Posts By Mat Growcott

If there was any company that could do a Super Smash Bros clone, it would be Warner Brothers. They have the variety and the history to pull it off. So the oddly named Multiversus should be a Space Jam-style slam dunk right? Like all free-to-play games, it’s not an easy question to answer. The game could be the best thing ever and if the monetization is wrong, then you’ll walk away from the experience feeling bitter. Unfortunately here, there are…

What makes a good game? Is it knights with giant swords, or robots with death rays? Is it really fast cars? Epic adventures in unknown lands? PowerWash Simulator is the latest game to prove it doesn’t have to be any of those things. Actually, my first few hours with it were regularly punctuated with the phrase “I’m not even sure I’m enjoying it”. Which, incidentally, is said about as much whenever I have to do a real-life chore. ...

This week has offered a unique opportunity: to get ahead of the marketing and see behind the curtain. A video of The Last of Us Part I leaked to negative reaction, meaning a likely hurried official blog post reveal was published early morning UK time to claw back the narrative. Except it didn’t. The negativity around it just being another remaster with prettier graphics and a couple of extra game modes wasn’t refuted. But the language was flowerier ...

Sony’s purchase of Bungie and Haven Studios is now complete, but a larger beast looms on the horizon. See the ripples in the water? The Microsoft/Activision merger could be finished within months. This is where we are now. One surprising purchase closes, another one rears its head. Bungie – the people who created Halo – are now owned by PlayStation. And although we don’t quite know how that relationship is going to look, we know that ...

It’s easy to write up my first impressions of Overwatch 2. They’re pretty much exactly the same as my last impressions of Overwatch 1. I know that’s not the most original take on the internet, but unfortunately it is an inescapable one. I loaded up the game, picked a couple of familiar characters, played for a little bit and it could’ve been an update for the old game. And don’t get me wrong: it would’ve been a hell of an…

Bayonetta is a rare breed – a sexually aware video game character in the mainstream in 2022. It’s absolutely unheard of, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be hearing much more at the release of Bayonetta 3 this October. There will be a lot of handwringing about whether this is okay. Is it offensive? Is she empowering or is she titillation? Does it matter? And don’t get me wrong, both sides of this issue will be insufferable. ...

Red Dead Redemption 2 was a modern day classic. It is one of the best games of the last generation, and one of the best selling too. It sold more than twice the copies of God of War. So why the hell has its post-game support been so lousy? The final nail in the coffin came this week when Rockstar revealed it has pulled devs from Red Dead Online to work on Grand Theft Auto 6. There will be no…

Nintendo might be officially supporting Mario Kart on PC. It’s not the Mario Kart you want. Still, that’s progress for the only console manufacturer that doesn’t see the potential of PC. Don’t get me wrong. Official support for Mario Kart Tour on PC is more than I ever expected from Nintendo. But that will hopefully be the first step towards a bright new future. I mean, a glorified mobile release isn’t quite the equivalent of Sony ...

Time travel, monkeys, a kid you really want to beat up – Ape Escape had it all. And now it can again on PlayStation 5. Thanks to the new PlayStation Plus release, the original PS1 classic has found new life, outputting at a higher resolution, with a handful of quality of life features and a trophy list. This is a great chance to relive the good old days or capture a monkey army for the first time. My only knowledge…

Even the Blade Runner version of 2019 looks like a dream compared to 2022. No pandemic, no crazy politics – just murder robots and really bad pollution. Oh, and new coke. So visiting it in video game format for the first time in 20 years felt like it was going to be a real treat. And in many ways it was. This enhanced edition of the original PC point and click game was a labour of love for the developers…

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Overwatch 2, and the value that it actually brings to the franchise. When you’ve been waiting years for a sequel, finding out it isn’t adding that much content is a little disappointing. There have also been questions about its new structure. Can 5v5 work as well as 6v6? Does losing a tank make that big a difference? It has been a mixed response. It’s a few months until release though, and ...

Partly because of leakers, partly because of Covid – the Summer game events over the past few weeks have proven that the era of megaton gaming news is basically gone. That might sound extreme, but it’s true. Outside of billion-dollar acquisitions, when was the last time we were truly surprised by something? And acquisitions aren’t something we want often enough to make up for the quiet. Everybody wants to announce their new game like ...

Final Fantasy VII Remake came to Steam last night. It’s been on PC via the Epic Game Store for six months, and was on PlayStation platforms for 18 months before that. It’s time, Square Enix – bring it to Xbox. I’m the biggest fan of these games. We shelled out on the special edition of the Remake, and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. I loved the DLC too. With its availability slowly expanding, it doesn’t seem like ...

Want to feel nostalgic for the good old days? Be a PlayStation Plus subscriber in Europe and suddenly it’ll feel like the year 2000 all over again. Message boards are full of excited people analysing the minute details of Sony’s new subscription service. Japanese and American fans are comparing lists, celebrating engorged backlogs, and wondering what fantastic PS1 and PS2 games will be coming next. And us here in Europe are watching from afar, like ...

Rose-tinted glasses have hurt the discourse around The Last of Us: Part I, the pretentiously named remake of the original PlayStation classic. I enjoyed it too back in 2013. I enjoyed it less this decade. In the last ten years, games have changed enormously. Naughty Dog games have changed enormously. The Last of Us feels old. Even putting the remaster in 4k can’t change the cobwebs in the level design. I’m taking the comments about The Last of Us ...