Private Division Game Reviews
Mini Review Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game (PS5) - One Cosy Game to Bore Them All
A half-baked Hobbit's life
Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game is a cosy Hobbit life simulator by Weta Workshop, set in the idyllic world of The Shire from JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. After creating your own character, you arrive in Bywater, but despite living in an epic fantasy world, swords are of no use here and your biggest...
Mini Review Penny's Big Breakaway (PS5) - Unique Yo-Yo Platformer Has Its Ups and Downs
Yo with the flow
Penny's Big Breakaway comes from some of Sonic Mania's key contributors, and you can certainly see and feel the influences. This 3D platformer encourages speed, using momentum to your advantage, and exploring colourful, open levels, much like SEGA's mascot series. Despite the through-line, however, this game's core mechanics set it...
Review After Us (PS5) - Big Swings and Some Big Misses in This Artsy Platformer
The Last of After Us
When developing a game, having lofty ambitions in mind for your project can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, if everything involved works in concert to execute on a well-defined creative vision, the results can be magical. However, if any of what you strive to accomplish misses the mark, each failure shines that much...
Review OlliOlli World (PS5) - Fantastic Skateboarding Game Is a World Apart from Predecessors
Perfect landing
Republished on Wednesday, 1st February, 2023: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of February 2023's PS Plus line up. The original text follows. For a certain type of player, OlliOlli World is just pure fun. Let's not beat about the bush here: this side-scrolling skateboarding game is simply...
Review Rollerdrome (PS5) - Just As Good As Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
Keep on rollin'
There's a moment in all 11 of Rollerdrome's levels where everything just clicks. Runs rewarding grades unfit for college graduation are the norm in the latest game from OlliOlli World developer Roll7, but practise makes perfect, and this futuristic Tony Hawk's Pro Skater game knows how to make top marks feel good. The Birdman makes...
Mini Review OlliOlli World: VOID Riders (PS5) - Extraterrestrial Expansion Is a Fun Return Trip
A skate odyssey
We suppose you could argue OlliOlli World: VOID Riders is simply more of the same. That's not really much of a negative, though, when the game is already so great. This is the first expansion DLC for OlliOlli World, the wonderful skateboarding side-scroller, bringing a whole bunch of exciting new levels that spice things up with a...
Actual murder on the dancefloor
The Outer Worlds: Murder on Eridanos is the game's second and final expansion. Just like Peril on Gorgon, it's another solid adventure that takes you to a whole new location. This time around, the crew of the Unreliable find themselves on the Grand Colonial — essentially a massive hotel complex that orbits the...
Mini Review The Outer Worlds: Peril on Gorgon - A Solid But Very Safe Expansion
Welcome back, Captain
Bloody corporations, eh? They've only gone and done it again! Peril on Gorgon is The Outer Worlds' first expansion, and all told, it's a solid excursion. Your intrepid Captain and their crew find themselves travelling to the hellish Gorgon asteroid — a (mostly) abandoned testing site for dodgy space drugs. You're contracted...
Review Disintegration - Squad-Based Tactical FPS from Halo Co-Creator Unfortunately Misses the Mark
Robot Wars
Marcus Lehto was the creative art director at Bungie for 15 years. During that time he helped create and grow Halo, a series that’s arguably as influential in the FPS arena as DOOM, Half-Life, or Call of Duty. Breaking away from Bungie in 2012 to form independent studio V1 Interactive, he began work on Disintegration, intending to...
Review Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey - Too Much Monkeying Around in This Ambitious Survival Sim
Money see, monkey don’t
Set 10 million years before the dawn of humanity, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is the story of ape to proto-human evolution, with particular emphasis on the dangers that forced our fuzzy forebears into learning the skills that ensured the human success story. Taking place in prehistoric Africa, Ancestors throws the...
