Tag: Mini Reviews - Page 5
Mini Review Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun (PS5) - Rock Solid Shooter Gets Bogged Down in Design
Heretical thoughts
The resurgence of old school shooters has given us some corkers in recent times, including the fantastic Prodeus. But to stand out in this new era of DOOM-esque blast-'em-ups, you need a hook — and Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun certainly has that, thanks to its unmistakable Warhammer 40k aesthetic. You play as a big and bulky space...
Mini Review Glitch Busters: Stuck on You (PS4) - Co-Op Platforming Shooter Doesn't Stack Up
Stuck on the environment
Glitch Busters: Stuck on You is a one to four player, cooperative, platforming shoot-'em-up from developer Toylogic. In a far-flung future, you play as four AI Tubers that can only be described as emoji-faced Smarties with magnets for legs. They're on a mission to cleanse Interland of Badface's bugs and glitches, with the...
Review Bus Simulator 21: Next Stop (PS5) - Bright and Breezy Sim Is Better Than Ever
Stop it
Bus Simulator 21: Next Stop is not the refined PS5 showcase you’re going to show to all your friends. Despite benefitting from a couple years of extra iteration, this expanded new-gen port is still scrappy, with buggy AI behaviour and an underlying sense that the game code is almost falling apart behind-the-scenes. That said, few series...
Not quite haute cuisine
Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook is a turn-based, strategy RPG roguelike that sees a group of adventurers in the wrong place at the wrong time, stuck in an increasingly difficult dungeon while on the brink of starvation. Picking your primary character, you’re instantly thrown into a whole host of customisation...
Mini Review Tin Hearts (PS5) - Charming Lemmings Inspired Adventure Has Moving Storytelling
Quick march
Tin Hearts is a Lemmings-style game from Guildford based developer Rogue Sun. You play from the first-person perspective of a spectral being, exploring and experiencing Albert J Butterworth’s family life memories as you lead wind-up toy soldiers around his workshop, getting them from point A to point B by possessing various objects...
Mini Review Walkabout Mini Golf (PSVR2) - Teerrific, Whole-in-One Experience Fore the Players
May the course be with you
Walkabout Mini Golf is a mini golf virtual reality game from the developer Mighty Coconut. You’ll be teeing off solo or with up to seven other players online across a wide range of different locales. From a good old-fashioned turf course to wading through the dark depths of the ocean floor, golfing has never been more...
Mini Review Zool Redimensioned (PS4) - Blast from the Past Packs Neat Modern Features
Return of the ninja
Gremlin Interactive has a storied history, dating back to the early days of console gaming. Developing titles for Commodore 64, marshalling the Premiere Manager series through several generations, and later heading to PlayStation (anybody remember cult isometric shooter Loaded and its sequel?) — it's safe to say it has a varied...
Mini Review Another Fisherman's Tale (PSVR2) - A Charming VR Sequel to a Charming VR Game
A whale of a tale
The first Fisherman’s Tale was a clever puzzler that made use of a recursive lighthouse as the crux of its problem solving. Now, in the sequel, you assume the role of the titular fisherman’s daughter. You have a cluttered basement loaded with some elaborate dioramas. It turns out that when you were a kid, your Dad would use...
Mini Review Garden Simulator (PS5) - Grow Your Troubles Away
The grass is greener
Garden Simulator does what it says on the tin. Fed up with the rat race, and with a very pointed reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, the main character has had to work from home for the last few months and is struggling with worsening mental health. They move to their family’s old homestead to revive it and improve their own...
Mini Review Revita (PS5) - The Ultimate Roguelite Experience
It’s high time you clocked in
Revita is a 2D platforming roguelite twin-stick shooter from small indie developer BenStar. You play as a young blue-haired child, who awakens on the metro with no recollection of who they are. When leaving the train, you are faced with a long journey of self-discovery as you ascend an ominous clocktower in search of...
