First and foremost, Dragon Age: The Veilguard isn’t a Dragon Age game. It doesn’t look like one, it doesn’t play like one, and while there are cameos that superficially resemble the heroes of the original series, it doesn’t tell a story like one either. Unlike actual Dragon Age titles, it’s also not very interesting. I spent my entire time playing…
There’s a certain end of the video game industry that mistakes emotional manipulation for quality narrative. The goal is to find the right voice actors, get the players invested enough in the world that they spend a lot of time in it, and then make sure those key scenes are…
Read MoreArchetype Arcadia has an awful lot of content. The PR material claims 50 hours, and while I have a gut feeling that that’s assuming a fairly slow reading speed, I read quickly and I wouldn’t be surprised if I did actually spend that long getting to the end. It’s generally…
Read MoreThere are times when it genuinely feels like the artists who work in game development teams only know Zdzisaw Beksiski and H.R Giger. These two artists are magnificent, don’t get me wrong, but they are so often the inspiration behind a game’s aesthetics that it’s become a visual cliché. And…
Read MoreAssassin’s Creed: Mirage is what all Assassin’s Creed games should be: Uncomplicated. As I’ve regularly repeated over the years, Assassin’s Creed is my one blockbuster vice, and I love the series despite it being increasingly representative of so much of what I dislike about AAA games. But this one brings…
Read MoreDisclaimer: I’m making this quick disclaimer so it’s clear and up-front. I did work with Big Ant in the past, and contributed to cricket games that they have previously released. During the term that I worked for Big Ant, and for two years afterwards, I did not review their games,…
Read MoreI’m not going to lie. My nose will grow. Lies Of P infuriates me to play. Of all the ways to approach the Soulslike “hard game”, this is the least suited to my preferences. I understand that there will be an audience for it, but that’s not me, it won’t…
Read MoreFor some decades now, wrestling game fans have been seriously limited in game choice, with only titles produced around the dominant brand, WWE – such as WWE 2K23 easily available to Western audiences. However, the publisher of WWE made a huge misstep with WWE 2K20, dropping Japanese developer, Yukes, in…
Read MoreFinal Fantasy XVI is a spectacular blockbuster that is also so much more than a simple “AAA-game”. Where most blockbusters aim to manipulate the player’s emotions but have little ambition beyond that, Final Fantasy XVI dares to challenge players with a narrative of depth and poignancy. It is the rarest…
Read MoreEver since I first laid eyes on Bullfrog’s classic Theme Park, I’ve been equally smitten by theme park simulators and also terrified of what they make me do. Don’t get me wrong; the classic blend of management simulation – like it or not, you’re more or less balancing an Excel…
Read MoreSo in a game titled “Company of Heroes 3” you get to play as the Germans (the, uh, World War 2 Germans) in one of the game’s campaigns. That is… certainly a brave decision. If the story was in any way effective, this would have been an enormously controversial game.…
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