Death Stranding (PC) Review – Or How Your Parents Went To School Every Day

The classic fetch quest is a staple of gaming, typically found in RPGs that want to pad out their length by sending players scurrying back and forth carrying useless tat. In the case of Death Stranding however, the entire game is a seemingly never-ending series of fetch quests. It’s like Kojima only just discovered them, and after completing a few in other games branded them the greatest thing in the history of videogames ever and built an entire new game around them. As Sam Porter Bridges you are a courier, tasked with lugging cargo of all types across a bleak post-apocolyptic world where the majority of people are hunkered down in bunkers. Chiral printing lets them create a lot of what they need, but there’s also a lot of stuff that still needs to be transported the good old fashioned way: on Sam’s back. In this 40+ hour game the majority of your time will be spent going back and forth, delivering parcels. Exactly how something so utterly boring wound up being so utterly absorbing is a mystery.

Destroy All Humans Review – Worth Probing Deeper?

We live in a time where all sorts of games are getting a chance to be remastered, remade or even to get a sequel. Some make sense, and some are genuinely surprising choices. I’d say Destroy All Humans is the second one. Originally released in 2005 it did reasonably well with a Metacritic score of…

The Last of Us Part 2 SPOILER Review – The BIG Review

The Internet is never short on people going back and forth over games. However, the release of The Last of Us Part 2 might be the most divided and chaotic I’ve ever seen, with what feels like an all-out war raging between critics and gamers, and between gamers and gamers. Few games have ever warranted this much conversation, some of it healthy and some of it outright horrid. Its even got to the point where one of the game’s actors received threats, which is disgusting. So, I’m going to attempt to coral my thoughts and feelings about The Last of Us Part 2 into some semblance of coherence in the next 4,000+ words. Yup, it’s going to be a long one, folks.

GT Omega Apex Wheel Stand Review – Rock Solid

There are some incredible rigs out there that dedicated sim-racing fans have constructed or bought to further their enjoyment. But for people myself that might not be an option due to space, budget or because we just aren’t as serious about racing. That’s where wheel stands come in, a happy middle ground between clamping your wheel to a table and a massive rig that consumes an entire room. I’ve reviewed a wheel stand before, but now I’ve upgraded, and I want to share my thoughts on that upgrade. Behold, the GT Omega Apex wheel stand. Keep beholding it. That’s long enough. You can stop beholding now, and get on with reading.

F1 2020 Review – The Reigning Champion?

Obviously the world has been a bit of a crazy place lately, so it’s hardly Codemasters’ fault that F1 2020 isn’t as authentic as last year’s game. A day one update will remove the Rokit sponsorship from the Williams car, but Mercedez sexy black livery is going to take a bit longer. And owing to the Formula 1 season starting four months late brand new tracks Zandvoort and Hanoi are in the game but won’t get seen in real-life until the 2021 season. Meanwhile, last minute changes to the calender mean circuits such as Mugello and Imola could potentially get used, neither of which are in the game. Exactly how Codemasters intend on handling all of this remains to be seen, but I think we can forgive the lack of authenticity this year, eh?

Assetto Corsa Competizione Review – King of Console Sims?

Assetto Corsa Competizione boasts the official Blancpain license, and that means you get to drive the wicked GT machines from the likes of McLaren, Porsche, Nissan and Audi. Meanwhile the selection of 11 tracks might sound too limiting but each one has been laser scanned and is thus about as accurate to real-life as we can get without actually driving around them in real-life. It also means you get sprint races, night racing and endurance events, all featuring the drivers from the real Blancpain series. Sim racing on console is a niche genre, so when a new game arrives it’s an exciting time.

The Last Of Us Review – I Finally Played It

Everyone has holes in their gaming CV, important games that they’ve missed out on over the years. Mine is a particularly big one: The Last of Us, widely regarded as one of the greatest Playstation exclusives of all time and one of the best games to have been released. With The Last of Us Part 2 away to launch I wanted to finally get The Last of Us ticked off and reviewed in time for its sequel. So let’s see what all the fuss was about.

Desperados 3 Review – The Awesome, The Great & The Good

It has all gone horribly wrong. I had thought that Kate’s hurled vial of perfume would blind the guard long enough that Cooper could slide in, kill the other guard and carry the body off in plenty of time while Dr. McCoy sniped the third guard up on the tower. I thought wrong and now there’s bullets flying everywhere. Ah well, I guess that’s the fourth plan I can crossout. Time to load up the last save again. Welcome to Desperados 3, the first game in the franchise since 2007’s spin-off Helldorado, and developed by Mimimi Games, the talented folk behind 2016’s Shadow Tactis: Blades of the Shogun.

Minecraft Dungeons Review – Where’s The Minecraft Part?

It’s surprising and even arguably a touch disappointing that despite being a Minecraft spin-off, Minecraft Dungeons does not contain a single instance of building or digging. It does, however, look and sound exactly like Minecraft in every possible way, from whatever the hell that noise is when you eat something to the Creepers. And yet when you watch a couple of Creepers explode into a billion little Creeper pieces without altering the terrain it feels fundamentally wrong. In this sense the whole thing is like a very basic reskin of a standard ARPG. The actual Minecraft part of Minecraft Dungeons is missing. Despite this, there’s still a fun and accessible Diablo style isometric dungeon-crawler here.

Mafia 2: Definitive Edition Review – Not Very Definitive

I remember playing Mafia 2 ten long years ago and being sucked into a world of violence and intrigue. Back then its storytelling amazed me. So I’m pretty pleased that this 1950s period piece about gangsters which got overlooked when it launched is getting another chance to amaze people. Ten years is a long time in the world of video games though, so has time treated Vito Scaletta well? Has D3T Limited done Hangar 13’s mafia masterpiece justice?