Latest Reviews
Mini Review A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead (PS5) - Immersive and Surprisingly Impressive
One to shout about
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead snuck up on us, releasing amid a slew of other games and horror titles, but you shouldn't overlook it. Stormind Games has crafted a really solid and terrifying horror experience that captures the intense fear and meticulous precision of movements the franchise is known for. Taking place 118 days...
Mini Review Vendetta Forever (PSVR2) - Exhilarating Puzzle Shooter Is Next VR Must Play
Yeah, I’m thinkin’ I’m back
Meatspace Interactive’s Vendetta Forever is a brilliant puzzle shooter for PSVR2. Across a hearty supply of levels –many of them goofy or fun in tone – you’re tasked with killing a collection of faceless grunts all wielding an impressive array of weapons. But here’s the catch: you can only move by killing...
Review Alan Wake 2: The Lake House (PS5) - Stellar DLC Paints a Path Forward for the Remedy Universe
The next step into the Remedy-verse
Remedy is the master of blending genre, tone, and style. It proved it with its seminal sequel Alan Wake 2 in 2023, and continued to prove it with its whimsical DLC Night Springs earlier this year. That streak continues with The Lake House, the conclusion to the world of Alan Wake (for now at least), which tightens...
Mini Review Squirrel with a Gun (PS5) - Forage for Chaos in This Silly Sandbox Adventure
Ro Dent Redemption
Every now and then, it's really nice to play a game that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. At the end of the day, this medium we all love is focused on entertainment, and while a gripping narrative and meticulously developed controls are great to have, sometimes we want to play the stupidest games that developers can think...
Get in the Halloween spirit
Horror is something that Blumhouse does very well in its movies, so with its newly founded gaming branch, it stands to reason that its first release, Fear the Spotlight, would follow suit. From small gaming studio Cozy Game Pals, this is a love letter to a retro horror gaming genre from years past. Fear the Spotlight...
Review New World: Aeternum (PS5) - Full-Bodied Action MMO Will Devour Your Free Time
Just when you thought you were safe on console
New World: Aeternum is an expanded re-release of Amazon Games' promising MMO New World, bursting at the seams with new content, and available now on PS5. Completely reborn, the game is in a very different place than the bug-riddled state in which it first launched, and has grown into a behemoth in the...
Review NHL 25 (PS5) - Another Season Mired in Mediocrity
Puck me up
In life, there are three certainties: death, taxes, and underwhelming, incremental upgrades to annual sports titles. Enter NHL 25, EA Vancouver’s latest iteration of the greatest game on ice. While EA’s hockey titles tend to fare better year-to-year than Madden or EA Sports FC, that doesn’t mean the title is always able to escape...
Mini Review Kong: Survivor Instinct (PS5) - A Repetitive Cinematic Side-Scroller
Not particularly ape-pealing
Following last year's abysmal Skull Island: Rise of Kong, the King of the Beasts is back in unexpected form with Kong: Survivor Instinct. Canonically set after 2021's Godzilla vs. Kong movie, this 2.5D cinematic side-scroller offers a more human-driven story instead of the kaiju beat-'em-ups we're more accustomed to...
Review Sonic X Shadow Generations (PS5) - Shadow the Star of This Splendid Platforming Package
Prickly business
Back in 2011, Sonic Generations was heralded as a return to form for SEGA's spiky mascot. After a spate of poorly-received games, Sonic Team finally brought the hedgehog back with this simple and reflective title, celebrating the character's 20th anniversary. 13 years later, this fan favourite has returned with a remaster on modern...
Mini Review Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred (PS5) - Hard to Hate This Meaty Expansion
Welcome to the jungle
Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred is the first major expansion for Blizzard's excellent action RPG, serving up throngs of awful new beasts to blast through and piles of shiny gear to gather. It ventures into the corrupted jungle of Nahantu, and a new storyline picks up from the base game's colossal cliffhanger ending. It's largely...
Mini Review Arizona Sunshine Remake (PS5) - More Remaster Than Remake
Killing zombies never gets old
Just a year after its brilliant sequel, Arizona Sunshine Remake arrives on PSVR2 as a graphically revamped version of the 2016 original. However, it isn't just a graphical glow-up that Vertigo Games has in mind, as it's also bringing its far more advanced (and satisfying) reload mechanic back from the sequel. The base...
Review Unknown 9: Awakening (PS5) - Brand New IP Shows Plenty of Promise
Step into the Unknown
Unknown 9: Awakening is the debut game from studio Reflector Entertainment but not the first entry into the Unknown universe; so far there are novels, comics, and even a dramatised podcast. Thankfully, Awakening is a standalone experience and so you don’t need to delve into any of the other cross-media releases to understand...
Mini Review Transformers: Galactic Trials (PS5) - A Nice Idea Gone Awry
Less than meets the eye
Transformers: Galactic Trials is not a bad idea at all – in fact, it’s a pretty good one. This is an arcade racing game where you’re occasionally required to transform into your chosen character’s robot form in order to work through simple shooting galleries. In principle, it has all of the elements you’d expect...
Mini Review Neva (PS5) - A Stunning Masterwork of Art and Animation
Time to stock up on tissues
GRIS made waves in 2018 for its stunning, painting-like visual style and story, and when it came to PS4 a year later, we thought it was great. Now Nomada Studio is back with Neva, a game that builds upon the strong parts of GRIS and vastly improves the other areas to create a gorgeous, emotional, and captivating tale of...
