MONTHLY 5 - March 2026

March is for movies, and with the Oscars crowning its achievements, I thought I'd crown one of mine. Braveheart (1999 Eidos Interactive, Paramount Pictures & Twentieth Century Fox) has long since been a troublesome game to run, being on my radar right from the very beginning of this sight. The wartime strategy game is now fully playable thanks to some testing and tweaking so go try it out for yourself!

That alone might've made it my pick of the month, but it's another strategy game that takes that for me. The Movies (2006 Lionhead Studios Limited). This business sim from the mind of Peter Molyneux has you create an entire movie studio where you can even make your own in-engine shorts. You won't get anything Oscar-worthy, but it's a fun ride nonetheless.

To round out the stacked month is the much-requested voice-recognition FMV adventure The Jungle Book (1996 International Business Machines Corporation & Disney), the cinematic platformer based on Michel Ocelot's underseen animated movie Azur & Asmar (2006 Ouat Entertainment & Emme), and the obligatory yet entertaining educational tie-in Shrek 2: Activity Center - Twisted Fairy Tale Fun (2004 DreamWorks L.L.C. & Activision Value).

As for gaming updates, the excellent adventure game The Gene Machine got some quality of life improvements including an upgrade to DOSBox-X and controller support. The addictive GameCube puzzle game ZooCube got a handheld companion with the GBA port as well as some Retroarch improvements. Yutaka Saitō's Yoot Tower also saw an addition with its Japanese-exclusive iteration called The Tower II. It's been minimally translated by me to the best of my abilities so we can get a look at those region-locked addons. Lastly, the early Metroidvania, Eye of Horus, got a complete overhaul with emulator updates, remapped controls and the addition of the inferior Commodore 64 port and the definitive Atari ST original. See each of their game pages for a full rundown on their changes.

The first half of this month was spent anticipating the Oscar ceremony itself. I gave you all my predictions during my February post, and as time went on I got increasingly unsure of my choices. I could see Sinners - one of my favourites of the year - being snubbed for most awards, and the talk would be it being one of the Academy's biggest losers (they are notoriously anti-horror), but it got more love than I thought. That loser talk instead shifted to Marty Supreme. In the end, I correctly predicted 15 out of 24, but I ain't mad. Those that won were well deserved in an incredibly strong year.

***

As an aside, my PC decided to pack up on Friday, hence the potential delay of The Movies review. I've been wanting to get an upgrade sometime soon thanks to Windows 10 closing up shop but financial pressures said otherwise. I'll do my best to sort something out so I can get you more stuff next month, but consider this a heads up just in case I don't.

MONTHLY 5 - February 2026

February is traditionally the time for love, so let's get it on with five suiters from gaming past. First, we'll be wooing in style with National Lampoon's Blind Date (1994 Three Vision Interactive Pictures/Interactive Sales Group), an FMV consequence-driven adventure with some saucy comedy. Then, it's time to get some BANG! Gunship Elite (2000 Rayland Interactive & Red Storm Entertainment) for an energetic and fully-thrusted space sim. Quell your excitement as you dive deep into my personal pick, Sentient: Explore the Infinite (1997 Psygnosis Ltd), an action adventure that'll have your brain busting all over the place. Lap it all up doggy-style with a trip to the adventure game Dogday (1996 Asylum Productions Ltd). And, if you're still not satisfied, you can always play with your Mechwarrior (1989 Dynamix Inc, Activision Software & FASA Corporation).

I've a few updates comin' at ya for round two! Quik the Thunder Rabbit has a bunch of new additions, including the leaked prototype of the cancelled SNES sequel. UFOs (aka Gnap) now utilises ScummVM, though there's also the addition of a useful patch to update the remaining Windows  original. Lastly, The X-Files: Resist or Serve makes better use of the graphic features of new emulators and re-vamped the remapped keyboard controls. See each page or the Game Updates section for a full rundown on what's new.

