Winter Burrow Nintendo Switch 2 Review 8/10 *Cute Creature Crafting Comforts* 🐁🌳@pinecreekgames #IndieGame #GameDev

I had my eye on Winter Burrow for a while, and whilst I’m not naturally drawn to crafting games, the art style and draw of being a little mouse in a snowy forest rebuilding his family home whilst fending off insects and rediscovering his childhood was almost too cute to ignore. The final straw was when I showed my partner and our 4-year old son the trailer to Winter Burrow, and when I looked at them as the snippet ended, they had turned into anime characters with wide, trembling eyes, emitting a collective “aaaaawwww”.

Monster Train 2 DLC - Destiny of the Railforged Xbox Series X Review 8/10 "Keeping it Rail" 🚂 @TheMonsterTrain #IndieGame #GameDev

The first paid DLC for Monster Train 2 has arrived at the station. The lauded sequel itself only came out in May of last year, and in late 2025 we were blessed with a host of new additions through the ‘Echoes From the Void’ update. Now, only a few months later, we have another, more substantial offering to expand the network in a way that shows HS2 how it’s done (Google it, non-UK people).

Monster Train, for the uninitiated, is a roguelike deck-building game. I won’t go into the mechanics too much as I cover a lot of it HERE. And I didn’t review the Void update, but essentially it offered a bit more of everything. We were furnished with new foes, new weapons and new variants of the Pyre (source of the player’s life and what your monsters protect) to up the ante and keep the train rolling.

Blood: Refreshed Supply Xbox Series X Review 8/10 "Blood has been a constant in my life"🩸 @NightdiveStudio #GameDev #IndieGame

Blood has been a constant in my life, never far from my mind when favourite classic FPS titles crop up, and back in 2019 upon the release of Blood: Fresh Supply, a chunk of the team here at GF played through the game in local co-op format on hard mode in a single sesh for the glorious charity Special Effect, and what a bloody good day that was! I’m also personally a big supporter of games lost to the mists of time being released on modern consoles, so this is a great double-hander along with the recent Outlaws.

Once again telling the story of Caleb and his bullet-ridden path of revenge against his previous lord, Tchernobog and the cult of Cabal in his bid to rescue his former associates The Chosen, Blood begins with Caleb rising from the grave, pitchfork in hand to wreak havoc on his quest, which takes him through ghost towns, a circus, the arctic, hell itself, and even France (natch).

This new version features a wealth of updates, including:

• Source Code Rebuild: Built from the original code for greater accuracy and new possibilities.
• Visuals & Performance: 4K resolution, unlocked framerates (up to 120 FPS), remastered cutscenes, and optional weather effects.
• Gameplay Enhancements: Improved enemy behaviours, bug fixes, refined player movement, and support for CD/MIDI music.
• New Content: Includes Plasma Pak & Cryptic Passage add-ons, plus the Marrow episode at launch, with Death Wish planned for later.
• Multiplayer: Rewritten net code for up to 8 players, online/local co-op, and PvP modes.
• Modding & Controls: Extended mod support and fully customizable gamepad/keyboard controls.
• The Vault: A new area with cut content, concept art, unused sprites, and behind-the-scenes material

SUMMARY

The definitive way to enjoy Monolith Software’s classic, hopefully this will get a lot of folks into a game that I spent a lot of my teenage years enjoying.

I can’t imagine that Blood 2: The Chosen will get the same treatment and quite frankly, that’s absolutely fine, because it is – as the Aztecs used to say, “Not very good”.

8/10

🆒COOL🆒

(also available on PC, PS4/5, Xbox One, Switch – Switch 2 in 2026)

Developer / Publisher – Nightdive Studios

Borderlands 4 Xbox Series X Review 8/10 *More shooty, less bang bang* 💥

I covered Borderlands 3 back in 2021, scoring it a 9/10 and celebrating the zany world of Pandora and its myriad denizens. Whilst there were hardly any immense leaps in terms of core gameplay between games, the series always delivered mindless blasting action, which ramped up gloriously when playing with friends. 

