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.

Infinite Warfare was two things: a triumphant return to form for Infinity Ward, but also a return to safety and sameness in at least two of the three pillars. Multiplayer, while solid and highly replayable, is fraught with deja vu and I have concerns that some of the OP, built-in gun perks will devolve this into pay-to-win.

This lovely little spin-off is going to alienate very few people. A cheap as chips production that pares 25-years of a bloated XCOM back to a purer and leaner form. Like Rocky Balboa in, well, all of them. Granted the production values and polish is wanting, but the more intimate squad feel and new Breach mechanics became hopelessly addictive the more I played. And when it comes to XCOM, that’s enough for it to feel like a direct hit.

Fending off waves of zombies and walking along linear pathways broken up by the odd surprise of seeing an undead tank. As in a tank tank, not a heavy zombie to take out. It’s a shame because this in turn will factor into the need or want to replay it all at a higher difficulty level or simply to level-up rankings to unlock skins, perks, and other elements. ‘Let’s do that again’ plays an important role in the perception and longevity of a co-op game, and on that front Zombie Army 4: Dead War falls short.

As much as one might bemoan Resident Evil 4’s use of quick-time events, the fact that playing Resident Evil 3 can make you pine for their return when all you’re doing is watching - is probably all you need to know. As a remake Resident Evil 3 is an impressive visual feat and another RE Engine showcase. It’s a shame then that the actual game portion wasn’t given the same overhaul.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is deadset the most Australian game you’re ever going to play.

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.

Satirical and self-referential, short and sweet, Twisted Pixel has provided a multitude of six-shooting fun, and their quirky creation tucks itself nicely into several age-groups. The Gunstringer is one of the most inventive and chaotic titles for the Kinect to-date.

It's a smaller package than the original Darkness and it does have a few black marks, but that doesn't stop The Darkness II from showing that there's plenty of life in this franchise. Digital Extremes has backed itself to give a different take on the source material, yet held true to the core of what made the original game such a memorable experience. Sink your teeth into it.

Whilst not being one of the coveted Ninty iconic characters in a launch title that fanboys are hungry for, it looks like this will satiate the hordes with its gritty realism (as much as it possibly can be in a title about fictional zombies), tense environments and an immersive control set-up thanks to Wii U's GamePad.

Large scale sci-fi strategy is a genre that will hopefully be here for many years to come. And at its core that’s what Dawn of War III is, and what its campaign and multiplayer highlight – epic sci-fi strategy with armies of varied units fighting against different races in heated and intense battles. It’s no secret that developer Relic understands this genre well, which in turn means that the balance and differences to be found among the Space Marines, Orks, and Eldar -- not only in units but in presentation and characterisation -- shines throughout. Which makes the addition of MOBA-like elements less of an experiment, than it is a different and fun approach. And just like the action-RPG direction of the second outing, Dawn of War III once again has made us eagerly anticipate what’s next for the series.

After each episode, you even get a chart highlighting the path you’ve taken with spoiler-free hints at the breadth of outcomes and scenes available. And even with all of that, each new twist and turn feels unexpected. As a slice of brand-new interactive choice-driven narrative drama, As Dusk Falls impresses. But it’s an experience held back by its photo-filter visuals and interactivity that never quite feels like an extension of its many dramatic moments.

Peggle 2 is an extremely safe sequel, and consequently a bit dull, most of the time.

The game shows conceptual promise – you unlock some mild security manipulation powers that will hopefully be pushed further in future episodes – but conceptual promise isn’t worth much until it has been delivered upon.

Something a bit different from the annual update they've come to love. It's another triumph for EA Canada.

What makes this so immersive is the extraordinary animation and artwork. Everything feels alive, from the pulsating creatures that line the walls, to the slick and swift movement of the boss creatures.

The hardcore JRPG lovers looking for meaty Switch representation will froth over this, but as a new entry in the field, Bravely Default II only displays acid rain level nostalgia. It’s the dinosaur they just added feathers to, to make it seem like something new, but really, it’s all the same skeletal system we’ve known and studied already for so long.

In the end the narrative isn’t quite as strong as the puzzle content found throughout, but nonetheless Q.U.B.E. 2 is an impressive entry in the test-chamber puzzle game subgenre first made popular by Valve’s Portal.

Like Treyarch before them, it feels like Cold War is Raven’s break-free moment, and their “love letter” reads passionately and completely with this Black Ops entry. We’ve talked up Assassin’s Creed Valhalla maybe being the only real next-gen title this year, but with Cold War, Activision is making a cold case for Cold War to be considered in the same conversation. And so far, we’ve collected all the evidence we need to agree.

