Believe it or not, Halo has been in our lives for seventeen years. Seventeen. I remember when I bought my first Xbox, or rather our first Xbox, as my brother and I paid half each because we wanted the new Championship Manager game. Part of me simply refused to buy Halo, because it was the only game Xbox owners would talk about, and I was a stubborn idiot. Well, more so than I am now.

Obviously, something changed.

I managed to borrow a copy of Halo: Combat Evolved, to see what all the fuss was about. Within 24 hours I had bought my own copy, because that stubborn idiot was wrong and ended up falling in love with the Master Chief and his wisecracking sidekick, Cortana. The visuals were astonishingly good at the time, showing off the power of Microsoft’s first home console, and the gameplay was light years ahead of anything else in the FPS market.

But there was something about the story of Halo, the depth of the lore surrounding it, that made the game more than “just another shooter.” Who/what were the Covenant, and why were they chasing down the Pillar of Autumn? What were the Spartans, and why did everyone stare and comment when they saw one? These were just some of the things I thought about, and that was before the Flood were introduced into the story and the true nature of the Halo became known.

Of course, as I said above, I just loved the interplay between the Chief and Cortana. From the moment she’s inserted into his suit and comments on how its architecture is similar to the Pillar of Autumn’s controls, you could tell there was already a bit of a “buddy movie” vibe to their relationship. Of course, there was an arguably romantic undercurrent to it too, which I never really subscribed to, and that only built over the course of the series. However you view these two characters, there is no denying the iconic status that they have earned, both in gaming and in pop culture as a whole.

That iconic status extended to the game itself too, and was cemented by that moment at E3 2004, when Peter Moore revealed Halo 2’s release date with a tattoo on his arm. Yep, that was the sort of daft publicity stunt that was around back then.

Before that, back at E3 2002, came a trailer that still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. In around two minutes, Microsoft showed the briefest glimpse of Halo’s first sequel, and captured the imagination of so many people. Master Chief getting ready for battle, overlaid with radio transmissions and Cortana’s reassurance that reinforcements were on the way, with Master Chief looking out of a hangar bay window, over a wartorn Earth.

“What if you miss?” Cortana asks.

“I won’t,” Master Chief assures her, pulling the lever to open the hangar bay doors, before diving out into space.

As if that wasn’t enough, Martin O’Donnell’s iconic (there’s that word again) Halo theme kicked in as the Chief descended towards a Covenant ship, still in orbit.

Halo 2’s reception was huge for Microsoft, sealing the flagship series’ place in gaming history, especially as it brought with it the birth of Xbox Live. For those of you too young to remember the days before online gaming, Halo 2 was essentially the game that started it all on console. Halo: Combat Evolved was spectacular fun in splitscreen with friends, but Halo 2 brought players together from around the world, building on that brilliant (and often hilarious) experience.

Quite simply, without Halo, online console gaming would not exist as it does today. Xbox Live is arguably still the pinnacle of online services for console, but it really exploded onto the scene proper in 2005, when the Xbox 360 arrived. Unfortunately, there was no Halo to launch with the new console, though Halo 3 was announced a year later and its “believe” slogan became an internet sensation. When the game arrived in 2007, it was a massive hit, with more than one million online players in the first day. That may not seem like much now, with the huge numbers of players heading online after midnight launches and whatnot, but in 2007 it was a huge deal.

But what about that story – was it still as interesting and important after three games? You bet it was. While it’s true that Halo 2’s ending was abrupt and divisive, also making the wait for Halo 3 unbearable, I think most were happy with how the trilogy was wrapped up in its final chapter. The threads of the previous stories intertwined beautifully, with the Elites, Flood and UNSC forces all battling to save/destroy not only Earth, but the entire universe. The stakes were raised, as was the quality of the storytelling and cutscenes, but the gameplay remained as smooth and tactical as ever.

That’s not to say that Bungie rested on its laurels. Far from it, in fact. To this day, Halo 3 is remembered by many as the best in the series, thanks to some incredible level design and perfectly balanced gameplay. This was especially evident in the “Cortana” chapter, though I won’t spoil anything, for those that haven’t yet played the game.

After Halo 3, the series went in a different direction for a little while. It looked back, telling stories from the past. It also moved into a new genre with the RTS Halo Wars, telling a new story set 20 years prior to Combat Evolved, introducing a whole new cast of characters from a brand new UNSC ship, the Spirit of Fire.

Back in FPS land however, Halo 3: ODST told the story of an ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers) squad and was set during the events of Halo 2, on the Covenant-occupied Earth. It also introduced Buck, played by Nathan Fillion (alongside his fellow Firefly actors Adam Baldwin and Alan Tudyk, as well as Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer), who would return as a major character in Halo 5: Guardians.

Personally, I loved ODST. After the big, bombastic stories of the main games, the story of the Rookie and his ODST unit was a smaller, more human tale. Not that it didn’t include some big battles, it just wasn’t the sprawling action blockbuster of the numbered entries, and that’s what gave the game its unique feel. It also introduced Firefight, a multiplayer horde mode that could be played with up to three other players online. I had some good times on there.

Perhaps my biggest foray into Halo’s online modes came in the next spin-off, Halo: Reach. Myself and a few friends had ridiculous fun playing Grifball, especially. But the multiplayer isn’t why Reach is remembered so fondly, or why it was so celebrated when Xbox recently announced it was in development for the Master Chief Collection. Halo: Reach was Bungie’s swansong before moving away from Microsoft to develop Destiny, and its quality is testament to a team that wanted to end on the highest note possible.

Halo: Reach was based on the tie-in novel The Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund, and told the story of the events leading up to Halo: Combat Evolved. The Covenant have wiped out most of humanity’s colonies, with Reach the next one in line, and a team of Spartans are sent to investigate a communications relay that has gone offline. This team, designated “Noble”, discovers the first wave of Covenant to land on Reach.

What made Halo: Reach’s storyline so powerful was that you knew from the very beginning what would happen. It’s right there in the opening scene, yet somehow you fight on, thinking that maybe you can change the course of history somehow. And man, that post-credits section was a real punch in the gut, and one of the absolute best moments in the Halo series.

Alas, what followed was arguably the most divisive moment in the series. After Bungie left, there was no way Microsoft would let its flagship title die, and so 343 Industries was born. Soon after, Halo 4 was announced as the beginning of a new trilogy, telling the story of the Forerunners, a race of godlike beings that have been around since before humanity existed. Now, I love Halo 4 and will fight to the hilt of an Energy Sword to defend it, but it was, let’s just say, poorly-received by many. Let’s just leave it at that.

Halo 4 has its issues with its new enemies the Prometheans, and their weaponry being a little too similar to the UNSC armaments, but ultimately it offers another evolution of the core gameplay that has been the backbone of the whole series. The thing I love about it, as with almost every instalment in the series, is its story. Halo 4 is as much about Master Chief and Cortana, as it is about the Prometheans and their leader, the Didact. I would argue that Halo 4’s story is perhaps the best in the entire series, rivalling Reach for its emotional impact.

Which leads me to why I was so disappointed when Halo 5: Guardians arrived. The first original outing on Xbox One, there’s no getting around how gorgeous it was. Still is, actually. However, its gameplay, despite the addition of squads, felt a little too by-the-numbers and its story completely undid all the good work 343i did in Halo 4. Cortana’s role as a villain, the endless battles with the caretaker, and being forced to play as a character nobody really cared about in Spartan Locke; I just couldn’t work out why 343i would make such strange choices with a franchise that I loved. Why they would make such huge mistakes.

Still, my faith in Halo was restored not by 343i, but by Creative Assembly. In a move that I certainly didn’t see coming, Xbox decided to commision a sequel to Halo Wars, and in doing so managed to tell a story that truly felt like vintage Halo. Halo Wars 2 picks up 28 years after the Spirit of Fire was left drifting in uncharted space, as the crew awakens from cryosleep near the Ark, a Forerunner installation capable of building Halo rings. What follows is not only a cracking game that I thoroughly recommend playing (it’s on Game Pass, just FYI), but also an introduction to one of Halo’s greatest villains, Atriox. And honestly, it features one of my favourite cutscenes in all of gaming, thanks in part to the beautiful work done by Blur Studio, famous for its work on other Halo CG scenes, most notably in Halo 2: Anniversary.

Halo Wars 2 also takes place after Halo 5: Guardians, but ties into that underwhelming sequel’s storyline nicely, leaving me with some hope going into the next chapter of the Halo series.

To that end, we arrive at E3 2018 and the Xbox briefing. I wanted Halo to be there but wasn’t expecting anything really. To my surprise, despite my disappointment in Halo 5, the sight of Master Chief and the sound of that distinctive Halo music got my heart racing. I found myself smiling, my eyes misty as only happiness and excitement can cause, and I found myself with that feeling that almost abandoned me: hope. Hope that Halo would once again be one of the best games out there, with a story that would pull at my heartstrings and fill me with joy.

There is no doubting that Xbox has struggled with its exclusives over the past couple of years, though it obviously isn’t without some top notch ones like the evolving Sea of Thieves and the magnificent Forza Horizon series, and I think now is the perfect time for Halo to return to form. After it was announced by Bonnie Ross that Halo Infinite will be at E3 2019, I find myself in a quietly optimistic state, though I also find myself wondering if it will actually arrive on the current Xbox, or whether it will be a launch title for whatever Xbox has up its sleeve for the next generation of consoles.

Either way, I hope that 343 Industries has learned from its mistakes with Halo 5. I hope that Halo Infinite follows in the footsteps of Halo Wars 2, creating a compelling story with great characters, and possibly bringing the Spirit of Fire and Atriox’s Banished along for the ride. I hope that Master Chief is returned to his former glory, and that Cortana’s good name is restored along with our Spartan hero.

I hope.

But more than that, as Halo 3 once put it…

I believe.

The post Halo: Then and Now appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

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.

The post LEGO Dimensions: wave 4 rundown appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

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!

The post LEGO Dimensions – Wave 3 Rundown appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

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.

The post Skylanders Trap Team Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Sometimes the very best things don’t come right for you like a South Park deer, they blind-side you out of nowhere. A few years ago a little studio named Rocksteady came careening out of left field to hit us with what turned out to be the greatest Batman game that ever was. It’s not that we didn’t know it was coming; we’d seen trailers and hype and lofty promises, but none of us truly expected Arkham Asylum to be as good as it was. The license had been abused so much, we just couldn’t trust anyone to do it justice, not even Warner Brothers.

Five years later, and history has been repeating itself like a bad curry ever since Warner Brothers announced Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Like Batman, Tolkien’s genre-defining fantasy opus is a license that has never really been used to its potential. Occasional gems have been found among the rough, but ultimately fans of the franchise have always been left wanting something more. Initial trailers and screens for Mordor were uninspiring, showing an Assassin’s Creed-like stealth-em-up with a Middle-earth sheen. No one could blame us for feeling apprehensive.

But then I put the disc in the tray, booted up Shadow of Mordor, and experienced undeniable deja vu. Because Shadow of Mordor, against almost all our expectations, is excellent.

Set in the years between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, this original story takes place within Mordor itself, as resurrected Ranger Talion sets out to avenge the death of his wife and son, as well as his own. Possessed by an Elfish Wraith, Talion has been brought back from the brink of death to destroy the Black Hand of Sauron, an evil tyrant determined to see the Dark Lord return.

Where Tolkien’s original tales championed the rejection of absolute power in favour of innate courage and sacrifice, Shadow of Mordor sees Talion welcoming the power of his ghostly symbiote, openly seeking the kind of bloody vengeance that Tolkien always avoided. As a result, it’s a darker Middle-earth than we’re used to seeing, and despite the familiar themes and visuals, it feels utterly original.

Much noise has reverberated around the obvious Assassin’s Creed comparisons both pre and post-release, but the truth is that it’s a less blindingly obvious game that Mordor draws the most parallels with. When you break it down into its component parts, Mordor is also Arkham Asylum in Middle-earth. While it’s true that Talion climbs solitary towers to fill in his map and can skulk around in bushes, his version of focused vision is closer to Batman’s Detective Mode than Eagle Vision, used to track quarry across the rugged terrain and find hidden collectibles.

Enemy interaction takes several leaves from Batman’s handbook, too, as you use fear and deception to destroy and disorient your foes. The Uruks of Mordor respond like the Joker’s goons, becoming bolder the more you struggle, or turning tail when your assault proves unbreakable. If you panic and run they’ll look for you, call their brutish buddies, maybe give voice to their fears if you’ve recently proven your lethality.

The final parallel with Rocksteady’s superhero masterpiece is the combat. Counter-based and reactionary, the combat is free-flowing melee that sees Talion slinging himself around the battlefield, executing downed enemies and performing stylised instant kills whenever his Wraith-tainted sword begins to shine. Combos are tapped out with the Square button, while Cross lets you evade incoming attacks and Triangle performs a stylish counter. The number of combat animations is staggering, and there’s an undeniable beauty and grace to Talion’s epic confrontations. Throw the Warg-like Caragors and hulking Graugs into the mix, as well as ranged units and a multitude of enemy melee styles, and Mordor’s combat moves into a league of its own.

Should you fall, the Uruk that dealt the killing blow will be promoted to Captain, and join the ranks of the Uruk elite. Most of the main story missions centre on tracking and killing Captains, and it’s here, with the Nemesis System, that Shadow of Mordor elevates itself above its contemporaries. There is an entire social network at play beneath Mordor’s flesh, where Uruk Captains war for status and supremacy. This simple addition makes the world feel truly alive, as though the lives of your enemies are going on without your presence. More than this though, the Nemesis System gives each of your enemies an individual personality and memory.

If you fall in battle, the killer will remember you when you rise again from the grave. If you put a Captain down and he survives, he will remember you and thirst for vengeance, and he’ll wear the battle scars you gave him. Run away, and he’ll call you a coward, exploit his weakness, and he’ll recall your actions with either respect or contempt. Interrogating enemies will give you additional information on Captains, and make you privy to their fears. If one is afraid of fire, throw him into flames; if he’s paranoid about Caragors, let one go, Far Cry 3-style, into the Uruk encampment. It’s an exceptional system that genuinely heightens your immersion in the world and makes you feel that it’s you and you alone dictating the fate of Mordor.

Should you decide you want a break from hunting Captains, you can partake of any of half a dozen or more side concerns, such as digging up artefacts (which borrows a mechanic wholesale from the Tomb Raider reboot), or freeing human slaves. Tapping L1 will call forth the Wraith to help you track down hidden treasures. Side quests also afford you upgrades to your sword, bow and dagger. While customisation isn’t really featured, you can pick and choose your skills as you progress, and you’ll acquire runes from dead Captains that add buffs to your weaponry. The combination of weapon runes and combat skills steadily increase Talion’s power and efficiency, and as his power grows and his humanity slowly seeps away, you will feel both his unease with his strange new gifts and his growing realisation that only by using these powers can he hope to avenge his family. It’s a powerful theme and Monolith use it well, conveying the sense of reluctant power without hitting you over the head with it.

Unfortunately, such quality in the gameplay highlights flaws elsewhere. For example, the environments of Shadow of Mordor lean towards the brown end of the spectrum, so much so that you’d be forgiven for thinking the Unreal Engine was involved. That being said, the world is well-detailed and the animation is exceptional. The sound design is similarly high quality, from the stellar voice work to the quintessential Lord of the Rings ambience. The score is epic and sweeping, carrying a menacing undertone when it needs to and raising your pulse when a ruckus kicks off.

Other complaints are just as minor, but important enough to warrant mentioning. For starters, the camera is occasionally a little temperamental, and the combat suffers the same problems with clipping and collision as Batman’s did. It’s not unusual to see an enemy drop after your elbow has barely connected, or to spot a body caught in the floor or scenery. Also, there’s simply no denying that by the time you’ve finished the 12 to 15 hour campaign, the combat will have started to feel repetitive and a little by-the-numbers, despite its quality, and hoovering up all those missed artefacts and side missions may lose some of its lustre.

Just like Batman before it, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is the greatest Rings game we’ve seen, and is easily the best use of the license to date. The combat and Nemesis System alone are worth the asking price, but it’s the world itself that steals the show. Mordor is alive but dying, still vital but mortally poisoned by Sauron’s festering evil, a darkness that threatens to consume everything – even Talion himself. In a brave move, Shadow of Mordor eschews Tolkien’s almost trademark black and white hero versus villain dynamic to present a protagonist who walks in the grey places, caught between doing the right thing and satisfying his own need for vengeance and absolution.

Dark, compelling, and occasionally unflinchingly brutal, Shadow of Mordor is Lord of the Rings for grown-ups. It’s not just a good game based on an established franchise, but a fantastic game in its own right and one that deserves to be judged purely by its own merits, and not by what has come before.

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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“Definitive” is the latest buzzword to be introduced to an industry seemingly built on them, but what it actually means is “now on next-gen consoles”. As we wait patiently for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to fill up their catalogues with new titles, we’re being treated (and most of them are treats) to re-jigged versions of already-released titles, more often than not tweaked for 1080p and 60fps – a graphical upgrade which seems enough to justify a re-release all on its own.

CastleStorm, from Zen Studios (the team behind several awesome Pinball series, among other things), is the most recent title to make the transfer across generations, and it’s a welcome addition to the line-up despite the lack of significant change. A hybrid of RTS, Tower Defence, action and Angry Birds, CastleStorm is one of the more interesting titles to occupy that odd middle ground between indie and AAA, combining highly addictive gameplay with bright, colourful visuals to deliver an experience that is nothing short of charming.

The narrative centres on a fantasy world where knights and Vikings warred for centuries, until a Goddess cried two tears that turned to magical crystals. Each side took one, and peace reigned for decades, until the Vikings got greedy and decided they wanted both. Your part in the ensuing war is to defend your king and country as Protector of the Realm, a quintessential hero knight with blond hair, blue eyes and shiny shining armour. Armed with a sword and shield or a bow, you’ll be tasked with either heading out to meet the enemy head on, or leading the royal defenses to repel invaders.

Initially presented as a 2D physics game, CastleStorm gives you a meagre arsenal to begin with, affording you nothing but a ballistae with which to perforate hairy Viking skulls. As the game progresses you’ll unlock more, from huge spiked bolas to explosive missiles, and you’ll be able to deploy troops to defend you on the ground. The strategy element exists because troops cost food, and food costs time, so you’ll need to use your weaponry (all working on cooldowns) to keep the enemy at bay until you can field reinforcements.

From ground troops and archers to trolls, direwolves and champions, the enemy comes at you in steady waves, mixing it up enough that you’ll need to employ a combination of defensive strategies to stay in the game. If they take down your wall and make it back to base with your flag, it’s over. As with most games of this ilk, you can be riding high one minute and in a world of doodoo the next thanks to one bad decision or imprecise shot. If you do win the day, you’ll be rewarded with gold to spend on upgrades and new weapons or soldiers.

The targeting isn’t always as exact as you’d like, and sometimes the bright colours make it hard to discern exactly what’s going on during a fight or how much damage you’re doing to the enemy castle, but patience is usually the key to victory. Taking your time to line up a shot is way more effective than blind-firing, especially when you’re aiming to clean up on bonuses for, say, getting 20 headshot kills. The controls are simple enough, even during the missions where your plucky, chiselled hero heads out onto the field himself and you take total, single control of him. It’s an excellent change of pace, even if he does move a little ponderously sometimes.

The multiplayer mode ups the ante by pitting you against another devious and free-thinking human being, but besides this the core game is identical. The AI is tough enough during later stages that I never found myself hankering after a PvP game, but the option is there for those who prefer the challenge of out-thinking a person. If nothing else, playing against a player makes every match less predictable, and demands that you use everything you’ve got to win.

A castle building mode rounds off the package, allowing you to design your own base. There are plenty of options to fortify and defend your creation, but the controls can feel a little clunky and for some reason it never feels that satisfying to use your own base – partly because the pre-made ones are perfectly functional and, despite the inclusion of some half-decent buffs, all you’re really doing is adding layers and making it harder to bring down. Though, that’s the point, I suppose.

Although CastleStorm seemed right at home on the Vita, it fits the PS4 very well, too. The bright visuals pop and sing thanks to the increased power and the game runs as smooth as butter at all times. Addictive and entertaining, CastleStorm’s mix of fairytale whimsy and challenging strategy – as well as its mishmash of play styles – makes it a solid and enticing prospect whatever the platform.

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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From the moment you begin, the atmosphere is dripping from every corner of Alien: Isolation. Creative Assembly have successfully created not only an expansive world to explore and traverse, but also the fear that an Alien should instil. You don’t want to run into the perfect killing machine, and after the first time, you actually don’t ever want to see it again. But like Resident Evil’s Nemesis, the titular Alien stalks you as prey, and you’ll never truly feel able to assault it.

Let’s be clear about this: Isolation is one-hundred-percent a stealth game. Not a stealth game like Dishonored, where you can kill people and escape. No, if you are pulling your revolver out here, you’re doing it wrong and are either going to die, or have to hope you get lucky.

This is in part thanks to the relentless AI. It’s worth saying that, if you do encounter the Alien and it sees you, you’re dead. If you’re lucky enough that it appears and doesn’t see you, sure, you can hide and escape, but there are other enemies on the Sevastopol space station that are just as deadly. Scavenger humans, in fact, are the easiest to kill, but appear in groups and are smart enough to patrol in a manner that makes you easy to spot. Synthetics are brutally difficult to take down, requiring almost all of your ammo in one go, which is likely to attract more enemies thanks to the noise. In fact, they’re possibly too hard (even on the medium difficultly level), and can happily grab your melee weapon and throttle you, causing you to smash buttons to escape, then run for cover.

Everything wants to kill you, and as Amanda Ripley, you’re woefully under-prepared to fight back. Amanda has chosen to go on a company mission to the vast Sevastopol because there’s a hint that her mother might be there. Arriving with her colleagues, it’s apparent right away that something is wrong. Entering the station, an accident occurs and Ripley is left on her own, trying to uncover the mystery of what has happened there, and to reconnect with her colleagues before eventually escaping.

Characters are portrayed well, and respectfully – though perhaps more importantly, they’re all believable. Ripley is like her mother: strong, but frightened. She knows she can’t hold her own in a fight, but she’s smart and nimble. It’s early on when everything goes to pot that the incredible audio design first becomes apparent. A space walk to Sevastopol causes everything to become muted outside Amanda’s helmet, intensifying the audio and helping to create the bleak, hopeless atmosphere. Despite the vast expanse of space, she’s alone. Even entering a huge space station doesn’t help, because the people are scattered, frightened, and half the ship isn’t working.

It looks great, too. Every nook and cranny has been beautifully rendered, and the lighting effects are some of the best I’ve seen in a long, long time. But it’s the authenticity that truly makes it. The clanking sound of the Alien in the vents, the beeping of the motion tracker, the awkward speech of synthetic workers. It’s just brilliant, and there’s not a single misstep here.

You’ll be sneaking around, using all sorts of tools to help keep you safe, along with the motion tracker. A nice effect is that as you raise the tracker to view it (it shows your objective direction, as well) the rest of your view loses focus, blurring out. The shift of visual focus in this manner is something I can honestly recall seeing done, and you can hold a trigger to shift your focus back to the background, blurring the tracker out temporarily.

There are plenty of small mini-games that involve hacking, but they’re actually entertaining due to the feeling that you’re never safe. Stopping to hack a door when the Alien could be anywhere, ready to kill you, is horrible (in a good way), and every time you do it, you’ll feel panicked. Along with crafting noisemakers (and other assorted distraction weapons) from scavenged parts (don’t use up your torch batteries!), you can also tap into security systems and turn off lights, or the air purifier to create a smoky room, or even just make speakers malfunction to grab a patrolling synthetic’s attention – but you’re always risking your life doing so.

