A top-down twin-stick procedurally-generated dungeon romp, Helmut: TBFH is a really fun game that gets a lot right…except for the lack of a local campaign option.
It's a tale as old as time, and I'm not talking about a Disney movie.
Since more or less the dawn of the era of electronic gaming, console gamers and desktop gamers have been at each as others throats – sometimes clearly playfully and sarcastically, and sometimes maybe not so much.
I remember my time with VBlank’s previous title, Retro City Rampage very vividly. I was hips deep in how fast-paced the story was, the fun factor of the driving and shooting mechanics as well as enjoying the pop culture references (before they became extremely tiresome and over-used in games in general).
As retro City Rampage was a title with a very solid 8-bit aesthetic, I remember thinking at the time that a sequel set in a 16-bit world would be cool…and it is.
The Sony PS5 is one of the most hotly anticipated console releases of all time. We all know how successful the PS4 was, and it continues to lead the way in the current console generation battle. With incredible performance and a host of excellent games, the PS4 wowed people all over the world by providing what many saw as the ultimate gaming experience.
👾 "This is a lovely looking handheld emulator from My Arcade and it's called the Pixel Player. It comes with 8 Data East Classic Arcade Games and 300 other games" 👾
⚔️ "It's time for some tabletop adventuring on your PS4 so let's go toe to toe with the evil hordes and explore the forests in For The King by Iron Oak Games" ⚔️ ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
🎮 "The Games Freezer Mailroom has received a surprise package from those lovely people at Retro-Bit that contains a Retro-Bit Tribute 64 for Nintendo 64 - Ocean Blue, Retro-Bit Official SEGA Mega Drive USB Controller 8-Button and a Retro-Bit Official SEGA Saturn Control Pad for Sega Saturn. Come see me unbox these bad boys " 🎮
After installing Yakuza 0 on my PC… and then promptly uninstalling it because the game crashed every time I pressed ‘Y’ on my controller, I instead purchased it for the PlayStation 4.
🏌"World Class Leaderboard is the oldest swinger in town! This game brings back the memories of how tough retro golf games actually are. Can anyone tell me the yardage on a 7 iron out of the rough of the first hole at St Andrew's?" ⛳
Having been to Paris on several occasions (possible Faye’s favourite place in the world) and drunk deep from the well of gaming there, we decided it was time for a change and planned a trip to Cologne and Berlin over the space of a week. Yes, the country is historically and culturally rich, almost every street corner has a story behind it and you could get lost for days, constantly learning more and more about this hub of Europe….but will I find a copy of Arx Fatalis on the Xbox for a fistful of Euros?
Game Title: Table Top Racing: World Tour - Nitro Edition Developer: Playrise Digital Platform Reviewed: Nintendo Switch Rating: Melting
The genre of arcade racing has long been one of my favourites, from the days of Super Sprint to the Amiga PD gem High Octane, the isometric fun of Super Off-Road, the inevitable Micro Machines and not forgetting PS2 classic Mashed (and under-appreciated pseudo-sequel Wrecked) the genre is a staple of gaming days at mine for literally decades. Table Top Racing is a neat spin on the genre by bringing in a Mario Kart sensibility to the miniaturised racing theme, the game, however, has a history stretching back to 2013 that does cast a shadow on the current Switch release.
🎧 "The Venom Nighthawk Stereo Gaming Headset gets the unboxing treatment by Rich. Take a look at a great budget headset by Venom for Switch, PC, PS4, XBOX and Mobile" 🎧
There is nothing like completely immersing yourself in a totally different world the way you can do in an RPG or role-playing game. In fact, this genre is one of the most popular and long-lasting of all types of game, even if aficionados are thought of as somewhat nerdy. Slurs be damned though because just about everyone can have fun in an RPG, and to prove it we've listed some of the best choices across different platforms below.
🎮👕"I've just been sent some amazing gaming t-shirts from Nerdity.co.uk and I thought I'd show you the Super Mario Kart / Pink Floyd Cross Over Tee and the awesome SNES Control Pad Tee!"👕🎮
It's that time of year when your mind begins to stray to Car Boot sales and the dream of bagging that ultimate car boot sale deal. I've never had much luck with Car Boot bargains but that's probably because I'm not getting there early enough to loot those car boots in time! This year I have vowed to get there nice and early and to go pre-armed with a nice little cheat sheet to ensure I know the rough going rate for each console I'm likely to come across.
