Is #Gamergate Still Relevant In 2020?
#Gamergate has had a sudden resurgence, with people posting the same old crap they've been posting for years, then being berated by others for being irrelevant. But is Gamergate still relevant in 2020 and what role has it played in the history of The Retro Perspective?
Why Do Game Developers Ignore The Modding Scene? | The Outer Worlds Problem
Modding has become more and more relevant in the modern gaming industry and a strong modding scene for a game means that it essentially gets better and better as time goes on. Developers like Bethesda have, in the past, garnered incredible goodwill and fostered a passionate community by encouraging mods and making available a suite of tools to make it easier for almost anybody to tweak the game to their liking. So why on earth are most video game developers outright ignoring the modding scene?
Liked The Joker Soundtrack? 6 Albums You Should Hear!
If you enjoyed Hildur Guðnadóttir's intense, cello driven soundtrack to Joaquin Phoenix's Joker then here are 6 albums I think you might also enjoy!
Top 10 Video Game Soundtracks Of All Time
My personal picks for The Retro Perspective's top 10 video game soundtracks of all time! Featuring video game composers you've definitely heard of and some you may not.
Breaking Bad Movie Review | El Camino
Breaking Bad has a movie?! Yep, that's right. Jesse Pinkman returns for a true ending to this amazing series. Does it retain the excellent qualities of the series as a whole, find out in our Breaking Bad Movie Review
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood VS Original Anime | Which is best?
Fullmetal Alchemist is my favourite anime...but do I mean Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood or the one which is clearly better in almost every single way? Find out in this in-depth review of both Brotherhood and the original anime.
Time and Eternity | Review | PS3
Have you fallen out of love with Japanese RPGs lately as I have? Often we have to return to the golden age of JRPG’s to remind ourselves how good the genre can be but a surprising amount of these games flew under the radar during the Playstation 3’s lifetime. I will definitely be talking about Folklore some other time, but for now, it’s Time And Eternity, a game which puts you in the shoes of a newlywed princess Toki whose perverted husband gets assassinated immediately after saying I do. Luckily the princess has the ability to reverse time to the months leading up to the wedding and with the help of her pet dragon and the soul of another woman, Towa, who also inhabits her body, tries to uncover the mystery behind the attack on her wedding in the hopes they can prevent it….did I mention this game is Japanese?
Your Game Of Thrones Video Is Clickbait
Criticised as the worst, most diabolical creation known to man, Game of Thrones Season 8 has had a massive amount of videos uploaded on the topic to YouTube and had articles written detailing every one of the ten million things wrong with it...but where do we draw the line with these critiques of Game of Thrones and say, you know what, I'm sick of this clickbait garbage?!
Toy Commander | Review | Dreamcast
You’d be hard-pressed to find people with any kind of childhood that didn’t at some point arrange their toys in such a way to form some sort of city or contraption, guiding miniature figures through & imagining crazy stories & scenarios in their kid brain. I know I certainly went through a phase of driving toy cars along the carpet, up the wall, down bannisters...on the ceiling if I could reach it. So when I first played a demo for Toy Commander on the Dreamcast back in 1999, I was struck by how the game captured that essence of childhood imagination so perfectly and that short snippet of the game stuck with me ever since.
Shuffle or Boogie? | Mother & Earthbound
When you think of Nintendo, do you think of Mario, Zelda, Metroid or Donkey Kong? Perhaps you think of the notoriously bad games Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Dragon's Lair or Fester's Quest? I don't. I think of Mother, not my mother, but the game series which some of you might know as Earthbound. In fact, Earthbound is perhaps the only one of Nintendo's many games that has resonated with me and left a lasting effect, long after its completion.
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.
Kuon | Review | PS2
From Software developed Kuon with clear influences from both Silent Hill & Resident Evil. It's a survival horror game told from two characters’ perspectives which can be played through in either order. Sakuya & Utsuki are part of a small village community & a cult which watch over two mulberry trees with mysterious powers. When demons invade the Lord’s Manor, those most magically gifted are tasked with investigating. In the early hours of the game the plot remains a complete enigma but as you progress, through various scrolls & writings you learn all about this intriguing micro-culture & how things have gone horribly awry. Kuon is set in the Heian period of Japan & it is recreated gorgeously with clothing, architecture & a focus on Japanese folklore that is severely underutilised in gaming & is a perfect match for a horror game.
How Half Life 2 Set The Bar for All Video Games
The original Half Life & its sequel Half Life 2 were ground breaking games in many ways. In this review we discuss how in some ways Valve's FPS series has never really been topped by modern games & many video games still struggle to design fun gameplay scenarios as well as Half Life did years ago.
Two Point Hospital | Review
1997’s Theme Hospital is undoubtedly a classic in every sense of the word & it has never really seen a true successor but with the release of Two Point Hospital by a team consisting of some of the original developers of Theme Hospital, we could finally see a hospital simulation game that moves past some of the limitations of the 90s or even reaches the full potential of this unique idea. Two Point Studio’s Mark Webley & Gary Carr have seemingly been biding their time for many years, knowing full well that a spiritual successor to Theme Hospital would pique the interest of many PS1 era or classic PC gamers. They were there for many of Bullfrog & Lionhead studios’ best works from Theme Park to Black & White so they’re no strangers to sim games.
Apocalypse (Starring Bruce Willis) | PS1 | Review
Apocalypse starring Bruce Willis. I know what you’re thinking: “it’s a licensed game based off of one of the many movies Willis starred in around the creative boom in the late 90s” but actually the only thing Activision licensed for this game is the likeness & voice of the man himself. When I was a kid & some of my favourite films were the likes of Twelve Monkeys & The Fifth Element I always assumed one day I’d get to see this awesome, non-existent movie. The gloomy & dark cyberpunk atmosphere of the game certainly took inspiration from some of Willis’s best works.
Anti Video Game Rhetoric on ITV's Good Morning Britain
Mainstream media is having a field day with the sudden popularity of online battle royale shooter Fortnite. Once again the debate over video game violence, addiction & its effects on children & their brains are being misconstrued by the BBC & ITV. Here we take a look at Good Morning Britain with Piers Morgan.
KURI KURI MIX | PS2 | Nothing Like Dark Souls...
Kuri Kuri Mix is an interesting take on the co-op puzzle platformer genre made by From Software....yes, that From Software. Join us as we play through the story mode & go head to head in this PS2 hidden gem!
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!