God is a Geek

Reaper of Souls turns Diablo III into the game that it should have been at launch. The Auction House is gone, the loot system is fixed and we finally have a proper end-game that will keep both new and experienced players fighting for many hours to come. Unless you play as a Crusader there is almost no change to the core gameplay, so if you didn't like it first time round you wont like it now. But for those of us who loved the original game, Reaper of Souls is the perfect excuse to jump back in and indulge in hours of loot-collecting, monster-destroying, good old-fashioned fun.

Still, there are some decent features in Betrayer. It's gorgeous to look at and your experience may be different from mine, depending on your luck. If nothing else, it has made me very excited to see what Blackpowder have learned from creating Betrayer, and I hope they can improve on the problems I encountered in the future.

There's still plenty to uncover, with two episodes to go, and things are setting up quite nicely for an explosive finale, but don't enter A Crooked Mile expecting to get much in the way of answers. The conclusion will come soon enough but until then, enjoy the bloody, twisted ride.

Strike Suit Zero is a solid space shooter that offers a well-crafted balance between arcade blasting and tactical challenge. Unless you're a fan of dog-fights and sci-fi, you're unlikely to give Born Ready's console port a second glance, but if you're after a user-friendly blaster with a decent lifespan and enough variety to stave off the tedium often inherent in the genre, then this comes heartily recommended.

Like any good game in the Metal Slug-style, Mercenary Kings is by turns maddeningly frustrating and wonderfully cathartic. A special brand of distilled mayhem keeps the pace fast and the payback high as Kings rewards you for every foray into its deadly world. But its unwillingness to fully explain its crafting element, the inconsistent mission design and the odd teeny-tiny bug hold it back from perfection. Still, the leaderboard system and simple, gung-ho mechanics ensure that it remains good fun until the over-long campaign eventually out-stays its welcome.

The controls and detection afforded by the new hardware undoubtedly makes Kinect Sports Rivals a much more technically-accomplished title, with fewer of the niggly irritations gamers almost expect from a motion control game. The events generally work (tennis aside) but, sadly, functionality isn't the basis for an enjoyable game. The emphasis on the story mode and online sharing loses the simple magic of local multiplayer and the silliness of party play. Yes, party games can be a bit grating, but Kinect Sports always managed a good mix where you could play seriously or play for laughs. Rivals does not have this same variety and, while it controls well, there is a definite loss of personality.

Towerfall knows exactly what it is, and though some may bemoan the lack of online play, it just wouldn't be the same with it. If you're buying it to play alone, you're not going to get the benefit of the full experience, but if you have friends and a few controllers, you'll be hard pushed to find a better multiplayer experience around at the moment.

In many ways, seeing a developer give the player such a large degree of responsibility is forward thinking. It's certainly rare, these days. Unearthing the story at your own pace is wonderful. However, Ether One goes too far in that direction and puzzles become tedious exercises in trying combinations of different items you acquired in a completely different area. There is no shortage of interesting ideas present, but it's hard to look at Ether One and not think it could have been more.

Part Two of Burial at Sea delivers on the promise set out in Part One, and is a fitting close to BioShock Infinite in general. It's become cool to hate on Infinite in recent times, but bandwagons be damned, this is a fantastic piece of content, if a little pricey. You already know you're going to play this if you grabbed Part One, but I'm here to tell you that you won't be disappointed with Part Two.

Infamous proves that if you look good, sometimes you can get away with things other's cannot. It's not the best game in the world, and it'll frustrate you at times, but the visual splendour is such that you need to see it for yourself to believe it.

Those of you who were hoping for a blockbuster end to the series of downloadable episodes will likely be disappointed. The Last Agent sets itself up well with a stronger premise, which actually expands upon the campaign plot, but falters in its execution. It suffers all of the same pitfalls that affected episodes one, two and three, whilst offering perhaps even less actual new content than each of those. A grand finale this definitely is not, and whilst The Untold Stories of Los Perdidos gave players a welcome reason to re-enter the city, they have short-changed loyal fans at almost every turn.

Ground Zeroes is excellent, it really is. Not only is it one of the best-looking games ever made, there is simply nothing I would change about the gameplay at all. It's an appetiser that has me drooling for the main course, and that means it has done its job. If you can overlook the price tag and the fact that there's DLC out there for other games that provides more bang for your buck, then this is absolutely worth picking up.

The near-perfect controls combined with the great soundtrack and visuals mean it's difficult not to like Luftrausers, and its simplicity makes it accessible to everyone. There are a few small issues, such as a difficult menu and the odd frame rate drop, but none that impact the overall game significantly. Luftrausers is well worth your time and money, and is easily Vlambeer's best game yet.

This would be forgivable if the story was engaging enough to drive things, but it tends to devolve into a slog from one puzzle to the next, with the occasional trial in-between to brighten it up. It’s worth a go if you’re a fan of either series, and you won’t be disappointed by the story – just be prepared to invest plenty of time to see it through.

Nintendo are famous for reinventing the wheel with their games, and throwing new ideas into old series that should have long become tired and repetitive but, sadly, Yoshi’s New Island just isn’t one of these titles. It’s enjoyable enough and has its own sense of atmosphere as well as a few unique ideas, but overall this actually feels like one of the decent but highly-iterative sequels that Nintendo is usually unfairly criticized for making. It is still fun, though, and while it may not innovate or be a classic, its joyous aesthetic and “pick up and play” nature make it at the very least a good choice for getting through the daily commute.

When you're in the thick of the action, Titanfall is like no other shooter. It succeeds in making you feel like a superhero, piloting a giant mech to destroy your enemies with ferocious aggression. The fact there's no option for private matches is an odd one, and there's not a huge amount of guns on offer, really, but it's arguably unfair to come down too hard on a developer choosing to focus on gameplay innovation over peripheral issues.

It is strange to find an adventure game that you actually want to play through a second time right after completing it just to see what you could have done differently. Point and click games have notoriously low re-playability, so 1954: Alcatraz is unlike most of its contemporaries just for including such bold ideas as multiple solutions and narrative choice.

The Walking Dead Season Two may not have moved into top gear yet, but Telltale have already shown that they are more than capable of producing more gut-wrenching moments and difficult choices.

Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition is like the utter antithesis of The Last of Us, a top-down Left 4 Dead-alike that ignores pansy ideas like human emotion or common sense in favour of stuff that explodes and makes other stuff explode. It's colourful and loud and a ton of fun either alone or with friends, and is probably one of the best zombie blasters released in recent years. A guaranteed hit for anyone with an itchy trigger finger that needs scratching.

Gigantic Army certainly won't win any awards for being technically proficient or graphically impressive, but what it manages to do is take a well-worn gaming formula and add a few new elements to it – and in doing so, it manages to reduce some of the major bugbears that those frustratingly difficult titles often suffered from. The story and design may not be unique enough to allow the game to stand out and be a hugely memorable experience, but the gameplay itself is very satisfying and not purely a nostalgia trip.