Chris Scullion

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.

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·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 19, 2020

Critic70/100

Agreement—

Elements of Burnout Paradise are starting to show their age now, but nobody can argue with the quality of its actual racing action. If you can put up with its various niggles and quirks and don't mind the astronomical price (relative to other systems), it's easily one of the most entertaining – and certainly one of the fastest – racing games on the Switch.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Jun 1, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Compilation games like Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics always have a variety of hits and misses depending on your own personal taste, but there's a wide enough variety of board, card and action games here that you're sure to find a number that will appeal to you. Everything's presented with charm and warmth (terribly-written cutscenes aside) and there's an enormous amount of content on offer, whether you plan on playing solo or with others. The perfect game for lockdown? Quite possibly.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·May 24, 2020

Critic60/100

Agreement—

At its core, Golf With Your Friends is still a decent golf game. Get an online multiplayer game going with some similarly-skilled pals and you'll have a great time making your way through its weird and wonderful courses (don't even get us started on the Worms course and the jetpacks you can get). Its main problem is that every time you change these optimum conditions – playing with strangers, playing offline, playing solo, playing with a mix of experts and beginners – you're going to get diminishing returns from your experience. As long as you take the title literally, you'll have fun.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·May 22, 2020

Critic80/100

Agreement—

Whether you're a shmup fiend or a complete amateur, there's fun to be had here.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·May 17, 2020

Critic60/100

Agreement—

80's Overdrive may be wonderfully presented, but its problem is that price-wise it's sandwiched between two similar games that are better.

Nintendo Life

Chris Scullion·Mar 27, 2020

Critic60/100

Agreement—

Panzer Dragoon: Remake is a decent take on an all-time classic that goes some way to modernising it, but doesn't quite nail the landing. Awkward controls and a visual style that's a clear improvement but could still look much better result in a game that's mainly for fans of the original who are curious to see how it would look with a new lick of paint.