Accessible yet tough and grimy yet gorgeous, Dirt 4 sets a new standard in rally racing – and its well-considered career mode and endless stages inject it with tremendous stamina. Absolutely stonking brilliant.
Back in 2011, pro racer, stunt driver, and X-Games gold medallist Travis Pastrana successfully launched his Team Hot Wheels trophy truck further than any other four-wheeled vehicle in history. He did it from a giant jump assembled at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, built to appear like a life-sized length of bright orange Hot Wheels track. Forza Horizon 3: Hot Wheels is Pastrana's enormous toy ramp surrounded by a city-sized network of equally insane stunt tracks: a bedroom floor on an unlimited budget. What's not to love? A delightful, daring, and different expansion that reinforces Forza Horizon 3's reputation as one of the best racing games ever made.
FlatOut 4: Total Insanity is better than I'd feared but not as good as I'd hoped. Kylotonn has dredged this near-forgotten racing rebel from the very bottom of the barrel and fashioned it into a basic but fun, stunt-filled speedster, but I found myself regularly frustrated with its repetitive career mode, its stingy economy and nebulous unlockables, its superficial demolition derby events, and its uneven difficulty. A respectable franchise rescue mission but one that still needs some fine tuning and some extra grunt.
Small in size compared to the full map, Forza Horizon 3: Blizzard Mountain nonetheless packs in a huge pile of fresh races and challenges. It’s kept me busy for days already, and I’ve already played Forza Horizon 3 more than any other game this year. Boasting an absolutely gorgeous environment, terrific snow effects, and just about everything else that’s made Forza Horizon 3 the best racing game this generation, Blizzard Mountain should be a compulsory stopover for anyone looking to expand the Forza Horizon 3 experience, or seeking a good reason to dive back in. The weather outside is frightful, but this game is so delightful.
Hitman Episode 6: Hokkaido is one of the best levels this season and a great mission to end the year on. The map itself is very good, the atmosphere is excellent, and the hits are challenging. Tricky and more than a little James Bond-esque (the snowed-in private clinic has a real SPECTRE / On Her Majesty’s Secret Service vibe to it), Hokkaido is vintage Hitman at its most creative.
Driveclub VR is Sony’s VR racing welcome wagon and, in small doses, I think it does its job of demonstrating the potential of VR racing. The racing genre is perfect for seated VR, and Driveclub VR delivers a functional example of that experience. Unfortunately, that’s really about all it delivers. Beyond that it’s just a pre-existing game with fewer features and graphics that make me feel like I have the vision of a 95-year-old man.
WRC 6 reminds me a lot of the PlayStation 2-era Evolution-developed WRC games; it’s an earnest attempt to capture the spirit of a niche motorsport series and, most importantly, it feels good to play thanks to a wide selection of tight-quarters race tracks, and decent handling. It might not hold a candle to Dirt Rally in its car selection or look and feel, but it’s not bad for developer Kylotonn’s sophomore effort on the series. If Milestone’s stint turned you off, as it did me, now could be a good time to get reacquainted.
Forza Horizon 3 is a masterclass in open-world racing and bigger and better than its excellent predecessor across the board. It looks fantastic, the car selection and customisation is second to none, and the size and variety of the sprawling Australian outback is magnificent. Above all, Horizon 3 never loses sight of the fact that tearing through postcard-perfect locations should be fun, and it puts the tools in our hands to keep it that way, always. This is the racing game I’ve been waiting for, and it's officially my favourite thing on four wheels. A fair dinkum triumph, mates.
Despite its amazing driving simulation, Assetto Corsa just doesn't get the racing right. Out on track alone it feels amazing; there's no denying the remarkable realism Kunos Simulazioni has captured here. Unfortunately the team just hasn't been able to wrap a comprehensive or competitive racing experience around it this time.
F1 2016 is definitively the best Formula One game Codemasters has ever crafted. Deep and nuanced, stuffed with fan service, and as demanding as you’d like it to be, this is worthy fare for the motorsport obsessed while remaining accessible for the merely curious, and absolutely worth the upgrade from previous years. If F1 2016 and last year’s Dirt Rally are indicative of the level of quality we’re going to get from Codemasters going forward I can’t wait to see what’s next.
Hitman Episode 4: Bangkok gets proceedings back on track after the somewhat bland Marrakesh malarkey of Episode 3. The Himmapan resort may lack the size and scope of Sapienza, and it isn’t quite the classic Hitman hotel level I was after, but it still boasts plenty of problem solving and murderous mayhem within its walls.
These redressings of Sapienza and Marrakesh are familiar levels, sure, but they’re done differently enough to feel new (if slightly easier). The first mission far outshines the second with its dark humor and appropriate execution options, but both warrant many, many more playthroughs.
Hitman Episode 3: Marrakesh doesn’t reach the highs of the previous levels and suffers more than ever from the extremely superficial approach to voice acting. It’s not a bad level, but it’s definitely one that I’d be less inclined to return to than the others I’ve played so far. It's the first time I've had to question Io's episodic approach: Over the course of a traditional game presented as a single package you may come across levels that dip in quality compared to the best ones, but you can always put those levels behind you and play the next. In the case of Hitman, we can only go back to the previous two. Marrakesh is what we’ve got for now, and it’s a slight step backwards.
Hitman Episode 2: Sapienza is a fantastic follow-up to the promising first episode; huge, bursting with deadly promise, and begging for many, many playthroughs. The lack of much meaningful local voice acting is a disappointing miss, however, and that might really start undermining Hitman’s jetsetting international atmosphere in later levels if it’s not addressed.
A brilliant and beautiful stunt driving masterclass, Trackmania Turbo is fast, frenetic, fun, and only occasionally frustrating. If this generously proportioned and highly engaging arcade racer gets its talons into you the way it did me, it'll have you compulsively chasing ghosts for ages.
One thing's for sure: The more I've played Hitman's debut "episode" the more I've enjoyed it. Despite the often boneheaded AI and dire loading times, Hitman has definitely combined the best of both worlds. There's scope for it to improve in some areas as the levels are released throughout the year but this is a fun, confident start.
Far Cry Primal succeeds in transporting the Far Cry formula back in time and comes to the table with a quiver of neat ideas and a dangerous and fascinating open world. The visceral and varied combat is fun, the beast-based gameplay is a winner, and the lure of camp-claiming, gear-crafting, beast hunting, and resource gathering remains irresistible.
There's a specific corner during one of the German stages in Dirt Rally where your co-driver will supplement his flurry of warnings with a professional request: "Be brave." It's a slight left kink, framed on both sides by half-buried stones. To be honest I'm not certain what it is about this corner in particular that warrants the added advice – there are plenty of deceptive corners in Dirt Rally you can take faster than you'd expect – but "be brave" potently sums up how you need to approach Dirt Rally. Dirt Rally is a brilliant looking and incredible sounding racing sim that feels absolutely outstanding, but it won't tolerate the timid.
Need for Speed looks the part, sounds the part, and is surprisingly reverent to real-world car culture. I like the direction Ghost has taken here, and I think it's the right one, but beneath its flashy exterior it's not quite firing on all cylinders.
Beneath Broforce's hyperbolic chest-thumping action movie-inspired silliness lies an extremely polished run 'n gun platformer. Simple and reliable but nuanced and ever-changing (thanks to the constantly rotating characters) Broforce is testosterrific. If you could watch Commando on a SNES, this is what it would look like.