Based on a popular South Korean franchise, Uzzuzzu My Pet: Golf Dash takes visual, stylistic and gameplay cues from What the Golf?
But it unfortunately fails to capture the charm and replayability that oozes from every pore of the game that it apes.
Based on a popular South Korean franchise, Uzzuzzu My Pet: Golf Dash takes visual, stylistic and gameplay cues from What the Golf?
But it unfortunately fails to capture the charm and replayability that oozes from every pore of the game that it apes.
Walking down corridors and having something shout “boo!” is great, but they do wear thin after a while, and as much as I love horror, I definitely need a break from the horror walking simulator genre. Well, after playing Layers of the Fear a couple of months ago, I booted up Anthology of Fear put on my walking shoes and headed down the creepy corridors.
I had a plan when this game was released, I had promised myself this year to watch more Hitchcock movies, and so before I played Vertigo, I would sit down and watch the film version first - and then dive straight into the game. I hoped that by watching the original source material I would enrich my gaming experience by having a fuller picture and understanding how this game embodies the film on which it is based.
I can say that watching the film Vertigo didn’t really help. The game doesn’t follow the plot at all, it takes a couple of aspects but changes them heavily which isn’t a bad thing, per se. The game tries to have a Hitchcockian vibe and incorporate the ‘master of suspense’ style into many aspects of the game. This is a huge undertaking, and the game never gets near hitting the heights of Hitchcock or Vertigo.
I have spent my last few reviews lamenting over the horror genre, all the games had similar flaws and each of them seemed to languish in generic plots without a hint of originality, so going into Dreadout 2 I was hoping for a big kick up the butt, with a horror game filled with new ideas and an amazing plot.
Nope. within the first twenty minutes, I could see where we were heading, except it now included technical problems. Now, this game is obviously made on a budget, so I do cut it some slack, but it does things that make you think, “if you’re on a budget… just don’t do it, horror is the perfect genre to scale back and subscribe to the motto less is more”.
When the apocalypse arrives it’ll probably be kinda boring. Games like Fallout, The Last of Us, and Days Gone are all razzle-dazzle combat, world-changing drama, and malformed flesh-eating monsters to mulch.
Contrast that with 35mm, in which I spent an hour trudging through an abandoned village trying to find a bucket so I could use a grubby broken-down well. Let’s face it, that’s probably a more realistic scenario for you if civilisation collapsed.
I am a basic bitch when it comes to shmups. I’ve played Treasure classics Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga, Jeff Minter’s neon ungulate work, and dabbled in a few Cave shooters. This is like being into music and only having listened to The Beatles, and vast swathes of bullet hell games have passed me by in a blizzard of neon, clashing colours, and J-rock soundtracks.
Consequently, bullet hell is a genre I admire from a distance. Deep in my bones I know I’m never going to be good at it but I can appreciate what works and what doesn’t.
All of which brings me to indie dev Last Boss 88’s SHINORUBI, a new early access title “inspired by classic shooting games”. You know the drill, pick your ship and jump into a vertically scrolling battlefield teeming with enemies, power-ups and thousands of bullets. The developers promise “all the best aspects of Japanese bullet hell games” in super shiny Ultra HD.
And there lies the rub. In reviewing Skatebird, I find myself constantly wondering whether Tony ruined me for other men. Birds. Games. OK, it isn't a great analogy but, we are where we are.