CE-Asia has released the AI Limit ‘Accolades Trailer’, which showcases media reviews and the game’s 92% positive rating on Steam.

Meanwhile, the developers of AI Limit announced that a new DLC is in development. Havenswell will offer players more to explore. Stay tuned!

Set in the distant future, AI Limit is a post-apocalyptic wasteland sci-fi Action RPG. Players take the role of Arrisa, an immortal Blader, and explore the city ruins to find equipment, relics, and, most importantly, the hope of a new life. They can combine spells, skills, and weapons in unique and creative ways to defeat ferocious monsters and powerful factions.

Since its launch on March 27th, 2025, AI Limit has received 12,029 reviews, 92% of which are positive. Players commend the design of the levels, enemies, and combat system.

You can read our review of AI Limit here.

The post AI LIMIT Unveils Accolades Trailer Alongside New DLC Reveal appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

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From developers Maschinen-Mensch comes a puzzle platformer, Mother Machine.

You are a gremlin like creature, filled with cuteness and determination, printed by Mother, who needs her satellites back online.

Using the force of burps and explosive farts you control your creature through the varying labyrinths of caverns and caves which are procedurally generated and multi tierred, powering up cables that activate satellites and more.

You can climb to reach those tricky areas, but your climbing is timed, so don’t try and climb to the heavens.

Swing, run and power up your abilities gaining some serious gas to help you through as you gain the ability to’ heal fart’, ‘power puke’, fire spikes from your body and more.

There are two vitals you need keep up, your stomach and health.

You will find berries to eat, or throw as a projectile. If your stomach is empty you won’t be able to use your additional abilities.

Health can drop surprisingly fast too. You’re not the only living critter in these caves, so there are moments of short combat bursts. Also if you’re climbing and the timer runs out prepare for some serious pain as you fall.

Mother Machine is a puzzle platforms done well.

While gameplay can get a little repetitive the puzzle element keeps you hooked as you develop a serious  determination to finish off the objective for the cave that you are in.

Mother Machine can be played solo, but it is best played with others as you both help eachother out, heal eachother and solve the satellite activations together.

Your creature can be customized to your liking, but this will cost you energy and you’ll need to find a machine on your adventure to actually apply those custom looks.

Mother Machine is a cute game with a tricky and complex play through.

Eat, burp, climb, swing and power fart your way through with friends or go it alone in this sophisticated yet simple game that’s as much fun as it sounds.

The post Mother Machine (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Timewarp back to 1993, when the Sega Genesis (Megadrive II) was in it’s prime, releasing games that graphically, shouldn’t even be able to run on the 16BIT cartridge console.

One of the heavier hitters of that era was Aero the Acrobat.

Fast forward to now, and indie game developers Ratalaika Games has given Aero a modern refresh.

Still the same 2D gameplay you may remember from your younger days, but now in 4K and way less pixels.

The catchy soundtrack has also had a rework, swapping out it’s 16BIT blips and beeps to a more synthesized sound.

Gameplay has you running and jumping about through maze like levels in the worlds craziest and most deadly circus, taking out enemies and using environmental contraptions to get yourself through as you escape.

A hard yet satisfying puzzle-like play at times and Aero will gain differing skills as you play through.

Given that Aero the Acrobat is now a 31 year old game, but is more challenging than some current Triple AAA titles.

Ratalaika Games have generously added in the original cheat codes. For those that were not around in the 90’s, gameplay was a stressful affair, as you only had so many lives, once those were gone (unless the game was able to generate a password) it was permanent death and you had the cold hard reality of starting over at the beginning.

Cheats can be toggled on or off, and if you really want to take a trip back to the days of 16BIT you can, and change the graphics to the original.

Aero the Acrobat was one of my favs back in the day, and it was a late comer to the console, as it was being phased out in favour of CD consoles.

Still as fun and super challenging now as it was back then, Aero the Acrobat is the ideal game to introduce a whole new generation of players to a long-standing classic, or relive your childhood.

The post Aero the Acrobat (Xbox Series X|S) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Fresh from its world premiere at Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival and ahead of its September 12, 2024 theatrical release, the trailer for new kiwi horror film Grafted has dropped.

Shot across Auckland, New Zealand, Grafted stars new and rising actor Joyena Sun (Blood and Gold, Wait), alongside Kiwi breakout star Jess Hong (3 Body Problem, My Life is Murder, Creamerie), Eden Hart (Madam, Sweet Tooth, Creamerie) and Jared Turner (The Convert, Sweet Tooth, Power Rangers).

The film tells the story of a Chinese student (Sun) who travels to New Zealand to complete the scientific work of her deceased father, only to find a new way of achieving the popularity she so desperately craves by putting her studies to a new, and terrifying, use.  Additional casting includes Sepi To’a (The Castaways, Spontaneous Human Combustion), Ginette McDonald (Time Bandits, My Life is Murder) and Mark Mitchinson (Madam, Our Flag Means Death).

Grafted is the full-length directorial debut of award-winning Sasha Rainbow, whose short film Kamali was nominated for a BAFTA and long listed for an Academy Award. Grafted is written by Mia Maramara (Kāinga, Power Rangers), Hweiling Ow (T is for Talk, The Tattooist), Lee Murray (Aurealis, British Fantasy), and Rainbow.

Ow conceived the story from her own experience as an Asian immigrant, to create a unique coming-of-age horror story and sees Grafted as “a way to explore important themes like privilege, race, sex and cultural alienation.”

Collaborating on the final script with Murray, Rainbow says, “When I first read Grafted, I was blown away. It’s so easy to turn away, to avoid confronting what makes us uncomfortable but I love the social commentary of the themes in this film and its reflection on how society creates its own monsters.”

Grafted is brought to life by, and showcases the exceptional talent of, young female actors Joyena Sun, Jess Hong and Eden Hart, who deliver standout performances under the direction of Rainbow. “She really connects with the actor and collaborates. She wants to hear everyone’s opinion” says Sun of working with Rainbow.

The cast are supported by an experienced production team including DOP Tammy Williams (Stylebender), production designer Nathan Taare (The Hobbit trilogy, Mulan), costume designer Kyle Callanan (Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire) and make-up designer Tracey Henton (Love Me, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck).

Grafted is produced by Murray Francis (The World’s Fastest Indian) of Propaganda Films and Leela Menon (Dawn Raid) of FluroBlack, with Fraser Brown (Stylebender) of FluroBlack as executive producer. The film was made with financing from Te Tumu Whakaata Taonga New Zealand Film Commission, Head Gear Films, FluroBlack Media, Department of Post and private investors. The film will be distributed in New Zealand by (YET) Another Monster Company.

The post NZ Film ‘Grafted’ Coming to Shudder appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Capes caught my attention by reminding me right away of two of my favourite obscure media.

The first is Atlas Reactor. One of my favourite games ever before the servers went down, the heroes and their abilities in both games blend turn based combat with unique character abilities… Also Doctrine, the grizzled mentor character in Capes, looks, speaks and acts like Lockwood from Atlas Reactor.

Second, Worm. A webserial by Wildbow that gained my attention because they also call their superpowered individuals ‘Capes’, but similar themes of imperfect heroes trying to hold back the tides of grimdark forces attempting to bring down their world quickly stood out. Doctrine even has a visible super suit peaking out from the tattered jacket he wears as a sign of things that were.

Cape’s title screen is a graveyard looking out over a city lit by the dying sun. Half completed statues of heroic figures tower over buildings in the distance; heroes literally waiting to be built, a sign of your coming struggles.

It’s a grid based tactical game where you control a squad of superheroes, developed by Spitfire Interactive and published by Daedalic… the same guys behind the excellent Shadow Tactics games, which is a good start.

We are treated to a cutscene explaining our backstory.

King city used to be a place where heroes kept the peace until they were overthrown by the nebulously evil organisation known only as ‘The Company’.

We get two types of cutscenes. Those rendered in the in-game engine, and comic style panelling where character portraits are lined up on whatever side of the screen lines up with their place in the conversation.

Capes wears its comic book inspiration on its sleeve. Even the menu select options are little comic panels. The characters have bombastic dialogue that tries and sometimes even succeeds in bringing the ham.

