13 Jan 2025
Highway Police Simulator Xbox Series X Review 2/10 "It’s time to arrest this series" π¨π @AerosoftGmbH #IndieGame #GameDev
5 Sept 2023
Death Becomes You PC Game Review 2/10 "Perhaps I’m just not the right person to be writing about anime magical lesbian teenagers" π§ @pixelhunted @quill_studios #IndieGame #GameDev
Perhaps I’m just not the right person to be writing about anime magical lesbian teenagers.
As I sat on the London Underground playing Death Becomes Her on my Switch I became intensely aware of the passengers on either side of me. Before this moment I’d never been self-conscious about gaming in public - why the hell should I care what some random strangers think of me? But I realized a glance at my screen would show two canoodling cartoon schoolgirls. Let’s face it, this is a powerfully bad look for a middle-aged man.
14 Jul 2023
Brain Show PC Review 2/10 "Brain Show may eventually get better..." π§ #IndieGames #GameDev
Sony’sBuzz! trivia game series was a massive PlayStation hit in the 2000s. Its straight forwardness was key to its success, with the game faithfully replicating a TV quiz with the aid of the Buzz! Buzzer controller that lets you chime in to answer just as on a real-life game show.
Sadly the format didn’t last, presumably, because the internet is swimming with free trivia quizzes. These daysBuzz! games and peripherals are most commonly found clogging up the shelves of charity shops across the nation: casual players don’t need this plastic tat in their house and retro games fans are a little snooty about this powerfully mainstream mini-franchise.
It’s now been thirteen years since the last Buzz! game and the (aptly named) developer Simplicity Games thinks it’s time for a comeback. Enter Brain Show, which waits until the dead of night, grabs a shovel, heads to the graveyard, and tries to bring Buzz! back from the dead.
15 Feb 2023
Du Lac and Fey: Dance Of Death XSX Review 2/10 "Half-Arsed?" π @SalixGames #IndieGames #GameDev
The Collins English dictionary describes "half-arsed" as:
4 Nov 2021
π©Έπ³ Blair Witch - VR Edition | PSVR | Review | 2/10 | "In 1999 I spent a summer working as a lumberjack" π©Έπ³ @PixelHunted @BlairWitchGame #IndieGame #IndieGames #GameDev
In 1999 I spent a summer working as a lumberjack in the mountains outside of Durango, Colorado. Each Saturday night we’d pile into a pickup and head into town to the multiplex. One visit, having exhausted most of what was on offer, we decided to roll the dice on The Blair Witch Project. None of us had heard anything about the movie, but a horror movie about a witch? Rad.
Turns out that The Blair Witch Project is the absolute worst film to watch if you’re camping out in the woods that night. With no evidence to the contrary I thought it was real and - though I still doubted the existence of actual witches - I spent the night sleeping in the backseat of someone’s car. The Blair Witch Project remains the most terrifying experience I’ve had in a cinema and makes me basically the prime target for Blair Witch VR.
3 Jun 2021
π Don’t Forget Me | Review | PC | 2/10 | "As far as game titles go Don’t Forget Me isn’t half bad" π @PixelHunted @TheMoonPirates #GameDev #IndieGames
As far as game titles go Don’t Forget Me isn’t half bad.
There’s an air of mystery: who might I forget… and why?
But after playing the game it feels unhappily ironic as I will never think about Don’t Forget Me ever again once I wrap up this review.
24 May 2021
π©Έ Outbreak: Endless Nightmares | Review | 2/10 | “I was completely on board with this game...until I played it.” π©Έ #IndieGames #GameDev
I always like to start my reviews by explaining my relationship to the game, genre or franchise etc. and I feel in this review it’s especially important as I am very specifically the target audience.
It is a game trying to capture the aesthetics, gameplay and vibe of the late ‘90s horror games. I love those games - Resident Evil 2,4 and Silent Hill 2 are in my top 10 games of all time so I was completely on board with this game.... until I played it.