You know this whole ‘are games art’ argument? Remember Roger Ebert (god rest his soul) annoyed a load of people by saying games were essentially worthless? Well, this is pure speculation here, but it’s a fair bet that had someone sat him down in front of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, he’d have held his hands up and admitted ‘crikey, fair enough lads, I was wrong.’

Lest we forget, this was a game where your main character Raiden; in between bouts of dissecting Metal Gears, Cyborgs and (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT) libertarian nut job politicians going Super Saiyan; would have philosophical conversations about the nature of free will and mankind’s predilection towards atrocity and self-destruction with a robot dog with a chainsaw for a tail. If they were to make a movie of this Alejandro Jodorowsky would probably direct it.

That particular robot dog is the focus of the latest DLC and of course, while it’s not up to the standard of the main it’s still probably essential for people fixing for more Zandatsu in their lives, which in a just world would be absolutely everyone, but we are not in a just world unfortunately, if Dead Island: Riptide is anything to go by.

The Blade Wolf’s mission takes about an hour and a half to get through (not including the multiple times your doggy will get mulched by enemies). It takes you through environments you saw in Revengeance before, although that’s not really anything to get antsy about as Revengeance could take place in a purely white environment (or Boscombe) and would still be a heap of fun, due to how brilliantly implemented the combat system is.

You get a good, challenging boss character you’ve never seen before for your trouble as well, which is nice. Of course he’s given no real background and only exists to torment our existentially befuddled mechanical mutt, but since when did anything have to make sense in Metal Gear? Lest we forget this was the franchise that tried to tell a serious story about how war was, y’know, bad and that, with burping monkeys and a character that constantly pooped himself. It’s like Harry Hill reading an audiobook of Crime and Punishment.

Whilst the Jetstream Sam mission was two hours of relentless decimation, Blade Wolf requires a bit more tact. Playing stealthily reaps the most rewards here, as you’re given hunter bonuses at the end of each encounter which are essential for that all important S Rank.

His default speed is slower than Raiden’s too, doubtless to aid with his cheeky canine subterfuge. It takes a while to get used to the slower pace in comparison with the breakneck J-rock ultraviolent sugar rush of the main game, but once you acclimatise yourself to how robot doggy works, it’s quite satisfying sneaking up on baddies that would normally end you in a few hits and chainsawing them in the back of the head.

The Blade Wolf DLC however, is probably only best for those that completed Revengeance multiple times (including the Revengeance difficulty, in which the best tactic for most people is to huddle in a corner, weep hysterically and kiss your arse goodbye). For those willing to go through it that many times, there’s more than enough here to warrant a purchase, and Blade Wolf plays differently enough from Raiden to maybe justify shelling out its (admittedly kind of steep) price.

To those that’ll just go through it once and forget about it though? It’s maybe not worth it. Revengeance knows its core audience; it’s the one that’ll perfect dodge offsets, parries and blade mode cancels in pursuit of the highest scores. The Blade Wolf mission is for them. Others should perhaps wait for a discount, though it’s still deserving of a look in at some point. Good boy.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

Opening with dark, dank, tension filled corridors reminiscent of the very first Resident Evil mansion, nostalgic nerves are jangling from the moment Resident Evil Revelations reveals itself. Remakes are still all the rage, but in a time where there are more video games released than most people can afford, only the truly special ones can be afforded space in a gamer’s income.

Regardless of the reaction to last year’s Resident Evil 6, Capcom isn’t giving the series up without a fight, and thankfully the HD version of Revelations is somewhat of a return to form, giving a whole new audience the chance to face-off against yet more disturbing monster creations and the partaking of the herb.

Resident Evil Revelations - A Traditionally Nonsensical Story

Kicking off with a simple search and rescue operation, Jill Valentine and her partner Parker Luciani are looking for Chris Redfield and his partner Jessica Sherawat, last heard from aboard the HMS Queen Zenobia – a massive ship floating lost on the ocean waves. Obviously, as is always the case in Resident Evil, things have gone wrong, subterfuge is present, and nothing is as it seems.

In fact, Chris and Jessica aren’t on the Zenobia at all, they are off in search of the bad guys in a snowy, mountainous area. Revelations flips between the two sets of characters multiple times during each chapter, and there’s also a flashback setting focussing on the (now) lost city of Terragrigia – a fully self-sustaining solar-powered city that was decimated thanks to a bio-terrorist attack by none other than the same gang that Chris and Jessica are chasing.

Revelations has a serviceable narrative, but newcomers to the series will find it all a bit bizarre and pretty ham-fisted. There are plenty of clichés, no truly worthwhile ground trodden, and the plot twists in the later game sections are all fairly obvious. There’s a heavy reliance on knowledge of the franchise, too, and whilst there is an attempt to make Revelations self-contained in parts, you’re playing as characters that are long-standing series mainstays.

Tank Controls Are A Thing Of The Past (Almost.)

Whereas the original games will feel very dated when played today, Revelations is best compared to Resident Evil 4 or 5 in terms of gameplay. Movement is fully controlled by the analogue sticks, and you don’t have to stop and shoot. It’s a tricky thing to get right, but the close quarters feel to the Zenobia sections of the game feel good almost because of the controls. Firing off a few rounds only to realise the oncoming monstrosity is going to get to you before you can kill it, forcing retreat and readjustment; it makes for a tense affair, and creates an inescapable dread that few games get right.

Most of Revelations channels that survival horror game feel, but the sections that veer away from the Zenobia do end up seeming too much like a generic third-person shooter, which is a shame. It just serves to prove that Resident Evil is best when in tight, poorly lit corridors. The co-op that has become a series mainstay nowadays causes some odd moments in this HD remake, too.

In fact, as early as the second chapter, playing as Chris you’ll find yourself falling from a sufficient height as to temporarily incapacitate yourself. While you wait for your AI partner to come and help you, you’re attacked by mutated wolves. Despite them only taking two shots (for the most part) to kill, they are so great in number, that fighting the camera angle (which feels too zoomed in on a sitting, injured Chris) whilst also fighting off the onslaught is an annoying moment. This is worsened by the fact that once the wolves are successfully fended off, Chris’ injury vanishes incredibly quickly; it’s just daft.

The enemy design is somewhat disappointing, as well. Not focussing on Zombies gives room for a bit more creative freedom, but instead, this new enemy type (simply named “the Ooze”) are all similar in design with variations that dictate their attack methods. Whereas modern enemy design will allow strategic attack, most of Revelations’ enemies just require lots of bullets to stop. Boss design is slightly better, but suffers from turning one of them into a repeat enemy, whereas the rest are so traditionally Resident Evil in scope and design, that they just don’t excite like they used to.

But there is more to Revelations than pointing and shooting anyway, enter stage left: the Genesis device. Scanning environments to grab 100% completion won’t be for everyone, but thankfully it’s only a required mechanic for story moments. Holding down the left bumper, rather than bringing up a gun aim, brings up the Genesis device, and you can scan the area for hidden items, or just scan decomposing enemies to raise your completion rate. Once you grab 100%, you’ll be awarded with a bonus item, and then you’ll have to start toward that 100% again. It’s rarely tedious, as it’s often obvious where items will be hidden – piles of rubble, under a table, in the sink – so after a period of learning, most players will know exactly when to pull the Genesis out.

The herb system is a simple one now, and all you now have to do is find them, and hit a face button on the controller to instantly use them. It’s a design decision slightly at odds with the atmosphere, because on the one hand you’ve got a reasonable level of immersion, ruined slightly by a “health button”. No more mixing herbs for you, it’s all a bit too easy. The enemies take a fair bit to put them down, though, and their twisted, distorted movements make grabbing headshots trickier than just targeting a slow-moving Zombie shuffler for that traditional quick kill.

Resident Evil Revelations - RAID Mode

Like most Resident Evil titles, once you’ve finished the main campaign you’ll be able to take on the additional modes, with Revelations including RAID mode. While the main campaign of Revelations does have a mission-based structure and scores you based on performance, RAID mode is more stage-based. Think of it like an Arcade mode; the enemies even have health bars above their heads.

Completing stages in RAID mode or just playing the single player campaign will award you with Battle Points. This system is pretty simple: the more you earn; the better weaponry you can unlock to use. Each playable character will have a base weapon, or setup, but to get a better ranking, you’ll need better tools. There are lots of stages available, but you’ll have to unlock them as you go, and each is based on a location from the single player mode. Unlike the campaign, you can take RAID mode online to experience with another player, which is a nice new addition.

It’s a superb alternative to the campaign, allowing for a quick slice of the action, with the idea of buying new weapons from the shop offering replayability. Once the campaign is over, only the hardiest of fans will keep playing, but RAID mode ups the value for money significantly.

What Is HD About It?

The one thing that is noticeable about Revelations HD is that on the whole, it looks gorgeous. Capcom know how to make a cut-scene look good, and they’ve done a superb job on bringing a low-resolution 3DS game onto HD consoles, but then, you’d expect nothing less, as the original is only a year old. There are rough sections though, and when the camera shows you a texture too close-up, it’s horrendous looking and a reminder of the game’s origins. It’s a definite case of closer inspection revealing the cracks, but just playing the game you won’t notice it very often.

In-line with the visuals, there’s full surround sound support, and the ability to play RAID mode online, as well as the expected additions such as Achievements and Trophies. The Wii U version supports off-TV play and dual screen gameplay for RAID mode, too.

New to the HD version is Infernal mode, which is unlocked after completing the game. Offering a higher difficulty challenge is great, but Capcom have gone one further, and for Infernal mode the enemies - even including a new enemy, the Wall Blister - and items have been randomised throughout the game to attempt to create even more of a challenge. Infernal difficult is a welcome addition, because the main campaign isn’t particularly difficult. Like RAID mode, if you’re not careful you can be one-hit killed with little warning, but at the same time it’s a rewarding experience, though not one everyone will enjoy.

People who missed Revelations the first time around will find an enjoyable and fully fleshed out Resident Evil experience - while not spectacular, it's certainly closer to the original games in terms of atmosphere than the modern outings. RAID mode and Infernal difficulty also offer compelling reasons for Revelations veterans to grab the HD version.

While Resident Evil's future is unclear at present, this HD version of Revelations proves that there’s life in the old dog yet, even if there’s a high likelihood that anyone who wanted to play Revelations will probably already have done so.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

It's not hard to picture the Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 team having a brainstorming meeting for new ideas, blank notepads in front of them, the loud "ummm" noises breaking up the silence of fingers being drummed on the table.

This is the sixteenth game in the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series and golf hasn’t changed an awful lot in that time. It’s not like EA can hand Tiger a Flaming Club Of Justice (+5 Strength) as he trundles off to Warlock Mountain, or add new Team Deathmatch modes.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour games are limited by the game of golf itself. That means struggling for new ideas that justify a sequel without breaking authenticity of the game itself.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour - Absolute Power Or Total Control?

The most obvious manifestation of that struggle is found in its ‘golfer types’ addition. You can choose between power, control and draw specialists and there’s further specialisation in hitting the ball high (susceptible to wind by more likely to lie on the green), low (the opposite) or somewhere between the two.

It’s not a bad addition but a fairly pointless one that does little to add to the game. At times it feels restrictive that you can’t club the ball 300 yards from the tee because you’ve picked the wrong ‘type’ of golfer while at other times it feels empowering, should you have the right golfer for the right situation.

But at no point does it ever feel as though having different types of golfer has really added anything to Tiger Woods.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 Online

Play an online tournament, though, and you almost feel as though the it justifies a sequel in itself.

Online tournaments have golfers working their way through the courses at the same time as you, and you can see their shots in real-time as white outlines bouncing along the green. It adds an unusual sense of camaraderie or competition, depending on your skill level

An overall leaderboard tracks the leading golfer for that particular tournament (which often lasts 24 hours) before a winner is declared. There are some tournaments you can only enter once, some which are tracked across 36 holes, and annoyingly, some that require DLC to participate in.

There should have been more work to open this side of the game up, as the choice of tournaments can be limiting (especially with the further DLC restriction in place), but it’s surprisingly good fun. Seeing live play alongside you makes working your way round the courses that much more enjoyable, as it’s no longer a lonely pursuit of perfection.

You can also form Country Clubs, which is the gentlemanly golfing equivalent of clans. It’s a nice way of keeping track of rivalry with friends, and if you have people on your Friends List who are working through the game, it’s another brilliant addition to the online side of the game.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 Single Player

But what about single player? Besides the usual additions that won’t really register on your Must Buy This Sequel Now scale – new golfers, new courses, night golf – there is one mode that stands out.

Legends Of The Majors takes you through the history of golf tournaments, starting from 1873 as you work your way through to the modern era. Having a throwback to the past is interesting because of the way EA has fully committed to it. There are grainy sepia filters, retro fashion such as jackets and ties and best of all, old-school golf clubs with comedy names like ‘baffing spoon’.

It’s interesting because it’s different, EA finding a way to make golf feel different without having to break authenticity to do so.

The only problem is that mode becomes less engaging as the eras begin to catch up with the present. As modern-day elements bleed back in – colour broadcasts, modern clubs, modern equipment, and so on – it starts to feel like Another Tiger Woods Single-Player Mode that’s rolled off the EA factory line, indistinct from any other mode from previous outings. It loses its unique appeal.

Tiger Woods + Online Pass = Profit?

Is there enough in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 to justify a sequel? Just about, if you have access to the online side of the game (those buying second-hand will need to get an online pass). Online tournaments are a brilliant way of playing through the various courses, and seeing the real-time play alongside yours does add something fresh to the usual Tiger Woods fare.

Without the online modes, it’s a much harder sell. Legends Of The Majors is good but not really good enough to warrant those who played last year’s edition to pick this up and that’s the only single-player mode that stands out. It’s also frustrating that you bump into DLC restrictions as often as you do here, which cheapens the overall experience (there's no option to 'earn' the extra courses - they can only be bought).

Despite that it’s still a great golf game so if you haven’t played any Tiger Woods outings for a while, this year is as good as any to come back to the series.

Just make sure you do so with an online pass.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

There’s a videogame first that happens in Army Of Two: The Devil’s Cartel, which we’re pretty sure shouldn’t happen in a game that’s entirely devoted to Shooting Things. And that thing is this – shooting the environments is more fun than shooting the generic bad guys. Far more fun.

It’s not that the shooting is bad, per se. Like previous outings in the series, Army Of Two: The Devil’s Cartel sees you and a partner team up to work your way through streets of endless bad guys, who are armed with guns, grenades and AI that means they never quite learn to keep their heads fully tucked behind cover when they’re not firing back.

You’re now playing as Alpha and Bravo, who replace Salem and Rios. Alpha and Bravo still suffer from the same verbal diarrhea that plagued the previous duo, as though the biggest threat they face on a mission is an awkward silence. And yes, the dialogue will still make you cringe. Alpha and Bravo no longer high-five each other or play air guitar after murdering an entire drug cartel though, so there is that.

Army Of Two Working Together (Sort Of)

The idea is that you work in tandem with your partner, one of you drawing fire while the other flanks around the threats to take them out. This works best when the map design forces it through split pathways or obvious side-routes that offer new angles to shoot back. It's not a revolutionary or new idea any more but when it works, it still feels fresh and interesting enough that it engages you.

The key part being 'when it works'. More often than not, the map design is messy and confusing to the point that it’s hard to really lock down any sort of tactic beyond surviving and fighting back. When The Devil’s Cartel moves from narrow streets into more open areas, threats appear all around you and it’s hard enough to figure out which bit of cover is safest, let alone how to initiate any fire-and-flank tactics.

This doesn’t make The Devil’s Cartel difficult, as it’s surprisingly generous with how many shots you can take before you have to be revived. It’s more that when you’re shot at from all directions, working in tandem with your partner is the first thing to suffer and when that disappears, the action feels clumsy. It happens surprisingly often for a game where co-op play is the main calling card.

Cover Me

What makes things worse is the cover system. You look at cover, a small cover symbol appears and you hit the appropriate button to begin an animation to slide towards safety. From here, you can then line up a symbol on the next bit of cover, the idea being that you spring from cover to cover without breaking a sweat.

Again, this works best on narrow streets when you have time to ‘aim’ where the cover symbol will appear and all the angles of cover ahead of you are flat. In wide-open areas, as you’re panicking under fire from all directions, it’s too easy to accidentally select the side of the cover you wanted rather than behind it simply because you didn’t have time to fine-tune the aim on where you wanted to go. Then there’s the additional panic of cancelling the run-to-cover animation – do I press the cover button again? Do I hold back? – followed by further panic when you successfully and unexpectedly cancel the automatic spring, leading to you standing upright in a hail of gunfire.

It’s not exactly elegant and it’s a cover system you’ll spend most of the game wrestling with. As a result, you’ll find one spot of cover and stick to it rather than engaging with the game’s cover-to-cover mechanic, just to avoid the frequent mishaps when something goes wrong.

The Devil's Cartel High Scores

Still, what’s important is that in a game where you’re either shooting or moving to the next location where you’ll be shooting, The Devil’s Cartel offers a punchy sense of feedback across all the weapons – the sound, the recoil, the animation of hit soldiers, the ragdoll effects, everything comes together to make your arsenal of weaponry surprisingly potent.

Score bonuses also reinforce the sense of feedback. Flanking enemies, headshots and shooting the same grunt as your partner are a few of the examples that award you points and encourage you to play in a different way that aiming in the general direction of distant movement and squeezing the trigger.

Some score bonuses serve as unintended rewards than a pat on the back – “SURPRISE! 25 points. DECOY! 25 points.” – but even so, they all contribute towards your Overkill meter, which slowly fills up.

Then you activate Overkill and everything changes.

Shooting The Environments > Shooting The Bad Guys

Score enough points between both players and you unlock Overkill, which temporarily awards you invincibility, infinite ammo and a new destructive tint to the weapon you’re holding. Watching the scenery crumble and shatter under your new-found strength is empowering in a way that most shooters fail to achieve, possibly because so few of them put attention in that sort of area and rarely do they do it so well. It’s why shooting the environments is more fun than shooting bad guys.

It’s a thrill that never really gets old and will justify unwarranted use of Overkill at the least appropriate times. There’s one guard left and you shouldn’t really use Overkill… but look at all the untouched scenery behind him! Activate Overkill. Watch bullets fizz off metal, cover splinter and crack, walls spit out concrete chunks.

It’s something that Visceral has clearly cottoned onto during development, because there are plenty of environment targets sprinkled around each mission, daring you to attack it with an Overkill onslaught. It starts with explosive barrels and oil tanks moves onto fireworks and toppling water tanks as you race through town firing a mounted machine-gun at anything that looks like it will react to your gunfire.

It’s a surprise that shooting at environments should be as engaging and thrilling as it is in The Devil’s Cartel but it’s not the biggest surprise here.

The Devil Cartel's Co-Op Fail

The biggest surprise is how poorly online co-op is implemented, given that’s the entire reason for this game – this series, even – existing in the first place.

It’s not drop-in drop-out co-op. Well, you can drop out without any problems, so that's half the problem solved, we suppose. But drop in? When a player wants to join your game, you’re asked if you want to allow him in (yes, fine) and then you’re warned that doing so will boot you back to the start of the chapter (wait, what?).

Co-op is supposed to be Army of Two’s speciality, the one thing it does right, and this clunky design feels like a 2008 throwback when co-op was a new and wonderful thing developers were trying out for the first time. Army Of Two has had three games to get this right. That it hasn’t managed to do so is bizarre.

Are You Human?

That in itself would be forgivable if playing alongside a human partner had some sort of impact on the gameplay itself but again, The Devil’s Cartel comes up short. There’s no indication that you’re playing with a human player rather than an AI bot once both players are locked in, which makes the co-op experience feel bland. Customisation is one of two things that separates a human Alpha or Bravo from an AI partner and even then, mask and weapon aside, it’s simply one set of drab mercenary uniform replaced by another.

The only other indicator of a human player is the occasional splash of head-smacking behaviour, such as the player who charges headfirst into a throng of enemies and then screams slurs at you until you revive his fallen body.

Each completed mission shows you a small table comparing stats in different areas and which player 'won' the mission but it’s too understated and impersonal to matter. Having a scoring mechanic like that prominent and in your face during the game itself might encourage a sense of competition, a tug-of-war between the players as they hunt down the last few soldiers to grab vital points. As it is, it’s too easy to ignore.

The end result is that playing with another player isn’t really different enough to playing with an AI bot and at times, is actually more inconvenient than going through campaign alone. It's not a problem if you have friends planning on picking the game up as well but it is a clear issue if you were planning on playing with random players online, which will be an inevitable state of affairs when your friends move on or if you come to this game later in its life.

