Category: Reviews

Your enjoyment of Stellar Cafe comes down to two things: how you feel about AI in video games and how good of a conversationalist you are. I’ve had some experience with AI-driven NPCs in games before, specifically in Skyrim (with mods) and former-social-VR-turned-MMORPG Riff XR. The difference with these two examples is that those games have much more to offer than said AI NPCs whereas Stellar Cafe lives and dies on the characters and your interactions with them. It makes for a unique experience that rolls credits before the fairly simple premise wears thin.The FactsWhat is it?: A voice-controlled narrative…

Your justification for starting as a salmon man in a barrel is that you are trying to get up the waterfall. This is, of course, something actual salmon do. So it follows from developer Valem Studio that it is something a salmon man in VR should do too.Salmon Man blends genuine fun and desire to keep going with the gut-wrenching pain of a tiny mistake ruthlessly chopping away at swathes of progress in a helpless instant. Paddle locomotion, it seems, has a frustrating charm almost tailored for the viral Internet landscape of modern gaming. Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy…

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 campaign review A morass of jumped-up dream sequences, a repurposed multiplayer map, and poorly implemented coop, Black Ops 7’s campaign is a contender for the worst Call of Duty adventure yet. Developer: Treyarch Publisher: Activision Release: November 14th, 2025 On: Windows From: Steam, Xbox Store, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Price: £69.99/$69.99/€79.99 Reviewed on: AMD Ryzen 5 3600, Nvidia RTX 2080 Super, 32GB RAM, Windows 10 It is strange to imagine – I thought as I battled a giant vomit-spewing plant monster in a hallucination induced by a biological weapon – that Call of Duty…

TR-49 review: TR-49 is an engrossing narrative puzzle game that sees you learning all the ins and outs of a fictional literary circle. Developer: Inkle Publisher: Inkle Release: January 21st, 2026 On: Windows 10 and up From: Steam Price: TBC Reviewed on: Intel Core i7-8700, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070, Windows 11 I am in the dusty basement of Manchester cathedral. On the streets above me, there are police searching for anyone who would challenge the state. Someone like me. I am supposed to be working on a weapon to use against these fascists. It isn’t a gun or…

Image via Aquiris Game Studio I didn’t expect Horizon Chase 2 to look and feel so much better than its predecessor. | Published: May 31, 2024 07:31 pm There was something pure and absurdly fun about arcade racing games from the 90s. While this genre has not been popular for a long time, at least we have Aquiris Games Studio to thank for the absolute gem that Horizon Chase 2 is. Retro Music and Retro Visuals Made by a small team, Horizon Chase 2 is a game created with a clear vision, which I admire. It wasn’t trying to do…

The Land Beneath Us starts a bit slow and the gameplay can feel repetitive after a while. However, although it doesn’t succeed at everything, it’s an entertaining game that can be experienced casually while also providing a challenge for those who want to master its tactical combat. The Blend Beneath Us Image via FairPlay Studios The visuals of The Land Beneath Us are not necessarily original, but they get the job done. The game has that same minimalist pixel art style without outlines that we’ve seen in many indie games lately, but combined with simple 3D platforms and a modern-looking…

Everyone talks about skill in esports, but almost no one talks about the wire – a single flicker in connection, a few milliseconds of delay, and the outcome tilts. You might not see it, yet it’s there, the quiet heartbeat of every match. Bettors who ignore it risk missing half the story. What Lag Actually Does Lag isn’t magic or mystery. It’s taking a little too long for data to travel between a player and the game server. That delay, the ping, looks tiny on paper. In practice, it’s everything. What is Network latency? In a simple chart… Think about…

It’s fitting that Code Vein II is set in a world of vampires. As I hunted down these bloodsucking creatures in the present and 100 years in the past to prevent the collapse of the world, I felt trapped within its clutches, like a castle guest desperate to escape but unable to do so. Across 42 hours of monotonous game, I found little warmth here. Its skin, a distractingly garish and ugly visual style, is as cold as its blood, a combat system that struggles to fuse original ideas onto a skeleton sculpted better elsewhere in the genre. Even its…

The Meta Quest 2 (previously Oculus Quest 2) is an interesting update to the tether-free, wireless virtual reality (VR) headset from Meta. The original was one of our favourite VR headsets as it was a fantastic leap forward from smartphone VR headsets and a great middle-ground between those and much more expensive headsets like the HTC Vive Pro 2. With no PC requirement, the Quest still managed to offer high-end VR gaming experiences at an affordable price.  But with the original Quest still being so fantastic, what more can the Quest 2 offer? Well, 50 per cent more RAM, 50…

Bandai Namco’s Tales of remaster push is in full swing, following the rerelease of Graces f, return of Xillia Remastered, and upcoming Berseria revival. It’s a good time to play catch up, for sure. This does mean things are par for the course. With Tales of Xillia Remastered on the Switch we’re getting access on a new platform with some quality of life changes, but performance is better on Switch 2. Tales of Xillia features two protagonists. Jude Mathis is a medical student in Fennmont. While investigating instances of people unable to use Spirit Artes and his mentor’s absence after…