Recent reviews by hi Swift

Fallout NV is a game I’ve completed so many times, across both console and PC, that it’s hard for me to view it through a fresh pair of eyes. Since exploring Fallout 4 on Survival mode, I figured it was time to test my grit in the Mojave Wasteland with New Vegas’s Hardcore mode, and see if my experience was changed as significantly as in FO4.

Compared to Fallout 4, New Vegas’s Hardcore mode was effortless. Despite your character having to monitor hunger, thirst and sleep deprivation, the system is so forgiving that you’ll rarely face any consequences. Hunger and sleep were non-factors especially; food is so bountiful and hunger so slow to build that you’ll seldom be impacted. I only needed to sleep once in my entire 20-hour playthrough, and even then I only faced a small debuff to my S.P.E.C.I.A.L skills. In contrast, to prevent dehydration you have to constantly waterboard yourself. Hardcore mode is essentially just about drinking water every two minutes, with sadly no additional damage modifiers to change combat, removing the hair-trigger moments of Fallout 4. But hey, at least you can save anywhere and don’t need to save in beds.

Character role-playing is mixed bag too. Speech checks still occur through your speech stat, but will often require knowledge of bartering, science, medicine and repair - smooth-talking isn’t enough in its own right anymore, and genuine knowledge of areas is required to pass speech checks. I love this system, as it requires you to min-max early in the game and not simply bluff your way through every quest. On the other hand, some traits feel comparatively weak or underutilised. Charisma, strangely, has little connection to your actual speech skill, serving mostly as a means to slightly adjust in-game vendor prices. Computer skill is also utilised much less than lockpicking, which is often mandatory to progress certain quests, and there’s little incentive to choose unarmed skills over melee. In any case, traditional guns almost always come out on top in combat due to both their damage and ubiquity.

Fallout NV is stuffed with 540+ locations, multiple branching pathways, 65,000 lines of dialogue and so many memorable quests it’s almost daunting. Whilst the best part of the gameplay loop is wandering in a random direction and seeing what you find, standout missions like protecting NCR’s president from assassination, hauling a B-29 bomber from Lake Mead, and discovering the sacrifices of Vault 11 mean faction quests are generally worth pursuing. I also love the lack of sentimentality in New Vegas’s story, avoiding the melodramatic family turmoil of previous games in exchange for a cold story of revenge.

One thing I noticed - probably owed to NV’s 18-month development cycle - is how empty and liminal bigger locations can be. Camp McCarran’s terminal building, intended to be one of the NCR’s biggest science labs, consists of around 4 people in an office. Hoover Dam feels both too large and too empty, with few interesting things to see. This might be due to running on 360/PS3 era hardware, capping the number of NPCs and objects available in one area. Despite this, smaller locations are generally fantastic, filled with environmental storytelling, interesting characters and unique loot.

It wouldn’t be a FO:NV review without a paragraph on glitches and jank. On the plus side, modding felt super easy through Vortex and the majority of glitch-fixing patches are only a handful of megabytes in size. Performance and loading times were also superb and, in some cases, areas were preloaded in advance resulting in no wait times at all. The game feels like an open platform and there’s a near-unlimited number of high-quality quests and assets to install to make NV last forever. Movement is fairly jittery, with my character either getting stuck running in a straightline, prompting a reload, or throwing himself forwards.

Sometimes, the sheer amount of jank makes NV feel like an alternative reality where physics and collision are just a suggestion. It’s like acid dream: voice actors will change mid-sentence, even with critical story characters, Others have reported not being able to enter The Strip unless they wear a specific cowboy hat, or the game will crash. VATS will fail to load in, and the animations feel like they’re straight from a web-based 3D flash game.

Fallout: New Vegas is still a fantastic game, but don’t expect hardcore mode to give the game an entirely new lease of life. Since damage modifiers remain the same, and hunger and sleep requirements are so lenient, you won’t find yourself adopting any new strategies or engaging in mechanics for the sake of survival. There’s a little more inventory management required, but otherwise it’s New Vegas as you’ve always known it. But what a game it is.

