LEGO Dimensions has provided a steady stream of new figures, vehicles and entire level packs since its release late last year, and so far there’s been a real variety to the licensed sets that have been released. Whether it’s really old movies (Wizard of Oz) or more child-friendly fare like LEGO’s own Ninjago, you can’t help but be impressed with the choice of figures available on the market.

In “wave 4” (the second-to-last batch of LEGO minifigures) are two DC Comics Fun Packs, a Ghostbusters Fun Pack and finally, the last of LEGO Dimensions extra Level Packs. So what’s worth buying, and what’s worth leaving on the store shelf?

First up, I spoke about these sets in the following video, but you can see my thoughts in writing after that!

Midway Arcade Pack – Retro Wreckage w/ Retro Gamer, Arcade Machine & G-6155 Spy Hunter

The final LEGO Dimensions level pack is possibly one of the most unusual and inventive. While the included level “Retro Wreckage” is incredibly short, the real draw here are the 20 unlockable arcade games that are only accessible through the Retro Gamer minifigure. If you’ve ever been curious about the strange areas of Story Mode levels containing walls plastered with Defender marquees, you’ll be pleased to know that this Level Pack solves that mystery, as driving the included Arcade Machine vehicle into these bays will unlock a classic game from Midway’s archives. Retro Wreckage will point you towards some of these unlockable games, as playing some of them is required to finish the level, but you’ll have to find the rest yourself in many of the Story Mode levels.

It’s these games that are the real draw of these Level Pack. You’ve got some real classics here, such as Defender, Rampage, Joust, Gauntlet and many, many more. If you hadn’t realised already, this is not going to be a pack that younger gamers will enjoy – it’s clearly aimed at older players, but if you think of this pack as essentially an arcade compilation, it’s hard not to appreciate the thought that has gone into the whole thing. Reaching certain goals in the arcade games themselves will even earn you stacks of studs, which will come useful in upgrading those vehicles. There’s even a few history lessons about the games themselves.

As for the included Midway Arcade World, this is a fairly decent hub world, filled with areas based on Midway games, but mainly acts as an easy way to play the arcade games you’ve already unlocked, while also giving you a better idea of where your missing arcade machines can be found. The Retro Gamer minifig has a surprising amount of abilities itself: at a touch of a button, you can cycle through all of his abilities: Super Strength, Laser Ability, Invisibility, Super Speed and Invincibility – Making this character an incredibly versatile one for finding those elusive Golden Bricks.

The Arcade Machine “vehicle” lacks any sort of real ability, bar the very important role of allowing you to unlock those arcade machines. However, having a real LEGO model of a Defender arcade cabinet is pretty damn cool, and makes me yearn for models of other classic cabs.

Finally, we come to the G-6155 Spy Hunter, the signature car from classic arcade game Spy Hunter. Initially, it’s just a car, but its upgrades do give it flight and watercraft capabilities, so it’s actually a pretty good vehicle. For most players, the figures themselves are very cool and offer some essential unique skills that no other character currently has. As a level, Retro Wreckage might be a little underwhelming, but the pack as a whole is an incredibly unique and fun way to present what is essentially a retro arcade compilation.

VERDICT: Buy it!

Ghostbusters Fun Pack – Stay Puft w/ Terror Dog

Following the Ghostbusters Level Pack from Wave 3, we move away from the heroes and onto the first of two villain sets. Next month we’ll see the release of the always-popular Slimer, but for now, we welcome The Destroyer himself, Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. He’s cute, but he’s packing the Super Strength, Big Transform, and Hazard Protection abilities.

His included vehicle is the Terror Dog, the massive stone Hellhounds seen in the original Ghostbusters movie, which doesn’t have any particular abilities in its initial state, which is a shame. It can be upgraded to fly and also breath fire, but it’s nothing special. It’s great to have a little Stay Puft LEGO minifig, but there’s little else to recommend this Fun Pack, unless you are a big Ghostbusters fan.

VERDICT: Stay Puft’s abilities can be found elsewhere, making this a Fun Pack that only real fans of the ‘Busters will want.

DC Comics Fun Pack – Aquaman w/Aqua Watercraft

Yes, laugh all you want about Aquaman and his ability to communicate with sealife. But this is probably one of the essential packs to buy from an ability standpoint, especially as he is the only character with the “Atlantis” ability for summoning sea creatures and water elements.Aside from this important and required ability for completionists, he also has Underwater Swimming, the ability to grow flowers (yes, really), and he can clean hazards and Water Spray, making him a very useful character to own.

Despite being able to swim underwater, he has an Aqua Watercraft, which can swim underwater (which seems pretty redundant, considering Aquaman’s powers). If you like vehicles with flippers, then you’ve reached your nirvana.

VERDICT: Put simply, if you want to get all of those Golden Bricks, you NEED Aquaman. Simple as.

DC Comics Fun Pack – Superman w/Hover Pod

Probably one of the most iconic characters in LEGO Dimensions, it’s amazing that it’s taken this long for Supes to arrive as a Fun Pack minifig. As you would expect, he has tons of abilities: Laser Ability, Super Strength, he’s the only character to have Freeze Breath for stop enemies in their tracks, he has invulnerability, can use X-Ray vision, and of course can swim and fly. He’s truly a jack of all trades, especially for hunting Golden Bricks in hub levels. Every time he flies, the proper John Williams Superman theme plays, which is cool for the first couple of times, but like Wonder Woman, gets quite irritating.

So with a character with as many skills as this one, as you can imagine the included Hover Pod is a bit pointless and suffers from the same redundancy as Wonder Woman’s Invisible Plane and Aquaman’s Aqua Watercraft. Its upgrades are a little better, offering some offensive capabilities, but these are mostly useless.

VERDICT: Superman isn’t essential, but if you like the character, his ability set makes it work picking this up.

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Recently, I have come to be ever so slightly addicted to LEGO Dimensions. Which is to say, a massive understatement. And I feel no shame in spending most of my evenings for the past month, building LEGO figures with my wife, and playing one of the best LEGO games in some time. Granted, LEGO Dimensions gameplay isn’t that much of a departure from the other license-based games from TT Games, but the addition of Toys To Life functionality with proper LEGO figures to build and interact with has brought me back to a type of game I thought I had my full of years ago.

And so, here I am with the latest batch of LEGO Dimensions Level, Team and Fun Packs – And it really seems like Warner Bros. Games are attempting to reel in both little and big kids of all ages, judging by the IP these latest sets are inspired by. With sets based on classic 80’s IP like Ghostbusters and Back To The Future, a set based on evergreen characters like Doctor Who and The Joker, plus a set based on one of LEGO’s more recent sets, Ninjago – There’s something for everybody in this batch of plastic bricks. So here’s what you can expect from each set:

Ghostbusters Level Pack – A Spook Central Adventure w/ Peter Venkman

All of the Level Packs so far have been great in different ways, with some great use of the licenses involved, and this Ghostbusters-related pack doesn’t disappoint for the most part. Apparently containing the most pieces of any of the LEGO Dimensions sets and consisting of a Peter Venkman minifig, a tiny rendition of the iconic ECTO-1, as well as the Ghostbuster’s patented Ghost Trap, this pack is just perfect for those that grew up with the ‘Busters.

A Spook Central Adventure is a pretty misleading title for this Level Pack, as this ambitious level spans practically the entire film’s plot (and took my wife and myself around the same time to play, as it would have taken to watch the film itself). It begins with the Ghostbusters’ very first callout and continues through most of the major plot points of the film, leading up to the insane battle with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man himself.

As expected, the quirkiness of the subject matter translates incredibly well to the world of bricks and minifigs, with some pretty funny jokes stemming from excellent repurposing of several audio clips from the movie. While this level is lacking in enemies to fight, and the street-based intermissions are a little empty unless you’re after Studs (and you probably are), there are plenty of great puzzles and some great movie-inspired set pieces. Being able to drive around in the ECTO-1, with that easily-identifiable siren screeching out, never fails to please, and the Ghost Trap is very well-implemented, as you are able to trap ghosts in your Proton Beam, physically lay the Ghost Trap on the pad, and pull the ghosts towards the in-game trap. It’s all incredibly well-thought out, and the whole package makes for one of the better Level Packs around.

VERDICT: Buy it!

DC Comics Team Pack – Joker & Harley Quinn

With the Suicide Squad movie on the way, both the Joker and Harley Quinn are popular choices for Wave 3. This massive pack comes with the Joker’s Chopper and Harley’s Quinn Mobile, which are admittedly fairly generic when it comes to abilities, but are fun to build. As for Joker and Harley, their abilities are also nothing special, so this is a pack that isn’t the most impressive when it comes to new moves, and with the DC Comics World already available as part of the LEGO Dimensions Starter set, there isn’t anything new in terms of levels. However, fans of the characters will want to snap these figures up (if you don’t already have other LEGO minifigs of them already).

VERDICT: Great figures, but not an essential pack to purchase.

Back To The Future Fun Pack – Doc Brown

We’ve already had a Level Pack consisting of Marty McFly, his trusty Hoverboard and the legendary time-travelling Delorian, and now it’s time for the famed and eccentric inventor, Doctor Emmett Brown to take the world of LEGO. Also included in the box is the Travelling Time-Train from Back To The Future Pt. III, and the abilities of both are quite useful. Like the Delorian, the Train is able to trigger Time Travel switches, and also standard Acceleration Switches. Meanwhile, Doc Brown can take advantage of Hacking, Fix-It, Technology and Drone abilities, making him a very versatile character. As with all LEGO Dimensions sets, this unlocks access to a character specific hub level, in this case, it’s the Back To The Future World, consisting of a Hill Valley in the past, present and future! With quips voiced by an ageing Christopher Lloyd, this is one set that earns massive nostalgia points for those of a certain age!

VERDICT: Great for fans of BTTF, and for those who need the Drone ability.

Ninjago Fun Pack – Sensei Wu

There are a ton of Ninjago sets available, but this is probably the most desirable of the lot, based on abilities alone. Consisting of Sensei Wu and an awesome Flying White Dragon, even as someone who knows nothing about Ninjago, this is certainly a very cool set. The Flying White Dragon can use the very useful Flight ability, which is incredibly useful for nabbing hard-to-find bricks in hub levels (like the included Ninjago World), while Sensei Wu has an awesome array of abilities including the Ninjago-exclusive Spinjitsu, Stealth, Pole Vault and Acrobat. If you want to get one Ninjago set (and you probably do if you want to see everything LEGO Dimensions has to offer), make it this one!

VERDICT: Buy if you want to unlock the Ninjago hub level and Spinjitsu abilities.

Doctor Who Fun Pack – Cybermen

This Fun Pack contains two of the Doctor’s deadliest rivals, a Cyberman and a Dalek! This set makes a decent complement to the Doctor. While the Dalek only has the Target ability, this pales in comparison to the Cyberman’s massive array of abilities such as Hacking, Technology, X-Ray Vision, Mind Control, Underwater Swimming, Drone and Silver LEGO Blowup. That’s a lot of abilities for one character! He’s one of only two characters to be able to use the Drone ability (the other being Doc Brown), so you’ll want at least one of these Wave 3 sets of you want access to every Gold Brick.

VERDICT: A great set of abilities, worth looking at.

Want to see these sets in action? Look no further for nearly 10 minutes of LEGO Dimensions Wave 3 Gameplay!

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When I was younger, like many of my friends at the time, I was drawn into buying a Digimon. More than that, most of my year at school had the little things. We got Digimon because they were Tamagotchi that could fight, and we were all teens and almost teens that liked violence and stuff, so they were perfect.

I remember afternoons on the playground making the little guys scrap. Evenings spent scouring jpeg-plastered websites in search of secrets and glitches. Oh, and there was one fateful lunchtime that saw one friend and I babysitting another friend’s Digimon, overexerting it through too many battles, and then having to explain to him why, over the course of lunch, his pet had gone from destroyer of junior school dreams, to a shivering little egg. The fad ended not long after that…

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U’s Amiibo functions remind me of Digimon. Not in the ‘feed them or they’ll die’ sense, but a Smash Bros. Amiibo’s functions definitely have the same curious ability to imprint a sense of attachment upon you that the not-Pokémon-at-all Digimon could. That strange pride you get when they win a fight; the weird annoyance you feel when they lose – that’s all definitely here, and I know exactly how I’ll feel when Rinky Dink is fighting another person’s Amiibo. I know I’ll be back on that playground.

Oh yeah, my Link Amiibo is called Rinky Dink, did I mention that? See, I’m already showing my attachment through the simple fact he has a name. I should point out that he has a name because Smash Bros. told me to give him a name, but I find myself referring to him by name and that’s definitely part of the attachment.

The first time you scan an Amiibo via the gamepad you can name them and choose which of the eight character colours they will don. As an aside, scanning is really quick, as is writing data onto them after a play session – at most you’ll be holding the figure to the pad for about four seconds. Once named and clothed you can alter their special moves if you’ve unlocked the alternate B attacks for that character and you’re given the ability to feed your Amiibo equipment you’ve gathered, but chances are you’re just going to take them into a scrap as soon as possible.

Level one Amiibo are atrocious, but they level up fast with the cap being level fifty. As an Amiibo levels up you’ll see it improve. You’ll notice them get more aggressive, improve their shield timing, and generally be able to land more successful KOs.

Does an Amiibo actually learn techniques and moves from a player? I would say that right now I couldn’t confirm or deny that. Ideally I want to match Rinky Dink up against another trained Link Amiibo to see if I can spot any unique techniques or foibles, but I haven’t had the opportunity yet. I can assure you that an Amiibo becomes more proficient over time, and I can also say with confidence that Amiibo are superior to CPU opposition.

They aren’t simply superior in skill, either. When playing with some friends, we added little Rinky Dink to bulk out the player numbers, and I found it entertaining how my friends began to hold a genuine grudge against my Amiibo fighter. Was this simply due to his skill? I don’t know, but they seemed to blame his capabilities on me. An effect of the advertised learning, perhaps, but it was easy to tell that they enjoyed fighting this supposedly intelligent character more than standard AI, making for a superior experience. I’m confident it was, in part, to do with him having a name, and part due to me saying “I’ve trained him”, but the attachment is definitely real. Rinky Dink’s name was deemed worthy of cursing, and I definitely caught them glaring at the actual figurine, too.

As mentioned, there’s more to customising your Amiibo fighter than simply levelling them and choosing special moves, and this will likely be what guarantees their longevity for some people. As you play, you will find equipment, and this can be used either to customise existing characters for powered up customisation battles, or to be fed to Amiibo.

Some of these powers add a special trait to your Amiibo, from their shield exploding on a perfect defence, to being able to jump higher, to starting a bout holding an item. You can add a maximum of three special traits to an Amiibo at any one time, but feeding an Amiibo any piece of equipment will also alter its attack, defence and speed stats.

The thing here is that you feed an Amiibo a stat alteration permanently, and you can keep doing it. Where customising actual fighters is a case of choosing three bits of equipment and being done with that customisation, you can keep feeding an Amiibo indefinitely (they’ll have to fight when they have a full stomach, but there’s no limit to how much you can feed them over time). These stat alterations boost one stat and lower another, so slowly tweaking an Amiibo’s traits and changing its special moves to optimise its capabilities has the potential to become a compulsive meta game, and will be what ultimately sustains interest amongst friend groups.

The only real disappointment with Amiibo is that they’re limited to the main Smash mode. Obviously when I say limited; you can still customise matches, alter items, choose between modes and what not, but it’s a huge missed opportunity that you can’t team up with your Amiibo for the co-operative modes, or battle them against other Amiibo online.

Are Amiibo essential to enjoying Super Smash Bros. for Wii U? Absolutely not. Are Amiibo a surprisingly compelling side attraction in a game already bursting with side attractions? Absolutely yes, but only truly if you know other people with them. While training an Amiibo from one to fifty may amuse for an hour or two, it’s really the strange swell of pride you feel when your AI buddy smacks a rival Amiibo, or a real life friend out of the arena that cements the Smash Bros. Amiibo as a truly intriguing oddity, and something completely unique next to the fully player controlled Skylanders and Disney Infinity.

Time will tell just how good these figure fighters can get, and whether battles between Amiibo can remain constantly interesting, but right now I’m about to go and scour png-plastered websites to see if anyone’s learned any secrets or glitches before lunchtime tomorrow. At least Amiibo can’t die…

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Every year, the Skylanders team somehow surprise me. Even in the year 2014, I expect games aimed at children to be average, or worse, yet every single year, Activision has released a Skylanders game that is entertaining for all ages – and to hell with my street cred, those toys are still cool, I’d have loved them growing up.

Where they once relied on the Spyro name to sell a new franchise, Skylanders has taken on a life of its own, and with the new consoles now on the market, they’ve taken a visual leap, as Trap Team looks gorgeous. The colourful imagery is everywhere, and it’s the antithesis of so many modern games. It’s vibrant, and the action pops off the screen for all to see like an explosion of sugar and sweets.

But the basics of Skylanders are now set in stone. Since Swap Force introduced a jump button, there’s not a huge amount that feels missing – though I’d still like to see camera control and online multiplayer at some point in the future. You’ll still go to levels, move objects about, go up lifts, and attack everything that isn’t nailed down.

So really, it falls to whoever comes up with the toy ideas to create something new and interesting that will make us want to collect them all over again. Initially it seemed an odd idea, too. The ability to trap your enemies and have them fight for you? Requires a new portal? Uh-oh, this doesn’t sound good, right? Luckily, the joy these simple touches bring to a child are better in action than they sound on paper, and create a whole new way to play and explore.

The basic concept is that you have traps you insert into the portal, and you can capture enemies instead of killing them, and there are around forty to trap. Once captured, you hit the L2 button and your Skylander will be swapped out for the baddie. This is amusing, but it’s when you start taking down the big bosses that it gets really interesting.

Of course, the characters are all daft and are there mostly for comedic value, but the first boss you fight (a weird little man who controls the Chompys) is enough of a challenge that it doesn’t resort to simple button mashing, and it’s rewarding because you’ll get to trap him and then use him against other enemies. Speaking of difficulty, while it’s not overly taxing (there are hard battles, though), it’s not too easy either – it’s well balanced, as you’d hope.

Thankfully, traps are reuseable, and you can go to a larger trap and swap out villains at your leisure, though obviously only one character can be in a trap at any given time. The portal talks to you, as well, and the bad guys will comment on things as you play along. Having a Sheep Creep “baa” at you randomly doesn’t get old, and Chompy Mage never stops being annoyed that he is incarcerated.

You can’t play as them forever, though, and each time you swap one out, you can only use them for a limited time, with damage taken reducing that time. What’s especially interesting is that the variation in attacks means you can have a Skylander on the portal that shoots (thus has ranged attacks), then swap to a trapped villain that is more melee based.

There’s a raft of new toys to collect, then. New Skylanders (series four), and now traps as well. Each trap is specific to an element, so you can’t use a life trap to capture an earth enemy. It might seem cynical, but as with previous games locking off areas to certain elemental Skylanders, it’s merely an extension of that idea. And there’s no shortage of content, with wave based modes like Doom Challenge, and Arena battle giving additional things to do outside the main campaign. The hard truth is that you’re going to want to collect them anyway, I’m sorry you had to hear that, but you knew it deep inside. As always, your previous Skylanders work on the new portal, and they keep their levels and skills from the other games. It’s a small thing to note, really, but one that is continually worth mentioning.

Kaos returns, as you expect, and this time there’s a band of evil-doers possibly more villainous than him. His plan is to undermine them secretly, so they fail and turn to him as the one-true king of evil. Being a bumbling fool, I’ll let you guess how that goes. It’s full of charm, and the voice acting is excellent, with returning characters everywhere.

Like The Simpsons (well, older Simpsons, anyway) there is plenty for all ages to laugh at, and even some more cheeky nods to the older audience. Some of the toys themselves will make you laugh – for example, Chopper is a small dinosaur with a helicopter on his back, and Food Fight is a small green chap that has a gun which shoots tomatoes. It makes no sense, but it also makes complete sense. There are minis to collect, too, and the giant called Eye Brawl is now available as Eye Small. Such a silly name change, yet for some reason it really tickles me.

It’s weird to think that with the fourth game, Skylanders has fully earned my trust. Games aimed at children don’t have to be rubbish, and they can engage with them on multiple levels. As well as the game itself, the toys are highly collectible (still) and there are even trading cards that come with each toy. I harp on about this because it’s true, but as a kid, the Skylanders would have been the coolest thing I could have imagined in game form, and the quality every year stays high.

The toys still aren’t cheap, and jumping in here (the new starter pack only has two Skylanders, as it also has two traps) means you’re probably going to want to get a few extra toys right out of the gate. But Toys for Bob continue to hold fun in the highest regard, and that’s worth championing. But Lord only knows where they go next.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

Our Scoring Policy

Review code provided by publisher.

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Chariot, the latest effort from Canadian Indie developer Frima Studio, is a title that has seen a lot more attention than a game of its ilk would usually enjoy, thanks largely to its launch day availability on the Games with Gold program on Xbox One. Chariot is pitched as a couch co-op 2D platformer, so is it a great time for two or should it just be left alone?

The story Chariot weaves is surprisingly dour. It tells of a recently deceased king and his loyal servants, who must drag his moody corpse to a resting place his lordship finds satisfactory. The king is surprisingly greedy for a dead guy, as he demands that you collect plenty of loot on your way to his resting place of choice. Grim the premise may be, but Chariot doesn’t dwell on it for long – this is a light and cheery take on death and the afterlife.

You assume the role of one of the king’s doting servants, pulling his wheeled casket through the Royal Catacombs on a mission to find a suitable resting place . You have the choice of pushing the royal coffin from behind, or attaching a rope to it and pulling it along. Chariot is as much about solving problems as it is about pure platforming, tasking you with pushing, pulling and riding the casket over and around all manner of obstacles. After the menu screen, Chariot gets the action started immediately, which is quite jarring, as I was fully expecting some sort of cutscene. The cutscene happened eventually, and it wasn’t long before I came to appreciate what a good idea throwing the player straight into the action is. I had to figure out the controls myself in order to get things started: tap the right trigger to lasso the coffin, use the analogue stick to move, and drag the dead guy along.

On your journey through the catacombs, you find loot in the form of gems that come in different shapes and sizes. This loot collection can be used to purchase additional items that aid you on your journey – these items can only be purchased once the Royal Scrolls that describe them (blueprints) have been found, encouraging exploration. And explore you must, as Chariot’s later levels are sprawling underground wildernesses, with many entrances and exits. You will need to revisit these levels many times to find all of their secrets; I have no doubt that many people will get lost exploring some of Chariots more elaborate mazes.

You will find a relatively easy path through the level if you follow the well placed arrow markers, but for those willing to explore to find the most treasure, there are a staggering number of little off-shoots that will pull you in. All of this can be shared with a friend, with advertised sections of every level that can only be completed by a team of two players. I managed to coax the missus into playing along for a good hour or two, the feedback being that she enjoyed it, found it accessible and that she’d be coming back for more. For my part, I really enjoyed getting involved in some couch-based 2-player action – there is something about actually being in the room with the person you are gaming with, you know?

Where Chariot’s true joy comes from is its platforming. Having to worry about two on-screen objects instead of one (the player character and the coffin) is nothing new of course, you can go all the way back to Yoshi’s Island for that, but Chariot does do it rather well. There are some brutally difficult areas here, and I found myself repeating the same jump, capture and coffin pulling exercise excessively on numerous occasions. And you know what? I did it all with a smile on my face, and this is coming from someone that is easily frustrated by repetition. What I did get mildly frustrated with is the lack of overall variety on offer – the unlockable gadgets bring new challenges to Chariot, but on the whole, you don’t see anything brand new after the third stage.

Chariot is a challenging game, and it adds a little more challenge by throwing in enemies that want to take a piece of your loot stash. “Looters” are little creatures that appear when you make too much noise, and come out of the walls to attack the king’s casket and run off with some loot, so it is advised that you keep noisy manoeuvres to a minimum. You can fend off the looters with a simple melee attack, but they add another layer of interest to a game already bursting with qualities – another challenge in a world of challenges.

This is a particularly pretty title; its bouncy cartoony characters and luscious caverns are a real feast for the eyes. The deeper into Chariot’s catacombs you get, the more awesome stuff starts to look. Pathways that either the player character or the king’s casket can use react to their presence either with a barrage of ghostly skulls or a blossom of fresh green foliage. The plants and gems all glow with glorious phosphorescence. It’s an easy game to admire.

Frima’s title is yet another one to add to your bucket list of 2D platformers. I personally am loving the indie renaissance of the last few years – the online platforms have given developers the means to create some stunning games. Chariot is up there with the best of them: its take on puzzle platforming is unique enough and challenging enough to keep you engaged for some time. It won’t capture the attention or admiration of everybody, of course, but for those of you who yearn for days gone by, Chariot is a must see.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

Our Scoring Policy

Review code provided by publisher.

The post Chariot Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

I have never been a huge fan of the more anthropomorphic incarnations of Pac-Man, if I am brutally honest. It is a bit like when Tom and Jerry started to speak – it just doesn’t seem right. To me, Pac Man was always about the 2D waka-waka. It is often the same with time honoured two-dimensional classics making the transition into 3D – for every Super Mario 64 there is a horrible three-dimensional talking Sonic the Hedgehog. Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 manages to combine both of the above conundrums, and also throws a dodgy television tie-in into the mix as its inspiration. The telly programme is as terrible as you would expect, and probably drastically over-estimates the popularity of the yellow gobbler in today’s climate of happy slapping, Flappy Bird and energy drinks.

The premise of the show is that Pac-Man is the last of his kind, a needy orphan consumed by guilt at having somehow released the vengeful ghost that threatens to destroy Pac-World. The ghosts from 1970s Pac-Man are present too, but here they feign allegiance to the baddies whilst secretly working with Pac-Man, in the hope that one day their souls will be redeemed and they can return to human form. It is some pretty dark stuff. But don’t let that upset you, kids – the first game based upon that sub-par cartoon was pretty good, and this sequel is more of the same, which is exactly what you would expect given that there is less than twelve months between the two releases.

Pac is once again in cahoots with his clunkily-named buddies Spiral and Cylindria, and once again the threadbare plot sees the happy-go-lucky trio face off against Lord Betrayus and his fiendish army of specters. The plot on this sophomore effort manages to avoid a lot of the separation anxiety and guilt from the source material and is another fresh, bright and breezy adventure that does not challenge your grey matter.

With mechanics straight out of Platforming 101, you explore your environs deciding on whether you look to uncover secrets and all of the hidden items, or simply get from start to fruit-piece finish without getting merked by a spook. Finding all of the hiding bits and pieces and waka-waka-ing up all of the glowing yellow consumables improve your end of level ranking score. In a nod to the games of yore, Pac has to hoover up pellets and fruit, can chow down on ghosts, and can access power-ups that give him special abilities. Some of these return from the previous game, but there are some new things to play around with, like the Ice-Pac, which allows you to create frozen platforms and stop enemies in their tracks with an icy blast, or the Magnet-Pac which allows you to access difficult-to-reach platforms or ensnare enemies using the baffling and impressive power of magnets. I searched desperately for a 2-Pac ability which transformed me into a doo-rag wearing gangster rapper, but this never materialised.

There is a lot to like about this Pac adventure. The simplistic nature of the platforming is very enjoyable, in a Skylanders or Ratchet & Clank kinda way. The way Pac Man can use a dash attack to chain together multiple ingestions of enemies and items is wonderful fun. It has excellent production values that elevate it beyond a lot of animation cash-ins, even if the voice acting is incredibly annoying. Some nice retro-y music, and of course the instantly recognisable noise when Pac Man gets killed, is present and correct. The new additions do not deviate it too far from its successor – there is an interesting rail shooter section, and an abundance of QTEs – and the new Pac-forms to experiment with.

