F1 Manager 24 is the third entry in Frontier Developments’ young Formula 1 racing management sim series, and once again it builds upon this promising franchise with some fantastic additions - not least of all the fantastic Create-A-Team mode that lets you add an eleventh team all of your own to the grid.

On-track simulation has seen a notable step up, too. The introduction of mechanical failures means that both you and the AI drivers can suffer devastating setbacks mid-race at a moment’s notice. And on top of that, driver AI - for the most part - does a very good job of replicating real-world driving styles.

While some irksome bugs remain, and the game’s user interface remains largely identical to last year’s entry, F1 Manager 24 is a massive improvement to what was already a compelling strategy experience, and it shouldn’t be missed by Formula 1 and management sim fans both. 

The eleventh man

F1 Manager 24’s marquee feature is undoubtedly the Create-A-Team mode. It does what it says on the tin, letting you bring an eleventh team into the 2024 F1 season and beyond. You pick your two drivers, your staff, budget, sponsors, and so on. You’ll also get to define your team’s look with some pretty great livery editors for your car, racing suit, and team logo.

Having full freedom to create a team without any of those silly FIA restrictions of course means that you can get weird with it. My first attempt was a team specifically designed to childishly undermine the Stroll-owned Aston Martin team. I nicked their star driver, Fernando Alonso, and paired him up with F2 star Isack Hadjar. Then, at the opening race at Bahrain, Alonso was muscled off-track by Haas’s Kevin Magnussen, promptly ending his race after a promising result in the third phase of qualifying. This was also my first inkling that F1 Manager 24’s AI might be a little too accurate for its own good.

The crash had left me feeling bitter, so I opted to start over. After all, it was only the first race of the season. So it was out with ‘Aston Fartin’, and in with something more mature. More believable. Something with credible backing from a respectable British powerhouse. Enter the TechRadar Greggs F1 team. With Alex Albon and Nico Hulkenberg at the helm, we became a strong midfield contender that, on occasion, got very close to challenging for podium finishes throughout the season.

So what goes into creating a team? Well, there’s a robust creation process that firstly sees you picking your drivers and staff including sporting director and race engineers. There’s no budgetary limit here at first, but you will have to be mindful of salary in the season proper; if your staff is too expensive for what your chosen budget allows, that’ll only create headaches for you down the road. One nice touch, though, is that if you pair up a driver with their real-world race engineer, they’ll get a morale boost from having worked with each other in the past.

On that note, I really like that you need to put some careful thought into planning out your team, especially if you’ve selected a small-to-medium-sized budget to start out with. But somewhere you can go buck wild in terms of creativity with no limits is in aesthetics. 

F1 Manager 24 has some great and easy-to-use editors for your car livery, racing suit, and team logo. While the car liveries’ layouts and patterns are preset and can’t be altered in and of themselves, you can fully adjust their colors, and apply gradients and different types of paint (metallic, glossy, etc.). The same goes for the logo editor, where you can piece together preset shapes and lettering to create an emblem for your team. Basically, don’t be surprised if you spend upwards of an hour in this initial creation process. And fear not; you’re freely able to make edits to your customizations at any time outside of a race weekend. 

Getting Crofty

The on-track experience in F1 Manager 24 is similar to that of the previous entries, but a number of improvements to racing heighten both immersion and enjoyment. In case you’re unfamiliar with the series, you don’t take direct control of your cars as you would in Codemasters’ F1 24. Your drivers will instead race based on the instructions you give them.

As before, your in-race dashboard is split between your two drivers. Both have menus on either side of the screen that let you adjust tire management, race pace, and your Energy Recovery System (ERS) which can help you get the measure of a rival during overtakes. Pre-race, you’ll also need to adjust car setup to your drivers’ liking to improve their confidence and choose pit stop strategies for the race itself.

There are a lot of similarities to the previous version, then, but F1 Manager 24 still evolves the series in some rather transformative ways. For one, you’ll now need to be conscious of the possibility of mechanical failures for your engine, gearbox, and ERS battery. The risk of these increases as the parts wear down from race to race, and they can range from manageable minor faults to major problems that can have you retiring a car.

These mechanical faults can add some great tension to races, not to mention a lot of decision-making: do you ease up on pace to minimize risk at the cost of points? Do you retire a driver to save a crucial part for a future race? Or do you go flat out and hope to make it to the end? To even the odds, mechanical failures can also affect AI drivers, and I found I was often able to squeeze my drivers into points-scoring positions thanks to rival teams’ misfortunes.

