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One of the most interesting things about gaming in the modern world, is data. We have a lot of data available to us that we wouldn’t have had years ago. A lot of this is used by the gaming companies themselves to gather all sorts of datapoints, but a few of these bits of data are available to us as well.

One of those, is playtime. On Steam, you can view how much playtime you have in any game, and can even organise it into a list. I often think back to the more analogue days, and wonder which of those games had the most playtime. It’s hard to say for certain, as often games we loved might not have actually had as much playtime as games that were just long, but we forget about those ones. However, the miracle of technology allows me to put together this list.

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A few weeks ago, I wanted to play a new anime styled JRPG. Don’t ask me why, but I’m sure any gamer will know the feeling they get when they suddenly want to play a game in a specific genre.

Looking through the PlayStation store, I came across Edens Zero. Based on the manga/anime of the same name, the store listing seemed to tick all the boxes. It was an RPG, with an anime style, lots of customisability and things to do. It came out last year, so was relatively recent. I took the rare decision of not looking up any reviews of the game, and just bought it, and started playing it.

A couple of weeks later, I got the platinum trophy, having done everything there is to do in the game. The question though, is it a good game? That’s where things get a little more interesting.

The game plays out in two ways. First, is the story mode. You go through the story of the manga, chapter by chapter, in a linear fashion. If I had read the manga or watched the anime, I may have found this all quite interesting - but in video game form, the game tends to jump from event to event very quickly, not letting up, so the story was a little difficult to follow.

Each story mission plays out essentially the same way. You start in a new area or planet, go through the level beating up enemies, before getting to a boss and beating them up - rinse and repeat. The gameplay is fairly simple too. You start off with one playable character, and get more as the game goes on. Each character has their own style, but essentially boils down to a combo attack, a strong attack, a few special attacks and a finishing move.

The main character, Shiki, is your standard brawler - all of his moves revolve around big punches. You then have Rebecca, who shoots guns, a Witch who uses magic, a ninja girl, and so on and so forth. My favourite character is Weisz, because his special allows him to set up auto-turrets which automatically shoot enemies - very useful in a fight where you are dodging a lot.

Each battle takes place in a restrained circle, forming around where you bump into enemies, and ends when you take them all out. The basic combat is a little repetitive - especially when you face stronger enemies that are just damage sponges. There’s nothing unique to see here, though everyone will likely have their own favourite.

It’s a surprisingly quaint way to play a game like this, just a straightforward story where you beat up enemies, watch cutscenes, level up a bit and move forward. It’s old school - there were loads of games like this in the Playstation 3 era, but they have become less and less. I quite enjoy it though.

As you progress further in the game, you get a new hub era, the eponymous Edens Zero, which is a big spaceship. Here you can do various activities, like get massages, upgrade your armour, cook food, engage in chats with some of your crewmates, and more. Speaking of armour - the game has a lot of customisability options.

There are loads of outfits you find across the game, to dress up your characters however you want. Each cosmetic thing you find has it’s own stats, but these are largely irrelevant and don’t really make much difference by the time you’ve levelled up enough. Each item is gendered, so you can equip any male cosmetic on any of your male characters, and vice versa. I will say though - the female outfits tend to be very revealing. Jiggle physics are on full display.

Where this game gets strange though, is it’s second gameplay option - exploration mode. This mode let’s you explore the planet of blue garden as an open world. It’s an odd open world. You can fly across it, seeing enemies on the ground, chests, notes to find, but it just feels really empty. The main goal of this mode is to complete side missions and make new friends which join your crew. However, most of the side missions are essentially similiar to the main game, in which you just go to a place and beat some people up. There are a few that task you with collecting an item or taking a particular photo, but it doesn’t mix things up too much.

This open world though, has all these little areas that seem to have been really well crafted. Big forests with little glades and structures, temples, houses and churches, little villages, winding paths, shops, city streets, all sorts. None of this though is ever actually really used in the game. It’s just a backdrop, that you might fly past whilst doing a side mission.

I have a theory about this. I think there were two teams working on this game, one that made the story, and the other that made this world map. I think the team that made the world map assumed at some point the story would utilise all these areas and places that they built, but then they got to the point of release and realised they didn’t use it at all, all of the story was set in it’s own separate areas. So they just tacked on a few missions and just let you explore this big, empty world.

It feels a little low budget in a lot of places. Performance on the base PS5 can vary wildly - story missions usually run at a solid 60fps, but venture into exploration mode and things take a tumble. This has an impact on the gameplay too, as some of the more technical characters rely on being able to react quickly, which doesn’t end up being too possible. You will run into glitches from time to time as well, such as an NPC walking through the sky, or getting stuck on a mountain. It happens.

I couldn’t say I would particularly recommend this game to anyone - unless they have a specific fondness for this kind of game. If you played a lot of anime style games on the PS3 and Xbox 360, you’ll know exactly what you are getting into. Hot tip though - if you do decide to play this, get the support item as soon as you can which gives you life steal when you damage enemies. It basically makes the combat trivial.

With all this said and done, why did I end up going through and platinuming the game? Well, it’s just because it all feels curiously quiet. I wasn’t being pelted with offers for DLC, there was no shop to buy things in, no constant updates or live service elements. It’s just a straightforward action-rpg, the type you just don’t see much nowadays. It’s a blast from the past - sometimes, there is still a place for some old school design sensibilities.

As you grow older in life, you find yourselves with less and less time to play video games. Whether it’s work, errands, child-care or other engagements, your time is eaten up a lot more. You end up with less free time in general, and that makes the free time that you do have, somewhat sacred.

Due to free time being so sparce, when you do find yourselves with it, you are faced with a difficult decision. I’m not sure if this applies to everyone, but I feel a pressure to not waste that time. If I’ve decided that I want to use that time to play a game, then the decision cycle begins.

Okay, so I only have a few hours to spend to play a game. What do I decide to play? Do I start a new game I’ve not played before, not knowing if I will enjoy it or not, and perhaps waste that time? Do I start a game with a long story, knowing I will barely scratch the surface? Do I pick something out of the backlog to replay, or return to one of my staples, a comforting classic?

This cycle, often ends up taking more time than I would like to admit, and I’m sure that’s the case for many people. You spend half an hour browsing the store on your chosen platform, seeing if anything new pops up. You look back through your library, to see if anything pips your fancy. You take a look at some gaming websites, see if anything new is being recommended with great reviews. The cycle continues.

Ultimately though, deep down, I think I always know what I actually want to play. Usually, it’s based on how I’m feeling. If I’m feeling a little drained or stressed, I just want something that will take my focus, but I could play in my sleep, like Hearts of Iron 4, Victoria 3 or Total Warhammer 3. If I’m feeling a bit annoyed, I want to play something where I can smash stuff up, like Mortal Kombat or Doom. If I’m in a good mood, I want that to continue, with a happy game like Katamari or anything made by Nintendo.

I think this is the same way a lot of people choose their games, but I think is indicative of a lot of ways we make decisions. Often I know what the choice will be, but I have to dance around it for a while to justify it in my head. It’s the same with dinner choices - I know going into it that I’ll probably want a take-away, and my belly is telling me that’s what it wants, but I have to pretend I might want something else to make it seem like a take-away is okay to have.

The opposite side of this though, is that I play new games much less than I would like to admit. Often, I’ll only play a brand new game when I know I have time to spare. If I have a day off from work, or the start of a long weekend, I’ll give something new a go, safe in the knowledge that if it doesn’t click, I have time to go back to one of my staples.

What I have to work on though, is not feeling guilty by making these choices. Those long forgotten games at the bottom of my library, or at the back of my shelf, don’t really have feelings. They don’t mind not being played. If video games came to life à la Toy Story, I think I would have an existential crisis. Not just because they were alive, but the guilt I would feel. Though, I do wonder how toys in that series do seem to understand their existence and not particularly question it. These are essentially immortal beings, they could rule the world and create a society of toy based creatures that could do anything. If Skynet existed in the Toy Story universe, you could bet there would be a Terminator Woody.

Anyway, I’m interested in knowing whether this cycle is true of everyone or not. How do you decide what to play? How do you use your free time? Let me know.

I often think about the concept of being a fan of something. We all know what it means to be a fan of something right? According to dictionary.com, it means:

any device for producing a current of air by the movement of a broad surface or a number of such surfaces.

Apologies, mixed up the definitions. It states:

an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer of a sport, pastime, celebrity, etc..

Yes, the definition on the website includes the et cetera. The reason I bring this up, is that within the context of video games, being a fan of a certain game, or game series, can mean different things to different people.

For example, my favourite game ever made, is Super Metroid on the Super Nintendo. I love everything about it, from the music, to the graphics, the gameplay, and the overall atmosphere, I think it’s just perfect. Over my life I’ve completed it a fair few times, every couple of years, and I always have as much fun as the first time I played it.

However to some people, they would not consider me a fan of that game. I don’t have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game, I don’t know where every secret is off by heart, or know the fastest way to play it, or even the best way. Even though I’ve played it multiple times, I’ll still need to refer to a guide from time to time to find some of the more hidden items.

In addition, I haven’t played much else in the Metroid franchise. I’ve played Metroid Dread, and only recently started playing Metroid Prime for the first time. I haven’t played really any other Metroid game, of which there are many. There are also several popular fan versions of Super Metroid which some would say are now intrinsic to enjoying the series, and any fan of the original would love them.

So, if I’ve only played a couple Metroid games, and I’m not overly knowledgeable on them, am I truly a Metroid fan? Or am I even a Super Metroid fan? I would say I am, but many would say I’m not, I’m no more than a person that casually enjoys those games.

So what does it truly mean to be a fan? The definition states a couple of things, notably, enthusiastic, and devotee. I am certainly enthusiastic about that game, and will talk about it as much as the world will let me. I am probably devoted to it as well, in the sense that I don’t think my affection for the game will ever be diminished.

All of this brings me around to the concept of gatekeeping. For those blissfully unaware of what that is, it’s essentially the method by which some people prevent other people from joining in communities on a particular subject, because they don’t believe said person is sufficiently knowledgeable, on that particular subject.

