Hello! I'm Vikki Blake.

Video Game Writer, Critic, & Podcaster

UK / US

While other little girls were falling in love with soap stars, I was falling in love with video games. It took 15 years of civil service monotony for me to crack and attempt a career writing about games. I still can’t quite believe people pay me to do this, either.

Hello! I'm Vikki Blake.

Video Game Writer, Critic, & Podcaster

UK / US

Video Game Review: ‘Detroit: Become Human’
Setting “Detroit: Become Human” just 20 years from now is not accidental. It’s a deliberate choice, anchoring a sci-fi game in the near future. It’s removed enough to imbibe a sense of escapism, a peek into a life we can only imagine, and yet it’s close enough to be woven with flashes of our everyday lives, too.
Variety
Minit review - a bite-sized marvel
Just the idea of Minit is enough to make me squirm. It's the time limit that does it; an ever-marching expiry date that's impervious to pleads or procrastination, a silent but ever-present threat that'll see you fall to the ground and die every sixty seconds, over and over again. There are no secret ways to expand or pervert it - no clever tricks to hide from it. Every minute, without fail, you will die. End of.
Eurogamer
The Destiny 2 PC Interview: “I’ve never been as proud of anything I’ve ever done”
It’s not that we don’t know how long, or how complex, game development is; it’s just that we’ve been burnt by broken promises and empty assurances before. Which is why Bungie’s unceremonious announcement it needed to push back the PC release of Destiny 2 – the studio’s first foray into PC development for sixteen years – drew a raised eyebrow or two.
GodisaGeek
Sex games: The best – and best worst – sex scenes in video game history
Sex in games! Given how the video game industry has relished opportunities to embrace gore, horror, and violence for many years, it’s surprising how poor we are at depicting that other argh-no-don’t-make-me-watch-this-with-my-parents-in-the-room taboo: sex. Despite elbowing for room at the ‘games are art’ debate, many titles fail to portray sex in an authentic or meaningful manner.
VG24/7
‘The Last Of Us’ Review: Survival Or Surrender
Bodies rot in gardens and streets, hospitals and quarantine zones, others still hunched over steering wheels in vehicles they inevitably had hoped would lead to safety. Their cars litter roads and highways, clogging exit ramps, choking escape routes, exemplifying without words an unspoken tale of surrender.
Bloody Disgusting
BioShock developer’s new horror game, Perception, is "going to f**k with you"
“When I was hit with this concept - the seed of Perception - I wasn't planning on starting something up. But as soon the idea came, I was like - oh man, oh man, oh man. I need to find a way to make this happen.”. Bill Gardner had been sat in class at Bentley, talking about brainstorming. At the end of the lecture, his professor told the class that before they reached their cars that night, each of them would come up with a brilliant idea.
GamesRadar
Dead and live: Silent Hill's strange afterlife
I don't know how we got here. A sense of expectation as thick as fog hangs in the air of this hot, dark room. Not for the first time, I wonder how this is happening. How it is I am here, shoulder to shoulder, with my people, waiting, watching a cyclical stream of digital faces - faces I feel I know better than my own - flickering across the screen.
Eurogamer
‘I can quit Candy Crush anytime I want. Probably. Maybe’
It’s Saturday lunchtime and we’re squeezed into the booth of a local pizza house. Our collective kids are pressed together, huddled around my boy’s aging iPad as they wait for their food to arrive. My friend uses the children’s brief distraction to lower her voice and mumble, brow furrowed: I pale, panic, a range of things – Disease?
BT.com / AP
Gaming Classic: Silent Hill
It’s 1999. Solid Snake, clad in a tux, is speeding off into a snowy sunrise with Meryl clasped to his waist. This is my sixth play-through of Metal Gear Solid and – as epic as Snake’s adventure is – even I’m getting a little tired of it. But with the grand array of five games in my collection to choose from, my options are inevitably limited.
NowGamer
BioShock Infinite – We Play It, Irrational Talks About It
Some games naturally loan themselves to a brief, artificial encounter. Some games do not. It’s like popping to the Caribbean for a sandwich. The journey’s too long, and the view too beautiful, for a fleeting visit. It’s an experience to savor, not rush, so even though we’re being forced to explore the skyscape of Columbia against the clock, we’re going to make the most of this preview with Infinite’s producer Mike Soden, and writer Drew Holmes, alongside to keep us company.
NowGamer
FIFA 16 Introduces Female Footballers For The First Time
By Vikki BlakeElectronic Arts' football/soccer franchise FIFA is introducing female players for the first time. The sports game will feature 12 international teams (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, and the United States of America) when the latest instalment, FIFA 16, launches on September 22.
IGN.com
Doctor Who: Legacy creator – ‘I still play it to relax’
Sat close together, Doctor Who: Legacy’s creators Susan and Lee Cummings are disarmingly down-to-earth – and not just because Lee’s Welsh accent remains wonderfully unaffected by life in California. They laugh often, and frequently finish each other’s sentences. It’s easy to forget that this couple have been involved in some of gaming’s biggest blockbusters.
BT.com / AP

About

Hello! I'm Vikki Blake.

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I was never really the kind of girl who played dollies or dress-up. While other girls were falling in love with soap stars, I was falling in love with gaming. I got lost in Hyrule. I kicked ass in Street Fighter. I had inappropriate dreams about Solid Snake, became obsessed with the gorgeously grim environments of Silent Hill, and am still kind of addicted to Guitar Hero.

I’ve grown up with a particular penchant for survival horror, but I’ll turn my hand to pretty much anything. Does that mean I’m a 1337 pro gamer? Um, my kill:death ratio would suggest otherwise. But I firmly believe that you don’t have to have 1337 skills (or even know what 1337 means) to enjoy video games.

You can currently find my words at Eurogamer, Fandom, games™ magazine, Official PlayStation Magazine, Official Xbox Magazine, MTV, and Variety.

I've also written for Bloody Disgusting, Destructoid, GamesRadar+, Ginx TV, IGN, NowGamer, PC Gamer, PCGamesN, MyM magazine, Press Association/BT.com, TrustedReviews, VG24/7, and Xbox.com.

I'm quick, competent, professional and, to this day, utterly in love with what I do. How many people can say that about their work and actually mean it, eh?