Let's Sing Queen (Xbox One) - Review

 Hi! I know, I know, it's been a looonnngggg time. How is everyone? 

I think we can all agree there's been a lot going on these past few months for everybody, but couple that with some health issues, work issues and just general everyday life with two kids busy-ness and unfortunately this here little blog fell by the wayside. I'm not proud of it, but it's what's happened so let's acknowledge that and move on. 

So I am back typing at you about GAMES! I didn't know whether I'd ever see the day again to be honest. But as life slowly starts to lean towards some semblance of normality - or at least as normal as my life ever gets - I've found myself with some time to not only play games, but write about them too! And more importantly, actually wanting to write about them. I've been itching to let my fingers lose on the keys for a while now and after a particularly crazy week (that anyone I have text this week can attest to) I decided enough was enough. It was time for me to do something for me. 

And it just so happens that what I want to be doing right now, for me, is telling you lovely lot about a game I've had the pleasure of sharing with my family this past week. 

Let's Sing Queen. 

We are a family of Queen fans, and rock in general (though my daughter has been known to break my heart and ask Alexa to play Dua Lipa or Ariana Grande, the little traitor!). So when I had an email about Let's Sing Queen I jumped on it, immediately replying to them basically begging for something to do with my kids that wasn't Roblox or Fortnite. Something I might actually have a chance at beating them at. Seriously. Kids playing Fortnite are something else, it makes me feel a little bit motion sick when I see them jumping around, shooting (and actually hitting) people, or worse 'ninety-ing' which I am reliably informed by both my 8 and 11 year olds is the term for building stairs impossibly fast at - you guessed it - 90 degree angles. Lockdown was tough, guys. 

So whilst the game downloaded I realised we don't actually own any microphones for the Xbox One. Whoops. Luckily, developers have realised that not every household wants drawers full of plastic peripherals that only get pulled out when there are drunk people around and they have developed an app that you can download onto your phone and sing your heart out into. Brilliant. About nine seconds later, we were ready to go! 

We went for the first mode that came up and was greeted with a huge list of Queen songs. Little fact about me as a parent - I used to sing Bohemian Rhapsody to my son every night before bed. I would like to stress this wasn't done in a serious manner - it usually involved copious amounts of 'duh-nuh-nuh-nuh'-ing and screeching the guitar solos - but I took pride in my ability to make him laugh his little heart out just by lifting my eyebrows as high as possible to try and make my voice go higher. What great times we had. 

Obviously, we picked Bohemian Rhapsody as the first song we would try out. Each person takes it in turns to shout, scream, hum or whatever into their phone to indicate which player they are and away we went. The video plays in the background as the song words scrawl across the screen - which I have to say was a pleasant distraction - and we all wailed with varying degrees of success at getting the little glowing ball to stay in the bar that indicated where our voices should be going. 

Now, obviously, one person can not sing every little part in a song - especially not Bohemian Rhapsody. But if you've ever used - or even seen - a karaoke machine in your life you will be familiar with the whole words as dots and bars thing. The bars appear above the lyrics and usually indicate how long you should sing that particular syllable for. There were obvious gaps in these, where the backing track would carry on the singing, but you'd be given a chance to suck a little breath in and not kill yourself trying to get every last word of the 'Galileo' part of Bohemian Rhapsody out of your lungs. I was disappointed though. When I used to sing it to my son this was the most fun part - the headrush and the very questionable sounds coming out of my mouth as I used the last of my breath to wheeze out 'magnificcco-ooo-ooo'. I felt robbed. 

The song ended and the scores came up and sure enough - for the first time in months - I had beaten my kids at a game. AND THEY WEREN'T COMPLAINING! Anyone with kids knows that usually when you triumph over them you're met with whines of 'you didn't give me a chance' or 'I didn't know the buttons' or, the one I found the most annoying 'Mum you were blocking the screen on purpose!' How dare they figure that out so soon! 

Instead they immediately started arguing about which song to do next. So whilst it wasn't exactly a relaxing environment at least neither of them were screaming about how toxic the other one was. Again, thanks Fortnite. 

To cut a long story short - because reading this likely isn't as exciting for you as it is for me - what started as a 'lets pop this on for half an hour before bed' kinda thing ended up being a full size, headliner set at Glasto. Two hours later, voices hoarse and throats sore we turned it off - although the kids still wanted to carry on. 

I can honestly say it was the most fun we have had in a long time. As I touched upon before, lockdown has been tough - as it has on everyone. We've been better than most, we've got an abundance of games, movies and books in our house, but with all the added stresses of the world I don't think any of us were actually enjoying the time we spent on games etc. We should have been, obviously, but we had had such high access to them over the last few months that things were starting to lose their shine. We were taking things for granted. Or just losing our excitement for them because we could play all day if we wanted. 

Let's Sing Queen gave us a new experience that we really revelled in. And, honestly, one my son might not have been so open too previously, being at the age he is. But we all threw our all into giving silly performances to make each other laugh. The competition between us was healthy and fun. We laughed and danced and sang our hearts out to some of the greatest music ever made. 

The one thing my kids weren't too pleased with was the fact we were playing on my profile and - as far as we could see anyway - there isn't the option to sign anybody else in so that everyone levels up. So I was levelling up and unlocking new avatars and the like and they weren't. My son wasn't too bothered, but my daughter wasn't pleased, especially when I unlocked a particularly cool avatar with star makeup on her face. 

The app on our phones worked perfectly all night too, with no noticeable dropouts or issues, even when the kids phones dropped to below 5% charge - which usually means your phone can only work as a paperweight until you plug it in.

I think Let's Sing Queen could bring a whole new fanbase to the Lets Sing games. Back on the 360 (before the kids came along) we used to have singing games that featured the usual pop tracks that only came out of the drawers when we had parties that featured copious amounts of alcohol. We're just not really a pop music family, so the Let's Sing games are often overlooked by us and any we have looked at have been quickly put back, because we're just not that interested in the track list. But fill a game with just Queen tracks and we had a brilliant night. In fact, it was the first thing the kids asked to do when they trudged in from school the next day too. 

What I'm trying to say is that by releasing a game like Let's Sing Queen, they're not going to alienate the already existing fanbase. Have you ever met anybody who doesn't like at least a few Queen songs? Instead, they have the opportunity to sell games to people who may not have bought a Let's Sing game previously - like us. The fanbase can only grow by adding a game like this to the stable. 

Lets face it - we're still not going many places. If you're missing days out, making memories with your family then I wholeheartedly recommend you pick this game up. It's about £40, but lets face it, what else are you spending your money on this year? Pick this up, get the app downloaded on phones, iPads, whatever. Grab some cans of pop and some sweets and have a little house party with the kids. I promise you, you'll have fun. The nights we have spent on this game will be some of our fondest 2020 memories for sure. 

World War Z (Xbox One) - Review

I'm sure we can all agree that it's been a while since any of us played a decent zombie slaying game. A few years ago zombies were the done thing, seemingly slammed into any game to make a quick buck (I'm looking at Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare here - though admittedly that was quite a lot of fun). They were popping up everywhere and we were lapping it up, spending untold amounts on the expansion packs for extra maps in the latest Call of Duty's zombie mode. 

