Death’s Door is one of those rare games that grab your attention straight away and keeps it for the length of its journey. At its core, Death’s Door is both a Zelda and a Soulsboune clone. However, the two-man team over at Acidnerve have crafted something that’s both an excellent mix of genres, whilst also remaining original. Death’s Door understands what makes these two genres great and rather than imitation, it refines and expands on these points.
World’s End Club is a puzzle action-adventure game that takes you to the end of the world. Originally launched on Apple Arcade in 2020, the full experience has now landed on the Nintendo Switch. With plenty of ideas and a cast of likeable characters, is World’s End Club a club worth joining?
The F1 2021 season was meant to signal a significant change within the sport. With new regulations being introduced to streamline races, and a wealth of modifications to the titular Formula 1 racing car too. However global events put a dampner on these changes and as such the F1 2020 season was largely modified.
The term “grid-based” often brings up feelings of top-down RPGs or turn-based RTS titles. The ridged movement of these genres offer a somewhat tactical style of gameplay as your team moves between each tile on the map. Heading further back into gaming history, the grid style was fairly common in older PC titles – mainly games they allowed you to play is School. These educational games would often see you traversing a dungeon within a first-person viewpoint whilst solving reading puzzles or the dreaded mathematical questions. Vaporum: Lockdown is one of these games.
Side-scrolling beat’em ups are going through a renaissance at the present time. Spearheaded by the nostalgia driven Streets Of Rage 4 there’s been no end of titles released to try and capture the same feelings. The latest of these is Mayhem Brawler. Developed by Hero Concept, Mayhem Brawler takes everything that makes the genre great and adds a supernatural twist.
At first glance Guild of Darksteel can be mistaken as a typical side-scrolling action-adventure. Yet, it’s both and neither. What it is, is a pixel-based narrative adventure that’s been crossed with a rhythm-based game. If you think along the lines of Flashback and Guitar Hero then you’re not too far off track.
A Little Lily Princess is something of a rarity amongst video games. Where there has been plenty of games that have been adapted from films, comics, and television there hasn’t been many that have been inspired by a novel. The only title that springs to my mind is the original Rainbow Six. But even then the game was only loosely based on the Tom Clancy novel.
For quite a few years the rally genre was dominated by Codemasters and their Colin McRae series – and later Dirt/Dirt Rally. Throughout every console generation, there’s been a competitor for the rally crown and after a few years of trying, KT Racing finally nailed it last year with WRC 9 (check out our Xbox and Nintendo Switch reviews). This year, the developer is back with WRC 10. Not only does it improve on last year’s already stellar title, it also adds plenty more to the series.
Trigger Witch is the result of mixing The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Bayonetta, and a twin-stick shooter. From the creators of Reverie, Trigger Witch features a mixture of simple 16-bit gameplay with plenty of bullets, explosions, and gore. In a world where magic has had its day, bullets reign supreme.
When you speak about racing titles, often it conjures up talk of high-octane racing across plenty of high-speed tracks, in some pretty impressive vehicles. It’s not often you’ll hear someone describe a racing game as a form of art. Yet, Art of Rally is exactly that!
The original Actraiser was one almighty game. Originally released back in 1990 on the SNES (aka the Super Famicom) the game mixed action-platforming with a pretty in-depth world builder. Actraiser managed to capture your imagination and gave you the tools to literally play God. Since the initial release there’s been a less than memorable sequel – Actraiser 2 – then a few decades of slumber happened to our Lord of Light.
The first person shooter market is quite bloated. With FPS titles almost launching on a weekly basis, it’s easy for the odd diamond to get lost in the rough. With Call of Duty still being the FPS king, it’s also used as the benchmark for everything else. One title that’s aiming to take – or at least challenge COD’s supremacy is Insurgency: Sandstorm. Developed by New World Interactive, Insurgency: Sandstorm is a bare-bones multiplayer FPS that aims to highlight the brutal nature of modern warfare.
When it comes to Battlefield I like to call myself a veteran of the series. My love of large scale combat started off back in 2002 with Battlefield 2 and has grown ever since. I like to say that I’ve seen it all. From the highs of Battlefield: Vietnam, to the lows of Battlefield: Hardline, I’ve been there and – for Battlefield 3 – gotten the t-shirt (RIP Gamestation).
Over the last few years the rogue genre (and its many offshoots) has seen a mass influx of titles. From heavy-hitters such as Hades and The Binding of Issac, to an abundance of lesser known indie titles, there’s been no better time to be a rogue-like-lite fan. One such game that’s attempting its own spin on the formula is Vagante.
Much like the plethora of faded 80’s/90’s popstars, Skyrim also doesn’t know when to quit. Over the years Bethesda’s open-world RPG has made its presence known on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation VR, PC, and the Nintendo Switch. Not content with letting sleeping Dragons lie – and to celebrate the title’s 10-year anniversary – Skyrim (re-branded as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition) is now available on Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5!
The survival horror genre has seen a bit of a revival over the last couple of years. The success of both Resident Evil 7 and the “REmake” of Resident Evil 2 have highlighted that gamers want the more claustrophobic horrors of the past, rather than a blockbuster schlock-filled epic. One title that aims to put the traditional survival horror aspect back on the map is Heaven Dust 2.
The genesis of Rainbow Six Extraction started back in 2018. Ubisoft had introduced a limited-time event to their squad-based shooter, Rainbow Six Seige. This game mode, titled ‘Outbreak‘, tasked a cooperative team to take out a wave of aliens, rather than terrorists. With the event being well-received, Ubisoft has developed the formula into a standalone title.
When it comes to motorsport, gamers are spoilt for choice. Whereas the majority of gamers gravitate to platform exclusives such as Forza Horizon 5, or the recently released Gran Turismo 7, there’s also a wealth of multi-platform titles too. One such is GRID Legends which has been developed by the racing heavyweights over at Codemasters.
The origins to River City Girls can be traced back to Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-Tachi no Banka, a 1994 title on the Super Famicom – Super NES for Western gamers. Developed by WayForward, River City Girls Zero acts as both a prequel to River City Girls, and a remake. This is due to the title being updated and repackaged for its release to Western markets. Now featuring full localisation, River City Girls Zero is a great introduction to the wider Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun franchise.
I’m often wary of titles that have started their lives off on mobile devices. Quite often these games offer simple, repetitive gameplay that never quite shakes off the shackles that comes with mobile gaming. While there are plenty of truly horrendous mobile ports on the market (I’m looking at you Afterpulse!), there are a few diamonds in the rough. One such title aiming to be a cut above the rest is EGGLIA Rebirth. And when it comes to the development team, Brownies have quite the RPG history behind them!