Recent reviews by Rogue

Abiotic makes superb use of it's 90s inspiration as a starting point to splinter off into a fantastic and unique take on the modern survival game. No punching trees for wood or strip mining for coal to be found here. Instead you're going toe-to-toe with unhinged robots igniting the room with napalm whilst you fly around with a jet pack.

With a regular cadence of patches and updates the game feels well supported by a passionate team. Highly recommended for co-op with friends.

Channelling the 80s adventure game vibes minus the obnoxious inventory hell puzzles, TGYH is a gorgeously animated treat from start to finish.

I was able to romp through it in about 2.5 hours, so it's not very long but sweet enough not to leave you sour.

SOTF offers a superb blend of horror and open-world survival. A particular highlight is the exceptional audio engineering and sound design, which incorporates environmental changes to what you hear to delicious effect.

The experience of stalking through a pitch black cave with the sounds of multitudes of the nightmarish denizens of the island around you is second to none.

Play in coop for a special treat and don't sleep on the in-game VOIP implementation - it's incredibly immersive and well done.

Starfield continues to icarius plummet to earth that has been BGS trajectory for the last several years.

Whilst the game is a visual jump for a BGS title (it certainly looks nice), everything else feels like a massive step backwards or at best barely at parity of what has come before. Narrative, characterisation, mechanics, and moment-to-moment gameplay.

Quests that start off genuinely interesting almost always devolve into 1 or 2 preset resolutions, many of which seem like the most boneheaded short-term choice you could possibly make. Frustratingly there also often feels like a 3rd or 4th resolution is obvious and would offer a great RPG opportunity but you have no way to action it. You have to just click through the script. It's feels like more of a visual novel than prior games ever did - gone is so much of the reactivity and rewards for exploration in new quest resolutions that used to be present.

The same goes for the companion characters. As boring as cardboard every single one of them. Say what you will about the rogue's gallery from Fallout 4 - at least they had something interesting to say and they felt present in the game world. The Starfield constallation members may as well be randomly generated for all the flavour they add to your travels.

The worst part for me though is that the game feels downright disrespectful of your time. Most games you're no more than 30-40s away from doing something interesting in any given moment. So you can go fast or slow as your whims take you. Here you're sometimes at best 5 minutes away from doing something even slightly interesting. That's 5 minutes of enforced walking/jetpacking slowly across a completely barren landscape trying to get to something to interact with regardless of how quickly you want to speed through it.

I think if Starfield had come out in 2020 it would have been 'pretty good'. As it is, it's releasing in the same year as Baldur's Gate 3 and Phantom Liberty. Both made by teams of about the same size and with the same budget as BGS. So unfortunately Starfield comes off very poorly in the comparison.

TLDR; Play BG3 or Cyberpunk 2077 for your CPRG fix. Starfield aint it.

With most of the big releases for the year out of the way, unequivocally; GOTY.

Few games really GET zombie survival like Project Zomboid, and even fewer have such a dedicated development team that is still extending and patching it 10 years later.

An incredibly versatile survival sandbox experience that can be tweaked to your hearts content and supported by a talented modding community. PZ is a mechanics-based survival simulator rivalled by none. Must play.

Approach with patience and humility.

Another quality game from Arkane. If you enjoyed the narrative and game play loops in their previous first-person-sneakers (dishonoured 1+2) then you'll find plenty to love here.

Scavenging your way across Oregon is an absolute joy from start to finish. The combat feels well balanced and fighting the hordes really gets your blood pumping. I was surprised at the length (generous) of the primary narrative and side quests given the very high level of polish across the game. This is AAA game development at it's finest and well worth your time.

An exceptionally well crafted and very enjoyable super-hero romp. Whilst the combat doesn't feel particularly deep, it's not enough to bring it down. The small choices you make feel like they pay off throughout the game (for good or ill), which even if only an illusion is no mean feat.

More of the Marvel properties should get this kind of treatment instead of suffering as 'live service' or console exclusive games.

Give it a go, it's a blast.

Whilst it doesn't have the depth of Factorio yet and has a few pacing/progression dead zones, it is still an excellent game to chill out to.

Note also that unlike Factorio it doesn't have any real antagonist agents. There's no biter swarms coming for you here. Only the occasional angry warthog or two guarding mineral deposits. So if optimising plant ratios isn't your bag if you're not fending off waves of aliens, maybe steer clear.