ECHO Review | Can This Stealth Game Learn From How You Play?!
ECHO is an indie stealth game that touts a unique AI system that can learn from what you do and how you play. In this review, I reveal if that claim is too good to be true and whether ECHO can serve as inspiration for AI innovations moving forward.
Cyberpunk 2077 Bugs and Glitches Are Not Its Biggest Problem
Everyone deserves a refund for Cyberpunk 2077, but not for its excessive bugs and glitches. Cyberpunk's biggest problem is the features promised by CD Projekt Red before its release, features that are not likely to be patched into the game, ever.
Laura Kate Dale's Yakuza: Like A Dragon Critique is Lazy & Dishonest
In a recent video, game journalist Laura Kate Dale criticized Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Yakuza 7) for including stereotypes of homeless people. Is representation & inclusivity something that Yakuza gets wrong or has there been a misunderstanding of this Japanese RPG and the artistic intent of its creators? Let's critique the critique.
Kingdom Hearts 3 | Review | PS4
In my last Kingdom Hearts video it would be an understatement to say that I was pessimistic. Square Enix’s insistence on releasing games in the series so frequently on every platform imaginable, with massively fluctuating quality in aesthetic and gameplay terms, has left the series in the unfortunate position of having more bad games than good. But I thought I’d give Kingdom Hearts one last chance, knowing all along that if Kingdom Hearts 3 went the way of Final Fantasy XV (a buggy, ugly, unfinished train wreck) I could safely say I would never buy another Square Enix game again. Ever. So unlike a lot of commentators I’ve noticed on social media who outright bum every nonsensical story trailer or screenshot of one of Tetsuya Nomura’s ludicrous cast of Final Fantasy rejects, you can rest assured I’m about to give this game exactly what it deserves.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider | Review | PC
Well, Rise of the Tomb Raider was awful but what do we have here, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is developed by Eidos Montreal, the studio that brought us the excellent Deus Ex: Human Revolution & Mankind Divided. Surely they played Rise of the Tomb Raider, laughed their arses off at its ludicrously easy combat difficulty, its barely developed characters & its complete lack of meaningful improvement over the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, & simply proceeded to make their own Tomb Raider game...but then Square Enix stopped them & said “No! That will cost too much money.”
Soulcalibur VI | A Return To Form For The Series?!
Soulcalibur VI might be a glimmer of hope for the series for fans who felt let down by the lack of content in the previous two games. Here's my (almost) review as I definitely wanted to get my thoughts out on this game.
Yakuza 6 | PS4 | Review
If there's one good thing that has come out of the current generation of gaming it's the huge surge of people realising what they've been missing all these years in the Yakuza series. Ironic then that just as Yakuza explodes into bigger success than ever before, the final chapter in main character Kiryu’s story wraps up. On the other hand, the brand new ‘Dragon Engine’ & promise of future games makes Yakuza 6 both a fresh start & a final curtain. Does it pull it off? Let's find out!
5 Great Characters We NEED in Dissidia NT!
Square Enix announced a run of DLC characters for Final Fantasy Dissidia NT and as I'm a huge fan of the lore, writing and characters of the Final Fantasy series, I thought I'd give my opinion on the best characters we could possibly hope to purchase!
South Park: The Fractured but Whole | Review
South Park: The Fractured but Whole, the sequel to the critically acclaimed Stick of Truth is here at last to coincide with season 21 of the South Park TV series. A lot has happened in the humble town of South Park since The Stick of Truth: PC Principal took over South Park Elementary, SodoSopa brought gentrification to the town and the Canadian Devil Beelzaboot released his freemium Terrence & Phillip game to exploit children for money. So, has South Park: The Fractured but Whole changed and matured along with the show and how has Ubisoft inevitably managed to mess it up?
Dissidia Final Fantasy NT Beta | First Impressions
Square Enix have allowed me access to the closed beta of Dissidia Final Fantasy NT for the PS4 so here are some thoughts and first impressions from a long time Dissidia fan.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice | Review
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is the latest game from English studio Ninja Theory. The studio is perhaps best known for developing the absolutely fantastic DMC: Devil May Cry which dragged the hit and miss Devil May Cry series out of the disappointment of Devil May Cry 4 and the general awfulness of the series’ plot to tell a genuinely intriguing story through beautiful & surreal imagery. DMC was excellent and it wasn’t even their best game, but as much as I love talking about the absolute fact of the excellence of that game, it’s now time to talk about Hellblade and how it might possibly be even better than DMC: Devil May Cry...which is a really great game by the way.
