Press Start
HomepagePress Start's Reviews
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a wonderfully intricate, amazing piece of game design. It's intimidating and challenging, but it rewards all the effort you put into it. One of the best games of 2024 so far.
Mullet Mad Jack is a blistering, balls-to-the-wall throwback to 90s anime and violent, dystopian sci-fi that marries boomer shooters with speedrunning and roguelike aspirations to form an absolutely intoxicating brew. It's short, and there's not much to keep you invested even with infinite floors to climb, but you'll be having a good fucking time while you're in it.
Cryptmaster is a wickedly clever spin on the edutainment games of old. It combines good old fashioned typing with an underworld full up of gallows humour and eccentrics to meet, including its titular star. Spread the word, Cryptmaster is a must play indie.
Little Kitty, Big City is a hugely charming, succinct romp that's littered with gags laser-targeted at cat owners. It's light and breezy in the best ways, and although some technical rubs soured my time on Xbox Series X, it's a purr-fectly pleasant time.
Crow Country is a quaint compilation of survival horror's many time-tested tropes, from its tank controls to its labyrinthian network of corridors. For all it loads into a relatively small package, it pays homage to its roots within an irresistible framework from the antiquated era once befitting the original PlayStation.
Endless Ocean Luminous is a mildly confounding product. On the one hand, it's still got that very compelling offering of hours spent drifting through gorgeous oceans and coming face-to-face with hundreds of stunning creatures, without complex mechanics or urgency to get in the way. On the other hand, the overall gameplay experience has been dulled down so much to feel like a backwards step, and the system of randomly-seeded dive spots dilutes a lot of its personality.
Stellar Blade recalls the classic era of character-action games in truly inspired fashion. It might struggle to deliver on its core narrative, and its platforming is often more frustrating than it isn't, but neither of those things are enough to bring down a thoroughly enjoyable action experience. It wears its inspirations on its sleeve, but manages to build on them in engaging fashion with a deliciously layered combat system and gorgeous presentation to boot.
A stunningly realised rendition of Akira Toriyama's work, Sand Land matches its aesthetics with fun, breezy systems and a charming, if clumsy, tale of war, friendship, and hope.
Another Crab's Treasure is a scrappy, succinct and soggy soulslike that doesn't just pay homage to FromSoft's pioneering efforts but stands out in its own right. There's no getting around the fact that it has serious issues of performance and polish that can really bring down the experience, but it's a game so packed with charm, so inspired, so unexpectedly cooked and with so many flashes of brilliance that I can genuinely say it's worth suffering through the pain points. I don't think I've been quite so enamoured with a game like this in a long time.
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU is an earnest first video game effort from a studio that's destined for great things. Weak exploration and a lack of combat variety are minor flaws in an overall package that offers up fluid platforming, some great gameplay hooks, an emotionally-resonant story and a rich tapestry of sights and sounds that's like little else in the space. It's almost the perfect pairing to the recent Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, offering a succinct and approachable take on the concept that offers even more story, worldbuilding and visual flair.
The simple gameplay of Wrath of the Mutants can be enjoyable in the right mood, but don't expect anything more than a bland and repetitive button masher.
TopSpin 2K25 is without doubt the best tennis game since the last Top Spin game. It succeeds at finding the all important balance of risk versus reward that the foundation of Tennis is built on, and whilst it's not perfect, it provides a solid base for 2K to build on.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a robust remembrance of JRPGs from a bygone era. Despite some of the more archaic design elements of that generation seeping through the cracks, this spiritual successor to Suikoden offers a comforting and familiar experience that feels inherently nostalgic. Between engaging characters, a diverse world, alluring combat, and more, Hundred Heroes is proof that this sub-genre is timeless, even at its roots.
The Rising Tide is exactly what a Final Fantasy XVI DLC expansion should be. It's got a beautiful, mysterious new region to explore, an engaging questline with great new characters, hugely satisfying new additions to combat and plenty of extra challenge for those ready to seek it out. It doesn't do much to fix the main game's few flaws, but what's here is some of the most compelling and exciting content in the entire game.
It might not come as a surprise, but Dave the Diver is just as good on PlayStation as it is elsewhere. If you're yet to experience this intoxicating combination of scuba, sushi and silly mini-games, there's really never been a better time – especially because you can snag it as part of a PlayStation Plus Extra subscription.
Harold Halibut's narrative, setting and visuals are so wonderful and creative from a sci-fi perspective, it's an enormous shame it's housed within such a one-note and heartbreakingly boring video game.
House Flipper 2 is a genuinely impressive effort to spin an awkward, viral oddity into a more structured and goal-oriented game that builds on the moreish qualities of the original while honing its visual language and hugely expanding on its possibilities. It's just as good on PS5 too, with solid performance and mostly-intuitive controls making it a great choice of platform for budding flippers out there.
Broken Roads attempts to put an Australian spin on the classic Fallout formula. Unfortunately it succeeds just as much at aping vibes from the modern iterations of those games, as just like each of them, it’s also releasing in a dramatically buggy state. At this stage, I can’t in good faith recommend a purchase of the game at launch.
As macabre as it is, Children of the Sun's addictive leaderboard chase is sure to rekindle the competitive spirit in those who find themselves lapping up this world's darkness after having ventured heavenward in Neon White.
Botany Manor is a delight. It's sweet, succinct and serene, packed with clever puzzles that reward thoughtful exploration and engagement with its narrative. At a little under three hours it's the perfect lazy weekend getaway for those that like to stop and smell the flowers as much as they like to enrich the soil of their mind.