After doing a SEGA timeline and having a first stab at a Nintendo Timeline in the articles below I decided to take another look at the Nintendo Timeline and fit it into the style of the one I did for SEGA as it seems to visually display the timeline in a better way.
Nintendo started out in 1889 with cards and then moved into video games in 1977. The rise and rise of Nintendo from then onwards has been documented millions of times over the years with only a few bumps in the road such as the Virtual Boy in 1995 and some even point to the GameCube or the Wii U as being failures but I don't think so.
So here just for you is the NINTENDO HARDWARE TIMELINE 1889 to 2017...
Not a shop in which you can buy e-cigarette products, Vaporum is instead a great Steam-punk Dungeon Crawler that feels restricted by the limitations of the genre.
A casual game with no enemies, puzzles or challenge beyond enjoying flying around an island as a bird, feather entertains for a short while but the complete lack of any goal and the relatively small size of the island you explore from above quickly catches up with you and (although there are some cave systems to head through) are all discovered in well under an hour.
Most puzzle games set out to get you hooked with an easy to pick up game loop but a hard to master long game... This is definitely not the case with Treasure Stack...
I came across the Antstream service last year when I visited the PLAY Expo in London. I didn't get an opportunity to have a go but it definitely piqued my interest. I've been keeping track of developments over the last few months and this week received an email to confirm that a Kickstarter for Antstream has just been launched. Let me take a moment to break down Antstream and the Kickstarter for you... The Antstream Team are looking for £50,000 by Friday May 10th 2019. The funds raised will go towards the development of the platform and also adding further games to the service.
Game Title: Tangledeep Format: Nintendo Switch I've had my eye on Tangledeep for a while. A roguelike dungeon crawler with 16-bit Secret of Mana-style graphics? Sign me up.
After recently reading The Pandora Directive (and thoroughly enjoying it) as well as re-playing The Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure, I contacted Aaron Conners to get an insight on his involvement with gaming’s favourite down-and-out detective.
Aaron was more than happy to respond and I’m thankful that he took the time out, I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did.
"Like the Da Vinci of death, Techland Publishing has unleashed a new gameplay trailer demonstrating the fine art of killing in God’s Trigger, a brutal, fast-paced, top-down shooter, in which players can use supernatural powers to cause spectacular mayhem in a quest to stop the Apocalypse."
‘The 7Th Guest: A Novel ‘ by Matthew J Costello & Craig Shaw Gardner
‘The Pandora Directive (A Tex Murphy Novel )’ by Aaron Conners
It dawned on me a few weeks ago that I had never read a novelisation of a video game. The closest thing I can think of was how I voraciously inhaled Andrzej Sapkowski’s ‘The Witcher’ series, which whilst having a strong connection to the video game series I initially played (the games are based on the novels), are a separate canonical entity. With this in mind, I picked up a few books that were novelisations of games I had previously enjoyed playing and the first ones I spotted at a saucy price were the books mentioned in the title of this article.
The gaming world is one that moves incredibly quickly. What is all the rage today will soon fall from prominence, replaced by new, exciting developments; while the present day remains important, with gaming, there always seem to be one foot that is placed firmly in the future.
The above is true of almost all aspects of gaming but is perhaps most strongly felt when it comes to consoles. As a read through eight generations of gaming history quickly makes clear, consoles have come a long way in a relatively short space of time. If you’re in your 20s or 30s now, the chances are that the consoles you used as a teenager are now considered to be almost-obsolete, and the console features you now see as basic requirements would once have been innovative and exciting. Change happens; consoles evolve, and the world of gaming keeps turning - so it’s worth taking a moment to think about where consoles might go next.
I’ll preface this review by stating that The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel isn’t a bad game, there is a lot to like about it but from a personal perspective, it just feels so safe and generic that it’s tough to recommend to anyone but serious lovers of the JRPG genre and so I felt that I couldn’t quite give it the ‘Ice Cool’ rating.