SlabWell is Q*bert. An isometric puzzler where the goal is to step on all of the yellow tiles once, turning them red. Simple, right? I can go home now. It’s Q*bert. Nothing to discuss. Review over. It’s Q*bert. Except SlabWell is actually rather fascinating – it shows how you can take a simple premise, think …
Twin-stick shooters are usually associated with simple control schemes, with most mapping essential commands solely to a joypad’s trigger buttons. Due to starring a duo of comic book-style characters with supernatural abilities, God’s Trigger utilizes every single button on the controller – even the rarely used L3 and R3. As the saying goes, with great …
Roughly a year ago developer Holospark released Earthfall, an extra-terrestrial take on Valve’s seminal Left 4 Dead. Despite a decent amount of post-launch content, the co-op shooter never managed to find its niche. If only Holospark had taken Saber’s approach and associated a well-known, if outdated, movie license with their shooter it may have avoided …
Homage is difficult. Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a homage to 1980’s video games and the Toronto indie music scene. Both the novel and the film are wildly inventive and beautiful works which use the specificity of the premise and place to say wider things about love, responsibility and growing up. Mockbuster movie Transmorphers …
Flailing limb sims such as Surgeon Simulator and Octodad have become big business recently. The former, in particular, has sold over 2 million copies. It’s easy to see why. Surgeon Simulator is hilarious, frequently making the slippery controls and the player’s incompetence the centre of its comedy making machine. Godly Corp is the latest attempt …
The Tropico series is well established, with players mostly enjoying their forays into running a ‘banana republic’ paradise as El Presidente. Pick the way you want to rule – a despotic capitalist, a benevolent commy or just someone in between, but the fun comes from picking sides. You begin as the ruler of a few …
Mad Max lead us to believe that if our seas and oceans dried up, whoever possesses the largest petrol supply would hold the most power. FAR: Lone Sails shares the theme of a post-apocalyptic world with dried-out seabeds, only here the survivor’s vehicles are equipped with engines that can turn any solid matter into hydro …
Due to gamers recalling SEGA’s ill-advised Outrun 2019, social media featured more predictable jokes about jetpacks and flying cars on New Year’s Day than usual. When 2030 – the year Xenon Racer is set – comes around, we don’t anticipate jokes about developer 3DCloud’s vision of the future. Eleven years from now, competitive racing still …
With a digital, cloud-based, future on the horizon, preservation is a hot topic within the gaming community of late. If you’re all for ensuring videogames both old and new are available for future generations, SNK 40th Anniversary Collection has probably caught your attention already. It’s a package full of early SNK classics and oddities, each …
The gaming industry sucks at preserving its heritage. Take Super Mario Bros. for example. It’s one of the most important games ever made. Gaming’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Gaming’s Pet Sounds. A creation of genius design and perfect mechanics. The gaming landscape would look completely different had never come along. And yet, Nintendo treats it …
This comic book style first-person shooter feels like a breath of fresh air, arriving at a time when the genre leaders are only willing to imitate (cough, Battle Royale) rather than innovate. Bristol-based Ground Shatter (Binaries, Skyscrappers) has looked to the past to give shooter fans something new, with RICO being influenced by such fast-paced, …
This wave-based zombie shooter is so lacking in content and creativity that not only is its £8-£9 price tag unable to withstand scrutiny, but we also began to question its very existence. That asking price – roughly double that of Sometimes You’s previous games – gets you an alarmingly bareboned tower defence shooter, featuring one …
Critics have long complained about the staleness of the LEGO franchise’s once winning formula, even suggesting that if you’ve played one LEGO game you’ve played them all. A change was inevitable, and it looks like TT Games has chosen this movie tie-in as a test subject for a long overdue shake-up. The focus on teamwork …
Social media would no doubt erupt with confusion and laughter if SEGA ever attempted to resurrect Mega Drive heroes Greendog The Beached Surfer Dude and Kid Chameleon from the 16-bit graveyard. While both games were popular in their heyday, many would consider their quintessentially ‘90s stars positively passé nowadays. Funk loving aliens ToeJam & Earl …
Toby Fox’s surprise Undertale follow-up carries over many themes, with the new turn-based battles continuing to focus on forgiveness, compassion and understanding to win over the hearts and minds of adversaries. There’s just one monster-sized hurdle to overcome – the protagonist has been paired with a secondary character that fails to understand the value of …