Even saving your game isn’t safe, as you’ll be warned that enemies are nearby, and it’s here that the biggest issue with Isolation rears its head: you can only hard-save. Harking back to days when games were harder, there is no auto-save at all. If you die, you’re going back to the last save you committed to. Forgotten to save for forty minutes and die? That’s forty minutes of progress you’ve just lost. The idea seems to be that quick-saving would remove all fear from Isolation, and while that’s believable, the lack of any form of checkpointing means that there will be moments of unnecessary frustration.

This, coupled with the difficulty of most enemy encounters, means that anything and everything positive I have to say (and there’s so much positive here, it’s ridiculous), needs to be read with the caveat that the save system will not be to everyone’s tastes. If you do make a mistake, and save somewhere dangerous, you can revert to the previous save, but that’s it. At one point I lost forty minutes, but it’s a testament to the quality of the game that I didn’t mind that much, and continued on for another hour beyond that. In fact, such is the quality here, that my first play sessions was four hours (the game is around fifteen hours long, though never outstays its welcome even for a second), and that’s not something I can say very often.

There are some nice features found in the PS4 version, such as the DualShock 4 speaker offering warning of motion nearby. A static beep lets you know you’re not alone in the area, and you can then lift the tracker up and study it. The PlayStation Camera (and Kinect on Xbox One) offers head tracking. Holding L1 lets you use the left stick to lean around corners, but with the camera, you can physically lean. It’s a nice touch that you’ll use for a few hours, then revert back to the controller. It’ll also (if you enable it) pick up audio from the camera’s microphone, giving away your position if you suddenly make lots of noise. Another nice idea, but one that is slightly at odds with the actual gameplay. If you’re sneaking around perfectly, but then sneeze or cough, you’ve given away the game.

But when all is said and done, you’re playing Alien: Isolation for the atmosphere and the alien, and Isolation delivers in spades. It’s a smart beast, and eventually the fear you have turns to respect. You’ll learn that you can (and will) die often, but if you play your cards right, it can kill your enemies before turning its eye on you. Brutal death sequences quickly remind you that it’s a killer and not a toy, but appearances are sparing in the first half, though often enough to never let you forget, before really ratcheting up the tension as it stalks you. The audio is so well designed that any sudden noise will have you jumping and going for your motion detector, and this is a game that unsettles as much as it scares.

Technically, for the most part, Isolation is a marvel, but not completely without issue. There’s an odd thing with the cut-scenes that looks like a frame-rate problem. There’s not so many of them that it affects the overall game, but it’s noticeable when it happens. Elsewhere, the UI is minimalist and there’s a glorious 80s vibe going on, especially during loading screens, with tracking lines everywhere, even on hint-text as it appears. It’s a loveletter to the era the Alien franchise came from, and it absolutely works.

There’s a clear option to return on higher difficulties, and potentially speed-run the game, because after you know what to expect, for the most part you can complete sections in double time. Survival mode adds a completely different aspect to Isolation, and instead of rewarding patience and slow-movement, asks you to quickly complete bite-sized tasks.

Alien: Isolation is a phenomenal title marred by only one major issue that some will overlook, and others will find a deal-breaker. It’s comfortably the best Alien game ever made, and delivers authenticity along with a new story that is worth seeing, experiencing, and fleeing from into the darkness. Never once allowing the immersion to be broken, Creative Assembly have done it. They have actually done it.

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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Any other developer would call it a sequel. As with the latest edition of BlazBlue, subtitled Chrono Phantasma, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is an iteration that does far more than one would expect an iteration to do. While Ultimax appears, in name and in screenshots, to be a basic fighting game update of its predecessor, it doesn’t take a lot of playing to realise that Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is actually much closer to full blown follow up that a championship edition.

And that’s simply because it’s packed full of new modes, extra ideas and huge additions. It’s also because the story is a direct follow-up, too. This isn’t just a balance tweaked Persona 4 Arena with one or two new characters. This is a huge update, and one that makes remarkable improvements to an already superb fighting game.

At a basic level Arc System Works have added 9 new characters, almost doubling Persona 4 Arena’s total. Then there’s the new story mode alongside an RPG-like twist on survival in Golden Arena, plus Auto and Safety difficulties in various modes that, when combined with Persona 4 Arena’s ‘Auto Combo’, ensure that even the most timid of Atlus RPG fans can enjoy the spectacular rave combo combat that Arc System Works specialises in.

Put the magnifying glass a little closer and you’ll note that existing combatants all have new moves, new properties, and new animations. In some instances these tweaks make the characters simply more viable (Yu can now effectively pressure a Kanji player with a new command grab) and some simply more interesting (Yosuke has a hint of the Sadira’s about his new mix-up game).

Most characters also have a new Shadow version, too, which alters specifics in regards to how they can use special meter and what some universal techniques, such as bursts, actually do. This gives you a slight bit of style choice when picking your favourite character, as well as more to think about when presented with an opponent. Every fighter here is more developed than they were in Persona 4 Arena.

For those of you that don’t know know what Persona 4 Arena actually is, it’s a merger of a few things: the style, narrative and characters of Atlus’ contemporary JRPG series, Persona, and the intricate, combo based 2D fighting ‘air dash’ designs of Arc System Works, the studio responsible for both the BlazBlue and Guilty Gear series’.

The series was a corker from its first outing, because Arc System Works make tremendous fighting games. Their titles are rammed full of systems, often with obtuse names, that embellish combat every step of the way, making for combat dialogue that constantly feels fresh and rewarding to play. These are fighting games that punish overly defensive play, that build mind games into combo strings with the combo breaking ‘burst’, that give characters very specific mechanics and tools to ensure every different combination of characters has a plethora of interesting wrinkles to it. It’s no surprise that other fighting game developers are following in Arc’s footsteps, because they make stellar fisticuffs games.

Persona 4 Arena separates itself from the pack by playing on the Persona franchise’s main draw, the titular Personas. This is a four button fighter, but the catch is that two buttons control your character, and the other two are associated with their shadowy guardian (their Persona), and working out how to effectively combine both your character and Persona’s attacks in combat is a wholly unique combat style. Other games have dabbled in Puppet and Staff styles (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and BlazBlue, notably), but none embrace it as fully as Persona 4 Arena. This alone makes it a very exciting, often intoxicating game to play and watch, even if it can be somewhat initially bewildering.

But what if you’re a JRPG fan? Well, while Persona 4 Arena Ultimax certainly does a lot to improve the experience for fight fans, Persona’s JRPG slanted admirers have not been forgotten. Quite the opposite, I’d say that Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is more accommodating than ever.

The auto combo returns (hammer light punch and your character will input a basic, but effective, combo string that links all the way up to a super move should you have the meter), but alongside that are easier difficulties and even an ‘auto’ option in story that sees the CPU play out the scraps for you, should you just be in the mood to read the story and watch the pretty cutscenes.

The Golden Arena feels tailored to RPG players, too. Essentially a series of survival matches that saves after every fifth floor, your character levels up as you play, and builds a bond with their supporting character. Every time you level up you can spend skill points to improve stats, and you also unlock abilities of which you can have four active to embellish play. It’s a great addition and probably the best way for a non-fighting game fan to get a lot of game from Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. The harder courses will appeal to fighting game fans, too.

Aside from that, it’s as expected. Usual arcade and time attack modes alongside a list of nigh-impossible skill challenges for every character alongside Arc System Works’ solid online integration. It’s all icing around the superb combat, really, but it’s reassuring to know the usual content spread is present and correct.

It’s the style that shines through, though. I said it when Persona 4 Arena came out and it stands true for Ultimax; Persona 4 Arena is the most stylish fighting game ever, and a gem of the genre to boot, thanks to its combination of appealing and genuinly cool aesthetics with ocean deep gameplay. The only thing that’s changed with Ultimax is that it’s better than ever. Lots better, actually. Sequel degrees of better, even if Arc System Works won’t shout about it.

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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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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Sherlock Holmes has recently become a force to be reckoned with in entertainment. The BBC TV series is arguably one of the most popular shows they’ve aired in recent years, the Robert Downey Jr movies received solid reviews and the Elementary TV show with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu is incredibly entertaining despite the questionable casting. With so much great Sherlock based entertainment. Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments has a lot of expectation riding on it.

The main source of Sherlock’s popularity are the fascinating mysteries, usually with incredible twists that you don’t see coming. Crimes and Punishments features a total of 6 cases to solve and, while they may not be on the same level as other Sherlock stories, they are easily enough to hold your interest. None are particularly easy to guess from the beginning, and a couple manage to make you think you have figured out the solution, before throwing in a twist that changes everything at the last minute.

The majority of cases involve a murder of some kind and it’s down to Sherlock (with assistance from Watson, as you would expect) to find the killer. In order to come to a conclusion you must find clues and link them together to discover what actually happened. Clues can be found by wandering the crime scene and investigating items by pressing X (on PlayStation). Finding clues isn’t particularly difficult, as whenever you can examine something a notification pops up. Due to the amount of evidence and the space between each piece, collecting it will take up the majority of your time.

Sherlock also has a number of abilities he can use to find evidence. Firstly, he can use his imagination to see missing items or imagine what may have happened at the scene. He can also use his superior mind and senses to notice clues that may seem like nothing but actually play a vital role. Both of these features are used regularly and create that extra sense of being Sherlock. Also available is the ability to use disguises, however this isn’t vital often enough and seems quite unnecessary when it is used.

Some pieces of evidence will need further examination to be useful. This may involve heading back to Baker Street to search for information in the archives, conduct an experiment on the evidence, or get Sherlock’s dog Toby to follow a scent. The evidence analysis mini games (along with lock picking) offer a nice change of pace and break up the game well. None are overly challenging but if you do get stuck they can all be skipped.

Finding hard evidence isn’t the only way to solve the cases; you must also interview witnesses, suspects and victims. For all the important characters in the case you can perform a character portrait, which allows you to pinpoint small visible details from the interviewee to form a quick profile about them. Information picked up in these portraits, along with other evidence, can occasionally be used to call out lies during an interrogation. The interactions with the other characters are what will mainly influence your suspicions. There were a few times where I would discount hard evidence because I trusted what someone had said.

Once you have enough evidence and you have linked it all together you can deduce who is guilty. However, it is possible to make the wrong decision. With all the evidence the guilty party is usually fairly obvious but if you miss something (like I did in the 2nd case) you will come away with an incorrect decision and may end up wrongfully punishing someone. When I discovered I had wrongly punished someone I did genuinely feel bad, especially because I dished out the harsher of the two punishment options.

The crime scenes are varied to say the least: some take place in London’s back alleys while others see Sherlock and Watson travel to Kew Gardens, ancient temples and a circus. Each of the areas is quite well designed, evidence isn’t always obvious (and would be truly difficult to find if the button prompt wasn’t present) and in some cases the layout of the area is a clue itself.

Unfortunately the visuals are sub-par for a game on the PS4 and Xbox One. Add in frequent frame rate drops, texture pop and obvious tearing and Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments becomes difficult to look at without feeling disappointed. The voice acting isn’t exactly great either; some characters are better than others, and Sherlock’s voice does grow on you after a few hours but the majority of the voice work is poor and leads to a few irritating characters.

Each of the cases offers a unique and interesting story, and discovering what happened at each location is fascinating. While constantly pressing X to examine what seems like every object in a room becomes tedious it is easily offset by eureka moments that pop up every so often. The environments you explore are great but are unfortunately not helped by ropey visuals and a slew of technical issues. Perhaps Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments’ greatest achievement is how guilty you feel when you punish an innocent person – even just being able to get it wrong is a superb idea.

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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Remember when the thought of driving a real car was the most exciting thing imaginable? I do: being 17, getting my first car, pimping it out and driving it like an idiot. Nine years on and driving is rarely a pleasure and more of a chore thanks to traffic, bad drivers and crazed parents on the school run. Misery. Enter Forza Horizon 2, which promises sunshine, super cars and an enormous playground in which to reclaim the joy of driving.

Two years on from the release of Forza Horizon, Turn 10 and Playground Games are back with the sequel, Forza Horizon 2, which promises to be bigger, brasher and prettier than its forebear. Forza Horizon 2 takes us back to the car lover’s paradise of the Horizon Festival, a fusion of music and motorsport. This time out the festival takes place in southern Europe, in particular the French / Italian border, so expect to see sun-drenched roads, open fields and cliff-top vistas. Horizon lets you take the role of one lucky festival goer, and it is your job to try and become the Horizon Champion by competing in various events, road races and competitions.

Let me just get one thing out of the way here: Forza Horizon 2 is huge. Not just in terms of its playable area, which contains three times the amount of drivable roads than its predecessor, but in terms of the amount of things to see and do. There are so many game mechanics on show here it is just about impossible to get bored when driving from point to point. Need to hop across the map to take part in the next championship? Expect to be distracted.

Along the way you will come across speed traps that encourage you to go hell for leather in an effort to get to the top of the leader board. Average speed traps that assign you an average speed to hit between points. Collectables (there are hundreds of them) in the form of smashable boards give an XP boost or fast travel discount. You may even be tempted into an online road trip or car meet. Honestly, I have never had as much fun not racing in a racing game as I have in Forza Horizon 2. All this fun is there to help you build up XP, which in turn allows you to level up and earn perks and prizes.

But how does Horizon 2 actually handle? Forza Horizon 2 has been built using the same engine as Forza Motorsport 5 – the racing thoroughbred that launched with the Xbox One last year, and a lot of that racing DNA has made the jump to Forza Horizon 2. A track racer this is not, of course, so it is obvious from the get-go that things have loosened up a little to suit Horizon 2’s more casual nature.

After booting up for the first time and clicking past the beautiful splash screen, a short intro to the Horizon Festival is shown, and you are thrust behind the wheel of a Lamborghini, which you drive from the port in the south to the Horizon Festival hub. Easing into the first corner, the Lambo’ feels heavy, weighty, the back end starts to slide without much coaxing and, it’s obvious that this is an arcade racer at heart. There are no sim pretences here: Horizon 2 sets out to be an open world arcade racer and it does it better than any title I have played before.

Every car in Horizon 2 has its own subtle handling characteristics – I’m not talking about the difference between a Racing Ford Transit Van and a McLaren P1 (both of which feature), I’m talking about the differences between two seemingly similar cars. Take the Chevvy Camaro and the Ford Mustang, for example. In another arcade racer (naming no names) the two would feel largely the same – big, heavy and good in a straight line. Here they feel totally different, with one being an over-steering stallion and the other an under steering nightmare. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which.

The Horizon Festival Hub acts as the central location for festival events. It is where you go to buy, tune and paint your cars, which sounds annoying, but more of these hubs pop up as you progress, so you are never too far from a new lick of paint should you get bored of your cars standard look. The car tuning options are vast, allowing you to tinker with a myriad of car components to get the most out of your motor. You can make adjustments to components you already own or by new upgrades, and thankfully there’s an auto upgrade option, which lets the game do all the dirty work for you. Lovely.

The core game takes you from town to town, entering you into to a new championship in each location. When entering a new championship, you are given three car class options to choose from, and you then need to buy a car to enter your chosen championship with. Super 1, Super 2 or Sports Saloon? Old school, 90’s or Modern Rally? There are 20 championships to choose from, most of which can be entered into at any of Horizon 2’s championship locations, with each championship comprising of at least 4 races. That is a staggering amount of races to get through. You won’t need to beat all 160 championships to see the credits roll, but it’s great to have the choice of class at every location.

Forza Horizon 2 left has left me breathless on a number of occasions, thanks in large part to the addition of “The Bucket List”, a series of challenges scattered around Horizon 2’s environment that are just begging to be mastered. Bucket List challenges range in difficulty and are always fun. “Drive a Pegani Zonda Like You Stole it” is the title of one challenge, which sets you the task of driving from point to point in under 45 seconds. “Ignore the Roads in a Bowler EXR” has been my personal highlight: barrelling across fields at 150mph, dodging trees and houses in an effort to hit a punishingly difficult challenge time. I couldn’t get the smile off my face.

Horizon 2’s spectacular driving is made all the more enjoyable thanks to the way it looks. Did I not mention the visuals yet? Do yourself a favour and check this one out, it deserves to be seen in motion. 1080p and a rock solid 30fps, this is a game that oozes class. The lighting is such that is made me want to get off the sofa and book a holiday, it is that realistic, that inviting. Horizon 2 (on Xbox One) is the first entry into the Forza series to feature dynamic weather effects, and it is in an early road trip that you are exposed to the elements first hand.

Never has rain looked so good. A quick shower followed by sunshine leaves the roads looking stunning, with the vehicles looking even better, as beads of water roll around on their immaculately modelled surfaces. Driving using the in-car or over-the-bonnet view reveals even more weather effects, as the rain builds up on the hood and windscreen. It really has to be seen to be believed. And yes, the rain impacts handling just as you would expect – a rain shower means you need to be easier on the throttle, and watch that back end.

The opponents you face are “Drivatars”, digital representations of other players, who carry on burning rubber even when they are not online. It is a nice touch, and it is fun to wipe the floor with a couple of people on your friends list (even if they are completely unaware). Being the sort of happy-go-lucky racer that it is, there are a few online game modes on offer that I have not come across before, like the awesome “King”, which is basically the playground game of tag, only in half-million pound super cars. You can go to nerdy car meets, exchange paint decals (and earn credits in the process), get into a free roam session or enter a road trip with your buddies. Put it this way: I will be forcing my friends to buy this game so we can go cruising together.

Being a racer set at a festival, Horizon 2 is backed up by a choice of 5 radio stations, each offering their own brand of in-your-face coolness, voiced by DJs who say things that real human beings never really say, like “keepin’ it real” and “far out”. It’s all harmless fun, and it does a good job of keeping that care-free festival vibe going throughout.

Racing game fans are going to be spoilt for choice in the next few months. The number of new racers and even new IPs is great for fans of the genre, but I will be amazed if any of them live up to the experience on offer in Forza Horizon 2. Its breathtaking take on the world of cars is a petrol head’s wet dream.

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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In last year’s FIFA review, I joked that EA Sports might one day rebrand the game as Sky Sports’ FIFA, and it appears that my attempt at humour was bang on the money. A host of changes once again pervade the latest iteration of EA’s blockbuster football game, and while some are more successful than others, there are also areas that have been all but ignored for FIFA 15.

But let’s get one of the biggest changes out of the way right now: the presentation. FIFA 15 looks so much like a Sky Sports presentation, it’s uncanny. You could walk in the room as a match is starting up and double-take, it’s that well done. But aside from the graphical overlays that tell us who is playing where, an attention to detail has been given to the audio department, too. EA are quick to promote the fact they’ve been to the twenty premiership grounds and captured the various crowds in action – and when this is evident in-game, it’s fairly spectacular. The crowd singing “You’ll never walk alone” is something that could even make the hairs on the back of an Everton fan’s neck stand up. When a goal is scored, the volume increases like an explosion of passion and delight, and the camera visibly shakes to match the crowd’s raucous celebration. It’s fantastic, there’s really no other way to put it. Smaller but noticeable features like the pitch wearing as the match progresses are nice and add to the immersion, but the crowds break it a little as they still don’t look quite right.

That said, the presentation can take centre-stage too often, and unskippable scenes during matches are annoying. After you’ve seen the ref brandish a yellow card, where the players react and show the much vaunted emotion of FIFA 15 for the tenth time, you just want to skip it – but you can’t. It’s inexplicable as to when it happens, but it’s almost always when a card is flashed, or when you’re in a hurry and want to get on with the game. On the subject of the “emotion”, I honestly haven’t spotted too much of it. Players will look annoyed when a striker misses instead of passing, or fall out when things are going against them, but it doesn’t seem as big a deal as you’d think.

But it’s the on-the pitch action that matters, and the changes to the gameplay are both a blessing and a curse. First of all, attacking play in FIFA 15 is some of the most satisfying I’ve ever experienced – when it works. There does seem to be a propensity for shots that go in (or wide) off-the-bar, almost as though EA Canada are trying to give you wow-moments, as the audio of the bar being hit is like a dynamite explosion. However, this could also be because wing-play is a lot harder, and swinging a ball in seems to have had its effectiveness reduced. Expect to run down the left with a nippy winger and hit a cross that either doesn’t reach the target, or is ably defended against. Headers are not easy to score on anything above semi-pro difficulty any more, though when you do, they’re often screamers.

This results in a lot of attacking play coming through the middle, where the more realistic dribbling either works really well, or frustrates beyond belief. You can’t turn on a sixpence any more, and you’ll have to learn how to use the sprint button and trick stick to get by, or else rely on quick movement and passing. It’s an impressive re-enactment of the beautiful game, but it also reduces the fun factor. Those who hanker for a more realistic football experience will delight in this, but those of you who just want to lose yourself in a video game may find it less fun.

For once, the players feel unique, though. A quick winger will be muscled off the ball by a strong-arming defender; likewise, a slow centre back will be left for dead by a Navas, Walcott, or Messi. The more lifelike physics mean that if you mistime a tackle, that player is out of the game. Ray Wilkins would love FIFA 15, because it’s all about staying on your feet and making it count. If you aren’t sure you’re going to win the ball, then you need to contain the attacker instead, or bring in a second player to hustle them away from goal as you step in for the tackle.

Sadly, there are still moments of extreme frustration when defending. Three successful tackles and they’ve still got the ball? That’s still in, I’m afraid. It’s a steep learning curve, so expect to drop back a difficulty to begin with, just for the defending part of the game alone. It’s a strange beast, actually – often you’ll feel as though you are fighting the physics, because there are so many individual components that maintain the random nature of the game, that it doesn’t always work for the game.

Keepers have been vastly improved, too. Don’t expect many one-sided batterings here, unless you’re playing on Beginner. They will parry, save, punch or otherwise stop you from easy goals, and that’s if the defenders even let you get a shot away in the first place, as they throw their body into the way as if their life depends on it. Keepers can be inconsistent, though, and you’ll go from the sublime to the ridiculous; suddenly scoring the most outrageous long-shot you’ve ever seen, before then taking part in a complete shut-out in the following game.

One touch that is most welcome is the ability to switch to the receiver when taking a corner or a throw-in. A flick of the right stick allows you to command a player and call for the ball. With throw-ins this seems a far more effective way of actually getting the ball, though corners are hit or miss; though this led to me taking a lot of short corners and calling for a runner.

The ball feels looser here, as well. Often in previous FIFA titles no matter how hard you hit the ball, it always felt like it was pre-ordained to arrive to the target. Here, the ball is a physical object. You’ll sky it over everyone for a throw-in, but because the players are physically realistic, you’ll also miss that last ditch attempt to keep the ball in. But there are anomalies, and I lost count of the times the defensive AI would hit a huge panicked clearance that bypasses the entire midfield and coincidentally lands at their attacking man, who is now in a one-on-one with my last defender.

But oh, when it all works, it’s delicious. I lost count of the times I shouted “Xbox, record that!” or hit the Share button. Numerous times I visibly jumped from my seat in excitement, the swelling of the crowd cheering me on. Despite it all, there are moments of absolute gaming bliss to be had here.

Ultimate Team has had numerous additions, though most of them are short-term prospects. The idea of loaning one of the best players in the game is ace, but once you’ve used them, that’s it, and the Football Catalog has a limited number of loanable players, which (like everything in EASFC, which itself has undergone an upgrade, allowing you to share, comment, like and dislike happenings) are one-time use. You can’t loan legends on Xbox One, either, which feels a missed opportunity. Concept Squads are nice, allowing you to create (but not play with) a dream squad and share with your friends, and these are at least slightly more long-term, allowing you to see how a potential player might gel with your squad, then go out and buy him. The biggest new feature to FUT is friendly seasons, meaning you can play against your friends, rather than random online players that you’d have to normally.

Disappointingly, Career Mode has been all-but ignored this year, bar a few cosmetic changes. that are present in the rest of the game anyway. The team management is now a more visual affair, with player’s faces appearing on a pitch, allowing you to move their positions on the fly (PES has done this for years, just FYI). Unfortunately, it’s a mixed bag, and takes up far more real estate than the old version, which was admittedly slow and cumbersome. You can create and name multiple teams, so you can (as we all do, every year) decide on a team for the league, and one for cups.

