TrustedReviews
HomepageTrustedReviews's Reviews
Nobody could describe Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam Bros as an essential, but it's a fun, relaxed, thoroughly likable RPG that's as good for younger and more casual gamers as it is for Mario's more hardcore fans. It might not have much depth or complexity, but it has charm and personality to spare. If you're looking for a game to keep your 3DS busy over the holidays, this is it.
Meet The Phantom Pain's disposable, delinquent cousin, dedicated to the art of blowing things up as loudly and as frequently as possible. Just Cause 3 doesn't have the depth or richness of the year's big open-world blockbusters, but it has a fantastic set of toys, some great destructible environments and a physics engine designed for maximum carnage. More importantly, it seems hell-bent on making sure you have a blast while everything goes bang. You'll love it, feel slightly guilty about loving it, but keep on coming back for more.
A strange blend of sci-fi, action, MMO, Monster Hunter and JRPG, set on a dazzling, weirdly beautiful alien world. It's both a cliché and an understatement to say that Xenoblade Chronicles X won't be for everyone, and some elements of the game are strangely clumsy. Yet there's something about this game's relaxed, exploratory vibe that's oddly compulsive and – as Monster Hunter's proved – battling titanic beasties never gets old.
So, like the Wild, Weird West it's set in, Hard West is a little off-centre and rough around the edges. What's admirable, however, is its evident that the developers who created it have a clear love for what they're doing and that the Kickstarter budget that funded this game made every cent count.
It looks great and plays very nicely, but Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash lacks the depth, the career modes and the content that make a great Mario sports game, and Nintendo's usual attention to detail isn't quite there. With a bargain basement £10 to £15 price tag it might be worth considering, but at £40? It's not even close.
Pro Evo is still struggling to match FIFA on match atmosphere, presentation, accessibility and commentary – all areas where Konami could and should be doing better. Yet it's a fantastic football game once you hit the pitch, with brilliant close-up graphics, superb animation, convincing ball physics and player interactions and a fantastic feel for the ebb and flow of the match.
Asking whether someone should buy Bloodborne or not should be countered with "do you think you can hack it?" Contrary to what some insufferable self-identifying 'hardcore' gamers may think, it doesn't require masses of experience and being willing to sit down for six-hour sessions.
You'll struggle to find a game available now that looks or feels as immersive or as beautiful as Far Cry 4. And it's only games like Assassin's Creed Unity or Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that can match it in terms of breadth of gameplay. It just feels like the story lets it down in places. Make choices count and give the player real power. Don't just dangle the carrot.
GTA 5 can be depraved, amoral, sickeningly violent and childishly desperate to shock, yet it's also one of the richest and deepest games ever made, with an ambitious three-stranded storyline that holds so many disparate parts together.
It this is the end of the Arkham series, Rocksteady leaves it on a high note. This is an even bigger and more epic game than Arkham City, but one which luxuriates in the details and doesn't lose track of what makes the Dark Knight such a powerful protagonist. We could pick faults in the tedious Batmobile battling or the way the gameplay hasn't evolved, but that wouldn't do the game justice. Powerful, thrilling and ambitious, this is one of the best games on PS4 and Xbox One.
Stunning production values and superb graphics and music collide in a fascinating work of interactive science fiction. Some many be put off by the lack of real interactivity and the slow pace of the gameplay, but more will find the story as interesting and resonant as the way it's told. Is it a game? Who cares? It's a stunning experience, whatever you want to call it.
Football Manager 2016 is far from the most revolutionary entry in the series, but it's still an addictive game that'll have you signing away the next few months of your life.
A cracking climax to the StarCraft 2 saga, Legacy of the Void combines the best ever StarCraft multiplayer experience with what's arguably the strongest of the three campaigns. If you played and loved Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Storm then you've probably bought this already and loving every minute. If you haven't, Legacy of the Void gives you all the more reason to give StarCraft 2 a try.
You can see the potential in Rodea's high-flying, swooping, soaring gameplay, but it's all squandered by the woeful visuals, poor design and terrible controls. The Wii U might be short of quality games this winter but you'd have to be pretty desperate to buy this.
How you feel about Black Ops 3 as a package will depend on what you're looking for in a shooter. If your focus is on competitive play, then this will be your favourite CoD of recent years. If you and your mates love to smash things up in co-op, Black Ops III gives you plenty of opportunity, so get stuck in. Yet it's hard to escape the nagging feeling that this would have been a better CoD had Treyarch focused less on the co-op and the extras, and a little more on delivering their best CoD campaign to date.
So, back to the original question: Halo 5 is definitely good, but is it great? Well, I'm tempted to err on the side of greatness.
Triforce Heroes is very likable. It's hard to say whether the game will hold up to endless repetition without the deep upgrade systems of a Destiny or hack-and-slash RPG, but it's a fantastic, fun co-op game in short bursts. It also has a multiplayer Colloseum mode where you can battle it out against friends or strangers, with different gadgets to fight with in each compact stage. It still feels, however, a little Zelda-lite, and you really have to ask yourself whether you'll be able to play the game with mates rather than a random pick-up group. If the answer's yes, then dive on in. If not, prepare to take the rough with the smooth.
Given the cost of this expansion I find it hard to recommend. £24.99 is simply too much to ask for the changes and I can't, in any good faith, recommend that. The highest praise I can offer Rising Tide is that it's finally moving Beyond Earth in the right direction. The inevitable Game of the Year Edition (maybe after more patches and another expansion) will no doubt bring many people back; but until then I'd wait for a price drop.
Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water certainly delivers when it comes to scaring the player witless, and its use of the Wii U GamePad is commendable. If only other developers had been so bold with their ideas, Nintendo's console might not be in the dismal commercial predicament it currently finds itself in.
That doesn't make Tales of Zestiria a bad JRPG. It has its dull passages and a tendency for endless exposition, but it's still brighter, more colourful and more immediately fun than any of the recent Final Fantasies, and it's arguably the best thing the genre has thrown up since Ni-No-Kuni. Like many JRPGs, it gets better the more time you put in, the more you understand its systems and the more you get to know and likes its characters. All the same, this is another solid entry in the Tales saga rather than the breakout hit you might have hoped for. It will chime well with the faithful, but it's unlikely to bring any new converts round.