Splinter Cell promises “Stealth Action Redefined” and delivers it for the most part. Each environment reacts to the player’s noise levels, including surface-type walked on (a la Thief), and different lighting intensities. For example: the various shades of light between pitch black and broad day means the player will occasionally be forced to take some serious risks in the name of progress. Taking a moderately exposed path, while the enemy turns their back, builds panic as you rush forward to the sounds of guards muttering between them.

The sound across Splinter Cell is fantastic, but most enjoyable is the radio chatter between protagonist Sam Fisher and Irving Lambert, the voice in your earpiece and Director of the secret intelligence agency Third Echelon. As well as issuing mission objectives, there are some genuinely great one-liners and witty retorts from either side, with Sam showcasing a playfully rebellious and cynical side which occasionally cracks a smirk from ‘by the books’ Lambert. The story itself though is eyerollingly patriotic, with the US almost always seen as the good guys up against various Asian, Russian and Eastern European baddies. Propaganda might be a bit extreme, but I do wonder how Western audiences would interpret Splinter Cell’s themes of US peacekeeping and grandstanding moral authority.

Such is a shame that Splinter Cell is incredibly linear, painful even. Each path forward has a strict and inflexible idea in mind for how the player should tackle it. You’ll mostly be navigating through corridors, using a broad range of equipment and acrobatic techniques in an entirely prescribed method to overcome a problem. While this creates a tailored experience for the player, unravelling the game’s mechanics between each checkpoint and upskilling the player, it also eliminates any resemblance of emergent gameplay.

For example: despite the wealth of complex stealth mechanics, none are taken advantage of for differing routes. Exploration is limited solely to an occasional extra medkit which, given detection will most likely either instantly fail the mission or have Sam killed, it doesn’t really offer any advantage. How good would Splinter Cell be if each mission had a few branching paths to the objective?

You could have three routes to the objective: one being the regular path, taken by players and instructed by Lambert, but also a high-risk high-reward path to reach the objective quicker, testing seasoned players. Then, a secret path offering a mix of the two, but relying entirely on close observation of the environment and Sam’s acrobatic abilities to reach, potentially even incorporating the computer logs and text messages which currently only serves as flavour text.

Overall, Splinter Cell feels half-baked and its level design lacking in creativity. What could have been a richly mechanical and systems-led game, becomes a game which punishes out of box thinking.

Super Meat Boy is seen as ‘traditionally’ difficult, but it’s by far the least frustrating game I’ve played. There are no cheap deaths; the game is open about its obstacles and often gives you plenty of time to navigate them, just don’t panic. But that’s the key: you have to relax.

To me, frustration is about not being in control. When we are punished by things which we had no input or say on, we feel helpless and, in turn, our confidence falters. When our confidence drops, we make more mistakes. We blame ourselves, and our self-esteem drops. What turns into an external problem, becomes an internal one - and we feel bad about ourselves and our inadequacies.

Super Meat Boy’s gamepad controls are so responsive, Meat Boy so agile, and momentum so quick to adjust that you always feel in control. Even when you make a mistake and miss the perfect opportunity to jump, there’s always a split second where quick thinking and calm nerves can fix the situation. Short stages and instant, unlimited respawns means you never lose more than a few seconds of progress either, and so you’re never really punished for failure nor are your nerves fried from the pressure.

Once you’ve cracked the exact timings to a jump, or exact moment to slide down a wall, you’ve completed one of 5 to 10 ‘mini’ challenges in each level, and it’s just a matter of stringing them altogether. Easier said than done, but muscle memory picks up the slack where your brain might usually get tired. And if you do feel like it’s getting too easy, Super Meat Boy has a ‘B-side’ (known as the dark world) to every level which offers a challenging new twist on the original concept. This is most interesting in the first stage of the game, where a basic tutorial can suddenly doubles into a playground for advanced techniques.