There’re some nice touches in the commentary during Career Mode, though. It feels more true to life to hear Alan Smith comment how you won the last match convincingly, but that it was against Crystal Palace, and Everton might pose a more severe threat. They did, incidentally, hammering my Arsenal 2-0. I could barely get a shot away. It’s also in Career Mode that the new tactical offerings such as all-out attack or park the bus appear more often. Seeing that Everton literally park the bus once 2-0 up was impressive, but frustrating. You can’t be too mad about a gameplan being executed by the AI, though.

Elsewhere, aside cosmetic touches, the only major change is to the online lobbies, which are far better to use, and show you live updates and scores while you wait to join the next match. You can also have more control over scouting players to join your Pro Club, but in truth, it’s likely most people are going to stick with their friend-group, anyway.

FIFA 15 provides moments of exquisite pleasure, and also obscene frustration. When the planets align and you score a wonder strike, you’ll feel like a God, but when you’re playing away on a rainy night in Stoke, unable to breach a parked bus defence, you’ll long for less realism altogether, even though the on-the-fly tactical changes are themselves very impressive.

EA Canada can’t win in that respect, because whichever angle they cater toward, they’ll always be upsetting someone else. It’s a shame Career Mode has seen such little love this year, but regardless, there are enough changes overall that FIFA feels a very different game this year. They’ve not reinvented the wheel, just put shinier trims on it, and perhaps this isn’t the year that the presentation needed to take centre stage.

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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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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Destiny is not Halo. Nor is it Borderlands. Nor is it an amalgamation or bastardisation of either. This is something I feel needs pointing out because Destiny is its own entity and, while it isn’t the game-changing, genre-defining behemoth we were promised, it’s still a worthy achievement on Bungie’s part. A handful of expansion packs, patches, tweaks and updates down the line and it may well come close to that uber-game we so desperately wanted it to be, but right now (when it counts, you might say) Destiny is little more than a tasty meal with a few ingredients missing.

I use a food analogy because that’s what it’s like: it’s like taking a mouthful of something almost delicious and then obsessing for the duration of the meal over what’s making it taste funny. Destiny’s flaws are not all obviously apparent.

As I said in my review-in-progress, the story takes place in the distant future and casts you as a Guardian, an elite warrior tasked with defending the Light of the Traveller, a powerful itinerant entity that boosted human understanding by a few centuries. Having established colonies on a handful of worlds and moons in our galaxy, they were attacked by a mysterious Darkness hell-bent on destroying the Traveller. In the ensuing conflict, known as the Collapse, almost everything was lost, and now they huddle together in one sprawling city under the shadow of a weakened benefactor.

As a set-up it’s delicious. Intriguing. Compelling, even. In practice, however, Bungie squander such a wonderful backstory by locking exposition away on their website. There are no lore entries in-game which, when they’ve gone to such pains to craft a unique game-world, beggars belief. Instead you collect Grimoire Cards that unlock codex entries on Bungie.net. Immediately this robs you of the immersion you – and Destiny’s world – deserve. The wonderful high sci-fi hokum that would (and should) have wrapped us all up tight in its LED-sequinned folds is hamstrung from the outset.

As a result, we’re left scratching our heads as to what the hell a “Mote of Light” is for. We don’t know where the Fallen came from, nor the Vex or the Cabal. We don’t know why there are benevolent races (the Awoken and the Exo) besides humanity. We don’t know how they came to co-exist or why. If we want to know these things, we need to take a break from playing and go read a Wiki. It’s an appalling narrative decision, because without context, all you’re doing is blasting monsters in the face over and over again, while Peter Dinklage’s bored AI Ghost drones on about your objectives in a voice that suggests he’d rather be doing anything else than spouting rhetoric about grumpkins and snarks and wizards that came from the moon.

It’s compounded by the fact that Bungie don’t seem entirely sure of themselves. A meeting mid-game with an Awoken Queen makes no sense when you play as an Awoken yourself, as she acts like you’re not. She introduces herself, her race, and makes no mention of your shared lineage. It’s almost as though Bungie only ever had one playable race in mind for Destiny, and added the Awoken and Exo later in an effort to inject some variety. Sadly, the different races and classes don’t add up to much more than aesthetic preference.

You’re able to choose a Hunter, Titan or Warlock (basically DPS, Tank and Support), but aside different starting stats and slightly varying abilities, there isn’t enough between them to really force a change of tactics. Having played with all three, I haven’t really been able to select a favourite because they’re all so similar when you get down to brass tacks. My choice is informed purely by the fact that the Warlocks look cooler than the other two. They all have an energy drain skill, a grenade on a cooldown timer, and a super attack. They all have unlockable skills that improve stats and alter the behaviour of their grenades. They all use the same weapons and have the same stats on their armour. Player skill is a major factor, as a talented player can make a Warlock seem just as hardy as a Titan, which means you could have easily had no classes at all, and simply taken your skills down a multi-branching tree.

Playing Destiny, I couldn’t help but feel that Bungie had the concept for a Halo-style, story-driven campaign shooter and added everything else in after one of their suits coughed up the “shared world” idea. It sounds horribly cynical, perhaps, but having spent a full week and well over thirty hours in Bungie’s world (not to mention the countless hours spend in the alpha and beta, too), I can’t escape the fact that all the disparate elements simply don’t marry up as they should. It doesn’t feel organic; everything feels added-on. Such a theory may be unintentionally disparaging, but it explains the unexplained races, it explains the Grimoire Cards, it explains the limited number of game areas and the lack of real difference in the classes.

So where’s the flavour? Where’s the taste that makes the meal edible despite its flaws? In the combat, of course – this is a Bungie game after all. Luckily, Destiny’s redeeming feature happens to be its biggest hook and primary mechanic: the gunplay is amazing. Those comparisons to Halo seem petty until you start shooting, and then you remember why Bungie have their reputation. The combat is precise, frantic, balanced, frenetic, and damn satisfying. Enemy AI is as good here as I’ve seen anywhere else, the terrain is crafted as a sandbox battleground; just like Reach’s wide open spaces encouraged you to flank enemies, set up choke points and go vertical to get the drop on them, Destiny’s arenas do the same. Cover is everywhere, though less blatant and idiot-proof than, say, a Gears of War. The double-jump jet-pack skill that every class has allows you to play for height, scaling rocky outcrops and jumping up to balconies that in other games would be background filler.

Guns issue thunder-claps that hammer enemies clean off their feet, heads pop in wisps of smoky vapour, and super-charged blasts of plasma arc from your very palm to disintegrate groups of charging aliens in a glimmering light show that puts inFAMOUS to shame. This is what a shooter should be, and when Destiny hits you with its ground-game, away from all the garbled, half-explained sci-fi posturing, it’s one of the most competent and confident shooters ever created.

As with many games of its type – and despite Bungie’s protestations, there are indeed many games of its type – Destiny is better enjoyed with others. Once you hit later levels, you will unlock the Strike playlist. A Strike is a mission with increased difficulty and rewards, meant to be played in a team of three. The most successful trios will use headsets to communicate strategy and reinforce synergy, but in truth most are no more taxing than regular story missions – they are just a lot more fun. Stand-out moments become so commonplace that they don’t stand out any more, but that’s a good thing: it means it works.

At later levels, you’ll also unlock Raids. These are six-player, multi-layered missions designed to test you to the limit. But while they’re a great place to find better gear, they are restricted by the requirement that you play only with people on your friends list. Without an update to fix that, Raids will quickly become the bastion of the hardcore alone, filled with clans honing their skills and upping their gear before going online and dominating the relatively small-scale multiplayer. In contrast to the stellar shooting, the handling of raids suggests an overconfidence on Bungie’s part.

When juxtaposed beside the campaign offering, the competitive multiplayer seems somewhat dry. Because you take your character into the Crucible from the campaign, early forays into the arena are horrifically one-sided as you square up against level 25s and find yourself one-shotted before you can even get your sights up. With only a handful of modes containing nothing more exotic than Capture the Flag and Control (Destiny’s version of Hardpoint), the multiplayer feels half-baked. You can earn rewards specific to PvP, but they don’t do anything the campaign rewards don’t. The maps are large enough, reminiscent of some of Reach’s mid-sized arenas, but they aren’t varied enough when examined beside the campaign zones. There was enormous potential to do something exciting here that Bungie have squandered by delivering purpose-built maps for shooting other players in, none of which offer anything you haven’t seen before elsewhere.

From a technical standpoint Destiny walks a narrow line between astounding and over-reaching. While the servers held up admirably during the launch, I have been kicked five or six times mid-mission for no apparent reason. Small bugs and glitches are noticeable but excusable given the scale, but the loading times are often shocking. It’s not uncommon to wait a minute while transitioning between a mission zone and the tower hub, and the fact that in order to leave you must select “go to orbit” means you can’t just hit a button to go back if you forgot something; you have to reload the whole area again. Likewise, indulging in a spot of patrolling to earn marks and money (glimmer is the currency name) requires you to go to orbit when you’re done, even if you want to play a campaign mission or strike in the exact same zone. You have to quit and reload; you can’t just walk to a specific point. It’s irritating, more than anything, and really shouldn’t be happening.

Some of it is made up for by the fact that Destiny looks incredible. The individual planets have their own personality and, while the worlds may feel curiously empty at times, they always look vibrant. The jungles of Venus are stunning, and the Moon has some truly breathtaking vistas, but it’s a beauty painted on to hide the cracks, and it doesn’t always succeed.

The decision to lock away the best content until you hit level twenty is a curious choice on Bungie’s part, and one that points to either lack of confidence or a worrying hubris. Not explaining what Vanguard or Crucible Marks are or how they’re earned until you can use them is fine, provided you don’t make them visible only for people to scratch their heads over.

What’s sad, is that Destiny could have been the world-beating mammoth Bungie envisioned it as and, perhaps foolishly, claimed it would be, but it falls short of their lofty aims. That said, there’s a sense when playing Destiny that this is a long-term investment. Only a week from launch and people have already hit that level cap and smashed right through it; they’ve mopped up the story mode, earned entire outfits of legendary gear and overcome every strike. Bungie have promised more content in the future, which would suggest a raising of the cap, more missions, new zones, new enemies, tweaks and updates to the existing formula that will, piece by piece, bring Destiny closer to the game we all hoped it was going to be.

But it’s not that game right now. Destiny is a confident, solid, sometimes stunningly beautiful shooter with RPG mechanics that add longevity and depth, and the beginnings of what could be an incredible online universe. But it feels like the tip of the glacier, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing to be more excited about what a game might one day be, than what it actually is.

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.

The post Destiny Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Forget about this Naruto lad summoning all kinds of ninja spirit things, because as a scummy games writer like me, sometimes it can be difficult summoning the enthusiasm to attack yet another anime tie-in fighter. But then every year CyberConnect2 end up enticing me in with a worthy set of improvements, more ridiculous cutscenes, and another review is born. This is the fifteenth instalment of the long-running series. Fifteen! Blimey. Is it worth your time and investment? Of course it probably is.

Because what sets Revolution apart from its predecessors is the fact that CyberConnect have decided to catch up with some of the trends that reached other fighting game franchises yonks ago. You still have the usual team of three, in-battle items, and choice of two jutsu attacks so bombastic they would make Shaggy blush. But there are new elements going on here. Focusing on improving the button mashing nature of gameplay is most welcome. After all these years, there is a semblance of a proper hardcore fighter at play here. Finally you are able to utilise techniques like guard breaks and a more sophisticated counter-attack mechanic.

The former allows you a limited number of opportunities to open up your opponent like a tin of beans with a crushing blow that leaves them a sitting duck to have their face rearranged. Counter-attacks can be employed with a well-timed action that knocks your foe out, and prevents them from calling upon their allies temporarily. Like the break attacks, using the counter is limited and will drain your Chakra.

Also given a much needed overhaul is the way that you use your support characters. You now get a choice of three ways to play. Drive drags your support ninjas into the fray to protect your main character, creating an effective sealing barrier that prevents your opponents from hitting their jutsu specials. Awakening lets you trigger your enhanced awakened state from the kick off, whilst the excellent Ultimate Jutsu option sees your trio combine to carry out a stunning Ultimate Combo Jutsu – an attack that is different depending on which combination of the staggering 118-strong roster you have chosen to enter the fray with.

There are loads of possible permutations for these team-up combos, and while they aren’t necessarily any more powerful that your standard Jutsu, seeing your old anime favourites combining in the way nature intended is a thrill and excellent fan service. I particularly liked Gaara, Kankuro and Temari triggering the painful sounding Scorching Heat Sand Binding Coffin ultra, with an honourable mention going to Obito and Madara’s Heavenly Insertion Hammering Star.

Speaking of characters, while there are admittedly a fair few palette swaps, one of the new entrants to the roster is of particular interest. The creator of the source material Masashi Kishimoto has got on board and engineered a bonkers new form for main man Naruto: his completely awesome Mecha form which combines a Three Tails guise with a moves-laden Mecha variation, offering you the chance to mess around with a two-tiered awakening. This may not mean much to the bystander on the street, but for fans this rad Naruto mash up will be big potatoes.

The actual gameplay itself is undoubtedly enhanced by these new bits and pieces, but they would be irrelevant without some interesting modes in which to test them out. The newly added and excellently named Ninja Escapades mode takes you through three specially-created stories (complete with some all-new cutscenes) via a series of set-piece battles. Ninja World Tournament brings back the popular free-roaming style from Naruto games of old. It’s a huge playable story set upon Festival Island, with a series of ranked battles, including dust ups where the environment plays a part, and characters brawl over collectable orbs which grant status enhancements in a throwback to the mighty Power Stone. Working your way through the battles opens up new places to explore and new missions to embark on, including the all important Mecha Naruto chapter which allows you to unlock him as a playable option.

Online is, as always, a bit of a mixed bag. Fights can be a tad laggy with everything that is going on, and you will get beaten quickly if you venture outside of Europe in search of an opponent. The inclusion of Network Clones is a curious new accoutrement, however. During your time on Festival Island you will encounter NPCs that are representative of other gamers’ online personae. You can create your own clone and send it on its merry way, and it will fight other Naruto fans around the globe, returning with experience points and even some handy items.

VERDICT: It would have been easy for me to have written a one-liner for this review:“It’s Naruto again!”. But hell, they have delivered once again – not only to the core audience but also in a manner to start attracting fans of more sophisticated beat ‘em ups. It is still miles away from a BlazBlue, but it is much more intuitive to play. There is a ridiculous amount of fan service going on, including more original movie sections than you can shake a nunchaku at. CyberConnect, don’t you ever change.

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.

The post Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

At this point, a day or two after launch, there’s not much point introducing you to the “most pre-ordered non-sequel ever”, or explaining why our review is going to be so late (everyone’s is, such is life). Instead, I’m just going to share my impressions as they stand so far, to be updated as I play more.

Those who are still yet to take the plunge and buy Bungie’s sci-fi shooter-cum-RPG will likely only have one question on their minds: does it live up to the hype? Although I’ve a long way to go before I can answer that fully, the short answer is no, not really.

Before you click away, allow me to explain. Firstly: the ridiculous hype surrounding Destiny is so potent and powerful that nothing could ever hope to live up to it, and, secondly: I said “not really”, so it’s not a complete dismissal.

The biggest problem so far is an almost complete lack of context. We know that it’s set in the far distant future, and that the story follows the coming of the Traveller, a huge moon-sized entity whose arrival catapulted human knowledge forward a few centuries. Having established colonies on Venus, Mercury, Mars and the Moon (that we know of), humanity was brought to its knees by the Darkness, the antithesis of the Traveller, who wiped out almost all life on Earth for reasons unknown. You’re a Guardian, a mortal vessel for the “light of the Traveller”, born to fight the Darkness, recently resurrected by a Ghost, a little AI that serves the Traveller in an unknown capacity.

“Unknown” is a word that will crop up a lot in writings about Destiny. What is the Traveller? Unknown. Why does the Darkness hunt it? Unknown. What is a Ghost? Unknown. What is an Awoken (one of the selectable races)? Unknown, unknown, unknown. Destiny seems to delight in telling you bugger all. You were brought back to life, but why? If you’re so special and unique, why are there hundreds, nay thousands, of other Guardians doing the same as you? Destiny throws questions at you with every minute that passes, so frequently that you start to long for those usually-hated lore entries in other RPGs. It’s almost a form of trolling, creating a huge world for you to explore and be awed by, then leaving you scratching your head.

But it’s early days, and the story is slowly divulging more and more details, it’s just a shame Bungie aren’t more willing to show off their new universe and let us in fully. That said, Destiny does balance such blindfolding with quality in other areas.

For a start, the gunplay is bloody good. Obviously, being developed by the creators of Halo raises a certain level of expectation that was always going to be daunting, but Destiny holds its own. There aren’t a great many enemies so far (the Hive and the Fallen are all I’ve met up until now although I know others are coming), but the AI is mostly solid. When you consider that the Halo franchise is home to some of the best AI in the genre, it seems a little disappointing that the enemy behaviour in Destiny isn’t always particularly smart. They cover and retreat well enough, but will occasionally degenerate into simply running back and forth while shooting at you.

Luckily, the weaponry is excellent. Guns pack a real kick, and the Guardians have enough skills and tricks to stop firefights becoming dull. In fact, the underdeveloped story and lifeless hub (the Tower is ok, but somewhat empty and pale when juxtaposed with the vast, twinkling city far below it that you can’t visit) are forgotten when the bullets start flying. Gun barrels flare with a satisfying whip-crack, each class’s special ability flashes and sparks and blossoms with a sense of real power and, if it all goes wrong, summoning your Star Wars-like Sparrow speeder and getting the hell out of trouble is just as thrilling as hurling yourself into a fight.

But while running around alone is fun, it’s when you cross paths with others that Destiny really starts to sing. Whether dipping into the Crucible (comfortably re-balanced since the beta), joining three-man fireteams or simply running into battle with a giant walking tank alongside a bunch of other Guardians in a Defiance-style public event, Destiny is a game designed for enjoying together.

While it’s still far too early to fully and fairly judge Bungie’s game, at this moment I can safely say that it’s shaping up nicely. There are issues that may or may not straighten themselves out, and concerns with the story and variety of content, but I don’t think Destiny is in any danger of being overly short or particularly disappointing.

I’ve yet to explore other worlds (so far I’ve only seen the moon and Earth in around seven to eight hours of play and exploration) and I haven’t put that much time into PvP or co-op yet (I’ll explore that in the next instalment), but it’s fair to say that Bungie’s biggest hurdle is a wall of their own making – a mountain of hype that no game in history could realistically surmount. As a result, it’s hard not to feel just slightly underwhelmed, despite Destiny’s obvious quality, beauty and scale.

We’ll update this article as we play further, leading to an eventual full review – published as a separate article.

The post Destiny Review in Progress appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Originally released on the PlayStation 3 in 2010, Joe Danger puts you in control of the titular stuntman and has you charging through a selection of courses that will test your skill and reflexes, as well as your patience, with their lovably devious ingenuity.

While original developers and publishers Hello Games work on the upcoming sci-fi masterpiece-in-potentia, No Man’s Sky, porting for this and the sequel (due soon) is being handled by Four Door Lemon, and so far it appears they’re doing an excellent job, bringing over not only the original game but also all the DLC so far and a few new characters in the form of LittleBigPlanet’s Sackboy and Tearaway’s Iota and Aoti.

Being the world’s most dangerous and fearless mototcycle stuntman requires Joe, he of the impossibly square jaw and bright spandex, to hurl himself into some pretty lethal situations, and it’s your job to guide him through safely while turning enough tricks to rack up the biggest score multiplier possible.

The controls are deceptively simple, leading you to believe you’re in for an easy ride. The right trigger takes you forward, the left takes you back, Square ducks and jumps, X activated your booster and various combinations of Circle and Triangle cause Joe to perform mid-air holds to excite the crowds.

Courses begin with light obstacles like speed bumps, hurdles and loop-de-loops, but soon throw up rings of fire, shark tanks and rows of cars to hurl yourself over. Throughout each course are certain challenges that earn you the stars needed to compete in further levels. Where many games would simply allow in-app purchases to do the hard work for you, Joe Danger requires you to improve your own level of ability to move on. These challenges might be to collect all the silver stars, earn a certain number of points or find all the hidden letters, and make every course that much more dynamic.

Aside leaderboards and ghost races, there’s also a training ground to hone your skills and practice your combos, or an in-depth level editor, called the Sandbox, that allows you to chop and change every part obstacle in a course to develop and share your own challenges. Easy to use and great fun to play with, the level editor feels like a free gift they didn’t have to include when the package is already so content-heavy (the 80+ levels and 25 unlockable characters will keep you going for a good spell).

Bright and cheerful, Joe Danger has a charm to its aesthetics that make every stage a joy to play even when you’re chewing your tongue in frustration – and you will occasionally find yourself tested by the level design. Slapstick visual humour is the order of the day, too, adding to the undeniable likability factor.

Sometimes the physics can seem a little weird as your motorcycle almost magically reverses in mid-air or you land on your face and suffer no penalty, when hitting a hurdle face-on will end the attempt and restart the level, but the rules of Joe’s world are so wilfully bonkers that it doesn’t really matter.

VERDICT: Joe Danger is an absolutely perfect fit for the Vita, the small courses making it the ideal game to play either in short chunks or larger blasts depending on your situation. It looks vivid and colourful on the handheld’s small screen and offers a huge amount of content for a relatively low price. Challenging and addictive, Joe Danger is one cunning stunt that’s well worth undertaking.

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 Joe Danger PS Vita Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Until now, the only moral dilemma in relation to pinball took place in California’s Bay Area, where the popular arcade staple was inexplicably banned by Oakland authorities, who believed it to be a youth-corrupting force of gambling evil. But that eighty-year old ban was recently lifted, and now we have this mind-blowing new virtual table based on the first season of Telltale’s Walking Dead, that gem of branching moral choices and harrowing zombie heartbreak.

Whether you have played the source material or not, the claustrophobia and cloying sense of fear and desperation are obvious in The Walking Dead. You undertake missions based on key moments from the original game, each of them involving a crushing decision to make – involving such doozies as choosing whether or not to reveal that infected bite, or deciding which person to leave behind. In pinball terms, these “missions” of course translate to the table by setting targets to hit, combos to rack up, or locking down balls – but there are also some other cool touches like an excellent sniper section that employs use of the flippers, face buttons and touch screen to pick off “walkers” in the distance.

The table is beautifully designed, too. There are some wonderful, wonderful moments – like the crushingly poignant minigame that sees the ball transformed into a football (of the soccer variety) and a task that involves Lee breaking up the continuous undead horror by having a kickabout with the kids. Sound effects and music are ripped straight out of the original game, with some new voice acting thrown into the mix to boot. The music is eerie, atmospheric and perfectly measured, and sounds particularly ace when played on your Vita through a set of half decent headphones. Yet again the physics, the wealth of options, the cross-platform play, everything is just sickeningly spot-on.

Never the most obvious inspiration for some flipper-on-ball action, the dark and sombre world of Clementine and Lee is nonetheless transferred effortlessly into the realms of Zen Pinball. Fans of the game Godisageek nominated as our GOTY will love this clever companion piece and be hoping for a similar treatment for Season 2. Everyone else will love this fine table for what it is, and probably get a craving for sampling the inspiration, the same way our zombie buddies crave braaaaaains.

VERDICT: We are starting to sound like a broken record here, but Zen’s mastery and understanding of both table design and expert use of a license put them right up there with the best that gaming 2014 has to offer. There are so many more gaming worlds for Zen to conquer, and we look forward to pinging a shiny silver ball through as many of them as possible.

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 Zen Pinball 2: The Walking Dead Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

September is about to roll around once again which can only mean one thing: football season is back. The pads are being readied, the playbooks are finalized, and the players are ready to show us what they can do. But it wouldn’t be the start of a new season without the release of a new Madden game, so step forward Madden NFL 15.

