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.

Were it not for the fact we had a word association with a well-known decongestant body rub going on, we’d probably have forgotten Vaporum’s name by the time we’d done typing this sentence. It gives no clue whatsoever to the game in hand, it being a steampunk dungeon crawler that […]

Vaporum – PS4 Review

April 8, 2019 in PS4 / Reviews tagged dungeon crawler / honest / not bioshock by Ian

From Russian developer Groovy Milk comes Creepy Road, a run and gun shooter in the grand tradition of SNK’s venerable Metal Slug and Konami’s Contra series. It all starts off promisingly enough, your trucker ‘Flint’ doing his best Jack Burton in terms of wisecracks and canned dialogue. But you’ll soon […]

Creepy Road – PS4 Review

March 26, 2019 in PS4 / Reviews tagged from russia with bugs / run and gun / you will die by Ian

From the publisher beloved of trophy whores everywhere, Ratalaika Games, comes I and Me from small dev Wish Fang. Previously released on PC, this cute puzzle platformer has now made its way to PS4 and Vita. You control a pair of black cats who have synchronised movements, not unlike synchronised […]

I and Me – PS4 Review

March 11, 2019 in PS4 / Reviews tagged cats / puzzle / ratalaika / wish fang by Ian

From Serbian developer Brave Giant Studio comes Queen’s Quest 2: Stories of Forgotten Past, the latest hidden object title from Polish publisher Artifex Mundi. We didn’t play the first Queen’s Quest though we do have previous with Artifex title My Brother Rabbit. Queen’s Quest 2 is a sumptuously illustrated animated […]

Queen’s Quest 2: Stories of Forgotten Past – PS4 Review

March 6, 2019 in PS4 / Reviews tagged artifex mundi / fairytale / hidden objects by Ian

By all rights, Massira would be a game we’d rather not be reviewing given the subject matter, being as it is based on the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis. Not exactly the most comfortable scenario for a game, though it could be worse. A game version of Trump’s Mexican Wall perhaps. Thankfully […]

Massira – PS4 Review

March 5, 2019 in PS4 / Reviews tagged human cost / refugee / syria by Ian

From indie developer Moondrop comes puzzle platformer Degrees of Separation. Nothing to do with Kevin Bacon though. Nor is it based on a dismal tug of love custody battle TV movie with Stockard Channing. Instead the separation is between Ember (summer/fire girl) and Rime (winter/ice boy), each of which affect […]

Degrees of Separation – PS4 Review

February 26, 2019 in PS4 / Reviews tagged 2d / fire and ice / platformer by Ian

Steins;Gate Elite is this reviewer’s first encounter with this peculiarly Japanese genre, the visual novel. Steins;Gate was the second game in the Science Adventure series, following on from 2008’s Chaos;Head. For those not familiar with this game type, they are typically text heavy with static images. Steins;Gate Elite is something […]

Steins;Gate Elite – PS4 Review

February 19, 2019 in PS4 / Reviews tagged anime / otaku / visual novel / weeb by Ian

Pipe Push Paradise, to quote its own blurb, is a difficult open world puzzle game about plumbing. Right, review done. See y’all. Only kidding. It’s a puzzle game where you have a variety of puzzles of varying difficulty interspersed around a central hub area. It’s clearly a labour of love […]

Pipe Push Paradise – PS4 Review

February 5, 2019 in PS4 / Reviews tagged challenging / paradise / plumbing / puzzle / sokoban by Ian

From two-man Ontario based developer Milkbag Games comes FutureGrind and we’re immediately reminded of the SNES game Unirally (AKA Uniracers) in terms of the side-on view. Similarly, comparisons can be had to any number of autorunners where the screen inexorably scrolls from left to right. It’s also done in Unity, the game […]

FutureGrind – PS4 Review

January 30, 2019 in PS4 / Reviews tagged extreme sports / futuregrind / grind / oh canada / unity by Ian

From Staffordshire-based UK indie Lightwood Games, a remarkably prolific specialist puzzle game developer, Pic-a-Pix Pieces is a puzzle game with surprising longevity. We have to confess we’d never heard of them before, but that’s mainly due to their output being mostly on 3DS and mobile. Pic-a-Pix Pieces is a logic […]

Pic-a-Pix Pieces – PS4 Review

January 14, 2019 in PS4 / Reviews tagged logic puzzles / pic-a-pix / picross / pixels / puzzle by Ian

Here we are then. After five episodes of varying quality and length, we reach the end of Big Bad Wolf’s The Council in the form of Episode 5: Checkmate. While this is a review of Episode 5, it’s best that we view it in the wider context of the whole […]

The Council Episode 5: Checkmate – PS4 Review

January 2, 2019 in PS4 / Reviews tagged branching narrative / episodic / illuminati / the council / the waxen pith by Ian

This particular reviewer is partial to quirky retro-tinged games and indie curios, so it’s with a little alarm we find ourselves reviewing Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics, a board game conversion from UK devshop Auroch Digital. Simply described in press releases as a Lovecraftian turn-based strategy game, we don’t have much to […]

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics – PS4 Review

November 30, 2018 in PS4 / Reviews tagged cthulhu / lovecraft / silly / turn-based combat / ww2 by Ian