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It's arguably not fair to criticise a Lego game for being a Lego game but having seen three on the Xbox One (or PS4) since its launch, it is becoming more and more difficult to hold back the feeling of repetition. Lego The Hobbit is better than The Lego Movie Videogame but that's not a massive accomplishment and sadly neither are as good as Lego Marvel.
The Reaper of Souls expansion provides a great amount of content, changes and balancing that significantly improves and extends the original Diablo III experience. The maps feel more focused, the bosses refined and the Crusader class is a joy to play. There is however one little sting in the tail: the cost.
MLB 14: The Show is almost an oxymoron ' an accessible and ever-entertaining game based on what is, on these shores, an extremely niche sport that is accused of being rather dull. For both novice and veteran the game demonstrates what an annual sports franchise should be, and standing alone the Vita version would be more than sufficient. It's only in comparison to its bigger siblings on the PS3 (and now the PS4) that the foibles become clear, the omissions become painful. If you want baseball on the go then this more than delivers, if you want a deep sports simulation on the go then you'll not find the mixture of management and actual match play anywhere else in handheld land. As long as you're happy to get your online kicks on the TV then you'll be more than fine with this Vita edition ' and, if you don't get anything else out of the game, at least you'll appreciate the differences between this and cricket forever more.
In the end then, Daylight is neither horrifying in the good way nor in the bad way. Once you've managed to become inured to the cheap shock factor Daylight feels like nothing more than a simple tech demo for the Unreal 4 engine, and it's not even one that manages to present the engine in a good light. Conflicting mechanics, poorly managed procedural generation and the lack of any real hook for replayability mean that this is one that probably needed more time in the oven before seeing the light of day. If you get lucky with the level generation and don't abuse the mechanics then there's enough here for a playthrough with a few shocks that will only take a couple of hours - but the risk of an utterly duff experience is too high to recommend.
Bound By Flame had potential, its excellent crafting system and skill trees are a good basis for any RPG, but the unbalanced combat system doesn't do a good job of exploiting them. The characters and story are hard to care for when most characters lack any emotion and expletives are used in every other sentence. If you are desperate for an RPG to play in your wait for The Witcher 3, then Bound By Flame could satisfy your needs for a short period of time. Bound By Flame doesn't bring anything new to the RPG genre, nor does it improve on any existing elements. A short play-time combined with an uninteresting story and unbalanced combat makes Bound By Flame tough to recommend, it frankly just isn't a good game.
Wolfenstein: The New Order is the latest in a long line of historically relevant shooters. It doesn't disappoint. Everything you would want from a Wolfenstein game is here, plus more. It's a good looking, incredibly fun old-school shooter. The gameplay is furious, fun and responsive, with the characters full and engaging and B.J. himself being an absolute blast as much as he ever has been. The story is one you'll want to see to the end and have reason to keep playing. Even when you know everything the game has to offer it's nice making the Nazis go boom once more. This is the best single-player shooter on the current generation of consoles, and is more fun than much of what has come out in the past few years all told. It might not be technically the best, but it's more enjoyable than anything since Modern Warfare, or perhaps even the first time we returned to Castle Wolfenstein.
Whether or not The Elder Scrolls Online is for you depends on what you are looking for. It is not a conversion of the single player series that many might have hoped for. You can finally trot around Tamriel with your friends, slaying goblins and daedra, but the experience is hindered by uninspiring combat mechanics and far more restrictive exploration options resulting in a less immersive world.
Transistor gives players a dazzling world to explore, a customisable combat system that anyone could find pleasure in, and a story that can pull on even the toughest person's heartstrings if engaged with. Transistor is a worthy follow up to Bastion and it shows that Supergiant Games aren't finished with bringing truly jaw-dropping worlds to the videogame industry. The linearity and confusing opening hour do hinder the game somewhat, but as you come to understand Transistor, you'll be swept away by its charm and beauty.
Lazy, shoddy and rushed this is a Spider that could do with a good blast of Raid.
As gamers, it's heartening to see such serious and prevalent issues being treated with the weight they deserve in a medium more inclined to hand you a gun and point you towards the finish line; Ether One is a decent alternative to mainstream mindlessness, a thought-provoking and moving experience for those willing to commit.
Ultimately Nintendo have again produced the goods and delivered another system seller. Many companies long for one true example of this in a console's lifetime; Nintendo now has two within a year of each other. The driving is exquisite, the track design is wonderful and the overall presentation is marvellous. We have here perhaps the finest Mario Kart to date, aside from battle mode, and an entry into the series which whilst being so special, only serves to highlight the series' flaw more prominently. Good job then that that flaw was never seen as one anyway as that's not what Mario Kart is about. This is what Mario Kart is about - wonderful, prolonged fun.