The major new features this year revolve around the defense. In previous years, playing defense was a fairly uninteresting, as tackling involved running into a player, as did trying to break through the line to the QB. Basically, the majority of defense involved running into players. This year, however, things are different. New tackling mechanics, a new defensive camera, and a way of quickly reacting to the snap makes defense enjoyable.

Instantly noticeable are the changes to the defensive new tackle cone. When in control of a defensive player, a green highlighted cone will show the area where they can tackle in front of them. This makes judging the right moment to tackle a lot easier: now you have no excuse for missing the game winning dive at an opponent. The reworked tackle mechanics also give you the option to go for conservative or aggressive tackles. A conservative tackle is more likely to bring down an opponent, but aggressive tackles can possibly cause a fumble, and they look much more impressive.

The slightly updated physics engine also helps with tackling, as they now appear more realistic – as does dodging tackles. But that’s not to say the tackling is perfect, and there have been a couple of times where the slightest bit of contact has resulted in to tip to the floor, or being allowed to run through a tackle that shouldn’t have been possible. Speaking of the physics engine, the often hilarious post play pile ups are still present, but aren’t quite as bad as previous years.

A new off the line pass rush mechanic has also been introduced to give the defense a slight edge. Pressing R2 (on PS4) as the ball is snapped will result in a quick first step giving the defense an advantage against blockers. Mistime the button press and the offense will take the advantage. It’s not easy to time the press on every play, but it’s certainly worth the risk, as hitting it perfectly will usually result in a very strong defensive play.

Other defensive additions include a new camera; which stares down at the QB from a defensive perspective, some new pass rush moves to beat blockers, and new animations and logic to try and combat the slightly overpowered running QB’s from Madden 25. All of these additions make for the most realistic, and more importantly, fun-to-play defensive experience in any Madden game.

Elsewhere the play calling system has been overhauled to make it much easier to navigate. The new coach suggestions of plays on both the offensive and defensive will give you three plays that could feasibly work in the current situation. Some suggestions are based on what the opposite team is likely to do, what other players have called in similar situations and what some of your favorite plays are. The new system is sure to make life a lot easier for new players, who don’t even have to think about the play too much. For experienced fans who want to select the exact play, it’s still possible, and a better menu layout makes selecting the play a lot smoother.

The offensive side of the ball has remained largely unchanged. A few areas have been slightly tightened up, and the improved defensive AI makes everything seem more realistic.

In terms of game modes there is the standard play now and online head to head modes you would expect, along with Madden Ultimate Team and Connected Franchise. MUT has been slightly reworked to focus more on your starting team (and not about reserves), but other than that remains largely unchanged. It’s a similar story for connected franchise. The biggest new feature here is the addition of confidence to players. The higher the player’s confidence; the better they will perform. New coaching drills allow you to boost confidence or XP – some are interactive mini training scenarios, whereas other are just a case of pushing a button to improve.

Visually, Madden 15 is very impressive. Players, uniforms, and the environments all look great and react realistically, showing the extra power of the new machines. Unfortunately, the crowd remains fairly poor, but it’s not exactly a game breaking issue.

The TV style presentation returns, and continues to work fairly well. The stat graphics, half time report, and player comparisons all add to the production value, but it is let down by the sub-par commentary team who love to say it was a close incomplete pass when you spike the ball intentionally.

VERDICT: The defensive improvements make playing defense fun for the first time in quite a while. The improved tackling offers more challenge and choice while the guessing of the snap gives you something to work at when pass rushing. No longer does it feel like you are waiting for an offensive mistake, it actually feels like you can make an impact defensively. The tightening up of other systems on the pitch make Madden 15 perhaps the most simulation like entry in the series, it’s still not perfect but it’s very close. Overall, Madden NFL 15 is a great game. There are a few niggling issues (such as the still slightly dodgy physics), but the impact they have on the game is tiny.

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 Madden NFL 15 Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Picking up immediately where episode four left off, No Going Back starts at a rate of knots, and never really lets up for the two hours it takes to get through. It’s full of emotion, showing humanity at its worst and, surprisingly, its most fragile, too. For all the talk that season two has been weaker, Telltale Games have saved the best for last, and created a triumphant finale.

The following review assumes you have played the previous episodes, though spoilers are (as always) kept to a minimum. Due to the cliffhanger ending of episode four, we’ve used screenshots from previous episodes so as not to risk spoilers.

Something that The Walking Dead universe revolves around (be it the book, TV show, or the game) is humanity. After a while, you realise the walkers themselves aren’t the real threat, but the ego, needs and wants of the people are the most dangerous. We’ve all struggled, transitioning from Lee to Clem – but finally, exhaustingly, episode five gets it right. Now, more than ever, this is your Clementine.

There is so much sadness here, such tremendous bleakness, that it’s painful to endure for the most part, but there are moments in No Going Back that, shockingly, made me smile. The gruesome action of previous episodes (though not gone completely) takes a back seat to the true brilliance: the characters. One particular scene early on is so out of character for the series, that it stands out – and that reminder of human vulnerability comes through; it’s the centre of it all. We’re all different; we’re all the same. A better writer might compare it allegorically to something else going on in the world right now. So much pain, so much trauma. But what if we just took a break and all got along, just for a moment?

Sentimentality be damned, there’s a little girl at my control, and her choices, my choices have the most real impact on the series that we’ve ever seen. Playing through this finale multiple times, it’s apparent that although some decisions don’t change the real outcome, they do change how Clementine is perceived.

One such choice dictates a stark shift in how a character feels toward our girl, and the larger decisions are incredibly bold on Telltale’s part, and will prove to be either a complete masterstroke, or something that’s almost impossible to please people with. Mark my words: by the time you finish with season two, you’ll feel more attached to Clem than ever. Her world has been shaped by you, forever.

Of course, there’s a moment where it all goes to shit, because there always is. Sure, Zombies will pop up here and there to permeate the world with the dreaded reminder that everything is dangerous and nobody is safe. Yeah, there are fight scenes, but the way it all comes together is like a delivery on a promise.

But let’s not pretend otherwise, often the choice in The Walking Dead has been illusionary. For the first time I can recall, this time, they’ve nailed it. The closing moments are drastically altered by how you play, by who you are. There are five different ways to end the season, three of which behold outcomes completely different to one another. What this means is that season three might just be the most ambitious project Telltale have ever set themselves up for.

VERDICT: Looking back over season two, there’s something odd about how we as players have endured a rollercoaster ride, just as our Clementine has. The swinging emotions have beaten us around the head, like we’re a boxer just waiting for the knockout blow to come, to release us. But we can’t close our eyes, because there’s work to be done.

It started nervously, almost scared of what it was, but at the end of season two, you’ll go to whomever you hold dear, and you’ll squeeze them just that little bit harder than usual. They’ll ask you why, and you won’t answer. There’s a little girl to be saved.

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 The Walking Dead: Season Two Episode Five – No Going Back Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Time heals all wounds, so someone once wrote, and though it may be trite, it’s mostly true. Diablo 3’s original PC-exclusive launch was plagued with technical issues and mostly justifiable consumer anger, while later, controversy over a hideously unpopular real money auction house and a smattering of balancing issues mired the first year of one of the most anticipated games of the last decade.

By the time the console version launched last year, most of those issues had been resolved. The auction house was gone, and a suite of patches had addressed inconsistent loot and various other complaints. The console version, graphics aside, was called superior by many, the more immediate action, tactical roll and redesigned inventory system proving massively popular with the console crowd.

Now, just under a year on, the first major PC expansion, Reaper of Souls, comes to consoles (both new and old gen) and it feels like Diablo 3 has finally, painstakingly, arrived. To call the Ultimate Evil Edition “definitive” undermines the stellar PC version a little, but in truth that’s just what it is. This is Diablo 3 as it was intended to be and, while there are still minor elements that aren’t quite there, it’s the most robust base Blizzard have so far delivered for a game that they clearly aren’t done with yet.

So, the story is unchanged for the first four acts, as you guide your rugged, kleptomaniac-hero from the iconic hamlet of Tristram to the steps of the High Heavens, but a host of tweaks, large and small, polish the experience to a high shine. Improved drop rates for rare and legendary items are a boon, while an overhauled system now governs the Massacre experience bonuses, rewarding you handsomely for chaining kills. Levelling, as a result, is noticeably quicker from level 1 to around level 25, which services the increased cap of 70.

Once you do hit the limit, it has been made easier to track your Paragon level and keep plugging away through the new end-game Adventure Mode, which allows you to replay areas with varied difficulty to farm the best, most impressive loot available. It’s unlocked once you complete the fifth act and take down the Angel of Death, Malthael – which as any Diablo fan knows, is not the end anyway. This is a game designed for re-runs, with new game plus modes as far as the eye can see. Elsewhere, an Apprentice Mode allows lower level characters to run co-op on an even keel with veterans.

At a glance, the Crusader class seems analogous to Diablo 2’s Paladin, but it’s actually something altogether new. Still rocking religious-themed skills like Smite and Law of Justice, the Crusader is closer to a warrior-cleric, less concerned with Auras and more concerned with smashing things to bits with a bloody big hammer. An early passive skill facilitates this by allowing you to wield a two-handed weapon and a shield. Other skills involve group buffs and, well, smiting things in the face.

Like the Crusader, the fifth act is a powerhouse, plunging you neck-deep into the action and adding a new trader in the form of a transmographer, a talented individual who can alter the look of your gear with different plans, taking the impressive customisation even further. A decent length, act five doesn’t really improve on the core game, but rather bolsters and complements it. The new bounties extend the longevity and replayability further, but, as with Adventure Mode, these could benefit from a little more variety in future patches or expansions.

The Nemesis system adds a social element that feels both organic and fun, whereby a special elite may turn up to kill you, before announcing it to your friends list. They can then hunt it down to avenge you, with each kill making it stronger and tougher. Trade between players is now taken care of, too, thanks to a nifty mailbox that allows messages and goods to be sent to your friends.

Finally, if you were among those who found the original crafting system over-complicated and cluttered, you’ll be pleased to know that the process has been refined in Reaper of Souls. The number of reagents you can harvest has been greatly reduced, and they now drop in the field. Also, you need fewer to craft an item – and crafting higher level items makes more sense, as you will often need to provide a base item as a foundation. More plans, more levels for your crafters and a streamlined system make Diablo 3’s crafting much easier to understand and keep a track of.

VERDICT: Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls – Ultimate Evil Edition is the game Diablo fans deserve. Granted, there are still areas to improve – Adventure Mode, for example, still feels a little like an experiment rather than the finished article – but this is as close to perfect as we’ve yet been. Still the undisputed King of the Action RPG lootathon, Diablo 3: RoS adds so many tiny little bonuses alongside the major changes that you can’t help but admire Blizzard’s dedication and perseverance.

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 post Diablo III: Reaper of Souls – Ultimate Evil Edition Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

You have to tip your hat to Piranha Bytes: if nothing else, the German developers have cajones so big they are always aiming for the top of a mountain they cannot hope to climb. What’s harder to salute is Piranha Bytes’ inability to recognise their limitations. Ambition is always a good thing, but it has to be tempered by an honest knowledge of what you can and cannot do.

For instance, Piranha Bytes can obviously make a fantasy RPG. They’re been doing it for a while now, and they appear to understand the genre and its fans fairly well. What they still can’t do, however, is successfully make something with the breadth and scope of an Elder Scrolls game. It’s a shame, because in Risen 3: Titan Lords – as in Risen and Risen 2: Dark Waters – there are flashes of utter brilliance that make you wish they’d focus more and aim just a little lower.

Maintaining the Pirates of the Caribbean vibe from Dark Waters, Titan Lords casts you as a new protagonist (still nameless) who begins the game in fairly good standing. A pirate captain of some renown, you are attacked and shipwrecked along with your sister Patty on a mysterious island, and then, well, killed by an unknown force of evil. So the good standing doesn’t stand for very long. Resurrected some time later by a Voodoo witchdoctor called Bones, you set out to mend old alliances and forge new ones in an effort to understand what happened to you – and just what the hell is going on.

The story is nothing hugely original, but it’s not terrible, re-introducing characters from earlier instalments and making a decent hash of standard fantasy conventions and pirate mythology. Sadly, the script is average at best, replete with gratuitous, awkward swearing, anachronistic slang, and stunted dialogue. It’s not helped by the voice acting, which swings between not bad and woeful. The main character talks in a horrible gravelly drawl what sounds like he’s been gargling nails, and makes everything he says sound laughably intense.

It’s also incredibly ugly. Graphics do not an RPG make, but Titan Lords is one of the worst-looking adventures the 360 has seen in a while. Inconsistent textures and low environmental detail conspire with jerky animation and amateurish special effects to make you wonder how this even exists on the same console as Skyrim. Obviously Piranha Bytes don’t have Bethesda’s budget, but Risen 3 could have been better. Combat animations are slow and ponderous, and if there’s too much going on the action slows down or textures disappear completely. At times, it’s horrendous to look at.

The gameplay puts in a gallant effort to redeem the overall experience – but this too is similarly hindered. Risen 3 tends to give with one hand and take away with the other. Combat is a prime example. It furnishes you with a huge array of options, such as the ability to use a sword or long rifle as your primary weapon and a pistol or throwing knife as back-up mapped to RB, as well as various supernatural talents utilising the elements, crystal magic or Voodoo. You can use potions to enhance your stats, fashion explosives to tip the scales in your favour – and you’ll almost always have the option to take a companion with you wherever you go. Sounds great, right? Well, it’s not.

Combat is horribly unresponsive – particularly for the first six to ten hours as you find your feet. None of your blows feel weighty or dangerous, and you’re constantly knocked clean off your feet and sent back four or five yards by a seemingly light enemy attack. Breaking an enemies block requires a charged attack, which leaves you open – and because you’ve usually got more than one baddie to contend with at once, you’ll find yourself vulnerable an awful lot. The protagonist moves with all the grace of a drunk, pregnant cow, which, coupled with random slow-down, makes a lot of the longer fights a bit of a chore. As with previous titles in the series, you can quite easily wander into a new area that looks the same as the area you were in and get one-shot killed by something huge. Luckily, the autosave feature is very protective.

The AI is almost non-existent, so out-witting enemies is fairly simple, but there are times when a simple action could potentially hinder progress in a given quest almost indefinitely. One side quest tasked me with stealing transfer papers from the Commandant of an island garrison. After failing to sneak up to his office several times, I instead opted to Zorro my way in, snatch the papers off his desk and leap from his balcony like a maniac. Despite the quest-giver (and, thus, my turn-in) being in plain sight of the balcony, he didn’t follow me. Instead, he just swore and threatened me every time I returned. Had I not worked out that sneaking up on him and initiating dialogue before he could draw his sword would allow me to hand in the quests he had given me before hand, I might have ended up stuck.

So, combat, NPC interaction and movement in general aren’t great but, while they do make up a great deal of your game time, they’re not all Risen 3 has to offer. There’s an impressive selection of gear to find and make, and an absolute bounty of character progression options. You can dabble in Voodoo, alchemy, blacksmithing, rune or crystal magic; you can join various factions to undertake side quests and find rare gear; you can even blow it all and go treasure hunting, digging up big red X marks to uncover buried chests like a proper pirate. Alternatively, you can spend your nights robbing people as they sleep – though they will follow you from room to room if you enter their homes uninvited, which is bloody annoying.

Reagents for crafting can be found everywhere, harvested from dead bad guys, plucked from the ground, mined with a pickaxe or snagged from a foamy beach. Once you open up the crafting side of things Risen 3 becomes very interesting, and combined with the different factions, secret areas and side quests, it’s unlikely you’ll see everything Piranha Bytes have crammed in with just one play-through. A large and diverse collection of locations provides enough visual variety to stop Titan Lords from ever becoming too samey, but it throws quests at you like wedding confetti and it’s easy to lose track of what you’re doing. The quest tracker is competent this time round, and the teleporter-based fast travel is simple and efficient. Also, you can turn into a parrot, which has to sell Risen 3 to someone, right?

VERDICT: Risen 3: Titan Lords has a lot to offer any RPG fan, as long as you’re fairly easy to please. Crude aesthetics, irritating combat and lousy voice-work are at least partly off-set by a wealth of character-building options, tons of gear, and a large, diverse game-world. There’s a lot of fun to be had once you find a combat set-up and style that makes the game work for you, while exploration and levelling up your various skills is as fun here as in any of Risen 3’s genre-mates.

If Piranha Bytes spent less time and energy on cramming ideas into this franchise, and more time on improving the mechanics as they already exist, they would eventually strike gold with Risen. The potential is actually staggering, but the reach exceeds their grasp, and in the end they’re left with a game that, frankly, underachieves in almost all the ways that matter.

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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When the first Dark Souls received its additional content, it was pretty much a swan song for the game. Many had rung out the joy sponge after finding everything the vanilla game had to offer, and the adventures into Artorias’ Abyss were something completely new and different to tackle – and were received with delight by fans of the series.

It has only been six months since the release of Dark Souls 2, and the first of three parts of DLC has just been released in the form of Crown of the Sunken King, and I find myself beckoned once more into the realm of Drangleic and the deeper mysteries of Shulva. I must admit, I’m slightly concerned that this is going to become a regular occurrence and that the only game I’ve completed this year (because I adored it so much ) is going to be watered down by continual content releases for the sake of the money. Because, let’s face it, you’ve already bought this. You would have bought it even if you’d read this review first and I’d given it a 3 out of 10, because it’s more Dark Souls 2.

I’ve listened to the those who say the name was tainted already by the things that Dark Souls 2 did incorrectly: the onslaught by groups of enemies, the repeated corridor layout that ended in a boss too many times, the bosses themselves being samey in their attack patterns or simply relying too much on double teaming instead of skill. There was no real story, people said. There was no real depth.

Well, From Software have listened to those same people, those with the disappointed faces and self-justified opinions. It’s almost like From has put a hand round their shoulder and said: “Have a butchers at this, me old China, and tell me why you can’t smile.” I’ll not spoil too much. Even the walk to Shulva sets the anticipation levels by showing you this place once lived and breathed, but has been broken and corrupt for some time.

When I got to Shulva, I’ll admit it, I wowed. I’ll leave it to you to see why. It’s the first reassurance that this is different, or maybe more like how things were. The first enemy is tough, taking more than the two hits I’ve been dealing out so far to take the bad guys down. He’s easier to backstab, and falls once I’ve circled him and delivered some macey goodness. Further on up the hill, there is a frown as I see a group of them. Some things maybe haven’t changed.

A glowing pillar ahead of me, which I hit through curiosity, turns out to be a switch. It evens up the odds by hitting the group with a massive rising stone monolith. Looking around, the immediate area seems to have these switches dotted all around. This is new. This has changed the game into some kind of interconnecting spacial puzzle. This is more than even Dark Souls ever did.

The switches are present throughout the rest of the DLC in various forms, and are a welcome addition, adding some depth to the usual “kill the enemies, keep moving forward” routine that we are all too used to. Whether it’s to raise a platform to find the way forward, or open a door to a hidden bonfire, you’ll be clearing an area of enemies just to allow exploration to find them.

I would suggest you equip a bow and arrow as otherwise you’ll find things tricky to reach. I found myself feeling daft after missing a few secrets because I simply just didn’t stop to look around. Clearly this is From telling us to slow down and drink in Shulva, and it certainly has areas which are lovely to look at. It’s majestic at times, with a grand sense of scale. On the opposite side of things, you really feel the oppression and lack of space inside some of the buildings, which helps to build tension. From has done well to mix architecture and natural features but not have anything that looks out of place. The sound design is also great, creating atmosphere when required and tension when needed.

The enemies are varied, some more interesting because they require unusual tactics to dispose of. Some give nods to previous games in the series, especially a certain boss fight that will make you grin with nostalgia, then turn and run. Special mention to some beasts that are all legs and teeth, who will take you back to a certain Lost Izalith. Again, I’ll let you discover them for yourself without spoiling it too much. You won’t find any exploding zombies here, thank goodness!

Although, you will find an abundance of NPCs to summon, which troubles me, as it still means that the boss fights must be imbalanced if you just want a straight one on one, thus warranting the need for two little helpers at your side. It could be that I’m just rubbish, though.

You’ll reach the end within four to six hours, having picked up a weapon and spell or two, flicked a lot of switches, taken down some interesting foes and ended the DLC with a challenging but enjoyable last boss, which then ties back into Drangleic lore at the end. It’s a different direction to where Dark Souls 2 had been travelling in terms of both gameplay and execution. It may not fully placate those who claim that Dark Souls 2 is flawed, but then I’m not sure what will.

VERDICT: From Software could have taken the lazy route and delivered more of the same, but instead they have really listened, and have strived to give us something that steps away from the established Dark souls 2 template. With nods to the previous games, it makes you wonder what else they have up their sleeve. Probably more genius, tucked up there like a spare hanky. Anyway, now for that 3/10. Oh, it’s too late. You’ve already bought it.

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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2008’s Sacred 2: Fallen Angel was a fun but flawed action-RPG that attempted to borrow elements from Diablo and Dungeon Siege and transpose them into its own high fantasy world. Hampered by an interface designed for PC and crudely butchered to suit a gamepad, an open world that was a little too open and a general sense that the adventure was simply too big and too sprawling to maintain interest, it nevertheless delivered a fairly deep and addictive experience brimming with skills and loot and magic and hokum.

Fans of Ascaron’s lootathon – and indeed the genre as a whole – were expectedly excited at the announcement of Sacred 3, a direct sequel to Fallen Angel that would continue the story of Ancaria where the last game left off. However, those expecting a similarly deep and expansive experience will be disappointed. Sacred 3 is like an incredibly feature-light Diablo 3 clone. Little other than a button-mashing brawler, it just about manages to remain entertaining despite a frustrating lack of depth.

You enter Ancaria as one of four characters (or five if you get the day one assassin DLC): a warrior, a lancer, an archer, and a Seraphim (the iconic angelic class synonymous with the series). You can’t customise your character in any way, and there are no skill values to manage or abilities to choose from. You’re rudely plunged into the action and told that your quest is to stop an evil warlord called Zane from acquiring the legendary Heart of Ancaria because, well, reasons.

On the surface, the characters appear to be very different. In practice, however, there isn’t much between them. Hammering A delivers your attack, while B evades and X “bashes”, which breaks shields. You then have two special moves mapped to RB and LB, which can be swapped out as more talents are unlocked and upgraded. The skill trees aren’t overly imaginative, granting you several Light and Heavy abilities and then allowing you to upgrade them in various ways at the cost of gold. Likewise, your natural abilities like blocking and evading can also be upgraded and improved.

Quite distressingly for fans of the series, there is no random loot. In fact, there’s no loot at all besides resource refills and gold. Weapons are unlocked between missions as you increase in level, and your armour changes organically as you get stronger. There isn’t even much of a leap in quality between weapons, either, meaning you’ll often unlock a new sword or bow and find it’s more beneficial to stay as you are, which is rather disheartening.

Missions generally take the form of mass slaughters, either alone or with friends. You’re required to do little more than wade through jostling clusters of enemies, occasionally breaking a shield or stunning a caster, avoiding falling lava, cannonballs, boulders (a distressingly overused hazard), and various traps that will harm or stun you. Quite often, simply abusing the A button while hitting X whenever you see a white shield icon and spamming the shoulder bumpers will see you through. There were moments when I literally drifted off into a daydream during a fight only to refocus on a pile of dead bodies like some kind of mild-mannered Viking berserker.

The repetitive nature of the missions is not helped by one of the most irritating scripts I’ve seen or heard in a long time. Anachronistic slang is often forgivable, but relentless one-liners and awkwardly-delivered jokes are not. Your guide, Aria, is as annoying as any squeaky JRPG brat, constantly doling out turgid gags in a horribly modern American accent. Somehow, the Weapon Spirits manage to be even worse. These are equippable elements that confer a buff to the party and a debuff to the individual, or vice versa, and can be found throughout the world. They repeatedly comment on what you’re doing with the same looped lines, which is teeth-grinding enough – but nothing on Earth or in the Hells below will prepare you for the Weapon Spirit that sings everything, over and over and over again.