One other thing to note is improvements to driver AI. I have no idea if this was intentional, but the AI of certain drivers seemed to be scarily accurate to their real-world counterparts. I’ve already established that in-game Kevin Magnussen seems to maintain his trademark real-world aggression. But over the course of a season, I also witnessed both Alpine drivers collide and take each other out of a race. Twice. Logan Sargeant was often prone to tire-destroying spins. And poor Sergio Perez was largely off the pace compared to his championship-winning teammate, Max Verstappen, over at Red Bull. Such quirks helped races feel very dynamic and alive, and it’s very common for races to change up on a dime thanks to yellow and red flag stoppages.

Lastly, I have to mention the dramatic improvements to team radio. F1 Manager 24 features hundreds of new lines pulled from official race broadcasts. Drivers and engineers will more frequently reference other drivers by name and how far ahead or behind they are. Furthermore, drivers and engineers who’ve worked together can call each other by name. Once again, it’s a great touch that shows Frontier was willing to go the extra mile. 

Buttoned up

Overall, F1 Manager 24 is a brilliant improvement on what was already a very strong foundation. Race weekends feel that much more unpredictable thanks to mechanical faults and improved driver AI. Also welcome are the new difficulty options - handy if you want an easier or tougher time of things when it comes to races, budget, and car development. I did note some race-affecting issues over the course of a season, however.

For one, I occasionally ran into a bug during qualifying, where one of my drivers would stay in the garage despite my command to send them on their out lap. As such, they’d effectively be locked in the garage for the remainder of the qualifying session before they could even set a time.

There is still the (thankfully very infrequent) odd bit of behavior with the simulation itself. Cars will sometimes mildly clip through each other instead of colliding - particularly at corners - and some crashes still give the impression the cars are made out of rubber; head-on collisions with a barrier often see the car comically bounce away, for example.

Otherwise, outside of the largely identical user interface that made me wonder if I’d loaded up the wrong game, there is very little to fault F1 Manager 24 on. This is a great example of an annual entry providing meaningful, transformative improvements that handily makes this the best entry in the series to date.

Accessibility

There aren’t a ton of accessibility options in F1 Manager 24, but what’s here is very welcome. The dedicated accessibility tab in the options menu lets you mute background noises during in-race conversations with your crew, and you can switch to mono audio should you prefer. Furthermore, there are three colorblind options (deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia) for the game’s user interface. For streamers, the ability to replace licensed music in the audio tab is also great to see. 

Should I play F1 Manager 24?

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How we reviewed F1 Manager 24

I played F1 Manager 24 over the course of a week, giving myself enough time to play through one full season, the interim afterwards, and some of the next season to get a handle on features like driver transfers and board expectations. I played the game on PC with a mouse and keyboard setup, specifically the Corsair K65 and Corsair M65. My rig, which includes an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060Ti, was enough to run the game at maximum graphical settings at a clean 60fps. 

Following the major success of Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail, developer Hoyoverse is back with its latest free-to-play title: Zenless Zone Zero. This game differs from both of the above with its relatively modern setting and focus on fast-paced real-time combat as opposed to Genshin’s open-world exploration or Honkai’s intricate turn-based team building.

In terms of format, Zenless Zone Zero feels like a more traditionally built mobile game, with smaller hub areas and simple yet flashy combat. For many, it’ll come across as decidedly less ambitious than Hoyoverse’s previous efforts, but I don’t believe this to be the case, and you shouldn’t be fooled into thinking Zenless doesn’t have sauce all of its own.

For one, the game’s presentation is easily Hoyoverse’s most accomplished to date, with beautiful visuals, a killer soundtrack, and animated cutscenes that wouldn’t seem out of place in a big-budget, feature-length movie. The quality of animation extends to its combat, too, which is a little style-over-substance for sure, but nonetheless provides dopamine-inducing encounters and satisfying visual feedback.

To address the elephant in the room, though, not everyone will get on with the free-to-play gacha model (which essentially locks most characters behind a probability-based chance system) here. While Zenless Zone Zero’s onboarding is generous with an abundance of resources, being at the mercy of randomness for character obtention will undoubtedly frustrate some players. Pair this with the energy system that limits the play of certain modes and the game can certainly feel restrictive once story content and other non-energy-requiring modes have dried up.

Still, if you’re after a casual-friendly game with staggering production value, Zenless Zone Zero’s presentation and combat are well worth checking out especially given the zero cost of entry. 

New horizons

Zenless Zone Zero takes place in New Eridu, one of the last remaining safe havens for civilization after Hollows - localized zones that warp areas and turn those within into monstrous beings - ravage the planet. Our protagonists are Belle and Wise, siblings who take up the profession of Proxies who help guide combat-capable agents through these Hollow zones for anything from treasure hunting to search and rescue missions.

You’ll have the choice to play as Belle or Wise at the start of the game, but unlike previous Hoyoverse protagonists, both are present in the story and don’t take up combat roles. That instead goes to the aforementioned agents, some of which you’ll unlock for free in the opening chapter, and the rest becoming available via Zenless’s gacha system.