This is another classic end-of-an-era title, the sort of thing that would have surfaced with regularity during the dying days of the PlayStation 2, albeit with a wildly inferior focus on quality control. Instead, Namco Bandai have produced another solid title that is an ideal distraction for the younger gamer, yet not insulting enough for an old timer to switch off and escape into for a few hours.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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The Wii U is increasingly becoming the indie developers (and indeed indie gamer’s) best friend, with an ever increasing number of once PC only gems finding themselves at home on the Wii U’s eShop. The latest title to make the jump from PC to Nintendo’s living room console is Teslagrad, from Norwegian dev team Rain Games.

Teslagrad can be best categorised as a 2D puzzle platformer, but that description only scratches the surface of what’s on offer here. After a moody menu screen backed by a melodic backdrop, Teslagrad throws you straight into its dark and unforgiving world. Rain lashes down from a dimly lit sky, pounding off every surface. A hard-nosed looking man darts from house to house, scaring people into fleeing for their lives. Most of them get caught, but one boy makes a success of running away. You take control of the boy, and the game begins.

Running and jumping across rooftops, the backdrop slowly changes from a scene that is dreary and residential, to the fiery heart of an industrial furnace. Teslagrad’s entirely wordless narrative is brought to life by the excellent art direction. The mixture of classic steampunk and 50’s style animation is absolutely gorgeous, and brings to life a fusion of the worlds of Limbo, Steamworld and Disney’s Pinocchio all at once. The story that unfolds shows us a world ruled by a ruthless king, who has suppressed a race of technological wizards that once resided in a massive tower in the centre of the city of Teslagrad.

So we know it looks good and tells a nice story, but how does Teslagrad actually play? From the offset, it’s obvious that this isn’t a pure platformer, as the way your character handles isn’t exactly genre-defining. Jumping can be imprecise and floaty, and it kind of feels like you’re running on ice most of the time. Thankfully, Teslagrad redeems itself by slowly ratcheting up the complexity, throwing in special abilities that you find along the way.

Early on our little hero discovers a pair of gloves that allow him to punch specific objects in the environment and turn them either red or blue. The red or blue colouring indicates that object’s magnetic polarity – and that is where the most of Teslagrad’s puzzling comes from. Being clever with magnetism is nothing new, however Teslagrad plays the magnet card very well indeed. You can use different coloured blocks to defeat enemies, open new pathways and create a magic carpet which you can use to cruise around the level. The use of magnetism isn’t restricted to objects in the environment, with your character able to take on a red or blue hue, allowing him to float above objects of the opposite colour. You take on the red or blue hue either by interacting with one of the many little robots wandering about, or walking through strategically placed plants (all of which are either red or blue in colour, indicating their polarity).

Another power afforded to you is the ability to teleport a couple of feet in front of the direction your character is facing, Dishonoured style. This power is the easiest to get to grips with, which is great, because it’s also the most fun. Darting around Teslagrad’s beautifully realised world is great fun, and does a good job of disguising the otherwise ropey handling. Put all of these puzzle elements together (something that happens early in the game), and you have a recipe for some real brain teasers. The deeper into Teslagrad’s world I got, the more out of my depth I became. This is coming from someone that has played 2D scrollers my entire life: Teslagrad is nails. You will flit from a real sense of achievement to unsolvable puzzlement, immense frustration and back again – and that’s just in the first hour or so.

Combat is pretty much non-existent, since our little dude dies at the slightest touch – adding to the games prominent “old school” feel. Level areas are bookended by boss battles – huge mechanical beasts that will push your skills to breaking point. You need to jump, dodge and teleport to avoid the boss’ attacks, all the while trying to hit it with a dose of magnetised death. In a world of one-hit kills, these are bosses that will test the most hardened of gamers. The difficulty here will really polarise (get it?) opinions on Teslagrad – 16-bit era gamers will love its unforgiving nature and will battle through to the end; as for everyone else? I’m not so sure.

Rain Games have created something beautiful in Teslagrad. Its opening scene alone should win some kind of award. Its mix of mind bending puzzles and unforgiving boss battles, not to mention some pretty hit and miss platforming, make it a game that will really split opinions. Fans of the genre will find a new hero in Teslagrad – but casual gamers should be wary.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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If you were to give out awards for putting your best foot forward, Disney Infinity 2.0 wouldn’t be anywhere near even qualifying. A horribly long load time into the Marvel Super Heroes play set (included with the starter pack), and clunky, heavy-to-control characters dominate the opening mission which introduces us to Disney Infinity again.

The general idea is that our heroes have just unfrozen themselves and need to save Avenger/Stark Tower before it’s overrun by Loki’s Frost Giant minions. The combat begins and it’s pure button mashing repetition; everything is linear and you just go from corridor to corridor before ending the level, and choosing whether to continue the Marvel story, or be introduced to the Toy Box mode.

Thank God, then, that immediately after the dreary opening mission, the larger, more open area of the city is yours to play in. Suddenly you’re allowed to take to the skies as Iron Man or Thor and can explore the world with freedom, gathering all manner of collectibles, some of which add to the Toy Box mode, while others just unlock concept art. Interestingly, among the multitude of collectibles, there are crossover tokens, which, once ten are collected, allow characters to appear in each other’s playset.

Immediately, Infinity 2.0 feels a better game. Initial fears subside, and you start to enjoy the mechanics far more. Button-mashing combos are still prevalent, but as you progress through the skill trees and level up your individual heroes (the cap is twenty for all heroes, including ones from the previous game), more options become available. Super moves and changes to standard combos change things up, and you can improve core skills as well. One problem that rears its head early on is that the environments seem tailored towards characters who can fly. You can climb via jump pads and lifts, but overall, you’ll initially play more as Thor and Iron Man, just because they are more fun to navigate the world with – you’ll end up playing Black Widow mainly when you transition to the indoor missions, then later when you unlock a certain vehicle that lets everyone take to the skies. It’s an interesting way to add movement speed to the non-flying characters, because the motorbike you unlock first handles very heavily, and is best avoided.

There’s not a huge amount of variety to missions, either. There’s certainly an attempt to change things up, adding things like motorbike races or horde-style combat challenges – but they’re not enjoyable enough to make you want to come back and improve your time, let alone try and top the leaderboards. Indeed, most missions will involve going from place to place, beating up on some guys, then doing it all again in the next mission. The enemies do get progressively harder, but the techniques to beat them don’t really change.

Things are improved when playing with a friend (or one of your children), as you can both explore the world at your leisure, before joining up for a story mission. If you find it too easy, simply adjust the difficulty. There are also numerous mission nodes around the playsets that allow you to play competitively, and these are a surprising amount of fun. As Iron Man, facing off against your son as Thor is silly, especially when you both take to the skies in your enclosed battle arena, seeing who will blink and go to ground first, which is where the combat is really intended to be.

Thankfully, the technical issues that plagued the previous game appear to have been ironed out. The open-world sandbox area of the Marvel play set is hitch-free, and the frame rate is mostly solid, but prone to major drops in missions that take place inside. It’s not the most visually taxing game for the hardware, but it looks pretty when cutscenes play, and though the city itself is a little on the bland side, the colour comes from the characters. There are elements of humour, and occasionally the gags work really well, but there’s no mistaking this is a game aimed at children. That said, the voice acting is fun, and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury is a lovely bonus. Generally speaking, the atmosphere and character is there for all to see on screen.

Interestingly, both of my children jumped immediately into the Toy Box mode. This is a clean slate where you can add environments of your choosing, as well as characters, enemies and, well, basically everything that’s in the game. While the truly creative will go for the absolutely empty sandbox, you can choose from numerous presets to get you started. This time around, you can save and share your boxes with other people, and if you don’t feel like spending hours making missions and worlds for others, you can just download community created content. Some are better than others, and the devs have created a few to give everyone ideas. One platforming based level I tried was okay, but the controls aren’t precise enough to really make overly taxing jumping much fun.

Without question, the Toy Box is where Infinity still shines. A sandbox that truly lets your imagination run wild, only now you can share or download creations via the internet. But the play sets are a vast improvement over the first game and a lot of fun in their own right, while the technical performance is far better, too. Being able to bring your existing Infinity toys into 2.0 is a nice touch, but something you’d expect.

It’s going to cost you a fortune, though, because once you start to enjoy dashing through the air as Iron Man, you’ll want more of those pricey heroes to throw into your game, because they’re wonderful little toys that look and feel good. On that note, this seems an ideal time to remind you that we don’t accept any responsibility for any overdraft charges you may incur after playing Disney Infinity 2.0.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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Has it really been over four years since the release of Bayonetta? It has been so long in gaming terms, but Platinum’s third-person action game has rarely been matched when it comes to chaotic, blood-pumping action, and although we’re chomping at the bit for the sequel to arrive, it’s a wonderful gesture for Nintendo to offer this slightly amended version of the original game, as part of the Bayonetta 2 retail package.

Developed by Bee Tribe under the careful watch of Platinum Games, this is a note for note port of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game – although thankfully without the technical issues that dogged the latter version. It remains unchanged, save for a handful of additions, and that is in no way a bad thing.

So, a recap for those who didn’t pay attention the first time around: set in several dimensions, all based from Dante’s Divine Comedy, Bayonetta herself belongs to an ancient society of Umbran Witches, followers of darkness, who remain at loggerheads with the light-loving Lumen Sages. Each faction holds custody over powerful relics known as Eyes of The World, with Bayonetta herself in possession of the Left Eye after a 500 year slumber, awaking with no memory of who she really is. Battling demons, angels, gods and devils alike in a bid to uncover the truth, this conceit is an excuse to fight a ton of weird and wonderful enemies in a ballet of gunfire, campy dialogue and oversized weaponry.

And what enemies they are. An astoundingly unique cast of baddies that are (still) unlike anything you’ve fought before, with some absolutely huge bosses to contend with as well, residing in a gamut of settings, from European cities to otherworldly dimensions. Unfortunately, while the asset and environment design is inspired, the muted colours used throughout the game detract from the visuals, making everything look incredibly washed out and dated.

As for fighting, Bayonetta has a lot of it, and those who have played a Devil May Cry game will feel right at home. Thanks to the Witch Time mechanic, which slows down gameplay after a perfect dodge, this is a game where evasion and timing is as important as combos and offensive prowess. This is one witch with a lot of tools at her disposal, from her own Scarborough Fair guns, to the deadly tools of destruction she can temporarily steal from enemies or unlock via other means. Being able to equip different weapons to her arms and feet, as well as switching between two user-defined sets of equipment, there’s a lot of scope for player experimentation and discovery, making for a relatively simple to learn, but endlessly fun to master combat system.

Yet, there are also opportunities for limited environmental exploration that act as calming interludes between the chaos of battle. Useful items and hidden battles are everywhere if you take the time to look, along with plenty of opportunities to earn currency in the form of Halos. You’ll need lots of them as well, because many of the purchasable equipment is quite expensive, requiring mastery of combat as well as multiple replays of chapters in order to fund some of the more exciting items for sale. Often, it feels like the cost of these items is far too expensive, with many of them being out of reach even after finishing the game.

With this in mind, Bayonetta is a game based on replayability, as well as racking up the biggest combos and getting the highest scores you can. This is an action game that has a firm old-school feel in this regard, and it’s also a lot tougher than you probably remember, especially with the strict timing needed to perform certain moves like Witch Time.

In terms of additions, the Wii U version contains four Nintendo-related costumes already unlocked to begin with. Costumes for Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Link and Samus are at your disposal, with each one having their own special abilities. These costumes work very similar to their Bayonetta 2 counterparts and are cool and fun to play with. This port also features the same touch screen controls that have been added to the sequel, providing an accessible alternative to button controls.

Fast and frantic, Bayonetta is still a quality action game. The visuals may have aged somewhat, and the difficulty may be hard as nails, but this is the definitive version of a game that feels strangely at home on a Nintendo console. A welcome refresher to the upcoming sequel, that deserves to be replayed for old times’ sake.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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Link’s a bit of a chicken really, isn’t he? And by that I don’t mean the Zelda kind of ‘hit ‘em a few times and they slaughter you’ kind of bird, I’m talking the ‘avoids most conflict’ derogatory comparison to the clucking egg dispensers. Excusing one spot of mass murder in Skyward Sword’s closing act and that Twilight Princess Wild West shoot-out, Link is more commonly found lurking around musty tombs, focusing more on exercising his grey matter than his sword arm.

Obviously I’m speaking largely in jest. Link does some pretty ballsy things when you think about it, but we’ve never really seen Link fighting on a battlefield during any Zelda games, despite numerous elements of narrative history alluding to several great wars and bloody conflicts. Hyrule Warriors, considered simply as a concept, gives the Legend of Zelda series a legitimate avenue to explore these moments without having a negative impact on the core titles.

That said, Hyrule Warriors isn’t intended as part of the canon Zelda lineage. Start the game’s Legend (story) mode and you’re presented with a new Link, a new Zelda, and a new war. This is developer Omega Force’s corner of the Zelda universe and they’re eager to make it their own. Their Link isn’t so much courageous as headstrong, getting into predicaments because he’s over-confident. Their Zelda is a born leader, reactive and cunning. They create their own villainous faction in Cia and her minions, and they design a narrative hook with the sole intention of pulling together a Zelda greatest hits.

What is that hook? It’s that Cia, a being that can see all of time, becomes obsessed with Link. Zelda is royal blood, that’s a constant, and Ganon is Ganon, but Link is someone that rises when Hyrule needs him most, and Cia, corrupted by evil, decides that she wants to make him hers simply because he’s such a curiosity. Generally, the plot comes off as an amusingly hokey method of pulling the various faces of the Zelda timeline together for a spot of ‘pass the Triforce’.

Hyrule Warriors is designed within the Dynasty Warriors mould: you play a hyper powerful character and are dropped into a battlefield, where it’s your task to kill enemy commanders, create more spawn points for your troops by taking control of outposts and bases, and keep an eye on your bases and commanders to ensure the scales aren’t tipping against your favour. It’s about where you are and where you’re moving more than the difficulty of actually doing the thing when you get there.

But to accomplish your goals, you engage in combat. Two primary attack buttons create all of your offensive combos (how many light jabs you put before a strong affects what the strong attack is) while a special attack can be deployed to eradicate hordes of foes. You also have Focus Spirit (a way to go all out when you feel it’s necessary), a block button, a dodge roll, and a targeting button.

All of this is largely derivative of previous Warriors games but there are two things that are fairly unique to Hyrule Warriors. One is items such as bombs, the bow, hookshot and boomerang. You can use these to find secrets, augment combos and expose enemy weak spots. As with the core Zelda games, certain items work better in certain situations, and they work well as an added layer on top of the standard hacking and slashing.

The other unique feature is the Weak Point Gauge. Every commander and boss has a weak point gauge that will appear at specific points. Attacking and emptying the weak point gauge will initiate a big, focused attack. This is an effective way of dealing huge damage alongside being a big wink to Zelda’s wait and exploit style of combat. This is similar in look to Dynasty Warriors 8’s Storm Rush, but it’s not the same – Storm Rush was a reward for using an elemental weapon a foe was weak against, whereas the Weak Point mechanic is a universal consideration. Weapons still have elemental attributes in Hyrule Warriors, but you only choose and use one for an entire scrap, no switching mid combo or anything flashy like that.

The weak point gauge is likely Hyrule Warriors’ biggest addition to the formula and it’s rather a triumph. Against commanders, it lets you react to enemy attack patterns and feel rewarded for doing so, giving you big ways to cash in on showing battlefield awareness. Plus, it feels really, really good.

Where it’s not such a success is with the boss creatures. Now if there’s one complaint that can be easily levelled on the entire Hyrule Warriors experience, it’s that it might not be quite ‘Zelda’ enough for the more cognitively focused members of the fanbase. There’s a light bit of item use in traversal but this is definitely a Warriors game with Zelda flavouring, not a 50/50 split. So in light of any traditional adventuring or puzzling, the large boss creatures are the game’s biggest ‘caveat’ to the Zelda universe.

Being so heavily Zelda these monstrous creatures rely on you waiting for an exploit, exploiting said exploit, and then wailing on the boss for massive damage. Attacking the boss when they’re not in their dazed state is largely useless. This is only an issue because Dynasty Warriors is not a game designed around waiting. They usually demand flow, and these bosses (while initially daunting and thrilling) can become somewhat jarring when you’re pursuing high ranks in Adventure mode. Dynasty Warriors is a game about plate spinning, the last thing you want is some fool telling you to wait until an enemy does a specific attack.

The biggest criticisms come in the form of simplicity and repetition. Even for a Dynasty Warriors game, Hyrule Warriors is easy. Its hardest difficulty is challenging, with some enemy attack patterns being particularly fiendish and damaging, and then there are the optional Skulltulla objectives alongside earning those A-ranks in Adventure mode. But even then, it does err on the easy side of the spectrum.

Repetition, too, is an unavoidable quirk of the Warriors franchise. Adventure mode suffers from this in particular. Asking you to achieve A-ranks to unlock extra weapons and new missions is fine, but forcing you to complete old missions again because you need another bomb to ‘unlock’ an unlock can be a morale deteriorating blow, particularly when you consider that the missions are all ultimately very derivative of each other (though the Zelda Quiz and Kill missions are a pleasant diversion).

The multiplayer situation is also a shame. No true online is a big let-down (the Network Links in Adventure are an asynchronous element used purely for unlocks) and the local two player is a curious thing. The gamepad resolution suffers horribly, and so does enemy density, making is a less than ideal solution. It’s still entertaining, but it’s noticeably lacking, which is a shame because Warriors games are a grand thing in co-op.

The final negative point is that fans on both sides will have issues. Warriors fans will cite missing elements, such as mounts, and perhaps not understand things like a lack of voice acting being a Zelda trope, and not Nintendo misplacing their chequebook. Zelda fans (alongside the lack of puzzles) will definitely raise eyebrows at the handful of inconsistencies, such as Midna leading an army of Stalchildren in the rather clear absence of the Twili. I fully believe that many of these issues, on both sides, can be fixed in a more comprehensive sequel.

But Hyrule Warriors presentation and feel is potentially the best of any Warriors game to date. Knocking enemies over and hearing them hit their friends like a big clutch of bowling pins. Claiming a keep in a huge splash of enemy killing colour. Using bombs to bounce an enemy towards you so you can launch into an aerial combo. Fighting a horde of creatures with the grand Eldin Bridge in the distance to a rock tinted version of Twilight Princess’ field theme. There’s even far less pop-in, in terms of enemies (still some, but it’s rare). Repetition doesn’t matter so much when it feels this good.

The characters, too, all work spectacularly. This is a first instalment Warriors game so it’s not as broad as most, but every weapon here is accompanied by a raft of brilliant ideas. Link with a sword is a whirling dervish, carving through hordes of enemies with reckless abandon. Ganon is a monster, hitting hundreds of foes with lumbering, devastating attacks. Shiek, meanwhile, uses combos to initiate certain effects, letting her adjust to specific situations. Impa can use her Nagatana to create temporary walls of fire with which to bounce enemies from for extended combos. Learning each characters’ quirks in Hyrule Warriors is hugely fun because they feel so playable; more so, in my opinion, than traditional Warriors combatants. That’s why it’s incredibly satisfying, and that’s why, for all its clear issues, Hyrule Warriors is ultimately fun to play.

Hyrule Warriors is a success. It enables Nintendo to explore the Zelda cast and world in large scale conflicts, while also offering fans an avenue for rampant nostalgia. The game only falls down due to the documented trappings of the Warriors franchise and the fault of being the first of its line, even though it does make some brave attempts to improve on the template with this. If you have a penchant for the world of Nintendo’s Hylian hero, and don’t mind the repetition of its design, then Hyrule Warriors undeniably offers an entertaining and satisfying way to engage in large scale quasi-tactical Hyrulian combat.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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The post Hyrule Warriors Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

You could be forgiven for taking a glance at X-Type + and dismissing it as another Geometry Wars-style shmup. But you would be wrong. Sure, the basic mechanic at play here is the classic twin-stick Robotron shooting that has been so abused in the last decade, but it blends this method of control with the swirling, intimidating bullet hell patterns that you would associate with an NTSC-J arcade cab rather than a Western-developed indie game.

Rather than throwing your diminutive craft against a variety of different enemies, followed by an encounter with an end of level mayor, X-Type’s bite-sized stages consist of procedurally generated, increasingly difficult boss craft, and nothing more. This wouldn’t be the first time such a concept has been attempted on a Nintendo console. The ultra-hardcore Ketsui Death Label has done this kind of thing before, albeit with a far more complex scoring system, which is exactly as you would expect from Cave. X-Type is a much more accessible affair, and although it appears outwardly basic there are plenty of nuances to consider when taking on the curious-looking alien hostiles.

Each monstrosity consists of numerous individual parts surrounding that old shmup chestnut: the core. Some of these parts spray out plumes of deadly bullets, others focus laser beams in the direction they are facing, or spew forth larger spiny projectiles which can thankfully be picked off by your own laser beams. Destroying the core while there are still parts attached will award you a much higher points total, and this is easily achievable over the first half a dozen stages once you have got your eye in. Later on you will have no choice but to pick off some of the weaponry before aiming for the central part, to give your avatar respite from the ridiculous amount of ordnance.

Two game modes are available, offering profoundly different ways to play. Classic hands you three lives, and asks you to methodically work your way through each stage in turn. There are no rewards for speed, and essentially the longer you survive, the more points you will accumulate. The risk/reward factor consistently comes into play. Sometimes it is tempting to go straight for the core, but you soon realise that it is suicidal to do so without shaving off some of the more deadly limbs from the structure beforehand.

Plus Mode is a sped-up, time-attack mode with the addition of three smart bombs in your arsenal that wipes the screen of bullets and temporarily shields you. Enemy attacks are more difficult to avoid with homing missiles that follow you around the screen and the addition of the laser beams which you don’t encounter during a Classic onslaught. Each time you smash your way through a boss, time is added to your gradually diminishing clock. Each time you lose a life, you lose precious seconds.

Online leaderboards are a real motivating factor to hone your skills in Classic mode before embarking on the much trickier time attack Plus mode. Best of all, when you access the leaderboards, you can watch each individual effort and glean some excellent tactical knowledge from your peers.

Nintendo’s Wii U looks like being a fertile breeding ground for indie developers, thanks to the way Java and HTML titles can be glitzed up and appropriated for the platform using Nintendo Web Framework. X-Type + began life in browser form, don’t forget. The only bugbear was the lack of off-screen play, although there is support for other Wii controller types.

VERDICT: X-Type+ is a wonderfully simple idea tweaked and tuned into a damn fine little game, with an underlying depth and replay value that will keep seasoned shooter aficionados coming back for more. It also serves as a nice entry-level bullet hell affair before you start investigating the more exotic wares further afield. Recommended.

SUPERB. This is the mark of greatness, only awarded to games that engage us from start to finish. Titles that score 9/10 will have very few problems or negative issues, and will deliver high quality and value for money across all aspects of their design.

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It takes some stones for any developer – let alone a small three-man indie – to bring a traditional action-platformer to a Nintendo console. The Wii U already has some top-grade first party fare, not to mention one of the finest Rayman adventures to date, which is why it is hard to recommend Upper Byte’s outwardly charming, but ultimately limited, Wooden Sen’Sey.

Set in a well-rendered, Ancient Japan-influenced gameworld, the game charges you to take on the role of Goro – a loveable, rotund, super-deformed warrior chief, rocking a traditional kasa and rather handy with an axe. It appears he has been the victim of an odd yet heinous crime – some creepy black blob dudes have pinched his liquid refreshments – and it is your job to traverse the thirty platforming stages to exact justice and return things to normal.

Goro has a variety of tricks up his sleeve, which try to elevate Wooden Sen’Sey above the mundane and generic. A grappling hook is reasonably well implemented (although not as effectively as an Umihara Kawase, for example) and is the best thing in your arsenal. The axe used to dispatch enemies is a one trick affair, however – there are no combos on offer and slicing foes is just an entirely undemanding case of pressing one button. You can execute a double jumping manoeuvre which allows you to bounce on top of enemies, injuring them while allowing you to gain additional height or pound the earth next to them, which can dislodge armour from certain bad guys. As you progress you can pick up additional items like ninja stars and explosives; the latter are employed to solve mild puzzling elements as well as wasting baddies.

In the right hands, a game of this ilk can provide just the right balance of kooky charm and robust gameplay. Wooden Sen’Sey looks mostly fantastic – the moment you are transported into the opening village area, with bamboo and traditional buildings aplenty, you can see the time and effort that have gone into the aesthetics. There are some fine variations on time-honoured platform environs – a nice underwater stage, spider-filled caves, the obligatory spikes, pits and whatnot – but the things you spend time doing in them are just so dull. The menagerie of enemies are near enough all derivative of a black blob of goo with eyes – and represent an unimaginative counterpart to the likeable Goro and the fun, cartoony world he inhabits.

Difficulty is all over the place, too. You are eased into the mix gently, yet encounter horrific spikes rather quickly, and discover that the grappling physics and level layouts aren’t all they are cracked up to be. There are some unbelievably difficult sections that exist purely as a result of shoddy physics and unintuitive design. When you encounter a difficult bit in a Mario title, for example, no matter how frustrating it may become (and I have had many a controller throwing moment) you know that it is fair – that it is your own fault. Here, you find there are times where the swinging hook is letting you down, or the uselessness of Goro’s attacks are at fault. It is a shame, because there are some generous time attack modes on offer – including one where you get to take on the developers’ best runthrough – but whether you will be prepared to subject yourself to such tortuous difficulty is questionable.

Yet again, however, the devs have made a great use of the console. There are a multitude of control options – including off screen play and support for Wiimotes. There are even some surprisingly well-thought out motion elements, such as a tilting action to execute the head bounce attack thingy. Sumptuous looks are married to some terrific music, too. Plinky plonky tuneage sits alongside some likeable rock numbers, and there is some amusing speech.

VERDICT: Wooden Sen’Sey isn’t the worst title in the world – it just exists in a time when we expect a bit more from our platformers, particularly when you are shelling out the thick end of a tenner. Again, I tip my traditional pointy straw hat in the direction of another tiny developer who have done some good work here – and I hope that they continue to develop for a console they clearly have a solid grasp of – but things really need to be a bit tighter next time.

AVERAGE. The epitome of a 50/50 game, this title will be unspectacular but inoffensive, charmless but amiable. We aren’t condemning a game by scoring it a 5, but we certainly aren’t championing it, either.

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All of us at some point in our lives have grabbed some toy cars and raced them across the floor. Even as a supposed adult it’s great fun (and a great way to entertain yourself during boring meetings if the cars are small enough). On several occasions, this childlike fun has been translated into video games quite successfully, from the obvious Micro Machines through to the likes of Mario Kart – and now Super Toy Cars wants in on the fun as well.

Super Toy Cars does a very good job of making it clear that these are, in fact, toy cars. Each of the tracks is littered with gigantic toys, fruit and other such objects that not only help show we are on a micro scale but also add some color and variety to environments.

The tracks themselves are okay but nothing to write home about, although the toys that line the edges can sometimes block you even though you’re sure you avoided it, which is probably down to poor collision detection. Another issue with the tracks is that occasionally areas that look like shortcuts turn out to be a poorly designed edge of the track, resulting in you hitting an invisible wall.

The dodgy areas of the tracks certainly aren’t helped by the strange physics engine. Cars will often become locked together, or a small tap into an object will bring you to a complete standstill. Getting stuck isn’t uncommon either, but a reset to track button relieves the frustration slightly. Still, at times the poor physics can cost you victory.

