Rainbow Cotton Review 3/10 By Pixel Hunted "Seeing Rainbow Cotton back on sale is genuinely surreal" 🧹🧙‍♀️ @ININ_Games

You really can’t polish a turd. We live in a renaissance for video game remasters, remakes, and re-releases, where even the most obscure titles can be given a lick of paint and sent out into the wild world of digital storefronts.

But, even in a world where the likes of Baten Kaitos, Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninjas and Famicom Detective Club have been exhumed from their mouldering gaming graves, seeing Rainbow Cotton back on sale is genuinely surreal.

🤖 Blackwind | Xbox Series X | Review | 3/10 | "Groundhog Slay" 🤖 @drakkardev @maxharvey79 #IndieGame #IndieGameDev

My first impressions of Blackwind were positive. I’m a fan of the mecha anime aesthetic, and the story of a boy having to use a super-powered robot suit (à la Titanfall) to battle enemies and rescue his father, was an appealing prospect. The voice acting is a little cheesy, but I felt like it set the scene well, with an AI voice in the suit giving instructions that worked as a tutorial without that being too contrived.

But. 

BUT.

🏚️👻 Insomnis | PC | Review | 3/10 | "a series of supernatural inconveniences" 🏚️👻 @Path_Games @PixelHunted #IndieGames #GameDev

For anyone born after 1980 the prospect of inheriting a haunted house doesn’t hold the fear that it did for older generations. Sure, you’re now the custodian of a dilapidated mansion with peeling wallpaper, bloodstained carpets, spooky dolls scattered everywhere, and a minor infestation of ghost kids, but if it’s a choice between that and living under the thumb of a landlord I’ll pick the ghost kids anytime.

💥 RICO | Nintendo Switch | Review | 3/10 | "I wouldn't call myself an expert in police procedures" 💥 #IndieGames #GameDev

Although I watch Line of Duty, I wouldn't call myself an expert in police procedures. 

That said, I'm reasonably sure that if, as an officer, you spot some dodgy types toting automatic weapons, you should call for backup. 

What you shouldn't do, I would imagine, is enter the building, pick up the first gun you find and start systematically killing everyone in the building. 

It all seems a bit too, I don't know, murdery...

💥 XIII Remastered | Review | PS5 | 3/10 | "A Very Unlucky Number" 💥

XIII was a game I had never played but it has always been on my radar. It’s a game I that I could see a screenshot of and instantly identify but never dipped my toes in, so when I saw it recently on sale, I thought - after 18 years, let’s finally give it a try and I picked up the remastered version.

Well, I was hoping for an action-packed, highly stylistic thrill ride… That is not what I got. This remastered version just feels soulless. It has a real emptiness and everything about it feels hollow. 

🏔️⛺️🗻Kholat | PC | Review | “I tried so hard, and got so far, but, in the end, it doesn’t even matter.” 🏔️⛺️🗻 @PixelHunted #GameDev #IndieGame

Chester Bennington once sang: “I tried so hard, and got so far, but, in the end, it doesn’t even matter.” This could be the motto of Kholat, an indie horror title from IMGN.PRO that starts strong but gradually becomes less and less enjoyable

Kholat is inspired by the notorious Dyatlov Pass Incident in which nine Russian hikers died in Ural mountains in 1959. 

An investigation revealed that they’d frantically clawed their way out of their tents in the middle of the night, with their bodies found naked and mutilated in the mountains - some reports claiming that high levels of radiation were found on the bodies.