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.

All things considered Madden 13 does bring a new level of excitement to gameplay through its much improved animation trees. It still plays very much the same however, with many rough edges around the career modes.

Genuinely a fun game to play, and includes some nice features like the Active AI and Off the Ball controls. Most importantly, it is a step forward from last year's game, but is still not up to the standard that the FIFA games have set.

Little touches like kicking enemies when they’re close into the air and then blasting them before they hit the ground is the sort of style needed to match Huntdown’s, well, style. Again, if the aesthetic grabs you it won’t let go until the final scumbag meets the end of your firearm. Just don’t expect your moves to match that of the funky synth-lines simmering below the neon, vibrant, and pleasantly grimy surface.

Perhaps the area where Children of Morta stands out the most is with the intricate art and the storybook narrative; the high-resolution landscapes and environment look fantastic at multiple distance levels. As do the creatures, characters, bosses, and other animated contraptions. Although this review has used the word dungeon countless times, each new location has a distinct feel all its own. In the end the focus on story, and the bond between family members, shines through – giving Children of Morta a sense of intimate to match the grand.

It offers a different kind of multiplayer and a robust smattering of solo missions to keep any international man of mystery occupied for hours on end.

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.

Getting the grapple-hook is nice and shifting the action to modern urban environments is cool, but it's all a little jarring. That said, the retro-inspired first-person shooting is by far the strongest aspect of Nightmare Reaper, and the mix of levels, secrets, loot, and rogue-lite elements is something that works together to deliver immediate, addicting, and engaging action.

A brooding yet charming affair that brings the collector in us along for a colourful ride through a kingdom gone foldingly mad. It has wonderful boss battles, visual charm and an annoying soundtrack. Working through the game’s binary puzzle system is still Nintendo-heavy in the aforementioned charm, but deploys little-to-no replayability, while the battle system is, at least, something new. But we wouldn’t write home Mamma Mario about it anytime soon. You’ll get hours of fun if you’re a Nintendophile, or at least a kick out of it for its writing, black humour and break from the mainstream norm, if you’re not.

Without delving into spoilers, the final episode of Telltale’s The Walking Dead is definitely an emotional roller-coaster with dramatic twists and turns – some of which land, whilst others feel rushed to get things to some form of conclusion. Above all though, it’s understanding of the series long history and Clementine’s journey make these final moments pack one hell of a bite.

At its core Yooka-Laylee features solid 3D platforming, all wrapped-up in a charming and funny package that oozes with the quality that drew a lot of players to Rare’s output during the N64 era. And although this may sound like strange criticism, we would have preferred it if the game featured fewer ideas, smaller worlds, and a more focused design. Yooka-Laylee’s better moments far outweigh its troublesome ones, and for the most part you’ll feel like you’re playing a Rare platformer from the year 1999. And when that’s what Yooka-Laylee promised to be, you can’t fault it for delivering on that promise. Warts and all.

For the most part, Outlast lives up to its reputation. Although a little too quick to link gore with horror for my liking, it rests upon wide foundations of creepiness and builds on them with a good amount of tension and urgency.

It's pretty much unchanged from last year, however. That's the deal with NBA 2K21. If you can find a way to deal with the new shooting mechanism and you don't mind some pretty bad storytelling, NBA 2K21 is great… because it's largely unchanged from last year. Or the year before. Or the year before that.

It's rare that a title sneaks right up on you and offers intense visceral gunplay, an intriguing consequence system and poses philosophical questions that leave you pondering the possibilities once you put down the controller. Binary Domain manages to juggle these aspects rather well, not outstandingly or brilliantly, but compellingly enough that I found it hard to walk away and was determined to see it through to the end in as few sittings as possible.

Considering the game’s fraught development history and arguably ill-conceived premise, The Bureau is practically a best-case scenario. It may not be a game that anyone asked for, but perhaps that has, in a way, strengthened the final game, forcing it to reel itself in a bit and focus on being entertaining rather than revamping an old IP. It succeeds admirably as an enjoyable sci-fi shooter, and that’s good enough for us.

