IBTimes UK
HomepageIBTimes UK's Reviews
One of the greatest video games ever made. A masterpiece.
An enormously enjoyable bit of fun for the summer months. A multiplayer cult classic in waiting.
Dontnod has something truly special here. All they have to do now is finish on a high.
Nice as it can be to look around the world of Everbody's Gone To The Rapture, its story is dead, empty, and filled with redundant notions of player engagement.
One of the better remakes of recent years, stifled slightly by bugs that should be squished in future patches. The signs are good for Gears under The Coalition.
Stealth hasn't felt this good, this pure, since Mark of the Ninja. Volume is tightly-designed and lovingly-crafted vivacious fun.
With The Phantom Pain Hideo Kojima has realised his Metal Gear dream.
Any petrolhead should buy Forza 6 without a second thought - they will get some serious enjoyment out of it - and even those who don't know their Sierra Cosworths from their Huracans should give it a try. The racing can be as easy or difficult as you like, but however you tweak the settings the fun will always shine through.
Super Mario Maker offers an exquisite tool for creating new platforming memories. It realises a dream Mario fans have had for 30 years, but a lack of checkpoints and a skewed course browser that favours levels requiring little effort from players holds the game back from true greatness.
Dontnod brings one of the best video game stories in years to a tense, powerful and satisfying conclusion. Life Is Strange has been a triumph. The surprise game of 2015.
You can certainly see a learning curve with 343 Industries. With Halo 5 their clear understanding of the series has yielded a great game, but not the classic they're capable of making.
With Rise of the Tomb Raider, Crystal Dynamics has made a stellar sequel, but hasn't yet reached the full potential glimpsed in 2013's reboot. It is visually fabulous, boasting stunning environments, and improves the core exploration and combat gameplay, but there's still room to improve further. With even bigger open worlds, dialled down violence and a stronger script, the inevitable next instalment could really be special. There's no doubt that Crystal Dynamics deserves the chance to make that happen.
Fallout 4 is a good game, no doubt, but it's hard not to feel let down after six months of solid hype, and high expectations on the side of the players. It hasn't learned any lessons from predecessor New Vegas, and aside from smaller tweaks and decent gunplay, there's very little to the core game that wasn't in Fallout 3. Building your settlements is fun and the main campaign missions (after a time) are engaging and entertaining. However, for a near-20-year-old series to take two huge steps forward in 2008 and 2010, only to hardly make any progress in 2015, is galling. Go in with that in mind and you'll have a lot of fun. Expect a nuclear revolution and you'll be left wanting.
Star Wars Battlefront is a work of remarkable craftsmanship from developers DICE, and it being a more casual shooter is exactly what the game needed to be to find its place in the crowded online shooter market. There should be more on offer, particularly when it comes to single player modes, but in short bursts Battlefront is a force to be reckoned with.
WWE 2K16 is the best WWE game for a while, but largely by default. Every successful tweak to the gameplay edges it closer to the license's former greatness, and makes this particular entry a fun multi-player wrestling game for a short time at least. Eventually however its limitations present themselves and – like the real thing – you're left frustrated that not enough has changed.
Rainbow Six Siege is the finest shooter of the year. Its systems combine to create a game that's immediately tense and feels several steps beyond what we've come to expect from yearly Call of Duty iterations. AAA games aren't usually this bold, but in this case the gamble has paid off. Rainbow Six Siege is sublime.
Just Cause 3 is an absolutely functional, totally pedestrian sandbox game which just so happens to launch at a time when the old models of open-world structure and design feel more overused than ever. Every standard issue, familiar mechanic and conceit is present here – if we needed one more argument for a new type of sandbox, one that doesn't prioritise or even feature the tropes and clichés we've come to expect, this is it. It's fine. It's there. It's benign. Even if you haven't played it, you've already played it.
Resident Evil Zero is a joyless game. Every section feels like a tedious lateral thinking puzzle – "the farmer has a fox, a chicken and some grain, but can only carry one at a time" – and the locations and creatures are half-heartedly designed. If you haven't played it, it provides valuable insight into where Resident Evil, and perhaps games at large, went wrong over the past decade or so. Other than that, it feels like work.
In Oxenfree, Night School Studios has used simple mechanics to great effect establishing and building on its small cast of characters, and keeping players engaged with its creepy tale of paranormal dread. It's a shame then that it doesn't quite stick the landing, seeming to rush to its conclusion without offering a sufficient pay-off. A small number of minor (dialogue for the wrong character playing) and major (two complete crashes) glitches also hold it back. It's undoubtedly a stylish and unique game however, that we hope does its part to usher in a wave of games that take a similar approach to storytelling.
Firewatch is a simple game that tells a simple, far from impactful, tale, which approaches greatness thanks to superb writing, acting and design work. Gameplay is kept light and straightforward, but is always engaging – befitting a game that revels in the unique storytelling potential of games. This is a new studio's debut title, but it bears the quality of a product made by a team of veterans who have a great deal more to offer.