There are multiple toy cars to take for a spin, ranging from slow and bulky truck types through to the incredibly fast F1 style car and plenty in between. Each of the cars feels significantly different on track; it will take a lap or two for you to get accustomed to how each one differs from the last. The majority of cars are usable but I found a couple that I just couldn’t control effectively. Fortunately unlocking new cars in the career mode isn’t difficulty so I just moved on.

Speaking of career mode, it’s a fairly basic affair consisting of eight six-race grand prix each of which has six different races within it. Blasting through these shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours at best. Completing races will reward you with currency to buy new cars or upgrades, the unfortunate thing is that the rewards are too generous, so quickly you can buy an overpowered car for the event you are in and dominate unfairly.

The races themselves come in a few different flavors. Ranging from standard racing through to the excellent evade races which see the track littered with mines and the person in last place being periodically eliminated. The evade races can be chaos, with cars spinning out all over the place, but they are also incredibly fun and the most challenging of all the events.

Elsewhere there is a very detailed track editor that I’m sure some will use to create some impressive arenas. This is also the only place the gamepad is utilized, as on-track it just displays the action minus the HUD. My only gripe with the track editor is the lack of a tutorial, as to a younger audience it will be incredibly difficult to understand.

Amazingly there is no online multiplayer. Split-screen is available for up to four people but online is nowhere to be seen, which is a massive shame as Super Toy Cars would be brilliant online. Split screen multiplayer is still great fun, although those using traditional Wii-motes will have to get used to the strange control scheme.

VERDICT: If the physics engine is feeling kind then Super Toy Cars can be a lot of fun, especially in the evade races. However, most of the time you will find yourself being unfairly treated due to bad hit detection and general glitches. The career mode doesn’t offer much in the way of playtime so chances are if you are going to play for more than a few hours it will be in split-screen with others. Online multiplayer would have made Super Toy Cars a lot more attractive but at least the track editor is solid, if a little confusing.

DECENT. A 6/10 indicates that, while this game could be much better, it still has a fair amount to offer the player. It might be an interesting title sabotaged by its own ambition, or a game denied greater praise by some questionable design choices. Don’t avoid it outright, but approach it with caution.

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Broccoli, eh? Whether you’re talking the ordinary run of the mill stuff, or more exotic varieties like purple-sprouting and tenderstem, the miniature-tree-resembling veg is rich in Vitamin C, nutritious and tasty, and as such should be celebrated. Spaniards Dolores Entertainment disagree, however: an anthropomorphic brassica complete with a Hitler facial adornment is the evil vegetable core of Ice Cream Surfer, a re-jigged Wii U indie shooter that eschews healthy eating and promotes the sickly sugary rush of confectionery as its saccharine motif.

In its former guise as a mobile app, Ice Cream Surfer featured perma-autofire, some dodgy ad placements, and wasn’t particularly well received. Thanks to some crowd funding and a bit more time in development, the updated version is certainly much better. It’s still a flawed experience – albeit one that does have some sweet positives.

Anyone who has played Konami’s brilliant Parodius series will instantly recognise the debt that Ice Cream Surfer owes to the gloriously silly bastardization of the Gradius universe. Enemy formations, daft speech, multiple characters each with different attack types, boss hit points and the way downed enemies drop multi-coloured ices and weapon upgrades the same way that bells and powerups litter the screen… someone over in Barcelona has spent some time playing Parodius Deluxe Pack in their youth. To its credit, the slick 16-bit pixel art style, entertaining character designs and chiptune music all lend this an identity of its own, even if the core mechanic is a watered down version of the tried and trusted Vic Viper signature gameplay.

And there lies the problem: the way Ice Cream Surfer is designed means it falls into the time-honoured trap of Western developers just not getting it right where shmups are concerned. The power-up system lacks the element of choice and risk/reward that is present with Gradius, and is simply too random in nature. The fact that all enemies drop floating popsicles that rush towards you, filling the screen, is unnecessary in what is a fairly unsophisticated, non-bullet hell scenario.

There is an amusing selection of smart bomb attacks at the disposal of the menagerie of playable heroes, and a system of collecting letters that appear on the playing field, spelling out the words ICE CREAM and unlocking additional powerful attack states, which adds a nice extra layer to the game mechanics. There are unfortunately some sharp difficulty spikes – the third boss encounter in particular sees a sudden incline in terms of near-impossible to avoid attack patterns – and the overall solidity of the whole system means it is sorely lacking as a hori scroller and far inferior to other recent downloadable fare such as the stellar Sine Mora.

With options to play on or off screen, and support for the whole variety of Wii U control methods, Dolores have made good use of the console, and the title is an undoubted aesthetic treat with a likeable art style and some funny and diverse characters. There are some unlockable bits and bobs, but it won’t take long to traverse the six nice-looking yet short stages on offer.

VERDICT: Ice Cream Surfer tells the story of a maniacal vegetable hell bent on destroying the sugary world of the flying gelato-influenced heroes, but just as fast food and candy treats are light on essential nutrients and likely to do you more harm than good, this is a game that is probably best left on the shelf, with other far more healthy options available to the discerning shooter fan.

AVERAGE. The epitome of a 50/50 game, this title will be unspectacular but inoffensive, charmless but amiable. We aren’t condemning a game by scoring it a 5, but we certainly aren’t championing it, either.

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There are some games for which rose-tinted glasses are not required. No matter how far back through the time tunnel you’re squinting, they still runneth over with quality. Oddworld Inhabitants’ Abe’s Oddysee is one such title, a classic puzzle platformer with added stealth elements and unique mechanics that put it firmly ahead of its time.

The story is one of fate and heroism as you guide Abe in his attempt to escape the meat processing plant he works at, following his discovery that the meat his employers are putting into the innovative New ‘n’ Tasty recipe is harvested from the Mudokon workers. This realisation – and Abe’s subsequent mild-mannered rebellion – leads him towards his destiny as the Chosen One.

Given the sterling work done by Just Add Water in re-skinning and updating the excellent Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath, expectations were high for their reinvigoration of Abe’s first adventure, and it’s safe to say that those expectations have been exceeded. A game that didn’t have many faults to begin with is now close to flawless.

Without going back and playing the original, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what those faults were, but New ‘n’ Tasty presents such a polished package that it’s really quite unimportant now. The 2.5D world is highly detailed and beautifully rendered, brought up to date with the level of care and attention for which J.A.W are fast becoming known.

Such is the competence of the port that newcomers would be forgiven for thinking New ‘n’ Tasty was an original game, but if anything betrays the old school roots it’s the difficulty. Levels consist of freeing Abe’s fellow Mudokons and solving environmental puzzles, and sharp difficulty spikes abound. Abe is squishy, see, and has very few defensive or offensive capabilities. As a result, the Slig guards and wild, viciousScrabs must be avoided at all costs – not to mention a gameworld that really, really wants Abe dead.

New ‘n’ Tasty throws obstacles at you thick and fast, from motion trackers that will punish you with instant-death if you set them off, to deadly mines and falling boulders. Often timing is the key to success, but the death traps will lead unavoidably to an element of trial and error, facilitated by a fairly lenient checkpoint system. Creeping past a sleeping Slig is tense every time, and Abe’s ability to communicate via whistles, one-word inflections, and passing gas lead to some interesting interactions with NPCs.

Despite Abe’s gentle disposition, he’s not entirely helpless. Being the chosen one grants certain benefits, like being able to open sacred bird portals through which his Mudokon allies can escape, and through which he can fast travel to other areas. Holding down L2 and R2 will activate the chant, which can also possess the bodies of unsuspecting Sligs, enabling Abe to execute or disorientate his enemies. You can also find a variety of projectiles, from rare grenades to enemy-distracting stones.

If there’s a noticeable hangover from the original incarnation it’s in the platforming itself, which is still occasionally sluggish and imprecise. It’s a minor gripe, really, as the checkpoints are close and it’s only a real issue if you’re rushing – which is something you won’t often be called to do.

The “one life each” co-op mode returns, and is one of the most grin-inducing nods to the game’s antique nature. In a more modern twist, there are now leaderboards to satisfy all the die-hard competitors out there who simply must climb those ladders. More than this though, it’s to facilitate speed-running, which New ‘n’ Tasty is practically built for.

Of course, the graphical update is beautiful, presenting rich and varied environments that look like they’re part of a bigger world, and the sound design is largely untouched, retaining the same voice work and sound effects. The charm is palpable, seeping from New ‘n’ Tasty’s every pore, reminding us why we fell in love with Abe’s Oddysee in the first place.

VERDICT: If anyone knows how to bring a classic onto modern stage, it’s Just Add Water. Not just an excellent port of a great title, but a solid game in its own right, Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty is fully able to proudly rub shoulders with any puzzle-platformer released in the last ten years.

SUPERB. This is the mark of greatness, only awarded to games that engage us from start to finish. Titles that score 9/10 will have very few problems or negative issues, and will deliver high quality and value for money across all aspects of their design.

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You’ve all heard of Wii Sports by now. A genuine phenomenon in the world of games, one that you could play with your Nan, even if the swinging of the Tennis made her teeth fly out and land in the dog’s water bowl. It’s a known entity.

The idea of releasing the more beloved sports as a Wii U package, however, is an interesting one. There was always a heavy amount of confusion over the naming of Nintendo’s latest superb platform, and re-releasing a game that made the Wii so succesful might be asking for trouble. Despite that, Nintendo have made some tweaks to the content that make it worth considering.

Starting with Baseball, the clear winner on the disc, the GamePad comes into play as it should. Player one swings at the ball with the MotionPlus enabled Wiimote, sure, but the catching player uses the GamePad to line up a circle and catch the ball. Throwing a pitch is with the GamePad, too. You simply have to aim using the screen and press one of the corresponding face-buttons to choose which type of pitch you want to throw. It’s excellent and genuinely breathes new life into something I hadn’t played in years.

Bowling is identical, and so is Tennis. Both ask you to use the Wiimote as a substitute, and while bowling still feels excellent, time hasn’t been kind to the Tennis. Frustrating and awkward, I just couldn’t get on with it at all. Boxing is also pretty much the same as before, and still requires a couple of Wiimotes in order to get the most out of it.

And that’s where the biggest problem lies. To get the most out of Wii Sports Club, you need a couple of MotionPlus-enabled Wiimotes. It’s fair to assume most Wii U owners will own some Wii peripherals, but I’m not sure everyone will own two MotionPlus-enabled Wiimotes, which is required to play competitive offline Tennis.

Golf, however, remains excellent. In fact, it makes use of something Nintendo showed when they unveiled the Wii U. Place the GamePad on the floor and you will see your golf ball, allowing you to use the Wiimote to tee off. It’s the delivery of a promise, but it works well and adds immersion to a sport that was already represented incredibly well. It’s here that motion plus proves itself. Whereas in the other sports it feels a little tacked on, the accuracy added to the golfing feels great.

The biggest addition, of course, is the online multiplayer, which works well. This enlivens the Tennis, and while each sport remains fairly shallow, it adds legs to the overall package. Elsewhere there are training modes that let you practice your favourite sports, which is a nice touch. Rounding off the package is Miiverse integration, and the ability to join regional sports clubs to see who is the best at virtual sport. It’s another clever idea that proves this isn’t a lazy “HD” port, but it’s worth noting that it looks exactly as nice as you’d hope.

VERDICT: It’s a bit of a shame Nintendo didn’t see fit to mix Wii Sports and Resort together for this package, as some of the Resort activities are superior to the likes of Boxing and Tennis. Furthermore, the smart gamer would do well to buy the sports they are interested in separately, as the digital downloadable version of Wii Sports Club lets you do just that.

But this is still a game that revels in a party environment. Alone, there’s little to keep you coming back for too long, but after a few drinks, or with the family, Wii Sports continues to provide a good time. But please wear the straps when swinging the Wiimote; trust me, I’ve seen the damage first-hand.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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Shovel Knight instantly encourages comparisons. Mega Man here, Castlevania there, Super Mario Bros 3 on the map; the town is a bit Zelda II, oh look you can pogo like in Duck Tales. But to talk about Shovel Knight purely in similarities does the game a huge disservice.

Not that it’s a bad thing to talk about Shovel Knight in reference to other titles. Doing so does succinctly outlines many of its components – it’s more that doing this and not then acknowledging Shovel Knight’s independent success is just simply rude.

So let’s get the comparison’s out of the way, shall we? Mega Man is the most key and obvious influence on Shovel Knight. You play a rather squat blue character as he traverses through stages themed after bosses, with each stage containing numerous platforming and combat challenges that are often unique and designed in a style specific to that level (as is expected of a great platform game). Some platform challenges feel identical to Mega Man, in fact, but the melee style combat and extra traversal techniques here (such as pogo-ing with your shovel off of an enemy’s nonce) give Shovel Knight some unique spice to distance it from being a direct rip off of the blue bomber.

As for Castlevania? Well, ignoring the instant thematic similarities with knights, necromancers, skeletons and the like, within each level is a relic. These relics, once found, can be used in combat and traversal, but will consume hearts as you use them, similar to Castlevania’s own sub weapons. What separates the relics from said sub weapons is that once you find one in Shovel Knight you can swap between them freely to give you an edge as and when you need it, like Mega Man’s suit powers. Smart relic use leads to smart play, but more on that later.

After making all of these retro references, I feel a need to point to one of Shovel Knight’s key ideas that will make the game more approachable should you not be the sort to enjoy 80’s style difficulty barricades. I don’t mean that Shovel Knight isn’t a hard game (making that point for those that do like their retro games to be solid), because it can certainly be challenging, but it’s got frequent checkpoints you see.

So while Shovel Knight may carry the hallmarks of some of gaming’s oldest heroes, it’s very much a game made in the here and now. Not only are checkpoints generous but the game has a nice, almost heartwarming narrative tone, too. Not award winning, but it’s a sincere tale and something you likely wouldn’t expect from a game so clearly born of gaming’s early days.

It’s simple: Shovel Knight is fighting back against an encroaching evil after finally coming to terms with the loss of his beloved Shield Knight in a previous scuffle – but the game goes a long way to make you want to care about his simple plight. Dream sequences in which you’re asked to try and save Shield Knight are quaint, endearing and, as said, something more sincere than you’d expect from such a retro fuelled title.

And just in case I’ve made the game sound soft don’t worry, Shovel Knight can be just as demanding as you want it to be. Similarly to other modern retro games such as Mega Man 9, Shovel Knight’s real teeth can be found in its achievement list (which is all in-game, in case you’re playing on Wii U/3DS).

Alongside simply playing the core levels, Shovel Knight contains extra challenges. These range from minor stages that put relics to interesting use, optional bosses that provide fresh challenge, and even some silly sub games and achievements that put your control of Shovel Knight to the test.

And if the game still isn’t tricky enough? Again, achievements have you sorted. Remember I mentioned those checkpoints? You can break them all, rendering them useless but dolling out some extra treasure (which can be used to buy upgrades), and one achievement asks you to finish the game breaking every one, essentially turning Shovel Knight into a true retro minded title. Another challenges you to finish the game in an hour and a half, pushing Relic knowledge to the limit. Yet another tasks you with finishing the game without picking up any relics, testing just how good you actually are with that basic shovel.

Of course all of this would be for nothing if Shovel Knight didn’t play well, so it’s fortunate that it’s incredibly well-designed. The knight controls beautifully, reacting to every nudge and twitch of the controls (though you’ll likely want something better than an Xbox 360 D-Pad if possible), and enemies and bosses alike are a pleasure to analyse, fight and beat. But more than that, the levels encourage replayability by being succinct but varied, and just entertaining to perfect.

Shovel Knight is a genuine success. While early play will entice comparisons due to its clear reverence of the past, the true mark of the game’s quality is that, upon completion, you’ll simply refer to it’s many levels, bosses, and ideas, as Shovel Knight. The wonderful modern retro classic, Shovel Knight.

SUPERB. This is the mark of greatness, only awarded to games that engage us from start to finish. Titles that score 9/10 will have very few problems or negative issues, and will deliver high quality and value for money across all aspects of their design.

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It must be incredibly hard to take an established, much-loved franchise and translate it into a video game that not only resonates with existing fans of the source, but also pulls in new interest from the outside. It must be hard, because so few developers get it right. An obvious example is Rocksteady, who did wonders with Batman, but a less-thought-of example is High Moon Studios, whose Transformers games (War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron) did a great job of bringing the universe to life without having to rely on Michael Bay’s movie adaptations.

Unfortunately, Rise of the Dark Spark – the third game in the series and the first by developers Edge of Reality – feels like a step too far. Attempting to link High Moon’s universe with Age of Extinction produces complications in a convoluted and barely coherent plot, and Edge of Reality haven’t really brought anything new of their own to the franchise.

It begins on Earth, where Optimus, Bumblebee and a handful of mid-tier Autobots are engaged in conflict with the Decepticons over the titular Dark Spark, the antithesis to the Matrix of Leadership. The story flits between different timelines as Optimus fights against both Megatron and Lockdown in his attempt to destroy the Spark. As in previous games, you’re forced into the treads of whichever Transformer is currently relevant to the story, so you’ll play as a wide variety of characters – none of which are particularly compelling until you finally get to run around burning everything as Dinobot Grimlock.

All things considered equal, the storyline is at least fit for purpose, but sadly the game suffers elsewhere. Guns lack impact, despite the variety on offer, and although we’ve all watched Transformers take a serious pummelling in the movies, here it takes a frustratingly small amount of direct damage to reduce you to a pile of rivets and cogs. As a result, the combat leaves you feeling cold – which is a major issue as there is so much of it. Inconsistent checkpointing is a hitch, too, as you can often find yourself overwhelmed by hordes of infinitely-spawning grunts while you try to complete some menial objective or another.

When the primary positive in a shooter campaign is that it’s quite short, you know you’ve got problems, but for most of Rise of the Dark Spark I found myself gritting my teeth and ploughing on despite the fact that I simply wasn’t enjoying it. At times, it’s simply lifeless – and a whole section a few hours in where you’re trying to shoot flying and leaping Insecticons that you can barely keep up with is rage-inducing. The writing is also cheesy, and above-par voice acting can’t prevent the occasional cringe when characters drop irritating one-liners or the same looped dialogue over and over again.

Graphically it’s a mess. The environments are bland and featureless, and the animations don’t seem to have moved on at all since Fall of Cybertron, while the cutscenes have a horrible, washed-out grainy quality that reminded me of the PS2 days. Visual glitches like enemies that fall through the floor and occasional slowdown are just unacceptable in a shooter that, frankly, shouldn’t be taxing the PlayStation 4 in the slightest.

If there’s a saving grace it’s the multiplayer. Escalation mode returns, which is basically Horde Mode renamed. You and three others defend against increasingly hard waves of enemies, using turrets and barricades to set up tactical chokepoints around the map. Although the appeal starts to wear thin after a while, the huge number of unlockable characters (over forty across the two factions), guns, and perks offer a decent amount of variety. Running around as a Dinobot feels different to tearing up the skies as Starscream, for example, and the hacks (difficulty modifiers you apply either pre-match or at weapon lockers) allow you to add an extra layer of challenge in both Escalation and the campaign should you need it.

Similarly to Mass Effect 3, levelling up (or completing passive challenges) rewards you with gear boxes, which contain random items, characters, hacks, and abilities. You never know what you’re going to get when you open one, and there’s always a moment of excitement when you spring a new character or weapon upgrade.

In fact, it’s a shame that Rise of the Dark Spark doesn’t make a bigger deal of its upgrade and Gear Box system, as the option to improve each weapon (available across any of your unlocked characters) and the difference made by special abilities and hacks add a great deal to an otherwise very vanilla experience. Sadly, most of the cool stuff is hidden away in menus and you’re never really talked through it or taught how to maximise efficiency and, as a result, you could easily play for hours before you even realise you can improve yourself.

VERDICT: Rise of the Dark Spark is a step back from Fall of Cybertron, and that’s an utter travesty. High Moon did wonders with the last game, and this feels almost like a tacked-on expansion rather than a decent game in its own right. Bland visuals, uninspiring combat and a messy story can’t be saved by an enjoyable multiplayer mode or a set of underused sub-systems that even Edge of Reality seem to have forgotten about. Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark isn’t an awful game, but it’s a long way short of the bar set by High Moon.

AVERAGE. The epitome of a 50/50 game, this title will be unspectacular but inoffensive, charmless but amiable. We aren’t condemning a game by scoring it a 5, but we certainly aren’t championing it, either.

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Indie games seem to be particularly ripe for the porting right now, what with Microsoft and Sony intent on plugging the noticeable gaps in their 12-month launch windows with the “Definitive Edition” of pretty much everything. This month it’s the turn of Drinkbox’s Guacamelee!, a side-scrolling metroid-vania-alike that’s hitting all the consoles – including last gen – in a new and improved Super Turbo Championship Edition.

Guacamelee! tells the story of Juan, a wannabe Luchadore who is tragically killed when the evil Carlos Calaca ascends from hell with an army of skeletons and starts laying waste to Juan’s tiny village. Resurrected by a magical wrestling mask, Juan sets off on his quest to rescue his love and bodyslam Calaca once and for all.

Progress through the game’s various environs is steady, regulated by the age-old rule of drip-fed abilities. As you pursue Calaca, Juan is granted new powers by a goat that turns into an old man (or an old man that turns into a goat), and the Combo Chicken, which is, well, a giant chicken that teaches you combos. Guided by a benign spirit named Tostada (who becomes your suplex buddy in co-op mode), you travel around using Juan’s various powers to destroy the colour-coded blocks that impede your way. As with other games of this ilk, the more powers you unlock the more paths you can open and the more power-ups you can find.

Controlling Juan is a joy as he sprints and springs and uppercuts and ground-pounds, comboing enemies and seamlessly switching between the lands of the living and the dead to solve environmental puzzles and circumnavigate obstacles. The platforming is tight and responsive and the level design is consistently clever enough to keep you thinking about where you’re going and what you’re doing.

For a more detailed breakdown, check out Adam’s glowing review of the original game, but it’s suffice to say that besides the inclusion of a tasty DLC bundle and a handful of new areas, the biggest change is the addition of the Intenso mode. Now, Juan has a new meter filled by defeating enemies, and activating it sends him into overdrive, bolstering his combo speed and damage. It makes an already frantic game completely bonkers for a few minutes, especially if you use Intenso on a screen-full of enemies all at once.

Elsewhere, new areas and bosses add freshness, and unlockable costumes – bought with silver coins found in pinatas – range from the snazzy to the absurd. You can also save multiple games now, which is handy if you have more than one person in your house who wants to play. An interesting tweak is the ability to switch dimensions independently in co-op mode, which makes fighting those pesky blacked-out enemies easier as you can work in tandem with your partner.

Graphically, the Super Turbo Championship Edition isn’t much different, though on PS4 it does seem to be much slicker. The aesthetic is wonderfully charming throughout, and works brilliantly in conjunction with the off-the-wall humour. None of the dialogue is spoken, but the sound effects and, notably, the music, do a great job of selling the atmosphere.

VERDICT: Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition doesn’t get much wrong throughout, and the inclusion of new levels and enemies adds longevity to an already great experience. It can be a little repetitive if played for long periods, but the unique and likeable art-style and effortlessly enjoyable combat carry it through.

SUPERB. This is the mark of greatness, only awarded to games that engage us from start to finish. Titles that score 9/10 will have very few problems or negative issues, and will deliver high quality and value for money across all aspects of their design.

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Review code provided by publisher.

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Oh Japan, you be so crazy. I have no idea what is going on with One Piece Unlimited World Red. The adventure starts when the Straw Hat pirates spot an island, set off to explore it and are instantly kidnapped. The main protagonist, Monkey D. Luffy, Captain of the Straw Hats, sets off to save them from the clutches of what I’m assuming are series regular villains – he seems to recognise most of them anyway. And that’s the first barrier to entry: you’re very aware Unlimited World Red is part of a wider series.

Introduction to each character amounts to a few lines of text that flash briefly during the opening cutscene, and with several anime seasons alongside a staggering 35 other games in the series you can understand why – Ganbarion expects you to know who is who.

This should matter, it really should, yet somehow it doesn’t. Perhaps as a legacy of the volume of content to draw upon, each character has a unique personality. All are a little bit silly, but you have the big, hulking idiot, the more serious samurai, the giant talking squirrel. The cast is varied and great.

All of which is tied to a really satisfying combat system. You’ve got two attacks, mapped to square and triangle, which can be combined in combos and with a jump to defeat your enemies, and while this may sound sparse, the ability to swap between two other party members – chosen before you leave the central town – means you never get bored. Luffy uses his elasticated body to bounce around a battle, while the shipwright Franky can lay down a turret for other characters to use. When you’re not directly controlling them the A.I. does a good job of managing them, and battles become chaotic, enemies flying across the screen, your three heroes’ focal points drawing opponents in and then knocking them away. It feels like you’re playing an anime cartoon.

As you fight you’ll build an SP bar that allows you to unleash a special attack by pressing R1 and a face button, either by yourself or with all three characters. This triggers a short attack animation and most enemies just disappear.

There’s a plethora of baddies to beat up as well. There’re the standard goons, alongside some knight-type guys and, for some reason, a race of desert-dwelling seals, to name but a few. Boss battles dial things up a notch, too. At one point a dragon casually appears, which Luffy attacks for something to eat (because he’s just badass) while at another point a mad scientist has created a giant jam monster. It’s imaginative to say the least. There’s also a levelling system and “power words”. The latter are basically buffs you can assign to a character, boosting attack or a particular resistance.

Ganbarion have also included a town-building metagame to sink your teeth into. Plunder you find on your adventures, plus a little money, can be used to redevelop the town that serves as the hub for all of your adventuring. First construction is the tavern, where you can pick up side quests, while other options include a pharmacy to purchase health capsules (read: potions), and a factory that can upgrade your items.

The items in question come in the form of a bug net and a fishing rod that you can use at specific points in the wild to gain new items. Each triggers a mini-game that’s usually a variation on rhythm button pressing which, while not hard, do provide a bit of a refreshing break from the normal gameplay.

One cool feature is the option for a second player to jump in and control another party member. They’re able to freely roam the same zone as you, and obviously help in battle. For some reason the screen splits into two windows rather than half and half, wasting about a third of the screen in the process. It’s not too bad, but I can’t see why it couldn’t have just been split vertically.

Gameplay-wise, One Piece Unlimited World Red is more than solid, a case supported by the visuals. Everything is rendered in 3D animation, with the rippling clothing particularly impressive, and everything is bright and slightly exaggerated. The environments are diverse, featuring lava, ice and desert locales to show off the game’s breadth. It’s not challenging GTA V or the Uncharted series anytime soon, but it does look good, and on the smaller screens of a 3DS or a Vita it should look fantastic.

The original Japanese voice acting has been kept, something I know a lot of fans will be happy with, but the subtitle translation is solid, and it perfectly fits the over-exaggerated nature of Unlimited World Red – an English dub just wouldn’t sound right. You do have to be a quick reader though: a second or two longer on screen for some of the subtitles would have been nice.

It’s not perfect – after a while combat becomes a little one note, with you simply button mashing until everything on screen is dead, and the wider plot is a little hard to follow – but Unlimited World Red is consistently enjoyable.

VERDICT: If One Piece is a series you follow, my words aren’t going to impact your choice to buy this. But if, like me, you’re new to the series, Unlimited World Red is surprisingly enjoyable. It’s all silly and over the top, full of daft enemies and exaggerated characters, and it positively screams “I am a game! Have fun with me!” Sometimes, though, that’s exactly what you want.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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Review code provided by publisher.