A simple example of this, is going up to someone wearing a specific bands shirt and asking them to list five of said bands songs. The intention is to embarrass the person wearing the shirt, and give the speaker some sense of superiority complex. In gaming terms, it’s often applied to people asking simple questions about a game, to which the receiver will brush them off, usually in a rude manner.

It can sometimes be more broad, a famous example is when Woody Allen was interviewing model Twiggy, then seventeen, and asked who her favourite philosopher was, with the intention of making her seem stupid. She turned it around by asking him who his was, and he equally could not answer. In this case, Allen was gatekeeping against people like Twiggy being allowed into so-called intelligent circles.

The point of all this is though, why does anybody really care about what other people enjoy, and why do they feel the need to try and prevent certain people from engaging with a subject. There are arguments around misogyny being a factor, and that is certainly true, but I think video games in particular may have a simpler answer.

Video games can be quite unique in that it is quite an intimate hobby. For a lot of the time, it is just one person, sitting in front of a screen for hours at a time. You absorb that game alone, all the story, developing your skills and eventually beating it. In doing so you develop a connection with the game, and a unique experience. Unlike movies, or music - one persons experience of any particular game can be very different than another persons experience.

In this manner, since your experience is your own, and you’ve developed a connection, you somewhat feel the need to protect that experience. If you really loved a game, I think there’s a small part of you that wants that experience to be unique. That you developed a connection with that game that nobody else did, that you understood or played it in a way that nobody else ever has.

Sharing that experience with others could naturally be a slightly frightening perspective. If you learned that someone else is better at the game than you, or had a stronger reaction, or understood the story on a deeper level - it may in someway diminish your experience. Everyone in the world is longing to be unique.

I think gatekeeping, and therefore calling people fake fans, is just an extension of this. By keeping the community small, you don’t have to accept that other people could have enjoyed this game in their own way. By defining who is truly a fan and who isn’t, you are by definition making that group of people as small as possible. You are creating a small club, where you can feel unique.

Ultimately, the point of this big rambling article is just a way for me to say to people - take a step back once in a while. If someone is telling you about their new hobby, a new game they’ve played, something they have seen which they really liked - just listen, and chat with them about it. Don’t feel the need to impress your vast knowledge on to them and make them feel less than. And this goes both ways - if someone is really passionate about something and has built up a lot of knowledge, talk to them about it too. Learning something new is fun.

At the danger of sounding overly sentimental, we’re all on this earth for a short time. Let’s do what we can to support each other, and hopefully have a little bit of fun along the way.

I’m a big PlayStation 2 fan, and I still play games on it quite a lot to this day. I wanted to do a little series where I can talk about what games I’m playing, and this is that. This is the first entry in my PS2 Diaries - Soulcalibur III.

Soulcalibur III was released in 2005 initially on the PlayStation 2, and a year later a touched up version was released in the arcade. This fact alone disappointed a lot of people, as the previous entry in the series, Soulcalibur II, was released multi-platform featuring bespoke versions for the Xbox, GameCube and PlayStation 2.

Unfortunately at the time this was quite a standard story. The next generation of consoles was expected to be released in the next year, and publishers were gearing up development for those platforms. Therefore they had to be a bit more picky about the resources they allocated to the current gen, and most of them chose to stick with the console that usually provided the best sales numbers, which was the PlayStation 2. Not to mention, support for the original Xbox had basically dried up.

Soulcalibur III is a fighting game that unlike most at the time, clearly targeted a home console release first and thought about arcades later. This means it is absolutely packed with content.

First off, the game gives you around 24 main characters, with a bunch of additional bonus and secret characters. In addition, you can create your own character (which we’ll talk more about later) and select a random character, or a character randomly created. It’s a great selection to pick from, and every main character really feels unique. Not only in how they look, but in how they play.

Like all Soulcalibur titles, Soulcalibur III is a weapons based fighting game. Each character has their own weapon, and that dictates their fighting style. Maxi uses nun chucks, and therefore is based around quick attacks and fast combos. Rock uses a big axe, and is slower and more powerful. You’ve got your mix of swords and spears, and some things more ridiculous, like Ivy’s infamous whip sword, and Tira’s big sharp circle things.

The fighting is so much fun. It’s one of those games that’s easy to pick up, but very difficult to master. You keep finding new depths with the gameplay. You can attack in different directions, chain together combos, repel enemy attacks, throw, and so much more. It’s really difficult to explain exactly what makes the Soulcalibur games feel so good to play, but I think it’s because they just feel a little more strategic than some of their contemporaries. You really have to think about how you attack and defend, and be prepared to switch up your gameplay to react quickly. You can pick apart enemies by being precise, and look for weaknesses in how they play.

Of course, most of that is fun with another person. The AI in Soulcalibur III can be a little bit uneven. By uneven, I mean that at it’s worst it will just stand around and be knocked out the ring immediately, and at it’s best it will destroy you within seconds. It’s probably the major weakness of this game, that the AI struggles to find a middle ground - it just seems to swing between super easy and really hard.

I’ve played Soulcalibur III on and off for years, ever since I first got it on the PlayStation 2 when it came out. A big part of that reason is all the modes it offers. The standard arcade style mode, is called Tales of Souls.

In Tales of Souls, you pick a character and play through their personal story in hunting down either Soulcalibur or Soul Edge, the good and evil swords in this series mythos respectively. Most of the story is told through text interludes, with you battling in between. What gives it some replayability is that there are choices in the story, diverging paths you can go down. If you meet certain conditions, you can also face tough optional enemies. These can be really difficult - and unlike the regular battles, you only get one chance. If you fail, you carry on to the next part of the story. If you succeed, you usually unlock something good.

Tales always ends up with you battling either Siegfried or Nightmare in the temple, before fighting the final boss Abyss. Abyss is a bit odd in that although he’s the final boss, he’s actually much easier than the optional ones. It can give you a bit of whiplash absolutely decimating regular enemies, only to come up against a ridiculous optional enemy that wipes the floor with you. A bit more of a curve would have been nice.

Apart from unlocking new characters, you can also unlock modes, weapons, armour and items. You can buy a lot of this too in the shop, which just looks ridiculously packed when you scroll through it. All of this stuff can be used to create your own character. When creating a character, you pick a class which dictates what kind of weapon they use and their fighting style, and then go on to equip all those pieces of armour you’ve got. It really does have a massive amount of customisability options for a game released on a DVD, and puts a lot of modern character creation tools to shame. I would spend hours in there as a kid, coming up with stories for the characters I was making to go with their outfits. I loved it, and still do.

There are a range of other smaller modes, some more fun than others. There’s a world competition mode which takes the format of a tournament, Soul Arena which offers different challenges, a practice mode, and finally, Chronicles of the Sword.

Chronicles of the Sword is perhaps the most interesting addition to the series, in which you take control of a custom character, and progress through a story in a strategy style game. You move your characters around a map, taking down and defending fortifications, getting into fights and levelling up. I find it to be a fair bit of fun, but it is a little bit infamous because of a famous glitch to do with Chronicles save data, which could cause corruption on memory cards. Ah, the time before software could be patched. Good memories.

I just love playing Soulcalibur III. Soulcalibur II is more famous generally, and because it focuses just on the fighting, it’s perhaps a more purer form of the Soulcalibur style. But for me, I’ll always come back to Soulcalibur III. There’s just so much more to do, I can never get bored of it. It feels like a proper release that you can enjoy on your own as much as with other people. The graphics, sound and gameplay are all top tier. For me, It’s a real PlayStation 2 classic, and is a worthy first entry into my PS2 Diaries.

If you prefer watching content, you can check out my video based on this article, here.

When I was a younger man, if I started playing a game, I would finish it. After those first few hours of starting a new title, eagerly anticipating whether or not this new adventure would be worth it, I’d know if I would going to love it, or if would be a slog.

If it felt like it was going to be a slog, I’d still power through. Maybe it will all be worth it by the end, I’d tell myself. Invariably, it never was. I had the same attitude towards television series, maybe I didn’t like the first few episodes, but surely it will pick up, I’ll become invested in it by the end. Rarely did that happen.

In the past few years, I’ve finally decided that I don’t need to finish everything I start. Who am I trying to impress? The world of video games is so large now, so sprawling, that very rarely are us gamers all playing the same game at the same time. There are very few games that collectively puncture the gaming consciousness at the same time in the way they used too. People are just playing what they like to play, without the same kind of pressures that used to come with it.

A few months back, I started playing Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne HD. On paper, it was a great game for me. I love JRPG games, I like Atlus games, and I’ve always held an affinity for Playstation 2 games. It should have ticked all the boxes. After about six hours though, I just wasn’t enjoying it. The story felt like nothing. The gameplay loop felt uninspiring. I didn’t get hooked on the monster summoning gameplay. I know a lot of people really love this game - but it just wasn’t working for me. For whatever reason, I just was not having fun. It had become a chore rather than an enjoyable pastime.

So, I just stopped playing. I ejected the disc from the Playstation 5, and uninstalled it. It’s that easy! You can just stop doing something you don’t enjoy. Gaming is at it’s core supposed to be an enjoyable way to spend our spare time. It’s not supposed to be some mandatory education that dictates we have to play certain games and we have to play them in a certain way. We can just have fun.

I’m so glad I did that. I was still in the mood to play a JRPG, so I decided to give Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore a try instead. And I really loved it. It ticked every box for me, and I had a huge amount of fun playing it from start until finish. If I had pushed on with SMT, I would have wasted another couple of weeks doing something I didn’t enjoy.

We only have a limited amount of time on this planet - and there are already more games released than any of us could ever play in our lifetimes, even if it was our sole task. We have to be picky, we have to go after the experiences we want and embrace them. I always suggest deciding on your next game by what kind of experience you want, rather than strictly by reviews or word of mouth.

Perhaps you want to go on a fantasy adventure? Perhaps you feel like grinding up skills? Building an empire? Crafting homes in the wilderness? Surviving on an alien planet? Start with the experience you want first, and hunt down the game that best matches that feeling. That way, you are always satiated.

