To this day, one of my favourite RTS titles is The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring. With that game (and its sequel) EA (yes, EA!) achieved something truly special: a streamlined, authentic RTS that perfectly captured the aesthetics and drama of the source material, and allowed you…
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Surfing is a messy sport, and not just because you’ll get sand in places where the sun doesn’t shine. Where most sports are defined by the nice, neat rules that humans set down and agree to compete together under, the defining characteristic of surfing is that it’s a battle with…
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Persona 5 Tactica takes far too long to get to the point. However, once it gets there it shows itself to be a far more brilliant addition to the overall Persona 5 collection than many will give it credit for. At first, it seems like it’ll be irreverent fan service,…
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The last Train Sim World I played was the original, and I thought it was a magnificent experience. Train Sim World 4 doesn’t feel much different from my memory of that game (admittedly four years ago now), but it didn’t need to play or look differently in the first place.…
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It was inevitable that Yakuza 6 would not be the end of Kazuma Kiryu. It should have been, since it finished the series in spectacular fashion. However, this is the video game industry, and when you’ve got a bankable star, you keep returning to that well until enough people get…
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There’s a certain end of the video game industry that mistakes emotional manipulation for quality narrative. The goal is to find the right voice actors, get the players invested enough in the world that they spend a lot of time in it, and then make sure those key scenes are…
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Archetype Arcadia has an awful lot of content. The PR material claims 50 hours, and while I have a gut feeling that that’s assuming a fairly slow reading speed, I read quickly and I wouldn’t be surprised if I did actually spend that long getting to the end. It’s generally…
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There are times when it genuinely feels like the artists who work in game development teams only know Zdzisaw Beksiski and H.R Giger. These two artists are magnificent, don’t get me wrong, but they are so often the inspiration behind a game’s aesthetics that it’s become a visual cliché. And…
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Assassin’s Creed: Mirage is what all Assassin’s Creed games should be: Uncomplicated. As I’ve regularly repeated over the years, Assassin’s Creed is my one blockbuster vice, and I love the series despite it being increasingly representative of so much of what I dislike about AAA games. But this one brings…
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Disclaimer: I’m making this quick disclaimer so it’s clear and up-front. I did work with Big Ant in the past, and contributed to cricket games that they have previously released. During the term that I worked for Big Ant, and for two years afterwards, I did not review their games,…
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