Latest Reviews
Review Jamestown+ - Yet Another Fine Addition To The Switch's Shmup Stable
If you've got it, vaunt it
Originally released back in 2011 as Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony, Final Form Games' superlative shmup received almost unanimous praise as a slick and stylish shooter with engaging – and easy to understand – core mechanics. Playable in both solo and four-player local co-op, Jamestown+ is a beautiful,...
Mini Review Five Nights at Freddy's 4 - A Surprisingly Scary Return To Form
Freddy comes home
Everyone can relate to that feeling of being a young child and hiding under the covers out of fear of the imaginary monsters under your bed or somewhere in the house. It’s that paradoxical feeling of both power and vulnerability that made such experiences so memorable; you were ‘safe’ as long as you were under the covers, but...
Mini Review Riverbond - An Undemanding But Pleasant Couch Co-op Hack And Slasher
An unbreakable voxel bond
Riverbond is perhaps one of the most easy-going, simplistic games you’re likely to play this year. Taking place within a beautiful voxel world, you’ll embark on a number of missions set within eight different environments ranging from idyllic sea resorts to dark, dingy caves. The gameplay is a typical hack ‘n’ slash...
Review Shovel Knight Showdown - A Smash Bros. Challenger That's Perfect For Switch Parties
Have at you!
After completing its record-breaking Kickstarter run for Shovel Knight, Yacht Club Games had its work cut out in terms of keeping the promises it made with stretch goals. The much-lauded three additional campaigns were what drew the most reaction from press and fans, but one other mode was announced which didn’t seem to grab nearly as...
Review Shovel Knight: King Of Cards - A Worthy Swan Song To A Legendary Platforming Series
The closing chapter of five years of shovelry
Nearly seven years ago, Yacht Club Games launched the Kickstarter for Shovel Knight, thus beginning the long journey towards building one of the most recognizable characters in the indie gaming space. After a record-breaking response from the community, not only did the game receive the funding it...
Review Deathtrap Dungeon Trilogy - A Somewhat Drab Retelling Of A Classic Series
Fighting (Fantasy) words
For readers of a certain age – to which this writer is very much a member – adventure gamebooks were the best. Splicing the agency of roleplay with the narrative depth of a fantasy novel, these souped-up ‘choose your own adventure’ novels took readers on all manner of dark and daring quests that could easily end...
Review Pine - An Ambitious Zelda Pretender That Fails To Find Its Feet On Switch
Pine; (verb) to languish, decline or weaken
Initially, we thought Pine was going to be a very pleasant surprise. It definitely doesn't bode well from the outset when the initial load takes just under three minutes. In situations like that, you can't help but wonder if the game has crashed. But no, patience was a virtue and in the time it took to fry...
Review Simulacra - An Interesting Horror Title That Doesn't Quite Hit The Mark
Tik Tok, you’re dead
What would you do if a mobile phone belonging to someone else was left on your doorstep? Chances are (in this day and age) the device is protected with face ID, fingerprint ID or a password and/or pin, so naturally any self-respecting citizen would turn it in to the police. But in Simulacra, an unusual glitch allows you to...
Ship Shape
Back in May this year, we reviewed Assassin's Creed III Remastered for Switch and didn't have a great deal good to say about it. It's been patched since – and plays a considerably better game for it – but upon release, it was pretty much a buggy, blurry shambles with a stuttering framerate and a pretty big disappointment for...
Review SuperEpic: The Entertainment War - A Metroidvania Built On Satirical Humour And Minigames
A free-to-play a day keeps your money away
The gameplay and progression in SuperEpic might feel familiar to begin with, but what starts out as a simple Metroidvania quickly becomes much more. Themes from throughout the history of games are used to tell a story with very real and extremely worrying implications; that big-name developers are just out...
Review Five Nights at Freddy's 3 - Proof Of The Law Of Diminishing Returns
What could possibly go wrong?
By the time Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 came out, it had been just over half a year since the first game’s debut. The low budget feel and ongoing lore had solidified the series as a popular mainstay, although for many, a modicum of franchise fatigue was beginning to set in. Though each game features its own take on...
Review Star Ocean: First Departure R - An RPG Nostalgia Trip That's Showing Its Age
A gentle HD update for an old classic
This very first game in the Star Ocean series - a series which eventually grew to include eight titles of varying quality - has been through a handful of iterations over the years. Originally released exclusively in Japan on Super Famicom back in 1996 it was then extensively remade using the Star Ocean 2 engine...
Review EarthNight - A Rewarding, Well-Presented Auto-Runner Lacking A Long Tail
A roaring good time
The auto-runner genre is one that’s typically associated with the mobile gaming space, where microtransactions and shallow gameplay are an expected burden. Indeed, some examples—such as Super Mario Run—have shown there can be a little more depth to the concept than one might assume, but nonetheless, these games have...
Review Five Nights at Freddy's 2 - A Sinister Sequel That Dials Up The Complexity
New location, same horrors
Five Nights at Freddy’s took the world by storm after its August 2014 release, yet series creator Scott Cawthon wasn’t one to simply rest on his laurels. A mere three months after the first game’s debut, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 was available for purchase, offering an expanded and revised take on that basic cat...
Review Farming Simulator 20 - Fine Farming With Some Serious Simulation
Keep farm and carry on
While reviews of any sort can only ever be subjective, sometimes writers have to don a different 'hat', so to speak. Games often have particular tempos or ways of doing things that may not marry with your mindset at the time, with other work and deadlines looming. Farming Simulator 20 requires a very particular hat – a...
Review Five Nights At Freddy's - Accessible Horror That Loses Its Edge Too Quickly
"The characters do tend to wander a bit..."