Mini Review Minecraft Legends (PS5) - Streamlined Strategy for the Young at Heart
The Piglins are revolting
Minecraft Legends brings a fairly unique mix of action and strategy to Mojang's famous cubed universe, in which you must defend the Overworld from a ravaging horde of interdimensional Piglin invaders. It's quite fun in short bursts, too, but simplicity and repetition quickly set in, meaning those looking for an engaging...
Mini Review TramSim: Console Edition (PS5) - Make Your Own Fun in a Visually Splendid Virtual Vienna
Super tram
While we would have preferred the sights and sounds from Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach through to Bispham, we suppose Vienna’s iconic tram line comes a close second. TramSim: Console Edition is a scrappy locomotive title looking to expand on the success of Train Sim World 3, and while it lacks the TLC of Dovetail’s flagship simulation,...
Mini Review Afterlife VR (PSVR2) - A No-Frills Horror Experience
This is your life
While Afterlife VR is a barebones experience not really doing anything new, there’s a certain charm to it that caught us by surprise. You play as Adam Bernhard, a police officer who arrives at Black Rose Mental Hospital in hopes of locating your missing sister. However, something is clearly amiss as you navigate the facility...
Mini Review Nuclear Blaze (PS4) - Short and Basic Pixel Platformer
Fire Starter
Nuclear Blaze is a firefighting, 2D pixel platformer from Sebastien Benard, lead developer and game designer for Dead Cells. As a firefighter, you are tasked with extinguishing an out-of-control forest inferno, but while doing so you stumble upon a mysterious military facility and head inside to uncover the source of the ferocious...
Mini Review Stray Blade (PS5) - Solid Entry Level Souls-Like Adventure
No Amygdala here
Stray Blade is a Souls-like, RPG title from indie developer Point Blank Games. You play as Farron West, a self-proclaimed adventurer, who meets an untimely demise when stumbling across The Lost Valley of Acrea. You awaken to find yourself bound to Acrea by a crystal that has been pushed into your chest by Boji, a magical talking...
Mini Review Afterimage (PS5) - Gorgeous Metroidvania Doesn't Break the Mould
In good company
Afterimage is a beautiful hand-drawn Metroidvania-style game with satisfying melee combat and a gratifying array of options with which to overcome its many tough boss encounters. Fans of Hollow Knight and Blasphemous will likely find much to love here as it has in common a similarly excellent visual aesthetic, tense platforming...
Mini Review Strayed Lights (PS5) - Defence Is the Best Medicine in This Mysterious Adventure
Artful dodger
Demonstrating a striking visual style from the outset, Strayed Lights is an indie fantasy that opens with an abstract sensory assault. A newborn spark (a fitting first protagonist for dev studio Embers) staggers out of a cave into a vast, alien landscape. Quickly evolving into adult form and battling a shadowy version of itself, it...
Fight for your right
The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story is the next building block in Riot Forge's ever-expanding League of Legends universe. It's a top-down, story-driven action RPG that tells the tale of Sylas, a magic-sensitive revolutionary who seeks vengeance on the titular Mageseekers after years of being kept in chains. Keen to...
Mini Review Final Fantasy V Pixel Remaster (PS4) - Oft Forgotten RPG Deserves Another Chance
V has come to
Final Fantasy V is probably the most overlooked instalment in the mainline series. It didn't come West until years after its original release, and by the time that it finally got a PlayStation port, it had been left in the dust by its genre-defining successors. What's more, V never really received the retroactive attention that was...
Mini Review Teslagrad 2 (PS5) - Puzzle Platformer Focused on Tremendous Traversal
A shocking shadow drop
Teslagrad 2 is a sequel to the well-received PS4 title, Teslagrad, developed by Rain Games. It is a three to five hour Metroidvania-style 2D puzzle platformer in which you play as a young girl, Lumina. While out training to become a teslamancer, she crashes her airship in Wyrmheim, stranding her in this treacherously foreign...
