Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 (PS5): COMPLETED!

I’ve been eyeing this up for ages but it never really went cheap enough. Sure, I’m a fan of the series (although THPS3 is the best one), but I couldn’t bring myself to pay more than £20 for it. Then PS+ gave it away as a free rental, finally, so here we are. It’s a remake of the first two THPS games, mostly as I remember them, only in much higher resolution and with some of the music missing because …

Pony Island (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

I aborted an attempt to play Pony Island on my Mac a few years ago, as you have to press the left and right mouse buttons at the same time at some point, and with a Mac mouse you can’t do that. I had a PC mouse I could have plugged in instead, but I also had eleventybillion other games that didn’t require that sort of effort, so it got shelved. Until now! Sure, the Steam Deck actually has no …

Pile Up! Box by Box (PS5): COMPLETED!

No, I have no idea why I downloaded this, but then I discovered it was multiplayer co-op so played through it with my family. It’s a cute, relatively simple, platform puzzle game. Most of the puzzles relate to the height or distance you can jump, and manoeuvring or stacking objects (or your co-op partners) to reach buttons and switches and so on. There are springy things and floaty things, fans, fences you can burn, other characters you need to help, …

My Brother Ate My Pudding! (Switch): COMPLETED!

You know those silly “Mon Hid My Game!” games I played a while back? This is one of them, only with a slight difference. Each level, you have to hide from your sister. The first few are easy – behind a curtain, or in a cupboard – but they soon get more complicated. The gameplay, such that it is, is almost exactly like the other games and it has some similar 4th wall breaking “surprises” later on, but it’s a …

Rod Land (Evercade): COMPLETED!

Now this game I have heard of. It’s one of those single screen, clear out all the baddies games like Parasol Stars and Snow Bros, only in this one you grab them with your rod and then bash their brains out on the floor. As you do. I had forgotten, however, that there were bosses! But, and like most of the rest of the game actually, they were surprisingly easy to beat. A very happy jolly platformer with cute graphics. …

64th Street: A Detective Story (Evercade): COMPLETED!

Despite the name, there’s no actual detectiving in 64th Street. Sure, at the end of each level a wall of text comes up to say you found a clue to, uh, whatever the thing you’re supposed to be doing is, but actually, the game is 100% punching and kicking people. Because, it’s a Final Fight type game after all. I’d never heard of it before, and, when I came to write this I’d already forgotten what game it was. But …

Lord Winklebottom Investigates (Switch): COMPLETED!

A point and click murder mystery adventure game where all the people are actually animals? Why yes, yes I do believe I will buy and play that. It’s really very good too. The puzzles are neither too easy nor too obscure, and the whodunnit (and, after that, the whydunnit) were both surprises and kept me wanting to play to get the resolution. The graphics are amazing, and the voice acting really something special. My only issue is the pacing is …

Heaven’s Vault (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

What an unusual game. I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s just not really like anything I’ve played before. Heaven’s Vault has the feel of a point and click adventure game (albeit with direct control of your character), but it’s also mostly a visual novel. Except, it has “driving” sections. And, perhaps most interesting and unusual, there’s an entire language you have to slowly translate as the game progresses. Then there’s the animation style, which is like a …

Moving Out (PS5): COMPLETED!

This is one of those intentionally obstructive co-op arcade games like Overcooked, and it has a similar art style and sense of humour to that game too. But, it’s a lot easier and I (well, we – daughter was on controller 2) had more fun with it. The aim is to clear a house of (mostly) furniture, by carrying it to the waiting lorry and packing it all in so it fits. Smaller items, like toasters and boxes, can be …

Stray (PS5): COMPLETED!

The first game to be “free” with the new higher tiers of PlayStation Plus on the day of release, Stray was a lovely surprise. I knew it existed, so I don’t mean like that, and it was announced to be coming to the service a while back. No, what I’m referring to is the gameplay, the setting, and just how good it is. Until downloading it, my interested was “ooh, a cat game? That might be fun”. But it’s so …

Aperture Desk Job (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

Yes, I have a Steam Deck. And you know what? It’s actually great. I was sure it’d be horrible and clunky and just a bit wrong, but actually, it isn’t. Well, OK, it is still a bit clunky. To show off the ten trillion different sticks, buttons, pads, flaps, twiddles, surfaces and touchybits that the Steam Deck packs to ensure there’s a workable control method for just about every game you can throw at it, Valve created a free game …

Kirby’s Dream Land 3 (Switch): COMPLETED!

After the travesty that was Kirby 64, I thought I’d play this on the SNES service on the Switch. It’s been ages since I last did (and even then it was in Japanese), and I’d forgotten – and been tainted by 64 – just how good it looked. In fact, it’s probably the best looking SNES game. How did they go from this to that? Unpossible. I haven’t collected everything on every level, and I’ve not done all of the …

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Switch): COMPLETED!

I had no idea there were bad Kirby games. Certainly, Kirby Air Ride and Kirby Not Smash Bros Because It’s Only Kirby in Different Colours Clash aren’t amazing, but they’re inoffensive and not really proper Kirby games. But Kirby 64 is bad. And not in a 1980s way. Considering that it came out after Mario 64, and is a much simpler game being only 2D (well, 2.5D really), how is it that this looks terrible? It’s worse than the NES …

Minit (PS5): COMPLETED!

Another PS+ free rental, but a game I’ve nearly bought more than once elsewhere and actually own on PC (but I don’t have my Steam Deck yet to play it on!). Minit’s “thing” is that it’s a Zelda-ish game only you die every sixty seconds. Or sooner. And then you start again. However, some things are persistent and you do reach respawn points and open shortcuts so dying isn’t really an inconvenience. There’s a plot about having to go into …