Category: Videogame Reviews

All the latest videogame reviews from me. Take that how you will.

Werewolves Within Movie Review

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The horror-comedy genre is a sadly overlooked and undersupplied one. To me, most horror movies have a comedy element to them amidst all the blood and gore, and true comedy-horror movies are among my favourite type of film. So when one comes along featuring Werewolves, one of the coolest monsters around, and based on a video game I’m pretty excited. Werewolves Within is a 96-minute whodunnit romp that’s a surprisingly good time that’s fairly light on the horror but strong on the comedy and charm. And with a critic score of 86% and an audience score of 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s one of the highest-rated video game adaptions ever.

Mario Golf: Super Rush Review – A Rushed Bogey

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There’s no risk of confusing Mario Golf: Super Rush for the real-world sport of golf. Luigi turning the green into a patch of ice makes that fairly clear, as does the giant bomb trying to putt. The vibrant colours, the sparkling special shots, Bowser hammering a ball toward the green – nope, this ain’t your granddaddy’s golf. This is arcadey golf. And yet…well, I can’t help but think Mario Golf: Super Rush doesn’t want to commit properly to its goofy looks and whacky characters. For a game that involves a giant bloody ape swinging a tiny golf club, Super Rush sure doesn’t like to step out of its comfort zone.

Warhammer 40K: Space Wolf Review – Space Meh

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The Warhammer license is pretty weird. There was a period where Games Workshop where incredibly stringent with it, only handing it out to trusted developers. But these days they hand out licenses like free candy, and what we customers get in return is a crazy pick ‘n’ mix of quality. To paraphrase the immortal Forest Gump, Warhammer games are like a box of chocolates – you never known what you’re going to get. Although almost all of them will involve chainsaw swords at some point. Today we’re checking out Warhammer 40: Space Wolf, a turn-based strategy game with a dollop of card play and deck-building, too. You’ll battle through a campaign, gather cards, build your deck

Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX Review – The Kidd Should Have Stayed Dead

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Alex Kidd in Miracle Land DX is actually the perfect example of why reviewing a remaster or remake can be tricky. You see, in some ways, the remake portion is separate from the game itself. You can have a crappy remake of an excellent game, and an excellent remake of a crappy game. And unfortunately, Alex Kidd in Miracle Land DX is very much the second one. On my extensive list of classic games I’d love to see remade, Alex Kidd ranks…well, it doesn’t rank. First released in Japan 1986 with hopes of Alex becoming Sega’s mascot the series was overtaken by the blue blur of Sonic the Hedgehog who would become a gaming icon. And while Alex did appear in several more games, he ultimately faded into the background. Why? Well, because he wasn’t all that compelling, but also because Alex Kidd in Miracle Land isn’t that good. Sorry.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Review – The Best PS5 Game Yet

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Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart opens with a celebration of our two titular heroes, a parade thrown in their honour. As the duo make their way through parade floats that reference their prior adventures Ratchet points out that it has been years since they’ve even done anything vaguely heroic, so why are they being celebrated? And do they really still have it? Are they still capable of daring-do and heroic heroism? Of course, as per the unwritten rules of video games things quickly go wrong; Dr Nefarious arrives just in time to steal the Dimensionator which Crank was going to gift to his friend in the hopes of letting him find his lost people, and the very fabric of space and time begins to rip apart.

Biomutant Review – Furry Mad Max

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Biomutant comes from a small team of just 20-people and has captured my interest every time it has been shown over the last four years or so. And how could it not? It’s an action-RPG about being a mutated mammal who knows martial arts, set in a luscious post-apocalyptic world where humans are long-gone and now it’s just weirdly mutated animals everywhere. I hope that if we ever die out as a species our planet gets taken over by some new, strange form of life that runs around in the ruins of our cities and spends ages making up strange-sounding words to describe our technology.

Days Gone PC Review – Better Than Ever

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Days Gone has ridden onto Steam as the latest Playstation exclusive to make it onto PC, opening up Bend Studio’s work to a whole new audience. I reviewed Days Gone when it first launched on the PS4 back in 2018 and found it to be entertaining to play with a strong lead character. A couple of years on my initial thoughts haven’t changed too much, so you can check out the original review for those. Now, though, we the recent news of a potential sequel being turned down by Sony it’s interesting to revisit Days Gone and see why I think it does deserve one to fulfil all the potential it has. And if you just want an idea of how good the PC port is, jump down toward the end of the review.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition Partial Review

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There are a few reasons why this isn’t a full review of the new Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. Number one is that the sci-fi trilogy contains dozens and dozens of hours of content and doing a full review will take a while. The second reason is that there are already hundreds of reviews for all three games, and while those reviews might not be for the Legendary Edition they remain largely relevant today, so it makes more sense to focus on the technical side of things. But the biggest and most important reason, at least to me, is because I want to take my time with this one. The Mass Effect games are special to me, a massive part of my teenage years and a huge factor in my love of the Xbox 360 era. To review this new Legendary Edition in a timely fashion I’d have to rush through them all, and…well, I’m just not willing to do that to myself. Sorry. I’m going to savour every moment, do every quest and maybe even chase down every Platinum trophy. This partial review, then, is based off of 20-hours with the first Mass Effect and a quick look at the other two games. Plus, the first game features the vast majority of the remastering effort due to its age, and so focusing on that seems sensible.

Returnal Review – The Reason To Get A PS5?

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Rogue-likes might be incredibly popular among a certain group of players who love to torture themselves as they crawl and scrape for every piece of progress, but they’ve rarely made the jump to triple-A, typically being the domain of smaller developers. Housemarque has changed that with Returnal, a game that combines their experience in bullet-hell arcade games with the classic rogue-like experience of dying again and again and again. Throw in gorgeous graphics, a whole bunch of systems and a story that could make a Christopher Nolan movie seem straightforward, and you have the ingredients for a rather interesting Playstation 5 exclusive. But is it worth spending £70 on?

Outriders Review – Surprisingly Good Fun

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Well, better late than never, right? Weeks after becoming a hit, in no small way due to launching on Game Pass on day one, my review for Outriders is finally here. People Can Fly have been quiet over the years, working on co-developing and remastering Bulletstorm, so it’s great to see the former Gears of War: Judgement developers releasing their own project after so long, a sci-fi third-person shooter with plenty of loot. Is it worth playing? Should you pick it up or download it from Game pass? Yes, and yes.