Latest Reviews
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...
Avast, landlubbers
A long ocean voyage to a distant snowy land gets off to a disastrous beginning when a storm scuppers your plans and leaves you washed up on a tropical island. You’ll need to find your crew, build a little base camp, explore, and try to find a way to escape. One of the first things you’ll notice in Stranded Sails: Explorers of...
Review Lonely Mountains: Downhill - A Great Take on Trials with an Eerie Atmosphere
Bike curious
You’ll probably remember the first time you played Trials HD – brilliant, wasn’t it? As time has gone by, though, the bike balancing formula has lost a little of its lustre. Lonely Mountains: Downhill recaptures some of the aforementioned series' early magic with a moreish outdoorsy outing that will have you both punching the air...
Review Megaquarium - Nothing Fishy About This Brilliant Maritime Attraction Builder
Swimming in cash
Did you know that there was a PSone sequel to Theme Park and Theme Hospital named Theme Aquarium which only released in Japan? The maritime attraction simulator is a bit of an underground gem, and it’s bemusing to think that the idea has barely been explored since. Megaquarium, fortunately, brings the fun of making your very own...
Assassins bleed
Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes is the kind of the game that revels in poking fun at its contemporaries – and yet somehow finds itself part of the punchline. This irreverent slice of post-modern punk has all of the verve of its Nintendo Wii predecessors, but it’s padded by stale gameplay segments which threaten to undo all...
Review Monkey King: Hero Is Back - Simplistic Brawling Fun That's a Bit Too Short
Planet of the apes
Monkey King: Hero Is Back is a love letter to simpler times. Mechanically, it wouldn’t feel out of place on the PlayStation 2, and graphically, it’s barely just a generation ahead of that. This is a simple experience at heart, but it’s one you’re bound to find some enjoyment in should you take to its rather repetitive...
Review Children of Morta - Family Matters in This Refreshing Rogue-Lite Adventure
Talkin 'bout my random generation
How do you make your pixelated rogue-lite game stand out? Children of Morta has an interesting answer. While you're cleaving your way through hundreds of corrupted baddies in the title's randomly generated dungeons, it frequently hits you with moments of story. The combination of random levels with a set narrative...
Review Baldurs Gate: Enhanced Edition Pack - Old School RPGs Have Still Got It
Baldur's Great
After being stranded on PC along with Minesweeper and PowerPoint for the best part of two decades, classic role-playing game Baldur's Gate is finally heading to PlayStation so it can be played while you're sat on your couch in your pyjamas, controller in hand, just like God intended. A young orphan who witnesses the death of their...
Review Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince - Gorgeous Puzzle Platformer Is a Return to Form
Saving the kingdom, one floating box at a time
The first two games in Frozenbyte’s Trine series were whimsical 2D puzzle platformers. A third title, Artifacts of Power, switched to 3D and offered a shorter adventure that left some fans cold. Trine 4 throws away that extra dimension, and feels much more like the series at its best. Returning...
Review Habroxia - A No-Frills Arcade Shmup on PS4
Don’t forget your quarters
The arcade style shmup’s been around for a long time now. Space Invaders is nearly 50 years old, and Galaga isn’t far behind. To say that the gameplay ideas for the genre have been perfected at this point would be an understatement. How do you add something new to that? Enter Habroxia, which plays more or less like...
Review Indivisible - Gorgeous 2D Platforming and Battling Let Down by Difficulty Spikes
Indie visuals
Four years on from its successful Kickstarter campaign, Lab Zero Games’ Indivisible comes to PlayStation 4 with a decent degree of anticipation. Described as an experience that combines a number of different genres into one cohesive undertaking, the final product comes together much better than you might think. Indivisible is sure to...
Review Frostpunk - Alternate History City Builder Survives Against The Odds
Colder than the other side of the pillow
Here's a little bit of history for you: back in the year 1883 the volcano Krakatoa erupted, and spewed millions of tonnes of ash and molten rock into the atmosphere. There was so much of the stuff up there that sunlight actually struggled to reach the planet's surface and global temperatures cooled...
Review The Bradwell Conspiracy - Jonathan Ross Can't Save This Technically Inept Title
Go home
The Bradwell Conspiracy wants to reach the same heights as Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch, but thanks to woeful performance on PlayStation 4 and clunky, unreliable mechanics, it goes in the opposite direction. After an explosion at the Bradwell Stonehenge Museum starts to topple the building over, it’s yours and a companion’s...
Review GRID - Codemasters Is Driving Safe with a Solid PS4 Reboot
It's not quite a Jaguar
The GRID series has an interesting history. The inaugural title, Race Driver: GRID, was a cracking debut that served as a sort of successor to the TOCA franchise. It laid down some incredibly solid groundwork that sequels didn't quite build upon properly. Codemasters has seen fit to revisit the series with the appropriately...
Bustin' makes me feel... Okay
By now we all know what horrors lurk in the game-to-movie adaptation genre - it's an stained black spot on our beloved medium’s history. Movie-to-game adaptations, however, aren't quite as consistently terrible - some are quite the opposite. For every instance of shovelware licensing (hello, Spider-Man 3), there are...
