Earlier this year we looked at Accolade Sports Collection, which brought together five retro sports sims from the early ‘90s. While a couple didn’t fare too well in this modern age, the package still had worth, with the more technically impressive titles propping up the poorer ones. This brings us onto new collection Jaleco Sports: …
Cosy games are commonplace nowadays, offering relaxed and wholesome experiences intended to distract from the bustle of daily life. It’s a genre, if you can call it that, with a lineage that can be traced further back than you may think. The Harvest Moon farming series made its debut on the SNES in 1996, for …
Knowing genre conventions can be a blessing and a curse for both the game and the player. Take Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song as an example. I’m more than familiar with the genre, so I thought I knew what I was in for. I began my quest, chose a fun looking starting character, refused the ‘slow’ …
From houses with no visible door numbers to blocks of flats with busted elevators, being a pizza delivery driver is likely arduous at times. Nothing can compare to the hardship this narrative adventure’s star delivery girl has to endure, however, with the last order of the day requiring a jaunt across steep hilled countryside, a …
Intended as a follow-up to a 2022 CGI movie, Paws of Fury is in essence a combination of Hong Kong Phooey (ask your dad) and Kung Fu Panda, starring unlikely hero Hank – the sole canine in a world populated by felines. If you haven’t heard of the movie, that’s understandable. It was in production …
2023 saw the release of BROK the InvestiGator, a unique combination of a futuristic point ‘n click adventure and a scrolling beat’em up. It worked how you’d expect, indulging in a spot of sleuthing before heading into a back alley to batter some ruffians. If you didn’t care for the adventure aspect or have a …
Set in the not-too-distant future, this psychological first-person horror takes place in a world where personally tailored AI powered video games are an upcoming trend. Not every job on the planet has been eliminated by machines, thankfully, as there’s still a need for somebody to put these AI-powered development platforms through their paces. This is …
After waking in a blood splattered prison cell, you’re presented with a slot machine and informed that to earn your freedom you’ll need to win big, reaching increasingly exorbitant debt deadlines to survive. That’s the premise for CloverPit, a new gambling themed escape room roguelike influenced by Vampire Survivors just as much as the poker …
October saw a glut of horror games primed for spooky season, varying from psychological thrillers that delve into the protagonist’s psyche, to more fantastical themed endeavours borrowing from the works of Lovecraft. Few can compare conceptually to QUByte’s Saborus though, which puts a spin on the genre by placing you in control of a chicken …
Even with hardware able to effortlessly throw around countless detailed 2D sprites, it’s still easy to imagine making a visually spectacular run ‘n gunner is a tall order. To fulfil that quota, lengthy scrolling stages require rich and varied backdrops with minimal repetition. At the same time, backdrops can’t be too busy, or the risk …
One of 2023’s highest rated indies was DREDGE, a compelling and bleak (or compellingly bleak) fishing sim with an unmistakable Lovecraftian influence. Imagine, if you can, a side story set in the same universe, only you play as a hardworking lighthouse keeper instead of a humble fisherman. That’s Static Dread: The Lighthouse in a nutshell, …
By the mid ‘90s Namco knew how to woo arcade goers, creating games that were simple to grasp yet had a degree of depth, while also sporting flashy visuals and perhaps a cabinet with a gimmick or two. The stakes were reasonably high at the time, with the PS1 and Saturn close to matching the …
Earlier this year Microids dusted off the Myst-style point ‘n click adventure Amerzone – The Explorer’s Legacy for an impressive UE5 makeover. It proved to be a great starting point for a new series of remasters, potentially preserving what made them cult classics while modernising the experience. Barely six months later, the similarly remastered follow-up …
Last month, the 3D platformer Yooka-Laylee gained a shot at redemption in the form of Yooka Re-Playlee – a complete overhaul of the 2017 original, aiming to fix its multitude of flaws. This month, 2016’s Anima: Gate of Memories and its 2018 follow-up gain a revival in a new bundle, with these being western developed …
Konami has spent the last decade or so periodically releasing retro compilations, even grabbing the rights to TMNT to bring back some much-loved bodacious classics. While the time will likely come one day, their cherished Parodius franchise – an eccentric parody of Gradius – goes untouched despite having enough entries to populate a collection. With …