
Skatebird wears its influences on its sleeve. We’ve spent some time with the game, and this is what we think so far. Nevertheless, the familiar gameplay makes this an enjoyable skateboarding entry, even if the visuals can sometimes be jarring. Instead of playing as some of the world’s most renowned skateboarders, you’re playing as a tiny little bird on a skateboard that’s probably meant for human fingers. The combat is massively satisfying, the visual storytelling and details are consistently delightful – Dusk is an almost perfect first person shooter and this is a perfect port.Skatebird is a skateboarding game with a unique twist on the genre coming to Nintendo Switch, PC, and Xbox on September 16. To say much more would be to ruin the many surprises in store, but needless to say as the chapters go on Dusk becomes a much darker and more complex experience than the opening levels might suggest. Sporting pared down visuals it sees you entering the town of Dusk, a place filled with cultists and chainsaw wielding rednecks out for blood.

It has its own ideas and somehow never quite runs out of steam across thirty levels. Now it’s finally here, and to say it’s been worth the wait is an understatement.Ī first person shooter, it’s inspired by classics such as Doom and Quake – but it’s no cheap throwaway tribute. It has been delayed numerous times and there’s been no sign on it on Nintendo Directs – Indie World ones or otherwise. It’s been a long wait for Dusk to land on Switch. Sadly there’s not much more to Clone Drone in the Danger Zone than that, so it’s a struggle to say the content here justifies the high asking price. There’s some very tongue in cheek presentation too, with comic relief commentators that somehow don’t get (too) annoying.
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Once you die you get thrown back to the start, but the combat is enjoyable enough – with tight controls, a range of weapons, and a well implemented upgrade system. It sees you fight through a seemingly endless stream of arena based levels as a low powered bot. It all feels a little muted – despite a range of weather conditions – and we never felt that it ever went all out in terms of throwing oddball stuff your way, like the superlative Golf Story did.Ĭlone Drone in the Danger Zone is a simple idea done relatively well. There’s a plot and the writing is mildly enjoyable, but the football action itself isn’t massively impressive. You takeover a team struggling to survive, and have to play various teams across a large number of challenge levels in overhead 2D footy matches. In that it’s serviceable, bordering on good – but never really feels like it’s ever going to threaten the heavyweights in the genre. It’s a shame as there’s a range of modes and clearly effort has been put into the character designs – but Guts ‘N Goals just isn’t a particularly memorable or satisfying experience.ĭeveloper Out of The Bit have basically created the sporting equivalent of Super Arcade Racing here. There’s no real flow to matches, and they often just devolve into an unclear muddle of small characters whaling on each other. You can score with an inflatable ball in the beach stages for instance, or a hockey puck on the ice pitch.īut it all feels too messy, and combat is too one-note. Simple as that.Ī combination of fighting game and football, there’s a range of levels with different rules – but few are actually much fun. So Guts ‘N Goals needs to do something special to stand out. It makes progress a struggle, so despite good intentions SkateBird isn’t a game that ever really properly takes flight.Īrena based football games have been done several times before, and fairly well.

Then there’s the way you progress by completing objectives – and these aren’t much fun in themselves. The levels are strangely designed most of the time and not much fun to traverse, despite the solid controls. So you’re left with the skateboarding itself to elevate the experience, and sadly it just doesn’t work well enough.


The avian gimmick doesn’t really alter the core gameplay, even though the presentation is undeniably charming with some amusing cutscenes between the action. Sadly this concept doesn’t really work as well as we had hoped. SkateBird, as the name suggests, sees you going around a range of levels on a skateboard. So here are some shorter reviews of games released or updated on the Switch over the last few months – that we might not have got round to covering otherwise. Sometimes we find ourselves with a bit of a backlog though – like right now for instance.
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We try to cover every Switch game we’re sent a code for here at Gamezebo.
