Back to the Future: The Game (2010)

Genre: Graphic adventure  |  Players: 1  |  Developer: Telltale Games

If you're not already familiar with Telltale's brand of graphic adventure, I'll attempt to explain in one paragraph: TT are storytellers. The story is the main event. Because of that, calling it a game is being descriptively generous. The visuals are stuck in the PS2 era. The animations are clunky. The interface is as simplistic as they come, with the player required to interact with people or objects and walk from place to place to find them. Conversations have multiple possible responses, but quite often it doesn't matter which one you choose or in which order because the response will be the same. You don't buy a TT title just for gameplay - you buy it for story because TT know how to deliver in that dept.

It begins on May 14th 1986. Hill Valley. The events in the films are the past. Doc Brown is missing. Marty is with Biff and George, and he's worried. Things seem bad, but they're about to get a lot worse and it'll be your job as Marty to fix them.

The time-hopping shenanigans that follow reference the entire film trilogy but take cues mostly from the structure of Part II (1989). If you know and love the films then you'll spot a HUGE amount of additional detail. The people at TT must really be fans of the franchise. They captured the enduring spirit of the series perfectly.

Not all voices are provided by the original actors, but they sound like they are; the effort made to match them exactly really paid off, with the discernible nuances of each actor's dialogue being present and largely correct. Ironically, some of the original cast sound less like their 1986-selves than the replacements do!

The adventure is split into five episodes, each individually priced, but if you buy the Complete Pack digitally or the retail edition (on an actual disc) then you'll have them all. Play them in the correct order to properly finish the tale.

It gets more and more self-referential each time. Ep III is very talky but also funny, clever and with a high level of satire. The puzzle solving is fun but can quickly slip into being frustrating. Deductive reasoning alone isn't always enough to get you though, so be prepared for much trial and error and seeing multiple times animations that can't be skipped. Nevertheless, it's worth the inconvenience.

3 scientific predilections out of 5

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (2005)

Genre: Sport  |  Players: 1-2 / 2-8 Online  |  Developer: Neversoft

Oh, no, not another Tony Hawk game post! Yes, but there's something positive to say this time, so I don't have to feel depressed by the end of it.

The main one-player game has the same awful 'One Goal at a Time' structure as the previous three entries, but for an 'open world' setting it does an admirable job at fooling you into thinking there are no loading times between areas.

The story is better than T.H.U.G's was. It's even kind of funny at times. You're a regular nobody, a wannabe, fresh off the bus, required to prove your skills to the local doucebags skaters before you can get a foot in the competition door and land some sweet sponsorship deals. Along the way you'll make friends and play a key role in the building of a private Skate Ranch.

You could play through that half of the game if you want, you might even enjoy parts of it, but the best thing about T.H.A.W is that it has CLASSIC MODE!

Classic Mode is respectful to the structure of THPS 1-3. You're given a set amount of time and a set number of goals (including Secret Tape) that when completed don't halt the action – you can keep going, stringing goals together in one glorious run. And, as before, you can boost your abilities by finding and acquiring Stat Points. The difficulty level is set kind of high, so new players may well be succumbing to frustration at times, but eventually you'll learn the layout of the levels and the button presses needed to score big combos.

More praise: the soundtrack has some excellent tunes from the likes of (in no particular order) Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, D.R.I., Public Enemy, Spirit Caravan, Green Day, The Doors, The Bravery, Motley Crue, and lots more (sixty-three in all).

Interestingly, the voice of the main character (Kensucky) in the one-player campaign is Will Friedle, who you may know as Terry McGinnis/Batman from Batman Beyond (aka Batman of the Future, 1999-2001). His new best friend is voiced by Cree Summer, who played Terry's friend Max in the same show.

3½ boulevards of broken wheels out of 5

Costume Quest 2 (2014)

Genre: Action / RPG  |  Players: 1  |  Developer: Double Fine Productions

The '2' in the title is a clue. Yes, it's a sequel. But didn't costumed twins Wren and Reynold already save Hallowe'en in the original Costume Quest (2010)? Maybe they did, but they need to save it again, this time in the past, because there's some rudimentary timey-wimey shenanigans afoot. Grab your sack and suit up, kids.

CQ 2 doesn't reinvent the gaming wheel, but it makes good use of the one it already had. As before you're completing quests for both XP and candy, but a number of little things have been improved.

You now have access to the speedy-boots regardless of which costume you're wearing, so you'll not have to switch as often for simple level traversing.