In keeping with the chocolate bar metaphor, even apart from these issues, and the hefty price tag associated with the premium content, once you bite past the tasty yet somewhat odd MMO shell there's still a delicious RTS core to savour. Mmm, Age of Empires.

Metro: Last Light is a fine shooter, an exciting, fun ride, but it’s not necessarily the Metro game we wanted. We miss 2033’s punishing difficulty and its willingness to experiment, to make you suffer, to pull you down into the mud its characters spent every day in. But for many, Last Light’s changes will simply make the experience less intimidating and more enjoyable, and it’s hard to begrudge the game too hard when it’s still delivering such a fine experience.

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.

If I can sum up my experience and thoughts on the game at all, it’s with the above metaphor. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is an enjoyable romp, but it’s essentially an interactive movie with very little player-choice over what any of that interaction is.

There aren’t any fundamental problems per se with Ace Combat 7, and for fans of the series it most certainly is worth looking into. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but then again there isn’t a great need for wheels when you’re dancing between clouds.

Spintires: Mudrunner has a tiny 1.1GB install because there's really not much too it. There are no peasants wandering the woods or working at the lumber yards. No other vehicles hauling lumber or otherwise in motion. The fauna has become extinct and only birds remain. It feels like you are the sole survivor in a post apocalyptic USSR where the cold war turned nuclear hot. Which begs the question: why you are hauling lumber? And for whom?

In the end, if the balance of exploration, character progression, combat, and story felt more cohesive or in harmony then Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden could have easily been great. This is not to say that it simply needs an ‘easy mode’. No, the hardcore challenge tips the scale too far away from the sense of adventure and story and the RPG-like opening moments. Those first impressions. Whether or not this stance is too critical of the deep and well-executed combat, well, who the duck knows? If the idea of a hardcore XCOM-like experience in a post-apocalyptic mutant world sounds enticing, then, hey, this is essential.

The core feel of classic Borderlands action is enough to carry you through at least one play-through of Borderlands 3. One more round of a specific style of over-the-top shooter we loved playing years ago. But in 2019, it’s hard to feel as excited as we once were with the more-of-the-same approach taken here. Especially when it fails to capture the charm of the original two outings or innovate beyond the guns you wield.

A whirlwind of fun for sure, but too many opportunities are missed. At least the cathartic nature of zombie slaughtering does help you push through to unveil the end boss, which in a definite way is its own reward, along with the post credit ending, which you should stick around for.

Okay, so technical issues aside Batman – The Telltale Series is worth checking out. If you happen to live inside the Venn diagram of people who enjoyed Rocksteady’s Arkham series and like to play Telltale-style adventure games, then it’s a must. Or, if you’re simply a fan of the comic book series.

This may sound like Absolution is a bad game. It isn't – it's just a bad Hitman game. Features bleed from other games and the bizarre need to position Agent 47 as an action man with feelings and a rough moral code has diluted its identity. That said, there is deep replay value, both in the single-player and Contracts modes.

City of Logistics Managers may not get the heart racing or the imagination firing to the same extent as City of Gangsters, but it would be a more accurate title. It's as if City of Gangsters is ashamed about its administrative predilections, as if it wants to hide the true nature of its operation behind a less reputable -- more exciting, more dangerous -- veneer. City of Gangsters is itself a front; in the back room there resides a serious tycoon management sim. Like a reverse mullet, it's all party at the front and business at the back. It shouldn't be embarrassed about the mullet though. City of Logistics Managers is an excellent game, even if it may not be the one you're anticipating.

Apart from the overly long boss battles with no mid-point checkpoints, the fact that by the end of your time with Hard Reset you'll be an expert in disposing of endless waves of robots without having to replay as many sections as earlier on, speaks in favour of this approach. In other words you won't be reloading quick saves when battles don't go your way, so man up and stop being such a pussy.