Hitman: Blood Money, first released in 2006 by Eidos, is considered by many to be the best Hitman game ever made. After the first few games played around with novel ideas and concepts to mixed success, Blood Money honed in on the formulae of specific, small and dense environments filled with ‘accidental’ scripted opportunities to murder your target…

Final Fantasy VII is a landmark title not only for the JRPG genre, but for all video games. First released in 1997 and developed by Square, it took the format of the previous games and brought them to life with 3D models and environments. Featuring an ambitious and creative setting, a complicated plot with intrigue and a seemingly deep and engaging…

Rain World is a game that was released to very mixed reviews. With a whopping 59 on Metacritic, it was panned for its controls, difficulty, tedium and general obtuseness. But take a gander at the community reviews and you get a very different picture. The thing is, Rain World can at times be all the things that its critics hate so much that they gi…

It's that time of year again! For most of our episodes, our format is identical - we play a game, then discuss and review it. Once a year, however, we take a break from the format at christmas time for our Mailbag episodes. These are some of our favourite episodes to do - we take a break from the norm for some offbeat discussion about games both ol…

Ensemble Studios blew the world away with Age of Empires way back in 1997. It took a different approach to the RTS formulae than Westwood or Blizzard, and was rewarded heavily for it. Being able to advance your entire civilization's technology level was a heady drug, and balancing the varied needs of your economy with a well rounded army was strate…

Blood, first released in 1997 by Monolith Studios, was the middle child of the big three Build Engine games, sandwiched in between Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior. Its combination of gory horror-inspired visuals combined with action filled FPS gameplay was a huge hit at the time of release, but has slowly faded in many people’s memories. Both Quake and …

Metal Gear Solid 2 was easily the most hotly anticipated game for the Playstation 2. The first game had blown everyone away, and the jaw-dropping graphics of previews combined with the quality of the animation in cutscenes seemed almost too good to be true. Luckily for fans everywhere, MGS 2 appeared to live up to its wild expectations, getting alm…

Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 was a staple of many people’s PC desktop screens back in the early 2000s. Nestled in between the big hitters like Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 you would find this odd game that straddled the line between simulation and video game. Developed by Infogrames Interactive, it saw Chris Sawyer continue the work he put into the first game…

It feels like Metal Gear Solid barely needs an introduction. First released in 1998 for the playstation, it launched Hideo Kojima into the western spotlight and has been credited as a foundational game in the stealth genre. It combined a cinematic presentation with a larger than life cast of villains that somehow never broke through how seriously t…

In the 90’s turn based strategy and tactics games were everywhere, but by the turn of the millennium the RTS genre was stealing its thunder. So it was a surprise to most when in 2001 Advance Wars seemingly came out of nowhere and presented a tight and refined dose of tactics to the Western world. Its jovial and enthusiastic tone won over a lot of p…

Power fantasies are the norm for video games. We play them to blow off steam, to escape into another world where we can let our worries drop away. But Pulse Entertainment wanted to do things a little differently when they developed Bad Mojo in 1996. They wanted to put the player in the little brown shell of a cockroach. You play as Roger Samms, who…

Luigi’s Mansion was the cornerstone of the Nintendo Gamecube’s launch in 2001. It sold more copies than any other launch title, received positive critical acclaim, and occupied prime place in every promo gaming machine in gaming and electronic shops everywhere. The game promised a charming take on a haunted mansion, quite unlike Resident Evil that …

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 engi…

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…

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 crit…

Puzzles are like crack cocaine for their very special audience. Whether it be a crossword, a logic problem, or even a riddle, unravelling them shoots a heavy dose of endorphins directly to the brain. It is therefore no surprise that Professor Layton and the Curious Village was such a resounding success upon release, taking advantage of the portabil…

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 i…

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 …

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 lim…

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 for…

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 th…

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…

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 en…

Gamefreak, on the rarest of occasions, takes a break from toiling away in the Pokemon mines. And when they do, sometimes they strike gold. Such was the case with Drill Dozer, first released in 2005 to mostly favourable reviews. As time ticked on, however, many began to look back on it with increasing fondness, and it's not hard to find those who co…

Mega Man X, first released in 1993 and developed by Capcom, is a certified Super Nintendo classic. Widely considered to be one of the strongest entries in the entire expanded Mega Man franchise, it took the classic formulae of running and gunning and turned it up to 11. The graphics were more colourful and detailed, the music got bumped up a notch,…