Placed sneakily within regular levels are special stages which flip the formula, at least visually. These include levels themed around the monochromatic original Gameboy, the NES, or even the Windows blue screen of death. These bonus levels are a breath of fresh air, but can occasionally edge towards the frustrating. Most include limited lives, bringing an unexpected level of punishment for trial and error, and the visual style can make obstacles difficult to discern from the background.

Overall, Super Meat Boy is a fast-n-fantastic platformer brimming with charm and personality. The game’s quality rarely slips, and it’s abundance of content can keep you addicted indefinitely. I wholeheartedly recommend, as well as ‘Indie Game: The Movie’ which covers the highs and lows of its development.

KOTOR’s blockbuster story and high production values, including a fully voice-acted script, launched the cRPG genre into hyperspace and ushered in the golden age of Bioware. Despite lacking a certain flash to its gameplay, and a slew of technical problems, KOTOR still holds up as the #1 Star Wars game.

KOTOR’s story is primarily an analysis of how different planets adapt to war, with criticisms and compliments of each approach. Take Manaan, for instance, an aquatic planet which maintains a fragile and shaky neutrality during the destructive Sith-Republic war. To maintain their position, Manaan allows the Sith and Republic access to their markets, yet enforces strict laws to punish any Sith or Republic soldier taking violence against each other. While neutrality seems an ideal solution to prevent Manaan’s fate from hinging on the outcome of war, the administrative and legal burden to hold this peace leaves huge security holes domestically. The Sith and Jedi are left free to lead mining operations of Kolto resource - used as a healing agent across the galaxy - to their ends, with both sides manipulating and intruding upon a pacifist species. Depending on your choices, this can lead to either simple exploitation of an overburdened planet, or complete ecological disaster.

Meanwhile, Kashyyyk’s cynical willingness to partner with the powerful dark side Czerka Corporation, in order to prevent all-out war, leads to a gradual erosion of their culture and values. To strip the Wookies of their identity, and retain their grasp on the natives, Czerka rename the planet ‘Edean’ and placed a respected Wookie, Chuunder, as ruler despite him selling out his own people. This gives the outward impression of democracy, and respect for Wookie tradition, despite Chuunder leading unopposed under the guise of preventing war. This colonialist metaphor shows how indirect power is asserted and maintained, as the Wookies are easily overturned despite being physically more powerful.

When KOTOR strays from the moral quandaries of wartime politics, it feels much less compelling to non-Star Wars heads. Korriban, which contains a Sith academy, shows how war creates opportunity and ambition for people; an opportunity to overcome personal insecurity by overcoming great challenge. However, it’s mostly a dump of Star Wars extended universe lore which is now considered non-canon, becoming too self-indulgent and lost in its own mythology to feel relatable to anyone but the most hardcore Star Wars novel readers.

Another critique, sharply addressed by KOTOR 2, is just how pro-Jedi the moral lens is in this first game. There are significant critiques to be made of how the dogmatic Jedi refuse to act, letting thousands die while debating abstract lessons of wisdom in their ivory towers. Yet, they still manipulate people to do their dirty work when push comes to shove. The young Bastila, a highly respected yet rash Jedi commander, faces immense pressure to perform in war with little emotional support. The player character faces significant Jedi manipulation, with extremely immoral acts inflicted upon them, yet critiquing these decisions puts you firmly on a dark side path. Dark side choices are just comically cruel in KOTOR, however, and the Sith’s nihilistic philosophy is portrayed more as maniacally villainous rather than pragmatic. KOTOR 1’s biggest story problem is lacking the nuanced decision-making of KOTOR 2, and while areas of grey are explored by NPCs, you aren’t given many opportunities to follow a more moderate path.

KOTOR’s gameplay follows the D&D ruleset familiar to fans of cRPGs like Dragons Age Baldur’s Gate. Combat is turn-based but movement is mostly real-time, meaning each character will queue up attacks/item uses but you can reposition whenever you like; this means you’ll still get hit even if you run away at the last second, but it certainly helps the game feel more fluid as a result. Hacking and stealth can be intelligently used to avoid difficult encounters, but these specialisms are best used on party members due to a few mandatory boss encounters. My main problem was I found blasters to be almost useless compared to lightsabers, limiting my options to roleplay as a rogue or scoundrel. Force powers are ridiculously overpowered, and in the late-game feel almost essential to wipe out groups of enemies. This could however be a skill issue, but some late-game encounters - particularly the final level, can feel absolutely brutal without exploiting the force + lightsaber combo.