Zombie games were truly mindless escapism for me. I'd party up with some friends and we'd mulch through Left 4 Dead together. I had a go at Dead Rising, which never really gripped me - but admittedly my favourite part of the first game was taking photo's. Case: Zero however, the Arcade game released on the Xbox 360 was one of my favourite games of that gen. 

Maybe it's because life generally got busier or maybe it's because there were more open-world games released that caught my attention, but I soon found myself shying away from zombie games. I found myself bored of them and have still yet to complete Season 2 of Telltale's The Walking Dead, despite loving the first one. My few precious hours a week gaming for my own enjoyment are usually spent on my Switch now that my kids are old enough to commandeer the Xbox. The little bugger's don't even go to bed much earlier than me anymore. *sob*.

I'd read World War Z a long time ago and had loved the book. The film, not so much but that's by the by. To be honest I'd forgotten that World War Z the game was happening. I had remembered hearing about it, but it seemed like such a long time ago that I assumed it had been cancelled. Luckily the PR people behind it sent out a fair few emails in the run up to the game releasing, so I sent in my request. 

World War Z's campaign is separated into four episodes in different parts of the world. You can go it alone, but it was super easy to join in with three randoms and jump straight into the first episode set in a New York subway. 

Now obviously this game isn't going to be a huge story driven game, but I have to admit I found more story than I was expecting. There's quite a lot of choice in terms of who you play as, and you unlock their own back stories by playing as them, which is pretty neat. You also unlock tiers within the six different classes on offer - gunslinger, hellraiser, medic, fixer, slasher and exterminator. Each of these classes has different strengths and weaknesses and they're a lot of fun to play around with. Each and every weapon has separate upgrades too, making your weapon of choice stronger the more you use it. 

This first level starts off easy enough, but if someone on your team isn't pulling their weight you will soon notice. Luckily enough for me I was in a team of people who had all played the game much more than I had. 

There was a point in that first level that had me in awe. If you've played it you likely had the same experience. The zombies in World War Z - or 'zekes' as they're known in this universe - are fast and numerous. They will clamber over everything in their path, resembling a giant wave. The first time I saw this I honestly just watched it. I thought the animation of this was brilliant. Then the bastards came crashing through the glass and into the building we were holed up in. 

We had set up a couple of traps and were all equipped with plenty of weaponry but a few of us went down and needed reviving. They were running up the stairs towards us and I thought we had a handle on them. Then I realised I was receiving damage and turned around. Behind me the zombies had formed a what is basically a zombie pyramid and had used this to climb up and surround us. 

Honestly, that first level of World War Z really made me fall for this game. I was surprised by it. Seeing that first huge wave of zombies crashing down the road was unforgettable. I had doubted that this game would feel the same as either the book or the film and I was wrong. 

Continuing through the campaign will see you visit Jerusalem, Moscow and Tokyo in turn. There isn't really much to say about the objectives in any of these areas. Let's be honest if you were in the middle of World War Z, would you be bothered about anything other than fighting for your life? There are, of course, some objectives but these are mostly used to lead you around the map and keep you in certain areas for long enough that you can get swarmed. 

Yes this can get repetitive. But what game can't really? In my spare time I'm currently playing Assassin's Creed: Odyssey - a huge open world game that has fort after fort to 'complete'. This gets repetitive too, but I'm still playing it 40 hours later. 

World War Z looks better than I was expecting too. I mean this is a game that literally has hundreds of moving parts on the screen at any one time, but I never saw it stutter. Is it the prettiest game I've ever played? No. But it certainly couldn't be described as ugly and there's a level of detail I honestly wasn't expecting. 

There are a few online modes too, which I have to admit I haven't ventured too heavily into, choosing to replay the campaign levels instead. I don't often get time to play online anymore, but there seems to be plenty here to keep the more active online gamer happy. 

The long and short of it is whether or not you have fun with a game and I really have had fun reviewing World War Z. I challenge any of you to play it and come away honestly stating that you were bored. I'm betting that the numbers would be low. 

Outward (Xbox One) - Review

My son was very excited when Outward turned up in the post. We had decided earlier that week that we needed to put a little bit more effort into spending time just us two, before he's a teenager that doesn't want to admit to gaming with his Mum. We don't game together half as much as I'd like to these days, mostly because his friends will spam him with invites to play Fortnite and fill the split screen that I'm using until I give up and let him do it. This seemed like a good game to try out together after his little sister was in bed, and would hopefully be less frustrating than playing Lego games with him when he was smaller. 

It wasn't.

In fact, it may well have been more frustrating, but for once this wasn't down to my son. The days where he apparently couldn't follow simple instructions are long gone (hallelujah!) so there was no repetition of 'go to the left. No, the left. THE LEFT!' which made a nice change. We changed his settings to appear offline too (why didn't I think of this sooner?!) so my screen was my own. 

YES Outward is a couch co-op game - not many of those around anymore are there? I think this fact was the biggest draw for me and my son. It's nice to be able to sit down and play a game together, sat together, you know, the old fashioned way. A lot of the couch co-op games we do have (mostly Lego) have been played to death by now. We needed something new. 

We loaded up and made our characters. And I'm just gonna say it - man this game is not pretty. I don't want to descend into slating a game just because of how it looks, but the graphics on offer here make the game feel much older than it is, which is a shame. I'm not as fussed by graphics as my son is, but even I was taken aback. It's been a while since I've played a game that isn't visually stunning. That isn't to say I've stayed away from games because of their graphics - not at all - but more that games in general just seem to be presented better these days. 

The tutorial is huge and weaves around a big map which allows you to skip over certain parts if you want to. This game is pretty in depth, with a lot of different mechanics to learn. If I'm honest a lot of the tutorial went in one ear and out of the other. I felt like it was too much information - without much time to digest it. I learn by doing, and really you could just read the prompts and continue. I would have liked it if the tutorial required you to do a number of different things in succession to make sure you had a firm enough grasp of the concepts. Instead there was a room per concept, with a quick info panel to read and a dummy in the room to try it out on. It didn't really give you an idea on tactics. We wandered around what we hope was the whole of the tutorial level and entered into the game proper. 

The story is pretty interesting, but as ever I won't spoil that here. Suffice it to say that the world they've created has some pretty interesting ideas. Unlike some other RPG's you do not begin this game as a hero. In fact you're a very normal somewhat downtrodden, citizen of a town called Cierzo. 

In order to leave town you will need to collect some items that you will not be able to survive without, a weapon, a backpack and a waterskin. We quickly found these items and ventured outside. 

We died. 

You come to within the walls of Cierzo. My bag was somewhere near the gate but first I had to take care of the negative status' affecting my character. Bandages were applied and we took it in turns to rest on a bedroll. And we left again. 

We did better the second time, but still ended up being taken back to Cierzo to recover. Outward is a really challenging game, that required a lot of trial and error on our part. It's safe to say in our first hour, we didn't get far. 

My son really enjoyed it though. And I have to admit I am surprised. I thought that he would lose patience with the repetitiveness required to get better but I was wrong. He picked himself up and tried again, and even gave me a pep talk on not giving up. And when we finally killed out first monster he high fived me gleefully, more proud of this accomplishment than he's ever been of a kill on Fortnite. 