So far, each chapter of the story focuses on a particular group of agents belonging to various factions. The Cunning Hares, for example, is a ragtag, slightly unprofessional group that provides much of the game’s (genuinely very funny) comic relief. Belobog Heavy Industries, meanwhile, is a construction firm that specializes in deploying heavy-duty machinery in dangerous Hollow areas. 

Sadly, in true Hoyoverse fashion, it takes a bit for the wider picture to come into play. But having played through all of the release version’s main story content, this feeling doesn’t last long - and the three chapters we have right now are exceptionally well-paced and brimming with eyebrow-raising lore tidbits.

Well-hoyoversed

Likely, whether you’ll take to Zenless Zone Zero or not lies in its combat. And compared to previous Hoyoverse games it’s a relatively simple affair. Characters typically have a basic attack combo string and one or two special abilities, along with an Ultimate attack when you’ve built up the ‘Decibel’ gauge required to unleash them. Said gauge is also shared across your team of three, as opposed to each getting their own.

Your primary aim in combat is to attack enemies to fill their Daze meter. It’s similar to Sekiro’s stagger bar or indeed Honkai Star Rail’s break gauge; once filled, enemies become temporarily stunned. You’re then prompted - rather stylishly - to switch to one of your other team members, at which point they’ll attack with their unique swap-in ability. While bog-standard grunts only let you apply this one time, larger bosses can have this effect applied up to three times, and this is where you can quickly apply buffs and deal big damage.

What it lacks in substance, at least at launch, it does make up for massively in style and somewhat in the potential for team synergy. As is the case with the beautifully animated cutscenes, Zenless Zone Zero’s combat feels lightning-quick and responsive. Dodging to briefly slow time and switching characters at the right time to perform a guard counter always feels incredibly satisfying, not least of all because of the powerful on-screen feedback. It’s great fun, especially when you’re building up the Daze meter on single-target boss encounters to stun them and then go ham.

What I’m hoping for above all else is that future content updates start introducing more complex enemy encounters and character move sets. What we have in Version 1.0 is a good starting point - and given it’s a mobile game I’m certainly not expecting Devil May Cry levels of complexity - but when combat feels as nice as it does, it’s a shame it’s currently pretty bare bones.

That same feeling extends to the playable roster of characters, which is honestly rather slim at launch. Version 1.0 brings 16 agents. One of those characters, Ellen, is locked behind the premium gacha banner. Granted, this is standard for the genre, but with six other ‘S rank’ characters available in the standard banner with significantly lower probability, that only leaves the nine ‘A rank’ agents that most will feasibly get. 

That doesn’t leave much room for variety in team building right now. Doubly so, when endgame content like Shiyu Defense eventually requires you to build two teams of three. It’s a shame that Hoyoverse couldn’t squeeze in a few more characters for folks to try out. Genshin Impact launched with 22 characters, and Honkai Star Rail had 23 in its Version 1.0. More characters will certainly be added to Zenless in future patches, but as it stands, things feel relatively bare bones on this front. 

Hollowed out

Thankfully, Zenless Zone Zero certainly isn’t lacking in more general content. At launch, the main story is meaty, with several lengthy chapters to play through. There are also plenty of side quests ranging from quick combat trials to more involving exploration-based affairs that make use of maps stylized as rows of CRT screens you’ll have to navigate through and solve various problems.

Beyond that, there are two major side modes in Hollow Zero and Shiyu Defense. The former is very similar to Honkai Star Rail’s Simulated Universe; you explore maps, earn passive upgrades for your agents, experience random events (that can be beneficial but also very much not), and challenge bosses at the end of each section. 

Shiyu Defense, meanwhile, is 10 individual levels of pure combat, each increasing in difficulty and level requirements. Beat all 10 floors and you’ll unlock another set of Shiyu Defense missions that reset periodically. But given character level thresholds are tied to your account level, you likely won’t see this content for a good month or two. This is Zenless Zone Zero’s current form of endgame, and you’ll need some decently built teams in order to complete each level with the highest rank.

Both modes are very compelling and seriously worth doing especially if you’re a strictly free-to-play player. That’s because both offer ample rewards for building your characters and for the gacha system. Hollow Zero rewards also refresh each week, offering cyclical goodies that help make free-to-play a perfectly viable way of experiencing the game.

Unfortunately, other side modes simply exist to facilitate the game’s energy system, of which you’re limited to 240 units every 24 hours. Energy is spent on most modes outside of the main story progression, Hollow Zero and Shiyu Defense, and is used to earn resources to upgrade your characters. While not an inherently awful system - and there are ways to gain more energy in a day by drinking a daily coffee or spending battery items - it does mean you’ll have to be very patient and careful in how you go about upgrading your characters, W-Engines, and so on. That’ll no doubt be irksome to players who dislike grinds and resource management.

