Growing up, I absolutely loved MediEvil on the PS1. The spooky yet lighthearted aesthetic really spoke to me as a child and would ultimately help foster a lifelong passion for the horror genre. So when I saw trailers for Gloomy Eyes from developer Fishing Cactus, I was instantly enamoured with the Tim Burton-esque vibes.

Drawing inspiration from the likes of Little Nightmares and Inside, Gloomy Eyes is a puzzle-adventure that stars two characters, Nena and Gloomy, who begin an unlikely friendship. Described as "self co-op", the game is strictly single-player, but you’ll be swapping between the two protagonists on the fly in an effort to complete each level, while voiced narration provides context and backstory.

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I've become so used to Nintendo taking its sweet time with DLC rollouts I assumed there was no way we'd get first-party add-ons within the first year of Switch 2. Happy Home Paradise, the Booster Course Pass and Side Order were all pleasantly surprising, not because of their packed bonus content (though that was a welcome factor), but because I had given up hope of ever hearing from these games again. So, you can only imagine my surprise when Nintendo flung an image of DK and Pauline at me last week, accompanied by the words 'DLC' and 'Available Today'.

It has been a little over two months since Donkey Kong Bananza launched on Switch 2, and the DLC is already here. The DK Island & Emerald Rush expansion packs in a new area to explore and a ridiculously fun new game mode, but its proximity to the base game's arrival and a £16.99 / $19.99 price tag make it difficult to shake the feeling that this add-on content should have been included from the jump. In short, this banana is split.

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Hollow Knight: Silksong didn’t need to do much; it just needed to be 'more Hollow Knight'. That’s a huge task in itself; a slightly bigger, slightly better version of an already amazing, genre-defining game. But it’s clear that, after seven years of refining and perfecting and toiling, Team Cherry wanted more than just 'more Hollow Knight'. Hours and hours of love have been poured into every single aspect of Silksong, where the attention to detail is off the charts, and the surprises just keep coming. It elevates map design and purposeful challenge effortlessly, and is an improvement on Hollow Knight in every single way.

I knew from the moment I first stepped into Pharloom and was wowed by its beautiful colour palette and its eclectic mix of bug NPCs, I would fall in love with this game. But the moment that truly cemented it for me was when I was struck with a revelation (very literally) by being hit by an enemy for two masks of damage instead of one. Barbs, spikes, and booby trap benches lay in waiting to catch me off guard. Sawblades and pits are just out of view to punish a dashing Hornet. One time, I stood on a switch that activated a blade that killed me in one hit after a tricky platforming challenge. I couldn’t stop laughing; I owe Primal Aspids an apology.

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In 2022’s Strange Horticulture, you ran a little shop of horrors, dealing plants with an occult edge to the inhabitants of a mysterious dark town. Now, Bad Viking and Iceberg Interactive’s follow-up, Strange Antiquities, takes us back to Undermere. Again, something strange is afoot. Again, you hear residents’ problems and offer up solutions from your range. Again, there’s a cat you can pat (!) who gets startled by the shop bell.

But this time, instead of being plant-based, the solutions are antique-based. If you enjoyed the first instalment for its puzzles and sinister aura, be sure to reach for this treasure, because it’s just as fun. (Either way, the first game is worth playing.)

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Developer Wales Interactive is back with another FMV game, this time joining forces with movie studio Dark Rift Horror to present an Alien-inspired sci-fi romp with Dead Reset. Much like previous titles such as The Bunker and Five Dates, this latest effort has you make key choices at frequent intervals to influence the story and, in this case, maybe survive the horrors ahead.

Spoiler: You won’t survive. Y’see, as the title suggests, Dead Reset is set within a time loop, with protagonist Cole Mason reliving the same moments over and over again with each subsequent death – sort of like Edge of Tomorrow, then. Taking place within a dilapidated sci-fi lab of sorts, Cole discovers that a series of experiments has led to the birth of a deadly, gruesome monster; one that emerges from the chest of a helpless victim, no less. Remind you of anything?

