Posts By Mat Growcott

There was a time when Suicide Squad and in particular Harley Quinn were huge. And that coincided with a time when superhero GAAS titles were soaked in potential. That time is decidedly not now. I don’t have strong opinions on the showing of Rocksteady’s new Suicide Squad. It debuted to mixed reaction at this week’s PlayStation State of Play, and while I won’t be rushing out to buy it, decent reviews make it a must-play at some point. ...

In the last few weeks, we’ve seen a very quick raft of releases of old games for new consoles, and not a single one has released without some issue, big or small. Just think about that for a second. Goldeneye, Tales of Symphonia. Hell, even the Blade Runner release from last year is still being fixed (which is admirable, but plays into my point here). There is clearly a demand for old games. There are entire communities of retro fans…

Metal Gear Revengeance is ten years old today. The last great (full) Metal Gear game is a decade old. How depressing is that? After Metal Gear Solid 4, it was unclear where the franchise would go. Backwards seemed the easy answer – Big Boss’s adventures started to stretch and stretch. But the character action game following Raiden’s next adventure was an unexpected pleasure, and it gave a hint at what the world looked like following the ...

PlayStation VR2 releases this week, and reviews are fantastic. Unsurprisingly, if you’re already sold on VR and have a PlayStation 5, you’re not going to be disappointed by VR on PlayStation 5. But this is the latest VR device to hit stores, and it’s yet another test of just how this area of the industry is going to go. It’s one thing to have PCVR, it’s another entirely for it to hit the mainstream through consoles. I say ...

The CMA in the UK has given its initial verdict on Microsoft’s purchase of Activision – and it’s not necessarily good news. But it isn’t bad news either. The CMA has basically said that the potential of removing Call of Duty from PlayStation could cause harm to consumers, and the purchase would make it difficult for other companies to break into the cloud gaming market. These don’t really stand up to scrutiny. That’s okay, ...

Add this to the list of reviews I didn’t think I’d be writing in 2023. Goldeneye 007 was a killer app on the N64, and is legendary in the console FPS world. But how does the new remaster hold up? 007 played by Pierce Brosnan makes an unexpected (and difficult) return to our screens in the guise of a slightly improved emulation of the original game. That’s not to say that it isn’t improved. The control scheme makes it immensely…

It has been over a year since Microsoft announced its intention to buy Activision. And it’s been a long year. Well, this week may well be the beginning of the end. Here’s where we are now. The FTC in America has opposed the deal, in a move that shocked analysts and fans. In an effort to reel-in Big Tech, the body created its own “high-end” gaming market that excluded PC and inadvertently turned the Nintendo Switch into a monopoly of…

Today reports have hit saying that Halo is having something of a reboot. It’ll change engines, staff have been laid off and focus is more on multiplayer for now, rather than additional single player content. That’s according to Bloomberg. And while job layoffs are never a good thing, a deeper look at the future of Halo definitely is. And I say that as someone that thoroughly enjoyed Halo Infinite for a little while there. It’s not that it ...

Goldeneye is still the incredible game we always knew it was. That confirmation, as if confirmation was needed, came with its re-release on Xbox and Switch this week. But with every re-release, there comes the shocked voices of those who miss the obvious. Old games are old. There aren’t quality of life features. The controls are a little more complicated than they need to be. The textures look like someone threw up in gravel and smeared them on the ...

With all the talk about The Last of Us, and the popularity of “film-like” games, it’s got me to thinking. When is a game a game? What basic elements of interactivity create something that just can’t be chopped up and placed into another medium? Ironically, the game that made me start thinking of this was Telling Lies. On the surface, it’s about as filmic as you can get. You scrub through actual video, clicking words in the ...