Fallout 4
I’ve been playing video games a while (*cough* 35 years or so *cough*), so I actually fondly remember the ol’ isometric turn-based first Fallout, which in the late 90s presented one of the most original and interesting game worlds I’d ever experienced, a strange mix of retro and post-apocalypse with bags of atmosphere, wit, and moral ambiguity. […]
Metal Gear Solid V
Metal Gear Solid has always been, for me, a slightly baffling mixture of the ground-breaking, the mind-blowing, the absurd, and the head-scratchingly self-indulgent, and that’s perhaps never been so true as with this latest instalment, number 5 (though it feels more like number 20) The Phantom Pain. Without doubt, there is a lot here that’s hugely […]
Bloodborne
Yes indeed, more hard to understand and even harder to play but nonetheless unique and rewarding dark fantasy roleplaying action from From Software, the guys who crushed my heart with Demons Souls, Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 (I actually managed to complete that, one of my proudest achievements). Once again you are a nameless individual […]
2014 in Review
New Year’s Eve, my friends, and you know what that means? Yes, indeed, I am 40 years old today. You would never think I used to be young. Truly horrifyingly, this is my 6th yearly review post. I’ll have to have a review of my best yearly review posts one of these new year’s eves… A YEAR […]
Dragon Age: Inquisition
I liked Dragon Age: Origins a lot when it came out way back in 2009. I’d long been a fan of Bioware’s D&D based fantasy RPGs, especially Baldur’s Gate I and II. Dragon Age seemed to introduce a new level of grittiness both moral and physical to the genre, with some interesting characters, dark themes, […]
Destiny
Destiny! A revolution in gaming that will finally justify the new generation of consoles! That will seamlessly fuse the compelling plot of single player games with the freewheeling interactivity of multiplayer ones! That offers tense gunplay in vast open-worldy vistas with oceans of content and customisability to explore! So I was led to believe, anyway. Hmm. […]
Dark Souls 2
It is without a shadow of a doubt dark, it undeniably involves souls, but the 2 is something of a lie, as this is actually the THIRD in From Software’s super dark, totally soul-related, and super duper unforgivingly hard connoisseur’s choice RPG series. The first was Demon’s Souls, which I very nearly completed some years […]
2013 in Review
Happy Birthday to Me. Happy Birthday to Me. Happy Birthday dear MEEEE-EEEEE. Three cheers, anyone? Yes, indeed, another year has flowed beneath the bridge at ever-increasing speed and I am 39 today. It’s round about 12 years since I started writing The Blade Itself back in 2001. Some 9 years since I signed my first […]
The Walking Dead (Telltale)
What an amazing game. I suppose you’d call it a gruelling point-and-click struggle for survival set in the milieu of the zombified graphic novels of the same name. It’s actually in very similar territory to Beyond: Two Souls, which I played a couple of weeks back – an interactive drama, you might say – but […]
Beyond: Two Souls
Beyond: Two Souls seems to have somewhat divided opinion, and indeed it’s divided my opinion rather. An amazing technical achievement in some ways with great acting impressively captured, some stupendous visuals and spectacular sequences, an intense piece of storytelling that hits much more than it misses, but as a game it can be a limited […]
