Intelligent, fresh and endlessly enjoyable, Doom is more than a tribute to its beloved progenitor. Taken in its own right, this is the most finely crafted, technically impressive pure shooter in over a decade, proving that id Software, even after 26 years, is an adept, sophisticated game-maker.
An intelligent, authored, and consistently entertaining game which combines loving references to the horror genre with the distinctive personality of its director.
A clever, tightly constructed shooter which unfortunately struggles with franchise baggage. Someone should give MachineGames a real World War game to build.
Solium Infernum regards strategy as a game of intellect, patience, and observation. Put into those terms, it might sound dry, but its visual flair combined with the ingenious ways it turns abstract ideas into tangible, comprehensible, and thrilling game mechanics make it irresistibly playable.
Charming, beautiful, and immense amounts of fun, Tearaway Unfolded is the perfect platformer for all ages.
Ambitious, polished and clearly pored over by hundreds of people, Destiny is an incredible creative undertaking. It doesn't all click, but it's a huge achievement.
Resident Evil 4 Remake improves on the visuals, mechanics, and moment-to-moment experience of one of the best games ever made, but the source material casts an inescapable shadow, both in its renown and its treatment of its leading woman.
With great gameplay and a funky aesthetic, Tropico 5 manages to turn its dubious subject matter into something enjoyable. It's a pity that it doesn't quite sit comfortably on the PlayStation 4, but it's an engrossing experience nonetheless.
Ultimately, Resident Evil is let down by its awkward combat and somewhat barebones plot. If the story were fleshed out a little more, and if it were possible to fight zombies a little less clumsily, it would still be able to hold its own against the very best of this day and age. Thirteen years is a long time in gaming, though, and the game does show its age a bit. The combat and some other elements, of course, hail from even further back in the 1996 original. As it is, it is merely a great horror game brought to the screen in high definition for the first time, and an absolute must for fans of the genre. Most importantly, it still has the power to inspire fear - and that alone makes it worth the price of admission.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is a great action game, full of high tension moments and brilliant gameplay. It refreshes the old formula sufficiently to keep it interesting - but doesn't do enough to become something special in its own right. It's a lot of fun to play, but with a short campaign, uneven story, and by playing things a little too safe, it's not quite as advanced as it claims to be.
If you missed it the first time around, Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition is well worth picking up. It plays beautifully, has a great story, and will introduce you to a world you never knew you wanted to explore. There's also no doubting that it's better than the original release. It has been improved in many ways; the graphics, presentation and gameplay have been tweaked and there is some additional content, even if not a great deal. It's just a shame that it hasn't been improved enough to make it feel at home on the new generation of consoles. It's a superb game, but not one worth upgrading your hardware for.
Small innovations keep Lego Jurassic World interesting - for all ages.
The fall of empires has largely been consigned to expansion packs in the Total War series - as in Barbarian Invasion for the original Rome, and Fall of the Samurai for Shogun 2 - so it's a new look for a main instalment to concern itself with the topic. Nevertheless, it is largely successful in its ambitions, and is probably one of the most epic experiences you'll find in the tactical-strategy genre. Despite all the tweaks and improvements, however, it's held back by the lingering problems of the series: in short, long wait times and nonsensical diplomacy. With a little more focus to its early stages, these might have been forgiven; as it is, as fine a game as Attila might be, it stands more as a refinement than a revolution for the series.
It falls short of greatness, but the story is enough to keep anyone riveted.
The story is strong and the characters interesting enough that clicking through all that dialogue isn't likely to put you off.
A colourful, energetic driving game which suffers from an uneven tone and an abundance of ideas
Intricate, intuitive, and ambitious, Cities Skylines 2 successfully integrates all the major improvements that players might have wanted. Something personal is lost in its larger scale, while performance problems spoil the beauty, but this could one day become the superior city building game.
Despite all this, with the raucous chaos of multiplayer mode, Helldivers is still capable of being engrossing for long periods. This is aided by a simple levelling system, which allows you to upgrade your weapons and stratagems, and the ability to limitedly customise your character's appearance - both of which allow you to invest in the game. With a little more care given to the mission design and the story, Helldivers might well have been an exceptional game, but it falls far too short on both counts to make single-player interesting for any decent stretch of time. It's a game of two halves, engrossing in co-op but disappointing when played solo, immensely fun at its best but rather average when not.
The result is a largely enjoyable but far too shallow experience. With plenty of laughs a minute, a fun battle system, and oodles of old-school charm, Citizens of Earth will delight you for a while - and then simply tire you out. There are too many frustrating hours spent wandering around, too many little bits and pieces that haven't been sorted out properly. With no further depth to it than pure satire, it can be difficult to force yourself through these awkward sections and seek what lies on the other side of them. A little refinement could have gone a long way for Citizens of Earth, but without that extra touch, it's not so much EarthBound as it is grounded.
Ultimately, LittleBigPlanet 3 is a pretty decent effort which lamentably hamstrings itself. It's charming, aesthetically pleasing, and a lot of fun when it works - but various bugs and glitches, long load times, and a lacklustre story mode really drag it down. Fortunately, the level creation and sharing features save it from being mundane, and provide a boatload of additional content to make it worth the money. It might not be as good as the first two games in the series, but LittleBigPlanet 3 still has enough going for it to make it an enjoyable - albeit sometimes shaky - platform game for all ages.