John has been an avid gamer since the late '80s and has been playing primarily on PlayStation for as long as PlayStation has been around. Since starting to write for Push Square in 2016 he's penned over a hundred reviews and most of them were pretty good. He's a huge fan of JRPGs, likes Kiryu Kazuma more than he likes most people he knows in real life, and spends an absurd amount of time coming up with cute outfits for his character in Final Fantasy XIV.
The G.O.A.T.
Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars is a sacred text in the history of point-and-click adventure games, and new remaster Reforged is the best version of the game that's ever been released. Quality-of-life improvements mean players who just want to enjoy the story without too much lateral thinking can do so, while veterans of the genre...
Hung jury
Ace Attorney games are traditionally composed of two types of gameplay. A crime is committed, and you investigate by collecting evidence, speaking to witnesses, and conferring with your partner. Then you go to court to defend your client by presenting evidence and finding contradictions in witness testimonies, before ultimately unravelling...
Rob it Raccoon
Sly Cooper returns! Everyone's favourite kleptomaniac raccoon is finally here on PS5, albeit in port form rather than in a brand new title. Still, we'll take what we can get when it comes to Sly, and so it's a pleasure to see the first game in the series, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, as a PS2 Classic, available for a...
Review Ghosthunter (PS2) - Overlooked Supernatural Shooter Should Be a Cult Classic
The ghost with the most
What a difference a twenty years makes. When Ghosthunter released in 2004 for PS2 it was met with poor sales and mixed reviews from the critics of the time. Generally, reviewers thought it looked great, but it was too linear and at a mere ten hours or so in length it was far too brief. Today, Ghosthunter looks like a bag of...
Preview Evidence Suggests Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Will Be a Good Time on PS4
But the jury is still out
We've played the first couple of cases in the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection on PS4 and we've walked away pretty impressed. The collection comprises two games originally released on Nintendo DS — Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit — now playable on...
Review Nobody Wants to Die (PS5) - Film Noir Meets Cyberpunk in This Stylish Detective Thriller
Who wants to live forever?
What would happen if humans created a way to make death optional by transferring consciousness from one body to another? Nobody Wants to Die answers that question in the most realistic way possible: the rich live forever, and the poor barely live at all. Set in New York in 2329, Nobody Wants To Die tells the story of...
Review Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail (PS5) - Another Superb Expansion for an Excellent MMO
Dawn but not forgotten
Final Fantasy 14 is in a transitional period. The 2021 expansion Endwalker was effectively the finale to a story that began with 2013's A Realm Reborn way back on PlayStation 3. It was a sort of Final Fantasy meets Avengers Endgame; a story that capped off eight years, four expansions, and over 200 hours of story content in a...
Guide Final Fantasy 14 Beginner's Guide: Get Started in Eorzea
Everything you need to know before starting Final Fantasy 14
Welcome to our beginner's guide for Final Fantasy 14. With Final Fantasy 14's latest expansion Dawntrail finally in the hands of eager players around the globe, there's never been a better time to finally take the leap and give Square Enix's acclaimed multiplayer RPG a go for yourself. But...
Mini Review Until Then (PS5) - A Genuine, Heartfelt Tale of Love and Loss
School's out forever
There's a bit in Until Then when our teenage protagonist Mark is looking at his mobile phone. He's just sent a text message to a girl he likes, and we just sit there, waiting. Nothing happens. It's been a while. Has the game crashed? Then we realise we're waiting because he's looking at the delivery note on the text message,...
Review Indika (PS5) - A Bleak, Beautiful, Bewildering Rumination on Faith and Free Will
My anaconda don't want none unless you got nuns, hun
Indika is a game of wild contradiction. It's compelling, thoughtful, and ambitious, but also tedious, rote, and derivative. It's the sort of video game that ruminates on the nature of devout faith, free will, guilt, shame, temptation, and morality, and then asks you to solve boring box puzzles...
Review Planet Zoo: Console Edition (PS5) - A Tame But Charming Zoo 'Em Up
There is no Dana, only Zoo
Planet Zoo is at its best when things are going well. Some park building games thrive when they turn into disaster management sims and you're forced to frantically resolve crises before the whole thing comes crashing down like a house of cards. Planet Zoo ain't that. Sure, things can and will go wrong in the zoo you've...
Mini Review Outcast: A New Beginning (PS5) - A Rough Around the Edges Action Relic
We're sorry Ms. Jackson
Remakes, reboots, revivals. Whether it's a lack of fresh ideas, exploiting nostalgia, or an earnest desire to introduce a new generation to past glories, the entertainment industry loves bringing old things back. And we love old things coming back, too, as long as it isn't Nanna after she's escaped from the home again...
