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“The beautiful game” is a phrase with a history that runs back to 1958. Football really has, for better or worse, the most passionate fans in the world. Those fans head out in their droves every year to buy the latest iteration of FIFA. Unsurprisingly FIFA holds the title for fastest selling sports franchise game series of all time. Every single year FIFA tends to face some harsh criticism. This is rightfully so when you consider last year’s Nintendo Switch offering reviewed by Harvey Fry here. The question is, do EA Sports really care about the gameplay and immersion into the football experience? Or, are they more focused on their bottom line, Ultimate Team micro-transactions and licenses? Well this year, I’m pleased to say comfortably, they’ve found a perfect balance of commerciality and customer experience.
When a decent combat system has undergone adjustments and refinements over decades, one would expect an easy victory for a third entry. Indeed, Trails II had it made; a turn-based JRPG style of combat that was host to a wealth of tactical options, with multiple types of attack, intelligent enemy AI and cross-party link skills. Trails III doesn’t simply phone it in as there are a few extra elements to dig into.
Monster Truck Championship is a different take on a racing simulation, there are so many different tracks to race on, and the feel to it is definitely superior to previous monster truck games that have been released before out there.
Taking characters from an RPG game and turning it into a crazy, hilarious and tough platform game, is not something that’s done every day. Prinny 1•2 Exploded & Reloaded comes bounding onto the Nintendo Switch from the guys over at Nippon Ichi Software and NIS America. Does this hard platform game live up to its lineage? Let’s dive right in.
Mini Motor was released in 2011 on Android, and I remember it well… After purchasing a new phone I was looking for a little racer to download, and I came across Mini Motor which reminded me so much of Micro Machines. Fast forward to the present day; I noticed a few weeks ago that it had appeared on the Nintendo Switch eShop with a new name and fresh coat of paint, so I needed to check it out again!
The Otterman Empire is a pretty simple game, both in terms of gameplay and design. With its simple character and level design, The Otterman Empire feels like a homage to the video game heyday of anthropomorphic animals appearing in everything. On the surface The Otterman Empire even feels like a Gamecube or PlayStation 2 game, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Those of us wanting a simple couch multiplayer game will find a lot of The Otterman Empire appealing despite its apparent flaws.
In 2018, Bamtang Games released Nickelodeon Kart Racers and to say it received mixed reviews is probably over-generous. Although I did not play the original, a kart racer is always appealing so find out what I thought of Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2 in this Rapid Review.
The PlayStation 2’s Star Wars Battlefront II is a much loved game in my brother and I’s collection. Countless hours spent playing heroes vs villains mainly, but also taking down star destroyers in the space battles. I was pretty dreadful, confusing myself by spinning around and blowing myself up…but it was fun nontheless! The news of Star Wars: Squadrons had me longing to relive those days. With the new Battlefront‘s exclusion of space battles, they seemed lost to nostalgia. Though they were introduced in the second installation of the series, there were mixed opinions. So does Star Wars: Squadrons get space battles right once and for all? Let’s find out.
The story in Ben 10: Power Trip! sees Ben, Grandpa Max, Gwen on vacation in Strudelbek. After a quick pit-stop in the National Park, a chance encounter occurs. Ben comes face to face with his old nemesis, HEX, who plans on stealing the 4 magical Crystals. He plans to use the power of the crystals to manipulate the real world, summon his rift monsters and cause chaos!
You play with two characters in Lair of the Clockwork God: Ben and Dan. They each have different capabilities which you utilise to complete different parts of each level. Ben can interact with objects, talk to characters and craft items. He also has an inventory where he can store things that you pick up along the way. Ben can’t jump though, so he is reliant on Dan moving objects or standing on pressure pads when he needs to go up or downhill (unless there’s a gradual gradient).
