Rest In Peace TotalBiscuit: A Tribute

As many people know by now, John ‘TotalBiscuit’ Bain died a few days ago from bowel cancer that spread to his liver. I’ve been a fan of his for a while and wanted to do a tribute to him, so I’ve made this blog post. His battle with cancer has been well-documented, and he was a very well-known figure in games media, so rather than it being a biography of his life, which many will do, I thought I’d give a brief overview of who he was and then talk about what he meant to me. I’d rather have to do this only once so while I would normally keep these blogs fairly short, this one will naturally be longer.

There are better pictures than this, but this is how I remember
TotalBiscuit - sitting in his office doing the podcast.

The production and access of media has been changing dramatically for as long as I can remember. Around the middle of the previous decade, YouTube came in to prominence as a large platform on which you can upload videos. Once the site started running advertisements on those videos, and the people who make them – content creators – started to be paid, it became possible to make a decent living from making videos on YouTube. This came from advertising revenue initially, and with their fame and exposure, many YouTube stars made money from sponsorship deals as well.

One such person was TotalBiscuit, a games critic who championed consumer rights and choice. He tended to focus on PC gaming with a balanced line-up of reviews of games from major publishers to draw in the views, and indie (smaller) developers to support the practice of developing games. His biggest and longest-running series was WTF Is… ?, which gave TotalBiscuit’s first impressions of a game after playing it for a few to several hours depending on the game. It combined gameplay footage with TotalBiscuit’s massive talent for commentary, and he produced hundreds of videos for the series. He also provided commentary on news and controversies within the games industry, as well as supporting and commentating on the competitive gaming movement now known as E-Sports.

I first became aware of TotalBiscuit in late 2012 when he posted a video of playing the multiplayer mode of XCOM: Enemy Unknown against Angry Joe; another games critic I’d been following for a while by then. It was entertaining, but I didn’t know anything about TotalBiscuit at that point so I took two prominent YouTubers playing the multiplayer mode as a curio to a game that I’m a big fan of – I’d bought and beaten the game by then, and it remains one of my favourite games to this very day.

The video that truly engaged me, that made me realise that TotalBiscuit’s was a voice well worth listening to – and I expect that the same is the case for many people – was This video is no longer available: The Day One Garry’s Incident Incident, posted in October 2013. TotalBiscuit displayed something that became a prominent issue on YouTube over the next few years, where an angry game developer – in this case Wild Games Studios – abused YouTube’s copyright strike system to remove his coverage of their appalling game Day One: Garry’s Incident. TotalBiscuit provided an insightful and useful overview on exactly how this works, what was done and how behaviour like this was used as an attack on games critique and what it would mean for the industry if it were to continue to allow this to happen. Three million people had viewed that video by the time the topic next came up, and that number has grown considerably since then. To put that in perspective, a games critic can, at the top of their expectations, expect roughly a million to a million and a half people to watch their videos if they are popular enough and if the game is big enough; usually the so-called Triple-A releases. Most of TotalBiscuit’s videos were viewed by around half a million people, at the height of his popularity. No small number of course, but the only time I ever see videos viewed more than that are the more popular music videos.

I guess what was most appealing about all this to me was the fact that TotalBiscuit was, or at least appeared to be, talking as himself; a genuine human being. I’d certainly come across some volatile videos before – prior to this I watched a lot of Angry Joe, and the Angry Video Game Nerd – but TotalBiscuit was the first games commentator I’d seen since the days of Bad Influence in the 90s where the reviewer was talking as himself; not a character or a persona invented for Youtube. Not that this makes Angry Joe or the Nerd any less valid in the points they make, you understand, but TotalBiscuit was a lot more relatable for, of all things, using a normal speaking voice.

TB's strong and often caustic opinions made him a controversial
figure. Here's some commentary he did on the Gamergate scandal.

