Brendan Caldwell
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Writing For
Rock Paper Shotgun
EurogamerLatest Reviews
For the King
It’s silly moments like that which harbour the magic of For The King. As ever, early access means things may change, and I certainly hope that there comes some mode in which the Queen’s orders and main quests can be thoroughly ignored. But for now, if you’re seeking some badly-planned...
Northgard
Eventually, the game ended when I got a wisdom victory of my own (one minor complaint is that this always seems to be the easiest route to victory). I had researched my little Viking heart out and achieved all the blessings of the gods. But, tellingly, I still clicked “keep...
Pit People
Of course, you might be fine with chortling in an episodic fashion. Or you might just want to play a daft multiplayer tactics game as soon as possible. In that case, you could do a lot worse than Pit People. It’s hugely unfinished in its storytelling, but in fighting terms...
As for Infinite Warfare. Its sin is the same sin that the series has always committed: that of being uninventive. Like I say, we’ll have more detailed thoughts on the multiplayer later - I’ve only played a bit. As far as the campaign is concerned, an incredible amount of hard...
Mother Russia Bleeds
But it isn’t the late-eighties. It's today. If you’re the kind of person who wishes it still was the eighties and likes the idea of revisiting a button-mashing romp, warts and all, you’ll find a lot to like about this one. But even so, you might find it wearing thin...
I only wish that one day, long after this incarnation, there’ll be a Hitman game with true narrative consequence, where a breadcrumb trail of slip-ups might lead the police or some other organisation straight to my door, while another player might produce such smooth and clean “accidents” that no such...
Overall, Ashes isn't bad, it's just very plain. Gorgeous, but plain. There's nothing here that hasn't been done before and done better. And I certainly don't think it has the spark that made Company of Heroes so excellent, despite what the developer may suggest (even if you can make a...
Rebel Galaxy
What is a fair critique is that, ultimately, none of it matters very much. As I said, the state of your ship is what keeps you going. You fight more to earn more to buy more. In this way it is a very transparent game. But also a repetitive one,...
Prison Architect
There is only one major difficulty for any reviewer of Introversion's incarceration fest. It isn't deciding whether or not to recommend it. I very much do. It is that anyone who is interested in Prison Architect is already likely to have picked it up. Many of us have already had...
Kerbal Space Program
With this in mind, it is fitting that KSP came out of the Early Access birth canal, because it is a game about small, incremental and profound changes. But it is also more than that. It is a game about embracing engineering and being unafraid to encourage craziness, so long...
Infinite Crisis
I understand, I understand. It’s games. We ought to, sometimes, suspend our disbelief for the sake of genre. But when that genre is already so oversubscribed it could fill a cosplay hall and still need to hire a marquee to house another hundred Gaslight Catwomen standing outside on the pavement,...
Planetary Annihilation
Planetary Annihilation is a slick, modernised RTS, engineered from the ground up to appeal to the fast-paced, competitive, hotkey-loving esports crowd. For people like me, it is a bruising gauntlet of defeat. But even I can see the appeal. Putting aside the fact that to play online you need a...