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All being said, if you've yet to play DmC, it's worth picking up the definitive edition. It's being sold in some places at around £25, which is a great price. The 1080p/60fps makeover has helped the gameplay (and should hopefully have wiped clean any memories of Ninja Theory's "It feels like 60fps" comments regarding the original), but you won't be mistaking this for a new generation game any time soon. It's an enjoyable romp through a world infested with Demons, harpies and masked creeps with swords, and has potentially the most fun boss fight I have ever encountered in the form of Raptor News Network's anchorman, Bob Barbas. If you're still hung up on Dante's redesign and refuse to let the game speak for itself, then there's not much I can do to convince you otherwise, but you're missing out!
All in all, inFamous: First Light is a solid addition to the franchise that further showcases the technical excellence that Sucker Punch have been able to pull off so far. Whilst the story falls a bit flat in places, it's generally solid enough to carry you through it. The challenge rooms are a lot of fun and will put you through your paces as you try and best your friends' scores, and if you've not yet sampled any of the inFamous franchise, this is well worth a go as an introduction. A good example of DLC done right, inFamous: First Light sheds some brightly coloured neon light on areas of Second Son that were previously unknown to us all.
Transistor is a worthy follow up to one of the most revered indie games of the last generation. Supergiant have taken a formula that works really well and applied a truly gorgeous art direction to it, with an incredibly deep combat system to boot. It's a game that is well worth your time, and with the big AAA game drought heading our way over summer, it's a perfect title to sink your teeth into for a few hours and just let it wash over you.
All in all, Not a Hero has some fantastic humour, brutal death animations (an achievement when done via pixels) and is pretty fun. You can easily spend a couple of hours trying to perfect a level, or you can kill a bit of time while you wait for your dinner to cook. It's not going to set the world on fire (As much as Bunny Lord would like to!), but it's not a regrettable purchase either.
Black Ops III really is a mixed bag. On one hand you have possibly the best multiplayer experience since Call of Duty 4, with a strong set of maps and a hugely immersive Zombies campaign to go with it. It's just a shame that it's been let down by a campaign that has some great ideas, but doesn't know where to run with them. I'm sad to say that I think the days of the good Call of Duty campaign are behind us, with last year's decent outing being the exception. Still, there's a lot of content here. In terms of a multiplayer shooter, Black Ops III is easily the best that Activision has published in a long time. After being roped back on board the Call of Duty train last year, I think I might as well buy an Oyster Card at this point, because it has its hooks in me once again. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to play Call of Duty 4's campaign again.
I was worried for the return of Rainbow Six after the news that Patriots had been cancelled. Fortunately, Rainbow Six Siege is a fantastic entry in the series that has enough depth in its gameplay to keep things fresh each and every time you boot it up. It's currently my go-to multiplayer shooter, and that is genuinely not something I thought I'd be saying at the start of the year! Moment-to-moment gameplay is a real joy, and the balance is as close to perfect as you'd hope. I really wanted to score Siege higher, but Terrorist Hunt and Situations almost feel like an entirely different game because of the drop in frame rate, and there almost feels like a push toward microtransactions once you hit a certain point. It almost feels like Siege should've launched at £30. Still, if the promised free content is good and it can keep a good community, it'll be worth it in the end.
If you've yet to pick up Heavy Rain, it's hard for me not to recommend as a curiosity. Released at a time when everything was getting increasingly more FPS centric, Heavy Rain made some bold leaps and for the most part, stuck the landing. Quite whether it all hangs together in 2016, though, it a subject that's up for debate. Personally, I think I'm enamoured with it enough to forgive its mis-steps, and even with very few changes outside of a sharpening up and new lights, it's well worth a pick up.
I'm not going to lie, Transformers Devastation was so much fun that it might as well have tattooed a smile on my face. From the moment the 80s themed main menu appeared to the sustained wails of the guitar solos over the ending credits, I was grinning like a Cheshire Cat. A couple of niggles in the game stopped me scoring it higher (the camera frustrations and the length are the two key things for me), but at it's core it's a very impressive game. It looks like the TV show, it sounds like the TV show (albeit one relayed via a Kerrang compilation), and it plays like Platinum's best. A fast paced, riotous action game that grabs hold of your nostalgia and refuses to let go until you're done, it's worthy of your time if you have even the slightest affinity for either these types of games or the Transformers license. It's just a shame there isn't more of it.
This War of Mine is strangely compelling, pulling you back day after day despite the unrelenting misery of the situations you find yourself in. Inspired by the real events of the Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War in the nineteen-nineties, you know right off the bat that this is going to be a somewhat harrowing experience.
SIVA aside, it’s these frustrations that plague the game. Misplaced repetition, an unbalanced loot-drop system, weapon buffs, weapon nerfs, patches, hotfixes – the truth is Destiny is an on-going experiment that Bungie is still trying to tweak and perfect. Even when the story has you staring down from high up with your Ghost companion at where you first began two years ago, it feels as though there’s too many gaps and holes that haven’t quite fitted together as originally intended. Ultimately though, here is a game that demands you come back to it no matter how long you’ve been away. When you finally get that gun you’ve been waiting forever for, beat a raid with your friends or stumble across a post on reddit that someone has found a secret entrance with strange markings on… then it’s on, and you won’t look back.
