We played the first hour of MercurySteam's 3DS sequel to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Here are our impressions...
Trevor Belmont is back to drink holy water and kill vampires – and he’s all out of holy water. We put this 3DS whipfest through its paces at E3; see whether or not this handheld follow-up to the Spanish-made Lords of Shadow lives up to the Belmont birthright…
We played the first hour of MercurySteam's 3DS sequel to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Here are our impressions...
We played the first hour of MercurySteam's 3DS sequel to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Here are our impressions...

It's a pretty rare thing these days -- even in indie circles -- to see products that are designed almost entirely by one person. Such was the case with Daisuke Amaya's five-year opus, Cave Story, which has slowly grown from its humble PC beginnings to become a retail WiiWare and DSiWare offering, courtesy of indie dev house Nicalis. We've already had the chance for a little sit-down with Amaya himself last week, but it wasn't until later that evening that we got to actually play the full-blown 3D remake...

You know what chess needs more of? Stabbing. Over the years there have been many video gaming attempts at translating the centuries-old game of chess, but most have been fairly imperfect thanks to the limitations of artificial intelligence (at least, when super computers aren’t involved). Or maybe they just needed more violence. In Check vs Mate (formerly known as Battle vs Chess), you don’t simply get to remove a piece from the board when you capture it. It’s as if the defending rook said to the attacking knight, “why don’t you make me get off the board, punk?” The two pieces then meet face to face with a squad of friends in mortal combat...