Staff Profile
- Username
- gbanas92
- First Article
- News/Features
- 189
- Reviews
- 179
- Avg. Review Score
- 6.8
- Article Comments
- 4,701
- Total Articles
- 368
Game of the Year Top 10 PS5, PS4 Soundtracks of 2021
Play it again, Sam
If there’s one thing to always look forward to at the end of the year, it’s lists. As sure a thing as death and taxes, countdown lists may just be one of the most fun inevitabilities out there. The one offer this time is a glimpse at some of the best PlayStation music we heard in 2021. While it’s impossible to touch upon...
Game of the Year Graham's Top 5 PS5, PS4 Games of 2021
Wake up
Our individual Game of the Year articles allow our lovely team of writers to share their own personal PS5 and PS4 picks for 2021. Today, it's the turn of reviewer Graham Banas. 5. Deathloop: I love Arkane. Everything they make just has this certain vibe that no one else in the industry can touch. Their latest is no exception. I was...
Mini Review A Short Hike (PS4) - A Sweet, Simple, Animal Crossing-Lite Experience
A walk in the woods
A Short Hike's title does an awful lot of heavy lifting when it comes to describing this game. It truly conveys the core experience in a way many game titles don't. Playing as Claire, an anthropomorphised bird, you are tasked with, you guessed it, going on a short hike. You can jump, fly, and climb, all of which you’ll need to...
Welcome, foolish mortals
There’s a real craft that goes into the best of PSVR’s horror experiences, and Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife is masterfully executed. You play as a photographer — well, more accurately, the spirit of one — trying to solve your own murder as well as escape from an estate you seem to find yourself trapped in. But be...
Mini Review Carrion (PS4) - A Grotesque Metroidvania with an Incredible Atmosphere
Feed the birds
Ever watched John Carpenter’s The Thing and thought how cool it would be to play as the organism? If so, Carrion is the game for you. You play a small organism that escapes from a holding cell. Upon reaching the vents you find yourself in a massive, sprawling research laboratory with two goals: spread your infection throughout the...
News Gordy Haab's Star Wars Music Is Being Campaigned for Grammy Attention
Battlefront 2! Squadrons!
Star Wars is no stranger to the Grammys with just about every John Williams score made for a galaxy far, far away receiving some form of attention. So it makes some amount of sense that composer Gordy Haab is in the midst of campaigning his recent Star Wars works for Grammy consideration. Historically, the Grammys have a...
It’s about family, and that’s what so powerful about it
While innovation often leads to some truly creative endeavors, there's something to be said for taking an established formula and doing it really well. That’s what Röki sets out to do: take the traditional elements of a point-and-click adventure title, and elevate the experience in...
News Synth Riders Gets New Song, Mode in Latest Update
Lots of new content
Synth Riders appears to be the gift that keeps on giving. Despite Kluge Interactive's VR rhythm title launching with an impressive amount of content — something we remarked on in our review — the title doesn't seem to be content with stopping. Latest on the docket is a new mode, Spiral, hitting PSVR on 28th October. Spiral...
Review NHL 22 (PS5) - A New Shine Applied to a Familiar Experience
We've been here before
New console generations can prove rocky for sports franchises: performance issues, bugs, and a reduction in features are routinely guaranteed. Certainly, that's the fate that awaited EA's NHL series when it transitioned to the PlayStation 4 – after all, we still have nightmares about the abysmal NHL 15. Surprisingly, EA...
News NHL 22 Pulls Back the Curtain with 27 Minutes of Gameplay
Plus commentary
In the second of a four-part series of videos offering a deep-dive look into NHL 22 — the first being a long look at World of CHEL — we get an absolutely massive twenty-seven-minute gameplay breakdown. It's about the equivalent of sitting down and getting to see a game played straight through. This of course includes running...
News Synth Riders Welcomes Back Muse with a DLC Pack Available Now
Plus a new experience
Synth Riders landed on PlayStation VR last month and we absolutely loved it. Synth Riders launched with an incredible selection of music — even discounting the tracks locked behind a paywall — and not only did it have a great gameplay loop, but also the best VR solution to sustained notes to date. We couldn't wait to see...
Mini Review Quake (PS4) - New Coat of Paint for Legendary FPS
You got the nails
Quake is one of the shooters. Part of id’s holy trinity alongside Wolfenstein and DOOM, Quake is the newest of the bunch and, depending on who you ask, the best. This newest delivers the experience you remember, with a whole lot of added value. This is quite the bundle, packing in five campaigns – including both Machine...
