Game Reviews scoring 3/10
Review Gigantosaurus: The Game (Switch) - Yet Another Poor Licensed Tie-In
A gigantic mess
Licensed games continue to be incredibly hit and miss. There are certainly examples of titles that have got it right, such as South Park: The Stick of Truth and its sequel, but sadly there are countless other games that just simply feel like shameless cash grabs, relying solely on the popularity of the property over compelling...
Review Arc Of Alchemist (Switch) - One Of The Worst RPGs To Hit Switch So Far
An unfortunate concoction
Say what you will about the overall quality of its output, but never let it be said that Compile Heart doesn’t love to make RPGs. The studio – best known for its successful Hyperdimension Neptunia series – has always been prolific, to say the least, but alas, it’s also developed a reputation for putting out many...
Review Puzzle & Dragons Gold (Switch) - Sadly, Not Everything That Glitters Is Gold
An unfortunate misstep in a beloved series
The Puzzle & Dragons series has been a juggernaut in the mobile gaming space for close to a decade now, due in no small part to its distinctly satisfying blend of RPG elements with match-3 puzzle action. Even today, the series still routinely pulls grosses well into the billions, which has naturally led...
Review Decay Of Logos (Switch) - 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 Thief Of Thieves: Season One (Switch) - More Of A Snore Than A Score
Like Inspector Clouseau, but without the comedy
It's not hard to see what Rival Games was thinking with Thief of Thieves. Take a long-running comic series by Robert Kirkman, co-creator of The Waking Dead, give it the Telltale Games treatment with fancy cel-shaded comic book stylings, add some Hitman-lite sneaking about in trendy European locations...
Review Root Letter: Last Answer (Switch) - A Clumsy, Laughable Stab At A Visual Novel
The Last Answer to a question no one asked
Do you have a niggling doubt about something you experienced as a child? Something unresolved or unexplained? Perhaps we all have a faint memory that haunts us; a gentle denial that we think we’ll never have to face up to. Have you a tingle in your spine? A skeleton in your closet, a secret sin you’ve...
Review Beast Quest (Switch) - 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 (Switch) - Undead, Unfunny, 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...
Review Gun Gun Pixies (Switch) - A Pitiful Perv-Fest That Also Fails As A Video Game
Space Oddity
Originally released for PS Vita in Japan back in 2017, Gun Gun Pixies tells the story of two intergalactic hornballs, Kame Pon and Bee Tan, otherwise known as Pixie Team, who are sent to earth on a secret mission to observe the interactions of a bunch of teenage girls living in a dormitory. Pixie Team’s home planet Pandemo is in the...
Review Bullet Battle: Evolution (Switch) - A Cut-Price Call Of Duty That Fails On Almost Every Level
Dishonourable discharge
Mobile games have come a long way in the last two decades. There was a time when Snake was the only option for on-the-go phone-based entertainment, but over the years the games on offer have grown more profound in their scope as handsets have turned ever smarter. Now we have fully-fledged racers, shooters and MMOs, right...
Review Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries Of Fujisawa (Switch) - A Laughably Limp Attempt At Titillation
A big booby
You are a new transfer student to Fujisawa Academy, an unseen blank avatar with no particular name or gender beyond the one you choose for yourself at the start of the game. Like a bad teen fan fiction, your entire personality can easily be summed up as "sarcastic and horny", while your sole skill of note is the ability to force people...
Review Beyond Enemy Lines: Covert Operations (Switch) - A Tragic FPS That's Beyond Hope
Bullet to the head
The heart feels a slight flutter every time a new FPS hits the eShop. Is this it? Could this be the game that firmly cements the genre on Nintendo Switch? We’ve had some impressive attempts thus far (Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and DOOM), some decent offerings (Payday 2 and Paladins) and some average at
Review Metagal (Switch) - A Mega Man Clone That Comes With A Mega Problem
A Wily attempt at mimicking a classic
There’s an old saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, yet while there’s certainly something to be gained through being inspired by a previously existing work, a new work generally must add something to the mix to keep things fresh and interesting. If the new work fails to add anything...
Review Harvest Life (Switch) - An Unpolished Farm Sim That Lacks The Charm Of Its Influences
Nature’s fertiliser
We were brought up (as were the majority of you lovely people, we’re sure) to keep schtum when you’ve got nothing nice to say. Unfortunately, this review would be over almost as soon as it had begun, so we’re going to dig deep to find some drops of positivity in farm sim Harvest Life. It’s not egregiously terrible –...
Review Nickelodeon Kart Racers (Switch) - A Poor Man's Mario Kart That Squanders Its Potential
"I'm ugly and I'm proud"
Over the years, Nickelodeon has amassed quite a varied and deep stable of entertaining cartoon franchises, with characters like Spongebob Squarepants and Aang becoming cultural icons that are recognized the world over. It stands to reason, then, that the company could produce a solid kart racer in the vein of Mario Kart;...