Maybe it's the graphics, the outstanding soundtrack or just the charm that calls you back time after time. A Realm Reborn has been born anew and it remains one of the best MMOs on the market.
Gripes aside though, the story, LA Noire - like investigations and general tone of the game pull it through. It's interesting, ominous at times and has a really solid atmosphere throughout. Not a masterpiece and sadly quite flawed in places but ultimately at a time where game releases are few and far between, you could do a lot worse than play through Murdered: Soul Suspect.
Despite its shortcomings, Entwined is a visually stunning game that gives the likes of Rez and Child Of Eden a real run for their money. The gameplay is interesting enough that it will keep you captivated throughout the nine levels and the challenge mode gives the player that little bit of extra content. The soundtrack is one that will long stay in our heads because of its beauty and the way it interacts with the levels themselves, setting a certain mood for every level. The freezes at the beginning and within levels were an annoyance, but they weren't enough to upset our enjoyment of the game. Entwined blends its gameplay, visuals and soundtrack into one beautiful piece of art that should be experienced by anyone who has the chance to play it.
Fundamentally that's the overriding feeling of Watch Dogs. It's a game that has so much to offer and so many things to do that it can't fail to engage you as a player. But eventually you'll realise it's not all good and what you find interesting is done. There's little to compel the player to finish in terms of the way it does things, aside from that square button which allows magical occurrences to happen. With this introduction to the world of hacking Ubisoft have created a behemoth of an IP, one that promises much. Like its predecessor though, we'll have to wait for the tighter and more focussed second iteration, removing what didn't work and improving that which did, to realise that full potential.
Exposition-heavy, yet light on actual plot development, In Sheep's Clothing is perhaps the weakest episode of The Wolf Among Us to date. That said, it redeems itself in the closing moments with one of the coolest fade-to-blacks seen in an interactive story to date. With the promise of a final epic confrontation on the cards, there may yet be time to determine whether the series' storyline does enough to justify its existence, or if it's another unfortunate case of mutton dressed as lamb.
The core gameplay may even leave you feeling a little nostalgic. Team 17 took a simple idea, blowing up enemy worms named after your mates with an arsenal of ridiculous weaponry, and turned it into one of the most iconic and fun memories in gaming. But that was 1995 and here we are in 2014 realising that not much has changed in nearly two decades. That goes for the series' flaws as well, turning what should be the retro fun of Worms Battlegrounds into another peculiar case of history repeating.
The game has boss fights in an attempt to mix it up, it looks decent but nothing really befitting the new generation of consoles and it sounds fine too. The production values are there, then, but everything about it screams failure. For a game based on a comic book it's suspiciously tedious and wide of the mark in terms of its humour - although we recognise that is subjective so you might take more from it than we did - but really the choices behind the control scheme mean that it fails in terms of what we're here to assess; the game. From the moment you switch it on you're wondering why you downloaded it, and the developers have no excuses. Either their decision to go only for gyroscopic controls via the DualShock 4 was wrong, or: their inability to code and rein in the motion controls to do what they needed to do has left them dressing up their failure as a purposeful choice.
Ultimately, what we've got here is absolutely zero failure in making the ultimate version of one of the greatest fighting games known to man. This is every bit ultra street fighting and Capcom deserve all manner of goodwill for continuing to develop their stunning game for casual sofa fighters and professional contestants alike. In our opinion this provides the quality needed to ensure it remains a tournament favourite for years and it's definitely one which will stand shoulder to shoulder with Third Strike even if it's unlikely to ever eliminate it. In so doing, it remains a game for the less capable to play. It's still fun. It still guarantees joy and excitement and wow moments combined with facepalms. It's fundamentally brilliant. It shouldn't be touched again though. Let us enjoy this and hope Capcom go away now and do once again what they did here, and generate a new fighting game for the new generation of consoles.
Overall, One Piece: Unlimited World Red feels like a game made for fans of the series, and ultimately, they're the only people we can consider recommending this game to. Anyone unfamiliar with One Piece will have a tough time completely understanding what is going on and who every character is, and this really hinders its accessibility. While the character models and the variety in locales are real high points for the game, the combat and repetitive level structure make the game a complete bore to play through by the halfway point. Fans of One Piece may get a kick out of One Piece: Unlimited World Red, but newcomers should look elsewhere.