Dreamworks All-Star Racing Nintendo Switch Review 6/10 "As someone who grew up playing Mario Kart, I was excited to try this game" 🐼 @BamtangGames #IndieGame #GameDev

I recently had the chance to play Dreamworks All-Star Racing, a new racing game that has hit the shelves. As someone who grew up playing Mario Kart, I was excited to try this game. I was also thrilled to be able to race as some of my favourite DreamWorks characters, such as Shrek and Hiccup.

Dreamworks All-Star Racing is a sequel to the 2011 title DreamWorks Super Star Kartz, and
features many of the same characters along with some new ones from the Trolls franchise.

The gameplay involves collecting keynotes that give you bonus items to use against other players, as well as collecting items from boxes. There are also various challenges you can complete to upgrade your vehicle and unlock new characters. One of my favourite features are the secret paths on each map that lead to a rainbow road, where you can come across high notes and other collectables.

The GAMEBOOK | Nintendo Gameboy Unofficial Companion Book "The Best Gameboy Book Ever?" 📕 @NintyMedia @PMurphy1978 #Retrogaming #GameBoy

Rich gets to grips with the GAMEBOOK from Ninty Media. This Kickstarted funded Gameboy book is a beautifully made book and Rich shows you a sneak peek of the one he was sent by the lovely folks at Ninty Media.

Steamworld Build Xbox Review 8/10 "Over Steamulation?" 🛠️🪨 @SteamWorldGames #iNDIEGAME #GAMEDEV

I have dug. I have heisted. And I have loved both. Three of my favourite games on the PC in the last ten years were made by the Swedish studio, Image & Form. Steamworld Dig 1 & 2, and Steamworld Heist are both beautifully formed and have really well thought through game mechanics. It’s simplistic to say perhaps, but both Dig and Heist just work. There’s little extraneous in there, and these elements are combined with gorgeous visuals and engaging characters to make very appealing games that I’ve returned to many times.

Ghostrunner 2 Rich's Rapid PC Review 8/10 "Top Of The Chops" ⚔️💥@GhostrunnerGame #IndieGame #GameDev

Rich takes a look at the hard hitting challenging Ghostrunner 2 and gives his verdict in this 3 minute video review. Buckle up it's gonna get choppy out there!

Murder is Game Over XSX Review 7.5 / 10 "Pocket-sized Pixel Pondering" 🔪 #IndieGame #GameDev @HitherYonGames @RatalaikaGames

A budget title from Ratalaika, Murder is Game Over is a short and fun narrative horror made in RPG Maker, full of jaunty music and pixel detective action.

As detective Guy and his crime-solving dog Chloe, you’ll roam a mansion and the surrounding grounds in a bid to solve the murder of a world-renowned game designer.

There are eight suspects, and thirty bags of dog treats to find as you try to solve this dastardly crime, as well as a treasure-hunting side quest!

A game that cosily leads you through the mystery as opposed to getting your grey cells pulsating, Murder is Game Over is a fun and light-hearted way to spend an evening, satisfactorily wrapping up its plot in an hour or two, and a big high five for the awesome music, which I would quite happily purchase on vinyl, awesome stuff!

The Crew Motorfest XSX Review 7.5/10 "Hawaii Five Oh!" 🌴🏎️🌴

The newest entry in The Crew franchise, The Crew Motorfest plonks drivers down in the paradise of Hawaii and lets them loose across the many locations of the island, from volcanos and mountain roads through dense foliage, absurd, spiralling racetracks, suburban areas and more.

After creating your driver and choosing your starting vehicle, you are free to roam around the island as you see fit. You can free roam or enter one of the myriad of ‘playlists’ (races) available, these range from drag races in highly-tuned performance cars to old camper vans, monster trucks, motorcycles and even planes.

There are currently well over 600 vehicles across these styles available, and each completed race will see you earning XP, unlocking extra vehicles and parts to replace and improve your various rides, in terms of both performance and vanity items.

There really is a huge amount of customisation available – as well as other micro-transactions that you can pay for to speed the process along, should you wish to do so …I personally avoid these like the plague, although it didn’t impinge on my enjoyment of the game as I was constantly unlocking and upgrading my garage of cars through normal play.

My Time At Sandrock Rich's Rapid Nintendo Switch Review 🪨⛏️ @MTaSandrock @PatheaGames #IndieGame #GameDev

Rich jumps into My Time At Sandrock on the Nintendo Switch and has a good old dig around the town to get a view on this cool, cozy, farming crafting sim. 

Check Out Rich's Rapid Review Below:

Video Game Lo-Fi: A Winter’s Tale (Vinyl & Cassette) Review 📀💿 @CuragaRecords @BrittRecluseuk #Vinyl #VideoGameVinyl #VGM

Here in Wales, as the weather takes a colder turn, A Winter’s Tale arrived at the perfect time! 14 tracks of low-end, heavy, lo-fi warmth, this is an album that takes a trip-hop look at some of those seminal, snow-laden gaming moments through the years, taking us from Donkey Kong Country, past Mario Kart 64, through Stardew Valley, and the coast of Fable – alongside many others.

