I just didn’t enjoy writing about games any longer, or to be more precise, I didn’t enjoy reviewing games and having to give an arbitrary score at the end of a review. How you see a game is personal to you and witnessing the reaction to not only some of my review scores, but those of fellow writers, I felt it just wasn’t worth it.

So why am I writing about Homefront: The Revolution?

Simple really, it is the exact sort of game that, in my mind at least, sums up my issues with reviews. I know if I had to score this objectively, it would have to be a low score, but for other reasons, I’d want to give it a much higher score and therein lies the problem.

From a technical standpoint this iteration of Homefront is bad, it is a broken, buggy mess of a game, highlighted by a few years of development hell. Had it have been cancelled I honestly don’t think it would have been a huge loss to the wider gaming world. It’s not like we’d be losing out on seeing the next Half Life, Halo, Metal Gear Solid or the likes.

It would be simple to list off the things that are broken with this game, such as sound issues when using the game’s ‘phone camera’. The shocking A.I that just seems to have no cohesion, the lack of graphical polish for a 2016 current gen only title, the awful story, the made up racial slur used to describe your enemy and so much more.

However you have likely read or listened to other reviews that have covered this in detail as have I and I can’t argue against those. Many of them are fact and can be seen for yourself as clean as day.

One special mention thought to the use of ‘Norks’ for the made up racial slur, because as a British person, norks means something else entirely and just makes me laugh every time I hear it used in the way the game intends.

Anyway, for all the bad in the game, there are some decent ideas too. Rather than follow the linear path the original Homefront went for, this has more of a Far Cry feel to proceedings and in my opinion does the open world things rather well.

The idea of having a large map, with areas you need to take over by completing objectives works well and drives things forward in a way that give the whole game a decent flow.

Now it doesn’t live up to the gameplay of a Far Cry, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I have to say, I wasn’t looking for reasons to quit out and move on to something else. The opposite was in fact true.

I would complete an objective, spend my various upgrade points and look for what to do next, as on the whole, each objective is fairly well paced, not outstaying its welcome or becoming tedious by making me try and do too much.

There are some really nice touches too, with the way you can upgrade and switch weapons. Using a base model, you find and purchase upgradable parts, which you then just attach to the base section, consisting of essentially just the trigger mechanism, allowing to create a decent number of variations to different types of weapon.

Some of these are pretty well out of place to the tone of the game, such as one which allows you to fire pyrotechnics at enemies and a very patriotic red, white and blue. Honestly, this is so stupid and out of place it shouldn’t work, but it brought a smile to my face.

That is the thing with Homefront: The Revolution. If I was to go through and bullet point all the things wrong with the game, it should be awful and in all honesty it is, yet for some reason I found myself enjoying my time with it. Occasionally I got to a point where I felt I had enough and should move on, but I actually looked forward to booting the game up for my next session.

For me, it is like one of those awful, straight to TV movies you’d see on the Syfy channel in the middle of the afternoon. You know the ones, with bad acting, bad writing, really awful special effects and in general from an objective point of view should never have been made. Yet you suddenly realise, you are at the end of the film and despite knowing it is bad, you have watched the entire thing, wasted 90 minutes of your day, but not come out of it any worse than what you started.

It is the same there. I know it is a bad game, but the time did just pass and I got to a point where the problems, well, they just didn’t matter. I was happy to finish it off before moving on to something else.

I honestly can’t recommend this game as one to buy, especially at full price, but I can say that should you happen to find a copy in your possession, then do give it a go, you might surprise yourself.

It is a game that I cannot also give a score to, because I feel by giving it a very low score, I am lying to myself, because I enjoyed it on the whole, but then I can’t give it a higher score, because it really doesn’t deserve it.

So maybe I give it a Shark vs Volcano, out of Titanic.

For those not familiar with Out Run – the goal is to race through the stages against the clock while avoiding traffic and other obstacles. There are multiple routes that can be taken and up to five possible final roads to travel down should you reach the last stage. Hitting traffic slows you down, while hitting obstacles at speed can flip and roll the car causing the driver and his blond passenger to fall out and eat up much needed time.

Though fairly simplistic at heart – it can also be tough to complete at times. You have a high and low gear to help control your speed but sometimes those corners come out of nowhere and you’ll be flipping into the nearest corn field. Luckily for us the controls are wonderfully responsive so anytime you do find yourself viewing the brutal crash animations you know it’s your fault. It’s about speed and control and if things get too tough (or easy), you can alter the difficulty and your time allowance in the options menu.

This is a conversion of the arcade game so you are getting the original experience with some nice enhancements. The two most obvious of these are the framerate and new 3D effect. The framerate has been bumped up to 60FPS which makes everything zoom by at breakneck speed and certainly captures the thrill the original game had upon first release. The 3D effect is also impressive and really adds to the experience. These two additions, coupled with the classic graphical style, really help to elevate the game and it makes everything a whole lot of fun.

There are a few other things thrown in as well, such as some new songs and the ability to track your times and scores on each course. It all shows that a fair amount of care and attention has been put into this and someone clearly cared about the franchise during the process.

Overall, 3D Out Run is both a wonderful version of a classic game and something that is still fun and relevant today. It’s a game that always brings about a smile when playing and it comes from an era when the sheer joy of the experience was heralded above all else and there is no better game to illustrate the point than this.

Score

8/10

We won’t spend time talking about the core game, as that is pretty much the same and you can find out about that in our original review for the PS3 release.

Instead we are going to look at the remaster itself and what it brings to the table. The immediate thing is just how wonderful the game looks. Hell it look bloody great on the PS3 and 360, pushing those consoles to the limit, it looked better and more alive than even some next gen games, such as Watchdogs and could have been released completely as is on the PS4 at a lower price and still managed to sell a ton and been well received.

