Recent reviews by Dastardly Dave

A must-play for anyone who enjoys tactics games. Phoenix Point is basically off-brand XCOM2, but with many improvements and expanded mechanics. Each bullet is now simulated, so you might have a soldier shoot six rounds from an assault rifle and four will land, which feels much more satisfying than XCOM 2's more simplistic "80% to hit" all-or-nothing approach.

Battles are very similar to XCOM 2 (albeit with more enemy variety and some extra mechanics), but the overworld is much more important. The base game feels closer to the Long War mod for XCOM 2. Your actions during exploration matter more and can seriously impact your gameplay (in a good way).

One downside is the lack of map and mission variety, the DLC do help with this and the enemy variety and AI do mean that no two fights feel quite the same, but seeing the same maps again and again can wear on you a bit.

Overall, I'd say that Phoenix Point is a harder game than XCOM 2 in that your soldiers don't become walking war machines until very late in the day (by which time the enemies are getting pretty strong), but overall I think it's a better game albeit with some minor downsides.

Great game. It's clearly very inspired by Diablo II/LoD, but in the best way.

It's still in early access, so I can forgive certain things which I *hope* will get patched before release. Even if they don't for a free-to-play game, it's fantastic.

I would personally prefer less forced-online and wish that there was less of an emphasis on trading, but they have to monetise this somehow unfortunately and this is probably the least offensive way to do that for an otherwise free title.

Solid 8.5/10, recommended (and this may improve by release).

So far it's pretty much exactly what I expected as a long-time fan of the series.

At first, the performance was pretty terrible but just about playable. Then I found out about FSR3 Frame Generation, which dramatically improved my performance.
Now the game runs pretty well on high settings at 1440p. I haven't had any noticeable bugs outside of a few energetic ragdolls getting freaky with the floor.

I've done all the quests and looted a bunch of stashes in the Lesser Zone and I'm ready to move on having enjoyed my time there.


I don't think that this game is for everyone and it is different in many ways to the original three games, but on the whole I think STALKER 2 has improved on the formula and I'm looking forward to putting many more hours into the game.

I've been enjoying this DLC. The new map is huge and I'm enjoying working out how to get to all the new areas. Some really interesting bosses. At first it felt like I was taking a lot of damage and my sword was a wet noodle. It was only after exploring a while that I realised that From Software have changed the usual scaling in favour of DLC-specific player progression in the form of collecting scadutree fragments. I know that some players don't like this mechanic, but I must admit I don't see why. There's little difference between exploring an area and spending the runes/souls on stats and exploring an area to get fragments to achieve the same thing. The main difference seems to be that you can't farm an area again and again to get overlevelled to the point that the challenge of the game is trivialised.

There are some really cool areas in the game and I'm glad to see some interesting boss designs too. As usual the music is on point and there are a bunch of new weapon types too (not just more weapons in the already existing categories).

If you enjoyed the base game of Elden Ring, this is definitely worth a shot just be prepared to change how you think about player progression.

Fantastic game. This is a brilliant platforming puzzle solver metroidvania.
I got my first ending after about 8 hours, got my second ending at around 16, and had to use a guide to get the third and fourth.

Animal Well does an amazing job of enabling players to discover how to play the game, many times I stumbled across a new way to use a tool and would enjoy time spent going back over old areas with my new knowledge that I uncovered for myself, rather than having the game tell me.

Really probably the best game I've played this year, I cannot recommend it enough. The game is so good, the music is incredibly atmospheric, and the art style fits the game so well. If you're looking for something to play you should definitely give Animal Well a go.

This has always been my favourite of the Dark Souls series. It was the first one that I managed to beat and I keep coming back to it.

In many ways, this differs from Dark Souls and Dark Souls 3 but so long as you accept that this is the black sheep of the series, there are also many extra features that for some reason didn't stay with the series such as an enhanced NG+ cycle, bonfire ascetics, powerstancing, plus expanded features like more movesets.

SOTFS adds in all three DLC (the most of the series), and with all three this game is HUGE, as this adds a three self-contained maps that are all endgame content with unique bosses, weapons, and enemies. SOTFS also adds in additional lore and changes certain things like enemy placement, when compared to the original DS2.

Disclaimer: I'm a big From Software fanboy.

This is the game I've been waiting for. I'm only 16 hours in, but I'm loving the changes that FS have made to their Dark Souls formula, adding in elements of Sekiro and open world games. It feels like I've been waiting for an open world game with challenging and complex combat like this.

If you're familiar with FS, then you know they do great world building and passive-story telling through item descriptions and cryptic NPCs. The world is beautiful and much brighter than the traditional Dark Souls games, which is very welcome. There are many truly beautiful vistas and environments in the game already in my play-through.

The changes to combat offer a considerable improvement to the already great combat present in Dark Souls III. Defensive play with shields has been revamped and no-longer feels like a sluggish alternative to more fast-paced aggressive play-styles. Magic has been altered too, making combat mages much more viable and fun to play.

This is one of the most densely-packed open worlds I've played, I can't go anywhere without constantly stopping to check things out and I love it. The new mount helps traverse the vast distances and you can now travel to any discovered grace (bonfire) at almost any time (not when "trapped" in a dungeon, for example). These new mechanics help you move around the open world with minimal time spend retracing your steps. There seems to be very little padding/filler and a buttload of content.

Overall this game gets a 10/10 for me, praise the Elden Ring. \[T]/

This game is amazing. I'm still new to VR, but it really feels like Valve have managed to push the bounds of what is capable in VR. This is by far the most immersive game I've played and the controls are like a dream. The game runs really well on my 1080 and i7-7700k too (stock speeds).

A good war-sim type game. A good balance of realism and fun.

If you won't enjoy a game where you can sprint for 5 mins to get to a point, only to be headshot and need to wait 40 seconds to respawn, this might not be for you.

Slower paced strategic combat where you are reliant on squad leaders and a commander. Communication is what makes this game. I'd much rather be in a squad with a good officer on the losing team than win without a communicative squad. I've had a blast on this game so far. Similar games would include Post Scriptum and Squad, but I prefer this over those games. Make sure you have a mic and make sure you use it. Check out the controls, there are three different voice channels you need to know about (one is only for when you're an officer, so probably don't worry too much about that one at first).

DISCLAIMER: I've only played an hour of C&C at this point, but as a long-time fan I can tell that most of the game has not been changed.


IMO C&C and RA are the best RTS games other than maybe RA2, so my review may be biased.

If you enjoyed the classic Westwood Studios RTS games and fancy another go this is a great remaster. Lots of things have been subtly changed, but nothing sticks out. All the changes are made in ways that are consistent with the original look and feel of the games. Basically it's the original games, but packaged with nice HD textures. All the FMV have been up-scaled and have the scan lines removed. They generally look nice (far better than before), but there do seem to be some kind of interpolation artefacts on a few of them (most noticeable around faces, like the edges of Seth's face in NOD briefings).

Some of the updates include adding the options to use right click to give orders, toggling health bars on/off (or only when damaged) and having resources always display. The ability to zoom out is very much appreciated too.

This looks like the perfect remaster TBH.


Oh, and the ant and dino missions are back too. :D