In the end the fact that most of the different disciplines are fun to play, outweigh the shortcomings. Which makes The Crew 2 a fun, scrappy, but not all that essential arcade racer. If it could somehow reign in the insanity and shortcomings, while providing a real reason to drive around and explore the impressive open-world U.S.A. - especially in co-op – then it could become something special.

Carrion is ultimately fascinating, engaging, and short and sweet. By putting you in the role of the alien threat it imbues you with a strange supervillain-like sense of playing in an insect farm. A playground where your prey often moves around sans limbs. If you’re a fan of sci-fi horror sub-genre then Carrion is worth seeking out.

It's just a shame that it didn't have some more time behind it, as it seems that the pressures of a 10-year game anniversary were more important than finessing certain areas. My treasured memories haven't been completely destroyed, but the technical woes make this Halo remake more for the fans than anyone else.

With an expansive story and memorable mechanics, it’s hard not to view Kingdom Come: Deliverance as one of the most interesting RPG releases in years. One where the difficulty is often a barrier to progress and some of the design choices become frustrating experiences in repetition or flat out giving up and moving on to another activity. Or reloading an earlier save to do more sword training. Rough around the edges sure, but the ambition often shines through.

I couldn't get past the lag issues and was also disappointed with the lack of metal included in the setlist. I also question how rewarding, in a game sense, it actually is.

Titanfall 2 is worth playing, but it's not a must-play game right now. The two levels that I think will influence game design for years to come--they'll still be there next year. But therein lies the rub--with a playerbase split over multiple pointless variants of team deathmatch and a handful of other standard multiplayer modes, the population might not be there next year when you get it.

This is very much a game that Warren Spector wanted to make, not the game his fans wanted him to make; the real fun comes from soaking in the contents of the man's mind, the ideas that govern the world he has created and the ways Disney memorabilia have come together into something grand, rather than from the simple experience of playing through it.

I'd love to see Rescue and Heist establish a community of players, because they're great modes done well.

Ninja Gaiden isn't a perfect experience, but it's accessible for newcomers and boasts an addictive gameplay formula that goes a long way to forgiving its detractors.

This review is based on the Xbox One version of the game, which inexplicably ran very poorly in action-heavy scenes. Considering that this is a game that works on mobile devices, the frequent stuttering and pausing was unwelcome, but never quite enough to really ruin the experience.

A House Divided is a weaker entry than we’re used to, but that maybe shouldn’t be cause for alarm. The table setting seems to be all in place now for the feast still to come, and even at its most meandering The Walking Dead is still capable of telling an intriguing, frightening story about humanity’s worst impulses.

Daemon X Machina goes that extra robo-mile, with one of the best player creation tools we’ve seen in a long while.

Calling a game hard usually errs on the side of fact rather than opinion, and there’s no mistaking the spike in Songbringer’s difficulty after the first few dungeons. So, it’s worth mentioning if only just to list that as one of its undocumented features. And to highlight this aspect of the experience for those that tend to struggle with top down combat that requires a fair bit of skill. In the end Songbringer is an exciting, if familiar, take on the old Zelda formula that for the most part plays as good as it looks.

There’s a franchise-in-waiting here, it just needs more than a few tweaks and hell of a lot less forced character.

In the end though it’s the improved combat, minus a few camera issues and frustratingly difficult boss encounters, the progression and build possibilities, and the wonderful level design that go a long way to make up for the lack of narrative drive. Or interest in what happens to the world. In this regard The Surge 2 is an improvement, but an experience that still feels like it’s a few more brutal dismemberment finishers away from finding the right plan to research and build its full potential.

For now, I think it means you're better off sticking with Arma II. Underwater missions, accomplished vehicle physics, an impressive array of player stances and fantastic visuals can't make up for a too-big map full of nothing and a handful of missions most computers and servers can't fully handle. I'll tell you what though, Arma III is going to be a great game in 2015.

Even if it ultimately means we might only look at certain aspects of its design or specific puzzles versus the story and setting to remember and recall as time goes on, Superliminal is still an experience worth seeking out.

Despite some welcome attention to detail in this port, it's still not enough to raise it to the heights of 'must play' for an action RPG whose charm, humour and some genuinely interesting ideas aren't strong enough to battle against how unchallenging it is and how repetitive a lot of tasks can become.

