It’s hard for a port of The Outer Worlds to be disappointing. But even though the Nintendo Switch version of one of 2019’s best gaming experiences should be celebrated simply for existing, there’s no denying that this conversion has many flaws. By flaws, ultimately I mean that it highlights just how difficult a task it…
The Last of Us Part II is not a game for everyone. It’s a game that builds on the original in unexpected ways. It seeks to challenge the player emotionally and philosophically, posing hard questions to which you may not have an answer. It’s likely not the game you are expecting at all. And that’s…
Borderlands remains one of the most important staples in recent gaming memory, as the granddaddy of looter shooters. Sure, many have learned, but none have quite mastered this unique blend of first-person gunplay, humour and exploration in the same way that Borderlands does. By now, most of us scavenged the land of Pandora, in search…
2006’s DS classic Clubhouse Games was a huge hit, to absolutely no one’s surprise. The perfect marriage for handheld gaming, it stylishly bought together a comprehensive index of 42 classic card and board games which have been etched into history for a good reason. Everything from Chess and Blackjack to Ludo and Solitaire was included,…
When Xenoblade Chronicles was originally released for the Nintendo Wii in 2010-12, it felt like a tectonic shift in the way we talked about JRPGs. Suddenly, people were talking about the niche genre’s shiny new, universally acclaimed story as the genre’s pinnacle, as if Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest franchises never existed. The deep-world of…
Beloved first-person shooter BioShock has finally arrived on the Nintendo Switch. The Bioshock Collection combines all three games in a single package, along with all available DLC. The BioShock collection has been available on current platforms since 2016. And now here we are, BioShock playable on-the-go… Big Daddy… Chasing you… anywhere you go… Oh lord….
It’s been a minute since I’ve reviewed a Hyper X headset. Over the last few years, HyperX have gone from a PC hardware manufacturer famous for high performance memory and gaming drives, to a real contender in the peripheral space. With the Cloud Flight S, the latest premium tier addition to their lineup, HyperX looks…
It’s not enough to simply write that the new remaster of Saints Row: The Third features, and is defined by, substantial “graphical enhancements”. The off-the-wall Volition title, the one where they decoupled the series from “GTA clone” criticism and carved their own successful niche, has gone through a complete overhaul. And it’s fucking gorgeous. We’re…
Hindsight really is 2020. Mafia II: Definitive Edition has become the latest in a slew of remakes and remasters to fill out this very strange year’s release calendar. Originally released in 2010, Mafia II is a fairly standard crime family story. You play as migrant son Vito Scaletta, freshly returned to the fictional Empire City…
If it bleeds, we can kill iT — unless it’s a beloved IP that bleeds money, in which case we can plumb it for nostalgia value. This has been the recent fate of the Predator franchise, which has enjoyed a recent resurgence 2018’s The Predator. Given the renewed interest, a video game tie-in makes a…
After ridiculous amounts of hype on Switch and PC, wickedly over-the-top side-scrolling shooter My Friend Pedro has parkoured its way to the PS4. With it, the title has brought all the juicy adrenaline, fist-pumping acrobats, and stylish gunfights with it. Not bad for a game where you’re killing people because a weird floating banana told…
2K has moved incredibly quickly on XCOM Chimera Squad. It was announced out of the blue in mid-April, and launch day was only a week later. 12 hours after the announcement, I had a review copy installed on my home PC. Fast is Chimera Squad‘s watchword. It has a much higher resting heart rate than…
In a media landscape full of remakes and remasters, it takes a masterpiece to stand out. Such is the case with Final Fantasy VII Remake, a modern take on an RPG considered one of the greatest of all time. Here it takes on another accolade — it’s also one of the greatest examples of how to…
I’ve never played an Animal Crossing game before. This might make me a terrible Nintendo fan. My curiosity was piqued by Animal Crossing: New Horizons in the lead-up to its launch. It seemed to offer something calming and unchallenging in a global moment of hardship and complexity. Fans have now had over two weeks to…
A remake of Resident Evil 3 was only a matter of time. After Resident Evil 2′s critical and commercial success, it made sense for Capcom to continue their hot streak. And so, only a year later, it’s here. Resident Evil 3 proves the franchise is alive and thriving, creatively reimagining and modernising older titles in its…
