Tag: gaming

Pumpkin Jack Review – Halloween Is Over, But The Spooks Aren’t

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Back during the days of the Playstation 2, the cheerful, charming mascot platformer was all the rage, from Spyro the Dragon to Crash Bandicoot, both of which have gotten remastered or remade. These days the cutesy platformer isn’t as popular as it once was, but every now and then a new one turns up and tickles the ol’ nostalgia balls. This time it’s Pumpkin Jack, a game that feels so much like a classic PS2 platformer that you could tell me it was actually just a remaster and I’d believe you. In fact, it’s so enamoured with evoking the spirit of those old platformers that it even has iffy combat and a naff story, just like them. So, let’s review Pumpkin Jack, the bastard offspring of MediEvil and A Nightmare Before Christmas.

Ghostrunner Review – Exciting & Annoying

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With Cyberpunk 2077 having been delayed for the *checks the calendar* 124th time, there’s a bit of a gap in the market for some grungy sci-fi. Enter Ghostrunner, a first-person game that describes itself as a “hardcore FPP slasher.” I’d describe it as the bastard baby of Mirror’s Edge and Dishonored. It’s fast, frenetic, and frequently exhilarating. It’s the kind of game that can make you clutch your mouse like it owes you money.

Weekend Whammy: Insomniac Recast Spider-Man, But Why?

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Today, my fellow squishy beings, is my birthday. Therefore I will be requiring you all to worship my divine brilliance for at least five minutes before you read the rest of this week’s Weekend Whammy. Start worshipping. Done? Alright, we can get on with this, then. Joking aside, as always I hope you’re all keeping well, staying safe and getting to play loads of games. On this Weekend Whammy I’m going to tackling Insomniac’s announcement that they’ve recast Spider-Man. I’ll also be talking about what I’m playing and planning on review. So let’s do this!

Ghost of Tsushima Review – An Honorable End

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“Wake the fuck up Samurai, we have a city to burn.” Ah wait, that’s the wrong game. Despite not featuring the shining excellence of Keenu Reeves, being overshadowed by The Last of Us Part 2 and getting considerably less attention from Sony than Naughty Dog’s long-awaited disappointment, Ghost of Tsushima has ended up being a fantastic end to the Playstation 4’s long line of strong exclusive games. Ghost of Tsushima is selling great and breaking records, and it thoroughly deserves to. Marvel’s Spider-Man let us be the web-slinger. Red Dead Redemption 2 let us live our cowboy fantasies. Ghost of Tsushima lets us live with honor as Samurai.

Shred 2! Ft. Sam Pilgrim Review – Now With Added Sam Pilgrim!

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Sometimes I miss the clarity of being on a mountain bike hurtling down a hill, swerving around trees, carving up berms and nailing jumps. I miss that beautiful clarity where your entire mind shrinks down to a single, overwhelming thought: this is going to really fucking hurt. And it does. It really, really does. I loved downhill mountain biking, but I hated going back up the hills and I was never all that good at it, so I gave up the sport before it forced me to give up on having all my bones intact. Happily I can live vicariously through videogames, so here I am reviewing Shred 2! Ft. Sam Pilgrim.

Weekend Whammy: A Lack of Gameplay & Mass Effect Tactics

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I’m not saying that the pressure of lockdown forced me to the tape my family to the ceiling, but I am saying that I need to repaint my ceiling. Yes, I’m back, back again (and listening to some Eminem) and lockdown is a confusing mess as Boris Johnson says one thing and Wales, Ireland and Scotland say completely different things. Should people go back to work or stay at home? Can you drive places or not? Is being in the park okay or will you get yelled at by the police? Nobody knows! So I think I’ll just stay inside and play more games. Seems like the safest choice, really.

Gears Tactics Review – Tactically Brilliant

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I guess it’s not surprising that a game about slamming huge meat-slabs into cover before gunning down Locus translates so well into genre that’s about slamming into cover and gunning down bad guys. It would be easy to write it off as nothing more than a basic XCOM reskin if Splash Damage hadn’t done such a damn good job of making it feel like a Gears game through and through. The production values for a game within this genre are nothing short of lavish, with cutscenes being up to Gears 5 standards and actual gameplay being able to pass itself off as one of the main games when it zooms into an over-the-shoulder viewpoint. From the stellar sound design to the way special abilities mirror the main series, Gears Tactics feels like a lot more than just some cheap XCOM clone wearing bulky armour and running around with a chainsaw strapped to a gun.