An enjoyable little slice of action. There's certainly room for improvement, and a Hard mode that doesn't remove all the checkpoints would have been appreciated for those who mastered the harder original and will breeze through this one, but it provides enough moments of pure fun to warrant a look.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate gets more right than it gets wrong, but in trying to amend some of the sins of the series, it exacerbates the issues instead of offering a cure. Despite that rather lengthy list of cons at the bottom of my review, one thing’s for sure: Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is still a hell of a lot of fun.

The single player campaign is an exercise in banging your head against brick walls until they break. Depending on the quality of your friends list, the long-term value of Rock of Ages probably lies in the chaotically level playing field of human-versus-human multi-player.

Through it all there’s just something about We Happy Few that keeps you coming back. It could very well be the quality of the writing, the characterisation, and the setting of a post-war London trying to forget its shameful past through medication and dystopian control. Or it could be that, and the weird blend of ideas and styles. In the end, whether that’s enough to excuse some of the bland fetch-style quest design or the repetitive nature of traveling from one side of Wellington Wells to another, comes down to personal taste.

When I Am Alive broke immersion with any number of the aforementioned flaws, which it did far too regularly, it was easy to chastise it. But when it was taking risks and throwing me into tense situations or decision moments, I couldn't drag myself away.

It’s not the kind of game that will be remembered down the track, but in the here and now it’s filling a certain gap in the One’s line-up more than adequately.

Where the story engages, the characters feel believable, and the monsters look and act and behave as diverse as the world itself. When it all comes together, Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin feels as epic and engaging as any other entry in the long-running series, albeit in turn-based RPG form.

Even though your arms will tire of using pickaxes and rope thingies to climb up some truly imposing cliffsides and mountains, Horizon Call of the Mountain never loses its sense of scale, wonder, and sheer beauty.

Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games includes a great variety of mini-games that are highly fun to play, as well some of your favourite characters from the Mario and Sonic universe. This game is the perfect title to pull out when you have a bunch of friends over at your place.

Outside of the campaign, playing the sandbox mode, which also provides players with periodic goals ranging from export targets to constructing certain types of buildings, proves to be a more well-rounded experience - even if it lacks the amusing overarching story elements of the campaign.

In terms of value, DiRT Showdown offers more than enough hours of entertainment for its asking price (one that is quite cheap on PC if you shop around) and serves as a perfect entrée during the wait for DiRT 4.

The Technomancer isn’t a great RPG, but it’s close. There are issues with the combat that pop up from time to time, and the whole setup of the side-quest system quickly devolves into a matter of running back and forth between places you’ve been to over and over.

When the game sings in its strongest moments, however, it’s a joy to play. Solving environmental puzzles, discovering workbenches to upgrade your gear, uncovering hidden Codex entries, evading the enemy in rewarding, stealthy ways that empower the player’s sense of agency, and in unfolding the next bit of connective narrative tissue, A Plague Tale: Requiem is great. Excellent even. But it’s fleeting, and Asobo crashes you down to Earth just as quickly as you might have felt on top of it, driven largely by hard-fail scenarios and situations, bolstered still by antiquated or arbitrary gameplay systems.

Ultimately it's the setting, art direction, and non-verbal cinematic storytelling where Somerville excels. But even here there are long lulls and a few sections that begin to feel bland. Like when you’re in a cave system trying to avoid attention in a way that feels like a homage to Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. And outside of the emotional notes touched upon when it comes to trying to reach your family in an oppressive situation, the ending and final act are too obtuse and abstract to make any sort of lasting impact. Somerville is a visually impressive, relatively short cinematic adventure held back by its ambition.

In the end, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is still worth celebrating. For one it’s different from the usual "fight fight fight" setup of past DBZ games, with a focus on telling classic stories from the series. The ability to explore the world is especially wonderful for fans, and King Kai’s fantastic jokes make you yearn for a new Netflix stand-up special. Still, as a fan, I was left wishing there was more depth and activities to make the world feel more alive. Overall, it's a decent role-playing experience faithful to Dragon Ball Z that’s action-packed and entertaining. A game tailor made for DBZ fans. Nothing too groundbreaking, except for the attacks breaking the ground.

Those diehards mentioned in the opener above will be happy to know that the level grading system is back, and locked to the higher difficulty setting, which ties into those that want to learn the intricate and subtly deep nature of things. For everyone else who’ll still be scratching their heads at the ludicrousness of it all, from go to whoa, at least you can rest easy on the idea that it’s okay to mash your way through here, and that for Bayonetta, this is all pretty standard stuff -- OTT served with a side of sass, sexuality and style.