Missed Opportunity

There are a lot of faults here – the messy map design, the awkward cover system, the surprising co-op fumble – but Army Of Two: The Devil’s Cartel manages to make its core action of shooting things engaging and fun, and that’s what will pull you through the game.

It’s not the co-op that makes The Devil’s Cartel unique in any way but rather, the destructive environments, which explode and shatter in a way that will leave even Battlefield fans nodding their heads with approval. It’s a shame that beyond the shooting that The Devil’s Cartel comes up short in almost every other area, leaving this as yet another fun but flawed outing in the Army Of Two series.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

If you want to find the real heart of Gears Of War: Judgment, you need to go back to February 2011, when Bulletstorm was released.

Bulletstorm developers People Can Fly enjoy a close relationship with Epic and it showed in its ballsy FPS. With chunky characters, over-the-top gunplay, comic book gore and gruff, macho characters, the studio had clearly been studying the Gears Of War series closely.

With Epic focusing its efforts elsewhere, that made People Can Fly the perfect choice to co-develop Judgment with the studio but more importantly, the debt has been paid back. Gears Of War: Judgment proudly shows a heavy influence from Bulletstorm, taking the scoring elements from that and fusing it with the bombast we’ve come to expect from the Gears series.

Marcus Fenix has gone. High scores are in.

Climbing The Gears Of War: Judgment Leaderboard

If we’re being really pedantic (and hey, that’s exactly what we’re paid to do!), then the Gears Of War series was moving in this direction anyway, albeit slowly. Arcade Mode was a quiet and unfairly overlooked inclusion in Gears Of War 3, buried beneath the explosions of single player and the constantly evolving multiplayer. Yet even if it didn’t get the attention it deserved, Arcade Mode showed that a high score competition could co-exist alongside the battle between COG and Locust.

Gears Of War: Judgment builds on those initial high score steps. It delves into Baird’s backstory and fills in some of the events from before Gears Of War 3 (with a later unlockable campaign taking place just after that game's conclusion) but interest in the story soon takes second place to interest in the scoring system, which dominates the game and becomes your main reason for playing.

Gears Of War: Judgment - How Scoring Works

You’ll notice a star meter in the corner, which slowly fills up as you kill Locust until it fills all three stars. Executions, Gibs and Headshots are a few of the kills that add to your star meter, as do unlocking Medals and Ribbons during play. It’s a similar system to Gears Of War 3, with Ribbons unlocked for killing more than one enemy with a grenade or chainsawing three enemies in a row and so on, and unlocking Ribbons now makes more sense given there’s a direct reward for doing so.

Having that scoring system in place doesn’t seem like a big change but it’s surprising how it switches the dynamics of traditional Gears gameplay around. Instead of playing to survive, you’ll find yourself playing for points. You’ll risk a few more seconds of aiming and leaving yourself exposed to nail a valuable headshot, or dare an execution on a crawling Locust rather than pumping its wounded body with Gnasher rounds from distance.

Optional COG objectives make the level harder in exchange for star bonuses. That sounds like typical videogame sequel fare, implemented as another bulletpoint to be added to the marketing checklist, but the way these have been implemented is brilliant. People Can Fly has managed to weave them into the narrative so they don’t feel tacked on and better yet, these objectives rarely repeat themselves and dramatically change your tactics.

One example: one COG objective takes away Longshots as you encounter a bridge full of Locust that needs to be crossed, with Sonia noting how easier that weapon would make the task. Another example: heading down into the deep, dark bowels of the earth means passing through the dusty archives and battling reduced visibility.

As a final touch to fresh up the Campaign structure, People Can Fly has brought Horde mode into the mix, peppering moments through single player when you’re fending off waves of Locust. It makes sense given the popularity of the mode and even though it always feels like a jolt to suddenly be dumped from the standard gameplay fare into a Horde-mode style level, they’re good fun and help break up the Gears routine.

Gears Of War: Judgment - New Weapons

New weapons also help alter the experience. While the bulk of the new entries are variations on the aim-and-shoot arsenal of old, there are some interesting new ideas. Tripwire Crossbow does exactly what the name suggests, giving you a long-distance alternative to planting grenades, while Stim Gas grenades provide a healing field for your team.

In the meantime, returning weapons haven’t undergone any major revisions. Hammerburst fans might be disheartened to find it now has a fierce kick that sees you fighting to keep the reticle lowered when firing several shots but the other weapons haven’t undergone anything quite as dramatic.

However, while the new weapons do have a place in Gears Of War: Judgment, none of them have enough impact to encourage players from abandoning the traditional Lancer plus Gnasher combo although that dramatically changes in multiplayer - more on that later.

Slide Into Cover, Blindfire

But this isn’t People Can Fly trying to reinvent the Gears cog. There’s enough here to freshen up the experience enough that veterans will feel it’s justified revisiting the series but the moment-to-moment gameplay is largely the same. You’re still sliding into cover, blindfiring at threats, meleeing in panic and switching to Gnasher for up-close encounters.

If anything, there might be a slight whiff of disappointment that while the structure has been freshened up, there’s still a lot that’s familiar. The animations haven’t changed. Weapon specific executions are the same as Gears Of War 3 (unless you’re using a new weapon, of course) and there hasn’t been any change to the other animations for roadie run, chainsawing, meleeing and so on. There arguably isn’t a lot of room to freshen up those animations but we’re four games into the series now, so some of these animations are really old.

There aren’t many new minor gameplay flourishes in terms of mechanics that we saw in Gears Of War 3 either, such as that game’s cover-vault kicks and meatshield tag-and-kick. The biggest change that affects gameplay is grabbing a meatshield no longer forces you into using a pistol and leaves you free to use a weapon such as Gnasher or Hammerburst, making grabbing meatshields a more viable option.

Even so, this feels fresh enough that Gears fans will enjoy campaign. Multiplayer, however, will prove to be somewhat more controversial…

Gears Of War: Judgment Online

Gears Of War: Judgment’s multiplayer looks like Gears and sounds like Gears but when you begin playing, you realise there are a lot of subtle changes that change how it’s played.

There are four modes – Overrun, FFA, Domination and Team Deathmatch. Overrun is an attack the objective style mode that builds on Beast mode of Gears Of War 3, putting you in the shoes of both defending COG and attacking Locust. FFA is Free-For-All having every player for himself while Domination sees your team securing and holding onto three points.

No King Of The Hill, no Execution (that's coming later as DLC), No Warzone and so on. That’s the first big change. But when you start playing you realise just how much the gameplay has been tweaked and adapted to People Can Fly's vision for online.

No active reloads. No down but not out. No Lancer plus Gnasher default set-up. Gnasher itself has (finally!) been toned down. Ink grenades have been beefed up. You can walk off high ledges. COG vs Locust replaced by Red versus Blue. There are different classes of character to choose from. And if you hated how loud the footsteps were in Gears Of War 3, you’re really not going to like how loudly players stomp around maps now.

These changes make multiplayer much more accessible and much faster than Gears has ever been but some of the tactical edges we've come to expect from the series have had to be sanded down for this to happen.

The traditional Gears online match has been about digging in and team-mates flanking around the enemy. That doesn’t really happen anymore – partially because only Domination and Team Deathmatch cater to that sort of team-versus-team gameplay but mostly because the action is now too fast to settle down into the tactical back and forth we’re used to. This is where Gears veterans may find themselves feeling as though Judgment is a step back.

The changes to multiplayer make FFA work as a valid mode – an all-against-all mode would have been awful in previous Gears outings – but the mode itself isn’t really compelling enough to make up for the loss of traditional Gears gameplay.

Co-Operative Not Competitive

To counter this, the Horde mode side of multiplayer has been buffed up, so Overrun and Survival are now arguably the stars of the show.

This is where the class system really comes into play. You can choose between Medic (heals team-mates), Scout (snipers and throws scouting grenades), Soldier (gives ammo) and Engineer (set-ups sentry and repairs fences). Soldier is arguably the only indispensable class because ammo refills are essential but the fun comes from the unique team set-up your team has, depending on the make-up of the group and watching everyone find their role.

So while the competitive side of Judgment feels as though it has taken a step back, the co-operative side has taken a huge step forward.

The weeks and months ahead will see the Gears community determine how successful Judgment’s multiplayer is  but those who found previous Gears titles difficult to get into – something Epic has often admitted has been a real problem – will find Judgment as friendly as the series can possibly get without really compromising itself.

The Best Gears Yet?

People Can Fly has done a great job of keeping Gears Of War: Judgment fresh and relevant with next-gen looming on the horizon, and shown real bravery with the multiplayer that at the very least pays off with the co-operative elements.

The high score ethos that runs through Judgment keeps veterans from feeling as though they're going through the motions but the real success here is that the studio seems to have solved something Epic never could - multiplayer is accessible to newcomers.

The standard has been set high through the series and Gears Of War: Judgment doesn't let the side down. Although it doesn't have the bombast of Gears Of War 3 or impact of the orginal in the series, it's still very good for single-player and great for those who will play it with friends.

It’s funny how things come full circle. When Uncharted released back in 2007, it carved itself a new fanbase thanks to the fact it took parts of the Tomb Raider formula and did it better.

Now, Tomb Raider has been rebooted, cribbing its platforming and gunplay straight from Naughty Dog’s action-adventure series – and adding its own depth and individuality on top. From a gameplay perspective, it’s better than the series which stole its thunder thanks to stealing back its innovations and putting its own spin on them. Uncharted out-tombed Tomb, now Tomb is (in some ways) out-Uncharting Uncharted. Circle of life.

From the moment Lara finds herself on a dark, foreboding island in the middle of the sea, the game blends set-pieces, shoot-outs, exploration and puzzling with near-perfect pacing and variety. 

One moment, you’re clearing a room full of goons using the bow and arrow for headshots, the next you’re scaling a cliff-face with a pick-axe, zip-lining across yawning chasms and piecing together puzzles, all while searching for treasures, relics and other XP-boosting collectibles.

She's A QTE

One early sequence sees Lara stealthing  up a mountain path, grabbing enemies from behind and slipping arrows into their skulls without being seen.

Then the action leads straight into a QTE-driven wrestle with a knife-wielding killer. 

Whether steering Lara through a raging river or swerving debris along a manic cliff-face slide, or even paragliding through a jungle of evergreens, Lara certainly gets into a few scrapes. 

In fact, it always feels like the game has another surprise around the corner. For every few moments you spend shooting or puzzling, you’re treated to several adrenaline-pumping segues which push Lara from one area to the next. 

These set-pieces make the game feel more dynamic, lending proceedings a relentless pacing, delightful in the variety they inject.

Linear Croft

Game progression feels linear, with Lara being funneled through fairly set paths, especially during set-pieces or shoot-outs. 

But then, every so often the game lets go of your hand and leaves you free to roam the area. 

Here, though progression is linear (there’s always a ‘way to go’ to find the next clipscene), several of the environments are built to be fairly open, packed with multiple platforms, hidden paths, optional tombs, collectible relics, treasures and GPS caches to find.

Platforming is a joy, with jumps, ledges, bits of plane and cliff-faces all explorable. But it doesn’t just retread what we’ve seen before; Lara’s pick-axe allows her to scale sheer cliffs, while balance is important – mis-time a jump and you’ll have to hit X to regain grip. It’s a little change, but it feels slightly more nuanced as a result.

Each area has at least one ‘base camp’, allowing Lara to fast-travel back to previously-explored parts of the map, Red Dead Redemption style.

Base Boosters

Base camps are also where Lara upgrades her weapons and skills. These hidden collectibles (as well as kills) give Lara XP to spend on new abilities.

These can be anything from new ways to use weapons, to hunting talents and such.

Similarly, collectible ‘salvage’ can be found on enemies and scattered in boxes across environments, which can also be spent on weapon upgrades.

The system lends the game an extra level of depth, a slightly RPG-esque feel which gives Tomb Raider a depth beyond other action-adventure titles.

This nuance extends to Lara’s survival ability.

With a press of the left bumper, the picture darkens and swooshes a radius of discovery around our heroine, revealing which ledges can be climbed, highlighting enemies and creating a beacon in the distance to mark the next objective. The ability is a boon both to environment traversal and puzzle-solving.

The island setting itself is gorgeous; a dark, dangerous world filled with menace; sheer cliffs, enemy bases and shanty-town settlements. 

From the vast mountain peaks covered with snow to the lush jungles teeming with live deer Lara can hunt for XP, the world is varied and interesting.

Quality Over Quantity

It’s also fairly small, with few ways to move between each area.

This is not an open sandbox, but a collection of linear levels laid end to end, often (but not always) linked up. This is a game Crystal Dynamics want to you wring every drop from; find every last collectible in every level, learn the placement of each ledge, platform and puzzle and comb all the environments for unlocks and achievements. 

It’s a different approach to many games, but one which works well here, highlighting the strengths of the quality over quantity argument and creating a freedom not seen in other linear action-adventurers like Uncharted or Enslaved.

Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the title, though, is its gunplay.

Lara’s arsenal is simple: stock pistol, rifle, shotgun, arrows.

But complexity comes in the secondary abilities of each weapon, and the upgrades which can be added to them. 

The shotgun can be used to blast away debris which blocks some paths, the rifle can fire grenades with the right bumper and the bow can be upgraded to shoot flaming arrows (perfect for firey headshots, or for certain puzzles) as well as rope.

Upgrades come in the form of quicker reloading, better damage, bigger clips and gun-related ‘finishers’ (e.g. hit Y to finish a hurt enemy with a close-range pistol to the temple).

This is a weapon set which has clearly been carefully chosen, each one adding something different to shoot-outs as well as contributing to the puzzle and exploration side of things.

Roping You In

The rope-firing ability of the bow is the most versatile. 

Many environments are peppered with bits of rope tied to or hanging from ledges, posts and cliff-faces.

Firing rope arrows into these, Lara can create zip-lines, climbable rope-wires and pull objects towards her.

This is mixed right into puzzles: often you’ll need to shoot a rope arrow into something to change its position or location and set a chain reaction in motion.

It lends a physics-based element to puzzling, allowing Crystal to do something different with a lot of the solutions, forcing you to think about how to use fire, rope and good ol’-fashioned shotgun blasts in equal measure to progress

These puzzles also use the island’s weather. Often, you’ll be forced to contend with howling gusts of wind ripping through an environment.

This wind interacts with objects, adding another twist to what might be otherwise simple head-scratchers.

While no puzzles are particularly taxing, the environments’ traits, combined with the various tools at Lara’s disposal, keep things fairly varied throughout the game.

Naturally, as one of the most iconic characters in gaming, there's just one thing some fans will want to know: how Crystal Dynamics has reworked Lara Croft.

Angel Of Indecision

The answer is: with mixed results. 

Lara 2013 is probably the most believable interpretation of the character yet, but Crystal has still got a few things to learn about creating compelling people.

At least to begin with, Lara is more grounded, more real. She feels a bit like Bond did in Casino Royale; human, fallible, forced into situations which test her to her limits – not just a killer for the sake of it.

Lara has just the right blend of fortitude and femininity, mixed with a vulnerability that makes her feel like she’s living on the edge, making kills because she has to, not that she necessarily wants to. 

About halfway through the game, Lara finds herself crashing into another deep dungeon, before dusting herself off and exclaiming ‘I hate Tombs’. 

Much like Bond’s ‘Do I look like I give a damn’? shaken/stirred moment, it’s clearly an attempt to distance the character from her past, marking her out as different. 

But because the game is fairly poor at portraying character development, it just comes off as painfully transparent, with all the subtlety of a flaming arrow to the face. 

In fact, the one real let-down of the title is in its cutscenes and character building. 

You simply don’t care about Lara and her crew that much, even though the underlying story is pretty decent (though it does end up veering off in a direction at odds with its gritty opening).

The voice acting here is also so-so, the script uninspiring and the character animation nowhere near Naughty Dog standards. 

Though the groundwork has been laid for a better script next time out –and we definitely do want to see this Lara again – it all lacks a little dynamism. 

Caught Napping

When fellow crew member Sam is kidnapped, we found it hard to muster any motivation to save her. Of course, we had to, but we didn’t feel the thrill of suspense pushing us on. 

Her character is bland and under-developed, as is much of the rest of the supporting cast: middle-aged scientist, token beefy dude, nerdy guy with ‘Esc’ Key t-shirt… stop us if you’ve heard it before.

Lara’s believability as a character also wanes the more abilities you unlock.

By the game’s end, Lara’s hot-swapping rifle and shotty, putting the gun barrel to an enemy’s face and blasting his brains out for an ‘expert rifle kill!’. 

Of course, those gameplay elements, mostly through upgrades, are brilliant fun, but they do somewhat take away from the picture the game paints of Lara as vulnerable, making her seem more and more like a ruthless, cold-hearted killer the more upgrades you can unlock. 

Uncharted knows this and never hands Drake so much power that he enjoys his kills, but Tomb Raider gets the balance slightly wrong, even if it helps make the game more complex than that other series.

But despite these story gripes, this new Tomb Raider is still a leap in the right direction from a gameplay perspective.

Each gameplay mechanic is simply top-notch and easily the rival of any other action adventure title, taking well-worn ideas and adding a layer of depth and individuality which makes them feel like a step forward, cribbing from current genre kings, baking in more complexity and wrapping it all up in a presentation which still feels like classic Tomb Raider.

Tomb Raider 2013 gives the series a fantastic new start, which is exactly what the reboot should feel like for this all-new Lara Croft – just the beginning.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

Put simply, Crysis 3 is mundane. It probably doesn't seem it looking at the visuals, but as a game there's very little holding it all together.

There's no doubting Crysis 3 is a good quality game; Crytek has put a lot of effort into crafting a visually arresting shooter, that's guaranteed.

Crytek just seems to have forgotten to put the game in there.

But first, the graphics. Even on Xbox 360 this is one of the best looking games of the generation; on PC, it's next-gen before it even begins.

There's no denying that it makes the experience all the more entertaining: the visual awe of navigating these gorgeously crafted and uniquely designed areas never waivers.

Well, until the final level that is. That section is unnecessary, ridiculous and uninspiring. In keeping with the series at least, if nothing else.

Best of all is the openness to these environments. It's not quite as open-world as the original Crysis but the scale is huge all the same.

Initally you're funneled through corridors in the first level, but once things start going the environments really begin to feel open with what seems like multiple tangents or diversions.

Even if you're choosing overt confrontation, you'll only survive if you make use of the stealth cloak and bow.

The truth is, though, that this isn't quite the case; there are barriers of some form in each level and if you like to search the worlds of your videogames then you'll soon begin to spot the limitations in its design.

And if you're hunting for those collectables and intel, you'll find these barriers all the more.

The openness does affect the gameplay in two ways, one positive and one negative.

The freedom to explore a situation as you see fit should always be praised, and Crytek has handled it well with Crysis 3.

In a similar fashion to Batman: Arkham Asylum, you'll battle through individual areas, each a contained instance in their own right.

With Crysis 3, however, you'll be given the option to tackle a group of enemies however you please: silently takedown individual soldiers, run in guns ablazing or simply sneak through them completely.

Thanks Crytek, for giving us the choice.

The trouble is, these environments are a little too large now. It worked in Crysis because it was open-world, it was much easier bypassing situations if that's what you wanted.

The bow is hugely overpowered: one-shot kills and invisibility means few things can get in your way.

In Crysis 3 you're forced into overcoming the obstacle, whether you want to or not.

If you're playing in a stealthy fashion this is even more of a pain, because if you're forced into combat and end up dying you'll need to repeat the whole process again - which is a bugger when the areas are so large.

The best example of this openness is actually towards the end, where you're given three objectives in a huge enivornment and the freedom to combat them however you wiish. This is what the entirety of Crysis 3 should be about.

You have the ability to tag enemies too, as you did in Crysis 2. While it is still optional, these environments are so large it takes much more work to track them. But it's a necessity just to avoid getting spotted.

And you will get spotted. A lot.

Unfortunately the AI hasn't had much work done to it from the issues in Crysis 2. While they can better handle the superpowers of Prophet, they just as often throw grenades at each other instead of you. A hilarious but unforgivable flaw.

The worst part is their hawkeyed talent for spotting you. It doesn't matter how far the distance is, if you're in the line of sight of a guard they will spot you immediately.

This is one of the best looking games of the generation. Easily.

Should your stealth cloak run out in the middle of nowhere, your enemies won't be startled or surprised but will immediately open fire. No questions asked.

Crysis 3 might have next-gen graphics, but it doesn't have next-gen AI. Whatever that means.