Somehow, despite a collection of mind-boggling design choices, there is something strangely playable about Sacred 3. Joining up with friends doesn’t so much change the game as make it more bearable, although, lofty claims aside, there is nothing tactical about any of the co-op. You simply mash buttons together until your weary, battered controllers cry out in unison against the inhuman abuse being visited upon them. I swear when I laid my pad down after an hour or so of playing, I could hear it quietly weeping into the couch cushions.

VERDICT: Sacred 3 is not an Action-RPG, although it wears the uniform. It’s an outright hack ‘n’ slash adventure game with a throwaway story, barely-developed characters, and a once-rich fantasy world now so washed-out it’s become almost nondescript. Quite valiantly, new developers Keen Games maintain a level of playability that just about carries it through, but rather unsurprisingly the sheer joy of bludgeoning wave after wave of cut-paste monsters to death for little or no reward begins to wear off after a few hours. Go into it ready to accept it for what it is, and you’ll find a harmless but deliberately dull hack ‘n’ slasher, but don’t expect anything as deep or interesting as what has gone before.

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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For me, real-time strategy games have always seemed incredibly slow-paced. Almost all of them involve waiting until you have enough resources to defeat your opponent, which gets incredibly boring. However, AirMech Arena manages to remove the issue by adding in some very MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)-like features.

As with any RTS the main gameplay involves creating multiple units and using them to attack the enemy base. The difference between a standard RTS and AriMech Arena is the AirMech itself. Instead of being an omnipresent god-like character as is the case in most RTS games, you control an AirMech, an almost transformer-like machine that can switch between flying and grounded forms at will.

While airborne, your AirMech can carry your units around the map, as well as fight any flying foes such as the opposition’s AirMechs, and while on the ground your AirMech is most used for combat against other grounded AirMechs and enemy units or buildings. Using the AirMechs to transport the units certainly adds further strategy, as you can only carry so many at a time, and so quickly moving all units to defend a building in danger is no easy task.

The MOBA-like features come courtesy of the AirMechs: each one has differing ability sets, and combat between mechs can be avoided entirely or it can turn into a blood bath – much like a MOBA. Killing enemy AirMech’s will grant further experience points to level up your Mech, and once you have a sizeable level advantage over the opposition victory is all but assured.

The MOBA influences don’t stop there. Units that are effectively creeps will spawn and automatically advance across the map to fight it out, which helpfully reduces the need to constantly be building units. The MOBA influences are so obvious that AirMech Arena could legitimately pass as a MOBA in its own right and the strategy elements could theoretically be ignored entirely; however, that doesn’t mean true RTS fans should avoid this outright.

If creating a giant army of units (which are quite varied, it must be said) is your tactic of choice then go ahead, as it is also a viable strategy. Sure, your opponent might want to fight you mech on mech, but you are free to avoid them, build an army and launch an unstoppable attack. This variety means that every match can have a different feel, and may require you to switch tactics on the fly, making for very entertaining and mentally challenging experiences.

The maps on offer also change each match significantly. Some are wide open spaces with multiple neutral bases to capture, while others involve a few tight passageways that lead to the enemy base. The map design overall is splendid, none of the maps feel unplayable and they all feel significantly different.

Unfortunately, the diversity in the gameplay will only be felt in multiplayer matches. Playing against the AI is great for learning the game, but after that there is no point playing solo as it’s just too easy. I don’t recall selecting a difficulty and I can’t find a way to change it so I can only assume all AI operate on the same setting. I have a perfect record against the AI and I don’t see that changing.

However, once you start playing against real humans the game’s full potential is shown, the differing tactics come into play, and fortunately everyone I played against offered a much more substantial challenge than the AI ever did.

As well as the core game mode that sees you fight an opponent (or fight in teams) in the traditional RTS sense, there is a horde-like mode that sees you defend against waves of enemies. The mode is fun but probably won’t keep you coming back. There are also a number of challenges that effectively serve as a tutorial that you don’t need to play, because the challenges do a much better job of teaching you the game.

AirMech Arena is a free to play game, and unfortunately with such a limited amount of people playing at the time of review it was difficult to see how much of a pay-to-win system is in place. Almost everything can be purchased with real money, and the prices are generally what you would expect to pay for a single item in a F2P game. However, it was hard to tell just how powerful the bought items are. It may be balanced, but there are no guarantees.

Even if you chose not to pay for anything there are a lot of customization options, with more being unlocked as you play. The pace at which you unlock things could be quicker but it’s not a massive issue, and that’s probably there so you are more tempted to buy the items. A community marketplace allows you to sell unwanted items for in-game currency, or of course you can buy from other players.

VERDICT: When you play against other humans AirMech Arena is incredibly fun. Personally I preferred to take a MOBA-like approach of killing the opposition while slowly gaining a sizeable advantage and creating a small army. However many people I played against would avoid confrontation altogether in favor of a more traditional RTS style. Fans of either genre will enjoy themselves in AirMech Arena, and it may even convert a few naysayers – it has certainly made me a lot more interested in real-time strategy.

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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Being a relative newcomer to the Magic series – having only briefly dabbled in the last two iterations of the Online version – the prospect of diving into Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015 was a daunting one. Even with the comprehensive, hand-holding tutorial, it’s a lot to get your head around purely to cultivate a basic understanding of what’s required to win a match. The instinctual knowledge and mental conditioning needed to truly read the decks and stay a step ahead of an opponent can only really come from extensive experience.

That being said, the tutorial does a good job of guiding a newcomer through the initial stages of Stainless Games’ much-beloved tactical card game, explaining the different gameplay dynamics such as the mana tap (whereby you use up mana sourced by playing “Land” cards to summon creatures and cast spells), instants (instant-use effect cards) and the stack (where you queue any cards that will trigger due to certain conditions). The tutorial can only teach you so much, and before long you have to bite the bullet and jump into a match, either in the solo campaign, online multiplayer or practice mode.

The first few matches are a baptism of fire. It took me six attempts to defeat the first enemy mage, a charming little “corpsecaller” who seemed to have a psychic ability to kick my newbie ass. I started to wonder if it was my deck that was the problem. In Magic 2015, you can assemble your own deck from the ground up from five colour-coded archetypes – but your initial selection following the tutorial is permanent, so if it doesn’t work very well you’re going to struggle like crazy in the early stages.

The narrative behind this iteration is the Planeswalker Garruk Wildspeaker, now a headhunter bewitched by an ancient artefact and forced to hunt and kill his peers – including you. You spend the campaign trying to avoid him by killing everyone else you come across and growing steadily stronger until you’re ready to face him. Unfortunately, the character development is weak and there’s very little sense of you growing and evolving into a badass Planeswalker – something previous games in the series did quite well.

The campaign feels somewhat shallow in Magic 2015, and the uneven difficulty artificially extends the lifespan. At times it can feel as though you’re plodding through the motions, when all of a sudden you’re up against an opponent who seems to be unbeatable – and even seems able to draw cards you will never have access to.

The card collection aspect is horribly hit and miss, in fact. On the one hand you can earn cards and booster packs through playing, but in an apparent hangover from this iteration’s iPad and Android “Free to Play” model, the really good cards are locked behind a premium paywall. Essentially this means that unless you’ve got god-like Magic skills, you’re never going to have an even chance against someone who is prepared to pay premium price to unlock the best creatures and spells. If the premium cards were purely for the sake of collection or completion, perhaps merely containing rare designs, it might not seem so unfair, yet they’re not. On console you will have to pay to buy the vanilla game, and then pay again if you want to stand a fair chance of winning. It’s indicative of the industry’s direction, and a blatant slap in the face of seasoned fans whose loyalty will be exploited for the sake of making a few extra dollars.

It might be more excusable if the boxed content (so to speak) were more robust, but it seems Wizards of the Coast have opted to go the other way, removing far more than they have added. The biggest bone of contention upon which the community will no doubt gnaw for weeks is the removal of all the multiplayer modes other than Free for All. You can play it with 2 or 4 players, so there is still scope for some decent online competition, but the omission of the hugely popular Two-Headed Giant mode is a genuine head-scratcher. Being able to play together as a unified team added a whole new dimension and level of tactical nous to the multiplayer, and its removal in Magic 2015 is as bizarre as it is infuriating.

If you can put those gripes aside, however, Magic 2015 presents a shiny – if slightly bare-bones – package. The UI is simple and elegant to look at (though for some reason is ponderous and not as smooth as you’d expect), and the cards themselves are uniformly excellent, designed by members of the community as well as professional artists. The sound direction is decent, too, mixing spartan voice-work with a rousing score to evoke as much atmosphere as you can reasonably expect from a game that – essentially – is about laying cards on a table.

VERDICT: Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015 is a solid enough game if you’re new to the series. The daunting difficulty is always going to be a problem to a newcomer taking their first steps into such a popular, community-driven landscape, but Magic 2015 offers an in-depth tutorial that doesn’t skimp on the information. Sadly, though, the main game will disappoint established fans. The campaign feels stripped back and shallow, and the undulating difficulty is not off-set enough by the fully customisable deck – itself hamstrung by an intrusive, cynical paywall. It’s a shame Stainless Games have seen fit to tinker with a format that didn’t really need to be tinkered with, because as a result, Magic 2015 squanders a little of the good feeling built up by the series so far.

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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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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Season Two of The Walking Dead hasn’t been quite the runaway success that the first season was. It has come under some criticism for not deviating enough from the pattern laid down in the first series, for suffering from uneven pacing, and not delivering the same sort of really gut-wrenching decisions that really set the game apart for other titles. Amid the Ruins attempts to address as many of these issues as possible, but it doesn’t convincingly deliver in every way.

The following review assumes you have played the previous episodes, though spoilers are (as always) kept to a minimum.

Being the penultimate episode in the season, you’d expect that the seeds sewn in early episodes would be showing by now. And to some extent that is true, but the main issue that episode four seems to suffer from is the feeling that your decisions don’t seem to make much of a difference in where the story is going. Most of the decisions in this episode are skin-deep, and often proven to be only superficial within minutes of making your choice.

Amid the Ruins follows directly from where we left Clementine, when we were faced with a terrible decision to make regarding a bite. The consequences of that decision bear fruit immediately, which is pleasing to see, but it also seems to negate your decision-making somewhat, and feels as though whatever you chose doesn’t really matter. Whilst it does successfully show how Clementine has developed as a survivor, perhaps something slightly more unique would have been a more interesting development.

Throughout the episode, the pregnancy of Rebecca is at the forefront, and the group have to try and pull together to help bring a small ray of light into their very bleak world. As such, you might expect the pace of the episode to suffer, and this to become a more conversational episode. Episode four does manage to fit in some much-needed character development for some of the newer members of the survivors, but it also ticks along at a pretty good pace. In fact, I felt that a little too much happens in this episode.

There are a lot of difficult moments packed into this instalment (be prepared for a lot of grisly moments) but you might also need to be ready for the fact that you might not care all that much. You quickly realise that if a character seems useless and like dead weight, that will probably be the case, thus you might have written them off in your head to some extent. So if anything happens to them, its a minor development as you were already prepared for it.

Also, with such a large group of survivors there are inevitably some who you become more attached to, and others who you don’t. Deaths are always a big thing, but if it is an under-developed character, it comes as no real surprise and seems like an easy option. It is the surprise tragedies that hit home and carry the real weight. The Walking Dead season one was very difficult to predict and Telltale proved that they weren’t scared to take a risk – but season two feels far closer to a traditional Zombie story where the obvious expendable characters tend to bite the bullet, and some of the emotional impact is lost.

That isn’t to say that Amid the Ruins is bad, it’s just that Telltale have simply set high standards for themselves, narratively. The fact they flesh out the new character’s personalities more will allow for a stronger finish to the series, and perhaps the aim of episode four was to set up the grand finale, rather than be a strong entry in its own right. It should also be said that the game has never performed better, with the slow-down and stuttering problems that have plagued them for years seemingly a thing of the past.

One major issue, however, is the way in which Clementine is treated by the other characters. Of course she will be the focal point for the series as players have developed such a strong bond with her, but it begins to put a strain on believability when in every little decision, and every difficult situation, all of the adults turn to Clem for guidance. Yes, we know that she is stronger and more competent than the majority or adults in the series, but it becomes a little silly when each time a hard choice has to be made, Clem seems to be responsible.

VERDICT: Amid the Ruins has its fair share of shortcomings, but it also ticks most of the boxes of what we have been asking for in the past. It maintains a good pace throughout, and avoids getting bogged down with trivialities. It also manages to provide a mix of action sections, emotional scenes, and conversational passages – yet we also get some much-appreciated character development.

In the first season of The Walking Dead, you really had to worry about each and every choice, whereas here there seems to be a tragic inevitability about everything. It’s hard to say whether that is actually an issue, or a reflection of the harsh world Clementine finds herself in. Maybe by making it seem like everything will go wrong, despite your best efforts, Telltale are trying to show just how hopeless the situation has become. This might be a stretch of the imagination, but if it is intended to make us feel numb to the horrors of the world, then they have played a master stroke. Time will tell on that front.

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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Blasting a high calibre round through Hitler’s one remaining testicle is the boyhood dream of many, and the new DLC for Sniper Elite 3, Hunt the Grey Wolf, lets you do just that – provided your set-up is meticulous. A standalone mission previously released as a pre-order bonus, Hunt the Grey Wolf sees you dropped into the grounds of a desert settlement to track down a man who may or may not be the Führer.

The lay out is exactly the same as you’ve already seen in the main game, with vantage points, sniper nests and ambush points galore. The setting is a multi-level rabbit warren of side corridors and alternate routes, and Rebellion stuff it absolutely full of patrolling guards. Getting through unscathed and unseen is no laughing matter.

The mission begins with recon as you rush to confirm that Hitler really is en route. Once you have the info, the objective is to break through security and await his arrival, whereupon you get to choose your vantage point and prepare for the big one. There’s a sense of immense satisfaction in killing the evil sod, especially as it can immediately trigger a massive fire-fight with his huge entourage, depending on your choices. Of course, you can avoid most collateral damage if you’re careful and patient, and all you need do to end the level is escape.

As a slice of extra content it’s a nice extension of the main game, but a fairly short one. Rushing through and plugging everyone will see you done inside half an hour, while a more considered, steady approach might stretch it to around 50 minutes – though, again, this depends on which way you choose to slot the git. The enemy presence seems slightly more ruthless, but that could be a result of the tighter spaces and high troop numbers. The fact that there are seven different ways to execute Hitler adds a decent amount of replayability – but that’s only if you really care enough to find all of them.

VERDICT: Hunt the Grey Wolf is a solid extra mission, but that’s really all it is. Worth picking up if you’re desperate for some more, and given the replayability factor of the campaign as a whole and the seven possible ways to ship Adolf to the farm, it might last you a little while if you’re the type who chases those leaderboards or loves to squeeze every drop out of every mission.

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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Meet Abyss Odyssey, a roguelike fighter platformer. I just like to say that: “roguelike fighter platformer”. It’s like someone’s dipped into my brain, plucked out a concept and went “sure, we’ll make that”. A roguelike, where death is harshely punished. A fighter, where combat prowess is tested. A platformer, where you jump, accurately, onto things, and do a spot of climbing. Abyss Odyssey is all of those things.

OK, so, it’s not a complete success, but it is a marvellous experiment. It calls itself a fighter, but the mechanics are a touch light. It’s a platformer in so far as you jump around, but it feels a touch lightweight due to a lack of variety or testing obstacles. Yet for its flaws, there’s something undeniably compelling about Abyss Odyssey.

Narratively Abyss Odyssey is simple: there’s a big evil at the bottom of the abyss, go smush it. The game is more of a character piece as trips down the labyrinth will see you meet and greet a number of curious, melancholy individuals, including instrument playing skeletons and dying soldiers. There is a story to uncover through collectible journal pages, too, but it’s all largely light framing. Abyss Odyssey is more about the doing and the moment than the overarching tale.

The gameplay is where Abyss Oddysey’s strengths truly lie. Getting to the bottom of the Abyss isn’t a huge task – one to two hours work at most – but you must complete it in one sitting, and multiple completions are rewarded. Losing your health in battle will put you in a danger state, and failure to find an altar when in trouble results in a restart. As a roguelike, Abyss Odyssey falls on the kind side, as progress is still made beyond death. Characters level up, fighters are unlocked and paths open independently of successful attempts, but you will lose your accrued gear, and your next attempt will see you tackle a different set of rooms.

Abyss Odyssey has the usual roguelike charms, then, and traps do what they can to add a bit of spice to the admittedly simple platforming, but it’s the game’s combat system – heavily inspired by Super Smash Bros. – that gives it the bulk of its interest. Similarly to Smash Bros. your fighter has a standard attack that can be augmented with directional input, three special attacks – that you set from a selection – a block, a grab and a dodge. Attacks are nippy, and enemies are quick to fall over.

The game pins a lot of its “depth” on its cancel system. Very soon after starting you’ll gain access to three “cancels”,which let you immediately move from a standard attack to a dodge, or from a standard attack to a special one, or from a special attack to a dodge, etc. Thing is, you have to wait a short while for your cancels to return after use. So, do you use them to mount a strong offense? Should you tech out of your standard combo and away from an opponent’s counter? Do you use all three at once or try and save one for an imminent emergency? It should also go without saying that you can get some satisfying combos through the cancel system should your first attack connect…

It’s not a perfect system, as the game’s combat has some notable problems. The dodge, for instance, leaves you facing the “wrong” way, and sometimes character reactions can feel sluggish. You see, when you dodge you remain facing the way you were facing upon using the dodge, which is fine if you play the game in a Castlevania fencing style, but it means there’s no dodging “past” an opponent to attack them from behind, as you can’t swing around quick enough. Perhaps that’s just my Smash reactions wanting to do that.

Secondly, there are no “big” attacks. Super Smash Bros’ smash attacks are hugely satisfying gambits that add an important notch to combat strategy, but Abyss Odyssey only has a very standard pool of middling slaps and stabs. The combat lacks the punch, the pow, the whoomph that defines a strong counter or combo-ender, and this shows a fairly fundamental lack of understanding for the genre, alongside crippling the overall impact of Abyss Odyssey’s fighting credentials. What’s here is fun, but it feels like a lot of sentences without full stops. Combat happens, but you always feel that it’s just lacking those climactic moments.

Not that that’ll stop you playing. There’re enough surprises in Abyss Odyssey to keep you trying again, and the lure of more content to see once enough players run the labyrinth is enough temptation to keep you trying, and to jump online and help others too. It might not truly be the Smash Bros. combat-mimicking adventure it sets out to be, but it’s compelling stuff nonetheless.

VERDICT: Abyss Odyssey is absolutely the sum of its parts. While its platforming and fighter credentials might not hold up individually, their combination alongside the roguelike sensibilities and community co-operation help elevate these lacking mechanics to be something more compelling than they would be alone. A curious experiment, and one that’s well worth continued testing.

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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Who knew shooting Nazis in the nuts would be so much fun? You would think that, regardless of the game, shooting anyone in anything repeatedly would eventually lose its lustre, but Rebellion seem intent on proving us wrong. Case in point: the somewhat bonkers slow-motion Nazi kill-cam in Sniper Elite V2 might well be the best thing to happen to games since random loot, adding a level of gratuitous self-satisfaction that had never been seen before in a shooter. Sure, the bits in between the actual sniping were utter pants and the AI was slightly less intelligent than a boiled egg, but the joy of executing a perfect shot and watching your bullet travel a hundred metres to punch, in slow motion and Mortal Kombat-style X-Ray vision, into your hapless target’s left eye was just wonderful.

So it’s not much of a surprise that all anyone cared about when a sequel was announced (apart from the dropping of the V in the title), was whether or not Rebellion had improved on the kill-cam. And thankfully, they have. Big time. The XP system rewards you for hitting certain organs such as the heart, kidneys and gonads, and the sheer grotesque beauty of a super slow-mo X-Ray headshot has to be experienced to be believed. This is not a game for the kids. It’s ridiculously OTT at times and, quite possibly, a wee bit childish. A new addition is the option to snipe vehicles and enjoy the same slow-mo X-Ray display, which is a real treat when you watch a bullet tear into an engine and ignite it in a fiery ball of righteous fascist death.

The plot follows veteran sharpshooter Karl Fairburne as he guns his way through the North Africa Campaign of World War 2. The change of setting is refreshing, especially as very few WW2 games spend any time in Africa at all. The desert aesthetics are great on new-gen consoles, whether you’re squinting in the scorching sunshine, or lining up shots under the clear night sky. It’s a massive improvement over the all-pervading blandness of V2, despite occasional glitches ruining the experience now and then, with hyperactive corpses and some extreme clipping being prime examples.

The campaign isn’t as long as the last game, but it’s of considerably higher quality. Karl has a much more balanced repertoire now, and is able to employ stealth effectively while holding his own in a firefight. Movement is smoother and the animations more realistic, while the cover mechanic is better implemented. There are odd moments where you’ll bounce out of cover for no apparent reason, but it’s a minor complaint. Rebellion have taken pains to make the whole experience more even, but the real meat of the game is still the sniping. On your belly, sighting down the scope and holding your breath – that’s where Sniper Elite 3 wants you to be, and when it gets you there it’s the best example of its genre currently available.

Finding a crow’s nest or a shady little spot and setting up your one-man game of death dominoes is hugely entertaining – as is using mines and tripwires to booby trap your hiding place. As always though, Sniper Elite 3 is often better when it all goes wrong and you’re forced to relocate, leaving a last known location ghost behind and finding a new place to perch.

Holding the bumper slows time and causes Karl to hold his breath, allowing you to line up a shot using a red dot that tells you where the bullet will go in relation to the crosshair. Timing is important, as holding it too long or going too soon will cause you to miss. Often you’ll have to use environmental sounds to mask your shots or risk being rumbled and set upon by scores of angry Nazis – which no one wants. There’s still a slight problem with the AI possessing almost psychic powers, as sometimes you can pick off an entire plaza of bad guys with no trouble, and other times they’ll seem to sense your eyes on the back of their heads. Luckily, this only happened twice, and may even have been caused by a glitch.

If you do tire of the campaign (which you really shouldn’t as it only runs to around six or seven hours), you can hop into the challenges, which come in solo and co-op flavours. You can spend time just picking enemies off in a closed environment, work in tandem as a sniper and spotter team or go head-to-head with another shooter. They’re a great aside and work very well. Additionally, there’s the multiplayer. Team sniper games are always good fun, and while Sniper Elite 3 isn’t exactly brimming with modes, what’s on offer is solid and provides an enjoyable alternative to the campaign.

Customisable loadouts offer variety as you unlock new guns and upgrades, as you increase in level. Going back and replaying earlier missions with more advanced loadouts can yield interesting results, and gives the solo game a lot more longevity. It can take a while to really unlock the more impressive weapons and mods, but it’s worth the wait.

VERDICT: Sniper Elite 3 is the best example of its genre, full stop. A fantastic sharpshooting experience is interspersed with more considered, more competent stealth and action, and the array of tools and tricks available to Karl Fairburne is impressive indeed. While you’re not often able to go for broke and “play your own way”, there are enough routes through missions and enough open ground to really use the environment to your advantage. Overall, Sniper Elite 3 is a solid shooter that improves on everything that was good about Sniper Elite V2 and ditches most – though perhaps not all – of the bad. This should go down as a genuine triumph for Rebellion.

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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When it comes to narrative driven games, you always expect a big pay off for your time invested. Telltale haven’t been in the limelight for that long really, but after proving they know how to end a season with The Walking Dead, hopes are high for The Wolf Among Us after a stellar penultimate episode – but nothing will prepare you for the choices you will face in this finale.

The following review assumes you have played the previous episodes, though spoilers are (as always) kept to a minimum.

Let’s be honest: what you want from a finale is closure, and Cry Wolf provides that – without shutting the door on the series as a whole. The sheer depth of the Fables universe ensures that, if Telltale choose to do so (and here’s hoping they do), this series could run and run.

