Christmas games were seldom seen a few generations ago and it’s easy to comprehend why. Development costs swiftly rose around the time the Xbox 360 and PS3 launched, and creating something that would only have a shelf-life of a month or two in the run-up to Christmas would be an extremely risky proposition for any …
In his free time, police officer Rick enjoys exploring houses allegedly haunted. His latest pursuit, however, sounds more like a case for the boys back at base. Screaming has been heard coming from an abandoned house once belonging to a late ventriloquist. If that wasn’t enough, the last person brave enough to investigate never returned. …
This 16-bit style vertical shooter has been crafted with a very astute eye for detail, borrowing graphical tricks from both the Mega Drive and SNES and employing them with surprising authenticity. It also uses elements from Truxton and Axley as inspiration, using demonic imagery but never fully committing to full hellishness. It perhaps helps that …
The animal simulator sub-genre continues to generate a buzz, along with surprisingly high sales figures, with numerous sandbox games centred around specific creatures available. These titles aren’t as random as they may initially seem, as there needs to be a sturdy foundation to build upon. Developer Dee Dee Creations has settled on the formula of …
Talk about a tricky act to follow. Milestone’s Hot Wheels Unleashed and its sequel were both very good uses of the license, helping cast aside memories of the shoddy Hot Wheels games we had to endure in the days of the PS2. Whereas Hot Wheels Unleashed had surprisingly wide appeal, this tie-in from GameMill is …
This 2.5D side-scrolling platformer may have a name akin to something Ned Flanders would say, but had it launched in the ‘90s it would doubtlessly be called something lame like Max the Mongoose. That’s because our heroes here are a pair of high-spirited mongooses, known as Niko and Luna – not Niko and Riko, as …
Have you ever wished you’d discovered something sooner? Perhaps a game that altered your perception on what the medium can offer, or with a story able to change your outlook on life? That was my experience with 2017’s Aaero, which eluded me at launch. A transcendent experience, it featured a lone spacecraft flying over eerily …
The only thing able to suppress Ahro’s anxiety is a calming herbal tea. When the village herbalist runs out, Ahro makes the decision to find a permanent cure. It’s a journey that takes him to the neighbouring villages and beyond, following mountain trails, walking across rickety wooden rope bridges, and even pitching up in a …
Turns out a typically lazy Sunday afternoon during the ‘80s was no different in Japan than in England. After hanging out with his school friends in the park, twelve-year-old Ayumi heads back to his small yet cosy homestead for a home cooked meal. Then it’s a case of bathtime and an early night – although not …
After escaping from her music box, clockwork majorette Miss Rosen sets about travelling the world in search of people to help. This doesn’t so much involve finding lost items, retrieving cats stuck up trees, and preventing petty crimes as you may expect but rather something rather specific. See, our blonde-haired heroine is a dab hand …
The handful of Five Nights at Freddy’s spin-offs released so far seem just as popular as the main entries. As such, it was inevitable that a retro-style pixel art horror adventure would surface at some point. This task has fallen onto Mega Cat Studios, best known for creating and publishing a slew of modern Mega …
Gori by name, gory by nature. Despite the titular star being a soft-centred ginger moggy, this hoverboard-based hack ‘n slasher cranks up the crassness. Said method of transport is equipped with swirling blades that turn adversaries into meaty chunks, and the dialogue is littered with f-bombs and other obscenities. The whole shebang is carried by …
A sports package starring the charismatic Looney Tunes isn’t much of a stretch of the imagination. I’m not referring to Space Jam here, but rather the lineage of Looney Tunes sports games for consoles of yore. The last wasn’t even all that long ago, with Sony themselves picking up the rights to publish the PS …
In Cash Cow DX you play as a cow trying to collect cash. We are so back, as the youths say. It’s from the same developer as Donut Dodo, which we showered with praise upon release. A genuine triumph, it was a love letter to early ‘80s arcade game with warmth, style and a rare …
Although it’s easy to be cynical about Funko Fusion – with its lengthy roster of playable characters available to purchase as vinyl figures, and even sneaking in product placement for KFC buckets and Loungefly bags – the timing still feels right for a light-hearted universe-jumping collectathon adventure. We haven’t been treated to something like this …