Posts By Mat Growcott

Ah yes, Worms. That beloved tactical franchise from the early-to-mid 90s. You remember – with the sheep and the “Oh dear”. Know what it needs? To become an ACTION-PACKED BATTLE ROYALE, BABY. I don’t know if that conversation ever took place, but whatever the thought process, meet Worms Rumble. It’s a multiplayer-only 2D-shooter, taking some of the more familiar elements of Worms and repackaging them for the new generation of ...

If there’s one thing the Soulsborne games have been missing all these years, it’s hoards of Wookies. Or childlike Hobbits you can set fire to. Or White Walkers. It turns out that the Soulsborne formula is pretty adaptable, especially within the fantasy genre. And, having just finished Jedi: Fallen Order, it’s something I’d like to see adapted even more. Demon’s Souls gave me a new appreciation for the genre, and for the difficulty ...

Puzzles! Romance! Adventure! If Call of the Sea was a story from the 1930s, its advertising would speak entirely in exclamation points – and it’d almost live up to them. It’s filled with brainteasers designed to fairly but frequently trip you up, all on one of the most beautiful islands in gaming. It boasts next-gen features like raytracing, but doesn’t feel the need to overdo them or stray into the dangerous territory of gimmicky. The ...

Blame coronavirus, undue hype or whatever – this year hasn’t been good for gaming events. There’s been plenty to be excited about, but very little that tipped into real surprise territory. Completely expected sequels, promises upon promises and not much else. That’s 2020 in a nutshell. So imagine my surprise when, just a few weeks before this awful year is finally over, a gaming event actually delivers. The stops were pulled out. Not ...

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 – a game title that deserves a Kingdom Hearts style “2.5D Ultima Super Dream Final Edition” if I’ve ever heard one. People know what Tetris is, and a good chunk of those will know what Puyo Puyo is if you explain it in Mean Bean Machine terms. It says what it is, for better or for worse. But hidden behind that slightly mystifying name is a potent mix of puzzling fun that never gets old –…

There are some games where the minimum you want to be is legendary. Luckily, Immortals Fenyx Rising makes that nice and easy. On a basic level, you’ll spend most of your time in-game helping out gods and exploring for items which will enable you to level up. You’ll do the former through quest items, while the latter will take a bit more work on your part. That work is really worth it. The more you can level up your equipment,…

Breath of the Wild meets Assassin’s Creed – it’s a recipe that amazingly we haven’t had until exactly this moment. But boy, does Immortals Fenyx Rising taste good. Mixing in a bit of fourth-wall breaking Borderlands humour and plenty of mythology, this is a game that wears its influences on its sleeves. You enter every “shrine” knowing full well that you’re venturing into a Zelda-like environment, and that’s just ...

You may have heard that Demon’s Souls is pretty tough. That’s not entirely accurate. The truth is that Demon’s Souls is very, very simple. Everything about it is signposted. It wants you to exploit every inch of it. Enemies show what they’re doing from a million miles away. There’s always somewhere to hide, or to run to. And now, with the arrival of the remake on PS5, you have over a decade of encylopedia-like knowledge from ...

The internet is full of Demon’s Soul experts. This is a game that, for 11 years, has built a dedicated and industrious following of people who want to know everything there is to know about this game. I am not one of them. I’m not running the game in 40 minutes, carefully researching what sticky white stuff to pick up and which to leave behind. I’m not counting frames so I can roll over that bloody annoying boulder in the…

How good can Tetris get? The definitive version on the Gameboy (or NES) did everything that this genre needed to do. Every effort since has just been more of the same. How much innovation can there be after billions of blocks? Turns out, you can squeeze quite a lot out of it. There’s been plenty to play on Xbox Series X this past week, but Tetris Effect: Connected has proven to be the most addictive. If you have Gamepass, there’s…