But what we have here is a fitting close to a sublime opening season. Faced with some of the strongest choices yet, your nerves will be tested as Bigby Wolf – and there are moments that stand out, including the mother of all decisions. There are revelations, and thankfully there isn’t much left unexplained, although there’s a slight question over the very final scene, and you’ll be rewarded if you have a keen eye. There’s a strong argument to be made, also, for the choices on offer here being more important and having more impact than in The Walking Dead.

Illusion of choice was something The Walking Dead did well, but often upon close consideration, the seams would come apart and you’d realise you weren’t much more than a passenger, whereas The Wolf Among Us appears to actually change drastically depending on your actikons. In fact, the finale presents itself as a slight dilemma: as with most story driven games, you don’t often want to replay them, but Cry Wolf suggests there to be drastic differences depending on key decisions made.

To that end, it bares a few playthroughs, and despite being satisfied with the conclusion, there were major sections that had me wondering what the alternative path would lead to. It’s down to personal preference, really, but I felt like I wanted to play it again to fully understand everything, but that might be down to the breakneck pace Cry Wolf plays out at, rather than the way the story is told.

And there are moments in the series that have bugged me. As someone who has read Fables in its entirety, episode five is where the most fan-service lies, some of it subtle; some not so much. There are moments that speak directly to long-term readers, including one specific moment that is just so utterly rewarding, because it genuinely felt like it would never happen.

Cry Wolf wastes little time in getting down to business, either. Telltale dispense with the usual late-credits sequence and put you right back where you ended Episode Four. There are plenty of action sequences, and while In Sheep’s Clothing felt the most like an interactive story of all the recent episodes in Telltale’s library (it was the most gameplay-light to date), the finale puts you firmly back in control of the sheriff.

As with previous season endings, it’s a little shorter than the regular episodes. Clocking in at around an hour, it’s rewarding and satisfying, and there are options for revenge, justice, and humility. What I will say, however, is that the story is dealt with in an incredibly interesting way. It probably won’t be what you’re expecting, but due to the nature of The Wolf Among Us, I can’t really say much without spoiling things. It’s a very cleverly told story, overall.

That said, there were a few technical hitches I didn’t notice in previous episodes on the PC version, including the dreaded slowdown – so much so that I was concerned it had crashed on a few occasions. Obviously your mileage may vary, but it’s likely these issues are due to the volume of previous choices connecting together to the pre-ordained narrative paths, but it’s a shame nonetheless, and takes you out of the universe for a moment.

VERDICT: Telltale’s greatest accomplishment is delivering a worthwhile entry into the Fables cannon, keeping true to the ideals without taking any liberties whatsoever. Even though many fans will already know how the characters end up, The Wolf Among Us manages to be gripping from start to finish – there’s just no real weak point, and Cry Wolf is a fittingly great ending to a fantastic series.

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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Moto GP is perhaps the most entertaining of the major motorsports. Nascar involves exactly the same car turning left for hours and the occasional crash, Formula One is too reliant on the cars and not the drivers – but Moto GP features amazing machines with just as impressive drivers performing feats that, at times, look impossible. Recreating these feats in Moto GP 14 feels great, but hitting the perfect apex can be incredibly difficult.

In order to accommodate newer players, multiple physics and simulation levels have been included. The lowest setting is incredibly forgiving, and only truly stupid moves will result in you coming off the bike, whilst the higher physics levels scale quite well with the most extreme requiring almost perfect breaking and throttle control to stay on track.

For anyone who hasn’t played a Moto GP game before there will be a steep learning curve in order to understand the physics. Your first lap will probably result in coming off the bike more times than you will in any other race. If you do struggle with the physics, take some time to do some Moto 3 races, as coming off the bike is almost impossible on the easiest setting and it will help a lot. The steep learning curve was unexpected and really made the first hour or so quite unenjoyable, but once I started career mode and did some Moto 3 races the enjoyment levels shot up.

While the numerous physics options offer differing levels of simulation, there are some things that remain constant, which break the realism a little. If you come off your bike in the middle of a pack of racers, both you and your bike will clip through them, not affecting the other riders in any way. Although this stops massive pileups, it’s not particularly realistic. Going off track, regardless of the physics level, is also quite forgiving, and with the correct settings can actually give you an advantage. Again, it’s not game-breaking, but it’s not realistic, either.

The steep learning curve and questionable design choices may have somewhat of a negative impact, but the majority of the on-track action is a pleasure. The bikes handle incredibly well and the force of the accelerator can be felt constantly. Hitting an apex perfectly is no easy task but when you do, it feels amazing and it’s even better when you’re challenging for position at the same time. The AI isn’t the smartest, but it does a good enough job, and on higher difficulty levels provide an impressive challenge making races thrilling and a real fight to the finish.

As I mentioned earlier, starting career mode as soon as possible is a great idea as you begin as a newbie in Moto 3, which is much more forgiving than Moto GP. The bikes are easier to manage and the quality of competition is much lower, so it offers a great learning experience. Your created rider will sign to a team after partaking in a couple of wildcard races, and from there you’re free to climb the ranks of the sport, all the way up to becoming the Moto GP Champion. Career mode is probably where you’ll spend the majority of your time – getting to the top will take quite a few hours, but if feels very rewarding doing so.

The other game modes on offer include the standard Grand Prix mode, which allows you to set up a single race (or race weekend) and take part with any driver of your choice. There are also the predictable Time Trials and Instant Action modes, as well as the throwaway Safety Car mode, which sees you doing a time trial in a safety car that handles horrifically. Also included is the Real Events 2013 mode, which sees you try and recreate action from the 2013 season and challenge the champions, which allows you to take on former legends of the sport. Both split-screen and online multiplayer make an appearance as well. The game modes offer some variety, but for me the only real time-sink was the career.

Every track from the current Moto GP season is available to race around and, although they don’t quite have the same visual quality of other next gen racing games, they look and feel impressive, if not a little quiet around the outsides. The bikes and drivers (including ones from Moto 2, Moto 3, Moto GP 2013 and a slew of former champions) all look impressive and have incredibly high detail, and the drivers move around their bikes in a very convincing way.

VERDICT: Whilst Moto GP 14 is the closest many of us will get get to living out our dreams of taking a bike around iconic tracks such as Silverstone, it’s not quite a true simulation even on the highest physics settings. While to some this wont be an issue, others may find it irritating that it doesn’t match the sport quite as closely as it should do. However, that doesn’t stop Moto GP 14 from being a fine racing game once you get the hang of it. The on-track action is extremely satisfying and can be very challenging, making the reward of finishing first even sweeter.

The extensive modes offer hours of playtime and replayability (especially the career mode) and the inclusion of Moto 2 and Moto 3 not only offers even more playing options, but also a great way to introduce new players to the series. This is a game that will please the majority of Moto GP fans, but will also bring in a lot of new ones.

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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In the First World War, tens of thousands of dogs were tasked with transporting equipment and locating explosives, among other, very important duties. Yet arguably their most significant role was to comfort soldiers who knew that they could be weeks, days, even hours away from death. Between 1914 and 1918, the bloodshed across Europe was like nothing seen before, and Valiant Hearts: The Great War tells this 100 year old story to a new generation, in a way we haven’t seen any video game do before.

Emile, Karl, Freddie and Anna are four regular people who come across each other at different stages during The Great War. While they’re fictional, it’s clear they’re all inspired by people who lived through this four year span – normal people, thrown into an extraordinary situation that they must adapt to. All of their individual stories intersect at different junctures as they help one another deal with the atrocities of war. For example, Emile was a farmer from Saint Mihiel in France, until conscription forced him to join the French forces only days after the war broke out. It was on this farm where German-born Karl met Emile’s daughter Marie and started a courtship which resulted in their son being born. War is the backdrop for this story of human struggle and heartache, which is communicated through beautifully narrated letters sent home from the trenches.

While telling an exquisite story, Valiant Hearts is a puzzler that will initially not test your logical thinking but, as it progresses, will pose a slightly tougher challenge thanks to larger levels. They’re never too taxing, though some of the latter puzzles can be quite clever. But those looking to be truly challenged will need to find their kicks elsewhere, as they do merely act as a means to advance the plot.

However, the glue that holds everything together is Walt. Raised to serve the German army, Walt the dog goes from character to character throughout and offers a childlike view on proceedings due to his almost always chirpy demeanour. When the world is crumbling down around the four protagonists, Walt is there, and for one fleeting moment he can melt their hearts and, subsequently, yours. Your canine companion is also a capable one, as he’s helpful when it comes to solving some quandaries. By holding one of the shoulder buttons and hitting one of the face buttons, you can command Walt to interact with levers or distract guards, for example – an advantage that’s especially useful in some of the stealth sections.

And that’s one of the wonderful things about Valiant Hearts – it tries its hand at integrating a number of genres and, for the most part, succeeds. In one outside area, you are trying to stay hidden from a legion of soldiers with searchlights and a desire to see you captured. In order to pass them unscathed, you have to shield yourself from their glaring eyes by strategically moving with a flock of sheep that appear to be aimlessly toing and froing in a field.

Another example of Ubisoft Montpellier’s diversity are the stages where you are behind the wheel of a car and have to avoid the onslaught of your adversaries. As they are attacking you with a barrage of weaponry, they are doing so in time to the music. As the crash cymbal hits, a bomb that was headed your way will connect with the ground – as long as you were able to avoid it, of course. These inclusions are a fresh change of pace for Valiant Hearts and are far superior to Anna’s medic-focused gameplay.

When controlling the Belgian-native, you’ll be able to patch up some of the officers that need immediate attention. A rolling line, similar to that in an ECG, will appear at the top of the screen and at random intervals, the wave will deviate from the norm with a sudden peak and valley. When this occurs, you’ll be instructed to press one or two of the face buttons at the same time in order to tend to your patient. Boring is the best way to describe this little mini-game as it rarely poses any form of challenge, and is a distraction from the touching story and more enjoyable gameplay offerings.

That touching story is marvelously accompanied by some graceful piano arrangements that capture the mood perfectly. Whether a troop of blood-thirsty young men are hurtling toward the enemy, or someone close has died at the hands of your foes, the score compliments it. Without this mesmeric music, The Great War’s more emotional beats wouldn’t have half the emotional impact. The same can be said for the art style. The UbiArt engine has been used in a number of titles, but none as dark as Valiant Hearts. This interactive cartoon contains tragic events from a time period that we’ve rarely seen tackled in recent years, and that dichotomy is brilliantly unsettling. The harrowing scenes at Verdun and Ypres are the ultimate contrast to the comic book-like appearance.

Thankfully, Ubisoft’s research is impeccable and their eagerness to document World War I correctly is evident. When in a new area, there will be an on-screen prompt which allows you to indulge in some historical facts and this is where you can see the work that has been put in to make Valiant Hearts a piece of art, faithful to the time period. We’re all aware that collectibles can be superfluous from time-to-time, and they aren’t integral to the main narrative here, but they add some more context to what the soldiers, nurses, civilians, et al, were going through at this time. It’s both terribly interesting and deeply saddening, reading up on the events that took place during The Great War.

VERDICT: All entertainment media has a tendency to glorify war and games are no different. On most occasions, we select our loadout and happily headshot anything with a pulse. Valiant Hearts tackles the harsh realities of what this war did to regular families. It tore people apart and, conversely, brought strangers closer together. It’s a beautiful tale of love and woe, with a consideration for the chilling realism of war. History may be in the past, but it should never be forgotten, for the people affected truly were Valiant Hearts.

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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Cars are scary. They’re these big, hulking metal machines that go fast with people sitting inside them. They’re designed to speed up and slow down quickly. They are easily affected by road conditions, demanding owners to be very wary of their capabilities. And, to be honest, they always look kinda grumpy.

Why is it, then, that most driving games are fairly, well, not scary? Forza and Gran Turismo are practically electronic car tourism, focusing on smooth cruises around scenic locales. Outrun, Ridge Racer and the like are arcade silliness, relishing in the act of throwing cars around impossible turns without consideration for the brake. Even the games that are interested in the crashing, the Burnouts, Flatouts and Destruction Derbys, feel more like slapstick car comedy than a simulation of metal crunching on metal. But GRID Autosport? GRID Autosport is terrifying.

This is a game that understands what you’re doing – you’re driving a big metal machine – and every facet of its design feeds into asserting this fact. Whether you’re working your way around traditional tracks in a Touring car, Open Wheeler or a nighttime Endurance race, practising techniques in the Tuner events or struggling through the tight bends of a Street circuit (these are the five unique disciplines that define GRID Autosport), GRID Autosport is committed to making your car feel like a big chunky monster.

It’s a masterstoke of superlative presentation. Take Forza 5 for example: that title may have laser scanned its tracks for absolute perfection in their recreation, but its driving still lacks the violent soul that fuels GRID Autosport. Driving around a track in Forza 5 feels like a smooth jaunt; driving around a track in GRID Autosport feels like an endeavour.

The camera has a lot to answer for, juddering as you accelerate and seemingly reacting to every shift in steering, but the sound design is king. Played in cockpit cam (as it should be – this feature’s exclusion from GRID 2 was a shocking omission) the sound is appropriately muffled. Take a hit and the thundering whump will strike you to your core, but these bass heavy paint trades are only the start.

One time while driving I picked up on a distinctly “off” sound. I remember thinking, “that grating effect wasn’t there before” (I was on a straight, and my drive shaft was already knackered from a painful Ford sandwich around the first bend, so I didn’t feel any worse). I tapped the d-pad to see what my instructor had to say, which was this: “Your front left wheel has blown”. Yeah, that grating was metal on tarmac…

And that’s before your windows shatter. Should this happen (hey, Street races in GRID Autosport are violent, yeah? We’re not all perfect drivers), the sound of the outside will hit you like a tsunami. Where before you could concentrate, now the petrol fumes and crowd jeers consume your ears. Playing GRID Autosport in cockpit cam is truly a wonderful thing (and it will be more wonderful with the non-blurry texture patch that’s been promised).

This is ultimately GRID Autosport’s biggest success. Well, the principle of this is its biggest success. GRID Autosport is a reaffirmation of everything that made GRID grand, and more-so. I could moan about load times being a bit long, I could labour the point that solo progression is a bit rote (play races in the five previously mentioned disciplines to gain XP to unlock more races, rinse and repeat), but to focus on those things would be to ignore the success that is the aggressive, rewarding driving at GRID Autosport’s heart.

And when I say it’s the game’s principle that is its success, I mean what the game stands for. GRID 2 was an entertaining game, but it was a bit of a betrayal of what made GRID so good. The cocky, modern presentation grated next to a limited feature set and curiously absent hallmarks of the name. GRID Autosport forgoes attempts to appease marketing trends and focuses on its five disciplines with commendable aptitude. Each style of racing is unique, and each feels nicely developed and, alongside GRID Autosport’s well-developed damage engine, the narrative of each race is intoxicatingly spontaneous and reactive, an element notably lacking from more po-faced sim racers like Forza and Gran Turismo.

Now, that’s not me saying that GRID Autosport is hands down better than those titles, just that it’s different. If you’re a car voyeur, someone who likes to eyeball the leather and feel the torque, the platform’s leading car games will still consume your attention. GRID Autosport is less about what you’re driving, and more about the thrill of the now: learning the bends of a track, how to temper your acceleration to deal with Dubai’s slippery dock portion, coping with a change in performance after a misguided overtake attempt. That’s not to say that the range of cars isn’t wide and interesting – it is – just that Autosport is more of a brawl, and less of a cruise.

VERDICT: Five styles of driving all done justice with one of the most violent and emergent racing engines available make GRID Autosport a compelling title for both car enthusiasts and petrol heads alike. Even if your interest in cars is merely fleeting, GRID Autosport juggles realism and aggressive satisfaction to deliver an intoxicating mix somewhere between the joy of an arcade racer and the science of a true sim. Excellent.

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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It’s hard to say exactly what went wrong with Enemy Front. Developers CI Games have a sketchy pedigree at best, but their most recent shooter effort, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2, was a solid romp featuring some great set-pieces and some very decent sniper action. It may be that Enemy Front has suffered due to its long and chequered development history, or simply that CI Games’ ambition exceeded their reach, but whatever the reasons behind it, there’s no escaping the fact that Enemy Front is, very simply, a bad game.

Shooters have come along way in the last ten years, and the most recent examples of the genre done well (Halo 4, Battlefield 4, Wolfenstein: The New Order) render Enemy Front almost totally superfluous – a position not helped by the fact that it doesn’t have a single fresh idea to show off. Everything it does is borrowed from somewhere else, and the result is a game that feels overdone and tedious almost from the word go.

The narrative follows Robert Hawkins, an American (of course) war correspondent as he recounts the stories of his time spent fighting the hun and aiding the resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe. Flitting back and forth between his present day and remembered missions, the narrative puts in a valiant effort to make things interesting, but only results in coughing up cliché after cliché. The beautiful but fiery Resistance fighter who needs rescuing, the All-American hero with a troubled past… We’ve seen it a thousand times before, often done better.

Of course, the by-the-numbers storytelling can sometimes be excused if the gameplay is up to scratch, but unfortunately Enemy Front presents a mish-mash of other peoples’ ideas with all the excitement and pulse-raising spectacle of a Sunday afternoon in the pub. There are moments where it really tries to be thrilling, when the rousing music kicks in and the Nazi enemies start shouting and running around, but it’s all so straightforward. Much has been made about the “open-ended” missions, but while you are indeed given a certain amount of freedom to use stealth or combat, the levels themselves are mostly quite short and it’s almost always easier to just shoot everyone.

The stealth element isn’t bad, but the enemy AI is such that it undermines player skill because the enemies are so mind-numbingly stupid. You can actually position yourself in any given doorway and wait for them to line-up. Inevitably, after a few moments, they will stand up and run right at you like South Park deer. I entered one courtyard in particular and killed eight soldiers in a firefight while a ninth stood right beside me, smoking, and didn’t even respond. It’s shockingly bad in places, including times when the enemy moves towards a thrown grenade or simply mill around cover because they can’t decide who gets to sit behind it.

The only satisfaction to be gleaned from the lacklustre guns comes from rifles, be they sniper or otherwise, which give off a satisfying crack and spray of skull-juice when you cap a Nazi at 100 yards. Machine guns and pistols lack a sense of impact, not helped by the feeling that Mr. Hawkins is sliding around on ice.

Although CI Games were keen to announce that Enemy Front runs on the CryEngine 3, you’d be hard-pressed to notice it. The murky, washed-out visuals are frequently horrendous, presenting bland, almost feature-less environments and badly animated character models, even in cutscenes. Character movement is afflicted with a strange kind of motion-blurring effect that harks back to the PlayStation 2 days and makes it hard to even see who’s shooting at you while you’re running for cover. Between the lack of visual pizazz and the troubled framerate, it’s hard to see what the CryEngine 3 has been used for.

If there’s a positive element to Enemy Front, it’s the multiplayer. While it’s not even in the same sport, let alone the same league, as a Battlefield or a Halo, the limited number of modes suit the game well – and it’s not hamstrung by the dodgy storyline or brain-dead AI. That said, few people will be rushing out to buy a WWII shooter for the multiplayer when there are many better alternatives.

VERDICT: CI Games don’t lack ambition – but they do appear to lack the ability to bring those ambitions to full fruition. A tragic step back from the above-average Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2, Enemy Front is a turgid, listless affair with far too many problems to recommend. Terrible AI, truly awful graphics and a dull plot add up to make this a World War II shooter that you’ll want to avoid like a Nazi death squad. Disappointing and derivative.

TERRIBLE. A step up from “diabolical”, but a minor one. A 2/10 will have at best one or two positive features that, alongside its catalogue of disappointments, just aren’t enough to render it playable.

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Lifeline is the second standalone expansion for Undead Labs’ zombie survival sim State of Decay, and achieves what very few pieces of DLC ever do by actually being better than the original game. It’s small steps rather than giant leaps that elevate Lifeline above the vanilla experience, but every change is welcome.

Unlike the Breakdown DLC, Lifeline has a narrative of its own. You begin the game as Alicia Hawkes, a military veteran in command of Greyhound One, a special forces team sent into the city of Danforth to help with the rescue and evacuation as the mysterious zombie epidemic spreads. You begin with two other soldiers by your side and fight your way to a makeshift HQ in the south of the city. The map is immediately troubling, as so much of it is coloured in red to highlight quarantine zones that are brimming with the undead.

Luckily, you can initially reach most places you need to go by way of a ring-road that circles the central zone, allowing you to capture strategic artillery sites and rescue stranded soldiers and civilians. As days roll around, a meter beneath your mini-map counts up to a crescendo event called a siege. At this point a helicopter will fly into base bringing supplies and picking up any rescued civilians, but the staggering zeds will spot it and follow it, beating down your fences and breaking into your compound. Defend for a set number of waves and the siege will end, leaving you with fresh supplies, more ammo, and a few days grace before the next one.

The narrative sees you rescuing VIPs and securing important areas as you attempt to establish a fully functioning forward operating base from which to overcome the infected horde. A decent stockpile of weapons, ammo, and medical supplies means you can always tool up before leaving the base, and as long as your fellow soldiers aren’t too tired you can ask them to accompany you on missions and supply or rescue runs. As with the original game, you can switch between the other characters when your primary protagonist needs to rest or heal.

Setting up the base is straightforward enough provided you have the right materials, and supply runs are easier now, as you can load goods into vehicles to transport larger caches (this update has also been applied to State of Decay and Breakdown). Aside from that, the mechanics remain almost entirely unchanged, though the shooting feels as though it’s been tightened considerably and vehicle handling seems smoother – though that could have been my imagination. You’ll often have to be quick when going out to explore and resupply, as failure to complete critical missions can have an adverse effect on the game or even cause a game over.

The writing isn’t much different in tone to the original game, but the characters seem more interesting, and rescuing random civilians is more affecting as they discuss their personal stories with you en route back to HQ. Conversely, the bad-tempered, foul-mouthed officer who gives you your orders and berates your failure is often amusing, even when he’s bellowing down the walkie talkie.

Sadly, Lifeline doesn’t do much to fix the horde of bugs and glitches that have plagued State of Decay since day one. Zombies still appear out of nowhere, NPC companions will vanish for ages only to reappear back at base, and the collision detection is all over the place. While the game rarely slows down, even during bigger fights, you’ll often end an altercation with at least one dead zombie vibrating all over the floor or sinking into the scenery.

VERDICT: State of Decay: Lifeline takes the original’s sense of urgency and heroism and dials it up to eleven. As soldiers, you’re armed and trained, and the fact that the onus is on rescuing survivors and fighting back rather than simply surviving changes the dynamic of the game. The siege events are always fun, and there’s an odd catharsis in seeing rescued civilians air-lifted to safety as you stay behind to fight the good fight. Although it doesn’t do much to fix the original’s technical issues, Lifeline improves on many of its gameplay elements to deliver a more fast-paced, objective-focused experience.

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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If the disembodied spirits of the recently deceased could talk to us, they probably wouldn’t describe the place they’ve gone to as “fun”. I don’t necessarily expect that the realm of the dead is as scary and ominous as it’s always portrayed to be in books and movies, but I highly doubt it’s much of a social hub. In a video game, however, unfettered from the restrictive conventions of “real life”, the world of the dead should definitely be scary – and it should certainly be fun. The biggest problem with Airtight Games’ Murdered: Soul Suspect is that while it mostly nails the creepiness, it very rarely lets you enjoy yourself very much.

The story begins in Salem, Massachusetts, with the death of protagonist Ronan O’Connor, a police officer on the trail of the elusive “Bell Killer”, a psychopath with no clear modus operandi who murders victims with very few common denominators. Thrown out of a window and shot seven times in the chest, Ronan is surprised to find himself still tied to the world of the living by the supernatural thriller cliché of “unfinished business” – the business in his case being the pursuit of justice, for himself and the other victims. With only the crudely-drawn symbol of a bell to tie the killings together, Ronan must call upon his years of experience and natural intuition to solve his own murder.

