Review

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Contrast Review: Now That’s Not Thinking with Shadows

contrast-headerIt’s only appropriate that a game whose review on Valentine’s Day has a love story. Okay, that’s probably a bit of a stretch when it comes to Contrast seeing as the game is a puzzle platformer where a man trying to win back his family is only really of minimal importance to the game. However, it’s there so I’m calling Contrast an appropriate game to review today.

When Contrast was released, it certainly carried some big expectations. While Compulsion Games was a rookie developer, the game had been selected as one of two free games on PlayStation 4 at launch for PlayStation Plus members. Was Contrast worthy of such a distinction as being on of Sony’s featured launch titles?

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WRC Powerslide Review: The Spin-off Doesn’t Spin Out

wrc-powerslide-headerMilestone’s WRC series and I have a long history. I’ve played each of the four games and reviewed the last three. The series has evolved from TV presentation to arcade presentation. It’s tried to be rally sim and tried to be a WRC-licensed Dirt game. Every time it makes a change, they take two steps forward and at least one step back.

With WRC Powerslide, Milestone has completely gotten away from proper rallying. Instead, Powerslide is a WRC karting game. While I’ve been looking for the proper WRC series to embrace being a proper rally sim, Powerslide proves that you don’t actually know what you want from gaming until you get it.

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The Stanley Parable Review: A Successful Experiment

the-stanley-parable-review-headerOne of the terms that I’ve been hearing a lot lately is “experimental gameplay.” The other popular descriptor for games is to refer to some as art. They’re labels that seem to be haphazardly applied to anything that doesn’t conform completely to bog standard gameplay conventions. Gone Home was a game that the critics referred to as both experimental and art. While last week we found out that I disagree with those sentiments, I have found a game that both labels could apply to and certainly qualifies as experimental.

The Stanley Parable is an updated, full release of a 2011 Source engine mod. Like Gone Home, there’s no combat in The Stanley Parable. However, that’s where the similarities end. The Stanley Parable is so experimental, so unorthodox and so brilliant that it certainly earns its place as one of 2013’s best games.

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Gone Home Review: A House is Not a Home

gone-home-headerThis year’s surprise hit game was a little indie game called Gone Home. The debut effort of a small indie dev made up of BioShock 2: Minerva’s Den devs is in a way inspired by BioShock but much simpler and focused. For many critics, the straight-forward focus on story made it near-perfect and the game of the year. Many gamers, though, didn’t find it as good as it was hyped up to be. So where does it fall on the spectrum?
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Doctor Who: The Time of The Doctor Review

doctor-who-the-time-of-the-doctor-headerThe recent Doctor Who Christmas special marked a couple of milestones for the series. Not only did The Time of The Doctor mark Matt Smith’s final appearance as The Doctor and Peter Capaldi’s first appearance in the titular role but it was the series’ 800th episode dating back to 1963.

Given the hit or miss nature of many of the 11th Doctor’s adventures, would his final story at the helm of the TARDIS be another Moffat classic or would Eleven go out with a whimper rather than a bang?

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The Walking Dead: Season Two – Episode One (Spoiler-Free) Review: Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

the-walking-dead-season-two-headerThe surprise hit of 2012 was The Walking Dead. Given how often that licensed games disappoint and Telltale’s shaky track record before the release of the first episode of their The Walking Dead series, no one was expecting Telltale’s new game set in the universe  of The Walking Dead comic books to be as great as it was. The first five episodes of The Walking Dead picked up dozens of Game of the Year awards along with seemingly hundreds of other awards in 2012.

So The Walking Dead: Season Two had a lot to live up to. Could the first episode of Season Two of The Walking Dead live up to the original or would it be underwhelming like the 400 Days DLC?

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Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe Review: Back to the Future

shufflepuck-cantina-deluxe-headerThe first video game that I remember playing was Shufflepuck Cafe on my dad’s old Macintosh SE. Sure, there were other games on there but nothing quite captured my attention like Shufflepuck. It might have been in black and white but the graphics looked fine, it had sound (which was a rarity on that computer) and it was just fun to play. I may have poured more hour into that game during my childhood than anything on my NES.

So when I saw this homage to the original Shufflepuck Cafe pop up on Steam, I had to pick it up, if only for nostalgia’s sake. Fortunately, Shufflepuck Cantina didn’t stop at recreating the original in colour but added some depth to the original.

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Speedball 2 HD Review: He Shoots… Off the Post!

speedball-2-hd-headerWith all the retro remakes of classic games have been coming out, it was only a matter of time before I reviewed one of them here. I had never played the original Speedball games when they were released on the Atari ST (and the dozen or so other platforms it was also available on) but given the lack of sports games on PC, I thought I’d give it a try.

All that ended up happening was me questioning the need for HD remakes of classic games.

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WRC 4 FIA World Rally Championship Review: Getting Sideways

wrc-4-fia-world-rally-championship-headerThe great danger of having an annual franchise, and especially one where licensing fees eat up a significant portion of the budget, is that the developer and publisher will pump out a new game every year that features only minor tweaks over the previous year’s effort.

While Big Ben Interactive and Milestone’s WRC series isn’t the biggest or prettiest racing game on the market, you can’t argue that they’re willing to change the formula every year.

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Doctor Who: The Day of The Doctor Review

doctor-who-the-day-of-the-doctor-headerOver the course of 50 years, Doctor Who has come a long way from an old man travelling around in a plain-looking police box in a children’s educational show. Now, it’s a massive worldwide phenomenon that has skyrocketed in popularity since the series was revived from cancellation in 2005.

The 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, a show that was effectively dead for sixteen years, has garnered so much attention that it may be an event that rivals the World Cup final or Super Bowl when all the viewers are counted up. Could The Day of The Doctor live up to the expectations and hype of one of the most hotly anticipated TV events of the year?

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