Review Destiny 2: Shadowkeep - Looter Shooter Comfort Food and Not a Whole Lot More
Moon's haunted
Ever since splitting from Activision, Bungie has been talking a big game. The launch of Destiny 2: Shadowkeep represents the moment where the developer fully embraces the MMO concept, clearly defines its core pillars, and lays the groundwork for a better looter shooter experience. It’s a series of promises that transforms the base...
Review NHL 20 - A Slightly Improved Version of the Same Game
Video game misconduct
Sports games have a tendency to change incrementally year-to-year. This applies to the bigger sports franchises, let alone the smaller ones, which is what NHL 20 falls under. NHL 19 was an absolute disaster of a product, underwhelming in almost every way possible, so it's with optimism that we say this is a step forward, though...
All-in-one
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is a difficult game to review. Sometimes it's great fun, sometimes it's an incredibly banal but weirdly addictive grind. Other times it's a buggy mess. Our enjoyment of Breakpoint has fluctuated so much over the review period that we had to sit down and carefully consider whether we actually think it's worth...
Review Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair - A Great Example of Less Is More
Going batty
Yooka-Laylee was born out of a desire to return to the 3D mascot platformers of the mid-nineties. The initial game by Playtonic, a studio that has several ex-Rare staffers in its ranks, found a degree of success in this mission statement, but it didn't quite measure up to expectations. It's a cutesy, colourful collect-a-thon with nice...
Review Castle Crashers Remastered - This Zany Brawler Is Chaotic, Ridiculous Fun on PS4
Cartoon violence
Castle Crashers Remastered is a pretty straightforward update to the cult hit beat 'em up, but that doesn't mean it's any less fun. The PlayStation 4 re-release has been refreshed with higher resolution visuals and a rock solid, 60 frames per second performance, but it's otherwise the same cartoonish brawler you know and love, warts...
Review Tropico 6 - Dictator Simulator Brings The Goods
It's-a me, Tropico
Tropico 6 is a political strategy game that puts you in control of a tropical island nation, and asks you to maintain power by any and all means necessary. Assassinations, bribes, rigged elections - it's pretty much a Kim Jong-il simulator, only with an irritating-at-first-but-you'll-be-humming-it-later mambo soundtrack. Perhaps...
Review FIFA 20 - Seriously Shoddy Career Mode Almost Results in an Own Goal
Wide of the post
FIFA 20 has three core modes of play: Ultimate Team, Career Mode, and the all-new Volta. However, only one of these modes stands strong as a rock solid time sink -- care to guess which one? If you said anything but Ultimate Team, then you haven't been paying attention. Once again, EA Sports bolsters the mode that makes FIFA one of...
Review Sayonara Wild Hearts - An Emotional Journey Inside a Neon-Filled Music Video
Sayonara bye bye
If you’ve ever been watching a music video, and thought “wow, listening to this is cool, but I wish I could play it,” look no further. A literal emotional journey that takes you through the highs and lows of falling in and out of love, Sayonara Wild Hearts is a vibrant and creative rhythm game. Using tarot cards as a framework...
Review Contra: Rogue Corps - Bargain Bin Isometric Shooter That's Easy to Forget
Corps, blimey
Contra – or the infinitely more extravagant Probotector, as it was originally known in some European territories – is a revered name in video game fame; Contra: Rogue Corps, the franchise’s first non-pachislot outing in almost a decade, does not live up to the property’s illustrious legacy. This artistically inconsistent...
Review MLB The Show 19 - Sony's Flagship Sports Series Keeps Getting Better
The Bryce is right
Republished on Tuesday 24th September 2019: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of October's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. With no competition and an unexciting elevator pitch [Poor pun intended – Ed], we were ready to pinch hit on MLB The Show 19 until next...
Review The Last of Us Remastered - Naughty Dog's Masterpiece Is Even Better on PS4
About a girl
Republished on Tuesday 24th September 2019: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of October's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. Success comes with scepticism. From the second that first-party outfit Naughty Dog’s survival horror experiment The Last of Us was compared...
Review The Surge 2 - Great Combat, Genius Ideas, and One Too Many Issues
Walls of Jericho
Developer Deck 13 is so, so close to putting out a good video game. After failing to capitalize on the clear potential of The Surge, the studio is back with a sequel that is bigger and better in almost every way, but it continues to slightly miss the mark in one too many key areas. The Surge 2 will satisfy those looking for their...
Review Mutazione - A Human Story Told by a Cast of Mutants
Dramatic reading
"Mutant soap opera" is an odd phrase to describe an adventure game, but it does a good job of summing up Mutazione. You play as a young girl named Kai who travels to the titular island to help her grandfather, who has fallen gravely ill. However, once you arrive in the sleepy setting, it's not long before you're introduced to each...
Review Utawarerumono: Zan - A Hack and Slash Retelling That Feels a Little Flat
Fan service
It's not often that we see games get remade in an entirely different genre, but that's essentially what Utawarerumono: Zan is. The Utawarerumono (you better believe we have that name copied and ready to paste) series typically focuses on strategic, turn based and grid based combat, but with Zan, Utawarerumono steps into unfamiliar action...
Review The Sojourn - This First Person Puzzler Is No Walk in the Park
Taking a scroll
The Sojourn seems to have emerged from nowhere, but it's a pleasant surprise. It's a tranquil first person puzzle game that appears to be inspired by The Witness, with a similar art style and attitude to its storytelling. In practice, this puzzler has more in common with Portal; both are about reaching the end goal by cleverly...
