I almost forgot about Supermassive Games’ Dark Pictures Anthology. That’s not from a lack of quality – each title in the series to date has been very worthy – but it’s just that things move quickly in video games and the Dark Pictures titles don’t quite have the longevity behind them. I’ve never replayed one, and so, given the last…
There was a moment there where I thought that my issues with the big AAA-blockbuster space were with me. That I’d become jaded from having played far too many games, and seeing how the sausage gets made first-hand, and therefore I had lost perspective. Yet Pragmata then came and demonstrated…
If you were to ask me what genres I think developers should…
Resident Evil has always been a tale of placing corporate profit over…
There is a moment, about 20-30 hours into Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, where you’re about to get into your first truly big battle as a commander (yes, it’s a slow build-up to that point). You’ll still remember what it was like at the start, as you led a rag-tag…
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It might be a remake of a remake, but Tactics Ogre Reborn is one of the greatest games of its genre. It effectively established the genre, many years ago, and has barely lost anything in the years since. I have to hope that Square Enix has prepared this release to…
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Polish off those game of the year trophies, because God of War: Ragnarök is almost certainly going to win a bunch of them. Whether it deserves them, though, is another matter entirely. People are going to love it because this is a massive, visually stunning, and viscerally entertaining game. However,…
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Star Ocean acts as something akin to the “b-tier” for Square Enix. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are, of course, the big guns, but this series is not insignificant. It’s been around for 25 years now, and The Divine Force is the sixth of the main series entries. I’ll tell…
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What was Bilbo Baggins’ great quote from Lord of the Rings (the good one, not the TV series)? “Like butter scraped over too much bread”? Something like that. It’s a great quote and also the best way to describe Temtem. As a Pokémon clone it would almost be serviceable, if…
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I did not expect that Steelrising would be a Soulslike. I don’t know if I’d just missed that bit of news in the initial announcement (I then went out of my way to avoid learning anything about this game prior to when I started playing it), or if the developer…
Read MoreAlmost a decade ago, Sony published The Last Of Us on PlayStation 3. The sheer hyperbole that the game got was, in retrospect, silly. Empire even went as far as to say that the very cinematic game was comparable to Citizen Kane. Of course, since then, Sony alone has published…
Read MoreARGH! Argh, argh, argh, arghhhhhhhhhh! Dusk Diver 2 is so frustrating. So utterly, cruelly frustrating. Somehow this sequel is even more frustrating than its predecessor. I can see what the developer wanted to achieve with it, and I appreciate it on so many levels. It just doesn’t come together in…
Read MoreI had no idea that the original Pac-Man World was so well regarded. I had never played it, nor any of its sequels (despite being a general fan of the yellow pizza-man), but in researching the original for this review I did see that it was sold and reviewed very…
Read MoreSoul Hackers 2 is a throwback to the glory days of Shin Megami Tensei. There was a point where Atlus’ premier property focused on ideas rather than sheer style, and some real classics came out of that approach. SMT 3: Nocturne and the Digital Devil Saga duo were my favourites…
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