Tag: game review

Mini-Reviews | May 2025 Demos

30 June 2025 / Sinead

Spilled! (PC, Steam)

Spilled! is a very small game about making the world a nicer place. You pilot a boat, armed with a water cannon and a big scoop, through polluted, oil-filled water to clean up the gunk, sweep all of the debris away, and rescue stuck animals. Returning the mess and debris to a recyling centre gives you coins which you can then spend on upgrades for the boat, such as faster speed, a larger holding tank, or an even bigger scoop.

It aims to be relaxing, rather than intensely fun – the reward for cleaning up each area is seeing the formerly brown and murky waters returning to beautiful blue ones teeming with coral, tropical fish and plants, and rescuing its creatures from being trapped in muck, rather than acheivements or loud fanfares.

The controls are simple: RB/RT to accelerate, LB/LT to slow down, B to stop, and the left stick to turn. (Just note that the turning is relative to the screen, not the boat, so holding the stick left will make the boat turn towards the left of the screen regardless of direction). The water cannon and magnetic scoop are assigned to the face buttons, which the settings menu describes as “button north/south/east/west” – I’m not sure if this is a programming/translation efficiency thing, or just a quirk, but either way I quite liked it.

The UI is also very minimal, as the small size of each sub-area, and the choice to have a recycling center and upgrade stations in each sub-area, means that information such as your coin count and the number of coins needed for upgrades can be stored on these buildings and not require any HUD space. The instructions are wordless, which I often dislike, but it this case it is done well – the pictures and icons used are very clear, as are the video prompts that show how to activate an upgrade station when you drive into it.

The pixel-art graphics are very pleasant and detailed in the environments I saw during the demo, and they demonstrate the relaxing nature of the game well. The gentle piano-led soundtrack also supports this. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of the “slurp” noise of sucking up the oil from the water, that’s just my dysfunctional ears – the sound does work well in the conext of the game. (It can also be turned off separately from the music.).

When I finished the demo section after about 20 minutes, the ending screen said that there was “about 45 minutes of game left after this point”. Spilled! is made by one developer, Lente, with another person assisting with graphics, and its clear that they are aiming to share a small but finished and polished game, rather than overpromising and having to compromise.

Am I buying this one? Yes. £4.49 for what will be an enjoyable 1-1.5 hours, and which supports the indie-est kind of indie dev, is a fair trade for me. Spilled! is a definite recommend if you like games such as Unpacking or Powerwash Simulator. As a bonus, 10 cents from every sale goes to a whale and dolphin conservation charity.

Mini-Reviews | April 2025 Demos

1 June 2025 / Sinead

Potions: A Curious Tale (Xbox)

Potions: A Curious Tale is an adventure game with a focus on crafting, and a “wits over weapons” approach to combat. This is conveyed clearly from the first interaction with an enemy, which lets you stumble into the right thing to do in a way that feels surprisingly natural. Similarly, the plot is explained through dialogue rather than explicit instruction or popups, but in a non-annoying and quite natural-feeling way.

As protagonist Luna, your aim is to develop your witching skills and potion reportoire by learning from your Granny, the towns potion master. During my play time, the majority of missions could be boiled down to problem-solving via fetch quests and exploring new areas to find ingredients for crafting a large variety of potions. The crafting system is based on blending different amounts of earth, air, water, and fire ingredients, which gives enough structure that you can start experimenting with combinations straight away. Some missions also include combat encounters, which are intended to be managed by using the environment (and even other enemies) to your advantage, rather than by just throwing potions everywhere.

One of my favourite parts of the game was its art style, which is aesthetically pleasant and calming but not boring. Each area has a distinct colour palette, collectibles, and cast of enemies. There are also some graphical quality-of-life features, such as ingredients being highlighted in purple during conversations and some interactable objects being highlighted in yellow. While there are no maps for individual areas, the visual clues provided are fairly easy to understand: for example, paths that lead back to the main map have a different appearance to the regular paths in that area. Also, once you have navigated to a deeper area of a zone, you can then choose to go back to that area. E.g. on reaching the Deep Dark Forest, you can choose to enter at the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th sub-area. This cuts down the backtracking needed for longer quests without removing the locations entirely.

