The Phoenician Scheme: Immaculate Chaos
Every line would be the funniest thing you’ve ever heard if not for every other line.
Stephen Gillespie
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Series X): Always Parrying its Own Potential
The highs are high but the lows are low. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is persistent mix of satisfaction and disappointment, of potential and eventual failure. A great premise is thrown to the wayside, replaced with a confused and unsatisfying narrative focus where plot ploughs through all else. Combat and music
The Grand Deceit of Alex Garland’s Warfare
For all its claims of authenticity, Warfare is deeply deceptive. It starts by misleading you, a claim is put forward that ‘this film only uses their memories’ (their being the soldiers depicted therein). On a number of levels, this is profoundly untrue but the way it is untrue is deeply
Blue Prince (PC): The Art of Intuition
It's a classic setup: You can inherit a stately home but under a strict condition. In Blue Prince, that condition is make it to room 46, that's room 46 in a mansion where – as you can see from the blueprints – there is only space for 45
South of Midnight (Series X): An Aesthetic Triumph Hampered by Repetition
In positive and negative ways, South of Midnight feels like a very pretty PS2 game. Admittedly, the art design is stunning, and is underpinned by technical chops; it’s the act of playing it that will take you back. A linear, action adventure game that’s heavy on simple platforming
Avowed (Series X): RPG Comfort Food with Flashes of Genius
This latest RPG from Obsidian feels very familiar. In reductive terms, it's an amalgamation of a lot of popular, modern Western RPGS. The first person perspective, with a focus on combat and exploration, brings Elder Scrolls to mind (a breezy, colourful fantasy world that's more Oblivion
The Monkey: Always Banging on the Same Drum
It is poetic, really, that Osgood Perkins' adaptation of the Stephen King short story, The Monkey (1980), matches the prop itself. In the short story, the wind-up toy monkey hits cymbals together. It turns out, due to Toy Story 3 (2010), a wind-up toy monkey that hit cymbals together