But this remaster makes almost every other release to date look last gen and sub standard in comparison. That would almost be enough alone to warrant a purchase. It has the expected upgrades in the visual department, but doesn’t stop there. GTA V on the PS4 adds to the population of the living breathing world, with more people, more vehicles and just seemingly a lot more going on.

Traffic seems to act as it would in real life with the streets being dense during potential rush hour times, start and finish of working days and the such. Then you may find the people who inhabit the world are then denser in certain areas at certain times, again affected by the time of day and other factors.

This coupled with the improved graphics would have been enough and had the remaster of GTA V well received, but Rockstar didn;t stop there.

Did you buy and play GTA V on a PS3 or 360? Of course you did, it broke sales records. What if we said you can import your character from the last gen versions to the current gen? Not that impressive you say? Other games have done that you say? Well that is true, but Rockstar understand that people may well have changed brand when they upgraded. So they have allowed you to import you character from either version of the last gen, to either version of current gen. 360 to PS4, PS3 to PS4, PS3 to XB1 and so on.

You can pick up right where you left off and carry on without hardly missing a beat. That is great, but hey sometimes you could be a fool and lose your save, sell the old console…That doesn’t matter at all, because starting GTA V from scratch doesn’t feel like a chore and you can really feel like you are playing a brand new game, even if it is a retread.

Why? Well, importing you characters, a more alive feeling world and better graphics would have been enough and GTA V would have been well received. However Rockstar didn’t stop there.

With the addition of the first person mode, GTA V becomes a whole new game. You heard that right a first person GTA and it really is a game changer.

We can admit that we at Gamestyle were almost on the fence about getting a remaster, especially of a game that just about a year old. We weren’t tempted by Tomb Raider and hell, even The Last Of Us is only on the list for id we hit a dry period. But when the trailer for the first person mode hit, we were sold instantly.

The sell job on this isn’t even just marketing bull either. We would have reviewed this title a bit earlier, but have spent so much time just wandering around taking everything in via first person views that we have hardly touched the main parts of the game. Well we have now, as we had to…but we could happily have spend more time just pottering about.

After the opening tutorial level, we got control of Franklin and when we reached his home, forty…yes FORTY minutes were simply wasted standing in front of a mirror watching Franklin’s eyes and head move as you’d expect as you move the right stick around, followed by taking selfies from different angles with different expressions, just because we could.

Then we venture outside and the detail of the world created by Rockstar just hits home. It is easy to miss the subtle little details in third person, but looking through the eyes of your character you become easily distracted by almost everything. You become so immersed in this world you forget what is happening in your own world.

Add some headphones and it just sucks you in and we hate to imagine how this will be with Oculus Rift or Project Morpheus. There is a reason this works so well and probably more so than even many game built with first person in mind. You viewpoint feels like you are in the selected character’s head, rather than their chest, or some other point for effect. It really is amazing.

It isn’t perfect though, as this view when driving at pace feels a bit disorientating at times as it can take a little pause to get your view facing forward again, also because of the realistic viewpoint, it feels like weapons are being held at a funny angle by your neck. But that is really being picky, as there are options to allow you to customise some elements to get your favoured setup.

We scored GTA V a 10/10 upon its original release in 2013, yet this is better in every way and adds so much more to the experience that it becomes an essential purchase, whether you want to play through again of just experience something simply amazing. The original isn’t all of a sudden worse, so unofficially lets give GTA V 11/10.

Score

10/10

Whilst The Pinball Arcade does a fine job of recreating real world tables, the team behind Zen Pinball took a different approach. This is more of a videogame pinball experience, but by no means does it offer up any less, nor any more of said experience.

By not handcuffing themselves to already existing tables, Zen Pinball 2 can do a lot more and offer up a lot of extra variation. The tables on offer as still as varied, but they are based on various licences that aren’t immediately pinball related. Tables are influenced by licenses from Marvel, Star Wars and more.

It isn’t just licenses that matter, as there are also a few tables that are created from scratch and given their own theme. Like The Pinball Arcade, you can get the base game and can add tables at your leisure. If you have owned any of the tables on the PS3 or Vita versions of the game, then you get a free upgrade to the PS4 version, which is a stunning deal, fans will have an immediate library from the very get go.

Because this is more of a videogame experience, the tables do play and react differently to those in The Pinball Arcade, they also look a lot closer to computer generated graphics, but that is fine. There is a lot more going on with each table, using some creative licence to add some extra effects. Characters that appear initially to be part of the table can move around freely, even coming away from the table completely, moving to another section, etc.

It works though, you are drawn in and goals you need to complete are easier to spot, thanks to these added animations. Spotting that you need to do something to cause a reaction from a character on the Blade table for example will cause a visible reaction that is more than simply lights and sounds.

Zen Pinball 2 is also a much more social experience, as you get real time feedback on how your scores compare to friends, or even you own. You get visual clues as to how close you are to achieving something, such as a countdown to a certain score, whether that be a friends, you weekly best, personal best and more. It makes this a much less lonely affair and the integration is sublime.

It isn’t just while you are playing either that the game tries to reward or tease you. After you finish a session you are given a list of score updates, that include your score for that session, adding that to a bunch of additional multipliers, that can be for the amount of tables played, the amount of friends you beat, that sort of thing. It tempts you into going back again and again.

Whilst the table list is mainly filled with Marvel and Star Wars, the variety in the tables is impressive, each one has its own unique feel and does require a different approach. You never feel like you are playing the same table with simply a different skin, which again really does mean the developers need credit here.

