I can still hear Kazooie’s pecking chirps in my head all these years later. The Xbox 360 one where you could build cars was great too, think it’s kind of forgotten but I loved it
Tactical Breach Wizards
One of those sly titles that draws you in with a superficially goofy concept - dude what if, like, Navy Seals were wizards and wore pointed hats and used wands instead of guns when they raided drug dens, dude that would be so funny - and then instead of mindless frivolity subjects you to a compelling narrative and an addictive gameplay loop instead.
It steals shamelessly from Into the Breach, Invisible Inc and XCom Chimera Squad, but as I’ve always said, I don’t give a fuck if a game steals from another game as long as it understands why that mechanic hummed in the first place, and Tactical Breach Wizards understands perfectly. Every level is a perfect little puzzle box that makes you go ‘how the fuck am I meant to do this?’ at first glance and ‘oh, THAT’S how the fuck I’m going to do this’ on third. By the end you’re popping off Rube Goldberg-type sequences of moves each turn with your guys, and it’s exhilarating, almost perfect TBS action.
Trying to think of reasons not to give this a perfect score. Probably not great in the replayability stakes, at least in comparison to the much more randomised Into the Breach; the final boss was a complete arse-ache; and occasionally the slightly soy-flavoured banter between the characters grated. But it’s so well-designed on every level. It’s a 9/10 lads, definitely get it if you liked any of the games previously mentioned, and also if you’ve never heard of them!
3 Likes
Resident Evil 4 (PS5) (Re-Make).
Bought this the day it released but the Souls games and a few others have always kept me away from it, and I bought it day one because it truly is one of the greatest games of all-time.
Faithful to the original yet not afraid to remix and change some parts. Pity the laser part isn’t in it but no complaints at all. Found the earlier boat maze parts a very slight drag but only due to getting lost a lot there.
Outrageous constant action. Nice nasty tone - but full of dark humour and fun. Great characters, combat and weaponry, inventory, etc, even the menus are excellent.
Unlike the Souls games it improves as it goes on and by the time the ending is near it truly is heart in your mouth stuff. The unlocks at the end bring you straight back and I’m up to my 3rd save on Hardcore mode now. The Mercenaries is hard to put down one you take a peek too.
An all-timer. 10/10.
4 Likes
I’ve played the OG Re4 probably 40+ times and was a bit cold on the remake since it released, but replaying it has totally sold me
1 Like
I’ve completed the OG RE4 in many of its forms, GC, PS2, PS3, PS4 and love it to bits. There are quality of play improvements with the Re-Make but controls aside the OG is arguably the better game. Love them all, a highlight in the impressive RE mainline line up, I honestly think they’ll never top it, or if they do that will be one hell of an achievement. Might take a look at the old version again. Have over 100 hours on that on the PS4 version alone.
Relate. When I was a teenager in mid 00s, I replayed my favourite PS1, 2, and Cube games constantly. MGS2 and 3, Final Fantasy X, and RE4 were the ones I returned to the most. Almost daily for weeks at a time at points. They were “my” games. I traded in and bought other games a lot but was just obsessed with these. Never got bored. Always found something new to enjoy.
1 Like
Finished Night in the Woods. 7/10, nice time, nothing too strenuous.
Some of the cut scenes from the original make an appearance in Separate Ways btw. Though I wasn’t overly into that
1 Like
Thanks, I haven’t got the DLC but will pick it up in a sale, which it may be in right now, will check.
1 Like
the original is my favourite game of all time, and is so special to me, that I can’t bring myself to play this remake, despite how good it looks. glad you enjoyed it.
