In its opening moments, The Lost Child doesn’t pull any punches. While investigating a series of bizarre subway suicides wrapped in supernatural rumours, occult reporter Hayato Ibuki suddenly finds himself pushed onto the tracks by an invisible force. He’s saved at the last second by a stranger shouting about how …
Nintendo Switch
Framed and Framed 2, originally released for mobile in 2014 and 2017 respectively, are two of the most unique, clever puzzle games to come out in the last few years. They start with a simple concept–you face to rearrange panels in a comic so that each scene plays out as …
It’s a rare horror game that can make you regress to that little kid, hiding under the covers from the shadows that creep across the room. All the gore and body horror in the world can’t compare to the childhood fear of the dark, and a game that can build …
It’s hard to believe that just a few short years ago, I was one of those people who wrote off the Warriors series as one of repetitive, tiresome button mashers. Then along came Dragon Quest Heroes to completely change my mind, and I’ve gone on to enjoy just about every …
Ikaruga is the rare sort of game that comes around once in a generation. It’s famous for its difficulty, even among bullet hell shoot ’em ups—a genre known for being brutal and unforgiving—but it’s so much more than that. It’s not just a game with clever systems and creative level …
Koei Tecmo are no strangers to licensed spin-offs of their Warriors series, but that didn’t stop the announcement of Hyrule Warriors—almost five years ago, now—from being a big surprise. Nintendo isn’t the kind of company to license it its properties willy-nilly, and Koei Tecmo aren’t exactly known for the family-friendly …
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles was one of real highlights of last year. It’s a quiet, relaxing, peaceful adventure through a world more interested in community and sustainability than violence and conquest. It’s an open-world game where that structure underscores the ideas that the narrative sets out to explore, rather …
I’m really glad that I didn’t play Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze on Wii U. It’s a very good game, but so frustratingly difficult that I doubt my controller would have survived the experience. For anyone masochistic enough to enjoy that, the Switch version of Tropical Freeze offers the very …
By Matthew Codd My love of Gal*Gun: Double Peace is no secret. I wrote numerous articles praising its merits, and when New Zealand’s Office and Film and Literature Classification saw fit to ban it, I sought to have the decision appealed (unsuccessfully, sadly). I stand by all that; Double Peace …
It’s no secret that I was very, very excited when Nintendo announced Nintendo Labo earlier this year. While everyone else was making jokes about Nintendo “selling overpriced cardboard”, I was genuinely overjoyed at the prospect of building cardboard models that interact with the Switch console in new, interesting ways. Now …