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When the Bubsy in: The Purrfect Collection was announced, the news received hundreds of thousands of shares and millions of cumulative views. This, friends, is a stark reminder of the strength of nostalgia, an evocative sensation that can stir the heart and cloud the memory.

Let’s be clear: Bubsy the Bobcat has never had a good game. While Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back (2017) and Bubsy: Paws On Fire! (2019) — neither present in this collection — are certainly more playable than the '90s titles, they were still met with a lukewarm reception.

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As much as I can understand the derision from some quarters regarding NBA 2K26, FC 26, Madden — any of these big sports' games in their yearly, money-grubbing modern forms — I have, unfortunately, got a few of them to thank for several things that I enjoy in life these days. One of which is the old basketballs.

For most of my life, Basketball was a game where people ran up and down a court, scoring and then letting the other team score. There was no discernible defence, no strategy, nothing other than to be incredibly athletic and awesome and beautiful - and good at going airborne. Oh, and if you had a gigantic wobbly NBA Jam head and a pair of fireproof sneakers, well, all the better.

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In the run-up to the launch of Bloober Team’s new IP, Cronos: The New Dawn, chances are you saw one or two (or ten) comparisons to EA’s Dead Space series. And yes, while there are definitely some similarities between the two, I’d feel more comfortable describing Cronos as an amalgamation of nearly every major survival horror game ever released.

This is both good and bad. In one sense, Cronos is the quintessential survival horror, taking all the best elements from Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Alone in the Dark, and the aforementioned Dead Space, making for an experience that genre fans will relish. On the other hand, it never really attempts anything new to call its own, and although its setting and story certainly elevate it, there’s little here that hasn’t already been done elsewhere.

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BOKURA: planet is a two-player, two-device-only co-op game that launched on Switch and Switch 2 on 7th August.

A follow-up to 2023's BOKURA, indie developer tokoronyori says of the first game that he "kept wondering what scenery I might have seen if I'd gone in the complete opposite direction...In the end, I couldn't hold back. I ran the other way, which is how BOKURA: planet was born, and the view here is incredible."

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I find myself in a bit of an unusual position with Star Wars Outlaws on Switch 2 in that, having already played through the entire thing and reviewed it for our sister site Pure Xbox in 2024, I feel like I'm getting a quick second chance to see if my 8/10 score was justified. Spoiler alert: it was absolutely justified. So that's that bit sorted.

I was a little surprised when the reviews dropped for Massive Entertainment's take on the Star Wars universe because, for my money, they've actually outdone Respawn in a few critical ways. As much as I love the Jedi series, it does feel like a great big Star Wars rollercoaster that throws all the stuff you expect to see at you as you careen through at high speed. It's like climbing and fighting on a big film set. And that's fine.

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Spare a thought for Adventure of Samsara, Atari’s newest retro-styled Metroidvania. Developed for over a decade by the Brazilian studio Ilex Games, it has the unlucky distinction of releasing on the very same day as ultra-anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong, which is bound to take all the oxygen out of the room among the gaming commentariat upon release.

This, however, is an interesting place to start. Samsara’s creators, according to a developer podcast, spent years being told by publishers to make their game “more like Hollow Knight.” They resisted calls for ultra-fluid, instant-response combat, opting to stick to their own vision of a platformer where fighting unfolds at a weightier and more deliberate pace.

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Fans of Everybody’s Golf have had to twiddle their one-gloved thumbs for a while now, waiting since 2017 for a new official entry in the series. Mashing together the series’ previously regionally distinct names (Everybody’s Golf and Hot Shots Golf), Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots has finally stepped up to the tee. Have series newcomers Hyde (Tamagotchi Plaza) hit a hole in one, or is this more like a triple bogey? Well, a bit of both really.

For almost all of its history, Everybody’s Golf was developed by Clap Hanz and published by Sony. Hyde is in the driving seat now, with Bandai Namco on the publishing side, unlocking the series from PlayStation for the first time. However, they’re clearly working from the same playbook, keeping what works best in the series while adding some novel ideas of their own.

