It’s too hot for hot takes, here’s some cold ones – I’ll even mention Resi 4

I feel like a mosquito buzzing in protest as I am consumed by a flood of baking amber. In the spirit of keeping cool, I’ve assembled a list of cold takes. These takes have been cooling on the window sill for years. Some of them have congealed, turning into a sort of viscous gunk. Either way, my advice is to lean against these takes, brandish them against your forehead and relish the cooling sensation – as if each take were an icy hand of sympathy in this hellscape of a week, in the United Kingdom.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is the best Tomb Raider going

The primary method for excavating emotional and mental complexities, in the current run of Tomb Raider games, seems to be by having them show up on Lara as bruises. And I’m still unsure of the decision to raid the depths of a character who made such brilliant sport of not having any. To my mind, no one mastered the craft of Croft like Keeley Hawes. The voice was perfect: clipped but not callous, cooled by the permanent suggestion of a smirk. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (and its sequel, Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, which came out in 2014) still has Keeley Hawes' Croft, and it’s a really cool isometric co-op action game with good puzzles.

Arkham Knight didn’t have too much batmobile

There wasn’t too much batmobile, actually. There was an adequate amount of batmobile, which was fun, and lots of it was optional anyway.

Halo 3: ODST is the best Halo campaign

Who needs Master Chief? According to Halo 3: ODST, the answer is pretty clear: everyone. The game’s story stars the voices of Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, and Nathan Fillion as a team of tragically human Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, none of whom are anywhere near as masterly as the chief. (What better cast list is there to plunder, if you’re after average spacefaring Joes, than Firefly?) The campaign sees the squad moving through the mess of New Mombasa, a city wrecked by the Covenant early on in Halo 2. The whole thing is set to a soundtrack of soft, dazed jazz and lit by laserfire. The characters are charming in their own right, but you soon realise Bungie is doing what Fitzgerald did, in the telling of Great Gatsby: glossing its true hero with hearsay and secondary evidence, creating the outline of a legend.

Ryse is underrated

I can’t remember how I persuaded Colm to let me write about Ryse, six years after its release. I played it on Xbox Game Pass and liked it. Then I wrote about it. It’s quite good. Here, read this.

So is The Order: 1886

I can’t remember how I persuaded Colm to let me write about The Order: 1886, four years after its release. I took a copy from my university library and liked it. Then I wrote about it. It’s quite good. Here, read this.

Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is the best ‘80s game

Enough neon, no more hairspray, and for goodness sake scrap all the synth. There is an idling swathe of people for whom the 1980s was not a time to be eternally yearned for. It was a time of British Leyland, of telephone boxes that rang with relevance, and of pints of beer available for fifty pence (perhaps that one is to be yearned for). Being set in Shropshire, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is immune to the imported American fancies. It’s enduring power lives in the idea that its village, Yaughton – hemmed in by shrubbery and cobbled bridges – is untouched by time.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

I apologise for the suggestion that you don’t read everything with the utmost care, but I recommend you read what I am about to say with the utmost care. Pay particular attention to the words that don’t appear – words like ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ My sentiment runs as follows: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is the purest Grand Theft Auto game in the HD era. (Although its much-vaunted drug dealing mechanic was taken from Miami Vice: The Game, which was also really good. Actually, hang on)

Miami Vice: The Game was really good

Miami Vice: The Game came out in July 2006, to coincide with Michael Mann's film adaptation. It was one of the first games to really take the Resident Evil 4 (more on that later) template and run with it, beating Gears of War by four months. Its drug dealing minigame drew no flak from the media because no one knew that it existed; the exact same minigame then drew lots of flak when it appeared in Chinatown Wars. Miami Vice: The Game had the likenesses (sort of) of Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. Oh, and take everything I've just said, and then add to it this: the game was a PSP exclusive. What a console.

The PSP was brilliant

The PSP gave us console-like experiences – but on the move.

God of War (2018) is overrated

It’s a really good game. The fighting got repetitive well before the end. It cribbed its parent-child dynamic very nicely from The Last of Us. All the single-take one-shot meant was that there was no break as you transition into a cut scene; other than that, lots of games are one-shots, outside of you pausing or dying. It was also irritating to hear things like ‘it finally made Kratos interesting,’ which disregards Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta – both of which were also written by Cory Barlog and contained memorable, moving scenes that gave him tragedy and depth. Anyway, God of War (2018) is a really good game, I guess.

Resident Evil 4 is great

Resident Evil 4 is great, isn’t it? Really reinvented that series.

The Saboteur was lovely

What a lovely depiction of Paris – all black-and-white and glittering, a bit like Night Call. You brought colour back to Paris by liberating it from German occupation. Oh, and the protagonist of this game is an Irishman by the name of Sean Devlin, whom the costume department for Peaky Blinders must have looked to for inspiration.

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is the best BioWare RPG.

Or it’s the only one I’ve played, at any rate. I would recommend it!