Posts By Mat Growcott

There’s a lot to criticize about Microsoft’s multiplatform “Everything is an Xbox” switch. Some are even comparing them to SEGA. Anybody who was there at the time knows it’s about as inaccurate as you can get. The Dreamcast is one of the greatest consoles ever made. It’s exclusives ooze style and cohesion. Whether it’s Shenmue or Sonic Adventure, you can tell it’s a SEGA game, and a Dreamcast game too. But none ...

Xbox seems to have cracked its latest strategy to release games across multiple platforms. They were the biggest publisher in the world last month, and likely to stay that way until Grand Theft Auto VI comes out. This must be good news for Microsoft. It’s not enough for fans. Since the multi-plat talk started more than a year ago, there has been a question about sustainability and the future of Xbox hardware. On the one hand, Xbox owns two massive…

Modders released a full remake of Vice City in Grand Theft Auto IV. It might just be one of the biggest labours of love in gaming, so of course Rockstar tried to shut it down. Within about 30 seconds of installation, you’ll know why. There’s something amusing about s company as large and respected as Rockstar (or parent coming Take-Two) feeling threatened by a few of their fans. But after showing the project on YouTube, the Vice City NextGen ...

I’ve never been a man who needs much of an excuse to replay Sonic Adventure, but here’s a good one anyway. The Dreamcast classic has RTX Remix support – and it’ll test your PC like a near 30-year-old game never should. I’ve played around with it a little bit, and I’m impressed by what the pathtracing I’ve seen. This is an absolutely new way of seeing the game. Some parts work better than others. Mystic Ruins, for ...

Nintendo has finally announced its next console: the aptly named Switch 2. It’s an apt name because that’s exactly what it is. It’s a Switch, but not quite as you’ve known it. Never before has there been a trailer more desperate to highlight that this is an evolution. It’s its own thing, but not so much that we can’t show your old Joycons transforming magically into these new Joycons. They’re slightly bigger and are ...

A little over a week ago, Nvidia announced its new graphics cards would support multiple frame generation. That is for every single “real” rendered frame, the card will generate two or more additional frames. For some of us it was old news – we’d already been living the dream thanks to Lossless Scaling. This is a cheap, simple app available through Steam that enables you to play almost anything with additional frames. As though to add ...

With the announcement of the 5000 series of graphics cards this week, there was an odd reaction. Even the highest end 5090 – £2,000 or more – wasn’t enough. The talk about “real” rendering vs processing like DLSS and frame generation came to a head in PC spaces. A small, vocal minority were extremely angry that their new very expensive graphics card was mostly focussed on tricks to make the image look better instead of genuine, ...

The New Year is upon us. Filled with possibility, 2025 could see new highs and lows hit our industry. Here are just a few we can see happening. For the first time in a while, 2025 feels like it can stand alone without reference to Covid. While the last couple of years have been chocked full of delayed titles, this year seems quieter somehow. Then again, we’ve said that before. While there may not be the bulk of anticipated titles…

For the second year in a row, I’m writing a gaming round-up that will feel less about the games and more about the industry. Unfortunately there’s no escaping that in 2024. After a packed 2023, this year felt like it had the potential to be a bit quieter. Not the case. Release after release came and went. Nearly 19,000 games released on Steam. A few of them were successful. But most people weren’t playing new games. For all the releases…

Thirty years ago, Sony released the PlayStation onto the world. It has been the standard console ever since. It certainly still is. If someone walks into a shop and asks for a traditional gaming experience, they’re walking out with a PlayStation 5. It’s just the way it is, for better or for worse. Sony have made a great show of the nostalgia associated with them over the last few months, first with Astrobot and then with a series of adverts…