Byte Size Review Archives - Page 7 of 11

Street Power Football, PS4 Byte Size Review

Sep 26, 2020 Richard Armitt 1708 Views caricature, Football, Panna, Soccer, Street Power Football

Street Power Football is a mixed bag of soccer stuff. Delivering six distinctly different game modes to a pumping beat, while they are somewhat linked it feels at times like an identity crisis.

It’s soccer Jim, but not as we know it.

That’s the crux of it, the core of the game is about 3 vs 3 Street Soccer, end to end short and snappy games. Most often decided by who made the fewer mistakes, like NBA Street the game is quick, chock full of power-ups and “character”.

I love a good soccer game, having spent my formative years in the U.K. it goes without saying. While I can appreciate the niche for flashy moves, lycra and the odd Panna. I find the game lacks subtlety and doesn’t hit my sweet spot, which is obviously touch slower.

Byte Size Review Gaming PC / Mac PS4 Xbox One

Control: AWE DLC (PS4)

Sep 20, 2020 Guy 1764 Views Alan Wake, Control, Jesse, Strange House

I am a big fan of Control. I said pretty nice things a year ago in my review, such as…”It was mind-bendingly magical”. It was even my Game of the Year for 2019!

So, any offer to dive back into Controls twisted world is met with giddy laughs of excitement and much wringing of hands.

The second and final (AWE) DLC for Control has just arrived. Remedy have fully bridged the world of Alan Wake and Control in this 3-4hr DLC pack. I won’t spoil any story from here on in, but suffice is to say. Mr Wake’s typewriter is hard at work leading Jesse into darkness, hunting an escaped Bright Falls monster who is loose in the Strange House.

Gaming Byte Size Review PS4 Video Content Xbox One

Descenders, Byte Size. (reviewed on PS4)

Sep 12, 2020 Gerard Campbell 2565 Views adventure sports, biking, byte sizded gaming, Mountain Biking, PlayStation 4

There aren’t a lot of video games like Descenders about mountain biking, a sport that I like to partake in as often as time allows.

Perhaps my favourite mountain biking game – and I’m slightly biased here because I backed it on Kickstarter – is Lonely Mountains Downhill, which was made by a small German development studio and it really is marvellous fun, with a gorgeous visual aesthetic and “Just one more go” game play.

Descenders comes from Dutch development studio Ragesquid and while it’s not much in the looks department – to be honest, it wouldn’t look out of place on the PlayStation 3. It does have an addictive quality about it as you test your mountain bike mettle on a variety of downhill mountain bike tracks.

Gaming Byte Size Review PC / Mac PS4 Xbox One

Tell Me Why – XBOX review

Aug 28, 2020 Dylan Burns 1308 Views DONTNOD, Life Is Strange, Tell Me Why

Guest contributor, Dylan Burns makes a welcome entrance:

One might see Tell Me Why (Chapter One) as DONTNOD’s distillation of everything they have learnt.

Sure, there’s DONTNOD’s distinctive sense of place and domestic design, as well as their ability to create the illusion of small town America, but when distilled down to what you actually do in this first chapter, the handful of location changes and flashbacks cannot hide the fact that this is quite a bare-bones offering.

I was impressed by the first Life is Strange and a big fan of the deliberate mundanity of Life is Strange 2, but in Tell Me Why I found myself struggling to get through the languid pacing, boring dialogue and questionable characterisation. Rather than being intrigued, I just wanted the story to hurry up and happen, for the characters to do something other than wander about each location looking at things and remembering the past.

Due to the episodic nature of Tell Me Why, we’ve added Dylan’s review of the following chapters here.

Gaming Byte Size Review PC / Mac PS4 Video Content Xbox One

Relicta, PS4 Review

Aug 25, 2020 Guy 1856 Views First Person, Portal, Puzzler, Relicta

Relicta does not make a good first impression.

The opening puzzles which serve as the tutorial feel very, “seen that sort of thing before”. The tutorial then leads into a fairly drawn out story delivery sequence told by disposable radio chatter. I will admit, I rolled my eyes and did not have high hopes for my next few hours of gaming.

But poor introductions aside, when the gameplay proper kicked off and some headscratcher puzzles where unleashed upon my brain. I completely changed my views on Relicta. It’s actually a super solid wee puzzler.

