Gaming In The Wild - Video Game Reviews

Game Pass is the subscription that keeps on giving this week. The featured game is The Pedestrian - a highly original and immaculately designed 2D puzzle game that takes you on a journey through the signage, placards, pages and screens of a beautifully rendered 3D city. Also this episode: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Nobody Saves The World, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and Minute of Islands. Find...

Heaven’s Vault is a highly original adventure game by Inkle, ported to Switch in 2021. It allows you to explore the interlunar rivers of a far-flung nebula, translating an ancient language from found artefacts to reveal a hidden history. Also this episode: a preview of five Indies to look out for in 2022: Open Roads, FAR: Changing Tides, Citizen Sleeper, Terra Nil, and Weird West. If you enjoy the...

Beware THE GUNK! This episode looks at a short, cosy sci-fi adventure-platformer that came to Game Pass and won me over during the holiday season. Also discussed: Ender Lilies, Heaven’s Vault, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and more. If you enjoy the show, you can come say hi on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Twitch - find the links at http://gaminginthewild.com . If you'd like to support the sho...

After three great special guest GOTY episodes, it’s time for the Gaming In The Wild **super official** top ten games of 2021. So I hope you enjoy this run through my top games of the year, including Cloud Gardens, Death’s Door, Signs of the Sojourner, Sable, Chicory, Inscryption, Resident Evil Village, Griftlands, Forza Horizon 5, and more! Find my full reviews of all of the games mentioned, and d...

This week’s GOTY special episode is a return visit from Louis of Time Played 3hr. He dropped by to discuss building a PC, landing a PS5, and a wide range of games like Exo One, Mundaun, Forza Horizon 5, Last Call, Resident Evil Village, Metroid Dread, Shadow Man, Returnal, Before Your Eyes, No Longer Home, Guardians of the Galaxy, Sable, NieR Replicant, and more. If you enjoy the show, you can com...

Welcome to the second games of the year GOTY episode for 2021. My guest this week is Raygan Kelly, one of the co-hosts of The Short Game podcast, a show that looks at short video games. The games we discussed include: NieR Replicant, The Forgotten City, Death’s Door, Inscryption, Forza Horizon 5, World Flipper, Boomerang X, Carto, PGA Tour 2K21, Mario Golf: Super Rush, Golf Club Wasteland, and mor...

This week’s pod is the first in a series of year in review episodes to round off 2021. The first special guest sharing their games of the year is Brad Gallaway, co-host of the So Videogames podcast, and editor of gamecritics.com. We had a wide-ranging conversation covering everything from The Game Awards 2021, to under the radar indies, AAA hits and misses, our publishers and gaming news of the ye...

Solar Ash is a mesmerising journey into a black hole full of shattered worlds. It’s the story of Rei, a fast-moving voidrunner tasked with collapsing this "Ultravoid" to save her planet from destruction. It combines slick, satisfying movement, epic boss encounters, and a melancholy story into thrilling and resonant whole. Also discussed: Genesis Noir, Paper Mario: The Origami King, Life Is...

Exo One is a quite beautiful exoplanetary flying game that appeared out of nowhere on Game Pass last week. It's a mesmerising play, as you soar through the clouds and roll over alien topography using an ingenious gravity engine. Also mentioned: Guardians of the Galaxy, Haven Park and Ynglet.  Links: Game website: http://exo-one-game.com Download the soundtrack: http://rhyslindsay.bandcamp.com/...

Chicory is a wholesome, polished, deceptively simple game that has an emotionally resonant story, and gives the 2D Zelda format a welcome splash of fresh paint.  Also discussed: Death’s Door and The Wild At Heart come to Switch, A Short Hike comes to Playstation, and some first impressions of Guardians of the Galaxy. Links to some things mentioned: Death’s Door (full review episode): https://ancho...

This week I'm joined by Adam from Switch Indie Fix to discuss the psychedelic wonderland of Psychonauts 2, and the vast sandbox of top-tier open world driving extravaganza Forza Horizon 5. We also talk about Game Pass generally, and how it's changing our game-buying habits. If you enjoy the show, you can come say hi on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Twitch - find the links at http://gamin...

This week’s show covers a whole bunch a games, including current Game Pass indie darling Unpacking, hard-as-nails card game Ring of Pain, and gothic dice 'n' deck adventure Lost In Random. Also discussed: Chicory & Lost Words. Links to some media that's mentioned: NoClip interview about Death’s Door: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdWHi6t5p8Q SIFTER interview about Ring of Pain: h...