Then our caped crusaders find a blood soaked torture warehouse where the company has been experimenting on captured Capes and the tone is flipped. Jury’s out on whether that counts as a planned tonal shift or a jarring one.

Gameplay wise, combat cleaves closer to Atlas Reactor than something like X-COM.

There are no dice rolls, no missed shots or odds to stun. You can see the movement and attack range of every enemy at the start of your turn and know exactly who can threaten who. Couple that with the fact that none of your superhuman soldiers has an ability as banal as ‘shoot the other guy’ and Capes becomes more of a puzzle game than a tactical squad game. It’s all about leveraging the unique ways your Capes can alter the battlefield and combo their abilities with other teammates.

I would like to see more verticality. There are only a few levels that make use of different heights for your teleporting Super to really get your money’s worth from their superior mobility but it’s never much.

I was playing on the middle of three difficulty levels and never came close to losing a mission. Unless things in the late game get significantly harder, simply finishing the mission will not be difficult.

Things become refreshingly harder when trying to complete all challenges on a mission. There are a selection of targets tailored for each mission, things like: use X character’s ultimate, or disarm five enemies. Getting all of these challenges in the same run nets you a bonus ‘all in one’ challenge. Winning these nets you points to upgrade your Capes, meaning it’s a good idea to go back and do old missions for the points to keep your Capes in fighting form.

If Capes has one glaring area where it really drops the ball, it would have to be sound.

Dialogue could use a go over by a writer or five, make those words sound like something an actual human would say. Then delivery needs work… a lot of work.

I can hear the talent in the voice cast, but I can’t help but feel like they may have been reading their lines from different rooms with zero context.

As an example, you can disarm enemies with certain moves. When a goon drops his weapon, he will sometimes shout “my weapon!”

Except rather than sounding like he had dropped a weapon (“Oh no, my weapon!”) he sounds more like he’s pointing out which one is his (“That’s your weapon, this is my weapon!).

William Roberts as Doctrine is the best of the cast so far, but that’s really not saying much.

Music is also too bland to get more than a sentence in this review; it serves, I suppose.

In the end how do I rate Capes?

I personally had a lot of fun. Figuring out what combos go together really well and seeing your team of ragtag superhero wannabes morph by degrees into the real thing was fun. Sharpen up some of the edges and we could have something brilliant here.

Maybe that’s the X-COM, Worm, Atlas Reactor enjoying part of my brain speaking, but it’s a part I like, so there.

The post Capes (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Shudder has announced the acquisition of  The Demon Disorder from special effects master Steven Boyle (The Matrix Trilogy, The Hobbit Trilogy, King Kong).

The streaming network also released the trailer for the highly anticipated film, which marks Boyle’s feature directorial debut.

The Australian demonic family drama centers on Graham, a man haunted by his past since the death of his father and the estrangement from his two brothers. Jake, the middle brother, contacts Graham claiming that something is horribly wrong: their youngest brother Phillip is possessed by their deceased father. Graham reluctantly agrees to go and see for himself. With the three brothers back together, they soon realize they are unprepared for the forces against them and learn that the sins of their past will not stay hidden. But how do you defeat a presence that knows you inside and out? An anger so powerful it refuses to stay dead?

“We are thrilled that THE DEMON DISORDER has reached its final resting place with our friends at Shudder,” said Boyle.  “It’s a community and fanbase that we hold in the highest esteem and we couldn’t be happier to be on this journey with them!”

“After years of a creating a range of elaborate visual experiences through his work as a special effects designer on iconic films, we’re thrilled to give Steven Boyle a platform for his feature length directorial debut with THE DEMON DISORDER,” said Samuel Zimmerman, Head of Programming for Shudder.  “Full of impressive body horror that fans have come to expect from this master of effects, Boyle’s film is an engrossing story about breaking generational curses that viewers will find both unsettling and amusing.”

The deal was negotiated by Emily Gotto on behalf of Shudder and James Norrie and Nina Kolokouri at AMP on behalf of the filmmakers.

Written and directed by Boyle, along with Toby Osborne (PINDAM) as writer, THE DEMON DISORDER is produced by Boyle and Ally Muller and executive produced by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig.