Nine times out of ten, I’ll play games that aren’t story driven with my headphones in and listening to whatever music I am in the mood for that day; however it’s impossible to do this whilst playing Inversus. The upbeat, electronica-esque style music by Lyvo weirdly enough helped me concentrate on playing the game and you’d expect it to get a bit repetitive after a while but it doesn’t, so that’s a plus. I guess whilst taking all of the above into consideration and my own personal learning curve I wish to revisit my earlier comment and reinforce how good this game really is. It’s simple – the more and more you play it, the better and better you get. The shots that you fire off take an insane amount of accuracy and timing, and that just makes the game a bigger challenge than it already is. Its hard to pick faults at a game like this but if I had a tiny bit of constructive criticism it would be more maps for Arcade mode to rival the amount for Versus. If you’re anything at all like me then you’ll find yourself silently or violently swearing to the high heavens, throwing your controller about and mentally back-flipping when you beat your personal best. Inversus is an addictive work of pure genius and well worth an 8/10
Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 is clocking in at about £10 on the PSN store, which makes sense. It has the feel of a highly polished game that can kill 30 minutes or so at a time rather than instigate hours of play. If that’s what you’re looking for then you’re in luck, friend; here be a game that is both simple and immersive for short periods of time, to divert your brain away from real issues and solely into ‘where the fuck is the fruit oh no there’s a ghost train EAT IT YES HA!’. If you’re after a happy dose of nostalgia and an engaging half hour then this is the power pill for you.
Gravity Rush 2 is a great neon-infused romp that, whilst not perfect, does everything right by fans of the original. Mechanically complex whilst never feeling overwhelming, the feeling of floating round the sky at high speed before landing a devastating combo on one of your enemies feels incredible, and whilst the story suffers from some pacing issues, it’s a game that’s as fun as it is fast and furious.
Battlezone is basically what you dreamed an arcade game would be ten years ago, finally realised and in your living room. A dumb, no-frills tank blaster that is instantly playable and understandable by anyone, this is the sort of thing that will win over a lot of people who wouldn’t consider themselves interested in VR as a concept. Unlikely to be a defining title of the platform, but a strong start regardless.
Overall, RIGS is a fast paced, fun and frenetic futuristic sports game. Guerrilla Cambridge have figured out exactly what is needed for a VR sports title, as well as a VR Mech title and somehow fused the two. Immensely enjoyable, RIGS demonstrates what the PSVR can do to truly immerse you in a world that you simply can’t get in actual reality and is incredibly stylish whilst doing so.
In spite of the immediately obvious drop in graphical fidelity, Driveclub VR has a great sense of immersion that can only be achieved with VR, and the PlayStation VR headset produces an experience that I don’t think I’ve ever had from a racing game before. An impressive swansong for a game that never had it easy, DriveClub VR is well worth picking up if you’re grabbing a headset in the coming weeks.
For a fan, this is an essential purchase and it comes with a sense that this nearly 15 year old series is drawing to a logical conclusion. It’s also a great opportunity to not only unpick some of the more convoluted areas of the lore, but look to the future with its reveal of the sumptuous looking Kingdom Hearts 3 engine. It’s a shame that Square didn’t see fit to release a complete collection alongside the forthcoming reissues of the rest of the games in the series; casual fans and newcomers who are interested in getting into the series would do well to hold off til April and pick up both this and the 1.5/2.5 double pack.
A fun, supernatural romp in a wonderfully recreated depiction of one of the most recognisable cities on the planet, Ghostwire: Tokyo is let down somewhat by combat that feels simplistic in places, and borderline clunky at worst. The location, unsettling atmosphere and story are by far the stars here, with a really fun plotline that will do more than enough to convince most people to see it through. A true example of next-gen visual flair, Ghostwire: Tokyo is a curiosity that will allow you to pet, rather than kill, the cat.
Hotline Miami 2 was in a very difficult spot. Had it solely done more of the same as the first, it would have endured criticism for not evolving. Instead, Dennaton has taken some of the formula that made the first game brilliant, and literally expanded pretty much everything in the game. Sometimes to its credit, but often to its detriment, Hotline Miami 2 hasn't quite managed to live up to the hype of the first game, and will often leave you feeling unfairly treated as a single bullet will come from literally out of nowhere. It's gone from a tightly paced action puzzle game, to a slightly flabbier paced action puzzler that relies much more heavily on the firepower that the first one encouraged you to shun so much. It's worth playing, if not for the soundtrack alone, but this is really the only area that it surpasses the original title. All in all, a shaky sequel that is built on extremely solid foundations.
Mad Max is probably the best example from the past few years of games that were released on the wrong date. There are moments in the game that will bring a broad smile to your face and leave you feeling incredibly satisfied, but at the same time you'll sit there thinking "Man, I wish there was more variety". For all the comedy, action and genuinely beautiful visuals that the game throws your way, some of the flaws will bring you back to the barren wasteland with a bump. It's a game worth playing, and I really enjoyed the highs that the game has to offer, but it's hard to recommend picking this up over a lot of titles that are out in this horrendously busy period. Unless you like Australian accents. In which case you won't find a better game this year.