Latest Reviews
Review NBA 2K21 Next-Gen - A Surprisingly Feature-Packed Upgrade For Series X
A net gain on next-gen
It’s an unwritten rule of next-gen gaming that a console must launch alongside at least one sports game, and that everyone must fawn over how it’s the best that sport has ever looked in video game form, but then acknowledge that the race to get it on next-gen invariably means modes have had to be dropped in the process...
Review Watch Dogs: Legion - Visually Impressive On Series X, But Repetitive And Clunky
Ded On Arrival?
The hacky-smacky members of Watch Dogs' DedSec return for a third outing in the series that sees the hacktivist gang on the run, framed for a terrorist attack they didn't commit and looking to clear their name as they strike back against shadowy figures across a truly impressive vision of a dystopian near-future London. There are...
Review FIFA 21 - The Slightly More Beautiful Game
Heading in the right direction
It's that time of year again, as EA's never-ending FIFA franchise dribbles down the tunnel and out onto the pitch for another brand new season. It's an incremental update for the most part this time around, there are no really big marquee additions or modes to speak of here, beyond Volta's new story "Debut", but the...
Review Star Wars: Squadrons - The Force Is Strong With This One
Use the Force, LukeSkyWLKR1991
There's an indestructibly attractive core at the heart of the Star Wars franchise that manages to remain forever untarnished no matter how many godawful Christmas Specials, Battles for Endor, butt-clenchingly dull Trade Agreements or "I don't like sand" moments are thrown at it. We're talking about the wonderfully...
Review Marvel's Avengers - Undeniably Fun, But A Bit Rough Around The Edges
A solid start for the Avengers
Marvel's Avengers, much like the most recent cinematic interpretations of the MCU, is at once a spectacular, bloated, messy and undeniably fun experience. It nails the characterisations of its central superheroes, provides a surprisingly entertaining and lengthy campaign full of bombastic action and addictive combat,...
Review Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 - Returns The Series To Its Former Glory
The Birdman is back
It's hard to believe we've reached this point. It's been well over a decade since Tony Hawk fans were last treated to a standout title in the long-running series, and even a past attempt at remastering the original two games didn't come close to hitting the mark back in 2012 with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD. But this time,...
Review Tell Me Why - A Memorable And Thought-Provoking Mystery
Ain't nothin' but a heartache
It appears as though the creative masterminds behind Life is Strange took the criticism about the second game's widely spaced out episodes to heart. This time around, Dontnod Entertainment is releasing all three chapters of its brand-new IP Tell Me Why across a three-week period (published by Xbox Game Studios) from...
Review Battletoads - A Hilarious And Hugely Entertaining Adventure
Grip it and ribbit
We’ll be the first to admit that the trailers for Dlala Studios’ reboot of Battletoads didn’t fill every member of the Pure Xbox team with confidence. Battletoads is an iconic series for many generations: older gamers remember playing it back in the day and enjoying it because of (or despite) its extreme difficulty, while...
Review Minecraft Dungeons - A Delightfully Breezy Action-RPG
Diablocks
It may seem like a somewhat risky move to make a Minecraft game that strips out Mojang's signature gameplay loops of digging, building and crafting endlessly in an infinite open world, but Minecraft Dungeons' shift to a Diablo-esque focus on looting and hack-and-slash combat against the many mobs that roam its blocky lands pays off...
Review Formula Retro Racing - The Next Best Thing To Virtua Racing On Xbox One
Virtua Tracing
Sega’s seminal 1992 arcade game Virtua Racing has aged like a fine wine. As one of the first ever polygonal racing games, until recently it was considered a bit visually basic by today’s standards. All that changed when Sega re-released the game on Switch with a 1080p and 60fps polish, and suddenly it looked like a cool, stylised,...
Review Bleeding Edge - Lacking Content, But Packed With Potential
A good idea in Theory
Given that Ninja Theory has established itself as a studio with a pedigree for fantastic single-player games, it’s interesting that its latest title is a strictly online multiplayer affair. With the outstanding Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice still lingering in the minds of many gamers and its sequel on the way, Bleeding Edge...
Review Assassin's Creed Odyssey - The Best Assassin's Creed Has Ever Been
By The Beard Of Zeus!
Assassin's Creed Odyssey continues down the exciting new path forged by its predecessor Origins, refining the reworked combat introduced in the ancient Egyptian epic and bolstering the RPG elements which saw that title heralded as something of a grand rebirth for the franchise. This is a huge adventure set in a stunning...
Review Resident Evil 3 - A Disappointing Follow-Up To Last Year's Brilliant Resident Evil 2
Raccoon City Rancour
Perhaps it was somewhat foolish to expect that a Resident Evil 3 remake, no matter how radical, could manage to reach the heady heights of last year's sublime Resident Evil 2. With much weaker source material to work from – there ain't no Raccoon City Police Department here – this one was always likely to be an uphill...
Review Resident Evil 2 - A Stellar Remake Of A Stone-Cold Classic
Raccoon City Redux
Ask anyone who played the original release of Resident Evil 2 back in 1998 what they remember most fondly about their time with the game and we reckon a lot of folk will gravitate towards the Raccoon City Police Department. Easily the best setting in a Resident Evil to date – although Resident Evil 7's hillbilly hellhouse runs...
