Author Profile
Master web developer by trade, Ken guided Pure Xbox through its first incarnation around the time of the Xbox One. Nowadays, you'll find him selling a wealth of retro goodness via SuperChallenge.
Or: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Post-Apocalypse
Let's make no bones about it, it's clear from the outset that with Fallout 4, Bethesda have created a wonderful thing. The preamble leading up to your entry into Vault-111 – complete with the much-ballyhooed character creation system - is nicely detailed and believable enough to draw...
News Linx Launches Windows 10 Tablet in UK With Built in Xbox One Controller
A strange beast
Hardware manufacturer Linx has released a new tablet in the UK which comes with a little bit extra as standard. The Linx Vision 8 Gaming Tablet (as some retailers are listing it, though the manufacturer just calls it the Linx Vision) is a Windows 10-powered tablet with an 8" display with 800x1280 resolution, Quad-Core Intel chipset,...
News December's Xbox One and Xbox 360 Games With Gold Offers Up Five Titles
Merry Christmas
It's Christmas time (almost) and Microsoft have announced that they'll be spreading the festive cheer by offering up five - count 'em! - titles via Games With Gold in December. From December 1st, you'll be able to download The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (which will be a new release) for Xbox One and CastleStorm on Xbox...
News Well, This Is One Way of Getting Round an Exclusive Advertising Deal...
Clever
Microsoft may have lost the battle to Sony over picking up exclusive marketing deals for EA's Star Wars: Battlefront, which launched yesterday in the UK, but they seem to have found a way around it in one UK newspaper. This morning's Metro contains a three-eighths feature on the game and on the facing page...well...you can see it below...
News Here Are Your Xbox One and Xbox 360 Digital Black Friday Deals
Masses of moolah to be saved!
Microsoft's 2015 Black Friday digital sale has kicked off for Xbox Live Gold members, and a plethora of titles have seen their prices slashed on both Xbox One and Xbox 360. No preamble from us. The list of deals is below, complete with US pricing. If you're an Xbox Live Gold user, you can get these deals NOW. If you...
Get those wallets ready
As we reported on Friday, Microsoft will indeed be partaking in the annual Black Friday madness next week and have shed a little more light on the sort of thing that will be going on. A new video promises savings on "over 150 games" where you'll be able to save "up to 40-60%." The video does show some boxart for a bunch of...
Review Need for Speed (Xbox One)
Monsterous
We thought we'd take the "in-your-face" approach to reviewing Ghost Games' apparent "reboot" of the Need for Speed franchise, which we were disappointed to learn has very little to do with 1994's Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed. We will not apologise for it because nothing can hold us back. We're edgy. We're cool. We're...
News Yes, Microsoft Will Be Running Digital Black Friday Deals
No surprise
It should come as no surprise to anyone (but some folks asked, so we thought we'd clarify) that Microsoft have confirmed that they'll be running a range of Black Friday digital deals this year. Over on Xbox.com, a page has appeared that promises "Blockbuster games. Exclusive deals. No lines." although nothing else is specified beyond...
News Microsoft Takes Swing At Sony With New Backwards Compatibility Advert, Hits Nothing But Air
Poor execution from the big fella
Well, it seems that Microsoft have decided to start bellowing about Xbox 360 backward compatibility on Xbox One in a big way (as you'd expect) and their latest move is to create a video that it would be generous to call a parody of one by their main competitor. Back in the bad old days, Sony scored some major...
Far from the bottom line
Good games are usually more than the sum of their parts. You can have an average story and average gunplay going on, but still find that the game as a whole is fantastic fun because of the way it all comes together. On the other hand, you can have the best suite of options and the greatest game world ever, only to find that...
Review Rise of the Tomb Raider (Xbox One)
Rise again
It isn't really the job of a review to comment on the business decisions that led up to a game being released as a timed exclusive on a platform, so if you're hoping for us to praise or admonish Microsoft for throwing a bundle of cash Square Enix's way to bring Rise of the Tomb Raider to Xbox platforms first, you're going to be...
News Pineview Drive Set to Bring More Horror to Xbox One
Keep the lights on
This news is coming via the German ratings authority USK, who have today certified the PC horror title Pineview Drive for an Xbox One release. As far as we're aware, the game hasn't been confirmed as coming to the platform until now, and there's very little information available regarding the port. As in, there isn't any...
News Initial Backwards Compatibility List of 100 Xbox 360 Titles Will Be Announced on November 9th
Will your favourite make the cut?
Phil Spencer has confirmed that the first 100 Xbox 360 games to be added to the Xbox One backwards compatibility list will be announced on November 9th, a few days before the service is launched alongside the new Xbox One dashboard. Spencer confirmed the date in a Tweet to a user earlier today;- [tweet...
Review Guitar Hero Live (Xbox One)
Striking the right chord
Had you asked us two years ago if we'd be reviewing a Guitar Hero game in 2015, the chances are that we would have laughed you out of the building. So, we were as surprised as anyone when Activision announced that they'd be reviving the franchise this year and attempting to bring it into the current generation. And...
News And So It Begins: Three New Backwards Compatible Titles Leak Ahead of November 12th Launch
Here we go...
As expected, the names of a few Xbox 360 games that will be backwards compatible on Xbox One when the service launches on November 12th have started to appear in the wild. Various sources have come up with the trifecta, with the first being Microsoft themselves. They've posted a promo image that shows Halo Reach as a backwards...
News November Xbox One and Xbox 360 Games With Gold Revealed
Ain't no Ryse, it's plain to see
November's Xbox Games with Gold offerings have been revealed and - much to the chagrin of those who refuse to fork out $10 for a game and will moan about it not being free endlessly - Ryse isn't featured. Seriously. Just buy it, already. To kick things off on Xbox One, the puzzling Pneuma: Breath of Life will be...
News Microsoft Announces New Xbox One Experience and Backwards Compatibility Full Launch Date
Not too far to go
Microsoft - or more specifically Phil Spencer - has announced the final launch date for the New Xbox One Experience (NXOE - or the new dashboard, to the layman) and backwards compatibility for all Xbox One owners. Previously, both new pieces of functionality were available only to those in the Xbox One Preview Program, but...
Review Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (Xbox One)
Back on track
When it comes to the recent history of the Assassin's Creed series, do we really need to talk about the last version all that much? Surely, everybody knows that at launch – although post-launch patches alleviated some of the issues – Assassin's Creed: Unity was a buggy, broken affair that even Ubisoft acknowledged just wasn't good...
Kaijuuuu!
There's no getting around the fact that tower defence titles have been done to death in recent years. Checking the genre listings on Steam shows that 135 of them are up for grabs on PC at the time of writing. With that said, the apparent limitations of using a controller as opposed to a keyboard and mouse means that not a great deal of...
Review Rock 'N Racing Off Road DX (Xbox One)
Bunkered
It's been way too long since the incredible Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off-Road was released. Since the game's debut in 1989, nothing has come remotely close to improving on the mix of sandy arcade vehicle jumping fun, so when we heard that a game with a similar feel - Rock 'N Racing Off-Road DX - was coming to Xbox One, we sat up and...
Spilling the claret
Gaming these days can feel more like work than play. When you've weighed up the 800 million different options that you have to be able to just buy a game (and the preorder bonuses, and the Season Pass, and the holographic Steelbook case, and the "Limited Edition" statue) and finally got your new game installed and patched, you'll...
Review Fermi's Path (Xbox One)
A road too far travelled
From the very outset, Fermi's Path will put you in mind of a number of other games. The game tasks you with controlling a particle, which moves forward automatically and leaves you to dodge and jump over obstacles such as you do in Temple Run or any number of other endless runners. The rotation mechanic, which sees you...
Bit tripped
When the developers of the excellent BIT.TRIP games announce that they're releasing a rhythm action adventure, that's enough of a reason for people to stop and take notice. When that very game looks to be shaping up to be a cross between Rez and Child of Eden, you throw out your work for the week of release because you're relatively sure...
Review The Jackbox Party Pack 2 (Xbox One)
Jack of all trades, master of fun
Whether they loved it or hated it, nobody can deny that Jackbox's first compilation – The Jackbox Party Pack – was exceedingly well crafted. Providing support for up to 100 players on one console using smart devices such as phones and tablets, the package breathed life into more than a few parties with its...