This newest instalment instead shifts the action to Kairos, a hidden planet run by ‘The Timekeeper’; a masked, golden, and seemingly immortal figure that plants chips in the minds of his subjects allowing him to control their will, or to drive them insane, if he deems necessary…which he does deem quite often, quite frankly.

I was hips deep in the initial unveiling and first couple of hours, everything that I enjoyed about the series had returned, and now it was tied to a story that - although basic - seemed slightly more serious and focused which was certainly refreshing. Starting the game off with an epic prison escape got my engine revving and my guns cocked and loaded.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion PS5 Review 8/10 "It isn't a reinvention of the genre, nor does it need to be" @MARVELCosmicInv #IndieGame #GameDev

Marvel Cosmic Invasion doesn’t waste time pretending to be anything other than what it is: a loud, colourful, unapologetically arcade brained brawler where superheroes knock extra-terrestrial pests into orbit. It’s simple, it’s fast, and it wears its comic book heart proudly on it's sleeve, sometimes a little too proudly, but we’ll get to that.

What stands out straight away is the presentation. The game is a love letter to past Marvel fighter/brawlers like Marvel vs Capcom and the X-Men side scrollers. It has a punchy Saturday morning cartoon energy, all neon space vistas and chunky comic panel transitions. 

Every character, from deep cut favourites to headliners, move with personality. Rocket Raccoon scurries and blasts everything that looks vaguely flammable; Captain Marvel practically glows with stoic swagger; and even the grunts have expressive, over the top animations that make fights feel busy and chaotic in the best way.

Dark Quest 4 Xbox Series X Review 8/10 *A Quest Very Much For Heroes* 🎲⚔️🧙‍♂️ @brainseal #IndieGame #GameDev

Dark Quest 3 was installed on my Xbox for a very long time back in 2023/24 when I covered it, and earlier this year I covered Brain Seal’s Blow It Up! Which was also a good time. 

Whilst I haven’t played the first two iterations of the Dark Quest series, I can tell you that whilst it looks the same in trailers, and the artwork and characters are familiar, this is a different beast to Dark Quest 3, moving away from random encounters and luck-based sections, and more towards a style of gameplay that feels more akin to the quest-based Hero Quest board game that Dark Quest gets some of its inspiration from. 

Whilst this does freshen things up, it also feels oddly stripped back, as the mechanics now feel quite bare, and I found myself wishing for a little more depth and camera control, especially in areas where parts of the environment were a mystery to me because of the locked view.

Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 Xbox Series X Review 8/10 *Spooky Match 3 Action!* ⏹️🔼⏺️ 🦖 @StrangeScaffold #IndieGame #GameDev

I had no idea what to expect when I was installing Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3, but it very quickly became apparent that I was going to love it. 

A hybrid game that blends traditional Match 3 style gameplay with light horror-comedy elements in a setting that becomes very meta very quickly, it initially feels like a hodgepodge of ideas on paper that somehow works surprisingly well together in practicality!

Heading Out Xbox Series X Review 8 /10 "drive your fears away" 🚗💨 @SeriousSimGames @CrunchingKoalas #IndieGame #GameDev

Heading Out single-handedly saved my entire weekend recently, I had a rare free day and fully intended to veg out on the couch, getting slowly tipsy on bourbon whilst diving into some gaming gold. Unfortunately, the gaming ‘gold’ that I initially decided upon was the recent Game Pass title ‘Dragon Age: Veilguard’ which I’ve been keenly awaiting since release last year, having been a huge fan of the previous Dragon Age games. Within a couple of hours, I was deflated, morose, underwhelmed…and quite frankly uninstalling Dragon Age: Veilguard quicker than Oliver Reed can get the free drinks vouchers out of his pocket at a wedding.

