Anything but a hollow experience. Over a decade since Yacht Club Games made its mark on the indie scene with Shovel Knight, the studio is finally back with its next big nod to retro games, Mina the Hollower. Instead of going the 2D platformer route again, Mina the Hollower lives…
The game's Bond, James Bond. James Bond is undoubtedly one of the most famous names in all of fiction, which is a pretty funny thing to be able to say for a secret agent. With a multitude of books, movies, games, magazines, and countless items of merchandise, the character, and…
The Abyss stares back. In response to an aggressive post-release patching schedule from dev Pearl Abyss, we’re giving Crimson Desert a second shake. With the game transformed from its 19th March release date, we felt it was important to revisit the title and provide an updated…
Ridley Carpenter's The Alien. Taking the Supermassive formula and applying it to a mash-up of Ridley Scott’s Alien and John Carpenter’s The Thing was exactly why I was intrigued to check out Directive 8020. I’m a huge fan of both films, and the idea of having to decide whether…
Keep running up that hill. Hades 2 continues developer Supergiant Games' reign of isometric action dominance, which began with Bastion back in 2011 and was firmly cemented by Transistor in 2014. Building on the foundations of 2020's excellent original Hades, the sequel to that…
See that star? Don't go there. Starfield is a very different proposition compared to the many Elder Scrolls and Fallout games Bethesda has made in the past: it’s a space RPG where the worst thing about it is space. Instead of a single open world to explore, there are…
A catchy number. It doesn’t happen very often, but occasionally a game comes around that’s tailor made for me. People of Note, a musical RPG from indie outfit Iridium Studios, is that kinda release. This one fuses Final Fantasy with K-Pop Demon Hunters, delivering a distinctly…
In another life. The Life Is Strange series comes to its supposed end with Life Is Strange: Reunion, a quasi-sequel to the 2015 original, and a full-on sequel to 2024’s Life Is Strange: Double Exposure. However, its commitment to either of those prior games is a little…
Into the Deep South. South of Midnight is the kind of game Microsoft would have had to consistently publish to make its Xbox Game Pass subscription truly succeed. This is a relatively straightforward 12-hour adventure with little in the way of gameplay innovation, yet it ships…
Welcome to die. Retro compilations have become quite commonplace this generation, but Marvel MaXimum Collection is one you should be paying attention to. While it would be all-too easy to lament the lack of SEGA’s superhero games here – like its System 32 Spider-Man effort or…
Kliff bracer. Crimson Desert is a fascinating video game. It's an open world adventure of frankly absurd scope, taking blatant cues from notable examples of the genre, like Red Dead Redemption 2, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and The Witcher 3. But where those three…