Game Topz (gamtopz@gmail.com)

Railbound from Afterburn Games is set to get a massive update this week. Since its launch, Railbound has gotten a good amount of support already. Read about the most recent big update here . Afterburn Games will bring Railbound 2.0 to mobile and PC platforms on February 3rd. This update adds in over 30 new puzzles, the new Semaphores mechanic, a new region, and more. The new region will also feature new story postcards and music. The Semaphores mechanic lets you decide when and how to delay carriages during puzzles. Watch the Railbound 2.0 update teaser trailer below: Railbound 2.0 will come later to Nintendo Switch. A release date is yet to be confirmed, but the update is coming to Switch. It will hit Steam, itch.io, Google Play, and the App Store on February 3rd worldwide. With this update, the game will have over 200 levels. If you haven’t gotten it yet, we featured Railbound as our Game of the Week when it launched. We like it a lot. You can grab Railbound on the App St...

Sometimes a game comes along that feels so purely built for mobile, and its controls and mechanics come together so well on the touchscreen, I say that Apple should just pre-install it on every iPhone it sells. I very much feel that way about Madness/Endless from developer Anthony Romano aka PokeTheAnt, except… well maybe this one is a bit too gory and disturbing to be a default app on the iPhone. Apple would be getting quite a few angry calls about that I’d imagine. However, for those seeking out a truly well-designed action stealth game that somehow can be played entirely with one thumb, Madness/Endless is your ticket. This game could kind of be described as a top-down dungeon crawler. You’ll move from room to room clearing each of enemies in order to open the way forward, occasionally collecting items, talking with NPCs, or fighting bosses along the way. Movement is what’s truly unique here. There’s a virtual joystick that lets you slowly crawl along the walls of the room, mostly...

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for January 27th, 2023. In today’s article, we mop up the remaining releases of the week. There are quite a few, thanks to some slipping out after I went home last night. There are summaries of all of them, plus the lists of the newest sales and expiring discounts of the weekend. Let’s get working for the weekend! New Releases ATONE: Heart of the Elder Tree ($14.99) Here’s another game that exited Apple Arcade and is now making its way to other platforms. We really liked ATONE ‘s unusual mix of adventure game and rhythm game when we reviewed the Apple Arcade version more than three years ago, so as long as this Switch port doesn’t introduce any issues it’s probably worth your consideration. The strong sense of style really catches the eye, but the puzzles and rhythm battles are what will keep you playing. I’ll have a review fairly soon to let you know how the game plays on our favorite hybrid handheld. Dance of Death: ...

It’s somewhat surprising how clearly one can draw a line between SNK before NEOGEO’s launch and after. The likes of Psycho Soldier and Ikari were relegated to cameo appearances, and only a few lucky pre-NEOGEO IPs ever saw follow-ups on the multi-system. Perhaps the strangest of the rare bunch was Prehistoric Isle , a 1989 side-scrolling shooter that wasn’t particularly well-liked or successful. Somehow, some way, someone decided ten years after that it needed a sequel, and thus there was Prehistoric Isle 2 ($3.99) . So yes, this is a late 1999 NEOGEO game. One of the last before SNK was swallowed up by pachinko company Aruze and went into perhaps its darkest era. Prehistoric Isle 2 is one of the last non-fighting, non- Metal Slug games SNK released on the system. By this point the system was very mature, which meant a couple of things. First of all, SNK’s developers (Saurus and Yumekobo in this case) had a pretty good handle on the hardware. Second, the system had fallen woefull...

Noodlecake’s Squiggle Drop () featuring more than 100 puzzles is the final new Apple Arcade release of January 2023. When Apple revealed the games for the month, I was very curious to see how Squiggle Drop would turn out. It seemed like a game I’d enjoy. Having spent a bit of time with it this morning, Squiggle Drop is lovely. It scratches the quick pickup and play puzzler itch and also has a bit of what I liked in the Scribblenauts games. I haven’t finished it, but the music is also a highlight so far. You can grab Squiggle Drop here on Apple Arcade. Alongside Squiggle Drop , a few notable Apple Arcade games have gotten updates. Skate City takes you to Tokyo for Pro Skate Mode. This update brings in new collectibles in Tokyo, and has 60 new challenges. Warped Kart Racers adds in the Speedway Nights track, a new chapter to unlock Boomhauer, new rewards unlocked during multiplayer, and more. Episode XOXO brings in a few more chapters in the ongoing Game of Hearts story. Stit...

We are truly in the renaissance of full-motion video games since the genre first arrived in the late ’80s and early ’90s before dying an ugly death due to the poor quality of those gaming experiences as well as the poor quality of the actual video itself. Nowadays resolutions are nice and high, filming equipment is affordable and readily available, and digital distribution means you aren’t compressing your precious game to high heaven in order to cram it on a CD-ROM. This has meant lots of very good quality FMV games have released over the last decade or so, and continue to release at a decent clip. One new one on the horizon is called Of Two Minds from Burgeon & Flourish, a game where the player will psychoanalyze various characters and their personal lives while pinpointing connections and motivations between them. In a very interesting twist, all the footage in Of Two Minds was filmed by Burgeon & Flourish founder Michael Bergmann back in 1989 but was never used until thi...

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for January 26th, 2023. The big news is that Goldeneye for Nintendo Switch Online finally has a release date, and it’s soon as it could be. We have a ton of new releases to go through today, but I’m sorry to say that only the smallest fraction of them are worthy of your attention. We have summaries of all of them anyway, though. After that, it’s the usual lists of sales. There’s a lot to go through today, so let’s get on it! News ‘Goldeneye’ Coming to Switch Online Expansion Pack Tomorrow It was announced a few months back that the Nintendo 64 classic Goldeneye would be making its long-awaited return soon, both on the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack and Xbox via Rare Replay . Soon is apparently now, as Goldeneye will be hitting the service tomorrow. Relive your university years and ignore your aching back and the highly accurate framerate as you step into the shows of Brosnan Bond once again. Friends have all s...