And that's about all Crysis 3 does that's new - and in the grand schemes of things even that isn't that new.

Everything else is more of the same. This is Crysis, and for some of you that's all you needed to know. It's a visual spectacle, a showcase of polygons and textures but beyond that it's not much more.

In fact the best the game has to offer is over after the first couple of missions, and even those don't really provide much in the way of excitement.

Crysis 3 just becomes a slog of one arena after another, and though the nanosuit continues to keep you feeling like the superhuman warrior you are it still feels like more of the same.

In a lot of ways it's reminiscent of the Killzone series, where the second in the franchise was the more finely-honed game, building on the ideas set before it in the original.

This level is just one example of Crysis 3's uninspiring level design.

But much like Killzone 3, Crytek's latest Crysis is all show. It's more of the same and while it's enjoyable enough as a shooter, it doesn't really provide much new or compelling.

It's hard to really pinpoint what's wrong with Crysis 3, but then if it wasn't for the graphics there'd be very little reason to continue playing at all. It just feels mundane.

It's enjoyable at its core, but that's not enough. We need a bit more originality from our games, and if we don't acknowledge that then the next-gen of gaming is going to be very depressing indeed.

Crysis 3 is proof that a good quality game crammed with fancy graphics is enough to see you through to the end, but you still need a little more depth if you're going to truly appreciate it.

As much as we're loathe to admit it, FPS games need a little more spectacle outside of the graphics. We're not asking for more explosions or Michael Bay levels of action, but all shooters need a bit of showmanship if they want to standout.

And Crysis 3 doesn't do a good enough job of that.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

This review only takes into account the first two chapters of The Tyranny Of King George.

Assassin’s Creed 3 is one of the biggest games Ubisoft has ever produced, but despite its size and grandeur there were elements that didn’t quite come together.

NowGamer's original review went some way to explain just why Assassin’s Creed 3’s ‘buffet’ experience struggled to come together as well as it had done in the past, despite the third game in the series clearly offering some of the series’ best moments.

There was pure gold contained within Assassin’s Creed 3, it was just unfortunately nestled between a lot of very average gameplay.

But, Ubisoft has proven it can learn and apply changes to the Assassin’s Creed template. Assassin’s Creed 2 is evidence of this, but unlike its spin-off sequels Brotherhood and Revelations, The Tyranny Of King George is approaching things in its own, very different, way.

Divided into three chunks – The Infamy, The Betrayal and The Redemption – The Tyranny Of King George takes Connor out of the standard timeline and dumps him in an alternate reality. One where his mother is still alive, magical powers are a part of the warrior’s journey and George Washington has proclaimed himself King with the help of the Apple of Eden.

Things couldn’t be more different from Connor’s adventures in Assassin’s Creed 3, but can Ubisoft’s clear experimentation with the staple gameplay translate into something interesting or will magical powers, alternate timelines and evil Kings be a step too far?

According to Assassin's Creed 3's DLC George Washington is really mean. Look at him stabbing Connor in the heart.

The Infamy & The Betrayal

It’s immediately clear that Ubisoft is having a little bit of fun with the Assassin’s Creed form in The Tyranny Of King George. Having already revealed that the DLC’s kooky narrative is still very much part of the series canon and with Connor aware that’s something changed, the self contained story of The Tyranny Of King George could have far reaching effects in establishing the future of the series.

But in the here and now Connor has to deal with the madness of King George and what’s immediately evident is just how little things have actually changed. One of Assassin’s Creed 3’s major criticisms was the appearance of linearity, the perception that the game’s narrative was leading players by the nose through its levels, giving little opportunity for exploration.

It’s a perception that unfortunately hasn’t been addressed. Despite there being many opportunities to explore off the beaten path, there’s never really any incentive. Which is strange because The Tyranny Of King George, on the surface at least, is all about experimenting and giving players new incentives and gameplay.

George Washington might be ruling over America with an iron fist afforded by the mystical powers of the Apple of Eden, but Connor is granted a few new gifts of his own. Returning to his native roots each chapter in The Tyranny Of King George brings with it a new magical ability that Connor can exploit in battle.

After completing sky walks, in which Connor explores the boundaries between the perceived world and that of the Animus, he gains:

• Wolf Cloak
• Eagle Flight
• Bear Might

Essentially, these are magical powers and it’s these gameplay hooks that really give The Tyranny Of King George its edge.

In the first chapter Connor can turn invisible and call on a pack of wolves to take out a number of assailants and things only get stranger from there. 

It's an interesting idea, but Ubisoft doesn’t ever truly take advantage of Connor’s new abilities and instead presents missions and scenarios that feel like they’ve been lifted from the main campaign.

The DLC's new abilities don't really change the gameplay that much, but do give the player the opportunity to have a little fun.

You’ll perform much the same role in battle as you always have with the innovation left to the deft narrative flights of fancy and the occasional dream sequences. Overall, The Tyranny Of King George’s interesting premise appears to be exclusive to its cutscenes rather than presenting the player with a totally unique environment.

Though you’ll traverse the same locations as the main game, there’s only ever a light sprinkling of new details to absorb. The odd poster here, some dead bodies there; it rarely, if ever, feels like the world is suffering under the rule of a maniacal dictator.  

It is interesting to see some of American history’s most well-known Patriots warped into moustache-twirling bad guys, though. Even if the world itself seems largely unaffected by the tumultuous changes. It feels more like a dream and unconnected to the wider fiction, despite Ubisoft’s insistence that it is indeed canon.    

Quite why nobody seems alarmed by an ethereal pack of wolves appearing from thin air and attacking people highlights this disconnection. As the chapters progress this only seems to worsen with Connor learning how to turn into an eagle to fly between buildings quickly appearing ludicrous with no one reacting to this incredibly feat.

The problem is, the gameplay implications of Connor’s new abilities largely sit well within the open-world gameplay remit. Eagle Flight is essentially Batman’s grapple hook from Arkham City and the promise of Chapter 3’s Bear Might will hopefully give players the ability to smash their way through the inevitable battles.

Each DLC chapter has one main setpiece to get your blood flowing, but they're nothing you won't have already seen.

But nothing feels weighted in reality or even the highly twisted version of reality that Assassin’s Creed has always presented. The Tyranny Of King George offers more of the same and feels lightweight while doing it.

But there’s a level of quality here that can’t be ignored, even if Ubisoft’s storytelling relies far too heavily on the cutscene rather than the world itself. The first two chapters offer an extensive adventure that raises serious questions regarding how the Animus can present the past, Desmond’s demise and what on earth is actually going on.

All of these questions will be answered in the third and final chapter, according to Ubisoft. It’s just a shame that The Tyranny Of King George doesn’t further exploit what is the perfect excuse to go to town and offer somet gameplay that's really different.

As it stands the first two chapters are merely interesting diversions that remind players of both why they loved and hated aspects of Assassin’s Creed 3. Where Ubisoft goes from here, though, could be very interesting indeed.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

How can Gearbox go from Borderlands 2 to Aliens: Colonial Marines? What happened?

At its very core Aliens: Colonial Marines misinterprets Cameron’s ‘Vietnam movie in space’, shows little regard to the innovations of the FPS genre and just down right walks all over the Aliens canon to such a degree that fans of the film will have a hard time comprehending just what Gearbox were thinking.

And that’s the real question that many will come away with after playing through Aliens: Colonial Marines; how can Gearbox go from Borderlands 2 to this? The answer comes within seconds of the credits beginning as Colonial Marines is announced as a ‘Gearbox presents’ title and a list of other, lesser, studios is reeled off underneath it.

Aliens: Colonial Marines doesn't really feel like a Gearbox game in the same sense that Borderlands 2 is. Billing itself as the official sequel to Cameron’s film, Colonial Marines’ story is Fox sanctioned and now an integral part of the Weyland-Yutani, Ridley-Xenomorph and Prometheus-Engineer story and it goes out of its way to throw a spanner in the works.

Though Ridley Scott’s Prometheus provides only tangible links to the original Alien series, Colonial Marines attempts to join the sagas together in the clumsy manner that many videogame licences have attempted over the years.

The story isn’t clever, it’s not subtle and adds nothing other than planet-sized plot holes that are explained away with a wave of the hand as merely ‘long stories’ too lengthy to explain within the game itself.

The Alien series has seen its fair share of diluting as games, movies, books and comics have all taken a slice of the first two movies and attempted to spin-off in entirely new directions, Aliens Vs Predator being the obvious and worse culprit. Gearbox had the opportunity to reset and re-engage with Colonial Marines and deliver a game that for many had always been in the back of their minds.

But that simply isn’t the case. The awkward plot could be ignored if Aliens: Colonial Marines’ gameplay captured the frantic survival horror action that Cameron’s movie so perfectly envisages. It’s clear within minutes of the game beginning that Gearbox hasn’t found a satisfactory way to merge horror, action and squad-based gameplay together in Colonial Marines, despite the licence appearing to be the perfect fit for it.

Whether it’s because Aliens has been continual referenced in games since its release – be it in Halo, Borderlands or literally every sci-fi FPS ever – Colonial Marines fails to balance Xenomorph scares with its below average standard military combat. Gameplay here never rises above mediocre.

What’s immediately obvious is just how overpowered the player is. Even playing alone on the hardest difficulty level, Aliens: Colonial Marines is a walk in the park. Neither the human or alien enemies prove to be anything more than bullet sponges with the most basic AI and it’s such a shame.

Over the years we’ve become accustomed to Giger’s Xenomorph failing to embody the same primal terror it so clearly imbues in the films and we’re now completely accepting that a rifle butt to the face of one of these creatures is enough to fend them off – which is totally incorrect if the movies are to be believed.

Combat lacks the tension needed and largely provided for by the Xenomorph resulting instead to one note spray and pray encounters.

Cameron’s Aliens might not have had quite the same majesty of Ridley’s original, but they still managed to decimate the marines silly enough to wander into Hadley’s Hope.

Gearbox attempts to inject some life into things by providing different types of Xenomorphs – Spitters, Crushers and other zombie-like Aliens that explode if you get too close – but these all manage to upset the series verisimilitude as well as fail to provide satisfying gameplay.

There’s no concession to horror or tension in Aliens: Colonial Marines. It isn’t enough to just re-create Cameron’s sets and hope the memories of the film are able to carry players through. Forcing you to lift up the iconic motion tracker to hunt down threats is an interesting way to instil tension and remain in touch with the film, but like much of the Aliens nostalgia references, it’s under utilised.

Aliens: Colonial Marines never goes beyond simply providing it as an option. It doesn’t give the player any reason to use their motion tracker and when enemies rarely surprise you, you’ll quickly forget that it’s even there.

It simply isn’t fun fighting Xenomorphs and it certainly isn’t very scary. Though Gearbox does create a reasonably tight close quarters FPS experience, it also continually places enemies out of the reach of your weapons or in the human’s case, behind cover. Nowhere is it more evident that Gearbox didn’t know how to merge the Aliens fan service with a competent FPS than in the forced ways to asks players to engage with the Weyland-Yutani mercenaries.

It’s also surprising to see that much of what Gearbox touted as Colonial Marines’ innovative gameplay, the co-op Left 4 Dead-styled gameplay, the ‘last stand’ setpieces that require players to weld doors and setup turrets, is practically none existent.

Aliens: Colonial Marines is a basic FPS with corridors, be they small interiors or large exteriors that do little but funnel streams of easy to dispatch enemies at you.

The Alien architecture can at times look impressive, but it's probably because the rest of the game is poorly realised visually it's just the contrast tricking our eyes.

And that’s what’s most disappointing; Gearbox has shown it has a fundamental understanding of the FPS genre and how to exploit it to get great results, but Aliens: Colonial Marines’ gameplay couldn’t be further from something like Borderlands 2.

Even the inclusion of XP and weapon upgrades fail to give your guns a real tactical advantages and even manage to change the classic appearance of the weapons removing the nostalgia value entirely.

It’s clear that over Aliens: Colonial Marines’ lengthy development process the original vision for the game has been lost. Levels and gameplay events shown at preview stage have been removed and with an ending that rushes to the finish line without thinking twice, it’s obvious that elements of the game have been left on the cutting room floor.

What’s left, though competent enough to provide a distracting FPS experience, is bland and technically rough around the edges. Screen tearing, texture pop-in and a visual style that only ever really does a good job at capturing the alien environments and nothing else, so much here misses the mark.

Aliens: Colonial Marines is a colossal missed opportunity.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

Our biggest fear when finishing DMC: Devil May Cry was you. Well, not you, but the Royal You: the wider internet that, for reasons unfathomable by a sensible, normal-thinking human being, has decided it hates the new DMC.

And you, Mr Joe Internet, should not hate DMC.

Ninja Theory has done an excellent job with Capcom’s seemingly most-treasured franchise, not only in keeping it firmly rooted in the past, but giving it a modern appeal at the same time.

And Dante – even with his black hair – is one of the reasons Ninja Theory has done such a good job. Truth be told this isn’t the same Dante you remember and that no doubt makes you weep silly little tears, but hear us out.

Dante is a character. Obviously we don’t mean he is a character, instead that he is a character, managing to stand out in a game where demons yell expletives at every possible turn. And that’s no easy task.

He’s crude, aggressive and full to the brim with puns – which, thinking about it, is actually a lot like the original Dante – with a particular highlight being the moment when Dante taunts a multi-storey car park of a boss by calling him an asshole.

It’s not funny because rude words make us laugh (they do), nor is it in the delivery. Instead it’s the context: that Dante’s favourite way to start a battle is to refer to his aggressor as a person’s southern-most orifice. That is who this new Dante is, and it’s hard not to love him.

Check out one full (awesome) level of DMC: Devil May Cry.

So if that’s the issue of New Dante answered, then, what about combat? Well there’s no worry here. It’s a considered system that’s as open to experimentation as it is entertainment.

By utilising three different weapons (not including Ebony and Ivory) combat is awash with opportunities. Heavier Hell weapons break shields and deal damage, while the Heaven equivalent are about managing crowds and keeping those enemy juggles in the air as long as possible.

All this ties into the basic sword – the Rebellion – making for a system ripe for opportunities to combo your way around a battle arena. It’s slick, open to interpretation and – most of all – a lot of fun.

New enemies are introduced consistently throughout DMC: Devil May Cry too, meaning you’ve always got something new to learn. As the tougher enemies start to appear, your grasp of the combat system will need to evolve.

Add in the increasingly inventive ways of adding in different hazards that force you to rethink a strategy and you've got a beat-'em-up capable of sitting alongside the best.

Yet while you can simply D-Rank every battle by tapping Y over and over again, doing so will take more time. Using the combat system to its fullest will see you obliterate enemies and, really, isn’t that what DMC was always about?

The inventiveness of the levels wanes a little towards the end, but by that point you're already hooked.

The ability unlock system is a little superfluous admittedly, offering only a handful of new combos and instead providing subtle – and usually unnoticeable – damage upgrades or tweaked effects.

But then adding too many new combos would overcomplicate the system, and we can’t imagine restricting the majority basic combos behind unnecessary unlock gates would have made the game quite as fun to play as it is.

In other words, that’s not really a criticism.

Combat is spliced together by bouts of platforming, and this is where elements of Ninja Theory’s Enslaved really start to shine through. The balance is spot on, so you’re never double-jumping for too long without slicing open a demon or two.

The platformng sections become increasingly challenging too, which is surprising considering it really only relies on the use of a grabby whip and a pullly whip – which, by the way, aren’t their official terms.

Most interesting are the levels themselves, which manage to provide something genuinely unique even after all these years. Ninja Theory’s interpretation of Limbo provides some honest-to-god standout moments that really highlight the developer’s penchant for creativity.

There’s little like it in the series before, and if this is a tease of things to come – whether DMC or otherwise – we should all expect great things from Ninja Theory in the future.

Knowing what attacks to use and when is important in later battles.

The addition of collectables, too, means there’s plenty of scope to explore the otherwise linear levels, while ability unlocks require you to go back into previous levels if you want to collect everything and complete all the challenge rooms.

But then going back and playing the game is almost expected with DMC. In all honesty the initial highest difficulty – Nephilim – isn’t all that difficult, and will be easily completed by anyone even remotely familiar with the genre.

Luckily further difficulties provide a wealth of options to those really wishing to test themselves, whether it’s Son Of Sparda’s more resilient enemies and harder enemy waves or Hell And Hell mode, which sees Dante vanquished with a single hit.

Nephilim, then, is the training session. The standard range of enemies to teach you the mechanics of each of Dante’s arsenal, as well as the possible encounters you could face and how to beat them.

On harder difficulties bosses even include additional attack patterns, just to mix things up for you. It is in the tougher modes where DMC really shines.

So outside of the characters, the world and the fancy facial motion capture, it is this that is the real benefit of having the Enslaved team work on DMC: Devil May Cry.

Earning S-Rank isn't mandatory, but it does make you feel like a boss.

It’s not obtusely difficult, meaning anyone – yes, including you – can play DMC: Devil May Cry. The options are there for anyone who wants a challenge, but at its base level this is open to as many players as possible and that’s really what Capcom needs for the franchise.

Which brings us right back to our initial point. Ninja Theory’s reboot of Devil May Cry is better than anyone expected, ourselves included, and if it doesn’t sell well because of some misplaced nostalgic love of the franchise then we’re seriously very worried for the games industry.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

Governed by a stealth-based campaign, Dishonored managed to persuade players into a more considered approach when tackling certain tasks or enemies.

Of course, you could run in and create a blood bath, but this would in turn impact on the city and your story. Powers you could improve upon focused on discretely despatching targets, manoeuvring around buildings, and even possessing the mind of guards or rats to reach objectives.

The Dunwall City Trials DLC includes 10 challenges, ranging throughout the various skill sets of the main game. There are in total three combat-based challenges, three movement, two puzzle, and strangely only two stealth-centred tasks.

-    Mystery Foe
-    Burglary
-    Bend Time Massacre
-    Kill Chain
-    Back Alley Brawl
-    Assassin's Run
-    Oil Drop
-    Bonfire
-    Train Runner
-    Kill Cascade

Within each you are awarded points based on how well you deliver, while also being faced with a timer. Online leaderboards determine how well you fare against friends, which could add for some competition if you’re that way inclined.

Through the dream-like design of the levels, you can attempt to utilise abilities that you might not have chosen to level up in your main game, which can make for some interesting effects.

The first of the stealth challenges, Mystery Foe, requires you to find four clues, to inevitably find and assassinate an unknown target somewhere on the map. Points are given depending on how little you get spotted by guards or civilians, and how few clues you need to find the correct person.

This is one of the only trials that really encompasses the Dishonored ideals of the main game, and creates plenty of replayability by generating a different scenario each time. Burglary also requires all your furtiveness, as you sneak around a mansion, looting six golden eggs, along with other valuable items along the way.

You can only get spotted by patrolling guards a maximum of three times, giving the element of competition as less sightings and takedowns mean more points at the end of the challenge.

It would have been a slightly more appealing DLC for those who enjoy the main premise of the game to include more of this type of challenge, rather than speed trials and combat rounds, but then again these do play on the other gameplay aspects that the game implemented at times. Puzzle-based Bend Time Massacre requires the player to scope out the best vantage point from the outside of a building, to take out the people inside.

Once a window is smashed and you enter the room, the time slows and points are given for the style and speed of your assassinations. While this is based on slow-down, Kill Chain is based solely on keeping a chain of attack going in the quickest time possible. Back Alley Brawl delivers a wave-based survival arena, in which you find upgrades and abilities between rounds.

This is a far stretch from the skilful, quiet attacks that the main game pushes, and the DLC struggles to really make this mode a believable addition. In Assassin’s Run you are equipped with a crossbow and nothing more, and the aim is to run through an area, taking out every guard as you do, while Oil Drop is a simplistic shooting range, in which you must shoot barrels falling through the sky.

Bonfires, Train Runner and Kill Cascade are movement based, testing your Blink skills to reach checkpoints, scale obstacles, and produce interesting drop assassinations.

While Dunwall City Trials offers a nice stop gap between the main campaign and future story missions to be released in early 2013, the majority of the challenges may only appeal to those with a need to blast through time-trials or better their friends.

It lacks the narrative that creates intensity through the original missions, but then again it does push towards trying new abilities that might not have been used in a playthrough.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

Halo 4 may have had a few issues getting its first multiplayer DLC out the door, but the Crimson Pack is finally available for download.

With Spartan Ops now experiencing its mid-season break, heading back to our screens early next year, it’s down to Halo 4’s multiplayer to keep us entertained.

