🤜💥🤛 The King Of Fighters XIV | Review | PS4 | "Right I’m off to build my own fight stick out of a cardboard box and a banana" 🤜💥🤛 @SNKPofficial #KingOfFightersXIV

Released back in 2017 King Of Fighter XIV was the newest entry in the acclaimed THE KING OF FIGHTERS series of fighting games. 

The project was led by the legendary veteran creator of FATAL FURY Yasuyuki Oda.

KOFXIV took the classic fighting game gameplay that the series was known for and implemented lush new 3D visuals which were a first for a mainline entry in the series! 

The game comes with a massive roster of 50 characters in the base game along with 4 DLC characters, including both returning fan favourites and new characters.

It was billed as a perfect entry point for veterans and newcomers alike...

💥👽💥 Alien Scumbags | Review | PC | "A Fantastic 2D Pixel Art Horror Game Inspired by Doom and Duke Nukem" 💥👽💥 @KKindiegame @TristaBytes #GameDev #IndieGames

As you explore the dark corridors of an abandoned spaceship you stumble across a shotgun!

It’s just what you were looking for to fend off these alien Scumbags once and all for all.

The tannoy announcements play out loud as you tread carefully.

You hear a noise and jump into an empty locker to hide from the impending doom!

Nothing nasty comes along so you carefully make your way out of the locker and tiptoe along the corridor preying to avoid any trouble and maybe discover a health drop from a vending machine.

Then it hits you! “BAM!”

A massive Alien Scumbag lurches towards you with the intent of ripping your head off, so you unload a shotgun into its midriff and bring it to its knees and then finish it off with your final shotgun shell!

Meanwhile, the darkness and the foreboding atmosphere envelopes you as tread carefully forwards towards another impending scrap with an Alien nasty.

👽🖥️ Alien Function | PC | Review | "Vance Baryn might not have an eye for visuals but the guy can certainly put together a juicy set of adventure game puzzles!" 👽🖥️ @PixelHunted @StandOffGameDev #GameDev #IndieGames

Let’s get it out of the way: Alien Function looks like crap. Stand Off Software’s latest is a car crash of pre-made assets, outright ugly character models and fonts that should be prohibited under the Geneva Convention. 

The game puts its worst foot forward on the title screen, showing a badly animated alien pursuing what seems to be an NPC from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

🎧 Gioteck TX50 Headset & VP1 Viper Cable Pack Review 🎧 @GioteckArmy #GamerHeadsetReview

Regular GF contributor Lee Manuel recently positively reviewed two other headsets from Gioteck, the HC2 Decal Edition and the XH100S - https://www.gamesfreezer.co.uk/2021/01/headset-review-gioteck-hc2-decal.html – this, combined with the positive experiences that I have had with their controllers, mean that Gioteck is fast becoming the go-to brand at GF HQ for affordable accessories that don’t sacrifice quality. Good.

🎮 Borderlands 3 | Review | X Box Series X | "My First Next-Gen Experience" 🎮 @Borderlands #XBOXSERIESX

This Borderlands 3 review may seem like a weird one as it’s effectively written for a game that’s well over a year old but the Borderlands series has always been an oddity for me.

👹🐲 Earth Defence Force 5 | Review | PS4 | "These….these….MONSTERS!!" 👹🐲 @EDF_OFFICIAL #EDF5

I was a real latecomer to the Earth Defence Force series. With almost 10 titles under the EDF belt since the days of the PS2, 2015’s Earth Defence Force 4.1 (The Shadow of New Despair – natch) was my introduction. 

Back in those dark, dark times when local co-op games were rarer than a decent film directed by Albert Pyun, I picked this up for a bargain price in my favourite gaming store (Insane Games, Bridgwater) and settled down with some bourbon to give it a crack with GF cohort Co-Op Chris and we were HOOKED on the B-movie styling, dialogue and arcade action.

