Recent reviews by Blake Panther

I have been playing Football management games for decades and have thousands of hours invested in every iteration of FM.

This game is not perfect, but the issues I've encountered have been minor and have not dulled my enjoyment of the game. The new UI takes some getting used to but I actually find it pretty quick to navigate now I know where things are located.

Glad I ignored the negative reviews.

s'good

If you've ever dreamed of going from unemployed sunday league footballer with no experience to the person who guided Limerick FC from the Irish 2nd division to Euro Cup glory, then I can confirm this game makes dreams come true.

Took me a few hours or so but it was worth it.

While I did enjoy the game a little, it is hard to recommend. Firstly, because it is very short. I wasn’t trying to find all the hidden bits, but I was fairly thorough and the game still only took me 7 hours to complete.

I’m pretty sure you could leave a chimp alone in a room with this game and if you rewarded it with a banana for solving each mystery, you’d have a chubby and happy chimp by the end of the day.

It had a lot of potential and the voice acting was quite good, but almost every element felt unfinished. If you can get it for around £4 then it might be worthwhile, but I certainly wouldn’t want to pay any more than that.

My main issue, is that it was really obvious what was happening from a very early stage (I won’t say how early because that would spoil things, but it is pretty damn early). It also doesn’t matter when you figure out the “Mystery”, you have to listen to your idiot protagonist come to obvious conclusion after obvious conclusion and follow every red herring until you reach the final revelation.

Well, I've ploughed a couple of hours into this game, and I can safely say it is a masterpiece.

TL;DR Review: Essentially, it's the Dark Souls of racing games.

Full Review: I can happily max everything out on my system at 5120x1200 and it looks fantastic, both while driving and in the replays (i5 3570K & R9 280X). It's also challenging, in that thrilling way that is genuinely rewarding when you get it right. DiRT Rally is absolutely the best racing game I have played in a very long time.

I am not a hardcore racer (not even close), but there seem to be a lot of reviews saying it is purely a sim or that you should only play if you have a fancy wheel. While it does feel like there is a lot for the sim-heads, to me it feels very approachable using an Xbox pad, and that's without all of the assists turned on. As long as you are prepared to try and fail, there is a lot of fun to be had from this game no matter what your previous experience is. If you like to be out in front and coasting all the time, then maybe this isn't for you. If you like to push yourself to the limits, get DiRT.

It's the best Assassins Creed game Ubisoft never made.

It adds a dash of Batman mixed with a little Farcry and a few original ideas to make a very awesome sauce.

Well worth your time.

I have tried to learn guitar a number of times before. My friends all told be "Just look at some YouTube Videos" or "just get some tabs and you're away". Realistically, you need 1 on 1 tuition to get started and for the price of a couple of lessons you can buy this game and a real tone cable. I am really glad I got this, it encourages me to pick up my guitar every day and practice. I am sure I will reach a wall in terms of how useful it is, but it got me over a lot of hurdles and gave me a lot of confidence. I still have a long way to go, but I feel like a have a path mapped out and I look forward to playing a little every day, which is always a good sign for musical instruments or games.

Based on discussions with a lot of my muso mates, I picked up a Yamaha Pacifica to use with this and it works really well. I have suffered no input lag with the real tone cable and I've really enjoyed how it lets me play the way I want to. I have learned a lot by playing the songs and then going into session mode and mucking about. I am not a huge fan of the arcade stuff, but it's easy to avoid.

If you've always wanted to learn to play then I think this is a really great place to start. Alternatively, if you have never really cared but have enjoyed playing games like Rock Band or Guitar Hero, this is the natural progression (a basic starter guitar like the Yamaha doesn't cost much more than the cheap plastic peripheral you need to buy for these games either, and it certainly feels a lot nicer to hold)