It must be incredibly frustrating for a developer to deliver a game that convincingly nails its design goals, only to see it flounder in the marketplace for reasons beyond their control. This sometimes happens when another game in the publisher’s portfolio has become a smash hit, leading everything else to be neglected regardless of quality. […]

Cubello is one of Nintendo’s “Art Style” games, a franchise of simple puzzle games (mostly developed by skip Ltd.) with stylish minimalist presentation that developed from the “bit Generations” series which accompanied the launch of the Game Boy Micro. It’s currently available to purchase through the Wii Shop Channel* in Europe and North America for […]

I’ve noticed there currently a lot of interest in Restaurant City (a Facebook game which I discussed earlier) so I’ve compiled my top five tips to successful restaurant management. All of this information (and much more) can be found by digging around the FAQ and the game’s forum, but these are the basics which will […]

“Braid treats your time and attention as precious.” Braid official website The PC version of Jonathan Blow’s arty platform puzzler Braid came out last week, complete with a demo. Much praise has been lavished on this game since its original release on the Xbox 360 last year. I’ve not caved in and paid for the […]

There are some games that should be kept out of the hands of people with addictive personalities. For me, Card Fighters Clash was one. Kingdom of Loathing, for a time, was another. And don’t get me started on Animal Crossing: Wild World – everything UK:Resistance say about the game is true (and if anything an […]

This is something that doesn’t happen enough these days: stumbling across a new, unheralded game and then not being able to stop playing it, for the rest of the afternoon, until it’s beaten. And then blogging about it to enthuse about how awesome it is. The game in question is Knightfall, a new Flash-based puzzle […]

King’s Bounty: The Legend (KB:TL) is the latest product of the burgeoning Russian game development scene to have piqued the interest of Western PC gamers. It was brought to my attention by Rock Paper Shotgun whose initial puzzled amusement seems to have snowballed into championing the game as a shining example of where PC games […]

I’ve always been a big fan of robots. From an early age I was immersed in a culture of Usborne books, Tomy-bots (I’m still working on a plausible sounding reason to spend £200 on this little guy), Asimov’s Laws, Capsela, Kryten, Marvin and Nono. (Although no Transformers, oddly.) Aged six I even won a prize […]

This piece was originally published here in April 2004. Puyo Puyo is my favourite of the many falling-block puzzle variants. Puyo Puyo 2 on the Mega Drive (now available on the Wii Virtual Console) is probably the version that best balances presentation and functionality, but Fever is a respectable entry to the series, and it […]

Continuing the trawl through my old games writing, here’s a look at Treasure’s 2005 remake of their breakthrough hit Gunstar Heroes. My opinion of the game hasn’t really changed, it’s a technically strong but otherwise unremarkable romp. At the time of course we didn’t realise that Gunstar and games like it would represent the peak […]

The Neo Geo Pocket Color (NGPC to it’s friends) was SNK’s attempt to revitalise the handheld market in the early 1990s, having recognised that Nintendo’s decade-long dominance of the sector had led to stagnation, and that there was an untapped audience for a more technically advanced system with games that appealed to players who wanted […]

WiiWare finally launched earlier this week. Good news for me, as I’d been looking for something to buy with the Wii Points I’d been sent by Nintendo Europe by way of apology after they accidentally offered the “Star Points to Wii Points” service before it was meant to go live. (It turns out they were […]

Freedom Fighters is one of the hidden gems of the last generation, and is a textbook example of why publishers are often wary of releasing games based on original IP. It reviewed well, has a good pedigree, an interesting premise yet still (unless I’m mistaken) bombed at retail. It is a game that sets out […]

In a break from our usual programming, I made a game: “Scrumper is a game that allows the player to engage in the ‘victimless’ crime of apple theft from the comfort of their own home. The object of the game is to catch as many falling apples as possible.” It has already received glowing testimonials […]

In the last couple of years, the line between PC and console gaming has been (in some respects) almost completely erased. The simultaneous release of high profile titles on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 is becoming the norm. It’s easy to forget that before the mid-1990s, computer and console gaming were completely different worlds – […]