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The premise of Pullblox World is pretty simple, but it disguises a fiendish heart. A group of children has gotten lost in a series of puzzles in Pullblox Park, and it’s down to you to free them. You do this by reaching the top of each puzzle, pushing and pulling blocks to create platforms to climb.

The challenge comes from the constraints Pullblox World sets. Each block can be pulled out up to three times from the background, and you can only pull them out if you have room to stand on the level below whilst doing so: so if the level below is two out, then you can only pull out a block to one depth. Pulling a block also moves all connected blocks of the same colour. It means that rather than just a single cube, you have to deal with pieces that can stretch off the screen, requiring forward planning.

To help you do this there is an overview mapped to the right trigger and a rewind function on the left. At first I didn’t see the point of the latter – there’s a reset button in front of the puzzle – but on later levels it’s a godsend for when you miss a jump and fall to the start, as you often have to block your way back up to progress higher, which would cause a total restart.

All of which should be easy – and at the start it is, the first 30 levels rarely caused me to pause – but Pullblox World ramps up the difficulty when it starts adding gadgets. These take the form of buttons that move in or push out blocks of a certain colour across the level, requiring a study of the overall puzzle before pressing in case they will make other areas inaccessible. There are also ladder pipes that move you between two entrances once they’ve been uncovered. The combinations these create can be dizzying, massive puzzles that take a lot of thought before starting, and a lot of trial and error.

Despite the difficulty, though, Pullblox World is rather forgiving. As well as the rewind feature, which has an incredibly generous timespan, there is also a skip button that allows you to progress to the next puzzle with no penalty. It prevents frustration, though I never found myself having to use it.

There are other distractions outside of the main series of puzzles. There’s a practise area where can familiarise yourself with the mechanics of the game, alongside an area where you can create and share your own Pullblox creations. It’ll add longevity to a game where you can race through the majority of puzzles, although there are so many in the main campaign that they’ll be replayable.

The levels themselves are nicely designed; early on they are just shapes, but as you progress you come across a boat, a fish and even some Nintendo themed stages for a bit of fan service.

The target audience is a little vague however. The visuals are cutesy and cartoony – it feels like you’re playing a Teletubbies (are they still a thing?) game at times – with music to match. Clearly this is all aimed at kids, and that’s fine, but while it starts simply, it does get quite hard as you progress, and I can’t imagine children being able to do some of the later levels. I guess this makes the rewind and skip functions more relevant, but even with them I think Pullblox may be too hard.

There’s also the matter of slightly woolly controls. While the puzzle element is obviously the main aspect of the game, there is some platforming skill required, but the jump controls don’t offer much precision. It’s a small niggle, and something the rewind feature negates, but it shouldn’t be there at all.

VERDICT: If you’re in the market for a little puzzler for your Wii U, Pullblox is for you. The amount of content straight out of the box, as well as the potential for thousands of player made levels, means you’ll get value for money. The simplicity of the concept also means that anyone can pick it up and play, although later levels may get a bit too much for younger children.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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Review code provided by publisher.

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You have to hand it to Wales Interactive for their genius in coming up with a game featuring badgers in space, then giving it a radical theme tune for its title screen that wouldn’t feel out of place in an 80s Saturday morning cartoon.

You can imagine my disappointment and horror to find that once I got past this impressive opening, I then had to play a disappointing physics-based puzzler that looks and plays like an unpolished ripoff of Angry Birds Space, mixed with a very similar game I reviewed earlier this year for iOS, Interplanetary Drift.

Before I stick the boot in, here’s the simple premise. Playing as the eponymous Badgers of Gravity, or rather the leader, Captain T. Bayback, you are in charge of rescuing your squad and the universe itself from the dreaded Evil Honey Badgers (who may, or may not, give a toss). Each chapter in the game is preceded by a beautifully painted piece of artwork, which is static and unfortunately doesn’t really explain what’s going on, not that it really matters. Every now and then, there’ll be some non-animated in-game cutscenes with poor dialogue between the various members of the team, including some awful puns, but that’s your lot as far as narrative goes.

In any case, this sets up over 100 single-screen puzzles where you need to catapult your badger through space and into a wormhole, using the gravitational pull of planets to guide you where you need to go. In true Angry Birds style, you drag your badger back before letting go and seeing if the aim and power are correct to get to the end of the level. Repetitive trial and error is the key here, as well as luck, it seems, as it often feels like you’re pulling your badger the exact same way only to catapult him/her in different directions. All too often, your badger decides to fly off while you’re trying to drag, which is also an annoyance, as is the camera automatically zooming out when you’re trying to line up a shot. As a result, each time you start a level, it’s best to manually zoom out with the right analog stick, just to make sure the view doesn’t zoom out when you least expect it (usually a millisecond before you let go).

Each level has three glowing orbs to collect in order to unlock achievement-style rankings that don’t really do anything. There are also a few environmental hazards and helpers such as a static enemy that occasionally floats around to get in your way, portals, laser grids that open the wormhole when tripped, and blocks of ice that stop you and allow you to change direction.

A boss “fight” also occurs at the end of each chapter, which basically involves you continually moving to dodge their laser attacks until they get bored and blow up. It’s as dull as you can imagine, especially when, like the rest of the game, there’s barely any challenge whatsoever. While a game like Angry Birds relies on the nuance of its physics to create challenge and keep you playing, here each level just seems like more of the same. I rarely spent more than a couple of minutes on a level, and most of the time I was just finishing them all in one turn.

The presentation is just dreadful, and it feels like the entire budget of money and effort was spent on the title screen and the painted cutscenes. The irritating in-game music constantly loops, along with the dull sound effects, while the visuals are worth, with absolutely no animation and the same art assets used throughout.

VERDICT: Lifeless, unpolished and uninspired. These are all words used to describe such a dull ripoff. This game gives badgers a bad name and, quite frankly, unlike the real creature, these badgers should be culled.

BAD. Ugly, lazy, and unpleasant, if we’ve scored a game so low then it has serious issues. A 3/10 game will suffer from a combination of uninspired, lacklustre design, unfixed bugs and poor presentation.

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Review code provided by publisher.

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Minimalism in gaming can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the simple idea can be easy to grasp and quicker to enjoy, but without some sort of depth, simplicity quickly becomes tedium. Abyss straddles the line between enjoyment and boredom, regularly tipping towards the latter.

For a start, there is no narrative to speak of, unless you read the incredibly small digital manual. In the far future, you control a small submersible device named Nep2no, collecting spheres of a new energy resource named Gaia. This resource is deep underwater, located in dark and perilous caverns, and the tight space of this environment, along with the fragile nature of your craft, is where Abyss’ challenge comes in.

Being underwater, Nep2no isn’t the easiest of things to handle. Controlled by turning left and right and engaging your thrusters with the A button (not that the manual or game will tell you this, as you need to figure this out), the water current is constantly dragging you down – think Nintendo’s Balloon Fight, and you almost have the idea. You’ll quickly realise that small movements are the order of the day, and considering there is no time limit as such, patience is key in order to collect the six required Gaia spheres and find the exit to each of the 12 short levels that comprise the main game.

Although there’s no real time limit, the levels are dark, mainly lit by Nep2no’s own light source, which constantly depletes and needs to be replenished by collecting Gaia. This adds a miniscule amount of urgency, but still gives you plenty of time to get where you need to. Even with the challenging controls, you’ll probably whizz through these levels in an hour or two. Then, you’ll be able to access the Dark Gaia mode, where 8 Gaia are required instead of 6 and the levels are harder. An arcade time trial mode is also available, but does little to increase longevity; as with the main game, high scores are offline only, giving you little reason to replay levels other than to beat your own score. A 2-player mode is also available, where one player uses the GamePad, and the other uses the TV and Wiimote, but it’s nothing special.

You can play Abyss on the TV or GamePad, but the simplistic graphics look equally dull on either. You’ll also have to get used to the same couple of atmospheric tracks playing throughout, which suit the “action” but ultimately get as repetitive as the game itself.

VERDICT: Abyss is as “OK” as a game gets. Presentation and gameplay-wise, it’s very unmemorable, and there’s not really any particularly reason for recommending this eShop purchase, save for its very low price. For better or worse, it’s a game that harks back to a very old-school style, but there just isn’t enough of a hook to satisfy the player.

AVERAGE. The epitome of a 50/50 game, this title will be unspectacular but inoffensive, charmless but amiable. We aren’t condemning a game by scoring it a 5, but we certainly aren’t championing it, either.

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Review code provided by publisher.

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Nintendo have opted to keep things simple with Mario Kart 8, and just as Super Mario 3D World was a HD version of Super Mario 3D Land (and much more, obviously), that same pattern applies here. It would have been daft to change how Mario Kart plays, after such incredible sales of the 3DS version, and so you’ll be able to pick up and play instantly, which is part of why it is so phenomenally playable.

Focussing instead on getting the online right is a smart move, as that’s a thing Nintendo are rightly criticised for doing poorly. Here, you can create tournaments, selecting from a multitude of options to truly make the rules apply to your friend group. Moreover, you can make these tournaments run weekly, set the time they start and finish, and even name the opposing teams. Share the created code and you will be playing regularly before you know it. Although I was only able to test the online modes a few times, it did seem very stable, and brutally competitive. At the time of writing, I’ve just finished eight in three consecutive races against people from all around Europe. If you fancy a more quickly accessible approach to online multiplayer, there are options to do it in both solo and two-player mode.

Offline, however, it’s a shame that you can’t have one player on the TV screen, and another on the GamePad. For four player action, sure, it makes sense to throw everyone into their own on-screen quadrant, but in two-player it would be excellent to have one player use the TV while the other used the gamepad. It’s not a terrible omission, but given the fact that the fourth part of the screen shows the person in the lead even in three-player offline play, it is definitely a weird one.

One major issue, however, arises if you choose to use a Wii remote. By default, every single time you start a Grand Prix, it will be set to use motion controls. What this means is that if you want to use the Wiimote as a standard controller, you’ll have to (without fail) pause the game right after the race starts, and switch it from motion to standard, which is hugely annoying.

As usual, the Grand Prix mode is made up of eight cups, of which four contain new tracks, and the other four host remakes of old tracks. Thankfully, the older offerings have had attention lavished upon them. For example, the N64 Toad’s Turnpike (the one that has moving traffic throughout) now allows you to get onto the walls and avoid oncoming cars, thanks to the new gravity wheels, and so on. It’s nice to see a track and think “I know this one!” only to have it turned ever so slightly on it’s head, making it new again.

The new tracks obviously focus on that mechanic, too, and are enjoyable. Some will disorientate you ever so slightly, but only the first time. Going from being upside down to suddenly driving through the water, then back out again shows the Nintendo creativity we’ve come to love over the years. There are specific highlights, of course, including a downhill ski-slope track that, despite having three laps, is in fact one long course that culminates in a rush downhill to the finish line. Rainbow road is represented well, too, with a superb new track and the N64 version, too. Eventually all tracks are available in mirror mode, which adds a tiny bit of life, but you’ll quickly find your favourites and race on them.

Sadly, battle mode doesn’t have unique tracks designed for it; instead you’ll be using the courses you play in GP. It’s slightly lazy, in truth, but the focus is very clearly on the online GP modes and tournaments, and Nintendo really have gotten that aspect spot on.

In the power-up department, the horrific blue shell returns. Some may like it, but I’m not a fan at all, as it removes the importance of skill. Younger players will love it, but racing well doesn’t matter if someone can hit you with that blue shell, before another three players ram you with a multitude of other items, putting you back to fifth after holding a lead for two full laps. That said, at least this time it goes along the ground and punishes others if they are in the way. New to MK8 is the horn which appears to be a way to stop the blue shell, though the opportunities to do so are fairly rare, and require everything to align just right. Also new is the particularly useful piranha plant, which automatically chomps at coins, enemies, and obstacles. The boomerang is another decent new power-up, as you can throw it three times and it can hit multiple opponents, and you may need every one of the power-ups, because 150cc is harder than ever before.

Every fifty coins you collect unlock a new vehicle customisation, and although there are plenty to play around with, you’ll find what works for you pretty swiftly (I’m a four wheels kind of guy; you can keep your motorbikes). If you’re half-decent at Mario Kart, you’ll have revealed all of the unlockable characters before you even start 150cc, too, because you get one for winning each Grand Prix. They are exactly who you’d expect them to be, with metallic versions thrown in to bolster the roster.

But it’s the visuals that mark the biggest jump in the series; because they look incredible. Nintendo’s first party titles always look good, and thanks to Super Mario 3D World (and many others) we’ve already seen how good they look in HD, but it’s the design that stands out. Honestly, only seeing it in person does it justice, and the single player frame-rate adds to that feeling you’re seeing something visually spectacular. There’s always an undercurrent of “when it’s ready” with Nintendo games, and it’s hard to be angry about that when you see how bug-free and well designed they are.

When it comes to the audio, you can probably predict what you’ll get. Chirpy tunes full of brass and lead guitar dictate the stellar soundtrack, with the usual blurted catchphrases litter Mario Kart 8, and you can now use a large button in the middle of the GamePad to sound your horn. Speaking of the GamePad, I quickly hit the button that shows the overhead view of the race, but you can (of course) play the entire game off-screen, if you fancy getting a few games in on the quiet while the TV is otherwise engaged.

Mario Kart TV (MKTV) is one of the largest new additions, and allows you to watch a race after finishing and edit the clip with a view to showing it off, thanks to a YouTube upload option. You can change the replay’s focus, be it on the items, boosts, or even specific racers. You can watch your friend’s clips, too, or just check out the best (or most recent) clips worldwide. It’s a nice idea and works well, with the option to “star” up to six completed races to mark them a favourite, but (and I know this is a minor quibble) when you finish a race, the first option highlighted is the replay, whereas most will, after a while, just want to continue onwards, and will have to move down and hit a different option.

VERDICT: The most important thing is that Mario Kart 8 is just a whole lot of fun. Whether you’re on your own, or playing with any number of friends, you’re assured of a good time. The happiness on my childrens’ faces while playing was a joy, and then, suddenly, you notice you are smiling too.

It may not be revolutionary, but it adds just enough to pique interests while keeping the core experience we’ve all grown up with, regardless of age. Mario Kart is one of those timeless franchises that every age group can enjoy, and sometimes, that’s enough to celebrate.

 SUPERB. This is the mark of greatness, only awarded to games that engage us from start to finish. Titles that score 9/10 will have very few problems or negative issues, and will deliver high quality and value for money across all aspects of their design.

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Review code provided by publisher.

The post Mario Kart 8 Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Scram is south wales slang for a cat scratch, so says Scram Kitty lead designer and founder of Dakko Dakko Rhodri Broadbent. That means that the title of this game is actually cat scratch kitty, or scratch kitty for short. It’s an apt warning: Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails stings.

But it stings in a good way. Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails is a tough game, you see, born from the ideologies of the NES and SNES, asking the player for perfection in play lest they feel the scratch and sting of the failure and restart. Much like a real cat, then, this kitty has claws.

And perfection won’t come easy, largely thanks to the game’s wonderfully unique gameplay. Part platformer, part shooter, Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails casts you as the buddy on rails, riding your spinboard – part skateboard, part magnetic discus – along the walls of a gigantic space station, shooting outwards at the pesky cat-kidnapping super mice that are trying to halt your attempts to rescue the titular scratch cat.

It takes a little chunk of time to acknowledge just what’s going on simply because Scram Kitty is rather unlike anything you’ll have encountered in the past. Movement around the levels demands that you trace the walls with the stick or d-pad, an initially alien concept but one that, like much of Scram Kitty, becomes satisfying with practise.

As well as grinding the rails you can jump, but you’ll always magnetise back onto the rail you leapt from unless you practically touch another with your arc. You can bounce on a rail for the flaming bounce to attack and go further, too, but this brings a list of extra precautions and considerations with it. And of course you can shoot, but only in a straight line away from the rail.

Not only are you trying to understand how to play a shooter from a linear path, you’re also experimenting with gravitational pulls, worrying about constantly shifting shot trajectories, trying to avoid waves of enemy fire and work out how to use your limited skillset to deal with the plague of enemies trying to eject you from your rail while searching for the stage’s conclusion, all without dying.

Yet because Scram Kitty is so unique, this is what makes it so enjoyable to play. This is a new game, a different game to what you’ve experienced in this genre before, and it’s so beautifully constructed that, once it clicks, it clicks. Sure your arm will be riddled with angry, glowing injuries from the countless teething failures, but achieving perfection and playing Scram Kitty well is such an absolute delight that the pain is worth it.

There’s an arcade beauty to it. Tracing the wall with your left thumb has a Pac-Man like satisfaction as practise sees you glide around the arcs and twists of a level, while nailing pesky mech mice with precise shots from your locked angle has distinct echoes of classics like Space Invaders and Galaxian, albeit with a thoroughly modern flavour.

But it’s when you start to get really good, when you start feeling those “perfect run” vibes (something you’ll need in the timed Challenge mode, where you must go from level 1 to the end within a time limit) that Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails becomes a beautiful game. A game where motion is never ending, where brave slingshots around gravity sources are used to rescue kitties more efficiently and without error. Where you navigate a maze that once stumped you with the grace of a ballistic ballerina. Scram Kitty is a game that doesn’t just demand that you learn to play it well, it’s a game that makes playing it well a unique joy. Similar to a classic shooter like Ikaruga, or a speed platformer like Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails has that engrossing vibe and those perfect controls that make playing well its own reward.

If a criticism must be levelled at Scram Kitty, then the Wii U implementation isn’t truly integral to the title despite the use of the second screen being quite fun. You play on the Gamepad (or TV; it can be swapped) while the TV shows a cinematic view of the action, with Scram Kitty rearing his cute anime face to offer hints and provide “wider” views of the game’s tougher moments. It’s not essential – the designer describes it more as a spectator view – but I can attest to having an onlooker offer advice during gameplay that was genuinely helpful, creating a pseudo co-op experience. Again, not essential, but interesting.

If you wanted to level another complaint, it’s that some may call it “short”. It will take roughly 5-6 hours to rescue Scram Kitty, and about 8-9 to rescue every cat – each level contains four cats, one for reaching the level exit, one for defeating a level’s mouse commander, one for collecting 100 pennies, and another you have to chase around the stage. With that said, the extra challenge mode truly evokes the game’s retro heritage, and provides a task so tough it will extend the game’s life many times over for the dedicated.

It would have been easier for Dakko Dakko to create twice the content at half the quality, but instead Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails is a game in which no level, challenge, enemy or mechanic feels surplus or overused. Every level has something that helps it standout and feel unique, and it’s the combination of strong stage variety with unique, taut and enthralling controls that makes Scram Kitty such a superb game to play.

VERDICT: Kitties have claws, and kitties scratch. Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails certainly does this through its difficulty and unique controls. Yet cats also have a unique trait: for all their peculiar habits, their demanding nature and their tendency to puke in the hallway overnight, they’re inescapably lovable because of what they are. Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails, with its strange design and riveting gameplay, echoes this side of the feline personality, too. Captivating stuff.

SUPERB. This is the mark of greatness, only awarded to games that engage us from start to finish. Titles that score 9/10 will have very few problems or negative issues, and will deliver high quality and value for money across all aspects of their design.

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The post Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

“Smack upside the head.”

This was the point at which The Amazing Spider-Man 2 lost me. It happened fairly early on – and I wasn’t holding on particularly tight even then – but it lost me. It’s Spider-Man who delivers the line, and he isn’t being sarcastic, it isn’t a joke. No, he says it, straight faced, to a random goon in a cut-scene. We’re through the looking glass people.

With writing like that you won’t be surprised to hear that the plot is a shambles. It begins with a Russian gang – comprised of one dude copy and pasted X amount of times – starting a gang war in New York. A private military corporation is brought in, leading to tanks on the streets and drones in the sky. It’s exactly the plot of Saints Row the Third, except where that was satire, this is meant to be serious. Even then, the city officials in Saints Row realise it’s a terrible idea in the end, while here a post credit sequence shows a telephone conversation with the mayor on how good an idea it is to keep this “task force” around. If a deliberate piss-take can’t keep a straight face with this plot, how the hell can The Amazing Spider-Man 2?

Of course, there’s more to it than that. Villains from the Spider-Man mythos are drafted in; every character that gets any detail at all you will eventually have to fight. Black Cat, Green Goblin (the one from the movie), they’re all here, with terribly written lines and hammy acting.

Oh God (whom art a geek), the cut-scenes. I don’t even know where to begin. Spider-Man fidgets and lunges like a junkie in need of a fix, with dialogue that barely makes sense at times. Same goes for the handful of random lines he’ll say during gameplay. I get that Spider-Man is meant to be an arrogant, cocky teenager – that’s his personality – but he even manages to be a patronising dick to the player – try and web swing without any buildings nearby and he’ll smirk: “Oops! I need something to swing off!” Silly player!

Ah, the swinging, the best part of being Spider-Man. Get that right and nothing else really matters. Well, they got it wrong. The triggers control the left and right arms respectively, which, while giving a bit more agency to you, makes getting into the rhythm of swinging a little difficult, particularly turning. One button was enough for Spider-Man 2, and that was a decade ago.

That’s when The Amazing Spider-Man 2 lets you swing of course. There’s a mandatory reputation system in the game, to get you to do the random tasks scattered around the city; rescue people form a fire, catch a stolen car, etc… But neglect these things and your level drops, with the police and task force harassing you when all you want to do is explore a bit. It doesn’t help that the tasks are mind-numbingly dull, but after each main mission the game seems to set your reputation at a predetermined level – aka low – so you exit a mission and immediately have to do some tasks or you can’t just do what you want. The missions are no better: linear slogs through confined areas, beating up everyone you can see.

And all of this is a shame because there is potential here. The devs have clearly been inspired by Rocksteady’s Batman games, and that is only a positive thing. Spider-Man has an attack, a counterattack and a web-shoot button, although most fights, including boss-battles, devolve into hammering square until everybody’s dead. But the way Spiderman flits between targets – basically at random due to atrocious aiming – is almost seamless, bouncing off one, sliding behind another. It’s almost good. It could have been.

Also borrowed from the Dark Knight are cavernous rooms full of baddies to pick off. In theory, Spider-Man 2 is almost more suited to this that the Bat: he can stick to walls rather than relying on gargoyles being the must have decor feature of the season. Sadly, these bits are let down by poor controls on anything other than the ground, a lack of aiming and a stealth button that only works within a few feet of the enemy, even if you’re perched directly above him.

Despite this glimmer though, there’s worse to come. Bugs are everywhere, Spider-Man clipping through himself, enemies that can see through walls, and enemies that – if you perform a finishing move on them – can go through walls. Texture pop in levels are dreadful, too, and at times you could mistake it for a PS2 game, and overall there’s a lack of polish. For a game setting you back £50 on a next-gen console, you’d expect more.

VERDICT: There is potential here. I don’t know if it was time, money or the will, but it could have been special. The combat isn’t far off decent, it’s just a shame that it’s tied to the rest of the package.

Let me put it to you this way. I actually stopped playing The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to do some other work. I’d play a mission, decide I couldn’t take any more and go do something else instead, just to get away from it. Quite frankly, that’s the opposite of what a game should be.

BAD. Ugly, lazy, and unpleasant, if we’ve scored a game so low then it has serious issues. A 3/10 game will suffer from a combination of uninspired, lacklustre design, unfixed bugs and poor presentation.

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Review code provided by publisher.

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There must be something in the water at Ubisoft at the moment. Not usually known for creating RPGs, they absolutely blew us away with South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Child of Light now follows suit, being yet another joyful experience that also looks wonderful from start to finish.

There’s something almost deceptive about that glorious UbiArt engine at first. Maybe it’s because it was previously seen in Rayman Legends, but for the first moments, you don’t realise you’re actually playing a deep RPG and not a platform game. There are elements of a platformer here, sure, and you are moving around an environment presented like a beautiful water-colour painting, but make no mistake: this is an RPG through and through (despite some rudimentary platform-based puzzles here and there), and as such is a lovely surprise.

But I can’t gloss over the visuals so quickly, because this is, without question, one of the prettiest games I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. You’ve probably seen screenshots, maybe even videos, but nothing does the game justice like playing it in person. A breath of fresh air, the characters are rendered as though straight out of a Disney film, and there is never a single moment you won’t be in awe of how great it looks. Transitions between levels and areas are swift and there are barely enough loading screens to mention here, but each locale has a distinct visual flair to it, whether you are traversing a dark, underground lava cave, or a village full of mouse-people that has the hustle and bustle to match.

The audio is spectacular as well. There’s a theme to Child of Light that repeats throughout, but the orchestral accompaniment really matches the visuals well, touching on melancholia, desperation, and joy. Voice acting is used sparingly, as most of the dialogue is left for you to read, but when it does there are some odd pronunciation kinks, which is possibly in service of something wholly unique to Child of Light: everything rhymes.

I’m not just talking bits and bobs here, either – absolutely every piece of written text or spoken dialogue rhymes, apart from the descriptions in the menus. It’s tremendously amusing at times, and shows some bothersome writing at others, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Certain words are eschewed in favour of quirkier, less common terms, and whether the occasional instance of awkward wording irks you is purely down to personal preference, and while I liked it, it isn’t without fault.

On that note, the writing isn’t perfect, either. The story is a akin to a Disney princess tale, with you playing as Aurora, a young girl who is trying to save her dying father. In truth, there are some oddities in the narrative, and some blanks that are never quite filled in. For example, the story starts with Aurora falling asleep and finding herself in Lemuria (the place the entire game is set). Her father, stricken with grief, falls ill himself – and thus the tale turns on its head, with Aurora journeying to save herself, and Lemuria, along the way. Ultimately, however, the quest is to find celestial objects, and kill the bad guys. It becomes a rite of passage adventure, really, mostly dealing with themes of abandonment and loss, and although it’s presented in a very palatable manner, it’s hard not to feel for Aurora’s plight.

It’s well paced, and you’ll meet new characters (and party members) at regular intervals. The best thing about this is that despite there being no traditionally labelled class system, every single party member has personality, and brings something different to a battle. As the titular Child of Light, Aurora battles with a sword and light magic, obviously powerful against dark creatures. Other characters have various different skills: one late in the game is a veritable tank when it comes to physical attacks, but has no magic to speak of. Finn (the bearded chap seen in various screenshots) is the mage, and you’d be wise to spend his skill points quickly to get “lightning-all”, whereas other characters are primarily able to buff one another, or debuff the enemy.

This is all so vitally important, because the enemies are often elemental, and will use numerous irritating techniques such as slowing you down, speeding themselves up, shielding themselves, etc. In fact, Child of Light most reminds me of when the Final Fantasy series was great, and that’s a very good thing indeed.

The battle system is complicated to explain, but actually fairly intuitive and easy to get to grips with. On a very basic level, there are two stages to the turn-based active-time-battle on offer. There will be a bar on the bottom of the screen displaying which stage every character is at (enemies included). The blue section is the largest part, and this it the “wait” phase. During this stage you can plan what you intend to do, while also feeling the ramifications of previous turns, and what the enemy has done to you.

At the end of the wait period, you will stop at the “cast” phase. Here you can choose what you wish to do, be it defend (instantly) or attack. Each attack or magic-based skill has a casting period, varying from medium to very long – obviously the more powerful the skill, the longer it takes to cast. During the cast phase you can be interrupted if hit, which causes you to be set back to the waiting phase, which you (obviously) don’t want – but you can do the same to your enemy, so if you have a character who is particularly fast at casting their easiest attack, you can interrupt the enemy, even if you’re facing a boss.

