Gaming
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The following posts include the tag "Gaming":
Stormgate (Early Access) - First Impressions
20 Aug 2024
20 Aug 2024
So, it seems a group of developers at Blizzard got sick of beating the 20-year-old dead horse of World of Warcraft and went off to form a new studio. Their goal; to make strategy games - you know, the thing that Blizzard used to be known for! They’re gonna build their...
Game Review: Immortals Fenyx Rising
27 Feb 2021
27 Feb 2021
And no, I just looked it up, apparently, there isn’t supposed to be a colon in there. Another reason why this is a strong contender for the worst video game title of all time!
Review - XCOM: Chimera Squad (Part 2)
23 Sep 2020
23 Sep 2020
In part 1 of my review of XCOM: Chimera Squad, I talked about my experience of playing the game to completion for the first time and looked at the general strokes of how the game was different to its predecessors. In this version, I want to focus more on the...
Review - XCOM: Chimera Squad (Part 1)
23 Sep 2020
23 Sep 2020
I haven’t done a game review in a while, mainly because I don’t play games close to their release dates any more. They’re just too expensive and I’ve had too many disappointments in the past. However, I not only bought XCOM: Chimera Squad soon after it was released, but I also...
Mass Effect: Andromeda - First Impressions
19 Aug 2017
19 Aug 2017
Bioware’s controversial Mass Effect sequel released a few months ago. They got a serious - and possibly well-deserved - slating from critics and gamers alike for releasing an “unfinished” game, full of bugs and animation problems. I actually cancelled my pre-order as a result of the media sh*t-storm, which is something...
XCOM 2: Mod Report 1
17 Feb 2016
17 Feb 2016
XCOM 2 has support for a range of community mods via the Steam Workshop. I plan to try out a few of these mods over the coming months and produce these “Mod Reports”, where I will discuss the good, the bad and the downright insane!
XCOM 2: First Impressions
10 Feb 2016
10 Feb 2016
I can’t remember being as excited for a video game as I’ve been about XCOM 2, the sequel to Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown (one of my favourite games of all time). I’ve been soaking up all the preview videos and developer livestreams and now I’ve finally got my hands on the...
XCOM: The Long War - Review
08 Feb 2016
08 Feb 2016
I am a huge fan of XCOM: Enemy Unknown and with XCOM 2 due to launch on February 5th, I wanted to play this modern classic again, but there’s a problem; after multiple playthroughs, the replay value of the game has greatly diminished.
The Cost of Gaming
29 Oct 2015
29 Oct 2015
So, apparently Assassin’s Creed Syndicate “isn’t that bad” - which is a great improvement over recent entries in the franchise at least, but that’s a rant for another time - and I have to admit that the idea of climbing around the rooftops of Victorian London has a certain appeal.
Free to Play Is Currently Broken - How High Costs Drive Players Away from F2P Games
10 Dec 2014
10 Dec 2014
Just a quick post today - This is exactly the sort of rant I’ve been having over and over again in the last year-or-so, but more eloquently stated in this video by the guys at Extra Credits:
Heart of the Swarm: The Leaked Ending
19 Nov 2014
19 Nov 2014
I have an issue with the ending of Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. It’s apparently not as controversial as the ending to Mass Effect, but the thing that bothers me is the same: it just doesn’t quite make sense! Part of the problem is that I’ve seen an alternative...
Stop Over-hyping Things!
25 Jun 2014
25 Jun 2014
So, a few weeks ago, Watch_Dogs launched to a universal chorus of ‘Meh!’. I haven’t played the game myself, but the general consensus seems to be that ‘it didn’t live up to the hype’. But, as Yahtzee said in his review, how could it?
In Defence of... Changing Things
18 Jun 2014
18 Jun 2014
Given my interests and line of work (i.e. the fact that I am a massive nerd), you probably won’t be surprised to know that a large number of my friends were the sort of people took great delight in pointing out (and complaining about) every little detail that was changed from...
In Defence of Next-Gen Graphics
21 Jan 2014
21 Jan 2014
Quite a lot of people are attacking the next-gen gaming consoles because ‘the only tangible improvements that they will make to games is to the graphics’. I have said before that the launch of these new consoles is badly timed and I do not own either because I don’t feel it...
XCOM: Enemy Unknown & Enemy Within
28 Nov 2013
28 Nov 2013
Last year saw the release of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a sequel to a popular gaming franchise from the creators of Civilisation. I didn’t expect to become a fan of this game, but (as with Civilisation) I ended up getting sucked in. This month sees the release of the game’s expansion: Enemy...
