• Video Games

    Why Silence is The Great Strength of Dragon Quest III

    February 14, 2025 - By 

    Playing the recent HD-2D remake of Dragon Quest III, it didn’t take long for me to realise that this game is special. At first, I attributed it to the stunning, ultra-detailed art style and soothing soundtrack, which has a nostalgic quality even for first time visitors to the Dragon Quest franchise. The magical journey to defeat the evil archfiend Baramos has never looked or sounded better. But I soon realised that there’s more to Dragon Quest III in what it – or rather, its central characters – leave unsaid.  The Silent Protagonist of Dragon Quest III A silent protagonist can…

  • Reviews - Video Games

    Control: My Spellbinding Time With Remedy’s Twisted Fairy Tale

    November 29, 2024 - By 

    Late to the Tea Party  I’m late to the party with Control. I had heard the combat was fun, but beyond that, it’s often been described to me as generic or uninteresting. I hadn’t really considered playing it until I found myself looking for something at least mildly scary to play this past October. Knowing it was developed by Remedy, the team behind Alan Wake, I considered myself set up for a spooky, if slightly dreary, time. What I got instead was a game that had me hooked from the get go, equal parts menacing, zany, and a blast to…

  • Video Games

    Embracing the 7/10 Game – 7 Games You Might Just Love!

    July 7, 2024 - By 

    Recently, NakeyJakey released a video titled ‘In Defense of the 7/10 Games’, in which he explored the virtue, value and necessity of games which are typically considered not worth playing due to their middling score. As usual, I think Jakey has things exactly right; 7/10 has wrongly become a synonym for ‘mid’, when it is literally several spots above the middleground. When did we collectively decide that these average ranking games were not worth our time? True, they usually lack the polish and visual prestige of perfect 10s, but what they sacrifice in perfection they usually make up several fold…

  • Video Games

    Why I Love A Plague Tale’s Exceptional Amicia de Rune

    June 14, 2024 - By 

    I’ve always struggled with linear games, not massively enjoying the experience of ‘playing a movie’ which often amounts to holding down forward on the analog stick. It was with the release of A Plague Tale: Innocence in 2019 that I began to appreciate that linear games don’t have to be glorified walking simulators – that they can showcase how to be a masterclass in video game writing and be as engrossing gameplay-wise as any open world action RPG. After playing the sequel, A Plague Tale: Requiem and watching my partner play it too, I realised that this revelation of mine…

  • Video Games

    The Video Game Companions I Love Most

    May 19, 2024 - By 

    You may not realise it, but your favourite video game companion says a lot about you – they can be indicative of your gameplay style, and you as a person in general. As an example, I always find people’s go-to Skyrim follower very telling. For instance, if you stuck with Lydia, the Housecarl you receive at the start of the game, all the way through to that final battle with Alduin, you must be a very loyal Dragonborn indeed. That, or your self-respect level might be quite low, to be willing to suffer Lydia’s insolent attitude which, frankly, is not…

  • Reviews - Video Games

    6 Reasons Marvel’s Midnight Suns Impressed Me on Apocalyptic Proportions

    April 27, 2024 - By 

    Comic book video games have long been a kind of gaming comfort-food for me. Whether it is delivering pizza in Spider-Man 2, or re-playing the Superman Returns demo over and over (usually just to have Clark Kent lift innocent bystanders miles into the air, only to abandon them in the chimney of a power station). Even now, there is something reassuring in knowing there will always be games like this. Games which first let us pretend to be the most powerful beings on Earth, and then let us behave as we actually would by giving us the silliest of gameplay…