If you haven’t purchased Halo 4’s season pass then the Crimson Map Pack will set you back 800 Microsoft Points. 343 Industries has said that it has planned for Halo 4 to have a continuous flow of content over the next few months (and this is the first real taste of things to come).

Continuous content has been easily achieved with the free Spartan Ops missions and animated series keeping players busy, but what about competitive multiplayer fans? Well, now we have the first DLC for Halo 4 and it’s got a high quality bar to live up to.

Right now, you have the chance to choose the Crimson pack as a mode within Infinity all by itself. Do that and you’ll be thrown into matchmaking and given the choice of three maps and you’ll be randomly placed with three different game types:

• King Of The Hill
• Capture The Flag
• Odd Ball

They’re all heavily focused team-based modes that require groups of players to work together. But, do these maps really offer a battleground that can compete with the quality maps already part of Halo 4’s multiplayer experience?   

Here’s a breakdown of Crimson Pack’s maps:

Shatter

In keeping with the theme that 343 seems to have adopted for this first batch of Halo 4 DLC, Shatter, though set on an alien world, combines open spaces with plenty of cover with a few tight corridors and the odd building.

Shatter is big enough to house both the Mantis and a few Ghosts, though, so you can expect things to get explosive right from the off. Like  Harvest, Shatter is a medium sized map that offers a few excellent places to hide as well as a few strategically placed turrets.

The alien landscape offers a moody backdrop to the usual colourful explosions that are offered by the bulk of Halo 4’s multiplayer maps, but unlike the other maps found in Crimson Pack, Shatter offers a much more compelling  environment for multiple gametypes.

It’s unlikely to ever become your favourite map, but its focused design often forces players together and keeps matches flowing and that’s all you really need from any Halo map.

Wreckage

Wreckage is reminiscent of the Chief’s second campaign level. The one that sees him exploring the mess of twisted metal that is the remains of the Forward Unto Dawn and other Covenant ships.

Wreckage is a much smaller map than the other two that appear in Crimson Pack, despite still managing to get a few Warthogs on board. With small open spaces and an indoor structure that’s a complete nightmare to defend, this is definitely one of the more enjoyable maps.

The remains of a UNSC ship forms the main central ‘building’ and it has plenty of places to enter and exit if you're getting chased by a bunch of red guys. One thing that none of these maps seem to really focus on is elevation, which means anyone with a jetpack will find little opportunity of using it to their advantage.

Wreckage is small, fun and an easy way to wrack up tons of kills in a short space of time.

Harvest

Harvest presents itself as a vehicle-based level but with only a few open spaces and mainly confined areas for Warthogs and Ghosts, it can be difficult to really gain the upper hand with a vehicle.

This provides on-foot soldiers with a good opportunity of avoiding those tooscared to leave the safte of a Warthog. Not only does it present wide open spaces with enough cover to make running about on foot a viable option, but the vehicles become much more suited to covering bases and ensuring area dominance for a team.

Harvest is a collection of small rooms, occasional high walkways surrounded by the cover-based ground level. It’s not a huge map by any stretch and offers two seemingly symmetrical bases at either end, making this the favourite for Capture The Flag.

Harvest’s roads seem focused around the outer edges of the central buildings with a slight figure of eight set-up. Inside the central buildings a few corridors interlink and it’s a bit of a maze. Players on opposing teams either tend to run past each other oblivious to the enemies around them, or run right into each other causing a big fight.

Either way it produces some exciting Capture The Flag moments, but it’s hard to see how well this map truly fares with the other gametypes. It seems very focused on this one particular gametype at the cost of all others.

This is the first of many DLC packs, though, and maybe a tighter focus on how the maps work with certain gametypes will be enough to keep things interesting. With so few maps in this initial pack, that might be the way 343 is planning on structuring its future DLC for Halo 4.   

Right now though, Crimson Pack doesn't offering anything you can't already get from the standard maps already on the Halo 4 disc.

The notes scrawled down while playing Family Guy: Back To The Multiverse for review are as follows. “Racist stuff about Greeks.” “Joke about disabled people. Disablist? Look up word.” “Flying sperm.” “Cockfight with HUMANS.” “Sigh.”

That’s a pretty good starting point for this review – the humour. Being based on the TV show, you’d expect Family Guy: Back To The Multiverse to crowbar jokes in as frequently as possibly. There are rarely more than a few seconds of silence without some sort of offensive, racist or sexist remark being thrown at you.

Note the word ‘remark’. Not ‘joke’. Jokes are funny. These aren’t funny. Whether you like Family Guy’s humour or not is irrelevant. The writing here is horribly lazy, plumping for dick jokes and racist asides, being mildly uncomfortable at best and offensive at worst.

Family Guy is hardly high-brow humour, so there are bound to be some jokes that hit the mark with fans, but the hit-to-miss ratio in Back To The Multiverse is horribly tilted towards the latter. Shooting down the disabled in the second level leads to a ‘stand-up routine’ remark from Brian. Shooting chickens prompts a ‘I can choke chickens’ aside.

There are some who will feel this is misinterpreting Family Guy’s brand of humour. “Oh NowGamer, don’t be so sensitive! It’s funny! You just don’t get it!” But even if you do get it, being assaulted with constant attempts at offensive humour quickly becomes tiresome. Even reloading your gun is accompanied by “I’m reloading, you dick!”

And still, there’s time for jokes to be recycled. Remember that bit in Family Guy where Peter Griffin holds his knee and goes “argh!” over and over again? Or the bit where he fights a chicken? Of course you do. Everyone does. They’ve become synonymous with the show.

Hey! Guess what jokes made it into Back To The Multiverse? The bit where Peter Griffin holds his knee and goes “argh!” over and over again! And the bit where he fights a chicken!

As For The Game…

This is backed up by an incredibly uninspiring game, which isn’t particularly bad but so, so bland. It’s a third-person shooter where you switch between Stewie and Brian (or play as both in co-op) and work your way through bland levels full of bland enemies by firing bland weapons.

As you chase Bertram through the multiverse, you wind up among Amish, space chickens and dinosaurs. Yet besides cameos from Peter, Meg, Lois and the crew tucked away on each level and the odd flourish (sniping sections or lower gravity in space), there’s no real gameplay difference to tell them apart.

The lack of nuance to the shooting and abundance of collectibles gives Back To The Multiverse the stench of a PS2-era licensed title. Boss battles are passable. There aren’t any difficulty spikes. It’s about as inoffensive as you can get, which is ironic given the humour the gameplay is essentially a vehicle to serve jokes about cripples.

The whole thing is over and done with in about five hours. There are challenges to play through but this is where the difficulty ramps up significantly and becomes frustrating to work through. As you’re playing through the same levels again except with different characters and different objectives, challenge mode is easily ignored.

There’s also offline only multiplayer, where four-player split-screen is dedicated to Deathmatch, Capture The Greased Up Deaf Guy and so on. Because the third-person shooting from the main game isn’t awful – it’s bland rather than broken – multiplayer isn’t actually that bad.

The offensive humour from the main game is stripped away and having selectable characters beyond Stewie and Brian does a much better job of showing off the show’s personality – Meg attacking with her nails for melee attacks, Peter Griffin using his nailgun as a starting weapon and so on.

The lack of an online is a killer that reduces Family Guy’s multiplayer to little more than achievement hunting but it does make you think this game would have been far better positioned as a downloadable multiplayer-only title rather than a retail title with an awful single player attached.

Worst Game This Gen?

Family Guy: Back To The Multiverse isn’t in any danger of being the worst game this generation, not when the likes of Bomberman: Act Zero and Fuzion Frenzy 2 exist. But it is the modern day equivalent of BMX XXX, a game that peddles offensive material as its selling point in place of any gameplay that could be described as interesting or ambitious.

“Fire my body into the sun,” says Brian at one point, exasperated with Stewie’s constant abuse. It’s a feeling you can relate to all too quickly.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

Hideo Kojima’s Zone Of The Enders series is the very definition of a cult classic. The original game came bundled with the highly anticipated Metal Gear Solid 2 demo, and though it went on to receive middling reviews, its story and gameplay captured a devoted audience.

Kojima’s game told the story of a young boy who unwittingly falls into an advanced battle mech called Jehuty. It melded a Flight Of The Navigator narrative with some slick, combat-focused gameplay whose mission statement may have read: ‘Make it look like an anime.’

It was bold, different, and looking at it in HD, it’s easy to see that it hasn’t aged particularly well.

We’ve been treated to a number of different kinds of HD clean-ups to old games over the last year or so, from the highly successful ports of Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid series to 343 Industries’ inconsistent overhaul of the original Halo.

It’s obvious that some games can come out of the process worse off if the HD-ing up of the visuals goes wrong.

What’s interesting about Zone Of The Enders HD Collection is that it just about manages to stay on the right side of sprucing up the game’s rough edges without making for an experience that’s too far removed from the original game. This works well for Zone Of The Enders and absolutely brilliantly for its much-improved sequel.

So much action, and it never stops. You won't be bored watching someone played ZOE HD.

The original is certainly showing its age. It has the customary reliance on CGI cut-scenes, which have thankfully also been given some work, and suffers from Kojima’s love for overly long cinematic interludes, but it’s a product of its time and it’s fascinating to go back and play a game that was trying something different.

After young Leo falls into Jehuty, players are treated to a level structure that sees them flying over the city and choosing areas to visit as the pair try to get the mech back to its rightful owners and off to a mission on Mars.

It’s in these areas that Jehuty shows just how powerful it is. Though the draw distance remains as limited as it originally was, the game’s combat is just as slick as we remember it, and it’s curious that no one has tried to replicate its style since.

Locking on to enemies, Jehuty has a range of attacks that are so fast that anyone watching you play will wonder how you’re able to keep up with the action.

The same issues that reviewers complained about on its release are still prevalent, though. The camera’s awkward in the large open levels and a total nightmare indoors.

The visuals, though unique and obviously looking their best here, are hampered by the technical limitations of the day, but ultimately Zone Of The Enders feels like the warm-up act to the true experience, and that is its sequel, The 2nd Runner.

The original game has a great visual style to it, but the limitations of its tech show up far more than the second game.

Kojima’s original game, when compared to its sequel, looks like a proof of concept. With a HD gloss, The 2nd Runner is the real reason why Konami’s pack deserves attention, no matter how nostalgic we feel towards the quirky, flawed original game.

This time its Dingo’s turn to stumble into Jehuty. A miner with a dark past, he finds Jehuty buried in the ice on Mars, presumably where it has remained dormant after the battle Leo was helping deliver it to.

To say that lessons were learnt and applied to Zone Of The Enders’ sequel is putting things lightly – this is a better game in every conceivable way.

Kojima passed the development torch to Shuyo Murata, who was given the task of making The 2nd Runner appear like it was running a console generation ahead of the first game.

A tall order and one he achieved by giving The 2nd Runner a cel-shaded visual style, far grander levels freed of the limited draw distance, and full-blown anime cut-scenes instead of the CG of the first game.

The visual leap is incredible and the new style helped launch the series’ Japanese TV show, but it’s the special effects during battle that, when shown off in HD, are really impressive.

The camera can be a pain in closer areas like this.

It’s amazing to think the PS2 could handle such spectacle. High Voltage Software, which has handled the port, has done the right thing and let the HD visuals speak for themselves and, as we’ve said before, that’s the most respectful way of preserving the older generation of games.

That’s not to say that this pack is without its issues even beyond the original criticisms of the games themselves.

There’s a slight issue with the frame rate on each game, which stutters during the busier moments. Long-standing fans might find this unacceptable, but witnessing Zone Of The Enders brought to life in glorious HD is reason enough to let such occasional irritations slide.

It’s a joy to see such games given a new lease on life. There’s really no excuse to see frame rate issues spoil what is very nearly a perfect conversion, but it’s a price worth paying to see Jehuty fly again.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

Far Cry 3 is alive, and playing Ubisoft Montreal's open world shooter we're plunged into a colourful living, wonderland buzzing with possibilities.

It's an arguably rare achievement; while open world designers often attempt to create places of wonder and whisk you away from humdrum reality, sadly all too often technical limitations or clashes between narrative and open world gameplay mean few manage it totally convincingly.

In Far Cry 3, however Ubisoft has crafted a believable, living open word and not only provided myriad ways to enjoy it, but imbued its gameplay with a deeper sense of player agency that helps immerse you in its tropical climes and exciting revenge drama adventure.

The foundation of that experience is the depth and scale of the huge open world on the fictional Asian Pacific island of Rook itself, and we haven't played in as involving a game world since Skyrim. Filled with vast tropical forests, volcanic mountain ranges,lush grasslands and rivers that feed waterfalls and lakes there are vast possibilities for exploration as you uncover hidden towns and settlements, ruined WWII fortifications and even ancient buried temples.

It's wildlife is just as detailed; countless colourful butterflies and birds fill the air, tropical animals ranging from goats, tapirs and buffalo to bears, tigers, crocodiles and even sharks abound on land and sea, all interacting in a convincing procedural ecosystem. It's far more intricate than anything in previous Far Cry games, even before you add it's human elements, making it an impressive technical achievement.

Far Cry 3 is a welcome return to the lush blue green island environments of the original game - and it's open world action focus.

But all the technical kudos in the world wouldn't matter if Far Cry 3's gameplay and narrative didn't take proper advantage of this world. They both do; Far Cry 3's tale of aimless holidaying Generation Y rich kid Jason Brody forced to take up the mantle of deadly island warrior through the power of a mythical tattoo ( a clever device explaining how this athletic but otherwise ordinary young Californian becomes a jungle killer) in order to save his kidnapped friends and liberate the local population from a blood thirsty group of pirates, uses this setting perfectly.

It's an often surreal, darkly tinged narrative that sees you join the islands freedom fighters, the native Rakyat warriors, to seek revenge on the pirates leaders, the charismatic but totally insane Vaas Montenegro and his sadistic master Hoyt Volker.

Just as importantly Far Cry 3's narrative conceit, the avenging warrior's journey, is used to defuse an often inherent tension in the open world genre; a disconnect between the freedom and myriad mini games of the open environment and their narrative drive, which often feel like very disparate halves of the same experience, with the narrative pacing derailed by various event based activities that simply exist give players more to do in the open world.

After all, what's a gangster attempting to get revenge or reclaim stolen mob money for example, really doing engaging in frivolous activities like pizza delivery or racing? Far Cry 3 attempts to solve that dichotomy by cleverly weaving it's narrative, open world exploration, resource gathering and character progressions systems tightly together.

Just about everything you do in Far Cry 3, from story missions to simply killing enemies and open world activities like hunting animals, assassinating Pirate leaders, completing kill frenzy warrior trials or even entering point to point races on Quad bikes attempt to have some kind of meaningful impact on the games progression system and reflect its narrative.

You're constantly earning XP to unlock your special skills as a Rakyat warrior, from three distinct skill trees. The Path of the Heron focuses upon long range take downs and mobility, like special vertical assassinations, shooting while on zip lines and deep breath skills for sniping and diving.

The Path of the Shark grants full frontal assault take downs and healing skills, letting you openly assassinate multiple targets or gain greater health and resistances. Those with a more stealthy disposition will focus on the stealth and survival based Path of the Spider, which will let you stash bodies after stealthy take downs, better use silent but deadly bows and efficiently utilise plants and animals in crafting. It's a versatile system that really allows you to tailor your play-style and while your powers aren't as mystical as those in say Far Cry: Instincts your really feel you're becoming a warrior.

That motif of growing warrior prowess is further expressed in Far Cry 3's movement and combat through great use of the first person perspective. Your vision weaves naturally as you move through the jungle, and there's a palpable sense of the physical jumping onto ledges or climbing often hand over foot with brute force.

Stealth rather than brute force is often the best way to tackle groups of foes, but you can change on the fly and go buck wild any time.

That visual approach is  even more effective in combat with bullets hits, explosions and even raking claws from animal attacks presented in dramatic fashion. It's crowning glory has to be its healing mechanic, which gruesomely shows you using tweezers to pry bullets or pull shrapnel out of your bloody flesh when caught in an explosion.

It's a fitting visual reflection of Far Cry 3's enjoyable and very hard hitting FPS combat . As you progress you gain access to myriad weapons, including guns, bows, rocket launchers and secondary devices like C4 and mines and your spread of weapons very much serves FC3's sandbox nature. Your Pirate enemies often use cover, charge and run away very effectively, and when you encounter more armoured foes with special weapons, working out how to best use your current arsenal is a huge part of the fun. You're vastly out numbered in FC3 and direct assault is often a way to get killed, but stealth helps tip the balance.

It's stealth mechanics can feel admittedly very game like - a key tool is a camera that marks the position of enemies with icons you can see through solid objects, and enemies can occasionally feel a bit dumb - but there's immense satisfaction in silently killing a bunch of foes and just vanishing like the killer jungle you are.

Those closer links between narrative thrust and gameplay mechanics also affect how you explore the island and use its resources. Rook Island is presented to you via an inventory map showing general animal habitats and often major locations , but it's covered in a fog and the angry red representing the influence of Vaas's pirates over the island. None of the paths, roads, and secrets on the map are revealed until you seek out Radio Towers in the jungle and scale them, turning off the Pirate signal.

Just as in Assassin's Creed they grant a cinematic view of the area hinting at secrets and give access to new free weapons in stores. Initially towers are fairly easy to scale but as you venture deeper they become challenging puzzles of steel and iron that take increasingly longer periods of time to solve. They're joined on the map by Pirate Outposts, camps filled with large numbers of entrenched pirates. Liberating them frees them for occupation by your Rakyat allies, reveals more side quests in the area.

These camps also become part of the games fast travel system, allowing you to instantly move from place to place without trekking through the jungle, or using Far Cry 3's myriad vehicles. They ranging from quad bikes and cars to jet skis, boats and even a hang glider, which all handle in a realistic but fun ways adding yet another element to play.

You'll need every tactical trick in the book to survive some of the more frantic missions in Far Cry 3, pitted as you are against huge numbers of foes.

But you'll want to explore the jungle on foot, thanks to Far Cry 3's excellent hunting and crafting mechanics. Hunting is how you gain animal skins used in the crafting system to create bigger rucksacks to gather the loot sold to buy weapons, ever larger wallets to carry money, and even increase the amount of weapons and ammunition you can carry. It's one of Far Cry 3's unique joys, thanks to it's animals realistic behaviour.

Even the meekest herbivore will lead you on a merry chase, and the predators, like leopards, Kimono dragons or bears are deadly. We've rarely been more terrified than in Path of the Hunter Side Quests where you're forced to tackle fearsome creatures like Golden Tigers with nothing more than a bow and arrow. But the satisfaction of besting a dangerous beast and upgrading an important piece of gear makes it all worth while. Part of the crafting system even includes the creation of injections with recipes that heal you or grant status affecting properties like fire resistance or the ability to hunt animals by scent, making you even more effective.

Everything is very so woven together – you scale Radio Towers to unveil the map revealing more paths and gaining free weapons, tackle Outposts to unlock more side quests and earn XP in combat, hunt for plants and animals to gain more crafting materials so you carry more weapons, ammo and supplies to become a more efficient killer – that it creates an addictive gameplay loop giving you real incentive to do more of everything, and it's really effective.

You're driven to keep playing because everything feels very organically tied – and doing so helps keep you alive in the often exciting and bombastic story missions. These are centred around your efforts to defeat Vaas and rescue your missing friends, and use open world with some impressive set pieces. You'll sneak into pirate bases, defend distraught villages, dive underwater, have drug fuelled visions, battle across derelict boats, explore Indiana Jones style lost temples, escape burning buildings, and race away from foes in cars or boats in frantic chases. Even the dreaded QTE is used in some imaginative ways, to spice up dramatic narrative encounters with major figures.

There are some major highlights, including a mission to burn down a brace of marijuana fields with a flame thrower at the behest of our CIA ally. Racing through the fields in a jeep listening to blaring dub step, before stepping out to set the crops, and their pirate protectors, gloriously ablaze with a flame thrower Is easily one of our fondest gaming moments this year.

As you'd expect, the PC version is easily the most impressive rendition of this gorgeous open world, but the console versions do hold their own .

But even these crafted missions are often put to shame by the unscripted and the random event's in the games clever procedural systems. This is a living world you're thrust into, and it's effectively used to make you feel like a bad ass warrior, outposts for example often have captive animals that can be gleefully released to create havoc while you pick off panicking foes.

Just hunting for a goat skin in the open world started a twenty minute odyssey in which we were chased by a pair of Tigers, ran into a squad of of Pirates who were decimated by them, and finally only escaped the Pirate reinforcements who jeep machined gunned the wild beasts by plunging down a nearby waterfall – and that's only one example. We developed a real fear of water after a crocodile suddenly dragged us into a river, and while we won't talk about it, we'll never be comfortable swimming in the sea again.

While we haven't said too much about Far Cry 3's narrative in order not to spoil it, it's easily a high point, thanks to its colourful characters like the crazy and unsettling pirate henchman Vaas . But he isn't alone, this is a veritable cast of the good, the bad and the often very ugly, all filtered through the colourful lens of this rather violent island wonderland. Your enemies, who are occasionally mission givers, are all shades of dodgy and depraved, but never boring.

You'll also encounter some unusual allies, like Citra the sultry female leader of the Rakyat, wry and cynical CIA Agent Willis (responsible for your journals often hilarious encyclopedia style entries ) and the trippy Dr Earnhardt, whose drugs give you brief side missions detailing Jason and his friends adventures before they arrived on the island.

This is a very human story and narratively Far Cry 3 likes to play with expectations and character tropes, often wryly questioning things you'd normally take for granted like your transformation from naïve innocent to a hard bitten killer or the true natures of your antagonists or allies. It might not have Far Cry 2's social political message , but there's plenty of subtext to enjoy in this seemingly straight forward revenge fantasy if you're that way inclined.

For everything it does right however Far Cry 3 isn't perfect. Ironically given the quality of the human drama in the main story , and in contrast to the emergent gameplay of its wild life, its incidental human interactions can feel a bit lacking.

Things like constantly repeated ambient speech in towns, and unresponsive people in the jungle are merely tiresome; far more intrusive is the occasional lapse of character animation and voice work in the open world and occasionally in side quests. It's also a shame you're never acknowledged or rewarded for saving locals from dangerous animals in the open world.

None of these problems or the little things, like the slightly cumbersome elements of inventory system and the very occasional touch of open world jank, spoil the experience however, and perhaps wouldn't even be noticed in other games. But in Far Cry 3 the quality of the experience is often so high that you notice more when it dips – and that's a testament to how successful it is.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

Hitman: Absolution isn’t quite the Hitman game you remember. IO Interactive has taken its series in a refined direction with its macabre, dark, and often bizarre world contorting to create a game fans and newcomers alike can enjoy.

Hitman has always approached things differently, favouring careful planning over gung-ho theatrics and in that sense things haven't changed. Agent 47’s methodical approach to murder has earned him a reputation as the thinking man’s assassin, but can his tale of redemption, killer nuns and cloning translate in today’s world of immediate action and insta-explosions?

Part of what makes Hitman: Absolution such a success is the intelligent ways in which IO scales the experience. Hardcore Hitman fans will (and should) baulk at the idea of playing on the normal difficulty, but with three enhanced ‘professional’ modes – Hard, Expert and Purist – there’s a level of difficulty for everyone.

It’s this scalable experience that makes Hitman: Absolution such an interesting proposition. When played on the normal difficulty level, Agent 47 has hints pop-up throughout levels informing players where to go and what to do. The enemy AI is a lot more forgiving and with the Instinct Mode allowing you to experiement with how you approach situations the experience flows, rarely encumbered by the usual Hitman need for perfection.

The ways in which IO attempts to cater and design its levels around this concept is what makes Hitman: Absolution the most accepting game in the series, but it also eventually hampers the game’s overall success.

Hitman: Absolution clearly wants new players to experience Hitman and played from this perspective Agent 47 becomes a much more malleable character than he ever was before. He’s able to adapt to situations as they happen, instead of being faced with insurmountable odds and an enforced trip to the restart screen – as was the norm in previous games.

Though Hitman fans looking for a continuation of the hard-as-nails difficulty will find what they’re looking for, Hitman: Absolution has also found an unstable middle-ground that just about creates a satisfying experience for both types of players – give or take a few minor concessions.

Instinct Mode gives new players a much easier time of infiltration, highlighting suspicious characters and even what they're thinking.

It attempts to give players a choice in how they approach the game’s levels and providing the chance to play like an assassin or turn to 47’s arsenal, but there’s a natural dichotomy to these designs that Hitman: Absolution has to address.     

Hitman: Absolution’s story of redemption begins with 47 targeting his previous handler. After putting a bullet in her, her dying words inform 47 of a young girl that needs saving. It’s as clichéd a story as they come with Agent 47’s humanity brought forward in obvious ways, but this does give more than enough moral justification for taking out the 'bad guys' in myriad of ways – and that’s the point. 47 is slowly becomes a more traditional hero, albeit one with serious psychological issues.

Leaving his previous employers (known only as the Agency) behind him, Absolution follows 47 as he attempts to rescue this ‘special’ girl and with the Agency and all manner of undesirables attempting to get at her, he has his work cut out for him.

It can feel at times that IO had a range of fantastic ideas for level design, and some of the scenarios 47 is presented with are brilliant, but it bent the story around them. The plot falls over itself and when the tone changes from the rain-drenched, Se7en-inspired Chicago levels to the Tarantino Grind House heat of small town America, Hitman: Absolution is left with something of an uneven palette.

Its narrative might struggle to present players with a cohesive plot, but Absolution’s real strength comes from the moment-to-moment and often incidental details that 47 witnesses. Without the Agency feeding him targets, 47 has to deal with the colourful cast of characters standing in his way. These guys are evil cartoon characters that are just begging to be put out of their misery and 47 makes it very easy for player’s to oblige.

Combat, both hand-to-hand and gunplay have been overhauled and are much more competent than in previous games.

It’s in the set-up and subsequent design of its levels that IO ensures that Hitman: Absolution never fails to capture the imagination of players and actually allow them to realise their darkest murderous desires. Each hit follows the same formula but it’s the ways in which Absolution shakes things up and the incredible number of choices that are available that marks it out as something special.

Whether it’s spiking a drug dealer’s cocaine with fish poison (recently stolen from the bustling market) or dressing up as court clerk to infiltrate the prison behind the courthouse, there are always straight forward ways of dealing with situations and an incredible number of highly inventive and much less obvious options, too.
    
Hitman: Absolution’s levels are dense with these choices and with literally hundreds of characters sometimes standing in 47’s way, exploring your options is highly recommended. Listening to characters and taking your time is always preferable to running in blind and hoping for the best, but fans of Hitman will already know this.

Hitman: Absolution attempts to ease players into 47’s mindset but on the normal difficulty level it can feel that shooting your way out of a situation is the easier option and sometimes issues arise with this style of play. Guards will almost always swamp you, seemingly endless streams of them overwhelming 47’s position, but primarily, playing in this manner breaks the verisimilitude of the world.

Walking away from a hundred bodies after a bloody gun battle to the next area, where the oblivious guards sit around looking at each other, can raise more than a few eyebrows. Hitman: Absolution works best when you play by its rules and these are, quite obviously, when you’re being a good hitman and ensuring you stay hidden.

Dressing up will keep 47 hidden from plain sight, but he has a hard job convincing those in similar outfits. Not this one, though, this one's special.

New players are eased into this mindset with a number of forgiving gameplay devices, but when 47 is continually given rather large guns, a Point Shoot mechanic (not unlike Sam Fisher’s Mark & Execute) and plenty of opportunity for carnage, you’d be forgiven for getting your wires crossed. If you’ve never played Hitman before you’ll learn very quickly that it’s best to play conservatively and Hitman: Absolution has even included a score tally to ensure you don’t miss this most valuable of points.

But that’s really what makes it so impressive. Hitman: Absolution really is able to present an easier experience for new players, showing them the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the true density and design of its levels, and for experienced players the game scales perfectly to what Hitman fans expect.

Played on the harder modes Hitman: Absolution’s levels and characters come alive in a whole new way and it’s clear IO has spent a ton of time bringing everything to life in a highly cinematic way. Dialogue between NPCs is revealing in an unobtrusive way and, compared to the cinematics at least, sit much easier with the game’s overall tone.

You’re also far less likely to be confused by errant AI or moments when 47 is given far too much freedom from the characters around him, as he can be on the easier difficulty levels. It’s clear Hitman: Absolution is intended to be played and replayed on its harder modes and IO has ensured that its levels carry enough material to make each trip through a highly enjoyable one.

Hitman: Absolution may stumble slightly when trying to craft an experience for hardcore fans and those just joining the assassin for the first time, but IO shows that these types of games can work and do so on multiple levels, too.

Hitman: Absolution is very accomplished, more than a little brutal and one of the most complex and interesting games in the series to date. If you’re looking for something that will at least give you the option of using your brain, Agent 47 is your man.

Version Tested: Xbox 360

As a certain popular television programme loves to remind us at this time of the year, if you want to make it big, you’ve got to have the x-factor.

You’ve got to have that certain je ne sais quoi that makes you stand out, that makes hairs on the backs of necks stand up, that induces a giddiness and excitement unlike anything else. F1 Race Stars gets a lot right but, sadly, it’s missing that x-factor.

The gimmicky concept is the biggest success. Stuffing the F1 licence into a karting-shaped hole seems like an awkward fit, and yet by transforming F1 drivers into cute, chibi-esque alternate versions, it injects them with the one thing they otherwise lack: personality. This extends to the tracks, which have leaps over chasms, desert tornadoes, loop-the-loops and high, gravity-defying corners.

There’s a subtle F1 theme at work in the gameplay systems too. Blue sections of the track allow you to charge up your KERS if you let go of the accelerator before putting your foot down again. It’s nothing more than an appropriate name for an unusual turbo boost, but thematically it works. The more successful power-ups also take cues from the sport. One example is the safety car, which limits the speed of the top driver and prevents him from overtaking.

The bullet power-up makes an appearance if you’re trailing behind and gives you a quick way to cut through the pack, but is actually quite boring.

What F1 Race Stars lacks is any gameplay hook beyond its cute concept. There’s no real depth to cornering – not like the beautifully nuanced powersliding seen in Mario Kart or even Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing – and thus, the only meaningful battles for position outside of weapons is done via slipstreaming. It’s too situational to feel anything other than opportunistic, however, and so, when there’s no action from nearby cars, F1 Race Stars quickly begins to feel dull.

This leaves weapons having to pick up the slack, and this is where F1 Race Stars really struggles. While the function of each offensive power-up is recognisable – homing rockets, bouncing rockets, mines – they don’t have the impact they should. The bland implementation is part of the problem. Homing rockets, for example, aren’t rockets but rather red bubbles. The bouncing rockets aren’t rockets but yellow bubbles. Mines? Blue bubbles.

Perhaps the thought of a cartoon rocket slamming into the back of Lewis Hamilton’s head terrified the FIA and red bubbles were considered the friendlier version, but it’s a problem that extends
to what happens when the weapons connect. Instead of any major impact, cars are picked up by that bubble before being dropped back on the track.

It’s tame and doesn’t make battles the events they should be. It’s too sedate, too limp. It’s a shame that while F1 Race Stars has successfully aped most of the key ingredients needed to make a successful multiplayer game – vibrant personality, fun tracks, strong multiplayer – it’s missing that x-factor to make it stand apart. Competent, then, but ultimately not a contender.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 isn’t all that.

We wanted to get that in early because there’s a certain group of people out there to whom a Black Ops 2 review is irrelevant. The social aspect of Call Of Duty has become so ingrained in the videogame industry that to many it’s as much a tradition as Christmas.

As such, our Black Ops 2 review simply does not matter. Millions of copies will be bought – even enjoyed – just for the cycle to begin anew, but the fact is Call Of Duty is starting to feel its age.

It’s a shame because, as a package, this should be the greatest Call Of Duty yet. Black Ops 2 crams in a decent length single-player, brand new additions to Zombies mode and the adrenaline fuelled multiplayer action we know and love.

And whether you agree or not, each is as important as the other. Treyarch’s COD games attract a diverse bunch, with some buying purely for one distinct section of the game.

But it’s those who are considering buying Black Ops 2 purely for the single-player that need to worry the most. This is the most lacklustre Call Of Duty campaign for a while, but not for want of trying.

Black Ops 2 continues the story from the last game while tying in the new story arc of Raul Menendez and his rise to power. The problem is, the story tries to juggle far too many elements, crashing under its own unnecessary complexity.

This is, in part, thanks to the branching storyline, which does admittedly do a good job of creating variations on how the campaign progresses with a smart degree of subtlety.

You won’t notice these branches growing even when some of the choices are direct button prompts - and that’s a real credit to Treyarch’s work here - but all this hard work is undone by the dissonance with which the campaign unfolds.

Yemen is an interesting map, albeit a little confusing at first.

Flitting back and forth between the 80s and 2025 without any proper segue makes keeping up with the numerous plot points tiresome work, which only helps to make the main overarching story – that of Raul Menendez – all the more difficult to appreciate.

The campaign tries to add a little heart, a little meaning to a world war when, at its best, Call Of Duty relishes in non-stop bombastic gun battles and little else.

This reliance on telling a story – which, let’s be honest, isn’t COD’s strongest point anyway – ultimately pays the price on the gameplay itself, which fails to focus on the grandeur we've come to expect from Call Of Duty.

There are very few standout missions or sections to really celebrate with Black Ops 2, devolving the game into nothing more than a series of corridors and a carpet of corpses.

There are some entertaining moments, admittedly, such as the early sections on the Colossus – the manmade island for the wealthy one per cent – that delights in the sci-fi setting, even if much of it is ripped directly from scenes in classic sci-fi films.

And, as loathe as we are to say it, the few vehicle-based sections of Black Ops 2 just aren’t as good as the equivalent in Medal Of Honor: Warfighter. Flimsy controls make it hard to enjoy what should be a spectacular group of set pieces.

The voice acting and facial mocap of Woods' cut scenes are genuinely impressive. It's just a shame the engine is so ropey.

Even the Strike Team missions – which are the ‘new’ that Treyarch brings to an increasingly aging party – fail to live up to the initial promise they provide.

Pitched as a strategic element to Black Ops 2, the truth is unfortunately the opposite. While you can control up to four different unit types from a top-down view, each battle becomes so hectic and overwhelming that you just won’t find any depth to it; picking up a gun and shooting your way through is the only way to succeed.

This is most disappointing because the addition of Strike Team missions is genuinely a good thing for Black Ops 2, Treyarch just needed to focus on the tactical strategy that it these missions try so hard to provide.

So as we said, single-player is the weakest part of Black Ops 2. It’s not awful by any stretch and isn’t quite as mundane as Medal Of Honor: Warfighter, but it does fail to live up to the spectacle we’ve come to expect from our popcorn-flick COD campaigns.

It’s in Zombies mode where the largest areas of change have been implemented, now with three different modes for three distinct types of gameplay.

Survival is your basic Zombies mode, and anyone who appreciated the previous Zombies of Black Ops and World At War will continue to enjoy the very same game here.

Single-player is little more than a string of corridors, so the branching storyline is pretty well done.

Grief is a competitive equivalent, pitting eight players against each other in two teams. It’s just the same as Zombies mode, except with the disadvantage of competition. Knifing opposing players distracts them (but not injuring them), making it harder to fend off the incoming horde.

There isn’t much more to it than that and it is at odds with the mode as a whole. While you’ll work together as a team to survive longer than the other four, the competitive element doesn’t really work and is not preferable to the basic co-operative mode.

Lastly there’s Tranzit, the most intriguing of modes. This gives you much larger freedom over navigating the area, with a bus (driven by a robotic attendant) connecting areas together.

It’s optional to take the bus, however, and providing you have the right tools to cross the dangerous connecting roads it’s just as plausible to travel to different areas on foot.

Collectables are scattered around each of the various sections, too, enabling you to construct equipment to improve your odds of survival. It adds a new dynamic to Zombies, and the idea of exploring a larger environment gives some additional motivation to gunning down the shuffling dead.

This isn't Mason. You'll only spot him during cut scenes with Woods, making him for an even more unidentifyable character.

Our only criticism of Tranzit – just as with Grief – is how rigidly it sticks to the tried-and-tested gameplay mechanics of Zombies mode. You’re still fending off waves of increasingly tougher undead, you’re still stacking up points to buy improved weaponry and, ultimately, it feels like there isn’t that much difference between Survival and the additional two new modes.

Which leaves multiplayer and, as expected, it’s as great as always. It’s the very same Call Of Duty gameplay we’ve come to know and love, and if that’s all you wanted from the game then you’ve nothing to worry about.

The maps themselves are improved over Modern Warfare 3’s small, boxed efforts – proving once again that Treyarch knows what it is doing when it comes to map design.

There’s a lot of variety to them as well, whether it’s the customary desert canyon landscape of Turbine or the unique leisure yacht map of Hijacked.

This diversity isn’t only aesthetic either, and each map needs to be tackled in a different way. Carrier, for example, is largely flat with a plethora of debris to take cover behind. Yemen, on the other hand, features a lot of winding roads and tighter corners – both requiring completely different ways of playing.

Maps like Aftermath are a little forgettable, but there's plenty of variety to help find your favourite.

As with the original Black Ops, there’s always an alternate way of navigating a map so you’re never stuck dealing with an entrenched player who simply will not move from his favourite spot. It keeps the action going.

Scorestreaks are perhaps the biggest evolution for Call Of Duty’s multiplayer, however. As the name suggests, Scorestreak abilities are rewarded after earning a certain amount of points in a match.

It’s the best way to tailor the experience for every play style and emphasising the teamwork needed to succeed in certain modes. Scorestreaks will help to earn you additional points too, further rewarding you for tactical gameplay.

Activating a UAV, for example, will earn you 10 points for each kill earned by your team during its activation, while turrets will rack up extra points even if they don’t finish an enemy off.

It’s a great system that really rewards every player regardless of preference, from your lonely campers to your gung-ho flag capturers.

The reworked class system deserves complimenting too, since it really is the fairest way of letting every player have their cake. The only problem is you probably won’t be able to eat it too.

The Strike Team Missions are, unfortunately, a missed opportunity.

By limiting every class to only 10 ‘bits’ – weapons, attachments, perks, etc – you’ll need to become conservative with your choices. Do you want two types of grenades, or would you give one up for a suppressor for your rifle?

Additional wildcards can be used to unlock extra options, using up one of your 10 possible choices but enabling other bonuses. You may add a third attachment to your primary weapon, for example, or gain access to another perk slot.

It’s entirely customisable and, though you will inevitable encounter situations where you’ll have to pick one item over another, it gives you an element of depth and personal choice to class creation.

The only issue comes with the limited symbiosis between the class creation system and Scorestreaks.

Now that you’re rewarded for playing each game the way that you’re meant to, creating your own classes for every possible circumstance is more important than ever. In that sense, Scorestreaks really should be attached to the classes you create.

For instance, you may have a class you prefer to use for games of Domination and an entirely different one for Team Deathmatch. Maybe you’ll equip defensive Scorestreaks in Domination, such as the Guardian turret or counter-UAV, but in Team Deathmatch you’re better off sticking to offensive Scorestreaks.

These quadrotors can be used in multiplayer, and can give you a pretty decent advantage before anyone realises how they're dying.

Without the option to match particular Scorestreak choices with certain classes, you’re forced to tweak and alter the options before a match starts – and there are even situations where you may want to alter your playstyle during a match.

There is a greater issue at hand, however. Black Ops 2 multiplayer is still just the same multiplayer gameplay, and no amount of tweaks to the system, improvements to the maps or the expected behind-the-scenes alterations change the fact that this is the same multiplayer we’ve played for years now.

For some this won’t be a problem, but others will consider this the most pertinent point our Black Ops 2 review has made – it’s not that it feels tired, just that it feels the same.

As great as all the changes are, they’re not particular revolutionary to the game. There’s no denying it’s still a great multiplayer mode, and the fast-paced run-and-gun action remains as compelling as ever, but nothing has changed – not really – and we can’t keep rewarding Call Of Duty for rehashing itself on a yearly basis.

Ultimately, why should you buy this year’s COD for multiplayer if you’ve already had your fill of everything Call Of Duty can offer?

Black Ops II Deals on Amazon.co.uk

• Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Xbox 360)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II - Hardened Edition (Xbox 360)

Heath Slater. Jinder Mahal. Justin Gabriel. Hunico. Who are these people? Weren’t they on The X Factor this year? Sadly, they’re WWE Superstars, the kind of faces that fill out the space between the CM Punks and the Randy Ortons on the roster.

They show the kind of problem WWE games have faced in recent times – there are two sets of fans to appeal to. There are the fans who stopped watching around the time The Rock first bounced off to Hollywood while keeping a distant eye on affairs, and there are the fans who have stuck with WWE through thick and thin.

There are those who know who know Hunico is and those who don’t even know how to pronounce it. What’s a development studio to do?

