
How to avoid console frustration on Christmas morning
Getting a brand new console for a loved one this Christmas? Max runs you through the things you should do before wrapping it up.
Getting a brand new console for a loved one this Christmas? Max runs you through the things you should do before wrapping it up.
Find out how a game as sweet as Animal Crossing could still leave a bad taste in Andrew’s mouth.
Should you give Just Dance 2021 a cha chance? Ben breaks it down, in more way than one.
Find out why Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s opening really struck a fjord with us
Twitter Patreon Twitch Spotify Youtube Many of you may know me as being a Switch fanatic, what you might not know though is that at heart, I am really an
Max takes a look at the latest figures from Nintendo, which show that leaning on a strong library can work just as well as regularly releasing new content.
How Ghost of Tsushima’s generous free update sets a welcome precedent for future updates from Sony.
Why nostalgia is the crucial ingredient in fully enjoying Super Mario 3D All Stars
Ben, Rich, Laurie, Lewis, and Dan all try to record a sensible podcast whilst watching the latest State of Play.
Like Morpheus’s first phone call with Neo in The Matrix, the voice promises to keep you safe if you follow their instructions. “Take a deep breath and step out of the bathysphere. I won’t leave you twisting in the wind.”
Nowadays, games need to stand out in the eShop melee in order for players to buy them in large volumes. How better to do this therefore then releasing a total of seven games in one hit
“One of the best role playing games on the Nintendo Switch. With only a few niggles to hold most people back, this accessible and gorgeous RPG will keep you enthralled for hours”
Twitter Facebook Spotify Apple Soundcloud “a throwback to the early days of JRPGs where engaging story and character development ruled supreme” ‘Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition’ has arrived on the Nintendo
A challenging and absorbing Roguelike strategy game built more for advanced players than the casual crowd.
Jon unboxes the incredible collectors edition of A Hole New World, released by First Press Games.
Any qualms I may have had quickly disappeared as I was sucked into the world of the colony
Less a game, more an interactive piece of philosophical art.
A good, fun puzzler with a satisfying level challenge, but this is a mobile game at heart and it’s hard to recommend on Switch when you almost certainly own a smartphone.
Twitter Facebook Spotify Apple Soundcloud The Eshop Spring Sale 2020 Games you should be checking out Moonlighter, Golf Story, The Messenger, Transistor, Bastion, Steamworld games (yes, all of them), Gris,
You might ask, why am I wasting your time with pointless memories of a little known book series? The answer is simple; the maps and drawings recorded in those exercise books have been brought to life on Nintendo Switch with the release of Drawngeon.
Venture into a distant moon base, uncovering the secrets hidden within in this engaging and intelligent first-person puzzler.
Hey, do you love a bargain? Of course you do! Hear our thoughts on what you should pick up right here!
Not Tonight’s willingness to tackle weighty topics (however cack-handedly), a hugely satisfying core gameplay loop and gorgeous art and sound design all stand strongly in its favour. However, horrible controls and some disastrous design decisions really did undermine this for me and leave me fed up with playing it.
I’ll admit, when it was announced to the Switch Island group that we had a review code for Aviary Attorney I had absolutely no idea what to expect.
Arriving fully formed on the scene less than five years ago, it’s amazing to think of the impact that Splatoon has had. The Wii U original sold 5m copies and
Golazo! is an arcade football game that evokes the early 90s in both its aesthetics and its game design. But sadly, it also evokes the imprecision and frustration of playing those older games as well.
Star Trek gave us tri-dimensional chess, Harry Potter gave us wizard’s chess and The Prisoner gave us human chess. Now, Kuji Entertainment brings you drug lord chess in the form
Bag a bargain in the latest eShop sale – here’s our guide to the must-haves!
Bag a bargain in the latest eShop sale – here’s our guide to the must-haves!
