John has been an avid gamer since the late '80s and has been playing primarily on PlayStation for as long as PlayStation has been around. Since starting to write for Push Square in 2016 he's penned over a hundred reviews and most of them were pretty good. He's a huge fan of JRPGs, likes Kiryu Kazuma more than he likes most people he knows in real life, and spends an absurd amount of time coming up with cute outfits for his character in Final Fantasy XIV.
Motorcyc-hell
THE FUTURE. Sick of being taken advantage of by power hungry, money grubbing fat cats, the disenfranchised people of the city of Ashen rise up against their oppressors the only way they know how: by forming motorcycle gangs and hitting each other with big sticks. This is Road Rage: a dreadful vehicle combat game that is probably only...
Review Guardians of the Galaxy: Episode Five - Don't Stop Believin' (PS4)
I am Groot
It's probably a little bit late in the day but Don't Stop Believin', the final episode of Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy, is easily the best episode of the series to date. That might not sound like glowing praise given the often painful mediocrity of the previous episodes, but it at least makes for a nice surprise and leaves us with a...
Review South Park: The Fractured But Whole (PS4)
Fart attack
Given the mire that mankind currently finds itself in, we should probably applaud Trey Parker and Matt Stone's scattershot, omnilateral approach to satire in South Park: The Fractured But Whole, a game which mercilessly skewers all facets of modern life. Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you align with, your...
Review Guardians of the Galaxy: Episode Four - Who Needs You (PS4)
Just the Drax, ma'am
Penultimate episodes are a tricky proposition. On the one hand, you've got to set up the story for the big finale in the next instalment, but on the other, you can't promise or give away too much or the coming climax might wind up feeling, well, anti-climactic. Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy - a series that has such little...
Review Guardians of the Galaxy: Episode Three - More Than a Feeling (PS4)
Star Bores
More Than a Feeling is, unfortunately, more of the same for Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy. In our reviews for the previous two episodes, we've talked at length about how the Telltale incarnations of the popular Marvel superheroes feel like a watered down version of their big screen counterparts. We've mentioned the main narrative...
Review Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition (PS4)
Pillar talk
In traditional role-playing game fashion, you begin Pillars of Eternity by creating a character and assigning them a class, and then seconds later your avatar is caught in some sort of dastardly plot that leaves him or her with a magical new power. In this case, you're a Watcher - somebody able to communicate with souls, both living and...
Dad's Barmy
Sudden Strike 4 is a real-time strategy game set in World War II featuring three separate campaigns – one for the Allies, the Germans, and the Soviet Union – based on real battles. There’s over twenty missions in total, and these are presented to the player without any political pandering or moral high-grounds. World War...
Aventually
Aven Colony tells the story of the human colonisation of an alien world, and each mission of the fifteen hour campaign is a variation on that one, singular idea. Like Earth, the planet offers everything from frozen tundra to lush, fertile landscapes capable of supporting the growth of crops like corn and wheat. The aim of the game is to...
Review Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire (PS4)
Fallen short
When Princess Cecille's father unexpectedly passes away, control of the embattled kingdom of Fenumia is passed over to her. She's quickly handed a magical, talking book that was apparently a prized possession of the recently deceased king, and this Grimoire is more than willing to impart advice to Cecille on how she should proceed in...
Review Guardians of the Galaxy: Episode Two - Under Pressure (PS4)
Space Shoddity
The biggest problem with the first episode of Guardians of the Galaxy was that the whole thing felt like a pale imitation of the James Gunn movie of the same name. The game isn't set in the same continuity as the movie or any of the comics, and that strategy can be used to great effect as Telltale demonstrated with its Batman...
Review Valkyria Revolution (PS4)
Shite of the Valkyries
Valkyria Revolution is a spin-off to Valkyria Chronicles that eschews much of what made that game popular and fails to improve upon it in any way. The tactical combat of Chronicles has been radically revamped into an action role-playing game to disastrous effect, the story is hampered by a catalogue of issues, and on a...
