I can't get Fish Sticks out of my head. Not the food, but the stray cat with a squished face and stubby legs that I wrangled into my shack in Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel’s new roguelite strategy game, Mewgenics. The shop, the pub, the dentist; no matter where I go, I…
I was, like so many of my 1990s-born peers, a huge Sims girlie. I spent hundreds of hours as a teen and young adult making people I knew, characters from shows I was obsessing over, or original characters I wanted to experiment with, and diligently following their life paths and…
This could have been the Hidden Folks of murdering. And it's all there, underneath the mess, waiting for someone to rescue. Sadly that has, so far, not been realised.
Shadowhand is built entirely on a foundation of muddy luck. Sometimes the cards come up in such a way that you can combo twenty or more in a row. Sometimes you have to pass your turn over and over again, waiting for a useful 7 or 5 to show itself. That's why I find it unsatisfying.
It might not fully satisfy match-3 fans, then, but this is still a delectable puzzler wrapped in an engaging fantasy story, served with a side of so-so platforming. It's with great skill that Trinket Studios has managed to make that unusual combination work at all, even if I'm left longing for a more developed follow-up that makes the most of every one of its inspired ingredients.
Simple, satisfying, vertical and easy to binge on, like a tube of Pringles. Hyakki Castle feels like a generic alternative. It'll fill the gap for a while, but once you pop, stopping might be easier than you'd hope.
You'll have an example off the top of your head, but I'm struggling to think of the last twin-stick shooter that put a big emphasis on downtime between blasting, with NPCs, a decent chunk of story, and an RPG-style upgradeable roster of characters. That's what Tower 57 rather modestly offers, all through very pleasing chunky 16-bit art.
In many ways, I feel the same way about Football Manager 2018 as I do about football in 2018. I love the sport, but I found so much of the talk around it and the personalities involved more than a little bit tiresome.
It's a game about raising your own level and mastering one of the finest combat systems ever put on a screen. It might be standing on the shoulders of Souls, but it's got its eyes on a very different destination.