The Circus
A curated collection of corporate absurdity, industry clownery, spineless censorship, and peak moments of delusion.
* The Circus officially opened its doors on Jan 29, 2026.
๐๐ Hall of Shame
The absolute peak of corporate brain rot, spineless censorship, and industry clownery.
Nioh 3 - a shameless corporate copy-paste job
Nioh 3 is a shameless corporate copy-paste job. I break down the recycled Ronin assets, bloated combat, AI translation, and baffling censorship.
I finally played the 'AAAA' Game
Year 3 of Skull and Bones proves this pirate game has zero future. It is a tangled mess of hostile UI, boring gameplay, and pure live-service delusion.
Forza Horizon 6: Japan, but Western Corporate-safe Edition
Forza Horizon 6 is a beautiful but soulless imitation of Japan. A corporate-safe, HR-approved microslop game masquerading as car culture. Do not pay ยฃ60.
Atomic Heart + full DLC review: highly ambitious RPG FPS, but felt like it was made in the early 2010s:
Atomic Heart feels exactly like a game made in the early 2010s. A detailed review of the base game, the awful protagonist, and the final DLC package in 2026.
John Carpenter's Toxic Commando Review - A.K.A WWZ 2
An honest 50-hour review of John Carpenter's Toxic Commando. Saber Interactive's latest co-op zombie FPS is just a lazy World War Z reskin.
XLGAMES: How the mighty have fallen
XLGAMES went from MMO innovators to shutting down a desperate asset flip after just three weeks. Discover why this pathetic cash grab spells absolute disaster for ArcheAge Chronicles.
The Jim Ryan era was the worst thing that happened to PlayStation
Jim Ryan squeezed gamers for every penny while greenlighting endless live-service failures. Lets look at how his spreadsheet mentality set the industry back a decade.
Bluesky's ultimate unforced tech own-goal
Bluesky alienated its entire anti-AI user base by forcing the GenAI app Attie into the ecosystem. A scathing breakdown of Jay Graber's out-of-touch tech disaster.
Zuckerberg and his GenAI clown show
Zuck blew $14 billion on a tech bro to build Meta's Muse Spark LLM. It is a hilariously pathetic closed-source bot that copies OpenAI and bombs basic logic.
Ninja Gaiden 4: Competently stylish, yet unfinished and low budget
Ninja Gaiden 4 review: PlatinumGames delivers phenomenal combat, but a strict AA budget, ugly cyberpunk designs, and a terrible new protagonist ruin this ยฃ60 release.
Monster Hunter Stories 2 - Short Review
Monster Hunter Stories 2 is a heavily limited Switch game that actively disrespects your time with endless RNG grinds and massive delusions of grandeur.
Sony just dropped a 765 million Bungie bomb and pivoted to AI
Jim Ryan bought Bungie for $3.6 billion and bailed. Now Sony is eating a massive impairment loss while pushing generative AI to distract angry investors.
Deep Rock Galactic: when shouting "Rock and Stone" into the echo chamber no longer works
Shouting Rock and Stone can no longer hide reality. Rogue Core is a fundamentally barebones ยฃ25 Early Access asset flip that betrays its co-op roots.
Metaโs $2 billion Manus panic-buy implodes
Mark Zuckerberg tried to paste over his failing AI roadmap by buying a dime-a-dozen API wrapper for $2 billion. Then China completely vapourised the deal.
What's Copilot? Even Microsoft can't tell you
Microsoft is pushing desperate Copilot ads on Reddit while scrubbing the brand from Windows apps. Why is this enterprise AI legally an entertainment toy?
Code Vein 2: How to kill a successful new IP
Code Vein 2 has launched to a disastrous 52% rating. I breakdown how Bandai Namco killed the franchise with poor UE5 performance, removed co-op, and aggressive censorship to chase a 'modern audience' that does not exist.
The Hollowing of Bandai Namco
Bandai Namco looks successful on paper, but the Code Vein 2 flop and Blue Protocol disaster tell a different story. With FromSoftware going independent and Shueisha building its own gaming division, Bandaiโs future is going dinosaur.
Anthropic accidentally open-sourced Claude Code and immediately called the lawyers
Anthropic accidentally leaked their Claude Code sourcemap and panicked with thousands of DMCA takedowns. Unpacking the hilarious hypocrisy of the "ethical" AI lab.
