Codemasters had good intentions with the latest instalment of Micro Machines, but their decision to concentrate on the Battle Modes instead of refining the racing aspect of the game will ultimately cost them in the long run. As a result, World Series has ended up being a ‘jack of all trades' game. Rather than perfecting one aspect it attempts to cover everything, ruining the game in the process. If you are craving the true Micro Machines experience, try booting up one of the older games instead.
Battleborn ended up stretching itself too thin by trying to include too many modes. If Gearbox had focused on the competitive aspect of the game only, I'm sure Battleborn would've ended up being much better. The campaign adds nothing of value to the game but the multiplayer modes are worth playing if you can get a team together. It's a shame solo players have been completely ignored by Gearbox, otherwise Battleborn may have been worth recommending to people.
Trailblazers isn't a bad game at all, it just doesn't do anything to make me ever want to go back to it. The multiplayer portion of the game does not have enough players to get into matches consistently (or ever, in my case) leaving the lacklustre single player content. There's also the local multiplayer but, just like the single-player content, you and your friends will get bored relatively quickly. To top everything off, the price of the game is far too high for what you are getting, making it difficult to convince anyone you know to pick it up.
Nine Parchments is a difficult game to recommend as it's a very average approach to a genre that has existed for some time now. While it's visually appealing scenes are impressive enough to pique the interest of potential players, it's stale gameplay and painfully slow leveling system lack the fresh and creative experience that you'd expect to find here. Amongst a sea of games on Steam and the other digital stores, Frozenbyte have failed to include features that retain players' attention in the long-term. There are no puzzles to solve, no secret areas to explore and no worthwhile loot to discover. Enemy encounters quickly feel tiresome and monotonous, with successful fights boiling down to whether or not you can identify an enemy by its colour. If you're looking for a co-op dungeon-crawler with solid mechanics and a unique design, maybe pick up one of the popular favourites rather than this new title.
Moto Racer 4 is not a great game, and even at the budget price of £22 it is still not worth buying. If you have your heart set on a motorbike game for whatever reason, surely you can find something better than this. Despite some of the bugs, Moto Racer 4 is a competent game that just manages to be a disappointment, even when compared to mobile games. I’ve never been bored while playing a game involving high-speed motorcycles and bikers doing radical stunts, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything. Fans of the original games should steer clear of this game, as it will only disappoint you.
Red Faction: Guerrilla's biggest strength is without a doubt the sheer amount of fun you can have smashing things across Mars. Sadly, that initial enjoyment doesn't last long as you proceed to do the same missions over and over again. Is this game worth picking up, or even worth replaying? For the sake of nostalgia, it might be nice to boot up the game just to relive old memories, but I wouldn't recommend purchasing this title. Despite launching at a reduced price and even being free in some instances, I would suggest playing something else. The standards for open-world third-person shooters has risen far beyond Red Faction: Guerrilla. Skip this game unless you are a huge fan of the original, or you just really love breaking stuff.
When it comes to anti-gravity racing games on PC, there really aren't that many that could possibly match the level of games such as Wipeout and F-Zero. Antigraviator is enjoyable in short bursts, though that soon wears off once you've put enough time in. Sadly, that amount of time is roughly an hour or so before you start to realize the game is very one-dimensional.
The dream of having a proper version of FIFA that you can take outside with you is finally here, except it's essentially a port of a three-year-old game… Does that really matter? Well, it depends on how desperate you are to play FIFA on a handheld. This is by far the best version of a handheld FIFA, so if that's all you are after then you are sorted. However, the price point (£50/$60) combined with the cut content makes this difficult to recommend to anyone with a current generation console. If you own an Xbox One, PlayStation 4 or PC, do yourself a favor and buy the real version of FIFA 18. You may not be able to take it outside but overall you are getting a much better deal for your money.
