Tag: Mini Reviews - Page 4
Mini Review Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder (PSVR2) - A Rock Solid Cave Digging Roguelike
We can dig it
Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder doesn’t beat around the bush much, so we won’t either. It’s a surprisingly solid cave spelunking roguelike. It’s not here to dazzle with unprecedented visual splendour or novel new gameplay ideas. It just provides some good old-fashioned gunslinging and money hoarding fun. Being a roguelike, Cave...
Mini Review Thumper (PSVR2) - A Return to the Music Visualiser from Hell
Things that go Thump in the night
Thumper was a highlight of PSVR's launch lineup back in 2016 — check out our review through the link to learn why. It's a relentless, frantic rhythm title that has you racing through space, matching actions to the beat of the heavy soundtrack. The game is just as excellent this time around, if not better. While...
Mini Review RUNNER (PSVR2) - Akira Inspired Arcade Shooter Will Put You Through the Wringer
Too wild for you to handle
Iconic 80s anime Akira serves as the inspiration for RUNNER, a breakneck sci-fi arcade shooter which arguably tries to do too much. As a smuggler in an aggressively hostile world, you must outrun robo-cops through seven dynamically generated stages, dual-wielding pistols while you issue a little justice all of your own...
Mini Review Tentacular (PSVR2) - Physics Puzzler May (Ten)tickle Your Fancy
Release the Kraken
Tentacular is a physics-based puzzler where you take control of a tentacled monster who's raised by the townsfolk of La Kalma, a small village in the middle of the ocean. You're on a journey of self-discovery, trying to find out how you came to be and where you belong. Using your long sucker-laden limbs to manipulate objects, you...
Mini Review Demeo (PSVR2) - Dungeons and Dragons Experience Is One Roll Away from Perfection
Critical hit
Demeo is a one-to-four player tabletop turn-based dungeon crawler that can be played on both the PS5 and in PSVR2, the latter being significantly better. You choose your role from a possible seven classes (Guardian, Warlock, Sorcerer, Assassin, Hunter, Barbarian and Bard) and must traverse three floors, using card abilities and rolling...
Mini Review Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator (PS5) - Fun But Not Quite Masterchef
You'll always find me in the kitchen at parties
You'd think given the countless hours we've spent watching Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares that we'd have picked up a thing or two about running a successful restaurant. Alas, it seems the only thing we've picked up is his proclivity for foul-mouthed tirades, which we discovered a mere couple of...
Mini Review Akka Arrh (PS4) – A Psychedelic Curiosity from the Past
What a name
Akka Arrh is a contemporary re-imagining of a scrapped project dating back to the ‘80s. If that’s not an odd enough set-up to hook you, then maybe the rock-solid gameplay can do it instead. Developed by Llamasoft — the team behind the enigmatic Polybius — Akka Arrh is a unique wave shooter that tasks you with killing enemies...
Mini Review WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros (PS4) - Balling Arcade Baseball Costs Less Than a Buck
Swing when you're winning
Konami’s long-running Power Pros franchise – perhaps better known by its Japanese names PawaParu or Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu – has received Western releases in the past, but has generally remained exclusive to Asian territories over the years. The release of WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros is noteworthy because it’s...
Mini Review Tales of Symphonia Remastered (PS4) - Barebones Remaster Distracts from a Classic RPG
Lloyd Irving, wake up!
Still one of the most highly regarded instalments in Namco's long-running series, Tales of Symphonia could be considered a classic. Indeed, it's easy forget that the game's almost 20 years old — and Tales of Symphonia Remastered shows that the adventure actually holds up surprisingly well. The storytelling's a little...
Mini Review Ten Dates (PS4) - A Much Improved Rom-Com Sequel
Seven out of ten dates
Has humanity ever had a worse idea than speed dating? Once you forget all the obviously terrible stuff like biological weapons and motion controls, speed dating must be right up there. Five minutes of pish banter with a person who isn't laughing at any of your killer jokes before you half-heartedly ask for contact information...
