32 public reviews
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Escape Dead Island offers occasional third-person survival horror thrills but is otherwise a shambling, mediocre bore-fest. On the surface, developer Fat Shark’s 2014 multi-platform-released side-story to the original Dead Island seems like an intriguing premise: a cel-shaded melee-focussed action-adventure with zombies. It’s a change from the more realistic visuals of the main games. At times, it looks…
Capcom’s latest compilation is a handy grab-bag of their more obscure two-dimensional arcade fighting games from the mid ‘90s which have been repackaged with online modes to whet any fan’s appetite. Although, this game has been marketed as a celebration of 35 years of Street Fighter , this compilation feels more like a tribute to their Darkstalkers franchise – a pastiche gothic horror fighting series which comprises…
TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge is a love letter to fans of the original 1987 cartoon series as well as the ‘90s beat ‘em up video games but mostly does enough to appeal to new players alike. But, let’s not kid ourselves here. This game’s core audience are those of us who were children of the eighties and nineties and have fond memories of that initial cartoon and the subsequent games it inspired. Those that know their…
Read the full review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge
Linger in Shadows is an unusual ‘demoscene’ interactive art project that was released digitally by Sony for the Playstation 3 that went wholly unnoticed at the time and playing it now has highlighted why its short unfulfilling premise didn’t land. With the Playstation Now subscription service about to be abandoned and folded into the tiered Playstation Plus service, I felt it fitting to take a look through the games…
Developer Techland released Dead Island: Riptide in 2013 as a direct sequel to their original first-person role-playing survival horror Dead Island, though it is very much that game with some minor iteration but disappointingly suffers from the same technical issues and overall feels a little stale by comparison. However, an important disclaimer needs to be made for this review. I have been playing the original…
The Game Boy Advance’s Mario Kart: Super Circuit (2001) is a perfect blend of elements from both its predecessors on Nintendo’s home systems and is a smashing entry in the series in its own right. Developed as an early release for Nintendo’s GBA console by Intelligent Systems, it was a massive success both critically and commercially however was always one I had missed due to never owning any handheld machine. But,…
Rare followed up their Nintendo 64 smash hit GoldenEye 007 with the superspy-meets-sci-fi spiritual sequel Perfect Dark (2000), which improved on every facet of their Bond shooter and included a stupendous amount of content that can still be enjoyed today. Now, full disclosure here - growing up, Perfect Dark has always been my answer when asked what is my favourite game. It came at a time when I was fully into…
Dead Island: Definitive Edition is a remaster of the original 2011 multi-platform game bundled together with the downloadable content and is a much cleaner, improved version of the game - making it the ideal way to experience bludgeoning the undead in a tropical paradise. Developed by Polish studio, Techland and published by Deep Silver in 2016, the game is a first-person open-world survival/action horror with a…
Koopa Troopa never was one for listening to seat-belt safety instructions Super Mario Kart was a commercial smash hit in 1992 (1993 for Europe) and one of the most popular games on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Its unique spin on the arcade racer led to many copycats but no series has ever really been able to usurp the kart-racing genre grand-daddy. In past reviews I have spoken of the ‘time…
Nintendo’s much beloved future racing F-Zero franchise raised the chequered flag straight away with the first title in the series when it debuted as a launch Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) game, and never looked back. It’s hard to review a game that is over thirty years old and is considered by many to be one of the most influential games of all time. Do you try and imagine what it was like in 1990 (or…
Rayman 2: The Great Escape shares many qualities of its two-dimensional predecessor, especially in presentation but some frustrating sections hold it back from being a true classic of the system. Unless you were Nintendo, most franchises making the switch from 2D platformers to 3D around the Nintendo 64 era were usually misses more than hits. It was a transformative time; an entire new dimension for developers to…
Every game should have challenge, no question about that. But Ubisoft's original side-scrolling platformer Rayman is sadistic in its difficulty curve to the point of unrivalled frustration. Released in September 1995 as part of the original Sony Playstation launch line-up (as well as initially on Atari Jaguar and then ported to Sega Saturn) you can see why it would have made a few heads turn. The visuals are…
The Nintendo produced sequel to the popular but flawed virtual board game Mario Party takes the plumber and friends into new lands for party fun and innovates on every aspect of the original game to make it one of the best multiplayer games of the Nintendo 64. Like it or not, the videogame industry is heavily sequel-driven. This can be a good thing when it allows a second attempt at a great concept where the first…
Mario Party is the game that not only kickstarted one of Nintendo's most successful franchises, but in some ways also the entire 'party game' genre. For good or bad, it's often forgotten that it was actually a seminal release. Of course, it was by no means a perfect game but it still has some merit even playing it two decades later. The original Mario Party was an acclaimed release for the Japanese company in 1999…
The Nintendo 64 sequel to the highly successful Super Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo (SNES) was one of the pillars of couch multiplayer gaming on the machine and, although lacking features, still provides brilliant entertainment. Admittedly, there is a tremendous nostalgia buzz for me on replaying this game, from the opening spinning gold Nintendo logo followed by Charles Martinet's booming Mario voice 'WELCOME TO…
Paradigm Entertainment's first stab at the F1 licence in 1998 on the Nintendo 64 is a ground-breaking achievement as a simulation of the sport and is still plenty fun over 20 years later. Now, what strikes me on revisiting this game is the attention to detail. It's incredible. Considering this was Paradigm's first attempt at the sport (and it was on the N64 as opposed to a PC), the amount of customisation to the car…