So standing applause to Yuke’s for solving that problem in the best way possible with Attitude Era. Effectively the career mode equivalent that replaces the ubiquitous Road To WrestleMania, Attitude Era challenges you to re-create the past rather than looking to the future.

It focuses on the rise of future stars like Triple H and Stone Cold Steve Austin, a throwback to the time when Vince McMahon became a pantomime villain for everyone to boo and grown men pretended to chop their own crotch.

Mankind, Mr Ass, Road Dogg, Bret Hart, Legion of Doom, almost everyone is here.

Road Dogg has his annoying series of punches as his signature move. You’ll remember when you see them.

It’s not just the idea that’s good but the execution. Rather than having you run through matches from days gone by, there are historical objectives that see you having to re-create exactly what happened – ending matches with chairshot disqualifications where necessary rather than going for outright wins, for example.

This along makes Attitude Era far more interesting than a cut and dry win-every-match mode, and it’s helped by the far-reaching attention to detail.

The commentary fills you in on the context of each match as though you’re back in 1997, while the Titantron videos and entrance music have been plucked directly from that era. Remember what Triple H’s music was like pre-Motörhead? You will do. He even has his old bow.

It would be nothing if the actual grappling itself wasn’t any good, but that has improved significantly on previous years. The WWE series has long been building up the complexity involved, but WWE ’13 is the first one we can remember that feels streamlined.

You can target individual limbs, steal finishers, wake-up taunt and indulge in all sorts of peripheral trickery, but you can play this just using the strike and grapple buttons without feeling too overwhelmed.

There are minor additions and tweaks that make a lot of sense. For example, submissions are the usual button-bashing tug-of-war, as both players battle to fill or deplete the Breaking Point meter.

There are promos during Attitude Era playing on the mystery and fear of Mankind.

Yet the difference now is that if the player trapped in the submission manages to break out, it’s a reversal rather than the attacker meekly letting go of the hold.

It was one of those weird logical inconsistencies that never made sense in previous games – why would the guy applying the submission hold just let go? –  and now the onus is on the wrestler applying the submission hold to let go before he gets hit with a reversal.

Another nice addition is that you can hit opponents into the ropes or turnbuckles for extra grapple moves without having to throw them there, likewise for other areas around the ring like commentary tables.

It’s a smart idea because now you feel as though you’re getting a lot out of the game without having to get too tangled up with the buttons.

Discovering the context sensitive moves is a big part of the appeal of the WWE games, so making it easier to do so is big plus. The grappling is still marred by awkward animation transitions and the odd collision detection glitch, but overall, this is a huge step in the right direction.

The only major problem that WWE ’13 has is one that runs through every game mode – countering. When your opponent gets on top of you, the constant knockdowns and lengthy animations mean your only way to fight back and break momentum is to get the right timing for counters.

Remember when piledrivers were allowed in WWE? Mankind does.

In theory, this is quite easy; you just need to press the right trigger at the right time, with messages telling you if your timing is too early or late.

In practice, while the timing is consistent with the animation, there’s no way of telling when your opponent will actually go for moves, so attempting counters is actually a fairly depressing and will-sapping exercise in clunking the right trigger until you get lucky.

On harder difficulties, any move you go for then tends to end up being reversed right away, leaving you fishing for a lucky counter again. It’s incredibly frustrating.

WWE ’13 gets away with that problem because of the nostalgia-infused Attitude Era mode and the significant progress shown elsewhere. It’s a little frustrating and annoying at times, but overall, the series is finally back to being fun to play.

And that’s the bottom line because Hunico said so! That’s his catchphrase, right? It’s not? Sigh.

343 Industries has taken Halo in a new direction and that’s not a bad thing. In fact, this new direction suits the universe perfectly (arguably better than Bungie’s slightly cartoony and colourful previous games), but it’s clear 343 is also attempting to please two audiences with Halo 4. Those that have always loved Halo and those that are looking for a fresh take on a well-established universe.

The last time we spoke to 343 during Halo 4’s development, creative director Josh Holmes described this new approach to design as ‘sophisticated’. An intelligent, adult and, dare we say it, darker Halo than what we’ve seen before. 343 understands that gamers want something they haven’t seen and is attempting to bridge the gap between Halo, multiplayer and episodic content, but, has it managed to pull these disparate threads together, all while maintaining Halo’s famous ‘30 seconds of fun’?

For the most part it has, but that hasn’t also stopped Halo 4 becoming an intriguing mix of old and new. 343’s new vision for Halo, and it’s strongly maintained that this new game is setting up the next ten years of the franchise, is crystal clear. Like Ridley Scott’s Prometheus the design of Halo’s environment and characters is laced with a sci-fi believability and logic that helps ground the more fantastical elements. But, it also sets itself apart from the existing franchise.      

Bungie may have begun to take steps in this direction with Halo: Reach’s solemn scenes of sacrifice and death, but Halo 4 wants you to take its world and characters seriously. It’s one of the reasons 343 has spent so much time employing respected sci-fi writers such as Greg Bear to flesh out the Forerunner’s back-story (in books like Cryptum) and it’s one of the reasons Halo 4 begins by focusing on its two lead characters – the Master Chief and Cortana.

With 343 delivering a cohesive narrative package across the board with Infinity, War Games and Spartan Ops all coming under the same banner, story is most obviously king in Halo’s new world. With the Chief (now largely referred to as John) waking up to find rouge Covenant troops boarding his decrepit ship moments before it plunges towards a mysterious Forerunner planet, 343 wastes no time kick-starting Halo 4’s campaign.

Halo 4's story is a lot more serious than previous games.

Events proceed quickly and 343 does a fantastic job gradually introducing the new Promethean threat. Huge sandbox environments lend Halo 4 the expected sense of grandeur, but it’s also promising to see that the revamped engine, musical score and most importantly of all, gameplay all feel familiar. There’s no mistaking Halo’s weapon balancing, responsive controls and complex AI.

343 experiments with the set-up, too. Easing you in until it reveals the big new Forerunner threat – the Didact. A military-minded Forerunner, he’s experienced in fighting humanity (or at least a pre-Flood society version of humanity – read Cryptym) and he is not happy. 

For Halo to create a new credible threat, one that can justify a hero such as the Master Chief, 343 turn to humanity and their ‘ascendancy’ or, simply surpassing Forerunners as the top species in the universe. It’s a simpler threat that 343 confuses with the usual Halo intricacies, but despite Halo 4 engaging in some of the biggest and most impressive set pieces ever seen in a Halo game, the main campaign feels like it wastes much of the introduction of the Forerunners and the Didact.

It feels like 343 is constantly fighting how much it should change the traditional Halo formula. With the bulk of the gameplay made up of the expected gunplay, Halo 4 introduces the new Promethean weaponry and the enemies to use them on. It’s a subtle tweak to the gunplay that never over powers what we’ve seen before, but the Prometheans themselves prove to be the most exciting addition to the Halo canon.

Knights, Crawlers and Watchers all combine to produce an enemy hierarchy that’s far harder to combat than the Covenant ever were. And, when Halo 4 pushes all three factions together, the results are explosive. But, and this is where Halo 4’s campaign sticks too closely to the established conventions of Halo’s gameplay, Halo 4’s familiar set pieces out weigh the new.

There are some lovely vistas throughout Halo 4's campaign that push the 360's hardware to the limit.

For every incredibly impressive new section of gameplay (and lets be absolutely clear, Halo 4 has its fair share) there is the customary Firefight-aping sections where you’ll have to fend off waves of enemies. Or, even entire runs of levels that feel very familiar. Perhaps it’s the focus on the Forerunner architecture or the need to overtly appease Halo’s longstanding fans, but Halo 4 at times feels over encumbered by its need to ‘feel’ like Halo, while simultaneously presenting something new.

Mostly, the new gets pushed to the background in favour of the old. Halo’s gameplay and set pieces have always experimented with sandbox and forced players to think on their feet, but it can at times appear like 343 is holding back its true innovations. The introduction of the Prometheans goes a long way to making Halo 4 feel like it’s moving in a new direction, though.

With the Master Chief spending his time taking on the Didact, ensuring Cortana doesn’t descend too far into rampancy and trying to convince the Infinity of the dangers that lie ahead, Halo 4’s plot proceeds at a speed with its pace occasionally hampered by an erratic checkpoint system.

Beautiful locations whip by the Chief’s visor and 343’s work with the tweaked version of the Halo: Reach engine should really be commended. Visually, Halo 4 is easily the best looking Halo game to date and it could be argued it’s one of the most technically impressive games of the year. Halo 4 finds a balance between presenting visually rich textures, impressive explosions and detailed character models (all while maintaining a solid framerate) far more successfully than many of its peers. 

Whether it’s in the jungles, deserts or Forerunner structures of Requiem or the dirty metallic interiors of UNSC ships and bases, Halo 4’s visuals are dense with detail. We’re always told that the latest game is pushing the 360 to the ‘limits’, but 343 manages to push beyond what we expected while evolving the core strengths of the series. It really is a beautiful world to look at.

Halo 4’s main campaign flits back and forth between total reinvention and homage, but ultimately goes out on a whimper rather than the heroic bang many might have expected. Its story and character beats are certainly more daring than any that have been attempted in Halo before (and we’ll not spoil them for you here), but the game’s end fails to capture the same excitement seen in previous Halos.

The new Promethean enemies are really tough and take a lot of skill to defeat.

Though it’s clear 343 has the technical, story and development clout to take Halo to new and exciting places in the future, you’ll only ever see glimpses of that in Halo 4. The Master Chief’s return and 343’s first game was always going to be tricky, but Halo 4 plays it safe reminding what’s so great about the series while presenting nuggets of what the future might hold.

But, Halo 4’s main campaign, though leaning too heavily on previous games’ greatest hits, is still an incredibly polished and genuinely excellent FPS experience. Worries that Bungie’s absence would negatively affect development disappear within seconds of the Chief waking up and Halo 4’s new tone and designs cement this as a more sophisticated sci-fi shooter.

In many ways Halo 4 is proof that Bungie’s series needed reinvention. It needed 343 to take it in new directions and ignoring the technical and gameplay expertise that’s obviously on display, Halo 4’s greatest criticism is that it doesn’t take things far enough – but, that’s only in the campaign.

Halo is more than just its main story, and that’s true of 343’s new game. With the UNSC Infinity, Spartan Ops and War Games (multiplayer), Halo 4 is making some exciting innovations. It’s here that the changes really shine. Spartan Ops’ weekly episodic content, new characters and open level design pull together to deliver something we’ve never seen before. (Read our full breakdown of Spartan Ops)

The same high quality, attention to detail and knowing little tweaks can also be seen in Halo 4’s multiplayer. It’s a faster, more aggressive space with matches that ebb and flow in the traditional Halo manner, but with Ordinance Drops, highly customisable loadouts, streamlined match types (not forgetting Forge) multiplayer maintains its eminent position. (Read our full Halo 4 multiplayer breakdown)

Like with most of Halo 4, 343’s multiplayer is a mixture of old and new with a slight bias towards what we’ve already seen. This is still an extremely accomplished and well put together package that prides itself on giving the Chief a new creative voice and though Spartan Ops represents the boldest (and most important) change, 343 should be proud that it has managed to successfully re-invent Halo. What it does next with it will be really interesting.

The biggest initial concern going into Assassin’s Creed 3 for review was the worry that it could’ve just been more of the same.

With three games in as many years, the Assassin’s Creed series has gone from strength to strength and – despite the Brotherhood and Revelations spin-offs diluting the experience slightly – it has always, nonetheless, been a franchise staunch in its identity.

Having finished Assassin's Creed 3, we now realised our concerns should've been directly elsewhere entirely.

You see, for a game about an Assassin you don’t actually assassinate very many people. Well, Connor does do a lot of killing, unfortunately you don’t.

What we mean to say is that a large part of Assassin’s Creed 3’s ‘gameplay’ is left to cut scenes and forced actions, and for a game all about the freedom of choice this is more than a little ironic.

There’s only a handful of the missions throughout the game where you’ll have any input over the actions at all – it’s the Call Of Duty effect: in an effort to ensure everyone has the same experience, the freedom to play however you want has been lowered to an absolute minimum.

There aren’t very many missions that actually feel like you’re controlling the experience, and even those where you can are carefully tailored to make sure you don’t falter from the planned route.

Which version is best, PS3 or Xbox 360?

The optional objectives of previous Assassin’s Creed return, and are improved. Now you’ll have multiple objectives to tackle during a mission, giving you a certain degree of replayability to each section should you fail to stay undetected or lower your health too much.

But the thing is, it is these optional objectives that should be the guiding the player into a particular play style not the ham-fisted method that Ubisoft employs here.

No more apparent is this than in the world of Assassin’s Creed 3. Yes it’s gorgeous – the best looking one yet, in fact – but there’s just so little coherence to everything that it’s hard to really become absorbed in the landscape around you.

As pretentious as it might sound, the cities of Assassin’s Creed have often been characters themselves: acting as the focus of a long string of missions, opening up areas slowly and rewarding players for devoting their time among the rooftops.

There’s very little to the cities of Assassin’s Creed 3, however. It’s still possible to hire additional Assassins to send off on missions or call into battle, a plethora of collectables to locate and even side missions to complete but it never feels like a part of the game. Not really.

The setting is a refreshing change, but it feels so peripheral.

The citizen quests are the best example of this: introduced with little more than a ‘thanks for helping’, a generic objective will pop up in the nearby area. Kill some Templars, plant some evidence or deliver a letter. It’s filler, and little else.

This is endemic of a lack of focus: Connor doesn’t spend his time in one place for very long, and as such the desire to explore and take part in these throwaway elements is considerably reduced.

Not that the main missions themselves are even that enjoyable. They're far too linear and directed to be fun and, in the rare cases where you are let loose, they're just a slog to work through.

This isn't helped by an awkward combat system that emphasises countering yet, somehow, manages to make Assassin's Creed's alright lightweight combat system even more tedious.

The main missions themselves flit all over the place, too, displacing Connor several times and keeping you from absorbing yourself into the game – not helped by the considerable number of loading screens.

Completing one mission in Boston might, inexplicitly, send you off to the Frontier. After that you’ll be carted off to New York or your headquarters at Davenport Homestead, only the repeat the process all over again.

Combat is watered down more than ever. Press B, then X. That's it.

Constantly travelling between is a pain in the arse, truth be told, and it really takes the emphasis off what should be the most important part of Assassin’s Creed 3; its setting.

Which is a shame, since Boston and New York are fantastic locations. Ubisoft has really gone to town (ba-dum-tish) on the new era, and these two cities are very well realised.

There’s detail down the majority of alleyways, and the disparate voices – a bevy typical British dialects – help draw you into the era and the setting. Assassin’s Creed 3 is dense with of-the-time design, and it’s brilliant.

But while the voice acting is largely impressive, the native Red Indian dialogue is painfully delivered. The Iroquois are a stoic collection of people, but that doesn’t mean they lack any emotion whatsoever.

Even an argument between friends is delivered more like the world’s most unenthused press release than a death wish.

And while the change of scenery is welcome, Connor fails to leave up the huge leather boots of Ezio. He may be as violent, but not half as likeable.

We’re not asking for more Ezio, of course, he’s well and truly done. But after the superlative Assassin’s Creed 2 it seems a shame that Ubisoft hasn’t managed to create a character whose passion and drive equals the famous Italian Assassin.

Guns are used well in the combat in the American Revolution era. Not so much in the modern day sections.

Actually, that’s wrong. Haytham Kenway is a brilliant character; sarcastic, brutal and – at times – genuinely funny. As Connor’s father he plays a pivotal role in Assassin’s Creed 3, which only highlights the disappointment that is playing as Connor.

There are features in Assassin’s Creed 3 that are very well done, though. The naval battles, for example, are the best showcase for the game. Sure, their inclusion is a little unnecessary, but they’re fun all the same.

There’s a surprising amount of depth to them, too. Dipping waves can be utilised for defence, a variety of shot types are used for different enemy ships and, best of all, it is necessary to navigate the open seas sensibly to evade cannon fire while successfully unleashing a full broadside on an enemy’s bow.

Then there’s hunting, which isn’t quite as thrilling. Heavily inspired by Red Dead Redemption, this particular aspect is just lacklustre.

Unless you want to get into the nitty gritty of trading – and, to be honest, that’ll be the best way to make money – you’re likely going to give this a miss entirely.

Hunting regions litter the Frontier and though there’s a little more thought gone into it than with Red Dead – including the setting of bait and hidden traps – it still manages to feel like effort.

It's still great to see the world from this perspective but, besides its nature as a collectable, there's no compulsion to do so.

Multiplayer is worth mentioning too. Many ignore the mode, but you shouldn’t. It’s tweaked, improved and better than ever with new modes and abilities to make it a really absorbing online component.

Sure, it’s not going to appeal to the headshot-fanatics on Call Of Duty, but give it some time and some patience and we’re certain this unique multiplayer mode could well absorb your life, even if it is little more than an add-on to the main event.

Assassin’s Creed 3 should, by all accounts, be the best of the series. There’s an undeniable quality to game that is impossible to overlook and, as with all these things, fans of the series will find a lot to love.

But the focus has shifted: Assassin’s Creed 3 is more story than game, the entire experience streamlined into a string of cut-scenes pinned together with you doing little else but holding left trigger and pushing forward.

Dagger shoes, mini-rocket cigarettes and remote-controlled helicopters. All are among Q’s most famous inventions. All, amongst others, have been omitted from this latest James Bond title. That’s just one of many poor development decisions from developers, Eurocom. 

007 Legends is a sheltered, ill-advised imagining of fiction’s greatest spy, and a dull, inherently dated release that barely has a memorable moment to spare for its audience.

Rather than a celebration, this is a deconstruction of the past. Legends adds inappropriate elements, changes plot elements unnecessarily, refuses to take advantage of the creative opportunities available at the heart of these classic films and shoehorns in a multiplayer mode as empty as any we’ve ever seen.

Hilariously, when the game is at its most inspired, it gives the reins to the AI to have all the fun, forcing you to sit back and watch a very poor virtual construction of the films.

Some gadgets are present, however. Bond’s trusty wristwatch made the cut, kitted out with laserbeams and radar technology, as well as a smartphone with hacking and photographic capabilities and a pen that fires sleeping darts. While useful in each mission, the individual role of each gadget plays out in almost exactly the same way every time because of the game’s stubbornness to deviate from and break its own mould.

So what are you left with? Running and gunning through incredibly linear, desperately simplistic levels with poor mechanics and loose objectives, merged with insipid, featureless boss battles that ask you to waggle the analog stick up or down to throw a punch.

Punch-ups come in the form of lazy QTEs and are among the worst we've ever played.

To its credit, Legends at least tries to embed an XP and challenge system and couple it with an upgrade shop so each gun can be customised to your liking. Unfortunately, the weapon development feels non-existent, despite the supposed changes each upgrade is supposed to deliver.

That’s not the least of 007 Legend’s woes, though. Sadly, none of the weapons come close to genuine recoil and each time a bullet leaves the gun chamber, its departure feels frail and muffled, ultimately lacking a desired impact

But surely the espionage element is intact, right? It just wouldn’t be Bond without it. Well, as we’ve clearly established, this certainly isn’t Bond and the lack of decent areas for cover as well as the incredible bat-like hearing and hawk-eye vision of the enemy makes it almost impossible to creep around the game tactically.

The campaign is a simple 4-5 hour runthrough from start to finish, although attempting harder difficulties does offer further additional objectives in each mission.

Mercifully, the multiplayer stops 007 Legends from being a complete waste of time, although it’s still one of the most unimaginative COD copycats out there. Famous Bond MP modes are in the package, including License to Kill and Golden Gun and some of the maps are quite well designed, such as vault from Goldfinger.

New this time around is the Legends playlist: a free-for-all mode that lets you assume the role of famous Bond villains, complete with their own unique characteristics. Oddjob wouldn’t be Oddjob without his hat, and likewise, Jaws without a shotgun. It’s a cool spin on deathmatch, but is only good for a few turns before you realise it could and should have been much more.

Loadouts are unlocked once you reach level 6 and this does add a bit more substance to the online realm, but in no way will it keep anyone from the FPS behemoths currently dominating the market.

This is partly due to the regularly imbalanced matches, pitting teams of 5 against teams of 3 almost every time, and dreadful stuttering lag at an insufferable level.

A failed experiment, then. Not even watching Goldfinger suck out of an airplane window diverts from this disaster.

Realism is everything. That’s pretty much the Turn 10 mantra with regard to Forza Motorsport, hands down the 360’s finest racing franchise.

