Jim Hargreaves's Reviews
If you're coming into Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy expecting each game to look and play like GTA V, prepare for disappointment at a passionless upscaling effort. On the flipside, if you fancy reliving these open world wonders with some of their rougher gameplay edges sanded down, prepare to lose yourself for sixty hours or more.
The stars have aligned for Call of Duty: Vanguard. For the first time, this truly feels like a full package without any caveats. Sure, some parts are naturally stronger than others but there isn't a weak link in sight. After back to back triumphs, Call of Duty is now on a killstreak.
Riders Republic is a game players can effortlessly lose themselves in, even if the gameplay itself is pretty shallow. The endless barrage of events populating the world map become less exciting over time, resembling a shopping list rather than milestones in your ascension to extreme sports godhood. If you're still keen to take the plunge, make sure you have a posse ready to party up with.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a great palette cleanser, not just in terms of tone but the way it's carefully designed. Well-paced and beautiful to behold with plenty to see and do, Ember Lab has well and truly captured the spirit of the 3D platformers many of us grew up adoring.
Samurai Warriors holds onto its status as the best of the three Warriors series. Omega Force has refined their aged formula with a focus on narrative, more challenging combat, and more rewarding character progression. Let's just hope they can hold onto this momentum...
As we wait for the inevitable Sniper Elite 5, this is one virtual reality shooter you won't want to miss. Sniper Elite VR hits its mark with immensely fun sniping gameplay, delivered in perfectly portioned bursts of action.
The melee combat may not be as technical or strategic as some hardcore fans might like, yet it's hard to deny the appeal of Chivalry 2's dismembering deathmatches. Those first few sieges are truly enthralling as watch waves of red and blue troops smash against each other. Over time it may lose its edge though Chivalry 2 is still one of the most fun and unique multiplayer games out there.
It feels immensely satisfying to be sat here in 2021, eons after playing Super Stardust HD on PS3, and see just how far Housemarque has come. Offering a visual bullet hell spectacle, a showcase for the DualSense controller and a rewarding sci-fi narrative woven around the roguelike loop, we can say with unflinching confidence that Returnal is the PS5's best game to date.
Outriders juggles some truly captivating ideas for the looter shooter genre, yet fails to deftly execute them. While it succeeds in combining traditional third person shooting with rewarding dungeon crawling, its messy matchmaking, repetitive mission design, and a dull sci-fi story hold People Can Fly back from delivering to their fullest potential.
No more advanced than Crazy Taxi was back when it debuted all those years ago, and without the same trademark attitude, Taxi Chaos is a real missed opportunity to modernise an arcade favourite.
The car combat genre has long been out of fashion and still has a way to go if it wants to take us back to its glory days of the 1990s. Destruction AllStars is a mostly satisfying modernisation that has some neat ideas and looks fantastic, though ultimately spins its tyres on repetitive rival-wrecking gameplay and a lack of truly worthwhile content at launch.
Charting the series' progress since that 2016 Paris debut has been a fascinating journey. IO have learned a lot over the past five years and that really shows in Hitman 3. It's a flashier, more fluid evolution of IO's original template - a rewarding conclusion to one of the most unique video game franchises around, and one we'll continue playing for many weeks and months to come.
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla effortlessly plants its banner as the best open world RPG available for the new consoles. This Viking epic flexes its gore-soaked, tattooed muscles when it comes to world-building, and medieval England wows with its enchanting untamed vistas. It's also portioned out at a steady pace and, if not for the repetitive, limited combat, Valhalla could have ranked even higher among our favourite games in the series.
An unforgiving, unrelenting classic reborn for a new generation, Demon's Souls is no more accessible now than it was back in 2010 (though the frame rate is much better). If you've ever been the slightest bit curious about the Souls series then you can revisit ground zero in all its glory, making for one of the best PlayStation launch titles of all time.
It takes a while for Godfall's combat to truly open up and when it does, you'll revel in its beefy ballet of well-timed blows and counters. That said, it's hard to ignore the flimsy scaffolding that keeps this PS5 launch title standing, the lack of matchmaking, and a loot system you'll quickly lose interest in. Although still great fun in short bursts, this isn't the rousing next-gen RPG experience you've been searching for.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales feels like more of a sequel than it is a stopgap, entangling players within its web of cleverly refined mechanics while delivering some familiar web-slinging thrills. A heroic technical showcase for PS5 owners picking up their consoles on day one, this meaty side story in the Spider-Man saga has us even more excited than before to see what Insomniac Games have planned next.
Dead By Daylight has evolved into somewhat of a phenomenon, proving that the often maligned games-as-a-service model produces more than just cookie cutter loot shooters. It's still an acquired taste and a bit rough around the edges though stands out as one of the most unique ongoing multiplayer games of the generation.
Nintendo continues to revive what some might call their lost generation of games. Pikmin 3 Deluxe is yet another Wii U transplant though one that slots seamlessly into Switch's first party line-up. Although unwieldy and slow to start, Nintendo's charming inventiveness has produced an intriguing, if not excellent, entry in the strategy genre.
While we would have preferred to see an adaptation of the grunnier 90s tabletop game, Necromunda: Underhive Wars is still a thorough, faithful adaptation of a Games Workshop classic. Its strategic skirmishing gameplay can prove rewarding, but it's clunky and gets bogged down by technical issues and stodgy pacing. Necromunda fans will delight in being able to create their own Underhive mob though casual fans of the genre may want to stay clear if they're not particularly fussed about Warhammer 40K.
Past its flaws and behind the grind, Marvel's Avengers is still a fun superhero brawler that has plenty of room to grow in the coming months.