James Carr
James Carr covers video games for MonsterVine, focusing on hands-on reviews and previews that examine how new releases play, feel, and sit within their genre or franchise. He has been covering video games professionally since 2020, writing news, guides, features, and reviews across the internet. His recent work spans survival horror revivals and racing series, alongside hardware coverage and annual ranking features.
Survival Horror and Franchise Revivals
Survival horror and series revivals are a core strand of Carr’s recent coverage.
He reviews new entries in long-running horror franchises such as Silent Hill f and Resident Evil Requiem, weighing their atmosphere and execution against expectations set by the series name. His Cronos: The New Dawn review and coverage of Silent Hill: Townfall extend that attention to newer and first-person interpretations of the genre, highlighting how different studios handle tension and horror pacing.
Across these pieces he gives readers a sense of where each title lands on the spectrum from experimental spin-off to mainline successor, and whether the experience feels like a “haunting new chapter” or a more modest genre entry. The consistent focus on survival horror across multiple reviews positions him as a regular voice on how horror games are evolving in tone, structure, and franchise stewardship.
Racing and Licensed Action Titles
Carr also devotes substantial attention to racing and licensed action games.
His Forza Horizon 6 review looks at a major open-world racing series, while his Hot Wheels Infinite Rush preview tackles a toy-branded arcade racer built around plastic track spectacle. In 007 First Light he evaluates a high-profile licensed title, framing his verdict around whether the game is “worthy of the title” attached to a long-running entertainment brand.
These pieces show him moving between established simulation-leaning series and more playful, licence-driven projects, with an emphasis on how each release uses its setting and brand to shape the moment-to-moment experience. The mix of reviews and previews indicates he follows these franchises across their development and launch cycles rather than only at release.
Previews of New Combat-Driven and Expanded Titles
Previews are a major part of Carr’s output, and many of them focus on combat-heavy and expanded versions of existing games.
In Valor Mortis and Stranger Than Heaven he introduces upcoming action titles with a clear emphasis on combat style, from parry-focused systems to “bold new combat” experiments from well-known studios. His Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok and Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault previews cover expansions and sequels that build on established action RPG frameworks, signalling how new content changes the loop for returning players.
These previews often arrive ahead of release during the 2026 showcase cycle, giving early reads on tone, mechanics, and ambition across genres that include action, racing, horror, and hybrid shopkeeping adventures. The combination of franchise extensions and new IP in his preview slate shows that he tracks both where established series are heading and which new projects might define the next wave of action and horror games.
Hardware Reviews and Year-End Features
Carr’s beat is not limited to software releases; he also reviews gaming hardware and contributes broader features. His Razer Kraken V4 Pro review focuses on an immersive gaming headset, adding a peripherals angle to his coverage and showing how he assesses devices that shape audio and comfort around play sessions. In James Carr’s Top 10 Games of 2025 he steps back from individual reviews to assemble a year-end ranking, drawing on his coverage and experience to highlight standout titles across genres.
Taken together, these hardware and feature pieces round out a profile of a critic who moves between day-to-day reviewing, forward-looking previews, and retrospective lists. That breadth, combined with several years of professional games writing, marks his coverage as both deep in specific subgenres like survival horror and wide across the ecosystem of games, gear, and annual cycles.
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