Latest Reviews
Review Muramasa Rebirth (PlayStation Vita)
Radiant revival
While most widely known as the family-friendly home console featuring a myriad collection of party games and fitness titles, the Nintendo Wii was also home to some of last generation’s better adult-oriented forays. Many of these titles got swept under the rug due to poor sales and a missing target audience, but some received much...
Review Starlight Inception (PlayStation Vita)
Failure to launch
The space combat genre seems to be making something of a comeback lately, with releases like Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut lighting up the dark corners of space. As such, it’s only right that the PlayStation Vita should get its own spaceship game, and Starlight Inception by Escape Hatch Entertainment is a Kickstarter project...
Review EA Sports 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil (PlayStation 3)
A place in the sun
Summertime is often a period where people like to make memories. Whether it's creating moments of happiness with friends or taking the time to clear out your ridiculous gaming backlog as the sun blazes outside, there's no time quite like it. However, what usually makes summer all the more enjoyable – especially if you're a footy...
Review Daylight (PlayStation 4)
Low battery life
Daylight is the procedurally generated horror game from Zombie Studios, the indie outfit best known for free-to-play first-person shooter Blacklight Retribution. It has the distinction of being the first game released using the new – and largely impressive – Unreal Engine 4, making this an attractive proposition for visual...
Review Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium Duels (PlayStation 3)
Pick a card
Trading card games are everywhere these days, mostly thanks to smartphones and the free-to-play model. Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium Duels looks to present the genre in a more traditional way. With thousands upon thousands of cards available to collect and utilise in battle, as well as both single player and online modes, it’d be easy to spend...
Review Star Wars Pinball: Heroes Within (PlayStation 4)
Sith grade
When Zen Studios started churning out Star Wars pinball tables a couple of years ago, it promised a total of ten would be available by the time that it had finished. So, with the release of its latest quartet of machines – titled Star Wars Pinball: Heroes Within – it’s added the remaining four needed to complete the full set, and...
Review Ethan: Meteor Hunter (PlayStation Vita)
Rat trapped
Already available on the PlayStation 3 and via Valve’s computer-based Steam client, Ethan: Meteor Hunter features a plucky rat that’s bestowed with the power of time freezing and teleportation. Despite the zany premise, this side-scroller has already won one major award and been nominated for a number of others – but has this...
Review Stick It to the Man (PlayStation 4)
Scratch and sniff
Stick It to the Man is the story of a young adult with a hand sticking out of his head. This tale also includes aliens, a few clowns, a crocodile with a taste for human flesh, and a skeleton pirate. With the kind of dark humour that you may remember from the likes of Ren and Stimpy – and an art style to match – this is an...
Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (PlayStation 3)
Half shelled
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows – a game developed by Red Fly Studios and published by Activision – released in August last year on both Steam and the Xbox 360 to a largely atrocious reception. With the game taking around eight months to hit the PlayStation 3, then, one would expect (or at least hope) that the delay...
Review JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle (PlayStation 3)
Fist of the flamboyant
A long running manga series that spans generations of different bloodlines, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is just as, er, bizarre as its name suggests. The crazy creation has enjoyed something of a Western popularity surge in recent years, which has resulted in the localisation of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle – a...
Review LEGO The Hobbit (PlayStation 4)
There and brick again
Veteran developer Traveller’s Tales has been making LEGO games for nearly a decade, giving the brick treatment to a wide variety of movie and comic book brands, including Lord of the Rings. Therefore, it’s not a huge surprise to see the studio tackle The Hobbit. The big question, though, is whether this latest addition to...
Review Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate - Deluxe Edition (PlayStation 3)
Wayne too far
You may remember the side-scrolling Arkham spin-off that graced your PlayStation Vita last year. Well, as with so many other franchises before it, the Dark Knight has been transported from the handheld to your living room in Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate – Deluxe Edition. While the portable version was widely criticised for...
Review Octodad: Dadliest Catch (PlayStation 4)
Nobody suspects a thing
Loving father. Caring husband. Secret octopus. That’s the tagline to Octodad: Dadliest Catch, the sequel to Young Horses’ surprise 2010 splash hit Octodad. And it sums up the game quite succinctly. You take control of an undercover cephalopod living in the human world. You have to make sure that your family and those...
Review Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day (PlayStation 3)
We'd prefer a 'Slightly Longer Peace' next time
What do a polar bear, a Japanese firefighter, a karaoke booth, and a dancing frog made of umbrellas have in common? They all take centre stage in Bandai Namco's latest Eastern offering, Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day. Rather than one specific game, this is a compilation of four excellent...
Review Stealth Inc: A Clone in the Dark - Ultimate Edition (PlayStation 4)
Sly trooper
In the PlayStation 4 version of Stealth Inc: A Clone in the Dark - Ultimate Edition, over 100 levels await, designed to punish bad decisions with deadly consequences. Fortunately, you have an infinite number of twins with which to throw at the obstacles ahead of you, allowing you to learn from mistakes in order to conquer the title’s...
