Gone Home Review

Gone Home is a small window into the human experience. It invites you into an average family’s home to discover their fears, aspirations, and innermost secrets, culminating in the rare sort of game you don’t often get to play but wish you always had. As you explore this eerie estate during a dark and stormy night, you’ll discover that there are no monsters to fight or puzzles to solve. Instead, all you’ll find are carefully placed narrative elements that work together to tell a story deep with meaning and significance. And as with any good story, you won’t want to put it down until the very end.

Gun Review

Sizzling gunfights, white-knuckle horseback riding, lots of unflinching stares, slutty barmaids, and whisky - not the kind of stuff that usually works well with a gamepad attached, but the action/adventure Gun perfectly bottles all those classic Old West ingredients in videogame form, and the label doesn't read "snake oil."
Gun nails a compelling balance between great story and great gameplay. As hunter Colton White, your world is upended when your father is killed in an ambush - right after he reveals that he isn't actually your father. Your quest for truth and revenge takes you down a twisted path through brothels, outlaw hideouts, the sheriff's jail, and into Indian territory. Without spoiling anything, Gun's gradually unfolding yarn is grade-A stuff that commands your attention. Stellar voice acting by a cast ranging from Kris Kristofferson (Blade) to Thomas Jane (The Punisher ) prevents the story from ever degenerating into standard videogame cliches.

Tower of Guns Review

The first thing you notice in Tower of Guns is the lack of a lock-on feature. Unlike Call of Duty, Battlefield and more, you can’t simply ‘snap’ to the enemy and take them out. It’s back to the old-school free-aim for you. The weak will find it jarring and dismiss it instantly, but the strong will be in for a much needed breath of fresh air in the shooter genre.

See, Tower of Guns may look like Borderlands and play like Doom, but it has more in common with bullet hell games and Spelunky. Procedurally generated levels are dotted with enemies that want to end you with bullets, blades, bombs and lasers as quick as possible. You will die. And Tower of Guns takes glee in chalking up your deaths to let you know how many times you’ve been snuffed out.

Ride Review

There's a particular corner on the Potrero track that can be taken flat out at high speed, but only if you got the preceding corner absolutely right. This sweeping left-right section represents a perfect microcosm of the Ride experience. Your patience, discipline, forward-planning, and applied knowledge are rewarded with a massively gratifying sensation of 'nailed it', as your simulated superbike hurtles around a banked curve and straightens up at some 150mph, a few feet from the barrier on the left, close enough to high-five the cookie-cutter spectators. You won at that corner. But are you similarly prepared for the next one? You might have noticed there weren’t any other bikes mentioned in that scenario. That's because Ride is at its best when it's just you vs. the tarmac. It's about how it feels to own a beautiful motorbike and take it out on race tracks or public roads. It echoes Gran Turismo in its reverence for the act of manipulating the controls of gleaming machines of speed, but as GT5 proved, that doesn't automatically make it a great game.

Lifeless Planet Review

Commander, we pray you get this message. Our ship is lost, and so are we. We shot for the stars dreaming of incredible next-gen space adventures, like Alien: Isolation. Alas, we fear we are adrift in a much cheaper, lazily ported part of the galaxy. You promised our mission would be to become an astronaut exploring a Lifeless Planet. We look more like a toy spaceman, location scouting for a particularly low-budget episode of Doctor Who.

This initially open-looking world blocked us in with linear design and frequent dead ends, mocking our attempts at exploration. There's frequent unintentional back-tracking, because the planet looks so consistently bland that when you respawn, it's hard to tell if which dull expanse of orange rock you came from, and which dull expanse of orange you were heading to.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2015 Review

"The pitch is ours". Konami’s current marketing slogan is a bold statement, but when PES was at its best, that’s what the game was all about. The quality of the presentation and lack of licenses didn’t matter because on the pitch it delivered. That feeling of unbridled joy upon smashing home a screamer, or devastation when you lose to a last minute goal, was akin to the ups and downs of supporting your own club. So, it’s great news that (after last year’s comparative disappointment) more time with the FOX Engine, and a move to the PS4, has helped bring those PES moments back. Believe it or not, Konami’s bold statement is actually filled with plenty of truth.

MotoGP 15 Review

MotoGP 15 is one of those 'incremental updates' that invariably causes wailing and gnashing of teeth. But actually, in this instance, the small tweaks have made a noticeable difference to the experience, so I'm not sad. This is a more welcoming and consistent package, and just as exhaustive in terms of reproducing the sport. 

As before, you get all the teams, bikes and riders of the current Moto3, Moto2 and MotoGP season, but you also get last year's too, with a 2014 events mode asking you to replicate classic battles like Rossi vs Marquez at Qatar. It's a great use of the license, and seeing Valentino beaming at you from the loading screen (alongside a suitably inspiring quote), goes a long way to making you feel closer to the real life sport. That said, the presentation feels very similar to last year's game.

Batman : Arkham Knight

Rocksteady has finally made a game where I can do everything that Batman does in the opening of the ‘90s Animated Series. I can turn up in a Batmobile, glide out, beat up some thugs and then pose dramatically as I gaze across Gotham City’s skyline. Arkham Knight is full of moments like this - scenes that recall the best bits of the Dark Knight from across the character’s history, brought to life in an extraordinary open world. This is intended to be the complete Caped Crusader experience, the studio’s triumphant farewell, but the attempt to weave the Batmobile into the series’ existing game design creates its own problems.

