June2022
Review Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker (PS4)
Believe it
Republished on Wednesday 1st June 2022: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of June's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. For the uninitiated, Naruto is a long running manga series published in the weekly Shounen Jump periodical straight out of the Land of the Rising Sun. Naruto...
February2022
Review Elden Ring (PS5) - By Far FromSoftware's Best Ever Game
A song of life and death
Elden Ring is a special, once in a generation type of game. You can feel it the moment you push open the set of double doors looking out onto the opening area of Limgrave and begin exploring the vast open world at your feet. It’s an astonishing feat, as Japanese developer FromSoftware adapts its wide but ultimately linear...
October2021
Mini Review The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes (PS5) - The Best Game in the Series So Far
Trapped between Iraq and a hard place
After the crummy Man of Medan and the better-but-not-quite-there Little Hope, The Dark Pictures Anthology has finally started hitting its stride with House of Ashes. Set in Iraq in 2003, the invading United States army is looking for weapons of mass destruction wink wink. Satellite imagery has alerted them to a...
September2021
Review Tales of Arise (PS5) - A Fantastic JRPG, and the Strongest Tales Game in a Long Time
Blazing a Tale
Big budget, Japanese role-playing games are a rarity these days. Outside of obvious mainstays like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, it's a genre that often has to make do with more cost-efficient production. You either get your breakout hit — like Atlus did with Persona 5 — or you go underappreciated for what feels like an...
May2021
Review Subnautica: Below Zero (PS5) - Aquatic Open World Is Cooler Than Cool
Ice cold
Subnautica: Below Zero is a game about crafting for convenience. This frigid follow-up to Unknown Worlds’ seafaring survival sandbox subscribes to the same blueprint as its 2017 predecessor, plunging you into an aquatic open world and willing you to explore it. Where you go, and how you get there, is entirely up to you. While there is a...
February2021
Review Little Nightmares II (PS4) - An Artistic Exercise in Trial and Error
Maw than meets the eye
You can’t ignore the LittleBigPlanet in Little Nightmares II. Tarsier Studios may have turned to horror with its eerie 2017 puzzle platformer Little Nightmares, but the Swedish studio’s body of work largely involves Sackboy, and he hangs over this gloomy PlayStation 4 sequel like an ominous shadow. Mono moves like Media...
December2020
Mini Review Twin Mirror (PS4) - Yeah, This Exists
Man in the mirror
The more games DONTNOD Entertainment puts out, the more it feels like Life Is Strange really was just a fluke. The developer’s latest effort, titled Twin Mirror, is the worst of the lot as a nonsensical story, flat and uninteresting characters, and poor performance riddle this narrative-based adventure with flaws. Protagonist...
November2020
Review Katamari Damacy Reroll (PS4) - Roll 'Em Up Remake Rocks
Keep rollin' rollin' rollin' rollin'
We're sorry for the Limp Bizkit lyric in the tagline. But if we had to think about them while trying to come up with puns on rolling then it's only fair that you think about them too. If, by chance, you don't know who Limp Bizkit is then all you need to know is that the early 2000s weren't kind to rock music, but...
Review The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope - So Much Better Than Man of Medan
There's hope yet for Supermassive
We don't need to tell you what game The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope will immediately be compared to, so let's get it over and done with straight away. The second instalment in Supermassive Games' compendium series is the closest it has come to replicating the success of Until Dawn. It finally feels like the...
August2020
Review Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions - Anime Hijinks Liven Up Uneven Arcade Footy
Missed a sitter
We can't imagine there's a huge overlap on the Venn diagram for football fans and anime and manga and enthusiasts, but here we are. Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions is aiming squarely for the demographic of people that have both a Sky Sports and a Crunchyroll subscription, and good luck to it, we say. If you're not familiar...
Review Project CARS 3 - A Somewhat Fun Arcade Racer Going Through an Identity Crisis
Change is good. Or is it?
Project CARS 3 is not a simulator. Those familiar with the series may be surprised by this, but it’s true. It doesn’t look or feel like a simulator, either on the track or away from it. There are over 200 cars with most of the big hitters on the roster, but there’s no celebration of them in the menus like you get in...
Review Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS. Maxiboost ON - The Complete Gundam VS. Package
Maximum output
Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS. Maxiboost ON is pretty much the pinnacle of the long-running arcade series -- especially on console. It's an intricate, impressively comprehensive game that has so much to offer, whether you're playing solo, with a friend, or against strangers online. It's even a little overwhelming at first, but much...
