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.
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…
Having not played the original Code Vein, I have no idea whether Code Vein II is effective in building on it, or whether the two games are related at all. What I do know is that Code Vein II is an excellent soulslike. One that starts quite slowly, but has…
It’s incredible that Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergarde plays so well on…
Lached Up Games serves a very specific niche with its quirky and…
It’s difficult to write within the fantasy genre in 2022. On the one hand, it’s painfully easy to write something so self-serious and overwrought that it comes across as a desperate and doomed effort to channel Tolkien. Writing fantasy that people will take seriously is monumentally difficult because fantasy by…
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Rabbits are the best pets. They’re fluffy and funny and it’s only when you have them as pets that you realise they’ve got big personalities that fill the home with their energy. We don’t get anywhere near enough games that make rabbits the focus, and many of those that do…
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After a five-month break from streaming (how time flies!) I’ve finally got my act together and I’ve found some time in the week to stream. On Monday evenings (and possibly Saturday mornings), Australian time, I’ll be doing an hour or two stream again. You’ll be able to watch them live…
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I’m a big fan of itch.io for the freedom and open platform that it allows for developers to be creative, experimental, and directly canvas the audience for feedback for games that are not yet ready for primetime on Steam and its ilk. In addition, itch.io allows you to be transgressive,…
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Valkyrie Elysium isn’t for everyone. The game has a specific tone and structure that has ensured that it will only ever appeal to a small, niche demographic. And yet it shares structural, thematic and aesthetic similarities with, in one way or another, the likes of Chaos Legion, NieR (original, not…
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Valkyrie Elysium seems destined to be one of the rapidly forgotten Square Enix titles… and yet it doesn’t deserve to be. In playing it I was strongly reminded of games like Chaos Legion and NieR (before NieR: Automata convinced people to reassess the original); games that have a loftier aesthetic…
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I finally have the Ayn Odin Pro. According to the order records, I put the order down for it back in June, and it arrived yesterday. Putting aside some very questionable customer service (at one point in August I emailed to ask nicely for a rough ETA, and their response…
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It’s difficult to review fandiscs, because they’re a step beyond a sequel in terms of their reliance on the base material. Generally it’s fine to review sequels. You can go in-depth with like the Trails of Cold Steel series, or the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, because players can still play…
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Rhythm games are amazing. We love them. There’s a new one that’s doing the rounds right now that has the serious potential to hit fad-like levels, and it’s one where you play the trombone, of all instruments. Of course not every music game is great – those of us that…
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The recent GTA VI hack, and the subsequent fallout from people criticising how “bad” it looks, inspired this segment in this month’s podcast, as it really caught us all by surprise a little. We’re used to gamers having a generally poor understanding of how games are made, but what we…
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