In the first entry in a monthly series, I share some quick reflections on five games I played in October 2021, both new and old. In this edition: Eastward, Inscryption, REKKR: Sunken Land, the demo of Supplice, and the FPS classic Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

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Kingdoms of Amalur is now something of a cult classic, and its recent remaster is something to be celebrated. Here is a sprawling, epic RPG which manages to be accessible and fun - and which doesn’t require poring over stats in order to make decisions. Even taking into account its huge size, this is a game which people who are often turned off by RPGs can confidently jump into - and that’s reason enough to experience the Faelands, at least once. This episode looks at ten good reasons to give Kingdoms of Amalur a try.

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Flash Point combines the talents of director Wilson Yip and star Donnie Yen, two of the foremost individuals who kept the fire of Hong Kong action cinema burning in the 2000s. The two had worked together before, and would do so again, but Flash Point is arguably the film on which their abilities really clicked for the first time. On this project, Yip and Yen helped to prove that Hong Kong action movies still had some fight left in them, and set the stage for their later collaborations - notably the Ip Man series. 

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 Chairmen of the Board may just be one of the most underrated soul vocal groups of the 1970s, little-known outside their enduring pop hit “Give Me Just a Little More Time”. The Chairmen had a brief but richly productive heyday, their original lineup putting out four patchy but deeply interesting albums between 1970 and 1974. Like many soul performers, they can be thought of as a singles act first and foremost, but their albums contain a number of hidden gems which should rank alongside some of the best pop-soul and funk of the era - which is saying something.

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 Over 50 years later, Edwin Starr's version of "War" is one of the most recognisable and popular recordings from the glory years of soul and funk - thanks in part to frequent airplay and its use in movies like Rush Hour (1998). But Edwin Starr himself is hardly a household name, and while soul fans will readily remember him as the performer of "War", they won't neccesarily know a lot about him or about the rest of his career. The man himself died in 2003, but it's always a good time to delve into the discography of one of soul's more underrated stars. 

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Following the publication of The Dispossessed (1974), Ursula K. Le Guin ceased to write new stories in her Hainish universe. In the following years, she wrote some of the books which are less well known today, including the Orsinia books and the experimental Always Coming Home (1985). At the time it must have seemed as if Le Guin was finished with the Hainish cycle - but after a 16-year break, she began to publish new short stories in 1990. Eventually, she followed these up with one of the most structurally unusual books in the Hainish series - Four Ways to Forgiveness. 

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Originally published in late 2008, the Destiny trilogy is a major linchpin of Star Trek tie-in fiction. This hugely ambitious series combines characters, ships and backstory from several TV series and films and is a deeply rewarding read for Star Trek fans.

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In the glut of World War II shooters that followed in the wake of Saving Private Ryanand Band of Brothers, it could be difficult for a game to be distinctive. With their first original project Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Gearbox Software used an increased focus on realism and small-unit tactics to help them stand out from the crowd.

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In 2006, EA proudly presented a collected set of all of the Command & Conquer games released in the series' first decade. The second decade was far less successful, however, with a string of catastrophic failures and cancelled projects. This episode takes a deep dive look at the glittering diamond in the rough - the magnificently camp Red Alert 3, which is still a pleasure to play today.

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"Nobody gives Schwarzenegger a raw deal!" On April 1, Arnold's 1986 flop actioner directed by John Irvin will get another chance to impress, when it is added to Netflix. This episode takes a look at the film, arguing that it deserves the same cult status enjoyed by Stallone's movie of 1986, Cobra. It also recaps the strange story of Raw Deal's co-writer, and how the film's failure helped lead to the success of Total Recall in 1990.

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