We're since spent many more hours exploring the world of Outward together and I have to admit they've been some of the best hours I've spent gaming in a long time. The game has many issues and I have to admit, I don't think I'd play it alone. But playing it with my son has been an immense pleasure that we've been unable to find anywhere else. It's a game that challenges both of us, which has allowed him to help me out of sticky situations. This doesn't happen with the Lego games we usually play together. 

It isn't the prettiest game you'll play this year. Hell, it probably isn't even as pretty as some games you played ten years ago. But the story is interesting and the world they've created is great. It's not massively populated, but it works well. And this game isn't going to break the bank. 

Fallout 76 Beta Thoughts!

When Fallout 4 was announced I went to my local Game and pre-ordered the Pip-Boy version the very next day. They hadn't even put it into the till system yet, but I knew that I needed that game in my life. And let's face it, the idea of wearing an actual Pip-Boy was really cool - it turns out the idea of it was much cooler than the reality, but it makes for a sweet collectible so it's fine that I only used it for about an hour, right? In my defense I had a rubbish phone at the time that didn't quite fit and left a lot of space around the edges. Maybe it'd be better now...

I had adored Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas (actually my favourite out of the two) on Xbox 360 and had spent countless hours exploring the Wastelands these games provided me with. I never actually finished the story on either of them. Call me stupid but I didn't want the game to end. I liked knowing that I could go back to it at a later date and it'd still be there. I completed side mission after side mission, but never to this day have I seen the campaign through to the end. I will. One day.

Fallout 4 was different. It grabbed me and it didn't let me go. I found that I wanted to complete the story first this time, so then I was left alone to explore the vast reaches of The Commonwealth at my own speed. I raced through it. I didn't even look into when certain alliances would stop you progressing with others like I had in the past. I played it how I wanted to play it. It was a revelation. I am not completely cured though. I still have unfinished business in the Commonwealth. I have the DLC, but I am yet to get past the first area of Far Harbour. I guess I'm not ready for my adventures in the Commonwealth to be over just yet.

When Fallout 76 was first shown I was unbelievably excited. Then they started talking about it being multiplayer, and my excitement started to wane. By the end it had been completely dampened. Not only was this game going to be full of other real people - who could attack you if they wanted - but there was a big push on the building elements of the game, something which just hadn't gelled with me in Fallout 4. And even though the Power Armour would be an unbelievably cool addition to my cabinet, I just couldn't bring myself to commit to it. I still haven't pre-ordered it.

My god do I regret that decision now.

I chatted with one of the guys at Bethesda about the game and basically asked him how well it plays as a single-player experience as I truly wasn't interested in a multiplayer Fallout game. He told me that he had spent a fair few hours adventuring alone and it had felt like a 'real Fallout experience'. But then he told me about the fun he had had when he had teamed up too. And my interest piqued a little.

I was lucky enough to be provided with a beta code for Fallout 76 last week. I couldn't make the first wave of testing as it started at midnight and I have two small kids, but I made sure I was home and ready yesterday for the 10pm start. I needed to see whether my first impressions had been right.

They weren't. At all. This game is A LOT of fun as a team. It was a bit annoying to hear the tell-tale sign of someone trying to hit my character as I chose how she would look. But then I heard the strains of a guitar, and when I had finished creating my character I was looking at another player sat in a chair playing the guitar. They then got up and waved at me. It was nice.

Interestingly enough, whilst the Fallout 76 announcement had left me feeling disheartened it had grabbed the attention of my husband, who has NEVER played a Fallout game before. He had little to no interest in them at all. But learning that it was multiplayer had him listening. Maybe it was just knowing that I could save him in this one...

So we teamed up the minute we walked out of Vault 76 and made our way through some quests together, stopping at some abandoned cabins along the way to forage for supplies. We were soon kitted out with bowie knives and pipe pistols, and even a bit of armour. The quests all worked seamlessly - ones that I had triggered updated on his screen and vice-versa - and amazingly we only encountered one bug! A Feral Ghoul who kept regenerating his health. Small scale bug for a Bethesda game, right guys?!

And then a little sign came up the side saying the servers were going off in eight minutes. Two whole hours had flown by. I can honestly say I hadn't looked at my watch (or my phone!) the entire time I was playing, which has to be a good sign, right?

I am not going to talk about the story missions we completed - though honestly we got sidetracked by side missions so there weren't actually that many. I just want to tell you a little about my experience with the game. There were plenty of other people running around the area I was in. But I didn't encounter any trouble, not a one turned their weapon on me. However a lot of them waved, or stood patiently whilst I was using the crafting station. I have since learned that you have to be Level 5 to be able to attack other players though, so maybe that could change.

Fallout 76 so far for me feels like a Fallout game. But one I can share if I choose. The world is rich with stories to pick up, and places to explore and I didn't feel like that was ruined by having a tag-along. I really expected that I would. But actually it was quite nice. This doesn't mean that I'll only be playing with friends though. No one can take my alone time with Fallout away from me.

It's hard admitting you were so wrong about something, but this time I have to hold my hand up. I should have driven to Game the day after the Power Armour version was announced. I will regret not having faith in Bethesda for a long time. Especially if I ever look on eBay at the helmet...

Shoppe Keep (Xbox One) - Review

Shoppe Keep is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £10.39.

When I saw Shoppe Keep appear in the Xbox One Store I was pretty damn excited - I love a good management game! I have whiled away many, many hours on games that have allowed me to manage hospitals, restaurants, malls, game dev studios, vets, hair salons, supermarkets, you get the idea. I guess I like being in control more than I realised.

Shoppe Keep is unlike any management game I have played before. My time as a manager of all the types listed above was spent in a more passive position I guess. You know, a view from above, a few neat little screens that allow me to micro manage every aspect of my budding business. Shoppe Keep literally puts you on the shop floor. You embody the shop keeper and oh wow it's harder than it looks. You will have to physically restock your shelves (until you can afford to buy a bot for it anyway) with times that you've had to wait to be delivered. It's a difficult balancing act that I have to admit I hadn't envisioned.

Worse still you have to deal with the people who decide they just don't want to pay for your beautifully crafted sword or cuirass. Some will rather childishly knock the item off the shelf and leave, but others will turn to crime. They'll swipe it and run, leaving you to either take the loss on the chin, or chase them down and kill them. There's no in-between. If you do choose to kill them don't forget to take the item back from their cold, dead body. I thought it would do it automatically upon their death but it doesn't, meaning that the first few times I was robbed I literally chased them down for revenge and left the item for the homeless. Bit pointless of me!

All of this would be much easier to deal with if the controls were easier to handle though. Shoppe Keep was originally released into Early Access on Steam quite a while ago and it shows. The controls are unintuitive at best and actually obstructive at worst. There is no active tutorial -  just a few screens of text to search through to learn even the most basic parts of the game like building your shelves, or unsheathing your weapons. It is less than ideal, this game would have really benefitted from including a small beginner store that showed you the basics of the day-to-day running.

I've had a lot of fun with Shoppe Keep but it really annoys me that after a number of hours it is still the control system that I struggle against the most.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Xbox One) - Review In Progress

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £54.99.

