switch eShop)
Can’t touch this!
Meet Mr. Robot, a 2D square, and the star of Don't Die Mr Robot! DX. He lives in a 2D, single-screen grid where he moves around freely eating exploding fruit. Life would be pretty sweet if not for the number of increasing waves of enemies out to touch you and, yes indeed, contact is lethal. It's from this simplest gameplay...
March2018
Review Slayaway Camp: Butcher's Cut (Switch eShop)
Block-tastic brutality
From daring pop icons to Cold War politics to personal computing, the 1980s were a time of revolution and radical change. The 1980s also gave birth to some of the greatest and cheesiest slasher flicks to grace the big screen with the likes of A Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween II and Friday the 13th striking horror into...
Tell me, do you bleed?
Chad and Jared Moldenhauer - the creators of Cuphead - defined Bleed 2 as a game that’s, “all killer, no-filler.” After running through the pulse-pounding one-hour campaign, this couldn’t be a more apt description. Bleed 2 is a game that knows exactly what it wants to do and cuts out everything that doesn’t line up...
January2018
Review The Coma: Recut (Switch eShop)
School's out
The Coma: Recut is a remastered 2D side-scrolling horror game that follows the life of high school student Youngho as he battles the pressure of academic success and social acceptance, which just so happens tol come to a strange and creepy crescendo on the day of his final exams. Youngho struggles with his studies all through the...
December2017
A deep cut
Bleed is a vibrant, pixel art 2D run and gun platformer that comes from one man team Ian Campbell/ Bootdisk Revolution. For our spunky protagonist Wryn, winning the coveted title of the best hero in video games (trademark) is her one and only objective, and a hand written checklist of competitors are all that stand in her way in order to...
Review Slain: Back From Hell (Switch eShop)
I'll be gone when the morning comes
Those of you old enough to have grown up during the "golden age" of heavy metal will no doubt feel a connection with Slain: Back from Hell the moment you boot it up. The moody, pixel-heavy visuals could have leapt straight from an Iron Maiden album cover, while the raucous, guitar-drenched soundtrack will have...
November2017
Review Letter Quest Remastered (Switch eShop)
I’ll have a consonant please
As many a great philosopher will have once said (we imagine), “words are the world’s most powerful weapon”. Taking that statement rather literally, Letter Quest Remastered is a game that is built around using words and spelling to dish out damage to opponents – longer words with rarer characters within them can...
August2016
Review Letter Quest Remastered (Wii U eShop)
Words are your weapon
It's not uncommon to detest the idea of a video game designed to educate. This may sound like a huge generalisation, but take a moment to consider a time when you played even a mildly educational computer game. Maybe it was a complete mistake on your behalf, or somehow was a sense of relief from your regular schedule. Either...
April2016
Review Paranautical Activity (Wii U eShop)
Horrifying yet hard to put down
Have you ever watched a movie that's so bad it's good? One that you know you rationally should not enjoy, but do anyway? If you have, then you might understand the appeal of Paranautical Activity. Paranautical Activity is a bit like a mashup of three separate games in three disparate genres. The core gameplay...