Review DOOM Eternal - One Of The Best First-Person Shooters Ever Made
DOOM! Shake the room
We've just blasted and beaten our way into a remote cultist facility deep in the Artic Tundra, hot on the heels of the hell priest Deag Ranak. As we enter this towering death complex its tannoy speakers squeal to life – "The slayer has arrived. All mortally-challenged personnel please be advised." Ahead of us lies a bloody...
Review Cuphead - Difficult But Downright Delightful
Studio MDHR gambles and wins
There are very few games that so completely achieve what they set out to be. Studio MDHR’s Cuphead is one of them, a game that feels like a singular, focused vision come to life – as though it jumped out of its creator’s imaginations without compromise and without having to be made to fit a framework. It’s...
Review Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare - A Fresh Take On A Stale Formula
Breach and clear
Coming after the mixed reception to 2018’s Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare already has one plus on its side from the off: a fully-fledged story campaign. While many might argue whether narrative modes have much of a place in an era of battle passes and games as a service, Modern Warfare proves a story mode...
Review Ori And The Will Of The Wisps - The Best Platformer On Xbox One
Over the moon
There's a quest quite early on in Ori and the Will of the Wisps that neatly encapsulates pretty much everything that's so wonderful about Moon Studios' superlative sequel. Charged with making your way through a windmill in order to get its great big wheels turning again so the poisoned waters of Niwen may run clear once more, you find...
Review Gears 5 - Brings The Series Kicking And Screaming Into The Present
Swarm and cosy
Once upon a time, back when then the Xbox 360 was just a babe, the original Gears of War was a much-needed dose of adrenaline. Third-person shooters were all the rage back then, but it wasn’t until Epic Games came along and created its own line of bulky space marines that the genre finally stepped up a gear (if you'll pardon the...
Review Sea Of Thieves - In Truly Ship-Shape Condition Two Years After Launch
It's a pirate's life for me
When Sea of Thieves initially set sail in 2018, it was met with somewhat mixed reviews. Rare's pirate playground is undoubtedly a masterful creation; a vast, dynamic, hyper-stylised sea world dotted with mysterious islands and skeleton forts in which players are set free to create their own grand adventures. However, it...
Review Red Dead Redemption 2 - The Death Of The Wild West Comes To Life In Rockstar's Masterpiece
True Grit
Has there ever been a video game world as all-encompassing as the one presented in Rockstar's most recent Western epic? Sure, there are some that stand shoulder to shoulder or even surpass it in terms of straightforward size – Assassin's Creed Odyssey's world map is easily bigger – but when it comes to depth, detail and narrative...
Review Forza Horizon 4 - The Best Racing Experience On Xbox One
Fuel Britannia
Offshoots aren’t meant to surpass their source material. They’re meant to be unusual curios that take an existing concept in twist it in ways the mainline series never could. When the original Forza Horizon casually rolled up onto the scene in 2012, no one really expected it to attract the fan base that it did, but eight years on...
Review Homefront: The Revolution (Xbox One)
Brotherly Loathing
Homefront: The Revolution has had a rocky road during its development, and that's putting it nicely. Employees went unpaid, although Crytek claims they were totally never on the verge of bankruptcy, and eventually the game switched not just publishers, but developers too. It's pretty incredible that the game exists in a finished...
No Rubik in sight
The puzzle genre is not the most fondly tended in the gaming universe. Standout titles such as Portal, The Witness or Q.U.B.E: Director's Cut are often differentiated from the narrow pack because they offer something more than mere puzzling. This is sadly not the case with Cubikolor which, at it's most basic, is a simplistic...
Review Hard Reset Redux (Xbox One)
Domo arigato, Mr Roboto!
Hard Reset Redux is a remake of a PC FPS that was first released back in September 2011, created by Polish developers Flying Wild Hog. It received an expansion entitled Exile in 2012, and now the whole shooting match has been released into the crowded Xbox shooter market. Story driven, the game is a single player experience,...
Shine on
In a world where top-down shooters aren't exactly thin on the ground, it takes a brave developer to release one these days and hope that it draws money. With Neon Chrome though, developer 10tons have mixed things up somewhat. Rather than dealing in the sort of relatively throwaway fun the likes of Crimsonland and Polychromatic (amongst many...
Soul survivor? It's in your hands...
Soul Axiom is a first person perspective puzzle game, first released for the PC back in February this year by Wales Interactive. Now released on to the console market, can this story driven puzzler cut the mustard, or does it earn itself a raspberry? The game begins as it means to go on, as your character...
Review Dangerous Golf (Xbox One)
Out of bounds
They say that golf is a good walk spoiled. The ex-Burnout developers at Three Fields Entertainment have attempted to put paid to all that walking nonsense though, instead opting to take the sport largely indoors. With Dangerous Golf, their goal is clearly to take the essence of Burnout's "Crash" mode and apply it to a very different...
Review Azkend 2: The World Beneath (Xbox One)
Not a love match.
Azkend 2: The World Beneath is the latest assault on the Xbox market from the prolific guys over at 10tons Ltd and unsurprisingly, its another match-3 (or more) puzzle game. Much like their last two attempts to crack the puzzle fanbase, Sparkle Unleashed and Sparkle 2, this is a relatively simple puzzler that is unlikely to stretch...
Review Dead Island: Definitive Collection (Xbox One)
There and back again
While fans of the Dead Island franchise try to work out exactly what is happening with Dead Island 2 – a game that's doing a great impression of being a feline owned by Erwin Schrödinger – Deep Silver and Techland have decided to hold back the hordes of rabid fans by releasing this remastered collection of the first two...