Gravity-defying loops and curves sit alongside integration with real-world sections and plenty of room for breaking race lines, if you’re the overzealous type. And the deeper you go into the game as it’s meant to be played, with fully upgraded cars, the more a hidden level of depth emerges and a truly challenging racing game materialises. It’s just a shame it’s largely hidden from the outset.

This isn't the kind of game that you'll return to once completed, but as something a little different to the usual shooter formula it offers surprising satisfaction.

The themed levels are fine, but leaning into more SEGA history would have definitely added to the celebratory feel of Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania. A fine return to monkey-in-ball form, by the way of past glory and frustration.

When viewed through a cinematic lens, White Shadows becomes an easy experience to recommend. The wonderful art direction, cinematography, animation (for the most part) and other elements do come together to create a cohesive and visually surprising journey. There’s variety here, quite a bit of it considering the very short runtime. So even though it doesn’t quite emerge, fully formed, from the shadows of Limbo, Abe’s Odyssey, or Another World, White Shadows certainly makes its mark. However fleeting that might be.

Although Armageddon excels in the destruction stakes, combining it with some adrenaline-pumping action and cool special abilities, it leaves you feeling empty with its less-than-enthralling story – well less-than-interesting really – and level after level of tedious objectives.

So much of Terminal Reality's love shines through, even though this isn't a mind-blowing remastered effort. Don't eye this in the store and zip into your Ghostbusters overalls expecting a super sexy visual transformation – like bookish Dana Barrett to the siren-like Gatekeeper. You instead should power on your pack with the knowledge that this game is just oozing authenticity like an open New York City sewer does “bad mood slime”.

Under the surface, not enough has changed to the formula that separates The Elder Scrolls Online from existing free or established properties, and I would find it genuinely hard to recommend to anyone seeking an experience outside of a cosy, well presented, box.

Mad Max is obviously a license close to my heart, and The Road Warrior is my favourite tale in the franchise, so it could be considered unfair to have judged the game how I have, but there are definitely some glaring issues here that make the product schizophrenic in its license representation. When applying played-out tropes, however, it actually works through the game’s size and goals, and is easy to enjoy -- just as long as you forget the past and embrace the present.

Even if some of it feels a little extraneous, like trying to keep investors and executives happy with god knows how many future toys and bits of entertainment, Anno 2205 is still absorbing.

In some ways, the whole Lovecraft angle plays out here -- too big to conjure, fathom or even understand, Returnal is difficult to want to wrap your head around, and that’s largely because it hangs its space hat on that death loop (again, different game, same platform). If you’re a glutton for punishment, don’t mind a grind and will happily deal with unfathomable RNG forces at cosmic play, you will absolutely get something out of Returnal, but if like me, every time you die, a little piece of the part of you that wants to play more, dies too, then you might find yourself not return(al)ing to this in a hurry.

Through excellent world building, great characters, and a branching story, you’ve got a great slice of locally-grown sci-fi well worth digging into. Or, pointing and clicking through. And even though it’s held back a bit by its not-that-great inventory system, and a few cumbersome puzzles, the story is where it shines.

War in the North is also quite a lengthy game, which although sounds great on paper does work against the overall experience.

As an action-adventure, an RPG, a narrative, and open-world sandbox, and a way to simply spend time exploring a breathtaking world – it falls short. Engaging at times, thrilling too, but also disjointed, clunky, and unfocused in ways we didn’t expect.

For all its faults and this remaster’s bare-minimum approach to presentation – Shenmue is still worth playing. And hey, any game that can be described as Virtua Fighter meets The Sims, set in Japan during the 1980s, always will.

In the end though after, say, 15 or stages or varying length, the action does begin to feel a little repetitive with design that feels decidedly old-school thanks to the complete absence of environmental interaction and movement that is as floaty as watching synchronised figure skating with hundreds of skaters instead of two. But yeah, Warriors Orochi 4 is still a lot of fun to play. A blast even.

Despite its devotion to performing the necessary post-introduction busywork, and needing to tread water in preparation for future episodes, The Lost Lords remains entertaining.

It is fun. A hell of a lot of fun, actually. But the inverse is, unfortunately, true when your team isn’t work together, or you’re being dominated by an opposing team that has its shit together.

What we’re presented with throughout the campaign and as a whole though is as they say, rough around the edges. A scrappy mech with inconsistent and sometimes unpredictable movement. Perhaps the machine of choice for a squad of Polanian fighters looking to take back a village or two from the overwhelming size of the Rusviet army but not something you’d want for a full-scale invasion.

