Reviews

Look, I reviewed Sonic Mania when it launched last year. I found it to be a breath of fresh air in a series comprehensively and aggressively starved of it for decades. It was the kind of modern update that walks an incredibly fine line, paying homage to what came before and pushing the property forward…

What do you need in a good gaming mouse? Like, really need? You need it to be comfortable. You need its action to be smooth and precise. You need it to have the requisite buttons for basic play, and maybe one or two extra for customisation and macros. When it comes to designing gaming mice,…

Wolfenstein II‘s latest Nazi-stomping iteration was one of the biggest and best FPS releases of last year, praised for its original script, compelling characters and bucketloads of aggressive, absorbing gameplay; the title — officially Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus — once again reinvented a classic franchise and continued the quality from The New Order and…

Hand of Fate 2, the card-based role-player by Brisbane-based Defiant Development, launched on major platforms last year. Its Nintendo Switch port took a little longer to arrive, but arrive it has and, for Switch owners, it was worth the wait.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker finally landed its port on the Switch and DS this week, having not played it on the Wii U back when it was released in November of 2014 I was extremely stoked that I would get to finally play what everyone was raving about.

Playdead’s Inside follows rather closely in the footsteps of Limbo, the developer’s debut title. Though it revisits many of the mechanics that made Limbo so interesting, Inside has a purpose and a story to tell that is as different to its predecessor as its possible to be. On the Switch, that story can now be experienced…

I can’t believe that eight years after its release, Limbo still holds up as well as it does. Ported to the Nintendo Switch alongside its Playdead stablemate Inside, the game makes the system its home with ease. Given its straightforward mechanics and stripped back, atmospheric presentation, this does not come as a surprise.

I have a rule when it comes to playing games for review: Remain objective, even when the game is in a genre you aren’t crazy about. Last week, I broke that rule. I had assumed I would detest Octopath Traveler. I had resigned myself to reviewing yet another JRPG, despite my long and well-documented history…

Ubisoft returns to Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, the surprise strategy hit of 2017, with a lengthy new slab of DLC with Donkey Kong in the spotlight. To call Donkey Kong Adventure an “expansion” in the strictest sense might be to oversell it. It doesn’t really add much to the game that wasn’t there already….

Introducing fighting elements to a tennis game was a clever move from Camelot, and its one which carries much of Mario Tennis Aces into uncharted territory, giving the gameplay just enough depth to justify stamping this as the finest Mario Tennis title to date. While there is most certainly a feeling of missed opportunities peppered…

The Crew 2 immediately presents itself as a different kind of racer, drawing on its arcade-like mechanics of the past, while infusing they with new mechanics encouraging transformation and an even bigger variety of vehicles to choose from, across the land, sea and sky. Seems like an improvement right? Well, not exactly. While The Crew…

Let’s get one thing straight. Paladins does little to hide its Overwatch inspirations. Team-based multiplayer action tied together with an expansive and varied roster of heroes, it may come down to poor timing that Paladins lacks the originality it arguably deserves. But it doesn’t end there, as the Switch version gives users an experience so far…

There is a trend in modern AAA game design of pinching the best ideas from other games and building on them to create something new. Hi-Rez Studios is a developer that has built a successful portfolio by doing exactly this. They are very good at looking at successful multiplayer games, distilling their most enjoyable components…

The surprise release of Prey: Mooncrash flew under radar at E3, buried among hype for the next Elder Scrolls, the bombastic Rage 2, and Starfield among other brilliant announcements. The original title has often been similarly ignored, and considering it was a strong early contender for game of the year in 2017, it’s high time…

Unravel 2 is the sort of game that strengthens interpersonal bonds.  It’s a wonderful team building exercise, a game cut from the same warm emotional mould as its predecessor but with a rather different point to make.

With the world of LEGO dominating the video game market with numerous adaptations of beloved properties, a venture based on The Incredibles films seems like a natural fit.  With The Incredibles 2 out in cinemas, you may think that LEGO’s “cash grab” tactics may be at play here. Well, you would be terribly mistaken. LEGO…

Jurassic World Evolution is far, far harder than it needs to be. It’s really surprising how difficult the game is at times. Your guests’ wants are often bizarre, the learning curve is a cliff face and the dinosaurs are predictably unsympathetic to your desire to make a buck. I’ll spend hours getting everything in my…

Onrush immediately throws itself onto you as a weird, quirky and sometimes downright crazy experience. However, it’s an experience which I haven’t come across in a while, and to my surprise, it’s some of the most fun I’ve had in a racing title in recent memory. Developers Evolution Studios of Driveclub and Motorstorm fame have…

The Banner Saga has had a long journey to appearing on the Switch, having first arrived as an indie PC and mobile title in 2014, and being ported to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2016. It’s surprising that the title didn’t appear sooner on the Switch, because for all intents and purposes, it’s the…

Vampyr feels like a game that I’ve been waiting nearly 15 years for. Somehow, despite the wild 2008 boom of vampire fiction that followed Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight franchise, video game vampires have often been given the short end of the stick. While there are certain shining examples, from the grim western Darkwatch: Curse of the…

The Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is a wonderful little package, collecting twelve of the best Street Fighter titles in sleekly presented single game format. Twelve Street Fighter titles, you might say? But didn’t they just release Street Fighter V? Well, hold onto your hats folks because the 30th Anniversary Collection doesn’t just collect the…

I have a long history of dissatisfaction with desk chairs. I break them very easily, and its never because I mistreated them. I use them as a day-to-day work prop this is apparently too much to ask because within six-to-nine months, they’re sagging and bent in ways that suggest my 95kg frame is much heavier…

I have bloviated at length on this website about my upbringing as a Sega kid. While the SNES dominated the market, those of us who chose the Sega life knew we had a machine with true gems among its library. The arcade-centric counterpart to the SNES’ far broader appeal, the Mega Drive did its own…

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition is, surprisingly, the third release of the game, having first appeared on the Wii U in 2014, and later on the Nintendo 3DS in 2016. This time, Hyrule Warriors comes in a complete, shiny package, featuring all DLC from the original game as well as brand new Breath of the Wild…

The classic game that started it all has returned, this time to the next generation of consoles. It’s hard to define just what makes the Dark Souls series so damn good, but upon playing the original 7 years after it’s 2011 release, I couldn’t think of a better way to return to one of the…

Detroit: Become Human is finally upon us. Quantic Dream have had players waiting for over four years for their follow-up to the Beyond: Two Souls. Detroit is, in many ways, the end point of Quantic’s “Kara” tech demo from 2012. It’s disarming, strange, interesting and delves deep into the uncanny valley.

There are certain games that fall into a category I like to call “My Dad Would Love This.” Games in this category typically revolve around war or military history, maintain some degree of simulation and are full to bursting with digital recreations of real world military hardware. Now, after eight years of ongoing development, World…

Shadow of War‘s latest expansion, The Desolation of Mordor cuts right to the chase. “Baranor is mortal and carries no Ring of Power. If he does, his story is over. Be careful.” Tackling Shadow of War without Talion’s impressive array of Celebrimbor-backed super powers is an interesting spin on the game’s existing format, pivoting into…

Destiny 2‘s first expansion, Curse of Osiris, wasn’t a complete disaster but it sure as hell wasn’t a good move either. Already losing players to battle royale juggernauts of PUBG and Fortnite, Osiris cost the game a lot of momentum after a strong launch. A good chunk of content and activities were placed behind Osiris’ paywall and…

There is an easy way to tell if State of Decay 2 is going to be your thing or not. How do you react when you realise a game feels like bloody hard work? Do you dig in or do you check out? If you tend to dig in, then chances are you’ll find loads…