Space Combat games have always been a favourite genre for me. Starting with Descent back in 1995 and most recently with the excellent Star Wars: Squadrons on the PSVR.
But the genre often struggled to get AAA quality outings. Certainly, any tangible story and world building rarely occurs within them.
BUT, Chorus has literally come out of my blind-spot and some how managed to be both an awesome arcade space combat game, with an interesting story.
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Real Time Strategy (RTS) titles like Iron Harvest on Console are a rare beast.
And even rarer is a Console RTS that has a control and user interface (UI) system, which isn’t a finger twisting nightmare on a controller. But it can be done.
Halo Wars and Sudden Strike 4 have nailed the UI in an RTS for Console gamers, and Iron Harvest…almost did.
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I had very little basis to be as hyped as I was for the new Guardians of the Galaxy game.
The E3 trailer looked pretty good, even if Star-Lord was presented as bit of a “dude-bro” and the dev team (of modern Deus Ex fame) have a reasonable pedigree in the AAA space. But I had concerns as the Comic book, super-hero genre is hard to get right.
However…against the odds Eidos Montreal crushed it!
With an absolutely fantastic Marvel game and some of the best characters I have experienced since Mass Effect.
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Another Guest Spot from our resident Rainbow 6 gamer-girl. Nina has taken a break from clearing rooms in CQB, and dipped into some long distance combat with this review of the new Sniper Ghost Warrior.
When I was presented with Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 2 to play, I admit I was apathetic at best. It was a series I’d never played, from a studio I’d never heard of, tackling a genre I’d never been really interested in. But after sinking 15-20 hours of playtime into this game, I am more than happy to say that (we will just call it “Sniper” going forward) has totally exceeded my expectations.
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Rainbow 6 has become a toxic, fluro-laiden, run and gun fest. Ghost Recon is now a soulless open-world monstrosity which as of last week is set to become of all things, a Battle Royale!? And Splinter Cell has been missing in action for almost a decade. What I’m getting at is that the goods on offer for the Tactical console gamer are slim pickings at the moment.
But thankfully dear squad mates, I have good news! Insurgency: Sandstorm has finally migrated from PC to the console and there is now some solid tactical shooter goodness to be had.
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not looking forward to Far Cry 6 at all. I haven’t been interested in a Far Cry game since the brilliant Far Cry 3. I’m happy to say Far Cry 6 has grabbed me in a big way and it is great fun.
There is no great mystery around what sort of game and genre Far Cry 6 is. It’s an FPS open-world action game. Exactly like all those that have come before. This time round it is set in a fictional Caribbean archipelago called Yara, which for all intents and purposes, is Cuba. Ruled by the ruthless “El Presidente” Antón Castillo played by Giancarlo Esposito. Yara is controlled by his military and as expected, there is a grass-roots resistance movement. Which it turns out needs my special ‘Guerrilla’ gamer skills to overthrow the “El Presidente”!
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Death Stranding Directors Cut is an odd descriptor for the re-release of a Hideo Kojima game. Kojima is renowned for being that unbridled Game Director with creative freedom aplenty. So, one would expect a game he made was already his “cut”. And I would argue this was especially true regarding the genre bending, Postman Pat simulator, Death Stranding.
Rest assured, Kojima has confirmed that this “sub-title” is essentially a Sony Marketers attempt of saying, this is the PS5 remastered version of Death Stranding with a few extra bits.
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Guest writer Nina has taken a trip into this cyber-punk Indie game and has some thoughts to share.
After seeing the Foreclosed trailer at E3 this year, the indie cyberpunk shooter immediately went on my radar. I love the cyberpunk genre, and aside from a few exceptions, there aren’t a lot of games that truly do the genre justice. I will admit though, Foreclosed had my hopes up.
So when I was given the opportunity to review it, I was excited as hell.
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Here at the Cottage we are big fans of XCOM. So the prospect of a new bite sized turn-based tactical game of that ilk on my Xbox Series S was certainly appealing.
Fort Triumph doesn’t manage to hit the quality or depth that our beloved XCOM does, but there is fun to be had for the tactically minded gamer.
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The “SIM” game genre has exploded in recent years. There are Simulation titles for every interest out there. Be it farming, train driving, hunting, car servicing or even PC building!?
There is a SIM for all shapes, sizes and passions. Well, Open Country slots into this SIM genre as an “Openworld, Hunting and Survival SIM” and has a lot of different aspects to it.
But unfortunately, it does none of them well.
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There are certain things in life that are just “good”. Cold feet in front of a warm fire, the smell of freshly cut grass or just sitting on the sand watching waves lapping at the beach. Well, there is another thing to add to this list…playing Mass Effect in 4K with HDR and 60 frames per second!
I am a massive Mass Effect fan-boy! Having played through Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 multiple times, read all the books, watched all the anime. I even still have a N7 badge on my backpack. Guilty of being a Mass Effect nerd of the highest order; so this write-up is most certainly a fans appraisal of this Mass Effect trilogy remaster.
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