On the topic of actually building and improving your characters, Zenless Zone Zero follows the traditional Hoyoverse template almost to the letter. You can of course increase your character’s level, but also equip them with an item known as a W-Engine (these are also obtainable through the gacha system) affording them powerful buffs. Then, aside from improving individual skill levels, you can additionally equip six Drive Discs which offer more buffs and stat increases. It sounds like a lot, but the game does a good job of teaching you the importance of each. 

Absolute cinema

Zenless Zone Zero’s small launch roster and fairly simple combat are pretty hit-or-miss as it stands, but the same can’t be said for the game’s immaculate presentation. It’s easily the nicest-looking Hoyoverse game by some margin, and the animated cutscenes are a delight to watch.

The crowning achievement here, though, might just be its incredible soundtrack. It’s a super eclectic mix, featuring entrancing lo-fi beats for its hub areas, as well as pulse-pounding breakbeat, techno, and dubstep for combat scenarios. I’ve had the soundtrack on repeat since launch and I can’t wait to hear what kinds of music and genres will be added in future updates.

The only dent in the game’s wonderful presentation is the current performance issues on PS5. One larger hub area sees the framerate slashed in half when visiting it, and more intense combat encounters often sees the game drop below its targeted 60fps on console. If you’re planning on playing Zenless Zone Zero on something other than your phone, consider trying out the PC version, which feels much better optimized than its console counterpart. 

Accessibility

Zenless Zone Zero offers little in the way of accessibility options at launch, with colorblind options being the most notable absence here. You are at least able to fully customize your controller layout for the game, as well as adjust camera sensitivity to your liking.

Should I play Zenless Zone Zero?

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How I reviewed Zenless Zone Zero

I’ve played about 40 hours of Zenless Zone Zero across the PC and PS5 versions on a single account. In that time, I’ve played through all of the existing main story content and plenty of Hollow Zero and Shiyu Defense. I’ve put in around 2-3 hours daily for most days since the game’s Version 1.0 on July 4. I mostly played Zenless Zone Zero with a controller, opting for the GameSir T4 Kaleid on PC and the DualSense Edge on PS5, where you’ll find that the game does feature some haptic feedback elements for the controller.

After toiling for hours in Dungeons of Hinterberg's monster-filled Alps, its message, which I had previously been avoiding, finally sank in. What if I just sat down on the side of this mountain and let the afternoon melt away? What if, instead of combat, puzzles, and progress, I went home and caught a movie instead? 

Relaxation doesn’t often take center stage in a dungeon-crawling role-playing game. Yet, here I was, fighting the urge to min-max the day in service of my social life. Dungeons of Hinterberg offers little resistance if you have a relentless thirst for combat but is keen to remind you that there is always a choice, a motif that echoes throughout its kobold-laden caverns and bustling city streets.

Players step into the walking boots of Luisa, a lawyer whose burnout spurs an alpine vacation to Hinterberg. The mountain village is flush with hikes, spas, labyrinths, and undulating monsters, and it’s up to you to decide how she spends her time on this much-needed holiday. Most activities are optional, offering copious loose threads the player can pull on and follow as the game’s primary narrative unfolds. 

Uphill battle

With the dawn of each day comes the decision of where you’ll explore. Hinterberg’s twenty-five possible dungeons are split over four unique biomes. By traveling to the selected region, the time ticks over to noon, and the exploration portion of the daily loop will begin. Here, you can roam the area freely, unlock fast travel points, seek out items, and chat with other holidaygoers. Each region boasts specialized magic skills to unlock, which are essential for solving the dungeons and opening up new possibilities for above-ground investigation. The activities in each capsule world might mirror one another, but their distinctive vistas and wispy melodic soundscapes give them a personality of their own.

Along your travels, you’ll run into monsters gatekeeping precious loot. Get too close, and a ring of purple fire creates a perimeter, locking you into a fight to the death. Here, you’ll switch between heavy and light attacks, managing your stamina as you attempt to dodge unfortunate thwacks to the head. Dungeons of Hinterberg’s control scheme is simple at first glance, though as you progress through the story, you’ll learn new attack types to rain hellfire and run rings around the hordes of brutish beasts and bosses in your way. The magic skills you pick up in each area can also be leveraged in battle, forcing you to balance your mana points and HP to succeed.

While approachable, the combat can often feel clunky with rigid attack animations leading to painful, unavoidable knocks. This frustration was compounded by the locked perimeter, which could often feel too small for the encounter at hand. As enemy types became more varied, from scythe-wielding scarecrows to hench wolves, carefully dodging and maneuvering became vital. As a result, success in combat often came down to attack spamming rather than any sort of tactical strategy.

