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...