Articles

If you're not paying attention to retro game recompilations, you're missing the most exciting thing in gaming right now
by Wes Fenlon (from PC Gamer)

I've got a couple of the games mentioned herein setup through emulators on my Steam Deck. Sounds like I should be getting these versions instead...

Articles

Tosca review – Puccini’s high-octane bloodbath bonanza makes for a shocking festival kick-off
and
‘Really entertaining in a horrible way’: the indestructible appeal of Tosca
by Flora Willson (from the Guardian)

I'm going to see this production next month. Sounds like it's gonna be good.

Articles

Crimson Desert review: The Forza Horizon of action RPGs
by Mollie Taylor (from PC Gamer)

Even though I'm 'back into' gaming now, I don't pay a whole lot of attention to new releases — I've got a couple of decades of stuff to catch up on, and a 600-game backlog (and several hundred more wishlisted) because of it — but there's so much hype around this one, I had to at least get some idea of whether it's going to live up to expectations or not.

Based on this, I think the jury's out — and might be for some time: the game's so huge and packed with variety, it's going to be a while before people see enough of it to form final opinions, I think. Which is fine by me — if it's good, maybe I'll buy it on sale in three or four or five years.

Articles

Esoteric Ebb isn't just the best Disco since Disco, it's the closest anyone's come to the magic of tabletop D&D in a videogame
by Ted Litchfield (from PC Gamer)

I was very interested in Esoteric Ebb before I read this review, but now I'm positively excited for it. Might even buy it right away.

...but will I play it right away? I mean, I'd have to cut into Skyrim (gasp!) And as I've not played the likes of Disco Elysium or Baldur's Gate 3, but do own both and very much want to play them, should this really be jumping ahead? There's always the chance it'll get patches and improvements down the line, as so many games do nowadays. Maybe I should just play the literally hundreds of games already in my backlog and wait a year or two.

...but it sounds so fun!

Magazines

PC Gamer Top 100 2025

Because I still haven't been buying enough games lately...!

Similar to the retro games list I went through the other day, I came away from this one noting 13 titles I already own, but here there was only one I'd played before (well, only one I'd completed — the original Doom is on both lists, and while I've played it a bit, I've never been through it thoroughly). I did find 28 to keep in mind for future purchasing, and a further 16 that piqued my interest enough to look into more and decide whether to add to that 'wants' list or not — which means only 42% of the list made me think "nah".

One thing that definitely intrigued me was how changeable this list can be. I get that they publish it every year so don't want it to be basically the same with a few tweaks (otherwise who would care?), but, having only recently looked at their 2024 list, some changes were so big they were immediately obvious.

For example, the top ten is 60% the same, and some of that is due to the kinds of small shifts you'd expect: Doom drops out by falling from #10 to #11; Red Dead Redemption II rises from #15 to #10, which is a relatively minor reevaluation (and it's been in the top ten previously, so hardly revelatory). Except it's not just those kinds of small moves, nor new titles entering: last year's #5, Persona 5 Royal, plummets to #49; while a game that was released 20 years ago, Dwarf Fortress, suddenly jumps from #16 to #3. I'm not sure such a reappraisal was prompted by anything, either (although it has also previously been in the top ten, so this is closer to RDR2 in scale).

I guess it's just changing voters and/or adjusted final-total calculations. And there is certainly consistency in places (the top two are identical, for instance). It's just kinda wild that things can fall so far, or (higher up the list) drop out entirely, while old games where nothing's changed fly up, or even enter the list. Keeps it lively though, I guess.

(I also have physical copies of the 2021 and 2022 lists, and after I thought of this I tracked down the 2023 version too, which tempted me to work out a ranking-of-rankings for the last five years. Is it worth the time and effort, though? I don't know... but once I had the idea, it became almost inevitable, so now I'm doing it.)

Magazines

The Greatest Retro Games of All Time

Because I haven't been buying enough games lately as it is...!

Well, I came away from this list of 100 noting 15 titles I already own (or, er, have acquired), on top of 10 I've already played sufficiently that I don't necessarily want/need to play them again — so that's a quarter of the list off the bat. Mind you, another 25 were of enough interest for me to note down...

Articles

Nintendo’s Virtual Boy Isn’t Underrated—But Who Knows What It Could’ve Turned Into?
by Marc Normandin (from Endless Mode)

I'd heard of the Virtual Boy, but didn't really know anything about it beyond the fact a console with that name existed, so this was a fascinating history lesson — and also gave me ideas about something that might be worth doing with the 3DS I recently ordered...

