I really wasn't expecting the overlooked and often negatively reviewed Dark Messiah, known in PAL regions as Hellnight, a game I painfully remember passing on for all of five pounds, fifteen years ago (complete UK copies now seem to be worth at least ninety), to be as close in spirit as it is to Warp's … Continue reading Pray or prey?
Any public display of enthusiasm for trains immediately leaves a person wide open to ridicule: Whether taking joy in seeing a particular type pulling into a historic station, spending every free moment of all of your weekends crafting an intricate working model railway, or simply appreciating them as triumphant titans of transport, to admit you … Continue reading Love and timetables
Polygon Magic may not be the most famous developer you've ever heard of but the names of some of their better-known titles are probably hovering around the fringes of your gaming memory: They made psychic teen sad 'em up Galerians, Taito's arcade/PlayStation fighting game Fighters' Impact, and amongst other things were also responsible for the home … Continue reading ♪Beat♪ ’em up
The PlayStation was home to all the games you'd expect from the leading format of the time: Glossy racing sims, more movie tie-ins than anyone could hope to keep up with, and an astonishing array of multi-disc RPGs with more FMV in them than we used to find in FMV games just one generation back. … Continue reading A fun day out for the whole family
Graphically 1995 was all over the place, a turbulent time when "realistic" FMV games spanning multiple CD-ROMs would jostle for magazine space with pre-rendered 2D games on comparatively tiny cartridges, Game Boy games destined for use on a smeary green dot matrix display, and next-gen titles boasting fully texture mapped polygons. One style however was … Continue reading “Inspired by” is not a dirty term
Video footage of pigeons flapping around an urban environment. Untextured horses running on thin air over to floating islands. A giant stone foot. The kanji for moon written on the surface of the same celestial body in reverse. Paper-thin sumo wrestlers locked in an endless contest. Touch any surface and these scenes will fade away: … Continue reading In limbo, the silent dream
Squaresoft released a pretty big PlayStation RPG in 1997 that you may have heard of - Final Fantasy VII - and as expected Europe only managed to collectively get their hands on the game after everyone else on the planet had been given enough time to finish it and move on to the next big thing. I … Continue reading Squaresofting the circle
Gaming history is littered with high profile rivalries, mighty companies locked in epic battles for the hearts and souls of players everywhere. Who can forget plucky young Sega taking on the all-conquering Nintendo? Or the time Sega fought against the unstoppable popularity and deep pockets of Sony? Or all those years Sega was engaged in … Continue reading Fashionably late
Videogames are still short on many things, but nobody could ever claim ninjas was one of them. Whether your preference is for action games, platformers, run 'n' guns, RPGs, or anything else there's virtually no genre in any era without a silent sword-wielding assassin hiding in there somewhere - not even cute kart racers dare … Continue reading Natural ninjas
[CONTENT WARNING: Chapter six of Twilight Syndrome Special/Twilight Syndrome Kyuumei-hen deals with a high school suicide and the bullying that caused it, and I discuss this story further down the page.] Human Entertainment are exactly the sort of game developer I adore; the kind that'd rather give a fresh idea a go and have it … Continue reading A very Human horror
Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster 