Nathanial is a freelance entertainment journalist whose byline credits include Nintendo Life, Push Square, Screen Rant, Film Hounds, and The Indiependent.
Review Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (PS1) - Dark, Bizarre, and Packed with Personality
Slimy, yet satisfying
Republished on Sunday, 25th June, 2022: We're bringing this review back from the archives following Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee's inclusion in All PS Plus Games. The original text follows. Originally published on Tuesday, 6th November, 2018: True to its name, Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee is one of the oddest games ever created, with...
Mini Review Terminator: Resistance Enhanced (PS5) - Enhanced Is Pushing It
I'll be back, without improvements
2019 saw the release of Terminator: Resistance, a dull FPS that performed poorly and boasted unconvincing character models. This year, Reef Entertainment has released Terminator: Resistance Enhanced on PlayStation 5, complete with additional content, bug fixes, and DualSense features. Unfortunately, much like...
Mini Review Skate City (PS4) - Lo-Fi Beats to Kickflip To
Ollie-oop
From publisher Snowman comes Skate City, a port of a 2D mobile game that focuses on trick mastery and moody visuals. The translation from mobile to console isn’t exactly seamless, and performing tricks can be a pain, despite the simple controls. Skate City only rewards absolute precision. Landing what should be rudimentary tricks can...
Mini Review Kill It with Fire (PS4) - Enjoyable Chaos, But Not Much Bang for Your Bug
Spider-Manslaughter
Kill It with Fire channels your inner arachnophobe and tasks you with exterminating the world’s spiders. You’re armed with everything from a strimmer to a flamethrower in your quest to commit arachnid genocide. You’re also given a selection of non-lethal tools to attract the little blighters or slow them down with a fire...
Mini Review Namco Museum Archives Volume 1 & 2 - A Basic Trip Down Memory Lane
Double trouble
Namco Museum Archives Volume 1 and 2 bring back classics in two separate collections, each offering 11 games. Titles originate from both arcade and home console, and span an acceptable range of genres, as well as including its most famous IPs, such as Pac-Man and Galaga. Perhaps unsurprisingly, both volumes lean into the shmup genre...
Mini Review Project Warlock - A Slick Homage to the Retro FPS
The 90s are back, baby
Over 25 years after Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM blasted it into the mainstream, the 90s FPS is revived by Project Warlock, a slick genre homage that benefits from modern improvements that make it near impossible to put down. Such additions include a between-level workshop where RPG upgrade points can be used to improve stats,...
Mini Review Moons of Madness - A Lovecraftian Snooze Fest
Inter-smellar
Secret World Legends developer Funcom dives into the ready-made well of creativity of H.P Lovecraft in Moons of Madness, a single-player cosmic horror title using modern generic tropes. Unsurprisingly, it takes similar thematic and aesthetic cues to last year’s Conarium, though in its mission to become the cosmos’ answer to...
Mini Review Sparklite - A Sparkling Rogue-Lite Adventure
Shine bright like a diamond
Weaving the charm of 2D Zelda games with rogue-lite mechanics, Sparklite is quite literally a gem to be uncovered. Set in the ever-changing land of Geodia, and the balloon powered hub-ship above, you play as Ada, a sky-refugee turned Titan slayer tasked with collecting all the Sparklite she can. The titular currency...
Review Pig Eat Ball - Solid Swine Arcade Action
Sow good
Don’t let its rudimentary title deceive you: action-puzzler Pig Eat Ball is a fun homage to arcade titles that develops into a surprisingly deep experience with a quirky plot. You play as Princess Bow, a young pig forced into marriage when (like any good princess) she wants adventure in the great wide somewhere. Your overall goal is to...
Review Headspun - A Buggy FMV Adventure with a Decent Story and Little Else
Inside nout
The brain is a complex thing; vast, mysterious, and packed full of drones in ties controlling our thoughts. Or, so says Headspun, a disappointing FMV/management hybrid that has you rebuilding the functions of a man’s mind following an accident. It’s a neat concept, but one marred by glitches, outdated mini-games, and irritatingly...
Review Blasphemous - An Unholy and Triumphant Metroidvania
King of the castle
Perhaps ‘Dark Souls-vania’ is a bit of an overstatement, but there’s no denying the plethora of influences, both modern and contemporary, in this gorgeously sacrilegious metroidvania. Blasphemous is dripping in grim atmosphere and stuffed full of macabre religious iconography, bloody combat, and enough lore to fill the Old...
Review RAD - Mutant Roguelike Madness in a Dystopian Future
The New Mutants
Combining addictive roguelike gameplay with a rocking 80s aesthetic and an assortment of flesh altering power-ups, RAD more than lives up to its name. Throwing you into a world clinging to life after not one, but two apocalypses, your character is tasked with purifying the desolate land. By locating respirator machines, you’ll...
Review Bear With Me: The Complete Collection - Surprisingly Deep Film Noir Point & Click Action
Paw-fully good
On the surface, Bear With Me appears to be little more than an amusing, story-driven, point and click adventure, infused with the tone and style of noir classics like The Maltese Falcon. However, there's much more at play within this clever episodic tale. The plights of Amber, Flint, and (collective sigh) Ted. E Bear amidst the...
Review Doughlings: Invasion - Fun But Forgettable Space Invaders-esque Action
Dough and steady wins the race
In a surprising shift in genre, Doughlings: Invasion, the sequel to last year’s Doughlings Arcade, moves past its brick-breaking routes, now acting as the indie scene’s answer to Space Invaders. Though at a glance its seemingly rudimentary gameplay appears to match its unappealing visuals, there’s a surprising...
Review Contra Anniversary Collection - A Good But Repetitive Package of Retro Shooters
If it moves, shoot it
Continuing Konami’s trend of 50th anniversary celebration compilations, Contra Anniversary Collection storms into battle with ten classic side scrolling shooters. Well, five, actually. The collection includes three variations of the original, and three other titles that double up with different console ports. Having the...
Review Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection - Old School Konami Kicks
Back to the 80s
Konami gifts us eight games for the price of one with its Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection. The results are good, but a tad disappointing, based on the other titles the publisher has to its name. The additions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons Arcade, and Contra certainly would’ve livened things up and added more...
Review Conarium - An Atmospheric Lovecraftian Adventure
Spectacles, tentacles, wallet, and watch
Thrusting us tentacle first into the weird and wonderful world of H.P Lovecraft, Zoetrope Interactive has ported its Steam release, Conarium, to PlayStation 4. What might seem at first glance to be a first-person horror game filled with jump scares and hideously graphic gore, a la Outlast, is in fact a more...
Review RIDE 3 - High-Octane Motorcycle Realism
Wheely quite something
If there’s one thing that RIDE 3 has in spades, it’s content. The sheer number of tracks and bikes to unlock, not to mention available modifications, is head spinning. Poor old motorcycle sim games seem to live in the shadow of their four wheeled brethren and are usually reserved for a more niche audience as a result. The...
Review 11-11: Memories Retold - Inventive and Emotionally Charged with an All-Star Cast
Shooting for something different
11-11: Memories Retold has an interesting proposition: a war game where you shoot not with a gun, but the lens of a camera. In a world where World War 1 is often used as a playground for 360 no-scopes and kill counts, it’s refreshing to see a game that analyses the people tied to the situation in a respectful,...
Review The Shapeshifting Detective - An Odd Yet Intriguing FMV Murder Mystery
Colonel Mustard, in the study, with the DualShock 4
The Shapeshifting Detective is a new FMV (Full Motion Video) game from Wales Interactive. It’s a curious game that pretty much does what it says on the tin. You take on the role of the titular detective and have the ability to take on the likeness of anybody you come into contact with, like a...
Review Project Highrise: Architect's Edition - An Architect for Success
Building sim-plicity at its best
Project Highrise: Architect’s Edition fills a niche on the PlayStation Store as a return for the building simulator genre, following initial success on Steam in 2016. This sim however puts you in control of skyscraper development specifically, as opposed to traditional city sims. As the chief architect in charge of...
Review Battle Chef Brigade Deluxe - Now We're Cookin'
Viva la Brigade
Following success on Steam and Nintendo Switch last year, PlayStation 4 owners can now enjoy a delightful mise en place of fun with Trinket Studios’ Battle Chef Brigade Deluxe. An interesting concoction of side scrolling action and old school puzzle solving with a truly unique plot and established world, its bizarreness is matched...
Review Fast Striker - Retro Shoot 'em Up Action That Isn't Too Fast
Strikingly boring
The shoot ‘em up is a bit of a niche choice these days. Long gone are the days where Galaga and Space Invaders were the hottest games on the market. The genre now seems defined by small indie releases via the PlayStation Store. Fast Striker comes courtesy of a German developer, the confusingly named NG:DEV.TEAM. It’s a shmup...
