Back again for my regular Sunday roundup of quick-fire reviews and impressions of everything under the spotlight at Retro Arcadia this week, old and new and a bit of both. Outside of gaming, it was nice to see the sun again this week, and our son accepted an offer to move from Washington to Kentucky to play football (soccer) next season, which, as I alluded to here last week, has involved three months of ongoing stress but seems to have worked itself out… Speaking of stress, try getting an 18-year old to submit a US tax return for the first time from the other side of the world! That’s finally done now too though, so we’re back onto putting our house on the market again… Thank goodness I’ve got my games to keep me vaguely sane!

I always worry about covering chess games here because, having only got into it relatively recently myself, I remember perfectly well how boring it is to everyone else! Oh well… I picked up a copy of Chessmaster 3-D on the original PlayStation a while back, having been enjoying it for ages on emulation and thinking it finally deserved a belated purchase. I’d never even played its 1999 follow-up, Chessmaster II, though, so when I came across it on eBay last week, I couldn’t resist! Not that it’s massively different to play, but where 3-D was all about giving you exactly that, this one is more focussed on a clean, immediate, frictionless game of chess first, then worrying everything else – via a hundred customisations (including every visual preference under the sun) – later! That said, the presentation here is a step above the last game right from the off too, maybe less “atmospheric” but very polished and easy on both the eye and the ear, with laid-back, deliberately functional commentary over a pleasantly neutral, almost ambient soundtrack as you play. I love that the back of the box talks about “real time board zoom and rotation” too, like it was still a big deal by then or anything you’ll ever do more than once to try it out, but that works fine too, as do the twenty-four different chess sets at hand, with a choice of 3D and 2D views to your taste, all of which feature instantly identifiable pieces, and as just said, you can tweak literally everything, right down to the type of wood the board’s sitting on. That goes for audio, interface and general ambience too, but more importantly, the real customisation lies in the game itself, where you’ve got a whopping sixty-four human-like computer “personalities” who all have their own play styles, skill levels and even biographies, then thirty more Grandmasters, and of course, you can play head-to-head with a real person too. Then there are teaching options, and you can mess around with rules and scenarios and things, but like its predecessor, you can also just have a really nice game of chess, and that’s what I really now love the pair of them for! 

After finishing both of its predecessors back-to-back over the past few weeks (covered here and here respectively), I got unexpectedly sidetracked for a while but the inevitable has now happened, and this week I’ve returned to Batman: Arkham Knight, not so much out of obligation, but because once I’m back in Rocksteady’s Gotham, an extended stay through all the games always just seems like a good idea. I first played this on PlayStation 4, a little while after its original launch back in 2015 (once my cousin was done with his copy), but this time it’s all mine on Xbox Series X, care of backwards compatibility and a more recent sale, and while I’ve played it a couple of times again since buying it for myself, the jump into a fully realised, rain‑soaked Gotham is always a thrill! The now-familiar mix of gliding, stealth, detective work and that unsurpassed combat is all here, only bigger, more dramatic and as blockbuster as it gets! The city itself is still a marvel to me – dense, vertical, full of character and totally built for momentum, even if the Batmobile does outstay its welcome; it’s fun for a while but never quite matches the effortless flow of controlling Batman himself, similar to Catwoman’s intrusions into the last game (but far more frequently).

The story takes us several years on from that, with Scarecrow’s latest shenanigans forcing a mass evacuation of the city and the mysterious Arkham Knight arriving to take advantage of the ensuing chaos. Like its immediate predecessor, it’s not as tightly focused as the original Batman: Arkham Asylum, but the ongoing ambition is undeniable, and the constant stream of side-missions, power-ups, unlocks, collectibles and appearances from all kinds of familiar (and less so) faces keeps you going for as long as you want it to. Visually, this is the series at its peak as well, with the super-atmospheric lighting, relentless weather and all kinds other special effects as in your face as ever, and the voice-acting and sound design still hold up beautifully. Shortcomings and all, it’s another brilliant return to Gotham, and once again, I’m reminded why all three of these games pull me back in every time, over and over again. Funny how Arkham Origins doesn’t so much though – no immediate plans to try and reestablish why either, but hold that Bat-thought all the same! 

I did also do a second run-through (and part of a third!) of Resident Evil Requiem, and it’s still remarkable, but I covered it right up to what turned out to be very close to the credits here last week, so won’t get it into it again. However, I will just say I’m so glad I did something different this time because there’s a lot more to it than I’d have known otherwise… Sorry, I know I’m being vague but anyone who’s played and might not have restarted (or at least re-rolled) will know what I mean, and I’m avoiding spoilers or just being boring (especially after all that chess!) for everyone else. Game of the year so far though, although I did start a new mountain climbing game I picked up a couple of weeks ago called Cairn, which I’m really enjoying too, so hopefully more on that next time! In case you missed it last Wednesday, do check out our regular journey back exactly forty years for the very latest in video gaming with Retro Rewind: March 1986 in Computer & Video Games, straight from the pages of the original magazine, and I’ll see you again next Sunday. In the meantime, have a good one! 

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