Long story short - nobody is tracking whether or not you finish your games. There’s not some achievement at the end of life gifted by the gods of gaming for completing Crazy Frog Racer 2. The most important thing anyone has in life is time, so use it as best you can.

I’ve recently been catching up with Switch games I missed out on, by playing them on the Switch 2. I’ve been getting pretty into Tetris 99, which for those that don’t know, is an online Tetris game in which you compete with other players to be the last one standing.

It’s a pretty fun game, as anything to do with Tetris always is. It gave me the idea to make a little article, about life lessons you can learn by playing Tetris 99.

Full disclosure, this is just a bit of fun. Please don’t take actual life advice from a puzzle game originally made in the 80’s.

Lesson 1

Letting garbage build up can overwhelm you.

In Tetris 99, when you clear lines, you can send these to other players. When enough build up, these create garbage tiles on that players screen. If left unchecked, these garbage tiles can quickly push you up and knock you out.

So the lesson here is to get rid of them as soon as possible - you can’t control what problems life throws at you, but you can control how you choose to tackle them. Tackling them early and head on is the best approach to not let them overwhelm you.

Lesson 2

Prepare for what will happen next.

In Tetris 99, as in many Tetris variants, you can see what blocks are coming up next. If you take a moment to look at these, and think about how you are placing your current blocks, you can be more strategic about how you are placing your blocks in order to be most effective.

The lesson here then is to make sure you are prepared for events you know about. If you know something is coming up, i.e. a big deadline, appointment, a life event - do all you can to have your affairs in order so that when that moment comes, you are best prepared to handle it.

Something that could have been a problem had you not been prepared, could turn out to be exactly what you needed.

Lesson 3

The better you do, the faster it goes.

Tetris 99 carries on that staple of Tetris games, wherein the better you do and the longer you survive, the faster the blocks start to fall, making things gradually more difficult.

This game mechanic is actually a real life phenomenon. There have been scientific studies done over how we process time as we age, and the studies have generally shown that we tend to perceive time as faster the older we get.

The reason for this though, is that as we get older, we generally look backwards and compare what we have ahead of us to our whole lives. When we are younger, everything is a new experience - things that stick in our memories. As we get older and have less new experiences, we tend to forget about the days we spent doing the same old routine.

So the lesson here is that if you want to slow down time, and make each day a bit easier, fill it with new experiences. Try new things, see new places, meet new people. Doing this helps to return us to our youth, and slow down the ever marching procession of time.

Lesson 4

Going after enemies can bite you back.

In Tetris 99, you can choose to target certain enemy players with your garbage tiles. You can also choose from a range of automatic targets, and many players have theirs set to simply retaliate against any attackers.

The lesson here is that if you target someone, they are going to target you straight back. Pick your battles, don’t try and fight every war at the same time.

Lesson 5

A single mistake is not the end.

In any Tetris game, you can often spend a lot of time building up the perfect board. You’ve slotted together pieces perfectly, leading up to that perfect moment when you can slide down a single line block which will take out all those lines at once, a satisfying and rewarding payoff.

However, sometimes it doesn’t quite work out that way. You might accidently slip up and put a single block in the wrong place, seemingly ruining all that effort. However, it can always be redeemed. You can take out more lines, work harder and unravel the mistake. The lesson here is not to dwell on a single mistake, but to keep moving forward.

Lesson 6

Things can change at any moment.

Tetris 99 is a game of ever changing conditions. Garbage tiles coming out of nowhere can make you think all is ruined. You might be almost about to give up, a few wrong placed blocks, a bunch of garbage, it might seem hopeless.

But things really can change at any second. You might suddenly get that perfect block which lets you take out a few lines, followed by more which get you right back down to the bottom of the board. As in life, things and conditions can change at any moment. The lesson is to keep persevering, work with what you’ve got.

Lesson 7

Think things through.

When the speed increases, the pressure can increase too. It’s easy to make rash decisions, especially if you feel you’re losing control of your board and are finding it difficult to cope.

But take a second, have a think. Scan the board and assess your current position, as well as what’s coming. Before placing your piece quickly, take an extra second to think about how best it can be placed. The lesson is to not always rush into things when the pressure is on, an extra few moments of clarity can help you immensely in overcoming any obstacle.

Lesson 8

You will get better over time.

Tetris is both a simple game to understand, and a difficult game to master. In Tetris 99, in many ways it cannot be fully mastered, because you’ll always be at the mercy of other players in some fashion.

However, you will get better the more you play. There have been studies done on games like Tetris which have shown their positive impact to the way our brain processes problems. Over time, the more you play, you’ll get better at the game - and at solving things in general.

This is true with most activities. Tasks that feel impossible will one day be second nature. Don’t think about the top of the mountain, but the step right in front of you. If you can manage that step, you can manage the next one.

Lesson 9

Sometimes, you just get lucky.

What’s true in Tetris 99 is also true in life, sometimes, you just get lucky. You might desperately need a certain block and it just comes. You might not be targeted by many players, or the garbage tiles fall in perfect ways that are easy to clear.

In life, sometimes, people are just lucky. There’s no way to predict it, no way to influence it. All you can do is keep on going, and be ready for it. If it doesn’t happen - it doesn’t happen. But you need to be here for it to be a possibility.

The game starts out simple enough. You control Donkey Kong, working as a miner with a load of other monkeys. You are mining gold, but primarily, looking for Banandium, a type of Banana crystal that you can eat. Mr Kong is larger and stronger than the other apes, so whilst they are using pick-axes, he simply smashes his way to anything he wants to get.

This means punching through the earth to find hidden caverns, breaking things apart, and generally just creating havoc. It’s telling that of the four main face buttons on your controller, three of them just punch in different directions. In addition to the punching, you can also rip terrain up from the ground, which you can then use as a weapon, a projectile, or spin it and use it to surf around.

As you’re exploring these early caverns, you come across an odd rock, which is scared and can talk. You discover an evil mining company called Voidco is trying to steal all the Banandium for their own nefarious means, and sinks all the miners into a deep pit. The only way back to the surface is by travelling deep to the planet’s core, where it is said it can grant any wish. Oh, and also beating the bad guys and collecting Banana’s along the way.

It’s not a complicated narrative, but it serves the game well. Primarily, Donkey Kong Bananza is about exploration, with destruction a means to an end. Each level is separated by different layers of the earth, the deeper you go, new levels open up with more difficult enemies and terrain. In the first world, you are tasked with performing a Bananza by an Elder Kong, which is a type of DJ set he wants you to perform.

Performing this Bananza unlocks a transformation for DK, where he can turn into an even bigger gorilla capable of greater destruction. During the course of the game you unlock more of these with more specialist uses, such as a Zebra that can dash and an Ostrich that can fly. These power ups are limited and require gold to recharge, but thankfully that is in abundance so you never really feel the limitations.

As you perform the first Bananza, it’s revealed that it was a thirteen year old girl inside the rock, namely, Pauline. Her power is singing, and she can use this to unlock various seals in the game, and to power up Donkey Kong by performing the Bananza. It’s a good thing when she appears - since DK doesn’t talk and you spend a lot of the game just exploring for collectables, having someone around who can add a bit of commentary is quite nice. In terms of the story, the game plays into the bond between them, and it’s quite a heart-warming tale really.

As I mentioned before, each level is very open, both in design and the way you can approach things. There are various things to collect in each world, namely Banandium and fossils. Fossils are used to purchase new clothing, which gives various buffs and special skills. Banandium goes towards unlocking new skills, which range from increasing the power of your punches to unlocking new maneuverers like a spin attack.

By slamming the ground DK activates a sonar, which highlights hidden items near him. You can then smash through the ground directly to get to them, follow a path, whatever you like. The game is pretty lenient in letting you solve puzzles however you like. There are also challenge rooms too, in an early one you had to navigate a bunch of lasers on a spinning turbine. However, I simply smashed through the ground and walked underneath them. The game really allows you to use the game mechanics however you like, rather than forcing you to play things a certain way.

It’s worth mentioning that whilst the destruction mechanics are super fun, it isn’t a full physics simulation. If you destroy a mountain and remove all it’s foundations, the top level doesn’t crumble, instead it will just float. This may seem disappointing, but bear in mind the game has to preserve some sort of structure so that you can still discover and find things. It’s not persistent either, whilst you are in a world all the damage remains, but travel to another one and back and it will reset.

Limitations aside, Donkey Kong Bananza is a really great game. I think Nintendo has always struggled a little with what to do with Donkey Kong. Since Donkey Kong Country, he has appeared in a number of his own games, but they have never felt like games that only Donkey Kong could be in. This one is different - no other Nintendo character could just have taken his place. They’ve crafted a game specifically for him, and that shows.

The graphics are really nice, and performance is pretty good too. There are moments when the frame rate drops, during massive sprees of destruction or in the map view mode, but it’s few and far between, generally it holds at sixty. Being a Nintendo game, there are of course many other secrets and features I haven’t mentioned, but I don’t want to give the whole game away!

Ultimately, Donkey Kong Bananza is a bit of a triumph for Nintendo. They’ve tried something new, and it’s really paid off. There isn’t another game quite like it, and there isn’t another character that could have pulled it off. This is a Donkey Kong game through and through, and I’m here for it.

Rating - 4.5/5

Lord O’ Pirates is an action roguelite game, very much in the style of Vampire Survivors and other games of that ilk. It’s always a little difficult reviewing these sort of games when there is an established big hitter in the genre.

This is because, if you compare it directly to Vampire Survivors, you are being a little unfair. Vampire Survivors has been out for two and half years, and had countless updates and additions along the way, along with lots of feedback and time to polish up it’s systems. Lord O’ Pirates is only just coming out, so you can’t directly compare the two.

Nonetheless, Lord O’ Pirates offers a pretty complete package at launch. You start a run by picking a ship, then by picking a pirate to captain your vessel. Each ship and pirate have different characteristics and stats, and special bonuses, so there’s a good opportunity to mix and match selections to fit your game style.

