Unreal was the Crysis of its time.  It pushed PCs to their absolute limits, with its advanced shader effects and enormous levels.  It featured AI that was far beyond the stilted and simplistic enemies that people were used to.  It built an alien world that managed to straddle the line between the more abstract early era shooter and what the build engine games were doing.  And it was all wrapped up in a succinct 10 hour campaign, that eschewed genre staples like door keys and fodder enemies.  Unreal seemed to represent a true evolution of the FPS genre. But unfortunatel ..read more

When Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers first released in 1993, it was not a crack commercial hit.  It did however instantly earn itself widespread critical acclaim, with reviewers praising its dark and disturbing story, foreboding atmosphere, and incredible voice acting.  The game brought the setting of 90’s Louisiana to life, with all the colonial baggage and real life voodoo history integrated into every little crevice of its world. But can Gabriel Knight truly get over the ultimate sin of being a point and click adventure game?  Can voodoo be taken seriously after Monkey Is ..read more

Arkane Studios was founded with a dream: to create a sequel to the highly revered grandfather of immersive sims Ultima Underworld.  Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t quite secure the rights to the IP, and instead decided to make a game that was evocative of the original in every way.  Enter Arx Fatalis, a game that was released to widespread critical acclaim, but unfortunately for Arkane suffered commercially.  It wasn’t until the far more action orientated release of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic that Arkane started to see more widespread appeal. But did the original Arx ..read more

Relic Entertainment has a long history of innovating in the RTS space.  Both Company of Heroes and Dawn of War are much beloved and respected titles that could hold their heads high even when compared to other goliaths like Warcraft, Red Alert or Age of Empires.  But in many ways it was their very first game as a company that pushed the conventions in a weirder direction than anything else.  This debut title was called Homeworld. Homeworld is an RTS set in true three dimensional space, with fleets of ships able to attack from any direction.  It features a unique yet bizarre ..read more

Before Todd Howard’s promises about the climbability of mountains was Peter Molyneux and Fable, a game which promised a level of interactivity never seen before in an RPG.  Have children (that could continue your legacy when you died), plant a tree and see it grow, and dynamic rivalries with other heroes - Fable was going to have it all. Instead we got something far simpler in scope and ambition.  There were hints or shadows of something more grandiose, properties could be bought, reputation existed, and you could fart in people’s faces.  But for all that it seemed to miss on it ..read more

The original Pathologic has long been regarded as a cult classic.  Obtuse, frustrating, boring and unfriendly, it nonetheless captured people’s imaginations with its densely woven storytelling and mystical dialogue.  It was a game that came at the art form from a completely different direction from what everyone else was doing, but was ultimately limited by its fairly simple gameplay. Pathologic 2 aimed to solve the gameplay problem.  Ice Pick Lodge, with a wagon full of kickstarter money, wanted to refine the spirit of the first game and realise their dream of death and sufferi ..read more

When we started this podcast nearly 4 years ago, we did so with a clear goal in mind.  We wanted to play, review and critique games of the past from a perspective free of nostalgia.  As the gaming industry grew, games changed, for both better and worse - and it is worthwhile to examine all those creaky and dust covered titles to see what has been forgotten.  Sometimes mechanics truly are outdated, sometimes modern games have done it better - but not always.  And discovering when an old game offers something unique because of what they supposedly lack has been an incredible ..read more

The Metroid games are certified classics for a reason.  Super Metroid, in particular, is responsible for inventing an entire genre, with a shockingly tight design that puts all other games of its era to shame.  The 90s came and went without seeing a 3D metroid game, but in 2002 we finally saw the release of Metroid Prime.  Could it possibly capture the magic of what made the 2D games great? Well, according to the reviews of the time, it did that, and more.  Metroid Prime received close to universal acclaim, with everything from its graphical presentation to its enemy design ..read more

When Resident Evil first came out in 1996, it wrote the book on what 3D survival horror was meant to be.  Fixed camera angles, a creepy atmosphere, tank controls and bizarrely themed puzzles - these were now synonymous with the genre, whether you liked it or not.  And for the most part, people liked it very much indeed, with its mainline sequels (and a couple of the spinoffs) sticking to and refining what made the original so compelling. It's no surprise then that Resident Evil 4 was released to some degree of controversy.  It takes elements of the originals that many might view ..read more

The Chronicles of Riddick, when it first released in 2004, was the definition of mediocre sci-fi schlock.  Riddick, played by Vin Diesel, came across as a generic edgelord, and it seemed to lean into special effects and spectacle over anything more substantial.  It's a direction that didn’t play well with critics, nor with the fans of the previous entry, Pitch Black.  So it was to everyone’s surprise when a videogame set in this same world was released to widespread critical acclaim.  Vin Diesel, under his macho exterior, was secretly a bit of a geek, and was heavily involv ..read more