With a shift away from clear-cut good and bad, Spec Ops challenges the sympathetic grey-matter with highlighted gaps between 'killing machine' and morality lessened as you tread "the line".

In the end Saints Row The Third Remastered is a reminder that the style of action seen in Grand Theft Auto and Crackdown can find a cartoonish and juvenile middle-ground. A place where the concept of gangs and friendship is both comic and grounded. A place where player freedom lets you make your mark on the world with style and a distinct lack of grace. With the fourth Saints Row leaning ever more into the absurd, thanks to a plot that deals with alien invasions and virtual realities, Saints Row The Third Remastered is arguably the series at its best.

Shadows of the Damned will not change games, or gaming. But it will make you laugh and will keep you engaged for some time. It's a solid 10-hour experience for anyone versed in the genre, and if you're into upgrading and collecting, you could squeeze a bit more out of it.

The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind is a definite success, it faithfully recreates and updates the iconic location for both modern audiences and modern gaming hardware. Seriously, simply walking around and taking in all the sights is worth the price of admission alone. Well, for those that think fondly of their time spent with the original Morrowind over a decade ago. But, with a great story that expands and digs deep into the sort of lore and history that would make any Elder Scrolls fan happy, The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind feels very much like its own thing too.

During the latter half of the game you wouldn’t me amiss spamming your way through most battles whilst playing closer attention to the story, dialogue, and engaging world. In the end, the approachable combat gives the fantasy dungeon-crawling of Operencia a wider appeal than say a new Wizardry might. Fans of party-based RPGs in the vein of Baldur’s Gate or Dragon Age will find a lot to love here too, thanks to the combination of great writing and wonderful presentation. And hey, any fantasy world that features a relic called the magical Amulet of Zotmund is one worth visiting.

Crysis 3 comes so close to greatness that it’s a tragedy that it didn’t make it. If the next game focuses a little more on mood-setting moments where the player – gasp – has no way to kill anything at all, then it’ll be the perfect sci-fi shooter.

This is truly a developer putting all their skills and knowledge to use, funneling it into one singular creation, whilst also focusing on presenting it to players not at all familiar with the series.

Dead Island 2 does leave you wanting more, in a good way. The simple combat is endlessly engaging and gory, thanks to the physics, the weight of each hit, and the next-level destruction that lets you shoot holes through zombies or leave a wound right where your blade struck. In co-op, it’s a blast and funny in ways that watching classic b-movies with friends that feature over-the-top violence. In the end, there’s enough here to make us want Dead Island 3. Here’s hoping we don’t need to wait ten years for the next one.

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.

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.

While the initial training section leaves a lot to be desired, with early maps throwing you in the deep end, once you get the hang of the controls it's one hell of a wild ride with multiplayer sure to keep you coming back for more time and time again.

Dying Light 2 Stay Human’s greatest achievement is its freedom of movement, and the playground Techland has designed for you to best leverage that is a triumph of what feels like infinite proportions. At its most fundamental core, at the headiest tine of it all, the game’s promise of an open-world with zombies and near limitless freerunning opportunities is delivered to the letter. Unfortunately there’s much around those three pillars that simply isn’t delivered to the degree it’s obvious the studio would have liked. Whether it’s in performance, pacing or overall balance, across every system Dying Light 2 has cracks in its seams.

Having hundreds of different weapon mods and customisation options are great if you’re a gun nut, but when everyone dies after a few hits it starts to lose its appeal. Instead it’s the stuff where strapping a vehicle or chopper with C4 and letting it glide into enemy territory before setting it off should have been encouraged more in the overall design. In the end, Ghost Recon Wildlands suffers because it plays things a little too safe and fails to make proper use of the gorgeous fictional world of Bolivia in a way that offers more than solid stealth shooting, fun co-op, and small bursts of player-created fun.

It's easy to praise American Nightmare for what it is, but it's also hard to ignore what it's not: the proper Alan Wake sequel we're clamouring for. It's a game constrained by form, obviously meant as a stopgap in which Remedy can test out a few new ideas without having to craft an entire new game around them.

The comedy which can be described as absurdist is also full of heart and warmth, and there’s a focus on positivity you can feel throughout.

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.

Garden Warfare may not be the most ambitious game ever made, but its one with a clear sense of personality and identity, which is more than you can say for a lot of other online shooters.

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.