When it first launched in 2014, Five Nights at Freddy’s seemed for all the world like just another basic low-effort horror game; the sort of thing that wouldn’t make much of a splash in the broader gaming world. However, thanks to the help of some popular YouTube creators and a rapid-fire succession of...
Review Alien: Isolation - One Of The Greatest Horror Games Of All Time Comes To Switch
Get away from her, you Switch!
Straight off the back of a fantastic port of Grid Autosport on Switch, Feral Interactive is back with Creative Assembly's survival horror masterpiece, Alien: Isolation. The game's been out and receiving rave reviews since 2014 so we guess the first thing you'll want to know is have they managed to squeeze all of this...
Review Where The Water Tastes Like Wine - A Unique Narrative Experience That Fails As A Video Game
Don't take a sip
Given our hobby's slavish pursuit of the validation and prestige afforded to cinema, it's entirely common (and expected) for a video game to want to tell a story. Where the Water Tastes Like Wine goes beyond these limited aspirations, instead offering a story about stories, where narrative is your weapon and your currency. That...
Review Monkey Barrels - Thrilling Twin-Stick Shooter Action That Gets Samey A Little Too Fast
b-a-n-a-n-a-s!
There’s a pretty good chance you aren’t too familiar with developer Good-Feel. You will, however, be very familiar with some of their previous titles. Working almost exclusively with Nintendo since the days of the DS, Good-Feel has brought us titles such as Wario Land: Shake It!, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, and – most recently –...
Review Decay Of Logos - An Epic Mess Of A Game, Despite The Lengthy Delay On Switch
Soulless
Originally planned for release back in August on Switch, Decay of Logos was delayed by its developers in order to fix some issues with the game on Nintendo's platform. We played this original version back at the time and found it seriously lacking, suffering from a crushing number of gameplay bugs, some terribly muddy graphics and a dire...
Review House of Golf - Mini-Golf Madness Held Back By Some Awkward Issues
Suburbian tee off
Everyone loves a good game of mini-golf. The wacky courses and absurd obstacles combine to create a challenging, yet accessible game that almost anybody can get stuck into. There have been countless video games based on mini-golf, ranging from console titles like Carnival Games: Mini Golf to smaller, flash-based games of varying...
Review The Touryst - A Visually Stunning Island-Hop That's Loads Of Fun
We're Going To Ybiza
Shin'en Multimedia seem to wield some sort of superpower when it comes to pulling perfect performance out of the Switch. Fast RMX, Its superb Wipeout-style future racer – which helped fill a gap in the console's launch when Mario Kart 8 Deluxe arrived late – was, and still is, a dazzlingly handsome beast that runs at a...
Review Construction Simulator 2 US - Console Edition - A Celebration Of The Mundane
Building your construction empire has never been so fun
“Magnificent,” says Pete, your flatbed truck driving instructor and future foreman. “Congratulations on passing basic training. Now you can go ahead and fulfil your dream of running your own construction company.” You’ve never even thought of going into the construction business...
Mini Review Raining Blobs - Can't Compete With The Best The Genre Has To Offer
Familiar territory
Anyone even remotely familiar with game franchises like Puyo Pop and Tetris will feel right at home with Raining Blobs. It’s a puzzle game in which you need to match up coloured globules that fall down the screen in order to wipe them from the board, scoring combos and points in the process. That’s more or less all there is to...
Review Yaga - An Average Action Adventure Saved By Its Engaging Sense Of Humour
Ivan the (Not So) Terrible
Yaga is an action RPG steeped in Slavic folklore that tells the story of Ivan, an unlucky one-armed blacksmith who becomes accidentally embroiled in a supernatural beef and ends up on the adventure of his lifetime. You see the Baba Yaga, that mysterious old woman who dwells deep in the forest in a house built on chicken...
Mini Review Zumba Burn it Up! - Ring Fit Adventure Too Crazy For You? Try This Instead
Rhythmic calorie counting
Out of all of the family-centric games introduced during the lifetime of the absurdly popular Nintendo Wii, only a handful have seemingly thrived and continued into the present day. Perhaps the most prevalent is the Just Dance franchise, which releases every year like clockwork, but the Zumba series is just about hanging by...
Review Narcos: Rise Of The Cartels - An XCOM-Style Outing That Doesn't Live Up To The Show
Plata o plomo?
Remember when licensed games used to be all the rage? A generation ago, practically every film worth its salt had a tie-in video game, and while there were the occasional good ones – GoldenEye 007 anyone? – for the most part, they were a cheap and forgettable way to boost your Gamerscore while simultaneously filling up the shelves...
Review Disney Tsum Tusm Festival - A Colourful Party Game That Isn't As Fun As It Looks
Less 'Heigh Ho', more 'hey ho'
Like the toys themselves, Disney Tsum Tsum Festival is a mutated mess that is both adorable and yet utterly bewildering. On the face of it, this is a collection of mini-games populated by stylised versions of your favourite Disney characters, yet it doesn’t quite live up to that promise. This is in part down to its...
Review Romancing SaGa 3 - A JRPG Classic That's Often Quite Hard To Love
"You and me could write a bad romance"
It would take years to fully play through the entirety of Square Enix’s seemingly bottomless back catalogue of RPGs, and though the company is best known for genre stalwarts such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, there’s also a staggering number of ‘other’ offerings that – for some reason or another...
Review Black Future '88 - A Frantic Cyberpunk Classic
Cyber delight
Everybody’s been bitten by the cyberpunk bug recently, with CD Projekt Red’s long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077 finally being unleashed on the world next year. There’s no word as of yet regarding whether the futuristic adventure will be following The Witcher 3's leather-booted footsteps over to Nintendo’s machine, but those waiting...
