Matt Gardner's Reviews
Far from pointing the way forwards for the series, Assassin's Creed: Unity is a model of creative indecision and corporate policy -- a corpulent, broken mess that plays neither to its own strengths nor to its fanbase. There are flashes of promise here, moments when everything comes together, and the game's content package is hefty, but ultimately Unity proves to be a mercifully forgettable disappointment.
Gat Out Of Hell is a £15, bite-sized Saints Row-lite experience. Go into it with those expectations and you'll probably be fine. But if you don't care about playing last-gen material on new-gen platforms, give this a miss, do yourself a favour and pickup a copy of the original Saints Row IV for under a tenner.
Its linearity and lack of challenge do the ideas at the core of The Final Station something of a disservice. It's not a bad way to spend a few hours, but ultimately this apocalyptic train ride comes off the rails pretty swiftly.
MIND: Path to Thalamus is an engaging game for the most part, rife with thought-provoking themes and motifs, beautiful settings, and plenty of allegorical symbolism to aid its emotionally-charged narrative. It's just a shame that instead of entrusting the game's narrative to those elements, Coronado opts to spell things out with overwrought exposition and questionable monologues that ultimately serve to remove the game's emotional impact. It's a striking, ambitious game, and one that's certainly not lacking in vision, but unfortunately its one major flaw is a big one.
The first couple of hours of Killzone: Shadow Fall hint towards a game that might just play as well as it looks. And it looks phenomenal. But sadly, the game falters and falls rather quickly, crushed under the weight of its own ambitions, and it retreats to the safe banality of staid FPS conventions for a second half that's all filler, no killer. It's a great game to show off the power of the PS4, a magnificent spectacle, and its Custom Warzones hint towards the possibility of a bright future, but it's just not that fun to actually play.
Broadcast+ saves Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition from just being a bare bones rehash of a four year old game, but this is the first PS+ game to be attractive because it's free, not because it's a great game. Add a couple of points on if you really adored the first game, have some friends to challenge and don't have anything better to play.
Entwined has a running time of an hour, yet barely sustains interest for that long. There's a good idea at the core of this wannabe indie darling and the "apart" stages can be fairly engrossing the first time around, but unfortunately the substance is just as minimalist as the style. Worth checking out in a sale or on PS Plus, but probably one to skip at £6.49.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mE1yHMuYSIw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Ultimately, if all you want from a game is a massive sandbox with bases to take down in the company of friends, then Wildlands is actually pretty decent. But if you're looking for anything remarkable or memorable in and of itself, you won't find it here.
RIVE is a gorgeous game that borrows plenty from its blaster genre predecessors to good effect, but sadly a lack of anything particularly original, and some truly punishing sections make it all too easy to leave behind.
The vast majority of Firewatch is an utter delight. It presents a gorgeous world that you want to sink into like a hot bath, with characters you're desperate to get to know. Unfortunately, that's all sort of squandered by an ending that fizzles out into the realm of the incredibly forgettable.
Warlock II: The Exiled is a game that stands on the shoulders of its predecessor rather than blazing a trail, but that's okay. What Ino-Co have given us here is an incredibly solid, hex-based strategy title that provides a great entry point to the series (and the genre, to be honest), with enough here to keep fans engaged for several thousand turns.
Boasting two wonderfully-realised new faction, each with their own distinct strengths and weaknesses, The Western Front Armies is a cracking digital proposition for newcomers and veterans alike. But if you're not bothered about the new content and just want to sample COH2, be aware that hard copies for the base game run cheaper than this.
OlliOlli is a cracking little game that combines fiendish challenges with simple fun, with the responsive controls and inventive level design making for a game balanced perfectly between enjoyment and frustration. It's just a shame that it doesn't fully take advantage of the Vita's capabilities, with little sense of score challenges between friends so masterfully wrought in the likes of MotorStorm RC. Still, a worthwhile purchase for arcade fans, and a cracking content package at a budget price.
If you engage in regular local multiplayer with friends or family, then this is a no-brainer. Chip in a couple of quid each and you've got yourself a lovely little party title. But it's a bright-burner with a short wick, and you'll have to decide for yourself if that's worth a tenner.
Unrest is a game both fascinating and frustrating in equal measure. Its foundations as a communication-focussed, character-driven RPG with a unique setting and multiple perspectives on a situation of civil unrest are incredibly interesting, but ultimately the game can't quite bring it all together and the end result is something of a rushed piece with unrealised potential. Refreshing, certainly, but sadly flawed.
Goat Simulator serves up a tiny, but pretty dense, sandbox stuffed with slapstick goofs and anarchic, broken comedy. It isn't much of a game, particularly for £6-8, but it's one hell of a joke.
A whimsical, living sketchbook of self-realisation and a quirky look at what it means to be human, Doki-Doki Universe guides players along its absurdist, surreal journey with a cast of weird and wonderful characters, warm storytelling, and offbeat humour. You won't find challenges to beat or puzzles to really solve here, and the game perhaps doesn't do enough to break up the repetition at its core, but Doki-Doki Universe is a strangely uplifting game, one that might just put a smile on your face even as you ponder the definition of love while hurtling through the stars on a flying poo.
It's the fourth-best game to bear the Thief name, but it doesn't trample on Garrett's legacy as some might have predicted. The story is utter balls and the game as a whole isn't as cohesive as it could be, but when Thief remembers its name and has you working out the best way of breaking into a place and picking it clean, it does a damn fine job.
Wolfenstein: The New Order is big, dumb, fun no matter how much MachineGames might have tried to force it to be otherwise. The alternative history explored here is fascinating, if a little under-explored, but it's the boom and the blast that'll keep FPS fans coming back. A respectably lengthy game with modern looks but buckets of old-school spirit, The New Order is a silly, inconsistent, overblown treat. But give it a couple of weeks.
The Evil Within is a good game, an assembly of Mikami's best work and a rather pointed lesson in classic survival horror that Capcom would do well to note, but it's also unashamedly rooted in bygone years. As such, it'll pleases nostalgic fans yearning for a shinier, bloodied love letter to the creepy classics of yesteryear, but it doesn't really deliver anything particularly new. Greatest Hits albums are usually stuffed with goodness, and The Evil Within certainly has its moments, but they're also usually put out by bands with nothing more to say, I can only desperately hope that's not true of Shinji Mikami and Tango Gameworks.