In 2024, KOTOR is an incredibly buggy game. In fact, it’s much worse than the often-criticized KOTOR 2. Your AI party members will get stuck on objects, run in different directions from you, walk away mid-convo, and fail to reach stage transitions, leaving you stuck in certain areas. Manaan is one of the worst offenders, where a few twists and turns will have your party members completely lost. In terms of modern compatibility, it took hours and numerous fixes to play the game at 1440p, and even then the game suffered from scaling issues such as tiny fonts. Given the recent Switch ports, it would have been helpful to receive a small QoL update to fix these issues, or even some achievements and controller support like KOTOR 2 on PC.

While not hitting the heights of KOTOR 2 for some technical and story reasons, this is still an incredible game. The D&D gameplay feels satisfying, especially late-game when you’ve unlocked a good number of abilities, and the writing is captivating and well-acted. Take your time with this, treat each planet like its own story, and always take everything with a pinch of salt.

Chex Quest HD is a remake of a cult-classic DOOM WAD from 1996, packaged within cereal boxes and granting kids the special ability to play a non-violent game, parentally approved.

Chex Quest HD runs on Unreal Engine 4, a touch overkill yet a pleasant change from the safe option of Unity. For this, the visuals look gorgeous; the rich, saturated colours pop and feel like a breath of fresh air for an FPS game. The colourful, razor-sharp cutscenes look brilliant at 1440p, with all due credit to the game’s talented digital painters.

Equally refreshing is gathering fruit for HP, and “teleporting” the alien Flemoids back home instead of wiping them out. Level design follows basic mazes littered with key cards and detours. All said and done, it’s extremely simplistic and can be completed in under 60 minutes. Each level has around 4 secrets in genuinely sneaky yet non-obtuse locations, and the ambient occlusion and shadowing create environments with more depth than your typically flat cartoon image.

In contrast to the original, Chex Quest HD has a painfully sluggish movement speed. Sprint is available, but its use is limited and, combined with the tight FOV, can easily make you feel nauseous. The lack of secret notifications, or a map, makes it difficult to know if you’ve 100%’d a level too. Overall, Chex Quest HD is a fun change of pace visually but doesn’t offer much more gameplay-wise than the most basic of DOOM wads.

Prodeus’ level design instantly reminded me of classic Quake 1 mods. Levels unfold like a Rubix cube with huge, sprawling environments rearranging themselves at the flip of a switch. Train stations feature moving wagons to help you progress – or knock down walls – and the floor will frequently give way to reveal additional layers of the map. I particularly loved the space station map featured in the late-game, allowing you to jump between shuttle pods and scale the exterior of the control centre. Big Unreal Tournament vibes in the best possible way.

The secrets reward exploration, being accessible via jumps and switches rather than tediously pressing the USE key on every single wall. Finding secrets rewards you with Ore, which is used to purchase additional weapons and abilities at the shop. Some secrets require use of mid-game abilities, such as the double-jump, giving you a strong incentive to replay earlier levels to finally collect out of reach Ore.

Prodeus’ overwhelms you with hundreds of surprisingly intelligent enemies per level. I noticed projectile-based enemies accurately guessing my movement pattern, encouraging me to make more use of my dodge ability by the late-game. Most of the combat revolves around prioritising enemies and moving quickly around the battlefield, in a style very similar to DOOM eternal. While facing scores of enemies, with particle effects and blood flying everywhere, the game ran rock-solid start to finish with perfect frame pacing.

Despite the razor sharp textures, huge interactive environments and spades of particles, Prodeus isn’t always easy on the eye. Part of the game’s retro 90s FPS style includes constant screen distortion, flashes, blur and chromatic aberration to simulate computer glitches. However, by the end of each 1 to 2 hour play session I found myself feeling slightly dizzy and even a little nauseous.

