Curve Digital Game Reviews
Mini Review Pumped BMX Pro (Switch) - Bland, Forgettable Biking
Flat tyre
This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format. Pumped BMX Pro is an arcade sports game and,...
Review Embr (Switch) - A Spark Of Co-Op Potential, But Never Catches Fire On Switch
In the line of fire
At first blush Muse Games' Embr put us in mind of riotous slapstick comedy titles such as Overcooked and Tarsier Games' excellent The Stretchers. This is a bright and colourful multiplayer-focused mess of firefighting carnage that also presents itself as a wry satirical take on the state of 21st Century capitalism. It's got the...
Mini Review Space Crew (Switch) - Bomber Crew's Sequel Takes Us To The Future
Aiming For The Stars
It’s been two years since Bomber Crew landed on Switch and at the time, we thought quite highly of it. Developed by Runner Duck, it successfully mixed a real-time management simulation with strategy, taking place in a World War 2 setting. It was quite surprising then to see a sequel putting us in charge of an intergalactic...
It's hip to be square
When you’ve made a game that pays homage to early polygonal racing games and you want to release it on the Switch, you’d better be certain it’s a good one. After all, considering the Switch has actual Virtua Racing on it, when you come at the king, you best not miss. The upstarts with the sheer gall to step onto the...
Review Peaky Blinders: Mastermind (Switch) - An Addictive, Time-Bending Puzzler, Once It Gets Going
In like Finn
We're big fans of Futurlab here at Nintendo Life, with the studio's 2018 shoot 'em up Velocity 2X easily one of the very best offerings in its genre that's currently available on Switch, and so, when we heard the developer was taking the Peaky Blinders licence and turning it into a top-down puzzle game we were definitely ever-so...
Review Narcos: Rise Of The Cartels (Switch) - 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 A Knight's Quest (Switch) - A Pale Imitation Of Zelda, But At Least It Has A Sense Of Humour
Open mic Knight
Ever wondered what happens when you’re the adventurous son of a Mayor and accidentally set in motion the end of the world? Welcome to A Knight’s Quest, a charming if flawed action-adventure from Sky9 Games. You play as Rusty, a brave (if clumsy) protagonist tasked with putting right his rather substantial mistake of setting free...
Review Hue (Switch) - An Inventive Indie Puzzler That's A Few Shades Away From Greatness
Hue and Cry
The most terrifying explanation of blindness is that you don’t see endless blackness; it’s been described as seeing nothing. If black and white are still colours on the visible spectrum, if those colours are still seen by light bouncing off our retinas, then to see nothing means those would be absent. No constant black, no constant...
Review American Fugitive (Switch) - A Decent Homage To Grand Theft Auto That's A Little Underdone
Grand Theft Naught-o
American Fugitive, a straight-up homage to the top-down Grand Theft Auto games of old, sees players assume the role of William Riley, a bad boy with a criminal past who’s just been framed for his father’s murder. Convicted and sent to jail in the opening moments of the game, he almost immediately manages to set himself free...
Review For The King (Switch) - A Roguelike RPG That's Best Played With A Friend
By royal decree
Don’t let the beguiling art style of For The King fool you. It might look like a children’s book that’s been conjured to life, bathed in the soft autumnal light of a European fairy tale, but beneath the funny hats and cute character designs sits a roguelike RPG with teeth. Underestimate the challenge of its procedural maps and...
Review Motorsport Manager For Nintendo Switch (Switch) - A Winning Formula For F1 Fans
Pedal to the metal
Motorsport Manager for Nintendo Switch will grind your hope into dust and feed you a balanced diet of disappointment for the first few hours of every playthrough. You’ll languish at the back of the pack, race after race, as you choose the wrong tyres for certain conditions or fail to keep your drivers in a positive working...
Review When Ski Lifts Go Wrong (Switch) - This Fiendish Physics Puzzler Is Snow Joke
Eddie the Eagle’s Bridge Constructor
Known as Carried Away in its early access PC guise, Hugecalf Studios’ renamed When Ski Lifts Go Wrong is a node-based physics puzzler that has you constructing chairlifts over terrain to get riders to a finish line in one piece. Questionable construction will cause your passengers to collide with obstacles or...
Review Beholder: Complete Edition (Switch) - A Grim, Dystopian Adventure That Will Test Your Morals
I spy
You are Carl, the manager of a crumbling apartment block in some grey European city. Which doesn't sound like a particularly thrilling video game role, we're sure you'll agree. That is, until you realise that Carl is a cog in the grinding machine of a totalitarian regime, and was appointed to his new role by the state. So, alongside repairing...
Faster than greased lightning
In 1975, a Hungarian psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (try pronouncing that one out loud) coined the term 'flow', referring to a state of mind in which one becomes so enchanted or focused on something that all sense of space and time outside of that focus point essentially seems to disappear. The state of flow...
Review Manual Samuel (Switch eShop)
Blink and you’ll miss it
Upon firing up Manual Samuel – a game which released on other platforms back in 2016 – you’re immediately informed by the cod-British narrator that Sam is a total brat. An ultra-privileged upbringing has created a man with zero empathy who lacks the most basic social graces. His douchebaggery leads to a concussion...