Bugs are aplenty. The voice system barely works, crashes happen regularly and pings fluctuate from game to game.

RAD is truly rad and its unashamed love affair and exploitation of the 80s is as infectious as the mutations you gain to power your way through the game’s procedurally-generated post-apocalyptic wastelands.

The biggest disappointment - outside of the narrative, uneven combat, and characters - comes from the expectation and promise found in the art direction, combat, and Soviet-era Russian sci-fi style. There’s a school of thought that when it comes to a review, you should discuss the content of a game versus what it doesn’t have. The logic is sound, if all criticism comes from a place of unmet expectation, that would be unfair. But when something looks this good, you can’t help but wonder what’s missing. At least in those rare moments when the game shuts up long enough for you to think.

ShootMania loads quickly, alt-tabs like a champ and is a fantastic example of a game that can take five minutes to learn, but countless hours to master in its addictive gameplay formula.

For all its faults, Arkham Origins lives up to the prestige associated with its name. It’s easy to be negative about it, simply because everything it does well the previous games also pulled off splendidly, but the fact is that if the other Arkham games didn’t exist this would be the best Batman game ever by a mile.

The swift and graphically violent gameplay makes you feel incredibly powerful, but maintains a consistent challenge. Despite taking itself a little too seriously than it needs to, this is a fun adventure worth experiencing. For the Emperor!

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.

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.

Dawn of Ragnarök could have given us new items in shops, different resources to gather and craft with (though you can upgrade gear to a new tier, which is a nice addition) and more fun with its economy. And while there are differences to what we’ve already played through in the base game and its other two expansions, they don’t make the experience different enough. That said, however, the story here can’t be faulted, nor the treatment of the sagas and history of the Vikings and Norse myth, which is Dawn of Ragnarök’s best element.

The truth is Unravel didn’t need a reason for you to play it, because the basic mechanics handled that for you, and so it didn’t need a story, no less one built around rebuilding foreign and alien memories from someone you don’t have a connection to, nor care about.

This is one of the best detective titles you’ll play and its story and voice-acting is a pure joy. Just don’t go in expecting any high level of visual sheen, or system fluidity.

Although not the biggest or most expansive release in the franchise Thrones of Britannia surprises in its depth and commitment to building an experience specific to an era and place. From the warring houses and backstabbing and ever-changing map, to the war-hungry Vikings looking to cause one last moment of chaos. If medieval history is your thing, then this is the Total War for you.

It would be remiss not to mention The Streak mode, where players attempt to thwart the longest running undefeated series in the history of professional wrestling. Much like the rest of WWE 2K14, the fanfare is better than the actual gameplay.

Strange Brigade from developer Rebellion, the studio behind the Sniper Elite series, presents a bright, camp, and vivid swashbuckling Indiana Jones-inspired world come to life. In a third-person shooter where teaming up with friends to take on hordes of supernatural creatures encourages experimentation. Oh, and it’s a lot of fun too.

With a solid roster of characters (and more yet to come), a robust online Tournament mode alongside Swing mode, the game is already pretty fun. The addition of a silly Adventure mode and extra trimmings and unlockables makes this a standout in the series and another great addition to the Switch’s growing library of Nintendo exclusives.

Massive, meandering and full of menace, Dragon's Dogma ambushes you from the darkness and attempts to remove your still-beating heart. Are you going to let it?

Whether you’re being stealthy or outright flamboyant in your pursuits of slag and biomass and plaz, Void Bastards offers up a fresh and engaging take on the first-person rogue light sub-genre in a package that is has the gameplay to match its vibrant art style.

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.

The online career and Sport mode may signify a new direction for the series, but shows promise. With time, no doubt GT Sport will evolve with new modes, vehicles, tracks, and even additional weather effects. And when the day comes that we can witness all the wonderful detail and beauty of Polyphony Digital’s creation, via watching a replay of a crash-free online race set at night along the rain-soaked roads of Tokyo, this could become something truly special.

This blueprint is still fun, don’t get me wrong, but if anything New Dawn represents more of a sunset on an old design sheet. Might be time to drop a figurative nuclear bomb on Far Cry as we know it right now, in an effort to rebuild, from the ground up; something new and contemporary for the brave new world ahead of us. Fuel, after all, will be a thing of the past soon enough.

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.

By far the best wrestling game I've played in the past few years. The lack of depth in match types and singleplayer mode is unfortunate, but the game is seriously fun and a joy to play. Add in the nostalgia factor with the old school wrestlers, and this game is a must for all WWE fans.