Mini Review PowerWash Simulator (PS5) - Surprisingly Appealing, Deeply Satisfying
Good, clean fun
By now, you'll have made your mind up about PowerWash Simulator. It's been doing the rounds for a couple of years, winning hearts with its simple, inexplicably compelling gameplay. Yes, it's about blasting water at filthy buildings and objects. Yes, broadly it's quite repetitive and slow. Yes, you could get a power washer and hose...
Mini Review World War Z: Aftermath (PS5) - Performance Issues Can't Stop XL Zombie Fun
More zombies, less frame rate
World War Z: Aftermath, the manic zombie shooter, has finally made its way to PS5 alongside its long-awaited XL version of Horde Mode. This movie tie-in has become a real sleeper-hit after it launched to middling reviews back in 2019. But several updates later, and we have a solid third-person co-op experience that has...
Mini Review Fashion Police Squad (PS5) - Fun Boomer Shooter with Style to Boot
Drip and tear
We often wonder if the minds behind the original DOOM knew what the game they were creating would lead to. It's one of the most iconic games ever, but 30 years later we're swapping out demons for a scarier threat... bad fashion sense. Fashion Police Squad takes the classic "boomer shooter" formula and splices it with a ton of...
Mini Review Season: A Letter to the Future (PS5) - Fascinating Exploration Amid a Cataclysm
Dear John
Season: A Letter to the Future is really interesting. You play as someone leaving their cosy mountain village, tasked with recording the history of a nearby valley before the changing of the season. A new season doesn't mean what it does in the real world, though. It's a major, seemingly cataclysmic event, capable of wiping the memories of...
Mini Review A Space for the Unbound (PS5) - A Powerfully Engaging Story-Driven Adventure
Follow your dreams
A Space for the Unbound is an endearing story-driven adventure game set in Indonesia in the late 90s. It explores mature themes like depression, anxiety, and suicide through a relationship between two high school sweethearts, a boy called Atma and a girl called Raya. These aren't just any normal students, however, since they're...
Mini Review Ridge Racer 2 (PSP) - A Greatest Hits Album for Arcade Racing Royalty
Now that's what I call drifting
The original release of PSP's Ridge Racer 2 could be criticised for being almost exactly the same game as its predecessor, only with a few more tracks and modes. However, that doesn't really matter today, especially now it's one of the rare Ridge Racer titles playable on modern consoles. With its one blemish now moot,...
Mini Review Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (PS5) - Accessible Action RPG Plays Best on PS5
Learn to fly
Whether you're an existing fan or completely new to the world of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot remains a relatively accessible retelling of Akira Toriyama's timeless series. Taking the form of an action RPG spread across large, fully explorable maps, this is a mostly accurate adaptation of the source material, hitting all of the...
Shadow dancer
There are no shortage of 16-bit throwbacks on the PS Store, but some stand head and shoulders above the rest. The forgettably named Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider is one such release: a white-knuckle mix of Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master on SEGA Genesis and Mega Man X on the Super Nintendo, complete with a Mode 7-inspired...
Mini Review Breakers Collection (PS5) - Cult 90s Fighter Finally Finds a Bigger Audience
Breaker the ice
If you owned a PS1, there’s a good chance you were playing Street Fighter Alpha, Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, or Tekken 2 in 1996. You probably weren’t playing Breakers, a cult fighting game from Visco Corporation which first launched in Japanese arcades at the very end of that year, and was later ported to the NeoGeo AES...
Mini Review Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PS5) - A Marginal Upgrade on Backwards Compatibility
At least it’s a free upgrade
Republished on Wednesday, 28th December, 2022: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of January 2023's PS Plus lineup. The original text follows. The latest in a long line of free next-gen upgrades, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order plays things pretty straight. The native PS5...
