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Backbone – The Verdict

Backbone – The Verdict

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“So much misguided effort pursuing only the shadow of the big picture – why?”

I’d been anticipating Backbone for some time, but I didn’t go into it with an excited smile. Not quite. That isn’t because it was released to polarising reviews, but rather because of the developer’s response to that reception. It goes without saying these developers put everything into their game, and goddamn, they have every right to stand by it with confidence and pride.

I am so very behind that…

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Overboard! – The Verdict

Overboard! – The Verdict

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Attempting to get away with homicide in the presence of a detective is pure folly, but that’s never stopped Agatha Christie’s villains, has it? Still, they all stumble in the end – Poirot and his fellow sleuths are just that good, ain’t they?

Overboard! has no such detective figure (well, not quite), so the plan to push my broke, fascist-sympathising husband into the ocean and claim his life insurance ought to be a doddle. But it turns out – can you believe it? – murder just isn’t that simple.

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Resident Evil Village – The Verdict

Resident Evil Village – The Verdict

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Resident Evil has taken many shapes since its inception. Survival horror, light gun shooter, third person adventure, online cooperative game, and, with 2017’s Resident Evil 7, first-person horror. This latest shape was fitting, in a way: the very first Resident Evil was conceived as a first-person game, before the limitations of the PlayStation forced Capcom to abandon it. At the time of Resident Evil 7’s release, though, it was a return to the survival horror that once defined Capcom’s multifaceted franchise.

And it was quite good.

Now, after two years of remakes, we at last have the eighth instalment – Village. It, too, is good. Very good, actually.

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The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark – The Verdict

The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark – The Verdict

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The introduction of Detective Francis McQueen and his sidekick, Officer Patrick Dooley, in 2017’s comedy horror point-and-click, The Darkside Detective, was an unexpected delight. The strange and kooky world of Twin Lakes didn’t take the ‘horror’ bit all that seriously; it was much happier indulging obscure film references and finding innuendo everywhere.

And we were all the better for it.

The sequel, A Fumble in the Dark, is much the same, only bigger and carried off with a confidence born of its developers knowing they’ve crafted a winning duo, milking it for all it’s worth – albeit a little too much at times.

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Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods Part Two – The Verdict

Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods Part Two – The Verdict

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The Ancient Gods – Part Two wants you to know that the stakes are high.

The highest, in fact. The Dark Lord is free and all of existence is in peril. All of it. You would agree that it doesn’t get much higher than that. Unless of course you count my waning interest in the franchise, brought to the brink in the fun but clunky first instalment of the DLC duology.

In the face of that the so-called ‘Dark Lord’ doesn’t amount to a whole lot, no matter how much he narrows his eyes and declares that I will burn, burn, burn.

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Fights in Tight Spaces: The Early Access Verdict

Fights in Tight Spaces: The Early Access Verdict

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I’ve been looking at ‘Fights in Tight Spaces’, a tactical deck-building combat rogue-alike from GroundShatter and Mode 7 that has just hit Early Access.

The acronym FITS is maddeningly close to FIST’s which would be infinitely more suitable given the game, though swapping the S and T around does ruin the name- so I understand their reasoning. You see the name does exactly what it says on the tin, albeit a bloody, violent tin. The FITS acronym does open up some glorious options for alternative names such as the ones already mentioned in Week 129 of Our Week In Games here.

A more professional games journalist would leave that joke there and concentrate on doing the review. I am not a professional games journalist (but what makes a game journalist a professional? – Ed)……

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Curious Expedition 2 – The Verdict

Curious Expedition 2 – The Verdict

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Patrick Blake stood atop a small wooden wagon clattering through the streets of Paris. The crowds cheered at the passage of him and his companions and he waved back, trying to wrap his head around the events of the past few months.

Let’s see, he thought. We travelled by ship to a far away land filled with mysterious foreign folk. Later, we gambled with ghost pirates alongside a mysteriously land-locked ship wreck. We stumbled across and defrosted a frozen lizard man in a cave, who we then unexpectedly befriended and brought with us. Finally, we fought a giant centipede and ended up fleeing through a tropical landscape, all the while being pursued by a terrifying and oppressive purple fog. …

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A Place in the West – Remastered and Better Than Ever

A Place in the West – Remastered and Better Than Ever

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It’s been five years since Half-Life: A Place in the West started life as a free comic available via the official website, four years since it was released on Steam (remember the Greenlight initiative anyone?) and nearly three since Valve granted the team, headed up by Mike Pelletier and our very own Ross Joseph Gardner, use of the Half-Life licence. It’s been a wild ride for the duo and their team, revealing in September that 2020 has, as you can imagine, been a rough old year which has delayed many of their plans for taking the story, and technology, forward. But here they are, finally releasing remasters of Chapters 1 and 2, along with a newly revamped Steam app to read it in.

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