Having no intention of playing further through the insipid, tedious game, I was flustered as to where to turn next, my Saturday plans lay in ruins. It was then that I remembered I had been sent the review code for Heading Out and decided that it could be a saucy palette-cleanser, and indeed it was, thank you, Serious Sim!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown Xbox Series X Review 8/10 ‘Turtle Renaissance’ 💙🐢 @StrangeScaffold #IndieGame #GameDev

Leonardo leads.

Donatello does machines.
Raphael is cool but crude.
Michelangelo is a party dude.

Anyone (over forty) knows this to be true. Though “doing” machines is not something one ought to interrogate too closely. Anyway, I, like everyone I knew at school, loved the Turtles (NB. ‘Ninja’ in America, ‘Hero’ in soft-shelled Britain). And this game from Strange Scaffold promises to bring back the radicalness of the teen greens and blend it with turn-based tactics.

I am a great fan of the XCOM and Rabbids games, and as a starting point, TMNT:TT (as I’ll snappily refer to it) can be summed up as just that, a mix of those two. It’s not as detailed as XCOM, and it isn’t as silly and fun as Rabbids, but it manages to succeed on its own terms.

Labyrinth of the Demon King PS5 Review 8/10 “Let’s Horror like its 1996” @jrhudepohl #IndieGame #GameDev

I must admit, when I first started Labyrinth of the Demon King I had a horrible feeling. Upon seeing tons of fog and noticing that, when you saved it flashed red - it dawned on me, “Oh, there are some real Silent Hill influences in the game” which should delight me as the Silent Hill and Resident Evil series of games are two of my favourites, but playing and reviewing horror games has kinda burnt me out on them, so many games are inspired by and take influence from them that it has just lessened the enjoyment. Luckily, within about thirty minutes I realised that, no, this is the good kind of influence - gentle nods but a completely different experience, so I dived in, kept playing and had a wonderful yet brutally awful experience.

Ready or Not Xbox Series X Review 8/10 “A Surprisingly Dark Descent Tied To SWAT Tactics” 👮‍♀️💥 @VOIDInteractive #IndieGame #GameDev

I tend to play online co-op games with fellow GFer Transvaal, and our usual approach of ‘shoot, shoot, shoot’ sometimes hits a wall when playing games frolicking on the more tactical side of life, such as here with VOID Interactive’s Ready or Not, a game playable in both single and multiplayer modes that casts you in the role of a SWAT team commander in the fictional Los Suenos Police Department (LSPD) as you make your way through a surprisingly generous amount of missions, in the hope of arresting the guilty whilst protecting the innocent. Each mission leading on from the last – although you wouldn’t necessarily know this until you get a high enough ranking in completion of said missions, which adds key context to your actions, filling out the narrative background.

Hole Digging Master Nintendo Switch Review 8/10 “Take a deep breath, and dig...deep.” 🕳️⛏️ @nostra_games_ #IndieGame #GameDev

I have to admit to covering Hole Digging Master out of sheer curiosity, the premise seemed somewhat bland, but hey – Fishing Vacation was awesome! There was also the fact that the trailer promises mysteries and treasures, tied to relaxing gameplay...good.

Hole Digging Master begins with a swift tutorial that introduces the game mechanics and core loop, that is – you dig, you sell, you upgrade...you dig. Played out entirely in POV, Hole Digging Master takes place entirely in a garage and the nearby garden, with a large square marked out on the grass, and the surrounding paraphernalia suggesting that the reason for digging – initially, at least! - is to get a swimming pool on the go. And so you grab your – erm – battery-powered shovel, and get to work. 

Locomoto Nintendo Switch Review 8/10 “A wonderfully cosy train ride with a few unfortunate bumps” 🚂🚂🚂 @GreenTileGames #CosyGame #IndieGame #GameDev

As the father of a four year old who loves trains, Locomoto was a no-brainer when it came to having the chance to cover it. I don’t particularly have a history with the cosy game genre, but I have enjoyed Stardew Valley in the past, and watched my other half pound hundreds of hours into Animal Crossing over the years – a game I find too oddly regimented to enjoy.