Before long, he meets Joy, a medium who can see and hear him as though he were alive, but who is reluctant to help him in case she is one day labeled as insane – and who just wants to go about her life without being accosted by the souls of the departed. While searching for the connections between the Bell Killer and Joy’s missing mother, the two form an uneasy, buddy-cop-style bond with plenty of suspicion and sarcasm thrown in.

Murdered: Soul Suspect plays out in third person, as you strike out from a central hub to various areas in and around Salem’s town centre. From a creepy apartment block to an even creepier mental asylum, from a demon-infested church to a cursed museum, Ronan’s investigation provides him a whirlwind tour of Salem’s most haunted hotspots, each with their own ghost stories unravelled by finding scattered collectibles.

Similarly to LA Noire, the crux of the gameplay is exploration and investigation. Finding a crime scene will present you with a question that needs answering, and you’ll only find the answer by looking at everything you can possibly interact with and then sieving out the unimportant information. Also similarly to LA Noire, it’s never really that taxing, and there’s no real fail state. Most investigations are very straightforward and amount to little more than a “find the item” game, as you move around the immediate area looking for button prompts.

Certain areas of Salem that were burned during the town’s chequered history still remain as ghostly residue visible to Ronan, and a ghostly building is often more an obstacle than a real one. Airtight Games use this element – and the concept of consecrated buildings – to funnel the gameplay along a fairly linear channel. You can break away from the investigation in-between areas to explore the town and find some collectibles, but on the whole the narrative takes you where it wants you to be and there’s very little real freedom, when playing as a ghost should be more liberating than anything else.

In fact, such restrictions are what hold Soul Suspect back. For example, certain things can be affected by poltergeist activity, but aside from a segment where Ronan must distract police so that Joy can escape custody, it’s totally unused. You can stand there making vending machines fire out coke cans and photocopiers discharge stacks of paper until your heart’s content, and it has zero affect on people unless the game wants it to. Likewise, Ronan can possess the living, and then read their minds, look at what they’re holding or, if he has enough information, influence their actions.

Unfortunately, it’s incredibly limited. Reading thoughts almost always boils down to a single superfluous sentence, and not only are lines recycled through various NPCs, the voices are, too. It’s horribly jarring and completely undermines the mechanic. Perhaps the coolest thing about possession is that you can leap into cats, over whom you have complete control. You can’t go roaming, sadly, and must instead use their little bodies to locate collectibles in the immediate area, or reach high windows. As Ronan can’t enter consecrated buildings unless through an open door or window, he is occasionally forced to use a cat’s agility to gain entry at a higher point.

If Murdered: Soul Suspect has a primary saving grace, it’s the atmosphere. The streets of Salem are eerie, oppressive; the dark-shrouded trees of Ashland Cemetary are cloying and unsettling; the hollow halls of the Lux Aeterna mental institute ring with the wails and cries of the rabidly insane. Spectral buildings burn with ghostly fire and ectoplasmic scribblings mar many of the walls, scratched out in the apparent madness of one very creepy little girl. Shades of the dead are everywhere, often with a story to tell – although the questioning system is very basic – and some even have investigations of their own for Ronan to solve before they can move on into the afterlife.

While there is no actual combat, peril comes in the form of demons: spirits who have spent so long in Limbo that they have gone mad. They appear at scripted junctures and must be avoided or defeated, or they will eventually devour Ronan’s soul. To escape them you’ll need to hide inside pockets of ghostly residue until the demon turns its back, at which point you can sneak up behind them and execute them. The first few encounters are fairly tense, but after a while you realise that they’re easy to despatch – at which point they lose their impact almost entirely.

Ronan himself is a great character. His backstory is revealed throughout the narrative, showing his criminal beginnings and his redemption in the name of love, when he married his wife Julia and repented of his sins by joining the police force. It is revealed that his past was deliberately concealed by his brother-in-law Rex, who saw the good in him and wouldn’t allow his little sister to marry a criminal. As a result, the heavily-tattooed Ronan is a fairly complex character and certainly not your average hero.

The script is solid, if a little hokey at times, and the voice work is impressive – particularly the relationship between Ronan and Joy. But a murder mystery is only as good as the ultimate reveal, and while Murdered: Soul Suspect is interesting enough to keep you invested in the characters and their various plights, the payoff is simply not impactful enough. There aren’t enough characters to keep you guessing, and in fact the identity of the killer is fifty/fifty throughout between the only other male characters in the game. When eventually the culprit is revealed and, more importantly, the reasons for the crimes are divulged, it feels convoluted, as though the writers decided the killer at the end and retroactively altered the narrative to suit.

VERDICT: For all its shortcomings, Murdered remains an enjoyable romp. The lack of direct combat never becomes an issue, and the pacing of the main plot is just right. What immersion is lost through lazy NPC behaviour and limited interaction with the world is gained back by dint of the wonderfully sinister atmosphere and the likable leads. Not an instant classic but likely to do well in cult circles, Murdered: Soul Suspect is a new approach to an old genre. On the whole, there’s not enough substance to make a second playthrough viable, so the value for money is questionable, yet the mystery as it stands is well worth investigating.

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 five years? Five years of focus dash cancels. Of debating the Ultra mechanic. Of whinging about Vanilla Sagat. Of jaws agape when Daigo played Yun instead of Ryu for that little bit. Of Shoto clone after Shoto clone. Of Poongko’s crazy unpredictable Seth. The past five years have been incredible for the fighting genre as a whole, but Street Fighter IV is the king.

Now please, if you have a personal favourite then I totally get that and I’d love to hear about it in the comments, but it’s impossible to ignore Street Fighter IV’s quality and impact on the genre. Street Fighter IV’s combos may not be as long and flashy as Marvel/Persona/BlazBlue, but they’re refined tests of execution nonetheless. It might not have the gore of Mortal Kombat but, let’s be honest, no Street Fighter IV would have meant no Mortal Kombat 9…

Street Fighter is the conduit around which fighting game popularity appears to wax and wane. Its systems are designed to be tight and compelling, easy to understand but hard to fit together. Its roster is tooled to appeal to solid archetypes rather than wacky concepts. It’s the fighting game for everyone and while some would argue that Street Fighter III is the better, or perhaps “deeper”, game, Street Fighter IV forwent the nigh impossible mastery mountain that is the parry, for what, at launch, was largely an HD facelift of Street Fighter II.

Over the years Street Fighter IV has grown, but has remained largely unshaken at a fundamental level. For every new face that would appear, the concrete upon which Street Fighter IV stood would remain still. The game stayed underpinned by Ultra Attacks and Focus Attacks, with only the fighters that used them changing. It meant that the game, balance tweaks aside, remained a familiar constant – which is excellent given the quality of the game, but this also led to fatigue setting in for a lot of people. No matter how many evil Shoto characters Capcom added over the years.

Well, that changes with Ultra Street Fighter IV, because now they’ve added evil Cammy! I jest, of course. Evil Cammy (Or Decapre, as she’s actually called), is a unique, zippy, mix-up-centric addition to the cast, and one of the five new faces of the Street Fighter IV roster (the others being Street Fighter III’s Hugo and Elena, Street Fighter Alpha 2’s Rolento and Street Fighter X Tekken’s Poison), bringing the total up to 44, a ridiculous number for a one-on-one fighting game. And while they are all solid additions (and all more interesting additions than, say, Evil Ryu), they’re probably the least interesting “new” things when we’re talking about the grand vision of Ultra Street Fighter IV.

Before I go into this, because things are about to get jargon-filled, please know that Ultra Street Fighter IV is a superb fighting game. It’s a logical re-shaping of the Street Fighter IV design, and if you enjoy Street fighter IV quite a bit then you can take confidence in knowing that Ultra Street Fighter IV is more of what you love, with interesting new mechanics to consider and master.

The key new elements in Ultra Street Fighter IV, aside from the grand character balance (which many spreadsheets around the net will explain for you), are Red Focus, Delayed Wake-up, and Ultra Combo Double.

First up: Red Focus. The focus attack in older versions of Street Fighter IV would let you soak up one attack and then launch a counter blow to try and surprise a predictable opponent, as long as they didn’t use an attack with armour-breaking properties. The mechanic has always been “ok”, but has never offered the real “predict and punish” oomph of, say, Street Fighter III’s parry. Red focus is an attempt to bulk up this mechanic. It’s essentially a way to spend two chunks of your super meter to absorb as many attacks as you want and then return fire.

The mechanic’s capabilities come to light when you realise that the Red Focus has the ability to essentially counter Super and Ultra attacks. In previous versions of Street Fighter IV, if you couldn’t dodge a Super then you had to accept that you were going to be the victim of some nasty chip damage. Now, in Ultra Street Fighter IV, if you see the opponent try for an “out of the blue” Super, or even Ultra, you can initiate a Red Focus Attack and throw the damage back in their face.

Red Focus is not merely a way to mitigate damage; it’s a full blown counter, meaning that you’re able to turn what (in Street Fighter IV) would have been a small amount of unavoidable damage to you, into a huge chunk of pain for a foolish opponent. It’s not invincible, however, as it can still be broken by armour-breaking attacks, which includes things like special attacks and specifics such as the very first blow of Ken’s Ultra II. But when it works it’s supremely satisfying, and the mechanic ultimately adds a nice new notch to both Street Fighter IV’s meter game, and its defensive options.

In terms of aggressive options, the Ultra Double takes care of business. The Ultra was originally referred to as the Revenge attack, as it’s a super-powered move you can perform if you’re running out of health. Super Street Fighter IV added a second Ultra for all the characters for you to choose between. Ultra Street Fighter IV lets you have access to both in the same fight, for a reduction in damage.

In truth, this addition feels like a realisation of the Ultra mechanic, or at least a welcome alteration to a feature that was, up until now, horribly narrow in its application. Having access to two types of Ultra creates a spontaneity to their deployment that was missing from previous iterations of Street Fighter IV, and leads to more unpredictable bouts in the process. For example: if you fought a Cammy with her counter Ultra in the past you’d be painfully cautious in the second half of a fight, but now you won’t know if she’ll use that, or if she’ll try her other Ultra, and that adds a welcome tension to the entire Ultra mechanic.

Finally: Delayed Wake-Up. In Street Fighter IV, and many fighting games for that matter, there’s a mechanic by which you can “instantly” get up after an attack, but Street Fighter IV includes many instances when this mechanic isn’t available, such as following a throw. Ultra Street Fighter IV adds a mechanic for these instances through delayed wake-up: if you’re grounded by an attack that you can’t perform an instant recovery from, then you can delay your recovery instead.

Why is this such a boon to the game? Because it forces many players, myself included, to re-wire their entire thought patterns in response to certain actions. As Chun Li I have a set follow up to a throw – I know the timing required and I know the angles I want to move at – but delayed wake-up changes this. If my opponent knows I’m a hasty attacker then they can choose to get up a tiny fraction later than normal and evade my attack completely, avoiding such dreaded things as block stun and chip damage while throwing my attack pattern through a loop.

This mechanic’s effect isn’t as obvious as Red Focus or Ultra Double and will take many players a lot of time and effort to really suss out, but it’s the mechanic that will likely cause most disruptions to the “professional” scene.

These three mechanics are huge, successful changes to the way Street Fighter IV works, making Ultra Street Fighter IV a welcome and thorough restoration of Street Fighter IV’s increasingly creaky foundations. What was old is now new again, as they say.

If any complaint need be levelled at the game it’s that outside of these huge changes, fan-pleasing extras such as “edition selects” of the fighters, requested modes such as online training and online elimination scraps, and a few new arenas (made more Street Fighter following their appearances in Street Fighter X Tekken), Ultra Street Fighter IV is still an incredibly bare bones solo experience, even offering little in the way of tutorial material for the uninitiated.

For example, those unsure of the new mechanics will need to consult an in-game electronic manual to read descriptions of them, and then work them out during combat or through training. Considering smaller budget titles such as Skull Girls, and contemporary brawlers like Killer Instinct, have some rather comprehensive teaching tools, you’d think that Ultra Street Fighter IV might throw in a few pointers.

Things get harder when you discover that Ultra also lacks combo trials for its new fighters, meaning that you’re completely on your tod when it comes to working out their quirks, too. Ultra Street Fighter IV’s attitudes can be very 1991 at times.

But in the grand scheme of things, does that really matter? Those elements would be nice, sure, but when it comes down to judging the pure balance, joy and feel of the man/lady/beast/clone-punching, Ultra Street Fighter IV is still the perfectly tuned tip-top of the genre.

VERDICT: Street Fighter IV was a superlative experience even before today, but Ultra Street Fighter IV, with its well devised additions, has added the bacon to what was already a tasty burger – you don’t know that Street Fighter IV needs these mechanics until you’ve tasted it with them. Then it chucks some new characters on top for good measure. After the disappointingly meagre Arcade Edition, Ultra is an expansion every bit deserving of its title, and more than worthy of the time of anyone that has, does, and is yet to enjoy Street Fighter. Here’s to the next five years of brave Ultra counters and delayed wake-up mix-ups.

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 following review assumes you have played the previous episodes, though spoilers are (as always) kept to a minimum.

The Wolf Among Us has gone from strength to strength with each passing episode. Gritty stories based upon fairytale characters have been doing the rounds for quite some time now – including Telltale’s source material, Fables – but the studio famed for a buddy cop duo and a (sort of) parental relationship have taken Bill Willingham’s comic series and brought it to life, beautifully. Episode four: In Sheep’s Clothing doesn’t just match past efforts in the season – it surpasses them.

While episode three was all about establishing the supporting cast members and the relationship between Bigby and Snow – and it did both in a wonderful fashion – episode four is Bigby’s time to shine. Getting more and more aggravated with his investigation slip-ups, The Big Bad Wolf is now relentless in his approach to the investigation. There have been glimpses of this throughout the series such as the torture scene in episode two and the closing scene in episode three, but this time ‘round, Adam Harrington’s Bigby Wolf is not letting The Crooked Man slip away again.

Of course, the allure of the studio’s games is that they are choice based. However, even with some more gentle options on offer, the natural narrative progression is that the Sheriff is coming to the end of his tether – this is evident in the cutscenes where you don’t have any dialogue options. For example, there was one moment where I walked into a building and I had the choice to light a cigarette, or not smoke. The option to not stress your lungs is there, but it just feels right that the gruff cop would buck the system and satiate his nicotine desires. As Bigby Wolf, Harrington is nothing short of outstanding and it’s difficult to come up with new ways to praise his performance. Sublime.

One thing that has been handled with a great deal of care in every episode of The Wolf Among Us is the introduction of new characters. As this is episode four, In Sheep’s Clothing would be foolish to throw a host of new allies and villains in your face, and thankfully it doesn’t do that. It does, however, allow us to meet a few new faces that are subtle departures from what we’ve seen already this season. One particular personality makes a very lasting impression as he takes Bigby Wolf to his limit in the best action scene offered up thus far. Sure, death isn’t that punishing in a Telltale Games joint, but there are definitely moments in the aforementioned battle where your suspension of disbelief kicks in and you begin to feel every punch given and taken by the protagonist.

The dip actually comes from two very early arrivals in The Wolf Among Us’ setting, 1980’s New York – Beauty and Beast. Beast may eclipse Bigby in terms of size, but in terms of believability, The Wolf wins, hands down. Gavin Hammon’s vocal performance feels forced and when he’s playing the meathead, it’s out of place. The quality of those surrounding him make this even more evident.

As we’ve made note of previously, technically, our problems with Telltale titles are getting fewer and fewer. Reviewed on PC, In Sheep’s Clothing was virtually free of any hitches. Once or twice, I was left on loading screens for longer than I would have hoped, but these issues are thankfully becoming a thing of the past. Add to that the fact that less than two months have passed since Episode Three: A Crooked Mile and it appears the developer is making a concerted effort to make their scheduling problems a thing of the past.

VERDICT: Questions have been asked and we can now take solace that satisfying solutions are being given. Snow and Bigby’s exchanges are very brief as The Sheriff focuses on getting answers that have eluded him since the beginning of The Wolf Among Us. Bigby excels in what is the most action-packed offering yet and will leave you wanting more. In Sheep’s Clothing ends on one of the best cliffhangers you could imagine.

 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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With a title as highly anticipated as Watch Dogs, it’s hard not to be at least slightly sceptical. In an industry built on hype and clever marketing, gamers are constantly told that each new release is bigger and better than anything that has come before –and yet, quite often, they are far from it. After all the dubstep-filled cinematic trailers, the glowing previews and the million dollar marketing campaigns, when the latest big budget game actually makes its way to your hands, more often than not it fails to meet the impossibly high expectations.

As one of the most hyped games of the last few years, Watch Dogs has always promised to be an exciting new take on the open world genre, claiming to give players the ability to hack into and manipulate the city of Chicago at will. Yet it has been a concern that it wouldn’t be able to fully deliver on this lofty promise. Well, gamers, after years of nervous anticipation, it’s time to breathe a sigh of relief – because in this regard, Watch Dogs most certainly delivers.

While GTA V was a technical marvel and excelled at brilliant satire and story telling, Watch Dogs does something that Rockstar’s open world opus simply doesn’t: it makes you feel in control. Set in a near future Chicago, the entire city is now run on an advanced operating system called ctOS, and while the company behind it, Blume, have assured the public that it is secure, our hacker protagonist Aiden Pearce quickly proves otherwise. Unlike in GTA, if you’re tailing a perp down the mean city streets you don’t just have access to a car and your gun; you have the entire city’s ctOS system at your fingertips. Don’t want to participate in a twenty minute car chase? Then wait until your target drives over a steam pipe and blow him to smithereens. Prefer less collateral damage? Why not raise the bollards in front of him and watch him slam to a halt? You can even ignore hacking entirely and chase after him manically with a shotgun. The point is that the choice is yours.

Watch Dogs is all about giving the player options – and there often seems to be a wealth of them to choose from. After the infuriating linearity that plagued missions in Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft’s new-found open approach to tackling objectives is one that should be applauded. During one mission I was tasked with infiltrating a well guarded base and hacking its access point. In most games, there would be one major choice to make: do you go in all guns blazing, or do you take a more subtle approach and sneak through the base? I chose neither. Instead I opted to hijack a boat, sail around the guards and hop out on the shore nearest my objective, hacking the access point without alerting a single enemy.

While the freedom presented to you in the brilliantly imagined virtual Chicago is one half of what makes the game’s missions so enjoyable, what really separates Watch Dogs from the crowd is, of course, your ability to use hacking in and out of combat. From initially profiling everyone who walks by you to the first amusing NPC text message you pry into, the hacking mechanic feels consistently enjoyable and unique throughout. Having a few lines of information on all NPCs is a simple touch, but a surprisingly effective one, and there are an impressive amount of different phone conversations for you to eavesdrop on. As well as snooping on members of the public, this mechanic also makes combat more of a moral dilemma then most recent games have dared to. When you’re told the cop looking for you is a newly wed it makes you think twice about how you deal with him, and while eventually the randomly assigned information loses its impact, the attempt to humanize the often faceless enemies you mow down is an interesting one.

As well as being a fun toy to play with while roaming the city, your hacking abilities become incredibly useful when contained in some of the smaller combat-focused missions too. While stealth sections in modern games can often feel like a chore, using the technology around you to wreak havoc and remain unnoticed feels consistently thrilling here. When tasked with clearing a base, your initial move will be to hack the nearest camera. Once you’re into a camera, you are presented with the lay of the land – and a playground full of wonderful hacking possibilities. The tools at your disposal can range from moving forklifts and setting off guards’ phones to distract them, to hacking their explosives and using other aspects of their environment against them. This is before even taking in the options presented to you by the craftable hacking items. Seeing the guards fall into a panic while picking them off from a safe distance is a joy to behold, and while it’s something you’ll end up experiencing often throughout the game, it says a lot that it never really grows old.

Watch Dogs skill system fits in perfectly with however you choose to play, and as you would expect, gives you the option of different fields to specialize in: hacking, driving, crafting and combat. Each time you level up you will get to assign skill points, and given how often you earn XP, it is likely that you will end up unlocking the vast majority of abilities for at least two of those fields.

A sense of choice and flexibility seems to be rooted in every aspect of Watch Dog’s design, and even extends to how Ubisoft Montreal have handled the game’s online component. While running around causing mayhem, or if you’re a more upright citizen – travelling to your next objective – an invite will often pop up for an online challenge. If you choose to accept, you will be transported to the race or mission’s objective, as you would expect. When you’ve finished your match however, the other players disappear, while you remain in the same location – but now seamlessly transplanted back in the single player world. The sheer fluidity of the transition from single player to online took me off guard, and felt like a breath of fresh air after the haphazardly separated experience of GTA V’s online component.

As well as the expected optional online matches, Watch Dogs’ other online component likes to keep you on your toes. At any given moment your current flow in the game can be interrupted as your world is invaded by another player without warning. Once invaded, it becomes a tense race against time to identify the human player lurking amongst the AI, and take them out before they manage to hack into your systems. While already introduced in the Assassin’s Creed series, the concept of a human player trying to blend in as part of the program still feels relatively original, and is used in three of Watch Dogs’ online modes to great effect. Aside from these contained multiplayer matches, a GTA-rivalling 8-player free roam mode is also available, although given the former’s larger player count on an older console, the meagre eight slots offered is a bit disappointing.

If you do somehow manage to tire of the story missions, the three types of side missions, the online matches, or just generally causing open world mayhem, you can always indulge in something a bit different. Watch Dogs is littered with a large amount of surprisingly fun little distractions, offering you a completely different tone and aesthetic to the rest of the game. These come in augmented reality phone games and the rather amazing digital trips. Sick of blasting people around a realistic and serious city? Why not take a palette cleansing Psychedelic Digital Trip and indulge in a colourful mini game that sees you bouncing between giant flowers. These off the wall digital trips and a fun collection of mini games are unexpected and enjoyable distractions from the main game. You can also play chess, indulge in Cash Run AR games and find yourself in drink-offs with Chicago’s resident drunk.

While Watch Dogs’ open ended nature and wealth of options are highly impressive, the game’s story isn’t quite as revolutionary. After hacking somewhere he shouldn’t, what should have been a routine job for Aiden Pierce goes wrong and leads to an early tragedy. While starting off fairly strong, Watch Dogs’ story is ultimately a pretty unremarkable revenge thriller. That isn’t to say that the story is awful – it’s more that it hints at a potential that it never quite realizes. Some of the cutscenes are brimming with tension and the team have even been brave enough to touch on surprisingly dark subject matter. A particularly memorable mission sees you infiltrating a sex trafficking auction, and hacking through the attendees phones yields predictably skin-crawling results. Sadly, though, these brilliant moments are often over too quickly, and while the narrative seems to set itself up for some great moments, it often squanders what could have been and winds up in a predictable game of cat and mouse – paling in comparison to recent writing master-classes like GTA V or The Last of Us.

Watch Dogs also suffers from a few questionable design choices. While in-game currency is plentiful, the ability to pick up your enemy’s weapons renders it largely useless. Another more useful way to spend your cash is on cars which can in theory be delivered to you. This service rarely seemed to work, however, and instead you are left with the far more enjoyable (and cheaper) option of stealing cars. Speaking of cars, Watch Dogs has one frankly bizarre omission – the ability to shoot and drive. For a game filled with car-based missions it baffles the mind that such an obvious mechanic was not included.

Being the first “next gen” game ever to be shown, there are pretty high expectations from Watch Dogs in the graphics department. Visually, it’s highly detailed and a joy to look at on PS4, but those expecting it to mirror the initial E3 footage will be sorely disappointed. While cities and water effects impress, out in the grassy sections the IQ and lo-res greenery leave something to be desired. Yet this is a minor gripe in an otherwise beautiful game. The action ran smoothly throughout, and thankfully loading screens are saved only for certain story missions – which is a trade off that makes the slight visual downgrade very much worth it.