That's quite a night ahead of you. Next month is Movie March thanks to the Oscars airing on March 15th (see my predictions below). I'll be gathering together a quintet of movie-themed games and some of them have been long awaited! I'll see you all then...

Head on after the jump to see the games...

TOP 10 GAMES OF 2025

 

 

The gaming landscape of 2025 was one of uncertainty. Uncertain if that big game from that big company would be as popular as it once was, uncertain job stability, uncertain if GTA would actually release to market, uncertain if I could actually afford a Switch 2... It's all quite worrying. What isn't uncertain is that some good games have released this year, and that I'll rank them into a (slightly belated) Top 10 list. Read on for my thoughts...

MONTHLY 5 - January 2026

2026 is here! And other than a nasty virus that kept me in bed for a week, it also brings the first batch of games escaping from the Collection Chamber. To keep the mood light mid-winter, the theme is music and pick of the month is a Myst-style adventure game revolving around a prog-rock band called Queensrÿche's Promised Land (1996 EMI Records). There's even a bonus disc that's your more traditional interactive encyclopedia. Despite its subtitle, that's all we get for out next game, Tommy: An Interactive Adventure - Then & Now (1996 Eel Pie Publishing Ltd & Backstage Productions Aps) that takes us behind the scenes of The Who's rock-opera, from album to stage musical to feature film.

If classical music is more your style, try and identify the re-jigged compositions of the classic works of Bach, Mozart and more through the iconography of Lewis Carrol's Wonderland in Alice in Music Land (1996 DS Multimedia Productions Ltd). To make your own music with the help of creepy crawlies, give SimTunes (1996 Electronic Arts & Maxis Inc) a go. Lastly, Coktel's last ever game was a mid-2000s rhythm-based mini-game collection called Kooka Bonga: Crazy Monkey Party (2006 Mindscape Northern Europe B.V.) is worthy of a look.

Alas, I haven't had time to return to some updates, and it looks like Top 10 Games will be a little late too (though my mammoth Top 10 Movies rundown is up). It's just me that works on this site, but my aim is to give you as many working old classics and oddities as I can. I'll be back at the end of February to do just that!

Until then, enjoy these musical ditties by clicking on the links after the jump.

TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2025

 

 

2025 seems to be a transitional year in movies. Pundits have long-since predicted the death of the superhero genre, and while I still enjoy many of them you cannot deny their appeal is waning. In its wake are a bunch of truly interesting movies that are increasingly gaining traction with the moviegoing public. Movies like Bugonia, One Battle After Another, Marty Supreme and Sinners beat out any marvel movie if not financially, than certainly critically. It feels like the aftermath of the death of the Western in the late 60s where auteur-lead features like Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather began to dominate. For all the doom and gloom in the real world, as well as the viability of cinemas in the age of streaming, I'm actually optimistic for the future of films. But for now, let's look back on the past as I dissect all the films I saw in 2025...

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN - FULL RUNDOWN 2025

As we edge into 2026, I though I'd remind you of all of the games released during this year's epic Christmas Countdown. From a cyberpunk adventure to a spy-themed shoot, snowy mountain peaks to dreamlike hills, SkyRoads to Yellow Brick Roads, there's a breadth of games to rediscover. Enjoy!

CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN - THE FESTIVE FINALE

It's Christmas!!!! And also the last day of the Collection Chamber Christmas Countdown 2025. It is also the last time I could possibly mark the event with a Lemmings game. I've brought together the three iterations that came out in 2006 to give you what I call Lemmings: A New Collection (2006 Team 17 & Sony Computer Entertainment Europe). It has the PSP original, the upscaled PS2 port (complete with early EyeToy emulation) and the digitally released PS3 game which, despite often being lumped together, is a completely different game.

And with that, the festive season is over. I hope you found something over the last twelve days to get excited about, even if it's Christmas itself. I'll be back in the new year with my annual list of my fave games and movies that came out over the last twelve months. Until then, get merry, be jolly and have a very Happy Christmas!