And even though this open-world spin-off isn’t strictly part of the Motorsport series, it still adheres to the philosophy of its creators and champions realism, if perhaps in a slightly different way to usual.

Forza has always been about as close to real racing as gamers will ever get, but this time applies not just to driving but other features as well.

With its loathsome presenters and hideous music collection, Forza Horizon is the most realistic simulation of the horrors of listening to mainstream radio that we’ve ever encountered.

In fact, it’d be a contender for Worst Licensed Soundtrack Ever had EA not shipped Burnout Dominator with no fewer than four versions of Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend on the disc, essentially claiming ownership of that dubious honour for the rest of recorded time.

There are a few choice cuts but they’re incredibly rare – gems like New Order’s Blue Monday and She Bangs The Drum by The Stone Roses are buried under a steaming heap of du jour dubstep and limpdick indie rock, all bound together by hateful presenters gibbering on about things that you’ve already done.

Check out the first few events in Forza Horizon.

With just three stations, the radio approach doesn’t work at all well. There’s never anything good to listen to, making the fourth ‘Radio Off’ option generally the most appealing.

With that, we can safely put the negativity to one side, because pretty much everything else about Horizon is glorious.

Fans of Forza’s usual clinical approach to racing might be put off at first – cut-scenes introduce characters you’ll never care about, gimmick events drag the focus away from pure racing and the open-world structure couldn’t feel less like traditional Forza.

Only the first of these is really a concern, however, and even then you can skip the awful cut-scenes if (read: when) you don’t want to be shouted at by stereotypes and assholes.

Even the fact that it doesn’t strictly feel like Forza isn’t a negative in and of itself, since the game takes influence from pretty much every great modern racer.

Presentation and tone have an air of Dirt about them, structure is reminiscent of Burnout Paradise or modern Need For Speed games, and the scoring system could be straight out of Project Gotham Racing, making us cross our fingers that there’s some truth to the rumours of Turn 10 working on a new PGR.

With all the neon colours, jaunty angles and attitude going around, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a Dirt game.

It’s this scoring system that really gives Horizon an edge over most current racers.

Rather than earning boost for your dangerous driving, stunts like near misses, awesome powerslides and precision passes all earn you skill points that boost your overall popularity rating with the fans.

On their own, these flashy driving displays are worth minimal points, the key being to chain them together into as long a combo as possible.

Certain combinations unlock unique bonuses – drifting through breakable objects will net you the Sideswipe bonus, for instance – while milestones in the popularity rankings unlock new Showcase events, unique races that always have a pretty tasty prize car attached to them.

These are a fairly hit-and-miss affair, though, to be honest. The novelty and spectacle of racing against planes, choppers and hot air balloons is undeniable, yet it can be extremely hard to know how well you’re actually doing in these events, given that your opponent isn’t playing by the same rules.

Each has its own hazards that make it that little bit trickier too – the chopper kicks up so much dust over dirt tracks that it can be nearly impossible to see where you’re going, while the planes have a tendency to buzz you near checkpoints, sending both screen and controller into a rumble frenzy that makes it tough to hold down your line.

Annoyingly, the rear-view mirror on the interior view is blocked by leaderboard positions for most cars. 

Far better are the Outpost events. Each of the game’s ten discoverable fast travel locations houses three challenges, each reducing the cost of quickly teleporting to that point by a significant factor and mastery of all three making it totally free to do so.

The challenges are uniform, so only the cars used – you’ll be riding rentals and usually high-end ones for these events – and locations differ, though that doesn’t make them any less enjoyable.

At each outpost, there’s a Speed challenge (hit a speed camera going faster than the target speed), a Photo challenge (snap your dream car, undamaged, with the listed landmark in the background) and the more straightforward Stunt Run, in which you simply have to tear up the highlighted route with your best driving skills.

Speed takes a few runs, if only to learn the corners that lead up to the relevant camera, while Photo is a cakewalk but a welcome change of pace.

But it’s the Stunt Run that wins out here, the only challenge of the three that isn’t made stupidly easy by the rewind feature, since rewinding doesn’t reinstate a dropped multiplier.

Forza Horizon’s many races, by contrast, are fairly basic. Eight cars compete in either circuit courses plucked from the open-world road layout or point-to-point events, though don’t go expecting Burnout Paradise levels of route choice – here, you stick to the roads mapped out for you.

Race well enough against rivals and they’ll put their cars on the line in pink slip races.

On the default settings, Horizon is far too easy, but the wealth of options in the difficulty menu make this easily remedied. To keep newcomers sweet, the game defaults to having all driving assists on, though each variable can be tweaked based on your ability, your setup and your optimism.

As ever, each assist disabled also leads to a bigger payout at the end of a race – you’ll soon start drowning in prize money, even if you limp along with all the driving aids on, though brave players who push themselves will quickly earn significantly more disposable income for their efforts, in turn leading to more new cars and better upgrades.

Not that you really need that many cars, in truth. Basic events are purely based around Performance Index, so with tricked-out B, A and S-rank cars, you’re set for the majority of events.

As more stipulations are introduced, you might find that you need to expand your garage, though even then there doesn’t tend to be much in the way of variety to these specialist event grids – manufacturer events tend to favour one or two specific vehicles, which you can buy straight from the race sign-up screen if you just want to jump in, although you’ll obviously have a better shot if you go pimp it first.

Tuning options for individual engine and performance upgrades will be missed by Forza purists, though it’s not something that will be missed by many; those still looking to tweak an engine to breaking point can do so in Forza 4 after all, leaving Horizon to benefit from a more level playing field for all competitors.

The marketplace is already filling up with awesome paint jobs. 

In fact, tackling Horizon on its own terms is a far better way to play in general. Go exploring the open Colorado roads and you’ll find roaming opponents to challenge for a cash injection, billboards to break in order to earn discounts on vehicle upgrades, and derelict classics tucked away in barns, each of which can be lovingly restored by the hard-working garage owner in a remarkably short space of time.

There are also the aforementioned outposts to locate, each making it easier to get around the map, although some may just prefer to drive everywhere and drink in the gorgeous scenery.

Horizon looks beautiful on a decent setup and absolutely jaw-dropping on anything better. Car models are the best they’ve ever been, landscapes roll on forever and manage to be surprisingly varied considering the size of the map, and even the cut-scenes don’t look awful.

Not bad considering neither studio involved has much experience in rendering people.

There was a very real danger that Horizon could end up losing the essence of the Forza series in its attempt to pull in new fans, though with the exception of the attempt to add narrative where none was needed, this really isn’t the case.

The series’ exemplary handling model served it brilliantly in the track-based format but the open road is just that much more exciting for seeing what these luxury supercars are really capable of.

Rack up enough points through skilful driving and you’ll shoot up through the popularity rankings.

Similarly, the new mechanics lend themselves brilliantly to the experience, making it easy to burn hours just flashing roaming competitors, exploring the vast environment or simply burning rubber and seeing how far you can push an incredible skill chain.

But elements of the classic Forza experience remain too. Even without tuning options, car modding is insanely deep and the paint shop is as conducive to artistic expression as ever. You can even transfer custom liveries and decal sets over from Forza 4.

So while the paint job might have changed, this is still classic Forza under the hood.

Horizon sacrifices purity for spectacle, trades tuning depth for racing equality and shifts to an open road setting where once were trackside barriers and preset circuits, though none of this detracts from the glorious driving mechanics that Playground Games has superbly re-created under the watchful eye of Turn 10.

It’s not Forza as we know it, sure. But few will be able to resist that new car smell – or claim that Horizon isn’t an excellent racer – all the same.

Do you remember when Peter Molyneux was showing off Fable: The Journey earlier this year and he said, though it was using Kinect, it was definitely not an on rails experience.

No matter how many times he was asked by the gaming press, he replied in the same way and was adamant that Fable: The Journey would capture that Fable RPG mix of action, humour and drama and use Kinect’s full body motion control to bring it all to life.

Well, now that we’ve played Fable: The Journey we can tell you – it bloody is on rails.

Now, we’re not about to review a game and criticise it for being something it isn’t, because if we did that for all of Molyneux’s titles we’d find they were all talked up in some way, but Fable: The Journey does raise some interesting questions regarding its genre.

You can’t really call it an RPG, though you do level up your abilities by collecting orbs. It’s also a decidedly rigid action game and the choices afforded to the player are nearly non-existent.

It took us a while to figure it out, but Lionhead’s big Kinect offering is essentially a lightgun game, without the lightgun.

There’s a bit more to it than that, but not much. You take up the role of Dweller Gabriel, who in a cruel twist of fate and some prodding from Fable overseer, Theresa, finds himself in possession of some magic gauntlets that grant him the power and responsibility to fend off an attack from The Corruption.

Fable: The Journey really does offer a visually spectacular adventure.

Travelling across Albion with his horse and cart, Fable: The Journey takes up the road movie template and sees Gabriel attempt to make his way back to his convoy and defeat the evil that’s taking over Albion.

There are two parts to Fable: The Journey that can be described as gameplay. Firstly, you’ll be behind the reins of your horse as you travel from A to B.

It’s a linear road with the occasional forks but you can only ever stop when you’re given the option and turning around is impossible. This makes spending time on the horse and cart pretty dull as Lionhead insists on fleshing out its wafer thin narrative with incessant exposition.

At times Fable: The Journey feels like an interactive movie, the production values and visuals are all beautifully crafted and it does a good job bringing Albion to life.

While on foot Gabriel takes players through locations and this is where Fable: The Journey morphs into an inaccurate lightgun game. You use your left and right arms to cast different kinds of spells and even after following the lengthy set-up instructions and recommendations, it still doesn’t work properly.

Rather smartly, Fable: The Journey never asks you to stand up, allowing you to play the whole thing sat down. Just don’t sit next to anyone or slouch, and for goodness sake, never cross your legs.

When the action ramps up you'll find that you're forced into casting lots of spells very quickly. Kinect really doesn't like that.

Your right hand casts offensive spells such as fireballs and spears with your left letting you interact with the game world and characters, but Lionhead rarely gives you anything interesting to do with them.

The camera plods from place to place, just like in Time Crisis, and sets you up for the next round of enemies. You’ll occasionally be given the choice to lean left or right to avoid in-coming attacks, but as far as Fable: The Journey is concerned, the player is just along for the ride.

When you are given a choice it’s when to stop along the road. Stables give you a chance to heal and groom your horse, using Kinect to pull out arrows and brush the mud of its back.

The only incentive to do this is XP and it fails to capture the same player/animal bond that previous Fables have exploited with the dogs. At times it feels like Lionhead has lost what makes Fable special.

It looks like Fable (and at times The Journey looks beautiful), it even sounds like Fable, but it doesn’t feel like its part of the same series. Even the jokes and humour fall flat.

Despite this the ride can still be enjoyable, even if it does feel like it’s aimed at children. Combat is let down by Kinect’s inconsistencies when reading your body movements, but it’s still fun in small doses.

Along the road you'll find 'dungeons'. They're not really dungeons, more extra rooms where you're spammed by tons of enemies.

Travelling along the road gives an unseen view into a Albion’s stunning world and the occasional horse-based set-piece livens things up, but you’re a voyeur with very little say in what goes on.

In many ways Fable: The Journey is this generation's Dragon’s Lair.
 
Lionhead’s latest is big budget, showy and yet ultimately shallow. It looks the part, but limits player interaction to the bare minimum.

Kinect drags the experience down, restricting the action instead of freeing it and opening it up to new innovations and it’s a real shame it uses the wonderful Fable world in which to do it in.

When was the last time you saw a Game Over screen that actually mattered? You know, as in one that didn’t just punish death or failure with a screen where the word ‘continue’ is somehow a magic ticket back to a place or time before you screwed up royally?

It’s been a while, because the rules have changed – more often than not, the line between lives, checkpoints and continues is blurred to the point where none of it really matters at all.

Meanwhile, titles like Dark Souls and Borderlands forgo the very concept of a Game Over screen, instead financially punishing those who find themselves with a skill shortfall.

XCOM will extend you no such courtesy. It’s a game that wouldn’t so much hold a door open for you as run through and bar it in front of you while flipping you off.

One that would extend a hand to you when you were down only to slap you round the face, steal your wallet and piss in your pockets rather than help you up.

Still too cryptic? XCOM is cruel, calculating and ridiculously hard.

Innocuous early mistakes can lead to potential game-wrecking repercussions that make the game unwinnable; veteran soldiers can be snatched from you in a harsh ambush or freak explosion; one botched mission can lead to funding cuts from major superpowers, in turn making the situation that much more difficult to manage.

Most attacks and actions see the camera pan out to give the best view of the conflict, with some sweet cinematic angles for the best shots.

Firaxis’s unashamedly old-school strategy game pulls no punches and demands perfect juggling of loads of elements. It’s not so much a game about trying to win as it is one that you’re constantly, desperately trying not to lose.

With so much to consider, XCOM would be pretty much impossible to comprehend were it not for the superb tutorial that kicks the game off.

While it channels the action at the expense of freedom, splicing hints and education with narrative is a clever way to ease players into the unfathomably deep world of extraterrestrial defence.

The hand-holding doesn’t last long, though. Firaxis covertly hacks off the training wheels in a seamless transition from on-the-job training to high-pressure solo command – you don’t even realise you’re flying solo until you eventually look down and the crippling vertigo sets in.

At its simplest, XCOM can be broken down into two main segments: project and base management, and field ops. The former is stupidly deep on its own, involving research and development of alien technology, facility expansion and improvement, personnel management and diplomatic strategy.

Firaxis’s scent is all over it in these quieter moments, too. The Civilization team brings much of the depth of its own franchise to XCOM – advisors head up each area, offering suggestions and advice about which projects to prioritise, and even the flow of the game is similar, albeit with strategy battles to resolve conflicts rather than Risk-style dice rolls.

Suppressive fire is massively useful, lowering an enemy’s stats while granting you a bonus shot at them if they try to move.

There’s a lot to keep on top of here, though this just means there’s more potential for repeated play.

You might choose to pour all your resources into keeping every nation sweet at the expense of technology, or make your focus bringing in live subjects to interrogate, netting you credits that improve your research.

You simply don’t have the time or the resources to do and see everything in one play, making settling on a strategy early and sticking with it essential.

But there’s a whole lot more strategy to be found in the second of the core segments, the turn-based battles. Here, your handful of tailor-made troopers don the best gear you have access to and take the fight straight to the alien menace, be it at a UFO crash site, an invasion or even an alien base.

The convoluted Time Unit system of the original game has been radically simplified so rather than having to juggle some abstract currency to work out what actions they can take, each can now make up to two actions from the usual arsenal of movement, attacks and special abilities.

Despite its simplicity, there’s an impressive depth to the system – a slow, steady approach lets you fire off more shots or place soldiers on Overwatch, where they’ll automatically take a shot at the first thing that moves, even in the enemy turn, while using both actions for movement grants a protection bonus on account of the character sprinting and being a little harder to hit.

Let the aliens terrorise a country too much and they’ll pull funding. Lose eight countries and it’s game over.

It’s something that a few missions even cruelly toy with, placing time limits on levels with bombs ready to blow or fragile civilians in need of rescue so that the cautious approach isn’t really an option.

And, as it turns out, putting your soldiers in harm’s way isn’t exactly the best of ideas.

The sense of mortality here is, as you’ll see as early as the first tutorial mission, truly terrifying, and a simple mistake can easily lead to casualties, which in turn can bring the entire mission crashing down.

To make matters worse, you’ll start to grow attached to your squad members as they climb through the ranks and work their way up the associated skill trees for each class.

It can be a pre-made grunt straight out of boot camp and it’s still all too easy to fall for those squaddies that repeatedly save your ass on the battlefield, but it only gets even more heart-wrenching when you’ve got a full team of customised, named allies in the firing line – it’s like The Sims, but with much shorter life expectancies, a bunch more aliens and infinitely more plasma-related casualties.

While it’d be easy to pick apart the fact that the customisation aspect could use a little more depth, we quickly realised how bad an idea that would be.

When you’re already growing fond of these generic, ‘Head3, Voice5’ soldiers, imagine how much more affecting it’d be to see more realistic versions of your friends, family and colleagues get blown to bits by grenades and lasers.

As technology improves, so too does your strategic arsenal. Stealth armour, stun guns and jetpacks are all game-changers…

This is a constant fear in XCOM – stick your neck out at any point and you have to almost expect to have it slashed.

Who would have thought that a turn-based game could be one of the most tense and terrifying in recent memory? We’d never have called it, but after hours on the extraterrestrial front line, our nerves are all kinds of shot.

This doesn’t have to be the case, though. If you’re looking for slightly less of a challenge – or indeed an experience that can’t spring a Game Over screen on you some 20 hours in – then there are options on hand to make XCOM a little less severe.

Saving your game regularly is the first such step, and while we don’t recommend you repeatedly load your game whenever something goes wrong, it’s a nice safety net to have in case of an all-out catastrophe.

A host of difficulty levels also helps tailor the experience – drop in on the lower level to face thinned forces of clueless space-dwellers or ramp it up to face a ruthless forces that will take pleasure in pulling humanity apart, one meat puppet at a time.

For the truly hardcore, there’s Ironman mode on top of this, a single-save mode that autosaves after every event to ensure that everything that happens is irreversible.

If you want the ultimate challenge and aren’t averse to a little stress, Ironman is the way XCOM should be played.

Careful management of your facility will provide even greater benefits to your overall efficiency.

Given the type of game it is and its casual disregard for the player’s feelings, it’s clear that XCOM isn’t a game that everyone will enjoy.

But no matter how confusing it may seem, it doesn’t take long to see through this façade – depth and complexity needn’t go hand in hand and there are few better games to demonstrate this than XCOM.

Fiddle in the menus for a few minutes and you’ll get a fair feel for the many options available to you, while a couple of battles in, you’ll already be planning and executing some awesome strategies, perhaps without even realising you’re doing so.

And despite how brutally tough and unforgiving it may be, XCOM also manages to be incredibly addictive. You’ll yearn for your next chance to get out in the field and recover some alien tech, in turn developing weapons and armour to make your life that little bit easier.

People will die along the way – that’s pretty much a given – and it’s more than likely that you’ll be forced into a position where a few of the countries will almost definitely pull out of the project.

But as we said earlier, it’s more a case of damage limitation than a mad rush towards inevitable victory. No, the finish line is never close nor easy to reach, and sometimes there isn’t even a finish line at all.

But this alien structure makes XCOM feel unique in a field of follow-the-man shooters and channelled third-person action games.

An out-of-this-world strategy epic that demands to be played, even though doing so is one of the most stressful things you can do with a 360 controller in your hand.

Watching the final cut-scene of Dishonored is a bittersweet experience. It has been a great ride; an enthralling tale filled with smart choices and fantastic moments.

But on the other hand, that ride feels distressingly short, and there’s a real feeling of ‘Is that it?’ when the credits roll. It’s probably a comment on both the quality of what’s there as well as the length, because for seven or so hours Dishonored is mostly brilliant, if a little flawed: BioShock via Half-Life 2, Hitman and posho British history.

Dishonored plays out against the background of a foreign world, but one that takes old-school British politics, class systems and style as its inspiration.

Taking on the role of Corvo Attano, the Royal Protector of the Empress of Dunwall and her daughter, Emily, the start of the game sees you finally returning from a long voyage at sea.

The Empress’ castle and estate gleam in the sun, and you’ve even got time for a cheeky game of hide and seek with the next in line to the throne, but Dunwall is in trouble.

There’s the tiny problem of plague-ridden rats turning the city into a 19th Century version of 28 Days Later.

Things get worse from there and soon the Empress is dead, with the overthrowing force conveniently blaming you. Broken out of prison, you soon find yourself in hiding with a bunch of other loyalists. Your mission is to strike at the heart of the conspirators and return Emily to the throne.

This party kinda got out of hand.

It’s not a particularly original scenario, but Dishonored’s combination of Victorian steampunk inspiration and political intrigue give the world and the story a great hook.

It’s as far from the standard COD/Battlefield FPS staples as you can imagine. BioShock via Brink is probably more appropriate, and like with the former it’s very difficult not to get sucked into the world and conspiracy around you.

Gameplay, narrative and style fit hand in glove to create a satisfying world that feels both authentic and fantastical.

The painterly art direction is perfect and style-wise it’s a fine-looking game, if not an open one, even if textures are disappointingly ugly in places.

Instead, the Hound’s Pit pub and surrounding buildings will serve as your hub. Here you will receive mission briefings and upgrade your weapons and equipment. When ready, you’ll be escorted off to various missions around the city by boat.