However, you will be required to switch during the exploration phase in order to operate or initiate certain things within the colourful world. If you find an inaccessible part of a level, it likely means you don't have the correct costume yet, so find or earn its component parts before returning.

A small number of the new costumes are secret, meaning you won't just find them during the course of a standard play through; you'll have to go off the obvious path a few times in order to discover them.

The turn based combat has also received some minor but welcome tweaks and additions, although it does still feel repetitive after a while. Also, if you just scrape through a fight and are far from a save point, you can scoff a small portion of your candy haul and recover some health that way.

In closing, if you're too lazy, too old, unwilling or unable to role-play within the watered-down farce of a meaningful annual pagan festival that is modern Hallowe'en night, then you can do it from the comfort of your own home in your socks, and you won't get sick from all the sugar and razor blades, either.

3 candy violations out of 5

Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry (2014)

Genre: Action / Adventure | Players: 1 | Developer: Ubisoft

Our introduction to Freedom Cry’s protagonist Adéwalé was in Ass Creed IV: Black Flag (2013) when he served as quartermaster aboard Captain Kenway's pirate ship, the Jackdaw. FC is set fifteen years after that time, with the former quartermaster now a fully-fledged assassin and Captain of his own vessel.

Things go bad and Adéwalé gets washed ashore after a shipwreck. The place he lands is Saint-Domingue, a French colony on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. In Saint-Domingue black workers are kept as slaves by cruel white masters. Adéwalé empathises with the working men and women, having once been held in similar chains, so he chooses to stay and liberate them using his assassin skills.

Originally a DL-only addition to Black Flag it was subsequently released as a standalone title minus the IV prefix in the title. That means if you own the Ass Creed IV disc you can choose the original partial download. It’s the full FC game but makes use of your existing AC IV install files. If you don’t have the disc you can download a larger file enabling you to play the full FC game in its standalone guise. At full price, when compared to the amount of gameplay that IV gives you, FC is piss-poor value. It doesn't get close to my definition of value for money.

The biggest addition to gameplay is the ability to free slaves from plantations. In fact, it’s your currency while on land. It sounds odd, but (once unlocked) guns and ammunition are free as reward for selfless services rendered. The better items can only be purchased once you've freed enough people.

There’s an important social message at its core that's deserving of wider attention, but everything about the expansion feels rushed, from the story to the poorly thought-out progressions and limited number of upgrades. Whereas IV had more in it than it first appeared, FC has less than it first appears. The majority of the locations are nothing more than a tiny beach area with two or three visible treasure chests. You’ll visit them once, with no need to ever return. Worse still, the sea shanties are absent, meaning sea journeys feel longer and are mirthless.

The few larger areas that make up the bulk of the game are well-designed and would've fit nicely into IV. It's a shame there isn't more to do within them and that the missions on them are so broken. Of the nine memories (missions) available, I had to restart six because of glitches. One in particular had to be restarted four times because the same glitch made it impossible to complete. That's the kind of thing I'd expect in a beta, not a final product. Well, except a Ubisoft product.

2½ changing tides out of 5

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013)

Genre: Action / Adventure | Players: 1 / Multi | Developer: Ubisoft

Pop or feed the disc into your machine, allow it to install, get the huge (over one gig) patch to fix all the things that should’ve been fixed before it was released, sign in or skip the Ubisoft registration and you’ll finally be ready to play Black Flag, a prequel to the previous game, Ass Creed III (2012). It takes the seafaring aspect of III and expands it, giving you full access to your very own upgradable pirate ship and a huge ocean environment in which to jolly and roger around in.

Navigating is as simple as turning the bow of your ship in the direction you want to go and instructing the crew to drop sails. There are occasional hazards and enemy fleets to contend with, but unlike, for example, TLoZ: Wind Waker (2003), the actual journeying from place to place isn't dull. You can pick up flotsam and jetsam, go whaling (nasty, nasty business), engage other ships in combat and even have the crew sing sea shanties to fill the silence. The shanties are excellent.

Once you've discovered a location and synced with it by climbing to specific high points you can fast travel there at any time without having to set sail. Fast travel comes in very handy for side-quests and gathering collectables: Animus fragments, maps, buried treasure, hunting, crafting, upgrading (self and ship) and collecting sea shanty pages are some of what the world offers. The menus are packed with additional info relating to all aspects of the gameworld, from actual historical records of people and locations to transcribed song lyrics.