Review | Galacticare

18 August 2024 / Sinead

On paper, the aim of Galacticare seems straightforward: grow your chain of hospitals by taking on bigger and bigger challenges – ranging from space-trains to music festivals, to an entire planet – while juggling patients, pests, natural disasters, and a rival chain. But any expectations of Galacticare being a staid or overly-serious game can be thrown out from entering the tutorial, where HEAL, your AI assistant, introduces you to the Objectives panel by stating that “Your Objectives should be displayed now. If they’re not, then everything is broken, and it may be simpler for you to resign”.

HEAL’s sarcastic wit is not the only source of humour – in fact, every member of the cast provides humour both by themselves and in the way they play off other characters. Robot-janitor Medi’s character springs fully-formed from his first line: “It’s me, Medi! HEAL says I’m a toaster, and that I might actually be useful if I was dropped in someone’s bathtub”. Medi’s eager kid-sidekick nature is sympathetic on its own but then becomes comedic as a foil to HEAL; the pair bicker like a robotic equivalent of JD and Dr Cox from Scrubs.

CEO and gadget-creator Kora is the comparative voice of reason, but she is still fleshed out with a streak of mad-scientist enthusiasm for the unknown and a tendency to briefly lose rationality when talking to (or about) the adorable engineer species, the Tenki. In her defence, the Tenki are very fuzzy. Finally, antagonist Salazar’s blend of slick CEO charm with contempt for the player’s hospital-running skills, such as the player’s decision to actually pay their staff, makes him an enjoyable villain both to listen to and to win against.

Galacticare‘s writing is full of humour in many forms, from sharp wit to surreal non-sequiturs –“It began with crop circles and cow abductions, and ended up in appropriating the most problematic parts of 1950s Earth culture – surf rock and traditional gender roles”. Cultural references also play their part – a recurring patient named Klem Banzig frequently needs rehab from his energy drink addiction, while another introduces themselves as Xirleslienielssennoria but then says “and you may call me Shirley“.

Review | The Finals

6 February 2024 / Sinead

In the year 2100, the world’s most popular sport happens virtually rather than physically. Competitors don VR headsets to enter matches of The Finals, fighting for both money and the attention of the show’s many sponsors, whose gifts of merchandise act as badges of honour.

This premise sounded pretty interesting, generic name aside, so I tried The Finals out on a whim after hearing positive comments on its gameplay from friends, knowing very little beyond that it was an FPS. It didn’t get off to the best start because the first thing I saw after installing and launching the game was a “create an account” screen. (If I did reviews out of 10, games with mandatory account requirements would automatically lose at least half a point!).

Once reluctantly logged in, however, I was impressed by the surprisingly effective tutorial. The tutorial included a shooting range with distance markers, vertical structures to practice traversal, and droppable items to practice changing the environment. There were also both hostile and friendly training dummies so that players could try out using healing items and creating cover for allies as well as fighting, reinforcing the team-based aim.

During the tutorial I experienced an interesting visual glitch where my gun became detached from the rest of my character, making it impossible for me to change weapons or interact with objects. However, this turned out to be the only bug I encountered: The Finals provided remarkably (by 2024 standards) stable and bug-free gameplay. Unfortunately, that’s one of the few compliments I can provide, because despite its mechanical and functional quality, the game did not click at all for me.

Review | Exoprimal

25 July 2023 / Sinead

Exoprimal can be roughly described as the result of asking a nine-year-old to describe “the coolest thing possible”. How so? Because you are a mech suit pilot who has been yoinked through time by a rogue AI in order to blow up ludicrous numbers of dinosaurs.

Now, there is more to the story than that headline description. There is an interesting plot, which focuses on your crew gathering enough knowledge and data to escape the mysterious island you have crashed on to and to discover the Leviathan AI’s intentions. There is an often-humorous set of supporting characters with distinct personalities and motivations. There is a well-balanced set of available exosuits with some fun abilities. There are in-match upgrade systems and comeback systems that can let you seize a last-minute victory. But if you do just want to switch your brain off and vaporise thousands of dinosaurs, or if you want to briefly be a dinosaur, Exoprimal has still got you covered.

