Hyper Light Drifter

Posted 2:01pm Saturday 17th September 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: A+ Hyper Light Drifter completely passed me by when it was released near the beginning of this year. I was already familiar with images of its protagonist: a caped, androgynous adventurer, in a world defined by 16-bit pixel art and heavily contrasting colours. I had heard that it was Read more...

Abzû

Posted 1:01pm Saturday 10th September 2016 by Lisa Blakie

Rating: B+ Giant Squid is an indie game studio founded by Matt Nava, the art director who also worked on the critically-acclaimed Journey and Flower, both of which rank among my favourite games. Giant Squid’s first game Abzû was announced back in 2014 at Sony’s E3 press Read more...

Shadow of the Colossus

Posted 12:55pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: Classic While it doesn’t deal with heavy psychological themes, Shadow of the Colossus is another beautifully empty game that instead imbues a feeling of the mythical. It is the 2005 spiritual successor to Team ICO’s first game, Ico. While that game was a dreamlike, Read more...

Silent Hill 2

Posted 12:53pm Sunday 4th September 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: Classic Modern gaming can be alienating to some. This is not because of excessive difficulty or because of technology advancing too quickly, but because of sensory overload. There is a trend for modern games to be open-world, action packed, maximalist blockbusters. One can quickly get Read more...

Pandemic Legacy: Season 1

Posted 12:18pm Sunday 21st August 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: A+ Learning to play board games is usually a single-evening affair. You may spend an evening learning the rules, and every evening thereafter you will be developing your own strategy around those rules. What enables you to develop a strategy is the fact that the game’s rules will Read more...

Her Story

Posted 5:58pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: A It’s almost traditional that Full Motion Video (FMV) adventure games are utter shit. Their cutscenes were very poorly implemented, they contained no writing or acting of any merit, and they were unpleasant to play in every aspect. Fortunately, modern game developers only use an Read more...

Tormentum: Dark Sorrow

Posted 6:00pm Monday 15th August 2016 by Campbell Calverley

Rating: B- As we jump from one adventure game to another, Tormentum: Dark Sorrow is an indie horror adventure game that runs mainly on its fantastic art style. The makers of Tormentum were inspired by the art of Dark Souls, Zdzislaw Beksinski (who, by the way, is FANTASTIC) and HR Giger Read more...

Dark Souls III

Posted 12:54pm Sunday 7th August 2016 by Campbell Calverley

What a pleasant surprise for me that Dark Souls III came out on my birthday! I have been a massive fan of From Software’s esoteric and brutally difficult Souls games for a long time now. I finished the first Dark Souls game for the second time earlier this year. I’ve never gotten tired Read more...

Pokémon Go

Posted 1:23pm Sunday 31st July 2016 by Lisa Blakie

Rating: B- When I was younger, my family used to go to this beach at Kaka Point near the Catlins. My brother convinced me that if I open my eyes underwater in the ocean I would see Pokémon. I never did – because, you know, salt water and stuff – but for whatever reason I one Read more...

Abe’s Oddysee

Posted 12:42pm Sunday 24th July 2016 by Ryan Collins

Rating: CLASSIC I first played Abe’s Oddysee on a demo disc that came with the original PlayStation. The demo showcased almost the entire first section of the game, which I played through several times before buying the full game—and its sequel, Abe’s Exoddus—sometime Read more...