Chris McMullen
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Writing For
GameSpew
The EscapistLatest Reviews
Each new discovery or observation brings with it a real sense of joy and wonder and the pleasing notion that you’re the first person to behold each particular oddity. It may not have the grand scale of some other space exploration games but, frequent deaths included, Outer Wilds is such...
Exploration and puzzle-solving feature heavily in most dungeon crawlers and, while you’ll spend a great deal of time roaming Vaporum’s corridors, the puzzles you solve to make progress are disappointingly low-rent. Former GameSpew writer Olivia noted that Vaporum’s puzzles present accessibility issues – but aside from that, they’re just not...
But such occurrences are infrequent enough not to be game ruining and while you shouldn’t count on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy being legally accurate, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. For all its silliness, there are some emotionally charged moments and, spread over the three games, some...
Trüberbrook isn’t without its charm, though. Despite the dull protagonist, the game’s story is engaging, and the smatterings of humour will occasionally raise a smile. Equally appealing is Trüberbrook’s graphical style, particularly when you’re able to behold the backdrops in all their glory. But considering how many logic-defying hoops you’ve...
Equally intriguing is that, travelling through seasons and countries, you’re the interloper. You’re not protecting your home; you’re stepping into the lives of others, for better or worse. The game doesn’t shy away from reminding you of this fact; one of the most sobering moments for me was having an...
Genesis Alpha One has more in common with Farming Simulator than No Man’s Sky, offering a more grounded take on exploration than most. The smattering of gunplay is enough to stop the game becoming a grind, but you’ll nevertheless find joy in the game’s moments of stillness. And it’s a...
To further mix things up, Pikuniku throws in a variety of wonderfully absurd mini-games, including a basketball competition and, my personal favourite, a dance-off against a robot. There’s also a heavy helping of humour which lands more hits than it does misses, the jokes often stemming from how naive and...
The former omission likely stems from the game’s second significant issue: Bury Me, My Love began life as a mobile game and it seems that relatively little has been done to enhance it. The Nintendo Switch version of the game has a feature whereby you can play the game in...
Override: Mech City Brawl is not likely to become an esports fixture, but it doesn’t seek to and it certainly knows its audience. It’s acutely aware of its own silliness, even giving you the option to unlock (no, there are no microtransactions here) different colours and ridiculous accessories for your...
Mutant Year Zero does have a few rough edges, though. The game’s suitably pretty and the main character voice acting is on point, but the voices of the ghouls, all fed through the same electronic filter, do start to grate. You have the freedom to explore and revisit multiple locations,...
The Shapeshifting Detective may lack the colossal budget of AAA games, but it nevertheless creates an intimate, skewed world that will draw you in. If you’ve ever fancied yourself an amateur sleuth, albeit one with an distinct biological advantage, then The Shapeshifting Detective will be right up your street.
Even if the game’s visuals don’t appeal to you and you’ve never tackled any other games in the series, it still warrants investigating. Corpse Party: Book of Shadows’ frequently disconcerting and often bloody payoffs, as well as periodical dollops of psychological horror, make it worth tolerating the game’s less engaging...
