Stephen Tailby's Reviews
The collection serves as a wonderful dive into a pair of early tie-in successes. If you're a fan of the games, the films, or both, you'll find something to take away here -- it's a fully featured and fascinating trip down memory lane.
When Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is at its best, it's easily one of this generation's best entries in the series. The campaign makes up for a so-so story with a run of brilliant missions that offer up some astonishing moments. Multiplayer treads old ground but remains highly compelling, and Gunfight is a successful addition to the list of modes. Special Ops is disappointing, with just a few missions that are all far too difficult to be fun. Overall, this is an entertaining, high-octane shooter with highs that outweigh the lows.
Some may struggle with the visuals as it can be a little too noisy in places, but if that's our only quibble, you can deduce that this comes highly recommended.
If you've any nostalgia for this retro Sony title, or are looking for something spooky to play this Halloween, MediEvil has never been better -- just be wary of the skeletons in its closet.
It's not perfect; load times are lengthy, text is painfully small, and there are some unusual graphical glitches here and there. However, Children of Morta is overall a great success, and manages to forge a unique identity.
There's imagination on show here, but right now, it's not something we can recommend.
Concrete Genie is a warm, joyful experience that embraces creativity in a unique way. Painting your way through Denska is effortlessly fun, and the genies that help Ash through his adventure are delightful. While this main thrust of the game is well realised, combat feels like an afterthought, as it's stashed away right at the end. This and a couple of smaller issues hold the game back from greatness, but taken as a whole, this is definitely worth playing -- and pretty as a picture, too.
GRID is a very solid racing game that harkens back to the 2008 original in some important ways.
A clear improvement on the original, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is a pleasant surprise. It struggles to balance difficulty, but the end result is a robust and compelling platformer. It feels much more cohesive than its older brother and, free from the need to play to nostalgia, gives the characters and the world a better identity. It isn't perfect, but it's certainly a step in the right direction for Playtonic Games.
Whether playing for the first time or picking it up for old time's sake, Castle Crashers is still capable of providing simple, senseless fun.
Mutazione is simple, but achieves what it sets out to do: tell an emotional story about community, family, and forgiveness among a memorable ensemble cast. It's relaxing, compelling, and unique. That it also looks and sounds magnificent is just the icing on the cake.
It's not exactly original, but The Sojourn is a solid puzzler with well designed levels and some nice ideas.
At the end of the day, this is a neat experiment that fans of the film will enjoy, but overall it fails to measure up to the source material.
Overall, the driving is competent, and most importantly, delivers that thrill ride as you scream over treacherous terrain. It's a shame the presentation is somewhat lacking, because this is otherwise a solid rally experience.
For those looking for a new party game to play with some chums, this is certainly different, but you'll be done with it faster than it takes you to buy it.
Thanks to simple controls and near constant progression, this can quickly become unbelievably addictive. There's a lot more to Forager than meets the eye. Save for some occasionally fiddly controls, this is a pleasant surprise indeed.
Wargroove is finally on PS4, and despite launching with practically no fanfare, it's very much worthy of your attention. The pixelated exterior houses surprisingly deep tactical gameplay that's easy to grasp but will soon give your grey matter a workout. With highly customisable difficulty and a vast range of modes to enjoy, this is a decent turn based strategy game that fans of the genre shouldn't pass up -- although we suspect many will have played it to death already.
A game based on Stranger Things seems like a winning combination, but this effort based on the recent season three leaves a lot to be desired. Most of what makes the show so good is missing here, and the gameplay and presentation are terribly flat. Retelling the latest season, sometimes word for word, also alienates the game from both people who've seen the show and people who haven't. Our advice to you is to watch the source material and leave it there; the game isn't going to turn your world upside down.
With some very smart additions, Vacation Simulator is a suitably more free flowing and open ended experience than its predecessor. Larger locations, reasons to revisit, and a huge range of things to see and do, this is a successful evolution of the silly sandbox antics Owlchemy Labs does so well. Despite PS Move tracking issues and no real step forward in writing, this is another mindlessly fun time-waster for when the summer Sun dips behind the clouds.
A jam-packed remake that looks and sounds brilliant, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is a lovingly crafted remake of a much beloved kart racer.