Review by Matt S. Everyone needs a good fishing game to play, and yes, I’m being entirely serious. Unlike real world fishing, fishing video games are a relaxing and affirming experience – you chill right down, throw the line in, and know that sooner or later you’re going to catch…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. I’ve been playing Pokemon for 21 years. I figured that out because Pokemon Blue and Red was released in Australia in 1998, and I was an early adopter. Before it was even popular here my brothers and I were collecting and battling the critters like crazy.…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Where video games are complex structures of data, rule sets and mechanics, a good board game should strive to be the opposite; simple elegance. You look at the greatest board games of all time – the likes of Chess and Go, and the thing that stands…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. I have wanted a genuinely deep game development business simulator since Kairosoft’s brilliant Game Dev Story. That breakout hit was, as with all Kairosoft titles, a hyper-casual little time waster where it was impossible to fail, but the sheer charm, brilliant visuals, and catchy loops also…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. The SaGa series has always been like Square Enix’s forgotten child. Between Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Mana and even the likes of Star Ocean, there hasn’t been the room for the more esoteric imagery and storytelling of SaGa to gain much traction, even though there are…
Read MoreReview by Harvard L. Playful Studios is a Microsoft-associated development team that in 2017 created Super Lucky’s Tale, a game which the Xbox One lineup sorely needed. It was a game which brought some refreshing diversity to an otherwise single-minded E3 presentation about guns and cars. Here was a colourful…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Modern Disney is the dominant source of American entertainment, but its various pivots and acquisitions on the path to being the king of film and television content has left it a very pale shadow of the creative outfit it once was, when it was synonymous with…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. My experience with Layton’s Mystery Journey was soured very early on, thanks to a “puzzle” that demonstrated that finally, after over a decade of offering a delectable blend of point-and-click adventure and puzzle book-style gameplay, the series was running out of steam. It picks up from…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. I do love my rhythm games. I also love my digital people – Hatsune Miku and IA and all the rest. Bringing together one of the best rhythm games in recent history (Groove Coaster) with my favourite digital people should have been a knock out of…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Cherrymochi is a Japanese development company with a unique distinction – most of the team are westerners, drawn from the UK, Europe and America, but all of them have extensive experience living and working in Japan. It’s rare that a game can be truly Japanese –…
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