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While its narrative achievements are significant and Burial at Sea: Episode Two is enjoyable to watch and listen to, it's also fun to play. As with Episode One, its mission objectives boil down to basic fetch-quests, but the stealth mechanics suit the mood, feel well integrated and are enjoyable. It's also a poignant release, for it's not only the concluding part of Irrational's BioShock story but the final chapter of the studio itself. Impressively crafted and polished, it's a fitting end to Irrational's body of work. The story of BioShock might belong to Ken Levine and Irrational Games rather than to its players - but it's a story that's been well worth telling.
Such ambiguity is only possible in an indie game, and anyone who played the early access alpha will have seen that Blackpowder has already evolved its ideas drastically to get to this proper release. I doubt the improvements will end there, and with more refinement Betrayer can only become more interesting. It's a sinister journey, but one well worth taking.
Cloudbuilt succeeds remarkably in proving that how a game feels and what you do within it can tell stories all on their own. The monologues contextualise the gameplay, and knowing that Demi is pushing through her own recovery maps cleanly onto the difficult jumps, complicated wall-runs and well-placed shots. Cloudbuilt is a game in which you'll die a lot, and that's not an accident. Demi's progress is slow and painful. Yours will be too, but that in itself carries meaning. Sometimes the quiet, narrow victories are the most meaningful.
The first expansion for the action role-player makes the changes players wanted - and a good few more besides.
Kinect Sports Rivals is a well-constructed game with an enjoyable structure and smartly integrated multiplayer. But it's already looking dated as it continues to struggle against the limitations of its chosen interface. For all the extra power of Kinect 2.0, and the surrounding artifice of online competition, at its best the game only equals the highs of older, more familiar games - games whose players and makers have moved on.
You'll constantly wish the annoyances would recede so you can wallow in the good stuff - because the good stuff is really good. It's just not enough to lighten what is ultimately a heavy and time-consuming experience. If I could freeze time for that moment, a few hours in, where everything fits into place and Mercenary Kings is my new favourite game, I would. We're so conditioned to equate quantity with quality in gaming that it feels counter-intuitive to criticise an otherwise great game for offering too much, but Mercenary Kings would be twice the game if it were only half the size.
Despite some familiar trappings and a shortage of genuine wonders, Age of Wonders 3 delivers a more tightly focused experience than Firaxis' behemoth Civilization series, to which it initially appears to owe so much. In doing so, it proves that even after a decade away the Age of Wonders series can still stand proud beside its modern-day contemporaries.
Stop the game, I want to get off.
Perhaps that was always likely to happen after a game as complete as Trials Evolution, and I have still spent a dozen hours enjoying everything Fusion has to offer and can't imagine anyone finding much fault with any of it. All the same, I hope that whenever RedLynx returns to the drawing board in future, it does so with more of a daredevil heart. We've had enough evolution - what Trials needs next is revolution.
If you do like games that challenge you to work out the rules for yourself, to find the edges of the world by falling over them, then Fract is a unique and often remarkable experience, best savoured in the dark at full volume. Go on, get lost.
World Tour is more than a match for Everybody's Golf in the quality of its courses and the breadth of its options.
It's tempting to write off subscription MMOs completely, but there are some signs of life in the sector: Final Fantasy 14 is doing quite well, and the forthcoming WildStar is in the final stages of a persuasive charm offensive with the MMO community. But there are only fleeting signs of life in The Elder Scrolls Online itself - and few of them have anything to do with The Elder Scrolls. Maybe this grand project sounded like a good idea in 2007, but now it feels like a leftover obligation: a game no-one really asked for, and a flawed premise from the start.
Child of Light stands as a wonderfully realised venture into unfamiliar territory for Ubisoft - and a welcome reminder that the industry's major players still have the creative flair to push beyond the lucrative safe ground that they so often favour to create well-crafted, highly-polished gems such as this.
Suck it up.
Daylight has neither the creeping sense of psychological dread of Fatal Frame nor the poster man antagonist of Slender, and its reliance on cliche lacks distinction. But if the game's straightforward purpose was simply to panic and upset its player then it is an indisputable success, no matter how cheap the tricks employed.
Maybe we've simply done everything there is to do with Spider-Man in a video game and all that's left is diminishing returns. And that kills me. It really does. Even in the worst of recent Spidey games there was always that fragment - that little sputtering flame of childlike excitement - that could kick in once you swan-dived off a skyscraper, clad in iconic red and blue. It's gone. Sullied by lacklustre gameplay and trampled by technical shoddiness, this time Spidey hasn't been done in by the Sinister Six, but reduced to a Terrible Two.
To complain about that would be missing the point, though. Sportsfriends is a celebration of the social side of games, their ability to bring a room together in one loud, raucous moment and how they're so much more fun when enjoyed with company. Alongside like-minded titles such as Towerfall and Nidhogg, this compilation is a pleasant reminder of that power - and, just like its companions, Sportsfriends represents video games at their very, very best.
Anyone who followed the game through its early-access period - which has now come to an end - will have seen how it has evolved in leaps and bounds. But it still has some way to go to truly fulfil its potential. The later hours of the game, in particular, feel like they need a little extra something to make finding those last few crystals into a gameplay crescendo instead of an exhausted stagger over the finish line. Even so, I've found myself going back to it, starting new worlds while juggling others in progress - largely because, even in the cramped indie survival game genre, there's nothing quite like Sir, You Are Being Hunted.
The episode ends on a cliffhanger that's agonising in more than one sense, and a 'next time' preview that leaves you decidedly unclear on where Clem and the gang might go next. What could easily have been a mid-season lull feels instead like a peak. If Telltale can maintain this standard for the rest of the season, it could yet top The Walking Dead's first run in terms of quality - if not novelty.
Simply by staggering across the finish line first, Bound By Flame may seem to be an attractive proposition for PS4 RPG fans, but don't be fooled. With its shonky cut-scenes, its outdoor sound effects that play indoors and its linear maps, this is in no way a current-gen experience. It's a budget offering at a premium price - and a poor one at that.