Review Undisputed (PS5) - Spirited Boxing Sim Is on the Path to Greatness
A contender
Sports games are outrageously difficult to create, so you’ve got to give credit to Sheffield-based studio Steel City Interactive for having the guts to step into the ring. EA Sports defined generations with its Fight Night franchise, but lagging sales mean it’s moved on to the more lucrative UFC license. Undisputed swings for the...
Zero hour
Close to two decades after its release, beloved PS2 arena fighter Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 has been handed a sequel in all but name. Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a throwback of epic proportions — the kind of all-out, franchise-encompassing brawler that's been sorely missed beyond the Naruto Ninja Storm series. Zero's biggest...
Review Throne and Liberty (PS5) - Beginner MMO Is Plagued with Technical Issues
Not grindy, but not great either
Throne and Liberty is a fantasy MMORPG that debuted in Korea last December. Since its global launch the free-to-play game has dominated Steam's concurrent players and top-sellers charts. While it's certainly popular, a long list of technical issues and uninspired mechanics cast doubts over its longevity. You take up...
Mini Review Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports (PS5) - Arcade Effort Doesn't Feel Great
That's all, folks
The problem with Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports is it doesn’t feel fun to move. Characters like Road Runner should be a joy to nimbly navigate around a cartoon football field, but he’s as slow and unwieldy as Elmer Fudd – in fact, it doesn’t matter whether you’re Yosemite Sam or Sylvester the Cat, there’s a tardy...
The same old blood Rush with a new touch
We’ve had more fun with EA Sports FC 25 than we have with any soccer sim for quite some time. Perhaps that’s because, outside of the review period, we largely abandoned EA Sports FC 24 – or perhaps, whisper it quietly, it’s because the footie franchise is in a good place. Either way, a ton of...
Mini Review Kill Knight (PS5) - An Unrelenting Arcade Nightmare
Stress test
If you took the modern DOOM games and boiled them down to a pure, score attack, twin-stick action game, Kill Knight feels like the result. Playing as a bloodthirsty, undead warrior, the game is simply about killing hordes of demonic creatures as they swarm you in alarming numbers, while each stage shifts and changes around you. The odds...
Mini Review Parcel Corps (PS5) - A Speedy Dispatch, Not a Special Delivery
Fragile Express
Delivery games vary drastically from simple delivery driver simulators to more complex titles such as Death Stranding, where you traverse treacherous terrain to complete your daily drops. However, Parcel Corps, the cel-shaded, extreme sports delivery game from Billy Goat Entertainment, sticks to a more familiar concept, providing the...
Angel fleeced
The life of a sports game reviewer can be a miserable one, but while much of Visual Concepts’ culturally colossal NBA 2K series is recycled year-on-year, it rarely settles for raw iteration. This is a developer that, for all its faults, genuinely appears committed to creating the best sports sim on the market – and it tends to lap...
Review Metaphor: ReFantazio (PS5) - Brilliant, Memorable RPG Is One of Atlus' Finest Works
More than meets the eye
Spearheaded by a trio of veteran developers best known for their outstanding work on the Persona series, Metaphor: ReFantazio is the dawn of a brand new IP from Atlus. In its structure and mechanics, it feels comfortingly familiar, but in its fantastical setting and bold style — both in terms of visuals and audio — it...
Review Until Dawn (PS5) - Killer Teen Slasher Snags a Pricey New-Gen Remake
Graveyard shift
Ballistic Moon’s remake of Until Dawn is proving one of our most difficult review assignments of the year. Here’s the rub: Supermassive Games’ cult interactive movie is still very much one of the best examples of the genre you can find on any console, and we highly recommend you play it. However, the PS4 version is just...
Review Silent Hill 2 (PS5) - The Horror Great Remains So in This Excellent Remake
It's always like this
Silent Hill always has been and forever will be considered one of the greatest horror franchises ever made, but ask anyone under the age of 20 nowadays what game Pyramid Head is from and they’re perhaps more likely to name Dead by Daylight than the series’ legendary second entry. A few dire side games (PS3’s Downpour and...
Mini Review SUNSOFT Is Back! Retro Game Selection (PS5) - Archaic But Interesting 80s Bundle
The sun always shines brighter
Before you shell out for the SUNSOFT Is Back! Retro Game Selection, you need to understand exactly what you’re getting. This trio of archaic 8-bit adventures has never been officially localised in English before, so it carries inherent value for that reason alone. But it’s worth noting that these titles are...
Mini Review Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns (PS5) – DLC Add-On Is Mostly Unfunny and Overpriced
Back in the Havik
For those who missed it, following the bloody finale of Mortal Kombat 1's story, which saw Liu Kang and the gang dispatch the Deadly Alliance of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi, a version of PS2-era jobber Havik discovered that not only do other timelines exist, but that they could all use a little more chaos. This brings us to the new...
Mini Review Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition (PS5) - Still a Series Highlight 25 Years Later
Garden warfare
Despite countless sequels, Team 17's turn-based strategy series has struggled to better 1999's Worms Armageddon. The developer knows it, too; Worms WMD is based on the fan-favourite game's source code, and the Steam release of Armageddon has been consistently updated, most recently with a major patch in 2020. Now, Worms Armageddon:...
Mystery mayhem
Spike Chunshoft is known for its incredible work on the Danganronpa series, a collection of visual novels that saw critical acclaim for its interesting characters and dark yet comedic writing. Following on from such success is a difficult feat, yet in June last year, the release of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code on Nintendo...
A kingdom with heart
Once upon a time, legendary game director Warren Spector asked Disney to help him make a science fiction game. The house of mouse wasn't interested in his pitch, but it gave him the keys to the forgotten magic kingdom instead. Spector's Junction Point Studios was given unfettered access to archival materials and tasked with...