Out on the open seas, you control your ship using controls that will be familiar to anyone that’s captained a ship in a game before. You move directly forward, turning left or right slowly. You can actually reverse which is interesting, but regardless, you have to move in a much more calculated manner in this game compared to other roguelites, as otherwise you will quickly find yourself overwhelmed.

The game is an auto-battler, so your weapons automatically fire and activate, all you do is control your ship. As you kill enough enemies, you level up, giving you the chance to pick a new weapon or upgrade an existing one. There’s a good variety of different weapons and upgrades available early on, including harpoons, cannons, flying parrots, lightning bolts, sharks, allied ships, and more. You can also get general upgrades to increase your speed or turn time.

I found the allied ships to be the most useful upgrade, as they ram into enemies which pushes them away from you, giving you more space to operate. Enemies pop up in waves, gradually getting more difficult and numerous as time marches on. Some enemies drop treasure chests, which either contain upgrades, gold, or treasure maps. These maps point to some secret chests in different corners of the map, which contain special weapons guarded by a boss. The first one I came across was a cursed cannon, which fired continuously with no reload time - very helpful.

Enemies also drop gold when they die, which can be used later to give permanent upgrades, in standard roguelite fashion. These upgrades are the usual fare, permanent boosts to damage, speed, enemy spawn rate, etc. Interestingly, in this game the pickups aren’t what increase your experience required to level up, they are simply gold for later, and occasionally a health item or treasure chest. Defeating enemies alone grants you the experience.

There are multiple maps, ranging from the standard pirate seas to more exotic locales. There are of course secrets and hidden stuff, and the game gives you quests to help you on the right path to finding them. One thing I will note though, on my first run of the game I managed to do a full run to the end without dying - and unlock 16% of the achievements in that single run. I think the game in it’s base state might be a little too easy, the balance is tipped slightly more towards the player than some of it’s other contemporaries.

Overall, Lord O’ Pirates is an alright action roguelite. It hits all of the expected points a game like this is supposed too, but I think doesn’t do quite enough to set itself out from the crowd. The pirate ship aesthetic is a nice touch, but I think the game needs to do more to stand out. Over time, with enough updates and additions, I think it could be really cool game, but at this point I think it needs just a little more too it to be competitive.

Rating - 3/5

Game key provided by Keymailer.

I want to point out one thing before I finish this article. I know a lot of gamers are very sensitive to the idea of AI being used in video games - and they are not alone in that, I am as well. I would like to make mention of what the developer has posted about their usage of AI in their game, so you can make up your own mind if you are happy with it or not.

This is taken directly from the steam page as of the time of writing -

Generative AI was used to generate reference art for our pixel artist for some sprites.

An IDE integrated with a generative code completion plugin was used throughout production of the game.

An LLM was used at times to help brainstorm ideas, learn new concepts, and provide emotional therapy to the developer in times of doubt and overwhelming stress.

Generative AI was used to create part of our steam page logos.

Generative AI was used to generate a select few meme songs in the game, the most prominent being the title screen music. All level soundtracks were otherwise created by a human (shoutout to my lifelong DJ TheMedisin).

I understand that AI is a sensitive topic for many reasons, and using any AI generated music was especially worrisome to me for fear of some backlash against my humble first project. However, I've been making music for 15+ years, I've performed at venues, I've got albums on every streaming service, and I just don't personally have a vendetta against AI. I think the "real" music it makes is kind of shallow and boring, it isn't fun to listen to, and the fact that there's no human on the other side of it kills the connection I feel with it. However, I think AI is still a lot of fun, and what we used it for in this case was just some fun stupid stuff. A goofy title screen song, and a couple equally goofy sounds for some secret events in the game. If I hadn't used it, I'd have made some inferior soundtracks myself, and it would have taken away a lot of time from other parts of the project.

I am sure AI will continue to evolve and these things will become even more complicated. Despite its questionable beginnings, if AI can help a solo dev or small team to add more polish to a game, or maybe even one day create something that can compete with a AAA studio, that is ultimately a good thing for society and the video game industry as a whole.

This is the first in a series of articles I want to write, exploring some of the ideas behind video games. For the first in this series, I asked the community here on Substack and on my YouTube channel a simple question, to answer anyway they saw fit -

The question is open-ended and can be answered in lots of different ways. I’ll share my own opinion on this question too at the end of the article.

You may have noticed I have titled this with community edition - the reason is that I want to ask the same question to video game developers and designers, to see what they think. I’ll post that in a future entry to the series.

If you didn’t see my post or get a chance to answer, let me know your thoughts to this question in the comments below. Make sure to keep an eye on my notes section for future entries in this series.

Noah Wizard -

If you go to a pet store, and buy a fish, and bring it home, and don’t put it in water, the fish will die.

Fish are symbiotic to their environment, in a way that is pretty easy to understand.

Fish live in water. If you’re going to describe a fish (a living fish), you’re also going to have to describe the aquatic environment it lives in.

A great video game character will work the same way.

If you can take the video game character from your game, and put them in a new game, and nobody notices, then you’ve created a character who unrealistically lives independently of its environment.

Here’s why architects throw away most of their plans:

Architecture is not just about creating pretty buildings. Architecture is closer to the profession of ‘stylist’ than you might think; architects have to think of a street, the way a stylist is looking at a whole outfit. Just because you have a favourite shirt, and a favourite jacket, and favourite jeans, that doesn’t automatically mean you’ll like how they all look together. Building an outfit usually means giving the spotlight to one article of clothing, and making all the other articles of clothing support ‘the look’ you’re going for. Architects have to look at the street, and surrounding nature, and design a building which works with the buildings and structures around that building.

So they can’t use the unused drawings from one job, and plop that building down on another street.

This is the problem with most video game characters:

Most video game characters are not created to ‘fit’ with the rest of the game’s elements and logic.

Often what we love about a character in a video game, is how they feel part of that world.

When some devs tried to capitalize on the popularity of Portal, and tried building puzzle/exploration/comedy games of their own, one of the reasons those games fell flat, and didn’t become a phenomenon like Portal, was that when we strip the jokes away from GLaDOS, we still believe that GLaDOS is a part of the Aperture Science Laboratories.

GLaDOS and Aperture Science Laboratories, are like a fish in water. GLaDOS makes sense within that world. Put her in Mass Effect, and something will feel wrong.

Environmental storytelling is really another way of saying, “Someone was here before the player.”

And the more you can build the logic of the persons who shaped the world before the player got there, the more you’ll be able to write the player’s character, and all the NPCs according to the same logic.

A video game is an ‘outfit.’ The developer decides what part of ‘the outfit’ gets to be the star, but all of the pieces should extend from the same logic. Whichever pressures are creating Aperture Science Laboratories, within Portal’s version of Earth, those same pressures lead to the creation of GLaDOS. -Which they explore in Portal 2. I was sure Portal 2 would be painful and ruin Portal’s good name. But I feel it worked very well at showing us the logic behind all of the people involved in creating Aperture Labs, and GLaDOS, and as a player, I am happy to have seen more of their world.

So my advice is:

Don’t create a character.

Characters are shaped by the characters around them. (A fish can’t be created without water; characters cannot be created without more characters that they are forced to share spaces with.) Collectively we create pressures that are felt by every character, and each character responds to that pressure in their own way.

-Oh and bonus tip? You can’t give the audience something you don’t possess. So if you want to create charming, lovable characters? Start building your worldview to be charming and full of love. (This is why we get so many indie games with protagonists who either hate themselves or are bored and uninterested in their world. We love characters with agency. If you’re going to write agentic characters who grapple with their world in an interesting way, you might need to become someone who grapples with your world in an interesting way. Many early writers only know how to write characters who are apathetic and blocked; this is because that’s what the writer still embodies every day… Chekov said, “If you want to work on your acting, work on yourself.” I find that to be true for writers as well. Embrace life in an interesting way, and you’ll write a game about someone who embraces life in an interesting way.)

Evan C. Moore -

I suppose a good videogame character, as opposed to a good character in some other medium, should have some level of player buy-in. It's more important in this format to have a character that gives the player some power, some identity, or even some attribute which we can't have in real life (at least, not often). I should be able to do things with this character that I can't do myself.

There are genre expectations for good characters (for narratives, maybe relatability and personal traits; for RPGs, maybe blank slate, ability to see yourself, etc). But overall, it's putting myself in someone else's place with their abilities.

M. Campassi -

Come to think of it, this is such an interesting (and complex!) question. Since video games are a unique form of interactive media, what makes a character great can vary wildly depending on the game’s style, structure, and goals.

Some characters thrive in 3D environments, while others feel more at home in 2D. Some are iconic on their own, while others become great through a perfect storm of elements (voice acting, backstory, design, mechanics, and so on).

That said, I think the heart of a great video game character lies in how well they’re integrated into the world and mechanics of the game itself. And I'm not limiting it to game mechanics, but world building and lore mechanics as well. On those metrics, you can have wonderful NPCs that could be as memorable as the playable characters themselves.

To sum things up, a compelling backstory or cool design is great, but when it all clicks together — the world, the gameplay, the personality — that’s when a character really becomes unforgettable.

Peter Monks -

M. Campassi is right, this is a really complex question that could go in any direction! At first I was thinking of character like in films or TV, but he is right that this is an interactive medium. So I'll focus on control.

If a character controls well, then you remember playing the game and liking it. Mario is athletic, Sonic is fast, Nathan Drake and Lara Croft are agile and nimble, Doomguy is strong, and so on. If a character is remembered for controlling badly then I guess it's for the wrong reasons, for mocking it. If a character controls well then you don't even think about it.

Mindful Gamer -

A good video game character for me has a distinct personality, a memorable design, and a backstory that fits into the game's world. Whatever traits and abilities they have should connect with the gameplay in some way.

Yukisia -

The same things that makes real, human characters fun to be around.

A video game character can either be a “what you see is what you get” case – a fully developed personality with a given backstory and a clear task (think Lara Croft), or a character that you mould with your choices (think the Hero of Oakvale in Fable).

In both cases, the player has to want to spend time with the character.