If that doesn’t sound complicated enough, throughout your journey you have a glowing ball of light called Igniculus with you. Using the right analog stick, you move him around the environment and make him focus on enemies by holding the trigger, which slows down their timeline. This adds immensely to the tactical nature of the battles, giving you more than one thing to focus on at any given time. Maybe if you slow down that boss enough, your slower caster can get their spell out without interruption. You can also heal your party by focusing on them, but of course doing this means you’re not slowing the enemy. Igniculus also has a finite amount of energy, refillable by hovering over flowers during the battle (or in the outside world, too). These replenish during the really long fights, but it’s still worth keeping an eye on that energy bar.

Out in the overworld, Igniculus can get to areas Aurora cannot, and there are numerous chests and collectibles that he is invaluable in finding. There are a decent amount of side-quests on offer too, some of which are obvious, and a few which are slightly more obtuse – in fact, some are hindered by the rhyming structure. It’s worth mentioning that Child of Light can be played co-operatively, with the second player controlling Igniculus, which is a lovely way to play with a friend, or perhaps even aimed at getting younger gamers involved. Solo players on PlayStation 4 can use the touchpad as a mouse, with a click of the pad holding the focus but, in honesty, I found the stick to be the easier way to control things.

Elsewhere, there are skill trees for every single character, with each offering three routes. By the time I’d completed Child of Light I had every character at around level 47, with about 75% of their skill trees completed. You’ll level up an awful lot after you get into the game, and thankfully even if not used in a battle, other party members will still level up. There are also collectible items that immediately add points to specific stats: health, strength, magic defence, etc.

You don’t have to worry about weapons, but there is a crafting system called Oculi. Each character has three Oculi slots, all of which buff them in some way. Three of the same Oculi crafted together will level it up, until you are creating “brilliant” versions of them. A brilliant diamond is a must-have, as it will buff your XP by a high percentage each battle, whereas others add fire damage. Take that same Oculi that adds fire damage and put it in another slot and it will instead add fire protection – it’s that kind of system. It’s oddly satisfying to notice that you now suddenly have the three requisite coloured Oculi to make a diamond one, before suddenly falling down a small rabbit hole and crafting lots of better ones, and re-equipping them.

It’s all wonderfully deep, and, to be frank, excellent. But it’s not all perfect. For starters, it’s far too easy. I never saw a Game Over sign once during the entire playthrough, and in fact, I only ever had to revive a character in battle four times. There’s a hard mode, of course, and I’d recommend that seasoned RPG fans make use of that from the start. Also, the enemy design is rather lacklustre. Spiders, winged beasts, ghostly apparitions and the like are everywhere in the open world. You can actually ignore a lot of them, but to fight them you can approach from behind to get a surprise first attack, though they can do the same. The problem is that there’s not enough variation. Having a spider glow red and be on fire (because he’s a fire-element spider, so, you know, use water against him) is about as varied as it gets. Even the bosses are very similar in nature, aside a few.

Though there were moments where I feared Child of Light would outstay its welcome, it is just the right length, wrapping up inside a cool 12-15 hours and allowing you to go back after the credits roll to mop up any side quests or max out your skill trees. One word of caution, mind, is that it funnels you into the end game fairly suddenly. After the mid-point, the goal becomes clearer, and you know exactly how many story bosses there are left to fight. The last two happen in quick succession, so know that if you are about to go after the penultimate boss, you’re going to see the credits roll before you can go back and explore.

VERDICT: It’s so pleasing to see a game this gorgeous actually back that up with impressive gameplay, as long as you’re a fan of the genre, that is. An impressively deep RPG that actually bothers to make each party member feel different in combat, while telling a story that most will relate to in some way or another, Child of Light is full of whimsy, yet also full of heart and never gets boring.

Although it’s a bit too easy, and doesn’t offer very much post-game content, this is a surprisingly brilliant game that tries something new and succeeds way more often than it fails. Child of Light is full of character and personality, and is probably one of the best looking games you’ll play this year, relying on design instead of power. Give it a go, you’ll find it very hard not to fall in love with Aurora’s tale, and the land of Lemuria.

SUPERB. This is the mark of greatness, only awarded to games that engage us from start to finish. Titles that score 9/10 will have very few problems or negative issues, and will deliver high quality and value for money across all aspects of their design.

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The original NES Remix was a pleasant surprise from Nintendo, a unique way for them to once more mine their expansive archives for classic games, but also offer them in a quick fire presentation, not unlike Intelligent Systems’ WarioWare series.

The premise is so very simple, yet so very well executed: rather than being offered carte blanche access to a series of classic NES games in their entirety, you take part in bite-sized segments of gameplay, while given a specific instruction to carry out, such as collecting 10 coins in Super Mario Bros. 3, or uppercut Von Kaiser in Punch-Out!!.

While the first Remix focused on the early years of the Nintendo Entertainment System, this time around we’re mainly looking at the later years of the console’s life, all the way up to its final game, Wario’s Woods. While there aren’t as many games on show here as in the predecessor, the overall package contains games of a far better quality, including Metroid, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels, Dr. Mario, Kirby’s Adventure, Kid Icarus, NES Open Tournament Golf, Ice Hockey, Wario’s Woods, Zelda II and Punch-Out!!.

Rather than offer demonstration videos that talk you through the basic controls of each game, this second Remix takes a different approach, with the initial challenges of each game showing you the ropes, and gradually introducing abilities and gameplay aspects that are needed to tackle some of the later challenges. Completing challenges in faster times will mean better rankings and more points, which unlock special stamps for use in the Miiverse.

But the real draw here are the Remix challenges themselves, wherein the NES games we know and love have been warped, twisted and mashed up. Play as Link, trying to collect coins in one of Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Level’s hidden areas, or try to finish one of Super Mario Bros. 3’s trickier platforming levels, while ignoring the two clone Mario’s either side of the one you’re controlling. These different takes on old favourites are challenging, funny or just plain cool, with some very clever and imaginative stages.

Should you own the original NES Remix, you’ll get a new Championship Mode, a slightly amended version of the original Nintendo World Championships from 1990, where you must collect 50 coins in Super Mario Bros., 25 coins in Super Mario Bros. 3 and beat the high score in Dr. Mario – all within a rather strict time limit. While not quite the real life version of the Championship, which featured Super Mario Bros., Tetris and Square’s Rad Racer, this mode is a welcome challenge for anyone who considers themselves a NES master, although it would have been nice for there to be some other Championship sets, rather than the same three.

The final part of NES Remix 2, is Super Luigi Bros. This is a simple hack of the original Super Mario Bros. in its entirely, only the whole game is reversed. Even if you’ve played and finished the game so many times, playing it backwards can be surprisingly tricky. Although another version of the original Super Mario Bros. is no longer the selling point it once was, this is a simple addition that rounds off the package nicely.

VERDICT: A love letter to the Nintendo Entertainment System and a wonderful introduction or reintroduction for gamers of all ages, NES Remix 2 expands on the entertaining original by providing challenges based on some of the best first-party games ever released on the system, making it a more complete package than its predecessor. It’s the kind of game that no-one else but Nintendo could create, and I only hope a Game Boy or SNES Remix is next on the agenda.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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Review code provided by publisher.

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A large number of Nintendo 3DS owners will be too young to have watched The Mysterious Cities Of Gold in its original incarnation. A French-Japanese joint production, the series ran in the early 1980s and came to an end in 1983. Of course, repeat showings kept it relevant for much of that decade, but since then it has been largely forgotten. That was until a new version of the television series was launched last year, and has actually remained pretty true to the heart of the original. As could be expected, there is a tie-in video game.

The game follows the plot of Season Two of the re-launched cartoon pretty closely. Esteban, Zia and Tao (who all featured in the first run of the show) are searching the globe for the lost Cities of Gold, using the sun Medallion Esteban possesses as one of the Children of the Sun. We follow the group as they begin their search in China, and the game includes six worlds each made up of several smaller stages. The levels are punctuated by short cutscenes that make use of actual animated scenes from the series.

Whilst these are nice to look at and tie the game into the series well, they are all very short and their excerpt nature makes the plot quite hard to follow – not that it’s particularly thrilling anyway. Strangely, although these cutscenes are great quality, and the general in-game art and animation are also strong, Secret Paths makes no use of 3D at all. This is probably more down to the multi-format nature of the game, but it seems strange that no attempt was made to integrate the technology.

The gameplay is puzzle-based, and makes use of the three main protagonists to present players with a series of co-operative brain-teasers. You can hot-switch between the three at will, and need to pick the right character and skills for each situation. For example, Zia can fit through smaller gaps as she is slim, Tao can translate ancient tablets for clues or use his pet Parrot Kokapetl to fetch objects, and Esteban can use his Sun Medallion to activate certain switches that the others cannot.

Unfortunately, even though there are quite a few levels to play through, the conundrums are derivative and all amount to two or three basic puzzles dressed up slightly differently. Once you get the hang of it, they are all pretty repetitive and won’t cause you much trouble. Each stage has a selection of optional objectives in an attempt to add more of a challenge. These include a time goal, a number of scrolls to collect (some of which are colour-coded and can only be collected by a specific hero), and a capture count.

As part of the puzzling, there are also stealth sections where our protagonists must sneak past dangerous pirates. This is pretty easy as they move in defined patterns and can only see directly in front of themselves, and because if you get spotted for a moment you’re allowed a few seconds to hide quickly, after which the pirates luckily seem to forget you were ever there. The only penalty for getting caught is a strike against your counter – which only effects your end-of-level score – so this takes away from the challenge a little. That said, if you repeatedly get caught, then completing the level in the target time and collecting all scrolls becomes increasingly harder.

You can choose how to take control of things, using either stylus controls, which offer a more tactile experience for pushing buttons and moving boulders, but can be slightly imprecise when moving characters (particularly in stealth sections), or using the circle pad. Each player will likely have their own preference, but both work well. Perhaps touch controls will appeal to younger players more – who can also choose to have hint dialogue boxes pop-up to provide help – and older ones may like the precise button control. Either way, the controls certainly support all kinds of players.

VERDICT: The Mysterious Cities of Gold: Secret Paths doesn’t fall into the usual trap of film and television adaptations, where it bears little or no relation to the source material. In fact, the storyline and adventuring themes of the cartoon are borne out through the gameplay pretty well. Whilst the title does sadly feel a bit too simple, Secret Paths possesses a lot of charm and tries to offer a range of challenges for all levels of skill. In the end it skews a little young overall, but that age group will also probably be more forgiving of the repetitive nature of the puzzles throughout the game.

DECENT. A 6/10 indicates that, while this game could be much better, it still has a fair amount to offer the player. It might be an interesting title sabotaged by its own ambition, or a game denied greater praise by some questionable design choices. Don’t avoid it outright, but approach it with caution.

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Pac-Man is somewhat of a known quantity. Before you even begin the majority of games in the series you have a relatively good idea of what you’ll be doing. Some entries have changed the formula slightly, but not significantly, but Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures takes everything you thought you knew about Pac-Man and throws it out of the window.

Gone is the traditional maze-based gameplay, instead replaced by a 3D platformer; gone is the silent and simple protagonist replaced a 3D character with a can-do attitude and gone, at least in part, is the fierce rivalry between Pac-Man and those pesky ghosts.

After booting up Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures you are introduced to the world and characters by way of a simple cutscene announcing that there are three globes that need power in order to gain access to some temples, and that Betrayus has launched an attack on Pacopolis. This is effectively as detailed as the story gets, the meager plot funneling you to various locations in order to grab different artifacts and defeat some of Betrayus’ minions. As the game is aimed at a younger audience the uncomplicated plot is understandable as a design choice, but even so the story is poor and the questionable voice acting certainly doesn’t help.

After the brief cut-scene you are dumped into Pacopolis with the task of reaching the piece of fruit at the end of each level. Each area is covered with the familiar glowing yellow pellets that are required to enter some levels. There is also Slimetanium to collect (which can be used to add extra hearts for Pac-Man), as well as eyes of the ghosts you eat, which can be redeemed for extra lives. Don’t worry, I don’t really see how eyes mean extra lives, either.

The platforming areas are solid apart from the first handful, although this is down to the power berries adding unique gameplay mechanics. If Pac chomps on one of the power berries he will change form; some berries change him into a giant ball, others a fire or ice Pac and one even turns him into a chameleon. Often areas will be impassable unless you are in a certain form, but fortunately the required berry is never far away. Some enemies, such as the ice ghosts, can only be defeated when Pac is in a certain form, which can be annoying.

The power berries change the game entirely, and some of them – such as the chameleon berry or the giant ball berry – are brilliant changes of pace, albeit slightly underused. Throughout the six worlds, two of which revisit previous worlds, you will only become a giant ball or a chameleon in a handful of levels, whilst the slightly less awesome transformations such as Fire Pac or Rubber Pac are much more common. If the adventurous power berries were more frequently used, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures would be a lot more fun.

Although the power berries increase the enjoyment of the game, the standard platforming sections with normal Pac are still tight and pretty decent. Levels are full of challenging platforming sections but will not be impassable for experienced players, although the younger market at which the game is aimed may struggle at times.

Unfortunately, the camera isn’t quite as tight as the platforming. Occasionally the camera will move to an angle that doesn’t show what needs to be seen, or is angled in a way that messes with the depth perception, leading to you try to make an impossible jump. This doesn’t happen all that often, but it’s enough to be noticeable and annoying. You can change the camera angle with the right sick, but often the damage has been done before you have a chance.

The ghosts that fill each of the levels could also use some work. The incredibly basic AI makes them predictable and none of them are particularly difficult to counter or kill. Strangely it was Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde who alerted Pac to the attack on Pacopolis, yet it is their ghost brethren that are attacking the city and being killed by Pac.

A throwaway multiplayer mode sees up to four players being ghosts and having to chase Pac-Man around a maze in the classic style, albeit in 3D. This mode is fun at first but quickly loses all sense of fun as the repetition creeps in.

Visually, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures is what you would expect from an end-of-generation title. There’s nothing particularly amazing but there is also nothing massively ugly. The soundtrack is nice and upbeat for the most part but a lack of tracks means the same tunes pop up over and over again, and eventually become somewhat irritating as you hear them so often.

VERDICT: Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures is a game that is clearly designed for the younger market yet may be slightly too difficult for many kids to enjoy. The platforming can be tough at times and the camera only makes thing worse. The poor story and voice acting, straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon, will alienate the older audience, too, which really leaves Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures with no real market – which is a shame, as some of the ideas and platforming sections made for some of the best fun I’ve had in years.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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I have no trouble admitting that The LEGO Movie was one of the most enjoyable films I’ve seen in recent memory. It invoked a child-like sense of wonder with an entertaining and meaningful story, the comedy was spot on and the characters were lovable and memorable. It’s no wonder then, given my already obvious enjoyment of the LEGO series of games, that I jumped at the chance to have a look at the video game adaptation of the film, a chance to rejoin Emmett, Wyldstyle and, of course, Batman in an attempt to save the world from the evil Lord Business.

Is everything still awesome though?

The LEGO Movie Videogame follows the story of the film rather closely. In fact, it’s so close that you really don’t need to see both. You could easily see the film or play the game and feel like you’ve gotten all of the story that you need. However, if you’re going to make a video game adaptation of a film, then it’s a pretty good idea to go to the guys that have been doing it for years.

Following the story as closely as it does means that in a similar way to Lord of the Rings, The LEGO Movie Videogame takes entire lines of dialogue from the film and uses them in the game, creating a sense of immersion, while using the original voice actors.

When it comes to the LEGO series of games, there’s not much to talk about on the graphical side of things. They all look the same as each other and the fact that we reviewed this particular game on the PlayStation 4 makes no difference in the visual department – which may help inform your purchase choice. Still, that doesn’t mean that the game looks bad, but given the graphical power of the next-gen console, when the game does switch to video footage of the film, you’ll no doubt start to wonder why you can’t play a game that looks like that. Unless you feel the need to stream or share your gaming footage with the world using the PlayStation 4/Xbox One’s built in video capture options, then you’re not missing anything.

Aside from the obvious inclusion of the film’s main song (Everything is Awesome) the music is often rather annoying and, at times, absolutely infuriating. The music which plays through most of the levels, especially the Cloud Cuckooland levels, is hugely overbearing. Often to the point that you can’t actually hear what the main characters are saying. I even found myself searching through the game’s options menu to find a way to turn the music volume down, but the only option is to either turn the music off altogether – which I eventually found myself doing – or to turn the entirety of the game’s audio down; vocals and sound effects too.

When you can actually hear what’s going on, the game’s audio is often as humorous as the film with moments of hilarity. LEGO games often bring a sense of joy to many gamers, but thanks to its entertaining story, talented voice-cast and precise comedic timing, this one works hard to bring this enjoyment to a whole new level.

The gameplay works in exactly the same way as it does in all of the other games in the LEGO series. When you’re not in the hubworld – a sort of interactive world map where you’re able to go around purchasing the Minifigs that you’ve unlocked in the levels, replaying old levels a visiting other areas of the world – you’re in one of the game’s fifteen levels, using a combination of teamwork and brick-building knowledge to get to the end. There’s plenty of collectibles for you to find on your way too, with each of the levels containing a hidden pair of pants, a selection of Golden Instruction Manuals and the obligatory collection of studs in order to reach ‘True Special’ status.

While the AI functions perfectly well, helping you when it’s required and then standing to one side when they would otherwise get in the way, there’s nothing quite like playing a LEGO game with another person, and the drop in, drop out functionality of the previous LEGO games makes a welcome comeback. The biggest downside of the co-op feature is the split-screen, which instead of being a static line down the centre of the screen, is a dynamic split which moves around the screen as your character does. This is fine a lot of the time, but there are times when this can get a little too distracting and disorientating.

There’s no doubt that the LEGO series has been resting on its laurels for quite some time now, using the same gameplay over and over. This makes it all the more exciting to find new game functionality inside The LEGO Movie Videogame. This comes in the form of the Master Builders being able to create giant LEGO objects using pieces of the environments. By standing in a green circle in pre-set areas, and selecting the multiple LEGO pieces, the Master Builder will then get to work creating the new object to use – as well as construction workers’ ability to create objects when given enough pieces of the instructions. If you’re building an item from a set of instructions then you’ll be treated to a small mini-game where you’re shown an object, which has a flashing missing piece, you’re then tasked with finding the missing piece from a radial dial of possible choices. The faster you perform this action, the more studs you’ll get.

As with any other LEGO title, the longevity of the title depends entirely on whether you are a completionist. There’s a hell of a lot of characters to collect, from the ones that are only known to the most avid LEGO collector, all the way through to characters such as Batman. Then there’s the list of trophies/achievements to get through too, which will take you a good while to get through. However, if you are only interested in getting from the start of the game through to the end, then the game’s fifteen levels will take you around six hours to complete. Unless you’re planning on going back through the levels to find the Golden Instruction Manuals, Pants or hidden characters then you won’t find yourself going back through it for the story.

VERDICT: If you’re already a fan of the LEGO series, then you’ve probably already seen The LEGO Movie. You’ll know the characters, the premise, and you know how these games work. Being a movie tie-in makes no difference at all, because this is a LEGO game through and through. The addition of new features brings a slight breath of fresh air to a formula that was starting to feel a little bit stale.

There are a few more misses this time around, and if you’re not already a fan of the film then you may want to skip it entirely, but if you absolutely love LEGO games, then it’s another game in a well-made, well-presented series. Just be advised that the bright colours of Cloud Cuckooland, coupled with the overbearing music, can cause more than a few headaches. Everything isn’t always awesome, but in small doses it can be.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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Review code provided by publisher.

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With the recent news of the Wii U’s failings, and how it has affected Nintendo financially, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is a massively polysyllabic-titled example of what is both right and wrong with the system right now. Wrong, is that this is another Wii U game that is unlikely to be a massive system seller, but right in that it doesn’t give a damn about it.

It’s a reminder that while the world demands that Nintendo go multiformat or release games for mobile devices, they soldier on, bringing highly enjoyable games to a variety of audiences. This latest Kong outing may not be a drastically different outing than the last one, but nonetheless it’s a damn fine 2D platformer. It harkens back to the mid-90’s collect-a-thon platforming days, but that is never a bad thing when it’s done so well.

So we begin our latest rumble in the jungle, as Donkey Kong celebrates his birthday with pals/relations Diddy, Dixie and Cranky. Alas, as our beloved DK is celebrating, a band of angry Viking animals known as the Snowmads are approaching the Kong Islands. Using some sort of magical horn the Snowmads envelope the islands in an arctic wind, dropping temperatures and exposing the Kongs to the cold conditions one would more likely expect to see in around one of the poles. As an ape who dislikes bananas being cold and hard, DK leads his band of primate misfits into a quest to defeat the Snowmads and keep a pleasant tropical breeze running through the Kong Islands.

So we return to familiar platforming territory: A series of levels split into worlds, accessible from the standard world map interface. Controlling the tie-wearing Donkey Kong – as always, he is joined by one of his three brethren, all of whom can be found by finding barrels with their initials on. Naturally, each partner has their own abilities that all have their own uses – Diddy Kong has a jetpack for launching across chasms, Dixie Kong is able to use her hair like a helicopter’s blades in order to jump higher and descend slower, while for his first playable appearance, Cranky Kong can use his cane to jump higher and on spiky surfaces, Scrooge McDuck style.

Each character is able to climb on DK’s back, which allows him to borrow their unique abilities, and also to unleash a special POW attack after filling a gauge by collecting bananas. This attack will not only rid the screen of all enemies, but also turn them into useful power-ups, depending on who DK’s partner is. This screen clearer is an incredibly useful ability at times, especially as, like the previous game, death is an inevitability.

With DK only being able to withstand two hits before biting the dust (unless combined with a partner, which doubles his heart energy), not to mention a ton of bottomless chasms to fall into, you’ll eat through lives, especially when playing co-operatively with a friend. Thankfully, each level is filled with opportunities for extra lives; from 1-Up balloons, hundreds of bananas, and Banana Coins, used to purchase extra lives and other power-ups from the returning Funky Kong’s shop. With this abundance of extra lives available, Tropical Freeze is much fairer to the player than the Wii original, even if it’s technically no easier. But this Kong adventure’s difficulty is well paced, and like any good platformer, death is never unfair and is nearly always due to your own ability.

Tropical Freeze’s approach to co-operative multiplayer is similar to the previous game. Player 1 is always DK, but this time around, Player 2 can choose from any of the three available partners. Unfortunately, it occasionally falls into the regular co-op trap in vehicle-based levels, where although both players are able to control the minecart or jet-barrel, because they share the same mode of transportation, it is much more practical for only one player to man the controls, while the other waits until the end of the section/level. It would be far more enjoyable for both players to have their own vehicles, as opposed to arguing over who gets to play. But otherwise, it’s a very fun game in multiplayer, especially the ability for the partner to jump on DK’s back; it’s a very good way of allowing a player of lesser ability to sit out of the more challenging sections of levels.

Unfortunately, due to the simplistic controls, the button to grab items and onto vines is also used to combine characters. Because of this, co-op players will regularly combine at the most inconvenient times, leading to a few unnecessary deaths. With only four buttons used (jump, attack, activate POW and grab/combine), why couldn’t one of the other triggers be used to combine? Other than this minor, if occasionally frustrating issue, the controls are tight and the Kongs retain their sluggish and heavy physics from previous games. It still feels like you are controlling this large ape, rolling through enemies and using that momentum to jump over hazards is still a unique feeling. Once mastered, these heavier physics are a joy to handle.

Mastering the Kongs’ abilities is essential for not only finishing each level, but also finding each KONG letter and puzzle piece. As you can imagine, these hidden trinkets unlock secrets, and they’re extremely well hidden. But there’s something so pleasing when you see a part of a level that looks somewhat out of place, and investigating it further to find a hidden area. It’s yet another gameplay element that’s just so rewarding.

But these hidden areas wouldn’t be so intriguing if it weren’t for the detail that Retro Studios have put into each level. Each of these varied environments are gorgeous and inventive, with incredibly creative usage of 3D space for a 2D platformer. Jumping into a simple barrel can eject the Kongs far into the distance, with the camera following along for the ride, while you’ll need to really keep an eye on the background to avoid approaching hazards. With some levels changing in a blink of an eye, quick reactions are a necessity. Admittedly, there can be times when the amount of things happening on-screen can be a little distracting, but there are also times when the complexity of visuals are dialled back, such as the silhouette levels, that still look phenomenal, even if they had already been done in the previous game.

However, each level of atmosphere conveyed by the visuals would be nothing if it weren’t for an equally atmospheric soundtrack, and Tropical Freeze certainly delivers on that front. David Wise, the ex-Rare composer who worked on the original Donkey Kong Country trilogy, has returned for Tropical Freeze, after missing out Returns, and his influence is an incredibly welcome one. While fans of the original trilogy will recognise the odd leitmotif here and there, these new compositions are fantastic. The Lion-King inspired savannah themes, and the chilled underwater tracks are certainly the highlights of the game.

VERDICT: While Tropical Freeze is technically not doing anything drastically different from Donkey Kong Country Returns, it’s no less rewarding and, above all, fun. The ease of obtaining powerups, as well as the improved abilities of the Kongs make for a friendlier game than its predecessor. Meanwhile, a host of challenging boss fights that end each island excursion are as old fashioned as you can get and while these encounters can take a little too long to pass, they are no less entertaining to take part in. For modern-day jungle explorers, the mountain of secrets hidden in each level will keep dedicated players occupied for some time. Put simply, it’s old school platforming done right, a wonderful alternative to Mario that is definitely worth adding to any Wii U owners’ collection.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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Whether a straight up homage like Guacamelee!, or a deconstructed take on the genre like last year’s wonderful Luigi’s Mansion sequel, when executed with panache, the Metroidvania-style videogame structure is still capable of dazzling. It has also been well-used by indie developers, who have wielded the template with aplomb on great titles like Cave Story.

Unepic is the latest beloved independent title to get a console release, and one that borrows heavily from exploratory platformers of the past, injecting a healthy and well-implemented dose of role-playing rules into the mix. It is also tougher than hell. When was the last time you played a game without a pause button? It is also carried along by a very funny plot chock-full of knowing videogame and geek-tastic references and some truly superb voice acting, which inspires emotional investment and makes it more than just another rpg-tinged platformer.

Your avatar is Daniel, who takes what should have been a regulation restroom break from some Dungeons & Dragons which ends with him being sucked into a world of monsters and clichéd platform adventuring , with only a lighter at his disposal to begin with.

Gameplay is fairly standard action-platform stuff, which is spiced up by the way you can choose how to level up and customise Danny boy with the experience you receive from progression and defeating enemies. You can beef up his melee combat stats to make his fighting abilities more pronounced, or take him down the magic route and improve his proficiency with wands and spells. Combat isn’t particularly deep here, although as you would expect some enemies are weaker against particular attacks or spells, and it’s up to you to work out the best strategy to defeat them.

If you’re playing on your telly, the GamePad is used to select weapons and equipment and access the map, with the entire area in which Daniel finds himself shown on the big screen. If you want to play off-screen, there is an intuitive hotkey system that lets you switch between items and weapons in real time, which makes matching the right tools for the right job a breeze whichever way you want to set up your Wii U. A handy tutorial guides you through the basics of the game and is a welcome addition for newcomers.

As you progress, Unepic introduces new things to tinker around with, such as pets, side-quests, and a deep item-crafting system that gives you access to a ridiculous amount of items and weapons. You will find yourself killed instantly, a lot. You will encounter foes that steal your weapons or turn them into harmless toys. Some of the enemies are even invisible, which can be very annoying. Anyone complaining about the difficulty should realise from the old-school graphics and blatant Castlevania influence that this isn’t going to be an easy one to beat. It is at times reminiscent of the hellishly difficult games of yore – the Ghosts ‘N’ Goblins and Wizards & Warriors of this world – and as such may frustrate younger gamers not used to being crushed by Megaman-levels of gaming terror.

