Tag: Mini Reviews
"You are incorrigible"
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game is finally back after years removed from digital shelves. The 2D beat-'em-up translates the story of the graphic novels and movie well, with each stage culminating with a boss fight against one of Ramona's evil exes. It's a highly entertaining title, but with no real changes in this new...
Mini Review Maneater (PS5) – Shiny Bits and Bobs Make for a Fin Time
Let’s fin-ish this
Republished on Wednesday 30th December, 2020: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of January 2021's PS Plus lineup. The original text follows. One of a number of free next-gen upgrade titles being offered on Sony’s newest hardware, developer Tripwire has returned to its undersea all...
Mini Review Monster Sanctuary (PS4) - A Monster Taming Marvel
This one's a Keeper
Here's the elevator pitch for Monster Sanctuary: It's like Pokémon, but it's structured like a Metroidvania. It boasts a reasonably large map of interconnected corridors and rooms, complete with some light puzzle and platforming elements. The world itself is a bit unremarkable, but it's the in-depth and addictive gameplay that...
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...
Mini Review Phogs (PS4) - Two Heads Are Better Than One in Cute Puzzle Platformer
Co-pup
Phogs is a deliriously happy game about a double-headed dog. Playable alone or in co-op, the two sides of the conjoined canine are controlled separately, and must work together in a short series of colourful levels. You'll collect bones, eat treats, stretch out, and bark at everything while you solve basic puzzles. It's a very simple game,...
Mini Review Tesla Force (PS5) - Twin-Stick Roguelite Needed More Time in the Lab
The greatest minds in history cannot save this game
In an already bizarre year, Tesla Force’s absurd concept of pulling famous people from history and making them fight monsters seems right at home. Tesla Force is a roguelike twin-stick shooter starring Nikola Tesla and Marie Curie, fighting waves of monsters with over the top guns and powers...
Mini Review Overcooked: All You Can Eat - Remastered Culinary Co-Op Is Still a Tasty Treat
Fill your plates
Overcooked: All You Can Eat is like enjoying your favourite meal while wearing newly prescribed glasses. Sure, you've had this plenty of times before, but it tastes just as good, and it looks better than ever. This is a PlayStation 5 re-release that brings together all the content from the two games along with all the DLC. However,...
Mini Review Rocket Arena - Competent Shooter May Be Fun for Free
Quake live
Republished on Wednesday 25th November, 2020: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of December 2020's PS Plus lineup. The original text follows. Electronic Arts put out a new PlayStation 4 game earlier this week and there's a pretty good chance you never even knew it existed. Rocket Arena is a 3v3...
Mini Review Lair of the Clockwork God (PS4) - A Witty and Effective Blend of Genres
Point n' click platformer
Lair of the Clockwork God presents itself predominantly as a point and click adventure game, but doubles up as a 2D platformer. Ben and Dan, who respectively personify these two disparate genres, are the stars of this quirky game, and they must work together in these opposing styles to help save the world from multiple...
Mini Review King Oddball (PS5) - Weird Physics Puzzler Is Still Addictive
Royal rumble
Odd by name, odd by nature – and even odder when you consider it’s on a next-gen console now. King Oddball baffled us a billion years ago on the PS Vita, but now this bizarre physics-based puzzler has hooked us with its over-extended tongue for a second time. We can’t believe we’re playing this on a PlayStation 5 – but it’s...
Mini Review Five Dates (PS4) - Interactive Romantic Comedy So Bad It's Almost Good
Daters gonna date
"I've got a surprise for you," says Vinny to his friend Callum over a video call: "I've joined a dating app!" Callum reacts with such glee, one would be forgiven for thinking that Vinny had just announced the reformation of The Beatles. Surely everyone uses dating apps in 2020? Who wants to awkwardly wander up to someone in a bar...
Mini Review Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (PS4) - Gorgeous Action RPG with Deep Farming Mechanics
Have a rice day
In Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, you’ll be playing as a young goddess, called Sakuna, who spends her days being lazy and drinking in the home of the gods. After a small mishap involving a fire and some sacred offerings, she ends up being banished to the Isle of Demons and told that she can only return once all the monsters are...
Mini Review Undead Darlings ~no cure for love~ - Great Writing Lifts This Average Dungeon Crawler
Zombie road trip
Undead Darlings ~no cure for love~ is part-visual novel, part-dungeon crawler, and is very entertaining despite being a little rough around the edges. You’ll play as Reggie who, thanks to a spiked drink, manages to sleep his way through the end of the world. He takes the news pretty well, even though it’s delivered by his...