Exoprimal is a PvPvE game where two rival teams of mech suit pilots (known in-game as exofighters) race against each other to complete sets of PvE objectives before either directly competing in a PVP fight or teaming up to take down a larger boss. Starting from the basic Dinosaur Cull objective, which simply requires slaughtering a few hundred dinosaurs, the range of objectives includes Overwatch-style payload-pushing, protecting a valuable NPC, capturing control points, and smashing sets of beacons with a giant hammer. Matches generally contain 3-4 objectives plus the final round, which is a fair length that doesn’t usually feel too rushed or too padded.

During PvE objectives, players can disrupt the rival team in one of two ways. Firstly, they can use a Dominator powerup: this summons a controllable dinosaur which is then transported into the enemy arena (similar to invading the other team’s map in Destiny 2‘s Gambit mode). In dino form, you can either attack the enemy players or contest their objective to slow their progress. Alternately, if you are falling far behind the other team, Leviathan may offer you a last-ditch Upgrade. If you are offered an upgrade, your team must find and kill special “trigger” enemies. Killing them quickly enough to appease Leviathan upgrades the other team’s game, making their enemies stronger and giving your team a chance to catch up.

Mini-Review Collection – Demo Edition

1 February 2023 / Sinead

During the last couple of months, I’ve been trying to get out of my “only playing Destiny 2” rut. Exploring the demos section of the Xbox store seemed like a good place to start, as I knew I would be likely to find something that I wouldn’t have thought of searching for.

I tried a mixture of games; these four games are the ones I played and thought about enough to write a fair review for.

Ghostunner – 3.8 GB
Klonoa: Phantasy Reverie Series – 3.5 GB
Button City – 840 MB
Dead Pets Unleashed – 2.5 GB

Ghostrunner

During the opening cutscene, your character is betrayed and brutally attacked. Then you awaken, having been repaired by an AI who then tells you that you need to release them from prison. So far, so cyberpunk. However, while the story presented in the first level seems a little generic, the gameplay is the star of this show.

The Ghostrunner demo contains the first two levels of the game, which show off three main gameplay types. One type is pure traversal; using your Ghostrunner abilities of sliding, grappling, jumping, wall-running and air-dashing to fluidly travel across the city. The second type is combat sections, which are closer to being puzzles than typical fights. Enemies die in one hit, but so do you. So the combat sections are about using your parkour skills to zip to each enemy in turn before they can see and lock on to you, deliver the killing blow, then zip over to the next enemy, in as seamless a chain of movement as possible. The best comparison I can make is that it’s like a hybrid of Mirror’s Edge and Superhot, without being a copy of either game.

During the combat sections, you will die a lot. However, the game is designed with that quick trial-and-error loop in mind – checkpoints are frequent, death has no obvious consequences, and you respawn very quickly – so combat doesn’t get too frustrating. (There is also an upgrade system, and an assist mode, in the full game, but neither of these were present in the demo, which I think was a misstep).

Review | Beasts of Maravilla Island

25 November 2022 / Sinead

After completing the first level, I felt that Beasts of Maravilla Island was fairly good yet not particularly memorable. But then I saw the second level. Its celestial blue-and-purple colour scheme, dotted with glowing plants and vibrant creatures, absolutely delivered on the feeling of awe and wonder that Maravilla aimed to create. For me, that environment took the game straight from ok to good, and guaranteed my interest in both finishing the game and writing a review of it.

Beasts of Maravilla Island is a third-person snapshooter where you control Marina, a wildlife photographer. Marina has grown up listening to her grandfather’s stories of Maravilla Island, a magical-seeming place where he was once shipwrecked. Now, armed with his camera and his detailed journal, she is visiting the area to see if her grandfather’s stories are true, and to share them with the world if they are true.

During the introductory custscene, Marina is on a ship to the island, and at the start of the game she mentions that she will be picked up the next day. This makes clear to players that the adventure will be fairly short, but more importantly, it sets the tone for the rest of the game by making clear upfront that Marina is not lost, abandoned, or in danger.

After landing on the shore, the first main area, the jungle, is just a short walk away. The Singing Jungle is a vibrant and tropical area filled with colourful birds, gemstone-themed beetles, and climbable vines. This area introduces the player to all of the necessary mechanics; moving, taking photos, picking up objects to solve puzzles, checking the book of stored photos, and checking the journal for clues about the creatures.

