Author: Oliver Mackenzie

Helldivers 2 is one of the most refreshing – and straightforward – multiplayer games I’ve played in a while. It’s a third-person bug-shooting blitzkrieg, offering simple sets of objectives and a broad armament to help satisfy them. The actual action of defeating the game’s foes is a lot of fun, with hordes of enemies…

After a protracted production, a developer swap and several delays, Granblue Fantasy: Relink has finally been released, some eight years after its initial announcement. This is a bold, colourful action RPG that combines compelling storytelling with a bombastic and exciting combat system. It’s one of the more original RPG efforts I’ve seen in a while,…

Valve’s Steam Deck garnered almost universal acclaim when it launched in 2022. It offered a powerful handheld experience, with well-designed software and plenty of hardware power. The screen, however, left something to be desired, with low contrast, poor colour reproduction and a decent amount of display lag. You could of course upgrade to Valve’s Steam…

In parallel with development of a stunning-looking sequel, Kojima Productions has continued to work on the original Death Stranding, delivering a series of ports – and the latest is exceptionally intriguing, targeting MacOS and selected iOS devices. A single purchase gets you access to a game that runs on Apple Silicon Macs and iPads…

Persona 3 is a genre-defining RPG that blazed a trail for all other modern Persona titles and inspired countless other RPGs. Its original incarnation was stranded on the PS2 for over 15 years, but now Persona 3: Reload offers a top-to-bottom remake for modern consoles and PC – including 4K 60Hz gameplay with RT on…

The Ace Attorney games provide some of the most captivating storytelling in gaming. Set in crime scenes and courtrooms, these titles revolve around defending clients while trying to solve cases in abbreviated and eccentric legal proceedings. 2019 and 2021 saw a selection of these portable games released for home consoles, and now to start 2024…

Epic’s Unreal Engine 5 is swiftly becoming the engine of choice for current generation gaming. It’s not hard to see why: it combines ease of use and flexibility with some of the most advanced rendering tech in the industry, especially with its Lumen and Nanite systems. At the same time, that sophistication poses a…

Resident Evil 4 was one of the most accomplished remakes of 2023, a modernised, bold reinterpretation of Capcom’s 2005 action-horror classic. It looked great too across current-gen platforms as well as PS4, with great lighting detail and excellent art design. As the year closed out, Capcom delivered RE4’s first mobile port. As a part…

The Grand Theft Auto Definitive Edition remasters were highly controversial and to this day, their quality remains contentious. These Unreal Engine 4-powered game updates modernised the three classic PS2-era GTA games – GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas – with much more advanced rendering technology. At the same time, the reworked lighting was…

Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the most critically acclaimed games of the year, an electronic version of a great D&D campaign without the scheduling challenges that also features an incredible amount of flexibility and an engaging player-driven story. This kind of game doesn’t always translate well to consoles, but its PS5 outing from September…