To its credit, Prodeus tries to compensate by adding a range of accessibility options, such as toggling the various types of distortion and CRT filters used. But it can’t get around the fact the visual style is fundamentally overwhelming. Some visual effects, such as vignettes, are locked into the game and can’t be changed without mods. I understand and appreciate the developer’s commitment to achieving their aesthetic, and the game is technically outstanding, but I would have loved a reduced intensity setting to help open the game up to wider audiences. For new players, I recommend playing the game with a 60Hz cap to reduce motion sickness. Heads up for disabled gamers too, controller support is fairly lacklustre too.

Overall, Prodeus features high production values and creative level design that should appeal to anyone with interest in the genre. People prone to motion sickness, or a visual based disability such as epilepsy, should be careful however, and I hope Bounding Box’s next game builds upon the accessibility features of this first game from day one.

Planescape Torment is a brilliant story-led RPG that focuses on themes of identity to craft a thought-provoking and immensely satisfying journey.

Planescape Torment is my first-ever Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) universe game. In fact, I started with Planescape specifically because it felt like a less intimidating starting point, with no knowledge of Dwarven and Elven politics required and a slightly more isolated universe, I felt confident I would be at a similar starting point as most players. For the most part, this held true. I wasn’t expected to understand the goliath number of proper nouns thrown my way without explanation, which Planescape happily provides within its 75,000 lines of dialogue. One exception was an event called the Blood War which, whenever discussed, I sheepishly nodded my head, presuming it was a lore point rather than something essential to know about. Without spoilers, it’s worth paying more attention to this. I won’t ruin the storyline if you aren’t aware, but it will be alluded to heavily within the game’s final moments.

Planescape features consistently superb writing. That doesn’t mean I liked every character: but I can vouch for each being incredibly nuanced and considered. None of the characters felt like plot devices, but believable people who progress the plot by offering you a single element of their personality to help push you further. Despite the cause-and-effect of your existence, the personal nature of the plot means common townsfolk are never in a position to view you as a hero or villain. You’re generally considered part of the mercenary class, and so you have no top trumps to pull whilst conversing with people. If you try to intrude on their affairs, they will either ask for help or simply tell you to leave in no uncertain terms.

The main quest follows The Nameless One, a brute-like character gifted with the power of immortality. Through your many deaths and revivals, your body has become hideously scared and, due to the spell cast on you, your memory has started wiping itself. This leads you to seek your own mortality . Fueled by an eternal death wish on yourself, you start by waking up in a mortuary, presumably one of several times, and retracing your many previous steps once again.

This creates an interplay between the different legacies of the same player-character, and several people immediately fear you, while others hold you in high regard, due to your previous actions. This leads to parts like discovering your old room, journal, and even clues left in the environment by your previous self. It’s like the amnesiac trope, typical in RPGs, yet much more considered and thought-provoking. It’s also a genius way to explain ‘video-gamey’ concepts like respawning, and even potentially save scumming, as you’re simply following different lives the protagonist has lived. It reminded me of the quantum physics theory that every decision made by a person initiates the creation of a new universe or timeline, except it plays strictly within one person’s life.

What I love about Planescape is expectations are challenged around every corner. One major plot point follows an angel who’s so hell-bent on being ‘good’ that he destroys an entire town to cleanse the earth of any possibility or potential for sin. While mostly fueled by paranoia, in his eyes he’s genuinely doing the world a favour by removing its inhabitants, who could act maliciously towards others. In his delusions, he misses the forest for the trees and brings an entire town to the brink of destruction.

The story is brilliant and, while complex, the ending goes out of its way to painstakingly explain each plot point and why certain things have happened. I imagine some people may mourn the loss of subtlety and feel the game should leave certain implications to the player to unravel themselves, but I certainly appreciated the handholding after 26 hours of constant story progression. This isn’t a gripe insofar as a reality of the production and era in which Planescape was created, but without voice acting my mind got slightly fatigued and scrambled due to the amount of dense text. All wonderfully produced, mind you, but digesting rapid-fire paragraphs does eventually take its toll.