Starring John Noble (THE LORD OF THE RINGS Trilogy), Charles Cottier, Christian Willis, and Dirk Hunter, the film will make its exclusive streaming debut on Shudder in Fall 2024.

The post SHUDDER ACQUIRES DEMONIC FAMILY DRAMA: THE DEMON DISORDER appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Man is it good to see colour again.

Remember that era when game design was defined by waist high walls and everything being grey?

Well Cookie Cutter is the living proof that you can absolutely preserve a dark and gritty atmosphere without sacrificing vibrancy of environment.

Developed by Subcult Joint and published by Rogue Games, Cookie Cutter is a side scrolling key-and-door metroidvania with a comic art style and a grunge aesthetic that comes right off the pages of ‘Tank Girl’.

And that, before anything else, is what I’m leading with here.

Because the artwork is absolutely fantastic. 10/10.

Bold, thick, hand drawn line art that pops off the page from the intro cutscene.

A main menu with a side profile of our player character ‘Cherry’ occasionally flashing in X-Ray to show the terminator metal beneath the skin.

Menu options with that bleeding layered colour that reminds me of old skool 3D when you take the glasses off and enjoy the trippy blend of shades.

That main menu music caught me by surprise a little. Rather than the musical chainsaws I was expecting from the box art, we have a more groovy and introspective piece that wouldn’t be out of place in a mystery game.

But enough eye candy, lets actually play the game.

ACTUAL VOICE ACTING.

I’m sorry, this may not be a big deal to you, but I don’t think I’ve seen this in several reviewed games in a row at this point.

VA is pretty on point with the possible exception of our main character who tends to overplay it a bit. Sounds a little unnatural.

The intro cutscene was like reading a comic I would definitely pick up if I saw it in a store. Colourful art, intriguing story involving a corrupt megacorp delving secrets from within a primordial megastructure that may have been created at the beginning of the universe and a resistance movement fighting against an army of immortal slave robots.

The intro narration is done by Shinji, a scientist who builds (and subsequently falls into a lesbian romance with) a very unique gyanoid named Cherry she hopes will help break the unending cycle of tyranny from the one who dominates the megastructure.

Mid cutscene, her house is broken into and Cherry is beaten to a pulp. This cutscene transitions seamlessly into a disturbing section of dragging our broken selves over to our creator in the pouring rain while screaming in a damaged voice to give her back.

It’s visceral, evocative and that was the moment I knew I was going to like this game. I was pulled in immediately.

GRUNGE.

That’s the tone.

Our main character is not some fishnet stockings and bikini armour warrior fighting in heels and a size 2. She’s THIQQ, angry, takes great delight in over-the-top violence and has a haircut that looks like she tripped and fell headfirst into a box of scissors.

Fighting mechanics are… eeeeh. There’s challenge in it I’ll put it that way.

The parry is a little jank and I can see that finishing animation getting a little stale after I do it twenty times, but it’s nice how the game manages your resources.

There’s a satisfying flow between gathering energy by hitting foes and using energy to hit foes harder then healing yourself post combat using yet more energy. Mastering the combat involves mastering this flow. A little basic, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I can see more mechanics and more threatening enemies adding on to a complex interplay later on.

Control mapping is done for an Xbox controller and as far as I can tell, there is no way to change this so if you are playing on a playstation controller you are going to have to do some running translations in your head.

Not a big deal if you have played both, but that does highlight the game’s lack of options.

Regina is our helpful assistant. She’s a distorted digital woman’s voice attached to a floating mechanical head that falls somewhere between ‘biblically accurate angel’ and ‘I have no mouth and I must scream’.

Raz is the mechanic who apparently dug our ass out of the junkyard and put us back together after that rough night.

Both are well voice acted, sounding appropriately eerie and suave respectively.

Overall, Cookie Cutter is worth your time.

I can see a delve into the unfolding guts of this megalithic superstructure through colourful blood and mechanical guts being a fun romp through the panels of a grungy comic book and can’t wait to see where it will take me next.

The post Cookie Cutter (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Anime fans will see something missing on the end of this title; sorry to disappoint, but there’s been no mistake. You didn’t miss a ‘Hunter x Hunter’ game release, this one is its own thing.

