Sammy Barker's Reviews
The gameplay is a little floaty, but it generally feels okay.
This is earnest entertainment – and it’s got one helluva puppy sprite taking centre stage.
Sisters Royale: Five Sisters Under Fire doesn't reinvent the shmup rulebook, but it leverages some interesting wrinkles first introduced by the Castle of Shikigami series to excellent effect.
The title’s as straightforward as side-scrollers come, but its chunky pixel art and biting chiptune soundtrack make it an entertaining distraction for an hour or two.
It looks lovely and it plays fine, but without its headline feature it winds up largely uninspired.
Overall, the title is ridiculously restricted, and while there are different endings encouraging multiple playthroughs, you’ll have seen all that it has to offer in hours.
AO Tennis 2 is a winner, raising the baseline for all tennis titles on PS4. There are still minor quirks to its gameplay, but it's well-presented and fun, making its enriched Career mode dangerously addictive.
Shenmue III is a game lost in time, but that's probably the greatest compliment you can pay this long-awaited sequel. Newcomers will be utterly bemused by its slice of life-style idiosyncrasies, but for franchise fans this is the faithful follow-up that they've been waiting almost two decades for.
The package is rounded out with various Time Trial options and the minigame-powered Decathlon, but not even the addition of online leaderboards can make the title’s awful adaptation of Whack-a-Mole entertaining.
This is a very different kind of two-wheeled platforming to the recent Trials Rising, but it scratches the same kind of itch – arguably more effectively, too.
There’s a great business management experience here; the gameplay may seem shallow at first blush, but plunge a little deeper and you’ll find plenty of depth.
There’s so much off-the-wall content here that you’ll be willing to push through its drier segments just to see what oddity the developer has in store next.
The only real accolade you can award this run-of-the-mill release is that it’s inoffensive, but even then it’s almost offensively inoffensive – if you get what we mean.
A curiously compelling gameplay loop makes Bus Simulator much more entertaining than it has any right to be. The presentation is poor, but the act of actually picking up passengers and taking them to A-to-B in an expanding open world is moreish, and the title has a self-aware sense of humour that's easy to appreciate.
SEGA’s upcoming Olympics game is so much better that a visit to YO! Sushi is the closest it'll be getting to Japan.
The greatest show on turf gets a bit more personality with Madden NFL 20’s new X-Factor abilities. While this headline addition only applies to the sport’s biggest superstars, it injects new life into the on-field action. The new QB1 campaign may have potential in the future, but in its current guise it’s a step back from the Longshot story explored in previous entries, while the fan-favourite Franchise mode continues to see neglect.
Blood & Truth pushes PSVR to its absolute limits, with a Cockney crime drama that's as amusing as it is explosive. There are moments where Sony's motion controllers can't quite match its ambition, but when you're scratching records with one hand while firing off a sub-machine gun in the other, there isn't a single shooter on the PS4 that's more entertainingly tactile than this.
Everybody's Golf VR loses a little of the series' trademark accessibility as part of its transition to PSVR, but putting in some practice is a worthwhile endeavour, as this is a seriously rewarding arcade sports game. The presentation is top-notch throughout, and while the package is a little light on content, everything that's included has been polished to a sheen. This is the second time Clap-Hanz has reinvented its legendary PlayStation property for the PS4, and once again it's delivered a Nice Shot.
A Plague Tale: Innocence deserves respect for daring to be different, funnelling you through a bleak European backdrop that's seldom seen. Despite some neat ideas, though, the stealth and puzzle mechanics drag, and the story can't quite make up its mind about what it wants to be. Furthermore, while the presentation is spectacular, the project lacks polish in key areas and overstays its welcome at times.
Snooker 19 cues nicely, and all of the licensing will delight fans of the real-world sport. The game does feel a bit barebones in terms of modes, but it's also retailing at a budget price point. All in all, when it comes to niche sports, this is one of the better executed packages on the PS4.