I’ve neglected to talk about other gameplay systems because, outside of the brilliant dialogue system and choices, the non-story mechanics just aren’t that interesting. For starters, there is too much combat. If you read retrospectives of Planescape, you could be misled into thinking combat is almost non-existent. However, there are several essential dungeons where you have no option but to hack-and-slash your way through. Whilst in the main city hubs, enemies will often randomly spawn to simulate the dangers of living in the unforgiving worlds of the planes. Due to putting all my points into charisma, I managed to soft-lock myself due to an unbeatable combat encounter which felt pretty criminal for a story-centred RPG. Honestly, I would recommend putting the game on easy just so you can focus on what really matters: the story.

Thankfully, most quests offer peaceful ways to conclude them and a slightly rushed development of Planescape in the final months perhaps excised a few moments of choice in the late game. What hasn’t been skimped on is the artwork, which feels like you’re gliding along the edges of paintings in each stage of the game. It can be occasionally difficult to see doors, and your AI companions tend to get stuck on geometry, but a handy map screen with notes will help you identify anything you’ve missed.

In fact, the Enhanced Edition comes with so many great quality-of-life features. There’s every zoom level you could want, you can make manual adjustments to frame rate (a la game speed) and most importantly: accessibility options, like doubling the size of the game’s font and your cursor.

Overall, Planescape Torment is an exceptional game. The story is extremely well written and consistently held my attention for long hours at a time. If combat was presented differently, or could even bypassed altogether, I would consider this game near-perfect.

As I dive further into the cRPG iceberg, the lines between video-game and interactive novels are beginning to blur as quickly as the speed at which I lose QoL features. KOTOR 2’s combat is as clunky as it is deep, but matched with one of the greatest stories in Star Wars history, I’m starting to realise what makes this genre so beloved to so many people.

KOTOR 2 serves as a cutting analysis into Star Wars politics, embracing its source material heavily and even transcending it. The Jedi’s laissez-faire approach to Galactic peacekeeping is examined and scrutinised heavily, asking the player to consider what they should involve themselves in, and what should be left to its natural course. The player character is generally encouraged to take action, to the admonishment of the Jedi Order, who are pitched as sitting indecisively in their Iridium towers.

KOTOR 2 encouraged me to re-think Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith, where Anakin’s rebellion against the Jedi is seen as a failure to accept life’s tragedies and instead opt for an “easier”, self-destructive route to preserve what we care about. While there’s some legitimate concern about Jedi emotionally neglecting their students and refusing to act towards injustice, it’s mostly pitched selfishly through Anakin’s individualistic lusts and insecurity. KOTOR 2, on the other hand, explores the Jedi’s inability to act in the context of greater tragedies in the universe, which they let occur while meditating in their chambers. Being driven by emotions isn’t portrayed as wholly negative and, instead, relationships should be prioritised over Jedi and Sith dogma. However, the practicalities of gameplay can occasionally surface, thrusting you into the occasional binary choice to contain the scope of the game.

The writing shines through its quality and superb voice acting. In particular, HK-47, an assassination droid, might be the funniest character in cRPG history. Characters connected to the force, such as Kreia, speak obtusely and in riddles to lead the character down a specific path; everything in the real world is viewed as a potential lesson in morals and philosophy. On the other hand, HK-47, and his fellow droids, open every sentence by denoting their tone of speech. I have endless brilliant quotes screenshotted, but here are two that buckled me:

HK-47 interrogates fellow HK-50 droids

“Posturing Statement: I will never talk.”

“Cruel Statement: Then I will have to settle for your screams”

HK-47 questions droids at factory

“Dismissive answer: When the Sith bombed the planet, these facilities remained. We do not know why. It is not important.”

“Timid theory: Perhaps the humans simply like being underground. They are strange that way… awkward silence … It is merely a theory.

Irritated Statement: That is the least probable theory in the galaxy. Perhaps it is time you received a memory wipe.