Each dungeon’s aesthetic reflects its location in the open world, so cable car mountains become surreal snowboarding slopes, the sky peppered with crystal snowflakes. It’s a shame, then, that with such careful worldbuilding, the puzzles can often be repetitive, shifting triumph into tedium. After solving so many similar puzzles in a row, I started to continually cycle between regions in an attempt to disrupt my muscle memory and avoid dungeon fatigue. 

Calm the waters 

Outside of combat, you can also find relaxation spots in the open world, which offer respite from the daily dungeon crawl. Like a dungeon, engaging in this reflective process is intentional and will irreversibly move the day forward, though not before learning more about Luisa’s life before she embarked on this fateful trip. The draw of treasure and glory can make it easy to ignore such a quiet task, but Luisa’s heartfelt ruminations imbue the world with a warmth that grounded me in her plight to find herself again outside the quotidian grind of her nine to five.

Instead of a typical upgrade tree, Dungeons of Hinterberg uses social activity to increase specific skills. So, depending on who you spend your evenings chatting with, you’ll receive increased stamina perks or better prices when selling armor. Like Luisa’s internal relaxation monologues, the complexity of the surrounding cast’s personalities comes into focus through these optional conversations, which range from comical to profound.

Your relationships and daily activity will also affect Luisa’s social stats. I was pleased to see that lacking points in a specific area could prevent me from making new friends or exploring specific biomes, creating some much-needed friction in an otherwise unbarred story.

Every night in Hinterberg ends with a Stardew Valley-esque recap of your day that encapsulates the game’s innovative blend of dungeon crawling and social simulation. You’re reminded of the undead Miner’s Widow you conquered, alongside the HP you gained from meditation. Staring down the barrel of another day of dungeoneering can be offputting, especially with the prospect of an over-familiar puzzle or frustrating fight on the horizon. Still, Dungeons of Hinterberg’s personable cast and stunning environments provided the necessary pockets of reprieve that kept me wanting to wake up and face the day every next morning.

Accessibility

Dungeons of Hinterberg offers players a choice of three difficultly settings (Vacation, Normal, and Tough) as well as an option to disable player death. There are multiple settings to tweak your audio, including SFX and music volume, as well as an option to toggle mono audio. To help with aim, players can toggle on an expanded crosshair, too. There is also an option to invert the vertical and horizontal camera rotation and a choice between a range of screen shake options (Normal, Subtle, and Off.)

Should I play Dungeons of Hinterberg?

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How I reviewed Dungeons of Hinterberg

I completed Dungeons of Hinterberg in approximately twenty hours, conquering every dungeon and conversing with all the local citizens. I played on a combination of PC and Steam Deck, both of which were fluid, with only a few occasional frame rate drops occurring on the Steam Deck. For audio, I used the Creative Pebble V2 speakers on my PC and the native speakers on the Steam Deck. Both options delivered fantastic sound throughout the game. The graphics quality I selected throughout my playthrough was ‘Highest Quality’.

After a significant amount of time wiling away at its many challenges, I’m not entirely sure who Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is for. Because even as a cut-price-themed collection of timed trials centered on the storied company’s beloved 80s classics, the Switch game feels trapped in an identity crisis on who the experience is made for.

Inspired by the World Championship series that gained legendary status in the 1990s and returned in two later renditions in 2015 and 2017, this all-new compilation essentially aims to put players into the driving seat of their own shot at glory. Over the course of 150 challenges on 13 titles from Super Mario Bros. to Metroid to Ice Climbers, players can hone their skills at key tasks within each game before shooting for speedrun records on leaderboards or challenging friends and rivals both offline in Party Mode and online in a knockout-based Survival Mode.

With a bonus weekly rolling World Championships mode that replicates the format of the event by offering a weekly five-challenge gauntlet for players to complete to rank on a special leaderboard and become the weekly World Champion, the game on paper offers a lot for both nostalgic older fans of Nintendo and retro games consoles and those interested in exploring a piece of Nintendo history.

If the challenges deliver. Unfortunately, many underwhelm.

Short and shorter

While on paper 150 unique challenges over 13 games appears like a lot of content in a bite-sized package, many Speedrun Mode challenges will likely not leave you clamoring to return after more than a few tries. Of the 15 challenges on offer within the confines of the original NES Legend of Zelda title, for example, 12 can be completed in under 15 seconds with relative ease, four of which can be completed in under 5 seconds.

The challenges in these cases are laughably basic, even if you’ve never encountered the game before. One challenge in The Legend of Zelda requires you to place a bomb to reveal a cave in the wall, which can be completed in under 3.5 seconds. Another asks you to enter the very first cave in the game to collect your sword as Link, completed by myself for a top S rank in 7.91 seconds. Walking in almost a straight line to a hole in a wall doesn’t feel like a timed challenge I wish to return to for another attempt at a personal best.