Locomoto allows you to create an animal character, who naughtily ‘borrows’ an abandoned train in a bid to help the local villages and towns with the various issues that raise their cheeky heads, thus begins our adventures in the world of Locomoto.

Lies of P: Overture PS5 [DLC] Review 8/10 – "The Deserved Encore to a Twisted Puppet’s Tale" 🎻 @Liesofp #GameDev #IndieGame

When Lies of P launched in 2023, it stunned the Soulslike community with its twisted reimagining of Pinocchio’s tale. Now, with the Lies of P: Overture DLC, developer Round8 Studio proves that the puppet strings still have plenty of tension left. This DLC doesn’t just extend the story—it elevates the entire experience, delivering a prequel that’s as emotionally resonant as it is mechanically refined.

Set years before the events of the base game, Overture transports players to a Krat untouched by the full devastation of the Puppet Frenzy. The narrative uses time travel to explore the roots of the Petrification Disease and the Alchemist faction’s twisted experiments. You encounter characters whose fates were only hinted at in the original game, adding emotional weight and tragic irony to every interaction.

PGA TOUR 2k25 PS5 Review 8/10 “Drive For Show, Putt For Dough” 🤑⛳

I always enjoy reviewing pretty much any golf game, it’s something I don’t just like - I love it, and I’m not just talking about the video games, I enjoy watching it on TV - seeing Rory McIlroy complete the Grand Slam brought me a lot of joy - I also love playing it in real life.

Well… I say ‘playing it’ but even though I do suck I still love being out on the course. I noticed for the previous instalment in the PGA2K series how many reviewers stated that they ‘tried golf once, sucked at it and would never play it again’ which is fine, you don’t have to do something in real life to review a gamified version of it, I'm neither a professional hitman nor have I ever been trapped in a town overrun by zombies, but I have reviewed games about those things and my knowledge and experience is a big fat zero. 

It doesn’t matter really, but I do like at least the thought that when the game tells you about the different shot types, that I at least understand the difference between a punch shot and a flop shot. I struggle to do them in real life mind you, but I know what they are, and I come at both PGA2k25 and golf itself with some knowledge and a lot of love.

The Precinct Xbox Series X Review 8/10 "Pick up that candy wrapper, punk – go ahead, make my day" 👮🏻‍♀️🚔👮🏻 @fallentreegames @Microids_off @kwalee #IndieGame #GameDev

Basketball Hoop looked on longingly from the side of the court

A top-down, action-packed police procedural with simulation elements, The Precinct is the latest title from Fallen Tree Games, the developers who previously gave us a game that I have always had a soft spot for - American Fugitive. Whilst this is a worthy follow-up to American Fugitive – and definitely improves on the frame rate issues that plagued that title (on Switch, at least) – I couldn’t shake the feeling that there are a couple of little, missed opportunities along the way.

WWE2K25 PS5 Review 8/10 “Strong and Steady” 🤼‍♂️ #WWE

The WWE2K games have been on a nice run, just like the product it’s based on, we haven't had any massive backward steps, and whilst there are some things that don’t land or could be improved upon, it’s nothing that makes you want to throw your WWE merch into a pit of fire. 

After loving the last few entries I wondered if we would finally have the rug pull, modes and match types taken out, corners cut etc. but to my very pleasant surprise we are still on a great roll, remaining modes have been improved, and most of the new additions are good - but I do think one game mode should have been left out... or maybe sent to an island, never to return.
The first thing I always talk about when reviewing WWE games is GM mode, probably the best thing in the entirety of human existence...OK, maybe that is a stretch - but it is one of my favourite things, so how does this mode hold up this year? 