Hacked off
Republished on Wednesday, 31st May 2017: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of June 2017's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. Neon Chrome is a top-down, twin-stick shooter set entirely in what looks like the Shinra Building from Final Fantasy VII given a Blade...
Review Dreamfall Chapters (PS4)
Dream on
–Dreamfall Chapters begins with protagonist Zoë Maya Castillo trapped in a coma, a predicament arguably more appealing than slogging through the interminable opening sections of this game. You're charged with wandering around a dreamscape while your physical body remains in a hospital bed, using powers that are barely explained to...
Review Guardians of the Galaxy: Episode One - Tangled Up in Blue (PS4)
Marvel?
Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy seems to assume that you're already familiar with the titular team of loveable rogues after the success of the 2014 smash-hit movie of the same name, as there is very little in the way of introduction for any of the characters involved. This is simultaneously Episode One's greatest strength and greatness...
Review PaRappa the Rapper Remastered (PS4)
Don't stop believin'
It's been two decades since PaRappa the Rapper first appeared on the original PlayStation in 1997. As one of the first rhythm games to make a dent in the public consciousness, the poetic puppy was instrumental in paving the way for the music-based games that would follow in his wake: Amplitude, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Hatsune...
Review Danganronpa 1&2 Reload (PS4)
The kids aren't alright
The Danganronpa series is built around a deliciously gruesome premise: a bunch of high schoolers are held captive - in a school in the first game, a tropical island in the second - and they're told that the only way they'll ever be allowed to go back to their normal life is if they kill one of the other members of the group...
Review The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (PS4)
Bram Joker
Abraham Van Helsing was first introduced to the world in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. He's a Dutch vampire hunter with a vast array of skills and a practically never-ending sequence of letters after his name that highlight his various qualifications. While not a huge hit at the time, Dracula became more successful after Stoker's...
Review Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone (PS4)
Tone stop believin'
2015's Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X was a little bit of a departure for the long-running rhythm game series. Rather than adhering to the traditional, gameplay-focused framework of the franchise set up in earlier instalments, X thrust players into a sugary sweet narrative starring the popular virtual popstar and her equally...
Game of the Year 2016 John's Personal PlayStation Picks
Treasured
It's time once again for the indomitable staff here at Push Square to share their own personal Game of the Year picks. Every year, we herd our writers together and force them to spill their opinions on their five favourite games of the last 12 months. Usually, this involves poking them with a stick until they come clean. Below, you'll find...
Review Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky (PS4)
Existential crisis
Dying has been a part of playing video games since the early days of the arcade, but few games in that time have killed you off right at the beginning of the story. By the time the opening credits for Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky finish rolling, our avatar – a teenage boy named Kanata – has been caught in a...
Review Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness (PS4)
Don't worry, be happy
Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness takes place in the same universe as the popular anime show, Psycho-Pass. Set in the year 2112, an always online system named Sybil is constantly monitoring the mental state of the entire population, and pointing out individuals who are psychologically likely to commit a crime in the future. As a...
Review Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X (PS4)
It's got the X-Factor
One of the songs in the brand new rhythm game, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X, is called Holy Lance Explosion Boy, and it's about an unsettlingly young boy accidentally getting someone pregnant, featuring lines like: "This 0.02mm barrier is seriously getting annoying." If the thought of a kawaii, virtual boy's condom splitting...
Step Inside
Reviewing Inside is a tough proposition. On the one hand, this is a game that is fully deserving of a write-up overflowing with superlatives. On the other hand, to describe practically anything that happens in the game in anything other than the vaguest of terms would be to rob the player of the joy of discovering those moments for...
Give up the ghost
The hubbub surrounding the new Ghostbusters movie has been so well documented that even the Internet-deprived people of North Korea have likely heard about it. The response to the first trailer for the 2016 reboot of the supernatural comedy franchise has been nothing short of vitriolic, to the point that it's one of the most hated...