There is also the option to play tables in 3D and whilst for the most part 3D is a needless gimmick, it does wonders for some of the tables in the release packs. The feeling of depth is amazing and really does allow you to judge the positioning and speed of a ball better than you can in 2D. It is a better experience for the 3D and it is not often that can be said.

Hopefully there will be more tables released periodically, because, as a platform Zen Pinball 2 is wonderful. It is a frankly sublime overall package and an example of how to make worthwhile DLC. It could have been so much easier to charge a base price for the game, then bring out a sequel down the line with new tables, but being able to add new tables on a semu regular basis is so much better here. You are happy to pay a much smaller price per table than having to pay out all in one go.

Zen Pinball 2 is the game for the more casual fan, but pinball enthusiasts will also have a great time, despite the physics not quite being 100% realistic. The buttery smooth 60fps in 1080p also does wonders for the experience and this is the best version of a Zen made pinball game yet.

Yep, so far we have had Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Lord Of The Rings (and soon to come The Hobbit) and the DC characters. Marvel is the latest to join the club and offers up plenty of opportunity for stories to be told and fun to be had.

It is a LEGO game and it pretty much follows the same formula as those that preceded it. You have an open world hub that links together various chapters for an overall story. You progress through each chapter, first in a linear mode, before being opened up to free play. You also have your central hub which allows you to take on a few side quests and find hidden gems.

It is a formula that everyone knows and is comfortable with. At first each chapter must be played using the set characters, but once it is completed you can go back with a party of characters, each with different abilities. Which is ideal, as there are plenty of things that you won’t be able to do with the initial set. The game makes this obvious and teases you with parts of the level that it makes clear you cannot do on the initial run. It does force you to play through more than once if you are someone who likes to fully collect everything possible, which, when it comes to the LEGO games, is pretty much the entire audience, as that is the point of the game.

The open world hub in the LEGO games has evolved over the years and in Marvel Superheroes you get to free roam around a representation of New York, complete with Stark Tower. It is an impressive setting, but unfortunately and much in the same way as LEGO Batman 2 DC Super Heroes, it is perhaps a little too big for what it is, something that would be better for a game in itself. There is tons to explore, but it doesn’t feel as tight or well realised as that in LEGO Indiana Jones 2.

Not only is there an obscene amount of things to do and see in the game, there are also so many characters to collect from the world of Marvel. Many you will have heard of, many that pay lip service to the hardcore fans of Marvel. There are some lovely touches too, such as the inclusion of both The Human Torch from Fantastic 4 and Captain America. Which whilst not impressive initially, it allows for a fun trophy by playing with both characters on the screen, being aware that each character was played by Chris Evans (not the radio DJ) in their respective films.

Many of the more prevalent characters take the personalities and look of their film counterparts rather than the original comics. Iron Man has the look, if not the voice of Robert Downy Jr’s realisation and Nick Fury has the look and sound of Samuel L Jackson. It is clear that this is done to allow the non fanatics to relate to the characters.

The thing that makes the LEGO games such a joy to play, is the ability to have single screen co-operative play, the simplicity allows gamers of all types come together and have fun from the very start. This on the whole is no different, but there is a minor issue that frustrates slightly. The dynamic split screen just feels off compared to that in LEGO Indiana Jones 2 and the LEGO Harry Potter games. In those games it really helped you to go and do separate things and not be held up by your partner and it was a clever way of doing split screen. Here though the dynamic split screen feel limited and intrusive, it was actually better to move to a static version. Now whether this was down to level design, or something different with the mechanics, remains to be seen, but it didn’t help.

It is possible to also play with one player using a controller and the other on the Vita, but this is still very limited, as both players have to content with the split still. Which is ok if you are on a 42″ screen, but when you are on the Vita, it can be annoying as it becomes difficult to see the details on half a small screen. This may well be a hardware issue and nothing TT can do about, but hopefully in future releases it can allow for remote co-op play with both players using the full real estate of the screen.

It does little to dampen the experience though, as the overall game is a joy to play, retaining that LEGO magic from the outset. It may well be more of the same with new worlds and new characters, but walking around smashing everything in sight never gets old, no matter how many of these you have already played.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes isn’t the best LEGO game to date, but it is one of those series that even if it is listed at the bottom of the series, it still offers more value and more fun than other series can ever hope to achieve.

We kid of course, the GTA series is arguably the biggest name in our medium, a game that is as much in the public consciousnesses as the latest blockbuster movie, number 1 pop song or best selling book. It is referenced by the news, by popular culture and more time and time again. People expect controversy and you can guarantee plenty of coverage.

There is a different tone to this game than there was in GTA IV or the other previous titles. When you enter the game’s opening scene it feels like it has matured a little, it seems like there has been effort put into the writing, the performances, it feels a little less stereotypical than older games. As we end the generation, it feels like games are trying their best to have a memorable opening and a way to hook the audience and GTA V is right up there with the best.

It seems like the game has matured, but in truth it is full of stereotype, and does revert to type fairly quickly, but that is fine, games aren’t here to be a social commentary, they are here to be fun and GTA whilst pushing the barriers of controversy over the years is a game that is designed to be fun. This iteration may well be the most fun yet.

The opening of the game is really well put together and introduces the new lead character and the general tutorial parts without ever breaking from the immersion. It is something that games have struggled to come to terms with over the years and GTA follows suit, along with a couple of other major recent releases to nail a game opening.

After the opening set piece the system kind of reverts to type, giving you a huge opening world that becomes your playground. You are introduced to the lead roles and taken on a series of fairly linear missions. Go here, do this, follow him, kill them, that sort of thing. But it works, it eases you into a small portion of the world and allows you to get used to the game mechanics before letting you loose later on.

