Nicola Ardron's Reviews
Beyond Blue is an overtly educational game that has a message worth sharing. The experience is pleasant enough, but other games manage to convey the majesty and beauty of the ocean more elegantly.
Save Koch is a complex and surprisingly hardcore simulation game with a noir theme, but there a few too many fail states and it's too repetitive to be truly enjoyable
It feels trite to put a score on a game like Memory of Us as it tells an important and poignant story that should be heard, it's just that at times the game parts get in the way of that story.
A minimalist's take on the real time strategy genre, with a strong pick and play quality that doesn't quite do enough to bridge the gap between novices and veterans of the genre.
If you can re-frame Fallout 76 as a survival crafting game in the Fallout universe rather than viewing it as the next instalment in the series then you will have a better time. It is not without its faults, but there is a base there that has the potential to be improved upon as time goes by.
A mainly disappointing sequel, with some glitches that hinder the progress and the fun.
This isn't a bad game, but there are some omissions that have been with the series forever which are strangely missing.
Beat Cop is a relentless time management game where writing tickets and arresting perps is set against a background of sleaze and corruption.
Dead Effect 2 falls into the "so bad it's good" category of things with a certain B-movie charm to it. Just don't expect a technically polished shooter.
A Journey's End is a lacklustre ending to Minecraft: Story Mode and further reinforces the idea that the series should have stopped after episode four or five.
A Portal to Mystery is a disappointing episode. While the story itself is fun, there is too much emphasis on the YouTube personalities that only fans of them will appreciate.
Koi is a beautiful, soft and serene game that doesn't quite manage to fulfil the ideas and message it is clearly trying to convey.
Planet of the Eyes is a competent puzzle platformer, short enough to be played in one sitting, but with a sterile and empty world it fails ultimately to leave any lasting impression.
Ronin is potentially a really good game, but repetitive game play as well as a frustrating upgrade system makes it tough to finish to its conclusion.
Tropico 6 on Switch has a lot of content and a highly customisable sandbox mode, however it suffers some slight performance drops particularly in handheld mode that makes the port difficult to recommend fully.
Welcome to Elk is an interesting biographical game about how stories help shape communities. It features some interesting mini-games and a good cast of characters, but the stories feel a little too personal and at times you feel like an intruder.
Windbound is a story based survival game set across five procedurally generated worlds. It features a cool boat building mechanic and a strong sense of discovery, but some of its systems and mechanics get in the way and can strip the fun away.
Atomicrops is an action-packed rogue-like farming simulator crossed with a frenetic twin-stick shooter. It is filled with good humour and some interesting systems, but the perma-death feels a little out of sorts with the idea of growing things.
911 Operator Deluxe Edition comes packed with content. It suffers from fiddly controls, which hamper your success rate, but the audio work is good, and there is tonnes of detail to pore over.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered gets some visual improvements, but not much else. Strong nostalgia hooks will delight fans, but won't bring in any new audience.