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Independentie

News [1]
Opinion [2]
Business [3]
Sport [4]
Life [5]
Style [7]
Entertainment [8]
Travel [9]

Menu Sections

Games

November 2022

Bayonetta 3 review: The witch who says too much is never enough

When too much excess is not enough, you summon Bayonetta. Everyone’s favourite demon-slaying witch set the bar for glorious overkill in 2010’s original, only for the 2014 sequel to eclipse it with the gratuitous brilliance of its fantastical brawling.

God of War Ragnarok review: Think your family’s weird? Try being the son of an angry demigod

Ah, they grow up so fast. One day they’re a timid child dependent on a parent for protection and wisdom. The next they’re a narky teenager full of back chat while capable of saving their dad’s life.

Gotham Knights review: Four into one is an uneasy fit

Rumours of Batman’s death have been hard to pin down. At the end of 2015’s Arkham Knight, the last major sighting of the Caped Crusader in videogames, he appeared to perish in a blazing explosion only to be glimpsed alive in the final frames of the closing cut-scene.

October 2022

Mario + Rabbids, Sparks of Hope review: Fabulous fusion of fun

Honey and pizza. Strawberries and balsamic vinegar. Bacon and chocolate. OK, maybe not the last one but some combinations defy expectations and turn out delicious.

Jennifer Wilde, Unlikely Revolutionaries review: Spirited revival plays with Oscar’s legacy

OSCAR WILDE fancied himself many things but detective was probably not among them. He did, however, like a macabre ghost story.

Roadwarden game review: The power of words

They don’t make ’em like this any more. But it’s more than novelty value that entitles Roadwarden to stand out from the crowd as it harks to text-adventure classics of the early 1980s.

FIFA 23 review: The great and the grubby play out a draw at the end of an era

YOU might be blissfully unaware but EA just killed FIFA, its golden goose, with little fanfare. Unable to come to a deal with football’s puppetmasters over the rights to the name, EA has let lapse its rights to the FIFA name.

Serial Cleaners review: A dirty job but someone's gotta do it

MURDER is a messy business. It tends to come back to haunt most killers, particularly if they don’t cover their tracks.

Guybrush Threepwood in Return to Monkey Island

Return to Monkey Island review: Buckle up for a slapstick romp

Wisdom has it that there are only seven basic plots in fiction. As for gaming, you could probably distil its variations into seven genres, of which one pillar would be the point-and-click adventure.

September 2022

Splatoon 3 review: Sink into the ink

It feels as if Nintendo has been remaking the same game for the past seven years – writing, rewriting and editing the building blocks that make up this most surprising of first-person shooters.

The Last of US Part 1 remastered features the story of Ellie and Joel

The Last of Us Part 1 remaster: Once more with feeling

Can you improve on perfection? Should you even try? Those questions and many more like them raise their troublesome heads in this latest remaster of the seminal 2013 post-apocalypse heart-tugger.

Saints Row review: Reboot takes a walk on the mild side

When you’ve journeyed beyond the point of madness, maybe you pass back into the realm of sanity. That seems to be the approach in this reboot of Saints Row.

Madden NFL 23 review: Graceful goodbye to the big guy

He's gone but not forgotten. When venerable coach and pundit John Madden died last December, only a few naïve souls could have believed that spelled the end for the behemoth franchise that bears his name.

Manon Gage (right) as Marissa Marcel in one of her roles in Immortality

Immortality review: Deconstruction of movies drags us down a very deep rabbit hole

It takes guts, ambition and a touch of madness to deconstruct the entire film industry via the medium of a videogame. But that’s the arresting goal of Sam Barlow’s new release, Immortality, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

August 2022

Blade Runner – Enhanced Edition review: Replicant running out of time

Ridley Scott’s 1982 film inspired by a short story from Philip K Dick long ago morphed from mere cult hit to seminal sci-fi masterpiece. The 1997 game of the movie never escaped the orbit of its fanatical fans despite being a superior point’n’click adventure – for its time.

We Are OFK review: The fake band with real tunes

“Who’s watching?” The first prompt when you start up a new save in We Are OFK should be a clue. This ain’t no ordinary game.

Cult of the Lamb review: Twisted systems

This must have been what it was like during the Crusades, those Vatican-sanctioned wars on heretics, atheists and Islamists in medieval times.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 review: Stunning scenery has the edge over storyline and swordplay

You’ll never risk hand-crippling bouts of RSI when you pick up the fourth (yes, fourth) in this RPG saga, which is as much known for its sweeping vistas as its deep combat and sprawling storyline.

As Dusk Falls differs from film and TV in that the players can shape the direction of the plot

Premium

As Dusk Falls review: Interactive drama forces you to make bad choices for greater good

The intersection of film and videogames offers an environment that is at once fertile and rife with pitfalls. So many games have failed over the decades at trying to integrate plot and character. But when they get it right, the result allows for something no other medium can touch.

Live a Live review: A sum greater than its parts

Clearly, something’s been lost in translation with that title. But given that Live a Live is a remake of a long-lost but much-loved Japanese RPG perhaps no one at Square Enix or Nintendo was brave enough to suggest a more meaningful English version.

July 2022

Stray review: Paws for thought

THINK about all the words you could associate with cats: aloof, fussy, independent, fickle. You could workshop the hell out of the pitch for a game about cats and the one you would never hit on is “helpful”.

F1 22 review: Dramatic driving is back

This year’s F1 season has produced more drama than we’ve seen in yonks. Think of the new Verstappen vs Leclerc rivalry or Mercedes going into reverse. Not to mention the amusing if painful phenomenon of “porpoising”, where cars bounce up and down on high-speed straights due to different aerodynamics introduced by 2022 rule changes. Apparently, it hurts like hell for the drivers.

Fire Emblem Warriors, Three Hopes review: Death by a thousand cuts

Many videogames sell a power fantasy where one hero takes on an army and wins. The genre known as Musou stretches this concept to breaking point by pitching a singular protagonist against hundreds if not thousands of enemies at once.

Neon White review: Cutting to the quick

A whole community has sprung up around the concept of speedrunning games – completing their storyline as quickly as possible using skill, luck and exploits that not even the makers intended.

Returnal for PS5: The dark time-loop fantasy is one of the newer games

PS Plus review: PlayStation’s ‘Netflix for games’ may leave us spoilt for choice

Ownership is so last century. Few people buy CDs or DVDs any more. Music has become an all-you-can-eat buffet since Spotify emerged in the early 2010s. TV for many people now means streaming services such as Netflix.

Card Shark review: Playing the hand you weren't dealt

YOU might picture an action game requiring deft thumbs as something like Call of Duty or FIFA. The ones that demand mastery of shoulder buttons, twirling thumbsticks and muscle memory.

June 2022

The Quarry review: The summer camp from hell

You’ve seen this movie before. Hell, you’ve probably played this game before too. But that doesn’t stop The Quarry supplying a steady stream of schlocky chills and thrills in what approximates to a playable teen-slasher movie.

Silt review: Surreal slice of subaquatic scares

Few games invent a whole genre but 2010’s Limbo can justifiably claim ownership of the space marked “2D gothic chiller”.

Mario Strikers - Battle League Football review: Chaotic from the kick-off

In the US, Nintendo conveniently drops the word “football’ from the title of this one. Might confuse the poor lambs over there. But, honestly, it should have excised the word in every territory, such is the fast and loose relationship between Mario Strikers and the beautiful game as we know it.

Sniper Elite 5 deploys an enhanced X-Ray Kill-Cam that its makers say is ‘grislier than ever’