Defensive Statement: That theory is no less valid than your theories. In the lack of evidence, I defend my position.

Even Astromech droids, like T3-M4, enjoy side missions where you have to select dialogue choices of “beep deep” or “deeee…. Deet?” and piece together the conversation. The sarcastic and patronising droid humour landed, although as genuine party members, their practical uses are sometimes limited due to a lack of force abilities.

KOTOR 2’s gameplay will feel familiar to any cRPG/D&D fans, but may feel a bit awkward to a modern player. Combat is turn-based but movement is mostly real-time, meaning each character will queue up attacks/item uses but you can reposition whenever you like; this means you’ll still get hit even if you run away at the last second, but it certainly helps the game feel more fluid as a result. It might feel clunky at first, but once you start engaging in the upgrade systems and advanced force powers, you really feel it firing on all cylinders. Battles will end quicker, and there are more options beyond watching your character hopelessly swing a blade in an enemy's general direction.

There are significant AI problems, however. Non-player controlled party members will always sprint directly into combat, even with a single health point to their name. Characters will insist on attacking for a turn before using their equipment, which can be infuriating when they desperately need a med-pac, and your team leader will often outright forget commands when you switch between party members. Your AI companions will struggle to follow you and get stuck on geometry, which can be worked both ways to cheese enemy encounters during the tougher stages. This really makes it difficult to play the game tactically, and means higher level play often results on exploiting the AI as much as using the game’s intended mechanics.

Beyond that, technical issues can be prevalent. I experienced a game-breaking bug at Nar Shaddaa, and the game would start fast-skipping cutscenes during longer sessions which required a restart. The camera stutters fairly heavily, despite the game itself running at 60fps, and textures can frequently glitch out if viewed at the wrong angle. In a very welcome move, KOTOR 2 has Steam Workshop support which enables you to download the restored content mod, which fixes numerous errors, and there’s controller support out the box.

Overall, KOTOR 2 is a fantastic game. While the tight development time occasionally gives way to some technical issues, the perfectly paced and gripping story ranks among the best in cRPG history. KOTOR 2 rewards the time you put into it, and I would highly recommend it to anyone willing to adapt to some old-school dice-roll gameplay.

Starfighter served as a key text for my childhood; being released during prequel-mania and scratching my itch for Star Wars in a pre-Battlefront world. In a land of derivative and cheap Phantom Menace tie-in games, such as Jedi Battles (2000) and Obi-Wan (2001), Starfighter stood out by bringing hundreds of ground and air units onscreen at once on next-generation technology. Much of this appeal is drawn from novelty, both at the technology and a hugely popular film franchise, and so I was curious to see how Starfighter would hold up 23 years later once the dust had settled.

Gameplay-wise, the initial feelings of speed make the first few missions a blast. Your starfighter feels responsive, and flying through Naboo’s rural canyons is a great introduction to the speeds your ship can reach. However, your Starfighter feels notably light, as the sound FX are far too muted to create any real feeling of power. Collisions with geometry also cause you to bounce back at the opposite angle, and your Starfighter’s drag feels floaty rather than a real fight against turbulence. The campaign can also be completed in under 2 hours, with some missions running as tight as 3 minutes.

Whilst an achievement for its day, few people are desperate to witness technically impressive PS2 graphics nowadays. In fact, unless you have a taste for running old games at absurdly high frame rates (this one hits the thousands) Starfighter’s presentation might not impress. The PNG space backgrounds, which would sell the impression of depth at 640x480, reveal themselves to be noticeably flat images at any resolution above this. The starfighters do still look brilliant, however, and ground units retain impressive levels of detail and geometry despite the game showing 50+ on screen at any given moment.

Starfighter’s PC port is admittedly incredibly barebones. The options menu lets you input cheat codes and adjust some volume mixers, but there are no graphics or control options avaliable. This is a major challenge because, while the game recommends you play with a controller, the default gamepad controls missing several crucial bindings including switching targets, which is essential for managing the game’s large-scale battles. The sensitivity is also far, far too low - meaning you’ll rarely catch up to enemies and spend most missions spinning around desperately trying to find the enemies whizzing past you.

