Latest Reviews
Mini Review The Medium (PS5) - One of the Best Horror Experiences on PS5
Anything but medium
With all the rumours about Bloober Team potentially working on a new Silent Hill game, it's easy to forget why the team rose to fame in the first place. Its most recent project, The Medium, has finally made the jump to the PS5 and it could very well be the best psychological horror experience on the console. The story follows...
The rainbow blur
After a string of poorly received entries, SEGA's mascot was in a bad spot back in 2010. However, the Wii-exclusive Sonic Colors was something of a reset for the franchise, cutting out most of the nonsense and presenting itself as a more straightforward action platformer. It remains one of the more favourably received games in the...
Review Hitman 2 (PS4) - More Darkly Amusing Murder
Hit me baby one more time
Republished on Wednesday 1st September 2021: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of September's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. Poor Sierra Knox. She lived her life as a successful racing car driver, and along with her father was a powerful figure within...
Review Predator: Hunting Grounds (PS4) - Multiplayer Experiment Falls Wildly Short
Time to bleed
Republished on Wednesday 1st September 2021: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of September's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. Predator: Hunting Grounds is the first major multiplayer-only video game Sony has published since MAG on PlayStation 3. And while Friday t
Mini Review Overcooked: All You Can Eat - Remastered Culinary Co-Op Is Still a Tasty Treat
Fill your plates
Republished on Wednesday 1st September 2021: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of September's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. Overcooked: All You Can Eat is like enjoying your favourite meal while wearing newly prescribed glasses. Sure, you've had this plenty of times...
Review Psychonauts 2 (PS4) - A Brain-Bogglingly Good Return to Tim Schafer's Mindful (Grey) Matters
You were always on my mind
You'd be forgiven for thinking it was a fool's errand to follow up a game as widely acclaimed as the original Psychonauts. The odds were stacked against it: Psychonauts is a cult hit through and through and essentially the opposite of the kind of game that's most likely to get made these days. Yes, it sold close to two...
Mini Review Quake (PS4) - New Coat of Paint for Legendary FPS
You got the nails
Quake is one of the shooters. Part of id’s holy trinity alongside Wolfenstein and DOOM, Quake is the newest of the bunch and, depending on who you ask, the best. This newest delivers the experience you remember, with a whole lot of added value. This is quite the bundle, packing in five campaigns – including both Machine...
Mini Review Rustler (PS5) - Silly Medieval Sandbox Houses Enjoyable Old-School GTA Clone
Tis but a scratch
For as iconic as Grand Theft Auto unquestionably is, it often feels like its PS1 origins have been resigned to the past. Titles like Shakedown Hawaii have attempted to recapture Rockstar’s early isometric days, but since the developer’s very own GTA: Chinatown Wars, there’s been a real dearth of top-down open worlds. Rustler...
Review Aliens: Fireteam Elite (PS5) - Competent Co-Op That Entertains But Is At Odds with Itself
Prep for dust off, we need immediate evac
To say that video game adaptations of the Alien franchise are hit and miss is a bit of an understatement. On the one hand, we have genre-defining classics like Alien vs Predator (1999) and Alien: Isolation. Then there's Aliens: Colonial Marines, a release besmirched by industry lies. Isolation succeeded by...
Mini Review Hoa (PS5) - Good Vibes Only for Pretty Platformer
Ghibli? I don't know her
Hoa feels like one of those games designed purely to put a smile on your face. From Skrollcat Studio, it's a vibrant and colourful 2D platformer that revels in its simplicity. There's nothing challenging about it, nothing that will put your brain to the test. The game is designed as something you can put your feet up for and...
Mini Review I Expect You to Die 2: The Spy and the Liar (PSVR) - Escape Room Is a Corker
You only die twice
The first I Expect You to Die was a pretty great escape room/spy mashup, so it’s really great to see Schell Games return to the well and provide another opportunity to save the world from impending doom. Despite being locked down in one position, the game does an incredible job of making a lot from a little, with brilliantly...
Mini Review Islanders: Console Edition (PS4) - Simple Builder Is Brilliantly Effective
Island paradise
What a lovely little game Islanders: Console Edition is. It's the kind of game that you can boot up for five minutes of fun, or you can spend hours zoning out with. The goal is to populate procedurally generated islands with homes and facilities, creating miniature pockets of civilisation. In High Score mode, everything that you...
Mini Review King's Bounty II (PS4) - Turn-Based Battler Not Fit for a King
Not so bountiful
King’s Bounty II from 1C Entertainment is the long-awaited sequel to 2008’s fantasy roleplaying game King’s Bounty The Legend. You take control of one of three characters each destined to be the hero of the realm of Nostria. Warrior Aivar, descendant of a noble family and knight of the king’s guard, Mage Katherine, Countess...
Mini Review RiMS Racing (PS5) - Attempt for a More Realistic Motorcycle Sim Falls Flat
This bike needed more time in the pit stop
As the racing genre strives towards being as immersive as possible, the added realism can sometimes come at the cost of being enjoyable. RiMS Racing is the perfect example of this, as to simulate what it is like to be a motorcycle racer, the game adds tedious elements of motorcycle maintenance that ruin an...
Review Madden NFL 22 (PS5) - Franchise Finally Gets Some TLC in Improved American Football Sim
Throw it in rotation
Prior to the release of the disappointing Madden NFL 21, publisher EA Sports made a promise to series stalwarts that it would improve Franchise in future entries. The lack of improvements to the popular campaign mode in last year’s entry was the straw that broke the camel’s back for many fans, and it triggered a series of...
