Matt S. is the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of DDNet. He's been writing about games for over 20 years, including a book, but is perhaps best-known for being the high priest of the Church of Hatsune Miku.
Danganronpa-style aesthetics and humour combined with Texas Hold ‘Em poker? Why yes, I did jump into All in Abyss: Judge the Fake without a second thought. Short of adding in strip poker mechanics (oh the nostalgia for the days when PC gaming was inundated with those), this, right here, is exactly the kind of poker game I want to play.…
There is a very fine line between homage and something that is just outright theft of an idea. A good example of the former is Wargroove, which is clearly inspired by Intelligent Systems’ Advance Wars, but has its own identity through storytelling, unit design, features, presentation and so on. On…
What if Harry Potter was an otome love game and not written…
I wrote this article for an arts publication – unfortunately, at the…
I’m not usually one to get invested in Early Access games. I’d much rather just experience the finished product, when I can experience the full extent of the vision of the developers. However, Spiders’ GreedFall had a particularly powerful effect on me (I actually ended up buying it three times…
Read More
Reynatis’ single biggest flaw is that it tries too many things, and while each of its themes would in itself be worth exploring, piled into a heap together they create a narrative that often seems confused about what it is. Take for example the theme of fascism and resistance that…
Read More
I was tempted to resist writing anything about the announcement of Ghost of Yōtei. It’s increasingly difficult to have a mature conversation about anything to do with video games without one pile-on or another happening, and I had more than enough of a pile-on from my review of Ghost of…
Read More
There are very few things that trigger my sense of nostalgia quite as powerfully as Worms: Armageddon. When this was released on the Nintendo 64 back in 1999, it instantly became one of THE rotation of multiplayer hits that dominated Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at home with family and…
Read More
They really should have called this “The Legend of Link”, to keep up with the series syntax. That aside, Nintendo’s first significant effort to make their good princess (sorry, I never cared for Peach) a protagonist is an absolutely delightful experience, and shows that while Nintendo enjoyed massive success with…
Read More
Manufacturing third-party controllers must be a tough gig. It’s one of those things that the major console manufacturers – Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo – are hyper-competitive about because controllers impact heavily on how enjoyable their consoles are to use. Consequently, all three make excellent controllers, put them at reasonable prices…
Read More
So much of Neva, as well as its predecessor, Gris, comes down to Conrad Roset, the Creative Director of Nomada Studio, and the creative force behind both games. As a visual artist by trade, and one who has been exhibited in major galleries around the world, Roset’s games were always…
Read More
A few years ago, Devolver Digital and Nomada Studio hit it big with Gris, which shifted several million units – rare for an indie game – and gathered up any number of awards and accolades. The success was for good reason, too. Gris is a hauntingly beautiful, powerful and evocative…
Read More
It’s clear from playing the demo that Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a significant effort by Square Enix. It’s not just that the game has a full 3D makeover. Right from the first cut-scene, there are additional lines of dialogue and narrative added to give it context…
Read More
As most people know, I’m generally opposed to streaming streaming services. I find the idea of ceding any control whatsoever over what you can see, hear and play to corporations to be a very bad idea, and the fact that stuff moves into and out of these platforms (meaning your…
Read More