When you pay for the Switch Online service, every so often they give you the full, complete versions of retail games for free – for a few days. Then they stop working. This week, they let you download and play Minecraft Dungeons, and my daughter and I completed it before our free trial was up. That’s not to say it’s short, although it’s nowhere near as long as I expected (partly because two large additional areas are walled off behind …
Almost 11 years ago, I bought, played, completed and absolutely adored literally everything about the Scott Pilgrim game on XBLA. Last year, a rerelease was announced for current platforms, and to show my support I bought the Switch physical version from Limited Run back in January this year as they were the only place offering it. Well, that turned out to be a horror show in terms of it actually being dispatched and delivered (long story short, it took about …
If you’re a long time reader of this diary, or you follow me online generally, you probably know I don’t play games online very often, and I never play MMORPGs at all. Well, not since a brief dabble into Anarchy Online some 17 years ago, anyway. Why, you might ask, am I playing Star Trek Online then? And I would answer you with, I Really Don’t Know. As a free to play game, I did a bit of research first. …
The name change from Gods and Monsters to Fenyx Rising was enough to put me off ever buying this, and the quick price drop on release and middling reviews did nothing to convince me otherwise. What did convince me, however, was actual Real People saying it was alright actually but more than that was the dearth of things to actually play on my PS5. yes, Spider-Man, I know, but this was £21. Also a negative was just how much like …
Sold to me as Stardew Valley Only Cats, Cattails isn’t really that. There are a lot of visual similarities, and there are shared features like a day/night cycle, improving your home, getting married, foraging and mining, but it’s much more simplistic than Stardew Valley and much shorter too. And there are more cats. Starting the game as a pet dumped by the side of the road for reasons not explained (one minute you’re in a happy home, then literally a …
Another PS4 game played on the PS5. I’ve not given this a go on an actual PS4 so I don’t know how much of this is the PS5, but having no loading is excellent, and it’s all in 4K and Kamurocho looks incredible. Kiwami 2 is a remake of the original PS2 Yakuza 2 game, which I’ve never played. I knew some of the story from flashbacks in later games in the series, but none of the detail. Like the …
It just so happened that soon after completing Syberia 2, the third game in the series was reduced on the Switch eShop from £45 to about £8. Perfect timing, and so here it is. With the story essentially concluded at the end of 2, Syberia 3 starts with Kate Walker in a hospital having been dropped there by youkols (the people who you found near the end of the previous game) who had discovered her freezing to death after her …
Since I mostly gave up computer gaming back in the early 2000s, the Syberia games passed me by completely. In fact, point and click games – a mostly PC based genre at the time – were lost almost entirely, until Telltale came along with console versions of their adventures. Now of course, they’re on everything. I’d eyed up Switch ports of Syberia and its sequel on the eShop a number of times, but never got round to buying them until …
After being exposed to many people saying how much fun and how relaxing this game was, it isn’t a surprise that I bought it for the Switch. Also, all those people were right. You’re given a mountain, and a route to the bottom filled with twists, turns, jumps and cliff edges, and have to ride to the finish as quickly as you can with as few crashes as possible. There are many shortcuts, some of which are obvious, some are …
Secret Little Haven is a visual novel type game that plays out in the form of an AOL Messenger style chat application, a little like Emily Is Away. You’re Alex, a fan of a Japanese Sailor Moon type anime and you take part in his interactions with friends in real life, from a fan forum, and his dad. Alex isn’t happy for a number of reasons, but centrally he doesn’t identify as male, and part of the game how he, …
It can’t be that long ago when I last played the original (well, DX) version of Link’s Awakening, I thought to myself. After all, I remember most of what I’m supposed to be doing. It turns out it was more than eight years ago. It also turns out I’d not remembered quite as much as I’d thought. This Switch version is a shot-for-shot remake of Link’s Awakening DX. All the same enemies, all the same weapons, all the same characters, …
Probably my favourite side scrolling beat ’em up of all time is the Scott Pilgrim Vs The World game on the Xbox 360. Although I still have it on my console, it has now been delisted, so can’t be bought any more. What I liked about it, aside from bloody everything, is the upgrades and food items you could buy – just like in the NES River City Ransom game it is clearly a Scott Pilgrim themed homage to. So …
Yes, it’s another Lego game. Which means that it’s the same as all the other Lego games, right? Well, no actually. In several important ways. Of course, the basic gameplay is mostly unchanged. You go around a level, solve little puzzles and generally smash everything you come across, but this game (and it’s possible the Lego Incredibles and Lego DC Super Villains do the same – I’ve yet to play them) is more open world and far less linear than …
My understanding of this game was that it wasn’t anything like previous Assassin’s Creed games. It was written from scratch, didn’t reuse any engine or assets, and had completely new gameplay. The title also suggests it’s the start of the Assassins. It turns out nothing is true, everything is permitted. Maybe Ubisoft did scrap everything from the series and built it all up again, but it doesn’t show. In fact, aside from the new control scheme (attacks are on the …