Mini Review Pentiment (PS5) - A Slow-Burning 16th-Century Murder Mystery
When everybody plays, we all win
Set in 16th-century Bavaria, Pentiment tells the tale of the small Alpine town of Tassing and the simple people that dwell there. We play as a Nurembergian artist named Andreas Maler who is living in Tassing while he completes work on a piece for the local monastery, and through him we meet the residents of the town...
Mini Review Immortality (PS5) - An Exceptional FMV Mystery
Two thumbs up
What happened to Marissa Marcel? That's the central crux of the splendid video-game-slash-interactive-movie(s), Immortality. It's a rare treat, anchored by an exceptional lead performance from the actor Manon Gage, in which you attempt to solve the mystery of what happened to a promising actress who starred in three movies, none of...
Game of the Year John's Top 5 PS5, PS4 Games of 2023
Re-enter the Dragon
Our individual Game of the Year articles allow our lovely team of writers to share their own personal PS5 and PS4 picks for 2023. Today, it's the turn of reviewer John Cal McCormick. 5. Venba: What a treat this game is. From the wonderful music to the heartfelt narrative to the enticing crackling and sizzling each time you...
Mini Review The Isle Tide Hotel (PS5) - A Criminally Tedious FMV Thriller
Hotel Hell
The Isle Tide Hotel's biggest crime is that it's not even so bad it's funny. It's just bad bad. Bad bad bad bad bad. There's no reason to play this game other than sheer morbid curiosity, and no reason to recommend this game to anybody for anything other than spite. But first, the formalities, so we can all get out of here. The Isle Tide...
Review Eternights (PS5) - A Surprisingly Charming Apocalyptic Dating Sim
What's the story? Warning! Horny!
Eternights begins with your unnamed teenage protagonist setting up his Tinder profile while his best friend gives him top tips like photoshopping his picture to make himself look more heroic, and lying about who he is to be more appealing to the ladies. This, apparently, is sage advice, because almost instantly our...
Mini Review Under the Waves (PS5) - Sad, Lonely, Occasionally Wonderful Deep Sea Drama
Finding emo
No good can come from going in the sea. Even just dipping your toes runs the risk of crabs and other weird creatures rubbing up against your feet, but the further you get in the worse it gets. Sharks, jellyfish, the Kraken — it's bleak in there. Under the Waves is set almost entirely underwater, and while it's not a horror game, it is...
Mini Review The Making of Karateka (PS5) - A Wonderful Interactive Documentary for Gaming Historians
Kick! Punch! It's all in the mind
The Making of Karateka is a rare treat. It's part documentary, part archive, part collection of old games, and part remaster. It's also a wonderful example of just how far we can go with game preservation if we put the work in, and the gold standard for how we should approach collections of classic games going...
Mini Review Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew (PS5) - Pirate Strategy Will Shiver Your Timbers
Y'arrrrrr 8'y
What really elevates Mimimi's Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew compared to its previous titles, like Desperados III, is the complete abandonment of reality. Functionally, it's pretty much the same as those spiritual predecessors; you control a team from a top-down view, and stealthily make your way across a map disposing of guards on...
Mini Review Venba (PS5) - A Moving Tale of Love, Loss, Family, and Food
The Venba bus is coming
Venba is a delightful video game. What it accomplishes in a little over an hour is impressive, both in terms of introducing and authentically portraying a culture that most Western gamers will have limited familiarity with, and in presenting a moving story of love, loss, family, and the important role that food plays in tying...
It's Life Is Strange, Jim, but not as we know it
On paper, Life Is Strange developer Don't Nod pivoting to the visual novel genre makes sense given its penchant for twisting, choice-based narratives. In practice, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is an underwhelming first foray into the space, lacking the world-building necessary to truly sell a story...
Review Park Beyond (PS5) - Shallow Park Builder Besieged by Technical Issues
Beyond a joke
At its heart, Park Beyond evokes memories of the Theme Park games from a couple of decades ago, and it's perhaps due to our nostalgia for those titles that we enjoyed our time with this as much as we did. There's something to be said for the simplified theme park builder, in which you don't need to worry about navigating a dozen...
Review Miasma Chronicles (PS5) - A Frustratingly Uneven But Mostly Rewarding Tactical RPG
Kicking My-Ass-Ma
Miasma Chronicles is a tactical role-playing game set in a post-apocalyptic America in which the disparity between the haves and have-nots has grown to an unfathomable degree. The country is ruled by The First Family; an untouchable, self-serving elite born from the ashes of big corporation in the post-cataclysm world. They've got...