Get Even's goal is to get the player to question what is real and what isn't. While it succeeds in achieving this, I can't help but feel that it may be slightly too vague to truly hook its players. You'll spend a lot of time reading newspaper clippings and other scraps of paper that will eventually build a complete picture, but I struggled to muster the willpower to locate all of that information. There is very little that entices me to revisit Get Even and although it wasn't necessarily a bad experience, it certainly isn't a Game of the Year contender either. There's no questioning that Get Even offers a different dimension to the first person shooter genre, yet it struggles to maintain the aspects that make it most unique, quickly devolving into a repetitive cycle.
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As an online and local multiplayer game, PES 19 is definitely worth playing, however the AI problems are so bad that you shouldn't even consider purchasing the game until these issues have been addressed. Football fans will need to wait for a patch or wait a few weeks until FIFA 19 comes out.
Sea of Thieves is a daring attempt by Rare but also a lacking one on so many fronts. While the graphics are fantastic and the game has a unique charm, ultimately the world feels empty, devoid of content and features. Sailing with friends can be an exhilarating experience at first, but when there's not much to do the fun dies down pretty quickly.
Much like the preceding episode of Season Three, ‘Thicker Than Water' is roughly an hour and a half. Although I would always prefer if each episode was slightly longer, it felt as though there was too much filler in this one. The opening episodes of Season Three felt like Telltale had set a great pace to the story, however now it feels as though the developers are slipping back into their old ways. With only one episode left, there's still plenty to cover in this story. I'm looking forward to seeing how the story concludes, but I can't help but feel somewhat disappointed by the predictability of the season so far. Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long for the final episode.
Players looking for a purely single-player experience will be disappointed as the G.O.A.T Career Mode is lacking in several areas. While it may be difficult to become a champion in the Octagon, the fighting in UFC 3 feels satisfying once you get used to all the mechanics. Be prepared to study outside of the game as the tutorials simply do not cut it. UFC 3 is the best game in the series so far, however the developers still have a long way to go before it reaches the heights of the other EA Sports titles.
Does Ubisoft's new medieval fighting game do enough to impress?
The elements are there to create something truly special, but right now Metal: Hellsinger feels more like a Doom Eternal mod than it does a standalone title.
This near-future sequel has all the components it needs to become a classic entry in the multiplayer series, but it feels like 2042 is many updates away from reaching its full potential.
The inclusion of an informative museum mode and a music player that lets you play every track in each of the games isn't what fans want out of a Street Fighter collection. That stuff might be interesting to look at for a few minutes when you first buy the game, but the things people are actually after are more effort being put into the games themselves. An option for input leniency would've been incredible, especially for those that are playing on the controller their console came with and not an arcade stick. Additional modes like Alpha 3's World Tour on the Dreamcast or 3SO's character trials would've been much so much more appreciated than what we received. This collection does exactly what it promises to do which is provide arcade ports of twelve classic games, but it does nothing more than that. The games in this collection are timeless; they deserved far more respect than this.
Salt and Sanctuary may be inspired by the Dark Souls series, but that doesn't necessarily mean every Dark Souls fan is going to love this game. The big problem with creating an entire game inspired by a well-loved franchise is that people's expectations are going to be sky high. As someone that loves Dark Souls, I can say I enjoyed aspects of Salt and Sanctuary, but comparing the two games side by side seems incredibly unfair. Similarly to the Souls games, Salt and Sanctuary requires time and patience for players to reap its true rewards. While that may be attractive to some, it doesn't quite have the same level of depth and finesse that would warrant it as a worthy substitute for one of the greatest RPGs ever created.
While PUBG's Xbox version is still a far cry from perfection, it's a competent port that encapsulates the same Battle Royale experience BlueHole has been providing on PC for a while. Despite the console version still not being quite up to the standard that I'd hope for at the 1.0 update, the experience carries over well and the game is certainly playable if you aren't picky about its performance. If the standard of the PC version of the game is anything to go by, let's just say that the Xbox port could be a hell of a lot worse.