Mini Review Togges (PS5) - Cute, Colourful Platformer with a Curious Twist
Serious blockage
Togges (rhymes with bogies) is an imaginative puzzle platformer with a novel approach to movement. The titular creatures are cutesy cubes you can spawn in from certain points in each of the game's sizeable hub worlds. Essentially playing as a Roomba, you can move fairly freely, but you'll need to lead a connected trail of Togges to...
Mini Review Pinball Heroes (PSP) - First-Party PlayStation Time Capsule in Pinball Form
Ball saver
Pinball Heroes feels like a strange snapshot of time, and we mean that in the best possible way. Originally released for the PSP in 2009 as eight digitally downloadable tables, it launched just prior to PlayStation rediscovering its mojo. The context is key here: the PS3 was getting its butt stomped by the Xbox 360, and PS Studios was...
Mini Review Neon White (PS5) - First-Person Platformer Is Super Slick
Stairway to heaven
Neon White is an unusual hybrid that works so well in practice, but looks bananas written down. It's a first-person platformer in which guns are also traversal abilities, and it becomes an engaging visual novel in the downtime. The resulting game is slick, stylish, and modern, with its real strength being the compulsion to beat...
Mini Review The Rumble Fish 2 (PS5) - Cult Arcade Fighter in Barebones Port
Beatrice flogger
One of the industry’s more positive movements right now is the preservation of cult classics on the PS Store. While there’s still a long way to go, we’re gradually beginning to see publishers dig deep into their catalogues, and resurrect releases from yesteryear for a whole new audience to enjoy. The Rumble Fish 2 is a...
Mini Review Samurai Maiden (PS5) - Rough Combat Cuts Fun Anime Adventure Short
Girls just want to have fun
It’s the 15th century and one of Japan’s leading figures, Oda Nobunaga, tasks a 21st century school girl and a trio of ninjas to slay the Demon Lord. With the power of friendship and kisses, off you go to save the world. Emphasis on kisses, by the way, because if the title didn't give it away, Samurai Maiden is that...
Mini Review Paper Cut Mansion (PS5) - A Slow-Paced and Repetitive Rogue-Lite
Fit for the Shredder
Paper Cut Mansion is a procedurally generated rogue-lite horror, set within a mansion made entirely of cardboard. You take on the role of police detective Toby, in search of clues to explain the strange goings on and how he came to be in this paper-craft property. You will explore the mansion floor by floor, with the aim being...
Mini Review Sable (PS5) - Beautiful Coming of Age Adventure
Sable is not so stable
After a year of exclusivity over on Xbox and PC, Sable — a coming of age exploration game — has finally made its way over to PS5. The important question, as always, is has the wait been worth it? And the answer is yes, but only if you’re willing to overlook its technical issues. On a desert planet called Midden, when a...
Review Soccer Story (PS5) - Ballsy Footie Adventure Misses the Target
Bale out
Football-themed role-playing games aren’t anywhere near as rare as you may think. Captain Tsubasa, inspired of course by the manga, has been a mainstay of the Japanese video game landscape dating all the way back to the NES – and more recently Level 5’s strategy-style Inazuma Eleven has found worldwide appeal. Soccer Story takes a...
Mini Review Norco (PS5) - A Peculiar Prosaic Paradigm
Norc by Norcwest
While on the surface, Norco might seem a fairly traditional point-and-click adventure title, this would do a gross disservice to what the game actually has to offer. A grungy, dystopian, post-capitalist mining town, Norco, Louisiana is a bleakly beautiful setting for a brilliant story. Offering a unique cross-pollination of...
Mini Review Gungrave G.O.R.E. (PS5) - It's Definitely a New Gungrave
2022? More like 2002
If you asked us to guess which PS2 game would get a sequel in the year 2022, there's no chance we'd have said Gungrave. The original launched back in 2002 and was the brainchild of mangaka Yasuhiro Nightow, best known for writing the critically acclaimed Trigun. The original Gungrave was a stylish, albeit incredibly basic,...
