Destiny

Some evolution required…

Destiny is Bungie’s first title away from the confines of its Halo universe. Published by Activision, this much hyped “MMOFPS” provides the player with something new from the studio that created one of the bestselling FPS franchises out there. But under the weight of Activision’s extreme hype engine and the pressure of delivering a title that breaks several moulds and boundaries, Bungie seems to have lost sight of certain elements in the overall construction of the game.

It needs to be said, right off the bat, that Destiny has been receiving a general raw deal in terms of reviews. Perhaps buying into the hype machine soured more than a few views of the game, and it has been getting a beating in reviews that it doesn’t necessarily deserve. That said, it certainly doesn’t live up to the lofty promises made by marketing departments and press releases. To be fair, Destiny is a good game, and it delivers a lot of fun. But it isn’t what we were told we would get.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

A hype-machine mishap? Or a revolution in gaming?

The Lord of the Rings is not an easy intellectual property to take on. First you have to contend with the fact that Tolkien, the master that he was, created such a tightly woven and immense body of lore that simply trying to find a gap in the narrative of Middle-earth is an immense task in and of itself. While small details may remain obscure, by and large the collected works of Tolkien represent a breathtaking display of an imagination that has created a world rich with a history seemingly as complete as anything that real life has to offer. What has naturally followed is a mass of adherents utterly opposed to anything that would attempt to rewrite or alter the canon of Arda, let alone introduce a completely new chapter to the saga. This is the task that Monolith have chosen however, and while the developer, best known for Alien versus Predator 2, No One Lives Forever and F.E.A.R., might have been somewhat absent over the past decade, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is looking to place Monolith firmly in the spotlight once again.