Latest Reviews
Review Tennis World Tour 2 - A Promising Seed With Far Too Many Faults
John McEnwoe
Let's forget the warm-up and jump straight to the first serve, shall we? Tennis World Tour 2 demands a level of precision from its players that it simply isn't capable of facilitating. This is a sombre and serious tennis sim that bases its take on the sport around the perfect timing of shots and their precision placement on court. It's...
Review G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout - Bland, Forgettable Saturday Morning Fare
G.I. No
There was a huge red flag right from the off, when G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout had not been accurately renamed Action Force: Operation Blackout for a British audience. We don’t want to be reminded of the incredibly crap films, we want to be reminded of the brilliant IPC comic Battle, and its Action Force strips that eventually spun off...
Review Cloudpunk - An Evocative Noir Adventure Ruined By A Messy Switch Port
Blade Scunner
Nivalis, the futuristic metropolis in which the events of Cloudpunk take place, really is the heart and soul of Ion Lands' captivating "neon noir" adventure game. A wonderfully evocative voxel art city, it immediately transports us to a future that so precisely recalls the neon-drenched storefronts, rain-soaked streets and seedy...
Review Zoids Wild: Blast Unleashed - Flashy Fighting Ruined By Basic Gameplay And A Lack Of Content
Into the Zoid
This new Switch release takes us on a trip down memory lane to the world of Zoids, Tomy's massive mechanical animals and their mad human riders who've been doing the rounds since all the way back in 1984. Zoids Wild: Blast Unleashed, which originally released as Zoids Wild: King of Blast in Japan last year, ties into the long-running...
Review Hardcore Mecha - Thrillingly Overblown Anime-Style Robot Action
Mechnificent
If you're a fan of great big robots mercilessly smashing each other's massive metal heads in – and let's face it, who isn't? – then RocketPunch Games' superbly stylish 2D side-scroller Hardcore Mecha would like a very loud word. This is an absurdly overwrought anime adventure spread across a solid seven-hour campaign which sees you...
Review Ben 10: Power Trip! - An Underwhelming Adaptation Of A Cartoon Favourite
It's hero time
The Ben 10 franchise is one of the most popular productions from Cartoon Network, with a fourteen-year run that’s spanned five iterations of the TV show, with the current one being a reboot of the first show. As one would expect of a multimedia franchise such as this, a litany of video game adaptations (of varying quality) have been...
Review Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit - A Joyful Fusion Of Reality And Fiction
Built it and they will come
Nintendo products have always had a certain magic about them. From the earliest examples, such as the simplistic-yet-addictive Game & Watch handhelds, to more recent offerings like the motion-driven Wii, touch-focused DS or cardboard-based Labo, the Japanese veteran has a genuine knack for creating toys which raise a...
Review AVICII Invector Encore Edition - A Fitting Tribute To A Much-Missed Musical Talent
Nintendo SVICII
The music of sadly-deceased electronic musician Avicii didn’t initially strike us as a great match for a rhythm action game. The marriage of a single contemporary artist with the medium of video games gives us PTSD flashbacks to The Black Eyed Peas Experience. Thankfully, unlike Will.I.Am and Fergie’s barely-listenable dreck,...
Review FIFA 21 - EA Insults Switch Owners Yet Again With This Half-Baked Effort
Don't spend your Mané on this
Okay, enough's enough. Ever since EA first brought the FIFA series to the Switch with FIFA 18, Nintendo fans have been given a lesser version of the game seen on other systems. At first, we gave EA the benefit of the doubt and put it down to the challenges of porting a game to a less powerful system with a user base...
Review Let's Sing Queen - Makes The Rockin' World Go 'Round
Play The Game
When Freddie Mercury first penned Bohemian Rhapsody back in 1975, there's no way he could possibly have known the monumental challenge he was laying at the feet of Let's Sing Queen players some forty-five years down the timeline. Fair enough, the first half of the song isn't so bad – and let's face it, we've all cranked out "I...