Mini Review Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster (PS4) - The Gripping RPG That Rocked Square's Series
Go ahead and jump
Final Fantasy IV is the game that put Square's series on a new path, one that prioritised dramatic, character-driven stories — something that would define the franchise going forward. It tells the twisting tale of Cecil, a skilled knight who starts to question his country's militaristic ambitions. Even 32 years after its initial...
Mini Review Final Fantasy II Pixel Remaster (PS4) - The Best Version of a Flawed Final Fantasy
The Empire strikes back
Final Fantasy II has long been considered one of the weaker mainline entries in Square Enix's series. While it did attempt to push the property forward in terms of storytelling, its intriguing but deeply flawed levelling system has left many a player unimpressed over the years. In Final Fantasy II, you play as a group of...
Mini Review Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster (PS4) - Series Originator Is Still Hard to Fault
It wasn't final after all
Ah, the game where it all began. The original Final Fantasy is an incredibly basic (and relatively short) RPG by today's standards, but there's still an inherent charm to its no-nonsense adventuring. It's light versus dark, good versus evil, four heroes standing against the end of the world — and that's just about all...
Mini Review Atari Mania (PS5) - WarioWare Inspired Microgame Compilation Isn't Quite Tight Enough
18-Volt would like it
After decades of mismanagement, Atari finally seems to get it. The company is greenlighting a lot of cool retro-themed projects lately, and microgame compilation Atari Mania is the latest in a growing line of great ideas. Inspired enormously by the likes of WarioWare and NES Remix, this minigame mash-up sees you overcoming...
Mini Review Creed Rise to Glory: Championship Edition (PSVR2) - Boxing Upgrade Bests Predecessor
It's still a little Rocky, though
Creed Rise to Glory is a boxing movie tie-in title that originally launched back on PSVR in September 2018, and you can check out our original review through here. Now with the release of a new movie, Creed III, Rise to Glory has been upgraded to the Championship Edition which comes with a whole bunch of bells and...
Mini Review Across the Valley (PSVR2) - Repetitive Farming Simulator Crawling with Bugs
Diddly squat to do
Across the Valley is a hand-drawn style, farming simulator from the small indie developer, FusionPlay. Each in-game day lasts 15 minutes and as your role of farmhand you’ll have to fit in as many missions from the task board as possible before dark. The daily tasks around the farm include planting, watering, weeding, and...
Mini Review Road 96: Mile 0 (PS5) - A Tonal Nightmare with Some Interesting Moments
Talk about whiplash
Road 96, the procedural hitchhiking game, was a title with an interesting presentation and a slew of good ideas. Developer DigixArt took that great foundation and spun things off into Road 96: Mile 0, a narrative-focused prequel that strips away the procedural elements, replacing them with rhythm gameplay. The world presented in...
Mini Review The Last Worker (PSVR2) - VR Doesn't Save the First-Person Order Picker
Welcome to the Jüngle
Games exploring the contemporary world of online order fulfilment work were inevitable, but we pictured they’d hit harder and have more to say than The Last Worker does. Playing as the last human employee picking packages to be delivered for a retail monopoly named Jüngle, the real-world parallels are obvious and the setup...
Mini Review Last Labyrinth (PSVR2) - Tediously Torturous Escape Room Experience
Sadistic
Last Labyrinth is a unique escape room experience, and not in a good way. You're strapped into a wheelchair with very limited manoeuvrability. With only head movements available to you and a laser pointer attached to the middle of your forehead, you must guide a young girl through a labyrinth of puzzles and ultimately escape this torturous...
Mini Review Citizen Sleeper (PS5) - Solemn Yet Satisfying Sci-Fi Storytelling
Don't sleep on it
Citizen Sleeper merges the RPG with the visual novel, wrapping it up in a brooding sci-fi blanket. Playing as the titular Sleeper — an android with the emulated mind of a human being — you explore Erlin's Eye, a vast space station run by corrupt corporations and inhabited by people making the best of it. As you progress, you'll...