Need For Speed ProStreet

Ryan Cooper. Don’t worry if you’ve already forgotten the name since you’ll be hearing it a few times in Need for Speed ProStreet. It’s the moniker of your driver in Career mode. He’s not the most charismatic character. In fact, he’s practically mute - and you only ever see him with his helmet on - but that doesn’t stop the commentators banging on about him. “It’s Ryan Cooper about to light this race up,” praises one MC.

Need For Speed: Rivals Review

Need for Speed is what I like to call EA’s most well known “hot-potato” franchise. Every few years it jumps to a new developer--from EA’s own Black Box, to former Burnout developer Criterion Games, to a short stint with Slightly Mad Studios. Ghost Games, the latest inheritors of the NFS series, may not have reinvented the wheel while making this year’s white-knuckle racer, but it has equipped Need for Speed: Rivals with all the right parts to make it a serviceable--and enjoyable--game.

Need For Speed SHIFT Review

No doubt about it, drafting in British developers Slightly Mad Studios has revitalised the series and turned it into a serious contender. Of course, it helps that Need for Speed SHIFT has clearly used last year’s king of the road, Codemaster’s brilliant GRID, as its benchmark.

Need For Speed Nitro Review

Although it’s relatively low key on Wii, Need for Speed: Nitro smacks of something born in focus groups and marketing meetings. This year you’re going to be into ‘taking ownership’ of ‘your media’ so here’s a racing game that’s all about you.

Need for Speed World Review

MMO is a term that gets bandied around a lot lately (and one that’s a little annoying, because a “Massively Multiplayer Online” is not a thing you can play). Games that once upon a time would’ve been plainly referred to as online shooters or online racers have picked up the MMO moniker as a way to imply a vast field of content that in many cases may not actually exist.

Need For Speed Undercover Review

It’s easy to forget how long the Need for Speed series has been around. The original – our first taste of driving licensed exotica from the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Dodge – existed in a world before Gran Turismo, at least five years before Midnight Club and when we were still playing the very first Ridge Racer. Over a dozen games and years later, it’s an achievement that EA Black Box (developers for the majority of the series) have managed to keep the desire to move around in a car quickly so stoked for so long.

Need For Speed Most Wanted Review

You know that saying about pleasing all of the people all of the time, right? Impossible. That's kind of what Need for Speed has faced as it went from a high-end exotic racer to a cop-chase simulator to a tuner's paradise. With every shift, the franchise lost a few passengers who preferred "the way it was." So here's one game with a little bit of everything: the appropriately titled Need for Speed Most Wanted. 

GRID Autosport Review

No modern-day racer captures the romantic ideal of driving a racing car like GRID Autosport. I’m talking about the roar of the crowd and the squeal of big, fat, slick tyres over smooth asphalt. Lock-ups into hairpins as you dive down the inside of the leader on the last lap. The sensation of riding the knife-edge of grip and wrestling your car back from the brink of disaster as you fishtail over a kerb. Approaching a fast corner wheel-to-wheel with an unyielding opponent and wondering if either of you is actually going to give. Every little drama is reflected in the superb sensation of movement, making it feel like you’re in GRID Autosport, not just influencing it.

GRID 2 Review

The original Grid delighted racing fans and newcomers alike when it was introduced almost five years ago. Grid 2 does nothing to tarnish that reputation, sporting gorgeous visuals, captivating environments, scads of intensely powerful vehicles, and meaty offline and online campaigns. While some may take issue with several key design decisions--particularly the hardcore racing fans who prefer endless tinkering with cars or cinematic storylines--there’s no denying that Grid 2 is a slick racer with a lot to offer racing fans of all stripes.

Grid Review

“Hello, Bozo.” It’s charming enough when a game greets you every time you load it. It’s even more endearing when you can choose to be called, instead of your first name, a gently satirical nickname like Bossman, or Chief or, indeed, Bozo. The announcer sounds like she’s almost laughing whenever she says it, like it’s our little shared joke. So we’re proud to be a Bozo, and we feel welcomed. Immediately, from the second it’s loaded up, it’s clear that the good-natured personality of this racer is a far cry from its ever-frowning contemporaries.

Assassin`s Creed Rogue Review

While hacking computers and misplaced tablets during the modern-day sequences in Assassin's Creed Rogue, I stumbled on one of the most meta things I've ever seen in an AC game. In an email discussing the possibility of reusing pirate Edward Kenway's memories in another in-universe project, the writer says, "I don't want to give the impression that the studio is just reusing the same genetic memories over and over, so while I want to recycle assets to save money, the experience has to be totally fresh." That's the story of Assassin's Creed Rogue in a digital nutshell, but without the happy ending.

Gears of War: Judgment Review

Prequels can be restrained by destiny. Their future is predetermined--set in code and sitting on shelves. They're imprisoned by predestination, so they usually either overexplain plot points or tread water for fear of confusing canon. People Can Fly's Gears of War: Judgment doesn't fall victim to these follies; instead, it focuses on a smaller, more personal story and changes to pacing that embraces arcadey, fast-paced gameplay. The result is not only an incredible action game, but the most enjoyable Gears of War game yet--plot holes be damned.