Reviews - Jank (Page 2)

08 Jul 2026 By Brendan Caldwell Wall Week

Wall-e review

There's a reason for this but it's not a good one

The world of Wall-e (2008) is covered in half-pipes and quarter pipes, as if designed by a committee of Thrasher magazine photographers. It is a wasteland of human detritus and dead buildings, many of which have helpfully collapsed into useful ramps and handy pathways lined by traffic cones. The afterearth of Wall-e is functionally indistinguishable from the post-apocalypse of The Last Of Us, insofar as it is a landscape of signposting and affordances. Finding an old children's toy in the dust of a failed civilisation offers a poignant moment. Good thing they sparkle to make sure you spot them.

Why am I reviewing Wall-e, a licensed Disney tie-in from the year of our dirt 2008? Well, I've been informed we're doing Wall-e week at Jank and I thought: "Weird, but okay".

To quickly enlighten you. This is a gentle children's platformer full of set pieces loosely adopted from the film. It has racing levels, gentle box-slinging puzzles, and bright diode collectioneering. There is an insufferable looping calypso track that will make you want to perforate your own eardrums. In one level you may spend a grand total of 120 seconds guiding the floating iPod called Eva away from a sandstorm while blasting incoming obstacles with lasers. In another you will be hoovering up a hundred gizmos to unlock a door. Honey, we're videogamesing. Its best levels showcase the sediment layers of game design practices over the preceding decades that have compacted to produce, finally, a semi-competent movie tie-in for nine year olds. Its worst levels are a kind of shitty Sonic.

You recharge your health in sunbeams and throw cubes a lot.

I did not play Wall-e when it first graced the most bargainous of buckets at your local Gamestop in 2008, which has since transformed into a pawn shop that BUYS YOUR GOLD TODAY. I cannot meaningfully review it in the context of its own time - a year in which I concede Left 4 Dead, BioShock, Portal, Burnout Paradise and Mass Effect may have overshadowed it. All the flesh components of my cerebellum have long since become infected with a kind of psychic mold from the intervening history of pandemics, financial collapses, and news stories about gorillas from Cincinnati being shot in the head.

This post is for paying subscribers only

Already have an account? Sign in.

21 May 2026 By Alice Bell Reviews

Titanium Court review

Methought I was enamoured of an ass

You've probably already heard of Titanium Court, this season's indie game for people who very loudly say they love indie games. But hey: I love indie games! And Titanium Court is the most IGF Award-winningest game, too. This despite - or perhaps because - it defies easy explanation. Here goes.

Titanium Court is a metafictional roguelite match-3 strategy RPG. It uses 2D pixel art and has a minimalist colour palette that would be at home on the same sweet shelf as Wham bars and Refreshers. It is most obviously inspired by the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night's Dream, but there are a lot of other influences (there's a small, very specific thing that reminds me of something from Clive Barker's short stories).

Because of all that it is very good, but also a tiny bit obnoxious at times. If Titanium Court were a person I would go to its Edinburgh Fringe show, but not invite it to my wedding.

In fairness, if you're going to be meta, Shakespeare isn't a bad shout at all. His plays are often bookended by a guy coming out and saying "Here's what you're going to

18 May 2026 By Nic Reuben Reviews

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies review

Fatigue, anxiety and delirium in ZA/UM's sophomore game

At the bazaar, the citizens of Portofiro rummage through bootleg tapes from La Luz, a techno-fascist empire under a cultural blockade that prohibits the genuine article. Everywhere, conspiratorial lips whisper that La Luz's leader is the latest in a long line of copies. With each duplicate, his essence gradually thins.

I take notes and try not to get snagged on easy metaphors for a game that has far too much of its own vitality to ever feel ersatz, but never quite shakes the sense of being an imprint. I'm halfway through a second run now, and I still couldn't tell you whether the metaphor is deliberate or not. Much of Zero Parades is good enough that it deserves to be written about on its own terms, free of the ugliness and controversy that have hung over studio ZA/UM's leadership since shortly after the release of Disco Elysium.

In other words, Zero Parades deserves to be written about by someone who has never heard of studio ZA/UM, and has never played Disco Elysium. What I'm basically saying here is that they should have made a kart racer instead. Incredibly selfish not to,

11 May 2026 By Graham Smith Reviews

I enjoyed Mixtape and therefore it's good

Finding truth amid nostalgia

The music video for 1998's All I Need by French electronica duo Air features a young couple skateboarding in the suburbs of California, mixed with interview clips of the pair trying, and mostly failing, to explain their feelings for each other. A YouTube upload of the video has become a shrine to the era for a particular type of person. "This song just sums up the vibe of the '90s," says one commenter. "I miss those days so much and feel sorry for this generation that didn't get to experience this type of life, free from all the social media bullshit."

