Last week, I was playing Hades 2 for about 2 - 3 hours every day. It definitely became 'one of those games' where you play it as much as you can, and when you aren't playing it you wish that you were. It is so rare that I become obsessed with a game like this, and I always welcome it. I usually jump back and forward between numerous games throughout most of the year, but to find a game that takes my full attention and has the hour count to maintain that is a rare treat. Occasionally, this obsessiveness can go wrong in some key ways (See World of Warcraft, Satisfactory), but generally these are the games I want to play the most. I finished Hades 2 last week and have not touched it since, and really have no desire to. This happened because of one thing: Hades 2 had a really lousy ending. I was somewhat alerted to this from the place where all good video game opinions go to die: Reddit, or more specifically, the Hades subreddit. While scrolling through excellent fan art and go...

  When I first started this blog I promised myself one post a week, when that did not work I promise myself one post a month.... Hey guys what's been going on with you?!? Hahahaha...ha....   You Can't Spell 'Saudi Blood Money' Without EA Although the industry keeps putting out excellent (mostly) indie games on a near-monthly basis, it feels like it's doing its best to dig its own grave and jump right into the hole. The first horseman comes to us via Electronic Arts, as usual, with the announcement that the company will be completely bought out by the Triforce of Evil Capitalism: Saudi Arabia, Jared Kushner and a private equity firm for an eye-watering $55 billion. Now I've never been the biggest fan of EA, but they have, on occasion, made some games that I have loved. Ok, yes, this is mostly Mass Effect, but I have also enjoyed the Skate and Battlefield franchises. But this leaves me in a pretty awkward position. For one, EA was having one of the better years th...

  I’m rolling down the streets of San Vansterdam doing pop-shuvits and nosegrinding benches when I stumble across one of the larger skate parks in the area. It has numerous ramps, rails and even a loop-de-loo, the top of which is missing. However, what catches my eye isn’t any of that. It is a group of about 6 to 7 other players leaping off a nearby building rooftop and cavemaning into a ramp, rocketing themselves into the sky going off a nearby quarter pipe. When in Rome, right? I join them as more players gather, but a few minutes later, one of the players spawns a rail right next to the ramp everyone is cavemaning onto. Then, they spawn another and another until they have made this ludicrously long rail, probably 100 metres long. So now the unwritten challenge has changed to ‘how far can you grind this rail going 1000 kilometres an hour?’ Skater after skater tries, but it’s more difficult than it sounds because rails aren’t connected, so you gotta do little ollies between the ra...

    Sorry for not posting in a while… again. Genuinely been pretty busy over the past few weeks, but actually had some time off for the first time in months, and with that spare time, I basically did nothing—the perfect holiday. Anyway, there is plenty to discuss, so let’s get to it.  Microsoft Sucks, Continues To Sucks The Xbox platform has been my platform of choice for three out of the last four generations of consoles. OG, 360 and Series X have been my go-tos, with PS4 beating the Xbox One because that console is not good. I have been an Xbox fan since there was an Xbox, and despite going through the Red Ring of Death and the Xbox One launch fiasco, I can confidently say that Microsoft and the Xbox platform are in its worst place in its history. Yesterday, Microsoft laid off thousands of people company-wide, with one of the biggest subsections hit being the Xbox division. Studios like Rare, Turn 10, and Raven are suffering cuts, and The Initiative is being completely ...

Sorry, I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been working a lot over the last several weeks. So much in fact that I literally got a text message as I was writing this to come into work tomorrow. As much as I love money, I also love free time, so now that I've got some, let's get to my random thoughts for the week. Grand Theft Auto Online Is Incredible and A Fucking Disaster Despite my better judgment, I got back into GTA Online about two weeks ago. Mainly for two reasons: to see how the new ‘enhanced’ version ran on PC, and I wanted something mindless and grindy to play, which it fit the bill perfectly. The new enhanced version has some good upgrades: raytracing is nice, load times are significantly improved, and adding animals back in the open world is a nice touch. For a free upgrade for existing owners, it’s not bad. The game loop itself is still enjoyable. One of my favourite things about GTA Online compared to its contemporaries is that you’re always working towards something ...

  While Dark Ages continues Doom’s legacy of ripping and tearing, it does so with dull teeth In 1996, Marvel released a promotional comic based on the 1993 video game Doom. In the comic, the main protagonist, ‘Doom Guy,’ in a fit of barely controlled rage, claims he wants to ‘rip and tear’ a Cyberdemon’s huge guts. This comic was often mocked and ridiculed in the Doom community as completely ridiculous… until Doom (2016) was released, where ‘rip and tear’ was introduced as the tagline for the whole series. You might have thought it was stupid to pin your franchise on something your fans mocked you for literally decades, but after playing 2016, most people looked at ‘rip and tear’ and thought, “Yeah, that’s exactly what this game is about”.   All shooters should make me feel like this What Doom (2016) and its sequel Doom Eternal did was use this stupid tagline as an ethos for its first-person shooter design. Most shooters often focus on the spectacle of what the player was doin...