The front cover continues the classic lo-fi series approach of an isometric, stylised look at a certain location. Here, we are treated to a be-snowed take on Princess Peach’s castle from Mario 64, the familiar turrets poking out from underneath a blanket of deep, white snow; as light bleeds out from the entrance way, highlighting some scattered instruments outside in the snow; a piano, drums, acoustic guitar, and trumpet.

My Time At Sandrock Nintendo Switch Review 7/10 "Sandrock is a love letter to the life simulator genre" 🪨⛏️ @MTaSandrock #IndieGame #GameDev

My Time At Sandrock is the follow up to My time In Portia from Pathea Games

This review is for the Nintendo Switch version which we received from the developers for review purposes. I found the Switch version to have a few framerate issues but nothing that made the experience unplayable.

My time at Sandrock is a charming and engaging life simulator game that sets you down in the role of an aspiring builder tasked with rebuilding the bustling town of Sandrock. From the moment you step into the world, you're greeted by a vibrant and welcoming community filled with quirky characters, each with their own unique stories and personalities. 

The game's art style is a delightful blend of cartoon style character graphics and watercolour-inspired hues, creating a visually captivating world that's both nostalgic and refreshing.

Hero Survival PS5 Review 7/10 "a fun rogue-like game with great music and weapon/item combinations" 💥 @dev_pigeon #IndieGame #GameDev

As we all know, there are many, many rogue-like games available. The one that I am covering today is Hero Survival on PS5 (it’s also available on all other major platforms).

Hero Survival is a classic survival game featuring enemies such as ghosts, werewolves, and jack-o-lanterns, etc. The objective is to progress through the 10 levels of each stage and then defeat the boss at the end. However, each stage takes roughly 20 minutes or more and surviving for that long is not an easy feat!

FROM ANTS TO ZOMBIES: SIX DECADES OF VIDEO GAME HORROR Book Review "The Gaming Necronomicon" 🧛‍♂️ @BitmapBooks #Retrogaming

Sam Dyer – the brain behind Bitmap Books – is someone that I imagine laughing wildly in a vast, ever-growing library somewhere, surrounded by mad monks engrossed in ever-more-perfect drafts of upcoming books through which they will eventually devour the gaming world. Each time I read a book by the publisher, it always feel definitive and individually voiced. I’ve commented before on how each release doesn’t feel like a run-through of the topic at hand, moving from genre-to-genre with a  vanilla, ‘one-size-fits-all’ sensibility. From the all-encompassing JRPG book to the laser-focused CRPG tome – and the surprisingly moving release on Gremlin Graphics – these books really do each have their own approach and style. 

From the moment that I caught wind of From Ants to Zombies, the fact that it was covering video game horror – a genre incredibly dear to me – I was desperate to discover what approach this book would take - and as it turns out, it’s possibly the boldest move by Bitmap Books yet, and one that absolutely lives up to the lofty heights that author Alexander Chatziioannou sets out in the first few pages.

Mondealy XSX Review 8/10 "I completely fell under the pastel-coloured, joyous sway that it conjures" 🌻 @ValkyrieInitia1 #IndieGame #GameDev

I’m very much on board with playing a wide variety of genres, and I appreciate that sometimes you need a game like Mondealy to slow you down and allow you to take stock of your life, appreciate what you have, and perhaps take a break from blowing up demons, shooting thousands of bullets at an alien threat, or squeezing your controller in love/respect/frustration because you missed that pixel-perfect 100th jump, and how need to do the last hours’ worth of progress again.

I initially played Mondealy off the back of a pretty full-on game, and switching from that to this mellow, slowly-unfolding world was initially a little jarring, but after a mental reset, I completely fell under the pastel-coloured, joyous sway that it conjures, especially enjoying the soundtrack, courtesy of the below talented composers:

Avatar: The Last Airbender: Quest For Balance Nintendo Switch Review 5/10 💨 @BamtangGames #IndieGames #GameDev

The Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise is now almost two decades old, and Avatar: The Last Airbender - Quest for Balance is the newest video game release and follows the epic adventures of Aang and his friends on their adventure to master all elements -water, fire, air and earth. 

Before we dive into things, I wanted to point out that this content is geared towards younger audiences. The game is designed to be easy to progress through, and the fighting mechanics are very accessible and straightforward, so you might find this slightly less enjoyable if you want to revisit the beloved story in real depth or were perhaps expecting advanced combat mechanics.

The 7th Guest VR Meta Quest 2 Review 9.5/10 "Feeling…looooonely?" 🏚️🩸 @the7thguestvr #IndieGame #GameDev #MetaQuest2 #VRhorror

This is probably one of only a handful of reviews that I’ll ever write with my current mindset, due to my personal history with the game in question. The 7th Guest was - and is - a constant presence in my life.

