Ask me what my all-time favourite game is, and I’ll tell you that it’s Bubble Bobble. Ask me for my top five, and I’ll list off five different variants of Bubble Bobble before expanding my tastes out to other titles. I can’t play Bubble Bobble all the time. I mean,…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Nomad Games and Tin Man Games are a tale of two companies, and since I don’t have all that much to say about Fighting Fantasy Legends (you’ll see why soon enough), I may as well weave that tale instead. Tin Man Games started out, many years,…
Read MoreXuan-Yuan Sword VII is exactly why I am glad that Taiwanese game development is becoming as robust as it is, and the involvement of EastAsiaSoft in this global release is an incredibly positive development. I first played Xuan-Yuan Sword VII when it was released in English in Hong Kong –…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Georges Bataille once wrote of Marquis de Sade that his intention was to “release dangerous movements and be their first victims.” The overtly fetishistic tone of Mary Skelter Finale is obvious within seconds of starting, and much like Sade, it proved too much for “polite society.”…
Read MoreReview by Alex Kidman. Lost in Random loves a fantasy storytelling trope. Utterly adores them, in fact, because so very much of its narrative attraction lies in the way it tells what is otherwise a pretty standard tale. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Evil queen. Dark magics…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Making a game that is critical of what we take for granted in capitalism seems like a Sisyphean effort, given that, more than any other art form, the entire industry is slavishly and unquestioningly devoted to capitalism. This same week people are out there buying a…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. I find the framing of the PlayStation 5 extended edition of Death Stranding intolerable. The concept of a “Director’s Cut” comes from cinema, and it represents the uncompressed creative vision of the director. Oftentimes a film has studio and producer meddling that results in a cinematic…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. One of the benefits of publishing a review a little later after release is that you can check against some of the other reviews to see how your own take on the various themes and ideas expressed by the game were taken by others. Having checked…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Do you remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer ends up in the dictionary, and “to pull a Homer” means “to succeed despite idiocy?” Well, I reckon SkateBIRD should get a dictionary entry too: “to completely and utterly fail despite having an infallible concept.” SkateBIRD…
Read MoreReview by Lindsay M.It’s been six years since the original Sheltered launched. The game came out around the same time as Fallout Shelter, and shares enough superficial similarities as to be comparable, although with a premium price rather than a free-to-play model. I was worried it wouldn’t be successful, but…
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