Paul Hunter's Reviews
Following Team Ninja's excellent Nioh games, the studio once again proves its unmatched mastery of the action-RPG genre with Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. It offers rock-solid gameplay and excellent accessibility while still providing a good challenge.
Go! Go! PogoGirl is a fantastic homage to classic platformers that fans of Sonic the Hedgehog or DuckTales will surely love. It offers top-notch level design, a charming aesthetic and a nice mix of platforming challenges and puzzle-solving to get through each stage. It's the perfect length, too, and encourages replayability.
Wanted: Dead is a hard game to review considering nearly every aspect has positives and flaws. The gameplay can be extremely satisfying when you get into a good rhythm, but the limited enemy variety and spongy health make every mission feel the same. The story and characters have wacky charm, at times being incredibly funny yet far too frequently becoming a head-scratcher. The cutscene voice acting is bad, but the anime flashbacks are superb. I could go on and on but the bottom line is this game is unique—for better or for worse—and probably just as many people will love it as those who don't.
Metroid Prime Remastered is an exceptional upgraded version of one of Nintendo's greatest games ever. Anyone that enjoyed Metroid Dread or plays action-adventure games in general needs to get this title which stands tall among the Switch's crowded library of triple-A first-party bangers. Gaming doesn't get much better than this.
For a game based on such a non-exciting task, PowerWash Simulator is way, way more fun than it ought to be. That mainly comes to down the game embracing its silliness, putting you the perpetually dirty Muckingham and tasking you with washing ridiculous places like a giant shoe home or a washroom with decades of baked-on piss stains. Once you settle into the game's zen-cleaning state, you'll easily melt the hours away obsessively cleaning objects until they look brand spanking new.
Dead Space remake pays full tribute to the original game and adds exciting new features and improvements, making it a brilliant and terrifying survival horror experience. EA Motive clearly saw what Capcom was doing with their Resident Evil remakes and managed to hit a quality bar on par with those efforts.
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake delivers exactly what I'd hope for: a fun-filled new SpongeBob adventure that takes the gameplay, graphics and vibe of Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated to the next level.
Season - A Letter to the Future is a joyous experience unlike any I've played in recent memory. It's a calming, cathartic game where you'll end up learning just as much about yourself as you do this interesting and unusual world. The scope narrows in the second half of the game, which was a slight disappointment, but the overall journey was still rewarding making it an easy recommendation.
Going into Forspoken I had cautious optimism, but I walked away happy with the experience. The gameplay is the real winner here: from the hyper-fast traversal to the deep magical combat there's a lot to appreciate. Yes, Frey and Cuff's dialogue often made my eyes roll but at least the game's lore is intriguing and worth exploring to its fullest.
Trenches is a bold first-person survival horror game that delivers chilling jump scares in a unique war-torn environment. The audio design is the real winner here, and playing the game with headphones on is a must. The visuals wear thin after one playthrough and there's not much incentive to reply this short game, but at ten bucks it offers a couple of hours of intense scares that are worth experiencing if you're a big horror buff.
If you enjoy classic horror games from yesteryear, this game is ready to give you an earful of scares.
Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider kicks off 2023 in the best way possible with an immaculate retro platforming title delivering tight gameplay, gorgeous visuals, great enemy variety and intense boss fights. Anyone who enjoys classics like Contra or Shinobi should have this game on their radar.
Jitsu Squad is pure brawling awesomeness. The gameplay is buttery smooth, lightning-fast and thoroughly satisfying—exactly what you'd want from a beat 'em up. Mix in the eye-popping hand-drawn cartoon graphics, finessed animations and a thumping soundtrack and this game delivers the goods. It's a shame then that in its current state the content is a bit lacking, but hopefully, the Kickstarter stretch goals get rolled out soon as they'd make the game an unqualified recommendation.
The Callisto Protocol is an impressive first release from Striking Distance Studios with sublime visuals and immersive 3D audio, all set in a captivating new game world I just have to see more of. The performance on PS5 is exceptional: buttery-smooth frame rates, crisp 4K resolution and one of best implementations of ray tracing and DualSense features I've seen yet. If only the combat was better this would be a near-perfect outing, but alas that aspect needs some major reworking.
Do Not Open delivers on its escape room horror promise with cleverly designed puzzles that are fun and challenging to solve. Combined with its spooky story and high-quality environmental visuals, there's enough here to make a solid recommendation to horror fans. One caveat though: depending on your budget, its $24.99 price tag may be a little steep considering the game's length, so you might want to hold out for a sale.
Evil West is a silly slaughter-fest that has gameplay I instantly got into and enjoyed.
Atari has just set a new benchmark for retro game compilations with Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. There's been a lot of talk recently about how bad the gaming industry is at preserving its history, but this robust package should be the ideal that all game companies strive for.
The Devil in Me is Supermassive's best entry yet in The Dark Pictures Anthology series. The new gameplay mechanics push the series into the modern era (finally!), but it's the haunted antagonist Du'Met that's really the star of this horrorfest. If you've enjoyed previous entries in the anthology, don't hesitate to book your ticket to the murder hotel.
Syberia: The World Before delivers an impactful story that perfectly wraps up Kate Walker's legendary story while whetting the appetite for more stories involving newcomer Dana Roze. Visuals in the game are simply exquisite and combined with the beautiful soundtrack and stunning piano arrangements it's an audio-visual feast. I really hope we one day get more stories in the exotic world of Syberia, but if this is it, the series is concluding on the highest note possible.
Smurfs Kart doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, instead giving you a clear Mario Kart-inspired kart racer with fantastic visuals, a good variety of playable Smurfs and accessible gameplay. If your family is looking for their next competitive racer, this game delivers tons of multiplayer thrills.