VERDICT: Originally a PC release, the Wii U is a fine platform for Unepic, and it’s another worthwhile addition to the eShop library. It can be quite frustratingly difficult at times, and the constant geeky references to everything from Star Wars to the worlds of Gary Gygax may not sit well with everyone – one particular misfiring side quest involving bureaucrats may be enough to turn off some gamers – but for those who enjoy old school platform action, this generously sized Spanish-crafted effort will be manna from heaven.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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As improved as the Wii U’s eShop is over its predecessor’s Wiiware platform for digital distribution, there are still some causes for concern. For a start, there aren’t enough genuinely exciting releases coming out for download on a regular basis, and when there are new games to buy, the pricing structure is a little on the ridiculous side. Case in point: Nintendo’s latest Year of Luigi tie-in, Dr. Luigi, a green-hued retread of their pale imitation of Tetris, the Game Boy and NES’s Dr. Mario.

As a puzzle game, it was never a terrible one. Taking its cues from the phenomenally successful Tetris, players would drop dual-coloured capsules into a test tube play area, in an attempt to align four capsule halves in a row to make them disappear. The complication is that a number of coloured creatures representing viruses are in each level, the idea being that players must include these bacterial baddies in their row of four in order to eradicate them all and finish the level.

While the beauty of Tetris is its basis on organisation and neatness, Dr. Mario/Luigi contains neither. While in Tetris, players will aim to neatly make rows for those line-clearing Tetrises, games of Dr. Mario always began and ended with absolute clutter as you placed useless capsules everywhere you could to keep them clear from viruses. For this reason, it was always the inferior puzzler of choice. Two decades later, and it still is; the inclusion of a couple of newish modes does little to hide the game’s mechanical misfires.

The original game has been recycled several times over the years, as a double-pack with Tetris on the SNES, and once more on the Wii. Dr. Luigi keeps the original pill-popping gameplay, renaming it Retro Remedy, but it adds a new Operation L mode, which replaces the single dual-coloured pills that fall with two pills arranged in an “L” configuration. It’s a change that makes for a quicker game, but the base mechanics are exactly the same as before.

Meanwhile, a Virus Buster mode allows players to use the Gamepad touchscreen to drag pills instead of manipulating them using buttons. First impressions would indicate that this is a more relaxing method of playing, but after a little while, multiple pills fall at once, which can make for quite a bit of multitasking. What’s worse is that tapping a pill will rotate it, and it’s incredibly easy to rotate pills by accident or rotate them too much.

Finally, there are multiplayer options. You can play against a friend locally to clear all the viruses before your opponent, while dropping bits of pill over to their screen by racking up combos. But if you have no friends (or no friends that want to play Dr. Luigi with you), then you are able to challenge the world through online multiplayer. Admittedly, there aren’t that many people playing this game online, and the ones that are have clearly been playing it all their waking hours, as every game I played ended with a very swift defeat. Unless you’re really confident of your skills (or you’re playing with those on your Friends list), you might want to give online a miss.

Honestly, that’s all there is to Dr. Luigi, which is a bit worrying considering the game currently retails on the eShop at nearly £14. Maybe we’ve been spoilt by cheap/free indie and mobile games, but considering I can pick up the original Game Boy version on the 3DS Virtual Console for £2.70, it’s hard to see why this is so pricey. The graphics are standard and have barely been improved over the past two decades, while the soundtrack contains the original game’s popular two themes, with another two added for good measure. You could pick up a cheap copy of the NES/SNES/Game Boy version and feel like you got your money’s worth, or the Wiiware version of Dr. Mario (with online play) for less than a tenner.

VERDICT: Other than the new Operation L and Virus Buster modes, there is little in the way of new content that makes this a better deal than the previous (and cheaper) versions. For up to £5, Dr. Luigi would have been an OK puzzler, but at almost half the cost of a retail Wii U game, the person who decided the price for this retread probably needs some medical observation themselves.

POOR. Games tagged 4/10 will be playable, perhaps even enjoyable, but will be let down by a slew of negative elements that undermine their quality and value. Best avoided by any but hardcore genre fans.

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Returning to retro games isnt always the warm, cuddly love-in you hoped for. This is particularly correct when you take the Nintendo Entertanment System as an example. Where the SNES has several dozen games that comfortably stand the test of time, the years have been less kind to the older Famicom. Although I will get buried for saying so, many of the early games for that unit were dreadful. That NES Remix manages to make some of the very worst of these so-called beloved games palatable is something of a minor miracle.

Upon firing NES Remix up for the first time, the first game that sprung to mind was the superb Retro Game Challenge for the original DS, a knowingly reverential homage to 8-bit gaming that created its own completely original attempts at Famicom-style games and threw them all together with a sprinkling of comedy from the Japanese GameCenter CX television show that inspired it. Whilst pondering “Why didn’t these guys ever produce more stuff like this?”, it came as a wonderful surprise to learn that developer indieszero had worked with Nintendo on this new effort. Clearly a team that understand what can make retro seem more appealing than it has any right to be, this is clever stuff from the wily craftsmen from Musashino, right down to the ever-so-subtle polishes and the old-school graphics, this is a high-quality all-around presentation.

NES Remix sets challenges based on small segments or stages of early fare from the console’s back catalogue, the most recent of which is the original Legend of Zelda. Some of the titles, like Zelda, the peerless Super Mario Bros, and the addictive Excitebike, are excellent games in their own right. You can’t knock the fundamental sports gameplay of the original Golf and Tennis, either. The majority of the other 11 titles that feature are poor when taken as standalone efforts, but condense the gameplay into bite size pieces and these challenges become addictive and are lots of fun.

Take Donkey Kong Jr, for example. The NES conversion was always inferior to the arcade original that is so beloved. Here, you get given the challenge of reaching the goal, or dropping fruits, or whatever the stage asks you to do – against the clock. Do it quick enough and you earn three stars. Do it perfectly on your first attempt and in a ridiculous time, and you may get three rainbow stars. The better you do, the more in-game coinage you recieve. Called Bits, racking these up unlocks Super Mario 3D World-style stamps which you can use when bragging about your times or bemoaning the difficulty of a stage on the well-implemented Miiverse interactions.

Hanging a gnarly wheelie on your motorbike or stomping on fifteen consecutive Goombas is great. Hell, even clunky Joust clone Balloon Fight is ace in small doses. But the “remix” element of the package does not end with the variety of different games you can dip into. Layers of splendind gimmickry have been plastered onto these ancient titles. You will find yourself riding your Excite Bike in the dark, having to worry about controlling two Italian plumbers in a coin-collecting Mario Bros stage, or encountering obstacles within a Super Mario Bros level that you are damn sure weren’t there when you first played the game back in the day. Some of the levels even blend games together, giving you the novelty of seeing characters invade each other’s game-world. Ever fancied 8-bit pixel Link having a crack at Donkey Kong? Because that’s a thing in NES Remix.

The bugbear with this superb Warioware-meets-1985 premise is that some of the games really are dire, and it is terribly uninspiring when you bust your balls to win a pile of stars and your reward is the achingly bad Wrecking Crew to tinker with, or the nightmarish Ice Climber. There are some glaring omissions from the era that would have been ideal. The stinking Urban Champion could have been jettisoned in favour of classic rhythm action slobberknocker Punch-Out, or even a touch-screen jaunt through the beloved Duck Hunt. The lack of Samus also baffles the mind. And for a game concerned with time attack mechanics, RC Pro Am would have been immense. There could easily be an all-new sequel given the size of the library at Nintendo’s disposal. They could make a whole game like this purely based within the Mushroom Kingdom. Think about that.

VERDICT: Although it has flaws, you have to hand it to Nintendo for spicing up their eShop catalogue with something a bit different. Well put together by a developer who have a nice little niche carved out when it comes to this sort of thing, indieszero have made the most of the raw materials that EAD have given them. This will truly appeal to those who lived through the years during which these games were first served up to the masses, the hardy old-timers who would recognise a Power Glove with a knowing wink. But it is abundantly clear to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Nintendo that this could have been even better.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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With its roots in the underrated Rubik’s Cube tie-ins of yore, and gameplay that is pitched in the same kind of ballpark as Chu Chu Rocket or Panel De Pon, Two Tribes’ RUSH is yet another very welcome puzzler for the Wii U, hot on the heels of the superb EDGE.

Played solely on the GamePad, RUSH involves guiding a variety of different coloured cubes around multi-tiered 3D levels toward their respective colour coordinated goal. You achieve this aim by placing down tiles that affect the trajectory or behaviour of the moving blocks around the course. At the start of each outing you have a pre-determined number of tiles to place down. You know that you have to use them all to beat the level, but it is up to you to work out where they go. Once you have decided where you would like to lay your stock of tiles you can set the blocks in motion and watch as they either move gracefully toward their intended goal or end up smashing into each other or careering over the side of the stage.

Initially things are very simple as you are held by the hand through tutorial-style levels that show you how things work. Early doors you may just be placing a simple arrow tile or two to send a block directly to its goal. The use of your environment is also taken into consideration early on, as you learn how a block will change direction when it hits a wall. As you grasp the basics, RUSH introduces many devious new mechanics which ramp up the difficulty quite considerably. Several different coloured blocks start to appear, sometimes in streams, popping up one after another. It doesn’t matter a jot how they appear and in which order, the game still requires that each block finds its home in the properly coloured goal, and that blocks don’t end up crashing into each other or disappearing into the abyss. Gradually the 3D structures become more of a factor, and crazy new tile types are thrown into play, such as a slab that will split a block into two separate entities.

Some of the later levels become extraordinarily complex, expanding not only the different obstacles and mechanics you have to contend with but also the overall size of the playing area. You find yourself increasing use of the stylus to rotate the camera and view the structures of each stage, and will often have to experiment with myriad different tile combinations before you work out the right one. A hint system is in place, and can be employed to tell you when a tile placement is incorrect. In a world where just one dud tile is liable to ruin your dreams of perfectly-flowing block nirvana, the hints are certainly very useful.

Your view of this system will depend on your own gaming morals and willpower. Using a hint will not penalise you in any way and still allow you to progress to the next stage. If you are used to losing points when taking a hint (like giving up Picarats in Professor Layton) this system could leave you with a bit of an empty feeling. Nobody expects a game of this pace to include the kind of score-attack excellence included in EDGE, but some way of acknowledging proper puzzle endeavour as opposed to simply using the hint function would have been a nice touch.

VERDICT: It is difficult to criticise a game, however, when it delivers a shedload of genuinely taxing levels at such a great value price point. It looks terrific, with sharp, bright environments that make plotting the trajectory of your cube easy on the eye. The GamePad is the ideal home for RUSH, with the stylus providing responsive touch screen controls and the ability to puzzle away whilst the telly is used for other means. Most importantly, the gameplay is very rewarding. Seeing everything go according to plan, like a perfectly set-up row of dominoes falling just-so is tremendously satisfying stuff. It is another fine effort from Two Tribes, who seem to have carved themselves out a nice little niche delivering quality puzzle fare to the Nintendo masses.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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Falling somewhere between a sequel and a re-imagining, A Link Between Worlds is a fine return to traditional overhead adventuring for the Zelda series. A streamlined structure and some new gadgets freshen up a visit to the very same incarnation of Hyrule we first saw more than twenty years ago in the enduring Super Nintendo classic A Link To The Past. With the pseudo-sequel currently garnering tremendous critical acclaim, there couldn’t be a better time for Nintendo to re-release the original on Virtual Console, so veterans can re-live their 16-bit glory days, and those who have never experienced it can enjoy not only one of the finest entries in the beloved franchise, but one of the finest videogames ever made, full stop.

First impressions upon booting up the Virtual Console are that this is a stone-cold classic that has aged as impeccably as the finest wine. The graphical style epitomises the beauty of the SNES – Hyrule and its inhabitants are wonderfully realised, full of colour and burnished with lovely little touches like the subtle use of the console’s lauded (and often over-employed) Mode 7 trickery. It is an iconic-looking videogame, and indeed, the style laid down in A Link to the Past went on to heavily inform many other top-down Link outings that followed.

Koji Kondo, working alone, fashioned an utterly incredible score to accompany the dreamy visuals. Some would argue that it was his finest work: the opening chimes that accompany the Triforce coming together onscreen lead into a booming title salvo, and later on we get the vintage overworld theme. But there are similarly brilliant, more subtle motifs at play. Check out the urgent, brooding theme that ushers Link through the storm at the outset of the adventure, the regal march that backdrops your run through Hyrule Castle, and the unforgettable Sanctuary theme – these are all fabulous pieces of music. This is before we even mention the “Get Treasure Fanfare” – a sound that anyone who has ever set foot in any version of Hyrule, or even has a passing interest in Nintendo, will instantly recognise.

Aesthetically a masterpiece, then, but A Link to the Past remains a landmark work in terms of its gripping, intuitive and utterly brilliant gameplay. A staggeringly huge world to explore, with multiple dungeons, hidden Heart Pieces and devious puzzles to figure out, it is a joy to revisit. Structurally, this is classic Zelda – you take on each dungeon in a pre-determined order, and obtain the treasure, usually a cool new item that is then used to solve puzzles and defeat the boss. The gradual introduction of new gear opens up new areas of the world map to Link, and there is a beautiful sense of achievement when you finally obtain full freedom of the land and waters of Hyrule.

The introduction of the alternate Dark World is a stroke of utter genius – it may be just a simple palette swap in technical terms, but it creates a whole gamut of puzzles and situations for young Link, as you use the Moon Pearl to flip between the dual worlds. Like the best old-school games, there are some tricky puzzles and sections that are extremely tough to beat, but seldom will you become completely bamboozled, especially within the expertly designed dungeon sections, which are wonderfully diverse and always entertaining.

VERDICT: Nintendo raised the bar to incredible levels with their third Zelda adventure, just the same way that they launched their 16-bit console with perhaps the finest 2D Mario platformer. Many would argue that A Link To The Past represents the pinnacle of the franchise, and playing either on-screen or on the Wii U GamePad certainly proves that the passage of time has done nothing to dull its magical impact.

INCREDIBLE. This is the pinnacle of our scoring spectrum, reserved for games that truly affect us, that capture our imagination so completely that they affect the standard by which we measure future games. 10/10 is not a declaration of perfection, but an assurance that the game in question is of amazingly high quality and has exceeded our expectations.

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The power of phenomenon cannot be overrated. The very idea of combining hugely popular mobile physics game Angry Birds with the Star Wars uber-franchise must have actually spawned fresh, crisp bank notes out of thin air – so the fact that it was free to play on Android devices when it first launched was pretty staggering. I don’t know anyone with an Android device (or indeed any smart device, as the asking price stayed fairly low) who hasn’t had a dabble with Angry Birds: Star Wars.

Problems arise, however, when indie devs Rovio decide to bring the same game to home consoles. Angry Birds: Star Wars on PlayStation 4 is the same exact game (plus about twenty bonus levels) as you played on Android devices for free, except it now costs 35 quid. There’s really no way Rovio can justify this price, and it makes this version of the game incredibly hard to heartily recommend, despite its inherent quality.

Conceptually nothing has really changed. The ordinary Angry Birds “characters” have been replaced with Star Wars versions, and so are equipped with cool force powers and such. There’s a Skywalker bird who can slice through scenery with a lightsaber, a Han Solo fella who can blast pigs Greedo-style, Obi-Wan and his force push, etc… Levels that mess with gravity fields and orbital rotations borrow ideas from Angry Birds: Space but put them to better use here.

Unlike some license crossovers, however, nothing about Angry Birds: Star Wars feels half-arsed. George Lucas’ sci-fi fantasy universe is absolutely core to the game, from the sound effects and music to the little static comic-pane cutscenes that lampoon moments from the trilogy. It’s wonderfully tributary and the utter respect that Rovio have for the legendary franchise is always apparent.

You can use the Dual Shock 4’s central touchpad to launch your poultry missiles should you choose, but it lacks the precision of an actual touchscreen and tends to be slightly too sensitive. It’s nice to have the touchpad option, especially for purists, but for more precise shots you’re best of using the left stick and X button to kick things off.

Graphically it looks pretty on the big screen, clear, crisp and vibrant – and, of course, it’s beautifully smooth – but it’s no great visual leap from the smartphone version. That said, we never expected it to tax the PS4, and the colours are striking and attractive in every stage.

VERDICT: The great gameplay we all know and love is present and correct, the graphics are sharp and appealing, the extra levels are a welcome addition and, of course, Star Wars. But I can’t help but get hung up on the insane price of the PlayStation 4 version. There’s just no real way to justify the purchase unless it’s your only possible way to play this game – and even then, despite its appeal and addictiveness, it’s still not a truly essential experience, particularly if you’ve played an Angry Birds game before. Angry Birds: Star Wars is good-looking and great fun to play, but simply not worth the best part of forty quid just for the sake of playing it on a next-gen console.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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Eschewing the standard land-focused historical settings associated with the Assassin’s Creed series, Black Flag instead visits the Caribbean Sea circa the late 17th Century (during a period commonly referred to as the Golden Age of Piracy), and follows the exploits of Edward Kenway, a privateer and impostor assassin, who is one day to become the father of Assassin’s Creed III’s Haytham Kenway.

Already earning impressive critical acclaim and proving itself to be a financially successful entity, Black Flag’s legacy is written, the future of the franchise secure – at least, for now. As we’ve already reviewed the last gen version, I’ll keep the details light, but rest assured that the next-gen upgrade is a solid improvement, even if it is only skin-deep.

Even on the PS3 and Xbox 360, Black Flag is visually dazzling. More a game about pirates than a game about Assassins and Templars and their total inability to stop squabbling and just get along, the authentic Caribbean setting steals the show out from under the colourful cast of characters time and again.

It’s also an incredibly complete experience. From the interesting opening set-up to a rather surprising finale (though I won’t say why for fear of spoiling it for those of you yet to play it), Ubisoft filled Black Flag with so much to see and do that there was never going be a real need for extra content. As with Assassin’s Creed III, DLC will be a series of standalone mini-adventures rather than anything that intrudes too rudely on Kenway’s story.

The biggest problem that this presents to a generation-spanning title like Assassin’s Creed IV is that there’s very little to actually improve for the next-gen versions, at least on the face of it. Essentially, this is exactly the same game in every single way as the one previously released on “last gen” platforms. There’s no extra content, no hidden missions or exclusive collectibles, no new characters or settings – even the multiplayer element is a pure copy.

The difference between the PS3 and PS4 versions (for example) is as extreme and significant as the change achieved by turning up the graphical settings on a decent PC from bottom end to top. Obviously, this isn’t a bad thing, it’s just not incredibly overwhelming. The frame rate is now noticeably smoother, so animation has more flow (in cutscenes and during combat or free-running), and there’s no texture pop-in whatsoever now. In addition, the textures themselves are richer, the colours more vibrant, the level of detail slightly greater.

That being said, while the lush tropical outdoor settings benefit well from the enhanced colours and detail, anything set indoors looks only marginally better, and I have noticed several brief instances of screen-tearing – although, in all fairness, I have been looking for faults and found very few.

If you had problems with the mechanics of Black Flag in the last-gen versions (and indeed there are those who consider the gameplay to be somewhat dated now), you’ll find nothing on PS4 or Xbox One to convince you that you were wrong. The platforming is still a little hit and miss, the combat is still very easy and the eavesdropping and tailing missions are still quite boring. It’s just that now it looks really, really pretty. Watching humpbacks break the surf, chasing down galleons during lashing rainstorms and fighting redcoats upon the numerous sun-blasted shores never looked better, but the rest remains the same.

On PlayStation 4, clicking the new touchpad replaces the Select button to open your world map, and you can now select destinations by thumb-swiping it. The difference is a small one, but it’s nice to have a reason to use the new controller functionality. Also, Remote Play is possible using the Vita, and Ubisoft have done well to mostly avoid having to use the dreaded rear touchpad. Hitting the on-screen mini-map activates Eagle Vision and the rear touchpad opens up the handy quick menu so you can check your progress in each area. Once you’re used to the minor changes, it’s brilliant to be able to play Black Flag on the Vita while you lay back on the couch.

VERDICT: If you’ve already played through Kenway’s story on last-gen and rinsed every last secret out of it, there’s little point buying the PS4 or Xbox One versions. However, if you were holding out for next-gen, you’ve absolutely made the right choice. The disparities may be largely cosmetic (aside the not-entirely-perfect remote play option, of course), but the PS4 iteration of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is certainly the definitive version.

SUPERB. This is the mark of greatness, only awarded to games that engage us from start to finish. Titles that score 9/10 will have very few problems or negative issues, and will deliver high quality and value for money across all aspects of their design.

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Review code provided by publisher.

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I managed to platinum all of Pikmin 3’s basic missions without too much trouble, can crack the main campaign, fully, in sub-15 days, and have a strategy to beat most of the game’s bosses in roughly two minutes each. That’s not me boasting. Well, it is a bit, but I think it’s important to place my credentials on the table so that I can comfortably, and with authority, tell you the following: Missions 12-15 are hard.

I say that, they’re easy enough to just play through – in some ways they’re actually easier than the core challenges thanks to not relying as much on the big annoying baddies – but getting those platinum medals? Bloomin’ heck, these are some tight, testing challenges.

So what does purchasing this DLC get you? Four new Collect Treasure maps and four new Battle Enemies challenges that can be played both solo and in two player co-op. They’re the same four maps in each category, and playing through the challenges, once each, will take around an hour and a bit.

For those worried, the four maps here are completely new. Previous Pikmin 3 DLC added hours worth of extra challenge but in the most tight fisted way conceivable, in that they were simply re-jigged versions of the existing maps with new enemy and fruit placement. Missions 12-15 are completely new, and that means new maps, new visual elements, new music and even new mechanics.

Beastly Caverns, for example, experiments with a side-on perspective by surrounding a central overhead zone with an ant-hill like construction. It’s not completely 2D, you can run into and out of the screen, but it’s a cute smidgen of camera experimentation quite unlike anything else in the series (though the ‘plays better with Wii-mote’ conclusion of Adam’s review only rings more true than ever on this level).

Elsewhere Clockwork Chasm presents you with conveyor belts that are in constant motion. There are buttons littered around the stage, and hurling a Pikmin onto one will change the direction of the belts. This adds an interesting rhythm to the stage, creating unique micro-management considerations which can cause vigorous head-scratching in co-op.

You’ll control Olimar in these levels, too, but this is little more than pandering to fans. Olimar doesn’t play any differently to his Koppai cousins, but his grunts and effects do add a nice bit of nostalgia. Louie’s appearance is slightly more interesting. In some levels Louie will start incapacitated until you rescue him, meaning that your third captain, and the associated advantages they bring, are locked off until you do the legwork to retrieve him. This adds an interesting element for high score fans: do you rescue Louie early for that micro-management advantage, or leave him be as you don’t think you need the third leader? Decisions decisions…

Ultimately, that’s what defines the Pikmin 3 Missions 12-15 DLC – they’re brain ticklers. New elements are designed to throw your usual mental rhythms and ideas through a loop, and levels are crafted with a keen eye for particular mechanics. The Battle Enemies variant of the Clockwork Chasm level, for example, puts a key focus on bombs and where you should use them, while the conveyor belts add new, pressing concerns as to how you should separate your captains. In the Collect Treasure variant of this map you’ll need to be more aware of travelling fruit than usual, as a conveyor travelling the wrong way will put an instant halt to your minion’s kleptomania.

Not all four levels are as new as one another in terms of fresh imagination, but what the other two stages lack in new ideas they make up for, slightly, in fun visual design. Discarded gardening glove bridges and traversable one-way vacuum hose tunnels recall a more Pikmin/Pikmin 2 discarded trash-like approach to environmental design, which is actually quite an interesting sight after the more organic bent of Pikmin 3’s campaign.

VERDICT: It’s a painful cliché, but it’s the glove that fits – your mileage will vary. Missions 12-15 are, ultimately, high score missions and, for a Pikmin 3 addict like myself, the elevated challenge and smattering of new ideas make this DLC a solid, game-extending treat. I’ve already spent a good few hours in the levels myself, and have only claimed two solo platinum medals. For those that prefer a bit of narrative to frame their Pikmin marshalling, however, this DLC will certainly entertain with its experimentation, but is ultimately slight if you don’t intend to play them again, and again in search of bigger numbers.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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Despite this being the umpteenth LEGO video game developed by TT Games, it boasts the most ridiculously huge roster of characters to date, the sprawling Marvel universe coughing up over 150 iconic villains and vigilantes for you to build and smash apart. Such is the wealth of known entities that there aren’t many that seem particularly obscure; indeed, the last decade of cinema ensures that even younger gamers coming into LEGO Marvel Super Heroes will be acquainted with a large percentage of the line-up. It’s a sense of familiarity that pervades the entire experience, and one that proves to be both a blessing and a curse.

For a start, if you’ve ever played one of TT Games’ LEGO titles, you’ll know exactly what to do and how to proceed. Levels are spread around a central hub, and you’ll enter each with a selection of three characters of varying abilities. What follows is a sequence of switch-hitting and rudimentary combat, interspersed with “puzzles” that will barely trouble an 8-year-old. The rock-bottom difficulty is great for youngsters and those who just want to idle away a few hours, but for serious gamers the allure of the LEGO titles has never been the gameplay. It’s TT’s interpretation of each universe that appeals, and once again they’ve proved that simple charm and likability can carry you along way – even if the distance grows shorter with each instalment.

The hub in question this time around is in two parts. The first is the S.H.I.E.L.D. Heli-Carrier, manned by Nick Fury, Agent Coulson, Maria Hill and a lot of random LEGO folk who do an admirable job of making it look like a bustling hive of activity. Here you can select story missions to replay, view your unlocked characters, create your own LEGO hero from bits and pieces of everyone else, and enter into free-play mode by sky-diving off the edge of the gargantuan troop transport. The second part is New York City itself, where you can run around completing a ton of side-quests and checkpoint races, or hoovering up the vast amount of collectibles that litter the world.

It’s an interesting aside, and although in places it feels very vanilla – almost as if TT had bits left over from LEGO City Undercover and wanted to use them up – there’s plenty of idling activities to get on with. You can jump into vehicles to get around quicker, which seems at odds with the universe in general. Why does Iron Man need to steal (well, borrow – this isn’t GTA, after all) a taxi when he can actually fly? Why would Spider-Man drive when he can swing through the city faster? That said, there is a fair bit to do, and being able to switch between your unlocked characters opens up opportunities to use each hero’s powers to gather pick-ups and reach new areas. The vehicle handling is far too loose and unrefined, though, which means you won’t bother using cars for the majority of the time.

The actual story is a bit throwaway, and is really just an excuse to roll all these little sub-universes together. As such, it does a grand job, and the humour holds it all in one piece despite occasionally grating due to its repetitiveness. Set some time after the events of the Avengers movie, it centres on a race between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the “good guys” (The Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, etc) and a host of villains including Dr. Doom, the Brotherhood of Mutants and Loki to find all the pieces of the Silver Surfer’s surfboard. Nicknamed “Cosmic Bricks”, these pieces hold a great deal of value to arch-villain Galactus, and the game is split into a series of chases and encounters based around their acquisition.