Sometimes, this means characters that are just like us. It can also mean characters that we could never meet in this world, but we still find common ground with them. Their task becomes ours, and our goals become theirs.

A good game character is a friend, a teammate, a mirror, even someone we have a soft spot for – even if we’d never do the things they’ve done. There won’t always be chemistry, and that’s OK. It’s the magic of the medium 😊

Dani -

I think for me a good video game characters is one that encourages the fantasy of the game. They double down on the vibes you are getting from it. If the game makes you feel cool, in control and powerful then your main character has to embody some of those qualities. Examples that come to mind is the cool and fast vibes of sonic. The whimsical and powerful vibes that Mario has traditionally brought to his games. Drake from uncharted is funny, confident and dangerous. Death stranding is an interesting one where you literally lean on Sam to feel some sense of control because the world and situations around you are so dang scary and unsettling.

I can think of a lot of other examples but I think that’s the basic idea. Will I feel like I am being sucked in more or less when I play a specific character.

It be interesting to play a game with this thought in mind, and what games have characters that take you out of the fantasy.

The Drifter -

I think a good video game character for me comes down to a few things.

First, how do they interact with the world and setting they exist in?

What is their role? Who are they? If these questions can be answered succinctly and satisfactorily I think that is a great establishing point for a good character.

Second, what are their desires or goals and how are these ideas communicated to the player? Can they be understood or recognized? Is it clearly defined what their motives are, if there are any?

Finally, for a third example— can the player relate to them, or get an understanding of how to interact with them. Either in a gameplay sense or in a narrative way. Both are preferred.

Anyway that’s my two cents.

Dusty Gamer -

Everyone gave such good answers that I agree with. For me a I feel a great video game character is one that can draw strong emotions especially emotions that resonate with the player. Character Design, game play dynamics, voice acting and the characters background story all play a part in building up a great character. When the character makes us feel something we tend to remember them even if their scene in the game is short.

Joe -

Great idea Jordan!

My first thought with this was the visual design behind a good video game character, and how they look that could determine how well they are seen and received by others as being an awesome character!

Even though the overall visual design is important, I thought about one aspect that makes up a huge appeal of an amazing video game character that I have often overlooked before, even though it is often crucial to how well the characters are received:

The voice acting.

So, to me, voice acting is the answer I will go with! Just because in my experience, the voice behind a character plays a major role and has a huge impact on how well I receive those characters in video games! There are many examples, but obviously the first one that comes to mind is Mario and the voice of Charles Martinet! His voice has lived on through the character of Mario for years, and to me, he really has inspired the future of that character!

Another huge example that came to mind was Metal Gear Solid, and the voice acting in those games! Of course, David Hayter did amazing work as the voice of Solid Snake, but many of the other voices throughout those games really brought life to the incredible characters!

Finally, another positive example would be from Grand Theft Auto V (the main one I’ve put time into compared to the others), and how well the voice acting worked with the characters in that game to make them stand out and be extremely memorable!

There are many other examples, but I definitely think that the voices behind some of the most iconic video game characters are a massive reason that they end up being so special and memorable!

Thanks!

ROP -

uuh, nice question. I found it a bit late, but non-the-less :)… I found myself asking what traits create characters we remember long after playing… and April Ryan from The Longest Journey came to mind, so I’ve thought of her:

Relatability draws players in with her familiar traits and origins (a student in Venice).

Emotional depth and a compelling backstory build empathy towards her and her developing story.

Relationships with friends, mentors, and even enemies add richness to her journey, motivating us and creating context for her actions.

Growth through challenges keeps us engaged and makes us develop e deeper tie, like how she had to become so much more than the student we started our journey with.

Agency, because she solves her problems, she drives the story… and even though it’s a point & click game, so a linear story, many solutions found by her were so original it really felt like agency, Her agency… e.g. entering the police station.

But most of all, April as a good memorable character, stands out due to her unique impact… when I first travelled to Arcadia and realizing the scope of the game… uff, so cool.

Next character that comes to mind… Raziel, but maybe another time xD

Keep it up!

Faelocal - faelocal

A good video game character is written with careful respect to the player’s perspective in the narrative. Cornifer from Hollow knight is a good, simple example. When you see pages strewn across a path in a new area you know you’re close to making progress and finding a place to rest. That combined with his friendly dialogue allows him to represent comfort and safety to the player. He also reminds you that the small community you meet at the start of the game is still there no matter how eldritch or harrowing an enemy you happen to be facing. GLaDOS is also a great example as both Portal games are essentially built upon the relationship she forms with the player. Her cruelty actually balances out the highly accommodating puzzle design, and helps the player feel somewhat important and morbidly wanted in an environment that is otherwise designed to make them feel small.

My own opinion on this, is that it is all about context. Certain games don’t revolve around the main character, but are about the world, and the story tracks the progression of events in that world.

The Legend of Zelda is a key example with this, Link is essentially a blank slate - he doesn’t speak, doesn’t really react - instead, your mind portrays link however it wants too. The story progresses via the results of Link’s actions, actions which you control - there’s no other narrative element to his character, so it gives you the sense that you are in control of the story.

With games in which you create a character, the key decider is choice. If you create a character but don’t really have much choice in how the story unfolds or how your character acts within it, then you feel as if you haven’t really created anything.

In more narrative games, a good character is one in which you really root for. It’s like any good story, when you are emotionally invested in the character, you want to keep playing. You want to see more of the story, and the character you play has to be a key driver in this.

Thanks everyone for the really thoughtful answers and taking the time to read this, I hope you enjoyed this article and look forward to the next entry in this series, which will be developer’s responses to the same question.

And a little bonus from Ulysses -

#1 priority for me is it has to look cool.

Ruffy and the Riverside is a new platforming action game by developer Zockrates Laboratories UG.

Ruffy is a full blown nostalgia hit. The game is a 3D open-world action platformer, harkening back to games like Banjo Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64 and Spyro.

As per the traditions of those old classics, it’s also a collect-athon, with lots of things to collect and side missions to complete. The graphics are a mix of 2D characters in a low poly 3D world, with old school textures to boot. Looking at the graphics of the game is a real trip back to the past for anyone that enjoyed those sorts of games back in the day.

You are first introduced to the character of Ruffy in a segment that takes place later in the game, falling down the side of a waterfall. You’re introduced to Ruffy’s signature power, the ability to swap textures on objects. You scan some vines from a nearby tree, and swap the water on the waterfall with the vines. You can then climb up to safety.

This is the key mechanic of Ruffy which makes it stand out, the ability to swap textures. It’s the most common way you solve puzzles and complete sections of the game. For instance, you might want to turn a lake into ice so you can cross it. You might want to make some metal boxes wooden so you can smash them. You may need to change a cloud to a raincloud so that water falls on the seeds below it and grows a tree, you get the picture.

It’s a pretty cool mechanic, and what makes it enjoyable is that most of the puzzle solving makes you stop and think, but the eventual answer is usually common sense. You can usually sort of tell what you are supposed to do, and this means when you do solve a puzzle, you don’t feel like you’ve been cheated into something that you stumbled upon just by luck.

Swapping isn’t universal though, you can’t swap anything onto anything. Once you scan a texture you get a limited amount of time to apply it to something, and you can’t always apply it to things you think you should be able too. It’s not always clear exactly what the limitations are, but the more you play, the more you get a feel for what you’re able to do.

In terms of the story that propels the game, it can at times be a little verbose. It’s pushed forward by speaking to various characters, and sometimes, they have quite a lot to say. Perhaps a little too much in my opinion, but tastes on this will vary.

In the game, you are first assigned to investigate some marbles, mystical gems that seem to transform the environment around them. Doing so, you accidently unleash an ancient evil called Groll, a being made of loads of connected black boxes. Groll starts sucking up the marbles, and damages the world core, which is connected to the letters on the Riverside sign (which is a sort of Hollywood sign). Your goal is to repair the damage and beat the big baddy, simple stuff.

The world you traverse to do this though, is packed. And I mean that literally, the game world is very dense with things to do. Wandering about you’ll find all sorts of characters that have something they want to say or ask you to do, puzzles to complete, things to find. There’s a lot of different collectable items in this game, so if you’re the type that likes that sort of thing, you’ll really enjoy this.

I do normally enjoy 3D platformers where you collect stuff, but I think in this case, it might be a little too much. The world can sometimes feel just a little too cluttered, the cutscenes a little zoomed in, and the menu screen just has loads of icons and pictures all over it. It’s a personal preference where I prefer games to be a bit more clean with some more room to breathe, it won’t affect everyone but for me, there was sometimes just a bit too much going on.

Ruffy can also glide around, sprint, punch and of course jump. The platforming is secondary to the puzzle solving in this game, and acts more as a means to help complete puzzles rather than the sole focus. That’s fine and makes sense for the type of game the developers have tried to put out.

There are also some sections of the game where you jump into a wall and have to play in 2D, and usually solve those sections by something you do on the outside - for instance, turning some water into lava to defeat the enemy first. These are fun sections, and it’s cool to see them link it in with the key mechanic.

Overall, I like Ruffy and the Riverside. Apart from some minor personal complaints I have, this is a decent action platformer with a cool mechanic, nostalgic graphics and a good soundtrack. Currently, it’s on sale for £13.23, which I think is a good price for this type of game. If you’re into the type of games I mentioned in my opening paragraph, I think you’ll really get a kick out of this.

Rating - 3.5/5

Game key provided by Keymailer for the purpose of this review.

Dark Fairy Tale is another entry in the ‘survivors’ genre, that have become very popular ever since Vampire Survivors smashed onto the scene. It’s been developed by BINGOBELL and is currently available on Steam. As a shorthand for this review, I’m going to refer to the game as ‘DFT’.

DFT throws a lot of information at you early on. There are pages of stats, lots of information about mechanics and so on. Although it seems like there’s a lot, it’s actually not so complicated.

The game works like many in this genre do. You start a run, in this case entering a dream, and have to battle through 25 waves of enemies. It’s an auto-battler, so you are in control of movement, whilst your character automatically attacks.