Describing the game as chaotic in action is definitely apt, and for sheer speed this is one of the fastest ‘Mario Sports’ games to date. In a way, that goes against what you kind of expect to see from Nintendo, but in execution Mario Strikers goes all in on the fast and dirty game of Mushroom Kingdom soccer.

It’s just very easy and bite-sized in the grand scheme of it all. None of the cool ideas are ever fully fleshed out and it tends to feel one-note after a while. I get it if you’re a crazed brick collector, as that’s what these games are designed around, but as a gaming experience outside of co-op, I found it, as Vader would say: “all too easy”.

BattleTech’s ambitions may exceed its grasp, but there is a lot to love about the entire package. From the tactical combat to the great story and characterisation. Marred by mostly technical issues, it’s a title that should theoretically improve over time. In the meantime, even in a scrappy state, the MechWarrior meets XCOM promise mostly delivers.

Don’t Starve’s singular focus, wrapped up in a deadly dance between threat and empowerment, is also its biggest flaw. There is no horizon to strive for. The attrition-based gameplay is initially interesting and temporarily engaging, but lacks any lasting impact on the world.

The closest thing to Beyond Blue currently out in the wild is the brilliant Subnautica, but where they differ is that one is an absolutely open, alien sci-fi fantasy and the other one is Subnautica.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure is beautiful and the added power of the PlayStation 5 hardware has led to the materials found throughout the arts-and-craft world to look and often behave like the real thing. The blend of fantasy with everyday objects gels wonderfully with the soundtrack too, giving the experience a feel that is more than a simple riff on classic 3D platforming.

It is an absolutely stunning game with a great story and an excellent presentation (as well as beautiful audio), but it didn’t quite reach the top of the mountain it set out to climb.

In the end New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is a welcome addition to the Nintendo Switch library, a fun and entertaining platformer with charm and every now and then – that classic Nintendo feel. But due to the success of the platform, it also finds itself competing with many stellar indie platformers in a way that Super Mario Odyssey never did.

Smoke and Mirrors establishes that The Wolf Among Us will likely be worth seeing through, although whether it’s worth doing so now or waiting for the season’s end is a more open question than one might have anticipated at the end of the first episode.

SSX from EA Sports is back, edging slightly closer to a realistic feel of where snowboarding is and may be heading, while still maintaining the huge and impossible we've come to love from previous SSX releases.

In a sense Mafia II is more like an interactive version of Goodfellas than an open-world mob experience that could only exist as a videogame. Vito’s rise is full of twists and turns that are always interesting even when they dip into stereotype and a facsimile of the classic cinematic mob epic. The expansions do flesh out the open-world setting of Empire Bay in interesting and meaningful ways, but in the end Mafia II: Definitive Edition remains an experience where the engaging story towers above all – sitting alongside the skyline of the impressive but only skin-deep Empire Bay.

In the end Elsweyr unfortunately errs on the side of more of the same. Even with dragons, a fun new class in the Necromancer, and some great writing found in the side quests and the strange cat-people that make up the land. The main story is mostly a let-down, until it finally kicks into gear as you storm a castle. As a whole there’s not much surprise to be found, and in terms of what makes up a new place to explore in The Elder Scrolls Online it’s mostly cat and paste.

Tavern Master is a pretty simple and straightforward game at heart. There's not much in the way of frills, and it would likely benefit from some injections of personality. If I was playing backseat designer, I'd love to see the addition of conversations with regular patrons or some extra narrative dressing around the special events. At present, while on Tuesday you play host to a wine tasting and on Friday there's an executioner's meetup, the only real difference is for the former you have to put cheese on the menu. Still, with the sun rising over the castle walls, the stream gently gurgling in the background, and the birds chirping away in the nearby woods, it really is a lovely spot for an executioner's meetup.

It would be hard to imagine coming into this game uninitiated to hockey and the NHL, which is definitely the game's downfall. I'd much prefer to see such a great game for an incredible sport reach more people with every release.

If you like lateral thinking, great [branching] storytelling and excellent voice-acting, and can look past a drab, repetitive sheen that is less gameplay heavy and more set-dressing, you’ll still find a gem in this H.P. Lovecraft love letter to the sea, left in an old bottle to wash up on your shore.