At that point, I became a fan, watching the WFT Is… videos and the less-regular Content Patch; a series commenting on the news in the gaming industry. Interestingly, for the longest time, TotalBiscuit’s content wasn’t relevant to me, as I didn’t own a PC capable of playing the vast majority of the games he covered. Some had console ports, but with the Xbox 360 coming to the end of its generation by then, and not having enough money to justify buying what is now the current generation consoles, he didn’t cover many games I eventually bought. For me it was more about finding out what’s going on in the world in an industry I’m interested in. So I watched all the videos, enjoyed the way he presented himself, even adopted some of his mannerisms (people who know me in person might remember that I often punctuate the flow of my speech with “yes indeed,” and agree with certain things with “and rightly so.”) Often I’d fall asleep listening to some of his videos, not watching them at all, purposefully putting them on any time I wanted a nap! I feel no shame in admitting this since I know from talking to certain people that it is far from uncommon. Later, I enjoyed the Co-Optional podcast as well; I don’t follow Jesse Cox and Dodger but it was always nice to hear some people sitting around talking about video games, and I’d often have it on while I was playing, though the three-hour format made it difficult to listen to all the way through due to time constraints. Of course, when I bought my laptop, which in 2015 was a pretty powerful machine, I was able to download and play some of the games he’d been covering; regular readers will recognise those times when I’ve said my purchases were inspired by TotalBiscuit, and I still have a list of games he covered that I’d like to buy at some point!

Then in late 2014, TotalBiscuit publicly announced that he had cancer. I remember thinking at the time that it was a very brave move. For various reasons, I’ve been a lot more careful what I’ve been saying online than I was when I was younger, and I’m not sure I’d want something like that to be common knowledge. But for someone as popular as TotalBiscuit, he’d never have been able to keep it quiet for long. I thought it was a fantastic act of strength to admit that he’d had the symptoms of his condition for roughly a year before going to the doctors about it, and to advise people to get themselves checked out if they think they have any symptoms to avoid repeating his mistake. But I wasn’t unduly worried at the time. Nobody had used the word ‘terminal’ at that point, and with advances in technology and treatment, cancer isn’t always the death sentence it once was. It’s far from fun, but there was hope.

The cancer went into remission, but later returned, and this time it was terminal. I can’t remember how I felt about that at the time, but I was glad that TotalBiscuit kept WTF is… and the podcast going, and the “I Will Now Talk About…” videos, which had somewhat replaced the content patch, was a welcome addition to his line-up. He talked about the cancer from time to time but never for sympathy, and I truly believe it was never his intention to stop working. He made regular videos for as long as he was able, including one very open interview about living with Stage 4 cancer. (From what I understand, Stage 4 is the point of no return for cancer.) I was particularly impressed with his remark that, while the chemo therapy is a massive drain on him, he would accept the four days every two weeks he had to go through it for the ten reasonably good days in between.

At this point, I would like to mention his TotalBiscuit’s wife Genna, who has supported him throughout all of this. This has happened in many different ways, I’m sure, but the specific example I’m thinking of is with the food, which TotalBiscuit talked about in the interview. Even in spite of horribly aggressive conditions like cancer, your body doesn’t want to be ill, and will try to fight to keep itself healthy – but you have to give it the fuel in order to do that. Unfortunately, when you’re that ill, preparing food for yourself is the last thing you feel like doing.[1] For TotalBiscuit, that fell on Genna. If he was too ill to cook, she would do it. If he threw up the food she’d made because he was ill, she’d prepare something else. If that didn’t work either, she’d try another meal, and she’d keep trying until she found something TotalBiscuit could keep down. He said that once he’d eaten a meal, the difference it made to his energy levels and health was huge. He lived far longer than his original prognosis, and I believe his family were a large part of the reason for that. There’s a lesson in there, I think. So well done, Genna.

While the Co-Optional Podcast kept going, TotalBiscuit’s reviews were becoming less frequent, and early this year when he published the Top 10 Games of 2017 video, I remember thinking he didn’t sound well. And then right at the end of April, there was a post on Reddit where TotalBiscuit told his audience that the conventional treatments were no longer effective, and with few other options, he would be managing his pain as best he could and be retiring as a games critic. He knew he hadn’t got long left; he refused to be drawn into exactly how long since he’d already beaten the odds for people with his condition. It was his intention to keep the podcast and streaming going, and for Genna to take over the channel once he’d gone. I think that was probably the most upsetting part of this whole thing. I can’t imagine what it must have meant for TotalBiscuit that he had to stop doing the job he’d loved for so long because he was physically unable to do it.

I regularly looked at his Twitter feed after that – unfortunately the last month has been very busy for me and I haven’t had time to watch the podcast, and I’ve never seen Twitch (as if I need another video site taking up what little time I do have!) and he did a really good job of keeping people informed on how he was doing. And then, on May 24^th 2018, the messages started to go up showing that TotalBiscuit had died.

