Reviews

Deiland: Pocket Planet is a very family-friendly game, one that is complete with cartoony vibes and inoffensive gameplay which is full of imagination. The concept itself is an unusual one, mixing farming sim ideas with planet progression. Yet whilst the visuals and soundtrack are nice, making progression does sometimes seem to take an age.

Your enjoyment of Grow: Song of the Evertree will depend on whether you find that its brand of Stardew Valley-style nurturing to be a chore or a compulsion. Find its wavelength, dallying with its systems for short bursts each day, and we’re confident that you will find a tug to return.

Ever Forward is a pretty great little puzzler that just so happens to have a wonderful narrative weaved in. The originality of the stages is worth highlighting, but there is a bit of a struggle in terms of the gameplay mechanics and the movement of Maya; it feels a bit too slow and not always accurate in its response time. Aside from that, Ever Forward is a puzzler that is worth consideration. 

Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All! feels like a missed opportunity to give the world the Asterix game that we have been waiting for. There is no progression, no making the heroes stronger, and at the end, no real desire to see the game through to a conclusion. It’s the same characters and the same action, for level after level, with a different backdrop. Sadly this makes for a dull game.

Timothy vs the Aliens will run for anything up to four hours or so and it’s quite nostalgic to play through it, reminding much of games from the Xbox 360 period. It has a lovely visual language, employing a black and white world to great effect. All the mechanics work very well and there are collectibles to find for the purists at heart. However, it does all feel a bit empty and fails to excite enough for you to want to look forward to your next playthrough. 

Antarctica 88 does a lot of things right, then shoots itself in the foot with some dodgy control decisions and design choices. The snowmobile controls are hilariously bad, the combat is lumpy and the jumping is broken, but weighing against that is the story and the atmosphere that the game creates.

There is a fun game trying to get out of The Walking Zombie 2, but it is drowning under the constant push of microtransactions. The end result just feels like a mess. 

It must be said, as a whole, Space Elite Force 2 in 1 certainly has some of that X Factor that will keep you playing. With generous achievements up for grabs as well, it's hard to find too much to grumble about.

We rarely see an Artifex Mundi game reach the dizzy heights of a 4 out of 5. They’re too set in their ways, too janky to justify the loftier scores. But by toying with their payment model, Artifex have given us one of their best hidden object games in Queen's Quest 5: Symphony of Death, effectively for free.

Creepy Tale is effective, there is no doubting that. It is as insidious as they come, and that comes from its art, world and characters. We’re eager to play its sequel, in the hope that it expands on them more. But Creepy Tale fumbles whenever it asks you to do anything. Too often, it resorts to puzzles that are clumsy and illogical, with a parade of deaths as the punishment. 

For the low price and promise of a full Gamerscore haul coming your way within a matter of a few minutes, Ball laB could possibly find a place within your gaming sessions. Unless you have controller throwing tendencies - in which case you should stay well away.

Aspire: Ina’s Tale will deliver some mixed feelings. The world-building, the scenes of identity and magic it manifests while travelling through the world are all to be loved, as is the main character of Ina and the creatures/characters she meets along the way. Some of the platforming and puzzle-solving is also decent but the movement of Ina becomes a bit frustrating at times, especially in terms of gameplay accuracy.

This is an astonishingly immersive and good-natured fable, and we relished returning to it whenever we were away. It may not be long, it may not do anything groundbreaking, but The Gunk radiated good feelings whenever we picked up the pad.

Platformer games are two a penny these days, often using ideas that were popular in the genre’s heyday - for better or worse. But what if I told you a developer had come up with a concept that involves your vocal chords being the key to success? Well, Bad Dream Games have attempted to do exactly that in the vocal 2D platformer One Hand Clapping. The question is, will One Hand Clapping hit all the right notes and be hailed a masterpiece, or could this novel idea just be full of bum notes?

Undoubtedly, there is a very fun party game here that takes the Monopoly framework and applies it to a multiplayer game not unlike Overcooked or Moving Out. And it really works at capturing the essence of both formats into an enjoyable fusion. But the real madness in Monopoly Madness is the asking price. Be like Rich Uncle Pennybags and wait for this one to go on sale.