What ho, chums!

Some sad news I’m afraid. Baron Richenbaum Fotchenstein is leaving us on account of various other commitments – his prolific and witty writing will be sorely missed on these pages. He’s promised to pop back and argue with us in the comments, but unfortunately it’s otherwise farewell for the foreseeable.

The Baron has been an absolute stalwart reviewer, pounding out Vita, PS4 and PSVR reviews left, right and centre. Indeed, his recent review of the hard-as-nails Vita game Xenon Valkyrie is an absolute belter. He also did a brilliant round-up of the best PSVR games just after New Year, which is essential reading for anyone who’s thinking of buying that particular box of magic tricks.

The Baron sauntered into The Manor last May full of vim and vigour, quickly firing off reviews of Strafe and Blood before embarking on a noble quest to review all of the Castlevania games. He quickly became our horror game expert, knocking out reviews of such knee-trembling greats as The Evil Within II and Observer (aka Power Hauer). He also revealed that he has an awe-inspiring games and comics collection.

Of course, the big question now that the Baron has left the building is: who on earth is going to review all the scary games? The rest of us are far too lily-livered to do it, as revealed by our Halloween feature, in which Map claimed the scariest game he’s ever played is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. There is no hope for us.

The Baron says he’ll be occasionally updating his blog, Virtuanaut, so please head over there to hear about all the frightening stuff that we’re too yellow to feature on AMAP. And if you want to browse through his AMAP articles, head this way. Good luck, Baron, you’ll be missed.

In other news, we’re still working our way through the backlog of games we accrued in the Christmas rush – personally I’m still beavering away on my review of Hand of Fate 2, despite having the review code for well over a month now. Look on this site, ye PRs, and despair! But I will certainly have to get it done before Monster Hunter World arrives on 26th January, because let me tell you, that will be the only game I’ll be playing for weeks if not months. Expect a review of it very soon.