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Regarding modern augmentations, SHINOBI: Art of Vengeance and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound — released not even a month apart — have a lot of overlap. Yet, after 45 minutes of play, I was convinced that Art of Vengeance is one of the finest 2D Ninja action games ever made. Perhaps the finest; and such praise doesn’t come lightly.

After Ragebound’s dazzle, I was unsure if Shinobi could top it; yet it has. Visually beautiful, broadly artistic, and almost calligraphic in nature, the styling is well-married to its Japanese thematic. Natural elements of wood, cloth, and stone fuse with heavy machinery, concrete and military steel, the rural areas reflecting the painted landscapes of Hokusai and Taikan.

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Daemon x Machina: Titanic Scion arrives at an interesting time in these early months after the release of Switch 2. There haven't been many AAA-styled heavy-hitters to push this system so far, certainly not in terms of action games, at least. And so, Titanic Scion feels like it should give us a reasonable idea of how the console is positioned to handle this type of experience.

And it's a rough first pass. The console's just out, and this is a big old game with a whole lot going on, so it follows, rather unsurprisingly, that some issues are present, and concessions have had to be made to get it running on Nintendo's machine. It turns out the Switch 2 really isn't a pocket PS5 after all! But we knew that, you and I. It just stings a little when your new console can't play the new thing as nice as some other, not-quite-as-new consoles.

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Taito may be famous for creating the likes of Space Invaders and Bubble Bobble, but for a brief period at the close of the 1980s, it became the hottest name in arcades thanks to the release of Operation Wolf, a Rambo-inspired military shooter with a realistic Uzi strapped to its cabinet.

Ported to pretty much every home system of the era, the game was followed by sequels that expanded on the core gameplay but never quite achieved the same degree of fame. Fast forward to the present, and emulation specialist M2 has bundled up Wolf with Operation Thunderbolt and Space Gun — and thrown in the utterly superb Night Striker, a Super Scaler-style shooter inspired by the likes of Space Harrier and After Burner for good measure — to create Operation Night Strikers.

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To celebrate the newly released movie adaptation of The Exit 8, the Switch version has received a minor, yet welcome upgrade for the Switch 2.

If you're unaware of the premise, The Exit 8 takes place in a looping corridor within a Japanese metro station. Your job is to escape, but to do so, you’ll need to keep an eye on your surroundings, as each loop through the corridor may reveal some odd ‘anomalies’.

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Leave it up to Kazutaka Kodaka to come up with one of the weirdest stories in gaming, huh?

Following on from the outrageously ambitious The Hundred Line - Last Defense Academy, the creator has now joined forces with developer Neilo on the new visual novel Shuten Order. I say ‘visual novel’, and that’s absolutely the overarching genre, but it also manages to feature five distinct sub-genres within its surprisingly lengthy story. Wild stuff.

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Recently, I was back reading over my original Kirby and the Forgotten Land review to get a quick reminder of how I found the base game when it released in 2022 (what is time?) and, yeah, it seems I fairly enjoyed that one, now that I've rebooted my brain a little bit.

I jest, of course, I fully remember the experience, thank you very much! Usually, Kirby is a little low-stakes for my liking, but Forgotten Land swerved my personal issues with this series by giving us a fantastic 3D adventure that was as creative and exciting with its mechanics as it was beautiful to behold. And remember how excited we all got for Mouthful Mode? Remember Kirby car? Oh, how we laughed!

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Though Shantae has become well-established today as a recognisable indie gaming icon, there was once a time when the purple-haired half-genie hero struggled to find an audience. The original Shantae released for the GBC in 2002 and suffered poor sales, which led to publishers being unwilling to pick up the tab for funding the sequel Wayforward had planned for the GBA called Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution. Though development had progressed quite a bit, this title was ultimately shelved and interestingly wasn’t revisited when the studio eventually got Shantae: Risky’s Revenge published for the DSi as the official second game in the series.

