Category Archives: One-Shots

One-off articles about games, cultural phenomena, anime and anything else that isn’t getting the Cover Game treatment.

Essentials, One-Shots, Racers

Table Top Racing World Tour Nitro Edition: Less is More

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One of the most commonly cited reasons for enjoying video games is allowing oneself to realise fantasies of various descriptions.

Frequently, these fantasies are heroic in nature, casting us into a world that is not our own and throwing us into conflict against a powerful foe that is nonetheless possible to overcome with enough determination. Sometimes they’re emotional, allowing us to engage with characters who are very different from people we encounter in reality. They might even be sexual, giving us the opportunity to explore a side of ourselves we find difficult to bring up even with people we know and love.

Or sometimes they might just be wondering what it would be like if your childhood toy cars could actually power themselves and race around an improvised circuit constructed of whatever happened to be on hand at the time. Enter the extravagantly titled Table Top Racing World Tour Nitro Edition, a game that can most certainly help with that last one, even if it won’t assist with your throbbing libido in the slightest. Unless you’re really into tiny cars.

Continue reading Table Top Racing World Tour Nitro Edition: Less is More →

One-Shots

Lapis x Labyrinth: Dango, Dango, Dango, Dango, Dango Daikazoku

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Genre blends can make for some interesting experiences, and over the years developers have tried all sorts of things.

We’ve had racing games with RPG elements, dating sims with strategy games attached, first-person shooters combined with adventure games… at this point most things have been tried, you might think.

What about dungeon crawler, platform game, action RPG, shoot ’em up and pachinko? I bet I have your attention now, hmm? Let’s look at Lapis x Labyrinth from Nippon Ichi Software — one of the company’s best games for a long time, and a title which looks distressingly set to pass by an awful lot of people unnoticed.

Continue reading Lapis x Labyrinth: Dango, Dango, Dango, Dango, Dango Daikazoku →

One-Shots

Doom: Now Available On the Go. Kind Of.

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[UPDATE 27/07/2019 — Bethesda has said in a tweet that the online login requirement mentioned in this article was originally intended to be an optional feature for their “Slayer’s Club” members to obtain rewards for playing the classic Doom games. They are presently working on a fix to remove the mandatory online login. The original article follows while the situation remains.]

The sudden, surprise news that id Software’s venerable first-person shooter Doom was coming to Nintendo Switch (and PS4, and Xbox One) was initially very exciting indeed.

In celebration of Doom’s 25th anniversary, it seemed, we were to be treated to modern ports of Doom, Doom II and the underappreciated Doom III — and they were going to be cheap. Moreover, the fact that they were coming to Switch meant that you’d finally be able to take a competent version of Doom on the go with you without having to battle mobile versions’ awful touchscreen controls.

And indeed, you can now take a competent version of Doom on the go with you… but there are some important things to note. Let’s take a look.

Continue reading Doom: Now Available On the Go. Kind Of. →

Essentials, One-Shots, Puzzlers

Crawlco Block Knockers: A Game That Indeed Contains Both Blocks and Knockers

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If you were to tell me a couple of weeks ago that one of the most addictive, satisfying games of the summer would be a peculiar combination of venerable (but largely forgotten) Sega arcade title Pengo and ’90s Japanese arcade eroge I’d… have probably believed you, to be honest, but here we are anyway.

Yes, the aptly named Crawlco Block Knockers is a deliberate homage to dank, smoky, sleazy Japanese arcades in the ’90s and the games you would find therein. Drawing particular inspiration from Kaneko’s Gals Panic series and Mitchell Corporation’s Gonta the Diver duology, the game combines strategic thinking, arcade action, ’80s inspired vaporwave music and the opportunity to gradually reveal images of attractive, curvy women not wearing very much.

Sounds like a party, right? Let’s take a look. Some mildly NSFW shenanigans after the jump!

Continue reading Crawlco Block Knockers: A Game That Indeed Contains Both Blocks and Knockers →

Community, One-Shots

Why Collect?