Review Fast & Furious Crossroads - This Basic, Broken Mess Is Hardly Family Friendly
It's time for Teh-ken
Fast & Furious Crossroads is a movie tie-in game without a film to actually tie itself to. The coronavirus pandemic has delayed Fast & Furious 9 to April 2021, leaving Slightly Mad Studios in an understandably awkward position. The Project CARS developer has decided to pull the trigger and launch the game, but it would...
June2020
Mini Review Namco Museum Archives Volume 1 & 2 - A Basic Trip Down Memory Lane
Double trouble
Namco Museum Archives Volume 1 and 2 bring back classics in two separate collections, each offering 11 games. Titles originate from both arcade and home console, and span an acceptable range of genres, as well as including its most famous IPs, such as Pac-Man and Galaga. Perhaps unsurprisingly, both volumes lean into the shmup genre...
April2020
Review One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 - Carried By Fantastically Fun Characters
Sailing the 7/10 seas
We're big fans of the One Piece: Pirate Warriors games. We reckon One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 is the best of the bunch, and we'd even go as far to say that it's one of the very best Warriors titles on PlayStation 4. Naturally then, we had high expectations for One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4, and while it doesn't quite do enough...
March2020
Review My Hero One's Justice 2 - Disappointing Sequel Is Still Just an Average Arena Fighter
Less Plus Ultra, more Meh Ultra
My Hero One’s Justice 2 is the second fighting game based on My Hero Academia, arguably one of the most popular anime in the world. As its title suggests, My Hero One’s Justice 2 is the follow-up to 2018’s equally awkwardly titled My Hero One’s Justice -- and it's every bit as bland as its predecessor. My...
February2020
Review One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows - You Too Can Defeat Any Enemy with the Press of a Button
One hit wonder
Starting life as a viral webcomic back in 2009, One Punch Man is a celebration and a send-up of superhero fiction. It’s creator, aptly named One, envisaged the story of a hero who was already the best. Tired of being able to defeat every enemy he faces with one punch, protagonist Saitama worries more about missing the supermarket...
January2020
Not so super, Saiyan
When Bandai Namco announced that it was going to be making a role-playing game that covers the entirety of Dragon Ball Z, fans seemed somewhat torn. On one hand, developer CyberConnect2 was going to be at the helm -- the studio behind the largely fantastic Naruto Storm titles. On the other, it's hard to get genuinely excited...
September2019
Review Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Remastered - Level-5’s Masterpiece Is Tidier Than Ever
A whole ‘nother world. Beautiful, en’t it?
Oh, how we could fling superlatives to describe how utterly wonderful Ni no Kuni is. Forgive us, then, for choosing the word tidy. Yes, tidy is the right word to open our review of Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Remastered. Not just because this is clearly the tidiest edition of the game so far,...
August2019
Review RAD - Mutant Roguelike Madness in a Dystopian Future
The New Mutants
Combining addictive roguelike gameplay with a rocking 80s aesthetic and an assortment of flesh altering power-ups, RAD more than lives up to its name. Throwing you into a world clinging to life after not one, but two apocalypses, your character is tasked with purifying the desolate land. By locating respirator machines, you’ll...
March2019
Get in the sea
What the heck happened to One Piece: World Seeker? Was the developer short on time? Short on budget? Or was it just an awful idea to make an open world setting your one and only gimmick in 2019? We would genuinely love to know, because the game feels completely unfinished in almost every possible way. Even for the relatively low...
February2019
Review Jump Force - What the Hell Did They Do to Goku?
Go ahead and jump
We've played some ugly anime games in our time, but there's a special place in art style hell for Jump Force. What should be a grand celebration of all things Jump, this crossover fighter is loathsome in its portrayal of the awesome manga and anime heroes that make up its character roster. Jump Force opts for a "realistic" visual...
Review God Eater 3 - Fast and Fun Action That's Rough Around the Edges
Kick ash
God Eater 3 presents a monster-slaying jaunt through a post-apocalyptic world absolutely stuffed with storytelling cliches and over-the-top combat. Between its predictable plot and horribly outdated visuals, it's easy to look at this latest instalment and chalk it up as just another throwaway action role-playing title for the anime crowd,...
January2019
Review Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown - Explosive In-Flight Entertainment
Aced it
It's been a while since we last made a trip to Strangereal on PlayStation. The Ace Combat series has a long and relatively complicated history of releases scattered across a wide range of formats, resulting in a somewhat fragmented state. Fans largely agree, however, that the PlayStation 2 entries - 4, 5, and Zero - are the collective high...
Review Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition - Still One of the Very Best Tales Games
The star still shines
When the topic of classic Japanese role-playing games is brought up, people tend to focus on a set few titles. Final Fantasy VII will forever be etched into the history of the genre for obvious reasons -- as is the case with several other entries in Square Enix's beloved series -- and most would probably give nods to properties...
