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…
The Call of Duty rumour mills were working in overdrive this week, with an “insider” claiming that Call of Duty 2024 will be set during the (more recent) Iraq War. This is just a rumour at this stage, so I’m certainly not reporting on that, but what I am here…
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Over the last couple of weeks, the Anbernic W600 has quickly become my favourite toy. It might not be as powerful of a beast as the Steam Deck or the Ayn consoles are, but it also only cost me $500. Before purchasing it I was a little concerned that this…
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I did not expect that Steelrising would be a Soulslike. I don’t know if I’d just missed that bit of news in the initial announcement (I then went out of my way to avoid learning anything about this game prior to when I started playing it), or if the developer…
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More and more we’re seeing games enter into a state of perpetual, or at least long-term updates. The days where a game would be released and then that basic experience remain into perpetuity seem to have numbered. And yet, while it’s certainly a good thing to be able to patch…
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When I think back to my early efforts in game criticism, things get a bit hazy (I’ve reviewed thousands of games since, give me a break), but I’m pretty sure that La Pucelle, on the PlayStation 2, was the very first JRPG I was ever given the opportunity to review.…
Read MoreWith the Steam Deck has come a veritable flood of Windows-based handheld devices. Throw in the ability to stream blockbuster-quality games, and we now need to start asking ourselves – are handhelds going to become *the* default form factor going forward? That’s what we discuss in this section of our…
Read MoreSeptember doesn’t have too many western blockbusters (it’s sports month for western developers and publishers), but the sheer quantity of Japanese and B-tier games that are on their way is staggering. It’s going to be a nightmarish month to keep up. So! What will you be playing this month? …
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Welcome to another massive episode of the DDNet podcast! This month we kick things off with a look at all the big releases happening (it is a lot!) as usual… then we talk about handhelds. With competition heating up to bring Steam handhelds to market, will we even need consoles…
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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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I would rather play something like South Of The Circle than The Last Of Us. This is a beautiful, artful, thought-provoking little game that cleverly leverages some excellent cinematic techniques to make it look, feel, and behave like some good Eurocinema. It leaves a lot to interpretation – imagine actually…
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