It’s an issue across all titles. Metroid asks you to collect power-ups for four of its 12 challenges, and in two instances you start by standing right next to the item and are simply required to move in a direct straight line in order to reach them and complete the challenge. Super Mario Bros. has ‘challenges’ like collecting the first mushroom in the game, Donkey Kong asks you to climb a ladder, and Balloon Fight asks you to pop a balloon. Super Mario Bros. 2 has a challenge to pull a vegetable from the ground that I literally completed in 1.08 seconds.

Over half of the offerings are less challenges and more a tutorial for a fundamental mechanic of the game. This would be fine as an introduction to each title that players could jump into independently of the challenges to get to grips with the games before taking on full-game speedruns or a wider range of more difficult challenges, but this isn’t the case. Instead, the lineup is clogged with menial tasks that can almost entirely be solved within three button presses and without a second thought or room to improve, leaving little room for meaty challenges that actually encourage self-improvement and returning to beat your personal best.

As a former speedrunner, this hardly feels like anything close to living up to the idea of speedrunning these classics.

It’s not like these disappointing challenges can be played once and ignored for meatier offerings, either. It’s inevitable that these challenges will pop up in Party Mode with friends or online, and merely interfere with the flow of the experience. Playing a few rounds of Party Mode with a friend unfamiliar with the original NES Classics, you’d think these challenges would be perfect for this person to get to grips with how these games function so we could move onto more difficult challenges on a level playing field. Wrong. Challenges like Balloon Fight’s Pop It to pop a single balloon felt trivial and meaningless to me as I cleared it in under 2 seconds, but too rushed for my friend to get to grips with the mechanics and enjoy the experience.

These challenges are disappointing whether you’re a veteran seeking nostalgia or a newcomer looking for an entry point to these games. Only later challenges feel satisfying as more complex and engaging experiences, often challenging players to complete extended sequences of play that leaves room for player skill and self-expression within a speedrun environment alongside ample room to improve on future attempts. The final challenge of Super Mario Bros. requires players to complete the full game using warp pipes, a 5-10 minute challenge involving multiple levels and plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong or to make unlikely comebacks for a personal best. It feels worth investing time to improve.

Other games offer similarly lengthy final challenges. The Legend of Zelda gets players to complete the first dungeon, Kid Icarus challenges a player to explore a fortress to defeat Twinbellows. If the game wants to take its inspiration from the hobby of speedrunning, more challenges like these are a must. What we have instead feels neither like speedrunning or a task that would feature at the titular Nintendo World Championships.

Identity crisis

Indeed, the entire package of Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition feels unsure which audiences to appeal to, and instead satisfies no one. Most challenges are too trivial to satisfy veterans on a nostalgia kick but aren’t deep enough to teach new players how to play these games before applying their skills at high-difficulty challenges. 

Which leads to the game’s other issue: why bother? It’s not like this package offers buyers the chance to dive into the full game freely once you complete all their challenges to put the basic mechanics you’ve been taught to the test. Instead, you’re restricted to 10-second snippets that fail to capture the joy and craft that made these games so memorable in the first place. Why not offer a chance for players to race to the credits of every game after completing all the challenges within for a place on the ultimate leaderboards?

Then again, I guess that would hold people back from paying for a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to play all these games in full after these brief demos, which feels like the ultimate intent of this package more than delivering a satisfying experience to players.

The game lacks any true retro callbacks to feel like a celebration of classics or a rousing championship event. Legend Challenges have special Classified Information guides filled with retro-infused guides featuring screenshots and the hand-drawn art used to promote these titles in the 80s, but this is the only whiff of even a hint of love within a package that otherwise feels cold, clinical, and barren.

As a result, this package is difficult to recommend to almost anyone, despite being offered at a reduced price of just $29.99 / £24.99 compared to other full-priced titles. Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition feels like an advertisement for Nintendo Switch Online that audiences have to pay for the privilege of being upsold, rather than a game. What we have can barely entertain beyond a few brief hours, and even then is too fragmented and tedious to offer any real challenge or entertainment in all but a handful of challenges.

I can’t help but wish Nintendo offered a skew for the game in the West similar to what has been offered in Japan, where players had the chance to buy the otherwise Switch Online-only NES/Famicom replica controllers with the game in a package not too dissimilar to what we see with controller bundles for Super Mario Party. As a freebie with a controller, this game would feel like a neat curio, and while still not wholly satisfying as a standalone experience would likely offer just about enough to satisfy as a pack-in title. Otherwise, this feels more like a first-round knockout than a championship-winning shot at glory. 

Accessibility

The game has minimal accessibility settings but does offer on-screen prompts to guide players towards the goal of a challenge while playing. These can be turned off in settings.

Should I play Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition?

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How I reviewed Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition

I put in about seven hours completing the majority of the challenges on offer, while also playing the game’s Party Mode and Survival and World Championships modes online. The game was primarily played handheld on a Nintendo Switch OLED console, and in docked mode with single Joycon play during Party Mode sessions with another player.

