Adrian Burrows
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TheSixthAxis Latest Reviews
The Lego franchise has tried its tiny-clawed plastic hand at nearly every video game genre going. We’ve had platformers, shoot ‘em ups, racers, co-op adventures, puzzlers, even a Super Smash Bros clone. But, rather oddly, never a party game. That’s where Lego Party comes in, offering fun, frolics and laughter for all the family across its impressive range of silly yet satisfying mini games.
LEGO Voyagers might just be the cutest game ever. As my partner and I guided our adorable single-block Lego pieces though this co-op puzzle platformer, we emitted many a coo of ‘ooohhhh’ and ‘aaahhhh’, and thankfully it wasn’t followed by running and screaming. But is there more to Light Brick Studios’ latest LEGO adventure than looking disarmingly delightful?
Can you ever have too much of a good thing? Ubisoft certainly don’t think so. After providing players with over one hundred hours of Shinobi-lurking-in-the-shadows action in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, they’ve returned with another 15-hours or so of DLC Samurai shenanigans. This time, Yasuke and Naoe head to the island of Awaji – an entirely separate environment, comparable in size to a region in the main game – to kill a whole load more people in as gloriously gory over-the-top manner as possible.
Ever since Hades set a new gold standard for the genre back in 2020, the mechanics and structure of the isometric action RPG roguelites have become somewhat staid. The maze of rooms, the choice of exits, the array of collectables, the slowly progressing unlockables, the narrative that teasingly develops after every run; let’s face it, most of us could play a new genre entry in our sleep. Sure, we’d die a lot, but it’d be doable. So, it’s refreshing that Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree attempts to do something new with the standard formula, even if it isn’t always successful in the process.
There’s been a veritable smorgasbord of roguelite games over the last few years, so many that the release of yet another entry in the cram-packed genre elicits plenty of yawns and little excitement. Well, stifle your sleepy exhalation, as The Rogue Prince of Persia – a roguelite imbued with the thrilling free-running platforming that Ubisoft’s best franchise is famous for – is worth getting excited about.
It’s been far too long, but Shinobi is back! After fourteen years in the wilderness, Joe Musashi has a new main series entry to showcase what he does best; running and jumping from left to right and killing mechanised ninjas with unstoppable style and grace. At this point, I could tease whether Lizardcube has been successful in rebooting one of Sega’s finest, but when a game is this good, it should be shouted about from the opening paragraph. And Shinobi: Art of Vengeance isn’t just good; it’s a masterclass in 2D platforming.
Over the years, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have tried their hands – or flippers, I guess? – at numerous video game genres. There’s been Turtle inspired side-scrolling beat ‘em ups, one-on-one fighters, platformers, a light gun shooter, and a roguelike. Heck, even the pinball genre has been taken on by the awesome foursome. Now, with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, the brothers are giving turn-based strategy a go.
The ancient mythological world depicted by Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a fascinating one. Set during the late Ming Period, an era of great sweeping change in China when ineffective leadership resulted in famine, rebellion, and war, the game is also imbued with mythological elements inspired by the amazing discoveries found in the Sanxingdui archaeological site. Some of these bronze relics featured mysterious half-bird half-human creatures, leading to the concept of ‘Feathering Disease’ that provides the basis for the game’s story. This horrific plague transforms those poor saps afflicted into hideous, mutated beasts, rampaging around the place and leaving chaos in their wake. That’s where the player steps in, cast as Bai Wuchang – a butt-kicking pirate – they must cut their way through hordes of demons to save the people of the land in this third-person action Soulslike.
As a general rule, stealth games rely on the enemy AI to be total dunderheads. Gun-toting grunts can only search for an imposter for about thirty seconds before inexplicably stating, “Well, I guess they’ve gone,” before resuming their patrol without a care in the world. Even worse, what about all those times they find the dead corpse of one of their allies, search briefly for the culprit, before returning to their daily tasks, presumably then stepping over their dead colleague as they continue to meander around the place? It’s all very silly, and leads to the player – well, me at least – fundamentally not believing in the digital world they are inhabiting. Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream smartly avoids every single one of these aforementioned issues and, in doing so, has become one of the genre-defining stealth games of this generation.
Have you ever wanted to have a relationship with your toilet? No? Me neither. It sounds far too much like a euphemism to describe the morning after eating a particularly heinous kebab. Still, it’s definitely a question developer Sassy Chaps have asked themselves, and in response, they’ve created the sandbox dating simulator Date Everything, a narrative text-based adventure in which you can date, well, everything.