The story is better than anything Desmond ever had. As Edward Kenway you'll make friends, lose friends and even bury a few. I loved how they deepened the layers of interaction through him. You’re an Abstergo employee playing around inside the genetic memories of someone else who, at one time, is a pirate masquerading as an Assassin who’s masquerading as a Templar. Bravo, team.

The modern day sections of the game are more colourful than usual, but are still generally crap in comparison to the Animus adventures. Searching for sticky notes is a pain in the ass and playing a variation of Frogger to hack a computer is stupid.

The music has always been one of the best things about the series. In that it excels again, this time courtesy of Brian Tyler. It's been in my head for weeks.

I'd rather not end this review on a downer, but Ubisoft leave me little choice because in order to access small but crucial parts of the game—parts that are on the actual disc when you buy it, not DLC—players are required to create an account with their UPlay division. If you want to acquire all ship adornments and completely fill your inventory in the one player game then you need that UPlay account. Consequently, my AC IV inventory remains incomplete.

4 teeth of Neptune out of 5

Serious Sam - The first Encounter

Genre: FPS | Players: 1-4 | Developer: Croteam

Note: the version reviewed here is the classic PC version, not the HD remake of 2009.

The best way to describe Serious Sam is to say that it is to Quake likes what Duke Nukem was to doom likes: It's his unhinged, degenerate cousin. the one that hops naked on the table at the wedding of your sister. and starts to write his name on the tablecloth with his piss. 

Only he does it with a perfect gothic font, in  ancient Latin, and his piss smells like Channel N°5. this is what Serious Sam amounts to. The game is stupid, linear, doesn't require much strategy (only in how you're going to handle the inhuman mass of enemy he's throwing at you, sometimes up to more than a hundred at a time.), it's obnoxious and quite impossible to take seriously. 

But it's fun, the controls are as good as it was possible back then, and on top of that, for a game of that time, it was beautiful. forget gloomy corridors, even if there are some, you'll spend a lot of time in a gorgeous, colorful recreation of ancient Egypt. At the time, Serious Sam was a breath of fresh air between the corridors of Unreal, Return to castle Wolfenstein or Quake 3. 

All in all Serious Sam is nothing new, but a damned good and well made nothing new. 

Similar games (some are more serious *wink wink*): Serious Sam the Second encounter, Soldier of Fortune, Duke Nukem 3D, Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast.

4 YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAWW!!!!! out of 5.

Buyer's guide : PC/PALM OS/Xbox/Xbox 360. FPS on Console are Heresy.

Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (2008)

Genre: Tactical FPS | Players:1-2 | Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Vegas 2 puts players in the character of Bishop; A veteran Rainbow commander who is pulled from teaching at the academy to help deal with the terrorists attacking Las Vegas. Players actually customize Bishop themselves for both multi and single player. Not just to look cool, but playing gains XP which unlocks new equipment with different ratings for armor and mobility affecting how durable you are and how fast you can move.

The campaign runs both before, concurrently and after the events of the first game, but the action is mostly the same, even with the same teammates. The AI though is much improved. No longer do they get in each others way and now move more tactically when moving to objectives. They also now have their own inventory unlike the 1st game where players were incentivized to use them because they had an infinite supply of explosives and such. You can now also direct not just their location, but also their fire and the new environments are much more open making the endless clearing of rooms much less repetitive as well as new enemies with new weapons(fuck you shield assholes). As good as the AI has become, Cooperative Multiplayer  is still the most exciting for me. Unlocking new equipment actually forced me into trying new weapons and strategies which I appreciated. Otherwise I would just always use a submachine gun and a sniper rifle. Always.

Everything is better, but the same making this more expansion then sequel. Bishop is a much more fun character, better customization, and better tactical stats that actually affect gameplay make this a much more engaging playthrough than the first.

Buyer's Guide:
Available on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC

4 Obvious Red shirts and traitors out of 5

Rainbow Six: Vegas (2006)

Genre: FPS, Tactical Shooter | Players: 1-2 | Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Logan Keller is on his first mission as team leader of a Rainbow Six team in Mexico to find a terrorist leader. Things go awry and his two team members are captured, but before he can launch a rescue, he is brought back to help deal with an attack by terrorists in Las Vegas. He joins up with a new squad as team leader to clean up the city and find out what the terrorists objectives are.

