If I’m honest, after taking in both of the ‘sims’ from last year, there really is nothing better than settling down with a tennis title that lets you just smash a ball around and have a real blast doing so. Seeing as Super Tennis Blast lives by that motto, it’s delightful to discover a pretty damn solid, hugely fun tennis game within.
Gearbox Software are in the gaming spotlight at the moment because the highly anticipated sequel to their most popular franchise, Borderlands 3, is releasing in just a few months. So how do you get gamers to be even more excited than they already were? You release brand-new DLC for its seven-year-old predecessor. And pretty great DLC at that.
Even in the presence of so many great options for a Metroidvania experience, the quality of Timespinner is strong enough to warrant interest from not just genre fans, but anyone looking for a consistently engaging and polished 2D adventure epic.
All the big sports franchises are rooted in realism. That’s just a fact. Year on year, the new FIFA, Madden or NBA 2K is billed as the ‘most authentic’ yet. So it comes as a welcome change when a sports game comes along that breaks this monotony. And whilst Super Blood Hockey won’t smash the EA monopoly on ice hockey, it’s still a valuable addition to an arcade sports genre which has declined massively over the years.
I’m a big fan of horror, be it a slasher flick, haunting ‘found footage’, or even a grotesque blood fest. To make a horror experience memorable however it needs to utilise more than just simple jump scares or gruesome scenes; it needs to have an impact on the emotional and mental well being of the individual experiencing it. Oh, and you need to be left with the chills. Whether you agree with that or not is of course dependant on what you look for from a horror media format, but for me, that’s the key, and with the recent release of Xbox One horror adventure Bring to Light, I was hoping to sit down for the fright of my life.
Raising the dead has never really become a popular craft that has captured the hearts of everyday society, instead always frowned upon and regarded as the work of mad scientists and unfavourable seedy characters. In Undead Horde you play as a necromancer in his crusade to raise all manner of undead creatures, bringing death and destruction across the land. Now, while this may sound like a lot of misery and despair, in the hands of reliable developer - 10tons - it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Undead chickens, anyone?
Outer Wilds sits somewhere between the Elite and No Man’s Sky experiences in that there is a game universe and lore with compelling substance, but the exploration of this universe is unpredictable and profoundly aimless. As the game’s tagline suggests, you explore an artistically handcrafted solar system at your whim.
Bethesda’s most recent ventures haven’t proved quite as fruitful as they may have hoped, but there was once a time in which almost everything they touched became a near masterpiece. One such pile of creative genius that many were able to enjoy was id Software’s shooter, RAGE. However, despite being a perfectly capable and mostly enjoyable shooter, things have been pretty silent on the RAGE front, until the announcement broke that RAGE 2 would be coming. And now it’s time to head into that apocalyptic world once more!
It started in America, then Mexico, then Canada and after a short trip over the ocean I have also taken in good old Britain, Ireland and Germany. I'm exhausted, to be honest with you, but there is no time for resting as I am now required to use my railway building knowledge to help the people of France get themselves and their goods across the country safely and on time. So I've got my inspector's uniform on and here I go again with the Railway Empire - France expansion.
If you’re a fan of bikes, racing and all things fast, as well as occasionally picking up a controller and having a blast, then chances are you will slowly have started to build up a sizeable library of enticing bike racers. If you thought you were done though, think again, as after a quiet start to the year, Milestone are back and that can only mean one thing - it’s time for the hustle and bustle of MotoGP 19.
Even though the formula is nothing new and has taken maybe too much inspiration from the Diablo series, it's a great journey and finally Warhammer fans have been given a game they deserve.
The Last Door was released on PC way back in March 2013, after a successful crowdfunding drive. Originally launching in an episodic format, each of which was again crowdfunded, the Complete Edition is finally now finding space on Xbox One. The Last Door - Complete Edition, as the name suggests, includes both Seasons of episodes to play, in addition to some short stories that flesh out the main story; there’s no shortage of content promised. With a story that takes the writings of Edgar Allen Poe and H. P. Lovecraft as inspiration, the scene is set for a spooky adventure. So come with me into a world of Victorian horror and suspense to see if the game holds up today!
Coming from Phoenix Labs is the latest entry in the increasingly popular Free-to-Play (F2P) genre, a game called Dauntless. This has an interesting premise, asking us to go on hunts to destroy monsters, take the trophies that they drop when they are defeated, and then use these bits of dead monster to craft new armour and weapons to help us take out stronger monsters. It’s almost like another game that Capcom released not so long ago, but as this is free, it has to be worth a look, right? I jumped into the Shattered Isles to find out.
The new kid on the block from developers BetaDwarf is actually quite similar to Battle Islands: Commanders in many ways and yet manages to accomplish so much more. The army blokes have been traded in for all manner of weird minions to command and it possess a decent selection of modes to play as well. This is Minion Masters.
I was a bit of a latecomer to the mysterious and magical world of H. P. Lovecraft. I was always aware that he existed and I've obviously been given clues to the universe through a lot of games, comics, and literature, but it's only recently that I've read some of the more interesting work, diving into the theories, lore, and sub-narratives while experiencing Call of Cthulhu back in 2018. So when Lovecraft's Untold Stories arrived on Xbox One I was very keen to see what this game could offer to the world. But does it pay a fitting homage to the legacy of the master, or does it drive itself around the bend to madness?
