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A good kid's game, film, or book is one that children can spend hours of time on. A great one is a game that children and adults can enjoy equally. Skylanders Trap Team is closer to Saturday Disney than Harry Potter, but that's not really a criticism of it. It's a highly focused game designed explicitly to fill up the Christmas list of the child in the household. But it is a well produced game, well above the standards of most children's games, and those miniatures are highly collectible stuff. The kids will love having this under that pine tree.
Sunset Overdrive is just what the Xbox One needed - a distinctive exclusive to set the thing apart from the PlayStation 4. Titanfall was adequate and the Forza games are great for racing fans, but Sunset Overdrive is a glorious breath of fresh air.
When Michael Foucault wrote about his philosophical concept of the "limit", he was talking about how we need art that push boundares - of good taste, of sexuality, of art itself - in order to define what the limit is and why we need to have it. Bayonetta 2 will challenge some people. It will make them uncomfortable. It's transgressive in numerous ways, and with that comes the potential to offend. But in causing offence, Bayonetta 2 encourages conversation, and that's the very definition of a good work of art.
There isn't much more to say about Race The Sun. It does what it promises in offering a fast runner-style game, and it's nice that the developers went as far as to offer completely new level layouts each day, but ultimately this is as shallow as the likes of Doodle Jump or Temple Run, and costs an order of magnitude more money.
With a rocking soundtrack, loads of content, plenty of fan service and some clever gelling of two disparate video game universes, Hyrule Warriors is easily my favourite game of 2014 so far. Let's just hope for a sequel that explores some of the other Zelda titles!
I love that games like Fluster Cluck are leading the charge of local, social, multiplayer, and I hope it continues indefinitely. Being able to experience actual living room mayhem again as you did back in the day when friends would come over for epic SNES and N64 sessions is still a blast 15 years later.
For all the games' narrative themes of consciousness-probing, identity-subsuming science, the reordering of the psychic self for a greater application of the flesh, I needed to look no further than my own pathological gameplay in its honour. The rage quits, the restarts, the late nights, the infinitesimal adjustments to my thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth attempts, all part of my drive to survive to the end, no matter how many hours of hell it took. That is the essence of survival horror. Those are the roots around which The Evil Within is so expertly entwined.
Forza's combination of speed, presentation values, excellent handling and flexibility in letting players approach the game in a variety of ways makes it really hard to put the controller down. At the end of the day, it is just a whole lot of fun.
'Tis the season for horror games, and it is nice to see some games still understand that the true roots of horror are sown in the mind. Too many franchises (I am looking at you Resident Evil and Dead Space) gave up chilling atmospheres to placate the high action crowd. While there is some action to be had here, do not play Lone Survivor: The Director's Cut looking to score perfect headshots or cheap scares. The pace is slower and as a result the sense of horror is more palpable, memorable experience.
I have issues with these kinds of games, in that they do tend to romanticise organised crime and vigilantism, and Sleeping Dogs, despite having a policeman as the protagonist, doesn't actually do enough to reflect the actual horrors that the Triads inflict on any population they involve themselves within. However, as a gangster-style narrative, I can't think of one I enjoyed more than this. I loved the game when I played it as a freebie on PlayStation Plus ages ago. I love it even more on my shiny, powerful, PlayStation 4.
Looking back on this review, I'm actually a bit depressed that the highlight of the game (for me, at least) was simply how good Ryse looked. It's obvious that Crytek is capable of so much more, but Ryse simply borrows the best that a few franchises has to offer, and instead chooses to cobble them together quite lazily with a few superfluous mechanics thrown in for good measure, rather than refining and building upon the core game. Granted, Ryse could have been doomed from the start, having started out as a Kinect-only title with a fairly limited control scheme, but I can't help but feel that a brand new IP deserved a little bit more than what we ultimately got. But hey, at least it looks good, right?
But I'm really stretching to find a complaint there. The reality is that Samurai Warriors 4 is nothing short of brilliant, and a huge leap forward into the new generation of game design by Koei. It's cinematic, its beautiful, it's fast and entertaining, and if you allow it to be, it's even a little educational. And that makes it an inspiration.
Look, I'm not going to put on a purple astronaut helmet or run half-speed into a wall of cake mix or perform any other act of subterfuge that may trick you into forgetting that Natural Doctrine is one of the most unforgiving virtual experiences currently available in this or any possible dimension. It's like that university professor who wouldn't accept your term paper three minutes late despite the fact that your dog body slammed your cat from the roof that morning, placing them both in sad but cute comas. It just doesn't give a damn. Yet, if you have patience, get a kick out of learning through experimentation, and receive a rush when accomplishing what seems satirically impossible, you may appreciate Natural Doctrine's unyielding difficulty, and certainly gain a feeling of unrivalled empowerment that's associated with overcoming it.
The easy comparison is games like Portal or Q.U.B.E. due to the perspective and puzzling nature of the gameplay. Though TRI lacks the polish and presentation of the more popular Portal titles, its sheer accessibility and serenity mark it out as something genuinely different, and as such deserves to be noticed.
The penalties for my aggressive style of racing seem like they would take all of the fun out of Driveclub for me, given that's usually the only way I can win in this genre, but that is not the case. I enjoy Driveclub a great deal and am looking forward to future updates and getting back online to race against other players. I enjoy the different tracks, beautiful locations and slick-looking cars, and unlocking new rides is always a rush and the thrill of victory is addictive and rewarding.
There have been a handful of Alien games over the years, but none have delivered an experience so close to the intent of the films as Isolation. With visuals authentic enough to have been ripped right from the movies and a terrifyingly intelligent monster as the primary antagonist, Alien: Isolation makes for a memorable experience, and clear proof that Colonial Marines was the fault of the developer and not the material.
This is not a game for casual players, neither is it for those with a love of the arcade shooter genre. This is a game for retro purists or for those who wear their triumphs over insane difficulty levels like virtual army epaulettes across their gamer tags. Futuridium is a game for those who can invest in the grind of simply 'getting the job done'. Taken on those terms, Futuridium becomes a challenge to be completed, retro looking enough to be in vogue, yet with mechanics that inhibit a broader mainstream appeal. Once you've sated your curiosity on its aesthetic retro nostalgia, it quickly feels like you're playing Galaga at light speed ….on your PS4. Whether or not you invested in a PS4 to be able to play Galaga is something owners of Futuridium will have to come to terms with.
Now that the story of Dark Souls II has been fully told, the theme of persistence is key. I think back to my initial review, where those brief flashes of light and life offered hope against overwhelming, almost oppressive odds and darkness. Dark Souls II: Crown of the Ivory King concludes the adventure, the player has earned the sense of hope that he/ she is left behind with. At least until you begin the adventure anew and Dark Souls II ups the difficulty and prepares to make you die yet again.
Ice Cream Surfer deserves full credit for offering a taste the Wii U could use more of. I just wish the developers focused less on decking their digital sundae with chocolate sauce and realised that the ice cream beneath it was past its prime.
All six cases are interesting and brilliantly written, filled with characters that not only fill a role, but perform exactly as you'd expect from the Sherlock tales of old. The developers have wisely avoided pigeonholing the game's moral code into black and white (again fitting in with the original Sherlock character, who was hardly a saint), and it these shades of gray to explore that makes each case as well as the interplay between Sherlock and Watson so interesting. Sherlock's mind is presented in such a way that he is clearly a man treading the line between madness and brilliance, which makes this opportunity to play him all the more riveting and an opportunity not to be missed people who enjoy genuine detective fiction.