Players control Logan directly in a first person view and can order his team around with various commands mostly just by pointing where you want them to go. This being a tactical shooter, it focuses heavily on team tactics and remaining in cover which makes the camera zoom out slightly to a 3rd person view. If you just go in guns blazing like any other FPS, you WILL die pretty instantaneously. There is regenerating health, but it is very limited. Sustained fire will kill you in less than a second. Your teammates are a bit more durable, but they are not invincible. You can get through a good chunk of the single player just ordering your team to clear every single room, but pretty much every encounter has multiple viewpoints from which players can support the team. Using different weapons with different properties is useful, but not entirely necessary. They are still mostly interchangeable unless you try to snipe with a shotgun like an idiot. The main thing is to know when to use silencers. Though there is almost no reason to take them off. You lose some power with it on but not enough to outweigh the advantage stealth can give you.

While certainly more tactical than most other shooters, R6: Vegas is certainly less so than its predecessors. Not bad per se, but it is certainly streamlined. Overcoming a gaggle of enemies quickly and efficiently is the point and can be satisfying. The varied architecture of the various environments makes the possibilities of  encounters like puzzles. It can be hampered somewhat by your teams limited AI that sometimes act like morons. Co-op multiplayer was a better option. Overall a mostly satisfying experience.

Buyer's Guide:
Available on PS3, Xbox 360, PC, and a different version also called R6: Vegas for PSP.

3½ Breach and clear out of 5

Assassin's Creed II (2009)

Genre: Action  / Adventure  |  Players: 1  |  Developer: Ubisoft

I was disappointed we didn't get the historical Japanese setting that was hinted at in the previous game, but that was softened by Ass Creed II outperforming its predecessor in every way. I replayed it recently and can confidently say that it’s still my favourite of the entire series so far. I don’t have first-hand experience of any version other than the PS3, but as far as it goes it works straight out of the box, without the need for patches or updates and it was glitch free. The only reset I was forced to perform was when I had more than a dozen enemies pursuing me simultaneously over a large distance and got overly-happy with the smoke bombs, the PS3 RAM didn't like that much, but that’s what I get for pissing about; none of the mission objectives will ask that kind of activity of you.

Ezio’s training in the past, sometime around the second half of fifteenth century Renaissance Italy, is a crucial element in Desmond’s education and evolution as an assassin in the present. It’s a small link between the two eras, but at least it’s something. Bless them for trying. The story even has a go at addressing the reason everyone speaks fluent English (except when it’s more dramatic for them to revert to their native Italian); it made me chuckle.

If you want to take the experience further there are many database entries filled with facts about the era and a large dollop of supposition about the people featured in the story. It's entirely optional, but it's a nice addition.

Surely there are some down sides? Of course, there’s a few. The frame rate isn't perfect, but that’s likely the trade-off for the world being so open and the draw distance. Secondly, there’s historian Shaun Hastings, an NPC that you’re forced to interact with more than once in order to advance the story. He looks like a git, he sounds like a git and he behaves like a git, ergo, he's a contemptible git.

Note: The missing/corrupt memories you encounter are filled in via DLC. It’s Ubisoft, after all, and that’s how they roll. They claim the levels just weren't ready in time, but I don’t believe that for a second. They just wanted more of your cash. They didn't get mine. The eventual GOTY edition has it all in one place.

A direct sequel to the story, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, was released on November 2010 for PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Mac. Milk that titty, Ubisoft.

4 beneficial bleedings out of 5

Front Mission Evolved (2010)

Genre: 3rd Person Shooter | Players: 1 - 8 | Developer: Double Helix Games

Dylan Ramsey is on the job testing his company's new wanzer (aka mech) prototype in New York when a mysterious force invades and destroys the city's orbital elevator as well as the building where Dylan's father works as a wanzer scientist. Dylan then takes a special commission in the army to avenge his father and take down the soldiers responsible which will set him into a larger geopolitical quagmire (as it always does in this series).

The latest and most likely last entry in the Front Mission series ditches the turn-based tactical gameplay for a more traditional 3rd person action experience. Traditional being the key word as the gameplay is pretty standard. Despite being in mechs, there isn't a whole lot that distinguishes it from any other 3rd person shooter or even the sections outside of the wanzers. The wanzers can feel lumbering, but it is mostly tedious when you just want to skate to get around faster, but can't because the gauge needs to refill. Shooting outside of wanzers is even more generic as now the fleeting feeling of piloting a mech is gone and all the player is left with is a cookie cutter shooter. Not to mention these on-foot sections are so incredibly piss-easy that they feel like padding just to add a "feature" to the back of the box. You rarely encounter a handful of enemies at a time and there is spare ammo everywhere. The auto aim is also broken if the target is moving at all. Turning it off actually made the shooting much better since I could shoot while they were moving instead of endless cover-based pop-up potshots.