Controls on the whole feel very tight, aiming and cover shooting is on a par with games where those mechanics are core. However driving controls can take a bit of getting used to. At first the cars feel very twitchy and even the slightest touch, or being too aggressive on the controls can cause you to spin the car, or have accidents. However, that being said, it does start to come to you, and you soon forget the troubles you had earlier in the game.

The map is huge. In GTA IV you felt confined at times, you knew the area was vast, but you could tell you were locked into an area, in a weird Truman Show style bubble, to the point you half expected Niko to be afraid of water. Here though, in the hours upon hours we have spent in Los Santos, we still feel as though there is much more to discover and discover we will.

GTA has always prided itself on what you can do away from the main story arc and this is no exception, the usual side missions are there, as are the customisation options. What you have though is a playground that goes back to what you found in San Andreas (which is no surprise really), in GTA IV the side activities felt a little forced, with requests from annoying family members, that you really couldn’t be bothered with. It felt out of place and distracting from the fun you wanted to have. Here though, the game lets you loose on a map and invites you to just have a blast at your own pace.

We could list everything that is possible here, but for one it would be a mighty list, that you could look up online if you are that desperate to find out and secondly, we don’t want to take the fun out of the discovery. So take it from us, there is loads to do, both on land, in the sky and under water!

In most other open-world games, we found that we were always drawn back to wanting to finish off the main story, maybe occasionally flirting with side missions, to help boost a character. The exception to that was of course Saints Row IV and whilst GTA V doesn’t quite throw all sense of reason out of the window, it is a game that we look at the main story and don’t want to just get back to it. We are having too much fun just playing around with everything else.

Now that isn’t to say the story is dull, or anything like that, it is a testament to how well structured the game world is and how much the developers have put into the world for you to do. Adding in the three lead characters mechanic does wonders as well, as each one does have unique things attached to them, whether that be vehicles, abilities, activities, etc. It keeps things fresh throughout, so should you start to get tired of one, you can just switch to another.

The three character structure helps iron out some of the issues with the story in GTA IV. Niko Bellic would often switch from moral conscience, to gun toting maniac at the flip of a switch, which really didn’t help when it came to having any kind of connection with the character. Here though, Rockstar can have three totally different personalities, allowing them to break missions up so that they are played by the character they best suit.

Now, you don’t have to like all the characters, that isn’t the point, what it does, is allows the game to flow and the story and character arcs to work in a much more natural way. To Rockstar’s credit, they have pulled this off brilliantly. As far as GTA goes, this is the most well rounded story to date. It still doesn’t touch games like The Last Of Us for how well it is performed, or written, but then it doesn’t have to be. It does what it has to do, for the type of game this is.

Earlier we said that as a game, GTA doesn’t need to be a social commentary, nor a moral compass. That doesn’t stop the game being full of satire. It isn’t saying this is right, this is wrong, it just takes real world elements that we all know about and charges at them with the satirical stick. Whether it be important political stances, or the likes of popular technology companies, the list is long and it generates plenty of laughs, as well as a few nods of acknowledgement to the little things you notice.

There is an online element to come also, but at the time of writing, this has yet to be launched. But it is stunning just how much Rockstar have managed to fit into the game and still the promise of more to come. What is really impressive is that unlike some linear titles, where smoke and mirrors can be used, this is open world and there are so many little things that can go wrong and the fact is in the 30 odd hours we have played so far, we have noticed minor glitches and we do mean minor. It is only in writing that we even thought about them, hell we struggled to recall them at first. Bravo Rockstar…Bravo!

Is GTA perfect? Well it depends who you ask, but it is plenty of fun and in a time when we are looking to usher in a new generation of hardware, the fact this is running on a PS3 and looks and plays this good is simply mind-blowing. It isn’t a game that will appeal to everyone, as it is an open world, violent game without a moral compass. But boy can you have fun without worrying about morals.

Score

10/10

This is going to be a two part review of sorts. We’ll start with the game itself and avoid spoilers, then give you a score, we’d suggest only reading past that if you have finished the game.

What you have with The Last Of Us is a game that does the gamey parts really well, but intertwines them with a story in a way that has never been seen before. This is in part not only to fantastic game design, or movie standard writing, it is mainly down to the fact that Naughty Dog are treating the audience with a huge amount of respect. They don’t feel they need to spell out every little mechanic of the game, or explain why we must approach parts in a certain way. They assume intelligence, rather than a lack thereof.

This is evidenced in the way the game approaches combat. It is part cover shooter, part stealth, but at the same time it is neither of these and at times very much both at the same time. As said, the developers assume intelligence, they believe that the audience given a particular situation will work out their own way through. So when the game throws up a set piece, it doesn’t immediately say… “this is a stealth section” or “this is where you expend a few bullets”. Why would it, if you put yourself in a situation like Joel will often find himself and Ellie in, you would likely want to avoid interaction that could lead to potential death, engaging would only be a last resort and that is how you approach any potential volatile situations here.

There isn’t a specific stealth mechanic as such, you don’t have to press any buttons to enter cover. All of this is handled naturally, by crouching down you are moving slower, edging your way around the environment, whether you are facing combat or not, if you are walking by an upturned table, walls, filing cabinets, desks, etc then you will see Joel naturally move around them, touching them to maybe steady his balance, that sort of thing.

So because you don’t need to make any special inputs to go stealth mode, or find cover it leads to a really interesting way of approaching combat. If you are behind cover, then you are behind cover as simple as that. If you are in a spot where you should be hidden, then you are hidden. It adds a degree of tension to scenarios that haven’t felt this natural before. It also means that should your stealthy approach go wrong and all hell breaks loose, then it isn’t a forced try again, or pretty much game over. You adapt and survive, even if it means turning round and running for your life.

