As the years have gone by, Ubisoft have worked to evolve and iterate the Assassin’s Creed formula, moving away from the city games to vast open world RPGs. There have been self-inflicted wounds along the journey with an unhealthy corporate culture leading to a large restructure in their editorial teams in the summer, but ultimately Valhalla was delivered in time for the launch of the new console generation and it’s a brilliant piece of work. …
The first DLC pack for April’s DOOM: Eternal has finally arrived. The Ancient Gods: Part One brings new missions and new enemies to the world of DOOM, looks as gorgeous as ever and plays just as smoothly—providing you’re willing to work with the difficulty curve, anyway…
When I was playing, and delivering my Verdict on Gears Tactics earlier this year, I mentioned that I was planning to go and finish the game off in quick fashion. That didn’t happen at the time, but with this turn-based tactics take on the Gears franchise landing on the Xbox One and Series machines last week, I returned to find a new Jacked up experience on offer, along with a range of quality of life improvements.
Dirt 5 is a visual tour de force, and anyone who will be picking it up on the next-gen machines is going to be in for a treat with a racer that offers you something new to look at around every corner. But scratch beneath the shiny exterior, and what’s left? …
If we did classic scores rather than Verdict’s, The Outer Worlds would have been given that classic 7/10 score. A rating which indicates a game is well rounded and generally pretty good, without being outstanding. You know, something you might pick up when it’s on offer. Funnily enough, The Outer Worlds has just landed on Steam and GOG after a year of Epic exclusivity with a two week 50% off deal, and for £24.99, I’d suggest it’s something worth your while picking up. …
The current games industry isn’t set up to be friendly to the consumer, I’m not just talking about the new consoles, it’s the whole industry stretching from those new consoles to digital stores through to mainstream retailers. I don’t offer solutions, but merely to highlight some of the issues that are out there at the moment.
The release of Project CARS 3 caught me slightly off guard, and that shouldn’t be of much surprise as recent racing game focus at The Reticule has been on art of rally, F1 2020 and Dirt 5. Development has again been handled by Slightly Mad Studios with Namco Bandai handling publishing duties, even though Slightly Mad are now part of the Codemasters empire. Having sunk a few hours into the game, I wonder whether the change of ownership of Slightly Mad has had an impact on the game itself with a few elements not quite hooking up as they could have done. …
Who would have thought that Dirt 5, the upcoming off-road extravaganza from Codemasters would feature a slice of Trackmania. The new Playgrounds feature takes the track creation of the adorable arcade racer and re-imagines it for an off-road audience. …
The world of VR gaming beyond Half-Life: Alyx isn’t really on my radar for a myriad of reasons, but what that lack of awareness means is that when a title like The Persistence comes along on the Switch, I can play it like a standard first-person horror without initially knowing that it was originally designed for both VR and standard play.
I adore the ocean, so whenever a game like E-Line Media’s Beyond Blue pops up, I’m right there. The video-game is an ideal medium for ocean exploration, capable of creating the illusion of a vast expanse of blue and its uncharted depths and evoking feelings of utter isolation, which can be felt as either peaceful or terrifying, depending on your inclinations.
For me, it’s often both. So, before I get into Beyond Blue itself, I’m going to dig a little into why video-games helped nurture those twin feelings of love and fear.