Sammy Barker's Reviews
With out-of-this-world anime production values and a revamped structure that brings a better pace to the overall experience, Zenless Zone Zero is only going from strength to strength. With the introduction of its new district – featuring a pretty fun tycoon management-style minigame – and ever-increasing stakes, the coming year looks bright for HoYoverse’s hyper-cool urban outing.
Deliver At All Costs' greatest strength is its ability to reinvent itself, but its missions lack tension and its story is a bit of a misfire. If you really enjoy that isometric era of GTA games, then you'll find fun in this physics-heavy escapade – but expect bumps and blemishes, because this is far from the perfect package.
Yet another timely reminder that Capcom has been the king of its craft for decades now, Capcom Fighting Collection 2 superbly digs into the Dreamcast era of the Japanese publisher's iconic output.While its commitment to arcade conversions means you're missing some of the single player modes from the various included titles' home console ports, there's simply so much quality content on offer here that it's hard to complain, with the likes of Capcom vs. SNK 2 and Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper having legitimate claims at being some of the greatest fighters ever made.
It’s cute and colourful, then, and something you can zone out with while you listen to a podcast or watch something else. But it won’t live long in the memory, even if its urban backdrop and light-hearted style offers an appreciated change of pace.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves won't blow you away like Street Fighter 6 or Tekken 8, but as a more rudimentary fighter, it's got guile. Its layered fighting system and vibrant, well-animated characters make for an entertaining overall package that's been 26 years in the making.While the gimmicky guest fighters feel out of place and the supposed RPG-inspired single player mode is insultingly basic, if you're looking for a fine alternative to the more established fighters already on the market, this is more than up to the task.
MLB The Show 25's refinements to Road to the Show and Diamond Dynasty make this another superb baseball sim. The on-field gameplay may feel largely familiar, but it's already so well executed that it staves off any feeling of samey-ness. Some great new modes and another enjoyable set of documentary-esque storylines round out a package that's still quite comfortably at the top of its game.
A visual novel that cares more about its presentation than its writing, Venus Vacation Prism: Dead or Alive Xtreme is about as shallow as a reality television show – but it never pretends to be anything else. Irrespective of your personal appetite for underdressed 18-year-olds, this is an impressive looking game, with vivid oversaturated visuals and some brilliant animations. It's a lot tamer than its screenshots may imply, but without the minigame hooks of its predecessors, it feels a little lightweight as a consequence.
Two Point Museum successfully transposes an effective gameplay formula to another theme, with this game in particular packing some serious variety due to the different types of institutions you can build. It's laugh out loud funny, moreish, and there's an enjoyable difficulty curve. But if you've never been particularly fond of this type of tycoon title, don't expect to find anything here that will change your mind.
Wuthering Waves is launching on the PS5 at the perfect time, as its new quests are action packed and its improvements over the likes of Genshin Impact are obvious to appreciate. Its story is unfortunately infested with the worst of gacha game writing, so you'll need a strong stomach to get through the abundance of proper nouns. But stick with it and you'll find a beautiful, anime-inspired experience with quality combat, rewarding team building, and hundreds of hours of excellent exploration.
Infinity Nikki, even in this early phase of its lifespan, is utterly essential – assuming you can stomach the twee, whimsical tone to it all. Its cosy vibes will prove an acquired taste, but its attention to detail and commitment to keeping the player engaged during every minute of exploration is impeccable. Moreover, its visual presentation is up there alongside the best you'll find on PS5 – an extraordinary achievement for a free-to-play game that also miraculously runs on mobile. Some control quandaries and an abundance of proper nouns prevent it from achieving perfection, but these are minor blemishes on an otherwise outstanding experience.
Frustrating at times but fearlessly inventive, Slitterhead is an absolute must-play if you're looking for an original take on the survival horror genre. Serving as a spiritual successor to fan favourites like Siren, Gravity Rush, and Soul Sacrifice, this haunting tale about a body-hopping spirit – who uses humans as fodder to put a stop to the eponymous enemy – is a scintillating albeit occasionally undercooked debut from Bokeh Game Studios. Repetition and an overall lack of refinement do bring it down, but you'll be hard-pushed to find a more imaginative experience this year.
Horizon Zero Dawn is very much one of Sony's standout projects of the past ten years, and this superb remaster by Nixxes puts it among the best looking games on the PS5. While the side-quests and supporting content don't quite match up to sequel Forbidden West, the more focused story is arguably better than its successor, and it's presented almost flawlessly in this remastered format.
There’s actually the glimmer of a good idea here. If the shooting sequences were better executed and the car handling better honed, you could end up with an interesting alternative take on the arcade racer that serves its license well. But while there’s some reasonable presentation on display, the package doesn’t deliver on its ambition at all.
Undisputed doesn't pull its punches, and it's a tidy first attempt. While the game lacks the polish of a true champion, there's the meat of something special here. Career mode has all the elements of a great, but it's a bit dry in its current guise and could use a little more spectacle and variety. Meanwhile, the actual core boxing feels fantastic, but repetitive commentary and a lack of in-ring drama let it down. This is a release that's not quite ready to contend for a belt yet, but it's not a million miles off.
EA Sports FC 25 is the best playing version of the annual soccer sim in quite some time, with more intelligent artificial intelligence and weather physics adding a layer of density and dynamism to the experience – albeit largely offline. To us, Ultimate Team feels like it's getting a bit stale, but we like the addition of Rush across the entire release, which offers something a little different for when you fancy a change of pace. And while the commentary and menus are below par, the overall quality of the presentation continues to be underappreciated.
Unfortunately, the slow, cumbersome movement undoes the otherwise likeable presentation. We’re glad this era of licensed games is slowly making a comeback, we just wished this was more fun to play.
By daring to downscale some of the fluff, NBA 2K25 brings its focus back to basketball in a positive way. Improvements to the series' dribbling system and ProPLAY make this the best feeling hoops sim Visual Concepts has made, while the sheer density of different modes and features means you could play nothing else all year – and still never get bored. But the borderline insulting emphasis on microtransactions remain a thorn in this series' side, and something you simply have to accept if you want to enjoy everything else on offer here.
Until Dawn drags a contemporary classic into a new generation, and its interactive teen slasher silliness more than holds up today. With vastly enhanced graphics and minor gameplay upgrades, this is still a highly recommended game. The problem is it costs three times as much as its nine-year-old predecessor, and doesn't have an upgrade path. For all of its grisly glamour, that makes this remake a tough sell – especially when it runs at half the frame rate of its predecessor when played using PS5 backwards compatibility.
Across the board, the emulation is excellent, and the package has been enhanced by beautiful 3D renders of the original Famicom cartridges, as well as artwork and high-resolution scans of each game’s manual. This is a well-done and loving bundle, then, but the games themselves are ancient and demand a very specific mindset if you plan to extract any actual entertainment value from them.
But it’s this type of boundless creativity that many feel PlayStation is missing these days. Sony may have lifted the overall quality of its output, but it’s come at the expense of unbridled oddities like this; a game that, when considered critically, is barely above average – but ends up more memorable than the latest AAA fancy purely because of the sheer insanity of it all.