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Magic 2015 is still the best way to bring a new player to this old game and the deck building is a great deal of fun, but those who have played the last couple of releases may feel somewhat underwhelmed by this iteration.
At the end of the day, Amazing Princess Sarah does a better job of emulating the Castlevania formula than a lot of bigger publishers in the past when they've tried to. The combat could really use more variety - things do get a bit repetitive from that standpoint, but the level system and well-designed levels do provide additional hooks to keep the player interested.
Guacamelee! is the incredible adventure, offering up thrilling events and plenty of combat in between its humour. DrinkBox have done an amazing job and the Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition for the PS4 is more than a worthwhile experience.
While Abyss Odyssey suffers from a few design choices that ultimately hold it back from greatness, its easily ACE Team's most playable game to date, which doesn't come at the sacrifice of the look and feel we've come to love with earlier titles. Hopefully, many of the shortcomings can be addressed in future updates, which seems to be a big part of ACE Team's plan for the game post-release.
If you happened to play Sniper Elite V2, you already have a good idea of how Sniper Elite III plays - but this latest iteration does everything a bit better. With less than a dozen maps, relatively lacklustre story and questionable enemy AI, Sniper Elite III is a flawed but enjoyable game nonetheless.
There's fun to be had in Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark, but it's a dialed-in action shooter game, which is a mistake since there was never a chance that this game would compete with the big budget games in the genre. Titles such as Destiny, Call of Duty, or Titanfall will all trounce this game and ensure that no one but the most dedicated fan will care about it in the near future. It would be to the benefit of the franchise if future games stopped trying to swim with the sharks.
The platforming segments are often very creative, just not as smooth or fluid as I would have liked. Thankfully these elements, while gamifying the experience, are not the highlights of this show. The very human interactions starring a variety of flawed people through the eyes of an innocent girl who is slowly having her views of the world stripped away and altered are what make Contrast stand out. As a game Contrast works, but has a few flaws. As a creative narrative, Contrast succeeds on almost every front.
There are plenty of reasons to love Shovel Knight, and I'm sure more seasoned gamers than I will relish its mechanics, tight controls, or obsessiveness with all things retro. But more importantly, it's easy to fall in love with a game that manages to breathe new life into old mechanics, without feeling like a retro-throwback that is content with playing the same hand we were dealt all those years ago. It's the perfect example of a passion project done right, one that realises that it is important to look back, in order to move forward.
Like many of the games in the same league, it's hard to recommend 1001 Spikes to those who aren't patient enough to learn its deadly and intricate ways, or to those who are prone to smashing their controller through their TV screen in frustration. But to those who live off buzz words like "rage-inducing" and "old-school hard", look no further.
But in a way Valiant Hearts is a challenge to everyone in the industry; it's a challenge to the publishers churning out the same old "war games," and it's a challenge to all the players that continue to buy into these games without really thinking about what they are playing. War isn't fun, and it has a real impact on the people that are involved in it. It's games like this one that, critically, remind us that there is a human side to war.
It's games like this that keep me interested in gaming; creative developers working on creative concepts and telling simple, effective stories in a manner that is only possible through an interactive medium.
So, Distant Worlds: Universe is a corker. But make no mistake: while it's not as forbidding as some Grand Strategy games, patience and a degree of head-scratching will be required. But it's worth the effort. It's enormous, complex and – above all – fun. Despite a high price-tag and a few minor problems, it's a strong candidate for Strategy Game of the Year. Just don't tell Matt.
Marvel Heroes 2015 has made notable improvements over the last year. It is free-to-play, so if an action oriented MMO appeals to you, it should be worth your time to check this title out. If you, like me, tried Marvel Heroes out a year ago but were somewhat disappointed, it is worth coming back and giving this updated version a go as well. Just like Final Fantasy XIV found new life through listening to its fans, Marvel Heroes 2015 has done the same.
The character depth and story detail might feel somewhat lacking compared to newer JRPG titles, but there is an expansive world here that begs for exploration as you grow your characters for future challenges. The overall package is an easy one to recommend.
Overall Anomaly Defenders is a solid tower defence experience that really does raise the bar for the tower defence genre. It might still be the simplest example of strategy gaming out there, but at least this one has merit for long term play.
All in all, Worms Battlegrounds is a solid if unspectacular addition to the series that knows its strengths and generally plays to them effectively. There is an occasional awkwardness to movement that can make the single player story a bit of chore at times, but it does a nice job teaching the basics and serving as an almost extended tutorial for the good stuff - multiplayer mayhem. Mileage may vary since having friends to play with locally is where one gets the most out of the Worms Battlegrounds experience.
It's still a great looking game, and the core narrative is a fun, if underdone and derivative one. It's simply disappointing that this game had a reasonably large budget, and in the process it lost some of its identity and seems to be shoehorned into some very unnecessary and destructive mechanics. This game would have been far better off being made for a fraction of the budget by a small team willing to take real risks.
Mario Kart 8 is another decent, if unspectacular effort from Nintendo. The series needs better balancing if skill is to ever become a factor again and the single player mode may be a total slog, but Mario Kart is still a hit where it always mattered: with friends.
After a while these more awkward moments fall into the background, and Devolver Digital's broader vision and tale of humanity is one that truly works. This is a game that will make you care about what's going on, and I've got high hopes that this team will continue to refine this style with future games.
Sparkle 2 may certainly be a game that has been played a hundred times before, but as it is on the PlayStation 4, it is truly a treat. The pick up and play aspect shines and the difficulty curve is spot on. It does get repetitive though, so short bursts are recommended. And I just can't get over how disappointing the lack of multiplayer is.