Tom Hopkins's Reviews
If you can look past the clunky and out-of-place combat, The Great Circle is a great addition to Indy’s catalogue of adventures. While it shines in the traditionally linear puzzle-solving segments thanks to charismatic characters and wonderful design, the open-world asides make you feel like you’re on your own adventure, too.
While the tools to build your wildest dream parks are there and Planet Coaster 2 does everything it realistically can to show you how, making those dreams come to life is not an easy task. Frontier has improved what was already an excellent theme park management sim, it just isn’t for the faint of heart. Much like the coasters you might want to make.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a phenomenal return to form for BioWare. The story is well-paced and the cast of characters are the trademark BioWare staple of fully-realised, but it’s in the newly action-oriented combat where things truly shine.
In its playful personality and incredibly inventive design, Astro Bot reminds me a lot of Mario Odyssey. It truly does sit alongside the best platformers of all time, providing some moments of pure magic and joy. Considering how smart and unexpected much of Astro Bot is, the possibilities for future adventures are endless.
On the court, TopSpin 2K25 is brilliant. It's realistic, satisfying, and feels great to play, especially as you get to grips with the timing needed for every shot type. It's just a shame that such good tennis gameplay is housed in such bland modes that have you grind for very little sense of progression.
Beyond playful visuals, Fullbright's game doesn't do anything that Gone Home did as well or better over a decade ago. I hoped Open Roads might feature a more expansive story or more varied gameplay because, as it is, it's a short and serviceable adventure game rather than a particularly memorable experience.
Before Your Eyes’ ingenious use of PSVR 2’s eye-tracking technology adds another level of emotion to a wonderfully told story about family and the need to appreciate life.
God of War Ragnarok is the perfect sequel. With varied and spectacular action, a beautiful world to explore, and an epic yet intimate story, it improves on the first game in every single way.
More reliable passing, improved defending, and balanced attacking options mean FIFA 23 is a lot of fun to play. It’s an improved overall package, even if FUT’s main additions are underwhelming and the other modes have been given little love once again.
Sitting somewhere between remake and remaster, the asking price is steep, but The Last of Us Part 1 is a beautiful version of one of PlayStation’s best ever games.
While As Dusk Falls’ story is full of thriller cliches and tropes, if you can look past the unique animation style, playing around with the well-written characters’ lives can be a lot of fun.
Racing in F1 22 feels as good as it ever has done in the series. However, unless you’re playing in VR on PC, the new content isn’t anything to get excited about.
The sniping in Sniper Elite 5 is still as gruesomely satisfying as in previous games, but various aspects of the game’s design actively take the spotlight away from it, making for a clunky and frustrating shooter.
Scratch the surface and you’ll find a very shallow car combat game that simply doesn’t have what it needs to pull you back in over and over again. Destruction AllStars is unlikely to be the next PlayStation Plus success story.
Without straying far from the successful sandbox formula, it’s an excellent final part of IO’s trilogy. While the increased freedom and level variety won’t be for everyone, Hitman 3 boasts some of the best locations and stories the series has ever seen, and there’s so much to uncover in each and every one of them.
Even if a better selection of modes would be welcome, Fuser is often a joy to play and potentially the future of rhythm games. Tapping your feet along to a great mix was always going to be great, but Harmonix has developed the Dropmix idea into a game that’s deeper, more engaging, and a lot of fun.
At no more than 90 minutes long, Five Dates isn’t the deepest love story you’ll ever see, but it has the heart, likeable characters, and great writing that make rom-coms enjoyable. It’ll put a smile on your face, and that’s all you can ask for.
That lack of challenge and sense of progression won’t be for everyone, and might even put off Dirt veterans, but Dirt 5’s a varied and beautiful racing game that’s a blast from event number one.
Now though, EA Sports’ series really needs to be analyzed in regards to how and where it improves, and FIFA 21 is a mash up of incremental steps forward, baffling design choices, and seemingly ignored issues. It simply doesn’t do enough to make the overall experience significantly more enjoyable than it was last year.
Codemasters’ F1 series is continuing to improve and stake its claim as the best racing game for simulation veterans and newcomers.