Life On Earth: Reimagined SEGA Mega Drive Review 8/10 "Boobs, bullets and a bloody serious challenge" 🌎 @Kai_MSX #Retrogaming #IndieGame #GameDev

I previously covered KAI Magazine Software’s Metal Dragon and Life on Mars: Genesis, thoroughly enjoying both. Life on Earth: Reimagined is set in the same universe as Life on Mars, and casts you in the role of the extremely buxom and impractically dressed Zhira, who is on a mission to halt the progress of a Mars-based lifeform that was brought to Earth for study and has - naturally - broken free of its restraints, and is quite frankly – causing ructions.

First impressions are fantastic, the action is quick and precise, with the gameplay being reminiscent of titles such as Rolling Thunder 2, or Sunset Riders as Zhira combats spawning enemies from all sides as she makes her way through the stages. Oscar Albero’s graphics are genuinely stunning in some areas, as cherry blossom trees and cityscapes at night rush past in a whirlwind of cyberpunk. Zhira’s arsenal consists of a melee attack and well as standard, triple, auto, and explosive shots to take down the myriad enemies that come at her in waves. There’s also other vehicular sections to add variety to the gameplay, not to mention multi-section bosses to take down in pitched battles scattered throughout.

I also have to mention the incredible music in Life on Earth: Reimagined, as the composer Savaged Regime has created something glorious here, it’s one of the most ‘Mega Drive’ scores I’ve ever heard and pulls out all the stops in creating an audio environment for the game that absolutely rocks, fantastic stuff! They also have more music available so please check out the incredible talents of Savaged Regime.

So, there’s a lot to love about Life On Earth: Reimagined, with solid mechanics, tasty gameplay, incredible audio….but it’s also worth mentioning the difficulty, as this is a game that is not shy. In the tougher stages, enemy respawns can be problematic and pretty consistent, alongside a chase stage in which Zhira is pegging it away from an encroaching explosion that will really test your patience and get your MD controller creaking. That said, if you like a challenge in your games, that will very much be of appeal, as – although you can lower the difficulty, completing the game on easy mode doesn’t show you the full game, so you’ll need to up the challenge to see the true end of Zhira’s adventure.

In terms of the physical release, the clamshell box is solid and features a reversible cover that alternates between the early and later styles of releases on the MD, inside are some art cards featuring Zhira, as well as a multi-language full colour booklet that is packed with information about the game. 

SUMMARY

As usual – KAI Magazine Software have released a top quality modern MD game that feels right at home on the system, with the music especially feeling like it’s showing SEGA’s 16-bit console at its best. A great run n’ gun title that doesn’t take any prisoners when it comes to challenge!

8/10

🆒COOL🆒

🔗Purchase Link: 

Life on Earth: Reimagined for the Sega Genesis (European classic cover)

The Cursed Legacy SEGA Mega Drive Review 8/10 "Run n’ Gun? Metroidvania? Mini-games? The Cursed Legacy has you covered!" 💥 @Goodgamestudios @Broke_Studio #IndieGame #GameDev

The last game I played from GGS Studio was The Cursed Knight back in 2022, an awesome title that was also distributed through broke Studio. The Cursed Legacy is again a Mega Drive release that continues the high quality production values laid down by Broke Studio, as well as classic retro gameplay from GGS, and again continues their quirk of mixing up genres, in this instance those genres being run n’ gun, metroidvania, and riffs on classic mini-games.

Catagrams iOS Review 8/10 "Like word-based puzzle games? This could be purr-fect for you" 🐈 @catagrams #IndieGame #GameDev

It’s not often we cover mobile games here at GF, but I’ve yet to find a word-based puzzler that I didn’t like and so Catagrams was installed on my phone faster than a moggy racing to the milk bowl. 

A simple and addictive title that caters for all skill levels, Catagrams is a very calming and cat-centric title that presents multiple scrambled words that need to be re-aligned, there are multiple coloured threads that run through each word to assist you in showing how they fit together, and you can also adjust the difficulty by selecting longer, more complex words – or simplify things by using the inbuilt hint system to show as many bonus letters in the words as you’d like to help you on your way if you are a little stumped.