This review will be a work in progress. As of now I am roughly 16 hours into the game and have played it literally as often as I could for as long as I could (out of choice, not because I have to). I will come back each week to update this review until I have finished the game. I felt like this was the fairest way for the game to get the coverage it deserves at launch. As ever I will not include any spoilers.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an open world RPG that sees you play as a young blacksmiths apprentice. The world is incredibly well crafted and feels really different to most other open worlds I've played around in, in that this game allows you to just live in the world it has created. Don't get me wrong it isn't fit to burst with side-quests and extra games - though there is an incredible dice game I've just encountered that I know will take up a lot of my time in the future - but you don't wind up using the wait function for hours on end in KC:D and come on, we've all done that in Skyrim. This can probably be attributed to the fact that your character gets hungry and tired over time and obviously you can't fight as well on an empty stomach or when you're dead on your feet. Because of this you end up just walking around the town, waiting for your next quest to become available.

I am still running an original Xbox One on a plain old HD screen and the game still took my breath away. All of you lucky Xbox One X owners are in for a treat for the eyeballs as the game is Xbox One X Enhanced. I have encountered a fair few graphical glitches though. There is a lot of texture pop every time I enter a town, which is unfortunate. I've also had a lot of chat scenes where my character and the character I'm talking to have kinda merged into one being. Not great.
The lip-syncing leaves a little to be desired too and makes the game seem older than it is. It's not a big issue by any means but it's a far cry from the likes of LA Noire. The voice acting, however, is brilliant and feels really authentic.

When the game is initially loading you're shown a video that tells you about the games world and the tough times that they are in. It tells of a beloved Emperor who's son, Wenceslas has taken the throne and basically disappointed everyone with his actions. Wenceslas has a half brother though, Sigismund and he has decided to challenge Wenceslas' right to the throne by kidnapping him and laying siege to many of the towns that were loyal to him. This story drew me in from the beginning. Once I'd got past the pretty long load I was treated to cutscene after cutscene filled with brilliant characters and plenty of drama. The first time I loaded this game my kids' had a party later that day and I didn't turn the game off until I was gonna be late. The prologue was insane. By the time the credits started I felt drained - in a good way - and couldn't believe that everything that had taken place was just in the opening act.

Combat takes a lot of getting used to. I lost my first few fistfights and I actually had to go running back to my mum so she could patch me up after I picked a fight with a man that owed my dad money. No, really. Once you get a sword though it begins make more sense (for me at least) and it is very satisfying when you finally manage to do it right! The character you play as is a young blacksmiths son who hasn't really used a sword before so it kinda works, he's not going to be a great swordsman from the off. The bad fist fight was on me though. The game isn't hand-holdy at all, obviously there are some tutorials but honestly they're handled in a terrific way. The only real tutorials are to do with the different fighting skills and trust me you'll be glad of those! The fighting mechanics are completely realistic; there's no marker for where your arrow will hit when using a bow and arrow and you have to move your right stick around to strike from that direction with your sword. It is the most truly in-depth swordplay I have ever encountered in a video-game.

Things can escalate really quickly, if you fail to complete a quest one way it will urge you to complete it another way. This lead to me being caught trying to pick the lock of a chest in the guard's quarters. Once caught I had a few options; pay the massive fine of 750 Groschen (to put that into perspective I had 6.8 at the time), sweet talk my way out, fight or flee. When I told the guard I couldn't pay he kindly offered to let me reside in jail until my fine was paid up.

There are autosave points; mainly after important cutscenes or, as I've found out straight after you've messed up. The game will also save when you sleep. If you ever want to save in between you have to use Saviour Schnapps - a liquor. It will save your progress whenever you decide to use it, but it does count as drinking alcohol and has the negative affects that come with that. It's a really cool mechanic that has stopped me from flicking to my dashboard quickly when I've messed up really badly, which I admit I have done with other games. What can I say, I'm a perfectionist!

I want to show a little love to the in game map because it is really pretty cool. The art style of it is lovely, and it's super easy to navigate. Anywhere you haven't ventured to is covered in fog, but once the fog disperses you are left with a detailed map of the town. Each quest shows up on there as a colour-coded letter which makes it incredibly easy to head to the correct quest marker, unlike so many open world games where you have to set your own marker near to the one you actually want to head to, or disable every other quest. You can keep as many of your quests active as you'd like on here. You have a little icon that shows where your character is and when you choose to fast travel it plots a route for you and you watch this icon make it's way across the map.

Henry, the games protagonist is a young lad who is training to be blacksmith like his father. He is naive, but eager to prove himself. You can choose to play Henry a few ways I guess, but from what I feel I've learnt of the character (at least thus far) he has a strong set of morals that he won't want to part with easily. So with that in mind, I play Henry as someone who is unwilling to loot corpses or complete the shady jobs for people and will look for an honest way to earn the coin he needs to pay his debts. I am willing to change this later if at some point in the story it seems like Henry has changed - which may well happen - but for now I'm very glad to be telling crooks that I will not help them steal from graves. The quest marker is still in my log if Henry ever changes his mind. My Henry also eats pretty much only cabbage, unless someone kindly lets him eat from their pot of stew. Hey, don't judge! Cabbages seem to offer the best nutrition to price ratio I have found so far.

I think this is what I like the most about this game so far. It's an incredibly well-crafted story - one that has had me dying to experience more - but it still has the freedom to create your own story like in Skyrim. Yes it can be very, very difficult but I honestly find that so much more immersive. Henry is a flawed 'hero'. He isn't already a gifted swordsman or a master archer. He's not even a great blacksmith. He's learning as he goes, which does make it easier to accept the crushing defeats I have experienced all too often. At 16 hours in I have only killed three men, all of whom threatened me when I was on my way back to my home town and wouldn't yield when I miraculously managed to get them on the back foot. I love that this game really charts Henry's progression through the story and I can't wait to carry on with his journey!

Agents of Mayhem (Xbox One) - Review

Agents of Mayhem is available now for the Xbox One and is priced at £49.99 on the Xbox Marketplace.

This review should have been up a while back. Yeah home life has been hectic, but actually the biggest problem I have had with this review has actually just been in the writing. I've had severe writing block where this game is concerned, because I'm still not sure where I stand with it. Helpful, right?!

Agents of Mayhem is an open world game by Volition, set after events in Saints Row 4: Gat out of Hell. On paper that game sounds amazing, an open world, with plenty of different heroes to play as in a battle against the guys who are trying to take over the world. But somehow, it falls flat.

I wanted to love it. I wanted to be dying to jump back in every time my playtime was rudely interrupted by yet another kid's party. But I just wasn't all that bothered about getting back to what basically ends up being a rather lifeless world. The open world of Seoul just doesn't seem very full, generally there are only a few NPC's, vehicles and just general signs of life. Don't worry though there are some collectibles dotted about to flesh out the world. Oh goody.

This is where my issue in writing this review started - who will believe that Volition have managed to make a world that's stale and boring after the first hour?! But everything about this game does feel stale - at least to me. The characters only ever managed to raise a slight smile, although mostly the attempts at humour made me cringe. Agents of Mayhem just doesn't hit the silly comical heights that the Saints Row games have managed to before.

