June2022
Turtles in prime
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge is a love letter to the era of licensed belt brawlers, with Konami’s legendary Turtles in Time being a clear inspiration. With co-op being a huge selling point for this beautiful beat-'em-up, we decided to play through as a trio – and present our review as a roundtable to reflect...
January2022
Review Windjammers 2 (PS4) - Frisbee Flingin' Has Never Felt So Fun
Disc hockey
They just don’t make them like this anymore, do they? French outfit DotEmu is fast establishing itself as retro revival specialists, and Windjammers 2 is another immaculate effort from the Streets of Rage 4 studio. This game of Frisbee blends the best of Pong and Street Fighter to make for a white-knuckle reboot of Data East’s...
April2020
Review Streets of Rage 4 - Bygone Beat-'Em-Up Classic Returns in Flashy Revival
Flashy but familiar
Video games have largely abandoned the humble beat-'em-up, a sub-genre superseded many times by faster, more thrilling action titles. Getting Streets of Rage 4 at this point feels a bit like your estranged but fondly remembered uncle showing up on your doorstep 26 years later with a beard and a redder face. It's great to see you,...
September2017
The discus’ whiskers
The real classics never die, and Windjammers’ peak popularity is proof of that. Despite being a relatively obscure Neo Geo release in the mid-90s, this game of futuristic Frisbee has endured the test of time – becoming a popular streaming attraction in recent years due to its balletic competitive play. And now, courtesy of...
April2017
Review Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap (PS4)
High above the mucky muck
The Wonder Boy series was one of the Master System's most beloved franchises, though its cult-classic status hasn't prevented it from falling by the wayside. A convoluted history, including a tangle of complications regarding the rights to the series, meant a comeback would be virtually impossible. In spite of this, a tiny...
March2017
Ys not?
Some eleven years after its original Japanese release, Ys Origin has been brought to PlayStation 4 by publisher DotEmu (via a PC localisation by XSEED back in 2006). Set 700 years before the events of the main Ys series, Origin steers away from the series' familiar protagonist Adol Christin in order to focus on the background of the series'...
April2016
Having a ball
Pang always seemed like a strange name for the then-popular game about bursting deadly alien bubbles. The word not only sounds like the perfect title for a shameless rip-off of Pong, but it means "a sudden, strong feeling of physical or emotional pain". When the original game was released in the US back in 1989, it adopted the name...