Hunter X – Code Name T is an anime style metroidvania hack and slash with all the usual chests in hard to reach spots and corridors blocked off by obstacles you can’t breach until you unlock some new ability.

The main menu brings me to a dark fantasy style screen with purple light in and amongst the darkness. The design work is acceptable, but the graphics textures look like something that might have come out a couple of decades ago.

The most surprising treasure was the music, which immediately hits me with some tense violin and electric guitar, the epic kind which makes me think I’m about to get up to some shit that’s not just exciting but also important in some way. I’m about to save the world.

That dark fantasy medieval menu background with stonework and magic proves immediately to be a half lie when the first thing we see in our main character’s world is neon signs and dirty back alleys.

Looks like we are in for a bit of dimension hopping shenanigans, not a bad thing. Did I mention how much I love the original Spyro the Dragon games yet?

Hunter X – Code Name T recommends a controller to play. It’s been a hot minute since I last sat myself in the other room and booted up an actual console, but fortunately I did have one on hand.

We see for the first time our player character and protagonist, Taiyo, talking to a floating demon boy.

If you didn’t immediately know he was the main character, he has brightly coloured hair, wields a katana, looks about high school age and runs at the most ridiculous angle to the ground I have ever seen. This is the most shōnen looking dude to teleport behind you since Vergil from ‘Devil May Cry’ did that thing with his sword…

You know what I’m talking about, don’t even pretend.

Promotional trailers for the game show a female protagonist so I’m assuming there will either be a switch at some point, or the final version will have the option.

The second character we get a good look at is an anime girl with a magic staff. Literally the first thing we see of her is a panty shot.

If you were still somehow wondering where this game was made, that should do it for you.

Our floating demon familiar informs us there is a crack in the world which likely has something to do with all these wandering monsters bringing the local property values down and off we go.

The first ‘press X to jump’ tutorial section comes at us with zero music and stark sound design, leading me to believe I’m in for a bit of a dreary soundscape.

Fortunately it kicks in the moment we enter the next section and have actual combat to look forward to. So the sound or lack thereof is an artistic choice, not a sign of budget cuts. That’s good.

It helps that the music is the part of this game I am enjoying the most so far. It’s decently head banging tracks that don’t override the in-scene action.

We have a fairly straightforward set of abilities which mostly consist of ‘slash the bad guy’ as well as some magic spells you can equip two at a time, a dash and a block.

We cut down a bunch of unfortunately cute looking orc boys wielding axes… I might have thought they were goblins, since they are shorter than shōnen protagonist-kun but the in game menus list them as orcs.

Combat here is… OK.

It’s functional, nothing seems broken. I thought at first that responsiveness was going to be an issue when I couldn’t flow from slash to block, but there was an early ability in the skill tree to pick up that allows us to go directly from one to the other. So now I’m honestly not sure which elements of the combat are going to be upgraded into general better-ness and which are going to languish as ‘basically works’.

I’ll be generous as a guy who hasn’t finished the thing yet and assume this is one of those games that brings us by degrees into a fluid combat system with plenty of options.

Localisation is readable, but does show its face as an afterthought many times.

“Number of hunter potion carry increased.”

“Information cannot be known yet.”

“YOU HUNTED.”

I’ll just assume those all read far more natural in Japanese.

When messing around with the inventory, I see that our main sword is listed as a ‘hunter katana’, used by ‘hunter mercenaries. The plot starts to come together.

Apparently we are one of those ‘scion of a clan of demon hunters’ types.

There was immediate confusion when I was given a 2D map for a side scrolling hack and slash game. But once you figure out what it’s depicting it becomes very usable.

It is, however, graphically on the level of a Microsoft excel document and seems to have been drawn on graph paper using basic coloured shapes.

In web design, my tutor told me to use garish colours that will stand out in the CSS before I have settled on a colour scheme so that I will not miss any elements before it’s time to publish.

This map looks like they sort of just left those blocks in. So there are cubes of unicolour markers on the map that drift in the realm between ‘barebones map marker’ and ‘is this a graphics glitch?’

