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Needless to say, Castle Of Heart isn’t a good game. Its humdrum platforming mixed with shoddy animations and sluggish controls makes for a rather dopey gaming experience. While the game’s main gimmick of keeping your life afloat does have some potential, it’s never quite implemented well enough to stir up anything new or interesting.
Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder Devastated is little more than a title you’d buy on sale for a couple of pounds, play for five minutes and forget it exists.
I will always applaud developers that try to make learning languages more entertaining and accessible, but Hiragana Pixel Party isn’t the right answer this time around. Japan is a truly beautiful country with an equally fascinating language, and if you want to start learning it I’d easily argue that flashcards or an introductory lesson would be a more productive way to spend your money.
I worry that even fans of the show will be disappointed in Ben 10, which is a competent game, but one that never sparks any excitement, is far too short, and squanders the chance to be something greater. Being a hero can be hard work, we’re told, and it’s difficult to disagree when we’re left to suffer through games with such blinding shortcomings.
Ultimately Mecho Tales is derivative, borrowing tried and tested ideas rather than coming up with anything that ever surprises or astounds. It fails to leave a lasting impression to result in another forgettable platformer that is unable to compete with far more memorable and groundbreaking games in the genre that are available on the Nintendo eShop.
Hello Neighbor could be fun, within the right parameters. The neighbour would hold a lot more terror if his actions carried any weight. The puzzling aspect of switches, hidden doors and traps would be more enjoyable were they staged within an inspiring world or using interesting concepts. But the game fails on all of these points, not holding attention, not really projecting any fear beyond the first few encounters, and the world feels as flat as the polygons used to build it.
Spellspire isn’t a bad game, it is simply let down by the fact that it hasn’t been adapted fully for consoles. It is still a mobile game at heart, just now without any in-app purchases. To me, that is what is most infuriating because I would recommend this game to most people if it meant you didn’t have to go back to each level multiple times and grind until you are strong enough to finally progress. For this reason, it’s hard to recommend to people unless you truly love word games of this ilk, because if you do, regardless of whether you care about doing the same levels over and over, you’re still going to have fun playing.
The amount of modes that Snow Moto Racing Freedom has to offer is great, but the most important thing is the gameplay and it is rather bland with some dubious controls and a big framerate issue. This is a genre of racing games that the Switch doesn’t have yet, it stands alone. So by default, it is the best winter racing game on the system. However, in no way does that mean that if you really love racing games of this ilk, you’re going to enjoy this one, because truth be told, you probably won’t.
DYING: Reborn had the potential to be a decent game. Nevertheless, with its lack of real horror elements, bad translation issues and nowhere near enough good puzzles, all of the things you would want, it is hard to recommend.
The style is lacklustre, the sound design adds very little to the overall package and it all feels very bland. This is one of those games where, when it loads I found myself uttering ‘Oh’ out loud, because it failed to capture any part of me. Had there been some humorous narrative, a few jokes scattered throughout, maybe even just some puns, I might have enjoyed my time with Puzzle Puppers. As it stands, it’s completely forgettable, which is a massive shame considering the wealth of memes and jokes that exist and the fact that the actual puzzle design is decent.
So, a Wave Race substitute this is not. Aqua Moto Racing Utopia tries to imitate Nintendo’s classic racer but it never comes anywhere close to it in all honesty. Which is a massive shame because this could have filled a gap for a lot of Nintendo 64 and GameCube era Nintendo fans like me. This is an improvement on the developer’s other recent racing game, Snow Moto Racing Freedom, but I think that might only be because racing on water with a jet-ski is much better than racing in the snow on a snowmobile. The main thing that this game does more than anything, is that it makes me want a new Wave Race game more than ever.
At one point I assumed that it’s likely I’m not the target audience, so I gave the game to my daughters – aged eight and ten – to play. They love Cartoon Network, so I thought that Cartoon Network: Battle Crashers would give them something new to experience. While both of them enjoyed the visual spectacle and the set pieces of special moves, they each gave up citing that it simply wasn’t fun, ironically choosing to watch The Regular Show instead. So, if my thoughts don’t nail what I want to say, I’ll leave it to my eight-year-old daughter – “This is boring, can we play Mario Kart instead?”
The Bunker was a game I really wanted to enjoy. I love the idea of mixing movies and video games as they are two things I am massively passionate about but this just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work as a video game and it doesn’t work as a movie. While it looks great, the acting leaves a lot to be desired and there just isn’t any involvement for the player as you’re just pressing the A Button a couple of times here and there without ever really having to make choices. It had potential and any future games can certainly learn a lot from this, but my advice is to stay well away unless you’re absolutely desperate for something to do for an hour or two.
Energy Cycle is a relatively forgettable puzzle experience. While the general idea is a passable one, a lack of substantial content and straightforward presentation result in a game that feels like it would be more at home on a smartphone than a games console.
The Deer God had me saying “Oh Deer.” A game this artistically beautiful shouldn’t be so lifeless and outside of its opening moments I really can’t think of many redeemable segments of the game. It’s slow, repetitive and has no clear direction for where it wants to go or what it wants to be. Not only is it not worth your money, it’s certainly unworthy of your time.
Lifeless Planet: Premiere Edition may very well gain a few new fans based solely on its narrative. Unfortunately, the tedious ordeal of having to traipse around the planet for half a dozen hours like a clumsy jelly baby just doesn’t make the plot strong enough to be worth the hassle. While it may not sound like it, I do appreciate the hard work and effort it takes to independently craft an environment of such scale. However, it really doesn’t excuse the fact that this is an incredibly poorly made game, regardless of how interesting its premise may be.
Surgeon Simulator CPR is a very silly game whether it’s the cartoony vibe it gives off, the wacky situations you’re thrown into or just trying to deal with the loose controls. It’s a mildly funny exercise and something to be enjoyed viewing how others interact with it, however in turns of longevity and depth you’ll find the pair lacking especially as the initial novelty starts to wear off.
On paper V-Rally 4 sounds like it should deliver everything you’d want for a rally racer. It has a lengthy single player, plenty of tracks and environments and a decent sized list of cars to tinker with in the garage. Unfortunately what the game does manage to get right is quickly dampened by some rather glaring and unforgivable flaws.
Bottom line, there’s nothing inherently wrong with Super Destronauts DX – the game plays fine, looks polished enough and features numerous mode types. The problem I have with it though is that nothing about it shines and no part of the game has me eager to jump back in any time soon.
Invisiballs is an interesting and unique idea unfortunately held back by a general lack of depth, variety and content. While there’s certainly nothing quite like this on Nintendo Switch at the moment, Invisiballs feels like too basic a package to keep you hooked for much longer than a few sessions. Perhaps future updates will add some interesting new features.