1 Like
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes 10/10
Summary
Absolutely perfect. The map is big without feeling unwieldly, there’s plenty of variety with indoor and outdoor sections, and it feels like you discover something new and interesting after every infiltration. Actually struggling to think of better level design in any other stealth game. The stealth mechanics that interface with this feel slick, challenging and satisfying, as does the combat. Overall, just a really well executed experience that I kept replaying.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain 7/10
Summary
Apu WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!.gif
Sadly, this feels like a very different experience than Ground Zeroes. Won’t spend too long on it, as it’s been said already, but it really feels like there was a shift in direction that happened between developing GZ and TPP. It still looks stunning, and plays really well - the mechanics are all there from GZ - but idk…the curation that the prologue had isn’t there at all, having been substituted for TWO dull open worlds, games as service features, and really unnecessary bloat. Regarding the latter (and I actually came round to actually running Motherbase - it’s a very novel way to manage upgrades) the biggest offender is the base you manage being fully explorable for no reason whatsoever. It’s so frustrating to see where the bulk of development went in favour over the template that lovely Ground Zeroes laid out.
You also get the feeling that the developers had a bunch of good ideas that maybe hit two or three times during a playthrough - e.g. finding a Bananarama cassette or flying into a mountain pass in a fuck off helicopter - but then went ‘yeah, lets make the player repeat the same mission about 100 times’. Aside from two or three ‘set-piece’ bases, which are still a shadow on Camp Omega in GZ, you’re more or less just taking endless, unskippable chopper rides to the same few identikit locations, and it gets to be a huge grind. ALSO, here’s a bunch of heavy weaponry like tanks and APCs that you’re never going to use except for like 2 missions, but we lovingly created with multiple fire modes and everything.
All that said, I did have a great time at points. Da Smasei Laman and it’s main story mission was absolutely amazing, and I loved fighting Metal Gear. The combat and gunplay are really good, and the story and characters aren’t even that bad for MGS. I just hated having to plod around the same places over and over. The missions that ramp up in difficulty in Chapter 2 (the bit after the first ending?) are admittedly a lot more enjoyable because you can’t simply walk up to everyone and tranq them in the face point blank.
Had I not played GZ, I probably would have scored this higher, but the missed potential in serving this up instead of what was promised by the prologue really fucking stings. Probably being too harsh, but expected a lot better basically.
TopSpin 2K25 7/10
Summary
Enjoyed this a lot. Easily the best tennis game at the moment, and I didn’t hugely mind the usual 2K bullshit - microtransactions, pay-to-win, locked content etc. Very satisfying mechanics, and the courts all look stunning. It would be a different story at full price (think I paid 10 euros for it), since there is so much that is locked behind VC, but you can have a good, chill time with this regardless. Good podcast game too, imo. Loses points because of the 2K bollocks, and the roster of players is very small.
Hogwarts Legacy 6/10
Summary
Pretty crap, tbh. Wanted to play a mindless Assassin’s Creed type open world thing when I bought this (another sale at 10 euros), and pretty much got what I paid for.
On one hand, the combat is super fun, intuitive and original. I wasn’t sure how they were going to pull it off before playing, but I was really impressed with how it works. Like, you could easily just have made an entire game of duelling and I’d probably give it a higher score than this. The castle, forest and Hogsmeade are also exceptionally well done in a visual and layout sense. Probably the best video game castle of all time in that respect. I really liked looking after the beasts I’d caught while on quests, too.
But there’s fuck all to do in any of the locations, and it gets worse when you’re made to travel to the Scottish highlands (inexplicably full of cockneys) for every quest. I don’t really know what happened in the story as I skipped every cutscene from about an hour into the game, which are Kojima level in terms of length and fluff, but it seemed really crap from what I gathered through the unavoidable dialogue with other characters. The voice acting is appalling, I only looked at the upgrade system when I was required to do so for a quest, and 90% of the quests are the most insipid follow or fetch quests involving allies and motives that I never wanted to see or hear about again after finishing. Don’t even think it’s particularly good if you’re really into the Potterverse either, since your character is railroaded into being one of history’s most brutal psychopaths very early on into the game.
The presentation is really slick though, and I loved the combat, animal care thing, walking around the castle (for the first hour or so - there’s nothing to do there after aside from collect statues) and the flying was alright. The rest is an absolute binfire.