Review Prinny 1•2: Exploded and Reloaded - Masochistic Platforming That's Rough Around The Edges
The dood abides?
The best thing about Prinny 1•2: Exploded and Reloaded, a collection of Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero? and Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood!, is that game reviewers are paid by the word. Just that opening sentence has earned enough to buy several Wispa Golds, or your comfort food of choice. And you’ll need comforting...
Review Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix - A Massive Improvement On The Terrible Original
Happy Happy Joy-Con Joy-Con
We’re afraid we've got some bad news for you. If you opened this review expecting a typically sarcastic put-down of the latest half-hearted karting game with a cartoon licence cynically slapped onto it, you’re going to be deeply disappointed. Turns out this one's actually quite good. To be fair, you'd be forgiven for...
Review Umihara Kawase BaZooKa! - An Odd Change Of Direction For A Classic Series
Kawase Kawa-sah Ba-ba-zoo-ka
Stumbling across the original Umihara Kawase for Super Famicom many years ago, we never thought it was the sort of thing that would become such a recurring series. Following traditional entries on PlayStation and 3DS (as well as a clutch of reissues and appearances in Blade Strangers and Crystal Crisis), you’d be...
Review Trollhunters: Defenders Of Arcadia - WayForward Take A Big Step WayBack
You're trolling us, surely?
Aliens: InfestationCall off the hunt, the trolls have been located. Somehow they have infiltrated WayFoward, usually purveyors of fine digital entertainment, and forced them to create this, the drabbest platformer in recent memory. Worse, it is cynically wrapped in the skin of a TV show that is, by all accounts,...
Review Ys Origin - An Awesomely Accessible And Amiable Action RPG
Eesey peasy
Nihon Falcom's Ys (pronounced "eese") been around since the days of the PC-8800, but only now are we seeing this formative tale in the enormously popular saga. Well, technically, a lot of people already saw it in 2006 when it originally released, or 2012 when it was initially localised. Thankfully, now it's on the Switch we can see that...
Review WWE 2K Battlegrounds - A Disappointingly Poor Wrestlefest
We've Cena lot better than this
The one-word catchphrase is a mythical achievement in professional wrestling. If you’re so well-loved by the fans that you can get a single word ‘over’ with the crowd – Ric Flair’s “woooooo”, Steve Austin’s “what”, Daniel Bryan’s “yes” – you’ve clearly earned legend status. In trying to...
Review Giraffe And Annika - A Laid-Back Adventure That Might Be Too Chill For Some
Challenge Annika
We were pretty thrilled by this one before booting it up – I mean, how many games have giraffes in them?! Certainly not enough. The Adventure Pals repped the ruminant but nothing else really springs to mind. Imagine our disappointment, then, when we booted up the game and found nary an actual giraffe in sight, just a sort of weird...
Review Road To Guangdong - A Fine Story Ruined By Shoddy Performance And Linearity
A recipe for disappointment
The capacity for indie games to present new experiences never ceases to surprise us. The parameters by which a game can be considered a game are now so broad and eclectic that the hobby is in the enviable position of having at least one thing almost anyone can enjoy. Strangely enough, this has also given rise to a...
Review Super Mario 3D All-Stars - Three Of Mario's Greatest Adventures Come To Switch
Only shooting Star Bits break the mould
Well, that all happened quickly, didn’t it? It was only a fortnight ago that Nintendo was announcing its long-rumoured compilation of 3D Mario games, and now here we are reviewing the ruddy thing already. Some of you will have already made up your mind about
Review RPG Maker MV - A Potent Game Creation Tool, If You Have The Patience Required
As long as you have a dream, anything is possible... within reason
RPG Maker MV on Switch is a bit of a different prospect than its massively popular PC counterpart. This, much like the 3DS version which released back in 2017, is a more console-friendly version that strips away some important aspects which avid users of the software may consider...
