It's that time of year again! Time to have a rummage through the past twelve months of gaming and find out exactly what I did and didn't like, highlight something that pleasantly surprised me, spend a paragraph or three sticking the boot into a game that disappointed me for some reason five months ago, and … Continue reading And my game of the year is…
The straightforwardly titled Baroque Typing debuted in 2002, several years after both the Saturn and PlayStation releases of Baroque as well as the later Baroque Syndrome adventure. My strongest thought before playing this type 'em up for myself was mostly "What on Earth possessed them?". Of all the spinoffs that could naturally arise from the dark and decaying world of Baroque, … Continue reading Typing of the Baroque
It turns out the Magic game I've always wanted to play, simply (and unhelpfully) titled Magic: The Gathering, not only already exists but has existed for about a quarter of a century, received a local release, and really I could've bought it at any time between then and now if only I'd realised the game was … Continue reading Magic: The Microprosing
The Mega Drive Mini 2 takes a very Sega approach to sequels, choosing to follow up the success of the original unit not with another selection of surefire hits but a curated selection of less celebrated titles instead. This is a playable window into the company's B-side: the sort of games people meant to play but didn't, wanted to … Continue reading Sega’s 16-bit mixtape
Septentrion is so unashamedly eager to ape '70s disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure it doesn't just broadly copy the setting and flow of its memorable inspiration, the game even makes the effort to lead with a movie-like opening sequence and later end with a fake cast roll, complete with legally-distinct actors (such as "Jean Hickman") for every part. … Continue reading Found at sea
I know reading an article about an old digital recreation of a traditional tabletop card game might not sound like the most exciting way to spend a few minutes of your precious free time but this is a good one (honest), and a longstanding personal favourite of mine. Card games are card games - nobody … Continue reading Finding fun in strange places
Taito's Densha de GO! series has often turned up in all sorts of places you wouldn't really think a train sim with a fondness for difficulty and rule-based realism would over the past twenty five years - arcades for starters. Nobody could seriously say the N64 was crying out for tightly scheduled locomotive action either. Or the Neo Geo … Continue reading Taito’s tiny trains
Hataraku Chocobo does something so incredible when you turn it on I'm almost reluctant to talk about it, because when typed out it sounds as if I've resorted to pathetic "My uncle at Nintendo said..." level lies. You see, Squaresoft's game was exclusively designed for and released on Bandai's WonderSwan - the original monochrome WonderSwan, the … Continue reading Feathered friends in new frontiers
The dad of Bokura no Kazoku's made-up family is sitting cross-legged in a very ordinary living room, making animal-shaped shadows in the light of the TV. He's doing this for his baby's entertainment, woofing with enthusiasm as he moves his hands in a vaguely dog-like manner. His tiny son notices this display, crawls over to the spot … Continue reading It’s all about family
The House of the Dead 2 is fondly remembered for many reasons: Its incredible gameplay, its abundance of enjoyably gruesome enemies, its complex route system bursting with secrets... and its cheesy dialogue, spoken cheesily by cheesy characters. Today I am going to defend that giant block of gaming Cheddar, and I'm not going to fall back … Continue reading Suffer, like G did!
Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster 