News - October, 2015
Thursday29th Oct 2015
Review Halo 5: Guardians (Xbox One)
Combat Evolved
343 Industries took a lot of risks with Halo 5: Guardians. Tampering with the fundamentals of a series as respected and beloved as Halo could be disastrous, but the Microsoft-created studio went ahead and did it anyway. Considering Halo 4 divided the fan base and caused many to worry that the franchise might be in the wrong hands, you...
Wednesday28th Oct 2015
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...
Tuesday27th Oct 2015
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 Wasteland 2: Director's Cut (Xbox One)
Putting The Fun Back Into "Dysfunctional"?
First released on the PC back in September 2014, Wasteland 2: Director's Cut is a sequel to the 1988 title Wasteland, a game that has been credited with providing the inspiration for the Fallout series of games. So, it has quite a legacy to live up to, and some mighty big boots to fill! The question we hope...
Thursday22nd Oct 2015
Review Adventure Time: Finn and Jake Investigations (Xbox One)
Adventure Crime
The first hour of Adventure Time: Finn and Jake Investigations is a bit rocky. If you've played a classic adventure game before, you should have an understanding of the agenda almost immediately: search the environments as thoroughly as possible by talking to NPCs, interacting with objects, and collecting items that could be useful...
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...
Review The Escapists: The Walking Dead (Xbox One)
Pixel Zombie
The Walking Dead is one of those franchises that seems to be everywhere. From television to every other type of merchandise, Robert Kirkman's comic series has become a global phenomenon and the video game industry has more than taken note, with mobile iterations and story-telling masters Telltale Games giving the zombie epic a highly...
Wednesday21st Oct 2015
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...
Monday19th Oct 2015
News Mass Effect DLC added to Xbox One Backwards Compatibility
No mass relays required.
Earlier this year, Microsoft surprised many gamers with the announcement that Xbox One would soon be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 titles. Whilst the feature isn't due to hit officially until November, Xbox Preview Program members were given a small selection of games to play. The vast majority of the games were first...
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...
News New Xbox One Experience Gets First Major Update
Community Calender App and more!
The New Xbox One Experience has started to roll out slowly as it builds up towards its full launch. As part of this process there have been a few bumps in the road with bugs and a number of these have been addressed already. A new Community Calendar app has been set live to download as well. This app is expected to...
Friday16th Oct 2015
Review Blood Bowl 2 (Xbox One)
Fumbling the ball
Blood Bowl 2 comes to Xbox One as part of Games Workshop's continual use of their fringe franchises away from the tabletop. Blood Bowl was a popular tabletop Gridiron and Warhammer violence-laden mashup first introduced in 1987, seeing numerous re-releases since, the most radical of which occurred in 1994. With Games Workshop now...
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...
Thursday15th Oct 2015
Review Draw a Stickman: EPIC (Xbox One)
3, 2, 1... Draw!
Games that have an interesting or unique premise are always going to grab attention in today's expanding market, as they promise an experience unlike the ones that have come before. Draw a Stickman: EPIC is one such game. The player starts the game by drawing their very own stick figure, who then serves as the protagonist of the...
Wednesday14th Oct 2015
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...
Tuesday13th Oct 2015
Review Skylanders SuperChargers (Xbox One)
Supercharged ... or running out of steam?
Skylanders Superchargers is the latest in a chain of games featuring the Skylanders, a collection of plastic figures that are transformed by the "Portal of Power" into characters you can control on the screen. So far, it's been so good. Each year, a new refinement to the formula is introduced. We've had...
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...
Monday12th Oct 2015
News UK Xbox One Digital Game Prices Unexpectedly Rise
That's all we needed
It appears that the prices of some digital Xbox One games have taken a bit of a leap up over the weekend, without any sort of explanation as to why. Titles that were available for preorder on Friday for £44.99 - Halo 5: Guardians and Rise of the Tomb Raider most noticeably - are now at the £49.99 mark. In a world where the...
Review Three Fourths Home: Extended Edition (Xbox One)
Are you sitting comfortably?
To kick things off here, we'd like to address a bit of criticism that we've seen for Three Fourths Home across social media since it launched on Xbox One. The main critique – despite the game's description containing the words "visual short story" – seems to be that the product is not a game at all. Then again, we...
Friday9th Oct 2015
Review Rugby League Live 3 (Xbox One)
Play the ball
With two absolutely rancid rugby union titles already available for Xbox One (Rugby 15, Rugby World Cup 2015) it was with apprehension that we strode out onto the field to take on the competing code of rugby league in Big Ant's latest offering. Fortunately, the team is nothing to do with those godawful games, but is responsible for the...
Review Polychromatic (Xbox One)
Round and round
In a world where twin-stick shooters are becoming more and more popular, it takes an awful lot to even think of climbing the ladder to battle against the might of titles such as Geometry Wars 3. One way that smaller studios can attempt to take the big guns to task – aside from getting the gameplay down, of course – is by...
Thursday8th Oct 2015
Review Transformers: Devastation (Xbox One)
Exactly what meets the eye
Transformers: Devastation is not a catastrophe like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5. It's clearly a game that was made on a modest budget during a restricted development cycle, but it's a Platinum game and that's exactly what it feels like – exactly. It's an action-packed, fluid, and adrenaline-rousing exercise in ultra-quick...
Monday5th Oct 2015
Review Guns, Gore and Cannoli (Xbox One)
Disorganized crime
In Guns, Gore & Cannoli, players fill the shoes of Vinnie Cannoli, an enforcer for the mob in the 1920s. When Vinnie is sent into Thugtown to locate a person of interest for his employer, he soon finds that circumstances are dire. Zombies and rival gang members are everywhere, and the city is in disarray. With an arsenal of...
Review Extreme Exorcism (Xbox One)
Scarily addictive platfoming
The resurgence of retro-inspired platformers is something that has not gone unnoticed. Through the ID@Xbox program, more and more of these little titles appear to be popping up on Xbox One and their popularity speaks volumes about the genre itself. Extreme Exorcism is one such title. Giving a twist to the established...
Most Read
Review Adventure Time: Finn and Jake Investigations (Xbox One)
News Mass Effect DLC added to Xbox One Backwards Compatibility
News And So It Begins: Three New Backwards Compatible Titles Leak Ahead of No...
News Microsoft Announces New Xbox One Experience and Backwards Compatibility ...