⚔️🌳 Ocean’s Heart | Review | PC | "Familiar Ground with Enough Heart to Recommend" ⚔️🌳 @OceansHeartgame #IndieGames #GameDev

A top-down adventure very much in the vein of Zelda’s 1992 Super Nintendo outing, Ocean’s Heart has its flaws but will definitely be one for fans of the genre and hopefully will see a port to Switch, which feels like a natural home for it.

🚀☄️🛸 Everspace 2 | Early Access | PC | First Impressions | "A Barrel Rolling Shooter Looter In Space" 🚀☄️🛸 @everspace_game @Rockfishgames #IndieGames #GameDev #Everspace2

EVERSPACE 2 pitches itself as a fast-paced single-player spaceship shooter with deep exploration elements, tons of loot, RPG elements, mining, and crafting. 

The devs, Rockfish Games, have tried to create an experience that is story led with plenty of secrets, puzzles, and enemies to face off against.

I’ve always loved the idea of a space exploration game where you tinker with your ship, do some exploring and follow a story but normally bounce off these games because they are too hard to just pick up and play and require hours of time investment just to learn the basics.

BUT I can safely say that Everspace 2 is for everyone!

⚔️ Immortals Fenyx Rising | Review | PS4 | "I Heart Elias Toufexis’ Voicebox" ⚔️ @FenyxRising #ImmortalsFenyxRising

As I‘ve personally come across multiple statements along the lines of ‘Immortals Fenyx Rising is Ubisoft does Zelda: Breath of the Wild’, I’m going to lay the groundwork for this review by opening with how I wasn’t particularly enamoured with Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which I played a few years ago on the Wii U. 

🚗💨 Absolute Drift: Zen Edition | Review | Nintendo Switch | Britt's Brief Bulletin | 6/10 - Melting | "Absolute Drift: Zen Edition makes a solid first impression" 🚗💨 @funselektor @AbsoluteDrift #IndieGames #GameDev

Absolute Drift: Zen Edition – 6/10

Nintendo Switch

A top-down drift racer with simple presentation and smooth visual style, Absolute Drift: Zen Edition makes a solid first impression.

🐙 The Innsmouth Case | Nintendo Switch | Britt's Brief Bulletin | 7/10 - Melting | 🐙 @robot_pumpkin #IndieGames #GameDev

Britt’s Brief Bulletin

The Innsmouth Case – 7/10

Nintendo Switch

A visual novel based on the world of HP Lovecraft presented with tongue firmly in cheek, The Innsmouth Case is a relatively fresh take on the miserable ones’ cosmic horror. That said, if the tone of humour doesn’t tickle your funny bone – as in my case – it can turn a quirky and breezily-written tale into a bit of a slog.

🧢 💥🤛Fatal Fury First Contact | Review | Nintendo Switch | "Pocket Sized Fighter That Packs A Massive Haymaker!" 🤜💥🧢 @SNKPofficial #FatalFury #NeoGeoPocket

Just before Christmas, it was announced that Fatal Fury First Contact from SNK was available to download on the Nintendo Switch.

I’d never come across this Fatal Fury game before and that would add up as this game only ever came out on the Neo Geo Pocket Colour in 1999.

When I heard about this I was excited to play a fighting game that I hadn't managed to get to from over 21 years ago.

🐶🐰 Sam & Max Save The World | Review | Nintendo Switch | Review By Dr Congo Fighting | "The World’s Best-Loved Anthropomorphic Dog and Rabbit Crime-Fighting Duo" 🐶🐰 @skunkape #IndieGames #GameDev

1993. The Midlands - a landlocked region of the UK, the historic home to heavy industry, heavy metal, and heavy accents resembling a large and very vocal cat in the throes of regret, having attempted to eat a toffee.

Zoom in to the window of a bungalow in a village on the edge of a green belt. Further, the camera in the room now as a thirteen-year-old Dr Fighting settles in front of his friend's PC.

A 486, DX2 66MHz, no less. The monitor lights his face, hair plentiful on the scalp, sparse on the chin. Time later decided that this was completely the wrong way around, and changed things accordingly.

The floppy disc is inserted. The mouse steadied. A command or two at the DOS prompt and Sam and Max Hit The Road boots up, brilliant colours filling the screen. The odyssey begins...I am in love with this game.

