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…
People who play board games are familiar with Dominion. It is considered the “gateway drug” to deckbuilding card games (and was indeed the first example of one), being both light and accessible and very good at showcasing the basic mechanics of this particular genre. It has sold millions and millions…
Temirana: The Lucky Princess and the Tragic Knights is a little bonkers,…
Sugoroku is, as far as the mechanics go, not the most exciting…
One 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…
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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.…
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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…
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…
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 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,…
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Super Bullet Break is a happy, colourful thing. I know it’s going to rankle some to suggest that as overtly fanservicey as it could be “wholesome” or “innocent,” but that’s what Super Bullet Break is; a happy, high-energy, bubbly and wholesome thing. The game is a combination of two things.…
Read MoreWhile Game Freak continues to try and innovate within the Pokémon property, and find its next hit evolution (sorry for the pun, I couldn’t resist), there is still a loud demand for the “classical” monster-collecting formula. I feel that myself – I often find myself booting up my 3DS for…
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Admittedly I wasn’t following Digimon Survive too closely in the leadup to release, however, I did know it was going to be a tactics JRPG featuring collectible monsters. That in itself was exciting given that I have fond memories of Pokémon Conquest back on the DS. What I was not…
Read MoreForget the absolutely dismal Dark Alliance dungeon crawler that was released last year. There was a time where “Dungeons & Dragons” and “Dark Alliance” put together was something worth getting excited about. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance was a series of just two games, but they remain two of the better…
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