Customizing the wanzer for different objectives can be great fun, but the generic action doesn't really lend itself to anything other than the standard mid-range weapons outside of plot specific events where the game forces you to play differently. Sure there is limb specific damage, but it doesn't really matter since enemies and yourself can still use them, just less effectively. Destroying legs does make enemies and the player move slower, but in the space of 20 second battles, the same amount of time and effort could just be used killing most enemies. The boss battles are a different beast and are where actually knowing the advantages of different setups is actually helpful as well as all the piloting controls since if you don't the battle will literally be over in 3 seconds. This can be problematic if your setup isn't up to the task and you don't have any cash to switch loadouts forcing you to switch to weaker and cheaper parts to change weapons. This is a crack in the difficulty curve, but the battles are exciting and really the highlight of the game. The feeling of piloting was less fleeting while skating to avoid missiles while simultaneously firing a machine gun, locking on missile targets and avoiding EMP bombs. There is also the E.D.G.E. system which is just another name for bullet-time which works fine, but I went most of the game without using.

The story is serviceable, though simplified. The intricate political plots of past entries are mostly gone, for better or worse. In its place is a much more generic revenge plot with an unnecessary romantic subplot that the game doesn't even take the time to earn any emotional investment in as well as other opportunities involving changing loyalties and deaths of characters. Despite the balance issues and the overall generic gameplay, there are some shining bits of entertainment to be found.

Buyer's Guide:
Available on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC

3 insane bands of mercenaries out of 5

Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD (2014)

Genre: Action / Adventure  |  Players: 1  |  Developer: Ubisoft

Ass Creed got its first playable female protagonist in AC: Lib. The creation of Aveline de Grandpré, an assassin of African and French heritage, may well have been to address criticisms from gamers up to that point, but to Ubisoft's credit both aspects play a key role in the game. It's not just a cheap cosmetic change.

It uses the AC III game engine but does interesting things with it. Aveline can change her clothes to best suit the task at hand. Hold back the cries of Women + Video Game + Clothes = Sexism for a second because there's a good reason for her frequent visits to the clothing store. The 'guise' she wears gives her a persona that makes it easier to infiltrate certain areas and affords to her a level of camouflage; e.g. few people will look twice at a slave carrying a box into the servant's entrance of a rich Lord's house. But once in the house the box can be dropped and the hidden blades revealed.

The same applies to the opposite end of the societal spectrum. When dressed as a lady of leisure Aveline can gather information from people in power during their rich-folks garden party, etc. It enables the player to get right into the heart of the action instead of having to constantly hide some place and eavesdrop like a creep.

It takes place in America during the second half of the 18th Century. The astute among you will notice that that's the same era that AC III is set. Indeed, while Ratonhnhaké:ton was fighting Templar control in the colonies, Aveline was doing her part in New Orleans amid the transition from French to Spanish control of the city. However, while AC III was from the perspective of Desmond and his useless cohorts, AC: Lib is a virtual environment provided by Abstergo Industries, so the legitimacy of events is questionable - the assassin might not be perceived as the good guy (or gal) all the time. Is it enemy propaganda?

Some good: being on the HDD means it loads quickly. Aveline is a better thief than anyone that preceded her. Play the trading game properly and money will roll in easily. It's much easier to avoid detection from enemies; it's arguably too easy. Chain-kills are fun. Another returning feature from previous games is the glitches. I had to reboot the game four times, which was the second-lowest ever (hey, it's a kind of improvement). And best of all, there's no Desmond!

Some bad: you can’t skip FMV if you restart a Memory. The emptiness of many handheld games is carried over. The autosave sometimes doesn't work. It feels short in comparison to the others in the series. It tempts you with the idea that missions can be approached differently depending on which guise you adopt, but that rarely happens; it more often than not restricts you to one specific persona, even going so far as to automatically change it at mission start, meaning the game has a lot less freedom and certainly less replay value than it could've had.

