Dave Irwin
Game industry critic and reviewer
Writing For
TheSixthAxis
PCGamesN
Rock Paper Shotgun
Dot EsportsLatest Reviews
Struggling is a mess. While I can’t fault the controls themselves, the object physics are just not reliable enough in crucial areas, as the momentum when using some objects is too chaotic to reliably make progress. Unless you have the patience of a saint or an online audience eager to...
Wonderfully captures the atmosphere and combat of Souls games, but without enough tools to experiment with and an AI that’s easy to abuse, Mortal Shell lacks meat on its bones.
Gato Roboto
Added together, the checkpointing and easy fights make Gato Roboto feel like it never really gets going. In an ideal world I would have seen more interesting puzzles and challenging enemies, but as it is, and because there are only a handful of sectors to explore, your couple of hours...
Laser League is phenomenal. It’s easy to pick up, thoroughly appealing in its style, and dangerously captivating. It builds on the team game chops that made Rocket League so successful, yet turns it into something utterly unique and tense. The minor negatives outlined above could be fixed with a patch or two,...
Octahedron is a great platforming experience with a unique identity, style, and gameplay. Its dozens upon dozens of levels are a tiny bit on the short side, but mastering those challenges is what kept me coming back for more. It’s one of the more distinct offerings as part of the...
Exorder certainly has some potential, but it ultimately has a few issues with the UI and balancing of the campaign missions. Playing around in Skirmish mode was fun for a few minutes and the campaign certainly started on the right note, but the over-emphasis on escort missions spoiled the broth...
Castle of Heart is a generic, infuriating, and ultimately underwhelming experience. It doesn’t even come close to emulating what made the old Castlevania games classics, as it just crams enemies and traps into levels and hope it works, rather than having coherent level design. If anything, all that Castle of...
Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom may be vastly different, but it’s ruddy marvellous! Its many systems sure are intimidating at first, but things click into place very quickly, and there’s a lot to do in this gorgeous and well-crafted game. They say that it’s difficult to recapture the magic,...
Kirby Star Allies feels like a greatest hits collection rather than its own unique experience. It takes inspiration from the majority of classic Kirby games and while it doesn’t have quite the level of scope that Kirby Super Star had back in the day, there’s a great amount of fun...
Mulaka
While I appreciated the insight into the folklore of the Taramuhara people, Mulaka as a game is about as average as an action adventure title gets. It’s got some great ideas lurking within, but the overall structure is incredibly dated and only really saved thanks to the subject matter. As...
If Kingdom Come: Deliverance has a ton of bug fixing to improve the performance drastically, it could be a hidden gem. It’s clear that the game, despite its grand ambitions, was simply not ready for public consumption. Shimmers of brilliance are there and had it seen more time in the...
I wasn’t expecting to have a good time playing Sairento VR because of all the movement, but once I’d gotten used to it I really enjoyed the over the top action. Even though it was just because of the ease of slaughtering enemies mindlessly, doing so in VR really helped...
