Rishi Alwani's Reviews
Clocking in at around 10 hours, God of War III is worth buying if you've never experienced the series before, but there is not much value added, and old fans have little reason to return to this title.
Clocking in at around 12 to 15 hours not including the wealth of side-quests and with a host content planned for the next six months (provided you paid for the season pass), Batman: Arkham Knight has more than enough to keep you hooked. Rocksteady claims that this is the final game in the Arkham series. While we find that hard to believe, there's no better way to end it than with a game like this.
With an abundance of things to do, great combat, engrossing narrative, and a fantastic world to discover, The Witcher 3 is the video game equivalent to an all-you-can-eat buffet. It's seemingly never-ending and always appetising - without the nasty side-effects that come with overeating. Quite possibly the best game we've played this year and the benchmark for everything else that follows.
If you're a fan of first-person shooters, or want to experience a throwback to the glory days of the genre but with modern production values, then you can't go wrong with Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. It's an enjoyable romp that promises explosions, expendable Nazis, and gunfights galore. And isn't this that all we want from our video games?
All in all though, Mortal Kombat X is a solid entry in the series. Some decisions relating to microtransactions and network code for online play mar the experience, but there's very little else that comes in the way of this being one of the better fighting games available for fans and newbies alike.
All of these issues plague what should have been a solid role-playing game. Its design, combat, and missions are enjoyable but are undermined by the lack of polish and finesse that we've come to expect from a game bearing the Final Fantasy name. Having said that, if you do manage to look past Final Fantasy Type-0 HD's surface flaws, you're treated to a substantial 30-hour odd campaign that's entertaining despite of it being better suited to a handheld console. Considering that this is a full priced game however, its shoddy production values makes it tough to recommend to anyone who is not already a fan of the series.
If you're the sort of person who is up for exploring a grim, dark, and fatal world and has a high tolerance for failure, you'll be right at home in Yharnam. It might be the video game equivalent of an extremely bad day, but it also gives you the means to fight back, making it more fun than it should be.
As it stands, Battlefield Hardline's slick single-player campaign makes it worth your while. Its well-paced, good looking,and a treat to play. Visceral Games' subversive take on the series might be a B-side to the usual military fare we're used to, but playing cops and robbers was never this fun.
Ori and the Blind Forest combines enthralling narrative sandwiching derivative but solid gameplay. It's this approach that makes you wish the rest of it was as compelling. But by the time you've realised that, you've been played, the fantastic presentation would have pushed you to its end, which should take you around seven hours. Well played Moon Studios, well played.
With a host of game modes, some of which are more addictive than others and slick controls for most part, ScreamRide is a fun bundle of gaming goodness. Until the bigger games hit the Xbox One, rest assured this is more than enough to keep you suitably entertained.
To sum it up, The Order: 1886 is best described as a vertical slice of gameplay. It shows off a lot of features but very few of them come together in a manner that's deemed as cohesive. Throw in the short gameplay length and the wasted potential of its setting, and you have a game that you should squarely avoid. Sony's exclusives are usually of high standard. This is not one of them.
Aside from the all but obvious graphical leap that this generation of gaming hardware grants us, it's nice to see fresh ideas in terms of gameplay. Evolve and last year's Titanfall are two examples of such originality. While it took the latter a while to get into its stride, it's nice to see Turtle Rock hit the ground running with a surprisingly competent shooter. All of its elements such as the various class options, environmental hazards, and a slew of monster skills come together to make Evolve a frantic, fast-paced game whose appeal is hard to shake off. Barring the quirky progression system that betrays its depth, there's very little else that's wrong. If you're burnt out playing modern day first-person multiplayer shooters, you may want to evolve to better things.
Don Bradman Cricket isn't cheap. In fact it's a lot more expensive than most games at retail on the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One . . . But if you don't own a PC or missed out on it when it hit the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, and can stomach the cost of admission, you'll be treated to the finest cricket game ever.
At the end of the day, Life is Strange is an interesting experiment. And while it falters on a few fronts, the first episode does more than enough to keep our interest for the next one.
As it stands Dying Light is perhaps the first game of the year, which is not a remake or a remaster, worth getting your hands on. Thanks to strong core mechanics in its combat and traversal it remains a joy to play even when the missions promise otherwise. The zombie apocalypse maybe a setting that's done to death but Techland proves there's still some life in the concept with Dying Light.
Resident Evil HD Remaster's design restrictions heighten the game's survival horror feel, proving that less is indeed more. It delivers tension, horror, and fear liberally. In exchange, you have to commit your time to the game, and put up with some seemingly archaic conventions. In today's world of in-app purchase-laden affairs, it's a welcome throwback to when games demanded you, instead of money.
It might not have the looks of the 2013 reboot had or its deep narrative, but it's an enjoyable little side story that should quench your thirst for raiding tombs until Lara Croft's next main adventure, Rise of the Tomb Raider later next year.
So is Ubisoft's open world racer worth your time and energy? It just depends how starved you are for a brand new racing game and your willingness to tolerate its many concerns until they're rectified, if at all. If you aren't, you're better off playing some of the older Need For Speed games instead.
With so much to do and so many ways to do it, you'll never get bored. It might not be the most original entry in the series but it's definitely the most fun. After all, isn't that what video games are about?
For a series that's tackled colonial America, the high seas, and the Italian renaissance, Assassin's Creed Unity manages to keep it fresh. It has enough going for it to make it worth a purchase for the discerning gamer who may or may not still be suffering from the trauma of rote learning every detail of the French Revolution for academic purposes. Well worth the price of admission, and then some.