In the end it’s interesting because even though there’s thematic weight and meaning behind all of the open-world elements, they never really come together in a way that feels in-line with the smooth hand movements of Akito and KK performing a charged up elemental attack. Disappointing combat, lacklustre progression, and way too many collectibles-to-find aside, the Tokyo you get to explore serves as an impressive and memorable backdrop for a supernatural tale. With some great cinematic storytelling across the main narrative and the many side-missions you discover, Ghostwire: Tokyo becomes more than the sum of its parts.

Personally I’ve found the experience to be a visceral and engaging one. I’m a huge fan of the mythical sci-fi fusion and have eaten up the planetary environments -- on a visual level -- like they’re going out of fashion (though I can’t really buy cars being on Venus, Bungie).

Ruiner is momentum. The art drives the story, the story drives the setting, the setting drives the music, and the music drives the combat. Which in and of itself, needs none of the above. There are other very cool elements to be found from the versatile progression system to the way in which the boss battles evolve and really put your skills to the sent. And there are stretches where the momentum lags and cues are repeated. But with the sound turned up, the lights drawn, and your eyes firmly watching each enemy movement and background detail come to life there’s nothing better. Ruiner gets it. And I love it.

What you should be preparing yourself for is a game with massive dialogue and very little in the way of ‘gaming’. It’s not a detriment, as it helps the experience standout, and I couldn’t stop once I was fully invested in all the characters. Plus, it’s a quirky Indie and fringe developers need all the help we can give them. So pull up a stool and order something warm, this might just become your new favourite cafe.

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 combat too is a little easy on the normal setting, where the danger seems to lessen the more you play. The small-ish levels also become repetitive after a while, and need a bit more variety. Even as the world around you becomes more unstable, Chernobylite’s awe does wane a little. But setting aside all of that, Chernobylite presents a memorable story set in an endlessly fascinating locale. One that is as ambitious as it is immersive. The choices you get to make and unmake stick with you and, well, it all makes for an unforgettable journey into the Exclusion Zone.

As fun as it is to venture into a location called ‘Call of Battle’, a bombed out city with retro-FPS vibes, there’s nothing new it brings outside of aesthetics. Without any sort of detailed traversal or environmental interaction it all feels like you’re running around an overworld in an early 3D game from the late '90s. And with that one could argue that No More Heroes has always been about style over substance. The series’ unique blend of action and over-the-top self referential insanity is here, but one can’t help but wonder if that’s enough? Wonder how great a Suda51 joint could be if the mechanics and feel matched the virtuoso style on display.

It was easy to be drawn into A Total War Saga: TROY. Through its blend of myth, legend, and history. And in striking that balance between the Warhammer entries and Three Kingdoms, Creative Assembly has presented its own Trojan Horse -- another visually impressive addition filled with Total War goodness.

A great concept with the right amount of heart, that simply loses its way too often in so much broken form.

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.

Phantom Covert Ops isn’t a simple VR experiment, proof-of-concept, or a short VR title that’s over before you realise it’s a cool theme park ride - it’s a full, feature-packed game. And a damn good one at that. The missions are varied, the pacing is spot-on and it has all the cinematic tension and thrills of a Mission: Impossible film.

For a story that talks of falling into lunacy, it's interesting that the game's quality matches the mind of its antagonist; Alice is a cracked mirror; you can see what it could have been, but you're stuck with what it is.

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.

Evolve deserves its time in consumer hands and is a game that should not be so easily forgotten, but it does need some work to regain momentum.

Even though it has its flaws, with progression tied to many upon many upgrades, the experience unfortunately becomes less about the bosses and cool new areas as it is the repetition. But, you’ll keep coming back. Restarting after dying mid-battle, picking up the pieces and heading back out. Doing the same thing again and again. But, somehow different this time. Slightly more health, a new skill, more damage output, a better understanding of enemy patterns. Sundered, from Thunder Lotus Games, is a Rogue Legacy meets Super Metroid experience that is well worth checking out.

The episode sets up for a genuinely interesting looking finale, one with the potential to make up for some of the missteps the season has taken on the way there. The fourth episode is the most compelling, from a plot and character perspective, since the first, and there’s one fight scene midway through that manages to be genuinely exciting. It’s also rather short though, ending just before things really ramp up.

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.

Insurgency is a breath of fresh air that stands apart from the shooter duality of Battlefield and Call of Duty. It rewards patient play and encourages teamwork, with satisfying results for players who don’t give into the temptation of taking a run-and-gun approach.

