As a baseball simulator, MLB The Show 23 is barely different to last year’s iteration. Even by the standards of annual sporting franchises, this one comes across as having the lightest of touches to improve the experience. The commentary cut in with the same comments at the same moments that…
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Omen of Sorrow is something that 18-year-old me would have found so totally cool. Drenched in gothic grim darkness, it’s an effort to bring together vampires, werewolves, dark angels, succubi, mummies and… well, Elizabeth Bathory, into a game that looks and feels like an emo kid’s “black-as-their-soul” poetry. While I’d…
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Transport Fever 2 is a celebration of the value that transport networks bring populations. It is a “builder” simulator, but similar to the likes of the classic Transport Tycoon and A-Train, you don’t build the building directly. You build the road, train, ship and air transport networks that the cities…
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I haven’t played an Anno game since Anno: Create A New World on the Wii and DS, but I absolutely loved those games, and I likewise love Anno 1800, the first game in the main series to also get a console release (the Wii and DS titles were spinoffs). If…
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I worry that the wonderful folk at the developer, Gust, have lost their creative thrust with Atelier. That’s not to say Atelier Ryza 3 here is by any means a poor game, because it is lovely and comforting, but the last five Atelier titles have been a nostalgic return to…
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The difference between a very fine game, and an inferior, derivative pastiche can at times be very slim. Mato Anomalies is an excellent example of just how fine this line can be. Clearly inspired by Persona, and a novel attempt and bringing a kind of neon-noir approach to the genre,…
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Annual sports game refreshes all tend to get a little stale over time, but few have had such a fall from grace as we saw out of 2K Games’ WWE line of games back with WWE2K20. The shift from Japanese developer, Yukes, to US Studio, Visual Concepts, led to one…
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If you haven’t played Resident Evil 4 before, the game follows Raccoon City disaster survivor turned government agent, Leon S. Kennedy, on his mission to [undisclosed Spanish-speaking European country] to rescue Ashley Graham, the daughter of the US President, who has been kidnapped. Leon explores a village, a castle, and…
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There is a problem when you make something subversive: how do you back it up with a sequel? If the sequel is too familiar and follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, it is no longer subversive by definition. It has lost its creative identity. This is unfortunately the case…
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We don’t hear as much about the Eastern Front during World War 2. This is, of course, largely because the heroes of the piece were Soviets. Anything that could be perceived as lionising the heroics of Soviets doesn’t play well with the West’s official propaganda line on what happened during…
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