🏯 Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been delayed again. The release date for Ubisoft’s controversial title has dropped to 20th March to allow extra time for polish. To appease fans, the developer released a video showing off the game’s parkour. However, the environments steal the show for me. I have little confidence in its story or gameplay, but I might well be tempted to explore the world once Shadows is fully patched and heavily discounted.

The Pathless Path: A call to action to escape your desk job

In The Pathless Path, Paul Millerd makes the case that life should be about more than work, and that people should invest more time and effort in finding their true calling - one that is more engaging and fulfilling than the daily grind. A rough representation of the daydream The...

Happy new year! Changes coming to Strat Packer's blog in 2025

Happy new year to anybody who stumbles across this site and this article. I genuinely wish you and the people you love a pleasant 2025. Happy new year to all my online acquaintances! For more than three years now, this blog has existed in an ambiguous state. Is it a...

The Long Drive: A surreal road trip that's too weird to put down

It’s 2am, and I’m driving down an empty road in the middle of the desert. The pitch black night stretches out to the horizon, my car’s headlights and the stars providing the only illumination over the barren landscape. Suddenly, my engine dies and the lights cut out, plunging the scene...

The Precinct: 80s police simulation with a retrowave kick

The Precinct threatens to scratch an itch I didn’t realise I had. Playing Falling Tree Games’ upcoming title, I realised I’d always thought that the action-packed parts of Grand Theft Auto roleplay cops’ jobs looked quite fun, but that the amount of grinding and bureaucracy to navigate to get there...

☢️ Can you believe that Half-Life 2 is 20 years old already? Rather than cobbling together a typical anniversary edition to rake in the cash, Valve made an updated version of the game free on Steam to mark the occasion. They also released a two-hour YouTube documentary documenting its development, which is fascinating and nostalgic in equal measure.

Spy Drops attempts to revive PlayStation-era stealth action

Spy Drops wears its inspiration on its sleeve. In the words of its creator, Rainy Night Creations, the upcoming indie title promises “PlayStation generation, low-polygon 3D stealth action”, and its visual language so closely matches its muse that any screenshot could be mistaken for the original Metal Gear Solid. The...

The Dark Knight Rises review - a warning to edgy teen communists

The Dark Knight’s War on Terror analogy ended with Harvey Dent, representing the US, being effectively absolved of his crimes to preserve his image - but in real life, the opposite happened. The disappearing evidence of Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction”, subsequent terror attacks, and the threat of ISIS all...

The Dark Knight review - exploring the post-9/11 Western psyche

If Batman Begins was popular, The Dark Knight was a sensation - and a controversial one at that. I remember listening to a radio debate around whether the film should have received a 12A rating due to its darkness and violence, and while it’s never particularly bloody, it certainly covers...

Batman Begins review - all roads lead to Bruce Wayne

My life will soon undergo significant change, so to mark the end of the current era I’ve been revisiting some of the media that has meant the most to me - watching the films, playing the games, and listening to the music that has served as the background to significant...