Articles

Letterboxd is the Gen Z fad that might just save cinema
by Louis Chilton (from Independent)

I've been a Letterboxd user for a number of years (I can't even remember when I started now, and I've back-filled it with data from here and 100 Films so I can't just see when my logs began*), so it's interesting to read this about how popular it's become, and how significant it might yet be.

* Turns out, I can tell from reviews — not by looking at my diary, but on my stats pages. The review count at the top of those pages is for reviews posted that year, not for films logged in my diary that year. So I can't tell exactly when I started (because, as mentioned, I've back-dated some reviews), but I know I posted 0 reviews in 2012 and 67 in 2013. So, yeah, I've been using Letterboxd for 12+ years. Madness.

Articles

Second Chances: twenty underrated sequels that deserve another look
by Dan Mecca (from Letterboxd Journal)

I've not seen all of the films on this list, but the ones I have, I agree about; which encourages me to see the rest.

Comics

Absolute Batman
#4 The Zoo Part Four by Scott Snyder & Gabriel Hernández Walta
Labelled as "part four", but a bit of an aside (with a new artist to boot) going back to the very beginnings of this iteration of Batman. Speaking of which, there's a nice interview with writer Scott Snyder that came out around the same time as this issue, talking about the thought behind and success of Absolute Batman, as well as this issue in particular.

The Uncanny X-Men
#9 Off the Leash by Gail Simone & Andrei Bressan
#10 Off the Leash Part 2 by Gail Simone & Andrei Bressan

Articles

‘A New Age Begins’ for Critical Role. Let’s hope it’s one for actual play and TTRPGs, too
by Em Friedman (from Polygon)

An interesting analysis of the Critical Role Campaign 3 finale, and what it might signify not only for the future of CR, but for the actual-play genre as a whole.

Articles

Our culture isn't fantasy - so stop misusing it for mystical books
by Catriona Aitken (from BBC News)
Thought this — about the (mis)treatment of Welsh heritage by fantasy authors — was very interesting.

Articles

Critical Role Cast Teases Its Future and a Potential ‘Passing of the Torch’
by Dana Reboe (from Rolling Stone)

It feels like there's a CR profile in a major magazine every other week at the moment. I guess it's all because their tenth anniversary is rapdily approaching, and they've been doing (and continue to do) so much stuff. Still, they're almost always worth a read (if you're a fan, anyway) because there's always a few more titbits about what's to come.

Articles

10 Years In, Critical Role is Still Just Getting Started
by Casey Epstein-Gross (from Paste)

Nice piece based around an interview with Travis, Marisha and Sam about the current state of CR and its future.

Articles

Why It Matters That Marvel Comics Are Becoming Penguin Classics
by John Maher (from Publishers Weekly)

I was trying to find out if they were going to do any more volumes in the Penguin Classics Marvel Collection (no news that I can see) when I came across this interesting interview piece from when they published the second wave this time last year.

Articles

Doctor Who boss opens up about that surprising Richard E. Grant cameo that made an obscure Doctor canon
by Emily Murray & Darren Scott (from SFX)

Interesting to get some more info on this, considering it was a pretty monumental thing to just chuck in there, which I don't think has been discussed by anyone involved before now.

Articles

Doctor Who: Real Time (Review)
by Darren Mooney (from The m0vie blog)

For a different, more positive take on Real Time (which still acknowledges all the flaws that overwhelmed it for me), you could do worse than this piece.

Articles

As D&D booms, Critical Role makes its own kind of nerd celebrity
by Sarah Parvini (from The Washington Post)

Me, mentioning something to do with Critical Role?! Well, wonders will never cease! But seriously, if you were interested in a sort of "state of the nation" about where CR is right now, coupled with sufficient background detail to keep the unfamiliar up to speed — i.e. a good all-round introduction for right now — this seems a good place to start.

Articles

ITV Oscars coverage secures viewers – and criticism
by Catherine Shoard (from the Guardian)

Whether or not you agree with the criticsm (I didn't dislike all of the panel, but there's a definite argument for having more informed proper film critics/journalists), the viewing stats are interesting: this year's Oscars saw a 1700% increase in average UK viewership, from 35,000 last year on Sky to 630,000 this year on ITV.

Articles

‘We didn’t expect this phenomenon to last’: France’s comic-book tradition is hitting new heights
by Phil Hoad (from the Guardian)

Interesting 'profile' of the state of the comic book (aka bandes dessinées) industry in France. It's always been a fairly significant artform there (at least, more respected than it has been in the anglosphere), but has gone to new heights during and after the pandemic.