Alex Chen’s journey is a good one and the five chapters provide a concise, slick story that gets the job done without much fuss. Unfortunately this also exemplifies how often certain areas are reused and the relatively simple choices given to players. Thankfully, True Colors dazzles its flaws with a vibrant, enjoyable adventure that’s well worth checking out
The quality of the worldbuilding, storytelling and gameplay combine to create a cocktail of heady brilliance; Horizon Zero Dawn is the gold standard for how open world games should be made.
Props to the devs for the slick aesthetic and cool comic strip ideas, but one can’t help but feel this game is in need of some serious work to elevate it above mediocrity.
Technical issues aside, Rift Apart is well worth a play. It’s a wonderful game with polished gameplay, a decent enough story and an absolutely gorgeous aesthetic. While the combat grows a little stale on the final few worlds and those glitches and bugs are very annoying, there’s enough here to highly recommend.
Away from the diluted AAA experience and the quirky Indie market, Biomutant slots somewhere in the middle, taking the best and worst aspects that these two extremes have to offer.
Returnal is a moody, atmospheric and adrenaline-soaked thrill-ride. Like the most extreme rides at a theme park, this won't be for everyone. Those taken by the challenge though can buckle up safe in the knowledge that they're on-course for a bold, brutal and absolutely brilliant game.
Tense, beautifully rendered and armed with some fantastic sound design, Little Nightmares II is an unnerving deep dive into a nightmarish world you’ll never want to leave. The game is a shining example of how to do horror right.
If you like police procedurals or walking sims, Observer: System Redux is essentially a collaborative wired hybrid of the two. Tying both these genres together, Redux’s augmented bulk is held in place by a murder mystery that consumes the bulk of this 6-8 hour game. If that sounds like your jam, Observer: System Redux is definitely worth a play - and it's incredibly pretty too. For everyone else on the fence, Redux's gameplay leaves a lot to be desired and is probably a better option to rent than outright buy.
In a year that’s already brought us some stunning platforming titles, Astro’s Playroom feels like another well-oiled cog in a larger, towering machine. The nostalgia is enough to carry this one though and as someone who’s grown up with gaming since the early Amiga days right the way through to Sony’s 5 different PlayStation consoles, Astro’s Playroom is an incredibly fun, beautiful trip down memory lane.
For those who have always wanted to build the theme park of their dreams and haven’t played this on PC, Planet Coaster is a no-brainer purchase. The different game modes offer a good amount of challenge and the creativity and customization are bursting at the seams. The management options are admittedly still lacklustre after all these years and those not interested in the creative aspects and wanting something a little more challenging should probably wait before picking this one up. For everyone else, Planet Coaster is a wonderfully creative and aesthetically pleasing theme park game that raises a very high bar in the sim genre.
When it comes to utilizing the power of the Playstation 5, Miles Morales is a taste of what we can come to expect from this new generation. This is a well polished, beautifully rendered and emotionally engaging game that takes everything that made the first so good and amplifies it with some crackling, juiced-up venom. The ensuing explosion produces a real gem and one well worth the price tag to play.
As an introduction to a new console generation, Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a big, bold, colourful platformer that makes up for any visual shortcomings with some excellent level design and a killer soundtrack.
In a bid for Ubisoft to try and remain politically neutral, Watch Dogs: Legion loses any sharpness it could have had with a more urgent and focused message. Instead, what we get is a watered down open-world experience that feels like just another NPC in a sea of open-world players.
If you can look past some of the frustrating puzzles and have a bit of patience with this, SHUT IN is a decent little game to shut yourself away with for a few hours.
Marvel’s Avengers is just not a fun game. It’s a vapid, boring, buggy, uninspiring mess of a live service that tries to jump on the band-wagon and falls flat on its face doing so.
Look, at the end of the day Fifa will sell regardless of review scores. There are incremental changes across the different games but this is largely the same package, designed to encourage seasoned players to settle in like a comfy, tatty, serviceable pair of shoes – even if those shoes are full of holes and barely stay on your feet. It doesn’t matter what score critics give Fifa 21. It could get a 1/10 from every publication and fans will still buy Fifa. However, it’s hard not to come away from this one disappointed.
With an entertaining but forgettable story and a sparse but enjoyable multiplayer, Star Wars: Squadrons shines through with its gameplay. Flying is incredibly immersive and if you have a VR headset (and the stomach) this one boasts the quintessential immersive experience. For those without though, this feels like a decent but not-quite-great game.
Topics of grooming and sexual abuse are here but distorted into a bizarre romanticized narrative that not only undermines the ideas, it actually damages the game’s credibility. I really wanted to like Suicide of Rachel Foster and I think games as an interactive medium are actually well-equipped to tell these hard-hitting and difficult stories – but not from this perspective. Whether on purpose or not, the tone-deaf narrative promises to tackle these subjects diligently but does nothing of the sort. Instead, Suicide Of Rachel Foster is a game in serious need of a rewrite and difficult to recommend in its current state.
Crash 4: It’s About Time is a wonderful sequel that’s sure to appease fans with its challenging platforming and nods to the past titles. While the difficult learning curve is a little too steep and newcomers may feel alienated by the inside jokes, there’s enough here to make Crash 4 one of the best platformers to crash-land on Playstation for quite some time.
No Straight Roads proves there are no straight roads in the rhythm genre. In its bid to achieve originality the game both over-complicates and over-simplifies itself. The end-result is a composition of beautiful melodies that turn into a cacophonic mess when brought together.