The wait is almost over for the latest game in the Pokemon franchise, and a lot of people are very excited (and rightly so, see my ‘5 Reasons To Be
So, it’s finally happening. Pokemon Sword and Shield are releasing for the Nintendo Switch this week. That’s a big deal. We’ve never had a mainline game in this series on
Can you feel it? It’s in the air. The excitement that comes round every few years or so. No, not an election, you masochists, I’m talking about the arrival of
Take Cuphead, swap out the Fleischer Brothers-inspired animation for MTV’s adult animation output from the 90s and you’ll end up with Freedom Finger. The game has a premise that sounds
If you’re anything like me, the word dodgeball serves to remind you of only two things. One being the 2004 comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Ben stiller. The second being
Bag a bargain in the latest eShop sale – here’s our guide to the must-haves!
So one of the first things you need to play your switch is a Nintendo account tied to your switch. This gets you access to the store, allows you to
Very rarely do I pick up a game that vastly differs from my expectations, only for me to end up enjoying it more than I could have imagined in the
By now you’ve most probably finished reliving the magic of Link’s Awakening. Bloody good wasn’t it? If you’re still yet to pick it up then let me assure you you’re
The Switch isn’t a natural fit for simulation racing games. The Joy Cons, even the Pro Controller, don’t boast analog triggers, meaning that precision acceleration and braking can only be
As hard as game developers try, there has never been, nor will there ever be, a perfect game. It’s just not possible. Player’s tastes in games are so subjective, and
Bag a bargain in the latest eShop sale – here’s our guide to the must-haves!
Have you ever wanted to fill the shoes of a deeply misogynistic man who hides his sexual fetish for panties by pretending he can deduce all he needs to know
The game offers itself as a top down shooter, with up to four ships available in any scenario. The overall look of the game is quite nice, nothing revolutionary, but
I picked this up as an impulse buy, while it was on sale with 10% off at launch. It’s gameboy-esque graphics and platformer vibe was enough to tempt me, hot
Styling itself as a futuristic, sci-fi spin on the classic noir detective stories, ‘AI: The Somnium Files’ sees you take the role of special detective Kaname Date as he seeks
Rich, our resident island barber, wants you to sit down in his chair for a chat and a trim. This week, he’s raging about EA. Twas the Year of
In this article, Laurie ‘TheEggman64’ tries to convince you to go back and play a classic game many people might have missed… People of a certain age will remember growing
The Final Fantasy series has always been close to my heart. Listeners of The Switch Island podcasts will have heard all about my love of the latter-end Squaresoft titles (specifically;
Inspired by Hollow Knight and made exclusively for one of our lovely patrons. Get your own song over at patreon.com/theswitchisland
Yesterday was a very good day. The Switch Island has now grown from two nonsensical scousers, sat in a tiny spare bedroom trying to talk over the sounds of a
Generally, the only time a banana speaks to me is when one of them whispers “you should’ve eaten me instead of that pork pie”. I’ve learned to ignore the taunts,
Rock of Ages 2, is probably the funniest game on Switch, the cut-scenes are laugh out loud hilarious. Before the start of each level in the main campaign, you are
I can still remember the first time I sat down to watch Formula 1. It was 1998 at a rain-lashed Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium (a grand prix that I would eventually
Recently the World Health Organisation recognised ‘Gaming Addiction’ as a certified health problem, and as anyone could have predicted, the internet went crazy, with both sides of the argument throwing
All Hell breaks loose in this fast-paced and devilishly addictive 8-bit bullet hell shooter from Hannes Rahm. The game itself is a 2D arena-style platformer, where you massacre wave after
ASCENDANCE is a 3D platformer that asks you to enter and experience an enchanting and peaceful journey to the sky and beyond, shaping your way with mysterious abilities as you