This week’s show is about Kena: Bridge of Spirits, a well-presented action-adventure by first time indie studio Ember Labs. It’s accomplished in some respects, but over-familiar in others. Hear the full review within. Also discussed: Eastshade, Lost In Random, Psychonauts 2, Boomerang X, The Forgotten City, Stardew Valley. If you enjoy the show, you can come say hi on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube a...

It's the last week in October, so this week's episode takes a shaky, tentative, nervous step into the horror genre, looking at three curious indie games and one big-budget trip to... yep... *~*tH3 0tH3r S!d3*~*.   Reviewed:    2m59s: Pencil-drawn monochrome solo-dev indie game Mundaun 9m11s: Big-budget dual-world chiller The Medium 18m30s: Earthy Slavic witchcraft deck-battler Black Book 2...

This week’s show is about JETT: The Far Shore, an intriguing sci-fi exploration game with a cosmic story, a stellar soundtrack, and an international Space Station full of gameplay issues. But before that, I talk about my experience with a brand new Switch OLED (yay!), and why I find video games to be a fantastic way to shake off stress and anxiety.  If you enjoy the show, you can come say hi on Tw...

This week’s show looks at Lake: a subtle, unusual, "aggressively mundane" small-town story game about delivering mail and making life choices. Links to the VR festival discussed in the show: RIFF XR: http://riff.is/riff-xr Notes on Blindness: http://notesonblindness.co.uk/vr Hana Hana http://hanahana.world The Under Presents http://tenderclaws.com/theunderpresents Also mentioned: The Mediu...

This week's episode is about cosy black & white photography game TOEM, which I discuss with special guest Adam from Switch Indie Fix. Adam did a summer of "No New Games", where he only played titles from his backlog spreadsheet for six whole months, so we discuss how that experience was for him also.  Also mentioned this episode: Golf Club Wasteland, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Psycho...

This week's episode is an in-depth interview with Daniel Fineberg and Gregorios Kythreotis, who developed sci-fi exploration game Sable together under the banner Shedworks. Thanks to Daniel & Greg for making time to discuss the inspirations, game world, narrative structure, history, architecture and wildlife of their excellent debut game. Sable is out now on Xbox Gamepass and Windows. Epis...

This week's longer-than-usual episode is about Sable, a lyrical sci-fi exploration game in which a young woman embarks on a coming of age journey through an expansive desert littered with natural wonders, memorable encounters, sparse camps, and hulking derelict spacecraft. It's a wonderful game with a calm mood and meticulous, thoughtful design throughout, from architecture, to outfits, to...

This week’s show is about the joyful, eye-popping psychedelic voyage of The Artful Escape. Strap on your telecaster and check any delicate musical sensibilities at the door to best enjoy this thrilling sci-fi odyssey. Hear the insightful developer interview I mention in the podcast on Pixel Sift : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d4PAVZHK3g . Also mentioned: God of War, Sable, TOEM, The Forgotten...

This episode looks at three very different building games – the under-structured endless creative mode of Townscaper, the overly points-based Islanders, and a game that hits the Goldilocks zone: Cloud Gardens. It's a mellow but melancholic light free-form puzzler in which you drop endless human trash into abandoned post-industrial dioramas, until wild plants completely overgrow them.  Also men...

This week’s show is about Griftlands, Klei Entertainment’s classy deck-battling RPG. It stacks systems-upon-systems-upon-systems, but also features top-tier writing, a detailed scenario, and several great story campaigns. Also mentioned this episode: Ni No Kuni - Wrath of the White Witch. If you enjoy the show, please do come say hi on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Twitch - find the links at htt...

This week’s episode is about the controversial point ’n’ click home-invasion thriller Twelve Minutes. As a show that prefers to spotlight great titles and skate over bad ones, this is a rare instance of a negative feature review – however, in this case, it felt worth talking about. The game's story twists and problematic elements come with well-flagged spoiler and content warnings at the 27 mi...

This week’s episode features a mini-review of a simple bouncing ball game called Glyph, before a more in-depth look at recent Gamepass addition OMNO. This lovely adventure-puzzle-platformer doesn’t break any new ground, but it does everything very well, resulting in a mellow, relaxing, frictionless experience. There's a rare instance of me praising a game's map! So stay tuned for that. Als...

This week's episode is about existential point 'n' click adventure The Longing. To untangle the mysteries of this deeply eccentric and uniquely challenging game, I called in some expert reinforcements in gamecritics.com editor, So Videogames podcast host and all-round great guy Brad Gallaway.  Also mentioned this episode: Omno, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. You can hear the So... Vi...