John-Paul Jones's Reviews
A top-down, turn-based tactical battler with a solid core and not much content to go around it, Special Tactics has the beginnings of something great that it can’t quite parlay into excellence.
A grim and foreboding fairytale liberally swathed in colourful style, Severed masterfully combines touch screen combat, metroidvania game design and hugely satisfying character progression to make the most essential PS Vita title to date. Severed is quite simply a handheld tour de force without equal.
Stories: The Path of Destinies is quite the compelling curio; a seemingly routine hack and slash affair at first, it soon elevates its calibre with some satisfying ARPG style action, entertaining writing and a wonderfully non-linear multi-faceted narrative. It's just a shame that a multitude of bugs and performance issues tarnish the experience.
Star Wars: Battlefront's first foray into DLC proves to be a mixed bag with uninspiring heroes and a couple of dud maps failing to match the caliber of the new Extraction game mode and Jabba's Palace level.
A toweringly charismatic twin-stick blaster that expertly marries retro shooter beats with roguelike game mechanics, Enter the Gungeon is one of the cleverest and most enjoyable shooters money can buy.
Boasting a mostly decent remastering effort and a much welcomed wealth of content set against a frustratingly incoherent set of campaign scenarios and frustrating clunkiness, Resident Evil 6 on PS4 is the definitive edition of the series’ most divisive entry and is perhaps more easily recommended to the uninitiated rather than those who were turned off by the game’s original PS3 outing.
A frequently funny and riotous take on Dodgeball, the lack of online multiplayer and occasionally soft-headed AI isn’t enough to meaningfully detract from the lustre of Stikbold’s blissfully enjoyable local multiplayer shenanigans. This is the dodgeball video game you never knew you wanted.
Assault Android Cactus manages to vault beyond its classical inspiration to manifest as a genre effort that expertly marries deep mastery with instantly accessible simplicity. Furthermore, here's another bit of simplicity for you; Assault Android Cactus is simply one of the best twin-stick shooters ever made.
With a larger focus on strategy and a handful of smaller new features, Samurai Warriors 4 Empires will certainly appeal to veteran fans of the series but it simply just hasn’t evolved enough to ensnare wayward players or newcomers to its overly well-worn brand of tactical combat.
A furiously upbeat and beautifully playable take on the platforming racer, Action Henk's offbeat action figure mayhem and forgiving difficulty curve is just what the genre needs going forward. It’s big, it’s colourful and it’s a whole heap of fun.
What should have been a glorious marriage of Binary Domain and Smash TV in Ares Omega ends up as something far lesser on account of its many flaws. While a serviceable roguelike shooter ticks away at its heart, there simply isn’t enough here to recommend Ares Omega to anybody with a hankering for a well-crafted, progression focused blaster.
A poignant and masterfully haunting affair, Kholat's flawed narrative and sparse environments aren't enough to considerably detract from its overwhelming atmospherics and sense of adventure.
Toki Tori 2+ doesn't always make it easy to know exactly what you should be doing, but once the game's initially frustrating first hour subsides, a sprawling, charming and resolutely challenging puzzle platformer lies beyond.
A wildly unusual but nevertheless highly accomplished distillation of the Hitman formula into a turn-based puzzler, Hitman GO's mobile origins do little to dull the allure of what is a confident reinvention of its parent franchise.
Easily the best looking anime fighter on the market today, the fourth and final entry in the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series proves to be a highly entertaining one as it parallels its stupendous presentation with substantial longevity and an easily accessible brawler.
A charmingly well-crafted marriage of co-operative play and Metroidvania esque mechanics, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is quite unlike any PS4 game currently available and is absolutely worth the price of admission for those looking for their next long-term co-op fix.
Clunky, frustrating and a world away from the series best efforts, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia limps over the finish line, completing a spin-off trilogy and closing the door on a concept that simply deserved better.
A riotous take on the side-scrolling shooter from the house that Olli Olli built, Not A Hero is brash, clever and entertaining blaster; even if its old-fashioned sensibilities may grate with some.
An utterly superlative remastering effort turns one of PS Vita's crown jewels into one of PS4's most engaging and compelling titles. As fresh today as it was on its original release nearly four years ago, Gravity Rush Remastered is absolutely unmissable.
A relentlessly savage take on survival that puts players in control of the fleshy collateral damage that other war games merely gloss over, This War of Mine is a bleak, grim and ruthlessly entertaining affair quite unlike any other.