Mini Review Stories Untold - Uneven Horror Anthology Frustrates More Than It Frights
Be afraid. Be marginally afraid
For the uninitiated, Stories Untold is a creepy collection of four stories, each taking no longer than an hour or so to finish, and each with different gameplay elements. The first and by the far the best episode pays homage to the old school text adventures that you might have played if you grew up in the '80s. The...
Mini Review Pacer - Anti-Gravity Racer Comes Surprisingly Close to WipEout
Smooth sailing
We don't want to make too many comparisons to its clear inspiration, but rest assured that if you like WipEout, you'll probably enjoy Pacer. Having said that, it definitely puts its own stamp on this racing sub-genre that gives it a unique identity. The on-track action is where it really shines. Familiar controls mean you're...
Mini Review Carto - Map-Manipulating Puzzler Is an Adorable Adventure
Mo maps mo problems
Carto has a unique gameplay hook — you can rearrange the world map in real time to solve puzzles — but it smartly doesn't rely solely on it. You play as a small girl who's separated from her airship-flying grandmother, and must use some map-altering abilities to reunite the pair. However, this simple task has you traversing...
Mini Review Ray's the Dead - A Flawed But Novel Zombie Adventure
I was a teenage zombie
Ray's the Dead has been in development for a long time, but it's now finally shuffled onto PlayStation 4. As the name implies, you play as Ray, brought back from the dead under mysterious circumstances. In order to discover what's going on in the 80s inspired town, Ray must use his zombie abilities to resurrect others, defeat...
Mini Review Cloudpunk - Sci-Fi Noir Deliver 'Em Up Does Just Enough
UPSo-so
Cloudpunk is the name of a legally ambiguous delivery company that operates in the future city of Nivalis, delivering whatever — or whomever — the job requires and asking zero questions. They're a bit like Yodel, only they've got flying cars and they actually deliver your packages. Anyway, you play the role of Rania, a newcomer to the...
Mini Review Cake Bash - A Sweet Party Game with a Short Shelf Life
Just desserts
A party game about becoming the tastiest treat in a series of sugar-coated mini games? What's not to like? Cake Bash is a light-hearted multiplayer title for sweet-toothed gamers of all ages. Select an edible character and engage in a series of simple party games to determine the most delicious one of all. Get Tasty is the main mode...
Mini Review The Walking Dead Onslaught - One for the Undead Fans
Building a new beginning
It’s been a good year for The Walking Dead fans on PlayStation VR. Having previously seen The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners back in May by Skydance Interactive, we now have The Walking Dead Onslaught arrive as an entirely separate VR adaptation. Developed by Survios, Onslaught takes us directly into AMC’s television...
Mini Review Budget Cuts - VR Stealth Action Has Never Been This Good
No cutbacks here
Corporate satire is common across gaming but rarely focuses on issues faced by automation. Taking this concept into an action stealth title with murderous robots, Budget Cuts finally lands on PlayStation VR two years after its PC launch and it’s been worth the wait. Developed by Neat Corporation, you play as a human employee of...
Mini Review Port Royale 4 - Dull Strategy Game Fails To Float Our Boat
Yo Ho Hum
Port Royale 4 starts well. The opening cinematic shows footage of shady piratey characters doing shady piratey business, and it's backed by a rousing soundtrack that makes you want to sail the seven seas looking for plunder. But any hopes you might have of swashbuckling adventures are almost immediately dashed after starting up the first...
Mini Review Crysis Remastered - A Poor Remaster of a Pretty Important Game
Not-so incredible Crysis
Everyone remembers Crysis, of course. But what’s easy to forget is Crytek’s PC shattering behemoth of a technical marvel released 13 years ago. The industry has changed rather a lot in that time. For example, 13 years ago, Crysis was a pretty good game. Now? Well, it’s complicated. Memes aside, the PS4 can mostly...
Mini Review Unrailed - Simple Train Survival Game Runs Out of Steam
Do the locomotion
Unrailed is a co-op survival game in which you must keep a train going for as long as possible. It's a novel twist on the genre that sees you and three other players protecting a locomotive rather than yourselves. It even has the usual trappings of survival games, such as procedural level generation and crafting, but it keeps it...
Mini Review eFootball PES 2021: Season Update - Football, Bloody Hell
Flying without Ings
If you want to know more about eFootball PES 2021: Season Update then you can simply read our review of eFootball PES 2020, as this is almost identical in every single way. To be fair to Konami, it’s been uncharacteristically upfront about the nature of this year’s soccer simulation, pointing out at practically every...
