One of the finest examples that I can think of that highlight the differences between Western and Eastern game development, and some of the weaknesses that we as a collective industry have in critiquing video games, is to look at Dante’s Inferno and El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron side-by-side. They were released at around the same time (Dante’s Inferno…
SongPop Party is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the finest party games in existence. It takes something that is fundamentally compelling – music trivia – and gives people a no-frills way of playing that and, importantly, doing so with the music that they actually like. Now the…
Read MoreThe Legend of Heroes series is famous for being impenetrable for newcomers and also having a fanbase that likes it that way. They’ll insist that you absolutely cannot play any game in this series without having magically played all the other games first. And if you like the wrong ones…
Read More“Through me you pass into the city of woe: Through me you pass into eternal pain: Through me among the people lost for aye. Justice the founder of my fabric moved: To rear me was the task of power divine, Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. Before me things create were…
Read MoreAmnesia: Memories was first released over a decade ago, and it’s fair to say that the visual novel genre – and particularly the otome sub-genre – has moved at a rapid pace from that time. That’s not a criticism of Amnesia, by any means, but the experience of reading through…
Read MoreClap Hanz Golf is not a game you stealth launch on a console! Clap Hanz Golf is a game you make a big deal about, especially since Nintendo has really lost its way with Mario Golf and fans of that series desperately want something like this on their consoles too.…
Read MoreTen-Pin Bowling is one of my favourite activities. Few things are more entertaining than getting a group of people together and hitting the lanes. Especially when there’s party music and alcohol involved. Bowling is a lot of fun – a truly good night out! – when combined with a bar,…
Read MoreOne thing I can say in Splatoon 3’s favour right from the outset is that I’m finally not being struck down with migraines while playing the game. With both Splatoon 2 and the original, the extremely busy, bold, messy and overwhelmingly bright colours seemed to trigger something in my brain…
Read MoreWhen 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 MoreI 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 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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