Recent reviews by Catsley

This is a brilliant game with a rich and immersive experience. To begin with it can be overwhelming as you struggle to figure out how the world works and how to survive and prosper in it. As a result of this, your increasing mastery of your environment becomes immensely satisfying, however. Your search for resources and drive to explore will take you inexorably through our ancestors' evolutionary journey but at your own pace and along your own path.

Superbunnyhop has an excellent review on his YouTube channel, but I would advise anyone playing to gather as little additional information as possible about the game's mechanics as you can bear. It's tough and it's not what we've come to expect from games but the pleasure of figuring things out for yourself is one of the things Ancestors gets really right.

This is one of my favourite games. The game's great strength is in its story and world. Drawing on fantastic lore, CD Projekt created a teeming environment full of fantastic and interesting characters. You must make choices but the game doesn't hand you morality on a plate, it can be really difficult to choose your path. Geralt is such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dude. The combat mechanics are not the game's strong point, but if you want to play through an immersive and rich story, there is none better, in my opinion. Massive recommendation.

The best expansion I've ever bought, this adds no less than four new campaigns. They're damned good campaigns too, large scale and highly varied, from Brittania to the Middle East and from the Baltic coast to Mexico, there's something for everyone. Add to that the fact that it makes modding so much easier (ahem... Third Age Total War) and this is a vital addition to Medieval II.

This is the game that rekindled my love affair with Total War, having played Medieval I as a kid but missing out on Rome. The epicness of the campaign, the awesome medieval combat, its all great. If you see it on sale, definitely get it!

While I am not a fan of the Warscape engine in terms of the management of settlements, this is still a fine addition to the Total War repertoire. With beautiful scenery and units only disrupted by the brutality of the combat, this is a visual feast. There is also fantastic small details in the combat, I love me dem Samurai duels! The game lacks the epic scope of previous campaigns due to its setting but it is still slick and the battles are the most rewarding yet.

A flawed gem, Mount & Blade Warband throws you into an open world with some simple but effective mechanics and leaves the rest up to you. The basic premise is that you gather a warband and roam around the pausable real-time map, getting into encounters with other warbands and attaining glorious victory. The combat mechanics are fantastically satisfying an have spawned a hardcore multiplayer community. In single-player, work your way up in the world and align yourself with one of the game's historically-themed factions or go rogue and try to unite Calradia. Or, be a humble trader. Or a bandit. Give it a spin, it's one of those games that will give you your own unique narrative if you let it.