Review Inertial Drift - A '90s-Style Racer With A Unique Drift Mechanic
Born Slippy
There are so many racing games out there nowadays that it takes something really out of the ordinary to stand out. Inertial Drift absolutely ticks this box, and while it isn’t an overwhelming success in every regard, its unique control system could result in a cult following nevertheless. Its main hook, as the name suggests, is its...
Review Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars - Great Ideas Attached To A Rather Humdrum Game
Lacking bite
Palindrome Interactive has hit upon a number of pretty clever ideas with Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars. This pleasingly hammy/gothic foray into the world of turn-based strategy streamlines and simplifies a lot of the busywork of similar titles and adds a nifty card game mechanic that enlivens proceedings as you maraud around its map and...
Review Bounty Battle - A Reprehensible Indie-Infused Take On Super Smash Bros.
Indie Bin
Dark Screen Games' Bounty Battle is such a great idea. "The ultimate indie fighting game." Super Smash Bros. with a roster of pugilists from the cream of the underground scene over the past few years. The protagonists here hail from classics such as Dead Cells, Blasphemous, Axiom Verge,
Review NBA 2K21 - Ignore The Microtransactions And You've Got The Best Basketball Game On Switch
Hoops: they did it again
Say what you will about 2K Sports, but it certainly knows how to get the most out of the Switch hardware. NBA 2K21 is the fourth of its basketball games to find its way onto Nintendo’s system, and by this point, the spectre of NBA 2K18’s botched launch is a distant memory; these days, the series looks tremendous on...
Mini Review Ary And The Secret Of Seasons - A Cut-Price Zelda With A Unique Mechanic
Not to be confused with Ori
Jumping into Ary and the Secret of Seasons – an action-adventure title – we’re immediately reminded of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. We’re introduced to our heroine Ary, who, by playing with her toy figures, recounts an ancient story of an evil mage vanquished by a legendary warrior. Before too long, Ary is...
Review Jump Force Deluxe Edition - A Textbook Example Of Style Over Substance
Jump Farce
Spike Chunsoft's Jump Force arrives on Switch more than a full year after its release on other platforms and it is, as it was then, a very mixed bag of anime nuts. Jump Force Deluxe Edition is an easy to learn, easy to master button-mashing brawler with a huge roster of over fifty characters from the illustrious archives of Shonen Jump...
Review Captain Tsubasa: Rise Of New Champions - Not Your Typical Football Game, But Fun All The Same
Manga-chester United
Captain Tsubasa has been around for nearly 40 years. Initially appearing as a series in the best-selling manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump in April 1981, he’s seen numerous comics, animated series, movies and, yes, video games over the years. It’s one of the most well-loved series in Japan and is credited with contributing...
Review PGA Tour 2K21 - A Good Starting Point For Golf Fans On Switch
Can't see the Woods for the tees
There hasn’t been an official PGA Tour golf game on a Nintendo system since Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 chipped onto the Wii nine years ago. With Tiger's shine dimming over the years and EA seemingly ending its PGA Tour series in 2015 with an underwhelming Rory McIlroy game, that didn’t look like it was going to...
Review Nexomon: Extinction - An Interesting Pokémon Clone That Doesn't Quite Stick The Landing
Almost the very best
Let's get one thing straight before we begin: we're going to go into this entire review without comparing Nexomon: Extinction to Pokémon. This is a very original RPG with items that have original names such as “Super Potion” and “Max Revive”…actually, who are we trying to kid? We will compare it to Pokémon, because...
Review No Straight Roads - An Inventive Musical Brawler That Hits One Too Many Bum Notes
A hit single?
In the modern gaming industry, new game releases are largely put into one of two groups: Indies and AAA games. This, however, wasn’t always the case. Just a few generations ago, prior to indie games taking the spotlight, you had a lot of games that were often referred to as “AA” games. Such releases didn’t have the production...