I found it an odd sensation of proportion that I should have been more upset by the passing of someone on YouTube that I’d never even had any dialogue with, let alone have occasion to meet, than some people I’ve known in person who have died over the last five years.[2] Surely it should be the other way around? But I guess TotalBiscuit was a regular part of my life for most of the last five years through his videos, and while there are many YouTubers out there who do their own thing which is just as good, if not better, things on YouTube, games media, and even the internet, are never going to be quite the same again. I’m going to miss him, a lot.

Nonetheless I’ll keep my eye on how things develop. I really hope Genna picks up the channel, and that the Co-Optional podcast keeps going. I’ll continue to write my blog – not that I in any way would have stopped because of this, but I would like to think of myself as a voice that’s worth listening to, even if I rarely talk about current games. I’ve seen enough coverage on Youtube to know that people generally like to listen to or read about people talking about video games, and TotalBiscuit was a large part of creating that culture for me. I’ll keep working, and doing what I can to make a living – that’s not easy, in this day and age, but despite my eating habits my body has the capacity to be an active member of society in a way that some people sadly don’t get the chance to do. And I will – and indeed have – get myself checked out if it appears an illness is going into the long term. I’ll continue with my music as long as I am able, in fact last Friday I did a musical tribute to him by ending a short set at an open mic with a rendition of The Parting Glass.

As for TotalBiscuit, I hope he’s out of pain now, and I hope his family know how much he meant to so many people. “Goodnight, and joy be with you all.”

---

[1] Not that I’d know about how chemo therapy makes you feel, but I felt like that the last time I was very ill with the flu, and from what I understand about cancer, it is far worse.

[2] Just to clarify this remark: Most of people I’m referring to were former colleagues, bandmates, people I’d known through a previous long-distance relationship and a family member I hadn’t met in over two decades. I hadn’t seen them for a long time and, while I’ll always remember the time I had with them fondly, in most cases we were far beyond the point where I had a stake in their affairs.

Last Week's Games: Shogun: Total War, Warhammer 40K, Get Bit, Zombie Dice

Let's see who's standing at the end of this battle!

My new game for this week is Shogun: Total War. The Total War series is one of the ones I’ve been meaning to have a go at for a long time, and while there are a lot of games out there for it now, I have an almost obsessive need to play games in sequence, so I’m playing Shogun first. I played through the tutorials, which was just as well since the interface is unlike any strategy game I’ve ever played. I also had a go through the campaign, but I didn’t really have much of an idea of what I’m supposed to be doing; building up an empire is obvious but I found that battles are not to be entered into lightly! I did, however, have the foresight to set the win conditions up to something other than total domination. I remember playing Star Wars Battlefront 2’s Galactic Conquest mode with my sister years ago, during which I discovered that the problem with potentially endless campaigns is just that – they take ages, and you’ll lose interest in it long before you reach the end. I set up the win to take a certain number of provinces, and to survive for 70 years. But I think I might go back and restart, with a better idea of what I’m supposed to be doing.

I wonder if my need to play video games in sequence hampers my enjoyment of them somewhat. Am I missing some great games because I haven’t played the first ones? Anyone who’s played the Witcher series would probably say that I am; The Witcher 3 looks to be the best game in the series but I haven’t bothered with it because I haven’t played the first two to completion – and I’m unlikely to find time to do so! It shouldn’t matter with Total War because they’re stand-alone campaigns; not sequential storylines, but lately I’ve become interested in finding the core mechanics of the game before jumping in to the arguably-better later versions. Assassin’s Creed is a good example of this; I’ve missed the better games in the series because I wouldn’t touch them until I’d beaten the first. So I’ll see what Shogun: Total War has to offer. It looks really interesting and I have enjoyed it so far, but I want a little more out of it.

I continued playing Eternal Crusade on my laptop, but was pleasantly surprised when on Sunday I managed to go in to Warlords ‘n’ Wizards in Netherton and play the real thing! I got to play a game of Warhammer 40,000, using my Salamanders against Chaos Daemons. We played the Ancient Relic mission, which requires you to take and hold one objective for six victory points. I won because the objective way in my deployment zone. It was a good game but we had to it call early, and for my next one I’ll be using a substantially smaller army because I found myself looking at the rules for the new edition of the game far too often; it’s only my second game. Nonetheless, I like how the vast majority of the new rules are working out; especially how the templates have been removed so there is a point to Frag missiles now!



