Game Reviews

Call of Duty Vanguard
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Call of Duty Vanguard, PS5 Review

Dylan Burns 1649 Views ,  ,  ,  , 

Call of Duty : Vanguard, being the 2021 annual entry to the series Dylan takes us back to WWII to battle latency, with or without Zombies.

Until Vanguard, my relationship with shooters has simmered the last few years. I used to love them. Loved those AA and AAA shooters. I loved CoD 2 – the house-to-house fighting still jostles inside my gaming memories for prime position.

I loved Wolfenstein and Rise of the Triad and Doom and Quake and Singularity and even Timeshift. I’ve enjoyed quite a few Calls of Duty. I even got sent to LA to preview Black Ops 3.

We played MW3 on the morning of my wedding to take our minds off the day. But since then, I’ve just kinda . . . not played many.

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Guardians of the Galaxy
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Guardians of the Galaxy, PS5 Review

Guy 1758 Views ,  ,  , 

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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Age of Empires IV
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Age of Empires IV, review

Gerard Campbell 1314 Views ,  ,  ,  , 

t’s been almost 15 years since the last instalment of Microsoft’s seminal real-time strategy (RTS) game. Man, it’s good to be back playing the newest game in the series, Age of Empires IV. Back in the day, Ensemble Studios was the proud custodian of the Age of Empire mantle but that developer has sadly long since departed.

The reins have now been handed to Canadian development studio Relic Entertainment, an experienced developer with a fine pedigree of RTS games behind it like Homeworld and the Company of Heroes series.

Returning to the medieval age, AOEIV offers eight civilizations (English, Chinese, French, Rus, Roman Empire, Delhi Sultanate, Mongols and Abbasid Dynasty) and a handful of single-player campaigns running from the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066 up to the Russo-Kazan wars of 1552.

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Forza Horizon 5 Review (XSX)

Barrie Clarke 1515 Views ,  ,  ,  , 

nd the first Forza Motorsport on the original Xbox, it had me hooked. But then in 2012 came the first Forza Horizon on the Xbox 360.

It was the Horizon Series that reeled me in. The freedom and forgiveness that Horizon has over its Motorsport brother is far more to my liking, and driving style. And here we are now in 2021 with the fifth instalment in the Forza Horizon franchise.

Viva Mexico! 

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Diablo II
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Diablo II – Resurrected

Dylan Burns 1303 Views ,  ,  ,  , 

Switch code for Diablo II Resurrected because I don’t need to see it in 4k. Also, I don’t need whiz-bang-Direct-38-high-dynamic-apples. I am happy to play a 20-year-old game in my hands, and I like Diablo a lot without being hardcore about it. I regularly peek into Diablo forums and am greeted with gobbledy-gook terms and verbs that mean absolutely nothing to me.

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Back 4 Blood Review (XSX)

Barrie Clarke 1349 Views ,  , 

many are calling a spiritual successor in the form of Back 4 Blood. Developer Turtle Rock Studios (renamed as Valve South) are the team behind the Left 4 Dead games and even the format of the game name points towards a sequel to Left 4 Dead.

But thanks to Copyright/Ownership/Politics Turtle Rock Studios in its current form had to create a ‘new’ IP. And so Back 4 Blood is born.

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Insurgency: Sandstorm
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Insurgency: Sandstorm, PS4/PS5 Review

Guy 4140 Views ,  ,  , 

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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Hot Wheels Unleashed
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Hot Wheels Unleashed, PS5 Review

Richard Armitt 1234 Views ,  , 

Well, the cars are the stars. It’s that simple, yes its a sturdy arcade style racer that’s accessible and entertaining, but grinding the collectible and familiar cars. That’s where it’s at.

It’s a cool game, with fun bells and whistles. I really like the concept, I don’t like getting frustrated at certain things. There is a buzz attached to finding a rare car, but under the hood, they’re not that different. Although I tend to melt them for Gear Bits or coins to upgrade or buy something else.

Hot Wheels Unleashed has plenty of fun factor for now, I just can’t see it staying exciting for long.

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Far Cry 6
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Far Cry 6, PS5 Review

Guy 1805 Views ,  ,  ,  , 

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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Deathloop Retrospective
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Deathloop, PS5 Review

Richard Armitt 1544 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

Thanks to guest reviewer Mark Isaacson for his in depth Deathloop review.

Set on the mysterious island of Blackreef, you play as highly trained assassin Colt, who awakes to find himself stuck in the same day, every day.

He must slowly piece together clues in order to kill eight targets (Visionaries) before the day ends.

Each visit to the island provides new opportunities to explore, new paths to various objectives and plenty of weird ways to mess up the timeline before it resets.

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Death Stranding Directors Cut
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Death Stranding: Directors Cut – PS5 Review

Guy 1783 Views ,  , 

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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