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Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem Byte Size Review (PC)

In an interesting move a bunch of Serious Sam 4 fans and modders have joined together and formed Timelock Studios.

And with the help and approval from Croteam, the developer behind the Serious Sam franchise, they have released Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem.

A 5-6 hour stand alone game based between the final two levels of Serious Sam 4.

Serious Sam has always been a not-so-serious run and gun franchise and Sam’s Mayhem in Siberia is just as un-serious.

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Call of Duty Vanguard, PS5 Review

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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Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 2, PS5 Review

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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Insurgency: Sandstorm, PS4/PS5 Review

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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Deathloop retrospective

After guest writer Mark delivered a hefty Deathloop review previously. Dylan and myself thought it would be worth having a Deathloop retrospective to chew over some of the key elements.

We’ve chatted back and forth over an extended period. Rather than a review crammed into a short period we wanted to follow our own journey.

Thanks to Bethesda ANZ for the review codes.

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Far Cry 6, PS5 Review

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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Necromunda: Hired Gun Review (XSX)

Necromunda: Hired Gun is a fast paced shooter based in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Why I have never been pulled into the Warhammer universe is beyond me. It is as cool as hell, and ticks pretty much every box for my likes in a world setting. The plethora of Warhammer games out there, including the recent Mechanicus, just shows the sheer amount of material available of conversion to video games.

Developers Streum On Studio obviously have a love for Warhammer as their last title was Space Hulk: Deathwing. Unfortunately many of the criticisms laid against Space Hulk will be just as valid for Necromunda. But there is a dog. And you can pat it!

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Black Ops: Cold War, the 2020 Call of Duty

Forget your Modern Warfares, this year its time for Call of Duty, Black Ops : Cold War. What a mouthful, that said, you can’t go through Silly Season without a new CoD can you?

Its been a decade since Black Ops first joined the roster, opening ups that whole Treyarch vs Infity Ward fan service argument. Much like the even numbered Star Trek movies it all comes down to taste. Black Ops for me back in the day was a hot mess, the campaign tried too hard to be clever. Throwing hallucinations and reveals at you in artillery style, it didn’t really do it for my taste. Some of the action pieces were superb, a lot of the story elements were forgettable. That was a decade ago, we don’t talk about the things we did then.

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Crysis: Remastered, PS4 Byte Size Review

Crysis (Remastered) is one of those touchstone titles that most gamers have heard about, being released on PC back in 2007 to rave reviews. It was the “Ultimate Test” of a PCs graphical prowess.

Later in 2011 Crysis landed on Console, which is where I experienced it on the Xbox 360. Even in the paired down console version, I loved it, its was beautiful, unique and I even got 1000/1000 achievement points!

13 years have passed since its initial release. Which is a long time in game design terms. Unfortunately, even though Crysis has had the “Remaster treatment” to make it all pretty, the titles old bones are showing their age.

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Doom: Eternal, PS4 Review

Back in 2016 when Doom was re-launched by ID Software, it became one of the modern darlings of gamer culture, but I will admit I didn’t get it. I tried, more than once, but I just didn’t see what others saw. But by Lucifer! I am now a convert to the satanic dark arts of Doom: Eternal. I now see the magic!

Doom: Eternal – is a faced paced, strategy shooter

As I type “fast paced, strategy shooter”, I can’t help but think how silly that sounds. But that’s what Doom: Eternal really is. It combines the idea of being liquid death and a thinking man’s shooter…… and it surprised the hell out of me.

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Metro: Exodus, PS4 Review

I like Russia. Not so much for the long history of political intrigue or its civil rights abuses, but for its tough people and their underlying ability to just get shit done with very little. The Metro games are about survival in a post nuclear war Russia, and as I just alluded, not surviving in some luxurious capitalist-pig fallout shelter…….but like a tough as nails Russian, on little to no resources, ammunition and intel.

Now, its not lost on me that the developer 4A Games is in fact Ukrainian not Russian. However, as a nation with a long standing connection to Russia, (for both good and bad reasons) it gives them the unique ability to give Western gamers a glimpse into what a post-apocalyptic Mother-Russia might look like. Suffice is to say they know what they are doing and the end result is… brilliant and terrifying.

Check out the Video Review – Click It, Like It, Share It!

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