Review Bomber Crew (Switch eShop)
Look at my machinery!
Bomber Crew - from British studio Runner Duck - is a half flight/half management simulator set during World War 2, complete with frequent references to planes, events and locations from the conflict. Going up against stellar games such as Rogue Aces and Skies Of Fury DX on the Nintendo Switch is no easy task, but Bomber...
Review Smoke And Sacrifice (Switch eShop)
Drear, there and everywhere
Sachi lives in a perfect, pastoral village. The inhabitants worship a mechanical Sun Tree that powers the community with its benevolent light. Everything’s hunky dory except for one thing: prosperity depends on firstborn children being sacrificed to the Sun God via a big laser. Sachi accepted this when she surrendered...
Review Rogue Aces (Switch eShop)
Nice plane you’re flying there. I’ll take it
In 1987, Brøderbund released Wings of Fury, a thinking-man’s scrolling shmup that borrowed Defender’s free-roaming gameplay but was otherwise an original concept. Thirty-one years later, can Infinite State’s Rogue Aces be the dream sequel you never knew you needed? Throttle up and lets find...
Review Human: Fall Flat (Switch eShop)
A slapstick symphony
It has been said that the essence of comedy is tragedy plus time. A good-natured pratfall here and there is enough to brighten up anyone's day, but when you play the role of both the audience and the victim of said pratfall, things get a little more complicated. Developer No Brakes has created an experience where...
Review Serial Cleaner (Switch eShop)
Cleaning is bad for your stealth
The stealth genre is predominantly associated with gruff, grizzled, highly trained assassins with a renegade attitude, stern demeanour and corrupt superiors. Normally involving sneaking or silently killing to get out of dark and tight spots, the tension, evasion and strategy of a well executed infiltration garners a...
Review The Flame in the Flood (Switch eShop)
A river ride to die for
At first glance, The Flame in the Flood depicts a beautifully crafted world with its use of stylized art and charming audio. What isn't quickly apparent about The Molasses Flood’s debut title is that it actually details the harsh reality of survival. Hunger, thirst, sleep, broken legs and bear attacks, it's all part of a...
Review Pumped BMX+ (Wii U eShop)
Coming in hot with a 1080 backflip kickout… and it sticks the landing!
Released at the beginning of October on the Wii U eShop (and a slew of other consoles), we've spent lots of time mastering all sorts of BMX tricks and techniques in Pumped BMX+. Originally seeing success in the mobile market, developer Yeah Us! worked closely with publishing...
Exploring Space, One Turn at a Time
Oh to be lost in space, exploring strange new worlds with a plethora of rocks. Lots and lots of space rocks. Enjoying the thrill of combat from dangerous, colourful and stinky creatures at your fuel tanks. Rescuing your fellow scientists, some unwillingly and others affected by the loneliness that is space...
Review The Swindle (Wii U eShop)
An old-fashioned cyber thief
The Swindle represents the first foray onto Nintendo hardware for Dan Marshall and his studio Size Five Games - via Curve Digital - having built up a strong reputation with PC releases. Bringing its own unique brand of quirky cyberpunk thievery, it's a slice of procedurally generated silliness likely to amuse as well as...
Not at all sketchy
OlliOlli, as we've said before, isn't really a skateboarding game. The aesthetic provides a lovely minimalist visual style to navigate the tiny pixel skateboarder through, but there's no open world to explore and experiment in, nor is it filled with free-form choices. Mechanically rock-solid, OlliOlli is a 2D on-rails experience...
We're stoked
OlliOlli isn't really a skateboarding game. The skateboard aesthetic provides a lovely minimalist visual style to navigate the tiny pixel skateboarder through, but there's no open world to explore and experiment in, nor is it filled with free-form choices. Mechanically rock-solid, OlliOlli is a 2D on-rails experience with meticulously...
Review Titan Attacks (3DS eShop)
Space Invaders Neo
On its official website, British developer Puppy Games declares Titan Attacks as 'the best Space Invaders tribute ever'. Whether you choose to agree with it or not, this simple statement aptly describes what to expect from this homage to Taito's 1978 classic arcade hit. Yes, it's time to jump into a somewhat impractical tank in...
Review Thomas Was Alone (Wii U eShop)
Simple brilliance
We're in the middle of one of the most diverse, intriguing periods in video game history. The rise of download games, small 'indie' developers and stores like the Wii U eShop have shifted how we think about content; we're a long way from the retail-only culture of the '90s or even early 2000s. One modern trend is for low-fi...
Review The Swapper (Wii U eShop)
A clone in the dark?
With the Wii U eShop’s recent flurry of sci-fi titles such as Master Reboot and The Fall finding a home on the digital service, what does it take for yet another game set in space to stand out from the crowd? Puzzles. Yep, but not just any old puzzles — spatial physics-based conundrums that’ll give your brain a thorough...
Review Lone Survivor: The Director's Cut (Wii U eShop)
Where is your mind?
Lone Survivor:The Director's Cut seems to have arrived on the Wii U eShop as a sudden apparition; creeping unnaturally under the radar during a slew of indie title announcements that emerged from E3 this year. Now, Jasper Byrne's twisted horror is ready to infect your mind just in time for the Halloween season, and it will not go...
