Home on the Range

Shooters. The genre where you murder the other guy before he murders you. And what better way to train yourself for the horrifying prospect of a life or death showdown with another cold, calculated, killer (like yourself) than showing some wooden targets who’s boss? Oh, okay! Well if you’re going to be all fussy about it, YES! There’s slightly more that goes into it than hitting your desired target, something about the “horrors of war” or something? But I’ll have you know those wooden targets can be a pretty fierce bunch too and they pop up all over the place!… [Continue Reading]

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Co-Op Conflict

The “Last Chance Trial” was a final demo before Nioh’s full release. In case it wasn’t obvious, I played the HELL out of it and enjoyed every second and did everything you possibly could once again. After I’d done that I decided I wanted to help as many people enjoy Nioh as possible. So I jumped online to help those who desperately sought it, being summoned as a visitor to aid my invoker. I helped 15-20 players conquer the demo… I even helped one or two people who had previously died by my side succeed! Many claps, bows and whistles… [Continue Reading]

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Yooka-Stealthay

Spy Chameleon – RGB Agent is an arcade-y puzzle game that has you playing as a sly chameleon shifting your colour in order to slip undetected through the environment to the finish line. Of course, this starts off very simple with the bare basics as you can see below, but it quickly bares its teeth with its difficulty. There are checkpoints scattered around the longer levels but some people still found the game irritating, fortunately the devs listened and threw in an easy mode. Easy replaced “normal” and normal became “hard” mode for those who enjoyed the “skin of your… [Continue Reading]

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I Love dm_duel_v1

I remember the feeling of instant buyer’s remorse upon playing Team Fortress 2. Because the person who introduced me to it invited me to an empty 2fort server. It had nothing to do with the game itself but rather the family Windows XP I was playing it on chugging and spluttering. It was trying its damnedest to impress me, but the frame rate was abysmal. I, being the young, naive and incredibly handsome hero of this story, thought it would work flawlessly if I simply belieeeeeeved! For reasons unknown to even the greatest of scientists, this approach simply didn’t work. But… [Continue Reading]

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I Love de_dolls

Sometimes I wish we saw more bonkers maps like this as official maps in games, just to see what the devs would conjure with no restraints on conventional map making, at least in terms of aesthetics. I love the silly nature and tone of this map, but I also genuinely enjoy it as an actual map to fight in. The scale (and what’s done with it) makes for some incredibly unique fights. You can snipe across the floor, run’n’gun on the inside of the bed, climb and brawl inside the drawers, hide behind the thin plaster walls, fly up the vents, it’s… [Continue Reading]

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I Hate cp_egypt_final

I can’t think of one match I’ve played on this map where I had fun as either team. As BLU, you get spammed by an endless barrage of rockets and stickybombs all match simply trying to leave your spawn or reach the point while being funneled through narrow chokepoints. As RED, you’re practically indestructible and simply demolish the enemy team over and over with ease. If BLU somehow even manage to catch the scent of the control point, just detonate stickies or spam the centre. Almost all the capture points on this map are horrible, little boxes which make splash… [Continue Reading]

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I Hate ctf_doublecross

Sometimes the worse a map is designed, the more gratifying it feels to win. It makes it tolerable. Perhaps even fun despite the flaws. But this is not one of those maps. The only words I can think of to concisely explain my feelings for this map are: even when you win, you lose. I can be ahead by a mile on this map and I’m still scowling the entire time. Capture the flag is already irritating enough, but then you throw this in the mix and it becomes torture. I find everything in this map to feel so lackluster.… [Continue Reading]

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Papo & Yo

Papo & Yo is one of those great games I never hear anyone actually talk about. You play as Quico, exploring the beautifully authentic South American favela with the twist that it can be manipulated and transformed in any way Quico likes via the power of his imagination. Suddenly this downtrodden environment bursts into life with the whimsical, upbeat charm it so desperately needs. This makes for such a unique space to play in and it’s so far from anything I’d ever seen or explored previously that it was automatically magnetic to me. Then there’s the big fella you’ll be… [Continue Reading]

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Transmissions: Element 120

I almost didn’t pick this game up because someone out there tagged it as “horror”. While I don’t mind horror games, I prefer not to have my time wasted by petty jumpscares with no effort to build up any kind of atmosphere, but this game wasn’t that. I’d say it was creepy, but in the same way ALL Half-Life games are. Unnerving, for sure, but it never tries to exploit the player for a cheap thrill which I appreciate immensely. Instead, it uses the properties of light and dark in interesting ways as well as providing new mechanics not seen… [Continue Reading]

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Lowglow

After a run of bad multiplayer matches in several games on my PS4, I looked for a calm, stress-reliever type game… Which is when I realised I didn’t actually have one. My friends I’d played with had all jumped on Stardew Valley, understandably, considering it’s so soothing and addicting that it borders on being illegal. Meanwhile, the closest thing to that for me was Darkest Dungeon simply due to it being turn-based. Don’t let that name trick you though. Staggeringly, it isn’t about gentle strolls through meadows filled with fluffy creatures. But on STEAM, I found this dusty, uninstalled gem.… [Continue Reading]

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