John-Paul Jones's Reviews
With its vibrant visuals and easily accessible gameplay, Colour Guardians is the best kind of gaming palate cleanser. While certainly not a prospect for the long-term, Colour Guardians regardless entertains with deft aplomb when taken in short bursts.
Leaps and bounds ahead of their previous effort, Brawl might not be the most polished title available and the dark setting certainly feels overdone but as a multiplayer party title, the game arguably brings the thrills where it counts.
A simple, yet eminently playable dodge em' up vertical scroller, Lost Orbit will suck players in with its tight controls and wonderfully constructed story.
Unlike the game's release on consoles, the presence of mod support means that WWE 2K15 will actively evolve over time on PC. Until the mod community flourishes however and assuming the game's rough edges prove tolerable, WWE 2K15 remains an enjoyable wrestling yarn the likes of which PC players haven't been graced with in, well, forever.
Much like the conflict that the game shares its namesake with, Verdun is a ferocious and tense multiplayer shooter the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time. Generously stuffed with player-made emergent moments on the battlefield and an incredible sense of place, Verdun is not just a great take on one of history’s more marginalised wars, it also happens to be a resoundingly solid shooter in its own right too.
A shamelessly hardcore FPS, Tower of Guns places a premium on player skill over the linear, big-budget Hollywood narratives that we're used to.
Without online multiplayer, all the stages and possessing visuals that are inferior to the console versions, Dead or Alive 5 Last Round manages that rare and horrible thing of making PC players feel like second-class citizens to their console brethren and in doing so, succeeds in heavily tarnishing what is actually a pretty incredible fighting game in the process.
In plundering Assassin's Creed: Black Flag practically wholesale, Rogue proves to be a double-edged sword. As much as Rogue succeeds in servicing those who were disappointed that Unity eschewed Black Flag's naval shenanigans, the game also serves as a timely reminder just how little the franchise has evolved in recent years, in spite of its relatively novel take on the series' narrative.
White Night's biggest achievement though is clearly the terrifying atmosphere that pervades throughout its duration. Though certainly not absolving the game of its other flaws, the sense of dread and fear is palpable and in a genre which has largely neglected the finer aspects of its craft, White Night stands out as an exceptional, yet mechanically imperfect proposition.
Although Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is more narratively ambitious than its prequel, something has been lost in the transition. The levels, while good for the most part, simply do not match up those seen in the original game. Nevertheless, Wrong Number still stands as an excellent closing act for the series all the same.
At the end of the day, Empires mode is arguably where the crux of the experience lies and as such it really does add a lot of crucial depth to a series that is regarded in many circles as a largely one-trick pony. It's just a shame that similar evolutions aren't forthcoming in other areas of the game which, some nearly fifteen years on, are now starting to look really quite old in the tooth.
Bolder than ever before, Olli Olli returns with new stages, tricks and a superb tutorial and practice system for folks who may have been dissuaded by the steep learning curve of the original. While no ground-breaking alterations have been made to last year's game, Olli Olli 2 still effortlessly proves itself as the finest skater in years.
An effective if not particularly ambitious or polished reboot of an arcade classic, Q*Bert Rebooted is as accessible as the franchise has ever been but offers little in the way of significant new additions to keep players hooked in the long term and remains hobbled by a lack of leaderboards.
A game that is comfortable in its own skin and endeavours to toil within its own ambitions is rare, yet that is exactly what Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty achieves. Such honesty should be applauded even if it does little to endear new fans to the fold who might be at risk of not properly adjusting to New 'n' Tasty's idiosyncrasies. Still, for those who take the time to persevere, New 'n' Tasty proves to be as delectable a treat as Abe's original Odyssey all those years ago.
Dig beneath the effortlessly stylish veneer of Apotheon though and it soon becomes clear that its impressive calibre bleeds through into its homage to the engrossing Castlevania and Metroid games pioneered back in the 8-bit days. And that folks, minor niggles aside, is a godly thing indeed.
Cities XXL represents a serviceable starting point for beginners certainly, but is simply far too riddled with bugs, performance issues and recycled content to recommend to anyone else who has sampled the series previously. Much like how Cities XXL encourages the player to build their sprawling domains from the ground up, so too should the developer look to apply a similar work ethic to this tired series.
An enjoyable and attractive, if overly-familiar physics based puzzler, Unmechanical Extended could be just the ticket for puzzler aficionados looking for a game to burn the hours away.
In borrowing so heavily from its heritage, developer Neocore could have quite easily overburdened the somewhat narrow tower defence formula with pointless additions and misery inducing micro-management busywork. As it is, Deathtrap approaches the qualitative apex of its craft and niggles aside, sets a splendid example of how to marry two genres together to make a superlative whole.
Toybox Turbos might not have the Micro Machines branding then, but when it nails everything else that those licensed games did so well in the first place, it feels churlish not to look past such superfluous things. Camera issues and a relative lack of ambition aside, this is the new Micro Machines title that you forgot you wanted and quite honestly, it's just great to see this type of game again in 2014. Get some friends, get stuck in and don't mind the name above the door.
A simple, yet enjoyable arcade style shooter, Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops proves entertaining enough but is somewhat stifled by its humble mobile origins.