The AI on the enemy side is fairly clever too, if they know you are around, they are on alert, they will hunt you down, so even if you manage to run away and get hidden again, the dynamics of that battle have changed completely. You can still sneak around and try to take out enemies quietly, but you know now that they are also hunting you. No two fights are ever really the same, even if they come across as similar.

There are some AI issues, namely with any partners you have. They can often pop out of cover, or make a lot of noise and they simply won’t be detected, the enemy AI too can sometimes be oblivious to a sudden lack of buddies around them who were there all of five seconds ago. They also will not really notice the dead boy that suddenly appeared. This is an issue with games going back a long time and it is a minor indiscretion that can be forgiven as it isn’t game breaking and happens a lot less than you’d think when you look back at the experience you have had.

So that’s the combat side of things, it is pretty damn good because it doesn’t follow any of the tried and tested methods. Exploration whilst being a bit more in keeping with what we are used too, still feels fresh and the game almost forces you to want to go off the beaten track of what is essentially a very linear journey. You see, thanks to a system that has you foraging for useful things, you feel that as you do move through the game, you need to find those essentials. You need to find ammunition, or you have no choice but to stop for a moment and see if you find the items needed to make a molotov cocktail, or a health pack.

This has been done to death though, so what makes it work so well in The Last Of Us? This time it is an understanding of the real world. Everything you collect weapon wise needs to be carried, so you look at Joel and you’ll notice every weapon he has is attached to him in a fashion, whether it be holstered, or attached to his backpack, or even inside of that backpack. Swap out an available weapon for another and Joel will have to stop, take his pack off, open it and swap. It’s a little touch, but it means you have to be prepared at all times.

This real world logic also means that items you find can only be carried to a finite number. You can stock up on health packs, home made bombs, shivs and such, but not to an endless amount. Why should it be endless? You take only what you can carry, which is hit home during a moment in the game (we’ll touch on this in the spoiler section) to great effect.

This leads to some clever and well thought out difficulty curves. It isn’t a game that starts off easy and just gets harder. What happens in The Last Of Us is the story drives the difficulty of particular situations. There are some really easy parts where you may be suddenly stocked up to the eyeballs, taking out small pockets of enemies (either human or infected) with comparative ease, when all of a sudden a change in the story sees you come out of another encounter with literally nothing, having expended all your stocks just to survive. This in turn will leave you on edge, hoping and begging that the next encounter isn’t right round the corner, because if it is… well then you are screwed.

Good gameplay and a great story (we’ll get to story soon) aren’t all that is needed to make a game stand out as one of the greatest ever. It is the little touches, the love and care from all involved to add the attention to details that bring everything to life. The characters don’t just interact during cut-scenes, they do so throughout gameplay too. Which in itself isn’t anything new, but the attention to detail on how they interact is what makes it truly special.

The characters not only talk to each other with some recorded dialog, which never feels like it is canned chatter, they also talk with body language. If Joel is making a point about something, he will use his arms, much in the way we would in natural conversation. As Ellie and Joel become warmer to each other you start to notice their body language towards each other change. Ellie goes from arms folded and nervous to a lot more open as the game goes on. You also hear how the voices change over time. Joel’s voice being colder and more abrupt with characters he meets and doesn’t trust yet, compared to warmth reserved for other characters. Mood also plays a part, if there are moments of quiet reflection the body language and voices are different to if there is a moment of panic.

It is the same with the attention to detail of the world around. Nature has started to reclaim the planet and the mix of the world we know being eaten up by nature is a sight to behold, but it is the things you don’t immediately notice that make it so special and done so right. Light is so natural that you don’t sit there and comment to yourself just how well done this is. You don’t notice as such that the game cuts off huge areas of the world, if it doesn’t want you to go somewhere, there seems to be natural blocks that you as a single human being will not be able to get past, so you happily leave it be without questioning the stupidity of not being able to get over a knee high wall.

The Last Of Us as a game in its own right is sublime, the mix of combat, exploration, setting and story telling are mixed together in a way that we have never seen before, not to this level anyway. Naughty Dog have raised the bar to new heights that likely have other developers quaking at the prospect of meeting these new standards. Hopefully though it is a dev team laying down the gauntlet that others will try to emulate and eventually beat.

Score

10/10

The Last Of Us is a game that will go down as one of the most important of all time. Why? Because it is honestly the first time a game has handled adult themes and stories in a way that as we said about the gameplay, assumes intelligence. It doesn’t descend into cheap tricks in the writing. Adult doesn’t all of a sudden mean nudity, sex, violence and swearing for the sake of having nudity, sex, violence and swearing. It doesn’t contain some of those things, but it contains them with the right context.

The ‘No Russian’ part of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was cited at being adult content by some. Yet this was frankly an embarrassment to the idea that games could tell an adult story in an adult way and set back public perception a fair way. Other games have also tried and always seemed to fall short, often failing at the same hurdles, why does the character need to do this, why are they acting in this way. The Last Of Us takes cues from TV, Movies and Books and sticks hard and fast to the concepts, fitting the game around the story it wants to tell rather than making the story fit the game and having things happen for the sake of action.

We have an opening that is quite simply one of the most emotionally distressing I have ever witnessed in a game. Yet these are characters we don’t even know yet. Hell one of them isn’t even the character we thought we’d be seeing. Who is Sarah? We know she is Joel’s daughter, but isn’t this meant to be a about a girl called Ellie? Yet here we are controlling Sarah before even Joel. What we know is something bad is going to happen, we expect it to happen, yet still it pulls at the heart strings, you feel the tears coming as Joel holds his daughter in his arms as she dies, not attacked by the infected, but shot down in cold blood by a soldier… It is shocking and already you emotions have been pulled all over the place.