You have three weapons which are independently improved over the course of a run. There is the lancer, archer and caster. One of these is a short range, the other a long range, and the final one an area of attack spell. You move around the map, avoiding enemies whilst your weapon attacks, occasionally dodging if you need too.

How your weapons operate depends on how you upgrade them. There is a priority order in the way they fire off which affects their operation, and this is affected by which ones you’ve levelled up. It’s an interesting mechanic to only focus on a few weapons, but it does make sense in the context of this game due to how upgrades work generally.

As you defeat enough enemies to level up, you will receive an egg. These eggs are the main method of improving your character and defining your playstyle. They have two potential benefits, one from devouring, and the other from activating. Devouring usually gives small stat benefits, such as an increase to overall attack, defence, or one of the individual weapons.

Activating gives a greater benefit, or can do something special. For example, it can provide enhanced stat increases on levelling up, or it can increase your stats a lot more. There are loads of different mechanics at play here, and the way they all interact can be quite interesting. You can only activate a certain amount however.

Picking which eggs to get, which ones to devour and activate, defines your playstyle. You can really change how the character plays by going down specific paths. Eggs are divided into rarity, and rarer ones have even better benefits, so there’s some excitement there in seeing what you can get.

After five waves you enter a challenge room. There’s only one character you play as, Pinocchio, but these rooms offer a way to customise him. You pick a tarot card, which leads to a specific challenge based around that card. Usually, they are some form of survival mission with a quirk, such as a big sun following you around. These change Pinnochio’s appearance and abilities if you then unlock them from the main menu.

Unlocking them requires nightmare points, which are rewarded at the end of a run or accumulated throughout via certain eggs. Accumulating them though increases the enemy difficulty, so it’s a risk/reward scenario. You can then use them to improve Pinocchio and unlock tarots at the main menu, for that roguelike style persistent upgrades.

Okay, that’s enough about the mechanics - how does it all end up? It’s not too bad actually. Once you get over the hurdle of understanding the games systems, there’s a decent survivors style game in here. The main selling point is really that the egg system balances the RNG nature of upgrades in this game with being able to define a playstyle pretty well, you never feel too boxed in to a certain path, which is great.

The art style too is pretty nice, with the sprites being very high resolution and nicely animated. The music though is pretty standard fairy tale style fare, nothing particularly interesting there. There isn’t a gigantic amount of content on offer yet currently though, you’ll see the same enemies over and over, and I don’t believe all the tarots are currently available.

After a few runs you might feel a little bored. The good news is that the developer has stated they are going to support the game following the launch with new content, which is good to see and I hope they do. At it’s core they have got the gameplay and upgrade system down well, they now just need to expand it with more to do and see.

Overall though, at a price on Steam of currently about £3.86, it’s not a bad purchase. If you’re after a new survivors style game, and you like the games aesthetics, it might be worth a look. The game also states quite heavily in it’s marketing that it can be played with one hand, so if accessibility is a requirement for you, this may also be one to look at.

Rating - 3/5

Key provided by Keymailer for the purposes of this review.

I was born in the early 90’s, so most of my memories of being a kid are from the late 90’s and early 2000’s.

As I grew older and YouTube became a thing, I was exposed to the world of video games outside my own country of England. Watching Americans talk about video games on YouTube was wild, as although I understood a lot of what they were talking about, their frames of reference were wildly different to my own.

Even YouTubers around the same age as me would talk about arcades they visited as a kid, and perhaps still do, and all I could do was feel jealousy. The memories of arcades they shared were not how I had ever experienced them, and I couldn’t help feeling those emotions.

Americans spoke about these big arcades that had every kind of game going, including the latest and greatest video game experiences. They spoke about playing Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, beat ‘em ups, and all sorts of genres that I had never seen once in an arcade.

In my youth, I had seen arcade machines in three places. The first, were arcades in holiday camps. The second, were arcades by the seaside. And the third, were machines at the back of pubs. Those were the only times I had seen them, and let me say, those arcades were not the same as the ones they described.

My earliest memories of these arcades are the ones in holiday camps, which we would go to for most holidays in my childhood. These arcades would mostly feature machines which spit out tickets that you could redeem for little toys or packs of sweets. They would have penny pushers for you to stick in your 2p coins, a handful of driving and shooting games, and some crane games. I never saw the types of arcade games US gamers spoke about. I don’t think I ever saw one pinball machine.

That was usually all they had on offer. If you were lucky, there would be an air hockey table as well. There was always a section at the back too, labelled 18+. As a kid I was always mystified by this, wondering what secrets were held behind the walled off section. In reality, it was just one armed bandits, for people to gamble away a few pound coins.

Seaside arcades operated in much the same way, with pubs usually only having one armed bandits. Despite this, I loved those arcades. Walking into them and seeing all the lights, hearing the whirring of the machines, the penny pushers clicking and clacking away. Even if I didn’t have much to spend, I just loved being in them. The worn down carpets and beat up machines didn’t phase me, I just liked to be around these pieces of kit.

Occasionally, once in a while, something amazing would happen and it would stick in my mind forever. Usually when I went to these arcades, especially on the holiday camps, I would try and get there as early as possible when it was usually pretty empty. I would then walk around and take a good look at each game, taking it in. I always enjoyed seeing some of the stranger games, like those ones where you had to hold onto bars as it pretended to electrocute you.

One time though, I saw a machine I had never seen before in any other arcade. It had a single joystick on it, with two buttons either side. Now bear in mind that even seeing a joystick was a novelty, as most of the other games available didn’t have them. As I approached it, I could see some kind of animated movie playing on it. It looked like an older cartoon, and it seemed mystifying.

I am of course talking about Dragon’s Lair. It was an original version of the machine, which meant it must have had a laserdisc inside playing the game. I had never seen anything like it. Excitedly, I put my fifty pence inside and began to play. I immediately died, as I had no idea how to play this kind of game or what inputs to do at the right time.

It didn’t matter though. This was my first time seeing a real game that wasn’t a driving or shooting game in an arcade. I have no idea how that holiday camp would have come across this machine, and no idea how long they held onto it for. But at that moment, it was an amazing experience.

Years later as I got older, I would often spread my net wider to find arcades with real games in them. I’m from Kent, which didn’t have too much to offer. In London there are some better experiences, where you can often find a few fighting games mixed in with all the standard stuff. One time in a small arcade in Brighton, they had a Street Fighter 2 machine - not the original, some kind of bootleg version. It was crazy to find it sitting at the back, unloved and unplayed. I certainly changed that.

The crux of all of this is that I think American experiences tend to colour too much of the way we speak about video games online. Every country experienced gaming very differently, so when people talk about the history of games, they need to bear in mind location. The Mega Drive outsold the Super Nintendo here, so in Europe, Sega won that generation. That’s just one example, but it’s a key thing to bear in mind whenever you listen to historical analysis of gaming.

Anyway, that was some of my memories of arcades in the UK as a kid. What were your arcade memories like, where ever you are in the world? Let me know in the comments below!

The Alters is a very interesting game. At first glance it may seem like a crafting survival game, but it is so much more. It’s been developed and published on PC by 11 bit studios.

The game starts with your character, Jan, crash landing on an unnamed planet. All his crew is dead, and he alone survives. He leaves his escape pod and pushes through this stormy planet to reach the base. He isn’t the captain, just a builder, but for his own survival now has to take control.

At the base there is a communications station, and though the signal is patchy, he works out what he needs to do. You start the game by receiving various instructions, gathering some resources outside, fixing up parts of the base, building new modules. An introduction to the games systems essentially.

Throughout these early moments, it’s made clear that your chances of survival are slim. That is, until you come across an element known as rapidium. Gathering this element is currently humanities main aim - and you seem to have discovered it in great quantities. The voices on the other end of the line suddenly become much more interested in helping you survive.

Rapidium is an element which when attached to organic structures, causes explosively quick growth. You test it out on some DNA of a sheep - and within minutes, a fully grown sheep is standing in front of you.

Once you have gathered the required materials, built the required modules and crafted what you need in the workshop, you are ready to move the base. The main thing threatening your survival is the sun of this planet, any sunrise will kill you. Therefore the only goal is to keep moving further and further away from it.

The game works on a time based system. Time passes when you are doing anything, and doing certain activities speeds it up, extracting resources for example. If you stay out too late you become tired, which in turn wakes you up later the next day, giving you less time to do things. In addition, stay out really late, and you won’t be able to work, and could potentially die from the night time radiation. It’s important then to get back to the base at a reasonable hour and go to bed - this is the point at which the game saves, there’s no manual saving in between.

You have to plan out your days, because each passing day brings you closer to a sunrise which you have to have moved on by then. When you start moving the base though, you realise there is a problem that you can’t fix. The person on the other end of the communication channel gives you a solution, and this is when the games real story kicks in.

Using the quantum computer on board, you are able to create branching paths of your own life’s memories. These branches take your life in radically different directions, to create a version of yourself that is almost a clone, but with different memories, which ultimately create a different personality. These branches may result in someone that is an engineer, or a scientist. All of which you need in your crew if you’re going to survive. You then use the womb module combined with rapidium to create these Alters, which is where the game gets its name.

This is a really cool and very interesting topic, and I really love that we are getting a survival crafting game with a proper narrative. More to this, the game goes deep with how you interact with your Alters. You can chat to them and socialise with them, they have individual moods and needs, you can give them gifts, and ultimately help them come to terms with what they are. They are of course initially freaked out by the circumstances of their existence, and the game doesn’t shy away from this.

So, in addition to the crafting and survival, we now have a compelling narrative with social based gameplay. It’s a full bag, they have really included a lot here. It’s all presented too with really great graphics - and not just graphics that look good, but are presented well too. What I mean by this, is that during the cinematics and a lot of gameplay, everything has a filmic quality to the way things are framed. It really enhances the visuals. In addition, I noticed no problems with performance, which is great.

Ultimately, I think The Alters might become one of those keystone experiences everyone ends up talking about. It’s sort of like Death Stranding in a way, in that it combines different genres to create something unique. I think they’ve done a great job here, and if you’re into games with a strange but unique narrative that actually feeds into the gameplay and doesn’t feel secondary to it, give this a try.