There are a lot of characters to choose to play as in Agents of Mayhem, but again this just doesn't feel right. I wish they'd made a few less characters and put more effort into writing the ones that stayed. There are too many that just feel completely interchangeable. It's such a shame. Some of them are pretty interesting and have fairly decent backstories but these may only standout because of how dull the others are. You pick three of them to take with you to your missions, and can switch between them at will, utilising their different special abilities to wreak havoc on the baddies. Unfortunately there's no way to control the people you're not playing as, which feels like a big missed opportunity. If you'd had some squad control elements this game could have been a lot more interesting.

The gunplay is alright, it doesn't break any molds but it all works pretty much how you'd expect. I had some issues in some of the bigger battles with stuttering, but it wasn't too bad. The worst thing about the battles is how repetitive they feel, the same baddies will appear over and over and to top it off they feel a bit bullet-spongey.

The biggest problem with Agents of Mayhem is that it feels very much like a game that you'd stick on for half an hour or less to just do a couple of missions. Which would be fine if there weren't plenty of games like this already available that are better. I found myself playing this and dreaming of Overwatch and ultimately putting it on for a while afterwards to take the sour taste out of my mouth.

Table Top Racing: World Tour (Xbox One) - Review

Table Top Racing: World Tour is available now for the Xbox One and is priced at £11.99.

Let me get this out of the way straight away, as of yet this game has NO LOCAL MULTIPLAYER. There are mumblings online of it possibly being patched in, but as of yet it hasn't. In my opinion this is a massive oversight. This game would have been played regularly in our house if it had a split screen option and instead it is barely ever opened.

My children came in from school the day I got sent this to review excited to try it out together. Instead they had to take it i turns to go through the campaign races, which is fine I guess but it really does affect the longevity of a game. After the campaign is done what would make you come back?

For me the answer (with this particular game) is nothing. Yeah the game is fun enough, but I don't want to grind the same races over and over again. There is an Online Multiplayer option, but I don't tend to play online as such anymore and let's be honest an online community eventually dies off.

It's a shame because this game really could have been excellent for families and groups of friends, the Xbox's answer to Mario Kart. But I really can't look past the fact that there isn't an option to grab a couple of controllers and play it with my children. The cars can be upgraded and there are a number of stars to earn on each level which can drag the game out to be a bit longer. There are a limited number of tracks that you revisit for different events over and over. It just feels lacklustre.

Voodoo Vince Remastered (Xbox One) - Review

Voodoo Vince Remastered is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £11.99.

Confession time, I had never even heard of Voodoo Vince before I received the email about the remastered version. I was a young teen when it first graced the Xbox back in 2003 and was at the mercy of my parents' choices where consoles were concerned. We were always a PlayStation household after my dad first got his hands on the original PlayStation after years of Sega consoles. Our Mega Drive is actually still alive and living next to my Xbox One, PS4 and Wii U quite harmoniously. It was actually the console we played on most over the long Easter weekend, with the whole family round.

Anyway, back to the point, eh? This review won't be commenting on what changes (if any) the remaster has given us because they wouldn't truly be my words, I'd have to read them elsewhere first. I mean, obviously, the graphics look better than I imagine it did on the original Xbox but I am coming to Voodoo Vince Remastered as someone who has never played it, or even seen it before.

So Voodoo Vince sees you take control of a cutesey little voodoo doll, Vince. He's brought to life to rescue Madam Charmaine and of course there are a number of items for Vince to collect on his journey. These can increase his life bar, give him an extra life for if you send him down one of the bottomless pits and they can give him new voodoo powers to use against the many enemies he will encounter on his travels through New Orleans. These powers are pretty cool, they all hurt poor old Vince, but luckily due to him being a voodoo doll his enemies get the same treatment a few seconds later. The first time I triggered a voodoo power I have to admit to being a little confused as I did what the game asked (pull RT + LT) and swiftly watched as poor Vince died in the middle of my screen. Luckily he came back and a second later the enemies that were circling me carked it too. Wahoo!

Voodoo Vince is a fairly standard platformer, gameplay wise. All the usual suspects are present and correct; double-jumps, spins, punches and plenty of gaps for you to fall down. I thought the tutorial was really well incorporated in this game though, there are too many games where the tutorial feels like a chore that can't be skipped and jars the experience. In Voodoo Vince you can just walk past the little pictures that appear in the environment to teach you how to suck eggs, I mean teach you how to jump, punch and spin your way around the world.

I had a lot of fun with Voodoo Vince and felt that the roughly 8 hour completion time suits me perfectly. I know that some people prefer more game for their money, but I feel that Voodoo Vince was just long enough to stop me getting bored or frustrated. I don't need - or want - to spend 20 hours on a platformer if I'm honest. Voodoo Vince is a solid little game that I think is perfectly priced for what you get. Very rare these days!

Zombie Vikings (Xbox One) - Review

Zombie Vikings is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £9.59.

If you've read anything I've written before, including my Twitter, you know that I have a ready made four player set up at home. My kids love to play games and "help" me with my reviews. So they were super excited when I said we'd sit down and play this together after school.

The art style is lovely and I loved all of the different playable characters' designs. The voice over work is pretty good too. Unfortunately that's about all I have to say about Zombie Vikings that is positive. Oh I like the fact that you can play four player couch co-op too. Or, I did, until I actually played it.

Zombie Vikings is a side-scrolling hack and slash with about 30 levels, which is at least ten too many. The easiest comparison to make would be Castle Crashers. You know, if Castle Crashers was crap. And riddles with bugs.

Where to start with where this game fall short? The story is lacklustre and the "funny" moments are just completely cringeworthy. Seriously, I don't remember the last time I cringed so much at an attempted joke. And I'm not quite sure who this "humour" is aimed at, at times it's too infantile for adults and other "jokes" are a little too offensive for young children's ears. And mine actually, they really were that bad.

 If you want to play a game with 3 friends or family members or whatever do yourself a favour and don't pick this one up. Replay Castle Crashers. Or watch paint dry. Your friends will thank you for it.

Chime Sharp (Xbox One) - Review

Chime Sharp is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £7.99.

People have repeatedly compared this game to Tetris and I have to say I disagree. Yes they're both games about placing blocks and clearing the board, but Tetris is so much more intuitive and simplistic than Chime Sharp. You don't need a tutorial on Tetris to know what you need to do. Chime Sharp tried to reinvent the wheel a little and didn't tell us that that was what they were doing, resulting in me playing the game for about an hour wondering why I was only getting 40% progression, thus not unlocking any new tracks or modes.

The reason for this, once you know is fairly simple, but it shouldn't be something that isn't clear from the off in my opinion. In Tetris the aim is to clear lines, hopefully more than one at a time, yeah? Well in Chime Sharp you clear blocks using "Quads" or blocks of at least 3x3. Simple enough. But you also have to try and use every part of the game screen. This is what the progression percentage is linked to, not how many quads you get or whatever. You're supposed to try and utilise the whole screen with your quads and doing so unlocks more of the song that is playing. So put a quad in one corner and then you never have to use that corner again. It is a fairly interesting mechanic, but it's one I'm not so keen on in all honesty, especially considering that the game NEVER TELLS YOU that that's what you're supposed to be doing.

