Gaming During Lockdown

  The 7th generation of gaming was packed with role-playing Games. Franchises like Fallout, The Elder Scrolls and Fable grew in popularity and status with some of their new installments becoming household names. At the same time new gaming staples emerged like Mass Effect, BioShock , Dragon Age and Borderlands who earned their own places in the industry and are sure to have more sequels down the line. Some games though aren’t fortunate enough to capture the support needed to be rewarded with a sequel. Kingdoms of Amalur and Dragon’s Dogma could be guilty of this but both have had remasters or ports on recent consoles so their audience is bound to increase. Alpha Protocol is one of these unique games though. It is a one-off cast into obscurity and that is so interesting to me. Spy games have really been tackled in the medium with the James Bond titles being the only successful ones that come to mind. So, an espionage RPG that offers players the chance to become a spy would surely...

  Witcher 3 is one of my favourite games of all time. It introduced me to a fantasy world brimming with fascinating lore, complex moral issues and an anti-hero that has since become a gaming icon. Geralt of Rivia’s third videogame adaptation is the one that I imagine most people have played. I remember that around the time of Witcher 3’s release, it was all I would hear about. The thing is, that game lived up to its hype and expectations and is now one of the most celebrated games in videogame history. This leaves the second game in an awkward predicament. It certainly doesn’t feel like the black sheep of the trilogy but does have a rather large chip on it’s shoulder. At release, Witcher 2 was seen as a heavy hitter even though it was made by a small development team in Poland. It looked like a triple A game even though it wasn’t one  and this has allowed it to remain special in a vastly growing industry. I never actually finished Witcher 2 during its initial buzz though. I co...

      Let’s not mince words here, I love Hitman. Each entry in this twenty year long franchise has given me many fond memories and picking my preferred game has always been a challenge. I love the atmosphere and tone of Contracts, where every level takes place on a rainy night, demonstrating 47’s confusion as he tries to reminisce about missions from his past. Blood Money on the other hand is most people’s favourite with missions like A New Life and Till Death Do Us Part being regarded as classics that even casual Hitman players remember fondly. Many regard the 13 levels to be one of the best stealth packages in gaming and as I have previously said, Blood Money is one of the best stealth games of all time. After that game though, 47 went on a 6 year hiatus and  returned in the most controversial entry in the franchise, Hitman Absolution. To me, Absolution is the low point of the series (even though I don’t think it’s a bad game) and since then, I have wondered whethe...

   Persona 4 is frankly a game I never believed I would get a chance to play. With the PlayStation 2 copy being fairly rare it means getting a copy of it would set you back a fair amount of cash and I couldn’t bring myself to do that for a game that is nearly two decades old. Even the Vita version is somewhat of a hot commodity due to the consoles limited lifespan and Persona’s obscurity here in the UK. My visual impairment also prohibits me from getting the maximum enjoyment out of any handheld console and so it seemed that all hope was lost of my ever getting a chance to play what is supposed to be the best Persona game in the series. However, while discussing Persona 4’s anime with a couple of friends, I learned that there exists a device called a PlayStation TV that allows you to play most Vita games on a widescreen television. With this new knowledge in mind, I sped over to Ebay to check the prices of these consoles only to have my dreams crushed yet again. To purchase bo...