Bubble Bobble is one of the greatest games ever made, and it’s also my go-to game when I’ve been asked about my favourite game of all time. Taito’s certainly done some interesting things with the Bubble Bobble IP over the years, and while a lot of the spinoff games have been excellent – I’m thinking titles like Rainbow Islands, Parasol…
I first heard of Demonschool about three and a half years ago, during the PC Gaming Show in June 2022. At that time, it was meant to launch in 2023. I’ve followed news about the school-life tactics RPG ever since, through multiple delays (2023 to 2024 to September 2025 to…
Disclaimer: I’m making this quick disclaimer so it’s clear and up-front. I…
Kirby Air Riders is fun. It’s not any more than that, and…
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…
Read MoreAlmost a decade ago, Sony published The Last Of Us on PlayStation 3. The sheer hyperbole that the game got was, in retrospect, silly. Empire even went as far as to say that the very cinematic game was comparable to Citizen Kane. Of course, since then, Sony alone has published…
Read MoreWell, this review puts me in a bit of an odd position. Idol Manager seems to be one of the very few articles that we lost when we transferred from that old, Blogger-based DigitallyDownloaded.net (remember how ugly that site was by the end?) to this new host. And that’s a…
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The content warnings for Immortality are plenty. It includes everything from swearing and blasphemy to incest and murder. No content warnings would scare me off this game, let alone ones that basically contain the features of any V.C. Andrews novel. Immortality may have only been announced last year, but it…
Read MoreA wide variety of companies have held the licence to produce TMNT games over the years, but Konami can lay claim to having been the first. If you were playing a console TMNT game in the late 1980s or early 1990s, it was made by Konami, or one of its…
Read MoreARGH! Argh, argh, argh, arghhhhhhhhhh! Dusk Diver 2 is so frustrating. So utterly, cruelly frustrating. Somehow this sequel is even more frustrating than its predecessor. I can see what the developer wanted to achieve with it, and I appreciate it on so many levels. It just doesn’t come together in…
Read MoreI had no idea that the original Pac-Man World was so well regarded. I had never played it, nor any of its sequels (despite being a general fan of the yellow pizza-man), but in researching the original for this review I did see that it was sold and reviewed very…
Read More“Princess Maker-likes,” like Lair Land Story, are a niche within a niche, but it’s a genre that can be oddly compelling. They’re spreadsheet simulators, in which 90 per cent of the game involves carefully managing a girl’s development by carefully selecting her daily activities. But while that might sound dull,…
Read MoreSoul Hackers 2 is a throwback to the glory days of Shin Megami Tensei. There was a point where Atlus’ premier property focused on ideas rather than sheer style, and some real classics came out of that approach. SMT 3: Nocturne and the Digital Devil Saga duo were my favourites…
Read MoreReleasing a “Soulslike” in the same year as Elden Ring is, I would argue, unwise. You’re never going to come off well in that comparison and it’s only going to result in your game being judged more harshly than it deserves to be. In that context, Thymesia really should have…
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