Doom (2016) 9/10
Summary
First Doom game I’ve ever played! What a Proper Haircuts of a game. Zero bullshit, just killing creeps in their dungeons and science bases. The bosses were very cool, but could have been a bit more challenging, idk. Loved it anyway.
Hearts of Iron IV 8/10
Summary
First Paradox game I’ve actually bothered to learn and play a campaign on. Had loads of fun tbh. I played as Republican Spain, and basically your only objective is to win the civil war. I think it’s considered quite a tricky challenge especially for beginners, but I pulled it out the bag in the end. You do feel quite railroaded down the historical path (for instance, once you win the war, you have a penalty affecting all your industry meaning you’re pretty much useless for the rest of the game), but it’s great for a shortish, contained experience. A more sandboxy experience is apparently available if you play as say, Nazi Germany (or any of the fascists, since they are allowed to delcare war on whoever they want), but grinding Franco’s lads into dust was absolutely satisfactory.
Refuse to believe that the developers couldn’t make the UI easier to navigate though. 30 hours later, I still don’t really understand how the airforce and navy work either.
Total War: WARHAMMER III 9/10
Wow, been spoiled with Total War games recently. Loved my Empire campaign on this - more than any other CA game I’ve played, there’s a real sense of story and role playing in this one. Perhaps it was the base ineptitude of my so called allies in stemming the tide of perverts, goblins and vampires, but I really did feel that the fate of the world was in my hands.
The battles are super fun (I bought this basically out of intrigue to see how Total War would work with dragons, monsters, magic, flying units etc), and the sheer diversity of factions and enemies is incredible. Politics mechanics are pretty bog standard CA, and you still get the bullshit game breaker event that I actually just stopped my playthrough before tackling. Luckily I’d completed the objective for my faction just as the event dropped.
Loses a point because the UI was a bit shit and there doesn’t appear to be geographical penalties or bonuses for building economy buildings. Like, you can build a farm or a weavers anywhere, and one location is the same as the other.
Still, awesome game, probably on par with Shogun 2 in terms of my favourite TW games.
1 Like
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
- Avowed
I have been talking to a friend a lot about Avowed, and it’s clear that my ignorance of fantasy RPGs has helped me a lot here - I’ve never played a Witcher, an Elder Scrolls, anything like that, and as such this all felt really good.
I loved my time with Avowed.
The story culminated into a really strong showing, with a real build up of the stakes and the consequences, and really felt like it tied all together, and had a lot going for it with group of characters as companions I was very sceptical of at first, but actually grew to love them.
The combat was fucking class all the way through. I had a fire sword and a grimoire, and that made me feel unstoppable right up to the final battles with the big villain robot things, and it was great.
I loved it, and was quite sad the story was over… but so sure if the gamplay could’ve supported more time with it. I think it falls apart at the seams a bit logically if you pull at it, for sure, but frankly it’s an astonishingly great looking game.
9/10
1 Like
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
- Avowed
- Blue Prince
Rolled credits on this. It was a confusing experience.
I managed to get the main objective done inside 56 Days in-game which by all accounts is a very long time, most folk rolled credits n half the time, but as per usual, I just didn’t really get it until much later.
I think there are some real fundamental flaws with the game - the random pulling of rooms and the locking out of the progression makes directed progress towards the end an impossibility - it took four days to do what I wanted to do, even though I knew how to do it, because of the silly run system, for example. But in truth, it was good. I just don’t really know why it was given such high scores, frankly. And there are a lot of issues with the way the game explains its self.
That being said, there is a lot of game here. In fact, like Inscryption, I feel like getting the “end” is actually just the start… but I am exhausted from it. There is so much else to uncover and find, and I am sure it’s interesting, but just getting to the final goal was such a slog I need some space from it. Looked great, played good, with a few caveats, and a few mistakes.
8/10.