Mini Review The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - Tourist Edition (PSVR2) Must-Buy VR Survival
Saintly survival
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners - Tourist Edition is a 15-to-20-hour post-apocalyptic survival experience developed by Skydance Interactive. Playing as The Tourist, you find yourselves in a flooded New Orleans, among several conflicting factions all fighting over access to The Reserve, a haven full resources for surviving an...
Mini Review Deceive Inc (PS5) - Multiplayer Stealth Is Mission Mostly Accomplished
Tactical espionage action
Deceive Inc. is an online multiplayer game that puts the emphasis on staying incognito while you work towards your objective. It combines hero shooter-style characters with the stealth and deduction of Among Us, or even the multiplayer of Assassin's Creed, and presents it in a cartoonish, James Bond wrapper. The merging of...
Mini Review Dredge (PS5) - Eerie Fishing Adventure Will Reel You In
There's always a weirder fish
Dredge is a fishing game with eldritch nastiness lurking beneath the surface. It's a perfect combo, and although the spooky side never descends into true horror, there's an ever-present sense of unease as you explore the small open ocean and its island outposts. Playing as a freshly hired fisherman, you begin the game...
Mini Review Puzzling Places (PSVR2) - A Lovely Game with a Few Problems
Puzzle me this, Batman
Puzzling Places is absolutely lovely — that’s the best way to describe it. A puzzle game best described as a 3D jigsaw, this is far and away the most relaxing time you can have with your PSVR2. The game leans into its unique appeal, allowing you to put together 3D dioramas of things that under normal circumstances would be...
Mini Review The Last Clockwinder (PSVR2) - A Satisfying, Chilled Out Puzzler
Going it a-clone
In a nutshell, The Last Clockwinder is a blend of solving puzzles and building factories. It's not the most original idea, but it's executed really well, taking advantage of virtual reality's unique perspective to create some truly engrossing gameplay. Set within the Clocktower, an enormous tree acting as a safe haven for various...
Mini Review Pistol Whip (PSVR2) - Still One of the Best VR Games You Can Play
Whip it
Upon its PSVR launch, we found Pistol Whip to be a sublime experience, brilliantly blending rail shooter and rhythm mechanics. How does the upgraded version fare? Well, even better. Unlike some of the PSVR2 upgrades, Pistol Whip doesn’t make a huge impression graphically. It was a stylized title with a solid aesthetic on first attempt, so...
Mini Review No Man's Sky (PSVR2) - Explore an Infinite Universe on a Whole New Scale
Space is big
We've revisited No Man's Sky a number of times over the years. It only seems fair to check in every once in a while considering how much changes with each major update. The latest of these, Fractal, adds full PSVR2 support, allowing you to explore planets, space stations, and everything in between within Sony's new headset. The initial...
Mini Review Rez Infinite (PSVR2) - PSVR Classic Remains a Must-Play on PSVR2
To Infinite and beyond
Rez Infinite was a transcendent experience on PSVR. A game originally from the PS2 days, the title seems at home in virtual reality to such a degree that it might as well have been made with that in mind. And the PSVR2 glow-up actually makes things even better. First and foremost, the graphical upgrade is immediately...
Mini Review What the Bat? (PSVR2) - Bonkers, Bite-Sized Fun Ideal for Beginners
Going batty
What the Bat replaces your arms and hands with a pair of baseball bats, and has you swinging through a series of short but sweet levels in an attempt to live a normal life. It's madness, but works wonderfully. This PSVR2 curio makes solid use of the hardware to deliver one of its silliest yet most appealing launch games. Playing is so...
Mini Review Garden of the Sea (PSVR2) - Cutesy Farming Adventure That Exudes Tranquillity
Animal Crossing VR
Garden of the Sea is a relaxing farming adventure from Neat Corporation, the developer behind Budget Cuts VR. Set on a series of islands in the middle of the ocean, you're tasked with returning a dilapidated farm back to its former glory. You are eased into the game by the village creatures offering simple fetch quests in the form...