A neighbour's nightmare
If there’s one problem with Rock Band, it’s that most of its content is DLC. Sure, it’s great to be able to pick and choose what you want to play, but purchasing individually means that you’re unlikely to try new things. SingOn tries to solve this problem by going with a subscription model, allowing instant anytime...
Review MLB 14 The Show (PlayStation 3)
Pinch-hit home run
MLB 14 The Show is this year’s entry in the long running and highly respected baseball series from Sony’s own San Diego studio. Being a sports game, it’s to be expected that it ends up feeling a little like an iterative experience as opposed to an innovative one – but that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing good going...
Review The Sly Collection (PlayStation Vita)
Anthropomorphic excellence
While the Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank trilogies are widely regarded as the pinnacle of the PlayStation 2’s platforming fare, it’s Sucker Punch’s criminally underrated Sly Cooper series that stole this humble editor’s heart during the early-to-mid 2000s. Depicting the globetrotting antics of a light...
Review Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars (PlayStation Vita)
Born to try
Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars is one of the strangest games that you’ll ever play. Its premise – which, in essence, revolves around mating – provides an odd starting point, but get past this and you’ll find a surprisingly enjoyable excursion that’s only really let down by repetition and some unnecessarily sexual...
Review Dead Nation (PlayStation Vita)
The portable dead
Dead Nation was announced for the PlayStation Vita at E3 last year, and then was promptly forgotten about. A port for the PlayStation 4 came and went, offering the ultimate version of the zombie-filled twin stick shooter for fans who wanted better graphics and all of the DLC. Finally, almost as an afterthought, Housemarque’s...
Review The Wolf Among Us: Episode 3 - A Crooked Mile (PlayStation 3)
Howl at the moon
It may have only been a couple of months, but the wait for Episode 3 in Telltale Games’ fairytale detective-‘em-up The Wolf Among Us has been agonising. The mind boggles at how the award winning studio even manages to juggle development of its various leviathan franchises at the same time, let alone make them impossible to put...
Review Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn (PlayStation 4)
A realm revitalised
When it comes to Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn, improvement has been pivotal ever since its initial release way back in 2010. Due to a poor fan response, Square Enix decided to recruit Naoki Yoshida into the director’s role in a last ditch attempt to salvage the game, but rather than issue a series of patches and...
Review Invizimals: The Lost Kingdom (PlayStation 3)
Finders weepers
Once upon a time, titles like Invizimals: The Lost Kingdom were ten a penny. The movie tie-in boom ensured that supermarket shelves were crammed with action platforms, each bearing colourful characters on the cover and containing gameplay more average than the mathematical mean. Gradually, consumers started to realise that these...
Review Invizimals: The Alliance (PlayStation Vita)
Invizimal touch
Invizimals: The Alliance is the latest entry in the augmented reality game series from Spanish developer Novarama. Having made a name for itself on the PlayStation Portable, it’s apt that this new instalment’s made the jump onto the newest Sony handheld, giving kids of all ages the chance to hunt down more of those troublesome...
Review Football Manager Classic 2014 (PlayStation Vita)
Mid-league manager
That there is a Silver Trophy in Football Manager Classic 2014 that rewards you for participating in 30 consecutive seasons – or a couple of hundred hours of play – will be no surprise to fans of the franchise, many of which will have been glued to their computers for the past decade or so. This is a series that’s universe...
Review Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut (PlayStation 4)
Spacing out
Something of a specialised genre, space combat games haven't had an impact on home consoles for years now. We suppose that there's not a lot you can do within the traditional confines of these titles, but Born Ready's Strike Suit Zero attempts to put its own spin on the formula by letting you pilot a transforming spacecraft. One minute...
Review Mercenary Kings (PlayStation 4)
You've been Tango'd
Tribute Games’ old school sidescroller Mercenary Kings is something of a Kickstarter success story, having reached Steam and the PlayStation 4 courtesy of a crowdfunding drive a couple of years ago. Produced by a chunk of the team behind the brilliant Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, this next-gen escapade maintains the same...
Review King Oddball (PlayStation 4)
The tongue and the restless
To say that the videogame market is saturated with physics-based puzzlers would be akin to saying that the Call of Duty series has only been mildly successful. In other words, it would be a vast and gaping understatement. To this end, indie effort King Oddball attempts to set itself apart from the competition by indulging...
Review Skullgirls Encore (PlayStation 3)
Back for more
When Reverge Labs’ Skullgirls launched in April 2012, it was received very well. What’s incredible, however, is that it’s managed to maintain that level of popularity in the months since, with crowdfunding keeping the release alive once its ties with publisher Konami were cut. During all of the real-life drama – and name...
Review Destiny of Spirits (PlayStation Vita)
God complex
The free-to-play sector is packed to the brim with straightforward match three puzzle titles, but Sony’s first foray into the microtransaction laden market is anything but accessible. While popular products such as Candy Crush Saga and Temple Run 2 rely on easy to communicate gameplay systems, it’ll take you at least a couple of...
