To start this review with something very personal: My father passed away last week. It’s been difficult, to put it mildly. The reason I bring it up is that Dad absolutely loved Ten-Pin Bowling. Had his own ball, ball bag (I had no idea they made bowling ball bags), shoes, the works. He competed in social leagues all over the…
Some news today on Microsoft acquisition journey towards a monopoly: The company announced that it has signed a “binding agreement” to continue to produce Call of Duty games for PlayStation. This comes off the back of much hang-wringing about the PlayStation being locked out of such a critical load of…
Read MoreMy review of The Legend of Heroes: Trails Into Reverie is going to be quite different, because it’s largely pointless to actually review it. If you’ve never experienced a Legend of Heroes title before, then do not bother starting with this one. It’s only going to confuse the daylights out…
Read More“I’ve been writing a bunch of really awful short stories lately. I mean it. They’re absolutely ghastly… “I’ve been working on this stuff pretty much nonstop for over two years now, adding one unpalatable tale to another, making an entire collection of difficult, dangerous and really horrible fiction. Why can’t…
Read MoreIllusion Software is one of the genuine trailblazers in video games. The studio has been around for 22 years, having been founded in 2001, but it’s all over now. The company has announced its imminent closure, and in its shutdown notice, also said that it would also be taking all…
Read MoreValve’s inconsistencies around what is and isn’t too offensive for its platform are at the point where it is so blatant that there are ulterior motives at play that it is incredibly offensive. Here’s a story of two different sets of games to illustrate. The first involves Hitler. Steam is…
Read MoreDeveloper, Sting, has announced a remaster of Riviera: The Promised Land. This is genuinely exciting because Riviera is a true cult classic, and a remake is long overdue. One of the more interesting qualities of this game is that you don’t really have free movement around the world. Rather, it…
Read MoreIn recent years (thanks largely to the success of the Ryza trilogy), Gust and Koei Tecmo’s Atelier series has grown from being a very niche and micro-budget JRPG property to become something that, while not exactly mainstream, holds itself well in the market and can find an audience beyond genre…
Read MoreSilent Hope will be released on October 3, and it is an intriguing little game. It is being billed as a return to the classic isometric action JRPGs of yesteryear (think Secret of Mana), with a quirk: this is a world without words. From the press release: “In a world…
Read MoreIt has been 13 years since the last The Settlers title. The Settlers: New Allies is also the first time the series has ever made its way to a home console. Until now, this venerable, hugely respected and beloved simulation/strategy series had been exclusive to PC (with a couple of…
Read MoreI’ve run out of patience with the Richman series. I want to love them, but the feeling is clearly not reciprocal. This is the third game that developer/publisher, Softstar, has released on the Nintendo Switch, and not only does it demonstrate that there is little interest in improving the series,…
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