Reviews

Who the hell was asking for a remake of Metroid II? Nobody, that’s who, and Nintendo made it anyway. Metroid: Samus Returns takes the general thrust of series’ largely-forgotten 1992 Game Boy adventure and updates it with fresh, modern mechanics and the kind of visuals I wasn’t aware the 3DS could pull off. It takes a game consigned to…

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with dinosaurs. I know I’m not the only one. I loved (and continue to love) The Land Before Time and Jurassic Park, I read every book on them I could find, I inhaled the Dinotopia novels, I spent more time on DinoPark Tycoon in the primary school’s computer room than I…

Yakuza Kiwami is the sum of every other game in the series. I don’t know that it would exist without every other game that has preceeded it (though I guess, if you want to be pedantic, most come after it in the greater series timeline). What Yakuza Kiwami can’t quite do is bring itself to be better than…

It’s been a long time since I’ve been genuinely surprised by a video game but Monster Hunter Stories achieved just that, and then more. From the distinct, beautifully designed world to the fun combat and exploratory gameplay, the Monster Hunter spin-off left me genuinely floored. For those new to the franchise, Stories marks a perfect…

Telltale’s Guardians of The Galaxy is finally back. Episodes of this season have been released quite far apart — it will be another month or so before Episode 4 drops and then the Episode 5 finale will release towards the end of the year. Episodes 2 and 3 are now available, however, and we’ve happily dug…

As of this filing, I will have now reviewed fully three instalments of the Madden NFL series for this website. Reviewing sports titles, as I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, is one of the easier aspects of the gig as a games critic — the games don’t change much year-to-year and they are, by and large, quite…

Guess what, Life Is Strange is back and guess what? I played it, you want to know what else? All my fears of it being a shoe-horn tie in for some quick payout were put to rest, Life Is Strange: Before the Storm only grows on the originals strengths and weaknesses and we are left…

Written by author Ken Follett in his 1989 novel, The Pillars of the Earth is a wildly popular story about the building of a cathedral in a small town in 12th century England. It is a long and sweeping story, and one of the most popular literary works of the last two decades. It also makes…

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles is a game that pulls from all sorts of different places for inspiration. It pulls from literature, it pulls from movies and (most often) it pulls from other games. While its inspirations are worn quite proudly on its sleeve, it’s what Yonder does with them that makes it memorable.

That headline isn’t bullcrap, I actually believe it. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, Ubisoft’s big, bridge-repairing gamble with Nintendo, is one of the studio’s best offerings in years. It’s smart, addictive, tough as nails in the later levels and leverages a genre that doesn’t get much play on console in a way that is perfect for…

If Naughty Dog is to be believed, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy will be the final entry in their now-legendary series of adventure games. If their intention, then, was to send the franchise out on a high note, mission accomplished.

Agents of Mayhem is Volition Studios return to the Saints Row universe, with a little twist. Gone are the days of criminal mayhem and gang warfare, in order to make way for a classic tale of heroes and villains. Agents of Mayhem offers a variety of new and engaging ideas, but falls just short of greatness…

Sonic Mania is a gift. For Sega kids everywhere, it is a portal to your childhood. For long-suffering Sonic fans, it is a well overdue homecoming. It is proof that the Sonic the Hedgehog formula, abandoned in the Saturn era, is as fun, interesting and engaging as it was in the early 90’s. After nearly 25 years of…

I am still waiting for my dream Batman game to materialise. This non-existent game would essentially be LA Noire and the Batman IP draped over it, steeped in the World’s Greatest Detective side of the character moreso than the Caped Crusader. I am fully aware that it would probably sell about four copies. Throughout Batman: The Telltale…

When I first heard about Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator on Twitter a few months ago, I must confess I thought it might have just been a meme designed to harvest irony likes. After discovering that not only was the game real, it was being developed and published by famed internet snark machine Game Grumps,…

Crash-landing on alien terrain, long-time Pikmin hero Captain Olimar seeks to repair his talking spaceship and get home. Without Sparklium, the fuel that powers his ship, he’s a bit of a sitting duck. From this simple (and familiar) premise, Hey! Pikmin begins.

