There isn't even an opportunity to crack some skulls, as the Red Skull himself plays a brief scripted cameo, giving way to other lacklustre character steroetypes to flesh out the basic "evil guys take over the world" style storyline.

It’s a shame there appears to be components of the Kinect-only version of Ryse in the final product, which would account for the design that bounces between overly easy and challenging.

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.

No matter the many moments of fun to be had with the impressive size and scope of the environments to explore and explode within – there’s a disjointed feel to much of Crackdown 3. A feel that ultimately means it fails to reach the charming heights of the original.

Developer Nihilistic seems settled on the idea that bringing Resistance to the Vita is an inherently bold and innovative move, and that doing anything truly interesting beyond that is unnecessary. It's not a strictly bad FPS, but it's so damn perfunctory, so set on ticking the absolute minimum number of boxes and moving on, it's largely boring and forgettable.

The strategy core is different enough and executed well enough to provide quite a few hours of engaging combat and strategy alternating with the slower ponderous movement across a larger world of interconnected islands. It's a shame then that the learning curve, which initially seems quite steep, is extended well beyond the patience of most people across a laboriously slow campaign.

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.

In the end it’s worth noting that when viewing a remake or remaster what needs to be taken into consideration is the source material, how it looks, feels, and plays. That is, in addition to the work carried out to recreate moments, update visuals, and change any of the presentation. To do otherwise would be silly, a terrible game with a wonderful remaster doesn’t warrant a high score. In the case of Warcraft III, the inverse to that is also true. So, what we end up with is something in-between. A classic reborn, in a package that doesn’t warrant all that much in the way of celebration.

With more time in development for avatar physics off the board (specifically in crashes), a new system for basic movement in the game, and some direction in a videogame sense, this would be as revolutionary as Skate was with its Flickit controls, but right now, it’s just not where it *could* be. Hopefully the content the PC community pours in finds its way to console, but as it stands, Skater XL is just too barebones and difficult for the everyday person to likely want to play.

We have been spoilt in subsequent years, which isn't Doom 3's fault. The unfortunate truth remains that it is more of a chore to revisit than a joy.

In the end there’s a great game at the core of Diablo: Immortal, and it’s one that looks, feels and plays, exactly like a Diablo game built for mobile should. In expanding the scope to include a robust system of MMO activities, ways to play, and adding many simple progression systems that all feed into each other, what makes Diablo and other games like it so special was lost along the way. Despite the free-to-play mobile design and stingy end-game rewards, I still wanted to keep playing. The tragedy is, Diablo: Immortal didn’t want me to. It wants nothing more than for me to sign-in, play for a few minutes, log-out, and come back tomorrow.

For all the interesting lore and intrigue of the world, most of it is hidden behind layers of library entries that players shouldn’t have to read through.

Dark Alliance’s problems go beyond enemies zipping around arenas and ragdolling randomly at breakneck speed into walls. Though, a lot of that can be quite funny. It fails to do basic things like scale difficulty for solo and group play, or do the normal thing of not giving ranged mage-like enemies drastically higher physical-defence ratings than large hulking brutes. There are so many things half-baked, broken, glitchy, or simply baffling it’s almost commendable.

It’s a tragedy to see Lords of Shadows 2 arrive in this form. Rather than focus on what made the first game so much fun, the designers seem to have totally misunderstood what gamers wanted from the sequel, and delivered something that was utterly alien to the first game.

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.

Datura reeks of under-utilised and squandered potential, making the end result even more disappointing. If you're looking for a moving and immersive title to add to your collection Datura isn't it. Spend your money on Journey instead.

With no real championship mode, and a limited number of tracks, the appeal begins to wear thin after a couple of hours. Perhaps the biggest mistake that World Series makes is with re-imagining a classic party and same-room multiplayer experience into a game with a focus on online competition. Some types of games just don’t work all that well when forced into the mould of a character-driven, loot box collecting, quick match system. Playing Micro Machines World Series with four players in the same room is undoubtedly fun, but this option is relegated to a secondary mode with no customisation or incentive to come back when all you have are limited options, and unbalanced vehicles.

Even with all of this new stuff, bug fixes, and improvements, Destiny still suffers from a lack of a real endgame. After completing the campaign, Adventures, and Raids (and acquiring all that juicy loot), once your power level hits the current cap, there's not much else to do. Aside from starting fresh on a new character. Due to Destiny's core system and design this doesn't offer too much in the way of a new experience.

The major flaw is not only that it removes the most exciting possibilities of playing Spider-Man, it doesn't offer anything in replacement. The arcade element of upgrading attacks gives you nothing of consequence, and how can it when Spider-Man already has his skill set locked in? It's a dead concept.

Part ‘80s love letter, part Trials game, part mash-up of new and mostly terrible play styles.

In the end Earthfall is unfortunately the exception to that age-old rule, originally spoken and then sung by Mary Poppins – ‘a spoonful of co-op makes even the most mediocre of shooters go down’.

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.

If the developers had stuck to just sailing and ship-combat, Pirates would be a charming game. Unfortunately, it's only half of one.

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.

Redfall is disappointing. A moderately enjoyable co-op game set in a stylish and inviting game world marred by repetitive and bland design and a long list of technical shortcomings.

There are a few extremely brief moments of promise in Warfighter – clearing a village from the side of a little bird with a sniper rifle and a high speed chase through Dubai are two areas that almost managed to be exciting. Unfortunately they're surrounded by too many moments of bog-standard room clearing to matter, and the entire package is let down by one of the clunkiest online modes in recent memory.

A low point for the franchise. The best way I can put it is that the soul of the series has left the building. It has action aplenty but it feels more like a slog.

Korra lacks the heart and extravagance of Platinum’s best work, but it is, at the very least, a step above the absolute dross Activision often releases for licensed properties.