Posts By Mat Growcott

I know, I know – I can already hear the comments. But bear with me, because I really do believe it’s true. Final Fantasy 16 is the ultimate Final Fantasy experience. And I think it’s only going to get better from here. If you’re after a stat-driven turn-based RPG, I can imagine you’re rolling your eyes around now. But that’s never been what Final Fantasy is. Yes, it’s the mode that it was delivered. But it’s the ...

Because the Switch has so much excess processing power, Nintendo has approved “gaming security solution” Denuvo to appear on the console. The software is best known as the bane of PC gamers’ lives. It requires authentication to work, and often lowers performance. Neither of these things are good on PC, but, if they work in a similar way, will kill the Switch experience. That’s if the full Denuvo experience is brought to Nintendo ...

In what will hopefully be the final surprise twist in the wild Activision/Microsoft Merger – Ubisoft will control the cloud rights to Activision Blizzard games for the next 15 years. Nobody saw it coming, but early this morning the companies involved made the announcement. Ubisoft will offer all classic and new Activision games for the next 15 years through Ubisoft+. They will also be able to license out the games to other streaming companies, including ...

When America needs to dole out some democracy, there’s only one gang of soldiers brave enough to answer the call: the Broforce. Made up of familiar (but not too familiar) faces from favourite action films and TV series of the 80s and 90s, you get to chew gum and kick ass through dozens of hilariously funny levels. And while the original game came out in 2015, Broforce Forever – the final update – was released earlier this month. And ...

When the original Fallout came out in 1997, I was not even close to being able to play it. And multiple attempts in the years since have proven fruitless. Why? Various reasons. When I was a teenager, I guess it was down to the fact that it was just too damn dense to hold my attention. Things aren’t obvious, and that isn’t a good thing. Even today, hours into the experience, I’m still noticing buttons and finding new ways of…

The original Red Dead Redemption is making its return – and I kind of wish it wasn’t. That’s not entirely fair. It’s fantastic that the barebones remaster of the original game is coming to PlayStation 4 and Switch. The fantastic Xbox backwards compatible version is good enough that it makes sense to re-release the game where it isn’t available. PC could use some love, but there we go. Still, it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. ...

I’ve written a lot about remakes and remasters lately, but by and large they have been for games that are already easily available. Where’s access to the titles we really need? Like, sure, it’s fantastic I can play Grand Theft Auto 3 on my Xbox Series X. But Liberty City Stories is forever trapped on PSP (or PS2 if you want the inferior version). Same goes for Vice City Stories. There are two entries in one of the most major…

Final Fantasy IX was a timeless celebration of everything the franchise had been up to that point. It celebrated the best of the SNES classics, while improving on what we had loved about VII and VIII. With X, a new era began, and things have never quite been the same. And that’s why fans are rightfully worried about the upcoming Final Fantasy IX remake. It hasn’t been officially announced yet. But it was on the Geforce leak and insiders have…

Video games tend not to be simple stories of home life. Guys with guns sell so much better. But unlike film and television, where there’s a healthy market for things that escue the blockbuster, in gaming not so much. Even without the giant budgets, indie games usually follow the same rules of killing, competition, sex and violence as their bigger, more expensive brothers. That’s what makes titles like Venba so special. Sweet, fascinating and best ...

Final Fantasy XIV is coming to Xbox – and all it took was a decade. I don’t believe in looking a gift horse in the mouth. This is amazing news. But it was the secondary part of this announcement that was more interesting to me. As part of the announcement, it was said this was the beginning of a bigger presence from the publisher on Xbox, and in particular Final Fantasy was mentioned. This comes after years of confusion around…