Mini Review Arkanoid: Eternal Battle (PS5) - Retro Revival Can't Overcome Sticker Shock
Breakout
Taito’s Arkanoid may not have been the original brick breaker – that accolade, of course, rests with Atari’s Breakout – but it’s probably the best. With the addition of weapons and power-ups, as well as 3D enemies recompiled as sprites, it took a primitive concept and completely reinvented it. Now, over 35 years removed from its...
Mini Review Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (PS5) - Falcom's Fantastic Action RPG Is Still a Joy
Adventure, at a price
Considered by many to be one of, if not the best game in Falcom's long-running action RPG franchise, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana is still a joy to play six whole years after its PS Vita debut. Series protagonist and lifelong adventurer Adol Christin gets shipwrecked on an uncharted island, and has little choice but to gather his...
Mini Review Save Room (PS5) - RE4 Delight Turned Full Game
What're ya sorting?
Considering just how beloved the inventory management of Resident Evil 4 was, it's insane to think it's taken this long for someone to spin it out into a full game. 17 years later, Save Room is a completely faithful recreation of the enjoyable Tetris-like mechanic that works as a neat distraction for an hour or two. This is the...
Mini Review Return to Monkey Island (PS5) - Original Creators Return to Beloved Point and Click
Rubber chicken with pulley optional
We find the mighty pirate Guybrush Threepwood sitting on a park bench, a bit older but not necessarily wiser. He is relaying the tale of a quest from The Secret of Monkey Island to a familiar youngster. The story that plays out is essentially the greatest hits of his first two adventures, with a sprinkling of...
Mini Review The Entropy Centre (PS5) - Portal-Esque Adventure Rewinds Time
If I could turn back time
Waking up in a strange facility, protagonist Aria Adams finds herself a Handheld Entropy Device (HED): a gun-like entity which can bend time, and houses a sassy virtual companion named Astra. If that sounds vaguely familiar, then you should already know what to expect. It’s hard to ignore the influence of Portal in The...
Mini Review The Chant (PS5) - Nothing Special Whatsoever
Kum Ba Nah
With the horror genre going through a sudden but welcome revival, a bang-average title isn't really going to cut it anymore as The Callisto Protocol and Dead Space loom on the horizon. Unfortunately, The Chant is exactly that. It's an okay game, but it's going to be forgotten about just as quickly as it comes. A third-person title about...
Mini Review Brewmaster (PS5) - All Hail the Best Beer Brewing Sim on PlayStation
"Just a half for me, Susan. I'm driving"
Back in the good old days you could go to your local pub for a pint of Housewives Knee and the only other people in there drinking proper beer would be old men and people who go to Games Workshop. People wearing fedora hats. Those sorts of people. But then they came. The normal people. Suddenly craft beer...
Mini Review Shatter Remastered Deluxe (PS5) – Brick Breaking Great Returns
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
Brick breakers have been a staple of gaming since the early days, and the formula hasn't really changed since. You're presented with a wall of colourful bricks and it's up to you to guide a ball into each one, destroying them until the level is clear. But what happens when a developer decides...
Mini Review Saturnalia (PS5) - An Engrossing Terror
It’s always a village, isn't it?
As heavy darkness permeates the discomforting town of Gravoi, Saturnalia dares you to survive it long enough to unveil the village’s hidden skeletons. Harkening back to the good ol’ survival horror games of the 90s, this artsy but quite disturbing indie horror manages to rattle your bones after the credits hit...
Mini Review Signalis (PS4) - Last-Gen Release Has Its Feet in the Future
Stunning revival of classic survival (horror)
Keycard puzzles, limited inventory, scarce ammo. The survival horror formula may be nothing new, but the sheer tension of Signalis shows once again that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it — just move it to an eerily abandoned mining colony on the edge of a Nazi-like galactic empire. Even more...