First things first; let’s drop this Assault Android Cactus + business and refer to it as AAC+ from now on, yeah? I don’t want to type it, you don’t want
For those who grew up in the ’90s, they may remember a little well-known board game called Hero Quest which was plastered all over magazine and TV adverts left right
Path to Mnemosyne (that’s Neh-mo-see-nee, the goddess of memory to those who haven’t brushed up on their Greek mythology) is a game with a very simple premise. Finding yourself in
If the world ever goes through a nuclear holocaust and there’s a few of us left staggering around, coughing up blood, pursued by irradiated monsters, I doubt it’ll be as
For this episode we are delighted to be joined by Adam Nickerson, creator of the dangerously addictive Ding Dong XL. We know he can make great games, but can he
It’s not often that I sit down to write a review and am genuinely unenthused to even start, but then again, it’s not often that I play games to completion
Lucid Sheep Games clearly had the time of their lives whilst developing #Breakforcist Battle; a ridiculous name for a ridiculous game. The gameplay itself follows the familiar brick-breaker format but
By popular demand, we’ve put together an entire Mario or Smario episode, invited on two of our lovely patrons & lumbered them with our in-house numpties to compete for a
There are few games that really deliver on a certain special moment for the player. You know the one I mean. The moment you step out from the confined intro
Image & Form are really taking the piss now. SteamWorld Dig 2 was an absolute masterpiece and most other developers would have, quite understandably, followed it up with more of
Another brilliant RPG for Nintendo Switch Remember those old fashioned grid based Windows screensavers from Windows 98? Ever wished that you could play it as a game? Wish no more!
This week Ben and Age of Boredom managed to escape the island to pay a visit to EGX Rezzed back in their hometown of London. In order to make it
Reverie, the nostalgia-filled hark-back to the glory days of the SNES is developed by New Zealand studio Rainbite. I took time to sit down and discuss the game, its influences
For the 10th episode of Desert Island Cartridges, Ben and Dan are joined by one of our podfathers, Justin from Nintendo Dads! There may even be a short cameo from
Taking place in 1989, Firewatch is a first-person adventure set in Wyoming’s Shoshone National Forest. You play as Henry, a man whose life has been turned upside down by personal
Join Dan, Mark, Ben and “Qualified SEGA Historian” Rich as we present our guide to Nintendo’s old nemesis-turned-BFF, SEGA. Hosted by @DannyWard2707, @SmarkTweeter and @benjicong with special guest @DreamcastBarber iTunes
Nostalgia can be a powerful thing. It’s the backbone of Disney’s current business plan for the next decade as they re-release the same stories they made years ago, and it’s
FOX n FORESTS is a stunning 16-bit side-scrolling platform video game developed by German studio Bonus Level Entertainment. I took time to sit down with game director and studio co-founder
On this episode Ben and Dan welcome Daan Koopman aka @NintenDaan (GameXplain, Nintendo World Report) and pick his encyclopaedic brain to see which game he’d bring onto the island. But
Awesome Pea is a simple old school platformer created in a style reminiscent of the original dot matrix Gameboy games. You control your protagonist pea using your thumb stick /
Q.U.B.E. 2 is a first-person puzzle platformer, comprised of escape rooms which require lateral thinking and physics-based manipulation to solve. As such, comparisons to Portal are inevitable, but these rooms
An interview with Daniel Pellicer, Lead Developer and Composer From Mad Gear Games. The year is 2019, the world of technology and home media marches forward at an exponential rate,
From the moment I saw that ‘Beat Cop’ was making its way to the Switch I knew I had to get my hands on it. Just looking at the screen
In this weeks car crash, the guys talk through the recent Pokemon Direct, Reggie retiring, Wargroove content, Final Fantasy IX, Turok, the Resident Evil Switch tax, and much much more!!