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.

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.

A great game becomes a good game due to its length and lack of innovation.

FIFA 21 is great. The small refinements make the biggest impressions this year, and I’m excited to see how the next-gen versions pan out. It’s finally good to be a Career Mode player again, and I just hope that over the coming years we see a bigger focus on Volta and less on pushing players into paying for FUT coins.

With Back 4 Blood available on Xbox Game Pass on PC and Console there’s reason to jump in if you’re looking for something new to play with friends. The look and feel is familiar and the action is engaging and chaotic when played with a group. For a while that is. Thanks to the sameness that permeates across most levels and backdrops and the predictability of the pace, it doesn’t take long for this Left 4 Dead spiritual successor to wear a little thin.

It may not be as wholly engaging or enticing in its storytelling as previous F.E.A.R. outings, but I'm still keen to jump back on the action cloud of a game that's infused with a horror lining.

For all its wonder and remarkable variety, where even after a dozen attempts at adventuring through the world of Ditto no two versions ever look the same, it’s overly punishing when it doesn’t need to be. Especially when exploration is concerned. And keeping you several steps behind the threat, never powerful enough to feel like a true hero, feels slightly off. Fun, charming, but ultimately frustrating.

If you've been waiting for a true challenge, a sense of adventure, genuine progression and a world that is filled with complex actions, real people and real threats, than you could do worse than entering The Secret World.

Outside of a few mostly inconsequential panel-based vignettes scattered around, and levels that take you from a small town through to a backwoods swamp and then through to industrial and supernatural locales, Forgive Me Father’s narrative is mostly a mystery. In the end it’s hard to look at this as anything but a missed opportunity, where the mix of old and new doesn’t quite come together. The horror aspirations amount to little more than set dressing. Fast-paced shooting is where Forgive Me Father settles, a place where enemies move in predefined patterns and strafing is just about all you need to do to survive. As fun as that can be in doses, there’s little incentive to keep going once you realise that’s all there is.

To summarise it in a way that should make sense, The Ascent features a mix of systems and mechanics that don’t play all that well with each other. Exploration suffers too, with certain Side Missions being locked to the main story without any word as to why.

If you need it in bite-sized terms, combine the likes of movement in Mirror's Edge, the combat and crafting of Dead Island and Dead Rising with the open-world sides of both Fallout 3 and the most recent Far Cry games, with zombies, and you have a basic idea of what Dying Light is. It also combines all of this very well.

Headlander may be a mixed-bag, tonally speaking, but in terms of everything else there’s a clear sense of purpose and intuitiveness to it. From the level design, to the combat, to the puzzle solving, to the secrets, to the progression system and power-ups you can unlock. It’s probably be the best severed astronaut head game you’ll ever play.

For all its rough edges, Tokyo Jungle is one of the year's most exciting games, a work of such originality and clear vision that you end up sort of hoping that a sequel never gets greenlit.

Do yourself a favour this Friday and grab a couple of mates, invest in four controllers, knock back a case of brewskies and work that arse groove on your couch as PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is going to keep your interest for a quite some time.

In the end though it will most likely be Narita Boy’s visuals that grab you – and on that front Studio Koba has delivered and then some. Even though there’s a lot of lore and explaining going on it’s all met and even exceeded by the stunning backdrops, wonderful animation, and a consistent tone that strikes a balance between awe and familiar. Between analog and digital. Accompanied by an excellent synth-driven soundtrack, and a story that is ultimately bittersweet if not entirely unpredictable – Narita Boy is worth seeking out, installing, and experiencing in full VHS-era CRT-vision.

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.

All in all, Outriders falls short of Anthem in the launch-period stability stakes. Having to combat the game to be able to combat enemies and then combat the game to be able to combat enemies and then combat the… well, it’s just not worth it.

If only it had banished even more of the claustrophobic corridor gameplay and had just a little more effort taken with the storytelling, it could have been a truly classic launch title. As it is, it’s still a sterling shooter that shows off the potential of the PS4’s powerful hardware, and an easy recommendation for PS4 owners looking for their futuristic shooter fix.

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

The vampiric tone is enough of a departure to reinvigorate interest in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and tempt gamers back for another round but the same frame-rate issues and glitches abound taking a little bit of the shine off it. It's well worth a look, just know what you're in for.

This episode is the beginning of this all-fictional spin on the main antagonist’s actions, and if it keeps up the pace is sure to offer a lot of diverse, exciting gameplay never before seen in the series.