This early Sega Master System puzzle/maze action platformer is joyously colourful but its punishing trial and error gameplay quickly detracts from the charm. Released by Sega in 1985 as one of the first Master System titles in Japan and then ported over to Europe in a bundle cart with Astro Warrior in 1986, it's easy to compare its visuals and ideas to the later released The Legend of Zelda and Bomberman (mainly for…
This surreal indie title – translated from Afrikaans as ‘a lost understanding’ - offers some inte resting varied visuals and atmosphere but all too often is bogged down with taxing, frustrating game-play. Developed by South African team Skobbejak Games initially for Steam in 2016 before the Xbox One port released a year later, the game is a mixture of a walking simulator with first person platforming and some light…
49Games’ winter sports title is competent enough for a family-focused budget game but as a solo experience it becomes overly repetitive and lingers into mediocrity. The Wii's success and popularity led to an explosion in 2010 of derivative motion controlled 'casual' games across all three main console systems and Winter Stars' release published by Deep Silver the following year is definitely of that ilk. There are…
White Knight Chronicles ( WKC ) is an ambitious Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG) developed by Level-5, which offers some exciting gameplay customisability, inspired world-building and some breathtaking visuals but is let down by technical issues and fairly repetitive dungeon design. Now, some perspective is required. I am new to the JRPG genre and have no real base for comparison and so this review will not be able…
Read the full review White Knight Chronicles: International Edition
Prominence Poker from Pipeworks Studios is a 2016 digital-only free-to-play poker game with a unique emphasis on character creation and is a great entry level buy-in for gamers wanting to learn their flushes from their straights. Free-to-play games are strange things to review. Inherently, the review is usually to serve as a guide for a purchasing decision but that is negated when the actual game is completely free…
4J Studio’s HD remaster is a faithful perfection of the Nintendo 64 classic first-person spy shooter and contains many subtle improvements over the base game that any fan of the original should definitely experience. Now, full disclosure here – growing up, Perfect Dark for the N64 has always been my answer when asked what my favourite game was. I evangelised in supreme detail the reasons for this in the N64 retro…
Nintendo’s port of Irem’s arcade American football game was one of the earliest takes on the sport for the original Nintendo system however flawed AI and minimalist game-play make this a wholly unsatisfying experience. When the words ‘American football’ and ‘games’ are uttered together it would be unusual not to also associate the Madden name in that context too. Well, 10-Yard Fight predates the Madden series having…
"Aha! I Found It!” Hidden Object Game can probably be categorised as clear-cut example of ‘shovel-ware’ on the Wii Store but on its own merits is a fairly fun experience. With the recent announcement from Nintendo of their plans to permanently close the Nintendo Wii Shop in January 2019 and that the last chance to buy any WiiWare or Virtual Console titles will be March 2018, I felt a sudden compulsion to dive into…
Nintendo’s GameCube entry in the Mario Kart franchise is the fourth instalment in the series, but the added system of two-seater kart racing mixed up the formula enough to make it feel fresh and fun with groups of friends. So, it’s more Mario Kart , right? Well, yes. But the main change to the formula is the introduction of the second racer meaning you not only choose your driver but also an ‘item’ character that…
Racing games on the Nintendo 64 were common and ranged from all types but undoubtedly arcade future racer F-Zero X , sequel to the original F-Zero on the SNES, was one of the most exhilarating. Developed and published in 1998 by Nintendo’s EAD department the game was only a partial success for the console (likely as it was released in the same year as some of the other massive Nintendo published titles such as The…
Electronic Arts’ multi-decade spanning PGA Tour Golf series owed its legacy and success to the genre-defining original game PGA Tour Golf which was released on DOS computers in 1990 and ported to the likes of the Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo the following years and, although basic by current standards, is still an entertaining golf sim. I mentioned in my previous review for Aggressive Inline on the Nintendo…
If you followed the extreme sports craze in videogames of the early 2000s, you will undoubtedly be familiar with the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (THPS) franchise. With popularity comes imitators. Mostly these can be ignored but occasionally one will break out as an actually decent product. This was the case with Aggressive Inline , a more-than-competent in-line skating title and even after 15 years and two console…
To simply have owned or played Capcom's Street Fighter 2 back in the mid '90s was cool enough, but for it to have been the game I can proudly say introduced me to the world of video games in general, that is sheer epic. Street Fighter 2 is pretty much the first console 2D fighting game (the original was only on arcades and only had 2 characters: Ken and Ryu) and it was the title which set up the majority of…
WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2009 is hit and miss with a lot of its new features, and on the whole, will probably fail to impress those who already own last year’s game. The main problem with the WWE’s latest installment in the Smackdown series its lack of significant changes since its predecessor, so even wrestling fans might feel a little short changed with this one. Graphically this game is identical to last year's…
Midways’ Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe is the latest installment in the MK fighting series and is the first in the line to break the mold of previous games with it’s inclusion of superhero characters from the DC comic strips. Free-fall Kombat and Klose Kombat add a fresh and engaging dynamic to the MK formulaMK co-creator Ed Boon’s risky idea to combine his supernatural undead ninjas and hell beasts with family…
Just when it seemed Capcom had successfully cornered the zombie horror market with the Resident Evil series, out of nowhere pounces Valve's Left 4 Dead, with its surprisingly lucrative co-op-focused take on the survival horror game. It seems the developers of the Half Life and Counter Strike series' had some interesting boardroom discussions in the wake of their next project – a multiplayer based zombie apocalypse.…