3 unwashed scabs out of 5

Assassin's Creed III (2012)

Genre: Action / Adventure | Players: 1 / Multi | Developer: Ubisoft

Ass Creed III is the (third) (fourth) fifth home console entry in the protracted series, and is a direct sequel to Ass Creed: Revelations (2011).  Desmond continues his attempt to avert the apocalypse by connecting to the memories of his ancestors in the deux ex machina known as the Animus.  This time he’s freeloading in the mind of his half-English, half-Mohawk ancestor, Ratonhnhaké:ton, helpfully also known as Connor, during the American Revolution.

It was released just under a year after Revelations.  Was it rushed?  The brokenness of the experience answers that question.  In just three sessions (on PS3)  I experienced such delights as doors refusing to open, doors that are open but impassable, mission objectives disappearing the instant I reached them, people stuck inside walls and floors, sound effects happening a week after the event they’re designed to accompany, slowdown during FMV and three freezes requiring a console reset.  (It went into meltdown once.  The picture faded to the colour of winter slush and was followed by some kind of demonic voice, as if Pazuzu was in my TV; it boomed from the amp at least three times louder than anything else.)  A patch was released that fixes some of those bugs but introduces others.  If you're not in a position to patch it, it'll be frustrating.

Ironically, there’s a hell of a good game beneath it all.  The new additions are broken but the concept behind them is to be applauded.  Some of the ideas are pilfered from Red Dead Redemption (2010) but having them in the Glitch Creed series offsets the tired formula with something that seems fresh.  If more time had been allowed for coding and Beta testing, then Ass Glitch could've been even better than it managed to be in its patched state!  When it works, it’s a definite series highlight and a genuinely thrilling experience.

Patched: 3½ poxy blankets out of 5  /  Unpatched: 2 master baiters out of 5

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD (2012)

Genre: Sport  |  Players: 1 - 4  |  Developer: Robomodo

It’s sad when the most you can hope for from a beloved game franchise is that the next entry isn't as weak as the previous one you played. The joy that’s associated with a purchase is replaced by fragile hope or, in the case of THPS, an expectation of disappointment. Having played the game I'm left with the paradoxical feeling that lingers when you expect disappointment and you get disappointment.

It begins in the Warehouse, the first level in the first ever THPS game. It was and still is the perfect place to start for new players and it presented an equally perfect opportunity for developer Robomodo to introduce seasoned pros to any tweaks made to the game’s control style. But right from the off it’s clear that more time was spent making the levels look a little prettier than was spent on bringing a very old control method up to date. I read some place that they had full access to Neversoft’s code, but you’d never know it.

It’s an amalgamation of the first and second games only, so the moves available to the player are limited, but that’s no excuse for the arbitrary way something will work one minute and fail the next. Take Venice, for example; you don’t need to be near the spray cans to pick them up, but jump directly through the middle of the secret DVD and it’ll not even register. Collecting S-K-A-T-E is a game of chance based more on luck than skill. Doing what’s required to perform a specific trick will either do what's expected or do something completely different. And those green fences are the work of Satan; they're so broken.

Subsequent DLC added the ability to revert and offered up three levels from THPS 3 (Canada, Airport, Los Angeles), but my love for THPS 3 keeps me from buying it.

There’s no two player split screen (why the hell not?), but there are online modes (not on PC) for up to four players, including Graffiti, Hawkman, Trick Attack and a new mode called Big Head Elimination.

I sincerely hope that if there's ever another home console Hawk game it manages to capture what made the pre-T.H.U.G games so appealing, so that I can once more give the series the praise it used to deserve.

2 face-plants out of 5

Bully / Canis Canem Edit (2006)

Genre: Sandbox | Players: 1 | Developer: Rockstar Vancouver (PS2) / Rockstar Toronto (Wii) / Rockstar New England (Xbox 360, PC)

Authority figures: pricks. We all know one. Some of you may even want to be one. For those of us that don’t, Rockstar provides.

The game takes place at Bullworth Academy, a fictional boarding school in New England. It’s similar to the Grand Theft Auto games in that you play a role and have a sandbox environment to kick around in, but it’s not just GTA: School. The scholastic setting is more than just a cosmetic change, and the satire reflects that.

You play as fifteen-year-old Jimmy Hopkins, a troubled youth from an equally troubled home environment. From the beginning it’s clear that Bullworth is as fucked-up as all the other schools that Jimmy has been expelled from, which leaves him with two options: keep his head down and hope the bullies leave him alone, or stand up to them using the kind of methods they understand.

The world may seem small to begin with because you’re confined to school grounds, but progression through the story opens up additional areas to explore and new tasks to undertake.