In my opinion, Starfighter is too lightweight on content and depth to recommend in the modern era. If you’re really keen for a better version, opt for both PS2-emulation, which will grant you widescreen hacks and higher resolutions, and perhaps skip to the better sequel: Jedi Starfighter.

The first note I have from Just Cause 3 says: “Head noise”. Apart from being an electropunk band from South Wales, that isn’t even a real phrase, yet it entirely summarises my experience with Just Cause 3. The game leaves a ringing, high-pitched tone in your ear from all the explosions and nuclear bombs being detonated every two seconds. Rico isn’t a freedom fighter, he’s a war criminal.

Firstly, JC3 is absolutely beautiful. For a 400-square-mile game world, everything looks surprisingly sharp and crisp up close. Sunflowers and daffodils sway individually as your helicopter sweetly lands in the plains of Medici, while piercing rays of light shoot through the surface of water while you’re swimming into the depths. While texture quality is astounding throughout, the intensely saturated colour palette really make the game world pop. The mountainous area of Montana, filled with cool snow caps, are lit beautifully by bright orange missiles as you reign chaos from above.

Performance also hit a near-constant 90fps, with one single caveat: an annoying glitch meant I couldn’t use an Xbox controller unless I endured near-unplayable stutters. So, unfortunately, I had to use KB+M, which isn't ideal for this type of game. Controls are janky, especially jets which require either awkwardly pressing W and either Z or C to move direction, or performing a near-suicidal barrel roll to turn. I’d recommend remapping a few of the keys, and assigning cancel/drop to a side mouse button if you can, otherwise you’ll find yourself scrambling across the keyboard constantly.

JC3’s campaign missions are either a complete blast or a damn squib, with especially egregious examples towards the beginning of the game. ‘Friends Like These’ has Rico tasked with driving a painfully slow scooter several kilometres into a shed, while ‘The Great Escape’ has you clearing out three identical rooms and pressing a few switches to complete the mission. These missions are mercifully short, but pale in comparison to JC3’s true highlights.

The best missions capitalise on the game’s fast pace and sense of scale. ‘Bavarium on a Plane’ has Rico firing RPGs off the top of a cargo plane into enemy jets, while soaring over the spectacular mountains of Medici. Meanwhile, ‘Derailed Extraction’ has you sniping enemies while hanging upside down from a helicopter flying at top speed . Tapping into JC3’s ridiculousness and playing the game like The Expendables always makes for the best missions, and the campaign should be entirely made up of ridiculous situations played out on a gigantic scale.

While there are plenty of explosives in your inventory to systematically wipe Medici clear of enemy bases, the game also encourages you to create your own fun. The grappling hook can be tethered to other objects, or mini rockets can be added, to blast enemies into oblivion or to collide helicopters together.

Indeed, JC3 is at its best when it doesn’t take itself seriously. Once you clear a large settlement, you’ll hear a comically bad propaganda piece on the radio which desperately describes why the base is no longer standing:

“You’ll notice our cavern headquarters are no longer operational, as our compassionate leader has retired the base to prevent further erosion of our beautiful island. God bless!”

I did face a few significant bugs during my playthrough. As mentioned previously, I couldn’t connect my controller without causing an incredibly distracting stutter. Other major disruptions include Square Enix’s spotty servers which are required to connect the game online, but frequently boot you offline and disrupt your gameplay at random. These same servers also create a tediously long initial boot time upon opening the game. Elsewhere, I couldn’t complete a mission due to my fighter jet missiles not enabling lock-on, which required deactivating a skill from Rico and restarting the game to fix.

Just Cause 3 is as repetitive as you make it to be. If you’re looking to blow things up using a selection of rockets, explosives and LMGs while listening to a podcast, it’s perfect. If you’re looking for the game to switch things up frequently, be prepared to do that yourself. The sandbox is brilliant for playing around with its goofy physics, and the rewards can be spectacular. Just Cause 3 is loud, blinding fun.