20 public written reviews
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It is nigh on impossible to miss the marketing for a video game release. Hardcore fans will seek out every trailer and interview scattered across the internet, cherry-picking the scant details like a magpie at a shiny rock. Most players might see a trailer or a review, or at the very least, pick up the box and see a couple screenshots. This marketing is designed to grab your attention, to make a declaration of what…
It is very unlikely that you have ever played a game quite like Never Alone. Though its DNA is seemingly stitched together in a bizarre amalgamation of other successful titles, the final patchwork blanket that is produced has a beauty and reverence about it that we only get to experience once every few years. Never Alone might not be perfect, but it delivers a narrative experience truly unlike anything else,…
Assassin’s Creed: Rogue is the eighth main Assassin’s Creed game to come out since 2007, and the second Assassin’s Creed game to come out in 2014 alone. This style of fervent production is unheard of outside of sports titles, placing a monumental amount of pressure on development studios to create ungodly amounts of content each year. By sheer weight of probability and statistics, Ubisoft’s breakneck method of…
Sequels are inherently difficult. Trying to find the correct balance between reconstituting what worked in the past and inventing entirely new mechanics and ideas is an immensely difficult undertaking that often leads to developers failing to hit the mark. Following up on their critically acclaimed Forza Horizon, Playground Games seeks recreate the vibrant, festival atmosphere of the first title, whilst taking full…
South Park is an undeniable entertainment juggernaut. With nearly 20 years of air time, five Primetime Emmy Awards and highly successful jaunts into the entrainment worlds of film, sound and stage, it seems as though there is no medium that creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone cannot conquer. Yet despite all these accolades, there has never been a truly great video game that captured the tone, humour and crass nature…
Despite selling more than any other title in the franchise’s 28 year history, it would be a stretch to say there was a strong demand for a new Castlevania: Lords of Shadow title. Spanish developers MercurySteam paid no heed however, partnering with Konami to fundamentally turn the series on its head by giving players direct control as Dracula for the first time in a brand new, open world character action game. With…
2014 marks only the 10 year anniversary of the original release of Fable, easily one of the most recognizable franchises in the Xbox pantheon. With over 2 million copies sold, the original Fable helped prove that the Xbox was more than just a home for shooters and third-party ports. To celebrate the occasion, Lionhead Studios have remastered and rereleased the game and its pseudo-expansion, The Lost Chapters, under…
In a mere seven years, there have been six Assassin’s Creed games. Though there are sports titles and multiplayer shooters that have held similar release schedules over the generation, it is a feat largely unheard of for longer, story-focused games. The potential perils of this accelerated release schedule appeared to surface in 2012 with Assassin’s Creed 3, which was met with a tepid response. Thankfully, with…
Though it’s easy to stow away in the darkest recesses of our memories, it was not all that long ago that superhero games were almost entirely abysmal across the board. The preceding generation was littered with the detritus of scores of woeful to play, cheap to produce co-marketed garbage. Even the start of this generation looked dire from the outset, with Sega’s truly horrifying Iron Man game released on the…
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is a love letter to the cheesy action films of the 80’s. Set in the dystopian future of 2007 and filled to the brim with cyborgs, lasers, neon and shoulder-pads, it is a truly unique world rarely explored in gaming. As a standalone release for XBLA and PSN, it is a streamlined version of Far Cry 3’s engine, fuelled by machismo and synthesisers. Despite some mechanical problems and its…
SimCity, as a franchise, hasn’t really evolved much since the late Eighties, besides from the addition of further levels of detail and complexity. Whilst the latest SimCity title doesn’t completely reinvent the wheel, it represents a strong sea change from the existing traditions of the series. By hampering the potential single player progression and funnelling players towards asynchronous, cooperative play, SimCity…
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is damn hard, and it knows it. It is unforgiving, relentless and constantly ready to crush your hopes and dreams in a single, fell swoop. A poor tactical choice will take that battle-hardened veteran soldier and introduce him to the business end of an alien rifle, squandering hours of gameplay with a single button press. It is at times infuriating, and will frequently have players reaching for…
Darksiders II is the embodiment of how a sequel should be done. The original Darksiders was one of the surprise hits of 2010, an eclectic blend of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and the scribbled drawings from the margins of a 14-year old boy’s notebook. By taking the somewhat stagnating conventions of such an eternally classic title and thrusting it kicking and screaming into the cold light of modernity, the…
The year is 1986. Following a medical outbreak in Europe a year earlier, the zombie threat has finally reached North America. Canadian Mountie, Randall Wayne, is on a quest to try and find his missing wife and daughter in Seattle before they are taken by “the shadows”. Along the way, Randall will find new friends, lose old ones forever and discover that the government he trusted all along might be an even bigger…
Mass Effect 3 is the kind of game that comes around once in a generation, maybe once in a lifetime. Mass Effect is a franchise entirely encapsulated within a single hardware cycle that captured the hearts and imaginations of gamers worldwide. The franchise made huge promises in regards to size, scope and the revolutionary impact of an individual’s decisions. It’s been five years – five long, yearning years, but…
The Mass Effect franchise has always had a spotty relationship with DLC purchases. On the one hand, pieces such as the Overlord or Shadow Broker packs from Mass Effect 2 were great value: pieces that expertly combined combat and storytelling; advancing the franchise in new, revelatory ways. On the other hand, there were pieces like Pinnacle Station and Arrival; short, uninteresting chunks of gameplay that focus on…
Read the full review A Cool character, but poor value proposition.
With the exception of a few titles in recent years, the Dragon Quest series has never been one to click particularly well with western audiences. Dragon Quest, along with Monster Hunter, Final Fantasy and Pokémon represent the cornerstones of the Japanese RPG industry, with each franchise selling gangbusters every time there’s a new release. Perhaps that’s why the Japanese have a penchant for releasing game after…
Read the full review Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
Way back in the heady days of early 2007, when the Playstation 3 was released to Australian customers and Paul McCartney was continuing his lengthy divorce with his one-legged, piratical mistress, a small Australian development studio created the charming downloadable game, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. Designed on a shoestring budget and focussed on a simple gameplay idea, Infinite Interactive’s Puzzle…
Too Human represents the epitome of gaming's quest to find Nirvana, and the perfect game that lies within. Despite a wealth of killer ideas that would create an exceptional game unlike any other in existence, Too Human is hampered by its long development cycle and poor production values. With a little more fleshing out, all the elements that make this game so unique could become something more than just a mediocre…
Despite being a relatively young franchise, the Puzzle Quest series has grown in leaps and bounds. After the initial offering, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords was released onto every platform since the Amiga 1200 in 2007, it was only a matter of time before a sequel was to be announced. Oddly, however, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is no mere iteration of the original – it is a complete overhaul, with a radical…