Some concepts and mechanics from Risky Revolution were repurposed for later entries, but it wasn’t until 2023 that WayForward revealed it had resumed development on their mascot's lost sophomore outing. And after an initial exclusivity period earlier this year in which the game was only available on an actual GBA cart, WayForward has now brought this interesting piece of Shantae history to modern platforms. After having put it through its paces, I’m happy to report that Risky Revolution offers up an enjoyable glimpse into Shantae’s past that largely still holds up after all these years.

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Cast your minds back, if you're still able, to the year of our lord 2022 and the release of Moral Anxiety Studio's tremendous Roadwarden. Yes, you know the one, that PC game you may not have played but certainly heard plenty about, as it garnered a whole bunch of Very Nice Reviews™.

And here, to be blunt, is another for the pile. What's the point in mincing words? Who has time in this economy? Roadwarden is a special game, you see, one of those that stays with you long after the fact of having played it. It's been compared, and rightly so, to the likes of the also-rather-good Disco Elysium, in how it creates an unflinching world that's absolutely dripping in atmosphere and tiny details, a world that's stuffed to the gills with meaningful encounters, fascinating conversations and choices that embed you in it all. Right up to your eyeballs, my friends.

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Sometimes the lines between remaster and remake can be blurred. Metroid Prime Remastered seems much more like a full remake, and a few games called remakes don’t quite live up to expectations. For Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar - based on Harvest Moon DS: Grand Bazaar - even the term remake doesn’t quite seem to do it justice. This feels more like a fresh new entry in the Story of Seasons franchise that picks up the best elements of the DS title to deliver a spectacular farming sim that gleefully digs its own path.

Grand Bazaar casts you as a fledgling farmer in Zephyr Town, a gorgeous little place with a friendly cast of characters waiting to become your friends, or if you play your cards right, your spouse. While you may be familiar with the regular farming mechanics in this series, Grand Bazaar’s titular mechanic - the bazaar - adds an engaging twist to proceedings that kept me up for hours.

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The last time I tried shepherding an unruly beast, I wasn’t exactly a fan. It was midnight, I was exhausted, and my dog simply refused to come back inside. Typical. Thankfully, Herdling offers a much cosier alternative, replacing a stubborn pup with fantastical beasties that actually listen to me.

Developed by Okomotive, the studio behind the wonderful FAR series, Herdling carries the same blend of quiet melancholy and atmosphere as the studio’s other games. Though fleeting in length, Herdling is a breath of fresh air - a journey sure to stick with you, even if its core gameplay feels a tad clunky.

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This review was originally published in November 2009. We're updating and republishing it in honour of the game's arrival on Switch 2 as part of the Nintendo Classics GameCube lineup.

Meet the Sandersons, your atypical, dysfunctional American family.

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Once upon a time, Jet-Ski games were all the rage. Arcade cabinets and fifth generation consoles were replete with these high-speed polygonal racers that sent you careening around tracks set in sunny locales with bobbing water physics. Aqua Jet was an early example of the trend and released the very same year as Wave Race 64. Now, you can play it in all its glory on Switch 2.

Hamster Corporation has recently released two other classic Namco arcade titles on the new console in Air Combat and Ridge Racer, and Aqua Jet is just as lovingly curated as those games. In lieu of riding a replica personal watercraft, like the original cabinet offered, there's some nice feedback from the HD rumble and togglable gyroscopic controls. Elsewhere, there are widescreen format options and the ability to play both English and Japanese versions of the ROM.

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No one who has ever worked in retail would compare the experience to a cosy life management sim. I used to have nightmares about stock variance and queues of angry customers who seemed determined to ruin my day as much as they felt I had ruined theirs.

Yet, Danish developer Crinkle Cut Games seems to think that managing a busy supermarket is something people will enjoy doing on the couch or on the go. Thankfully, they wrapped a charming world around this premise, complete with a pixel art style and chill soundscape. Despite the hellish inspiration, Discounty is almost good enough to be mentioned alongside genre luminaries like Stardew Valley, even though it doesn't do anything drastically different with the basic formula.

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