3 Likes
1. Kirby and the Forgotten Kingdom - 10/10
2. The Booze of Monkey Island 7/10
3. The Secret of Monkey Island 9/10
4. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle 5/10
5. The Case of the Golden Idol
I’m a massive Point and Click fan so this was absolute catnip to me. For anyone who doesn’t know, you’re given a series of crimes to solve, each one more intricate than the last, but you play as a sort of external viewer instead of being a detective operating within the game world. This means that some crimes you see just as they’ve happened and others that take place across multiple time frames at the same time.
I loved that there was a continuous story following the idol, showing how it was involved in all of the crimes and incidents, and several characters popping up repeatedly. The difficulty curve was almost perfect too with each case containing more locations and characters than the last. The art style was great and really suited the story. My only real negative was the final case which I found overly convoluted and really couldn’t find the end of the piece of string in the tangled mess of timelines and references to older cases.
My wife also enjoyed my numerous post it notes stuck all over the table and me staring at the screen with various looks of consternation. Near perfect for me if only I could have found an entry point to the final case without resorting to hints.
9/10
2 Likes
amazing game, love how grotesque and gnarly everyone looks
1 Like
100%ed Jak and Daxter again last week
3 Likes
just a lovely game to inhabit. hard to think of one I’ve felt as good just wandering through. so many little details in the visuals and sound, plus the physics being such a pleasure… ahh
2 Likes
Yeah, it’s brilliant. It inspired my friend to become an animator, I think
1 Like
5. Final Fantasy VI
Can’t quite remember what upset me (that’s a nice bit of perspective, isn’t it?) but, sure enough, I was feeling low and returned to what seems to be quite a nice source of self-care - replaying the mainline Final Fantasy games in order (and, extratextually, I definitely found myself in need of said self-care so thanks Square and the Gang).
Anyway, this was the game in the early part of the series I was already most familiar with. I’d played a bunch of it on a SNES emulator when I was first getting obsessed with the series thanks to the PlayStation entries; and I also played the PS1 port - getting to the latter half of the game before getting a bit flummoxed in my young age. At first, that made this game a little bit less impressive tbh - there were fewer discoveries, nothing I was marvelling at like (for e.g.) the incredible combat / character levelling system (which VII is about to perfect with even more beautiful modularity). The main new insight was how this is very much the post-modern Final Fantasy: V sort of brought everything to its peak - the storytelling ambitions of the previous games culminated in this vibrant Saturday morning fantasy with wisecracks and a batshit fake-out ending, it presents you with a combat system that lets you really delve into the class system of the previous games and play around with your own combinations of attributes and tactics - and so the big thing VI does is pull all of that apart in a really thrilling way. There’s no single main character; the McGuffin-y crystals and Star Wars Empire wrong-uns become a much more timely evocation of nuclear weaponry and twentieth-century war criminal; the storytelling is an exercise in melodrama and non-linearity and sheer ambition that still feels commendable today.
The thing that really struck me was that second half - much more than just a “it ain’t over yet!” twist like in V, it does the same thing a lot of the previous games do, really (give you a chance to fly around an opened up world map finding secret weapons and things to give you the edge over an absolute cunt of a final dungeon) but it uses the narrative and the characters to make you actually want to explore - to visit the ruined places and reunite with the characters instead of just find some goodies. It feels like a precursor to Nier and Undertale in some ways (you can definitely see how this game would have resonated with Toby Fox) and you can see how much of this desire to open up the series’ archetypes and experiment with the inner workings follows through to the best games in the series. VII effectively taking crystals and castles and using them as a metaphor for extractive resource consumption; VIII just getting extra weird with everything; and IX opting again for ensemble fragmentation on a grand scale. It really is a great game and you really leave it with the feeling that they’ve struck gold and unearthed so many ideas they can explore later on.
I don’t think there would be any point remaking this, but there are definitely wellsprings that future games could still explore.
3 Likes
oof that’s long
anyway, taking a break from Final Fantasy for a bit cause I now have a bit of a to-play list (which is unlike me)
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Promise Mascot Agency
- Whatever the second Golden Idol game is called
- Life is Strange: Double Exposure despite everyone saying it was shite after I paid the discounted price for it on the Playstation Store