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Collecting games is a major hobby for many people — whether they’re into modern titles or retro stuff.

Thankfully, although certain portions of the industry are trying desperately to push us towards an all-digital (or, worse, an all-streaming) future, there are still plenty of companies out there who understand that there is still very much a collector’s market: people want to fill their shelves with their favourite games, and they want cool goodies to go with them.

Why bother, though? Aren’t you just cluttering up your limited living space?

Continue reading Why Collect? →

One-Shots

Super Mario Maker 2: In Praise of “Normal”

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Now Super Mario Maker 2 has been out for a little while, we can consider certain aspects of it in greater detail — something of a necessity when contemplating an online-centric title like this!

There’s already a huge variety of levels out there for you to enjoy, with new ones being added all the time. I’ve even got in on the action with two of my own at the time of writing and more to come — check the game’s Hub Page for the codes if you want to try them!

And, of course, the game is flavour of the month for streamers and YouTubers. But I have a bit of a concern about this side of things in particular; let’s talk about that.

Continue reading Super Mario Maker 2: In Praise of “Normal” →

One-Shots

Super Mario Maker 2: Nintendo Hands Over the Keys… Again

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Super Mario Maker was a noteworthy title in that it managed to be extremely popular and culturally relevant despite being on a console considered to be a high-profile “failure”.

Now Nintendo has well and truly picked itself up, dusted itself off and raised a hearty middle finger to its competition with the Switch, many people would have doubtless been happy with a simple port of the original Super Mario Maker, opening up the possibilities that package offered to a whole new audience.

But what Nintendo has actually given us is something much, much greater. Let’s dive in and see what Super Mario Maker 2 brings to the creators’ table.

Continue reading Super Mario Maker 2: Nintendo Hands Over the Keys… Again →

One-Shots

Kotodama – The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa: Stripping Away Deceit

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Over the last few years, UK-based outfit PQube Games has become a force to be reckoned with in the localisation and publishing space.

Since its inception in 2009, PQube has brought Western fans a variety of games that might otherwise have never made it out of Japan, including Inti Creates’ Gal*Gun Double Peace and Gal*Gun 2, Kadokawa Games’ Root Letter and Red Entertainment’s Our World is Ended; they also played a key role in popularising and expanding the audiences of titles such as Nitroplus’ classic visual novel Steins;Gate and Arc System Works’ anime fighting series BlazBlue.

It’s a company serious about what it does, in other words — and so when I heard it was developing its own game for the first time, I couldn’t help but take notice. That game, Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa, is finally here, so let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading Kotodama – The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa: Stripping Away Deceit →

One-Shots

Educational Esperanto Visual Novel Struggles with Valve’s Amorphous Content Policies

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[UPDATE 22/06/2019: The Expression: Amrilato is now available on Steam! See this blog post by MangaGamer for further details. I’m leaving this story up, as the discussion points it raised remain pertinent.]

I don’t normally cover “news” here on MoeGamer, but this is something I think it’s important to talk about right now.

Prolific publisher and localiser MangaGamer announced today that its thoroughly intriguing-sounding visual novel The Expression: Amrilato, a game that combines a romantic yuri narrative with educational, linguistic content approved by Japan’s National Esperanto Association, had been released on its own storefront and GOG.com.

The game was also intended to release on Valve’s popular Steam storefront but it, like many other Japanese games and visual novels, has fallen foul of the company’s ill-defined policies regarding acceptable game content. Let’s talk about that.

Continue reading Educational Esperanto Visual Novel Struggles with Valve’s Amorphous Content Policies →

Essentials, One-Shots, Racers

Team Sonic Racing: Always Better Together

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One of the most interesting success stories of the last couple of console generations is the series of Sonic-themed racing games.

While the blue blur’s mainline adventures have had a somewhat mixed reception over the years, Sumo Digital’s Sonic Racing series (to date consisting of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and Team Sonic Racing) has been very positively received by press and public alike.

So how is the latest installment? Let’s take a look!

Continue reading Team Sonic Racing: Always Better Together →