thelatenightsession

[thelatenightsession]

Avowed (Review)

Being the representative of both an empire and an unknown god is going to put pressure on anyone, and that’s the situation you find yourself in with Avowed, the latest RPG from Obsidian Entertainment. Set in the developer’s Pillars of Eternity universe, the game takes the previous two titles’ top-down perspective and goes full first person. While it may be a significant shift for players of the…

[thelatenightsession]

Indiana Jones and The Great Circle (Review)

The last Indiana Jones game that I played new was WAY back in 2003 with developer The Collective’s Indiana Jones and The Emperor’s Tomb on Xbox which married aspects of the Tomb Raider games with the brawling mechanics from their earlier Buffy the Vampire Slayer game (also on Xbox). Unfortunately for it, similar franchises were able to take the concepts further and it was often forgotten, even…

[thelatenightsession]

2024 in Review

It’s been a year of change here. Making a fresh start in a new role has been taking a lot of my time and some adjustments too after years of dealing with workplace toxicity but it’s also let me learn what not to do. It’s much easier to do that when you have such bad examples to reference! Having COVID make an appearance right on the holidays was not something I had on my bingo card, and it made…

[thelatenightsession]

Evercade VS-R (Review)

Blaze Entertainment have done a marvellous job of finding themselves a niche in the gaming space with their Evercade line of products with the platform not only providing a unique slice of retro gaming but a number of indie titles that really show that the system is carving out its own niche in the gaming lanscape. I’ve had the EXP handheld for some time now and have found it be a great package…

[thelatenightsession]

Death Stranding (Review)

Well… WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS! Somehow Kojima Productions stealth dropped an Xbox version of Death Stranding, their 2019 PlayStation exclusive that seemed locked to that platform for eternity. While it did come to PC the following year it still seemed unlikely but five years to the day since the PlayStation launch, Xbox players got their hands on the Director’s Cut release and now have a chance to…

[thelatenightsession]

Tales of Kenzera: Zau (Review)

Having a game deal with loss and grief is a theme that is often visited but with Tales of Kenzera: Zau it’s presented in such an imaginative way that it’s drawn me in and kept me wanting to play through and see the story play out. The story revolves around Zau, a young shaman who makes a deal with the god of death Kalunga in a bid to bring back his father. To aid in this he has two masks that…

[thelatenightsession]

Balatro (Review)

This might become one of the shortest reviews I’ve written but Balatro from developer LocalThunk is an incredibly clever game that takes poker, a game a lot of people are familiar with, and upends it with roguelike elements and modifiers that turn it into an addiction that is very hard to shake. The basic premise of Balatro is that you are dealt a number of playing cards from a standard deck and…

[thelatenightsession]

Robocop: Rogue City (Review)

One aspect of 80’s gaming that fits squarely within my memories is when movie tie-ins really began hitting their stride. One of the biggest was Ocean’s Robocop which pulled elements from Data East’s arcade game while throwing in additional elements to hew it closer to the film’s storyline. It was a pretty big deal at the time and a top seller too. A number of games over the last 35+ years have…

[thelatenightsession]

Senua's Saga: Hellblade II (Review)

Announced at the same time as the Xbox Series X console, Ninja Theory’s sequel to Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice promised a jump in visual fidelity that very few games could match. Now that it is here I think it is safe to say that the developers delivered. The story starts off with the protagonist Senua, captured and bound on a ship. She’s there intentionally, hoping to find those responsible for…

[thelatenightsession]

Retro hell freezes over as Atari acquires Intellivision brand

Atari’s newfound purpose in establishing itself as the backbone of classic/retro gaming has taken another interesting step with their announced acquisition of the Intellivision brand, including a substantial number of game properties. The Amico console however will be spun off and remain in the hands of its owners. The full announcement can be found here and Atari are already in full swing with…

[thelatenightsession]

Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story (Review)

Coming off Atari 50 and The Making of Karateka, Digital Eclipse have struck gold in finding a way to presenting not only classic games of the past but also the people behind them in a documentary format. Their latest title, Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story, is an inspired choice highlighting a developer who has been there right from the very beginning of the video games industry and is still…

[thelatenightsession]

Thoughts on The Atari 400 Mini

Back in January Retro Games, creators of TheC64 series of emulation consoles announced an Atari 8bit version that appears inspired in all the right ways and I like what I see so far. As the name suggests, The 400 Mini takes its design cues from the original Atari 400 but the guts of it will be able to play titles from the whole 8bit range including the 5200 console. Choosing the 400 seems like…

[thelatenightsession]

Planet of Lana (Review)

Over the years there’s been an incredible number of atmospheric platform games that have a larger focus on the story and how your character navigates through it. Both of PlayDead’s games Limbo and Inside were especially strong examples of this approach and it’s great to see that Planet of Lana from developer Wishfully Studios is carrying on from where those games left off and has delivered a…

[thelatenightsession]

The Making of Karateka (Review)

Over the years a number of people have attempted to provide a history of gaming that goes into detail about games of note and the stories behind them but often they lack the one thing that makes games unique in entertainment – the ability to play them. The team over at Digital Eclipse look like they have found the secret sauce to make this work, and after hitting a home run with the Atari 50…

[thelatenightsession]

2023 in Review

In terms of my output this year, I have to admit it’s been probably my quietest ever. Sometimes work and life get in the way a little too much and while I’m still gaming away it’s not always been as easy to find time to write about it. But a lot has been going on and I do want to share at least some thoughts about the year in general for me. Hi-Fi RUSH – my game of the year! Hi-Fi RUSH –…

[thelatenightsession]

Call of Duty Modern Warfare III (Review)

This year’s iteration of the Call of Duty franchise is probably going to cause a fair amount of controversy, not because of the recent blowback from campaign reviews – I think IGN went a little too far on that – but in that aspects of the value proposition of the package may get called into question. This release has been rumoured to have originally been aimed at being a DLC campaign expansion…

[thelatenightsession]

Starfield (Review)

In what’s really been years since Bethesda Game Studios last new single player RPG (Fallout 4 in 2015) we finally have Starfield arrive, fully waving an Xbox banner in the process. While it is still 100% a Bethesda style game, with its vast open areas and ability to allow players to choose their own path almost from the outset, it feels like it also draws from a number of other sci-fi games in…