Matt S. is the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of DDNet. He's been writing about games for over 20 years, including a book, but is perhaps best-known for being the high priest of the Church of Hatsune Miku.
Here’s the thing: I find that a lot of gaming-focused mice don’t put ergonomics particularly high on the list of priorities. That’s not to say they can’t be comfortable, but the focus is very clearly on the design and the features that will give the user a competitive edge. And that makes sense, but it’s a lot of money for…
Well, fellow Final Fantasy fans, here’s our chance. For years now we’ve been begging Square Enix for a new 2D, pixel-based Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy Resonance isn’t Final Fantasy XVII, but after the success of the Octopath Traveler series and Dragon Quest remakes, it’s pretty clearly an effort by the…
A persistent issue I have with video game adaptations of stories from…
For some time, Konami has followed the trend with its Castlevania series,…
This month we delve into everything from the controversial Stella Blade to the untapped potential in Australian game stories such as Broken Roads, and everything in-between. We kick off the podcast talking about all the games we’re looking forward to that are coming out in May. There are some surprising…
Read More
Epyx is one of those old publishers that commands a fearsome reputation today among a very cultish group of retro fans. You may well have heard of some of the company’s classics, but in comparison to the likes of Super Mario, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Myst, Zork or Wizardry, the chances…
Read More
Sand Land became an unfortunate curiosity on account of Akira Toriyama being attached to it, and it being one of the first releases featuring his work following his recent passing. As far as Toriyama’s work is concerned, Sand Land delivers all the whimsical energy that you expect from his distinctive…
Read More
Stellar Blade very much wants to be a merger of NieR: Automata and the Soulslike formula. It’s a flashy science fiction romp through a decrepit, decaying world, and the ambience is certainly going to be familiar to NieR fans. It’s also undeniably well-made. However, for all the comparisons people have…
Read More
The dungeon crawl has been one of the most enduring genres of all. The original Wizardry – the game that essentially launched and popularised the genre, turns 45 next year. It’ll be well and truly ready for a mid-life crisis. In the years since we have seen so many classics…
Read More
One of my favourite things about Broken Roads is that every second sentence there’s a word that’s highlighted, and you can press a button to see a little pop-up explaining what that word means. That word is inevitably a piece of Australian English, and the developers felt the need to…
Read More
I do not understand Sker Ritual. At all. It seems that at every opportunity the developers took what was great about Maid of Sker and do the exact opposite to it, and so now, across just two games in the “Sker” property, we’ve got a confused mess across the “franchise”…
Read More
World War 2 continues to be one of the most in-demand theatres of war for strategy and/or tactical games. That makes sense for many reasons: The battles themselves and the tactics that were on display lend themselves to video game mechanics in ways that other wars at around the same…
Read More
Those who have been reading DDNet for some time know that for a few years now I’ve been working on a visual novel that’s on a subject close to my heart: Ballroom dancing! Why has it taken so long? Because the scope of this project is just that significant, and…
Read More
I’m playing through Broken Roads right now. It’s basically “if Fallout was set in Australia,” or “if Mad Max was made into a game that actually respected Mad Max as a concept,” and I’m loving it. I’ll have a full review later on this week, but I wanted to use…
Read More