PC Reviews

It seems like every game they release these days calls itself a 'survival' game. How many of them actually are? To me, if you are calling a game a survival game, that implies consequence. If you are playing a game and the only consequence of failing to survive is that you have to go back to the last checkpoint, then what you are playing is not a true survival game, in my opinion. I can say one thing with absolute certainty: Don't Starve is a survival game.

High Moon Studios, most notable for their Transformers titles, have taken it upon themselves to finally give Deadpool, Marvel's infamous antihero, a starring role in his very own video game. It's a game that certainly captures the redeeming (and some not so redeeming) qualities of the crazed mercenary, but suffers from design decisions that, while heavy on “brakkabrakka!”, are dated and lack style. Somebody Get This Guy a Straitjacket!

While I've thoroughly enjoyed playing Borderlands 2 like a fiend the last ten months, I never found myself to be fully satisfied with the game. Sure, it feels great to get all the uber-rare weapons and mods and take on all the raid bosses and whatnot - I'm talking about emotionally: if there's one way Borderlands 2 disappointed me, it was how it mostly wasted its opportunity at creating a resonant narrative: even the death of a beloved character didn't provide anything but the most particular story beats.

Knights of Pen and Paper is a game designed to take you back to a time when a group of likely slightly smelly individuals would sit around a table, getting engrossed in a story of their own creation. By lovingly combining table top RPG with the gameplay devices of late eighties/early nineties, Behold Studios have created a game that is both nostalgic and fresh, seriously fun and, at times, frustratingly true to its source.

Each and every year sees the release of dozens of sports management simulators, and the vast majority of them are extremely niche. While the likes of Football Manager destroys millions of man hours each year, similar games are often completely overlooked, panned or even mocked for their apparent lack of interactivity or their place in the sports hierarchy.

Taking cues from Portal, 3AM Games' debut title is one of the many physics-based puzzlers that have been emerging as of late. Initially conceived on Kickstarter, Magrunner: Dark Pulse uses magnetism as its core game mechanic and has a heavy focus on narrative. Regrettably, this ambitious project is held back by some pesky flaws.

With light beams shimmering around sails, and the deck glistening with a mixture of rain of seawater, the opening gameplay of Jack Keane 2 is a more cinematic adventure than you’d expect from point and clicks. You might be fooled into thinking you’re playing a genre where the main mechanic isn’t clicking randomly on everything in sight.

The Dracula franchise started as a PS1 game back in 1999 and a mere three sequels have been released since, with each subsquential title being made by a different developer each time. This time it's the turn of developers Microids to try breath some life back into a dying franchise. The Bram Stoker story of Dracula should be excellent material for a pretty good video game. Blood-sucking vampires, gothic fantasy world, conspiracies, legends, horror and folklore would make for a good game if in the capable hands of a developer willing to go that extra mile. ...

Sonic After the Sequel is a fan made retro-inspired Sonic game set between Sonic 2 and 3 that was released as a free download this week. It's not a hack or a rebuild of something SEGA decided to ditch, but a full game designed and made from scratch, with new levels, new opponents, new obstacles and new music. If you didn't know much about Sonic history, you'd be forgiven for thinking this game is some long lost Genesis title. Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give it is that it feels like that regardless of when it was released or which platform it ...

As a manly man, I like my games to be very manly. But every now and then I'll set aside my lumberjack simulators to play something on the girly side. Among the girliest of games was American McGee's Alice which came out as a PC exclusive over ten years ago. After a decade of fans demanding more, Electronic Arts finally relented and released the much-anticipated sequel. That was two years ago, when fan expectations were incredibly high, and the game released to mixed reviews. I decided to strap on my pinafore, grab my teacup and take a trip down this rabbit ...