You have a point multiplier in play that seems to be lost randomly. I ended up asking someone because I couldn't really see why I was losing my multiplier. Turns out that the fragments you have on the board (the pieces that aren't part of a quadrant) drop after some time. When they drop your multiplier waves bye-bye too.

As I mentioned before when you hit a certain percentage completion on each song you unlock new modes and new songs. In these modes is Sharp mode which sees the timer disappear and be replaced with lives. Earn more lives by forming the perfect quadrant and lose them by letting the fragments drop. You also get Strike mode which gives you 90 seconds to get as high a score as you can and Challenge mode which is basically the same as the standard mode but you have a dodgier board and a smaller variety of pieces to play with. Oh and you can practice any of the songs endlessly too.

In all Chime Sharp offers a pretty good alternative to games like Tetris, but to compare them properly is unfair on both. I'm a huge Tetris fan so I thought I'd love Chime Sharp too. Don't get me wrong I did enjoy my time with Chime Sharp and it does have that addictive "one more go" quality. Unfortunately though I found the colours used in game to be too bright in Chime Sharp for an extended play and whilst the game is addictive enough I feel like it just throws a little too much at you if you want those high scores. They both have their own merits, exclusive of the other, so if you're not a Tetris fan don't be put off by the people that tell you that is basically what Chime Sharp is. It isn't. It's much more than that, I just don't know whether I was ready for more yet.

Kitty Powers' Matchmaker (Xbox One) - Review

Kitty Powers' Matchmaker is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £12.39.

I had played Kitty Powers' Matchmaker before when it was released on Android. My Twitter was full of screenshots and praise for the game and thanks to the Android Rewards app I had a few quid going spare so I grabbed it. I had a lot of fun with it whilst I was waiting in the car for my kids' to get out of their clubs or whatever I'd turn it on and just do a date or two.

When I heard it was coming to consoles I was a little concerned. I did wonder how it would translate to the big screen and more importantly a traditional controller rather than a touch screen device. Luckily my concerns were unfounded, the game is mapped to a controller like it was always supposed to be there. They work wonderfully.

So Kitty Powers' Matchmaker is exactly what it says it is, you play as a matchmaker under the tutelage of Kitty Powers. She'll guide you through the process of setting up your matchmaking empire, explain all the mini games to you and talk you through the traits of every singleton that comes through your doors as well as advertising in new places to get different types of people as you level up. Ain't she good?!

So singleton's will come in and ask you to find their soulmate for them. Then you give them a little ear piece and follow them on their date. You'll feed answers into this ear piece so make sure you listen to what their date is saying. They'll all have certain things they're attracted too, hair and eye colour being the first thing that they notice about each other. As the date continues you'll choose their food based on what they say they fancy and pull the Love Handle to choose topics of conversation. Everyone has different interests, occupations, guilty pleasures and bad habits and you can either be truthful and hope that your date respects that or lie and take your chances with the roulette wheel over whether they believe you or not. It's a very simple premise that is incredibly addictive. I've played it for over ten hours now and still go for "just one more date" when I put the game on.

You earn money through fees and tips and this money can be spent on new pages for your little black book, a salon or a gift shop and some new restaurants for your daters to enjoy. These restaurants unlock new mini games too. These include a game that sees you trying to hold in a fart by playing a higher or lower card game, or deciding whether or not to splat a spider that invades your table. They can also test your memory by giving you a Generation Game style conveyor belt full of pudding options that your date won't remember the name of, just the order in which they were shown. What's wrong with a traditional menu?! Well, I guess it wouldn't be as challenging that way. You'll also have the chance to play pachinko to decide who pays the bill and exercise your maths brain to work out how much to tip the waiter.

The variety of mini games keeps the game interesting. No date is the same and failing some of the mini games results in some pretty funny moments. It's a really fun little game, but I do wonder why it has been priced so highly. In my opinion an £8 or lower price would have suited this casual game better. Don't get me wrong, that isn't to say this game isn't fun because it really is and I will continue playing it long after this review is written and not just for the achievements!

iO (Xbox One) - Review

iO is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £6.39.

After trying this game for a fair while, and rage quitting wayyyy more than I should have done in just the tutorial levels the temptation to just review this as 'too hard, avoid' is pretty strong. But I am not a quitter! So I carried on trying and trying and trying and trying and my god this game is ridiculous I'm still trying and trying and trying to get through the game. I still haven't completed it. Something with this just hasn't clicked with me. So I was gonna hold off my review until that magical moment in which it clicked and I could finish it and tell you about all of it, but I'm starting to fear that that moment will never come. And maybe it'll be good to read a review from someone who well and truly sucked at this game (who am I trying to kid?!).

So here I am and I wasn't lying when I said I rage quit in the tutorial. I really did. I guess that -especially right now - I feel so spoilt with good games that I really hate having to replay the same section over and over and over. I have much less patience for that kinda trial-and-error gameplay now than I used to. I have much less patience in general these days.

It can be difficult to review games like this. As much as I don't like to spoil stories for my readers I do like to play them out and let you know what I thought of the narrative in general. Games like this generally don't have much of a narrative, if any at all. These games have to be reviewed on different merits I guess; how intuitive the controls are, how responsive, the difficulty, the physics.

iO sees you control a disc that can shrink and grow. You use this ability to work your way through a myriad of levels which require you to grow to roll down a slope as fast as possible and then shrink quickly to fly the furthest. I guess my reactions aren't as fast as they used to be now, because it was always levels that did this that had me stuck for ages. I can't seem to get the damn thing to shrink fast enough to get it where I need it. Sometimes it did feel like the controls were working against me. The controls are intuitive, don't get me wrong, you use the left stick to move the disc side to side and the right stick to grow and shrink. But sometimes it felt like they (or possibly me) weren't fast enough for what was required. Let's be honest it's probably me.

iO looks incredibly barebones and it is a very simple game. It isn't for me, sadly, but that isn't to say that it isn't for everyone. I think the first two paragraphs of this review show quite well how I feel about platformers currently. Though with most platformers you do still get a moment to take a breath, stand still for a minute and assess what to do next. With iO you can't really do this, momentum plays a huge part in the solutions so pause for breath and face having to spend a fair while regaining the lost momentum. Some people will love this mechanics, but as I said I didn't get along with it.

Typoman: Revised (Xbox One) - Review

Typoman: Revised is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £10.39.

A quick look at Typoman: Revised on the Xbox One store and I immediately knew that I had to play this game. It reminded me of 2010's Limbo, a game that I love and still go back to to this day, seven years after it's original release (how has it been that long?!).

You begin your journey as Typoman as a head made from the letter 'O'. You roll your way through the game's prologue, gathering more letters with which to construct your body. By the end of the prologue you have a body, legs and an arm made up from the letters 'H', 'E', 'R' and 'O'. D'awww. You're not the only thing in the world constructed by letters though, this continues throughout the game as the bleak world is populated with objects made up of the letters of their name. The bad guys are also made up of words like 'fear' and 'hate' which morph into awful creatures. It's wonderfully done. Some of my favourite parts are the bridges made up of the word 'ROBUST'. I'm not going to say more now, for those of you who are going to play it, but keep an eye out for them.

