Charlie Kelly
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Writing For
Checkpoint Gaming Latest Reviews
Six years ago, Marvelous Entertainment debuted a new mech series called Daemon X Machina for the Switch that promised players a broad adventure full of robot customisation, a dazzling world and a memorable story. It delivered on about half of those promises. Fast forward to now, and we’ve got a sequel in Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion. Now a multiplatform release with more to do than ever, a continuation of its story and what looks to be a bigger budget, you’d hope the kinks and issues w...
Ninja Gaiden, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—it’s been a great year for ninja-based games, and the train keeps rolling with Shinobi: Art of Vengeance. Serving as the first title in 14 years following the last foray with Shinobi 3D on the Nintendo 3DS, Lizardcube, developers of Streets of Rage 4, bring this new fix to fans. Featuring the DNA and pedigree of that studio’s talents while being a fitting and true next step for the series, it’s a 2D action game resurgence that is not to b...
Intent on reviving their IPs, Konami has been rolling out the classics these days. Last year saw Silent Hill 2 remade by Bloober Team, surprising and delighting fans with its faithfulness, reinvention and mood. Next on the remake block is Metal Gear Solid 3 with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. The Snake returns. Having now cleared the campaign and its suite of extra content to dive into, the headline and good news is that the team at Konami didn’t monumentally mess it up. It’s a bl...
Drag x Drive is a new and unique oddity from Nintendo built entirely around the Nintendo Switch 2. It’s an online multiplayer game, situating players in 3v3 wheelchair basketball matches and minigames, all within an arena. Simultaneously pinnacle and anti-Nintendo design, Drag x Drive is an interesting project filled with game design you won’t find elsewhere… but it’s also lacking that charm and ambition the company is known for.
Dead Take is a brand new game from Surgent Studios, the developer of Tales of Kenzera: Zau. Ditching the Metroidvania and hopping into the Horror genre, the adventure covers new grounds, merging 3D exploration of a Hollywood mansion with FMV (Full Motion Video) cutscenes, interweaving an intriguing mystery story. Though it doesn’t quite reach all of its ambitions, it remains a moody and palpable horror experience with some stellar acting from some of the game industry’s best.
PATAPON 1+2 Replay is a release that marks a bygone era. A pair of rhythm games developed by Japan Studio, a defunct PlayStation team, they’re a vital piece of the console developer’s history. Coming from a period when bountiful amounts of weirdness, creativity, and ingenious game design were coming out of not just the developer but across the entire platform, they’re not the kind of titles we really see anymore. Especially since the teams’ closure in 2021. With this collection tha...
And after all, shouldn’t we leave this world better than we found it?
If you ask anyone who owned and played their Nintendo 3DS religiously, “What is the handheld most known for?”, they’ll tell you that it was an awesome little RPG machine with dozens, if not countless, cult hits to sink your teeth into. As someone who didn’t own the console at the time, I look at my fiancée’s collection on our game shelf and note the many RPGs that would still be well talked about now, more than 14 years after the platform’s original release. Countless Pokémon g...
Ever since Konami started being in the business of making (and publishing) games again for the first time in years, following both the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1 and last year’s Silent Hill 2 Remake with Bloober Team, all eyes have been on them. Are they back in action? What’s next on their agenda? It turns out that it was releasing a launch game for the Nintendo Switch 2 in Survival Kids, a return to the survival series that started back on the Game Boy Colour, went on...
Soulslikes are a dime a dozen at this point. This over-saturation was inevitable, given that games like Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls were the catalyst for this specific branch of action RPGs. Naturally, a lot of other games want a taste of this action. Over the years, we’ve had experiences that have soared despite their bizarre premise. We’ve also had Soulslikes that dwindle into not much of anything—situated somewhere in the middle, thanks to its curious world and interesting, if im...