Posts By Mat Growcott

I’ve written a lot about remakes and remasters lately, but by and large they have been for games that are already easily available. Where’s access to the titles we really need? Like, sure, it’s fantastic I can play Grand Theft Auto 3 on my Xbox Series X. But Liberty City Stories is forever trapped on PSP (or PS2 if you want the inferior version). Same goes for Vice City Stories. There are two entries in one of the most major…

Final Fantasy IX was a timeless celebration of everything the franchise had been up to that point. It celebrated the best of the SNES classics, while improving on what we had loved about VII and VIII. With X, a new era began, and things have never quite been the same. And that’s why fans are rightfully worried about the upcoming Final Fantasy IX remake. It hasn’t been officially announced yet. But it was on the Geforce leak and insiders have…

Video games tend not to be simple stories of home life. Guys with guns sell so much better. But unlike film and television, where there’s a healthy market for things that escue the blockbuster, in gaming not so much. Even without the giant budgets, indie games usually follow the same rules of killing, competition, sex and violence as their bigger, more expensive brothers. That’s what makes titles like Venba so special. Sweet, fascinating and best ...

Final Fantasy XIV is coming to Xbox – and all it took was a decade. I don’t believe in looking a gift horse in the mouth. This is amazing news. But it was the secondary part of this announcement that was more interesting to me. As part of the announcement, it was said this was the beginning of a bigger presence from the publisher on Xbox, and in particular Final Fantasy was mentioned. This comes after years of confusion around…

There’s been some doom and gloom this week and, as usual, it’s around Xbox. Revenue from Microsoft hardware sales plummeted by 13 per cent. And we should apparently be very, very worried. I’m kidding – it doesn’t matter at all to customers. So long as the product is out there and Microsoft is backing it, why should we worry about the specifics of whether sales on hardware is up or down? It’s console warring for the modern ...

PlayStation have a bunch of new hardware on the horizon and it’s a mixed bag. From the confusing Project Q to console behemoths, it’s going to be an expensive 18 months for fans of the brand. The main focus of this article is on the ugly thing in the picture above. I was pretty vocal about the poor design of the PlayStation 5. It’s been hidden away from view in our house since the day it launched. The Project Q…

It could be the end of an era – Xbox Live Gold could become a new tier of Game Pass called “Core”. And while you’ll still need it for online multiplayer, the monthly game selection will be replaced with a library of 25 games. Although it may be that the catalogue continues to grow. And obviously this rumour, coming via Xbox Info Cafe, wouldn’t be the biggest Xbox news of the week even if it’s true. After Sony accepted a…

After a hasty court case, the Microsoft/Activision merger has taken a giant leap towards being closed. The FTC wanted the merger to be halted, but today Judge Jacqueline Corley allowed the deal to go ahead. The FTC, she said, had failed to show that competition would be lowered because of the merger. In fact, the opposite is true. She said: “This Court’s responsibility in this case is narrow. It is to decide if, notwithstanding these current ...

A new study from the Video Game History Foundation has revealed that nearly 90 percent of games made before 2010 are “out of print”. Only 13 percent of games from before 2010 are still available to purchase today, with that number dropping to a pitiful three percent when looking before 1985. This isn’t good enough. Doesn’t it just perfectly frame the constant battles with the likes of Nintendo over old games? The community protects and ...

I went into Game for the first time in a while yesterday. I was met with a bit of a surprise. PSVR2 – a steal at nearly £600 with a game. I’m not sure who is doing the stealing, but it isn’t whoever bought it. And that’s all good and well. People can buy what they want for whatever price they want. I can call them ridiculous, they can ignore me. It’s the circle of life. But once the initial…