Posts By Mat Growcott

Evoland takes the key gameplay components many of us grew up with and melds them together into a game that not only relives some of the best adventures of the late-eighties and nineties, but also is just pretty fun in its own right. Beginning life as a Ludum Dare competition winner, Shiro Games built upon the initial concept and created something that anyone old enough to remember the massive change between Final Fantasy VI and VII, or how rapidly games…

After months of rumours about the next-gen Xbox needing an always-on connection, the speculations came to a crescendo last night as the Microsoft Studios creative director, Adam Orth, took to Twitter defending an always-on console. It might just be a hypothetical thing, of course, but for all intents and purposes, he's just confirmed always-on in the minds of millions of people. Orth's Twitter account is now, understandably, set to private.

Evoland is a love letter to a genre long past its golden age. By combining your favorite elements from The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy and Diablo, it manages to act not only as a nostalgic trip through some of the best gameplay features of the last twenty years, but also as a decent game in its own right. You'll laugh at the jokes, you'll get the references, but you'll also question why so many classic franchises are finding it so hard to re-find their ...

Kings & Warlords is a popular MMORTS game with tens of thousands of fans and many dedicated players. It's a genre that has grown in recent years, thanks in part to games like Farmville acting as a gateway to other, more fantasy-driven casual experiences. Today it's the genre of choice for film tie-ins - both The Godfather and The Hobbit have seen MMORTS games based upon them - and its popularity doesn't seem to be waning. We were lucky enough to be able to ...

Dynasty Warriors 8, the latest in the popular beat 'em up franchise, will be making its way westward later this year, with an EU release date of 19th July. Dynasty Warriors 8 boasts an unbelievable 70 playable characters, including several that have been 'faceless' up until now. More characters, more modes and a return of the what-if? scenarios that were sure a big part of the earlier Xtreme Legends packs are sure to make this a must-play for fans. Since ...

To celebrate years of DLC, and as a final farewell after the release of the final song for the platform, Harmonix have today released a video reliving some of the highs and lows of the very best plastic music franchise ever. And if that isn’t enough for you, there’s some pretty terrible singing as well! It’s hard to believe that the main Rock Band franchise only really encompassed six games, and that two of those games were band-specific, but ...

Square Enix have today officially unveiled the next Thief game. Subtitled Out of the Shadows, the new entry in the successful cult franchise will be released on PC, PS4 and “other next-gen consoles.” Aside from the trailer, very little was revealed about the game. It’s set in a city in which the poor are desperately waiting for something to change, and it allows the player to approach any given situation in a number of ways.  Of course, it ...

Warner Brothers have confirmed that they’re releasing a demo for the long-awaited Injustice: Gods Among Us in EU territories and that it’ll be available to download from both the 360 and PlayStation 3 on April 3rd. US fans were told last week that a demo would be available. With Batman, Wonder Woman and Lex Luthor to choose from, you’ll get to see many of the game’s different features ahead of its mid-April release date. There’s no ...

The Final Fantasy soundtrack has managed the impossible this year, beating out the likes of Beethoven and Mozart to come third in the Classic FM Hall of Fame for 2013. It managed to jump thirteen places over last year and stands both as a testament to the dedication of gamers to this particular body of music, and to a changing attitude towards the medium. There are still several comments asking why on earth video game music is allowed to be…

There have been a number of attempts to bring the MMO to consoles and they have, by and large, been unsuccessful. Instead of building a game to play with a controller in front of the TV from scratch, developers instead adapt a game built around dozens of keyboard keys and a mouse. They're often surprised when that doesn't work. Defiance is a game that brings together the spirit of third person multiplayer gaming and the massive, persistent world of the MMO, ...