When I first got my hands on Splatoon 2  at a Nintendo Switch preview event in Melbourne back in February, my first thought was that this was a rare display of laziness from Nintendo. There wasn’t anything that felt hugely different from the 2015 Wii U original other than the ability to take the game with you. I…

As we roll into the second half of the year, everyone has come down with a serious case of nostalgia. The remaster of Crash Bandicoot is selling out, Wipeout Omega collection has revived the fan favourite in 4K and Micro Machines: World Series is now available for PS4. But seeing things through nostalgia goggles is a…

Going into Ever Oasis, I expected something akin to the delightfully cute Animal Crossing series, but what I experienced was surprisingly different. Mixing the town-building and cutesy characters of Animal Crossing with action-based RPG gameplay, Ever Oasis is a hybrid of styles, but one that works brilliantly as a whole package. The first thing I…

The time has arrived. Telltale’s ambitious third season of their critically acclaimed Walking Dead series has come to a close with From the Gallows. Question is, did it capitalise on its rising tension, fleshed out characters and bold new narrative? Episode 5 opens with quite a revelation from before the demise of the current state…

Get Even is an interesting experience with an interesting premise. Based on a psychological mystery, Get Even takes players on a journey that intrigued me for the majority, if leaving me a feeling little underwhelmed. Get Even puts players in the shoes of Mr. Black, a man with amnesia who has vivid memories of specific…

The year was 1995, I was sifting through my Australian PlayStation Magazine demo discs after playing a couple of hours of Spyro the Dragon on my PlayStation, I decided I would finally give the ‘PlayStation Demo Disc’ a good go! The disc came with the console at the time it launched, I just hadn’t had…

When I completed my first major quest line in the original Elder Scrolls Online, I promised myself one thing – I would never come back. For hours, I’d toiled, and I as I was sucked further into the world of the game, I realised that if I went too far, I would never emerge. Proving…

A Tekken game, like a wizard, arrives exactly when it means to. What this means is that, for fans of the series uninterested in hunting down an arcade machine, the wait for a console version of a Tekken title can and does drag on forever. I have good news, fans of the Iron Fist Tournament — Tekken 7…

Writing a Minecraft review in 2017 feels a bit like an exercise in fertility. What the hell am I going to write about that hasn’t been covered elsewhere a million times before? What is there to talk about in a game this exhaustively covered? The answer to these questions is quite obviously “not a damned thing,”…

PSVR currently finds itself at a crossroads. Prior to launch, it seemed like Sony had everything they needed to absolutely crush their competition in the VR space — it had a price point that couldn’t be beat, an army of third-party developer talent curated over decades and a PS4 install base that is the envy…

Strafe is a bloody-minded combination of FPS and rogue-like that seeks to place you firmly in a time machine and return you to mid 90’s, the era when Quake was the new king of the burgeoning genre. Strafe recalls an era when shooters were breathless, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants experiences. You were always moving, always shooting, never resting. Where 2016’s excellent DOOM reboot…

The Dreamfall timeline is a complicated one. Bear with us. The original game, The Longest Journey, released in 2000 and was followed up in 2006 with Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. It lay dormant for nine years until the launch of Dreamfall Chapters, an episodic continuation of the series. The first episode of Dreamfall Chapters released in 2014 but its fifth and…

Hoo boy. This review is gonna be all over the place. It’s going to be this way because this game, even as a concept, is all over the place. You would think that, given that Tetris is already the most grueling activity a person can engage in, interrupting it with a quick round of the colour-matcher Puyo Puyo would be as…

I will admit to have very little prior experience with the Fire Emblem franchise, having deliberately avoided the series due to its deep lore and extensive history. Despite this, I largely enjoyed my time with its newest entry, Shadows of Valentia, which presents a simple, but surprisingly accessible story for new fans and long-time players…