Cam Shea
This author account hasn't been claimed yet. To claim this account, please contact the outlet owner to request access.
Writing For
IGN Latest Reviews
It only took me a couple of good sessions to play through everything Katamari Damacy Reroll had to offer, but the vast majority of those six or seven hours was spent with an enormous grin on my face, my head nodding along to the incredibly catchy, eclectic score. Katamari Damacy was a breath of fresh air on first release and it still is today, almost 15 years later.
It may be a very short diversion, but Donut County is a delight. It’s absolutely brimming with personality, has a killer soundtrack and visual aesthetic, and is based on an irresistible gameplay hook. I’d have loved more, but I guess I’ll just settle for playing through it again.
If you like your games with an offbeat sense of humour and plenty of personality, Flipping Death comes recommended. Its central game design hook of flipping between life and death makes for an interesting world to navigate and puzzles to solve, and its characters are so oddball and endearing you’ll want to hear every conversation in full, not to mention find out how it all ends.
SteamWorld Dig 2 retains the original’s addictive resource-gathering gameplay, but supplements it with a gorgeously detailed, handcrafted world. Its heady mix of exploration, combat, platforming, and puzzle solving, alongside an expansive set of abilities and mods gives it plenty of variety and a great gameplay rhythm. I wish there was more to do once the campaign ends, but that’s a testament to the fact that what is here is just about pitch perfect.
Fast RMX may not be the perfect anti-gravity racing package, but it certainly offers high-speed racing and a lot of tracks to challenge yourself on. It’s a shame that the online multiplayer offering is so barebones, and that the time trial mode is currently AWOL, but in lieu of an official Wipeout or F-Zero this is a solid option to get your arcade racing fix on the Nintendo Switch.
I greatly enjoyed the two or so hours it took me to play through Pony Island. This is a game that delights in toying with your expectations and in breaking the fourth wall, in revealing its sinister yet playful world, and in building up a compelling antagonist and telling an ambiguous story. Pony Island is about as punk rock as they come.
Assault Android Cactus is an energising shooter experience. Each level, character and enemy brings something fresh to the game, and the end result is chaotic, polished, packed with variety and effortlessly charming. I had a huge amount of fun just trying to top my own high scores and experimenting with the different protagonists, let alone making an impact on the global leaderboards, so it really does feel like there's something for everyone.
From a distance, Crypt of the NecroDancer seems like a very mathematical game. The logic used to dispatch enemies should ideally play out like a neat algorithm, flawlessly executed once you know their patterns and how to manipulate them. That’s not how it works, of course, as the dungeons are complicated, chaotic things, and players are forced to move at the whim of the soundtrack’s tempo, with little room for error. Logic meets chaos. It’s a tension evident in many games, and it’s exemplified wonderfully here.
There’s essentially no limit to how good you can get at OlliOlli 2. Just when you’ve mastered beating levels in a single combo and timing every single grind and manual perfectly, there are a host of other mechanics to integrate into your skating to bump that high score even further skyward. Why land in a boring old manual when you could revert into it? Why do a standard trick or grind when you could add a rotation or pull off something more complex with a longer – and riskier - animation? And hey, are you grind switching on every rail you can? It’s an impressively layered game, and does a great job of tapping deep into the skater psyche, where an obsession with tricks and effortless style intersect.
Hohokum is the latest title in a long lineage of artistically inclined, thoroughly unique PlayStation exclusives. From Vib Ribbon through to LocoRoco, Flower, Tokyo Jungle, Sound Shapes and more, it’s in good company, and deserves to be uttered in the same breath as those much-loved cult classics.