Matthew Castle

I imagine many of you see the word video in the headline and assume it’s just going to be Noa or me gabbling over game footage. And while gabbling/footage hybrids do make up 98% of its output, the RPS Video Department knows when to put a sock in it. One such occasion is the arrival of Gris, a wistful adventure that new Spanish outfit Nomada…

Tagged with Devolver Digital, feature, Nomada Studio, video, Gris.

I often wonder what freakish individuals were enlisted into focus testing to give publishers the idea that everyone wants things mean and moody. Had they invited me, there would be more games set in cheery pubs where you win by having the best bit of nostalgia about early noughties television. Also, the health system would be built entirely on the consumption of floral gums. There…

Tagged with Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal, feature, Lara Croft, Square Enix, video, Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

As a great scientist once said (or maybe it was Jeff Goldblum): “A butterfly can flap its wings in Peking and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine.” Meanwhile, in This Is The Police 2 an idiot cop empties pepper spray into their own eyes and a woman burns to death because I don’t have enough law enforcers to answer her distress call.…

Tagged with feature, footage with talking on top, THQ Nordic, video, Weappy, This Is The Police 2.

The news that Bus Simulator 18 had added a multiplayer mode caused quite the ripple in the RPS treehouse. For one afternoon cat pics and Brendy’s weird GIFs made way for dreams of glorious four bus convoys, all honking horns and sliding open doors in perfect unison. The reality, as I discovered with Noa, is more frightening. This is an unforgiving world where the tiniest…

Tagged with Astragon Entertainment, features, let's play, Stillalive Studios, videos.

After three hours with Two Point Hospital I see similarities with Jurassic World Evolution. Okay, Frontier’s game sees you putting more people in hospital than getting them out the door, but it’s a similarly welcoming management game. You can read that as simplified and slow (as Fraser did in his Jurassic World review), but as an abysmal multitasker I appreciated a campaign that drip-fed ideas…

Tagged with feature, preview, Sega, Two Point Studios, video.

I’ve been playing the endless Assassin's Creed Origins, a game so gargantuan that the time on my save file lasts longer than Ancient Egyptian civilization did. This is a revenge mission stripped of all urgency by the simple fact of being five million hours long. Whatever big bad awaits at the end can rest easy knowing there are 800 fortresses to clear out before I…

Tagged with best short games, feature, video, VVVVVV, A Case of Distrust, Abzu, Californium, Chuchel, Far: Lone Sails, Her Story, Inside, Pony Island, Stories Untold.

Has it really been six months? 2018 is passing in a blur of frozen architects, drug-pushing prophets and accordion duets. Hell, six months ago the RPS Video Department was but a glint in Graham’s eye. You may also recall a gathering of the most exciting games of 2018, a rundown of the year as it looked back in January. With E3 done there’s a clearer…

Tagged with 2018 preview, Avalanche Studios, Bandai Namco, Bandai Namco Studios, Bethesda Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks, Capcom, Chucklefish, Compulsion Games, Crystal Dynamics, Dontnod, EA DICE, Eidos Montreal, feature, Gearbox Publishing, IO Interactive, Microsoft Studios, Playground Games, Sega, Tales Of Vespiria: Definitive Edition, Ubisoft, Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Quebec, video, Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Battlefield V, Code Vein, Fallout 76, Forza Horizon 4, Hitman 2, Just Cause 4, Monster Hunter: World, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Square Enix, The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, Transference, Wargroove, We Happy Few, Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami.

Now that the festival of bellowing that is E3 2018 has come to an end, we begin the arduous process of making sense of it all. This means sifting through mountains of press releases and trailers to find all the curious games that lurked outside the spotlight glare of the larger publishers. And we find such treats as Maneater (Jaws RPG where you play as…

Tagged with Blindside Interactive, Chance Agency, Coffee Stain Studios, E3 2018, feature, Galvanic Games, Glumberland, Insomniac Games, Metkis, Modern Storyteller, Morning Star, Nolla Games, Shedworks, Stormland, video, Maneater, Neo Cab, Noita, Ooblets, Rapture Rejects, Sable, Satisfactory, The Forgotten City.

The existence of Unravel 2 was a pleasant surprise at an EA showcase depressingly short of them. Even better, you can play the game right now. Er, if you don’t mind using Origin. I adored Unravel’s physics-based platforming, even if the horned, red figure of Yarny himself is clearly demonic in nature. It’s those dead eyes. Brrr. Making the sequel twice as unsettling is the…

Tagged with Coldwood Interactive, creepy yarn monster, E3 2018, Electronic Arts, feature, let's play, video, Unravel 2.