Let’s get it out of the way, this game is about shooting aliens to strip animé girls of their clothes. There’s no way to make it sound any better than that. The game has a certain audience it’s looking for…however; a quick Google search would allow players to find all the naked animé girls they want without having to pay for this title. Waifu Uncovered tries to be funny, but it misses the mark with its childish and immature attempt at humour. Often it’s left until the boss fights at the end of each stage, but even the pre and post-stage screens have some text that feels like it’s written by the child in school who tried too hard to be funny.
It’s the Year of Our Lord 1919, and things are changing around the industrial backstreets of Birmingham. The streets of Small Heath are about to run red with blood, sweat, and tears. The Shelby family means business, and they are gonna take what they want. Remember “This place is under new management, by order of the Peaky Blinders”.
Huntdown is set in a dystopian future, in a city where gangs run rampant and the police have resorted to hiring bounty hunters to deal with the worst of the worst. Choosing from one of three possible hunters, players can enforce law and order on the streets as Ana Conda, John Sawyer or Mow Man. Each will start with a unique gun and projectile, and they all come fully loaded with quick-witted replies and catchphrases ripped right out of an action movie script. This game can be enjoyed in both single and multiplayer, but for the sake of this review, only the single-player experience has been covered.
Against the Moon is a turn-based roguelike deck builder with gameplay being a blend of Plants vs Zombies and Slay the Spire. As a big fan of Slay the Spire, what did I think? Find out in this Rapid Review. Against the Moon has detailed and complex lore which, to be quite honest, I struggled to comprehend. From what I could grasp, the moon is against you and some of the moon’s friends also stand in your way. To aid in the battle against the moon (see what I did there), there are some powerful heroes called “Ultori” who offer unique abilities and are the last line of defence.
There’s a very simple premise to Isle of Spirits; survive long enough to escape. You must use the available resources on the island to keep yourself fed, warm and protected from the elements whilst also constructing your escape raft. It’s worth getting some sleep every once in a while too, or you’ll find yourself taking impromptu naps – wherever you are and whatever you’re doing!
Gaming and exercise. These two words tend to collide a lot – gaming is usually associated with the opposite of fitness, as fitness tends to be seen as physical, outdoor activity. With the outdoors being very limited this year, alternatives are sought, and fitness games have seen a rise in popularity. In the past, fitness games have been seen as a sort of ‘gimmick’. They’re the types of games you play for a couple of months and then drop off once you’ve seen everything the game has to offer.
26 years is a very long time for Streets of Rage 4, especially when it comes to the video game industry. To put it into perspective, in 1994, Rare and Nintendo released the first Donkey Kong Country, Sony was putting the finishing touches to the Playstation which was due to release in Japan in that December, and Sega released Streets of Rage 3 worldwide in June. Most series that haven’t had an entry in that amount of time is long considered dead.
Do you remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books when you were a kid? Probably not, most people reading this are a lot younger than me and were probably on Snapchat or something instead. They were books that at the end of certain points in the story, you chose what to do and turned to the appropriate page to see what happened. There are parts of Crown Trick that are like that but the only difference is that Crown Trick repeatedly kills you and I cant then turn back to the other page to rectify my mistake as I could in the books I once adored.
In 2018, First Contact Entertainment released Firewall Zero Hour, a realistic team-based shooter, for the Playstation VR. First Contact have now released the pre-season of Solaris: Offworld Combat. Whilst this shooting game does share similarities to the previous title, Solaris takes a much more arcadey approach, ditching realism for accessibility. Find out my thoughts in this pre-season (early access) Rapid Review.
When Embracelet popped up in our games list, I immediately fell in love with the art style. Reminiscent of the design in Untitled Goose Game, the low-poly art looked utterly charming. There was something about the characters with their beady eyes and little mouths that captured my heart. However, I thought the story sounded a little cheesy. I’m all for magic and fantasy, but a bracelet with magical powers? I thought it was perhaps a little childish. But as they say, don’t judge a book by its cover, as I soon found out I was wrong!