The front cover of the original X-Wing game.

Robots. Swimming away from a freaking shark.

I also had a game of Star Wars: X-Wing against the same guy, and managed to win with my tournament list consisting of 1^st-wave ships and characters. I was pleased that running the Trenchrunners worked, and I also learned not to fire Proton Torpedoes against a ship that has lots of shields and R2-D2, who recharges them!

I played some board games with Kirsty as well. The first was Get Bit, where you have to play cards to have plastic robots with detachable limbs swim away from a shark. There were the beginnings of a really good game in there but I wasn’t familiar enough with it to be able to explain it well enough for Kirsty to really know what she was doing! We also played Zombie Dice, which requires almost no skill other than pushing your luck. It is, ironically, brainless fun, which at the end of a long day is exactly what we needed! 
 

Last Week's Games: New Super Mario Bros, Diggy's Adventure, Hey, That's My Fish!

This week, I’ve been very pushed for time with work, gigs with the bands, playing video games took something of a back seat for me! But I managed to get some games in.

This happened quite a bit...

The first one was, to my surprise, New Super Mario Bros on the DS. I happened across someone who had the same game and we had a go with the multiplayer mode; Mario vs Luigi. In this, you have to collect five stars before your opponent does, using power ups and platforming to hamper your opponent any way you can. There’s a lot of fun to potentially have with this mode, however I should point out that the person I was playing against is very young and there was something of a disparity in skill level, so we didn’t play for very long!

The Dark Angels...

I continued my eternal crusade on, er, Eternal Crusade in those evenings where I had a bit of time. I’m still enjoying it, and I’m becoming a lot more familiar with the different classes now. I’m still absolutely hopeless at it, typically finishing somewhere in the bottom third of the leader board, and against players who have been playing since launch I haven’t got a chance. I’m also starting to notice the fact that there’s not really that many maps. It could do with a few more, to vary things up a bit! But on those times where I manage to sneak up behind someone and one-shot kill him, or capture a control point, or take out three guys at once (the latter happens at very infrequent intervals!) it’s really good fun, and I think this will see me through a long time yet.

With a chin to rival
Buzz Lightyear...

My new game for this week was Diggy’s Adventure on my Kindle Fire. This is a game where you have to make your way through a top-down cave by digging through collapsible squares of sand, gravel and the like. Each dig takes a certain amount of energy, and if you run out, you either need to manage your resources to make it last longer, or buy some more in micro payments! It’s competently-designed, doesn’t take itself too seriously (either that or the developer’s writing team had the week off!) and was a nice enough way to fill half an hour. But there’s not much challenge in the game that I’ve been able to see, apart from a couple of lever puzzles that are easy enough to work out. I guess later on there’d be an element of resource management in there, where you dig just far enough to achieve your objective and come back and clear the level later (the game rewards you for clearing the entire level.) There’s nothing wrong with Diggy’s quest, but like with most mobile games, I’m not sure how long it will keep me engaged.

Damn that robber!

I went in to Warlords and Wizards again and had another game of Settlers of Catan, where it got very competitive! We had to call the game early due to time allowance, but it was a pleasure to play again and I’m looking forward to the UK Championship at the UK Games Expo! I’m not expecting to do very well, but it will be interesting to play some different games with some different people. I also continued painting some Chaos Space Marines, I’ve nearly finished them now which will bring me up to 20.

Brutal but fun!

Finally, I had a few games of Hey! That’s My Fish with my Mom and my girlfriend Kirsty. It’s a really nice game to play because it doesn’t take itself too seriously, the rules take about a moment to work out (apart from working out what order to place the penguins in, I didn’t need to refer to the rules even once,) it’s really good fun and surprisingly tactical. I won the first two games and my Mom won the third. We helped her out with a move at one point near the end which turned out to be the deciding point, but as long as everybody is having a good time, it doesn’t really matter who wins or loses. I know that sounds like a very wishy-washy thing to say but it is absolutely true!

Last Week's Games: Kill the Bad Guy, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Catan

This week, I played two new games…

Splat!