There’s treasure here but how does it stack? I will either go deep into puzzle games and play them endlessly until my fingers need surgery – Tetris, Mr Driller –
Join Ben and Dan as they welcome Drew Agnew from the House of Mario podcast onto episode 7 of Desert Island Cartridges. Will Drew’s antipodean charm be enough to win
I was immediately excited for this game. An investigative horror game set in a Blade Runner-y dystopia! Not only did I start thinking about re-reading everything by Philip K Dick,
Xeodrifter is an 8-bit Metroidvania Indie game that has been stripped back to its roots. But don’t let that fool you, this game is brutal. Simplistically brutal, shall we say,
Join Dan, Mark & Ben as they take a spoiler-filled deep dive into The Messenger on Nintendo Switch. Hosted by @DannyWard2707, @SmarkTweeter and @benjicong iTunes | Soundcloud | Stitcher |
This week, the lads discuss the recent Nintendo Direct and their hot takes on the announcements / how 2019 is shaping up for the Switch. Soundcloud – https://soundcloud.com/switch_island/ep24-nintendo-direct-links-awakening-smite-rime-scalebound-rumours-hell-warders iTunes –
Nearly two years on from the release of our beloved Switch and one of the worst parts still remains unchanged – the eShop. Of all the digital marketplaces out there,
The Desert Island Cartridges – Casey Gibson & Perry Burkham from the Talk Nintendo podcast/ Nintendo World Report! Every fortnight, we ask the general dirty public and internet personalities, which
Stealth games… I suck at them! My very first experience of them was way back in the day when Hitman was first released on PC, and all I ever wanted
FutureGrind, as well as being my Auntie Pat’s favourite music genre, is also the name of this eye-popping stunt racer from Milkbag Games. Funnily enough, “Milkbags” was also my Auntie’s
The Desert Island Cartridges – George from Super Rare Games!! Every fortnight, we ask the general dirty public and internet personalities, which game they would take onto our elusive, all-inclusive
In our latest Let’s Play series ‘The Smashcast’, Dan tries his absolute best to stop being a n00b at Super Smash Bros Ultimate on the Nintendo Switch! YouTube link –
Even in an age where the case for games being recognised as art has never been more compelling… where do I begin with this one? GRIS is the first release
Gunman Clive and Gunman Clive 2, originally released on the 3DS are given the HD treatment for Switch and Wii-U in one complete offering and at an astonishingly low price.
In the seven to eight hours that I played fully through the single campaign, along with all three COM tournaments (Mushroom, Flower, Star – what else!) I had a great
More and more games these days seem to be embracing the cyberpunk aesthetic. Deus Ex, Frostpunk and of course, a title high on everyone’s watch lists; Cyberpunk 2077. It seems
Christmas Day 1991. Bohemian Rhapsody was top of the singles charts, Police Academy 4: ‘Citizens on Patrol’ was having its network premiere on ITV… and it didn’t snow. None of
One often overlooked area of gaming is the board game adaptations. To a certain degree they’re almost unnecessary, but an option nonetheless. Regardless, this genre of games certainly has an
In my formative years I had always been a very sociable and active online gamer, losing countless hours in gems such as Counterstrike, Team Fortress, Guild Wars and of course,
Comedy games – more often than not they’re anything but. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever played a comedy game where I haven’t found the writing to be shockingly
Dark Souls – you’ve heard of it, even if you haven’t played it. Salt and Sanctuary (S&S from now on) has had everyone calling it a Dark Souls clone, like
“Home no longer provides a means to survive. A fight for resources to escape our system has begun. The future lies beyond…” The opening text is displayed with a glowing,
The cold air ripples through the propeller on the front of the rickety by-plane and whistles through the canvas and string that make up the supports for the wings. Over
From tee to green, Golf Story entertains and challenges you in equal measure. From its lush retro style and its hilarious tongue-in-cheek dry humour, to the excellent use of the
To say the very least, this is a big game. It’s ambition and size can be seen in so many different ways. Firstly, the story arch is sweeping across thousands
The Cooper Trooper Series – Reviews of Multiplayer Experiences on Switch At its core, Wulverblade is an old-school side-scrolling beat-em-up. Predictably, there are three characters to choose from – Caradoc,