Video Games as a Storytelling Medium
04 Nov 2013
04 Nov 2013
I wanted to take a break from my usual ranting to talk about something quite close to my heart. As part of the argument that games are (or at least can be) art, I’d like to look at something that I find particularly interesting: storytelling. In particular, I want to try...
Rewarding Bad Behaviour
01 Nov 2013
01 Nov 2013
I like achievements. Achievements are a good way to add some challenge, variety and replayability to a game, as well as to make the player feel rewarded, encourage them to improve their skills and give them a sense of progress. So why do some games give you achievements for playing them...
Fix your Audio Settings!
22 Oct 2013
22 Oct 2013
This is a rant about something that has been getting on my nerves a lot recently; the fact that that developers (and not just indies, but big ‘triple-A’ studios too) seem to be happy to release a game without seemingly any effort going into the game’s sound design and/or without proper...
Valve vs. The Next Generation
28 Sep 2013
28 Sep 2013
This week saw Valve (the developers behind games like the Half-life series and the Steam network) announce their new set of technologies that aim to bring the Steam gaming experience into the living room. Whether their intention was to simply expand their empire or to throw the gauntlet into the “Next...
Review: Guild Wars 2
22 Aug 2013
22 Aug 2013
Blizzard’s MMO giant World of Warcraft is now 8 years old and it is finally starting to lose its players, yet it is still the most successful online game out there. A few contenders have come along, but whether they were not as well-made or well-written or just lacked whatever it...
Worms Retrospective
19 Jul 2013
19 Jul 2013
I used to really enjoy playing the Worms games when I was younger, but I feel that the franchise has become somewhat stale in recent years. Last year they brought out a new instalment: Worms Revolution, that finally tried out some new ideas, but it didn’t quite manage to renew my...
Mass Effect Retrospective
18 Jun 2013
18 Jun 2013
The games of Mass Effect Trilogy have become some of my favourite games of all time, but (apart from my discussion about the Mass Effect 3 Ending) I haven’t actually reviewed any of them so far. So this week I thought I would take a quick look these games and...
MICRO-transactions - The clue is in the title, people!
14 Jun 2013
14 Jun 2013
As I’ve already discussed, I am quite happy with the Free-to-Play game concept - where you can create an account, download and play a game for free, but you can buy extra stuff via in-game purchases. The best free-to-play games give unrestricted access to all features, with the upgrades being mostly...
Do we really want or need a new console generation?
11 Jun 2013
11 Jun 2013
This week marks E3 2013, one of the year’s biggest gaming conferences, which included more information about what we can expect to see from the industry in the next year-or-so. With all of this going on, I thought I would sound off about some of these announcements and ask quite an...
Mass Effect 3: The Ending & Extended Cut
12 Apr 2012
12 Apr 2012
The Mass Effect Trilogy recently came to an end with, you guessed it, Mass Effect 3. It should be pointed out that it is one of my favourite game series of all time and that the final game was suitably epic and brilliant… but then there was the ending. Now, I’m...
Sonic Retrospective
17 Apr 2011
17 Apr 2011
With the release of yet another attempt to take Sonic the Hedgehog back to his roots, I began to wonder if going back to the beginning is really all the Sonic can hope to achieve?
'Maturity' and Video Games
10 Apr 2011
10 Apr 2011
I’ve mentioned before that I have no particular problem with sex, violence and gore in video games. I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of it, any more that I am a fan of violent films. But juts because I wouldn’t buy the, doesn’t mean I’m not going to try and stop...
Review: Gran Turismo 5
20 Mar 2011
20 Mar 2011
Now, I am aware that what I am about to say is controversial, even if it is the truth. Lets just say I don’t intend to spend the next few hundred words complaining about the game just to give it 9 out of 10 as many other (terrible) reviewers have done.
...Console vs. PC Gaming
13 Mar 2011
13 Mar 2011
Today, I would like to discuss one of my fundamental rules of gaming, primarily my view of the different gaming platforms and why certain types of games should only appear on the ‘right’ platform.
Games and The Rating System
27 Feb 2011
27 Feb 2011
One of the things that really annoys me about working in the games industry is the stupid questions people keep asking me, and all the media nonsense that accompanies the release of many games. Whenever a new game that includes any amount of sex or violence, people go out all over...
Review: World of Warcraft (Part 2)
20 Feb 2011
20 Feb 2011
What follows is part 2 of my review of Blizzard’s online phenomenon World of Warcraft [continued from here ]. This week I look at some of the things that I wasn’t so keen on, and the stuff that ultimately drove me to leave the game.
Review: World of Warcraft (Part 1)
13 Feb 2011
13 Feb 2011
Yes, ashamed as I am to admit it, I am guilty of effectively pissing away three years of my life playing Blizzard’s hugely successful online role-playing game World of Warcraft .