Rating - 4/5

Game code provided by Keymailer for the purposes of this review.

Final Shot was developed by AVTOSERVICE GAMES and published by ChiliDog Interactive, originally released a few years ago on console, it has now come to Steam, which is the version I’ll be looking at today.

Final shot is action game in which you play as a samurai, out to kill a load of bad guys. There’s some more story elements, but really, that’s all you need to know, as your objective for each level is simply to kill everyone.

The game plays in a top down perspective, with your mouse controlling where your character is facing. You then use the keyboard to manoeuvre, and mouse buttons to attack. You start off with a short sword style weapon, but can find more around the levels or by picking them up off of defeated enemies. These additional weapons range from things like hammers, broken bottles, better swords, nailguns, uzi’s, you get the picture. Some have better range, some have better damage, it’s really up to you to experiment and see what fits your style.

The game does a decent job of spacing out the availability of these weapons though, early on you will only be able to find a few of them, with the game giving more as it goes on. The action is all about movement, you have to position yourself in such a way to kill your attacker without getting cornered or overwhelmed. You can only take three hits before dying, and although you can find med kits throughout the levels, your life can still be reduced very quickly if you aren’t careful.

There can be a lot of enemies coming at once, and since it’s so easy to die, this gives the game a high level of difficulty. Couple this with the fact that when you die you go back to the start of the level, this creates some tough challenges. The starting levels are quite small, so dying and going back to the start isn’t so much of a problem. However later levels are quite expansive, with lots of enemies around, meaning dying can be a real pain.

At it’s core, I like the gameplay that Final Shot offers. It’s frantic and twitchy, and this style of game is always fun to play as it gives real stakes to battles, as when you finally complete a level, you really feel like you’ve overcome a challenge. One minor grievance is that it does feel quite zoomed in - I understand that is the aesthetic they’ve chosen, but too often I take a hit from an enemy I just didn’t see coming, which feels a bit annoying.

On a technical level, the game utilises a pixel aesthetic mixed with 3D models to create an interesting visual design. By default the game has a CRT filter in place, which you can choose to disable if you like. I left it on because it was on by default so I assume that’s how the developer intends the game to be played, but of course the choice is up to you.

I did notice one minor technical hiccup though, sometimes when you are going through a level quickly the game seems to stutter slightly and the scrolling is not particularly smooth. I forced vsync through my graphics driver as the game has basically no video settings, and that seemed to help, but it was still not entirely smooth. Hopefully this can be cleaned up in a future patch.

Going along with the blood soaked gameplay is a pretty good mix of techno club style music, set to pump throughout levels as you progress through the carnage. There’s a fair amount of levels too, and how long this game takes you to complete largely depends on how good you are at it. If you’re able to breeze through levels you can probably beat it in a few hours, if you’re like me and each level will take a few goes, it will take quite a bit longer.

Overall, I fairly enjoyed Final Shot. It feels like a proper indie game - harkening back to those days of flash based browser games. It’s got some good adrenaline fuelling action, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you’re in the mood for a challenging action game to play for a few hours that you don’t need to think too hard about, this might be a good purchase.

Rating - 3.5/5

Jump the Track is a visual novel combined with arcade minigames, developed by Seed by Seed. This is quite an interesting game. You play as Sam, who starts off the game in a run down laundromat, washing his bosses daughters teddy bear. He describes his boss as an entrepreneur, whilst others describe him as a mob boss, and it becomes clear quite quickly that you’re indentured to him.

You accidently ruin the bear, and then go to the fair happening in the city. At this fair, the grand prize of the tombola is a new teddy bear, so your initial aim is to win enough tickets to get that bear, so your boss won’t be mad at you. However, things take a turn. On your quest to get these tickets, you meet up with lots of various unique and interesting characters.

These characters all have their own stories to tell, and play a part in a larger story that unfolds as you play through the game. During these sections, the arcade game pops up. It’s sort of like a pachinko machine, you drop a ball from the top of the screen in a direction you pick, to hit orbs and blocks on the screen.

What makes this interesting though, is that success or failure in these are directly linked to the choices you can make and the way the story progresses. There are two types of game, one is called inner peace, and the other, action time. In inner peace, you have to hit specific coloured blocks which then allow you to unlock that option in the upcoming dialogue. For instance, hitting all the green ones allows you to do a diplomatic approach.

In action time, you simply have to get a score high enough to beat the intended target, with various higher valued orbs scattered around. Beating the target represents a success for that action. These start off as relatively small things, like fixing some machinery, to some more desperate things later on in the game.

Each character you meet gives you a specific skill, which you can use by hitting a multicoloured orb in some instances. These range from things like a respawning ball, one which cuts through all the blocks, one which acts like a magnet, and more. Picking the right skill for the right board is key in getting what you want.

It’s strangely addictive to play. Wanting to get a specific dialogue option or really wanting to successfully pass an action check pushes you to treat these little arcade boards a little more seriously. It all feeds into the story too, some of them merely affect the dialogue a little, and others change up the story path leading to different endings.

I also really like the art style. It’s got a cool punky aesthetic that wouldn’t look out of place in a graphic novel. The story is not too bad either, it has some funny moments and is generally a fun story to follow with some well written overarching themes about peoples place in society.

Overall, I think Jump the Track is a good little game. It will only take you a few hours to get through the story one time, and more if you want to see all the paths and endings. It’s currently selling for around £8, which I think is a decent price for a few hours of gameplay and a good story. If you’re looking for a game that isn’t too stressful but will still keep you invested, this might be a good pick for you.

Rating - 3.5/5

Shin’en Multimedia’s Fast series have become staples of Nintendo consoles, and often act as technical showpieces of what the respective consoles can do. Fast Fusion is no exception to this, releasing at launch on the Switch 2 Nintendo eShop for just £13.49.

Fast Fusion is a futuristic racing game, where you pilot an anti-grav vehicle through a wide variety of locales. There are forests, deserts, outer space levels, space stations and a load more, there is a good deal of variety here. The three main modes on offer are championship, super hero mode and a time trial mode.

In championship, you first pick a difficulty level, then a championship which consists of three tracks to race through. Your points are tallied up, and at the end of the championship if you have the most points, you are the winner. At the start of the game you only have access to the easiest difficulty and have to unlock the others, and to unlock each championship you must do so by using credits gained from winning races.

Credits can also be used on purchasing vehicles, and this is where Fast Fusions most interesting mechanic comes in. There’s a wide variety of different vehicles to buy, each with their own stats. The stats are speed, acceleration, boost and weight. The interesting part though is that you can pick any two of your unlocked vehicles, and fuse them. This creates a new vehicle of which the name and physical design of the ship becomes a fusion between the two.

It’s a really cool mechanic, and it’s fun to combine different vehicles to see what result you get. It gives you the chance to create the perfect vehicle for you, either by creating something that has the best stats in one area, or something with no weaknesses. There’s a load of flexibility, and I was really excited to use it.

Let’s talk about the racing itself. Your vehicles go hundreds of miles per hour on even the lowest difficulty - reaching thousands at the top level. As you are speeding your way through the tracks, you have to avoid obstacles, and various dynamic events like hurricanes and asteroids hitting the track. If you’re on a level with bad weather, the rain can fog up your view and make things really hectic.

Whilst racing, you collect credits on the track itself which you can use to boost. Careful application of the boost mechanic is key in ensuring you don’t lose speed in the wrong places. You can also jump, which can be used to avoid obstacles, or reach new areas for shortcuts and alternate paths. Combined, this creates a really fast and frantic racing setup that is exhilarating to play. The AI is no slouch either, and will try and ram you off the road, jump on you and do anything to catch up - it’s a challenging game for sure, but the right kind of challenge.

In the super hero mode, you go through each track attempting to get first place with no crashes, however your boost mechanic is also your shield. Use it too much, and you’ll find yourself exposed to being rammed. Time trial tests you with beating the developers times on a track, all to earn a few more credits.

The game offers three display modes, performance, balanced and quality. All of these modes run at 60fps docked, with various tweaks to image quality for all of them. I play on balanced, as it offers the best compromise. Make no mistake though, in any of these modes this is a really great looking game. It’s sleek and clean, and runs completely smooth, even when you are getting battered by hurricanes going hundreds of miles an hour.

The one thing that might disappoint some is there is no online multiplayer to speak of - only couch multiplayer. It’s not something that bothers me personally, but keep that in mind if you tend to only play games online. Fast Fusion is a really great game, it’s really well made, has a good amount of content, and is just a fast, fun racing game. Taking into account this is only £13.49, I think this is a must-buy for any Switch 2 owner.

Rating - 4.5/5

The Nintendo Switch 2 is here, and Mario Kart World is the flagship game for the new system, being the only big exclusive title available at launch.

There’s been a fair bit of discussion around whether or not a Mario Kart game is a good choice for a system launch title, and whether or not they should have picked Donkey Kong Bananza, seeing as how that is a big new entry in a somewhat dormant franchise. However in my opinion, I think it works perfectly as a launch title, because it’s pretty synonymous with the console itself.

As I described in my initial impressions of the Switch 2, the console is an evolution of the original, rather than a revolution. It’s fitting then that the first game released for the system is much of the same, an evolution of the previous title rather than a revolution.

Mario Kart World offers several modes of play. First, you have the standard cups, race through a few tracks and if you manage to grab enough points by the end, you’ll come out at first place. In addition it has a battle mode, a free roam mode, and a knockout cup.

The knockout cup is perhaps my favourite new addition to the series, as it works very well with the game Nintendo have built. Tracks in Mario Kart World are built in such a way that they connect to other tracks as part of a bigger world map. In knockout mode, you race through these tracks in a linear fashion, going from the starting point to the ending point seamlessly.

Every time you reach a new track, some of the lowest ranking racers are eliminated. Mario Kart World now supports 24 racers, so this creates some really exciting races where you have to constantly try and avoid the elimination bracket. In Mario Kart fashion, a well timed spiny shell can knock you back a load of places, so staying up at the front is never guaranteed. It’s a genuinely exciting and fun way to play.