AndaSeat Kaiser 4: Two-minute review

AndaSeat’s Kaiser 4 is a chair that is entirely defined by its lumbar support, and how you can adjust it. Without a shadow of a doubt, everything pretty much revolves around that. And to be fair, it is impressive. It’s a well-implemented system, that, although mildly finicky to install, is seriously adept at what it does. It adapts to your personal preference, locks in place, and provides you with plenty of support and a little flexibility when you need it. 

Here’s the thing though, if you’re not a fan of lumbar support, and typically throw out those included cushions, and try and flatten the integrated rest as best you can, then you’re going to be massively out of luck. You just can’t adjust it to a point that it’s either flush with the back of the chair or flat, to have it not protrude into your back. That makes the Kaiser 4 incredibly divisive. Big fan of lumbar support? Great, you’re probably going to love it. Hate lumbar support with a passion? Then likewise the feeling is going to be the same towards the chair too.

Lumbar aside, most of the bells and whistles you’d usually expect are here. You get a seriously hefty bucket seat, magnetic headrest pillow, plenty of adjustment, a wide seat base, phenomenal build quality, and a remarkable assortment of different colorways over two material choices to choose from. Oh, and it’s comfortable too, although the PVC leather does feel a little smoother than most, making it slightly less breathable.

The only other downside is those armrests. AndaSeat has these pegged as five-dimensional. What that means in practice, is you can move half of the armrest up and down. How that’s helpful I’m yet to fully understand, but it’s there nonetheless. They’re also massive, and with that break in the middle, mildly unsightly. Plus they come with a flared back-end, which is less than ideal for long gaming sessions.

Whether you like the Kaiser 4 or not is going to entirely revolve around your own personal preferences. So, it’s not one of the best gaming chairs then? Well, it’s like a Dakar Rally car: highly specialized at doing one thing and doing it well, but take it out into the mean streets of Boston where it needs to be far more versatile, and you’re going to be in for a stressful time.

AndaSeat Kaiser 4: Price and availability

• Pricing has dropped since launch
• No UK or Amazon availability yet
• Still pricey for what you’re getting

At time of writing the AndaSeat Kaiser 4 is actually only available from the brand's webshop directly. you can’t grab it from Amazon either just yet, although it will be on the way. There’s been some trouble in the factories where the chairs are manufactured that has led to a slight delay in some of the colorways shipping to customers. So depending on what material or color you’re after, you might be able to get it today, or in the next couple of weeks.

Nonetheless, the pricing for the Kaiser 4 has also dropped since it first launched. It did debut with an MSRP of $649, then fell to $539 on a special offer, and is now settling at $569. That makes it a far more appetizing choice for those who may have been on the fence about it and its lumbar support, particularly given its $649 price tag.

This would put any UK pricing at about the £450 mark, but, sadly, the chair is only available in the US at time of writing, with availability in the UK, Europe, Canada, and the rest of the world, awaiting official confirmation.

AndaSeat Kaiser 4: Specs

AndaSeat Kaiser 4: Design and Features

• Broad and comfortable
• Armrests are just bizarre
• Super smooth PVC leather

Out of the box, this chair is an absolute monster. It comes in one large shipping box, with another smaller container inside of that, which holds all of the chair components, and accessories you’re going to need to build the thing. It’s seriously big, and impressively heavy too. Total weight clocks in at 75.53lbs or 34.26kg when fully unpacked and built. I highly recommend when you do get around to building it, that you unpack it wherever it arrives, move it piece by piece to where you’re going to use it and assemble the Kaiser 4 there.

Weight aside, it’s the included features and tech that really set the Kaiser 4 apart from the competition. Most notably of course is that integrated lumbar support. AndaSeat has been incredibly clever in how it’s built this. It features three adjustment levers in total. One on the base, and the other two on the sides of the chair itself. These allow you to reposition the central lumbar bulge, plus increase or decrease how aggressive that bend is. The third and final lever then allows the lumbar support to fully extend out or compress in, depending on your preference. This gives you the opportunity to really dial it in compared to the standard adjustment you’ll find in most chairs.

Lumbar aside, you also get a fairly aggressive bucket-seat design, situated on a comfortable cold-foam base. And this thing is big. Maximum seat base height is 25" / 63.5cm off the ground, and the seat base width including those fairly non-aggressive side bolsters is 21.3" / 54cm as well. Compare that to something like the Noblechairs Legend which comes in at 22.8" / 58cm on seat base height, and 20.4" / 52cm on the width, and those extra inches make all the difference, particularly if you’re above the 6’ / 183cm mark.  