🎄🎅 B.R.U.C.E Saves Christmas | Review | Online Escape Room Game | "Whilst the festive period may be over, I heartily recommend recapturing some Winter magic" 🎄🎅 @bewilderbox #IndieGames #EscapeRoom

Something a bit different from GF today, as we talk about B.R.U.C.E Saves Christmas, an on-line escape room available from Bewilderbox.

🎃 Pumpkin Jack | Review | Nintendo Switch | "A treat for Halloween, Christmas and beyond" 🎃 @thepumpkinjack #GameDev #IndieGames

Pumpkin Jack is a game that’s been on my radar for a while, a 3D platformer in the vein of MediEvil – with whom it also shares a graphical style – I sadly missed the opportunity to play it around Halloween but was delighted to find, upon receiving it for review in the run-up to Christmas, that a Santa costume has been implemented for Jack to sport throughout his quest, making things festive as well as fiendish!

🐺🌳 Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest | Review | Nintendo Switch | "A Punchy Visual Novel With Bite" 🐺🌳 @differenttales #GameDev #IndieGames

My history with visual novels is somewhat patchy and mostly linked to stories of high school anime girls bickering in glacial stories that roll on for dozens of hours.

To be honest, my interest in them was renewed only last year with Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York which, whilst flawed, told an interesting tale in a breezy manner that was rich in lore without being bogged down by it.

👍🕹️ Sore Thumb Retro Games Subscription Box | @SoreThumbRetro | "Which box would you sign up for? Me?…I’m thinking Master System" 👍🕹️ #RetroGaming #LootBox

Having followed them for a while on Twitter via my @kingdomofcarts account, I was really intrigued when I caught a sniff of their monthly subscription idea and, after receiving samples through the post recently, it’s definitely a service that would benefit a lot of people, especially those starting off a collection or perhaps fancy dipping into gaming of a more retro nature.

🌵🤠🐍 Boot Hill Heroes | Review | Nintendo Switch | "There's A Snake In My Boots!" 🌵🤠🐍 @ExpGamerStudios #GameDev #IndieGames

Let it be said that I’m a sucker for pixel art retro aesthetic graphics.

Let it also be said that I love the thought of a Wild West Fantasy RPG.

Let it be known that I think that I love Boot hill Heroes for its charm and simplicity (and it’s pixel art retro aesthetic graphics)

This is the second Boot Hill game to be released on the Nintendo Switch but in fact, it is the first game in the Boot Hill series… 

Last year my dear friend and fellow inhabitant of the Freezer took a close look at Boot hill Bounties which is, in fact, the second in the Boot hill series but appeared on the Switch before Boot Hill Heroes… STAY WITH ME…

Anyway, I’m sure you will agree that my explanation of the Switch specific order of these games has nothing to do with the game and how it plays so lets cut to the chase, shall we?

🐷🐴 Animal Farm | Review | PC | "Your worst-case scenario is mass death" 🐷🐴 @AnimalFarmGame @PixelHunted #IndieGames #GameDev

At first glance, George Orwell’s classic 1945 allegorical novel Animal Farm doesn’t seem like a great candidate for a video game. 

The tale of rebellious animals seizing control of their farm, banishing humans and attempting to carve out a new society is an excellent satire but contains few action sequences, no hordes of monsters to blast your way through and, as far as I can remember from studying it in school, not a single high-octane car chase.

That’s where developer Nerial comes in. 

🧟‍♀️🧟‍♂️ Unturned | Review | PS4 | "a tough sell" 🧟‍♀️🧟‍♂️ @SDGNelson #IndieGames #GameDev

A free-to-play title on the PC gets a port to PS4 at a price tag of £19.99. I don’t usually tend to focus on price and when I do, it’s usually to point out that a mobile game has had a lazy Switch port and the paywall removed which massively unbalances the game (yaaaaaay) so in the case of Unturned, things are slightly different but that knowledge of it being free on a different platform does sting, especially when the game behind it feels so empty and in-progress.