Dylan Pamintuan

Luma Island is a casual farming life simulator developed by Feel Free Games, a small Netherlands-based indie developer. I’m always up for cosy games (except for Stardew Valley, for whatever reason) so this seemed right up my alley. So, is the journey worth staying on the island or would I rather go back to playing one of my other life sim games?

Janosik 2 is a retro-style action-platformer metroidvania developed by Onix Games and published by Retrovibe. A sequel to a free game released back in 2020, Janosik was well-liked for being a fun, if short, time. Now as 2024 draws to a close, we have the next entry. It definitely needs to be a serious improvement to be worth putting a price tag on its successor, so let’s check it out.

SHOOPER NOVA (formerly Pulsar Scatter ) is a roguelike, tower defence, bullet hell game developed by Jamesika. It’s the year 5202 and technology has advanced to a point where the Earth is fully digitised with hyper-intelligent AI. However, not everyone likes it, and now Earth’s Super-Intelligence (you) must defend itself from the countless enemies who will stop at nothing to destroy it.

I got the chance to check out Monster Meals, a cooking management simulator developed by Giant Warrior Studio and published by GoGo Games Interactive. Since I started writing for GameGrin, I discovered that I really like running virtual businesses, especially restaurants (which does not reflect upon my real-life cooking ability), which made me eager to see what this game has to offer. So let's see what's on the menu, which apparently includes tempura scorpions and raw lizards. So tasty…?

Monster Hunter means a lot to me. Ever since my older brother bought Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate out of the blue and gave me a copy, I didn’t expect to become so obsessed with it and become one of my favourite game series to play, up there with Kingdom Hearts, Persona, and Pokémon

Marvel Rivals has been doing gangbusters ever since its release, with NetEase offering its unique spin on both the hero shooter genre and the Marvel heroes that it features. Now, Season 0 has ended with Season 1: Eternal Night Falls

Recently announced at CES, Sony is producing a HELLDIVERS 2 and a Horizon Zero Dawn movie and I’m not sure how to feel about it. Videogame adaptations have a shaky track record, and for good reason. Games rely on player interaction to evoke emotions, subtly or not, and with AAA games focused on narrative, like Horizon, it’s difficult to condense a 20+ hour game into a two-hour film, so they have to get pragmatic with the story which doesn’t always work out. I will not forgive what happened to Monster Hunter, thinking it was a good idea to make it an isekai plot.

Will always jump into a game on the hardest difficulty and get absolutely wrecked. Obviously, it’s never his fault.

I got the chance to check out Pinball Storm: Lokanta.

Will always jump into a game on the hardest difficulty and get absolutely wrecked. Obviously, it’s never his fault.