Resident Evil's Fall From Grace Part 3: Resident Evil 6
Previously in the series we took a look at Resident Evil 4 & Resident Evil 5 but nothing could have prepared us for Capcom's descent in to the pure madness that is Resident Evil 6. For the very first time we play the game and give our thoughts on one of the worst games ever created. Everything from the animations & textures to the characters & inventory, we lay it all bare in this in depth review. Resident Evil 6 truly is one of the markers of the decline in quality of Japanese games and things only seem to be getting worse. Whether by creative bankruptcy, laziness or pure greed, this game series has fallen from a true icon of the gaming industry to a broken, zombie corpse, shell of its former self. At the very least Resident Evil 6 is in fact the scariest game of all time...scary how horrifyingly bad it is.
Rise of the Tomb Raider | Review
If you enjoyed Crystal Dynamics' 2013 reboot of the Tomb Raider series then I have some good news, some bad news & some worse news concerning Rise of the Tomb Raider. The good news is that this sequel is the exact same game in almost every conceivable way. The bad news, is that it's the exact same game in almost every conceivable way. The worse news is that all the things that are different about Rise of the Tomb Raider are significantly worse than what's come before.
Edge Of Eternity | Interview With The Composer | Cedric Menendez
Cedric Memendez is a composer working with Midgar Studio, a French indie studio currently working on the JRPG inspired Edge Of Eternity. The game was a massive kickstarter success and also reached its stretch goal to bring on help from Chrono Trigger composer Yasunori Mitsuda. In this interview we talk about recording with Mitsuda and the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra. The history of Midgar Studio and their previous games and Cedric Menendez's early Japanese RPG inspirations. As well as some discussion on sound design and finally we change the subject, as I ask about the game itself and the turn-based mechanics of Edge Of Eternity.
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness | Review
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is an unfinished game. Not in the way you might have heard before; as a complete product that is 20 hours long (far too short for a JRPG of this type, and in the Star Ocean series to boot) and not in the way that Drakengard 3 was unfinished; that game only needed a few bug fixes, a bit of optimisation and a budget to speak of....No.
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is a completely unfinished game.
Project Cars Game of the Year Edition | Review
Racing simulator, or arcade racer? Since the dawn of gaming it has been a question that has plagued the minds of the people who care about racing games. I have never been one of those people...until now?
Eitr | Interview With The Composer | Cedric Baravaglio
Eitr is an upcoming indie game inspired by norse mythology. In this interview with Cedric Baravaglio we talk about his soundtrack to Eitr including the epic song 'Infectious' from its trailer. Other topics include his inspirations and other projects including the Neko Light Orchestra who have gained popularity through their covers of video game and film music. Also, the Noob Trilogie which started as a web series and is now on its second of a trilogy of films.
Shuffle or Boogie? | Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Seen by many as a massive return to form for the series, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag puts you in the shoes of pirate Edward Kenway, sailing the West Indies in pursuit of his fortune. Black Flag manages to portray the sights of the Caribbean beautifully, the ocean in particular is probably the best looking thing I've seen in a game to date. The sounds however, fall so badly short of what we should expect of a so-called "AAA" game and consistently took me out of the experience of what should have been the most immersive pirate themed video game in history.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain | Review
When I was 14, for a high school show and tell style project, I decided to do a review of Metal Gear Solid 3. I recorded gameplay on to a VHS tape and used this to deliver a presentation to the class. The opening line of the presentation went something like: "This video game, created by the genius mind of Hideo Kojima..." Do I still think Hideo Kojima is a genius? Absolutely, he is still one of the few game directors out there who really knows how to put the player directly in to a video game character's shoes. Is everything he's ever done perfect? Definitely not. Is Metal Gear Solid V a 10/10 game? You'd have to be riding its gargantuan hype train to believe that to be the case but...on the other hand...is it not the greatest, purest stealth game ever created? It probably is. Apologies if you're getting mixed messages so far but, from beginning to end, that's exactly what Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has given me.
Metal Gear Solid V & The Bizarre Practice of Early Reviews
Gone are the days when we could play a game without knowing everything about it beforehand. When my 14-year-old self popped Metal Gear Solid 3 into the Playstation 2, do you know what I thought? “Damn, I can’t wait to see what Solid Snake and Otacon are gonna' get up to in this game." I was in for a big shock! I hadn’t tried to avoid any information about the game, nor did I actively seek it out...yet here we are years later and some people literally cannot avoid Metal Gear Solid V spoilers when the game is not even out yet.