Justin Nation Avatar Image

Justin Nation

Windsor, PA
The Nindersect
Nindersect

Favorite Games:
  • Rocket League
  • Neon Abyss
  • Wreckfest

3760 games reviewed
70.8 average score
70 median score
42.9% of games recommended

Justin Nation's Reviews

Strangely enough this isn't my first rodeo, back in the day I wrote for the N64HQ as well as a few other outlets on freelance gigs but then when the HQ closed I decided to step it up and started The 64 Source. As the first word of a follow-up system to the N64 began to swirl I then decided to venture out into completely new territory and started OperatioN2000, where I had very little regular reputable news to share. With no other options I decided create my own content focused on profiling key developers and their current relationship with Nintendo or "dream games" where I saw opportunities for Nintendo to dust off classics or recently-made games and do something new with them on improved hardware. This was all going pretty well until my wife and I decided to have our first child and I then decided that it was time to hang it up and focus on my family. As I closed down both sites I did decide to partner with Billy Berghammer, another former N64HQ writer, who had created his own site, PlanetN2000. We agreed to move over the relevant content from the older sites to his and on top of that I had taken a grad school class in programming in ColdFusion and decided to offer to code the front-end and back-end for a new version of his site. Through these efforts the newer and more complete Planet GameCube was born! While I would occasionally contribute to that site, helping do things like working out Louie the Cat doing rumors and other odd things, I eventually decided to stop as my family obligations grew. While I had continued to follow Nintendo through both the Wii and Wii U eras my TV time was limited enough that I began playing more PC games again. It is in the PC space that I began to play a number of independent games and they started to be the games I enjoyed the most. Between their lower price, their often less traditional gameplay and approach, and their great variety I was hooked! With the launch of the Nintendo Switch I was already excited by the possibilities. The portability factor alone meant that I would have far more options and places I could play away from the TV, and games like Breath of the Wild looked impressive. With my oldest daughter poised to start her senior year in high school and my youngest finishing out junior high I started to see an opportunity to get back into amateur games journalism once again with what is now Nintendo World Report as well but I'd initially just thought about writing some editorials periodically. Then, right before the launch of the system, Nintendo had their Nindie-focused presentation and I saw my two most beloved gaming worlds colliding. The games I had been playing on my PC could now be played in a portable way and on Nintendo hardware! Being the type who tends to work against the normal current the concept behind Nindie Spotlight was born!
1 / 10.0 - Car Trader
May 12, 2019

OK, so I’ve played some really awful games before, ones that have had serious bugs or gameplay that made no sense, but never anything like Car Trader...

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1.5 / 10.0 - Energy Invasion
Jan 11, 2018

Unfortunately, there’s just so much going on that is actively wrong with the game I would end up calling my time with it excruciating...

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2 / 10.0 - Deep Ones
Apr 13, 2018

Odd pacing, limited and sluggish control, janky enemy movement, and frustration are all pretty well constants in this title which makes no sense given its appearance that can’t be consuming more than a fraction of the system’s power. For whatever merits it could possibly have it is simply an exercise in aggravation to play and has pretty well nothing to really enjoy. This offends me on a few levels, both in terms of the perception people may walk away with about indie games but also what they may think about the quality of games from the age of the Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum that the graphics in Deep Ones mimics. Regardless of the comparatively primitive graphics games may have had in that era even then this would have still been an awful game. If you still are interested in the title be sure to check out the available demo first and be really sure you want to waste your time, let alone your money, on it.

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2.4 / 10.0 - Ski Sniper
Feb 28, 2020

I actually debated reviewing this game because it irritates me so much...

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To be clear the issues its sibling had with driver AI inexplicably crashing and taking themselves out of races remains...

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Mar 23, 2023

While pretty well every fishing game on Switch has been pretty bad, at least most were playable. This is not

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Nov 26, 2017

Even at the very modest price being asked on the Switch eShop for this game right now I can’t recommend it. I like its looks and sounds, and the puzzle mechanic seems novel enough to occupy yourself with for a few hours. Unfortunately the forced touchscreen controls are implemented so wonkily that it gives you nothing but aggravation once nuance is called for pretty early on in the game. If the game is patched and this is changed, with the controls being precise, I hope to give it a more thorough review but for now I’d avoid it.

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Jan 6, 2018

As you may have gathered I’m not at all a fan of Rock ‘N Racing Grand Prix and I absolutely cannot recommend it to anyone as it gets the fundamentals of a racing game so wrong. On pretty well every critical level the game is lacking, provoking more frustration than anything else when trying to play it. This is a game that probably wouldn’t even be fit to be scrapped for parts.

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3 / 10.0 - Blood Waves
Mar 15, 2019

You’ll start out in a circular room that’s lacking in detail or cover, where a steady flow of zombies will be thrown at you coming from different directions...

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3 / 10.0 - Peasant Knight
Mar 22, 2019

Skipping the non-story, since it has no real bearing on anything, the basics are that you’re someone dressed as a knight but who has no weapon...

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3 / 10.0 - SkyTime
Nov 5, 2018

After being introduced to what’s happening with a ridiculous premise that then has no real bearing on the action that follows at all you’ll be thrown into playing with minimal direction...

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3 / 10.0 - Soulblight
Oct 4, 2018

Billed as an action roguelike the top-down graphics and generally uninspired and clunky combat get it off to a rocky start...

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3 / 10.0 - Yōdanji
Dec 7, 2017

In the game you’ll take control of a your choice of yokai spirits, each with their own pretty unique set of powers...

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Sep 13, 2017

In its current state I really can’t recommend 36 Fragments of Midnight at all. When it is an endurance game and there’s any control-oriented inconsistency or obstacle all I can imagine is people sinking their time into something that they can’t ultimately control their own success in. With some patching to improve the situation it would at least move the game up a bit, but still nothing would stop it from being merely mediocre. In the end it is what it is and you could spend some quick bursts of time on it and have a little fun, just even in that area there are generally more compelling titles than this one on the Switch.

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3.3 / 10.0 - emoji Kart Racer
Mar 10, 2023

With kart racers on Nintendo systems there are those that can’t quite match up to Mario Kart and those that don’t deserve to be on the track

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Jan 20, 2023

Where to even begin, this game is a tedious and buggy mess with clunky controls to boot

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Dec 7, 2018

While I chose the video above to show a little bit of progression at the very beginning I won’t lie, I spent a solid 20 minutes before what you see there simply poking around the inside of the house trying to get reacquainted with the controls and exploring possibilities in the few rooms that are there because I couldn’t figure out how to open the one unlocked door you need to go through...

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3.5 / 10.0 - Godly Corp
Apr 5, 2019

You play the game as a be-tentacled intern at the title Godly Corp, tasked with taking different shifts where you’ll have to focus on multiple tasks at once while then struggling with the controls...

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