Chris Scullion

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Sep 8, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

If the look of Hotshot Racing appeals to you and you can appreciate the aesthetic delights of something that looks deliberately low-fi and polygonal, the action it offers on the track does an excellent job of backing up the game's style with substance. It may have its quirks and it may turn you into a paranoid conspiracy theorist ready to tell tales of rubber-banding to anyone who'll listen to you, but hey: that just adds to the authenticity of the era it's based on. This is a fine racing title that truly nails its driving mechanics and delivers an exhilarating experience that will captivate newcomers and veterans alike.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Sep 3, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

As a traditional football game, Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions falls flat in many ways. As its own unique interpretation of the sport, though, there's something oddly compelling about the way it gives each goalie an energy bar as if it were some sort of ball-based fighting game (Street Striker II, if you will). Play it with an open mind and as long as you're not against a game that tries something different – as well as plenty of cutscenes – you'll have fun with this one. If you're a fan of the wider Captain Tsubasa franchise, then you're going to love it even more.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Sep 2, 2020

Critic50/100

Agreement—

Struggling isn't the first game whose main gimmick is a protagonist who's deliberately difficult to control. Whereas other games do this for comedy effect, though, here it only serves to frustrate. It's difficult enough in single-player, but as a co-op experience you're far more likely to want to slap your friend in the face before you'll high-five them. Success does feel like an accomplishment, but the end rarely justifies the means, making this strictly a game for masochists.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Aug 29, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

PGA Tour 2K21 plays a solid golf game with enough flexibility in its control settings to appeal to both die-hard simulation buffs and casual golf fans just looking for a quick round. Its real-life pro players are so underused they may as well not be in here and the game may not yet have the typical 2K Sports trademarks – the polished story mode, the slick TV-style presentation – but it also isn't plagued with microtransactions, and the result is a game that, refreshingly, just gets on with it.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Aug 21, 2020

Critic60/100

Agreement—

Another key title in Nintendo's arcade history making its way to the home for the first time, Super Punch-Out!! is more eminent than it is entertaining. It's still a fun enough game for a while, but it's probably the weakest in the series: play the SNES Super Punch-Out!! on Switch Online first, and only get this if you're itching for more.

Pure Xbox

Chris Scullion·Aug 19, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Battletoads is without a doubt one of the funniest games of this generation, and it's a pretty nifty beat 'em up to boot. It does have the occasional lull when things start to feel a little repetitive, but by and large it's a hugely entertaining experience and well worth your time.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Aug 18, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

It may be a handheld game from the late '90s, but there's a solid fighting system in King of Fighters R-2 and genre fans should check it out if it passed them by the first time around. It may be a tad pricey given that it's lacking in the sort of special features many other retro releases get these days, but gameplay's where it counts and in that respect we have no complaints.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Aug 5, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

The Samurai Shodown games are among the best in the fighting genre: the seven games on offer here are perfect examples of this, and the exceptional Museum mode will keep you busy for hours. Its online may be a non-starter and it may have offered even more titles if it had lifted its self-imposed Neo Geo-only restrictions, but that doesn't take away from what's an otherwise strong collection of brilliant fighting games.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Aug 4, 2020

Critic60/100

Agreement—

Skully isn't an entirely lost cause. There's an entertaining enough puzzle platformer hidden underneath its myriad visual flaws. It may be uglier than sin and you may be accompanied by an irritating voiceover throughout, but you'll still have some fun playing through it and the plot does resolve itself in a nice way by the end. You'll just need to be able to roll with a lot of annoyances to get there.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Jul 15, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

It still isn't the new Thousand-Year Door fans will have been hoping for, but it's still one of the funniest games in the series and it's got a truly likeable companion character, and while the combat is far from ideal the fact that we still thoroughly recommend the game regardless speaks volumes about every other aspect of it.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Jul 4, 2020

Critic50/100

Agreement—

Outbuddies DX tries to mix things up a bit with unique features like a playable drone partner. The problem is, it tries to be a little too clever for its own good, and its failure to effectively pull off solid fundamentals like the controls and the map system means that the gimmicks suffer as a result. There's a lot we want to love about this game, but its constant annoyances make that hard.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Jul 1, 2020

Critic90/100

Agreement—

Mr. Driller is one of those elite few puzzle games that, like Tetris, remain immensely playable no matter what year it is. The GameCube edition was one of the finest examples of this and, a full 18 years later, it hasn't aged a single day. Given that you can easily enjoy it in 10-minute bursts or epic three-hour sessions, there are fewer games better suited to the Switch. A must-have for puzzle fans.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Jun 25, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

A decent start. The microtransactions aren’t massively intrusive, the energy system isn’t too debilitating and the stages aren’t Candy Crush Saga-style efforts where it’ll take you 70 goes to get lucky enough to eventually clear them. These are all qualified by the word “yet”, though, and that’s the thing to bear in mind as this game evolves on a fortnightly basis. It’s yet to be established whether this is the sort of mobile game that lulls you in with a false sense of security and then, later down the line, hits you with ridiculously difficult stages that will almost certainly need power-ups to clear (we see you, Dr. Mario World). For now, though, we’re happy.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Jun 24, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

NES and Namco fans will be happy with the titles on offer here. Some of them have never been released in the west before and the star of the show – Pac-Man Championship Edition – is an entirely new NES port created just for this collection. Each of the 11 games has at least some value, but the bare-bones nature of the presentation is a little disappointing: for a game with Museum in the title, we'd hoped each game would have been celebrated a little more with art and behind-the-scenes info.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Jun 24, 2020

Critic60/100

Agreement—

The second Namco Museum Archives compilation is far more eclectic than the first. Vol 1 had more of the typical classics you’d expect from a Namco collection, and while that may seem a bit boring and predictable the reality is that they were classics for a reason: most of them are more fun to play. While there are still some great titles in here – Rolling Thunder and Mappy-Land are highlights – the general quality is lower than that in the first volume. The only reason you should be opting for this one over the first is if you’re sick to the back teeth of Pac-Man and Dig Dug and are looking to discover some lesser-known NES games.