Review Fall Of Light: Darkest Edition (Switch) - 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?...
Review Dream Alone (Switch eShop)
Should have stayed asleep
You’d be hard-pressed to make a list of the best indie games of all-time and not include Limbo either/or/and Braid in the top ten, as well as the recently released Inside. These are some of the best indie games ever made. Then on the other end of the spectrum, you have games such as Dream Alone that desperately try...
Review Pirates: All Aboard! (Switch eShop)
Straight to Davy Jones’ Locker
Few game concepts are as timelessly cool as pirates. From the tongue-in-cheek mystery of The Secret of Monkey Island to the open-ocean warfare of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, a pirate’s life is definitely for us. It doesn’t, however, make you a great game by proxy. Slapping the word ‘pirate’ in your...
Review Rally Racers (Switch eShop)
Reverse away from this one
If the name wasn’t already enough of an indication, Rally Racers is – for most parts – your run of the mill arcade racing game. You speed around a collection of themed tracks firing an array of weapons at opponents while trying to win each and every race. Following long-running traditions ingrained within the genre,...
Queasy does it
Hollow is a difficult game to play. We don't mean that in the sense that it requires great skill to complete, or that its dark sci-fi horror world is especially harrowing. Those would both be valid, even praiseworthy qualities. No, Hollow is difficult to play in mostly all the wrong ways. The game is perhaps best described as a...
Review Premium Pool Arena (Switch eShop)
Potting the black
Pool games are never going to be the most evocative of experiences. When you're attempting to emulate a game mostly played in hazy snooker clubs and sticky-floored student bars, there’s only so much 'va-va-voom' you can inject into its virtual recreation. So when a game comes along with the words ‘Premium’ and ‘Arena’ in...
Review Pool Billiard (Switch eShop)
First round exit
There has been a surprising amount of pool-based games released onto the Nintendo eShop as of late, hasn’t there? We have the simply named Pool, which looks to be giving Tennis a run for its money in the award for most generic title of 2018, as well as Premium Pool Arena that looks to add a fair amount of customisation into the...
Debuts don’t come more botched than this
Disclaimer: At the time of writing, developer Blind Squirrel has yet to patch the significant performance problems hampering WWE 2K18 on Switch, so we've published our review - and a score that reflects its current state - in full below. However, we do know that a patch is being worked on, so in the...
Belly up
The Nintendo Switch has enjoyed one of the most exceptional launch years for any console, going from strength to strength with its software and building up plenty of hype. Even so, it’s inevitable that not every game on the eShop is going to turn out great, and Koi DX is a perfect example of this. What we have here is essentially a...
Review Maria The Witch (Switch eShop)
Return to sender
Bayonetta. Twinrova. Gruntilda Winkybunion. There have been some truly terrific witches on Nintendo consoles over the years. Whether friend or foe, ally or adversary, these spell casting sorceresses have entertained, antagonised and tormented audiences for decades. In addition, the notion of video game phenomena has been...
Review Monster Jam: Crush It! (Switch)
A giant flat tire
Even to someone without an earnest interest in them, monster trucks are an awe-inspiring sight. The giant wheels, the loud engine and a gauche chassis upholding a crazily designed body scream power both literally and figuratively. It’s not hard to imagine wanting to drive one, jumping over destroyed cars and hills whilst the...
Review Wheels of Aurelia (Switch eShop)
Anything but a joyride
Imagine a driving game that takes on the form of a visual novel. That’s loosely what Wheels of Aurelia is like; the pointed summary is that it doesn’t really align with any traditional video game experience at all. Even within the context of an indie title, this one is as art house as they come. It’s not going to appeal...
Review Burning Fight (Switch eShop / Neo Geo)
A dying flame
Scrolling beat ‘em ups are simple games that provide a lot of fun as you (sometimes with the help of a friend) wander through a number of stages giving gangs of reprobates a good kicking, before facing off against a more powerful end of stage thug; rinse and repeat. Burning Fight comes courtesy of SNK and whilst Sengoku (another...
Review R.B.I. Baseball 17 (Switch)
A real grounder
R.B.I. Baseball has a long history with Nintendo consoles, first appearing on the original NES in 1986. The series was annualized following the release of R.B.I. Baseball 2 for the NES in 1990, until taking a 19 year break following Super R.B.I. Baseball’s 1995 release on the Super NES. Fast forward to 2017 and the series is...
Review Puzzled (Switch eShop / Neo Geo)
Blocking our enjoyment
Not all Neo Geo games are created equal. Although the majority of titles on SNK’s system offer great blasts of arcade goodness, there were also a number of Neo Geo games back in the day that didn’t quite meet the high standards set by other gems like The King Of Fighters or Metal Slug. Puzzled, sadly, is a perfect example...
