Features

NAIRI: Tower of Shirin developer Q&A

HomeBearStudios are currently wrapping up work on NAIRI: Tower of Shirin, a story-driven puzzle adventure for Switch and PC, featuring hand-drawn 2D visuals and a cast of curious critters. It stars Nairi, a troubled upper-class girl who’s forced to abandon her luxurious way of living after discovering the...

Why do terrible N64 games live in infamy?

Terrible games are relatively few these days. Publishers have so much riding on big releases that to put out something sub-par would only result in poor sales, consumer backlash and angry shareholders. It wasn’t always this way. Years ago, publishers were rather fond of releasing utter tripe in...

Japan’s Arcades in 2018: A photo essay

No trip to Japan would be complete without spending a fistful of Yen in the country’s many, many, arcades. The arcades I visited even began to make me envy Japanese culture. It was social, fun, and most had scores of games – often spread over several floors –...

Plagiarism through the ages

The creators of the vastly popular PlayerUnknown’s Battle Grounds made gaming news headlines last week, taking legal action against a handful of games mimicking PUBG a little too closely. One clone features a frying pan as a melee weapon, while another uses the term ‘Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner’...

In search of the Xbox 360’s rarest game

Roughly a year ago we donned our detective garb and tracked down the Wii U’s rarest game. Relying on completed eBay listings and such, we eventually concluded that BigBen’s shooting gallery Cocoto Magic Circus 2 was by far the obscurest release, commanding over £100 (at the time). As...

Claybook – Game Preview impressions

Thanks to featuring some delightfully playful tech, first impressions of this physics-based puzzler are incredibly positive. You’re presented with a sandbox filled entirely with squidgy clay, which can be manipulated by carving into objects, adding new blocks, and deforming surroundings to create slopes and other means of reaching...

The story of WWE and our ill-fated YouTube channel

YouTube in 2007 was remarkably different to the YouTube of today. The ink was still yet to dry on the Google takeover contract, and the term ‘YouTube Celebrity’ was yet to be bandied about – the likes of PewDiePie, JonTron, Markiplier and others were still to make their...

2017: Five games you may have missed

This year commenced in the best possible fashion. Unusually for the quiet season of spring, we received several highly acclaimed hits in quick succession. Things settled down in the run-up to summer, leading to what has been a sporadic winter. A few quality titles, the usual solid but...