Latest Reviews
Review Skylanders: Trap Team (Xbox One)
Fool us once...
To say that we were sceptical about the latest Skylanders title, Trap Team, would be an understatement. Having not had a great deal of experience with the series, but having seen the shelves upon shelves of toys for sale at seemingly ludicrous prices in every supermarket and specialist store for the last couple of years, we thought...
Review The Evil Within (Xbox One)
Survival horror revival
The Evil Within is the best Resident Evil 4 imitation to date, and in no way is that a bad thing. The similarities are nearly endless — zombie-like creatures, chainsaw-wielding maniacs — but the most common thread is that both games are created by survival horror mastermind, Shinji Mikami. With the bar raised so high, you...
Review Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (Xbox One)
Welcome to 221b Baker Street
There hasn't been that much written about Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments - in fact, so little has been said that one could almost end up thinking that the developers really wanted it to fly under the radar. Which is a shame...no, really. Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments takes place in the gritty,...
Review Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved (Xbox One)
Not taking the Mickey
Enough words have been written about the history of Microsoft’s second attempt at motion controlled gaming and how it was a mandatory purchase for all bleeding-edge Xbox One owners. We all know how a lot of people – probably the majority, in fact – don’t see even the second iteration of Kinect as being a viable input...
Review Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition (Xbox One)
Let sleeping dogs lie.
Square Enix are at it again with their "definitive" release of a previous generation title, this time bringing United Front’s open-world, third-person action title Sleeping Dogs to Xbox One with a new coat of polish. But are the visual improvements and included DLC enough to lure you in for another go, or is this purely for...
Review Pinball FX2 - South Park (Xbox One)
Salty balls
South Park hasn't had the most luxurious history when it comes to getting the video game treatment. There's been a decent release here or there throughout the years, but for the most part we've been subjected to repetitive first-person shooters and uninspired platformers. That is until earlier this year when South Park: The Stick of...
Review Alien: Isolation (Xbox One)
"The perfect organism."
Throughout cinematic history, very few films have influenced a genre like the Alien saga has. In 1979, Ridley Scott's initial vision of horror far away from home resonated so strongly with audiences that the film almost immediately became a cult hit and introduced us to Ellen Ripley, one of the most dynamic heroines ever to...
Review Divekick Addition Edition + (Xbox One)
Paper champion
Divekick is going to be a game that splits opinions, that much is sure. The hardcore fighting game fans will love the action/reaction playing style, but a large proportion of people will be left cold. A good portion of that first group will already own it on another format, too. That doesn't set things up all that well for the Xbox...
In for repairs
“Welcome to Brazil, where the Autódromo José Carlos Pace in Interlagos is currently being hammered by torrential rain. The track is absolutely soaked and there was talk of calling the race off, but we’re here and ready to go. The cars are on the grid, facing down 71 laps of the circuit, with Lewis Hamilton in the Pure...
Review Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Xbox One)
Dark and delightful
We’ve been hearing about Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its innovative Nemesis System for a while now, but we’d be lying if we said we weren’t skeptical of the game living up to its potential. Delivering a brutally violent and relentlessly grim look into the Lord of the Rings universe might alienate too many fans of the...
Review Watch_Dogs: Bad Blood (Xbox One)
Teaching an old dog new tricks
It should come as no surprise, but Watch Dogs’ first piece of single player DLC is essentially more Watch Dogs. That means if you enjoyed cruising around the beautiful virtual Chicago hacking every little thing in sight, then you’ll know exactly what to expect out of Bad Blood. There are times when it treads that...
Review Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One)
Bring us the horizon
Every so often, a game comes along that you imagine that you’ll be reminiscing about as a ninety-year-old while sipping a cup of weak tea in an old people’s home with your friends. Of course, the games of your youth will come up first. The arcade game that you beat with a single credit when you were on holiday with your...
Pulling dead weight or reinventing the wheel?
We play good games all the time. Heck, it’s safe to say that we play great games on a fairly regular basis. What’s surprising, though, is how few of those great games genuinely feel fresh or inspired. Take the platforming genre for instance. For every Rayman Legends — a superb game that introduced...
Review Titanfall - IMC Rising (Xbox One)
The final DLC pack
The third and final DLC pack for Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall was released this week, but is it worth your time and money? Well, IMC Rising is consistent with previous expansions, bringing us three new maps each with their own theme that help to further our understanding of events unfolding after the conclusion of the...
Review Slender: The Arrival (Xbox 360)
Oh, the Slender Man... the Slender Man can.
Back in 2012, a two-man development team at Parsec Productions created a PC game called Slender: The Eight Pages as an experiment. The Eight Pages was based on the tale of The Slender Man, a tall and faceless paranormal figure who would stalk, traumatize, and abduct anyone who may come across him,...