Then there’s the odd armrests. It does honestly feel a little bit like a gimmicky marketing move to try and one-up the competition by adding another number. These are "5D armrests" don’t ya know? Yep. They move up, down, backwards, forwards, side-to-side, and have angle adjustment, as you’d expect from your typical bog-standard, basic, super dumb, 4-dimensional armrests, but the Kaiser 4’s have one additional range of motion. A half-pivot. Yep, you weren’t prepared for the half-pivot now were you? The armrest itself splits in the middle and allows you to alter the up-down angle of the front half by up to 40°. What advantage that gives you has yet to be unveiled to us, but according to the AndaSeat, it takes your elbow comfort to a whole new level. I’m not convinced. 

These things are huge as well because of it, unlike their AndaSeat Kaiser 3 XL counterparts, they’re absolutely massive with flared rear-ends. The padding is ok here, but otherwise, that’s all there really is to say about them. Not having them magnetically removable as well does seem like a backward step, but then, that is understandable given the range of motion on offer there.

AndaSeat Kaiser 4: Performance

• Build process is just okay
• Armrests are awkward
• Lumbar support is highly divisive

Opening up your AndaSeat Kaiser 4 box reveals an absolute arsenal of components for you to install. The chair itself still has a fairly similar build process to the rest of the market, yet the included manual AndaSeat stuffed in the box does a fantastic job of running you through the process anyway. The castor wheels are great, and the overall construction of the chair is solid and reliable.

One of the brilliant features that AndaSeat has built into the Kaiser 4 (and the 3 XL for that matter) is a sliding bracket for the backrest assembly. In short, the backrest of the chair has a formed bracket on the left-hand side (as you’re facing it), that slides directly onto the spring-loaded tilt adjustment. That makes it super easy to line the chair up with the bolt holes and secure it into position. Particularly helpful if you’re building the chair on your own, without assistance.

Unfortunately, I did have trouble installing one of the bolts into its thread, and securing the chair to its brackets, but a bit of wiggling, and loosening off here and there eventually led to a successful fitting. The screws are then hidden from sight with a set of magnetic plastic covers, and the rest of the build proceeds as normal.

Well almost as normal. The lumbar support’s third adjustment has a separate toggle that’s found in the base of the seat, and that’s connected via a hydraulic attachment that’s hidden away in the bottom of the seat base. If you’re not careful you can miss it entirely (mine was hidden away under the green strapping in the base. Grab this and pull it out before securing the mount for the gas piston, as it’s a nightmare to get to if you try to get it after. Once you’ve got it though, carefully attach the plastic housing and the cable line together, and then mount that to the underside of the chair and you’re pretty much done.

Similar to the 3 XL, (and the Secretlab Titan Evo), overall padding is exceptional in the 4. In fact it’s probably one of the more comfortable gaming chairs out there, and the PVC leather is a nice touch too. That said, It’s not flawless. The leather is a bit too soft, which could cause problems in hotter climbs, as it doesn’t feel that breathable. 

Then there’s the lumbar support, if you don’t like having things protrude in your back, or you enjoy the occasional slouch, you’re not going to like this chair. AndaSeat touts that this reduces muscle pain, improves your posture/ergonomics, and leads to better performance. In my case, the opposite was true, and no matter what I tried I couldn’t get the lumbar support flat enough to suit my particular style of sitting and working. But again, this is a chair specifically built around that feature. You don’t expect a rally car to set records at Daytona after all.

Lastly, those armrests and that 5D movement. Absolutely pointless, there was not a single moment where using them at that angle helped in any way shape or form. If anything, they got in the way far more often than not, because of that extra girth. It might be better suited for console gaming or mobile gaming perhaps, but for dedicated PC enthusiasts, absolutely not.

Should I buy the AndaSeat Kaiser 4?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider...

Not 100% sure about the AndaSeat Kaiser 4? Interested in other gaming chairs in the market? Then take a look at these two other gaming chairs we’ve reviewed instead.

How I tested the AndaSeat Kaiser 4

• Tested by multiple individuals
• All manner of seating positions tried
• In-depth lumbar testing

I spent over two weeks testing the AndaSeat Kaiser 4. I used it predominantly as my daily driver, working and gaming with it at my PC. I’m a 5’8.5” human (174cm) and weigh in at 165lb / 75kg. I built the Kaiser 4 by hand, from start to finish, with no assistance, and used it in video calls, emailing, writing, and gaming as well.

I also extensively tested both the lumbar support, in all manner of configurations, along with the 5-D armrests, to really try to understand how these operated, and whether they were beneficial to the end-user or not. I was also able to compare the Kaiser 4 directly to other chairs in my collection recently, notably the NobleChairs Legend which I reviewed recently, and the NobleChairs Icon.

On top of that, I also asked a number of close colleagues and associates to sit in the chair and give me their feedback as well. They range from 5’5 to 6’2 (165 to 180cm) and are an assortment of shapes and sizes. This gave me a good amount of feedback to temper my own subjective opinions for this review.