As for the tracks themselves, I really like them. They are perhaps a little more grounded than in previous series, due to the connected nature of the world. There are less abstract tracks here, but what we do have is as inventive as ever. You have tracks where you’re bouncing across giant leaves, battling through waves, over deserts buffeted by sandstorms. The tracks have a sense of dynamism to them that makes them feel more alive, and with the 24 races, often very hectic.

The first thing I did when I started playing this game, was play in two player mode with my partner. I only planned to play a level or two to get a feel for the game, but we ended up playing all evening, going through every track. Luckily, the Switch 2 supports Switch 1 joy-cons, so all we had to do was pair those up and we were on our way. We had a lot of fun playing through each course. Mario Kart at it’s heart is a couch multiplayer game - that is always where the series has been best, and it’s good to see that still works as it always has, and is just as fun.

The biggest new addition this time around is the free roam mode, and I personally think Nintendo have done themselves a bit of a disservice in the way they’ve advertised it. When you jump into free roam, you can drive around the world map and complete challenges, collect stickers and new costumes. The challenges can often be quite fun - examples include avoiding giant snowballs down a big hill, driving across tight ledges, you get the picture.

And whilst I think it’s a fun addition, it isn’t really the focus of the game and I don’t think it was ever intended to be. The marketing of the game makes this seem like it’s core mode and it really isn’t. Mario Kart World isn’t an open world racing game in the veins of Forza Horizon, it’s a Mario Kart game with an extra mode. This is to say that whilst the free roam has some fun stuff to do, it is ultimately a bit empty and not really worthy of being the core focus. I almost think it is only here to help justify the connected nature of all the tracks.

There’s a very large cast of characters here this time, and many of them have lots of additional costumes to unlock. I like to play as Waluigi, and my favourite costume I’ve found so far is the Wampire costume. You unlock these by picking up bags of fast food, which randomly unlock a new costume for that character. Strangely, each characters costume is presented as a separate character on the select screen, which means when you’ve unlocked quite a few the pages of the selection screen are seemingly endless.

In addition, you unlock new characters by completing courses, and new vehicles by collecting lots of coins. It’s something of a breath of fresh air in 2025 to actually unlock stuff through gameplay the old fashioned way, I’m really happy they kept that in. There are loads of characters too, even Cheep Cheep the fish makes an appearance.

There have been a few changes to the core gameplay. You can no longer customise your vehicle by selecting different wheels and gliders, but to be honest I don’t think this is much of a loss. There’s a couple of new items, but largely the selection of weapons will remain familiar. What does feel different though is how the karts handle. They seem to bounce around a bit more from wheel to wheel, react to the scenery and the bumps in the road more, it all just feels more dynamic.

They’ve added a grinding feature too, on rails and certain other objects you can grind along, which helps makes these longer and more open tracks feel more interactable. Overall, this is a really great Mario Kart game. If you play it as a Mario Kart game and treat the free roam mode as just an optional feature - you’ll get a lot of fun out of it. It’s still one of the best multiplayer games you can buy, so I suggest if you’re looking for local games to play with others on your Switch 2, this is a must buy. However if you go into it expecting an open world racing game, you will be disappointed.

Rating - 4/5

So here we are, the Nintendo Switch 2 has been released. It’s been over 8 years since the release of the original, which both feels like an age and no time at all.

The Switch 2 is a bit different from how Nintendo usually plays things. Ever since they had such a smash hit with the Wii, they’ve been trying to innovate, and give each of their consoles a unique selling point. Some worked well, like the Switch and the Wiimote, some worked well for their time, like the 3DS, and some fell flat, like the Wii U gamepad.

The Switch 2 is a different beast, as it’s effectively an evolution of the Switch, rather than a revolution. There are some things that Nintendo are trying to play off like a new gimmick, such as the mouse functionality, the game sharing and the camera - but really none of that stuff is particularly new in the world of gaming, and I suspect support for them will dwindle over time.

Luckily for us, the Switch was an awesome console - so improving on it can only be a good thing. The first thing you’ll notice is the size of the console. It is much bigger than the original, and placing it next to your original makes the elder Switch look tiny. This in turn means the controllers are bigger too, which makes them feel more comfortable in my hands.

Gone are the sliding joy-cons, replaced with magnetic ones, that click straight on. I don’t know if this is necessarily better than the original, but it is certainly different. The Switch 2 is a more powerful console, and the dock is more capable too. This means we get support for up to 4K resolution, which is awesome. Switch 2 also supports HDR and 120fps modes, but doesn’t support VRR whilst docked - only in handheld.

On the topic of HDR, there are some reports about that the implementation is wonky. Black levels not quite right, and there is very little in the way of configuration of this on the console itself. HDR in video games has always been a little touch and go, so personally, I’ll just turn that feature off. The LCD of the handheld is alright - it’s not as good as the OLED model screen, but it is a lot better than the original Switch screen. If you’re like me and you mostly play games docked, just using the handheld mode every now and again, this is completely sufficient. However if you’re almost a purely handheld gamer, I’d suggest seeing the screen in action before you purchase, just to make sure you’re happy with it.

When you first boot up the system, you get a bit of an instruction on how to use it, how to attach and remove the joy-cons, that sort of thing. It then goes through an update, and you can transfer your Switch 1 data over. This worked well for me - it even moved over all my screenshots, as well as my save files and the games I had installed. One thing to note though, is that certain games can only be supported on one Switch at a time. Pokémon games for instance won’t let you transfer your save without a disclaimer that it will delete the equivalent save on your old Switch - so be careful of that.

Once I was up and running, the first thing I noticed is how much more snappy everything is. The UI has been slightly refined, not overhauled, but everything is much quicker now to load and navigate. It’s a better user experience because of it, though personally, I miss each Nintendo system having a widely different interface.

I noticed in particular the eShop was now much better to use. Often in the past it felt quite slow, and painful at times to browse. Now, it’s quick and responsive, just like any online shop should be in 2025.

That being said, there isn’t too much to actually buy at the moment in terms of Switch 2 exclusives. You’ve got Mario Kart World of course - of which I’ll put up a review tomorrow. There’s fast fusion, a great indie title - review of that on Saturday. And really, that’s about it. There’s a few upgrade packs for Switch 1 games which add new features to those titles, and of course Nintendo’s much maligned Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour.

The game itself isn’t exactly bad, it’s basically just a bit of a demo exploring all the new features of the console. The problem is that they are charging for it - a crazy decision. Honestly, if you’re not totally convinced on Switch 2 and want to wait for more games to come out, that is a perfectly reasonable position to take. It’s quite logical too, not everyone needs to be a mad gamer that gets things the second they come out.

Overall, I really like the Switch 2. I knew what I was getting in for when I preordered it - an upgraded Switch 1. I love the Switch 1, so that was enough for me, and I’m really looking forward to playing games like Donkey Kong Bananza. I also can’t wait for more free upgrades for older Switch 1 titles to come along so I can nail down some of my backlog. Pokémon Violet in particular is one I’ll be revisiting this weekend, the performance of that game on Switch 1 was atrocious, so I’m keen to see how the upgrade improves things.

Let me know your thoughts on the Switch 2 if you’ve bought one, or are planning to buy one, and look out for my reviews of some Switch 2 games in the coming days!

I really should learn to start doing the tutorials when I play this sort of game. Rise of Industry 2 is rather obviously, a sequel to Rise of Industry, a business/economy game, crossed with elements of city building.

Before I get too far into this review, I should mention there is an air of controversy with this title. The publisher, Kasedo Games, acquired the intellectual property from the developer of the first game, Dapper Penguin Studios, with this title being developed by SomaSim. Kasedo itself was spun off from Kalypso Media Group. The developer of that story paints a picture where he was forced into a corner in order to sell the rights of the original IP, and you can read about it here.

I’ll let you make up your own minds on whether or not you believe that story, in the balance of fairness, I don’t have anything from Kasedo’s side, but I thought I’d mention it all the same.

In terms of this game though, I should disclose I haven’t played the original, so I’m coming into it with fresh eyes. There is both a campaign mode, a tutorial and a sandbox mode. You form a company, customise it a little bit, and then are given access to your desired location.

You start off with a bit of land, with the option to purchase more land later on. On this land, you can build districts, which perform certain functions. You have the headquarters which is the main area that handles shipping and logistics, and then can build more specialised districts. These range from production of hundreds of different resources, to refining, and creating more specialised products out of these resources.

You have to maintain a steady water and electric supply, and can even generate these yourself if you have the relevant resources to hand and money to invest. You can import these, and most products, but of course that costs a little bit more.

The aim of the game is essentially, to make a profit. Once you are producing a resource, you can sign contracts with other companies to sell them, or export them more generally. The game has a social system in play which features heavily into this. You build connections with other companies and the people who run them, the mayor, and lots of others. Building connections gets you better access to that company, which can result in better deals and other benefits.

This isn’t a city builder, but rather a business builder. Your company is always located nearby a town or city, and that develops on it’s own. You can invest directly into that town if you need more housing for your workers, or let it grow slowly. In addition, you are in charge of hiring an executive team, whose experience and skills grow over the course of the game. Of course, you can also research new buildings as the game goes on.

Within each district you can place different buildings that perform specialised functions, such as storage, logistics or production. Some are required to connect to the electricity grid or water mains, and others are purely decorative.

So, having said all that, how does the game play? Well, it’s not bad. It’s quite fun to build up a business, and go from making a loss to making a profit. It’s not easy though, you need to keep an eye on expenses at all time, and it’s a rather active game. You can’t just sit back and watch the money roll in, you are always required to manage your connections, your contracts, and your expansion. You can eventually build quite advanced production lines with conveyers, train connections, and more.

I quite enjoy this kind of game, but I don’t think it would be for everyone. I think it lacks a certain charm which the best in this genre have, and it’s a systems may be a little overwhelming to some. For those though that are interested in a deep combination of city building and business management, this could be right up your street.

Rating - 3.5/5