Posts By Mat Growcott

There have been a slew of games lately that have had good scores but bad performance. Should critics take this into account when writing their reviews? It’s a harder question than some might give it credit for. What is bad performance? Since making the switch to PC, one of the things I’ve noticed is that bad performance is one of the most subjective things around. I’ve seen too many people bragging about 4090s before furiously ripping ...

Critics get very excited about visuals, and sometimes even story. It rare we talk about one of the most impactful areas of design: the power of sound. South of Midnight proves why it’s so important. South of Midnight is a fantastic game. It’s understated, reminding me of a PS3-era game in many ways. That’s good and bad, coming with it a touch of jank that we don’t necessarily expect from a publisher like Microsoft. But, like back in the ...

There’s a lot of excitement around the Oblivion remaster, which should be revealed and released this coming week. Put it in your diaries. A lot of the excitement is coming from the improved visuals. Images have leaked from the developer’s website, and mentions of the game have also been found hidden in the Bethesda website too. We talked about the advantages and disadvantages of the shadowdrop earlier in the week, and I’ve been thinking since ...

The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion will be getting a remaster announced and released next week. It’s not yet official, but a combination of leakers and images found on the developer’s website have all but confirmed it. The response? “This is awesome, but why aren’t they making us wait for it?!” Xbox are no strangers to a shadow drop. Hi-Fi Rush is the biggest example. Ninja Gaiden 2 got a remake this year. Things will quite regularly ...

You’ll have to pay for Bungie’s upcoming Marathon. And if you want to see everything, you’ll need to pay again and again. It’s been less than a year since Concord was released then unreleased within a two week period. It was a wake up call for PlayStation bosses, who rapidly backed away from their Games as a Service push, cancelling a slew of unreleased titles including a game based around God of War. But the folks behind Halo and ...

Idiots on Tiktok have turned the new Minecraft movie into a meme. Kids (and more than a few adults) have been convinced to throw popcorn and drinks, scream loudly, and generally cause trouble in the name of fitting in. The real problem? Some producers are taking notice. The cinema business has been in freefall for a good while now. People are going to less and less films, and with more variety than ever. If you’re not James Bond, Marvel, Star…

Microsoft has released an AI generated version of Quake 2 and it’s proof, as if proof is needed, that AI isn’t the way forward. The version of the game is buggy, hard to control, and breaks when you look up and then back down. It’s just not fun, and the generation part of it doesn’t add a thing. No amount of “a computer made this” makes it better. It comes hot off the back of the terrible Ghibli crap people…

Pricing for the Nintendo Switch 2 has proven to be mildly controversial. In reality, it’s the costing of everything around the console that should be raising eyebrows. Right now you can jump onto Steam and buy a Deck from as little as £350. The OLED model with more than 500GB of memory costs £479. The Switch 2 console on its own is £395.99 (449.99 USD, 629.99 CAD) – although no doubt scalpers will be adding a pretty penny at launch.…

Nintendo are launching a new console at the worst possible time. Their feature set is questionable. They’re charging for absolutely everything, including the game that explains how the console works. People are excited, the biggest fans will buy it no matter what. But the best we can say? The Switch 2 is not without hurdles to hop. Just hours after the Nintendo Direct revealing its brand new console, US President Donald Trump is holding a press ...

Last week’s Nintendo Direct was pretty special. It had some deep cuts for fans, some major announcements, some decent third party stuff. They announced system level features and an news app, updated daily. This is the kind of dedication we expect to see from a console at the height of its sales potential, and yet this also marked the very last Direct dedicated to the Switch. That’s absolutely spectacular. Listen, there is a lot you can knock ...