I initially played the game on the Philips CD-i back in the mid-90s (with a friend called Brett, nonetheless) and I was completely mesmerised by what was - to me at the time- absolutely the future of gaming, in that it felt like a movie that you could control yourself! Between this and Burn Cycle, my young mind was blown wide open, and although I didn’t complete the game at the time, when I managed to get hold of a PC version a while later and play it through - with headphones - The 7th Guest made me feel like no other game had before.

I was completely pulled into its atmosphere and world, full of wonder and terror at what it offered both visually and sonically.

Over the years - thanks to Games Freezer - I’ve been in the position to interview George Sanger (the esoteric and wonderful composer of the music featured in the original game) as well as cover fan versions of The 7th Guest. In fact, I’m currently waiting on the release of an industrial rock vinyl of the soundtrack, as well as (hopefully, eventually) a hinted-at vinyl release of the amazing 7/11 album by Team Fat.

The 7th Guest soundtrack still often haunts the halls of my home, and I firmly believe it to be one of the most evocative and singular soundtracks ever laid down - so, what I’m trying to get at here, is ‘I like The 7th Guest’.

Fusion Retro Book: The Book of the Game of the Film Author – Jerry Ellis "The Review of the Book of the Game of the Film" 🎞️🎮📕 @Retro_Fusion #Retrogaming #Retrogames

This is the second book published by Fusion Retro Books that I have covered this year, and I own several others by them that I’ve picked up over the years and it’s all been very good stuff. This 300-page hardback continues the trend of high quality releases, and celebrates those oh-so-often movie, TV, and product tie-ins that were released so freely across the cluttered 8-bit landscape. Author Jerry Ellis crams as much gold as he can in those 300 pages, covering a huge amount of movie, TV, comic, product and even board-game tie-ins in a style that blends humour, insight, research and approachability.

Cardiff Gaming Market - 22nd October 2023 "Britt's Birthday Bonanza!"🕹️ @ReplayEvents #Retrogamer #Retrogaming

I’ve attended several Replay events over the years, and they have all been well organised, with some great stalls present that always have something that catches my eye. 

There were two things that had my trousers a-twirling this time around, though. Firstly, this was to be the first (as far as I’m aware) games market in my hometown of Cardiff - with the previous closest being in Bristol, several years back.

 I’ve often asked folks over the years about a full-blown convention in Cardiff, but as the majority of the pinball and arcade cabinets for these events are based/stored up north, the logistics seem to be an issue, for now at least.

The second thing that made the day so special, was that the gaming market was due in my hometown...on my 40th Birthday, October 22nd 1983. A date I’m sure resonates with everyone reading this because you’ve got it tattooed on your face because I play such an intrinsic part in each of your lives. Needless to say, I was excited. Especially as this was the first gaming event that we (@kingdomofcarts and I) would be taking our two-year-old son - Brian Blessed* - to.

Ghostrunner 2 PC Review 8/10 "Ah, endorphins" 🏍️ @GhostrunnerGame #IndieGame #GameDev

One hit means death. I can’t help but respect the purity of Ghostrunner 2, which follows in the muffled ninjacyborg footsteps of its excellent predecessor.

Just as before you’re Jack, a true glass cannon protagonist whose speed, agility, and ever-growing suite of techno-ninjutsu abilities is matched only by his constant fragility.

In Ghostrunner 2 you will enter a combat arena and die instantly. At the tap of a bottom (and with no loading) you’re back to try again. This time you might die after a few seconds. Rinse and repeat twenty times and suddenly you have a plan:

Wallrun, slowmo dodge, kill, grapple, deflect, kill, boost pad, shuriken toss, mid-air grapple, kill, slide, vault, slice your cyberkatana through a cyberfreak’s body as the two cyberhalves spiral through the air in front of you. Ah, endorphins. There you are…

Anthology of Fear Xbox Series X Review 4/10 “Five Minutes on YouTube” 🏥 @AnthologyofFear #IndieGame #GameDev

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.

Baten Kaitos 1 and 2 HD Remaster Nintendo Switch Review 9/10 “Two Under Rated Games, Brought Back To Life” ⚔️ @BandaiNamcoEU #Retrogames #HDRemaster

Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and The Lost Ocean and Origins have been in my collection for a long time, they were both some of my favourite JRPGS growing up. It was a real shame they didn’t sell well as they had good reviews at the time and I think they were good games with interesting plots and a good battle mechanic, hopefully, these HD remasters will bring some new eyes to these underappreciated games and fingers crossed for Baten Kaitos 3.

Wartales Nintendo Switch Review 6.5/10 "A GOTY Contender Crippled by Technical Issues" 🛡️ @Wartales_Game @shirogames #GameDev #IndieGame

It pains me to write this review of Wartales, as I so desperately wanted it to be a better experience, I was clutching my ageing Switch and willing it to somehow have a burst of strength and run Wartales more smoothly and less clunkily, but alas, I was getting the exact same vibes I did when I played Dragon Age: Inquisition on my PS3 over a decade ago – either the Switch is showing its age, or Shiro games really needs to patch the game up ASAP, as what could be one of the best gaming experiences of the year is at present a mere shadow of what it could be.