Reviews

I feel like I owe The Force Awakens a pretty significant debt. It’s not only brought the Star Wars franchise back to life in the post-prequels era but now it’s returning the license to the Lego series to lift them out of their slump following Lego Marvel’s Avengers. This new entry in the Lego series is amongst the its very…

7 Days to Die is a survival horror game that attempts to combine the deep crafting of Minecraft with the open-world zombie survival of DayZ. It’s been in early access on PC for a while now and has built a dedicated community there, which makes it a real shame that the game’s PS4 and Xbox One release is…

As a games critic, you spend an awful lot of time chewing through new releases and trying (and mostly failing) to stay on deadline. Every now and again, however, you’ll be given something to review that you want to savour like a delicious meal, deadlines be damned. The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine is a perfect…

The fact that Mirror’s Edge Catalyst exists at all is a minor miracle. When the original Mirror’s Edge released in 2008, it sank like a stone in the sales charts. Despite clunky combat and some glaring clipping issues, it still managed to amass a small fan base who enjoyed its willingness to try something new. Can Catalyst give…

Kirby: Planet Robobot is proof that any facet of your life, no matter how small or mundane, can be vastly improved with the addition of power armour.

Oh hey there. This is that other game. You know, the one that was overshadowed (and that’s putting it mildly) by Overwatch. While Overwatch has been a monumental success, Gearbox’s poorly timed shooter has been dealt a relative deathblow, and that comes as no fault of its own. A distinct lack of marketing or hype buried…

The pleasant surprise has become a real rarity in games today. We know so much about every last game before they arrive now, and from this deluge of information it’s usually easy to identify red flags. Following its explosive showing at E3 2015, I wasn’t sure if DOOM could live up to the adrenaline rush its trailers promised….

Total War: Warhammer feels like a branding match made in heaven, the deep strategy of the Total War series combined with the colourful lore and units of Games Workshop’s venerable tabletop strategy game. It’s a wonder it took this long to come about. Here’s the rub though: it suffers from the same simple issue that has plagued every…

In 1989, Shadow of the Beast debuted on the Amiga and due to its roaring success, was ported to nearly every other available system at the time. It spawned two sequels, the second of which was equally revered and its legacy has been a fixture in gaming ever since. Now that that’s out of the way,…

You might be thinking to yourself, boy it’s been like a week since Overwatch came out, David. What’s the hold up on that review? I’ll tell you: I haven’t been able to stop playing it long enough to form a coherent thought. I am actually using every ounce of will I possess to write this review instead of…

If there is one thing I love, it’s a twin stick shooter. If there is something I love even more, it’s a twin stick shooter made by Housemarque. The Finnish developer gave us Dead Nation in 2011 and Resogun in 2014 and while Alienation, their newest IP has nothing in common with the latter, it…

In order to bring you a timely review for arguably the biggest game of the year, we didn’t get a chance to properly play Uncharted 4’s multiplayer. Never fear, because I have spent a couple of days with it and I can safely say that it’s a blast.

In this gig, it’s rare you get to play a game that feels complete anymore. Some games reach for the stars and fall short. Others feel like they could have used more time in the oven. Others still promise sequels before the credits have rolled. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is that rare game that feels…

It’s been a while since I went back and forth on a game the way I have with Star Fox Zero. For those who would consider themselves veterans of the series, it’s a confusing experience from the moment it begins. It looks like the Star Fox you know and love. It sounds like the Star Fox you know…

Hyrule Warriors Legends brings the brawling, button-mashing, horde-slaying action of its Wii U counter part into the realm of the handheld. It’s an impressive mixture of gameplay elements, modes and beloved characters with one glaring flaw — if you are playing it on anything other than a New 3DS console, you’re going to have a…

Ratchet & Clank is something that is surprisingly rare in the world of video games — neither an HD remaster nor a re-release of the 2002 classic, this is a full-blown, ground-up remake by the game’s original developer. Further, it is conclusive proof that, done right, a genre throwback can feel as fresh and innovative…

In many ways, reviewing a Dark Souls game is an exercise in futility. Not because they’re brutally difficult or because they’re deliberately clunky, but because Souls fans are going to pick it up one way or another. They crave the keen sting of being shut down in absolute terms and the radiant high that comes with attaining victory.

Pokkén Tournament has got to be one of the strangest fighting games I’ve ever played. It stitches together many of the genre’s more traditional elements with a number of more modern design philosophies. It’s trying to please a lot of people at once, Pokémon  and Tekken fans chief among them. It pulls from Bandai Namco’s ongoing Naruto and Dragonball Z…

If you’ve been following the development of the StarCraft IP over the last decade or so, you’ll surely have heard of the fan-favourite Terran ghost, namely November Annabella Terra, or Nova for short. The character was to appear in her own title, aptly named StarCraft: Ghost, however the project was sadly canned in 2005. Now…

Quantum Break is the newest title from Remedy Entertainment, creators of the Max Payne series and last-gen gem Alan Wake. It is a game that doesn’t seem terribly interested in being a game as much as it would really like to be a TV series with an interactive component.

Tom Clancy’s The Division is one of those games that has been in pipeline for so long, it actually feels a bit weird to be able to play it at all. Announced at E3 2013, Ubisoft have spent the intervening years making a lot of promises about the game. We were told to expect a…

I am probably the last person on earth who should be reviewing a UFC video game. I’ve never seen a UFC fight and I only know names like Ronda Rousey because my social media feeds never stop talking about her. I’ve never even been in a fist fight in my entire life. It would seem,…

With its sixth and latest entry, Hitman will be making one particular part of the series’ fanbase very happy indeed. Hitman: Blood Money, released back in 2006, has become a perrenial fan favourite, its sandbox of inventive and improvisational gameplay proving an unbeatable formula. Developer Io Interactive returned to a more cinematic style in 2012’s…

Luring a missing cat back to it’s owner through a series of small actions is still a mildly frustrating way to start a sprawling adventure in The Legend of Zelda universe, dull when compared to the stunning Ocarina of Time or Majora’s Mask, but Twilight Princess is much more than first impressions, as we witnessed…

By the time I was Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, I felt as though Ubisoft had finally created the best possible version of their long-running series. It felt tightly wound, honed over years of tinkering and design evolution. However, in order for the series to endure, it also felt like it needed to take some time off…

The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (PMD) has always been the go-to if we’re looking at Pokemon spin-offs that aren’t evolutions of the classic original RPG. Sure Pokemon Snap was a memorable game, and the two Pokemon Stadium were excellent, as was the lesser-known Pokemon Conquest and, to a degree, PokePark, but PMD always had the most…

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2  is so stupidly addictive and entertaining and I can’t stop playing it. Just thought I’d skip the formalities and set the tone here because I haven’t been this engrossed in a game for some time.

It’s been a while since Telltale Games have visited The Walking Dead franchise, but they certainly haven’t been slacking off. It seems everybody with an established universe wants Telltale to, er…tell a tale using their signature style. The team were simultaneously delivering content for Tales from the Borderlands, Game of Thrones and Minecraft: Story Mode,…

Street Fighter V feels like it yearns for a simpler time, for the fighting games from 20 years ago, before juggling and endless combos became the genre’s order of the day. It’s both stylish and disciplined, simple enough for newbies to jump into and technical enough that the hardcore can dig right in. But it’s also…

Unravel, the newest game from Swedish developer ColdWood is so inherently magical and sublime that it has quickly become one of the most moving gaming experiences I have had the pleasure of embarking upon. And you should too, because at its core, Unravel blends a simple premise, head scratching puzzles and a sentimental story to…