To put it in Jurassic Park terms, although you start off as excited as Grant, Ellie, Tim, and Lex as you experience a world of true wonder – where dinosaurs roam – you soon become Arnold (Samuel L. Jackson’s character) dealing with yet another one of Nedry’s problems.

Visually the characters, animation, and cinematics benefit greatly from the use of performance capture, and it doesn’t take long for the physical ticks and mannerisms of the three main players to do that thing where they no longer feel like characters in the story - but, real characters. This is the best the franchise has looked from a purely cinematic level. In the end, New Tales From The Borderlands succeeds because it lives up to its namesake and presents the best Borderlands storytelling since the original Tales.

Mad Riders has the feel of something whipped up between bigger projects to keep the teams at Techland energised. That's not meant to be an insult, mind, as it feels like the sort of game that would have been fun to work on and design, which carries over into the experience of playing it.

This is a minor episode, as second episodes in episodic game series often tend to be, but there’s nothing here that hints that the rest of the season won’t be strong.

In the end Wolfenstein: Youngblood isn’t so much a misstep as it is a side-step, inessential but rewarding once you look past the confusion and simply take up arms and do that thing that this series does so well - kill and take-out entire squads of Nazi super soldiers in style. Now with an invitation that reads, plus one.

I think EA needs to go back to the drawing board on its interpretation of unpredictability's role in sports games, because while it might make the game look more realistic to watch, it makes it feel frustrating to play.

Skyward Sword holds dear to a lot of things we love about the series, but quite frankly just doesn't do enough to move things forward, leaving us with a merely good game that should have been great.

It's just a shame that Insomniac Games seemed so hell bent on pushing the dramatic angle that got in the way of a great example of a solid first-person shooter.

It’s a terrific little package brimming with options to replay, but it’s not a large play-space by any measure, and there’s not a huge amount of variation on scenery or tone. This one boils down to preference...Just hurry up with The Phantom Pain already, Hideo.

It’s safe to say that The Surge completely focuses on providing a souls-like experience from beginning to end, offering up deep combat mechanics with interesting and large-scale boss battles. The story, although engaging to a point, takes a back seat to this singular goal. It’s not without its flaws, and its appeal will primarily be limited to those looking so this one type of experience. But The Surge feels like a success, and one that we’ll probably end up dying several hundred more times in.

Star Wars Episode I: Racer is more re-release than remaster. A game that admittedly was rushed to market in 1999 to ensure it hit shelves in time for the film’s release. So, the almost-there career mode feels a little undercooked in 2020 and the lack of polish to the AI stands out. But, it’s simple premise – recreating the excitement and thrill of Star Wars Pod Racing is a winning one. For pure high-speed thrills in a galaxy far, far, away, they still don’t get much better than this. And, getting to hear Watto hum the Cantina Theme is probably worth the price of admission alone.

Thanks to a sloppy handling model, it lacks the precision required of its predecessor, so sim racers will probably struggle with the controls. Meanwhile arcade racers will struggle with more advanced driving techniques such as counter steering and throttle feathering. If you can get your mind into the right headspace for the game, approaching it as an arcade game with complex controls, there's definitely fun to be had here. It's just not up there with the likes of games dedicated to arcade or sim, but not both, such as Hot Pursuit or Forza 4.

As a blend of intrigue, mystery, sci-fi, and horror – Close to the Sun may not be the turn of the century BioShock that pre-release media might have suggested, but there’s plenty of electricity and power to be found in the story it tells.

The first few hours of Agents of Mayhem are genuinely exciting and entertaining. And funny too. It’s the open-world of high-tech Seoul and the repetitive missions that fail to live up to the colourful Agents and the Saturday morning cartoon vibe. Which is unfortunate. The juvenile sense of humour won’t appeal to everyone, but the same could be said for just about every Volition-developed title of the past decade. And in that sense, the studio’s latest effort is worth considering if you’re a Saints Row fan. For everyone else, imagine a ludicrous ‘80s cartoon built around the profane and juvenile marines featured in James Cameron’s classic film Aliens. Where they’re globe-trotting government agents, and prone to enter fits of gravity defying carnage.

If you're a dedicated fan and want more of the series, you'll have fun despite being disappointed at the lack of exposition. As for the casual players, there are unfortunately very few reasons to check this out.

11-11: Memories Retold, however, is still a game worth more than a look-in, and at roughly five-to-six hours, you’ll gain a deep and respectful look at one of the world’s most jarring global conflicts, from the perspectives of the individual.

