At their best, the Devil May Cry games are – and will always be – brilliant, but couldn't Capcom have given them back to us with a little more Dante-style panache?
Gravel is fun enough as an arcade off-road racer, but it feels like it was designed to compete with the hits of five or six years ago, not the racers of today. While there's something likeable about its no-nonsense, rough-and-tumble action, it lacks the poise, power and polish of a mud-flinging, tyre-spinning champ.
I hate to be a downer on a classic RPG, especially when Secret of Mana can be so charming and it's still clear why it was such a well-loved game. Yet this remaster doesn't work.
The Inpatient is an interesting VR experience. It's immersive, absorbing and sometimes very creepy and effective, but it also feels like only half the game it could have been. With more real interaction and more for the player to see and do, we might have had a new highlight in the PSVR line-up. As it is, it's another intriguing but short-lived experience, which hints at a richer, more ambitious tale of terror than the one it ultimately delivers.
There's no question about it: if you want to play The Sims 4, the PC is still the best way to play it – and given that its PC system requirements are fairly low that's what we'd recommend.
Like ABZU, Oure wants to be your next Journey, but Heavy Spectrum's work falls short of the mark.
As a game for chilling out on the sofa with a handful of friends or the family, Hidden Agenda is pretty cool. Yet there's a lot about the mechanics, the story, the situations and the characters that seems wilfully, crazily dumb. For £20 for a few hours of fun it's well worth a try, but this feels like an interesting concept that needs some work before it all comes good.
When you're racing, drifting, off-roading or being chased, Payback feels like a fine arcade racer in the classic Need for Speed mould. It doesn't have the glamour or the handling of Forza: Horizon, but it's scores big on variety, speed and thrills.
Put it all together and you have a game that’s good enough to keep kids busy on a rainy Sunday afternoon, but nowhere near as absorbing or addictive as Minecraft (which some parents may think is a good thing).
This isn’t the smartest, most exciting or most imaginative 2D platformer you’ll find on the 3DS. In fact, Sega seems hell-bent on hobbling its chances with a selection of tedious or frustrating mini-games.
This isn’t a bad port of the Wii U original, and if you like Dynasty Warriors and love Zelda then the addition of new characters and content might be hard to resist. Yet Hyrule Warriors struggles to represent the best of Warriors or the best of Zelda, making for an awkward hybrid that’s not actually all that much fun.
Final Fantasy Explorers isn't short on hooks or good ideas, but it's too repetitive and grindy an experience while lacking Monster Hunter's character and depth. Fans of the saga will love the chance to tackle favourite summons or dress their Avatar like the series' best-loved heroes, but for most players the allure will wear off all too soon.
While it's free on PS Plus Hardware Rivals is worth a punt. It'll keep you busy for a couple of evenings even if it won't displace your favourite online games.
Mordheim is unapologetically hardcore, and if you're not the type to play the X-COM games in Iron Man mode then you might want to give it a miss.
The Tomorrow Children is weird, wonderful and oddly hollow, lacking neither the addictive hooks to keep you playing, nor the sense of community to bond you to your town. It's worth a look for its unique visuals and strange, slightly sinister atmosphere, but don't be surprised if your interest wanes after the first few hours.
The second episode in the Chronicles spin-off series is as good-looking and well thought-out as the first, but marred by frustrating stealth and platform sections and flawed controls. While the visuals are impressive and the mechanics mostly solid, the level design will test your patience yet leave you oddly underwhelmed. Here's hoping the last part, Russia, brings some big improvements.
Despite a few technical issues, this is the definitive version of Heavy Rain. The problem is that Heavy Rain now feels less like gaming's glorious, cinematic future, and more like a semi-interactive cul-de-sac; a string of scenes, some stronger than others, propelled along by quick time events. It's just about worth playing for its best bits, but other, less visually accomplished dramas do a better job of immersing you in their tale.
Homefront: The Revolution has a distinctive personality and its share of good ideas, but overall the execution is a mess. Cool weapon customisation options are no substitute for thrilling combat, while the exploration stuff is spoilt by poor movement and controls. A storyline that already struggles for credibility isn't helped by charmless characters and cringe-worthy dialogue, and visual glitches and poor AI only make the game feel less than finished. The result? A game with big ambitions that fails to hit the mark.
Rory McIlroy PGA Tour plays a great game of golf and has noticeably better graphics than the series previous-gen outings. There's not an awful lot wrong with the core game, and there are some nice surprises. The problem is that the lack of modes, courses, customisation options and players makes it feel only half-complete. This is a problem EA can fix with free DLC, but for now this feels like the foundation of a brilliant golf sim rather than the finished article.
There's a lot to like about ScreamRide, but not much of it is good enough to love. With three discrete elements, each of which could have been a download game in its own right, it's reasonably good value, but no one element is quite as brilliant as it could have been, and the environments aren't engaging enough to make the mindless destruction that much fun. There's potential in the creative tools and community features, but this isn't the most thrilling of thrill rides.