It is the very next scene though that shows a level of maturity that is new in gaming, yet is a trick used in film and TV… 20 Years Later…

Twenty years have passed since Joel lost his daughter, we haven’t witnessed what happens in those twenty years how he dealt with her death and why he is where he is now. Other questions are also raised, what happened to Tommy? Is he alive? Dead? All those thoughts happen in a few moments before we are introduced to… Oh, not Ellie, but Tess. You expect to be off to find Ellie in some fashion instantly, but instead you are fighting a cause that has nothing to do with Ellie, it does leave you a bit confused, but you roll with it anyway.

When you do finally meet up with Ellie, you start to get a handle on how Joel dealt with the death of Sarah, he is cold towards this kid, he sees her as a package. We have a man that is emotionally shut off it seems and will reluctantly do what he has to do for the good of the cause. This leads to a moment where a life is laid down to protect the greater good, yet it isn’t Joel doing anything for Ellie, in fact he is still indifferent to her, in fact he would rather not being doing what he is doing. Yet Tess having become infected herself is willing to lay down her life to allow Joel and Ellie to escape.

It not here though that the bond between the two characters starts to form. There is a lot of resentment on both sides, Joel especially as he clearly doesn’t want to get close to someone who reminds him of his daughter, someone who has (albeit indirectly) been responsible for the death of someone else he clearly cared about.

There isn’t really any one moment where you can pinpoint as the moment Joel changed towards Ellie, it is something that happened naturally over the course of the game, with much of it happening in the chunks of time cut from the story, where things are left a little to our imagination. There are two exceptional standout moments where this is done to great effect.

One is after meeting Henry and Sam. These are two people who have a relationship that is clearly a lot stronger at the time than Joel and Ellie. As evidenced when Henry can either save Joel, or run and keep Sam protected. He choose to protect Sam, yet here we see Ellie and Joel’s bond has come on somewhat from the first meeting. Ellie could have run, but she stays and fights. Later they do meet again and the reactions of the characters to what had happened previously is real totally how you’d expect it to be handled.

Anyway, the huge cut of time happens immediately after a touching moment between Sam and Ellie. Sam is infected and turns, Henry is forced to shoot his brother to save Ellie. You know exactly what is coming next as Henry becomes emotionally unstable in an instant and turns the gun on himself and pull the trigger… Cut to black…pause for a moment… FALL.

It is clear a period of time has passed and rather than immediately have to see the characters deal with what had happened, by extending the cut scene and having to mix that with gameplay that would need to have them continue to talk about it, or enter into battles that would seem out of place. The writing basically moves the story ahead a few weeks leaving us to fill in the gaps.

Another moment is just after Joel is critically wounded. Ellie does everything she can to save him and help them both escape the immediate danger. We are left knowing that Joel is weak and basically bleeding out, with little to no hope of being able to save him with the supplies on hand. We hit a moment and then fade to black… WINTER

We are then controlling Ellie and have no clue what has happened to Joel. He’ll still be alive, he is the main character. Yet the way Ellie is talking to herself, he is dead isn’t he. Yet there is no time to dwell, you need to start hunting a deer. Ellie needs to survive and it is clear a fair amount of time has passed again, she is a lot more skilled than she previously was. Maybe Joel is dead? Yet without doing a bit reveal Ellie makes it known that Joel is still alive in her first meeting with David. It is subtle yet very cleverly done.

Winter is one of the standout levels of any game ever made, the change in the mood is well handled and David will go down as one of the all time most evil characters in a game. Yet he isn’t evil for the sake of it, the world he is in has driven him to where he is and his desperation to have Ellie whilst dark and disturbing are clear. The writing has handled the character of David in a very mature fashion. Again a cut is used from Winter to Spring for us to fill in the gaps, yet this time the mood is different.

As the Joel and Ellie get closer to there goal there is something very somber about their attitudes and rather than having a cut-scene where the characters have a heart to heart, they instead use a moment of normal gaming mechanics to convey there is something up, as Ellie usually quick to help with a ladder is sat with her head somewhere else completely. This is then offset by one of the most beautiful moments of the generation. Up there with crossing to Mexico in Red Dead Redemption, or coming out of the Vault for the first time in Fallout. The parading giraffes is a moment of pure tranquility, one that just worked to perfection to set up what was to come, one last moment of peace.

The ending of the game too is not one you’d expect from a game. After shooting your way to Ellie you are confronted by a surgeon and a couple of his assistants who are about to perform the surgery on Ellie that could find a cure to the disease that has all but ended the world. Yet here is a man that is a broken emotional mess. Whose actions on the surface come across as entirely selfish, caring for his own needs over the greater good.

This is a man who by saving the one person he didn’t want to get emotionally attached to, has betrayed the one person he had possibly loved in the twenty years since he lost Sarah. Tess knew the importance of Ellie and gave her life to do her part. Yet her is Joel, having killed a surgeon, who as far as we are aware, is doing a good thing by finding a cure, just so doesn’t have to feel the pain of losing someone else he loves.

He goes from killing to survive, doing so on instinct, to acting in what appears to be a more cold blooded nature. Coming from the lift, he shoots Marlene stone dead and again another cut as we come to Ellie coming around in the car, as Joel fills her head with reasoning as to why he has saved her. Then the moment she asks Joel whether he has been lying and the look in her eyes as the response comes back. Such raw emotion in a scene that is totally out of the blue for a video game.

There was no violence for violence sake, everything felt like it was done with perfect context. The writers and those that acted in the game all deserve a lot of credit, it was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had with a controller in my hands.

In 007 Legends, rather than creating a tie in to the upcoming Skyfall the team at Eurocom have gone for a homage to previous films. Much like their earlier remake of Goldeneye, this game updates the licences from not only that, but also Licence to Kill, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Die Another Day and Moonraker. There is also a taster for the upcoming Skyfall as an added bonus.