Beginning as Iron Man, The Hulk, and Spider-Man, you’ll soon get through an impressive line-up including Wolverine, Jean Gray, Black Widow, Beast, and Storm. The rich Marvel universe yields some great special abilities including wall climbing, swinging, flying, invisibility and, of course, clobbering and smashing. The “BIG LEGO” characters like Hulk, Juggernaut and Abomination control like the others, but they can’t assemble items from scattered bricks or use switches, and are instead just there to destroy stuff and throw things. As always, many characters share powers but usually the combinations are fairly unique. For example, Spider-Man and Wolverine can both climb certain walls and use heightened senses to detect the way forward, but Spider-Man can shoot web and swing around while Wolverine can flip heavy switches and destroy concrete walls. Iron Man’s flight works very well, and Magneto’s ability to manipulate metal objects is reminiscent of magic-use in LEGO Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

None of the puzzles are in any way taxing, though, and most people will breeze through the story in a matter of hours. It’s always a question of finding the switch and working out which superhero can manipulate it, then moving on and repeating it until the mid and end-level boss fights. These, too, are incredibly simple, and the lack of any kind of fail state means you can just exercise trial and error until you find a solution or fluke your way through. They each present a different challenge, for example: Venom requires you to use loud noises to subdue him,  but Sabretooth needing a good chunk of scenery in the face. The McGuffin nature of every item you’re tasked to assemble begins to irritate almost immediately, however, when you’re smashing up objects and assembling huge water cannons out of nowhere to defeat the Sandman during a showdown in Grand Central Station. The fact that you can simply build anything you need with zero thought or effort is almost insulting (you can even construct a giant boombox to hurt Venom, which just seems ludicrous, even in the context of the universe).

It’s a shame, because such simple mechanics actually detract from the fun. It all feels very by-the-numbers and, in a game that’s already following such a well-worn template, that equals large periods where you can deactivate your brain and go through the motions with your eyes half-closed. It’s great to play as so many of your favourite characters, and teaming up heroes from different sub-universes like The Thing, Cyclops, Thor, and Spider-Man is always crowd-pleasing; it’s just all very “been there, done that”.

Graphically, Marvel Super Heroes is very strong. The character models are unmistakable, the environments as colourful and blocky and busy as we’ve come to expect. That said, the interpretation of New York City is too bland at times, and you may often find yourself wishing for the more confined spaces of the missions. The music borrows theme tunes from several franchises, particularly the stirring Avengers Assemble score, and does an admirable job of conveying the desired atmosphere, but the script is so-so. Occasionally it’s very funny, and the voice actors do well to impersonate the many character ticks and idiosyncrasies made recognisable by the recent spate of Marvel movies, but the script is composed almost exclusively of one-liners and the set-ups for one-liners. It has moments of gold, but the constant hamminess can become tedious.

VERDICT: There’s no denying that TT Games have once again done a well-loved universe justice with Marvel Super Heroes, but the lack of any real challenge and the instant-win feel of every encounter and low-rent puzzle means that there’s little actual play value for gamers over a certain age. The characters are represented with aplomb, and the simple but enjoyable story keeps things ticking along nicely, but it’s hard to escape the feeling that this franchise needs a serious overhaul going into the next generation. There will always be a place for LEGO games as long as there are iconic franchises to re-dress, but it’s time TT took the concept back to the drawing board and shook up the core mechanics.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes is proof that both franchises have their place and appeal in the video games industry, but it’s also horribly exposing of the repetitive, tired mechanics employed to actually create a workable gameplay experience. There’s so much easy, cutesy charm and friendly appeal about LEGO Marvel Super Heroes that it’s easy to find yourself bewitched by it, and lose sight of the fact that there’s not really much substance beneath the flashy suit.

GOOD. A game that scores 7/10 is worthy of note, but unworthy of fanfare. It does many things well, but only a few of them incredibly well and, despite a handful of good qualities, fresh ideas and solid mechanics, it fails to overwhelm.

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Review copy provided by publisher.

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Despite only being shown on the Cartoon Network channel, Adventure Time is fast becoming one of the biggest cult animated hits in recent memory. This series of short, ten-minute episodes has captured the hearts of many a child and adult that has enjoyed its blend of childlike humour, surreal characters and strange storylines. It also leans heavily on fantasy RPG themes, and its soundtrack is almost entirely made of chiptunes. As a result, Adventure Time is prime fodder for a video game adaptation, one that goes beyond the typical licensed shovelware that comes from a cartoon.

So how the hell have WayForward taken a gloriously surreal and imaginative cartoon, and made it into a game that is so utterly monotonous and devoid of any sort of fun?

It all starts so well, too, with an intro that wouldn’t look out of place in a NES-era Konami game. Adventure Time’s main protagonists, Jake (the dog) and Finn (the human) are summoned to the Candy Kingdom by the Bubblegum Princess (bear with me here). The Princess’s woes revolve around the dungeon where she keeps the many foes that Finn and Jake have apprehended on their adventures – more specifically, the duo have done such a good job at being awesome heroes, there are simply too many criminals locked away in the dungeons. To stop the prisoners escaping, Finn & Jake must explore all 100 floors of the dungeon in order to save the day.

In a dungeon-crawler that’s more Gauntlet than Diablo, the aim is to find the stairs on each level that lead to the next floor, smacking enemies and collecting treasures as you go. Every five floors, you are given the opportunity to leave the dungeon and go up to the surface, to spend your riches and take quests from the strange citizens of the Candy Kingdom, some of whom will allow you to upgrade your stats for a fee. Sadly, these upgrades are far too expensive to purchase, especially as once you re-enter the dungeon, you lose all your treasure because of what the game calls “Candy Tax”. The only way you’ll likely to be able to afford even the simplest of upgrades is to wait until later levels.

When in the dungeon itself, you’ll probably see most of what the game has to offer on the very first floor. There’ll be plenty of enemies, and objects that spawn more enemies until you destroy them, and you’ll quickly realise that there is little to no point in killing them, as you’ll rarely get any worthwhile items from them. You’re far better off just looking for the exit straight away while collecting as much treasure as you can. Unfortunately, each floor is so uniformly designed, you’ll get lost because every inch of every level looks pretty much the same. In fact, you’ll play through 20 floors before you’re even taken to a different environment, and when the game does finally take you somewhere else, you’ll face mostly the same enemies but reskinned, with levels similarly structured to the 20 you just played.

So let’s recap: You’ll be playing a game where you have to play 100 floors of dungeon crawling in almost identical areas, fighting almost identical enemies, most of which aren’t worth attacking because there isn’t even some sort of experience system to make it worth your while. Oh, and watch out for the many lengthy loading screens inbetween floors that are either too long, or freeze the game entirely. Does that sound fun to you?

You can have up to four people playing the game, each controlling their favourite character, each one with different stats, abilities, and a special Imagination move that will either attack enemies or aid you and your fellow players. Part of me thought that maybe this game might be enjoyable with other players – but how wrong I was. It still feels like a dull, repetitive game, only this time I was playing with other people that got bored after the first level.

The one thing that WayForward get right is the presentation. While the mundane environments are rendered with polygons, everything else is drawn in 16-bit sprites, which works well with the subject matter. Cutscenes are also drawn in this style, but are fully voiced by all of the show’s talent, and written by the same team as the show as well. It’s as authentic as you can get, and even the audio sounds like it came from a mid-90’s SNES title. I can’t fault the game for its bright and colourful presentation, which only serves to make me feel more angered by the actual game itself.

VERDICT: What went wrong with here? The source material is perfect for an RPG or dungeon crawler, and the basic gameplay would have been fine if WayForward has put some imagination into the environments, combat, enemies, level structure, abilities, etc. The authenticity to the series shown in the cutscenes and the general presentation would be enough to make an average game a little more attractive to fans – but, sadly, this is way below an average game.

BAD. Ugly, lazy, and unpleasant, if we’ve scored a game so low then it has serious issues. A 3/10 game will suffer from a combination of uninspired, lacklustre design, unfixed bugs and poor presentation.

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Review copy provided by the publisher.

The post Adventure Time: Explore The Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW! Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

It took about five minutes for Super Mario 3D World to make me forget all about the next generation. Within that five minutes I had worn a cat suit and heard the, quite frankly, beyond-cute meow noise made when you attack. I had climbed a wall, chased a bunny for a star, and generally had a smile so wide on my face that I was almost in pain.

To those who like to jump to the bottom of a review for the score, I’ll save you the bother and say that not only is Super Mario 3D World the best game released on Wii U yet, it’s a reason to go and buy one. I’ll also let you know now that if saccharin cuteness makes you feel ill, then maybe click away right now, because 3D World is loaded, fit to burst with all the things about video games that make them so great.

Unimpeded creativity drips from every moment, forcing an awed expression from the most cynical of mouths. Decades old ideas are renewed with such ease and simplicity that it’s almost unnerving. I’ve fought Bowser more times than I can even remember, yet the first encounter somehow feels fresh. There’s always a princess, there’s always another castle, Bowser is still involved (this time he’s stolen Sprixies and locked them in jars) – it’s the design and execution of it all that makes it so special.

The cat suit is new, sure, and it’s a lot of fun to play in. But it also gives the development team a chance to make the old seem new. There were always vertical levels in 3D Mario games, and bouncing between walls and using a variety of ways to get higher were always present. Now, with the cat suit, you can scramble up a wall to access hidden areas.

In general, the level design owes much to 3D World’s forbearer, the phenomenal Super Mario 3D Land on Nintendo 3DS. Despite the lack of a 3D slider, you can move the camera with the right stick to reveal areas previously hidden. You don’t have full 3D control of the camera at all times, just enough to manoeuvre to a position that might give a glimpse to that hidden area.

It would have been so simple to just recreate 3D Land for Wii U, and there are parts that feels like that. But there’s just so much icing on the cake it’s hard to know where to begin. You can navigate the world map with freedom – Mario can sprint and jump, even collect a few coins on the world map – and there are entirely new, optional levels specifically for Toad. Akin to a mini version of Mario Vs. Donkey Kong, Toad has to move around a single smaller level that is fully visible from the start. He can’t jump, and you’ll have to move the camera around to find hidden stars; if you find them all, you get to keep them. There are obstacles, hidden tunnels and all sorts to make this an interesting addition, and a nice distraction from the regular gameplay.

Each main level has 3 hidden green stars which are a currency of sorts. Certain levels (like Bowser castle ones) will require a set number of stars to open up, but there is also a hidden stamp within each level to collect which are usable on Miiverse. Bosses are exciting encounters, with the first one involving Mario (or whichever of the four playable characters you’ve chosen) chasing Bowser, who is driving a car and throwing bombs at you. Kick the bombs back and it’ll damage him, before eventually you beat him and move on to the next level – and that’s just the first boss level, for goodness’ sake.

Another new power-up (the cherry) doubles the fun, meaning if you were playing as Mario, now there’re two Marios. You control them in exactly the same way as you’d control one, but it adds yet more variety to levels. For example, there will be a platform with a “2” on it – guess what you need in order to activate the secret hidden within? Most of the time it will just be one of the green stars, but like previous games, part of the fun is perfecting the level.

Then there’s Plessie, who you can ride through water levels. You can go inside Koopa Trooper shells once you’ve knocked them out, you can get an auto-firing cannon on your head, the tanooki suit returns from 3D Land, not forgetting the transparent pipes which allow for even more exploration and hidden surprises – there’s just so much to play around with as you rinse each level dry, and all of it is blissfully enjoyable.

Speaking of the levels, as we’ve come to expect these days, the design is exquisite, borderline perfect at times. Even in multiplayer (up to four players, local-only) they don’t break or frustrate. Adding players means that you’re sharing lives and screen time, and if a player strays too far into the level, slower players will quickly pop into a bubble and catch up. The second-long pause when you take a hit from an enemy returns from previous multiplayer Super Mario titles, but the 3D nature of the levels themselves mean that you’re rarely sharing exactly the same plane of existence, so frustration is minimised.

Levels also change depending on the number of players present, and the aforementioned block with a “2” on it will change to a “4” in 2-player mode, and so on. At the end of a level, players will be rated based on their contribution to the overall score, the winner will wear a crown for the next level, as if to remind the other players: “I’m the best. Come at me, bro”.

The Wii U’s Gamepad isn’t relegated to being just a controller, either, as it can reveal hidden blocks and secrets via touch. There are also sections that require you to blow into the Gamepad mic, cribbed from games like NintendoLand. Blowing not only moves platforms, but can also reveal secrets here and there. On top of that there are static platforms sections that you need to touch to bring them out of the background to allow progress and, of course, the entire game is playable with just the GamePad.

You may have noticed at this point, I’ve barely touched upon how it looks or sounds, which is because Mario feels so right in HD that it’s something you almost forget upon playing. There are some truly special moments that are made by the visuals, just as there were in 3D Land, such as underground sections that use excellent shadow work to reveal the collectible stars and hidden enemies. But it’s the attention to detail that really shines through. Even on the world map, Mario will look over his shoulder, have small reactions. He’ll look scared in a ghost house, and combined with the moment to moment play, there’s not a single level that didn’t make me exclaim “Oh my God!” on first playthrough, so incredulous was I at the confident execution of just about everything on show.

Audio is top-notch, with some callbacks to older games (the Super Mario Bros. 3 Toad house music) and, honestly, 3D World really does look exceptionally pretty – whether it’s the first set of levels in grassy areas, or the icy third world. In fact, if there’s a complaint to be aimed at 3D World, it’s that the levels follow the tried and tested method: grassy, desert, ice-world, and so on. It’s a minor grievance, really, as there are so many new ideas elsewhere.

VERDICT: Super Mario 3D World is a triumph from start to finish. Beautiful, colourful, amusing, and bereft of any cynicism whatsoever. A utter breath of fresh air that plays like a dream; this is almost certainly the game Nintendo should have launched the Wii U with. However, here we are, finally getting the incredible Mario title we deserve.

Next up for this treatment: Zelda, right?

INCREDIBLE. This is the pinnacle of our scoring spectrum, reserved for games that truly affect us, that capture our imagination so completely that they affect the standard by which we measure future games. 10/10 is not a declaration of perfection, but an assurance that the game in question is of amazingly high quality and has exceeded our expectations.

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Review copy provided by the publisher.

The post Super Mario 3D World Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Let’s not beat about the bush here, Wii Fit was one of the pieces of software that helped the Wii go on to be a barnstorming success, both in terms of financial gain for Nintendo, but also in plaudits from fans and critics alike. In fact, it’s hard to not be impressed by the Wii Fit phenomenon in general. Everyone seems to have a balance board, everyone has at least tried Wii Fit.

But the Wii U isn’t the Wii, and naming conventions aside, to enjoy all of Wii Fit U you’ll need more than just the disc (or download) and the console. The Wii Fit Meter is an utter stroke of genius, yet again. Not only does buying one and syncing it to your Wii Fit U account enable the trial version to become the “full” version, but it means that you can always be playing, even when you’re miles away from a console.

It’s basically a pedometer, but with a few added extras. Of course, Nintendo are actually physically unable to make something that isn’t cute, so your Mii character’s face will appear on that meter, rather than have it just count steps, elevation climbed, and calories burned. In fact, so excellent an idea and so motivational is this tiny black circular meter, that after registering, for days the only interaction I had with Wii Fit U was to transfer my data from the meter to the game. It’s a simple process, too – you just have to go to the relevant menu on the GamePad and hold down the middle button on the Meter, then put it near the sensor in the GamePad.

This is classic Nintendo. Rather than saying, “Hey, this game will make you fit”, by creating the Fit Meter, you’re actively encouraged to exercise away from the Wii U. Hell, even going to an actual gym is worthwhile from a gaming perspective now – though you might want to turn the device down, as it does tend to make happy, chirping noises from time to time, informing you that you’ve hit certain goals and targets. There are mini-targets related to the meter, too. They’re as simple as setting a walking goal and watching your Mii walk it on a screen, but they’re fun nonetheless.

But back to the actual game. While there are a ton of new activities, there are also a lot of returning ones. In fact, a strong feeling of familiarity is present from the moment you first start, as the on-screen balance board talks to you with cutesy animations and friendly banter. Speaking of the balance board, Wii Fit U is a reminder of just what an excellent piece of kit it is. From the simplest balancing activities (that really show you up for the poorly postured slob you are) to the more fun “gamey” ones, it never lets you down; though it does go through batteries fast.

One of the big plus points for Wii Fit U is that you never need control of the TV. It may seem like a small feature (especially when most Wii U games offer it nowadays) but it really makes sense. Eke out your fitness corner, grab the GamePad and Balance Board, and just get on with your workout. Better still, this means that you can quickly and easily transfer your Fit Meter data across without interrupting anyone else.

All of this is great, but the best thing about Wii Fit U is that it’s actually fun to use. There’s plenty of multiplayer opportunities, but how much these are used depends very much on the kind of person you are. What this means is that solitary workout fans are catered for, and so are the more social exercisers – especially with the Miiverse integration allowing for entire communities based around working out. These communities are safe havens, potentially, as they are protected by having an ID that you need to share for other people to join.

Some of the activities and mini-games are actually excellent examples of the Wii U’s capabilities overall, offering fun, interesting uses of the GamePad’s functionality. Everything is used, whether it’s the gyroscopes inside or the camera – in fact there are some games that show the Wii U off better than the party-games that are available elsewhere. These are unique gameplay experiences that you won’t currently find elsewhere, all whilst breaking a sweat.

VERDICT: Bringing forward all of what made Wii Fit so great in the first place, then adding new features and the Wii Fit Meter means that Wii Fit U is an excellent package designed to get friends and family playing games while getting fitter. How can that be a bad thing? It can be a bit pricey if you don’t already own some of the hardware (Wii U, Balance Board), but this is an example of something succeeding in exactly what it sets out to do, and sometimes that’s enough. Bare in mind, however, this is not a full substitute for a real exercise routine and gym workout.

VERY GOOD. An 8/10 is only awarded to a game we consider truly worthy of your hard-earned cash. This game is only held back by a smattering of minor or middling issues and comes highly recommended.

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Fit Meter and Balance Board provided by publisher.

The post Wii Fit U Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The Olympic Games fanfare is second-to-none. The roar of the crowd and the overwhelming pressure that’s bestowed on athletes of every race, colour and creed create a spectacle that billions around the world relish every four years. While the Winter Olympic Games is a more niche affair, there’s no disputing the real-life drama that will occur in Russia next February.

Mario & Sonic have been battling each other in various Olympic events since 2007, with this entry being the second title focusing on the Winter Games. Naturally aimed at the family market, kids will lap up the chance to see Bowser own Tails on the ice, but once they get their hands on the controller, they’ll see flawed motion controls and a party game that doesn’t offer much more than your standard fare.

Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games obviously sees a cast of notable (and some, admittedly, unremarkable) characters within both franchises face off in a host of Olympic regulated events, as well as some more ludicrous games. Along with the Wii U GamePad, Wii Motion Plus controllers are required to witness everything on offer. From downhill skiing to curling and bobsledding, developer Sega Sports Japan has ticked numerous boxes for fans of the series. Additionally, there are some sports that are more akin to something that may take place in the Mushroom Kingdom or the Green Hill Zone. For example, the Bullet Bill Sledge Race has two teams of two, racing across a Mario themed landscape in chariots drawn by the infamous projectiles.

In a somewhat appropriate turn of events, things begin to get shaky once you realise that the majority of the mini-games are controlled using both the GamePad and Wii Motion Plus capabilities. Ah yes, flailing around your front room like it’s 2006, all over again. That’s not to say that every instance of arm-flapping isn’t enjoyable, but for the most part, it’s just not a great exhibition of what can be achieved via Nintendo’s unique controls. There are certain games that require the GamePad, and others that ask you to sync up your dusty WiiMote and Nunchuk combo – the latter seeing more success with regard to responsiveness. The Ski Jumping Large Hill, as the name suggests, has you hurtling down a ramp, ready to jolt your Wii Motion Plus controller in the air for the perfect lift-off. The minimal amount of input in this particular sport makes it one of the more enjoyable ones because when you’ve full control of the Plumber or the Hedgehog, it’s not such a pretty sight – especially in relation to the Wii U-exclusive peripheral.

The snowboard events are a prime example of things going horribly wrong. Controlled using the GamePad, players tilt their way down the slopes, weaving in and out of the flags on the course. The controller becomes a cumbersome piece of tech when used in this fashion. Nothing feels natural and the on-screen characters delve into a pit of lackadaisical behaviour. The responsiveness of characters becomes atrocious and makes this specific event a real task. On the other hand, the speed skating and figure skating are more fun because, once again, you’re not in total control of the character’s movement and you simply act as an aid in their efforts to capture gold. The figure skating requires the WiiMote wielder to simply waggle and wave every once in a while, rather than putting you in complete control. There’s no doubt that the most effective game, though, does in fact use the GamePad – and that’s ice hockey. However, in a title that prides itself on movement, ice hockey works because it’s played using the analog sticks and face buttons – shock, horror. But that’s the exception to the rule here, as button presses aren’t common practice in Sochi.

Like all good Nintendo-published games that feature characters from different worlds, the single-player story mode is deliciously outrageous. Arriving at some Disney-like Russian castle, the two titular characters and their merry band of hangers-on must compete against shadowy versions of themselves that appear out of nowhere, in order to bring home the gold.

Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games is the first in the series to include online multiplayer, but it wasn’t accessible at time of review. Out of the numerous sports, disappointingly, only four made the cut in the Worldwide Versus Mode.  That said, the Action & Answer Tour mode adds some replay value for those looking for games tailored to a more party game atmosphere.

VERDICT: Motion control has its detractors and its advocates, but both parties should be able to see that Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games is not one to fly the proverbial waggle flag. The awkwardness of waving a large GamePad around and unresponsive controls make this one of the less enjoyable party offerings available on the system. The events that don’t have you breaking much of a sweat are the better ones and in a multiplayer atmosphere, they can be quite decent. Overall, however, this is one that fans of both mascots will soon forget.

AVERAGE. The epitome of a 50/50 game, this title will be unspectacular but inoffensive, charmless but amiable. We aren’t condemning a game by scoring it a 5, but we certainly aren’t championing it, either.

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With Assassin’s Creed III apparently tying up the Desmond Miles storyline and effectively ending the main arc of the series, fans of Ubisoft’s iconic franchise were left wondering exactly where the story would go next – and very few expected that we would turn abruptly about-face and head backwards along the timeline of Desmond’s ancestry. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag focuses on Edward Kenway, sea-faring grandfather of ACIII’s Connor and father of the rather more interesting Haytham (the protagonist of the previous game’s early hours).

Quite how Ubisoft manage to produce a brand new Assassin’s Creed game every year boggles the mind (multiple development teams or not). The last game was a beast in size, spreading its sweeping adventure all over the American Frontier and introducing a host of new features and gameplay facets to the series’ bulging arsenal, such as hunting and sailing. Black Flag, in a display of true one-upmanship, has taken everything that III brought to the series and heaped on the badass so high you can barely see the horizon. The result is a game that doesn’t always get it right, but sells itself in such a way that you won’t much care.

There’s such a swagger to Black Flag that it’s almost as though Ubisoft recognised the shortcomings of ACIII (indeed, they’re a developer known for listening to feedback) and were so confident during the development of number four that they let their sails down and went with the wind –and it has paid dividends. Arguably, this is the best Assassin’s Creed to date – self-assured, full of character and absolutely brimming with style.

It opens with Edward Kenway chasing down a renegade Assassin named Walpole, whose identity he steals in an attempt to fleece a particularly nasty Spanish politician. Unbeknownst to Kenway, said politician is a high-ranking Templar, and all the young Privateer’s dreams of riches and glory are about to become entwined with the centuries-old conflict between Assassin and Templar. Following tradition, Kenway is a very different character to the previous protagonists. Similarly to Ezio, he’s a bit of a cad – not necessarily a ladies’ man, but certainly a hot-headed opportunist – and all he really wants is to become a man of substance and win back his estranged wife, who he left behind in England.

Taking place across the better part of a decade, Black Flag’s narrative is leant tone and colour by its setting. The so-called Golden Age of Piracy is often portrayed as a romanticised period of swashbuckling adventure and gallant derring-do and, despite occasionally dipping its toe into the darker waters of the era, Black Flag wears such colours proudly. Characters such as Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, “Calico” Jack Rackham and Ben Hornigold feature, and Ubisoft have been as true to the known histories as the storyline allows, and should be commended for weaving such an interesting story around so many well known historical figures. If anything, there are perhaps a few too many supporting roles, some of which could have been removed or even merged with a little artistic license. Charles Vane and Calico Jack are so similar for most of the tale that Ubisoft could have done away with one of them and lost nothing, but it never really feels like too much of a muchness.

Kenway himself carries the story admirably, presenting a protagonist you can get behind as you did with Ezio. His more roguish acts are always off-set by a natural gallantry, and his clueless blundering around in Assassin business is almost endearing. By the time he reaches a point where he has to choose between his selfish quest for riches and the greater good served by the Creed, the choice he makes feels natural, rather than forced. In a narrative filled with plot-twists, double-crosses and betrayals, Kenway shines. You always know what he’s in it for, and by the time you reach the conclusion you’ll be satisfied and assured that the difficult choices he has made were the right ones. Without straying into spoiler territory, there are elements of the modern world and Animus-usage, but to say anything more than that would be to spoil a whole new voyage of discovery. One thing I will say is that it’s decidedly more interesting and mind-bending than Desmond’s story arc ever was.

The world of Black Flag is huge, even larger than Connor’s Frontier, but Ubisoft have packed it full of things to do. There’s no wandering from place to place – all long-distance travel is done at sea, and the time you spend on land is always dedicated to getting from point A to point B as fast as possible. Given the open world nature, fast-travel points are a godsend, and make hoovering up all the extra challenges much easier and more enticing. From Sea Shanties that appear as sheets of paper that fly away as you approach them to shards of Animus data, the simple collectibles are compelling enough, let alone the extra activities that fill the world map.

It’s hard not to get excited when you see the world laid out before you, stacked with sea forts to sack, warehouses to plunder, animals to hunt, Assassin contracts to take on and Templars to track down and murder. A handy chart appears whenever you set foot on dry land revealing everything there is complete on a given landmass, including synchronisation points, secrets and collectibles. It’s clear that Ubisoft want you to rinse this game – and they want you to have fun doing it. Nothing feels like a chore, and there’s a wonderfully cathartic pay-off to clearing an entire list before moving on.

Perhaps at the top of the bill for pure immersion and entertainment are the treasure maps. Similar to the hastily-scribbled cartographs John Marsten can follow in Red Dead Redemption, the maps Kenway finds use visual clues and nautical coordinates to lead you to the treasure – which contains a sizeable amount of gold Reales and, quite often, a unique upgrade blueprint for Kenway’s ship, the Jackdaw.

What’s most impressive about Assassin’s Creed IV is how seamless it all is. Using a fast-travel point or causing a de-synchronisation will result in a load screen, but not much else will. For example, say you dock at one of the smaller island towns and feel like raiding a warehouse for upgrade materials (you are a pirate, after all): sneaking into the restricted area around the warehouse will trigger the side activity and you’ll be instructed to find the key-holder. How you do it is up to you, but looting the key will allow you to rob the warehouse provided you’re anonymous. After filling your cargo hold, it’s time to leave town – so you simply head to the docks and climb aboard your ship; a press of Circle (or B) will see Kenway take the wheel, and then you’re off, steering the Jackdaw the way you’d steer a vehicle in any other game. X speeds up, Circle slows down, L1 aims cannons and R1 fires them. Locating your next objective on your map, you head towards it, but as you enter restricted waters you’re spotted, causing an enemy ship to attack you. It’s all seamless, all slick – but what follows is, frankly, lightning in a bottle.