Each of these assignments is broadly similar: get in, out, shake it all about, with ‘it’ being a massive blade and ‘all about’ being people’s skulls.

Dark Vision lets you track guards pathing routines and field of vision.

Like Hitman, however, how you do that is up to you, and this is where Dishonored’s appeal lays. Corvo is visited early on by the Outsider, a supernatural being that gives men powers to combat the Overseers, Dishonored’s religious fanatics and chief enemies.

By collecting runes placed around the levels, you’ll be able to level up these various abilities, which are used like BioShock’s Plasmids. They are generally broken down into stealth/action categories, depending on your play style, with a couple overlapping.

You won’t be able to upgrade them all in one playthrough, so fairly careful consideration is necessary when building ‘your’ Corvo.

Being let loose in the sizeable levels in which your hits take place is a thrill, as is working out precisely how to get to your target. Stealth is encouraged, but it’s possible to literally go in all-guns-blazing, removing everyone in your path on your way to victory.

Well, we say ‘victory’, but exercise your trigger finger or sword skills too often and you’ll be punished for it with less-favourable NPCs and a downbeat ending. You’ll also have to face off against increased numbers of Dunwall’s plague-ridden civilians, as well as the Overseer army.

More importantly, rushing in like Rambo means you’ll see little of what the game has to offer. Hidden away in the many nooks and crannies of the levels are secret entry points, extra mission objectives and dozens of collectables, as well as the aforementioned runes to help you level up further.

Ah videogames. Where would we be without your gratuitous violence?

The best example of Dishonored’s open-ended structure is the mission ‘Lady Boyle’s Last Party’. Tasked with infiltrating an upper-class masquerade ball on a grand estate, Corvo can steal an invitation to get in. Or possess a guest and waltz past security. Or do the same to a fish, and swim into the sewers and proceed up through the basement.

Once inside, you’ve got to positively ID which of the three attending Lady Boyles is your target. You do this by eavesdropping on parlour gossip, bribing NPCs with drinks, or just straight out creeping into their bedrooms and reading the respective diaries. You’ve even got time for a cheeky gentleman’s duel with a toff out in the garden.

Once you’ve acquired your target, you then have a choice as to how to proceed. Killing them is always the default option, but you can make your way through the game without eliminating anyone.

In this instance, a fellow party guest will ask you to spare Lady Boyle’s life. In return for you incapacitating and bringing her to his small boat in the basement, he’ll take her away, never to be seen again.

It’s up to you, of course: you could just shank her and be done with it. But if you want the best post-mission rating, you’ll be eager to search out these alternate ways of neutralising your targets, especially as doing so usually requires you to use your abilities in a much more inventive and satisfying way.

Nothing says 'BioShock' more than this screenshot.

That mission recalls the best that Hitman has to offer, and is one of Dishonored’s high points. It’s also, in some ways, atypical of the experience.

Unlike other levels, the party is a neutral zone where you’re not going to be shot on sight unless you start acting suspicious. Other missions aren’t as forgiving, but can be just as enjoyable.

It’s up to you how to circumvent the obstacles, both living and not, in your way, and being an industrialised city, Dunwall boasts some tech that would make Tesla proud. Walls of Light fry anyone not authorised to pass, and Arc Pylons fire beams of death at ne’er-do-wells.

Again, part of Dishonored’s appeal is interacting with this world. You can rewire the Walls of Light to frag your foes, or simply remove the power supply, which is unstable and can also be used as a weapon.

You can possess foes and stroll through hostile areas. Or bend time to stop bullets in midair, Neo-style.

When you put these together, Dishonored sings. It’s a bit of a letdown, then, that you won’t need to do that as much as you’d think, because there’s one power that rules them all: Blink.

The developers admit as much, as one of the Achievements is for using no powers other than Blink, suggesting the game is dependent on it.

With Blink you'll have access to a whole new world.

It’s teleportation, essentially, and you’ll be using it far more than the other powers simply because it is so useful. In trouble with a guard? Blink out of sight. Need to get above a target? Blink. Need to infiltrate somewhere? Blink.

Essentially, on the first playthrough at least, it means that instead of looking for other routes into places, your first thought will invariably be to Blink onto a rooftop.

It might seem like a small thing to complain about, especially as you have the other tools at your disposal. But it’s so all-encompassing that it becomes the go-to move at the expense of the others.

It’s a good job, then, that Dishonored is so broad, its levels so enjoyable to stalk and fight through, its rewards for playing well so obvious, that you’ll want to return to it almost as soon as you’ve finished.

It’s here that the various options available to you start spooling out, and with prior knowledge of the levels you’ll start to look for different ways in and out, side quests to complete, alternate ways of disposing your prey, and there’s also the different endings to work for.

And so we’re back to the bittersweet feeling, because what is there is so compelling that the lack of additional stages can’t help but feel like a disappointment. The game’s strengths are a double-edged sword.

Regardless, this is still one of the best games of this year. With a bit of work, a potential sequel could be one of the best games of any year.

You have to hand it to WayForward Technologies. In one deft swipe it has not only made the archaic scrolling fighter relevant again, but has rebooted arguably the genre's most important game.

Double Dragon Neon works because WayForward Technologies has put the emphasis firmly on having fun. The brothers cheesily high five each to activate special moves, the franchise-aware Skeletor sounding boss sings a hilarious song (that you can sing-a-long to) as the credits roll, while finishing each level sees the brothers furiously play air guitars.

The cheesy soundtrack is also glorious, remixing the original soundtrack and hit Eighties songs in general. It's silly and completely irrelevant, but somehow it works; giving WayForward's brawler a charming personality that so many other games lack.

There's more to Neon than just sly in-jokes and crazy slapstick though, as WayForward has also delivered a solid fighting engine that offers a surprising amount of flexibility as you battle through ten varied stages. Hardcore fans will bemoan the loss of key signature moves like the head kick and elbow, but new moves like grabbing stunned opponents and bashing their heads together, or enhancing your attacks for a limited time with a carefully timed dodge more than make up for it.

The core moves set is further enhanced by the many mix tapes the brothers can collect. Picking up cassette tapes from defeated enemies allows you to power up a range of unique passive and magical attacks. Passive skills range from letting your brother dish out more damage for every strike he makes without being hit, to recovering energy on a successful hit; while magic bonuses range from flinging fireballs to summoning a huge screen-clearing dragon.

Grabbing additional tapes enhances said skill to a limit cap of ten, but this figure can be increased to 50 by visiting the Tapesmith and paying him the required amount of Mythril. It's a neat system that requires plenty of experimentation, especially as certain fighting styles are more relevant against specific enemies.

Unsurprisingly, Double Dragon Neon really comes into its own when you play with a second player, opening up the gameplay massively, and capturing the spirit of the original 1987 arcade game. It's somewhat baffling then that WayForward doesn't currently have an option for playing online (although we've been assured it is coming via a future patch).

For all its power-ups and level variety - your ten-stage quest takes you from the familiar streets of the 1987 original to deep space and mysterious labs - Double Dragon Neon does inevitably suffer from over familiarity, while the later difficulty levels require a fair amount of grinding in order to make progress in them.

It's all put together with so much love for both its source material and the Eighties in general though that you'll be having far too much fun to actually notice.

The dance genre has benefited enormously from Kinect and motion control, relegating the clunky mats of the last generation to the attic. Dance games are now about big screen, big living room extravaganzas like Dance Central and Just Dance.

It’s about getting your friends together to have fun, jump around and be amazed that a videogame is able to interpret your embarrassing wiggles. It’s an illusion, of course, but one we’re happy to maintain as long as the underlying technology is able to keep up and ensure the curtain hiding the inner workings is tied down tight.

The problem is Kinect isn’t the most accurate of inputs, and after the joys of a Just Dance party have subsided, your guests already halfway to the nightclub, what you end up with is quite a shallow and weird-looking dance game. Just Dance 4 doesn’t hide the lack of movement recognition particularly well, too.

Its on-screen dancers jig and jive away like there’s no tomorrow, but the visual feedback is minimal. It’s hard to say whether this is intentional or not, but it’s difficult to know if your dance moves have any correlation with those of your screen partner.

This dancer and game relationship is also hampered with ill-conceived dance instructions that are impenetrable to begin with, and then, once you’ve run through the songs a number of times, pretty much useless. This is something Harmonix’s Dance Central achieves with relative success, finding a balance between its move set’s complexity, dance difficulty and player understanding.

The dance moves are difficult to interpret and these guys don't make it any easier.

Unfortunately, Just Dance 4 has also inherited the habit of its predecessors of making dancers move about too much or forcing them to look away from the screen. It makes it very difficult for obvious reasons. This is more about jiving with friends, and Just Dance 4 wears its party game heart on its sweaty sleeve.

In reality, this is all about having fun while moving around to music with the minimum of engagement from the game itself. There’s a huge array of songs to choose from, which should keep you busy for months, a challenge mode and an exercise option.

Ubisoft has also included a SingStar-like video clip network and marketplace. It’s the perfect fit for the genre and, like SingStar, should see most of us making fools of ourselves in seconds.

All in all, Just Dance 4 is an odd mix of quality and worthwhile features that are ultimately let down by lacklustre and confusing dance gameplay. It’s a shame that Just Dance 4 can’t offer the same engagement and considered dance moves of Harmonix’s streetwise series.

Though it lacks the obvious immediacy of Dance Central, Just Dance 4 compensates with a plethora of options and a foot-tapping song list that turn it into the perfect party game and workout aid. Just don’t expect any accurate feedback.

When last we crossed paths with Leon S Kennedy, Capcom had inadvertently just passed the point of no return.

So rigidly templated were the five ‘proper’ Resident Evil games – that’s the original and its two numbered sequels, plus Code: Veronica and RE0 – that Resi 4’s over-the-shoulder viewpoint and cinematic approach represented a bold play on Capcom’s part, but it’s one from which there could be no turning back.

After such flowing and exciting action, going back to daft puzzles, static camera angles and stiff tank controls would – and in fact did, with the XBLA release of Code: Veronica – prove horribly jarring, showing up the old-fashioned design as being exactly that.

And with the last game taking RE4’s action slant to the extreme and dividing audiences in the process, Capcom went back to the drawing board to come up with a bunch of ideas as to where it should take the series next. Then stuffed that entire drawing board in a box and called it Resident Evil 6.

Whether through fear of the kind of backlash that Resi 5’s pure action approach brought upon it or just chronic indecision, Capcom has rammed Resident Evil 6 with more gameplay variety than it should be possible to wring from the core conceit of ‘go kill a bunch of zombies’.

One moment, it’s typical survival horror fare, a string of constant fight-or-flight decisions where saving ammo is as important as saving your own skin.

Dogs are a menace in the main campaign, yet in The Mercenaries they go down in a single shot.

The next, it becomes a cover shooter so generic that if you squint, you can just about make out Salem and Rios from Army Of Two. Then you’re on a snowmobile, caning around in the middle of a blizzard. Then it’s a stealth game for a bit.

Then it does an Ace Combat impression. And by the time it’s all over, you’re left wondering if the Kinect zombie dance-off was just a bad dream or if Capcom actually went there.

It didn’t, don’t worry. But it wouldn’t have surprised us if it had.

The curious thing about this ever-changing beast is that while it can’t seem to make its mind up as to what sort of game it wants to be when it grows up, more or less every kind of gameplay it puts forward actually works.

The core mechanics, an evolution of those in the last couple of games, are clearly designed to fit chasing after zombies just as well as running away from them, though even more exotic elements like vehicle sections, save for the odd shocking example, are generally up to scratch.

It’s rare for a game to try so much in the first place, let alone come away with such a good hit rate, so it’s certainly an impressive game in that respect.

J’avo sometimes go down easy without mutating, but usually they go all wrong and become proper tough to kill.

With complaints galore about Sheva’s AI, it’s unsurprising that Capcom has gone to town in making sure solo players aren’t offered an inferior experience to those who play in co-op.

AI partners don’t need to be constantly fed with ammo or revived – it’s unclear whether or not they can even die, as we never had to save any of them – but they don’t hog all the glory either, plus Capcom has done far more with clever situations that split up players or give each a certain role to play in a set piece.

These moments are better in co-op, sure, but it’s good to see that they work almost as well offline. Each of the characters also has a unique loadout, making both going back to older missions on your own and jumping online with a friend well worth doing.

While Resi purists might not like the fact that this continues in the action-heavy vein of the fifth game, callbacks to older games mean they should be able to enjoy it just as much as those less hung up on the bygone days of tank controls and illogical puzzles.

And with four campaigns that cover everything from survival horror to cover shooting and stealth to vehicle combat and then some, Resident Evil 6 has something for pretty much everyone.

The only real issue is whether you’ll find enough of the bits you like the most in so wildly varied – both in terms of design and quality – an experience to consider it a classic.

Ustanak is usually seen chasing Jake, but that doesn’t mean he’s too busy to make friends with the rest of the cast…

Resident Evil 6 Campaign Breakdown: Leon/Helena

Given that the prologue chapter puts you in control of Leon, it’s fair to say that his campaign is the ‘main’ one. It’s the longest too, and will likely be the most appealing to long-term Resident Evil fans – it’s as close to a traditional horror experience as Resi 6 gets, with its minimal ammo reserves and legions of braindead opposition.

The occasional puzzle breaks things up in classic style, though the new move set is still clearly geared towards action rather than the typically slower pace of earlier games in the franchise.

After a blistering opening, though, things slowly go downhill a little. A couple of ridiculous bosses don’t help matters, though it’s only really in these showdowns that the experience dips below the ‘great’ mark, and even then only momentarily.

It’s bound to be the highlight of Resi 6 for many and understandably so – it’s a generally awesome campaign that, with maybe a couple more chapters, could stand alone on this disc and still be worth the asking price.

Briefcases often contain ammo or Skill Points. Don’t worry about missing new weapons, though – they appear on your HUD.

Resident Evil 6 Campaign Breakdown: Chris/Piers

We’re perfectly happy to accept a more action-heavy take on Resident Evil, but everyone’s favourite boulder beater doesn’t exactly get off to a flying start – the opening section of Chris’s campaign does itself no favours whatsoever.

It’s an Army Of Two-esque shooter with military gibberish being thrown around like confetti and mechanical hangovers from the more horror-inspired scenes, primarily in the way it still restricts ammo despite being a straight shooter.

But since it is a straight shooter, it has a far clearer path along which to evolve than the other campaigns. J’avo mutations grow more numerous and severe as it rolls on, the action building in intensity with each firefight and set pieces escalating at a similarly ridiculous rate.

By the end, you’ll be exhausted from all the awesome, almost to the point of forgetting that limp opening. Almost, Chris. Too bad you didn’t get to punch any rocks this time, old friend…

Jake isn't only about the fisticuffs.

Resident Evil 6 Campaign Breakdown: Jake/Sherry

Our original hope that Jake’s campaign would develop into more of a flowing fist-fighter akin to Rocksteady’s Batman games didn’t exactly come true, though we do at least understand his combat mechanics a little better after eight hours in his company.

It’s all about burning through your Combat Points to use his awesome martial arts attacks, hence his bar seeming to recharge slightly quicker than the other guys’, with guns to fall back on when you run out of stamina.

There’s also the recurring motif of running the hell away, recurring pursuer Ustanak frequently popping his borderline-invincible head in to say hello.

As with Chris, it’s a slow start but the campaign gets much better from the third chapter onwards, especially if you’ve learned to effective combine his melee proficiency with gunplay.

Be warned, though: Jake’s campaign does features some of the game’s weakest sections, so there’s some muck to wade through in order to get to all the good bits. In summary, far better than we feared it would be.

Sound the alarm in Ada’s first mission and it will let you play on, but you’re as good as dead if you do.

Resident Evil 6 Campaign Breakdown: Ada

This surprising inclusion only becomes available once you finish the other three campaigns, which makes sense as it serves to tie up the three narratives while telling its own equally interesting side story.

Since Ada goes it alone, the co-op aspect that has been around since the last game is dropped and that feels quite strange at first – there’s nobody to help you up when you get taken by surprise and no one to draw fire away from you when things get hectic.

While her arsenal isn’t all that inspiring – bar the super-useful crossbow, of course – shooting is still an option, though Ada is better served by a considered, more stealthy approach.

When played like this, the pacing makes it feel closer to older Resi games than even Leon’s section, so those barking at Capcom for changing things up too much would do well to bite the bullet and rinse all three of the main campaigns. This is a brilliant reward for doing so.

There is no easier game in the world to play than Dead Or Alive 5. Literally no easier game in the world.

If you have two hands, you know how to press buttons and you know how to switch your TV on, you’re halfway to becoming a Dead Or Alive 5 master.

That’s both its strength and its weakness. It’s a strength because Dead or Alive 5 smashes the barrier to entry to a genre that usually demands thumb gymnastics beyond mere mortals.

There’s no Dragon Punch to learn, no canned ten-hit combos to memorise, no FADC into Ultra to screw up. It’s just your manic button presses somehow ended up as full-blown combos with gorgeous, fluid animation to fool those watching into thinking they’re watching a master at work.

You can do big combos by sitting down in training mode for a few hours or by jumping online and smashing buttons or by rubbing ham over the pad. It all works.

It's not all about the boobs this time... seriously, it's not! Why don't you believe us?

Dead Or Alive 5 doesn’t discriminate between newcomers and veterans. Everyone is welcome. The other thing that helps with newcomers is how good it looks, because we’re all shallow beasts that drool at pretty things. And good lord, Dead Or Alive 5 is pretty.

It has both players becoming muddy and dirty as the battle rumbles on yet it looks organic and natural, rather than the game code booting up dirty textures whenever a fighter takes a tumble.

Win poses are sweaty. Stages warp and distort as chaos erupts. The animation is lush and it’s a beautiful, beautiful game to watch. (Incidentally, the marketing leading up to this suggesting it would be more sophisticated than sexualised?

Nonsense. It’s every bit as wobbly boobed, with cut-scenes leering on flesh as it was before. Whether that bothers you or not.) All of this doesn’t mean Dead Or Alive 5 is a completely brain-dead button-smasher, as there are complex mechanics at work underneath the flash.

It’s a game built around its counter and stun system. Some moves will place you in long periods of hit-stun, where you’re left reeling and open to further hits unless you guess the right counter.

Guess wrong and you take even more damage, while your opponent can actually stop attacking, wait for your failed counter attempt and throw you instead for a huge damage bonus.

It’s a smart system that was present in Dead Or Alive 4 but seems to be far more pronounced this time round.

That’s good because it highlights the subtle stun system and makes it easier to understand, and it’s bad because there are times when you’ll feel as though you’re being helplessly slapped about with only a smart guess able to save you.

The problem is it also leads to button-bashing, and again, it’s good because it brings newcomers in but bad because combos aren’t nearly as satisfying as in Tekken or Virtua Fighter. Often they feel like happy accidents.

Dead Or Alive has lost none of its exessive style over the years.

It comes down to Dead Or Alive’s design. Nearly every move is positive on block.

Translated into English, means you can hammer away at an opponent’s guard until they do something drastic to turn the tide – usually a counter, sometimes a side-step, maybe even one of the moves that does give you enough time to start your own offence.

That’s a lot of technical moonspeak covered there so we’ll move on to simpler things, like the story. Fighting games don’t cater to sole players often, correctly figuring that the replay value comes from multiplayer, but full credit to Dead Or Alive 5 for having a bloody good go anyway.

The story mode here encompasses every character in the game, switching you between different points of view to see how events play out and giving you a feel for each face.

There’s nice contrast in styles – Bass and Tina focus on grapples and multi-part counters, Kasumi and Jann Lee batter their opponents with speed, and Zack has his eccentric fighting style with odd timing to throw off opponents’ counter attempts.

There are extra challenges spruced in as well to teach you about the system and keep the fighting fresh. You might have to land a certain number of throws or connect with so many low hits and so on.

Unfortunately, story mode still succumbs to repetition – it’s just never that engaging given it’s a string of different opponents with the game relying on you completing those extra challenges to do things differently – and difficulty spikes.

Good lord, the difficulty spikes. Anyone who remembers the hair-pulling frustration of Alpha-152 from Dead Or Alive 4 will immediately understand.

Dead Or Alive 5 is a strange game to review in that it’s really good fun at a basic button-bashing level but any attempts to push on beyond that starts opening up flaws.

The story mode isn’t quite deep enough, the gameplay isn’t quite smart enough, the variety isn’t quite varied enough. You’ll enjoy it for a while, it’s gorgeous to look at, and it’s good fun.

It’s just a real shame it’s released at the same time that another 3D fighter has turned up with a far bigger, ballsier package.