Matthew Smail

Back to the Dawn is a game that sneaks up on you. At first glance, it looks like one of a thousand pixel art throwbacks — the kind of game you might expect to find buried in a Steam sale bundle. The longer I played it, though, the more I…

There was a moment in Flashpoint: Legacy of Flame — I think around the third or fourth mission — when I realised that I wasn't playing a rehash of the original Flashpoint: Fire Rescue, but something more akin to the culmination of 15 years…

There was a time when buying a third-party controller felt like a massive gamble. You’d pick up something half the price of a first-party pad, only to discover it had the ergonomics of a brick, the responsiveness of a sponge, and the…

The original Frostpunk was a masterclass in moral compromise. It asked players not just how they would survive, but what they were willing to sacrifice to do so. Now, Frostpunk 2 arrives with a colder heart and a broader scope, trading the…

Kevin Wilson has designed a lot of games over the years, but few feel as immediately confident and mechanically rich as Kinfire Council. This is a game that knows exactly what it is trying to be — an asymmetric, competitive worker placement…

Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel doesn’t waste time with subtlety. From the moment you drop into Niflheim, the game throws you into a Norse-flavoured bullet hell where survival is measured in seconds and progression is earned through grit,…

Here at B3, we love a narrative adventure game with cute, anamorphic creatures and a divergent narrative. Foretales, developed by Alkemi and published by Dear Villagers, is one of those rare titles that manages to feel both narratively rich…

Everyone loves a game that stops passer-bys in their tracks, and Catch the Moon XXL is exactly that kind of game — a towering, whimsical spectacle that draws gasps from children and adults in equal measure. With oversized ladders, a giant…

There’s a certain atmosphere that only games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. can conjure — a blend of dread, decay, and desperate survival that’s as much about mood as it is mechanics. With the recently “enhanced” S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Legends of the Zone…

Who doesn’t love a cozy citybuilder? These are the kind of games that let you zoom out, take a breath, and slowly shape a world of your own. On Xbox Series X, three recent entries into the genre — The Wandering Village, Kingdoms and…