Mini Review Bounty Battle - A Truly Terrible Attempt at Indie Smash Bros
Wanted dead
In concept, Bounty Battle is the Super Smash Bros. of indie games. In reality, Bounty Battle is nothing short of a disaster. It's a terribly made brawler that, at its worst, is borderline unplayable. It's a joyless, almost baffling experience that'll make you wonder how the heck it even managed to secure characters from Owlboy, Darkest...
Mini Review The Outer Worlds: Peril on Gorgon - A Solid But Very Safe Expansion
Welcome back, Captain
Bloody corporations, eh? They've only gone and done it again! Peril on Gorgon is The Outer Worlds' first expansion, and all told, it's a solid excursion. Your intrepid Captain and their crew find themselves travelling to the hellish Gorgon asteroid — a (mostly) abandoned testing site for dodgy space drugs. You're contracted...
Mini Review Tamarin - Tonally Confused Monkey Business
Is that a monkey? He's got a gun!
Tamarin bears some striking resemblance to Jet Force Gemini — an N64 game in which you save a peaceful planet from an invading race of alien insects. The key difference, though, is that in the 1999 Rare title, you play as the titular group of galactic soldiers, while in Tamarin, you play as a tamarin. After a very...
Mini Review Ary and the Secret of Seasons - A Solid, Good-Looking Indie Action Adventure
A woman for all seasons
Something is amiss in the world of Valdi. The seasons are in disarray, meaning that fierce winter winds bellow in place of gentle summer breezes. It’s up to a girl named Ary to restore balance at the behest of a mysterious society, the Guardians of Seasons. Ary and the Secret of Seasons is an action adventure in the...
Mini Review The Last Campfire - Cosy Puzzles from Hello Games
Marshmallow mania
If No Man's Sky is the ambitious, boisterous member of the Hello Games family, The Last Campfire is the subdued, charming one. Released to very little fanfare, this simplistic puzzler does enough to provide a weekend's worth of enjoyment. Just don't expect anything too impressive from those two days of fun. The hazy fairy tale...
Mini Review Hypnospace Outlaw - A Literal Point and Click Adventure
Surfing in the 90s
Hypnospace Outlaw gamifies the structure and horrific custom pages of GeoCities. If you've any nostalgia for this chapter in the Internet's history, you're likely already interested in this obscure title. You're free to explore Hypnospace as you see fit, but your job is actually to scour the virtual space for rule-breaking...
Mini Review No Straight Roads – A Vibrant, Creative Experience Not Without Its Missteps
Mayday Parade
Stepping into the colourful, vibrant world of Vinyl City is a treat. A crazy, dystopian metropolis powered by “evil” EDM music from corporation NSR, No Straight Roads makes a spectacular first impression. Mayday and Zuke comprise rock band Bunk Bed Junction, and it’s up to you to bring rock back into the world. With a...
Mini Review New Super Lucky's Tale - Short and Sweet Platformer Charms Throughout
Foxing clever
We tend to think that platformers are at their best when they're forgiving in the beginning but tougher than our Nan's steaks by the finale. New Super Lucky's Tale never progresses to the point where it poses any significant challenge, but it makes up for it with bags of charm and a campaign that's short enough to never wear out its...
Mini Review Manifold Garden - A Real Visual Treat
Eden prime
Manifold Garden is one of those games that, in the same vein as Journey and Inside, can be considered an "experience" more than anything else. Sure, it's a first-person, 3D puzzler at heart, but defining it as that does a disservice to the game's greatest aspect -- its visuals and atmosphere. This is a real treat for the senses. You need...
Mini Review The Alto Collection - The Chillest Endless Runner on PS4
Hitting the slopes
Originally a duo of mobile games, The Alto Collection brings two beautiful endless runners to PlayStation 4. There are more words in this game's title than there are buttons to learn; press X to jump, hold it to backflip, and that's it. These ultra-simple controls will see you shredding snow or surfing sand as you slide forever...
Mini Review Skully - Knack Meets Marble Madness
Skull Town
Whose idea was it to kick-start the PlayStation 4 generation with Knack and then proceed to end it with a game inspired by the popular mascot? We joke, of course, but Skully really does borrow those basic elements of brawling and platforming to create a somewhat enjoyable experience targeted at kids. That is to say that players beyond...
Mini Review Fairy Tail - Faithful Anime Adaptation Is a Fan Pleaser
They lived Happy-ly ever after
Fairy Tail follows the plot of the anime, set from around the end of the Tenrou Island arc to approximately the end of the Avatar arc. For the uninitiated, that spans around 160 episodes from about 122 onwards. You're therefore much better off going into Fairy Tail with some knowledge of the property already, but there...