At first glance 007 Legends appears to be another simple first person affair, as you take Bond through a series of missions based on the aforementioned films. Yet scrape a little below the surface and you’ll find effort has been made to create a game that plays more like you’d expect from a James Bond inspired affair, rather than a simple Call Of Duty clone.

Despite being played in first person, there is more than just gun-play involved. Eurocom have added an element of stealth to the game. Immediately making Bond feel more like a spy than a gun blazing commando. Bond has the option of navigating through levels unseen by using cover and timing to get past the henchmen dotted around.

This is done by using an awareness system similar to that seen in Metal Gear Solid and other such stealth games. Enemies will generally have three reactions to your presence. A white marker will show that they are completely unaware of Bond, yellow indicated they are suspicious of something and red means they have seen you and will start to attack and call in reinforcements.

It’s a system that seems to work well, however there are some fundamental issues that make it a bit counter intuitive. The biggest issue is with dead bodies, kill a henchman and his body will remain in place and if seen an alarm will be raised. Yet there is no option to move the body, which means you either need to time your shots perfectly so they fall into the shadows, or accept that you will need to engage the enemy no matter what. This can see the all guns blazing approach as the best option for many scenarios, as even if you get through a portion of the enemies, they be engaging you later in the level anyway, so may as well dispatch of them early on. It really is a shame that a single oversight has ruined the stealth element somewhat, as the alert system itself works well and can make for some tense moments.

When you do get end up in a fire fight, the action ranges from immensely satisfying to downright frustrating. Enemies are clever and will attempt to draw your attention while trying to gain a better position to take you down, which does make each battle tense and enjoyable. Yet unless you really fiddle with your TV settings, it can be a chore to actually pick the enemy out of the background, which is highly annoying and at times see you wasting some bullets. Overall though it steps just the right side of the line between fun and annoying.

There are some slightly scripted events mixed in with the gameplay too, there generally come as boss fights. Instead of the usual stealth and gunfight that makes up the main of the game, this is more of a one on one fisticuffs type of action. It feels like an odd addition, as it isn’t overly rare, but not frequent enough to be considered a vital part of the gameplay. It generally takes you out of the overall feel of the game with no apparent reason for being included.

Being a James Bond game, there are gadgets, lots of gadgets. Whether that be using James’ smart phone to hack a terminal, or his watch that acts as a sonar for scoping out enemies, as well as the laser (what Bond game would be complete with out a watch that shoots a laser?), or dart guns, as well as others. On the whole the gadgets are very useful, but having some act as mini-games feels like it takes away from the action a little. Hacking a terminal for example sees you needing to keep the right pressure on the triggers to match a display on the phone, it felt unnecessary more than anything.

Taking aspects from the various films mentioned earlier, keeps the pace of the game moving along nicely. Each film doesn’t outstay its welcome either, as you find starting to get tired of one, the next one rolls up nicely. Each starts of with a typical cut-scene to set up the plot, with said cut scene being just the right amount of length to whet your appetite for what is coming up next. Of the films on offer, the best set of levels comes from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the pacing of that set of levels just seems to fit a little better than the others.

007 Legends is built on the engine used to remake Goldeneye and does look good on the whole. It’s not in the same league as a Battlefield 3 or Call of Duty in terms of polish, but it does a job. Explosion affects are done well and the various locales are really well modelled. Characters too aren’t too bad looking, but they do have the odd dead soulless eyes syndrome that many games seem to have.

007 Legends is a game aimed squarely at fans, it has nods to the films and aficionados will be able to pick out the locations and characters with ease. It is far from a must own title for everyone, but on the whole it holds up as a solid title that is worth putting some time in to.

Score

7/10

Well now many will know it as a wonderful but darkly game on Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade service. It is worth saying right now, that Limbo is wonderful and should be must buy, because if you have yet to play it, then do not yet read this review. You are best going into the game knowing as little as possible. It is 1200 Points, it looks stunning and will give you a balanced and testing time solving the puzzles that await.

If you have decided to read on, then you have either played the game, or you really need convincing. Limbo is a physics based, platform puzzle game, that if it has to be likened to any game, it would be most like Braid purely because of the platforming and puzzle mechanic. The games protagonist is a young silhouetted boy, who awakes to find himself alone in what appears to be deep in the woods. That is it, the is no obvious clue as to why you are there, or what you have to do. Instinct tells you that when you can start moving, you move from left to right until you come to an obstacle.

That right there is the basic premise of the game, you move almost constantly left to right solving various physics based puzzles as you go. None of the puzzles seem overly taxing, yet each one feels like it has been created to just about test the grey matter just enough that you will need to survey what is ahead, but know that the solution is also, almost always fairly obvious. The few times you will get stuck, something will click sooner rather than later, you’ll solve it and move on.

So then, the game isn’t the most difficult in the world and it doesn’t seem to have much in the way of a story line. So what does it have? Atmosphere, bags and bags or atmosphere. Limbo, is absolutely dripping in the stuff, the visuals, the sound, the puzzles themselves and the times you do share the screen with other characters, every part of this game has been made with the goal of surrounding you in an atmospheric world.

The colour scheme is black, white and shades of grey, with no flashes of any other colour at all. It is this design decision that gives the game a very unique look and feel, it helps keep the atmosphere eerie and involving. Everything you with the character is on a single 2D plane, but with various different depths for the backgrounds and foregrounds, the game looks like a fully interactive diorama. Of course visuals are nothing with competent audio and what you hear is every bit as atmospheric as what you see. There is a low sounding score that accompanies the game throughout, one that keeps you immersed in the game. It is when something dramatic happens that the audio comes to life, usually accompanying an untimely death. The sound of things falling, crashing, breaking, snapping, crawling, all add to the atmosphere perfectly.

