Category: Retrospective

CVG might be shutting down

5/21/2014

By Paul Robert Scott

It is with great regret that we learnt today of the potential closure of the gaming website CVG. Having been announced in a statement the website’s owners, Future plc, are entering into a forty-five day consultation period which may see the selling off of the site’s brand and its eventual shutdown. Beginning in 1981 Computer & Video Games, as it was then known, started out life as the world’s first gaming-orientated magazine. While other publications were generally devoted to the hardware of computing, CVG declared itself fun and entertaining.

Five more of the most disappointing sequels in gaming

5/20/2014

By Paul Robert Scott

It’s one of those subjects that you just can’t help but add to. We all have our own pet hates when it comes to gaming sequels. On occasion the mere mention of some can result in symptoms ranging from quiet weeping to severe nausea, and for certain fans you can still find them rocking in a corner steadily trying to forget the anguish of being let down (I’m looking at you Final Fantasy XIII). But what makes it worse is that on occasion it’s not that these sequels are bad games, it’s just that they simply do not live up to the legacy passed onto them. The following then are just a few that might just have been passable if it weren’t for what they had to live up to, and ultimately failed.

Five of the most disappointing sequels in gaming

5/16/2014

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By Vanessa Hague

It's one of the most disappointing feelings a gamer can experience - you fall in love with a game, find out it has a sequel (or sequels), play said sequel and – low and behold – it doesn't quite live up to the expectations. This can be for a variety of reasons; bad story, poor voice acting, clunky and repetitive gameplay - if you can name them, they're probably all in a bad sequel in some form or another. Every gamer, myself included, has fallen prey to a bad sequel. With that in mind, and in no particular order, here are a pick of five worst sequels in gaming.

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Revisiting Batman: Arkham Origins - Part Two

5/16/2014

By Ben Mapp

Of course, Arkham Origins was a game not without its faults. And as you'll know from all of the reviews which have been out since October, there are a good few! Firstly, the game broke the pattern in the series by being the first installment not to take a huge leap (or – in fact – any leap) in gameplay.

Looking back - Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes

5/15/2014

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By Graham Osborne

The Metal Gear Solid series has spanned multiple console generations, from the 90’s to present day, and the storyline is becoming more and more convoluted as time goes on. Possibly as an attempt by Hideo Kojima to sabotage the franchise, allowing him to move on (he’s been trying to escape since MGS2!)

Revisiting Batman: Arkham Origins - Part One

5/14/2014

By Ben Mapp

Released on October 25th 2013, Batman: Arkham Origins was the third main entry of the infamous Arkham series. It was a prequel to Arkham Asylum, taking place in a period of time where Batman is still in the process of meeting his deadliest enemies for the first time. Arkham Origins was meant to be the culmination of the task which began in Arkham Asylum and continued in Arkham City, to take the best elements of both stealth and action genres and have them married in a beautiful, bat-filled ceremony. The finest elements of both games should have merged with clear references to the twisted, iconic asylum of the first game as well as the giant urban prison of the second. The main question everyone was asking however – did this game live up to the infamous ‘Arkham’ reputation?

Looking Back - What was actually wrong with Fable Anniversary?

5/14/2014

By Ben Mapp

Back in 2004, Fable gave a surprising and interesting take on the fantasy genre. It was often inventive. But never innovative. It was clumsily made in fact with a strict targeting system, clunky gameplay and an even more dire control scheme, as well as splurging a rather uncreative storyline when compared to other fantasy RPG’s. Anyone who has ever played a fantasy game knows that complex stories can be mesmerising when done properly (Dragon Age: Origins anyone?), but Fable never once attempted it within its own narrative. Fable’s story felt safe with very little risk taken on behalf of the characters or in-game events, but in its own way, this was fine. This was just Fable. It was just how Fable was.

Top 6 movie tie-ins we'd like to play

5/12/2014

By Paul Robert Scott

For gamers there are few things that can induce a simultaneous feeling of both hope and dread quite like hearing that the latest blockbuster film is going to get a video game tie-in. On the one hand we always hope that the developers will get it right and capture the magic of the big screen, but as experience has taught us the end result is just as likely to be a massive let down. Invariably for every Goldeneye we get an E.T., the latter of which now being legendary for being so bad all unsold copies were literally buried; and even more often we are given a game so mediocre that it’ll find itself back in the pre-owned section before a second playthrough. This is often down to the speed in which the games are produced, with designers often pressured to get their project released at the same time as the film it’s based on.

Tyrion Lannister Will Remember That: Telltales does Game of Thrones

5/11/2014

By Carla Hodge

If you've been keeping updated with all things Westeros in the last month you'll remember that Telltale Games are turning their not inconsiderable talent to current fantasy behemoth, Game of Thrones. The digital world of Westeros will be delivered, as we might expect, in an episodic form, and like The Walking Dead will run concurrently with the the television show that is now in its fourth series.

Red Dwarf: The (Cancelled) Video Game

5/10/2014

By Ben Mapp.

Red Dwarf is a British sitcom set in space produced by the BBC, and features Craig Charles as Dave Lister, the last surviving human, who sets out to return to Earth after a prolonged sleep in cryo-stasis. The show also starred Chris Barrie as a hologram of Lister’s dead bunk-mate, a servant ‘mechanoid’ called Kryten played by Robert Llewellyn, and a rebellious life-form that evolved from Lister’s cat played by Danny John-Jules. The show originally ran from 1988 to 1999 before being discontinued in favour of a live-action film (which never transpired). The franchise eventually returned to British television on Dave in 2012 with a new series, entitled Red Dwarf X (the tenth series if we are to count the 2009 three-part-story ‘Back to Earth’ as Series IX).

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