The Phantom Audience Fallacy: How Ghost of Yลtei Stalled the IP
Why has Ghost of Yลtei stalled at 3.3 million sales? Sonyโs refusal to announce a 5 million milestone in their Feb 2026 Q3 report confirms the drop-off. I take a look at how chasing the 'Phantom Audience', the Erika Ishii controversy and shallow writing alienated the core demographic. A breakdown of the ROI trap and how Sucker Punch damaged the IP's future for a quick profit.
9 Kings short review: A restrictive early access mess that barely justifies half price
9 Kings is just another typical early access indie game with terrible UI, lazy unit buffs, and awful pacing. It is barely worth the half price.
The biggest idiot of the AI bubble
Microsoft is burning $100 billion to boil the planet and keep OpenAI running. The great AI grift continues as top-line revenue is just recycled Azure credits.
Revisiting Aliens: Fireteam Elite ahead of the sequel
A short retrospective review of Aliens Fireteam Elite. Exploring why the brilliant perk grid, challenge cards, and weapon attachments make it worth playing today.
The $50 trillion bubble leaks: How the Pentagon accidentally broke the AI industry
The Pentagon just accidentally popped the generative AI bubble. While clueless users boycott OpenAI for Anthropic, both are walking into a financial death trap.
AI First, Reality Last: Sovereign Governments
Clueless governments just blew $30 billion on Nvidia GPUs they have absolutely no idea how to use. Sovereign AI hype is a colossal grift that is actively destroying the consumer hardware market and wasting tax payer's money.
AI First, Reality Last: Microsoft Antitrust Case
Microsoft is facing massive global antitrust raids, daily EU fines under the DMA, and a ยฃ2.1 billion UK lawsuit over cloud tying and Copilot bundling.
The tech industry is in frantic GenAI PR control
A new verified study of 6,000 executives proves Generative AI offers near-zero productivity benefits. Read why the tech industry is in frantic PR damage control.
AI First, Reality Last: Case Bank of America
Leaked emails reveal Bank of America bought massive amounts of Nvidia AI hardware with zero plan on how to use it. Lets look at the "Formula 1" fiasco and the funny reality of corporate AI shelfware.
๐ The Critique Chronicle
Documented instances of corporate delusion and industry missteps.
Sega and the Yakuza fatigue: The tipping point of a milked franchise
The disastrous launch of Yakuza Kiwami 3 proves Sega has officially milked the franchise dry. Here is why RGG Studio desperately needs to let the IP rest.
Sega is running its company like a 2010s corporation and wondering why its games aren't selling
Sega is wondering why their highly reviewed games are not selling. Between ยฃ60 AA Persona reskins, Denuvo delusions, and burning almost $800 million on a dead Angry Birds fad, here is exactly why their out-of-touch boardroom greed is finally failing.
Microsoft's $1.4 trillion AI hallucination
Satya Nadella has vapourised 1.4 trillion dollars of Microsoft's market cap. He is incinerating Azure profits on AI e-waste. Read the brutal truth behind the stock crash.
OpenAI's Sora app was always a spectacularly clueless waste of energy
OpenAI shutting down the Sora app is absolutely no surprise. Between an insane $200 paywall and a delusional AI TikTok clone, it was always a spectacularly clueless waste of energy.
ElevenLabs might just be the most toxic company in GenAI right now
A critique of the toxic sales culture at ElevenLabs following VP Carles Reina's controversial 20VC interview. I analyse the sustainability of their "20x salary" quota, the "Product Market Fit is BS" claim, and why their aggressive firing policy signals a pump-and-dump scheme ahead of a potential IPO in the commoditised GenAI voice market.
Bungie's upcoming Marathon is walking off a Cliff
With ARC Raiders dominating the extraction shooter genre, Bungie's upcoming Marathon faces an impossible battle. The ยฃ35 price tag, poor timing, and abstract design spell disaster for Sony's investment.
Far Far West: Just another roguelite shooter with a shiny streamer-bait paint job
Far Far West is the latest Early Access indie hit dominating Steam, but beneath the quirky robot cowboy paint job lies the exact same copypasted roguelite shooter you have played a dozen times before.
The long overdue death of Destiny 2
Sony is officially pulling the plug on Destiny 2. Between a massive $765 million write-off, clueless developers, and a delusional playerbase, Bungie had this coming.
Nvidiaโs $100bn OpenAI "investment" was always a bad joke
Nvidia is finally walking back that ridiculous $100 billion OpenAI investment. It was always a transparent attempt to pump the stock, but now the reality of the AI bubble has hit. Jensen Huang knows better than to throw cash into a money pit, yet the other tech giants are still blindly doubling down on the hype.