Gaming Byte Size Review Game Pass PC / Mac Xbox One

Battletoads, Byte Size Review (Xbox One X)

Aug 22, 2020 Barrie Clarke 1440 Views Battletoads, Gamepass, Old School, Reboot, Turtles

Rash, Pimple, and Zitz are the Battletoads. Heroes from another era, back to show gamers how we rolled in the early 1990s. Created to take on those other green anthropomorphic creatures of the 1980s and 90s, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Battletoads first arrived in 1991 on the NES.

From there we had several games on different systems and even an attempt at an animated TV series which never saw more than a half hour pilot.

So how will our toads fare today? Will they hop to success? Or will they just turn turtle?

Gaming Byte Size Review PS4 Xbox One

Destroy All Humans (PlayStation 4)

Aug 10, 2020 Gerard Campbell 1199 Views aliens, Cold War era, furon empire, Little green men, Mars Attacks!, space invaders, space probe

THQ’s Destroy All Humans reminds me a lot of Tim Burton’s rather good movie Mars Attacks!

In both the movie and the game, aliens are out to destroy the human race, both adhere to the little green man (kind of) appearance. With many of the human victims are bumbling simpletons ready to give into the alien invasion.

Overall, Destroy All Humans is a likeable remake of a mid-2000s game, albeit it one with humour that hasn’t entire stood the test of time.

Gaming Byte Size Review Indie Game Switch Console Xbox One

Carrion, Nintendo Switch reviewed

Aug 5, 2020 Gerard Campbell 1213 Views Carrion, Devolver Digital, monster, monster in the dark, Nintendo Switch gaming, Phobia Game Studio, reverse horror game

Carrion is a horror game with a twist: You are the monster in the dark, hunting the humans – not the other way around.

In a genre that the game’s makers have described as “reverse horror”, you control a red amorphous tentacled blob that escapes confinement in a secret research facility and must escape.

Carrion is Metroidvania in style, with the monster having to unlock doors to progress to the next location and that often involves backtracking to locations you’ve visited before and pulling levers that will unlock chambers in another area.

Gaming Byte Size Review PS4 PSNetwork PSVR

Iron Man VR, PSVR Review

Jul 6, 2020 Richard Armitt 1677 Views Avengers, Iron Man, PSVR, Spiderman

Iron Man VR has been a while coming, having had a hands on at PAXAus last year and seeing the recent demo hadn’t moved on much from then. That said, the Rocket Boots have firmly landed hard in our living rooms now.

It has to be acknowledged that Iron Man (the Robert Downey Junior version) led, assembled and exited the Avengers Franchise for a decade. In that time we had a very ropey Iron Man game back in the 360/PS3 era, which didn’t make much use of the man.

You’d think Iron Man would be a perfect shoe-in for a VR game or experience. Remember how good the final swing was in that Spiderman one a couple of years back? Iron Man VR must surely offer that view from the legendary helmet, the sheer nature of donning a headset making sense in more ways than one.

Gaming Byte Size Review PC / Mac PS4 Xbox One

Byte Size – ESO Greymoor Review (Xbox One)

Jul 3, 2020 Barrie Clarke 1287 Views Elder Scrolls, ESO, MMORPG, RPG, Skyrim

ESO Greymoor heads to Skyrim. A land held in high regard by adventurers world wide. A cold, bleak, and formidable landscape that only the strongest are willing to explore.

This is Western Skyrim, home of the Nords, a 1000 years before the events of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Five years since The Elder Scrolls Online was released and following the annual major updates of Morrowind, Summerset, and Elsweyr comes Greymoor.

The fourth ‘chapter’ release for the venerable ESO. With plenty of DLC and updates between each of these major releases it is astounding how much content is now included in ESO.

Gaming Byte Size Review Nintendo Switch Console Video Content

The Bioshock Collection (Nintendo Switch)

Jun 17, 2020 Gerard Campbell 1378 Views 2k, Bioshock, Lighthouse, Nintendo Switch

This is not a review about the Bioshock Collection games in the sense that I will tread the now familiar narrative ground. Bioshock 1 and 2 and Infinite have graced numerous platforms since the first game appeared in 2007. So gamers don’t need to be schooled on what they’re about and what’s going on.

No, this review is purely to take in the technical spectacle that is The Bioshock Collection on Nintendo’s Switch handheld. Make no mistake: This is a port worth having on the Nintendo’s portable. Especially Bioshock Infinite, perhaps my favourite game in the series.