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As far as the score goes, on Steam The Walking Dead is only available as a single purchase. As there's no way to predict how it's going to shape up, however, we'll be scoring episodes on their own merits and relative to each other, with a look at the entire sweep once it's all in our hands. All That Remains does a great job of reintroducing the series, and switches things up in a way that could have tripped up harder than Lee over a tree branch yet feels like the only way the story could have been continued. As bleak and terrible as the Walking Dead universe is, it's great to be back in it... and of course, to be able to leave.
But any time Risk of Rain loses its sheen, you can always start again, with a new character. You can always go online with friends and enjoy the game's robust co-op mode. And starting that new game is always so appealing because of the slow opening. You're free to warm up, to find your first few items, and see where this game is going, before things slowly accelerate into panic, dread and near-inevitable death. Lovely!
It's hard, it's obtuse. It's big, it's beautiful. It's cruel, it's arbitrary. It's an adventure.
Peggle 2 is still a wonderful game, but to a super-fan there are too many things that feel miscalibrated. In a way, that's more damaging than the suggestion PopCap isn't sure what else to do with Peggle: it suggests PopCap needs to rediscover itself.
World of Warplanes is not bad, but it's not nearly as exciting as World of Tanks. It's a sometimes enjoyable, occasionally tiresome arcade shooter that's forgiving to fly and a challenge to master. Compared to its smart, successful older brother, it's not nearly as sophisticated and, most importantly, it's not nearly as much fun.
Post fantasy.
If all you want is a way to run around and shoot things without troubling your wallet or imagination, that may be enough to justify the time it takes Warframe to download. It's hard, though, to shake the feeling that the only reason this game is free to play is that nobody would pay money for something so scrappy and generic.
It's all the more frustrating that Shadow Fall fails to establish that identity, because it gets so close in its early design and themes. It sets up an open-ended tactical shooter in a cynical world of sci-fi realpolitik - and then bottles it, taking the easy escape route of another suicide mission into empty spectacle. There's a lack of confidence here that contrasts starkly with Guerrilla's dazzling, sure-footed command of the new hardware. It's a game that any new PlayStation 4 owner will be proud to show off - but it won't be one they remember by the time PS5 rolls around.
Towards the end, at least, there are a couple of levels where the checkpoint balancing isn't quite so bad, and this also coincides with some better level design. By this stage you may also have unlocked a couple of gadgets that allow you to do things like slow down time or increase your damage multiplier. The rest of the game may be shallow, bland and repetitive, but here you get a sense of the kind of game Knack could have been if it had only dared to be a bit more complex in every respect.
Resogun really is that rare kind of arcade game that feels like an entirely different beast when played on the toughest setting. It's also the closest the PS4 launch line-up gets to offering a genuine next-gen thrill. Granted, Housemarque's not offering the shock of the new, perhaps - all of the developer's best ideas are actually reassuringly elderly - but it's working with energy, enthusiasm, precision and love. Oh, and voxels. Look at them scatter!
Which brings us to a total of at least 18 things, plus about seven thousand more I've forgotten to mention. I can't be bothered to count them all up, so let's just finish with a nice round number.
Despite its exaggerated cartoon characters and picturesque sunsets, Powerstar Golf feels surprisingly staid and lacking personality. This is further exacerbated by the isolating feeling that, without sofa buddies, you're always playing alone.
There's huge satisfaction to be had from building your zoo, observing the animals and watching all the graphs go up. It's just a shame that over time, as the novelties wear off, the lack of depth makes it hard to keep coming back. But who knows? Perhaps a future update will introduce monkey butlers.
If you can look past that and get over the through-balls, though, FIFA 14 on next-gen is the best version of the game. Modes like Career, Ultimate Team and Seasons are well thought out and will happily consume many hours of your time as you tinker and experiment, and while matches often follow a familiar pattern, it helps that that pattern is fast, exciting and frequently spectacular. It would be nice to see changes that allow for greater variation in build-up play next year, but in the meantime FIFA 14 with better dribbling and nerfed headers will do nicely.
As its name suggests, Contrast is a game of light and dark: a puzzle platformer with two well-realised female leads that occasionally buckles under the weight of its own mechanics. It's beautiful in parts, but also a little broken; I admire it for the first and can almost forgive it the second.
Killer Instinct won't win awards. At the end of this new generation, it won't turn up in the lists of greatest console launch titles ever. And it won't cause the established fighting game creators - the Capcoms and Namco Bandais of this world - to fear for their jobs. But its heart - and its business model - are in the right place. Success!
Crimson Dragon's got other, bigger problems, though, and like the wave of games it was announced alongside - Diabolical Pitch, Steel Battalion, Haunt and Rise of Nightmares - it's a disappointment, even if it's one that was postponed to the new generation of consoles. It's a thin and troubled tribute to the original Panzer Dragoons, slim on the ambition, vision and art that made its predecessors what they were - and some way short of the invention and execution in the games they inspired.
By the time you've seen that ending, though, you'll have unlocked the majority of Marius' upgrades, and there's nothing like enough substance to the gameplay to tempt you to run the campaign on another difficulty setting or to lure you into long-term engagement with the two-player arena mode. There's no brains, no muscle, no fibre beneath Ryse's extravagantly engineered good looks - this game rings loud but hollow. Crytek likes to contrast Marius' moral strength with the vanity and cruelty of Nero and his made-up sons, but Ryse feels like a product of their dying empire. It's just empty decadence.
Rustle brand.
Ignore the nonsense, though, and it can still be electrifying. Take an Audi R18 e-tron away from the messy drone of the career and set about beating a Rivals hot lap time around Spa and it's sublime: the diesel engine roars stealthily, the sun streaming through the Ardennes' thick forest. With Forza Motorsport 5, Turn 10's created a driving experience both accessible and beautiful - but it's been stripped back to make Xbox One's launch, and augmented with a host of ugly extras that only serve Microsoft's bid to make a few dollars more.