The second area, which really caught my attention, is the Glimmering River, a night-time zone with waterfalls, glowing rivers and crystal caves. Here, there is a little more interaction with the focal creature, including a charming game of fetch, plus puzzles that gently build on the ones players solved in the first level.

The final level – the Painted Plateau – contrasts with the previous two, as areas of withered grass and barren rocks suggest that trouble has come to the peaceful world. Desert-based plants and creatures like cacti, lizards, and birds of prey prevail here. Bonus points for Maravilla here for being possibly the only game I’ve ever played with spiders that aren’t scary at all.

Review | Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands

10 April 2022 / Sinead

I can often take months (or years…) to complete game campaigns, so finishing a campaign just 10 days after a game’s launch may actually be a speed record for me!

While I have played most of the Borderlands series, I’ve never played the Assault on Dragon’s Keep DLC for Borderlands 2 that inspired Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. So I had limited knowledge of what I was in for, beyond that the usual staples of humour, loot, and eccentric randomly-generated-guns would receive a tabletop twist.

This guess was correct, but I found that Wonderlands was a larger, denser, and even funnier game than I was expecting. Unfortuately, it was also a buggier game than I was expecting. But let’s talk about what Wonderlands is aiming for first, before going into specifics.

The context of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is that people inside the Borderlands universe play a tabletop game named ‘Bunkers & Badasses’. After travellers Valentine, Frette, and the Newbie crash their spaceship into a mountain, Tina lets the stragglers rest in her house until they’re rescued… but only if they play ‘Bunkers & Badasses’ with her.

The gameplay of Wonderlands takes place inside that round of ‘Bunkers & Badasses’. You play as the Newbie, who is controlling the main character of the ‘Bunkers & Badasses’ match, while Tina is the bunker master in control of the story, and Valentine and Frette act as the Newbie’s advisors. This structure gives the game chance to experiment with the usual Borderlands style and gameplay, while also leaving lots of room for messing with the fourth wall and packing the game with an even wider range of references and shout-outs than usual. So far I’ve found side-quests that reference media as far apart as The Secret of Monkey Island, The Smurfs, and Don Quixote.

Mini-Review Collection – ‘Wholesome’ Edition

21 February 2022 / Sinead

Today I’m doing something a little bit different, and posting a group of mini-reviews rather than one more detailed review.

These games are linked by a common theme; they are all indie games with an accessible nature and a generally light-hearted and innocent tone. They are all what the internet generally calls ‘wholesome’.

So if you’re interested in skateboarding birds, fashionable dogs, or a bouncy Peggle-styled dungeon-crawler, please read on.

Review | Call Of Duty Black Ops: Cold War (Campaign)

13 February 2022 / Sinead

My first ever FPS was Call of Duty: Black Ops, and my favourite FPS is Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. So as soon as I learned that Black Ops: Cold War was a direct sequel to Black Ops that returned to the tone and focus of the start of the series, I really hoped to enjoy it.

The majority of Cold War is business as usual for the “boots on the ground” type of COD games, and gameplay is mostly the familiar COD blend of corridor-shooter sections, setpiece spectacles, and vehicle segments. However, Cold War had more stealth elements than I remember previous games having, such as a mission where you must sneak into someone’s house to plant an item and so need to listen to the environment and family chatter to successfully avoid the target and his family. The stealth peaks with a mission that involves inflitrating KGB headquarters, which requires consistent caution – both in where you go and in how you talk to NPCs – for 90% of the mission, but then pays off with an explosive final 10%.

Where Cold War tries something new is in its campaign, which steps away from the linear A>B path of most COD games. The first and final missions are locked in place, but the rest can be done in any order, and can be replayed to complete side objectives that unlock once you’ve collected and decrypted evidence from other missions. (You can attempt the side missions without collecting enough evidence, or without solving the decryption puzzles, but this is very unlikely to succeed). Cold War is structured around using an evidence board to decide your team’s next moves and identify where the villain, near-mythical Soviet spy Perseus, is, and I found that this approach worked surprisingly well.