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REVIEW: Beetle Shock

Developer: Afil Games Publisher: Afil Games Release Date: January 13, 2026 Available for: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch (version reviewed) Beetle Shock could be described in a sentence written in crayon on a napkin, and you’d lose nothing in terms of detail or value prospect. That’s not entirely a criticism, either – it is exactly what it looks like on the tin, short and slight yet adequate enough as a game to make the question of whether it’s worth your time more subjective an inquiry than normal. What we have here is a mascot platformer that owes part of its design to A Boy and His Blob , minus the jellybean-infused powers of a shapeshifting companion. Like the Boy of that game, Beetle Shock’s titular protagonist is limited in their mobility options; they can only run forward and back, jump, and perform a mid-air ground pound that smashes through breakable bricks and increases the height of jumps when hopping on mushrooms (this game's version of bounce pads).  The Beetle...
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Blog Update for June of 2017


Big question time: what's kept Kurt preoccupied to such a degree that he's only posting at the END of June?

Well, contract work that pays the bills, for one thing - got professional responsibilities that I need to put first. Also, within the last couple of days I've been hit with a cold, the specific details of which I'll spare you. And some taxing housework that cuts into my time but needs to get done...

Basically, life, money and the limitations of the human body. So I'm a little behind on stuff and will be working to get caught up.

For those interested, these are the pieces I've got in the pipelines:
  • The (slightly) long-awaited Thoughts on... Mega Man X piece. I might get into it in the piece itself, but in short: on top of normal work stresses causing delays, I'm also not in love with the game and thus finding it difficult to motivate myself to write about it. Nevertheless, it'll get done.
  • A review of Homefront: The Revolution
  • An E3 round-up with some very special awards paying tribute to the best (and occasionally the worst) that the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017 had to offer.
  • Possibly for late July or early August: a retrospective and personal ranking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films to date. This is a project I've had in my mind since I first started the process of rebooting the blog, and I'm eager to see it to completion.
As always, my thanks to Patreon supporter (and friend) Mark Aguirre for his contributions. I hope that my growing body of work proves worthy of support, and I urge anyone even slightly interested in my endeavours to please consider checking out and contributing to my Patreon yourself. Every little bit helps.

Thank you.

-Kurt
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