The first was Kill the Bad Guy on the PC. It is a puzzle game where you have a “bad guy” taking a pre-determined route in a city-like setup; the objective of the game is to kill him and make it look like an accident. You can drop a piano on their head, start a car so it goes flying in to him, make a power line fall on to water that he’s walking in etc.

It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure how well it’s pulled off. It’s not a good-looking game; the environments are deliberately designed to be very drab. It’s pretty easy, at least in the earlier levels, to work out what to do; the challenge is in timing and force. For example, one of the stages involves launching a car over a ramp and in to the bad guy. Do this with too much force and the car will go straight over his head, but too little and the car won’t go far enough to reach him. How much force to use is precise, and the build-up metre is very sensitive; it takes a second to fill the whole thing. There are other objectives too, such as finding a passport hidden in the environment, and catching a tooth that comes flying off the bad guy when you kill him. Secondary objectives add to the way you kill someone, but that’s usually described in very vague terms and not easy to work out. I’ll give it another go, but I hope I can find a bit more fun in it than I currently am.

Monkey is performed by the
always-excellent Andy Serkis

The other new game was Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. This is a Post-Apocalyptic action-adventure; you play an agile but brutish thug called Monkey, who escapes slavery with a vulnerable but tech-savvy young woman called Trip. Trip binds Monkey to her using a slave headband, and he now has to guide her home, initially through what was once New York. First impressions of the game are good, because it breaks out of the usual desolate wasteland that forms the basis of most post-apocalyptic adventures. The adventure occurs roughly two hundred years after the apocalypse, and nature is starting to reclaim what was once modern New York City; traces of civilization are still there but the environment is surprisingly lush and green. The game plays well; less fluidly than I’m used to but it better contributes to the idea that the stunts and combat moves that Monkey pulls off are quite difficult to do. I’ve got a little way into the game and I’m looking forward to coming back to it!

And I continued playing Eternal Crusade; I’m still enjoying playing the game. I’ve played multiplayer shooters before like Gears of War and Gotham City Imposters; arguably better games but I suspect I’m enjoying this one a lot more for the 40K setting!

Always a pleasure to play this...

I went in to Warlords ‘n’ Wizards in Netherton and played The Settlers of Catan with a couple of the people there. I’ve often described this game, borrowing a quote from Yahtzee, as the game to play “if you’re a bit strapped for cash in the run up to Christmas and you need to lose three friends as quickly as possible.” A harsh description, and one that doesn’t necessarily fit the nature of the game about settlements where no one gets killed. But it’s very competitive, with the trade mechanic being almost entirely a matter of personal choice and establishing how one can benefit from a deal. I like it because it is a self-contained game; you don’t have to micro-manage optimal army lists or paint models to play. You go in with the materials that the game gives you, and your wit and experience which you have to earn – there is a lot of skill involved!

I signed up for some tournaments; one of them is Catan. This will be happening at the UK Games Expo in June, and I’ll be playing Dominion there as well, which I haven’t played yet, but I like deck builders! I’ll be playing X-Wing at a tournament in Stafford in July, but more on that later… 
 

Last Week's Games: Eternal Crusade, Shadow of the Horned Rat and Drop Assault

This week I’ve been mostly playing Warhammer… 
 

If you don't like the taste of salt,
steer clear of Eldar...

I’ve been having a pretty decent time with Eternal Crusade; I’m starting to find my feet a bit with the game and the different classes now. I enjoy running the Heavy class if I’m Chaos, the Jump Assault class if I’m Space Marines and the Slugga if I’m Orks. It’s still very rare that I achieve a score beyond the bottom third of the leader board, but if I place anywhere other than the last position on the table then I’m happy. I’m up to level three with those three factions and I’m enjoying finding the different ways they can advance, although I find it curious that a lot of the buffs you can give them mean less points for certain weapons (you equip your characters on a points-buy system.) When your points limit is 1000, you’d welcome having to spend less on your weapons – and if there was anything else you could conceivably give them in their place, you probably would. As it is, knocking 100 points off your main weapon doesn’t do you much good when all the other equipment slots are full and there’s nothing else you can give them.

Also as I don’t play this style of game very often, I’m not used to the nastiness that very often permeates their multiplayer communities. As it stands, it seems to be a faux pas to play as Eldar, as their hit boxes are slightly smaller and their weapons do a lot of damage. They also seem to be very well co-ordinated. As for me, I don’t really mind; I’ve played against Eldar and won. But I find myself spending a fleeting few seconds wondering if people making those remarks would say that to people’s faces. Maybe they would.