Mixtape, released last week, is clearly inspired by the '80s movies of John Hughes, especially Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but it may as well be an adaptation of that music video and the aching nostalgia of its comment section.

Click through to YouTube to read the comments. They're nice.

It's Stacey Rockford's last day in town, the summer after the end of high school, and she and her friends Van and Cass are determined to make the most of it. That means securing booze to bring to that night's big beach party

23 Apr 2026 By Brendan Caldwell Reviews

If you want to explore a strange city, go play Moves Of The Diamond Hand

Cosmo D, as I live and breathe

I am $999 in debt and I may be going insane, but at least my pockets are full of sandwiches. You too may attain bread-based nirvana if you play Moves Of The Diamond Hand, a new dice-rolling RPG from Cosmo D, although you don't need to follow me into the deathspiral of bankruptcy. I just enjoy becoming insolvent in any game that gives me the chance. My granny used to say: "They can't put you in jail for debt". She had roughly nine billion children to feed and I do not, but part of me carries her philosophy to the grave. And indeed past the grave! Into videogames.

But before I explain debt to you, I should explain this entire game. This is impossible, because it is a Cosmo D game. I'll settle for the basics.

You arrive first-personally via subway train to Off-Peak City. It is the middle of an intense mayoral race, with everyone in town talking about three candidates. One is a clone who will fall to pieces if he doesn't have his companion fish robot with him at all times. Another is a former boy band member

18 Apr 2026 By Brendan Caldwell Reviews

Anthology of the Killer review

I don't need an excuse to do this but I've got one anyway

How late can one review a game? Pointless question, I don't care to hear your answer. Anthology Of The Killer has been out on PC for a while, but it was released on the Nintendthing and Player's Station V this week, bringing the comedy crime caper to the respective audiences of baffled children and tired parents who've forgotten they even have a subscription to PS Plus. This act launches the game back into what we may generously call the Public Eye. Ow! Poor eye.

This gives me the perfect opportunity to finally do what I neglected to do when the game came out two entire years ago (oh no time's inexorable stomp etc etc). That is to say: here follows a non-thorough yet official evaluation of thecatamites' comedy slasher. The video game review continues to be a relevant form.

BB converses with a voice from the audience as she moves through corridors made of curtain.

If you are new to this developer's homebrew bafflements, fear not. Anthology is as good a jumping in point as any. This is a mechanistically simple game of walking about and looking at things until you feel one emotion or another, I won't dictate to you which. BB is a zine maker in a

30 Mar 2026 By Graham Smith Reviews

Screamer review: we don't give scores but this is one of those sevens

The original Screamer was the first racing game I ever played on PC. It was heavily inspired by Ridge Racer, but I didn't know that at the time. I just knew that me and my two older brothers were all competing in the same game, a rare occurrence given the age gap between us. Even in permanent third place on the time trial leaderboards, I was thrilled.

It didn't last. By the time Screamer 2 and Screamer Rally released in '96 and '97, my brothers had mostly moved on, and I played them alone. I remember being disappointed, unable to recapture the spark of excitement that I'd felt competing in the original. It would be foolish to blame the games for this, although maybe it did make a difference that I'd played actual Ridge Racer by that point. I think I'd instead be wiser to accept that the original Screamer wasn't a great game either, but that sometimes, games don't need to be great; they just need to arrive at the right time, for the right person. Enter Screamer (2026).

A raised highway racetrack through a city of tall buildings under blue skies. Three cars are visible on the track. — It's really difficult to operate four triggers and two analogue sticks and

18 Mar 2026 By Graham Smith Reviews

Lost And Found Co. review (of the YouTube videos I watched alongside it)

It could have lost the plot, and maybe I have

Lost And Found Co. is Where's Wally with a mouse pointer. You peer into orthographic worlds and you long to live within them: bustling city streets filled with colourful stores, buskers, and cute cats; a cluttered house that looks like it's fallen out of the pages of Kyoichi Tsuzuki's Tokyo Style; a park, a jungle, a swamp, a convenience store, an island bar, a cat cafe.

The game's objective is that you find a given list of items in each location to bring notoriety back to a shrine goddess and win a popularity contest against an evil corporate president. My objective, however, is to dissociate of an evening while watching YouTube videos on a second screen. So let's appraise Lost And Found Co. in how it enables my goals.

Video 1: Episode 43 by Quest For The Best

I haven't watched this anime and never will.

Second screens have been a commonplace part of PC gaming for decades, and today people refer to certain releases as "podcast games". It's certainly always been a regular part of how I play games. I used to watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer on an adjacent television while