Two games I never finished have been repackaged, remastered and released as a solid double package. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the hell out of my brief time with both Bayonetta (2009) and Vanquish (2010) but it was at a point in my life when video games ebbed out of my radar for a…
Let me preface this review with an admission: despite my love for Pokémon, I’ve never played any of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games before. Rescue Team DX is a remake that combines the DS titles Rescue Team Red and Rescue Team Blue into a single package. Since I’ve not played them, it allowed me to go into…
The Division 2 launched to critical acclaim, and for good reason. Everything had been altered, lifted and improved, and as a result, held me in its grasp for longer than I’d like to admit. But a few months later, I had left The Division 2 behind. Small incremental updates failed to shake up the formula…
MLB The Show has stood for many years as Sony’s simulated answer to America’s pass time. It is with MLB The Show 20 that developer SIE San Diego Studio has lived up to this statement once again, producing one of the most accurate, thorough and varied iterations of the franchise to date. While baseball isn’t necessarily…
If 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare brought things back to basics with boots on the ground combat, Call of Duty: Warzone brings things back into the mainstream, following the trend of recent battle royale experiences. Merging the fast and fluid gunplay of Modern Warfare with the more tactical drawn out nature of a battle…
Doom Eternal is a lot of fun. It’s a game that looks directly to the wildly popular Doom 2016 for its cues on just about everything. It introduces a suite of new mechanics that give combat greater depth. It asks you to face your enemies head-on and to never shy away from the challenge. Rip….
I remember the first time I saw the trailer for One-Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows. How is this ever going to work as a video game? I thought. Surely a game that features a hero able to defeat any enemy with a single punch would make for a pretty boring game. For the most…
For a hundred dollar gaming headset, the Turtle Beach Ear Force Recon 200 represents pretty solid value for money. I’ve had an up-and-down experience with Turtle Beach’s headsets over the years but with the Recon 200, it looks like it may have turned over a new leaf. Strong hold The moment you put the Recon…
My first experience with Hunt: Showdown sent shivers up my spine. Navigating a Louisiana bayou in search of a giant spider, the trail led me to an abandoned factory. Upon entering, it was clear; I had found my target. Cobwebs covered the walls and walkways, crunching underfoot as I scoured every inch of the place….
It’s safe to say Media Molecule took its time while it worked on its latest creative extravaganza, Dreams. After a reveal that seems like forever ago now, Dreams was long in incubation. Following a lengthy beta period, Dreams is finally available. Boy was it worth the wait. So much of the conversation around Dreams centered…
The Yakuza Remastered Collection is a watershed moment for Japan’s favourite video game crime drama. 15 years ago, you might never have heard of the Yakuza series. Today, it is beloved. The series has enjoyed a recent resurgence — a prequel in Yakuza Zero, remakes in Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2, a new game…
Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl is another RPG developed by Level-5 (developers of the Layton series). Originally released in Japan in April of last year, Snack World is now available for the rest of the world to enjoy. Why “Gold”? Well, because this worldwide release features all the DLCs available from the Japanese version. You…
In Journey to the Savage Planet, you are an explorer employed by Kindred Aerospace, the galaxy’s the 4th best interstellar exploration company. Your task is to explore the unknown planet ARY-26 in the hope that it can sustain human life. Theoretically, the job is a milk run. In practice, not that simple. A Sudden Stop…
You may have seen a lot of online chatter about Warcraft 3 Reforged lately. If you’re one of the nearly 27,000 people who downvoted the game on Metacritic, you will almost certainly not agree with the content of this review. Because here’s the thing: Warcraft 3 Reforged simply isn’t all that bad. Are there some…
Surviving a zombie apocalypse requires wit, intelligence, speed and strength. I know these things because I have survived many an undead doomsday scenario. Left 4 Dead, Dead Island, The House of the Dead, Deadrising, Resident Evil, The Last of Us, Telltale’s The Walking Dead, and – still my favourite – Dying Light (which gets extra…