Mini Review Moss (PSVR2) - Charming Adventure Gets Some Major Upgrades
Quill power
Returning with mouse companion Quill to Polyarc’s lovely fantasy world is a delight. Moss is a game we were quite fond of back when it launched in 2018, and it’s only gotten better here. Though the sequel, Book II, remains the superior title, Moss’ Redwall-esque world and environments are as lovely as ever with PSVR2. One of our...
Mini Review After the Fall (PSVR2) - Standout Co-Op Apocalypse Shooter
Left4Dead VR
After the Fall is a co-op multiplayer, post-apocalyptic, first-person shooter from the developers of Arizona Sunshine, Vertigo Games. Decades after the 1980s apocalypse turned Los Angeles into a frozen wasteland, you join a group of underground survivors becoming what’s known as a Harvest Runner. Tasked with expanding your group’s...
Mini Review Synth Riders: Remastered Edition (PSVR2) - Back and Better Than Ever
Ride the wave
Synth Riders was a highlight of PSVR: we loved it back when it launched in mid-2021. For a more explicit explanation, you can check out our original review, but know that this is a rhythm title played on a “note highway” and it’s excellent. One of the strengths of the game the first time through was its exceptional soundtrack,...
Mini Review PowerWash Simulator: Midgar Special Pack (PS5) - Another Chill Crisis Chore
Clean up Shinra's dirty deeds
Now that PowerWash Simulator is out on basically everything, we're starting to get some really interesting DLC. With Square Enix Collective publishing the game, we've seen a pair of exciting crossovers so far. The first was with Tomb Raider, in which you wash the exterior of Lara's massive mansion. Next up is this, the...
Mini Review Tetris Effect (PSVR2) - Stunning Puzzler Now Looks Better Than Ever
Memory blocks
Back when Tetris Effect launched on PS4, it was with full support for the original PSVR. At the time, we thought it was glorious, but realistically, the hardware's limitations meant the picture was never super clear. The spectacle of this flashy take on the familiar falling block puzzle game wasn't lost on us, though, and it remains a...
Mini Review Altair Breaker (PSVR2) - Unfinished Online-Only Sword Fighter Doesn't Cut It
Altair Broken, more like
Altair Breaker is a multiplayer sword-fighting game from Swords of Gargantua developer, Thirdverse. It's set on the floating island of Vastus Isle, once a magical workshop but now turned to ruins by LAWS (Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems). As a sword-fighter, you're tasked with helping Stella, a humanoid AI, in clearing the...
Mini Review Drums Rock (PSVR2) – A Pretty Fun, but Uneven Experience
A snare drum in the plan
Ever wanted to play the drums, but never had the musical inclination? Developer Garage51 has you covered, providing a virtual space to prove that you’ve got the beat. The presentation of the game, while not bad, is familiar territory. Lots of demonic and cartoonish imagery abound, giving the title a Guitar Hero aesthetic...
Mini Review Zenith: The Last City (PSVR2) - VR MMO Is Heavy on Content, Light on Entertainment
Massively middling
Zenith: The Last City is the closest thing we’ve got to a fully-fledged MMO in virtual reality to this point. It checks a lot of the RPG boxes with dungeons to run, raids to complete, gear to grind, and sizable expanses to explore. While it’s undeniably impressive as a proof-of-concept, Zenith is an otherwise painfully average...
Mini Review Startenders (PSVR2) - A Delightful Extra-Terrestrial Bartending Experience
Just the usual, please
In Startenders you take on the role of a mundane office worker who has accidentally been abducted and forced into working shifts at the Startenders Bartending Academy. This involves you serving weird yet wonderful concoctions to even stranger beings from galaxies far, far away. It all sounds simple enough, however with a wide...
Mini Review Kayak VR: Mirage (PSVR2) - An Immersive Yet Thin Experience
Paddle away the stresses of the day
A throwback to the early PSVR tech demos, Kayak VR: Mirage is one of those games you just need to try out on PSVR2. The premise is pretty simple: you're dumped on a kayak and will use the PSVR2 Sense controllers to explore varied exotic locations. That's really all there is to it, but its kind of the point...
