Ryse: Son of Rome is a great tale set in the Roman period, with its visceral limb chopping and an authentic weight to its centurion credentials, but as a third-person action adventure it's something of a one shot deal with little to pull you back in once you've seen Marius' journey through. Its gorgeous visuals and in-your-face combat may wow, but their shine dulls with unfortunately little to be offered in their place to reignite that initial excitement.
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is a strong foray into the Tolkien universe, backed up by popular combat from other major action series, with its own free-running style to boot.
Sacrifices have been made in getting The Sims 4 to be as clean and crisp as it is, with features usually expected notably absent, but the gains are striking enough to help swallow their loss – for now. Everything ultimately hinges on what comes next, and hopefully Maxis will show us they've got some great new ideas, as well as some old ones revived.
Dead Rising 3 is a step forward for the series as it finally finds the confidence to expand its setting, which is mostly down to better hardware being available. Hopefully the focus going forward can be put on fleshing out more of its mechanics and not just creating larger areas, like perhaps a more in-depth survivor posse system for example.
Does Reaper of Souls justify its asking price of a full game? If it only presented itself with Act V then no, but the inclusion of an all-new-ish character class and Adventure Mode does soothe the sting. Reaper of Souls, in conjunction with the Loot 2.0 patch, finally brings us the Diablo III we want and that fans deserve.