All up, Hunter X – Code Name T is an ugly ducking that might just be the swan you’re looking for.

It largely resembles a game that came out twenty years ago, but hey, there were definitely good games to be found back then.

The post Hunter X – Code Name T (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Evil Diary opens in a window approximately the size of a 50c coin.

I was struck with fear.

Was I about to do the video game equivalent of keyhole surgery?

No, it went to fullscreen no problems.

False alarm everyone.

A roughly fifteen second loop of some of that low, creepy music with indistinct noises and a single repeating ominous piano key underscored with little bursts of lightning while the light flickers over a backsplash of colourful pixel art.

That’s the main menu.

After taking in the atmosphere for a bit, two things strike me immediately.

The first is that what we are dealing with is going to be simple.

The main menu has five options not including ‘press x to quit’ and none of them have secondary screens.

It feels a bit like something I might have put together in university, clearly a tiny dev team. To be fair to them, what they have put together is perfectly competent, just… barebones.

I click the mouse and nothing happens.

OK, nothing major, this is just going to be a keyboard game. Arrowkeys move up and down the menu, good. I start by moving over to the options to see if there is a fullscreen or borderless window mode.

Hover over the option and hit enter…

Nothing happens.

I hit spacebar, click the mouse again, shift?

Alright, this is a problem, gonna be difficult reviewing a game if I can’t pass the first puzzle section; the main menu.

Eventually I stumbled across the right key. It was ‘A’.

The entire ‘how to play section consists of ‘X is shoot gun and C is swing sword’.

Minor confession here.

I misread those incredibly simple instructions and thought that firing the gun was going to be A.

I got through the first several levels with just the melee attack, thinking the other button was nonfunctioning.

I barely took a scratch.

Only when I discovered how to shoot did I actually start taking damage as I was taking time in between wild swings of my giant sword thing to try and ping things from a distance and found that to be a mistake.

So the meta for this game so far seems to be: ignore the gun, we fight like queens here, with blood on our hands and dead aliens at our feet.

Gameplay is super Arcadey. There are literally two buttons to press other than the movement keys and as I just covered, I’m not using one of them.

Levels have only slightly different visual difference between them and seem to have zero environmental effects on gameplay.

We are in a long street corridor where aliens shuffle in from either side on predictable paths. There’s no cover, no verticality, no navigating twists or turns. Everything is in the open.

I played Evil Diary to completion in about half an hour including the time I paused to take notes and the only major variation to this formula was in the last two levels, where we are riding a motorbike while avoiding other motorbike riding aliens who appear to be riding backwards.

Some levels also require you to move forward and call a lift, others appear to end when you have killed enough monsters.

The story is that we are a blond haired survivor of a disaster that struck New York City fighting our way through monstrous creatures who might be aliens or demons to get to a point of safety.

We are fed details and personal notes from our heroine in the forms of diary entries on simple white text.

We get a stream of consciousness from our survivor which includes musings on their situation and the occasional jarring lol-speak which at least ballparks the age of our heroine.

Visually, the game is pixel art. There is a scant handful of enemy designs and environments, while samey, are at least well done. Light and darkness add to the creepy feeling. I just wish we had some variation in levels, a common sentiment for this game.

Sound design is a bit of a state.

Other than the obvious loop, the intro music is convincingly eerie, but the mid level music suddenly transitions to loud and painfully generic hard rock that is a bit of a jarring shift in tone after what I was led to believe would be a more moody atmosphere.

There’s a screeching, moaning howl whenever we enter a level which is noticeable louder than any effects and the sound menu has options for music on or off but nothing for balancing effects and music.

The gunshot sound is very stock and the aliens barely make any noise at all except when you kill them, at which point there is the same noise repeated over and over.

There’s no voice acting, which isn’t uncommon for an indie game, but yeah, the situation here is dire.

In the end the key question to ask is, did I have fun playing this?
And despite the glaring flaws, the answer is yes… somewhat.

At least partially because it was far too tiny to outstay its welcome, Evil Diary was a short but enjoyable playthrough. Don’t expect anything complicated or challenging, but I at least can say I don’t regret playing it.

The post Evil Diary (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.