Wow, this looks dated now...

I’ve also been playing Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat. This was a game I borrowed off someone years ago when I was still at school. I think I still have the disc somewhere but I’ll never get it to work on my laptop in a million years, and I’ve got it for the PlayStation but the controls are very difficult on that. So I downloaded it again of GOG and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying playing through it again, although the game is very difficult and I found myself stuck on the same levels I was stuck on all that time ago. I’ll probably keep playing it though!

My new game for this week – I’m on a bit of a Games Workshop kick – was The Horus Heresy: Drop Assault for my Kindle Fire 7. This is essentially a clicker game popular on mobile devices – click on a thing, wait for a thing to happen, click on another thing to make another thing happen, build up more resources so you can click on other things to make other things happen. I wasn’t expecting much more, frankly, but I find myself disappointed that I didn’t get more. It’s supposed to re-enact one of the key moments of the Horus Heresy: The Massacre on Isstvan, but that was a swift and brutal massacre, not a full-blown campaign.

At no point when I was playing
did it get this exciting...

To be honest it’s not a canon I have much interest in exploring. There’s a series of 42 books on it, and I read about the first ten, but they’re so unforgivably grim and bleak that I couldn’t bring myself to read another. Not when I know perfectly well how it all works out anyway, given that the result of the Horus Heresy is what the entire Warhammer 40,000 universe is built upon. If there’s some form of interactive media that’s going to make the journey interesting, I’m probably not going to find it on a mobile game. There’s nothing wrong with Drop Assault, but I didn’t find it very entertaining.

I also had some time in Warlords and Wizards on Saturday night painting some of my Word Bearers. It’s a really nice atmosphere in there and it’s a pleasure to sit down and paint some models for a few hours. I’m looking forward to getting my Word Bearers on the gaming table, but one thing at a time; I’ve still got a load of cultists to paint!

Pickups and Trades #4

So after being allowed to spend money again, I ended up buying a whole lot more games than I did last month! The vast majority of these were a sale of some kind, which is how I buy a lot of games. I’ll always have them so I may as well buy them while they’re cheap!

On Steam, I bought the following games:

Kill the Bad Guy: An oddball puzzle game about making assassinations look like an accident. Should be interesting!

King’s Bounty: Collector’s Edition. A tactical turn-based RPG, right up my alley!

"Yes, I'm here about the Systems Analyst position..."

Painkiller: Black. Apparently this is a really good FPS, but I’ll struggle to keep a straight face during the intro sequence due to Yahtzee’s skit at the end of his review of The Witcher…

Reigns: Her Majesty. A version of Reigns where you play as the Queen. I’ve been enjoying Reigns so far and I kept an eye on the sequel for when it went on sale.

Rocket League: This is one of the few games I’ve had talked up to me in person. It looks an absolute riot so I’m looking forward to giving it a try!

The Sexy Brutale: This has made it on to many of the Game of the Year lists from the Youtube personalities I follow. It looks very interesting, and different to what I’m used to so I look forward to trying it.

Shogun: Total War. I bought this one as I wanted to get the core experience of the Total War games, before they were clouded by extra mechanics and themes.

Thoroughly enjoyed this so far...

I also bought a War bundle, which were some games based on Games Workshop’s intellectual properties. I’m hoping to do a complete retrospective on this at some point, so even though it cost a bit of money, I now had a discount on the following games: Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night, Man O’ War Corsair, Talisman: The Horus Heresy, Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade, Warhammer 40,000: Regicide, Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf, Warhammer Quest, and Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide. Looking forward to trying some of these out, although from what I’ve seen of the coverage on them, a lot of them rely on random number generation that may or may not make for an interesting process.

On Xbox 360, I bought a couple of games:

Syndicate: Recommended as a Hidden Gem by Metal Jesus, I bought this game knowing there’s been some questions raised about its quality, however I never played the original Syndicate so I’ve no basis for comparison, or bias!

Tenchu Z: The Tenchu games got better as they were going along in my opinion; Wrath of Heaven was better balanced and produced than the first game. I’ll be interested to see how it progressed for the 360!

So I’m now left with the unenviable task of establishing when in the world I’m going to have time to play all of these. The Warhammer games can wait a while, but I really should get cracking with some others…