Genres

The problem with Dungeons & Dragons was that it could only be played with a group. Desktop PCs in the 80s had a few text adventure games that mimicked the D&D experience as a single-player adventure, but PC's were rare and pricey back then. A cheap, portable alternative were Gamebooks that used printed text and images to replace a live dungeon master. They also had simplified D&D style rules to govern variable and give players choice over how their adventure played out.

If you're a core gamer of yesteryear, you can stop reading here. You will hate Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures. Whatever you felt Pac-Man was about - how you felt he spoke, where he lived, what his reasoning behind traversing those mazes was - The Ghostly Adventures will throw that all back in your face. It'll take decades of quiet appreciation and turn every facet of that appreciation on its head.

I've been a huge fan of From Software's Armored Core franchise since way back when the original was first released on the Playstation, and while I personally feel that the series quality has seen a gradual decline over the years, mostly due to a change in focus in the form of "fast paced action" as opposed to "slow and clunky" mech battles of old, it has always held a special place in my heart. So naturally when Armored Core V was first announced, I was excited to get my hands on the latest instalment of my favourite customisable mech-based action game, ...

Enslaved Odyssey to the West was a criminally underrated title based on the Chinese classic Journey to the West, made popular in the UK by television show Monkey (or Monkey Magic, if you're from the US). Unfortunately, sales seemed to be about as lousy as the reviews, and with the announcement of DmC: Devil May Cry, Enslaved got thrown out by the anti-Ninja Theory crowd. Released on PC for the first time last week, Enslaved has a second chance to thrive in a post-Last of Us world. Will people finally recognise it for the diamond in the rough it always was?

Goichi Suda (or Suda51, as he's most commonly known) has to be one of the oddest developers in the industry. His games, like Killer7 and No More Heroes, are filled with unique ideas, subversive and absurd writing, and gameplay that isn't exactly the easiest to grasp. Even when he takes a straight-forward approach there's always a little something off, which is exactly the case with his contribution to Level-5's Guild01 game compilation, Liberation Maiden.

“Too crazy for Saint's Row.” That's how the developers at Volition describe the new DLC pack Enter The Dominatrix. Or rather that's how the characters in the game describe their new adventure. Fans of the series know that parts of Saint's Row IV were originally intended to be a DLC pack for Saint's Row III, but there were still a few missions and characters that never made it into SRIV. These scattered missions and incomplete cutscenes have been released in their unfinished state as a DLC pack for Saint's Row IV and the experience is presented in the same way ...

Long before being locked in Arkham Asylum, Batman was a talented, slightly cocky crime fighter just making a name for himself. While he still adhered to his strict code of ethics, he'd never had to really push himself before. He was a thorn in the side of the Gotham underground. He didn't have the protection of the police. He didn't have the respect of the people. He was, to some, a myth.

In the gaming days of yore, things like tutorials, objective markers, and pop-up hints were very uncommon. For some, these forms of guidance take away exploration, self-discovery, and challenge, and they yearn for more titles to be like those of old. The developer duo Kazuya Asano and Takemaru Abiko apparently agree, because that's the basis for Starship Damrey, their entry in Level-5's Guild02 compilation.

It's difficult to write about Sonic games. Depending who you ask, the only good titles in the franchise in the last decade have been re-releases of Mega Drive/Genesis titles. It seems popular to knock the Blue Blur, and it's fairly easy to pick out the commentators that haven't actually played the games they choose to badmouth at every turn.

Remember what it was like being a kid? Playing outside, making up weird games with friends, being confused by everything that grown ups do, and having an overactive imagination? If so, good, because that's exactly the nostalgia Japanese developer Millennium Kitchen taps into in Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale.