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Review: Soccer Kid Collection

Daniel Waite

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Jul 9, 2026

Soccer Kid Collection is a remastered package of the MS-DOS and SNES games from the 90s. I admit that this game passed me by, but now I get to enjoy the precision platformer in all its retro glory. It is vibrant, pixelated, and tough. The high-demand platforming, simple design, and repetitive elements piqued my interest. However, if you like a modern edge, this won’t be for you. Limited checkpoints, basic monsters, and a slower approach make this a divisive game amongst modern gamers.

This side-scrolling pixelated platformer was developed and published by QUByte Interactive. It is a single-player title that pushes your buttons. With a football to attack your foes and tight jumping elements, you will fail often. Additionally, with limited checkpoints, you’ll struggle to progress. However, this challenging gameplay is oddly rewarding once you make it through each stage.

Soccer Kid Collection tells a strange story.

The 90s were renowned for their absurd stories, and luckily, Soccer Kid Collection doesn’t buck this trend. You play the role of Soccer Kid, a young football enthusiast who won’t let a minor intergalactic incident ruin the football tournament. An alien pirate has stolen the World Cup and smashed it into pieces. Accordingly, you do whatever you can to collect each fragment and save the day.

The footballing element of the game is extremely loose. If you have never heard of the franchise, you may think it was a sports title. Instead, it has basic physics-based ball mechanics, tough platforming, and fast-moving monsters to destroy. En route, you’ll find basic collectables and other simple elements to keep you entertained. Many of these could be avoided, but in typical retro fashion, they add minor depth to the infuriating action.

Modern audiences and dated appeal.

I love a decent remaster, but they don’t always sit well with modern audiences. Sadly, Soccer Kid Collection produces some cultural stereotypes that fall painfully flat. This wasn’t entirely problematic, but you may grimace at some of the off-colour elements. I preferred the authenticity, and I’d have been annoyed had this been censored. However, I appreciate why the tone, imagery, or context may miss the mark.

Thankfully, you are free to experience both versions of the game simultaneously. This lets you master the ball-controlling mechanic regardless of the backdrop or rough visuals. This clunky design wasn’t perfect, but when you have loads of monsters and bosses to tackle, practice makes perfect.

Soccer Kid Collection is rough but filled with nostalgia.

If you are looking for a dated experience, Soccer Kid Collection will tick that box. The vibrant colours, pixelated aesthetic, and simple sprites embody the 90s. Moreover, the basic backdrop, refined animation, and clunky movement lean toward a bygone era.

This delivers an array of catchy tunes that’ll get stuck in your head. The upbeat chiptune design lacks depth, but I didn’t care. Its upbeat nature was fun to listen to, and it captures the early ’90s vibes perfectly. The shrill sound effects are somewhat basic, but they match each action perfectly. Although it is a little repetitive, it matters not. The audio generates a fun and energetic vibe that can’t be beaten.

Clunky controls.

Learning to master the single core mechanic can often be frustrating. Kicking the ball lacks finesse, and timing your attacks was challenging. Yet, once you get to grips with things and remember the path of each foe, things become much easier. However, with precision at its core, you never truly feel comfortable with the demands you face.

Replay value is understandably limited. Yes, there are 2 versions of the game, but this doesn’t offer enough to instantly draw you back in. Consequently, you have to love precision platformers to return for more.

Soccer Kid Collection relies on retro love.

If you do not like retro games, you’ll want to avoid Soccer Kid Collection. Its dated design and aesthetic are enough to put off modern gamers. Moreover, its layers of precision will drive you mad. However, if you adore old-school games and everything they offer, this will pique your interest. Accordingly, I recommend it if you love the genre, and you should buy it here! Can you save the football tournament? Master the ball, hit each platform, and rescue the World Cup!

Early Access Review: Witchspire

Jared Sebalos

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Jul 9, 2026

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Witchspire – Setting The Table

To have a feast, the table must first be set, and upon this unique, magical table, do we begin our journey. Developed by Envar Games, which one might consider one of the three prongs of the trident of the broader company Envar, Witchspire is an open world survival crafting game that stands on its own two feet in a market that had reached the point of oversaturation long ago. Based in Sweden, though with presence across the globe, Envar themselves are a company of at least one hundred and ninety workers. These workers are divided into three different categories within the company: publishing (though I was unable to find another game published outside of the very focus of this review: Witchspire), outsourced work, and game development. Though unsure as to whether or not they might agree with me given their industry pedigree, I feel as though it is the duty of the game to make the person forget they are playing an amalgam of code and pixels being rendered upon a screen–to sometimes enrapture, sometimes frighten, and sometimes indeed delight the player such that the lines between what is and what is not blur. While I do delight in the world of Witchspire, I believe in its current state it fails to satisfy the onerous burden of making the player forget they are indeed in a world that does not and could not exist. Now, with our table set, let us begin with our first course: the appetizer.

Witchspire – Appetizer

Immediately upon entering the world of Witchspire, you are presented with options to tailor-make the experience to fit your own, specific desire or a choice between preset difficulty settings. Furthermore, you have the ability to customize your character with a myriad of different features: voices, hair, coloring of hair, etc., and what I once thought was important, you are also presented with a choice of faction, each with their own unique quote, flavor text, cosmetics, and wand. One would presume that this has implications upon gameplay and not purely superficial. However, and perhaps this is when the magic already begins to fade, there is seemingly nothing truly unique about any of them, and you are quick to displace starting clothing and weapons with stronger replacements that help facilitate an easier gameplay experience. It feels as though we are better off not choosing anything at all if what is ultimately there is so shallow. After being dropped into the world, the visuals to my eye are striking. Rendered in what is undoubtedly some form of Unreal 5, luminescent flowers dot a shattered landscape, with broken plots of land and spires littering a starry sky. This opening sequence is a microcosm of what can be expected of the broader experience. With firm assurance does the game plant the flag of its visual identity into the ground, and never once is it betrayed or placed alongside something that it has no business set against. Stark hues of purple and red lure the player into the world with an undeniable charm, yet I do wish that there were some form of hdr support to really help the already rich color pop. I had noticed brief stutters in this introductory segment, which did not extend to the broader game post-tutorial. I had started to fret that the seemingly comprehensive opening shader compilation step had either missed some shaders or there existed traversal stutters within the game, which, unfortunately, are almost omnipresent in Unreal 5 titles.

Entering this beautifully fractured world, we find ourselves being spoken to by a rather ethereal voice known as, if the subtitles are to be believed, Witchspire (the titular!). There are also no true survival mechanics that exist within the game. You do not need to eat, drink, or sleep, which I feel lends itself to a lack of mechanical baggage, making the experience a lot smoother overall, avoiding an unnecessary degree of friction. We are then later presented with my favorite of the two decisions I could make thus far, and a genuinely impactful choice: the creature we shall bond with and indeed what I feel to be the main course of the feast that is the experience of Witchspire.

Witchspire – Main Course

This is the real selling point, the bedrock upon which I feel the edifice of the game is built: the bonding and companion system. An almost pokémon-like catch-em-all, where each of these beings have two unique skills and an ability tree that improves their fighting prowess as they grind through levels with you. There does exist a problem with this system, one which has nothing to do with the system itself. These creatures often find themselves either clipping through the ground or trapped against some bushes and rocks due to some faulty pathfinding. Needless to say, this dispels any illusion of immersion within the world as you need to unsummon or switch them out with another companion for them to return or just have them blink back to you using the arcane magics of the game trying to keep them close to you. Do not take this derision as indictment, for this is, after all, an early access game. But I am charged with offering a window into the product as it is, not as it will be. But outside of minor gripes like targeting, pathfinding, and only being allowed to have one bonded companion in combat with you at a time, I do believe that this system is quite brilliant. Even a touch like being able to rename them, personalize them in effect, invites the player to live alongside these animals and treat them as you might a beloved pet.

In fact, when fighting a later enemy by the name of Al’uunian Golem, I was quite saddened when the Locto I chose at the start, who now went by the name Robert Blin, was slaughtered by a giant laser produced from its chest. You can even command these pets to aid you in mini-puzzles, which open doors from the ones I had seen. I truly hope this puzzle aspect of engagement is expanded upon more in the future because it can make for some genuine moments of bonding with the creatures that accompany you. Another facet of their aid is that of assisting you with both crafting and progression. The spinner, for instance, cannot even be utilized without the aid of either a Lamloof or a Shardling. Without either of these amongst your repertoire of animals, you cannot attain cotton for hearth progression, a pivotal aspect of personal development within the game. The very nature of the game is that of companions buttressing the efforts of the player. From small things like expediting crafting to things as large as enabling progression, the main course of the feast that is this game is most assuredly the creatures you can bond with. However, it is far from a perfect system, and it is impossible to avoid bugs in the process of interfacing with it, which brings us to the final course of our meal. One we can call the buggy dessert.

Witchspire – Dessert

When you open the game, it begins with a disclaimer that there are bugs and balance issues to be expected over the course of development, yet I find this does not quite capture the full breadth of what is to be expected. I will state for the sake of the undoubtedly hardworking team, whom I respect a great deal for the great product that they are continuing to update even now, that quite possibly I was dealt a bad hand when it comes to what I presented with over the course of my playtime. It felt that every hour played was marred by numerous forms of strange inconsistencies or bugs that once even resulted in me even having to exit to the main menu because I was stuck in the build menu. I quite enjoy the building within the game, and it is quite easy to correct mistakes as well, with a full return of invested materials, but being trapped within that menu is not quite my idea of a joyous endeavor. As mentioned previously as well, creatures clipping through the environment would occur to me even with my very own Robert Blin as we were engaged in combat or just traversing all sorts of different environments.

Another great complaint of mine, and the conclusion of this dessert, is that this a very interesting world from the perspective of its lore and the beings that dwell within it, but I find that the story definitely feels like an afterthought. It, much like the combat system, is entirely serviceable, but at no point feels the need to distinguish itself or experiences a desire to stand uniquely on its own.

Witchspire – Conclusion

In conclusion, the table and the process of it being set was executed by those with industry pedigree, and I do believe it was done wonderfully. The appetizer warmly welcomed the player to the world of the feast, with a bold selection and color palette that led to a main course that was truly inspired, if a little flawed, but the entire feast finds itself marred by the dessert that blights an otherwise enjoyable meal. With all this in mind, I would still genuinely recommend that people who are interested in open world survival games try this game, but I do think that overall, despite moments of brilliance, the potion that is this game needs a little more time to brew to smooth over some of the rougher edges. These rough edges prevent the player from truly immersing themselves within the world, and as a result mean the product as it stands does not deliver to me what is the core conceit of gaming: to forget one is even playing a game.

Review: House Flipper Remastered Collection

Josh Blackburn-Lane

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Jul 9, 2026

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Review: House Flipper Remastered Collection

House Flipper is a title that belongs to a special category. ‘Games I Play To Pretend I’m Not The World’s Least Practical Man’. In real life, I can just about manage to change a lightbulb. If I tried to fix a broken electrical socket, I’d probably end up looking like that bloke from Home Alone 2. And as for painting walls, well. The walls would indeed be painted. Problem is, so would everything else. So I quite enjoy games that allow me to fix things up properly. Granted, my patience is far lesser than my sense of aesthetics, so things are still a mess. But at least the lights turn on when I hit the switch.

House Flipper has always been a bit of an odd duck for me, though. Back in the day, I played through all of the jobs in the base game, but never quite got into the flipping aspect. I was more into cleaning up dilapidated houses, and less into looking at wallpaper swatches. But it definitely carved out its own niche, expanding on and improving the ‘cleaning game’ genre. The question, then, is what is gained by remastering it? I don’t want to give away my opinion just yet, but I will say that it is a question that I’m struggling to answer right now.

Fixer Upper

I’ve going to split this review into two halves. First, I’m going to talk about House Flipper Remastered Collection like I’m new to the series, then I’ll dissect the remaster itself. So, House Flipper. It’s a game that very much does what it says on the tin. You walk into a house full of dirt, cockroaches and awful aesthetic choices, and then you get to work. Once it’s tarted up, you can put it back on the market in the hopes of making back your cash. Alongside that runs the jobs list, where you go to people’s houses and tidy them up. This usually involves cleaning up an ungodly amount of dirt, then picking out wallpaper and furniture according to their wishes.

The jobs are where most of the enjoyment comes from for me. Walking into a run-down house with a mop and bucket and getting it all sorted out, then seeing the past vs. present pics at the end? Perfection. The cleaning does feel a little floaty at times, like you’re waving your mop vaguely near things, but it’s only part of the process. You then need to paint things and arrange the furniture. In extreme cases, we take a sledgehammer to the walls. House Flipper is one of those games where everyone’s finished product, even in the jobs, will look vastly different. I find it immensely satisfying. Well, everything up until the furniture at least, but that might be because of the dizzying amount of items available to buy.

That might be why I’ve never gotten on with the actual flipping side. You can buy houses to renovate, but I just get overwhelmed by the choices and stick with the same stuff each time. Still, I like it in principle but I feel like it needs an overall goal. A big debt to pay off, for example, a la Hardspace: Shipbreaker. As it is, after I rented out my first house and completed a batch of jobs, I had more money than I knew what to do with. Towards the end, things started to get a little repetitive. Especially in the houses where all you’re doing is changing the furniture in a handful of small rooms. It gets very up and down, enjoyment wise, but it did take quite a few hours for me to get to that point.

New Coat Of Paint

On the remastering side, there are a couple of things that make this version of House Flipper stand out. The first is the visuals. I wouldn’t say it’s a drastic upgrade (at least to my untrained eyes), but there’s no denying that everything looks brighter. The grass seems a lot more textured, too. It’s a general spruce up. There are also extra levels, and tools to play with. The most welcome addition is a UV torch that can highlight bits of dirt. This becomes very handy when your minimap is telling you there’s a patch of dirt but you just can’t see it. There are also new furniture items for the pile, too. If you’re the type that likes to plan out the ideal house, then you’ve got more things to play with.

There are a few additions that I have mixed feelings about. First is the map screen, which replaces the list of jobs. It’s handy as a way to combine all of the DLCs together (which are all included in the game), but I found it hard to remember what area corresponded to what DLC. One area is almost entirely off the screen too, though that might be a resolution issue. I’m also not sold on the narration before each job. It’s nice in a story titbit kind of way, but after a few jobs, they all start blurring together. You don’t really follow any central character, so by the end I was just skipping through them. Don’t need your life story, just what colour of paint you want for the walls.

Then there’s the stuff that I definitely do not like. They all stem from a central point: House Flipper Remastered Collection is very buggy at time of writing. This includes the lovely lighting, which only seems to be lovely half the time. It has a lot of the flickering and a ‘checkerboard’ look that I often see with upscaling, but it’s also practical stuff too. My UV light kept turning itself off, for instance, as did the light switches. There’s also a bizarre ghosting around the tools, which looks horrible. Performance is rough too, with long loading times and sudden stuttering. Then there’s strange occurrences, like needing to fix a roof that looked impeccable. Or the time I deleted a door and was unable to put it back, creating a spooky hidden room.

House Flipper Remastered Collection – One For The Newbies

Maybe this is my general distaste for ‘Remastering’ coming through, but I don’t really see the point of remastering House Flipper. If it was to bring it in-line with the sequel, then I could see a case. House Flipper 2 has much more enjoyable painting, for example. The original begins to grate after a while. That stuff, combined with the emphasis on assembling things (which the sequel lacked), would make for a great game. As it is, it’s just a coat of paint on something that looked, to me at least, perfectly fine already. This is more just a packaging of existing DLCs, with a couple of new toys added.

That makes it a difficult sell for existing players. Sinking another £42 to play basically the same game over again isn’t going to cut it. But approaching it from the view of a new player, I can see the benefit. The collection is cheaper than the original plus DLC, so you’re getting good value there. The sheer volume of DLC will keep you playing for many hours. If the strange graphical bugs and odd pieces of design don’t put you off then you’ll have weeks of content to get through. For everyone else, just bear in mind that this isn’t as much a ‘remastering’ as it is a new coat of paint. There’s probably a house flipping joke in there somewhere.

(House Flipper Remastered Collection‘s Steam Page)

Review: Wall World 2

Mike Turner

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Jul 9, 2026

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“Ground control to Major Tom?”

Someone tell Bowie there’s a new, Copper-coloured Cosmonaut in town. This interstellar space-miner is busy digging up precious resources, selling our uncut gems for profit, and wrangling mechanical arachnids – all of which are possible in Wall World 2, the amazing new indie bombshell. Developed and published by the independent team at Alawar entertainment — the minds behind Security 51 and The Last Gas Station — comes this absolute gem of a game. As the name indicates, Wall World 2 is the direct successor to their innovative rogue-lite mining marvel.

This title rocked my world with the ambition and uniqueness that the developers have so lovingly brought to life. As soon as you turn it on, you can see the passion oozing out of the screen like a British crumpet leaking full-fat salted butter. Take the art style for instance: it’s picture-perfect, with every pixel strategically placed to add nuance and character to every scene. It sounds strange, but it felt like food for my eyes — and they had an insatiable hunger. Then you have the polarising rouge-lite gameplay. Sometimes it’s fantastic. Other times, after a long shift at work when you’ve got tired, bloodshot eyes and you can hear your pillow calling, it can get super frustrating. But truthfully, this tension is where Wall World 2’s brilliance lies.

Mechanical Arachnids

The game consists of three different segments. First, you have the “mechanical arachnid” stages — or thats what I like to call them anyway. Here, you control a spider-shaped fuselage and must defend your perilous location from mischievous, bee-like robots and ebony-coloured tentacles. They scrape and claw at your every move while you try to manoeuvre out of every panic-inducing predicament.

Luckily, your spider ship is not unarmed. You have a handy cannon to fire mercilessly at every swine that comes your way, though you can also just try to crawl out the way like a half-dead, wounded squirrel.

Honestly, these stages really show off the uniqueness in Wall World 2. The whole map is centred on the vertical Y-axis. At first, this can be as jarring as looking though a trippy kaleidoscope while trying to park your car between a Lidl shopping trolley and a rusted Ford Focus. But I genuinely love this choice. It makes the game stand out among the thousands of titles released every year.

Secondly, we have the stages where you will spend most of your spelunking time. Here, you take the role of the main protagonist: boring old Ben. He’s a colourful cosmonaut armed with a powerful sci-fi plasma tool that works as as a drill or stone-sucker-upper — honestly, it’s probably easier just to call it a vacuum from here on out. Ben is also adorned in a corn-coloured spacesuit, which I must say is very trendy.

Your goal is mining a procedurally generated landscape in search of valuable resources and shiny, uncut gems. You will use these as currency to satisfy your oniomaniac needs via a massive upgrade system. These upgrades range from basic improvements like movement speed and drill efficiency, all the way to sexy space boots and a dangerous drill named the “Honey Badger”. But be warned: there are only so many items you can carry before you must return to your home-away-from-home, the armoured Shelob.

Thirdly, we have the cyberpunk-esque town. This is where you can purchase essential upgrades or just get a nice bit of relaxing respite from the arduous, perilous spelunking you’ve been enduring. It’s time to kick back with a hairy, hippie bartender who looks like he’s come straight from a 1972 Grateful Dead concert. After some idle chat, prepare to sink some arbitrarily named beverages. There is the “Acid Shot” which sounds needlessly dangerous to me, or my personal favourite, the “Rusty Ale”. All of these delectable drinks give perks to old Ben. When he’s tired of drowning his sorrows with washed up hippies, there are a couple of other locations you can visit throughout the town. As enjoyable as this luscious landscape is, it mainly serves as the game’s central hub. It is accessible from the vast overworld in which your odyssey takes place, allowing you to unlock and access all the different areas of the map.

So, where are we at with all this? Honestly, Wall world 2 has a great pixelated art style, and the gameplay feels perfectly polished. It is as addictive as a tube of Pringles —meaning once you pop, you really can’t stop. For all the reasons I’ve mentioned above, plus the relaxing, ambient space-age soundtrack, I give this game 8 out of 10. Frankly, it is an absolute joy to play. The only thing I could find wrong with this indie piece of digital art was … honestly, the name. There must have been something else they could have called it. When you play the game, the title makes sense, but for some reason, I kept on getting the words jumbled up. I’d call it World Wall 2 or Wall Word, or even Word War. I don’t know, honestly — this is probably more down to me being a half-brain-dead, slightly chemically damaged individual, but I felt like the developers could have of come up with something a little bit catchier.

At this point, though, I’m just splitting hairs. The last thing I can say for this amazing title is: this is one small game for man, one giant leap for indie gamers!

+ Controls like a dream

+ Beautiful art style

+ Hours of gameplay

+ Mechanical arachnids

+ Procedurally generated landscape

-The confusing name

8 / 10

Review: Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced

Matt Cooper

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Jul 9, 2026

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Review: Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced

It’s been thirteen years since Assassins Creed released many peoples favourite title in the series; Black Flag. The classic returns with a remake title Resynced. Can this new version of the game live up to the legend? Or should it walk the plank?

A Swashbuckling Adventure

I have loved the Assassin’s Creed series ever since the second game captured my imagination, but my all time favourite is Black Flag. The combination of a pirate’s story, intertwined with discovering a hidden assassins’ society is magic on screen. I fell in love with sailing the seas a long time ago. I was both excited and nervous when Ubisoft announced Black Flag Resynced. Could this remake ruin the near perfect image I once had of this game? Thankfully, absolutely not. Whilst there are some minor frustrations with changes, for the most part this is a superb remake of an already magnificent game.

What makes the story of Black Flag so memorable is the protagonist Edward Kenway and his story. Once a privateer who became a pirate, Kenway is thrust into the centuries long battle between Assassins and Templars by pure chance. To me, this is the strongest story in the series as it drip feeds lore and context of the assassins for both Edward and the player. This allows you to fully experience Edward’s journey at the same pace as he does. It’s a swashbuckling adventure which takes Kenway across the seas as he seeks to uncover the truths of the hidden mysteries. The updated graphics and cutscenes only bolster dramatic effect. This remains Ubisoft’s best narrative in the series to date.

New Content On These Shores

The story has been tweaked since the original, and for the better, in my opinion. Additional content characters such as Blackbeard are woven into the narrative more tightly than before. New missions based around characters like Lucy Baldwin and Tobias Smith add great moments to an already action packed tale. Ubisoft estimates around six hours of new content for these additional characters has been added. These new character missions serve as a perfect complementary arc to Kenway’s main tale and I loved every single second of it! The introduction of revamped mission structures work superbly as they restructure tedious tail missions that had plagued the earlier titles in the series.

Then there’s the changes with the game’s future timeline. In the original game, players would have to complete these first person segments as an Abstergo employee. I fall into the category which despised these moments. So you can imagine my joy when these moments have been removed in favour of a more subtle approach. These are in the form of glyphs and rifts which help you piece together videos from a hidden messenger in Abstergo. For me, this approach is a superb way of retelling those painfully long futuristic storyline sections.

A (Revamped) Pirates Life For Me

At its core, Black Flag Resynched is the ultimate pirate simulator. As usual, you control Kenway from a third person perspective as you sail the seas and plunder treasure. Ubisoft has made a concerted effort to retool combat and stealth, with mixed results. Combat has been changed dramatically from the original game. It’s more free flowing than before, with a new parry system, but in some ways it’s a step backwards. Combat can feel much more hack and slash and repetitive, compared to the original. Some will love it but I had a mixed experience. The removal of the hidden blade as a weapon in hand to hand combat is baffling to me. There are some positives though, with the retool quick items allowing unique and free flowing combos to occur. The modernised HUD also drastically helps items to be used more efficiently.

Stealth remains extremely smooth and tight and is the bedrock of the franchise but it has had some new tweaks. As previously mentioned, the revamped tailing and eavesdropping sections are so much smoother that it’s such a breath of fresh air. I used to dread those missions but these feel a lot more fluid and streamlined. Combat and stealth can also be tweaked with a variety of accessibility settings which drastically alter difficulties. I’ll never be against great accessibility.

Do We Have Our Heading?

Whilst combat has garnered mixed results, one thing for certain is that naval combat and exploration have never been better. Naval combat feels so complex and dynamic; it’s a real chess match each time you engage in a shootout with another ship. The dynamic weather system accentuates this feeling dramatically. The Jackdaw starts as a weak and puny ship but as you upgrade and improve, it becomes an absolute monster. New additions to the naval officers add new abilities and quests, adding even more content to a package dripping with it. Fighting the legendary ships remains the pinnacle of the combat which will test your strategic wit. Capturing forts feels even more cinematic than before with new landing sequences. A superb effort.

Exploration and traversal are also stellar in Black Flag Resynced. Underwater exploration has been improved drastically and with the new graphic power of the Anvil engine, it’s simply magical. Swimming through the gorgeous waters is breath-taking. Running, climbing and swimming are smooth and satisfying. I used to despise the moment where Ezio or Edward would jump in a different way to my input, but with Resynced everything feels so smooth and lifelike. This is Assassin’s Creed at its best.

The Beauty Of The Sea

Let’s get straight to it. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynched is one hell of a beautiful game! Blood explodes wickedly during assassinations, whilst smoke roars from cannons after firing. Every location is dripping in colour and detail as Edward explores wreckages, cities, islands and more. This is a vibrant world that you sail around and in many ways the sea is the star. The water animations and mechanics are some of the best you’ll ever see. I could stare at the water all day long as it washes up on the beautifully rendered shore. Animations are crisp and fluid. This is the best Assassins Creed game to date. The one downside to visual presentation is some bugs and glitches that occurred during my time, but hopefully these can be swiftly ironed out.

Similarly, the audio design and soundtrack are a rip roaring ride! The swooshing and clanging of swords sounds positively delightful, whilst taking the leap of faith always brings a smile to my face. The stellar voice acting has been expanded with the new content adding new life to an already wonderful cast. The sea shanties sound as beautiful as they once did; I could listen to the crew singing all day long. Add in a beautiful action packed soundtrack that peaks at the right moments and you have the recipe for success. Bravo, Ubisoft.

Verdict

Assassins Creed Black Flag Resynched is a rare remake in today’s age. It actually feels like the developers have sunk passion and time into the project and made this a worthy addition to the franchise. Sure, there are some missteps, with bugs and glitches and the uneven combat system, but, for the most part, this is a beautiful journey. It’s a wonderful story with new characters and content, stellar naval combat and exploration and some of the best visuals this year. Black Flag Resynched is what makes this franchise so beloved. It will always be, a pirate’s life for me.

Power Up for the Next Trailblaze: UGREEN Announces Official Honkai: Star Rail Collaboration with Exclusive Gift Box

Andrew Edney

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Jul 9, 2026

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Power Up for the Next Trailblaze: UGREEN Announces Official Honkai: Star Rail Collaboration with Exclusive Gift Box

UGREEN, a leading global consumer electronics brand, have unveiled its latest collaboration with HoYoverse, becoming an official partner of Honkai: Star Rail. Following the success of its previous partnership with Genshin Impact, this collaboration marks another milestone in UGREEN’s expansion into the global gaming ecosystem.

Together, UGREEN and HoYoverse are launching their first officially licensed Honkai: Star Rail collection, featuring five co-branded products and an exclusive collectible gift box. Combining character-inspired design with UGREEN’s advanced charging and tracking technology, the collection gives fans of Honkai: Star Rail practical power and everyday convenience for gaming, travel, and daily use.

Under the theme “Power Up for the Next Trailblaze,” the collection is designed to support Trailblazers across gaming, travel, and everyday life. Drawing inspiration from Yao Guang’s image as an Arbiter-General who reads the signs of fate and turns adversity into fortune, the collaboration connects Honkai: Star Rail’s character-driven design with UGREEN’s fast-charging ecosystem, offering fans reliable power and practical control wherever their journey leads.

Reliable power for every adventure

The UGREEN MagFlow Air Magnetic Power Bank Honkai: Star Rail Edition and UGREEN Nexode Pro Power Bank Honkai: Star Rail Edition combine distinctive aesthetics with dependable performance. The former supports both wired and wireless charging for up to three devices simultaneously, while its 10,000mAh capacity provides reliable all-day power. The latter complements the lineup with up to 45W fast charging, a built-in USB-C cable, and a smart display for everyday charging.

The UGREEN Nexode Air Charger Honkai: Star Rail Edition and UGREEN Nexode Retractable USB-C Cable Honkai: Star Rail Edition combine Yao Guang-inspired designs with powerful charging performance. Supporting up to 65W GaN charging and 100W fast charging respectively, the duo offers a compact and portable solution, featuring a foldable-plug charger and retractable cable for added convenience.

Beyond charging, the collection also includes the UGREEN FineTrack Mini 2 Honkai: Star Rail Edition, a smart tracker compatible with Apple Find My for real-time location tracking. Powered by a long-lasting 600mAh CR2450 battery that delivers up to 2,700 finds, and equipped with a loud 110dB alert, this compact tracker helps users easily locate important belongings while providing peace of mind.

The Limited Collectible Gift Box features the MagFlow Air Magnetic Power Bank, Nexode Air Charger, Nexode Retractable USB-C Cable, and FineTrack Mini 2, alongside exclusive Yao Guang-themed merchandise including an acrylic stand, tin badge, holographic ticket and power bank pouch.

UGREEN will also partner with Honkai: Star Rail at Anime Expo (AX), the largest anime convention in the United States. The event will take place from July 2 to 5 at the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC), and all co-branded products will be displayed and sold at the official Honkai: Star Rail merchandise booth.

The UGREEN x Honkai: Star Rail Limited Collectible Gift Box is now available in the United States on Amazon, the UGREEN Official Store, and TikTok Shop.

UGREEN x Honkai: Star Rail Limited Collectible Gift Box ($249.99)

UGREEN MagFlow Air Magnetic Power Bank Honkai: Star Rail Edition ($89.99)

UGREEN Nexode Air Charger Honkai: Star Rail Edition ($49.99)

UGREEN Nexode Pro Power Bank Honkai: Star Rail Edition ($59.99)

UGREEN Nexode Retractable USB-C Cable Honkai: Star Rail Edition ($19.99)

UGREEN FineTrack Mini 2 Honkai: Star Rail Edition ($21.99)

About UGREEN

UGREEN is a leading global consumer technology company. Since its founding in 2012, UGREEN has upheld its core values of being user-centric, sincere, and dedicated. With a global presence under the renowned “UGREEN” brand, its business covers over 180 countries and regions, serving more than 300 million users.

Win Chickenhare and the Secret of the Groundhog Merchandise

Andrew Edney

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Jul 9, 2026

31

Win Chickenhare and the Secret of the Groundhog Merchandise

To celebrate the exciting upcoming theatrical release of Chickenhare and the Secret of the Groundhog (Cert:PG) on 24th July, we’re giving away a fantastic merch bundle to two lucky winners. The amazing prizes include a Chickenhare themed t-shirt, bag and stickers!

Joined by Abe the Tortoise, Meg the Skunk and Pig Squeak, Chickenhare races against time to rescue his family while outsmarting the power-hungry Crolloq and her mischievous chameleon minions, whose antics lead to chaos at every turn.

Chickenhare and the Secret of the Groundhog is a fun-filled family adventure celebrating friendship, courage, family and will be in UK and Irish cinemas from 24th July.

How to enter to win

We have two sets of Chickenhare and the Secret of the Groundhog merchandise to give away.

All you have to do is enter below:

Win Chickenhare and the Secret of the Groundhog Merchandise

The contest closes at midnight on 23rd July 2025.

The contest is only open to our UK readers – sorry!

Review: GUNNAR Sofia Glasses

Andrew Edney

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Jul 8, 2026

0

Here is our review of the GUNNAR Sofia Glasses.

Add a smart round frame with a charming twist of retro to your everyday screen time with the GUNNAR Sofia Glasses. Part of the Kista Collection, named after Nordic technology hubs and created to celebrate the key role of women in tech, the Sofia is crafted from premium engineered polymer frame material with a keyhole bridge and sculpted nose pads for a snug, all-day fit.

Fitted with GUNNAR’s patented lens technology and the G-Shield lens coating, the Sofia blocks harmful blue light and 100% UV while keeping things anti-reflective and smudge-resistant. Available in three colourways with Amber and Clear lens tint options, it’s built to ease digital eye strain whether you’re gaming, working, or just doomscrolling before bed.

Features

Smart round style in premium engineered polymer frame material
Multi-barrel hinges
GUNNAR patented lens technology
G-Shield lens coating: anti-reflective and smudge-resistant
Blocks harmful blue light and 100% UV
SPECS: lens width: 48 mm | lens height: 42 mm | nose: 20 mm | frame width: 135 mm | temple: 140 mm | weight: 22.1 grams (without packaging)

What’s in the box?

The box contains the Sofia Glasses along with a Microfibre Pouch.

A Closer Look

Final Thoughts

The Sofia glasses are lightweight and comfortable, and that’s really the first thing you notice once you put them on. Even after a few hours in front of a screen there’s no pinching at the temples or nose, which isn’t always a given with blue light glasses in this price range.

The Sofia frame has that round, slightly retro shape that manages to look smart without trying too hard. The keyhole bridge and sculpted nose pads keep the fit snug, and at just 22.1 grams (without packaging) they’re light enough to forget you’re wearing them. Lens width comes in at 48mm, lens height at 42mm, with a 135mm frame width and 140mm temples, so there’s a decent range of face shapes this will suit.

The Amber tint blocks 65% of blue light at 450nm and is the one most people will reach for if they’re doing all-purpose computer work, reading, or data entry. If you’d rather keep colours as true as possible, the Clear option only blocks 35% and is better suited to photo editing or graphic design work where accuracy matters more than maximum protection.

The G-Shield coating does its job well, cutting down on glare from overhead lighting and keeping smudges to a minimum, and the multi-barrel hinges feel sturdy rather than flimsy, which matters if these are getting picked up and put down several times a day.

As part of the Signature Performance Level, the Sofia sticks to GUNNAR’s core promise: impact-resistant polycarbonate lenses and the full G-Shield coating stack, without venturing into the more premium (and pricier) Epic or Legendary territory. For anyone after a stylish, no-fuss pair of blue light glasses for daily screen use, that’s exactly the point.

The GUNNAR Sofia Glasses are available now priced at $64 USD.

You can learn more from the GUNNAR website here.

Review: GUNNAR Elin Glasses

Andrew Edney

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Jul 8, 2026

0

Here is our review of the GUNNAR Elin Glasses.

Protect your eyes in style with the GUNNAR Elin Glasses, the newest addition to GUNNAR Kista Collection and designed for anyone who spends their day staring at a screen. This slim, full-rim rectangular frame blocks blue light and helps prevent digital eye strain, all while looking effortlessly sharp.

Stay comfortable through long stretches at your desk with a lightweight engineered polymer frame, a saddle bridge and smooth multi-barrel hinges. Choose between two popular lens tints, Amber or Clear, both finished with GUNNAR G-Shield lens coating for anti-reflective, smudge-resistant clarity and 100% UV protection.

Named after Nordic technology hubs, the Kista Collection celebrates the role of women in tech, and the Elin wears that inspiration well with a lustrous colourway that doesn’t scream “computer glasses”.

Features

Rectangular Bayonetta-style in premium engineered polymer frame material
Multi-barrel hinges
GUNNAR patented lens technology
G-Shield lens coating: anti-reflective and smudge-resistant
Blocks harmful blue light and 100% UV
SPECS: lens width: 54 mm | lens height: 30 mm | nose: 17 mm | frame width: 129 mm | temple: 140 mm | weight: 21.3 grams (without packaging)

What’s in the box?

The box contains the Elin glasses and a microfibre pouch to keep them scratch-free.

A Closer Look

Final Thoughts

The Elin glasses are lightweight and feel comfortable even after a full day of wear, which matters a lot when you’re planning to keep them on through back-to-back meetings or a long gaming session.

The Elin is a slim, full-rim rectangular frame with a distinct Bayonetta-style silhouette, cut from premium engineered polymer. The saddle bridge sits neatly without pinching, and the multi-barrel hinges give the arms a smooth, sturdy action rather than the loose wobble you sometimes get on cheaper computer glasses. At 54mm lens width and 129mm frame width, they strike a fairly universal fit, and at 21.3 grams you genuinely forget you’re wearing them after an hour or two at the desk.

Setting up which lens is right for you is straightforward. The Amber tint blocks 65% of blue light at 450nm and is GUNNAR’s most popular option, ideal for all-purpose computer work, reading and data entry. If you’d rather keep colours true to life, the Clear tint blocks 35% and suits office work, photo editing and graphic design just as well. Don’t worry if you’re not sure which to pick — GUNNAR’s site breaks both down clearly before you buy.

The G-Shield coating does a really good job of cutting glare off the lenses, and combined with the 100% UV protection, your eyes stay noticeably less fatigued during long screen sessions. There’s also an optional GUNNAR-Focus +0.20 power for anyone who wants a touch of extra sharpness at close range, alongside the standard Neutral Focus for cross-room viewing.

Multi-barrel hinges keep the arms feeling solid rather than flimsy, and the saddle bridge means they sit comfortably on the nose without constant adjusting. They fold flat into the included microfiber pouch, so they’re easy enough to toss in a bag if you’re moving between home and the office.

The GUNNAR Elin Glasses are available now priced at $49 USD, with the option of Plum Crystal, Onyx or Rose Tortoise frames, with a choice of Amber or Clear lenses and a 12-month warranty included.

You can learn more from the GUNNAR website here.

Review: Don’t Let It Starve

Balazs Posta

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Jul 8, 2026

0

Don’t Let It Starve is a horror game, and I usually enjoy horror games, so I went into this one with full of hopes, and decent expectations. This is what happens when horror genre meets and combines with roguelite elements. Let me say this first, this game did not disappoint, and brought everything it needed.

Don’t Let It Starve is a 2026 horror roguelite game. Developed by Eduardo Scarpato, and published by Black Lantern Collective. In this game, you are trapped inside of an underground kitchen facility, where you are forced to feed the chef monster who has an insatiable hunger, making you prepare more and more food until you can.

Don’t Let It Starve welcomes you with an interesting artstyle and menu. The style of the game reminds me of Buckshot Roulette which also used this low-poly 3D models. In the menu, you can find an interesting menu, called Compendium. Here you can find what items and dishes you unlocked so far in your runs. Simply selecting ‘Start’ will load you into the next menu, where you can select the run you wish to complete. There are tons of them, and you need to complete specific tasks to unlock them. They also have difficulty options, so the runs are not only long, but challenging with each run.

Welcome To the Kitchen

Once you load in, a hungry chef will await you to show you around the place. He speaks perfect english and some mixed french to seem like it’s a great chef. It shows you the ingredients you are working with and the table you’re working on. Other than these very basic things, it refuse to show you anything else saying you should discover them for yourself. This is a good way to tell the players that “There are much more to this place than you think”, giving you a great mysterious experience.

The runs feature multiple rounds, where you must satisfy the Chef’s hunger, which can be found on the top left of your screen. The game will give you an X amount of bentos to work with, so make sure you make them count, as even one can mess up your run and ruin everything, and let me tell you…he will not be happy. If you don’t satisfy its hunger, it will eat you alive.

The "hungry" Chef showing what will happen if it's hungry after all the bentos used — **The Hungry Chef and its arms**

The Shivering Undergrounds

Don’t Let It Starve fuses the environment and the soundtrack together greately. The kitchen makes you feel like you are in a basement that hasn’t been used for years, making the horror factor count. The low-poly 3D artstyle ups that with the darker theme and the rusty walls.

There are several things in this kitchen. You have an exit that is locked behind a rusty lock, piece of papers on the walls, and even a safe. All of these things and items have their own purposes. The lock can be unlocked, the piece of papers are from past victims, or later given buffs. The safe needs to be unlocked for the next available run. There’s a trashcan which can serve as a bento disposal and a jumpscare element, because at random times a hand will come up and when you see it, it will disappear. Same jumpscare goes to the window, where the Chef will sometimes lean forward and jumpscare you. These extra things add to the horroristic style of Don’t Let It Starve, making you uncomfortable.

Some other usable things in the kitchen are meat grinder, and displays. Displays work as a buff system. You can get coins from the Chef or making small sized bentos. From those coins you can buy boosters that will multiply your bento score, or give other type of buffs. You can reroll them if you don’t find anything helpful. The first reroll on the run is for free. The meat grinder on the other hand can be used if you don’t have the required points for passing. You can chop off your arms, and get 25% of the required score. Disturbing, but fits the environment.

Served To the Table

Lastly, the fundemental item of the game, the table. It contains a lot of items, like cook book, a small bell, and obviously the bento box. Clicking on it will let you select the bento box size, which can be between three. The small will reward you with extra coins, while the biggest one will cost you coins. Good way to balance out the bento sizes and force the player into making decisions for bigger scores.

Once you selected the size, there will be several spaces available in the bento box. This is where the logistical part of Don’t Let It Starve begins. You are given 4 ingredients on top of the table, with an additional reroll button. You have to select the ingredient you want to use, and put it into the bento box. The ingredients feature a variety of items. It can be rice, olive, bread, chili. When these ingredients are shown, the game will also show their satisfactory value, which is different for each items. Placing ingredients and filling up a row will give you an extra 5% value, while filling the whole box will give 50% extra.

It also has a cook book, that will show you the available food combos and even your in-game stats like time played, and current round. You can even abandon your run in this book, so technically this works as a pause menu.

The small bell can be used if the bento box is missing 1-2 pieces and can’t be filled. Saves you a lot of time and helps you proceed.

Simple and Easy

The control is real simple, you can basically move and look around. That’s really it. You have a crouch mechanism in Don’t Let It Starve, but so far I found it underused and doesn’t help with anything, but it gives you more exploration option for the kitchen. There are some more controls for the bento making. You can rotate the food piece, or use ‘Ctrl’ if you want to cancel the currently selected piece and use another one. Placing it down is with clicking. Simply, and easy. Making the control seem effortless, but nice.

Benefits of Helping the Chef

Once the Chef is satisfied, it will give you some extra coins for your next round. Then it will give you the required satisfaction amount for your run, and you go again and again. After the round is complete, it will allow you to choose from the Chef’s Dish, which will bring up 3 seperate dishes with different buffs. The selected ones will be shown next to the window where the Chef is located.

**The Chef’s hunger if it’s not solved**

Once you die, the Chef will eat you for the extra protein and the game will proceed to the scoreboard. It will show you the tools you used as your power-ups, the Chef Dishes you used as buff items, and your run stats in the middle with time and rounds completed.

The Final Approval

I think this game is fun. I even told it to myself that its fun while playing. Its well-made, I love the artstyle, and the genre fits perfectly for Don’t Let It Starve. I knew this game won’t disappoint me by looking at its page and trailer. This game is recommended for those who enjoyed Buckshot Roulette‘s low-poly style, and a logistic based horror with roguelite buff elements. It does a lot of things well, while it has its small flaws. You can check the game out here, I think this game is totally worth it.