Games Asylum

If this week’s UK physical retail charts are to go by, THQ Nordic’s SpongeBob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake can be considered a success. The comical action platformer entered at #2 in both the PS4 and Xbox One charts, and #13 in the Switch top twenty. It also took...

Doubtlessly fuelled by glowing previews, huge pre-order figures for Hogwarts Legacy suggest it’s going to be one of the biggest-selling games of 2023. It certainly seems that the delay paid off, with pre-release footage showing off a huge, richly detailed, world to explore and combat that appears surprisingly...

Blaze’s 2023 Evercade roadmap is starting to take shape, with confirmation of two new cartridges. THEC64 Collection 2 and Toaplan Arcade 2 are both set to launch on April 28th, with pre-orders going live on February 17th. They’ll set you back £17.99 each, and will work on any...

The premise for this platforming beat’em up hybrid won’t be forgotten soon, starring foul-mouthed Spanish drunkard Benito and his dim-witted pet chicken Pepito. After accidentally mistaking a dojo for a Chinese restaurant while severely intoxicated, Benito dons a fetching blue ninja-yoroi and vows to become a martial arts...

It’s an exceedingly busy week for the Switch – several titles had to be left out of this piece’s headline, despite them being reasonably anticipated or looking promising. Incidentally, it appears that the eShop sees more shovelware than usual this week too, including a dubious (and rather blatant)...

The Numskull Games published 3D platformer Clive ‘N’ Wrench is just weeks away, officially due Feb 24th on Steam, GOG, PS4, PS5, and Switch – both digitally and physically. If you’ve been keeping tabs on this colourful endevour, starring rabbit Clive and his monkey chum Wrench, you’ll know...

Being a fan of the speedy needle mouse, it was inevitable I’d purchase Sonic Frontiers at some point. While I was happy to wait until it was closer to £20, a combination of an Xbox voucher in my Christmas stocking and long lead times on January’s reviews meant...

EA’s Dead Space remake is the UK’s new no.1, displacing Nintendo’s Fire Emblem Engage in the process. The sci-fi horror also managed to take no.1 in both the PS5 and Xbox Series charts. Square-Enix’s Forspoken – which arrived to some middling reviews – took #4 in the all...

This rhythm-based hack ‘n slasher serves to remind us that, even in this era of constantly ballooning development budgets, surprises can still come from nowhere. In this instance, from the unlikeliest of places too – this playful and energetic experience comes from Tango Gameworks, best known for the...

January’s new release energy carries into February, with a handful of notable new games due this week. Looking ahead for the rest of the month, highlights include Wild Hearts, Like a Dragon: Ishin, Atomic Heart, Wanted: Dead, Octopath Traveler II, and the PSVR2 – which launches with 32(!)...

With the Switch’s hardware limitations in mind, releasing 2007’s Raiden IV instead of the visually demanding Raiden V made a lot of sense. A retroactive re-release on PlayStation and Xbox formats in 2023 makes sense still, too. Europe never received the Xbox 360 version of Raiden IV, and...

Retro re-release purveyors HAMSTER are happy to announce that Arcade Archives The New Zealand Story is available now, and we’re more than happy to relay this joyous news. The New Zealand Story (or The NewZealand Story, as it’s officially known) is a colourful, and slightly eccentric, arcade platformer...