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.

It started with a message from our editor. “Review this” he said. “Review what?” we asked. We initially thought it was his sort of thing, until we realised it was erroneously labelled as a football game. Let’s be clear, Legend Bowl is an NFL game in all but name. The […]

Legend Bowl – PS5 Review

August 22, 2023 in PS4 / PS5 / Reviews tagged crap kicking / gridiron / Pixel art / wide right by Ian

Jeffrey Koch is a porcine crime lord. And he’s in deep trouble. Forced into his safe house by hostile forces tipped off by an informer within his own organisation, he has a week to root out the mole and somehow survive against the odds. Developed by Wooden Monkeys and published […]

Save Koch – PS4 Review

August 9, 2023 in PS4 / Reviews tagged clip clop / death by a thousand stabbings / funky porcini / pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs / the light at the end of the tunnel is the light of an oncoming train by Ian

You might think Mr. Run and Jump is another rehash of an Atari 2600 game. You’d be partially right, barring the fact that it was made in 2021 by a chap at Graphite Lab rather than in 1981 as the graphics might suggest. In fact, it even got a limited […]

Mr. Run and Jump – PS5 Review

July 28, 2023 in PS5 / Reviews tagged 2600 / atari / dude where's my dog / graphite studio / kombinera / realms of colour / vvvvvv by Ian

Oaken from Poznań-based dev Low Poly Dreams and Goblinz Publishing is a deceptive game. On the face of it, it’s an attractive looking hex strategy game with turn-based combat. However, almost from the start it manages to frustrate and obfuscate key mechanics that it never really explains. It doesn’t really […]

Oaken – PS4 Review

July 23, 2023 in PS4 / Reviews tagged card battler / hex battler / mark oaken / poznan by Ian

We loved Van Halen. Eddie and Alex, the two eponymous brothers in the band were often overshadowed by flamboyant frontman David Lee Roth. We think he’s ace too, mainly for his daft solo shit like Just A Gigolo / I Ain’t Got Nobody. Particularly the amazing video that accompanied it […]

Miasma Chronicles – PS5 Review

July 11, 2023 in PS5 / Reviews tagged charasma / post apocalyptic / the bearded ladies / turn-based by Ian

Tin Can might well be a glimpse into the future for us. Not the spacefaring aspect, but the fact we felt a general sense of outright bewilderment for most of our time playing it. Is what slowly losing your faculties feels like? If so, it’s damn well unsettling. Best described […]

Tin Can – PS5 Review

July 7, 2023 in PS4 / PS5 / Reviews tagged death star plans / escape pod / it's a cry for survival / tin can by Ian

We have to confess being a little nervous about (deep breath) We Love Katamari REROLL+ Royal Reverie. For whatever reason, its PS4 predecessor Katamari Damacy REROLL didn’t feel right. Perhaps it was the fact it didn’t particularly work for us with the Dualshock 4. At any rate, We Love Katamari […]

We Love Katamari REROLL+ Royal Reverie – PS5 Review

June 17, 2023 in PS4 / PS5 / Reviews tagged bandai namco / katamari damacy / remaster / reroll / save the pandas by Ian

Wobbledogs: Console Edition comes to us on PS4 from developer Animal Uprising and publisher Secret Mode (aka Sumo Digital’s publishing arm), having released on Steam in March last year. This reviewer decided to have a go as our kid seemed to have enjoyed it on PC. At least until he […]

Wobbledogs – PS4 Review

June 3, 2023 in PS4 / Reviews tagged animal uprising / breeding / secret mode / wobbledogs by Ian

Dicey Dungeons is a game we’ve been peripherally aware of for quite a while due to following Niamh Houston aka Chipzel on Musk’s hellsite. That’s off the back of her contribution to Chime Sharp. Man, we love Chime Sharp almost as much as we loved Chime on the 360 and […]

Dicey Dungeons – PS4 Review

May 20, 2023 in PS4 / PS5 / Reviews tagged chipzel / dice battler / dicey dungeons / rng / terry cavanagh by Ian

XEL pronounced Excel, yes like the spreadsheet application, is a forced isometric perspective adventure with Metroidvania type elements. At least in terms of certain areas being inaccessible at the outset. To begin with you can’t hit anything. So you get a sword. And then you can’t open gates until you […]

XEL – PS4 Review

May 14, 2023 in PS4 / Reviews tagged buggy / dungeon crawler / lemon / metroidvania-ish / somehow good / xel by Ian

Run from the savepoint, skip the cutscene, jump to grab a ring, another cutscene showing the miasma that’s chasing you, platform section, mess up a jump, get eaten by the miasma. Then repeat last three sections over and over again until you die and start from the savepoint again. This […]

Itorah – PS4 Review

May 7, 2023 in PS4 / Reviews tagged grimbart / itorah / mesoamerican / metroidvania / super sunday super bore by Ian

Developed by Repixel8 (aka London based collector and coder Andrew Jefferys) and CGA Studio Games with we assume multiplatform ports handled by the latter, we have Formula Retro Racing: World Tour. Very much the throwback to the halcyon days of Sega’s Model 2 arcade heyday and the blue sky gaming […]

Formula Retro Racing: World Tour – PS4 Review

April 24, 2023 in PS4 / Reviews tagged blue skies in gaming / daytonaaaaaaa / g a m e o v e r / local multiplayer / namco-ish / repixel8 / retro racing / sega-ish / TIME EXTENSION by Ian