Between missions you’ll have the opportunity to attend classes that take the form of mini-games. They’re all very simple except for Shop, which is infuriating. It’s not essential to complete all classes, but the rewards for doing so tend to help make progress easier in the missions, so they’re definitely worthwhile.*

Weapons become available (*see above) and fit with the school aesthetic (slingshot, fire crackers, stink bombs, etc), but their use will have consequences.

There’s a lot of stuff to do outside of missions and classes, such as races, shopping and gathering collectibles. They’re not all signposted, so often the onus is on you to explore and find them for yourself. If you've played a Rockstar game before, you'll know how much fun that can be and how much time it can take.

Originally only on PS2, it was later ported to Wii, Xbox 360 and PC as Bully: Scholarship Edition (2008) with additional content. The PS2 version was renamed 'Canis Canem Edit' in PAL territories, a title that more accurately describes the nature of the game world into which Jimmy is unceremoniously thrust.

5 detentions out of 5

Tony Hawk's Proving Ground (2007)

Genre: Sport | Players: 1 or Online Multi

Developer: Neversoft (Xbox 360 + PS3) / Page 44 Studios (PS2 + Wii)

I consider myself a veteran when it comes to the Tony Hawk games. I’ve played Pro Skater 1, 2, 3 and 4, Underground 1 and 2, American Wasteland and this. That’s eight games in all. I've seen the series climb from humble but hopeful beginnings to the spectacular heights of THPS3, and then subsequently fall hard on its ass, clutching at wild ideas that have little to do with skating. Proving Ground was a new low. There’s not enough room here to list everything that’s wrong with it.

There’s a story of sorts. You’re a noob, barely able to ollie a pebble. With help from the Pros you’ll learn new tricks, new skills, a new way of looking at things and, like the series itself in the early days, climb the ladder of success.

There are three environments: Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington. They exist as one large open-world area. There’s no loading as you traverse from one to the other, but there’s loading at other times to make up for it, like when you cock-up a task for the twentieth time because they’re so fucking difficult.

A number of in-game arcade machines are littered around the environment that, once unlocked, will allow you to play something called Tony Hawk 2000. The score targets, the goals, the collect S-K-A-T-E and C-O-M-B-O tasks are recreated as they were in the early games. It’s a game within a game, so you’re still in the same environment, but it’s a lot more fun than the main game. They should have dispensed with all that other crap and made TH2000 the focus.

Extras include short promos (i.e. adverts) and, for some reason, a Rolling Stones video, Sympathy for the devil. Best Stones song ever! Wait… it’s a Fatboy Slim remix. Bloody Hell. The disappointment never ends.

Amazingly, the multiplayer aspect is still available at time of writing. Game modes are: Graffiti, Trick Attack, H.O.R.S.E and Free Skate. You should be able to figure out what they entail by the names.

2 sketchy reverts out of 5

Max Payne 3 (2012)

Genre: Action / 3rd Person shooter | Players: 1 - 16 (Online)
Developer: Rockstar Vancouver

MP3 is ugly. Really fuckin' ugly. It’s as it was designed by a student of Filmmaking 101 who was eager to use in a game all the filters his DV camera had to offer; all the filters his tutor told him not to use (unless the tutor was JJ Abrams). It’s a neon hell saturated in crap like TV scan lines, colour channels split and offset over the image, distortion, noise, strobes and lens flare. Why? None of it makes any sense aesthetically. I'm not lying when I say there was some FMV I couldn't even bear to watch. I had to close my eyes and just listen.

It’s a good thing it has a story, right? The 'story' (for lack of a better word) is just as bad. Max has grown up, but the writing hasn't. The dialogue is unrealistic, but realism doesn't seem to have been its primary goal, so I guess that’s okay. It seems to have been aiming for something akin to hardboiled noir. Noir is a tough thing to achieve, it requires the proper intonations and a voice that has the correct amount of gravitas. Max doesn't have that. What he does have is a personality that’s pulled out of the Big Book of Clichéd Personalities for the First Time Writer: Chapter One: The Washed-up Cop with a Drinking Problem.

Missions involve killing people on rooftops, killing people in nightclubs, killing people in corridors and, just to shake it up a little, killing people during on-rails action scenes; all of which can be done in slow motion.

During missions you have the option to look for clues that make no difference to the outcome whatsoever. All they do is initiate a short V/O from Max about what he thinks is happening or a recollection from his past. It helps give an insight into his tortured mind, but in truth he’s not a character that I wanted to know better.

