Ian

About Ian

Ian likes his games weird. He loves his Vita even if Sony don't anymore. He joined the PS4 party relatively late, but has been in since day one on PS5.

Lumines Arise is the last of the loose trilogy of Synaesthesia Engine games from Enhance & Monstars, following Rez Infinite and Tetris Effect, both being Tetsuya Mizuguchi jams. The concept might be familiar to you, first appearing as a PSP launch title and with a subsequent sequel on the same […]

Lumines Arise – PS5 Review

November 29, 2025 in PS5 / PSVR / Reviews tagged enhance / lumines arise / mizuguchi / monstars / synaesthesia by Ian

This reviewer’s kid used to love this book by a writer called Julia Donaldson called What The Ladybird Heard, most of the fun of reading as a parent being really enthusiastic doing the animal noises. If you read a book to your kid in excess of twenty times, you make […]

Cat God Ranch – PS5 Review

November 22, 2025 in PS5 / Reviews tagged bafflement / cat god / China / crazy potato by Ian

Hidden Cats in Rio de Janeiro is the latest from Silesia Games and in this case, Nukearts, they of the last but one hidden cat game we reviewed, that being in Tokyo. You know the drill by now. Look at images, find the cats. It does away with the largely […]

Hidden Cats in Rio de Janeiro – PS5 Review

November 16, 2025 in PS5 / Reviews tagged hidden cats / joinville sc / nukearts / rio / samba / silesia / wout van aert by Ian

Instruments of Destruction is quite the nostalgia trip. Gamers of a similar vintage to us will surely recognise a little shared DNA with Rare’s 1997 N64 game Blast Corps. In that you drive various vehicles at buildings with the aim of affecting their integrity sufficiently that they fall down. Or […]

Instruments of Destruction – PS5 Review

November 16, 2025 in PS5 / Reviews tagged blast corps / now you're trying to impress me / radian games / secret mode / time to get moving by Ian

Fast and Furious Arcade Edition is the home version of Raw Thrills’ 2022 arcade machine, only without the twin 65” UHD screens. It’s fun to see that even they resort to weapons grade bullshots on their publicity material, what’s shown there are in fact renders as shown on the loading […]

Fast and Furious Arcade Edition – PS5 Review

October 24, 2025 in PS5 / Reviews tagged bernard is better / fast and furious arcade / full of holes like a swiss cheese / havana laugh / hong kong blaverage / rubberbandman / shallow / what colombia famous has made a prick out of you / you'll be furious fast if you buy this by Ian

Gnomdom is the latest from our pals at Silesia Games. In a somewhat shocking turn of events, it’s NOT a hidden cat game. It definitely falls into the casual cosy game category, so not a massive deviation in that regard. Developed by Dana and Vivi, we guess a small indie […]

Gnomdom – PS5 Review

October 23, 2025 in PS5 / Reviews tagged Gnome / puzzle / silesia games by Ian

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter first came out PC in 2004 and then PSP in 2006. Western audiences didn’t get it until XSeed did a localisation job of the PSP edition in 2011 and even then it passed many by, including us. It even came out on Vita a […]

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter – PS5 Review

October 12, 2025 in PS5 / Reviews tagged falcom / i hate that duck / orbal / steampunkish / trails by Ian

Cats & Seek: Kyoto is the latest from Silesia Games, this time developed by noobzilla. Sharp eyed readers might remember this dev also did Cats & Seek: Dino Park and this is very much more of the same in that regard. As it happens that was the first hidden cat […]

Cats & Seek: Kyoto – PS5 Review

October 10, 2025 in PS5 / Reviews tagged hidden cats / it comes from camberwell and looks like a carrot / noobzilla / once you gone you stay gone or you be gone / polska / silesia games by Ian

Gloomy Eyes was originally a VR movie released in 2020 featuring that fella Colin Farrell as the narrator aka the gravekeeper. This is the game of the movie if you will, using many of the assets from the pre-rendered movie for the game. It shares the same scenario broadly as […]

Gloomy Eyes – PS5 Review

October 10, 2025 in PS5 / Reviews tagged gloomy eyes / ian astbury / mons / wallonia / zombies by Ian

Hidden Cats in Tokyo is this month’s hidden cat game from our pals at Silesia Games. This time it’s coded by Brazilian dev Nukearts who have previous hidden cat game form with jaunts to Paris, London and Berlin amongst others. If you ever played one of these sorts of games […]

Hidden Cats in Tokyo – PS5 Review

September 19, 2025 in PS5 / Reviews tagged hidden cats / nihon / silesia games by Ian

From Puppygames and Thalamus Digital comes the game formerly known as Basingstoke. Originally released on PC in 2018, it has made the move to PS5 and gained a Welcome to prefix, though we have to question quite why. The Basingstoke part could just as well have been any number of […]

Welcome to Basingstoke – PS5 Review

September 19, 2025 in PS5 / Reviews tagged amazingstoke / basingstoke / geographical inconsistencies / rogue-like by Ian

Hook: Complete Edition is, as the name might suggest, an amalgam of two separate titles. Hook and Hook 2 in fact. Penned as puzzle, casual and brain training on the PSN store, that’s a fair description. OK, review done. This is alright, go play it. Hours of mild diversion. Seriously […]

Hook: Complete Edition – PS5 Review

September 12, 2025 in PS5 / Reviews tagged Casual / hook / hook ce / puzzle / rainbow train by Ian