The Game Guy

Game: Call of Cthulhu Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Windows Played On: Xbox One Price: £34.99 (Although massively cheaper second hand) Available on Xbox Game Pass: No Yet again I’m taking the cheap way out and playing this months Games with Gold available with Xbox Live (what’s a guy to do, gamings an expensive hobby) and I’ve picked up Call of Cthulhu, available free till mid-March. This is the 2018 release developed by Cyanide and Saber Interactive and published by Focus Home Interactive and is based on the short by H.P Lovecraft. As always there might be a few minor spoilers. Now this is billed as merely a survival game but to me, this is a horror game but that is purely based on me being a whimp (I’ve been looking at Outlast on my Xbox for well over a good few years) But also there’s some obvious tropes as we load up the game. We are greeted with the classic brightness menu with a scary symbol we need to keep barely visible, we have epic art with t...

Game: Dear Esther: Landmark Edition Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, OS X, Windows Played On: Xbox One  Price: £7.99 Available on Xbox Game Pass: No Well then, this games been on my Xbox for around 3/4 years at this point, just sitting there, waiting for me to play it, and in my new purge of games that have been on my console too long, this week we have the 2012 offering from The Chinese Room and Curve Digital. I had heard very good things about this game but I went in cautious, ‘walking simulators’, as they’re now popularly called, can be a bit hit or miss for me. I am a fan of the genre and have played some very good ones and some truly dull games. Now to start with I’m aware how this game is the innovator, this is the game that kick started the whole genre. I do find the attraction of open worlds with a story hidden within to normally be engrossing, games like ‘What Remains of Edith Finch’ and ‘Gone Home’ do this very well, rewarding exploration with littl...

Game: Bridge Constructor Portal Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux Played On: Xbox One Price: £11.99 Available on Xbox Game Pass: Yes Can a basic concept that’s been around on flash games for many years, make it over to console and be a fun game? That’s the question I gave my self this week when I played Bridge Constructor Portal. A 2017 release by ClockStone and published by Headup Games. This game started life out as a mobile and desktop game, so with me playing the Xbox One version released a few months later in 2018, how does it hold up to console controls?? That’s why I installed it to find out. Now puzzle games in the form of bridge builders is nothing new, I remember many an IT lesson where I’d have a tab open on a flash game where I’d have to get something from one side to the next by constructing a bridge over, rather than doing my work. Probably why I’m writing reviews rather than something more importan...

Game: Disney’s Bolt Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Windows Player On: Xbox 360 Backwards Compatible: Yes Price: £8.99 Available on Xbox Game Pass: No Okie doke, something a touch different today. I’ll explain why on earth I'm playing the 2008 release of Disney’s Bolt, the video game cash grab of the movie of the same name, shortly, I promise. This game was made by Avalanche Software and Altron, published by The Walt Disney Company and Disney Interactive studios, and sadly like a lot of these games didn’t manage to get a lot of the movie stars to voice the characters, so no John Travolta or Miley Cyrus here, although weirdly Malcom McDowell and Mark Walton stay on. They’re honestly the only 2. Right... let me explain, at least a couple of time a year it feels, Xbox Games with Gold seems to have some form of Disney tie in game going for free, and as I like achievements I grab them as they’re costing me nothing and never take ...

Game: Scalextric Platforms: Xbox One, iOS, Android Played on: Xbox One Price: £9.99 (UK/EU Only) Available on Xbox Game Pass: No I’ve mentioned my hobby of achievement hunting a few times and do get asked what draws me to it, to me it’s the varying games I can play, some easy, some hard, some good, and every now and then we get a game that truly awful, so that brings me to this game, 2018 release Scalextric, Developed by Sabec. This game has sort of become legendary in achievement hunting circles and that’s because it’s got a reputation for not being the best game ever made and that’s putting it lightly, in fact it’s one of the lowest reviewed games in the market right now. Now I have my own rules when it comes to getting achievements from ‘easy games’ and these are: Must be worth the money. Must be on sale. Other than that I don’t have any hard and fast rule as to what I’ll play and somethings this has worked out for me, I’ve played some very good indie games I’ve ...

Game: Batman: The Telltale Series Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, iOS, Android, Windows Played On: Xbox One Price: £11.99 Available on Xbox Game Pass: No Another free game Microsoft? Why yes, I think I will. So at the time of writing this game is currently free for Xbox One until February 14th 2020 with its games with gold program. If you didn’t look up what we have here is the 2016 release of Telltale Games Studios, Batman: The Telltale Game. This game obviously released before sadly buying naming rights to incredibly popular licenses turned out to be very bad business. As this is a story driven game, there will be inevitably a few minor spoilers ahead. I love a good Telltale game, was taken in by The Walking Dead and never really looked back. They, like any game series, vary in how good I find them but when you have such a diverse back catalogue like Telltale then really there’s something for everyone and that means some will n...

Game: Untitled Goose Game Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Windows, Mac  Played on: Xbox One Price: £16.74 (Odd Price I Know) Available on Xbox Game Pass: Yes Have you ever sat back and wondered what would happen if you crossed the Hitman Series, Metal Gear Solid, got rid of the violence (mostly) and made the main protagonist a goose?? Me too!! So that why I played Untitled Goose Game, the surprise 2019 smash hit developed by House House and published by Panic. This is a short game (around the 3/4 hour mark) in which you control a goose through a few scenarios and get up to a lot of mischief. I was very very excited when I saw this game was coming to consoles, I’m yet to get round to owning a switch and this game took off (excuse the bird pun). I was even more excited when I saw this game was coming to game pass as yet again Microsoft giving us the content we needed and letting us have this title in its catalogue as soon as it was released...