Pikuniku [Switch] – Review

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Free money… what’s not to love? And when’s its coming from a chap calling himself Mr. Sunshine, there’s no reason to question it. So what if his robots harvest all the corn crops? With all the money he gives away – for free, mind you – food can be bought! No reason to be suspicious, at all.

Alas, these were not the concerns of Piku, the bipedal oblong I played as in Pikuniku; at least, not at the outset. Produced by Sectordub, a collaborative studio with members based in London and Paris, Pikuniku was their debut work as a unit, although individually they have worked on a variety of projects. It was released digitally for the Switch and PC on January 24, 2019, having been published by Devolver Digital, the scrappy indie publisher whose presence acts like the Nintendo Seal of Quality. Which is to say if they’re on board, I know the game is going to be great, weird, or as in this case, both.

 

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D [Sega Saturn] – Review

D - Sega Saturn - North American Box Art

Nearly ten years ago, a friend and I decided to play Mansion of Hidden Souls on the Sega CD. We didn’t know anything about it, and at that point neither of us had much experience with similar first-person adventure games like Myst. The plodding movement and crude 3D pre-rendered visuals did little to entice us, but we enjoyed the emphasis on puzzle solving. If anything, it was informative to play through a style of game that was no longer in vogue, and one that showcased an early example of full-motion video. We followed it up with playthroughs of a couple similar games and have dabbled with the genre since then, albeit infrequently. One game in particular has been at the top of our to-do list for years, yet we always passed over it for one reason or another. Well the stars aligned last week, and we finally played D. Continue reading D [Sega Saturn] – Review