Mini Review Recompile (PS5) - Digital Metroidvania Has Style But Little Substance
Hacked
Recompile is one of those games that shows extremely well, but the reality is an experience that doesn't quite stick the landing. Playing as a virus with the intent of infiltrating and fixing The Mainframe, a computer system that's gone awry, this is a 3D action game that looks great, but doesn't quite have enough to back it up. The...
Sharpened steel
Before we begin: If you're looking for an overview of the base game, check out our in-depth Ghost of Tsushima PS4 review. All of the points that we made in that review also apply to Ghost of Tsuhima: Director's Cut. In this review, we're concentrating on what's new. Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut revitalises Sucker Punch's open...
Mini Review I Am Dead (PS5) - Posthumous Puzzler Is a Bittersweet Treat
Dead and loving it
I Am Dead is a quirky puzzle adventure game in which you play as Morris Lupton, the deceased curator of a museum in the island town of Shelmerston. It's an unusual premise, but it's one that developer Hollow Ponds pulls off with style and care. A game about tracking down ghosts and learning about inhabitants of the island could've...
Mini Review Fracked (PSVR) - A Fun VR Shooter with Oh-So Much Style
Frack and roll all nite
What is the appropriate venue to discuss the morally questionable practice of fracking? Well, with an irreverent shooter about eco-terrorism, of course. While Fracked may side-step saying anything meaningful about fracking, it does not sidestep crafting a fun PSVR experience. Touting a movement system hand-crafted to work...
Mini Review Foreclosed (PS5) - Cool Comicbook Framing Can't Mask Careless Gameplay
Shut it down
Foreclosed is a story-driven, third-person shooter set in a cyberpunk world where people are augmented with implants at birth. As a result, inhabitants are essentially corporation property as soon as they leave the womb, and this unsettling thought is at the heart of the game's narrative. You play as Evan Kapnos, a rather generic...
Out of the black box
Assassin's Creed Valhalla's second expansion, The Siege of Paris, sees Eivor travel across the channel to Francia. As per usual, our intrepid Norse hero is eager to establish some new alliances — with both Viking raiders and King Charles the Fat on Eivor's list of potential allies. What follows is a much more gritty and...
Review Hades (PS5) - Who Knew Escaping Hell Would Be So Heavenly?
Say amen, there he goes again
Reviewing Hades in 2021 almost feels redundant. The game's been available on other platforms since September of last year, and has garnered heaps of praise and awards in the months it's taken to appear on Sony's systems. You probably already know what we're going to say about Supergiant's rogue-lite action game, because...
Mini Review Synth Riders (PSVR) – A VR Rhythm Game with a Different Sound
Ride the rails
We have espoused the virtues of VR rhythm games before, and now we have a new title to add to the mix: Synth Riders. While mechanically similar to Beat Saber on the surface, Synth Riders has some notable exceptions that allow it to stand out. Our favorite of these features are “rails”, in which you keep your hand balanced on a...
Mini Review Button City (PS5) - A Cute Adventure, But That's About It
Animal arcade
Button City is an adorable little game about a cast of cutesy animal buddies and their arcade-going adventures. Playing as Fennel the fox, you're new to town and wind up friends with a trio of regulars at the titular arcade. It's all extremely sweet, with a simple but heart-warming story keeping things moving along. The trouble is,...
Review Dodgeball Academia (PS4) - Punchy Sports RPG Is Top Class
Dodge this
There's so much to like about the cheerful, colourful RPG that is Dodgeball Academia. You play as Otto, a determined young man who enrols in a prestigious dodgeball institution, with ambitions of becoming the best of the best. Everything at the academy revolves around the cartoonishly violent sport, and over the course of the game, you'll...
Review The Forgotten City (PS5) - Skyrim Mod Turned Full Game Tells a Good Story
I used to be a time traveller like you
Turning a Skyrim mod into a full game is an impressive feat on its own, but to then make it something worth playing is a whole different ball game. The Forgotten City, from developer Modern Storyteller, feels a lot like The Elder Scrolls titles of years past. However, contrasting the main quest of Tamriel's...
Mini Review Omno (PS4) - A Lovingly Crafted Adventure That Journey Fans Won't Want to Miss
Omyes
Omno is an enchanting little game where you traverse a series of reasonably large environments, solving enjoyable puzzles along the way. You play as a kind of pilgrim — a staff-bearing being who is tasked with following the light. The light, in this case, is an energy source of sorts, scattered across the aforementioned environments...
Mini Review The Falconeer: Warrior Edition (PS5) - Bird Is the Word in Fun Flight Sim
Beware, sky hunter, beware
We’ve always wanted to ride a bird. No, not like that. Grow up. We meant, quite literally, ride on the back of a large avian like something out of The Rescuers Down Under. The Falconeer — making its PlayStation 5 debut after an acclaimed run on Xbox systems — attempts to allow us to live out this bizarre dream with...
Mini Review Cotton Reboot! (PS4) - Spooky Cute-'Em-Up's an Elaborate and Accessible 2D Shooter
Bless your Cotton shmups
Even if you're in the middle of a scorching summer, there are games that remind you of other seasons, and with a story that follows Cotton as a broomstick riding witch, PS4 Cotton Reboot! conjures up images of moonlit autumn nights. It's Cotton's sweet tooth, and love of candy wrapped WILLOW, which persuades her over seven...
Mini Review Winds & Leaves (PSVR) – A Silviculturists Dream in Virtual Reality
Planting the seed
Post-apocalyptic games are dime a dozen, but you’ve never played one like this. In Winds & Leaves, rather than punch or shoot your way to safety, you are tasked with re-planting the once vibrant forests of a distant land. You accomplish this by picking fruit from freshly grown trees and then placing them right back into the...
