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…
COVID lockdowns broke us all a little bit (or, at least, those…
Fire Emblem and Koei Tecmo’s Musou (Warriors) formula are a good fit. So much of what people love about the Musou series (a large roster with a big variety in the characters that are available), is also something that the Fire Emblem series is popular for, and while the Warriors…
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TMNT is a seriously well-established brand in 2022. However, if you weren’t there in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it’s easy to underestimate just how ubiquitous the adventures of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael were… if you were a certain age. The Turtles of that era were relentlessly marketed…
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There are a couple of different ways that you can approach an apocalypse in art. In most cases, artists depict desperately grim stuff, and that approach makes sense given that in these stories humanity is close to (or experiencing) extinction and mere survival in a harsh, traumatic world is a…
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Spellforce III is one of those games that, even a generation ago, would have been inconceivable as a console release. The game’s blend of RTS and RPG mechanics would have been deemed too complex for a controller to bother with, and the developers and publishers alike would have assumed that…
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Mr. Prepper is so disappointing. It could have been something spectacular, given that it weaves a story that is so steadfastly critical of America, but instead it collapses in a whimper that never realises its mechanical ambitions nor delivers on its thematic premise. Combined, those two failings make it frustrating…
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Mario Strikers: Battle League is the perfect example of how a modern arcade sports title should behave. It is fast, furious, and heavily reliant on twitch reflexes and speedy precision. Just like you’d want from an arcade game. It’s also instantly accessible and, at a basic level, a pure joy…
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The developers of Pinku Kult Hex Mortis are on to a good thing. The creative vision is exceptionally strong, and the blend of Halloween-aesthetic horror, mystery and RPG is an intriguing one. If only the execution wasn’t so maddingly pedestrian. Pinku Kult is set in a dark and foreboding metropolis…
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The Future You’ve Been Dreaming Of is a voyeurism simulation, and coming from developer qureate, we all knew what that would involve upfront. As the developer has so brazenly shown with Duel Princess and Livestream Escape From Hotel Izanami, qureate’s teams likes the fan service to be heavy and unabashed.…
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Card Shark is what happens when you take the act of cheating at gambling and make it cultured. Devolver Digital has the most incredible knack for finding games that are just plain good fun to publish, and this is a very good example of that ability. It can be infuriating,…
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Ogre is a classic board game that has been around in some form or another since the ‘70s. It is fondly remembered in the same way that the likes of Hero Quest or earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons are: for older players, these are the kinds of games that…
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