Tag: Video Games

Open-World Games

Lots of video games these days feature some sort of open world, or at least places that you can explore for hidden rewards and the occasional side story. Only a few games, however, seem to integrate these mechanisms properly into the wider game. So, I thought that for my latest rant I would talk about these often arbitrary and pointless features and about one of the few games I can think of that makes good use of them.… Read more

Review – Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm

It’s been nearly three years since Starcraft 2 – Wings of Liberty was finally released. It was the sequel to a game that is one of the best-selling and most critically-acclaimed strategy games of all time and a personal favourite of mine. It was also a sequel that, itself, was released a whole 12 years after the original game. Blizzard certainly like to take their sweet time with these things, but it is usually worth the wait. The first part … Read more

Review: Tomb Raider

Just to be clear, I’m talking about the 2013 reboot/origin story ‘Tomb Raider’, not the 1996 game! I realise that doing this is something of a trend at the minute, but quite why they couldn’t have called it ‘Tomb Raider: Origins’ or ‘Tomb Raider: The Dragon’s Triangle’ or something is beyond me. Anyway, I have just completed the new game on the Xbox 360 and thought I would offer my opinions…… Read more

Mass Effect 3: The Ending & Extended Cut

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 going to try and avoid the same raging that most of the fans have been doing and offer a more constructive opinion. The free ‘Extended Cut’ DLC is now … Read more

Boss Fights

Boss fights are a common element of most games, but are something that I frequently find frustrating. I’d like to take a moment to look at some great (and truly terrible) boss fights to look at how they should be done.

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Sonic 4 vs Sonic Generations

I’ve already talked about Sonic recently in my Retrospective, but that was before I had properly played either Sonic 4 – Episode 1 or Sonic Generations. Both of these games seem to be trying to shed some of the stuff that has made the recent games so bad and trying to take Sonic back to his roots, but have either of them succeeded? Lets find out…

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Assassins Creed Restrospective

The Assassins Creed (should there be an apostrophe in there somewhere?) series, while doing nothing for the reputation of hoodies, has become one of the most popular series of the current generation and some of my favourite games… in some ways. I haven’t reviewed any of the games yet, so I thought I would take a look back at the series and offer some opinions.

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Review: Portal 2

The original Portal was basically a tech demo, included as a bonus alongside other titles in the Orange Box. And that was all it needed to be. However, it turned out to be full of dark humour and featured a computer that is one of the greatest villains/characters in any video game… ever!

Now, though, Valve have produced Portal 2. The sequel includes a cooperative campaign in addition to having twice the content in the single player campaign. This is … Read more

Sonic Retrospective

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?

I should probably reiterate that I always preferred Sonic to Mario (at least, back in the days when Sonic games were still good). I realise that the Mario franchise has been much better managed over the years, with games like Smash Bros and Mario Kart … Read more

‘Maturity’ and Video Games

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 people making/buying them…

I was reading an article today about the latest round of ‘M-Rated’ game controversy, when it occurred to me that something is wrong with the ‘M’ … Read more

Console vs. PC Gaming

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.… Read more