Mini Review Superliminal - Fresh Perspective on First Person Puzzling Is Small in Scale
Perception is reality
As you're constantly reminded, perception is reality in Superliminal. Like other first person puzzlers, one single, mind-bending concept is the focus, and this time, it's all about scale and perspective. Objects are as they should be before you pick them up, but depth vanishes once you do. To borrow an example from Father Ted:...
Mini Review Rock of Ages 3: Make & Break - Fun, Oddball Tower Defence with Awkward Level Editor
Rock 'em, sock 'em
Rock of Ages 3: Make & Break isn't a huge departure for the series; it's still an odd mix of tower defence and, er, chucking a boulder down a precarious hill. The comical, historical story mode remains the main attraction, with plenty of adversaries to defeat and side activities to play. You'll be playing skee-ball and racing...
Mini Review Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus - Stylish, Turn-Based Tactical Combat
Cyberpunk 40k
The Adeptus Mechanicus is a faction of cybernetically enhanced warrior priests. They seek divinity through the pursuit of knowledge and consider organic flesh as a form of weakness. Your enjoyment of Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus will hinge on how you engage with a fusion of religious iconography and cyberpunk. The Tech-priests of the...
Mini Review Superhot: Mind Control Delete - More of the Same Slow-Mo Action, But No Less Satisfying
More is more
Superhot: Mind Control Delete treads very familiar ground to the original. Time slows to a crawl when you don't move, and you use this quirk to outmanoeuvre and kill countless crimson crystalline men. In terms of gameplay, this follow-up isn't a huge leap forward, but there's plenty of twists to the formula that make this a must-play...
Mini Review CrossCode - Fast-Paced Action RPG with Beauty and Brains
A game within a game, within a game
CrossCode is a fast-paced action-RPG for those who love old-school style adventures. It’s set in the distant future where MMO’s are played with physical avatars that get to run around in a sort of high tech theme park, complete with large dungeons to explore and NPCs giving out quests to every hero willing to...
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...
Mini Review Star Wars Episode I: Racer – This Old Favourite Still Has Some Magic
This is in fact Podracing
Star Wars Episode I: Racer is a downright classic. Launching on the N64 and PC nearly 20 years ago, the game was a brilliant realisation of one of the most compelling scenes from the deservedly lambasted The Phantom Menace. That doesn’t necessarily mean it would stand the test of the time, but luckily -- and with the help...
Mini Review Evan's Remains - Pretty Puzzler Has a Story Worth Telling
Lust for life
The puzzle-platformer and visual novel genres probably couldn't be further apart from one another, but Evan's Remains is proof that the two can live in harmony. While it is by no means perfect, Maitan69 Studios' first major title is one well worth experiencing if you have even a passing interest in either style of game. Told entirely...
Mini Review Project Warlock - A Slick Homage to the Retro FPS
The 90s are back, baby
Over 25 years after Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM blasted it into the mainstream, the 90s FPS is revived by Project Warlock, a slick genre homage that benefits from modern improvements that make it near impossible to put down. Such additions include a between-level workshop where RPG upgrade points can be used to improve stats,...
Mini Review 1971 Project Helios - A Tactical Title with an Interesting World
Don't get frostbite
A turn-based strategy game that takes a few pages out of XCOM’s book, 1971 Project Helios is a pretty solid excursion if you’re looking for a few hours of distraction. Presenting a post-apocalyptic world coated in ice and snow, you guide a collection of interesting characters through hordes of enemies to rescue a scientist...
Mini Review Monstrum - A Procedural Game of Horror Hide and Seek
Don't even breathe
Monstrum crafts a genuinely frightening game of procedurally generated hide and seek. As you awaken on a derelict cargo ship and explore its halls, it quickly becomes apparent something else is there with you. Monstrum falls under the run-and-hide genre of horror titles, giving you relatively little with which to defend yourself...
Mini Review Those Who Remain - Horror Has Never Been This Dull
As above, so below
Those Who Remain is almost everything the horror genre has tried to get away from for the past couple of years. With gameplay that teeters between mundane, aimless puzzle-solving and the hide and seek loop which put Outlast on the map, this experience feels dated the moment it releases. It doesn't do anything terrible -- it's just...
Mini Review Concept Destruction - Destruction Derby with Cardboard Cars
Crash dummies
Concept Destruction’s name tells you much of what you need to know about this pen-and-paper PlayStation 4 racer. It’s a combat game inspired by PS1’s legendary Destruction Derby, and it’s effectively a proof of concept. In many ways this feels like half a game, as you smash your way through Drawn to Death-esque arenas,...