You'll use wordplay to navigate your way through the game as well. As we've already touched upon, enemies are made up of 'bad' or 'evil' words and you'll have to use 'good' words to get past them. Switches will need to be turned 'on' and platforms will need to go 'up'. Luckily making up the words required is easy as you can pick up or drag the individual letters or enter the Word Scrambler and simply spell it out. Don't have the letters you need to create the word you want? No problem, spell out 'Lie' and see what happens.

Typoman: Revised offers a good few hours of gameplay in a beautifully imagined world. Along your journey you will fill up a journal with quotations found in secret areas of the game, but if you have ever played a game like this before you know pretty much exactly where to look - the ladder just above the checkpoint, or the rope swing sending you in the wrong direction.

After completing the campaign you will unlock two new mini games to enjoy. Or, rather, put yourself through to get the achievements as the case may be. When I first started playing the 'Antonymizer' I delighted in seeing how spelling out the different words required altered the appearance of Typoman, with my favourite being the one that gave him a little Pac-Man head. But this game mode soon became very dull indeed, and I found myself checking the achievement tracker to see how fast I could turn this off. I gave up in the end, at 52 words out of 165. I'll go back to it eventually, but it was leaving a bad taste in my mouth, so I wanted to stop before it changed my views on the game.

The thing is Typoman: Revised starts off brilliantly and continues to be brilliant for quite some time. The last chapter though, I felt, lost it's way a little an played a lot more like a simple platformer. There weren't as many clever puzzles to make your way through, instead the level boiled down to a lot of timing-based jumping which, whilst it can be fun for a while, just isn't what I had come to expect from the rest of the game. The final boss battle left a lot to be desired as well, after chasing him down for the entire game it boiled down to a very simple fight consisting of three turns each, four if you wanted the achievement for using a 'bad' word in the final boss fight. It wasn't bad by any stretch, but it lacked the imagination and charm the rest of the game had in abundance.

Overall I enjoyed my time with Typoman: Revised, despite my niggles with the last hour or so and the dull mini games. It's a clever, beautiful game that I will probably go back to in the future. If you think you might like a game that's a little mash up of Limbo and Letter Quest then have at it.

Mafia III (Xbox One) - Review

Mafia III is available now on Xbox One and is priced at £49.99.

It may seem like this review is a little late in the day. I know some of my followers on Twitter have already played it, and many have already made their mind up about the game. I am sorry it's taken me so long to get this review to you, but I have a few reasons for it; I received my copy a week after release, just as my kids broke up for half term which significantly cuts the time I have to play a game that isn't age appropriate (or thereabouts). Secondly I decided early on that I would complete the game before I tried to get my thoughts out to you guys, for two reasons really; one is that my brother wants to borrow it and the other is that I soon knew that if I didn't complete the game before writing my review the chances of me returning to it afterwards would, unfortunately, be pretty slim at least for a while.

I have looked forward to this game all year. I loved Mafia II and was genuinely excited when I was told I could review Mafia III. The game starts off brilliantly but unfortunately it peters out into a bunch of literally the same quest over and over, ruining the pace of the otherwise fantastic story. I wanted it to be snappy, to feel like I was racing from revelation to revelation without a moment to gather my thoughts. Instead you have what feels like days to think about the last bit of story you received because they are interspersed with at least two enforcers to kill, a load of robberies/breaking things/generally fucking things up for the bad guys and then returning to one of these places to kill the boss - this was by far the most annoying part - by messing with his operation you draw him out but I really wish that they could have just been in the general area and you'd have to hunt them down. It just feels kinda lazy to return to the same factory or whatever again.

The graphics aren't as bad as you have been lead to believe. Everything is a bit fuzzy and yes the sky and water really is a bit crappy but it's all ok. But actually some of the textures are incredible, which I guess kinda make the bad parts look worse. There are some issues with draw distance that saw me driving head on into a car that had just popped in front of me on more than one occasion. The cut scenes look fantastic though, the faces in particular are great to watch, and the lip syncing is pretty much spot on, something some games still seem to struggle with. The story is given through interviews and it is a brilliant touch. I especially loved the grainy effect on the ones from the past, they looked perfect. The voice acting is superb too, emotive and convincing. And it isn't possible to review Mafia III without mentioning it's absolutely fantastic music. This game has the best soundtrack ever. Seriously, it's amazing. I completely understand now why some YouTubers were given vinyl's and record players, this soundtrack is something to celebrate.

Now I wrote the above before I had finished the game. I did toy with deleting it and starting my review again, but that didn't feel fair. Yes, my opinion on the game has changed a little since I've completed it, but that doesn't remove the fact that for the vast majority of this game I was bored and hoping I was getting close to the end. A lot of the time the actual gameplay felt like it was getting in the way of the actual game. Which I realise sounds stupid, but it feels like the dev really struggled to fill this large open world and so it is populated with missions that don't really offer much variation. Repeating the same missions over and over again really detracts from the action of the story in my opinion. And the story is fantastic.

Any of my Twitter followers will know I was starting to really burn out doing this review. And I think this is the biggest problem with Mafia III, it is super hard to have a huge gaming session without ending up feeling a little bored and burnt out. This game is not designed to be played in large chunks, and if I could have played it slowly, maybe a couple of missions a day I likely wouldn't have felt so bad about it. Luckily the last few hours of the game really picked up the pace again. I played it for four hours straight on Friday night and enjoyed every minute. It was exactly what I wanted from the game and has made up for some of the boredom I felt whilst playing the middle bit. I actually want to play it again to get the other ending, but not just yet. I'm not completely crazy.

Overall I would recommend this game to anyone who has considered picking it up. It isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the story is well worth experiencing. Just take it slow and play it alongside something else too so you don't end up burnt out and hating it. It does get better, I promise.

6/10 TRY IT!

A copy of the game was provided for the purpose of this review. 

Manual Samuel (Xbox One) - Review

Manual Samuel is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £7.99.

This game is bonkers, so naturally I wanted to give it a look. With half term now here I am always on the lookout for games I can still play with two eagle-eyed children about full-time, and this seemed like a good one to let my kids watch between play fights and epic battles between clip dolls and Imaginext figures.

I was right. This game has had me and my kids howling with laughter. You play as Samuel, who is a bit of an idiot. He manages to get himself ran over whilst chasing after his now ex-girlfriend and thus makes a deal with the devil to live manually for 24 hours in order to win his life back. Samuel now has to consciously do everything we take for granted, including blinking and breathing.

The day starts off simply enough with you learning to just blink, breath and put one foot in front of another. Soon though you have to have a pee, then brush your teeth and have a shower. Then you have to drive to work and dodge an obscene amount of grannies jaywalking. Anyway, the day progressively gets harder and more buttons are introduced, you get the idea.

I didn't struggle with this for quite awhile and was feeling rather smug with myself. And then suddenly it just felt like I didn't have enough fingers for the task at hand and I got completely sick to death of hearing the dialogue I had thought was funny a few hundred attempts ago (this might be a slight exaggeration).

It started off as a game I would definitely recommend to most people, the graphics are cartoony, the voice acting is great and the game is generally enjoyable. But then it wore me down and I just didn't find it as funny anymore. Luckily it's a fairly short game with easy achievements so there are plenty of people that would like to add this game to their collection.