I was going to call this article ‘10 Vampyr tips to stop you sucking at sucking’, but this doesn’t reflect my experience with the game. As you’ll have read in Alec’s delightful Vampyr review, the act of drinking blood is a wicked temptation. It’s the quickest way to slurp up XP and lower the combat difficulty, but comes at the cost of depopulating the world…

Tagged with feature, Focus Home Interactive, guide, tips, walkthrough, DONTNOD Entertainment, Vampyr.

Remember the bit in Jurassic Park where John Hammond airlifts a live Ceratosaurus into the food court? No? That’s because it didn’t happen, which was a huge failing of imagination on Spielberg’s part. Hammond was all about show business, after all, and business doesn’t come showier than a dinosaur eating tourists as they exit a burger joint. Obviously, the makers of Jurassic World Evolution don’t…

Tagged with dinosaurs!, feature, Frontier Developments, health and safety violation, Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, Jurassic World, video, walkthrough, Jurassic Park, Jurassic World Evolution.

Driving is not relaxing for me. I failed my driving test nine times before passing, so statistically-speaking, only one in ten driving instructors think I should be out on the roads. I don’t like those odds, and I imagine pedestrians don’t either. When you’ve failed your driving test so prolifically the basic idea of sitting behind the wheel is scary enough without a car of…

Tagged with demo, let's play, Ondřej Švadlena, video, walkthrough, Beware, Driving Survival.

Many things are easy in games that I struggle with in reality. A light jog. Climbing ladders. Carrying stuff (my limit’s an eight pack of Pepsi Max Cherry, let alone five axes and a wheel of cheese). But House Flipper, a first-person handyman ‘em up and current chart champion, is based on my bete noire: keeping a house clean and healthy. I stink at cleaning…

Tagged with Empyrean, feature, filth, let's play, Matthew's big face, preview, video, walkthrough, House Flipper.

If the zombies don’t get you in State of Decay 2, then the boastful barista will. Sure, he brews a mean cup of joe, but his self-confidence is beginning to grate and the community’s morale is sinking. This might be the first survival game to be derailed by a braggart with coffee breath. As such it can feel like the world is conspiring against you,…

Tagged with feature, guide, Microsoft Studios, State Of Decay, State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition, Undead Labs, walkthrough, State of Decay 2.

Zombie survival adventure State of Decay 2 lurches on to PC next Tuesday - though it’s out today for those who ordered the Ultimate edition - and Brendan kindly put aside his endless shopping trips to help me test co-op mode. Opt for a multiplayer session and you appear as visiting survivors in the host’s game, in this case, Brendan’s. You can help said host…

Tagged with Coop, feature, Microsoft Studios, multiplayer, State Of Decay, State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition, Undead Labs, video, Windows 10 games, State of Decay 2.

The pinball platformer is an idea developers like to feed quarters into every so often. If a character is round (Pac-Man, Kirby) or can bunch up into a ball (Sonic, Samus, enslaved Pokémon), then they’ve probably been bashed about by flippers at some point. But these games tend to be reskins of traditional pinball; few reflect their source material. Yoku’s Island Express doesn’t have a…

Tagged with feature, pinball, platformer, Team 17, video, Villa Gorilla, walkthrough, Yoku's Island Express.

Do no harm, goes the Hippocratic Oath. So it’s with trepidation that I approach Two Point Hospital, a spiritual successor to Theme Hospital that could all too easily do harm to fond childhood memories of Bullfrog’s heal ‘em up. Thankfully, Alec’s recent visit to these shiny new wards have put my mind at rest - it sounds like the team has successfully transplanted the heart…

Tagged with feature, preview, Two Point Studios, video, walkthrough, Theme Hospital, Two Point Hospital.

With just ten hours left on Frostpunk’s clock, the people of my city decided to steam me alive. I got those ingrates just ten hours away from the final daybreak, and they treated me like human dim sum. Some of them even clapped with prosthetic hands I had built for them during the harshest of winters. The last thought that popped into my boiled mind?…

Tagged with 11 Bit Studios, feature, guide, tips, video, walkthrough, Frostpunk.

Come the zombie apocalypse the jugglers are the first against the wall. What to do with an unemployed children’s entertainer is one of the tamer dilemmas thrown up in the three hours I spent with State of Decay 2. But it’s indicative of Undead Lab’s slightly goofy take on zombie survival, one that has you desperately scavenging for supplies one second and weighing up the…

Tagged with feature, Microsoft Studios, preview, Undead Labs, video, walkthrough, Windows 10 games, Xbox Play Anywhere, zombie game, State of Decay 2.