LYNE - Review
LYNE - Review

In a similar way that many treat Sudoku and crossword puzzles, LYNE has something of a habitual quality; something you can go back to every day to help keep you sharp and relax after the more trying events of a day. The structure is tailor made for this style of play, with puzzles grouped into sets that are just long enough to be rewarding but not fatiguing. Random daily puzzles (though you’d never know that do to them being just as well designed as the base sets) provide consistent new content, at which point I can think of little more I could ask for.

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EssayNathalieEditor's Choice, Lyne, Reviews, Thomas Bowker
Master Reboot - Review
Master Reboot - Review

Here lies the basic premise to Master Reboot, a wildly ambitious project from the small team at Wales Interactive, which places you inside the Soul Cloud at the point of its downfall as an unknown protagonist just as lost as you are admist its bizarre architecture and endless hallways. It's a game that is hard to categorize because from each moment to the next you are found doing something entirely different, though all in the attempt to discover who you are and what has happened to an invention hailed as one of the most important in recent memory.

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EssayNathalieMaster Reboot, Reviews, Wales Interactive
Quick Thoughts On: Giana Sisters: Rise of the Owlverlord
Quick Thoughts On: Giana Sisters: Rise of the Owlverlord

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is without a doubt one of the best things to come out of the great retro platformer deluge, which began somewhere around the release of Super Meat Boy. It was stunning to look at, a joy to play, and managed to feel fresh yet familiar at the same time. As with any good thing fans are bound to want more, and Black Forest Games has now delivered just that with Rise of the Owlverlord; a standalone expansion that in many ways is even better than the game which spawned it!

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EssayNathalieBlack Forest Games, Giana Sisters, Quick Thoughts
Journal - Review
Journal - Review

Journals are personal things; housing our thoughts, experiences, and deepest secrets as we pour our hearts out into their pages. In a similar way Journal the game is also deeply personal to its developer, Richard Perrin, being kicked around for nearly a decade and only just coming to fruition after passing through numerous different forms and surviving setback after setback.

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EssayNathalieJournal, Locked Door Puzzle, Reviews
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Review
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Review

For a game billing itself as a retro platformer, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams almost seems to go out of its way to break the mold that has formed out of such a rapidly populating genre. Shunning away from its restrictively minimalistic, outrageously challenging and graphically simplistic peers, it preserves and refines the classic platformer gameplay while giving it a modern facelift. Giana Sisters is one of the most visually impressive games the genre has ever seen, but it's when you combined its looks with how well it plays that it becomes something really special.

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EssayNathalieBlack Forest Games, Editor's Choice, Giana Sisters, Reviews
Super Killer Hornet: Resurrection - Review
Super Killer Hornet: Resurrection - Review

Super Killer Hornet: Resurrection feels like the sort of game that would come to a developer out of a bizarre fever dream. Imagine a hyperactive shmup, involving a homicidal insect (which may actually be a spaceship), fighting a barrage of alien demon creatures across planets. Now picture it set to a soundtrack by British hip-hop rock artist The Sixty Fours, in which you create combos and get upgrades by solving basic math problems, and you've got a pretty good idea of what Killer Hornet is.

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EssayNathalieFlump Studios, Reviews, Super Killer Hornet: Resurrection
Lilly Looking Through - Review
Lilly Looking Through - Review

There's a certain childhood wonder and curiosity that at some point we all loose, as we gain knowledge of the world and realize that our magical fantasies we once imagined possible were just that; figments of our imaginations that will never actually come into existence. Nevertheless through books, movies, games and other art forms we can still visit the enchanting worlds of our dreams, carrying ourselves away for a few hours to a place that can only be described as extraordinary.

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EssayNathalieGeeta Games, Lilly Looking Through, Reviews
Shelter - Review
Shelter - Review

For all the saviors of the galaxies, legendary heroes, and lone hopes for humanity that populate most video games, developers have been ignoring one of the world's fiercest protectors: mothers, and their love for their childen. Shelter casts you as a badger, sole guardian of her five cubs, who must set forth against the harsh world to try and lead her children to safety. Through storms and wildfires, your determination will be tested and the lives of your underlings repeatedly put in danger, as you travel on an intense journey that not everyone will be able to survive.

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EssayNathalieMight & Delight, Reviews, Shelter
Race The Sun - Review
Race The Sun - Review

Race The Sun is an adrenaline rush the likes of which few other games can compare! The whoosh as you soar past objects, the intensity as the sun threatens to disappear past the horizon, and the unbelievable moments of triumph when you make it through in one piece are but small bits of what makes for an extremely exhilarating experience.

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EssayNathalieEditor's Choice, Flippfly, Race The Sun, Reviews
Long Live The Queen - Review
Long Live The Queen - Review

I have never played a game quite like Long Live the Queen, and hope to see more original titles like this popping up on Steam soon. If you are even the slightest bit interested don't turn away after the first impression, it has a lot more depth than I think anyone would expect, and is a wholly refreshing and enjoyable experience that most any should enjoy whether they have ever dreamed of being the prettiest princess or not!

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EssayNathalieHanako Games, Long Live the Queen, Reviews
Dead Space - Review
Dead Space - Review

Dead Space is the unofficial Alien game we always wanted! The horrific plight of starship engineer Issac Clark aboard the U.S.G Ishimura perfectly replicates the feeling of isolation and suspense of Ridley Scott's classic, while also innovating and branching out on its own right to create an impeccable homage to sci-fi horror which continually surprises and rewards with each astoundingly well thought out design decision.

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EssayNathalieDead Space, EA, Editor's Choice, Reviews, Visceral Games
Bad Hotel - Review
Bad Hotel - Review

Bad Hotel is bizarre. Not the sort of bizarre that makes you marvel at the creator's creativity and originality, the bizarre that leaves you scratching your head as to what you are playing, why you are playing it, and how it came to exist in the first place. A tower defense game hidden underneath a music experiment, Bad Hotel is an aptly named oddity which seems to want to do nothing but be different no matter how detrimental it is to the experience.

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EssayNathalieBad Hotel, Lucky Frame, Reviews