The ship-to-ship battles are by far the most exciting element of Black Flag, and the varying conditions (enemy ship size, weather, proximity to land, etc) make each one a genuine challenge and bring a tremendous sense of achievement. Circling the enemy to use your broadside guns always feels tactical, and throwing mortars and cannon volleys into the mix creates an atmosphere almost unparalleled. Once or twice you’ll find yourself engaged in a ship battle during a raging storm as lightning flashes and thunder crashes and the level of immersion is truly great. Batter your opponent enough and they’ll become incapacitated, presenting an opportunity to board them. Holding Circle at this moment will cause your crew to launch grappling hooks over to the other ship and storm her, but you can get across in several ways. Swimming is an option – as is using the swivel guns to weaken the resistance a little before engaging in close combat – but by far the most exhilarating way to storm an enemy is to race for the rigging, grab a rope, cut the ties and rocket yourself up the mast like Errol Flynn before hopping over to the enemy’s mast and air-assassinating the Captain from fifty feet up. Very few moments in gaming come close to the first time you do that.

Hand-to-hand combat is a familiar mix of countering and using tools. Pressing Circle when prompted will perform a parry, and then Square will despatch the attacker, Circle will throw him or Triangle will employ a secondary weapon like a pistol, throwing knife or smoke bomb. The fighting is smooth and responsive, but can become a little tedious once you’re fifteen hours in and are in a position to slaughter a dozen guards at a time without suffering a scratch.

Slight issues with the combat are indicative of the broader problems with Black Flag. While the added elements are excellent and the seafaring is exceptional, the old weak links are still yet to be addressed. Crowd behaviour is still badly implemented: murder someone in a packed street and witnesses will gasp, maybe cower; but some will ignore it completely. Likewise, fighting and shish-kebabing three guards ten feet from one of their comrades is perfectly safe as long as he’s facing the other way, which can make it so easy to wipe out entire encampments of enemies. Collision physics are iffy during fights in tight spaces, and you’ll often see guards stuck through walls, or bumbling into one another like drunken dancers – and Kenway has a passion for running up absolutely everything. Holding R1 while facing the wrong direction by the merest of degrees during a high-speed chase can see you running half way up trees or perching on fences like an expectant cat mid-sprint. Also, impassable barriers make no sense in these games: why can you climb a church but not a rocky cliff-face? Because of engine limitations, and little else. It’s understandable, even excusable, but Black Flag comes so close to giving you true freedom that any restriction instantly grates.

But these issues are minor when examined as part of the full package. Ubisoft haven’t created an Assassin’s Creed game with pirates in, they’ve created a pirate game with Assassin’s Creed bits in it and, as such, there really is very little else like it. It will do for pirates what Red Dead Redemption did for the Old West, of that there is little doubt. The sound direction is bang on the money, from the voice-acting to the ambient sound effects; crashing waves and splintering timbers, cannon fire and roaring thunder – you need to hear it to fully understand what Ubisoft have achieved in regards to sound. Hitting the open seas, your crew will strike up in song, and you can cycle through shanties or tell them to shut up – but why would you?

In aesthetic terms, Black Flag is the one of the best looking games of the year, not just for the detailed character models and the world itself but for the seamless integration of both. Nothing is bland or barren, nothing ever seems dull and listless. The world is vibrant, wild and untamed – but it doesn’t feel real, and nor should it. It feels like a pirate fantasy, which is exactly what it is. There is so much more to talk about in Black Flag, but to do so would ruin so many little surprises. There’s the crafting system borrowed directly from Far Cry 3, and the option to go hunting whales with harpoons, but these are just a few things that add layers to an already dense experience.

The multiplayer aspect has seen a few significant overhauls and has its fair share of new features. A decent tutorial is available to talk you through the basics, and the uninitiated will need it. Black Flag’s multiplayer is no free for all brawler; in fact, it’s often a game of far more finesse than the solo campaign. There are several modes and maps, but the name of the game is always assassination. Wolfpack mode returns, revamped and fleshed out to include its own campaign. Called “Discovery”, this cooperative mode is solidly built using a slightly dumbed-down version of the main game’s mechanics, and tasks teams with taking completing various assassination-based objectives in a handful of locations. There are also new team matches such as Domination, Black Flag’s version of King of the Hill. Most impressive is the Game Lab, a mode that allows you to create new versions of the offered matches, and lets you set specific conditions such as locking certain abilities or setting particular objectives.

With such a wealth of single player content there’s no need to linger just for the multiplayer, but Black Flag’s online modes are enticing. The differences between the multiplayer and the campaign keep it refreshing, and the atmosphere translates wonderfully. A host of new customisable assassins can be personalised with purchased upgrades and items unlocked in the campaign, so there’s plenty to keep you hooked outside of Kenway’s adventure.

VERDICT: Though we can’t wait to see what Black Flag looks like on next-gen consoles, Ubisoft’s decision to release it on currently available machines was absolutely the right one. It’s yet another example of what the 360 and PS3 are capable of – a genuinely stunning creation that packs 40 to 50 hours of content into a beautiful, compelling world that begs to be explored.

It’s fitting that the final Assassin’s Creed on this generation should be the best yet, and Black Flag makes up for the perceived shortcomings of ACIII with a bullet; the fresh start and new modern day sub-plot even make it a great entry point to the franchise. Held back from true greatness by a smattering of small issues, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is a staggering achievement and a successful transition into fully open-world gaming. Spectacular.

SUPERB. This is the mark of greatness, only awarded to games that engage us from start to finish. Titles that score 9/10 will have very few problems or negative issues, and will deliver high quality and value for money across all aspects of their design.

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Forced is a little indie brawler from Danish developer BetaDwarf. This, the 12-man company’s first major release, could be best described as World of Warcraft meets SmashTV. While it borrows a lot of the visual and fantasy elements from WoW and the frantic arena-based combat style of the classic NES title, the game does add enough of its own ideas to distance itself from its influences. The problem is that, while it doesn’t do anything particularly bad, it doesn’t do anything particularly great either; it all just feels a bit… well, meh.

The first thing that might whizz past you in a blur of apathy is the story. The character you are pulling the strings of doesn’t come with a name, so I lovingly christened him Naked Russel McUnderpants. Born into a tribe of slaves, your sole purpose in life is to compete in the gladiatorial arenas, where you face a series of trials for the amusement of the gods – pretty much a  bum deal, especially since no one has ever come back alive. But you are a naked man of honour, so rather than run away you have spent the last few years in training with the hope of being the exception to the rule.

It ain’t all bad tough. You’ve got a floating white orb thing called Balfus to guide you through the trials in an attempt to give you a fighting chance, and also to provide a source of voice talent as your character has no tongue, presumably. So after a short tutorial, you face your first trial against Wrathhoof. It’s all going to plan, until he completely wigs out for no apparent reason, other than being defeated and you’re forced (now I get it) to kill him. That doesn’t go down too well in the land of the gods, but since you were sent there on a suicide mission anyway, who gives a damn? Not Mr. McUnderpants anyway, so on with the rest of the trials.

Said trials all involve around 6 stages culminating in a boss battle. The stages usually revolve around defeating hordes of enemies while accomplishing certain tasks like destroying statues or solving puzzles. Before each stage you choose one of four weapons: dual daggers, an axe, a shield or a bow, each with its own style and unlockables. Daggers are fast but weaker, the bow is ranged, the axe is slow but powerful and so on. Depending on how efficiently you complete each stage, a number of crystals are awarded that can be used to unlock a sizeable amount of extra abilities such as increased damage or special attacks. To be fair, the weapon load-out may seem deceptively small, but with all the upgrade choices there is a lot of variation and uniqueness to be found within each. The game also allows you to revisit completed trials to unlock more crystals, which is nice if you find yourself under-equipped later in the game. The ability to change weapons at any time before a trial also helps to find new approaches to problematic areas.

The combat is simply enough and handles like a twin stick shooter. Your main attack is complemented by both special attacks with greater damage and passive abilities that increase certain weapon or character attributes. “Marking” enemies is an attempt to add a fresh slant on the button bashing but it doesn’t seem that effective. For each hit landed on an enemy, a little white dot appears above their health bar. After building this up to a maximum of 5, landing a special attack will take a considerable chunk of their health. It’s useful for bosses and larger enemies, but a bit pointless for lesser adversaries, because you just want to blow through them to get them out of the way before tackling the big boys. Which you can, of course, but if the mark system wasn’t applicable to them then it would be much easier to do so. It also gets difficult to keep track of multiple mark counts when you’re right in the thick of it.

Balfus quickly becomes an integral part of the game and switches from mentor to side-kick pretty early on. Guiding him around the map by tapping space bar, you can command him to pass over pedestals to alter his form. For example, healing shrines allow him to cast a HP-recharging circle around you, while another shrine turns him into a floating ball of TNT. The kicker is  that you can only call him towards you, so quick and precise positioning is needed. It’s a nice little mechanic and adds a bit of lateral thinking to the trials, outside of massacring anything that moves, but it can get very infuriating when you’re trying to get him to float the right direction while simultaneously keeping the swarm at bay.

If you find the single-player campaign overwhelming then you can jump into co-op mode and get some help. Available in local and online flavours, you and up to 3 others can take on the same trials, slightly tweaked to accommodate the extra hands. Balfus is back but remains in singular form and now takes orders from everyone. So as you can imagine, it gets pretty confusing. As anyone who has played any game online ever knows, teamwork ranks way, way down on a stranger’s list of priorities. That said, the co-op mode is pretty fun when it goes right, and is much more rewarding than flying solo.

As mentioned earlier, Forced borrows the visual styling of World of Warcraft; bright, cartoonish and colourful. It’s fairly pleasing to the eye and it strikes a nice balance between keeping the details low enough to manage large groups of enemies but without making things completely bland. It’s fine – just fine. As is the sound design, audio effects and score. The voice acting is a little uneven, but it’s not prominent enough to detract from the game.

VERDICT: Forced is an enjoyable experience, more or less. The combat is fluid but feels a little too loose and unsatisfying, as though you’re not quite connecting that large axe with that demon’s face. The mark system is a brave attempt but kind of unnecessary at times, while Balfus is useful in single-player but potentially all over the place in co-op mode. But the game is far better when played with friends, and the single-player is meaty enough in its own right. All in all, it’s a fun little time-waster and pretty well put together – but I won’t be forcing anyone to try it.

DECENT. A 6/10 indicates that, while this game could be much better, it still has a fair amount to offer the player. It might be an interesting title sabotaged by its own ambition, or a game denied greater praise by some questionable design choices. Don’t avoid it outright, but approach it with caution.

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How do you make a former Game of the Year winner even better? That’s the question Eidos Montreal asked themselves when they decided to bring sci-fi masterpiece Deus Ex: Human Revolution to Nintendo’s Wii U. The question wasn’t just how to port it, but how to improve on it, how to build upon it. The answer, of course, was “Listen”. Listen to the fans, listen to the gamers, the communities, the internet massive, take on board their concerns and perceived shortcomings and iron them out, once and for all. Despite the decision to take the Director’s Cut edition multi-platform, Eidos Montreal have largely succeeded in fixing everything that was wrong with Human Revolution in the first place – which wasn’t a lot, to be fair.

Set in a mildly dystopian future, Eidos Montreal’s prequel tells the story of Adam Jensen, a security consultant rebuilt with DNA-based cybernetics after a terrorist attack left him at Death’s door. Caught up in a brewing street war between human purists dead set again cybernetic enhancement and the corporations that propagate it (such as Sarif Industries, who Jensen works for), he finds himself tasked with taking down a global terrorist network, all while struggling to reconcile his former life and humanity with the barely-human machine he has been forced to become. The conflict on the global stage is as fierce as the war in the heart of Detroit, as the wealthy pay for augmentations to improve their quality of life whether they need to or not, some stacking up the cybernetics so high that they’re barely classed as human any more. Jensen isn’t given a choice – but his enhancements are significant and altogether game-changing.

Upon its initial release, Human Revolution was a certified hit. Incredibly well written and acted, the story is compelling, intriguing and, occasionally, scarily plausible. Eidos successfully sculpted a world of dark alleys and neon lights, all draped in a beautiful, burnished gold sheen that elevates common graphics to bona fide art. The only substantial complaint anyone could find to level against Human Revolution involved the boss fights.

Built on a foundation of player choice, Human Revolution allows you to play the game the way you want to, following one of the three gameplay “pillars” of Stealth, Combat and Social skills. You can run through the whole game as a straightforward shooter, if you choose to – or the entire game can be played without tripping a single alarm or firing a single bullet. Only the boss fights break this tenet, as they force you into direct, violent confrontation in such a way that goes savagely against Deus Ex’s ethos of choice.

Naturally, these encounters present one of biggest changes to the Director’s Cut. Now redesigned to allow for a more tactical approach, each one can be beaten without violence. Eidos have done this cleverly, allowing you to adhere to the previous gung-ho method or utilise Jensen’s other skills – notably Hacking – to manipulate the environment and avoid balls-out violence. The change isn’t immense (in fact, if you hadn’t played it before, you probably wouldn’t notice); it’s subtle, and simply serves to bring the previously incongruous boss fights in-line with the rest of the experience.

The Wii U version has a lot of bells and whistles added on thanks to the GamePad, and the PS3 and 360 versions borrow some elements for use with either the Vita or a smartphone / tablet via Smartglass, respectively. On the 360 the uses of Smartglass are minimal, but pretty cool nonetheless, allowing you to use your phone or tablet to perform the Hacking minigame or manage your skills and inventory. It’s very cool, and certainly feels very “digital age”, but it’s not much quicker or easier than using the controller. There’s also an element of disconnection when you put the controller down to use a different device, which isn’t there with the Wii U version.

But then, Deus Ex is a game that doesn’t really need such gimmickry. It’s fun, yes, and a nice use of the technology, but the core game is compelling and immersive enough without it. The graphical improvements, on the other hand, are very welcome. Deus Ex was good looking enough in 2011, but the golden overlay did play hell with the lighting effects and the anti-aliasing. This has been tweaked and enhanced, meaning that the world looks glossier than ever and the character models look extraordinary.

While enemy AI has been improved during combat, the same problems persist out in the world. Human Revolution never had the most realistic crowd behaviours, and little has changed. In one early mission, I took the same familiar route into the police station via the air ducts, and was still able to emerge into an office and stroll out the door without the officers present so much as questioning my attire. There aren’t many police forces that will ignore the presence of a six-foot, trenchcoat-wearing cyborg, but Detroit’s is apparently one of them. It’s not game-breaking stuff, but the iffy AI at times comes close to undermining everything else that Human Revolution does so well.

As for the combat itself, it’s hard to feel the real difference between this version and the original – though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s still slick, with a cover mechanic so comfortable and intuitive that it’s wonder it hasn’t been emulated twenty times over by now. Melee takedowns, lethal or not, are still satisfyingly tactile and the gunplay is sublime. A New Game+ Mode has been added, so you can begin a new game with an augmented Jensen and max out your skills while facing tougher challenges. Previously the distribution of Piraxis Points (Jensen’s upgrade currency) was such that by the end of the game you could only have realistically maximised a certain number of skills, meaning you had to be thrifty with your choices. You were unlikely to be able to get the most out of either gameplay pillar without sacrificing something from the others. It was a great system, and the New Game+ almost feels like a reward, as you can now continue to improve Jensen to the level of olfactory badass.

The run-time is slightly longer, too, as Eidos have seamlessly integrated the Tong’s Rescue and Missing Link DLC missions into the main game. Both add a few hours of play each and, alongside all the extra weaponry and gear released as pre-order incentives and special edition bonuses, add a decent amount of content to an already impressive package.

VERDICT: The original release of Human Revolution had very little wrong with it. Uneven AI and invasive boss fights notwithstanding, the story, combat, art-style and overall execution was close to faultless. The Director’s Cut repairs every weak link except the AI, which in itself isn’t quite enough to drag the experience down. Improved boss fights, better graphics and the option to enhance your own experience with a dual screen functionality add a sheen of gloss to Human Revolution that you never knew it needed, making this the definitive edition of one of the best games of 2011, and indeed this console generation. Absolutely essential.

INCREDIBLE. This is the pinnacle of our scoring spectrum, reserved for games that truly affect us, that capture our imagination so completely that they affect the standard by which we measure future games. 10/10 is not a declaration of perfection, but an assurance that the game in question is of amazingly high quality and has exceeded our expectations.

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Earlier this year, Game & Wario showed us that, while they can be fun and jolly in places, minigame compilations are very much a thing of the past – something that gamers are going to readily associate with the original Wii, whose Wii Sports is still the benchmark for outings of this type. The last thing that the Wii U needs is to be pigeon-holed as a platform for throwaway party games as it struggles to establish its own identity. Which is why it is a crushing, baffling disappointment to find out that in a time when Microsoft and Sony are preparing to drop next generation hardware, Nintendo have decided to release a title that feels like a regressive, backwards step.

Wii Party U is split into three distinct sections: TV Party, which is mostly virtual approximations of board games; House Party, which features a variety of different uses for the GamePad (including dancing around it like a handbag in a seedy nightclub); and GamePad Party, simplistic, GamePad-only concerns that can be played solely using the Wii U’s unique controller. Running through the entire package reveals some 80 extra minigames, which can be played on their own or are employed during the other modes to decide things like who goes first, or how many dice you get to roll during your turn. Everything is anchored by a squeaky voiced host, who resembles a splicing accident involving Jason Donovan’s SCEE Buzz character and an anthropomorphic sex toy. Wearing a top hat.

Where the original Wii Party traded on the party-game popularity of the Wii and had a half decent hit/miss ratio of content, the Wii U sequel is appearing on a device that a large chunk of the populace are unfamiliar with. While there are a shedload of games, there is an awful lot of chaff on display, including a number of activities that, when taken out of their original context, become boring and pointless. Sometimes the short, sharp minigames can be fun and engaging, while others have poorly implemented instructions, or require only the mindless pressing of buttons.

The majority of the TV Party segment is based upon the principles of classic board games. Just as playing any videogame version of Monopoly isn’t half as much fun as playing with a physical set in the living room with the kids, the board games here are somehow soulless, and while they are certainly faster-paced than the played-out Mario Party series, all included are dull, over-long dice rolling games of chance, with the occasional minigame thrown in to the mix. They even sound dreary. “GamePad Island” doesn’t exactly fill you full of the childlike glee Nintendo are famous for.

Mixing things up a touch, The Balldozer attempts to turn a fairground coin pusher into a multiplayer outing, exchanging 2p coins for multi-coloured balls with strange, floaty physics. Ploughing your coppers into an arcade cabinet is one thing when you are in a seaside resort with the sting of vinegar on chips in your nostrils, but here the experience is just anodyne and basic. Similarly trite, Team Building is a bizarre mix of minigames and matching up numbered soccer players like forming a hand in poker.

If the TV Party is a bit of a disappointment, the handheld GamePad shenanigans are generally quite good fun. A simplified version of baseball, which can be played in single player or with a partner clutching the other end of the tablet, is great fun. There is a competent version of table football, and the retro Gauntlet game which will remind those of a certain age of stuff like Mousetrap and other Xmas faves you enjoyed as a kid. The sad reality is that there is probably nothing here that you couldn’t find a cheaper version of on an Android or iOS device.

The games under the House Party banner are supposed to be where the unique capabilities of the console are best put to use, and instantly the most intriguing and visually appealing of these games is Water Runners. You are asked to place the GamePad on a flat surface a good distance away from the TV screen. The small screen then displays a beautifully rendered trickling stream of water, and your job is to use the Wiimote as a scoop to pick up water and place it into containers shown on the television. The idea is that by placing the GamePad away from the TV, the players will be effectively fetching and carrying “water” toward the vessels. This is a clever and novel idea, and thanks to the precision of the Motion Plus it actually seems to work rather well, yet most people won’t have enough room to execute this properly in their lounge, and it does become very boring, very quickly, due to its simple nature.

Name that Face asks you to snap a picture of your visage using the controller, and then challenges your friends to guess which expression you are supposed to be displaying. It has the best comedic potential out of everything Wii Party has to offer, closely followed by the vaguely Pictionary-esque Sketchy Situation – in which you pass the controller around and are each asked to draw a picture – with the twist coming in that one person is told to draw something completely different. The comedy and appeal comes from the proven fact that everyone – kids and adults alike – seem to be utterly abysmal at drawing things to order when placed under duress.

Lost and Found Square is hugely reminiscent of similar hide and seek fare from the superior Nintendoland, as a GamePad wielding player hides and then attempts to lead the other Wiimote-clutching folk to their location by describing the surroundings. Do U Know Mii? Features a basic multiple choice “personality test” in which other players are asked how well they know their friends, and soon becomes irritating and has potential for inter-personal bickering. Button Smashers is a Simon Says-style affair in which you aim to press buttons in a correct sequence on both the GamePad and any synced Wiimotes.

Wii Party U, and indeed Nintendo as a whole, reaches its horrific nadir with Feed Mii, a worryingly insulting non-game which places the GamePad-holder in the unenviable role of a server in a fast food joint. The menu is displayed on the television screen, and the other players – in the role of the customers – have to simply bark their orders verbally, with the lucky GamePad chap using the touch screen to accurately select the items and place them against the correct Mii character. Each customer then gets the opportunity to check the order and rate it using one of three emoticons. And that’s it. Someone delivers a verbal command for a cheeseburger and you tap the picture of a cheeseburger, then that person gets to tap a picture of a pink smiley face. How has it come to this?

VERDICT: There is so much to love about the Wii U. For one, seeing the glorious technicolour of Nintendo in HD never gets dull, and in that respect, Wii Party U gets things spot-on – it looks terrific. Unfortunately the core game underneath the gloss and stacks of features is no better than the first Wii Party – and in many ways is actually worse. 80 minigames had better have a good strike-rate or they become a procession of annoying interludes; there are only so many ways you can throw a dice and move around a track.

The best that the game has to offer can easily be experienced elsewhere – sometimes with a basic pen and paper. When you find that a party game is becoming a chore, or that it actually insults your intelligence as a human being, then it is time to switch off. If you want to have some fun with family or friends, then you are better served sticking with one of the original Wii Sports titles, which several years on are still the most fun you can have with a Wiimote.

POOR. Games tagged 4/10 will be playable, perhaps even enjoyable, but will be let down by a slew of negative elements that undermine their quality and value. Best avoided by any but hardcore genre fans.

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Sometimes, all you need to sell something is a basic premise. For example, just a piece of paper with the words “Dead Island meets Diablo” was enough to hook me right in to Eko Software’s new zombie-based survival RPG, How to Survive. While such comparisons might be a little generous, it’s fair to say that H2S deserves to hook you in.

The concept is incredibly simple. You play one of three survivors washed up on the shore of a mysterious island overrun with zombies and mutants, and must find a way off. Ignoring the most glaring plot hole imaginable (you use boats to travel between the four islands in the chain, but for some reason can’t just sail away), it’s all you really need for a serviceable adventure game – but How to Survive is more than that.

As made clear by the title, this is a game about survival rather than just killing zombies. You’ll have to make your own weapons and armour, find clean water to drink, hunt and cook meat, and harvest flora to stay fed. You need to sleep regularly, which means finding a safe bed. You’ll have to brave the wilds at night with only a flash-light or burning torch, and you’ll have to choose between what to carry in your limited backpack and what to drop to save space.

The Dead Island comparisons are obvious, but references to Diablo are mostly hyperbole. All H2S really shares with Blizzard’s lootathon is an XP system and an isometric perspective. The skill trees are comparatively shallow, and the combat – while enjoyable – is very basic.

Each of the three characters have different physical traits: Abby is more athletic and recovers stamina quicker, Jack is bigger and more powerful but slow-moving, and Kenji has the highest base precision but is only average in all other respects. It’s not the deepest or most robust character roster, but each has a single unique skill on the shared tree that sets them apart: Jack can make scopes to improve his accuracy, Abby can make incendiary arrows and Kenji can craft a powerful crossbow. Beyond that, the skills you unlock upon gaining a level are all the same for each protagonist, and are all decidedly tame.

Combat is taken care of with the X button (on 360), which delivers straightforward blows to the head that can stagger a zombie, before an A button prompt performs an instant kill (or you can set the instant kills to auto in Options). At first it’s laughably bare-bones, but as the enemy types increase and you find yourself constantly swamped by mobs of the undead and decaying wildlife, you’re almost thankful for it. You also have a ranged weapon that you’ll have to make, such as a longbow, handmade shotgun or triple-bladed boomerang, which you can aim with the right stick. When using a bow or gun, the white reticle will switch to red and zero in on a zombie’s head, meaning a single shot will put them down. It’s hugely satisfying with the bow – and you can retrieve your arrows afterwards, too.

The islands are littered with trash from which you can make all kinds of tools. For instance, find a bike chain, a motor and an oil can, hammer them together with some hardware, and you’ve got a makeshift chainsaw. Slice up old sticks and top them with feathers from hunted birds to create accurate, piercing arrows. Plants can be mixed with bits of cloth to create poultices and the rare, exotic flowers can be combined to make drinks that increase your strength or reduce damage taken. Recipes and blueprints can be found all over the place, and sometimes simply experimenting yields results.

You’ll eventually come across zombie soldiers in helmets and bullet vests, which you can loot and reinforce with pieces of flint or old steel plates. It’s a robust system that counterbalances the fairly shallow skill tree to ensure that you’re always striving to stay armed and armoured and fully stocked with curatives and ammo. Unfortunately, your inventory is tiny, forcing you to think about everything you pick up – especially as ammo and food take up the same slots as crafting materials, weapons and quest-specific items.

As night falls, the more aggressive inhabitants come out to play, and they can only be held back by light. Your flashlight is your best friend, and you’re only safe from them near a campfire – which you find all over the place and can be lit to cook food and provide light. You’re only safe in designated bunkers that you can lock and sleep in, but they’ll need cleaning of zombies first – and every one of these events is a challenge comparable to Left 4 Dead’s “crescendo moments”. You kill everything that comes near you until the light goes green and the siren stops wailing, and then you close the door and get some rest.

Other survivors provide quests and aid here and there, though the most notable NPC is Kovac, a Russian survivalist who’s How to Survive guide provides humorous insights and tutorials wherever it’s found. Kovac himself also trains you in some of the basics, and tends to turn up at specific points to lend a hand or offer advice.

The biggest issue with How to Survive is that there isn’t much variety. The four islands all appear to be fairly identical, and the missions are almost all fetch quests of some kind or another. Enemy types range from standard zombies to huge Tank-like brutes and explosive “fatties” or “Bombers”. Some have helmets on or body armour, and the undead animals (dear and boar, predominantly) are tough as nails, but your tactics will rarely differ unless you’ve just unlocked a new weapon or skill.

Although the story itself is quite short (around 6 hours, difficulty notwithstanding), there are 8 different challenge maps to play. Usually these plonk you down with nothing and ask that you reach a plane to escape, but each adds specific parameters such as using nothing but a chainsaw or only having exploding fatties to deal with. The challenges are genuinely tough, but just as much fun as the main game and well worth a blast when you’re finished the story.

There’s also a multiplayer mode, but it’s almost entirely redundant. Not only does playing with a friend debunk the fear of isolation and the theme of self-reliance, but the characters’ skills don’t really complement one another (they’re all the same, see?), meaning you gain very little but laughs by going co-op. It is, however, worth teaming up to tackle the granite-hard “Ironman” mode, which will see the weak among you reduced to quivering cry-babies in no time.

VERDICT: How to Survive is more fun than it has a right to be. Schlocky voice-acting and ropey, ugly aesthetics can’t get in the way of what is a very addictive little Action-RPG with elements of Dead Island’s crafting system and State of Decay’s resource management. It’s not the deepest, longest or most imaginative of games, but How to Survive’s take on survival horror is quirky, compelling and just on the right side of challenging. Recommended for anyone with a soft spot for the undead.

DECENT. A 6/10 indicates that, while this game could be much better, it still has a fair amount to offer the player. It might be an interesting title sabotaged by its own ambition, or a game denied greater praise by some questionable design choices. Don’t avoid it outright, but approach it with caution.

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