Reviews

Intro: My first experience with Breach & Clear was on the Android platform. A squad based tactical shooter presented from an isometric perspective, feeling similar to a stripped down Xcom, it had you storming buildings and alleyways across a selection of urban locales. Playing as a SWAT team...

Intro: Ah, here we are again. It’s a world gone mad, where people of the near future get their kicks by watching other people kill each other on live TV. Is it The Running Man? Is it Smash TV? No, it’s Action News Heroes! Maybe with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura on board, this wouldn’t be the throwaway crapfest it is. Hey, at least it would have...

Intro: I’m going to pretend for a moment that no one has heard of Tetris, a Russian puzzle game created by Alexey Pajitnov. Contrary to popular belief, Tetris appeared on more than twenty systems – including an arcade machine – before hitting Nintendo’s Game Boy in 1989 and becoming a global phenomenon,...

Intro: Way back when, there was an old Public Domain title on the Amiga, simply called “Tanks”. It preceded the concept of Worms, but with only one weapon: The tank cannon. Destructible scenery and multiplayer across random 2D maps was really good fun – Then Team 17 took the concept and made it their own. Review: Cannon Brawl attempts to...

Intro: Dungeon Punks. It’s a terrible name. Not just because it’s so bland and unmemorable, but because it’s misleading in every regard. It brings to mind platforming rogue-likes that Orange Pixel or Ravenous Games might make for your mobile device. It certainly doesn’t bring to mind...

Intro: Hand drawn graphics have charm; there’s no doubt about it. Some games purport to be 8 bit or 16 bit experiences, but it takes a far more nuanced approach than chunky or pixelated sprites and filtered, lo-res backgrounds to nail the true feel of the golden age of home computer gaming. There’s the audio of course, but...

Intro: Every year or so sees the release of another fun-but-basic MX vs ATV game. In 2016 we saw a slightly stealthy re-release of the Xbox 360 game from the year before: You race motocross bikes and all terrain vehicles against each other for a few laps through dirt, sand and mud, pulling off stunts over the...

Intro: Insomniac games partnered with GameStop’s then new publishing arm to bring us something with a distinctive Indie flavour: Song of the Deep, a somewhat by-the-numbers metroidvania which takes place entirely underwater. Review: Living with her seafaring father, Merryn – a young...

Intro: The smell brings you around. Salty, fresh; a hint of palm. The fine, soft sand is warm against your back, and you lay there for a moment, trying to think. It’s a struggle to remember why – or how – you came here. Slowly, you become aware of the gentle sound of water lapping against the shore. It’s touch is far from...

Intro: There’s been something of a trend over the last few years: AAA developers leaving the roost and banding together to do something new, away from the constraints of a huge team and publisher pressure. With titles from other devs such as Fire in the Flood and Dangerous Golf being born under similar circumstances, two things about this current...

Intro: Milkstone Studios made a name for themselves back in the XBLIG scene on the Xbox 360, with their own quirky takes on games which were popular on other platforms. From The Binding of Isaac influenced Sushi Castle to Slender-a-like White Noise, what Milkstone have always lacked in originality, they make up for with some of the...

Intro Tight, birds-eye shooters have a special place in my heart. From the hours of co-op fun that my brother and I put into Super Smash TV on the C64 and Sega Master System, through the hidden gem of PS1 splatter-fest Loaded, and on to my repeated plays of literal poo-fest The Binding of Isaac, it's fair to say I get a lot...

Intro Tight, birds-eye shooters have a special place in my heart. From the hours of co-op fun that my brother and I put into Super Smash TV on the C64 and Sega Master System, through the hidden gem of PS1 splatter-fest Loaded, and on to my repeated plays of literal poo-fest The Binding of Isaac, it's fair to say I get a lot...

Intro: Portal was a ground breaking game when Valve released it back in 2007, tucked away in the tail-end of The Orange Box compilation. It practically invented the modern first person puzzle game, notably by making something other than killing the focus of the first person gameplay. Since then, many pretenders...

Intro: Back in the days when analogue controllers were first becoming widely available for consoles, primarily with the advent of the Dual Shock pad for the PS1, I remember thinking precise controls for top down games would work really well. Surprisingly, over the years, not...

Last month, I decided to spend all of my time playing games on the Xbox 360. In the process, I decided to finally play this game. Yaris. I got this game for free almost 15 years ago from the Xbox 360 marketplace, and for some reason, I never finished it or even started it, and I typically play all the games that I could pick...

If you played the first game, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (Released in 2010) then you know what is in store for you with this second title from Square Enix & Crystal Dynamics. Four years after the first game was released they now have a sequel called Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris. Game play is very similar to the first game with a top down view of the...

Duke Nukem is an iconic character with that flattop hairdo and his one line quips. This iteration of the character was originally released as a PC game that was then ported over as a Xbox 360 arcade game in 2010. The setting is on the island of Manhattan and a mad scientist named Morphix has his mind set on taking over New York City. The game is classified as...

Microsoft Minesweeper is pretty impressive given the basic nature of the game. Of course, if you never liked Minesweeper in the first place then nothing here will change that, but while you can’t polish a turd, you can roll it in lots and lots of pretty glitter. There’s not too much what else to say about Microsoft...

Microsoft Jigsaw as it's actually fantastic and also It works great. Never did I think that a game of solving puzzles would be so much fun. Basically we have traditional play which allows you to pick a difficulty and then of course solve it. No time limits or restraints for you and there's even a little box on the side for you to put pieces away...

Endless World is a game where you turn on autoplay and just wait a few minutes to fuse items, upgrade hero stats and occasionally collect quest rewards. The only real gameplay is clicking tiles and decorations in the environment for coins. That said i had fun for a few hours and it should not take very long to get all achievements without needing to buy microtransactions. ...

Intro Decay is a game which first launched a number of years ago on the Xbox 360, under the XBLIG marketplace - the equivalent of the Creators Collection on Xbox One. It was released in four parts for $3 each, with the first being $1, and was something of a diamond in the rough at the time, due to its...

Great concept, high production value, but ultimately just not that much fun. The story is interesting and conceptually I love the idea of reuniting the USA and players helping each other. Unfortunately, the actual gameplay loop is very tedious and frustrating. Hideo Kojima games are excellent at giving the player autonomy. He provides the tools to let the player...

Intro Welcome to a world where death is a way of life. A world where mega corporations, run by the greedy self-serving Glukkons, strip the land of it’s resources in the name of profit. A world where huge factories dominate the skyline, pumping black smoke into the air as the enslaved ’employees’ –...

Intro …Wow; what an experience. The last few hours of Lifeless Planet left me breathless – frightened, intrepid and isolated in a truly foreign environment, manipulating alien machinery with no idea of what the outcome would be. Pushing on and on and on towards an unknown goal, the...