Let’s begin the review with a stark personal story. We promise this is 100 per cent true: we fell asleep playing Babylon’s Fall. Multiple times. Sat there in an office chair, DualSense in hand, fast asleep. That could almost be the end of the review, surely? A new game from Platinum of all people, patron saints of hardcore gaming — some of the fastest-paced and most demanding combat in the medium. Responsible for Vanquish and Bayonetta for goodness’ sake! And now it's put out a game that we’d market to insomniacs. And we don’t mean the Marvel'sSpider-Man and Ratchet & Clank kind.
Platinum and Square Enix have stumbled into the "games as a service" arena here, the soulless Milton Keynes of gaming already overflowing with titles rivalling for an audience. This, oddly, includes Square Enix and People Can Fly's very own Outriders, which operates in a similar space (despite having rather different gameplay). So what's the story with Babylon's Fall? We'll try and piece it together. We're still not totally sure what we played and what we simply dreamed, as the sheer dullness of the experience ushered in the sandman to grace our eyelids with his sleepy quarry.
The games industry doesn’t hibernate for very long over the winter and holidays, so there’s already the first stirrings for what looks to be one of the busiest periods in gaming that I can remember. The next few months are jam-packed with game releases, many of which were delayed from the end of last year, and more trailers and announcements are starting to drop. That’s in addition to PC gamers getting a month where they can catch up on some huge games that are being ported to their platform for the first time. In the News This Week Hitman 3 Year 2 starts 20th January – Freelancer mode, a new level and free updates revealed All Xbox One consoles were discontinued by the end of 2020 Take Two purchasing Zynga for $12.7 billion Troy Baker backs a voice based NFT site but won’t be selling his own voice Deep Rock Galactic gains 6 million players in one week after PS Plus launch STALKER 2 hit with massive delay More Days Gone sequel plans revealed by game director Jeff Ross Overwatch 2 LEGO set delayed due to Activision Blizzard allegations PUBG’s free-to-play relaunch is now live on PlayStation, Xbox and Steam Techland clarify how long Dying Light 2 takes to complete Giveaways We’ve got a great giveaway this week for fans of the RuneScape MMORPG. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, which is mind-boggling for pretty much every game, Jagex created a gorgeous RuneScape: The First 20 Years book looking back of the game’s history. We’ve got five copies of the Deluxe Edition for a giveaway, which you can enter here. Games in Review and Featured Articles January seems to be the month of choice for games to get ports to PC, with both Monster Hunter Rise and God of War making the jump to keyboard & mouse. How did they hold up? Monster Hunter Rise – PC, NSW – 9/10 God of War – PC, PS5, PS4 – 8/10 Battle Brothers – PS4, XBO, PC – 7/10 Elsewhere, we took a good long look at The Anacrusis, a new sixties sci-fi themed take on the Left 4 Dead formula that’s now in Early Access and Xbox Game Preview, while Gareth dove back into the mind of Far Cry 4’s arch villain with the Far Cry 6 – Pagan: Control DLC. His mind is rather similar in structure to Vaas’ from the first DLC… Over the weekend, we had two features, the first from Eric delving into The Legend of Zelda Second Quest, and the second with Reggie asking what happened to Arena Shooters? Finally, What We Played featured The Anacrusis, Far Cry 6 and Fantasian. Trailer Park We could post trailers for days this week, but here’s a few of the highlights: Gran Turismo 7 gameplay trailer heads to the Daytona International Speedway Pokémon Legends: Arceus trailer reveals more gameplay from its Hisuian adventure Kirby and the Forgotten Land is coming out in March – new gameplay and co-op revealed in trailer New ELEX II trailer dives into the overhauled RPG combat Your Achievements And finally for this round-up, we come to… you! MrYd finished of Ghost of Tsushima’s main story and started on the Iki Island expansion. He also enjoyed playing through Life Is Strange 2 and got sucked into the cave-dwelling delights of Deep Rock Galactic. And willbuchanan is aiming to finish off Guardians of the Galaxy this weekend. He might even shoot for the platinum, which just depends on getting all of the outfits. That’s it for this week’s gaming round-up. Have a fun weekend, wrap up warm, and we’ll catch you again next week.
2022 has arrived and, despite bringing some bitterly cold weather with it, I’m sure we’re all hoping for a more positive year compared to the last two! Considering it’s only the first week of January, there was a surprising amount of news, so let’s dive right into our first gaming round-up of the year… In the News This Week E3 2022 will be online-only once again – Summer Games Fest confirms its return Mario Kart 9 rumours fly after analyst states it’s in “active development” PSVR 2 specs and name revealed along with Horizon Call of the Mountain! Just Add Water CEO and founder Stewart Gilray has passed away Insomniac Games are tweeting about the Chimera again, are they hinting at something? Rumour: The Last of Us PS5 remake will launch this year Rainbow Six Extraction will launch on Game Pass, Ubisoft+ coming to Xbox Ghost of Tsushima has swept past 8 million sales Days Gone might have sold 8 million copies in 1.5 years, according to game director A Skull & Bones associate game director has left Ubisoft GoldenEye 007 achievements appear online sparking rumours of remaster Castlevania NFTs to be auctioned by Konami as part of Memorial Series Amazon’s Fallout TV series will begin production this year Final Fantasy 7 Remake mod concept brings back PS1 camera And if you’re subscribed to various gaming services, January’s updates are live: Xbox Game Pass January 2022 includes Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Outer Wilds and more The January 2022 PS Plus games are now live, download links here PlayStation Now January 2022 line up includes Mortal Kombat 11 & Final Fantasy XII Our Most Wanted Games of 2022 Heralding in the new year, our look at the top games coming in 2022 kicked into overdrive as it entered the final five: #5 – Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League #4 – Dead Space Remake #3 – Horizon Forbidden West #2 – Elden Ring Check out the rest of our 50 Most Wanted Games of 2022 here, and keep your eyes peeled for our #1 game coming later today! Games in Review and Featured Articles As you might expect, it was a quiet start to the new year for the reviews: Exo One – XSX|S, XBO, PC – 8/10 Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel: Dawn of the Battle Royale!! – NSW– 3/10 Never-the-less, Aran was on hand with the first preview of 2022 as he looked at My Lovely Wife that makes you question how far you would go to bring back someone you love. Last up, we finished off the week as we always do with What We Played, which featured Deep Rock Galactic, Far Cry 6 & It Takes Two. Trailer Park See the plane fight from the Uncharted movie in a new 2 minutes clip New Horizon Forbidden West trailer reveals the Utaru and Tenakth tribes AVICII Invector Encore Edition announced for Meta Quest 2 Your Achievements Here’s what you in our community has been up to this week: MrYd has made his way to the third area in Ghost of Tsushima and is loving it. He also enjoyed Deep Rock Galactic, Life is Strange 2 and Sniper Elite VR, but was disappointed with the ‘broken’ Alan Wake. willbuchanan got the platinums for Tomb Raider and Donut County. He’s also completed Maneater and the Lego Star Wars The Force Awakens DLC, and has now moved onto Guardians of the Galaxy. TSBonyman wasn’t impressed by Deep Rock Galactic and had mixed feelings for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart – while it looks gorgeous he thought it was a bit bare bones. Luckily, the weekly music jams in Dreams are a familiar home. And Andrewww has been continuing through the main story of Days Gone, trying to avoid the open world fatigue from too many side quests. Have a great weekend and I’ll see you again soon!
