NZGamer

It’s not Tenchu, but it’s the next best thing.

Color Splash is a fun game that is almost the step in the right direction the series needs to take.

A fun reason to jump back into Deus Ex, but not necessarily worth dropping coin for the Season Pass.

There is plenty for fans of wrestling to like in WWE 2K17. There is a lot that I found enjoyable. While I’ve been on the verge of giving the game the people’s elbow, especially sitting through the long load times and when I lost a match because I couldn’t tag back into a tag team match; it’s a ‘tag’ team match, and I couldn’t figure out how to ‘tag’. It’s in the bloody stupid title. But, I’m going to keep playing. I love all the bluster, all the blood, and I want to eventually get a win by submission. And I will keep playing until I finally get Mr. Perfect to win the Royal Rumble.

Skyrim is still a great game that everyone should play, but it could’ve used more than a paint job.

A solid sequel with minor improvements to a successful formula.

Overly familiar Multiplayer, but tells a compelling story.

A party game through and through, despite the lack of multiplayer.

But, it all lends itself to the challenge of the game. EA’s NHL has always been my favourite sports sim. It is a beautiful game (with apologies to that other beautiful game). Speed, power, finesse, toughness, and teamwork. I am just glad it’s time to drop the puck on a brand new season of hockey.

For all the choices we’re given in Telltale games, they often lead to the same destinations. We can affect the littles outcomes, but can’t sway the larger ones, which by this point in the developer’s career is no revelation. It’s the illusion of choice that keeps us happy and narratively enchanted - a spell I’m quite okay to be under. Creating branches for every decision would simply be untenable, and even considering the limitations of this model - the stories themselves, however little we can change them, are worth exploring anyway.

Approachable yet deep, this is one of the best in the franchise to date.

Half Dragon Quest, half Minecraft, all delightful.

One of the best Skylanders games to date thanks to the deep character creation tool.

Angus received a review copy of Hustle Kings VR from PlayStation NZ.

There’s a certain appeal in difficult games, but they have to be designed just right if they want to be compellingly hard rather than frustrating. Early on, Lichtspeer gets that balance just right, but later all that design sense goes out the window in favour of just becoming unfair. The first few levels are marked by a need to give it just one more try; coupled with how fantastic the game looks and feels, that made it utterly compelling. Later on, though, it just becomes an ordeal – one that, evidently, very few people have bothered to see through.

Not for the weak stomached, but a well thought-out shooter for early adopters of Playstation VR.

Being uniquely eclectic, Titanfall 2 is designed just well enough, and with enough layers so to not be entirely derivative. Hero simulations are so vastly abundant in this industry - so if you’re going to play one, you might as well choose from those who do it the best.

It's a diamond in the rough, though, and this jankiness is a mild distraction at worst. The appeal of Mafia III is the stories it tells – both the textual narrative, and the multitude of emergent ones that come from simply existing in a place as rich and complex as New Bordeaux. It certainly has its flaws, but in balancing the over-the-top action of a crime game with a pointed look at real-life racism, and in its fantastic re-creation of the '60s American South, Mafia III has achieved something special.

Worth the price, worth the time, and worth the last level.

While the campaign’s experimental short stories may just be the most interesting thing about Battlefield 1, this is not a niche experience to accurately portray the history its borrowing. This is a Battlefield game, and that means World War One in the Battlefield style, with all the compromises therein.