Mini Review Dragon Ball: The Breakers (PS4) - Janky Casual Fun In Familiar Setting
Is it worth surviving?
Dragon Ball: The Breakers breaks into unfamiliar territory for the franchise — a realm that'll be more than recognisable to avid Dead by Daylight players. This 1v7 multiplayer game is more than just a reskin of its inspirations, however. While it falters in several game mechanics, it uses the beloved manga and anime property...
Mini Review Persona 5 Royal (PS5) - Still One of the Best JRPGs Ever Made, Despite PS4 Disrespect
Persona 5 Royalties
Let's get right into it: Persona 5 would not be the success story that it is without the PS4. And with that in mind, the complete lack of an upgrade path for existing PS4 players is a slap in the face. It doesn't matter if you've already paid full price for Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal on Sony's last-gen system — SEGA and...
Mini Review LEGO Bricktales (PS5) - Solid Puzzler Taps into the Creativity of LEGO
If you build it, they will come
LEGO Bricktales is the latest attempt by LEGO to diversify its gaming portfolio beyond the formula popularised by TT Games. While some of these attempts have been worse than others, LEGO Bricktales is the latest in a line of successes. This is a puzzle game about a young minifig on their way to visit their...
Mini Review Tunic (PS5) - Cute But Tough Action Game Is Cunning As a Fox
Page turner
Tunic is more than it appears. It treads familiar ground to classic Legend of Zelda-style adventures, with simple combat, a large overworld, and a selection of bosses and dungeons. However, it's what's added on top that really shines. To start with, the foxy hero doesn't even have a sword, but throughout the game you'll slowly accrue...
Mini Review Let's Build A Zoo (PS5) - An Absorbing and Quirky Tycoon
A crocoduck?
Don’t let the cutesy pixel art style fool you; managing a zoo is more than just a walk in the park. Let's Build A Zoo wastes no time to allow the player to establish a living hell or a haven for both your visitors and animals. The game excels at two main mechanics which make it stand out from its tycoon competitors — the morality...
Mini Review Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space Remastered (PS4) - A Snappier, Funnier Sequel
Weird is an understatement
Santa, Hell, vampires? In any other game, this would be such an odd combination. However, this is Sam & Max we're talking about, and Santa's exorcism is just another typical case for the dynamic duo. Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space Remastered is just as enjoyable as Ozzy Osbourne's crazy train to experience...
Mini Review Sam & Max Save the World Remastered (PS4) - A Classic with a Modern Touch
Chuckle like the good ol' days
The cheese was innocent! Or was it? The cheese is only the start of an absurdist adventure led by a cool wolfhound detective accompanied by a hyperactive bunny who might have a loose screw or two. A remaster of Telltale's episodic adventure which ran from 2006 to 2007, Sam & Max Save the World Remastered follows a...
Mini Review The DioField Chronicle (PS5) - Dull Characters in an Intriguing Strategy RPG
Fleeting foxes
Its disjointed reveal trailer didn't exactly heighten our expectations, but we're happy to report that The DioField Chronicle has turned out reasonably well. It's a real-time strategy RPG topped off with some very pretty artwork and some effective gameplay design — but it's not without its (often obvious) flaws. Set against a...
Mini Review XIII (PS5) - Improvements Can't Save This Remaster Redo
Isn't 13 supposed to be a lucky number?
Considering the XIII remake's original launch was a disaster, it's admirable that publisher Microids tried to fix things. Following the launch from developer PlayMagic, a new team, Tower Five, has been brought in to try and rework the release into something more appealing. The results are mixed, but it's...
Mini Review Session: Skate Sim (PS5) - A Realism Focused Love Letter to Skating, For Better or Worse
Need's more CKY
This time five years ago, skateboarding games were in a rough place. The last major skateboarding game was the truly awful Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 and EA’s Skate series had been dormant since 2010 despite fervent fan demand for a new entry. Around that time Montreal-based developer Creā-ture Studios first showed off Project...