Death is something you will get used to, especially on your first run. As said earlier the puzzles aren’t overly taxing, but you will find yourself on the end of some rather disturbing and dark ways of seeing your life end. Luckily the checkpoint system is fairly forgiving, more often than not, finding your last checkpoint set just a few steps before you died. The checkpoints had to be spot on really, as the game is literally one long constant level. There are no easy, medium and hard levels to choose from. There are no loading screens, no cut scenes, nothing but you and the world you are in. You move from one end of the world to the other in about 4-5 hours and to be perfectly honest, if it wasn’t set up like this, then the atmosphere wouldn’t have half the same effect as it does.

The game may well seem fairly short, but there is replay value to it. Look at your completion score when you reach the end and it will likely be between 75-90% complete. That is because there are a number of hidden objects scattered throughout the game that you will need to find to increase that completion level and when you know how to solve the puzzles, further play-throughs will not take half as long, which is just as well, when you are chasing the ‘complete the game in one sitting with five of less deaths’ achievement.

Dark and disturbing is something that is a running theme throughout Limbo, it isn’t a nice game, it isn’t one that will leave a smile on your face but it is engrossing and it will have you suckered in from start to finish. Then from start to finish again and then again. The start of the Xbox Live’s Summer Of Arcade couldn’t be any darker.

Score

10/10

In spite of the “2” in the title, however, this game actually isn’t a direct sequel story-wise. It’s more or less a re-telling of the events of the first game; Bowser is setting out to create a galaxy-spanning empire, he kidnaps Peach yet again and Mario sets off into space to save her as usual (seriously, you’d think she’d step up her security by now). The main Mario series has never strayed too far from this story formula, and it’s kind of funny that Nintendo are basically admitting that the series has no real continuity, but this only means that this lack of focus on storytelling has all gone into the gameplay. Mario fans are used to this, and once again they’re not likely to be disappointed.

The first thing that will be noticed is that this game is more streamlined than its predecessor. The hub (a spaceship shaped like Mario’s head) is considerably smaller than before, while all the levels can be accessed via a map system that looks more like one from the New Super Mario Bros. series. Getting to each level is very quick and hassle-free, though it would not be unreasonable to say that it lacks the initial sense of wonder and exploration that the Comet Observatory offered, and some may find that disappointing.

Actually, a lot of the game does feel like it’s influenced by the New Super Mario Bros. series, from the map screens to the increased presence of sections played along a 2D plane. However, we would be inclined to argue that this game actually manages to construct these retro throwbacks more successfully than New Super Mario Bros., as it manages to both pay homage to the series legacy while still throwing in inventive twists.

Each level is like a self-contained playground, and while none of them take too long to complete what astounds us is just how endlessly inventive the game is with its scenarios. It’s rare to come across two levels which are functionally the same; one moment you’re working your way through a stage while gigantic buzz-saws chop off parts of the platforms you’re navigating, the next you’re hopping along platforms which change places in time with the beat of the music. To say any more would spoil one of the game’s key pleasures, but it’s actually rather funny that each level brings a new idea to the table, and then apparently discards said idea for the remainder of the game. Every level has something to surprise the player, and all have hidden recesses and things to discover. The gravity mechanics and the changing of perspective (especially on the small planetoids) expand on the themes from the first game, making for truly sublime platforming. We have to admit though that the camera is still not perfect, and we noticed a few occasions where the shifting perspectives would confuse the movement control, but this actually happens on fewer occasions than it did last time.

Controlling Mario is simplicity itself; moving, jumping and shaking the Wiimote for a spin attack is incredibly intuitive, with more advanced jumps made possible through different combinations of the control stick and the jump button. The simplicity of the control, however, is not just for the sake of accessibility; it allows the focus of the game to remain on the simple joy of movement throughout. The new suits and power-ups all bring something new to the gameplay dynamic, allow you to test your spatial awareness of each area and are fun to experiment with, while controlling Yoshi and utilising his own range of power-ups and moves is an absolute joy. Again, to say any more would spoil a lot, but one minor complaint though is that both Yoshi and the old powers are criminally under-used.

Those who felt that the first game was on the easy side will be thrilled to know that the challenge has been raised for this venture, especially when the bonus galaxies are unlocked post-credits. It’s that rare balance of accessibility and challenge that few developers can manage in a way that seems so effortless, and this game definitely has its moments that will prove frustrating at first. The balance between risk and reward is superb though, with even the most hair-tearing moments feeling very satisfying to overcome.

Graphically the game is absolutely superb, looking far in advance of any other game on the Wii with the wildly imaginative art direction and superb atmosphere putting many modern games to shame. If it wasn’t for the noticeably lower resolution of the Wii we would swear that this was a Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 game, proving once and for all that processing power can only take graphics so far; developers putting that power to good use is what makes a game look truly great. The orchestral soundtrack is also glorious and thoroughly enjoyable to listen to.

Gamers today are quick to jump to the conclusion of “more of the same” when it comes to Nintendo games, yet when the formula is already successful not much more is needed other than incremental improvements and refinements. That said, there wasn’t much to complain about with Super Mario Galaxy, yet this game, while not completely perfect (no game ever is), is so earnest in its desire to improve on not only its predecessor, but itself level after level. We are astounded that the Wii can host a ton of worthless shovelware (some of it from Nintendo itself; Wii Music was a really low blow) and then suddenly turn around and play host to one of the best games of this console generation, if not of the last couple of generations; a game that is completely confident in its ability to entertain and amaze the player at every turn. This is a rare occasion when the hype can actually be justified; Super Mario Galaxy 2 is, quite simply, a masterpiece.

Score

10/10