News NHL 22 Shows First Proper Look at Gameplay with New Trailer
It definitely looks like a hockey game
After NHL 22’s reveal trailer last week, it was only a matter of time before we got a proper look at how the frozen sports next-gen debut would play. Today, we get our first real glimpse at the game, with a pretty extensive gameplay trailer with commentary that highlights the new features coming to this...
Mini Review I Expect You to Die 2: The Spy and the Liar (PSVR) - Escape Room Is a Corker
You only die twice
The first I Expect You to Die was a pretty great escape room/spy mashup, so it’s really great to see Schell Games return to the well and provide another opportunity to save the world from impending doom. Despite being locked down in one position, the game does an incredible job of making a lot from a little, with brilliantly...
News NHL 22 Reveal Trailer Shows Off a New Look for the Franchise on PS5, PS4
NHL joins the Frostbite family in October
Things are certainly shaping up nicely for NHL 22, aren't they? While normally a generational transition for a sports title is something to be feared — we still haven't forgotten NHL 15 — NHL 22 seems poised to buck that trend. The last of EA's sports franchises to make the leap to the Frostbite engine,...
Mini Review Fracked (PSVR) - A Fun VR Shooter with Oh-So Much Style
Frack and roll all nite
What is the appropriate venue to discuss the morally questionable practice of fracking? Well, with an irreverent shooter about eco-terrorism, of course. While Fracked may side-step saying anything meaningful about fracking, it does not sidestep crafting a fun PSVR experience. Touting a movement system hand-crafted to work...
Mini Review Synth Riders (PSVR) – A VR Rhythm Game with a Different Sound
Ride the rails
We have espoused the virtues of VR rhythm games before, and now we have a new title to add to the mix: Synth Riders. While mechanically similar to Beat Saber on the surface, Synth Riders has some notable exceptions that allow it to stand out. Our favorite of these features are “rails”, in which you keep your hand balanced on a...
Mini Review Winds & Leaves (PSVR) – A Silviculturists Dream in Virtual Reality
Planting the seed
Post-apocalyptic games are dime a dozen, but you’ve never played one like this. In Winds & Leaves, rather than punch or shoot your way to safety, you are tasked with re-planting the once vibrant forests of a distant land. You accomplish this by picking fruit from freshly grown trees and then placing them right back into the...
Mini Review Metro Exodus (PS5) – A Greatly Improved Version of a Pretty Awesome Game
Time to leave the metro
4A Games is one of the most talented teams in the industry, but the PS4 version of Metro: Exodus – as noted in our original review – severely outpaced the technology of its time, even on the more powerful PS4 Pro. This next-gen version – available as a free PS4 to PS5 upgrade – feels like the experience that was...
Mini Review Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PS5) - A Marginal Upgrade on Backwards Compatibility
At least it’s a free upgrade
The latest in a long line of free next-gen upgrades, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order plays things pretty straight. The native PS5 version of the experience is more or less the version you could play through backwards compatibility, with a few extra bells and whistles. The most obvious change is the game’s resolution,...
Mini Review Gadgeteer (PS4) - A Fulfilling VR Physics Puzzler
Go, go gadget Rube Goldberg machine
Virtual reality is a fantastic arena with which to explore puzzles – especially when the idea is such a fun and refreshing one. Gadgeteer sees you designing amazing Rube Goldberg contraptions by placing all the missing pieces to complete the machines, while progressing through an abode’s various rooms. What...
Mini Review Exodemon (PS5) – A Fun By-the-Numbers Throwback Shooter
Jump on it
Retro shooters have a well-trodden formula these days, so anytime a game sets out to tweak that, the results vacillate between clever and calamitous. Exodemon happens to come down on the side of cleverness, tweaking the process in just the right ways to cleverly mask a small development team while making the experience a fun one. Whereas...
Movie Review Mortal Kombat (2021) – An Uneven, But Ultimately Enjoyable Film
Flawed victory
The list of game movie adaptations grows ever longer. While the vast majority of them are calamitous misfires, the last couple years have shown that game adaptations can be at least mediocre. Between the latest Tomb Raider, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Detective Pikachu, game movies have finally reached a place where watching them isn’t...
Interview Talking Game Music With Composer Phill Boucher
It certainly rings a bell
Recently, we had the opportunity to chat with game composer Phill Boucher, a prolific composer across many mediums, including work on the Pirates of the Caribbean films, the brilliant DuckTales TV reboot, as well as some pretty noteworthy games like Civilization VI, XCOM: Chimera Squad, and oh yeah, a little game called...