6/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

XCOM 2 (Xbox One) - Review

XCOM 2 is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £44.99.

You may remember that I have previously reviewed XCOM 2 when it first released on Steam earlier in the year. I LOVED it. I had been excited for this game for months and it didn't look like a console version would be released at the time. I know, I know, how naive of me, eh?! But I HAD to play it so when a little box popped up and said that it was literally impossible to install the game on my trusty six year old MacBook Pro I had a little cry and then bought a laptop more suitable to my gaming needs. Thos being playing XCOM 2, because thankfully Sims 4 DOES work on my ageing Mac. There is a God.

Anyway as much as I loved playing XCOM 2 on my shiny new laptop I was ecstatic when I found out it was coming to consoles. I know you can use a controller with PC's but I dunno, I just feel more at home gaming on a console. Which is annoying because games for PC are a hell of a lot cheaper usually.

I'm not going to go into the story here, obviously it is the same game I reviewed on Steam, so if you want to know more about the story, click the link at the top of this review. Graphically it is still as beautiful as I thought it was then, and there are still plenty of customisation options. It IS the same game after all.

There are some issues with the console port though, that as of yet I don't know when they will be patched. It lags sometimes in game, the framerate can be incredibly choppy and the cutscenes have glitchy dialogue that chops in and out. So it's not a perfect port, by any means. Despite that though I still choose to play XCOM 2 on my XB1 now rather than my PC, so I definitely don't consider them bad enough to ruin the game for you. Don't get me wrong, the cutscene glitches in particular are so annoying but they're never that long and the game is so much fun that I kinda don't care.

If you have ever shown even a passing interest in turn-based strategy games then you need to add this game to your Xbox One collection. Technically it isn't a perfect port, but it's a damn perfect game. Even if you do want to break your controller because a shot with a 69% chance of hitting misses and results in your death.

9/10 BUY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review.

The Turing Test (Xbox One) - Review

The Turing Test is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £15.99.

I'm typing this fresh from completing it this morning. I played it until 2am the night before, before I had to give in and attempt to get some sleep and the minute I could today I jumped back in to finish it off. It really is a fantastic game (and it's easy to get all of the achievements). 

I came to it knowing a little bit about Alan Turing and The Turing Test but the game explains everything well anyway so you can go in blind and not miss out. So don't worry if you haven't fully researched Alan Turing and his accomplishments. You won't be alone. 

I always struggle to review a game like this. A game with a story so rich that I'm still pondering it hours - sometimes even days - later. I came to this expecting it to be primarily a puzzle game (which, obviously it is) with a story shoehorned in so that you feel compelled to continue. The Turing Test couldn't be further from this, for me at least. I made my way through the various rooms as fast as I could, hungry for the next story section. And right through to the very end it never disappointed me. 

It feels petty with a game like this to boil it down to it's various sections and discuss all of the elements that make it what it is. The game is slick and thought-provoking and the story is truly intriguing, which for me is so much more important than a game looking picture perfect. That isn't to say the graphics aren't great, they are, but they just play second fiddle to the meat of The Turing Test. The voice acting deserves some recognition here because The Turing Test features some incredible talent. The same can be said for the games soundtrack, often with a puzzle game I end up turning the music right down in the mix because they can be pretty annoying, but I never even considered doing it whilst I was playing The Turing Test, even if it did risk waking the kids up. 

As you work your way through the game you will unlock new ways to interact with your environment. I really enjoyed the puzzles in this game, they made sense to me and I never found myself completely stuck. I sometimes had to step back and think for a second but I never had to restart a level, which speaks volumes for the level designs. I had fun working my way through some of the more involved sections and can honestly say I never felt like I was burning out. 

I have one gripe with this game, yep, just one. It isn't a particularly big problem but my god I found it really annoying. After pretty much each chamber I encountered a significant load time. I'd be walking down the corridor to the next room when everything stops and the little swirly ball of doom would appear for anything from 30 seconds to two minutes. I hope they patch this, because it does remove you from the action and disturb the flow of the game quite significantly, which is a real shame for an otherwise perfect game.

I don't want to tell you to much about this game, I want you to experience it. It is easy to recommend this game to each and every one of you that read this review. It's an amazing experience and a lot of fun to boot. Go grab it! 

9/10 BUY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review.

Monochroma (Xbox One) - Review

Monochroma is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £7.99.

It was pretty difficult to type up this review in all honesty. I mean I've had the game for ages and then family life just went crazy and I never had the chance to sit down and play it to review it. I have now, but this tab has been open on my Mac all week, waiting for me to type up my thoughts on the game. And I just couldn't do it.

I think the main reason for this is glaringly obvious. Monochroma looks very much like a Limbo clone. Unfortunately though Monochrome lives very much in Limbo's shadow and I've spent this week trying to work out how I can review this game without comparing it to Playhead's 2010 hit.

The answer is I can't. To do that would be to do both games a disservice. There aren't many games out there today that could claim to have not taken inspiration from a game or two. And that's fine. It's nice to spot those similarities, discuss the differences and the merits they bring to the game. Not all games can reach that balance though, and end up feeling like a cheap cash in on someone else's brilliant idea. Monochroma is the latter.

The game is good but if you have ever played Limbo (and with it being given away for free on Xbox One awhile back and it being available on a multitude of different platforms how could you not!?) you will not be able to stop yourself comparing the two games and Monochroma will consistently fall short.

The art style is lovely all in monochrome except for the odd splash of red a la Schindler's List making it ever-so-slightly different to Limbo. You play as a young boy, again, but this time you have to lug your brother around because he suffers a fall at the beginning of the game. This little brother will be the source of much frustration as you can't solve many of the puzzles with him on your shoulder as your jump distance is limited and you can't pull the levers and little brother is afraid of the dark, which limits where you can place him and will result in you killing him a fair few times because the only light source just so happens to be where the hurtling mine cart will end up. You have been warned, just like Limbo you will die a lot. And be responsible for your brother's end too. Tut tut.

The thing is the addition of a brother, or anyone that your character feels responsible for should add more charm to the game. You should feel scared for the characters - I know I did playing Limbo - and Monochroma falls incredibly short of the mark here. The only thing I felt after I'd killed off one or both of the siblings was annoyance at having to play that part again. The puzzles and platforming are so pernickety that repeating any section felt like a chore more or less straight away. There was one puzzle in particular that involved you having to drop down onto a barrel that is floating in water. The amount of times I either just missed the sodding thing or landed on it only to fall of it in the next second was just ridiculous. The controls are not responsive enough to allow for this and I ended up playing this section for ages because each time I landed in it I died and had to drag the frigging lit barrel back outside to the rain again. 

Overall I really didn't enjoy my time with Monochroma. I could;t help but compare it to Limbo for the extent of my play through and not one single part of Monochroma felt better than Limbo had. In fact, after playing this game I started up Limbo on my Xbox One (after only ever completing it on 360 previously) and just gloried in how magnificent that game is. Monochroma made me yearn for Limbo, and that can never be considered a good thing. Skip this one guys.

3/10 SKIP IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review.