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Just enough has been done to preserve the spirit of the original games while making these entries feel like a legitimate part of the current Pokémon ecosystem. Game Freak and Nintendo have taken the main Pokémon franchise about as far is it can go, short of actually evolving it.
With plenty of levels, several endless modes and multiple characters, there's a lot of replay value to be had in Rollers of the Realm. The relatively toned back violence makes this a game I'd readily recommend to younger audiences, and the story is very good on the inclusivity front with representation for characters of various races, genders and ages. Phantom Compass has their quirky combination of pinball and role playing wrapped up tightly in a fun, agreeable package with excellent mechanics and a keen attention to detail. Rollers of the Realm comes highly recommended to all players looking for some casual fun, regardless of RPG or pinball experience.
I am very happy to see that PES has come onto the new generation of consoles in style, and of a quality that is competitive with a series many times its budget. The world would be worse off without this alternative to FIFA, and without an alternative that presents a different understanding of the sport of football (or soccer, depending on where you are in the world). It might be irritating that there aren't enough licensed teams, but I do think the football purists will prefer the on-the-pitch action of this game.
LEGO titles look like they are made for kids, but they really are aimed for almost everyone. Beyond Gotham could have stood for some more innovation, but it's impossible to deny that it's a charming game with its tried-and-true.
Grand Theft Auto V really surprised me. For a series I have had very little interest in the past outside an appreciate for technical proficiency, I found myself drawn into a world where lots of bad things happen to a good number of people - and I was often the one perpetrating these crimes. Call it self-aware social criticism or a guilty pleasure, Grand Theft Auto V proves to be a great deal of fun.
When I started playing Tales of Hearts R, I found myself almost sighing because it seemed so similar to everything else on the JRPG market. However, this sense of familiarity makes the title more accessible to fans of the genre, and the game starts to reveal more of its layers as time goes on. There is a camaraderie for the heroes built around trust and affection for one another that really resonates and gives the narrative a certain warmth that I enjoyed through to the end.
BioWare achieved everything that it needed to with Dragon Age: Inquisition. It revitalised a series that had suffered real brand damage in Dragon Age II, and the third game in its fantasy trilogy easily stands as the best RPG we've seen in years. There is absolutely no reason to miss out on this one.
It makes me truly happy to see game developers creating high quality products such as Never Alone that push entertainment boundaries and demonstrate that games can be culturally important. We need to see more of this game, and I hope this is a roaring success so that other native culture organisations look at it and realise the sheer power of games to tell their own stories.
Peggle 2 is an addicting game packed with silly fun that anyone can manage. If you haven't played Peggle before, this game will hold a higher value than if you had. There were several areas which could have been improved upon to help maintain the community's interest. I would recommend this game to families and new players but returning players may want to wait for a sale.
Unity plays well, but it's not really good enough for a AAA-game to play well, and this especially applies to Assassin's Creed, which has always been a franchise with stronger narrative and thematic value than its counterparts. I see potential in a Napoleonic-era trilogy for the Assassin's Creed franchise. As I wrote in my Rogue review, I'd love for the next game to star a Cossack doing his thing as Napoleon bears down on Moscow. But for the next one I would hope that Ubisoft puts more effort into crafting an interesting and original narrative than working on the multiplayer nonsense.
Still, Mario Kart 8 is an enjoyable party game, and for the entire DDNet team to still be playing it all these months later stands as proof of its longevity. In that context, adding even more content for just $10 makes for a perfectly worthwhile purchase. And Nintendo deserves props for using DLC as an opportunity to add to an existing game package, rather than sell something that should have been in the original release in the first place. It's a fine line to tread, but Nintendo's showing the other publishers how DLC should be done.
Even with all of its Halloween charm, Costume Quest 2's greatest strength is that it knows its limits. It's a short experience, and it's to it benefit as it never feels bloated. It's the quintessential bite-sized RPG, wrapped in all the Halloween charm you could ever hope for.
Tengami is an arthouse game. It's the kind of experience that, like Gone Home, people will dismiss for lacking action or having a narrative that doesn't treat its players like idiots, but it's also the kind of game that shows that the games industry is growing up and pushing the limits of what can be achieved given the freedom and resources to be properly creative.
From my time with Book One, experimenting with the multiple choices that can affect the outcome of the story, Dreamfall's Chapters is going to be a pleasure to experience. The beautiful design of the game and the interesting way that it handles characterisation and narrative has me looking forward to seeing Book Two with baited breath.
Infinity 2.0 shows that the franchise is on the right track, and it might just wind up on top.
Cosmophony ends up playing like a demo, stripped of its powers to sustain by its confused design, lack of content and its impossible level of difficulty.
So in the end Minutes is a simple, minimalist, but high-action arcade game. It's an impressive, creative and enjoyable indie game, though it lacks the brilliant high thinking and narrative that went into likeminded arthouse games like Hohokum and Entwined. But if you've got a couple of dollars sitting on your PlayStation Network account, you're not really going to go wrong with purchasing this.
If you disliked the original Halo games, odds are this collection and its new coat of paint will not convince you that a sci-fi FPS is right for you. If you loved the Halo games, odds are you have this title ordered already and are anxiously awaiting dozens of hours of story content and potentially hundreds of hours of online play.
But as someone who deeply cares about narrative in game, it's immensely frustrating to see the money that Activition is clearly throwing at the narrative not bearing fruit. People tell me that narrative isn't important to Call of Duty, but if that's the case then Activision should not be investing in Kevin Spacey, and should simply pull the plug on single player and invest solely in multiplayer gaming. More than anything else I do believe that if you're going to do a story, you should do it properly. There's the world of potential in Call of Duty franchise to be the games industry's take on The Hurt Locker, so yes, is does annoy me that Activision seems to be more interested in generating endless clones of Black Hawk Down.
In my eyes, we have a very strong contender for one of the best exclusive games in the Wii U library. It is sadly held back by minor control issues, but those issues are easy to overlook due to the sheer fun that you will get out of the gameplay.