Silent Hill HD Collection features two very fine, albeit extremely unpleasant and not super accessible, games. It's nowhere near as polished as Konami's other recent compilation, the brilliant MGS HD collection.

There’s still a lot to like about The Pact, it continues this season’s trend of improved animation and performance for the series. And with origin stories and background out of the way, it means that new ideas can take the front seat – as realised in the depictions of newcomers Bain and Harley Quinn. It also ends on a cliff-hanger, which will no doubt make the wait for Episode Three feel that much longer. Overall, a good but not great episode.

Beyond the silliness of it all, repetition, precision and ogling at so many sets of twins while they pine about cats somehow makes Bus Simulator a joyous ride; a fareing good time. At least, something worth the ticket price.

Sons of Winter is fine, but it never feels like a standout episode.

For fans of Life is Strange it’s no doubt worth your time, and the way in which Chloe and Rachel’s relationship evolves over the course of the first episode is a pleasure to watch. No so well done though, is all the supernatural stuff. Which fails to reach the same heights of the original, and feels a little forced.

The game itself, if you follow the heavily developer-directed path laid before you, has roughly 20-25 hours in it, and there’s more content yet to come, so balances and new content could sharpen the experience, but out of the gate it’s simply a schizophrenic collection of two key genres that, in principle, should gel, but here they kind of get in each other’s way.

There is fun to be had here, but in light of what else is out in the racing/driving wild these days, leaves Heat eating proverbial dust. There’s no question Ghost is a technically proficient developer (outside of car physics), but too much emphasis on a ‘story’ over more robust driving and driver-agency makes the game feel half complete on one side, and half over done on the other.

There's definitely an audience for a game like this, a story-driven interactive experience that opts for bombastic action and spectacle as opposed to taking place in the real-world as a police or crime procedural, and for that reason, and that particular audience, Asura's Wrath comes highly recommended.

A sequel that plays things a bit safe when we really wanted it to dig deep and offer up something truly new. It’s still the old Donkey Kong Country that we’ve known and loved for so long though, and for many players that’s going to be enough. We just wish it felt more like a proper sequel and less like an expansion.

Combat in Yakuza is deep and with RPG-like progression and various fighting styles on offer things improve as the game goes on. It’s a shame then that the more difficult encounters feel a little silly when you need to keep eating and drinking to restore health and slowly chip away at a boss figure’s health bar. For newcomers, and well, anyone really, playing on easy comes recommended. For a game that is about story first, and getting to explore Japan second, having to deal with fighting that can often devolve into frustrating bouts of dodging and toying with the limited mechanics isn’t worth it. And a frustration-free Yakuza Kiwami experience means more time spent at one of the many hostess bars.

Are wonderful visuals, brilliant sailing mechanics, and fun activities like playing music and throwing up on your crewmates after drinking too much grog enough? For a few hours sure, but probably not in the long term. What’s here is extremely polished and wonderful to look at. And if the simple joys of sailing through Sea of Thieves gorgeous world clicks with you as it did me, then however long you spend visiting outposts and islands and strange wrecks – will be time well spent.

No matter the art form, there’s always room for a good sci-fi story. The Station, from a team of veteran developers who worked on titles like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and BioShock Infinite, offers a great sci-fi ending. One that is both memorable and, in a way, fun. The only real issue is that outside of the narrative there really isn’t much to the puzzle solving and exploration. Reading emails, listening to audio recordings of conversations, and taking in a space bedroom or two. Stuff we’ve seen and handled more intuitively before.

There’s something about it that keeps you coming back, whether that’s the fun exploration or simply going on a quest to clear a few houses of infestations and then loot all the cupboards and drawers for goodies. But above all that it does nail the combat side, where headshots feel great as does getting up close with a machete. Gruesome and fun zombie-apocalypse survival, but also bug-ridden and poorly optimised.

In the case of Jettomero: Hero of the Universe, either the presentation strikes a chord hidden deep inside you or it doesn’t. If it’s the former then of course it’s an experience worth checking out. If it’s the latter then, well, it might feel as empty as the space between all the different planets Jettomero travels to.

Call of Duty: Ghosts is a mess of a game. That’s not to say that it’s nonfunctional or bad to play, rather, it loses sight of its core principles and eschews an amazing opportunity with the advent of our transition to next-gen, as well as being the first true IW CoD sans Zampella and West, through poorly constructed (and utilised) tech, half-assed delivery of modes and a single-player campaign that sets the series back more than a few years.