VERDICT: After a generation that brought us seven years of countless linear and identikit shooters, Watch Dogs is the open world adrenaline shot that fatigued gamers needed. While the story could have been better and Ubisoft have made a few questionable design choices, it’s rare to see a big budget game that offers players freedom in almost every aspect of its design – and, more importantly, one that is this much fun while doing so.

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 based on time spent at an Ubisoft-hosted review event, and at-home play time.

The post Watch_Dogs Review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

To date, The New Order is the ninht game based in the Wolfenstein universe, but the first to feature the term “radgie gadgie” as an insult. I don’t know what it means, but it works perfectly in the context within which it is uttered. I mention it because it’s kind of indicative of The New Order as a whole. None of it makes very much sense, you’ll constantly scratch your head and raise eyebrows throughout, and yet within its own context, it all works rather well.

Captain William J. “BJ” Blazkowicz returns as protagonist, here referred to as Blazko and thus deftly avoiding the reflexive snigger every time someone says “BJ”. It begins in 1946, as Blazko and a squad of US soldiers attempt to infiltrate the headquarters of General Deathshead (who you will remember if you played the last game). Fighting alongside British pilot Fergus Reid and a greenhorn named Wyatt, Blazko succeeds in getting shot down and captured, and is then forced to make a sadistic choice before getting blown up and almost lobotomised.

The main events of The New Order take place 14 years later, when Blazko wakes up in an asylum and rescues his carer, Anya, from the Nazis, who he soon realises won the war and now control the entire world. What follows is a desperate fight to the death against the victorious war machine, led by Blazko, Anya and a surprising face from the series’ past. Quite unexpectedly, the story is actually pretty good. The writing is a tad macho and a little bit “ooh-rah” at times, but the script is above average and the voice work is always believable.

While Blazko represents America with all the snarling, drawling gusto you’d expect (while still being the most Aryan-looking non-Nazi ever born), it’s the rest of the cast that bring the personality. Fergus and his angst, Anya’s plot-convenient grief over her parents, and the troubles of the ragtag resistance combine to add colour to the decidedly black & white Evil Nazis vs. Good Everyone Else backdrop. A slightly out-of-place sex-scene and the sight of a cruel Nazi General dangling a crying baby by its ankle feel like steps too far in the wrong direction, but most of the time the brutal comedy has an Inglorious Basterds vibe that carries The New Order through.

The story is fairly hefty for a shooter, weighing in at 12-15 hours depending on difficulty and brimming with collectibles. It’s also replayable, as the aforementioned choice in the prologue decides which “timeline” you’re on, affecting Blazko’s skills, available routes through missions, certain characters and events, and the ending. Enigma codes scattered throughout levels must be deciphered to unlock four other modes, including Ironman and Hardcore mode. It’s a good thing MachineGames paid so much attention to the solo game, as The New Order features no multiplayer whatsoever. Relatively rare in an FPS these days, it’s actually quite refreshing to get such value and playability out of a campaign shooter.

The gameplay itself is also solid, but it’s worth getting the major gripe out of the way first: the AI. While I’ve yet to play a shooter with really good AI (Halo: Reach is probabaly top of the pile), The New Order is very hit and miss when it comes to enemy behaviour. Minute to minute it’s perfectly competent, as enemies use cover, flank you and gang up to take you down. If you’re seen by a Commander they will continuously radio for back-up until you kill them, meaning you need to take them out first, but the grunts make no effort to keep these tactically vital pieces alive; they even exhibit the same behaviour as their subordinates.

Worse, there are moments when the AI simply fails. On the odd occasion enemies will get stuck on walls or run out of cover for no reason. One level set inside a prison features melee-only enemies who will amicably attack you one at a time, very slowly, while you stick them with your combat knife. They are fairly tolerant of dead friends, too, wandering blithely past stealth-murdered comrades with barely a murmured curse. Strangely, though, it’s not game-breaking. The New Order remembers its roots, you see, and the bombastic, almost old-school shooting is so full of noise and flame and “die you Nazi scum!” moments that occasional AI blunders go almost unnoticed as you launch a one-man, dual-wielding assault on the entire Third Reich.

And what an assault it is. Mr. Blazkowicz is a borderline psychopath whose murderous rampages are only excused because he’s killing Nazis and Nazis deserve what they get. The alternate 1960 setting allows for pretty much whatever MachineGames feel like throwing at you at the time, from giant robot dogs to laser guns and tesla grenades. As a result, The New Order never gets boring, sharing similarities with under-appreciated last-gen blaster Singularity. New guns are introduced regularly, a favourite being the lazerkraftwerk rifle that doubles as a plasma cutter to carve your way through certain fences and alloy walls. It opens up a new way of thinking when you’re after the collectible treasures, records, character models, letters and enigma codes hidden around every level.

Guns have a satisfying impact as you leave your enemies as quivering piles of gooey appendages, though melee combat is less considered. A cool perk system rewards you passively as you play certain ways, unlocking upgrades based on Assault, Stealth, Demolition and Tactics. Getting ten headshots with a silenced pistol increases damage with said weapon, for example, while repeated grenade kills will increase your capacity to carry explosive ordnance.

Visually, the idTech 5 engine makes The New Order sing on PS4. Cutscenes are stunning, while the environments are beautifully grim throughout. The surroundings are highly detailed, and it skitters along at a rate of knots, suffering no slowdown or bothersome texture pop-in. Each mission has a different setting and style and, while some elements such as footlockers in barracks and furniture are re-used, environments aren’t overly similar.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is what it is and, more importantly, it knows that. Calling it big, dumb fun sounds a little condescending, but it fits a game that follows the Michael Bay formula of mixing explosions with explosions and filling in the cracks with reliable-but-cliched story beats and fast dialogue – which, in a quasi-Sci-Fi shooter like this, is absolutely appropriate. The lack of an online mode will harm sales, but the 30+ hours it will take you to see and find everything, along with the unlockable extra modes, does make up for it somewhat.

VERDICT: Though it falls foul to the old FPS bane of occasionally stupid AI, Wolfenstein delivers a story-driven campaign experience that manages to be less po-faced than Shadow Fall and more consistently enjoyable than either Ghosts or Battlefield 4. Killing Nazis never looked or felt so good and, let’s face it, what else really matters?

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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Whatever happened to the run-and-gun genre? The Contras, the Probotectors, the Gunstars and the Metal Slugs? They were bloody great if you wanted to switch your brain off and relieve an itchy trigger finger, and now they’re almost all gone, *sob*.

Thankfully, the indie and smaller development studios remember how awesome and exciting these games were, are, and still can be. Super Time Force is a wonderful reminder of a forgotten era, brought up to modern standards with a brilliantly executed time manipulation gimmick, alongside some truly chuckle-some humour.

It all centres on the invention of the time machine by Dr. Repeatski. Upon this discovery, he is instantly met by Commander Repeatski, which sparks off a chain of butterfly effects on a large scale, as the Commander’s team, the Super Time Force, go back in time to right the wrongs that the Commander deems unacceptable, like the closure of the local medieval theme restaurant. Yes, STF is incredibly silly and bludgeons you with its many cultural references and sense of humour with tongue firmly pressed against cheek, but as a result, there’s always something to smile about.

In terms of basic gameplay, STF is a simple yet manic run-and-gun, very reminiscent of Treasure’s Gunstar Heroes (arguable the pinnacle of the genre). You have multiple characters, each with their own weapons and more powerful charge attacks, and you must finish every level by reaching the end and occasionally fighting a few bosses. The catch? You have 60 seconds to do it each time, which would be practically impossible if it weren’t for the trick up the Super Time Force’s sleeve.

You see, the STF are able to rewind time. Not only that, rewinding time will record your actions, and replay them as copies once you start gameplay again, and you can do this up to 30 times per level, essentially giving you 30 lives. Using this mechanic will allow you to duplicate yourself and create your own army of clones that replay your previous actions, allowing you to defeat enemies and progress far quicker than one person alone would. Should you die (which is a regularly occurrence as one-hit deaths are in place), that replayed copy will be a collectable power-up, giving your current character an extra life as well as increased firepower.

Imagine if Super Meat Boy replayed all your deaths at the same time. Now imagine that those replays have an influence on the current gameplay, and you’ll have an idea of how utterly chaotic Super Time Force can be. Watching your entire army of duplicates is an awesome sight to behold, especially when taking down a boss. While it does lessen the challenge of the game somewhat, it adds a whole lot of fun to the experience, especially when you take into account the different abilities of the various characters you discover throughout the game.

Of course, with up to 30 clones on screen at once, everything can get pretty confusing in the middle of a firefight, leading to a few moments of frustration as it’s very easy to die the moment you come out of a rewind. The large amount of lives/rewinds remedies this, along with a purple power-up that slows down gameplay when shot. Other collectables are also available, including one that increases your timer by 10 seconds, plus others that are just there for completion’s sake.

The visuals are what I’d call heavy pixel art, featuring chunky sprites with minimal details that help stop the game becoming too visually intensive, while the cutscenes are wonderfully retro, between 8-bit and 16-bit in terms of presentation. As you can imagine from a game oozing with retro charm, the soundtrack is a wonderful symphony of chiptunes that go well with the pixellated insanity on screen.

While STF’s mechanic is so fun and interesting, it’s also the very same thing that severely lessens the game’s longevity and challenge. Eventually, you’ll get past every barrier blocking your way so long as you throw enough enemies at it, so it shouldn’t take more than a few hours to see the end (although there is also an unlockable Super Hardcore Mode that adds a fair amount of challenge). Collectables and new characters are there should you want to get everything, and there’s certainly a little bit of thought required to collect all of them, although I wouldn’t say they were essential to enjoyment.

VERDICT: Super Time Force is definitely a short but sweet performance from Capybara Games. Wearing its pixellated heart on its sleeve, it’s hard not to love everything about STF. As a brand new run-and-gun game it’s a simple one, but add the time manipulation mechanics and it becomes an incredibly refreshing take on an age-old genre. Awesome, dumb fun with a very clever twist.

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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Last time we saw Clementine and the gang, all manner of messed up things were happening. And let’s face it, that could be the description of any episode of The Walking Dead to date. What episode two was missing, though, was character, and more importantly, the ability to make the player feel any strong emotions towards the cast. Episode three fixes that with a bullet.

During the 90 minutes of In Harm’s Way, Telltale managed to get me entirely back on board with the series by doing what Season One did so spectacularly well. It made me care again.

If there was anything ambiguous about Bill Carver and his intentions, there are no questions left about him after the credits roll. In fact, I felt a murderous, brutal rage toward him that I don’t think I’ve ever felt towards a video game character before. He’s crazy, sure, but we’re talking The Walking Dead comic-book crazy – and as a fan of the books, Carver sickened even me. Michael Madsen’s performance is pitch perfect. In fact, the voice cast perform wonderfully throughout Episode Three.

Set in an enclosed area, In Harm’s Way features a horrifically oppressive atmosphere, and like the best parts of The Walking Dead, it proves yet again that human beings are far more scary than the potential walker attack that is ever-present.

But Episode Three is also about other characters, and honing in on them makes the entire thing feel more successful. Returning characters are fleshed out, of course, but for the first time in Season Two, some of the more peripheral characters – whom we previously may have even forgotten the name of – seem to have a place and purpose. New characters are introduced as well, and they seem immediately interesting and useful to the group.

Thanks to a new character, there’s even a slight bit of comic relief, and unless I am misreading things, there are even nods toward the stigma attached to mental illness, which is a new, welcome additional layer to the story that proves Telltale are always looking for new ways to engage the audience.

Interestingly, In Harm’s Way actually hosts a contained story all of its own that wraps up by the credits. As you are supposed to be reintegrating with the community that Carver lords over, there is an oncoming horde (and it’s massive) that is a secondary concern. Your gang is exhausted and circumstances mean they are basically prisoners here, and want to get out. While plotting to escape, you’re forced to do chores, and with every minute that passes, you learn more about your host.

There are some truly exceptional set pieces, and despite fears after Episode One that there would be excuses to gross us out, every time there is any violence it is in service of the plot and justified, even when it’s hard to watch.

The only real negative isn’t a new one: sometimes it can be slightly off-putting when you realise that you’re playing yourself, and not a young girl. During some of the key plot points my own instincts took over and I was playing as myself, not Clementine. That’s a disconnect I’m not sure there’s any way to solve, but it’s also the mark of a very emotional experience that drills into your primal instincts to survive.

By the end, I felt utterly drained, yet ready for more, because it’s all coming together nicely. Though you’d traditionally expect a slightly duller, more filler-padded middle episode, this is anything but. One thing to note is that the version I played was entirely bug-free, with barely any noticeable slowdown whatsoever. It could have been the press build I was playing, or it could be that Telltale have been working on their engine.

VERDICT: The Walking Dead is back on track, after a slightly dull Episode Two, this is exactly what the series needed. It will make you care again, it will make you angry and sad in equal measures, it will remind you that nobody is safe in this universe, but best of all it recaptures The Walking Dead’s brilliance. I cannot wait for the next episode.

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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Spiders are a studio with potential. Every game they develop brings with it something new, whether that’s the unconventional storytelling in their under-appreciated action-RPG Of Orcs and Men, or the interesting party and crafting mechanics in the less-than-stellar Mars War Logs. Where Spiders really struggle is in bringing all the elements of their games together into a cohesive whole. A great crafting system is no use if the combat is janky; a decent premise is useless if the characters are insipid. What the French outfit really needs is that one great game that slams them down on the map and shows the world what they can do. Bound by Flame comes close to being that game, but for every successful idea, there’s a misfiring mechanic waiting to drop a bag of nuts and bolts into its gears.

Alarm bells begin to chime almost immediately as we’re introduced to the horribly generic plot by way of a narrated cut-scene. The story and setting borrow heavily from The Witcher, Dragon Age, and A Song of Ice and Fire. An army of Deadwalkers are sweeping the nation, led by a group of Ice Lords intent on enslaving the races of man and elf. Your protagonist, nicknamed Vulcan no matter the name you pick for him or her, is a “powder-master” in the employ of a company of elite mercenaries called the Freeborn Blades. While repelling a Deadwalker onslaught, Vulcan is caught up in the fallout of a magical rite performed by the Red Scribes, a sect of shadowy monks whose gold is footing the Freeborn Blades’ current contract. As a result, Vulcan finds himself sharing his body with a demonic presence that imbues him with the power to summon and manipulate fire. With his new found power, Vulcan soon finds himself (or herself) embroiled in a greater conflict, attracting the undesirable attention of the Ice Lords and their undead minions.

If it sounds trite, that’s because it is. Sadly, Bound by Flame offers absolutely nothing we haven’t seen before in terms of narrative. The fantasy setting is as derivative as they come, and the mishmash of accents (American, Scottish, Eastern European, provincial English) doesn’t help the average voice-acting, and nor does the anachronistic slang and gratuitous swearing, which clash with all the narrying and forsoothing going on in the periphery. Similarily to Of Orcs and Men, Bound by Flame seems to be struggling to find its own identity, unsure whether it wants to be high fantasy, or action-packed, throwaway entertainment. It comes up somewhere in between, falling short of truly achieving either.

Claims that the story would last thirty hours are simply untrue. Without rushing (though without chasing down every side-quest), I was done in ten hours and five minutes. Just as the story was beginning to reach its stride, it ended abruptly and unsatisfyingly, and left me wondering if I had done something to accidentally bypass a massive chunk of it. It is, thankfully, immediately re-playable due to the morality weaved through the narrative. While the choices Vulcan has to make are fairly black and white, the upshot is that making evil decisions (usually any time you take the advice offered by your demonic parasite) mutates the protagonist, eventually quite extremely.

The problem is that there’s little sense of impact in your decisions, even at the finale. No matter what you choose, the ending is over in a few minutes and you’re left wondering what the hell you bothered for. It’s not helped by the fact that the supporting cast of companions carry absolutely no emotional weight. You meet and recruit each one with almost zero pomp and circumstance within the first five or six hours, drafting them into your story like a wet pebble collecting sand. When, quite suddenly, you’re forced to side with one of them and the loser abandons you, it feels completely arbitrary. Dragon Age: Origins, this ain’t, even with “saucy” romance scenes that have all the erotic appeal of an episode of the Thunderbirds.

With very few game areas to traverse in a playthrough (I visited only four separate areas, including the opening temple and the location of the final boss fight) there is hardly time to explore romantic interests, unless you carry out every sidequest, which, frankly, are easy to bypass when a single decision catalyses the next story advancement unexpectedly. Also, no matter what you do, the story does as it pleases. An early quest asks you to save an elven royal with a specially-brewed concoction, but if you miss the ingredients you need, he wakes up healed and offers the flimsiest explanation for his recovery. It’s lazy, rushed writing at its worst. You’ll find yourself skipping through vast swathes of dialogue, and then discovering shortly after that you missed nothing. Events simply have no emotional fallout.

Combat, while enjoyable, is fairly hit and miss throughout. It’s based around three skill tenets: Warrior, Ranger, and Pyromancy. The first stance is Vulcan brandishing a two-handed weapon, and is all about hitting hard and absorbing damage by blocking. You can kick through an enemy’s shield, deliver powerful roundhouse blows or knock an opponent to the ground. It’s more or less Vulcan’s default stance.

Ranger stance employs twin daggers, and while the damage dealt is more or less on par with Warrior, you attack much faster and aren’t able to block attacks without staggering. In this stance you can enter also stealth mode for high-damage back-attacks. Finally, there’s Pyromancy, which awakens the demon within and launches fireballs or wreathes Vulcan’s weapon in flames. There are only four fire spells available for the whole game, all of which are unlocked from the beginning, and progression only comes from mutating the spells. It remains basic, increasing the number of fireballs or a spell’s duration rather than offering you anything new. In fact, all three skill trees are underwhelming, filled with tri-level talents that do little but increase percentages. An extra ten percent chance to score a critical hit sounds great, but in practice you’ll barely notice a difference from level to level.

Of course, it’s not easy to effectively track your own progression when the difficulty is so ridiculously pendulous. One moment you’ll be carving through the enemy like hot pee through snow; the next you’re forced to face a new type of enemy that seems almost insurmountable. Four times I had to lower the difficulty level to progress, and I was only playing on normal to begin with. The issue is that Vulcan’s attacks lack weight, and enemies can cut straight through your combos. Blocking on time will counter-attack, but it seems that the enemy health bars fall incredibly slowly, each blow knocking a tiny sliver off each time. By contrast, three or four good hits and Vulcan is usually down. When the hyperactive lock-on drags you around the battlefield like you’re on a broken fairground waltzer, you’ll find yourself taking hits from all angles and it’s easy to become overwhelmed. That said, there is a rhythm to the combat that will see you through sooner or later, but constantly blocking and counter-attacking makes every big fight last an age.

The most interesting element is the under-used crafting system. Bound by Flame allows you to gather ingredients from the environment or the dead, like raw metal, bones and leather, which can then be combined to create rarer ingredients. These can then be applied to most weapons and armour. A breastplate on its own looks fine, but add some shoulder pads and tassets and it starts to look more like a suit of armour. Boots offer kneepads and gloves can be upgraded with elbow pads, while swords and axes can often be adjusted to sport decorative grips, magical jewels and fancy pommels, all of which offer bonuses to attack damage or speed, elemental defence or resource regeneration. You’ll quite often be frustrated when the newest piece of loot you find isn’t as powerful as what you’re already wearing, but the trade-off is often close-run between an upgrade that adds health or one that gives a weapon poison damage. Given the brevity of the narrative, there just aren’t enough armour sets to find, and the whole affair loses its lustre when you realise that the same upgrades are universal across sets, with little option to truly customise anything.

Visually, there’s very little in Bound by Flame to trouble the PS4. Even last-gen consoles will find nothing strenuous in the admittedly atmospheric aesthetics. Lighting and shadows are above average thanks to the decent Silk engine, yet things like character animation and lip-syncing are all over the place.

VERDICT: In Bound by Flame, Spiders deliver an action-RPG that just about manages to remain playable throughout, but offers not a single “wow” moment. An interesting but limited crafting system and an atmospheric fantasy world don’t make up for run-of-the-mill writing, 2-dimensional characters, imbalanced combat, and a rushed, unsatisfying narrative.

Like Of Orcs and Men before it, Bound by Flame is an uneven mishmash of decent new ideas and painfully generic genre tropes that struggle to gel, yet somehow it blunders through to deliver a mostly enjoyable adventure. Bound by Flame had a great deal of potential but it feels half-realised, and this is simply not the epic adventure we were promised.

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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“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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In the same week that JJ Abrams gave the sci-fi fan-iverse a list of acting talent for his forthcoming Star Wars sequel, we here at Godisageek are transported back to a galaxy far, far away thanks to Zen Studios and their latest clutch of generally excellent themed tables, completing their promised ten-strong lineup. With added PS4 crossover action on offer, there has never been a better reason to chuck the very reasonable eight quid asking price into your PSN wallet, and pretend you are stood bow legged in front of a real table, looking cool as I-don’t-know-what.

Just as the last time I investigated a Zen Star Wars collection, the arsenal of tables in Heroes Within kicks off with a beloved denizen of the movie mythology, concentrating on everybody’s favourite badass: wise-cracking smuggler, Han Solo. Wisely basing the table around the Mos Eisley Cantina and the iconic Millennium Falcon, the Han Solo effort is terrific fun, from the Cantina Band theme that backs up the action, to the rotating cutouts of various ne’er-do-wells straight out of Tattooine’s most salubrious nightspot. Everything is present and correct: the freezing carbonite chamber, copious blaster fire, glorious banter between Anthony Edwards’ C-3PO and the space pirate himself (“Never tell me the odds!”), and of course his sidekick Chewbacca. With fun side games based around Solo’s legendary craft, including negotiating an asteroid field, and a well-designed table with multiple flippers situated around the field, this is a fine way to open up.

A second table based upon the Star Wars Droids is another corker, set inside a representation of a sandcrawler, complete with a smelter, molten lava, and naturally a bunch of everyone’s fave diminutive scrap metal merchants, the Jawas. Revolving around salvaging and repairing various robot buddies, and shenanigans involving the hooded little scavengers, the table is a well balanced mixture of ramps and mini-games.

Although symmetrical in its layout, not always the best choice for a pinball table, the New Hope set-up works surprisingly well, despite what is (on the surface, at least) a basic design. The longer you spend in the company of Luke Skywalker, the more subtle additions become apparent, like a cool upside-down area hidden below the main playing field. The missions in this most traditional entry in the quartet are great fun, including a crack at destroying the Death Star, shootouts with Storm Troopers, the ominous worm-infested trash compactor and an excellent trench-run showdown with TIE Fighters. Ripped straight from scenes in the movie, the seven missions are challenging and diverse, and will keep your interest for a good while, even if you consider yourself a bit of a wizard.

The final table rivals the magnificent Infinity Gauntlet as being perhaps Zen’s finest virtual pinball moment. Masters of the Force is a wonderful-looking piece of work, the table split in half to represent the Light and Dark side of the force, emblazoned with the likes of Yoda, Qui-Gon Jinn and Emperor Palpatine. The top of the table features two diorama-like areas that can be opened up by hitting the required Holocron targets. Once this is achieved, you can enter flipper minigames set either in Yoda’s swampy homeland of Dagobah, or deep inside the belly of the Death Star.

Gameplay in the last table revolves around the constant struggle between the two sides of the Force, which is also true of the whole package – once you have downloaded it you can select which side of the fence you are on, and earn a Force Score based upon your efforts in the game both on or offline.

VERDICT: Heroes Within is a great way to round off Zen Studios’ work with the Star Wars franchise, which has given fans of both pinball and the long-running space opera a superb flipper-based treat, at a sensible and generous price point (especially given that most of the tables offer up hours of gameplay even as standalone one-shot deals). Whether you are a fan of the source material or not, the production values are excellent, there are plenty of options as to how you view and take part in the action, and the power of the modern game console allows Zen to do things that no traditional pinball cabinet could ever do. Excellent then, and well worth a look. May the force be with you.

 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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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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