Review D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die (Xbox One)
Look for D
Remember Deadly Premonition? It’s one of the most divisive games ever to be released upon the world. Poor production values, bizarreness to the extreme, and campy…well, everything else, meant it was one of those wonderfully weird games that either clicked with you, or it didn't at all. Now, four years after the release of Deadly...
The keeper fluffs it.
Here we are once again. It’s that time of year that - if you’re in the UK at least - the releases of EA’s annual Madden and NHL franchises are nothing but a precursor to. It’s FIFA time once again, and no matter what we say about the game here, it’ll undoubtedly be a massive success and sit at the top of the sales...
"I'm your density. I mean, your destiny."
It goes without saying that we all expect big things from the creators of the Halo series. And it’s not just because they bestowed upon us one of the best science-fiction gaming franchises of all time, it’s also due to the epic promise that their new IP will be an intergalactic journey so grand that...
Review KickBeat - Special Edition (Xbox One)
Bass dropped.
If you haven’t heard of Kickbeat before and are looking at the screenshots, you’ll probably get the idea that it’s a fighting game that has something to do with music. On the surface of it, that’s true, but the fighting itself is mere decoration for what is a relatively standard rhythm action title. The game is set around...
Those ninjas came from the past!
It was way back in the year 2000 that Digital Extremes announced a new game entitled Dark Sector was in the works. This game was initially envisioned as a space-faring third person shooter where players would don a mechanical suit providing them with powers beyond that of the average soldier. As the development cycle...
Breaking baa-d.
Did you ever play Lemmings? The classic A to B puzzle game were you were supposed to guide a crowd of small, green chaps through levels and past obstacles? The goal was to get as many of them out safely, sometimes leaving a few brave lemmings behind for the greater good. Team 17's new game Flockers is very much like that ... only a...
Skating backwards going forwards.
NHL 15 was supposed to be a celebration of hockey. A true coming of age that would have us flying banners and cheering EA’s name as they masterfully took the step up to the new generation and showed us their skills on previously untouched ice. When the puck dropped, it would provide the graphical and gameplay...
Review Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate (Xbox One)
Hit, hit, hit, hit, hit...and miss.
If you’ve not played any of the seemingly hundreds of titles that have been released as part of KOEI Tecmo’s Warriors series, then you’ll probably not be aware that whether you’re playing the Samurai, Dynasty, or Orochi flavours, you’re playing much the same game. Hacking, slashing, and the deaths of...
Review Stick it To The Man (Xbox One)
Where the sun don't shine
You know you have a great game on your hands when you start a new game immediately after the end credits have rolled. That’s exactly what happened after experiencing the weirdness and strangeness of Stick it To The Man, the latest from Swedish developer Zoink! Games. The weird and the strange is what makes Stick it To The...
Review Pinball FX2 - The Walking Dead (Xbox One)
Get bit.
The critically acclaimed first season of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead (hence forth referenced as Season One) invades the best version of digital pinball currently on the market, Pinball FX2, and the results are quite impressive. This closely-coordinated effort between Telltale and FX2 developer, Zen Studios, comes hot on the heels of...
(Re)mastered Blaster
When it comes to re-releasing older titles on a new platform, there are a number of ways a publisher and developer can go about it. They can just put the game out as it was and drop the price. Alternatively, they can bundle in a load of DLC and call it a “definitive” version. Failing that, they can tweak the graphics and...
Review Pinball FX2 - Guardians of the Galaxy (Xbox One)
Chart topper or flipper flopper?
It’s been a big summer for the Guardians of the Galaxy, has it not? Thanks to the critical and commercial success of the motion picture, this ragtag team of superheroes has risen from utter obscurity to a common household name in what seems like the blink of an eye. That means comic books, action figures and other...
Review The Golf Club (Xbox One)
Taking a new approach
Golf games haven’t grown up in the last 25 years. No matter how you look at it, the same systems that we used to control the likes of World Class Leaderboard on the 8-bit machines in the 80s are the same ones that we use today to control the latest EA Sports licence-fest. Everything has changed around the core systems of the...
Ruining the gauntlet.
When a game series throws out fistfuls of features that were part of the very reason that fans of the series became fans of the series, people aren’t usually all that happy about it. There’s a desire for improvement and growth of course, but there’s also that desire for more of the same. Fans of the first two Sacred...
Review Abyss Odyssey (Xbox 360)
A rogue-like by any other name...
The term "rogue-like" has undoubtedly been slow to grow in popularity, but in recent years it seems that it's finally starting to catch on. It's a phrase that comes from a sub-genre of RPGs that abide by a set of game design choices, including procedurally-generated worlds and permanent death — which titles like...