There are some positives. Max will snap to cover behind a convenient barrier or pillar easily, from which he’s able to shoot bad guys as they run towards him like kamikaze dolls. And the targeting is reasonably accurate.

In short, MP3 is an ugly game that's perfect for people obsessed with guns and killing, but will leave those wanting a more engaging experience unfulfilled.

1½ shit sandwiches out of 5

Beyond Good and Evil (HD edition) (2011)

Genre: Action / Adventure | Players: One | Developer: Ubisoft

BG+E was originally released in 2003 for PC and consoles. The 2011 version is an HD release with updated visuals to make it look more attractive on modern TV equipment. Beneath the polish it's the same game with the same aged camera system and inherent game engine limitations. I played through it multiple times back in the day (on PS2), so am in a good position to judge whether the update is successful or not. It is, but it’s not perfect. I encountered some minor glitches that I didn't fall prey to before. It was mostly due to bad luck and my trying to cut corners, but I'd to reload twice because I'd slipped between scenery. Freakish accidents aside, the game has aged beautifully.

You play as Jade, a human female. She's aided by her uncle Pey'j, who's... er... a talking pig. The characterisation is top class, and they exist in a believable world. Environments aren't very large and the boundaries aren't at all far apart, but it never feels too squished or constricting.

Combat is simple. If you’re savvy to what goes on around you then you’ll rarely die during fights. The most danger you’ll encounter will be during stealth sections. I detest stealth in games, but there’s so much else to enjoy that I was able to suffer it. Mercifully, it’s not overly challenging either.

You’ll occasionally be required to solve puzzles, in the style of The Legend of Zelda, but they’re few and far between; I’d have liked more.

Your motivation is the exposure of a political conspiracy. You’ll need to participate in some limited non-story quests and item-hunts if you’re to advance it at specific points. Far from being a distraction, they're a large part of what makes the game interesting. Whilst off the beaten track you’ll be on the lookout for wildlife to photograph. Catalogue enough unique specimens and you’ll be rewarded. You don’t need to find every one if you don’t want to.

Likewise, something the game uses for currency needs to be hunted/earned, but you won’t need to find them all to get to the end - and what an ending it is!

It’s no spoiler to say that a sequel is (maybe) on the way. I've been hungry for it for many years, but it seems as if it’ll skip the current gen entirely and if it ever does appear it’ll likely be on PC, PS4 and XBone. That makes me twitch.

A large part of what makes the game special is the stunning voice work. It has the correct amount of pathos, helping the concern each character feels for the other be also felt by the player. I was compelled to push on and remedy the emotional burden that weighs on Jade’s spirit as the story progressed. Gaming experiences like that don't come along very often.

4 boxes of K-Bups out of 5

Silent Hill Downpour (2012)

Genre: Survival-Horror, Action | Players: 1 | Developer: Vatra Games

As scary as it is, I have a needlessly long history with this game. A history characterized by allegations about the mechanics and dread regarding the future of the franchise. I finally faced those fears, however.

The new, titular mechanic is the rain cycle. Stay outside long enough and it will begin to storm. This is positively correlated with enemy spawns. Escaping into buildings will usually reset the weather and elicit an auto-save. I would complain, but we’ve always been at the mercy of save points, so it isn’t a huge deal. Side-quest accomplishments also grant saves, keeping this new “open world” take on the town tolerable.

Only one such quest requires you to have previously cleared the story, but there is no New Game+ feature to help you if you missed any others. The nature of Silent Hill would have easily justified spitting you back out just before the point of no return.

Several saves are held in memory and load easily for scumming purposes, as this isn’t Homecoming. No auto-circling, no dodge rolls. Your melee weapons can break, but it’s only noteworthy on higher difficulties. It should also be said that the method of choosing what guns to stash can be a little obtuse.

In general, Murphy needs to run to both fight effectively and advance the plot. Yes, Shattered Memories’ chase mechanic returns. The paths are much tighter and require both trial & error and observation to overcome being lost in a loop. I found it simply different, not better or worse.

Its return is actually telling of the game’s intentional design. This, and the lack of traditional boss battles, facilitate an optional mode of play that is appropriate for Murphy’s character. In the end, that’s a huge part of what a successful Silent Hill game needs to do: Atmosphere must be married to gameplay decisions that inform and correctly suit the protagonist.

Ultimately, Downpour’s only great crime is its tendency to stutter briefly on occasion. This can occur when the game is trying to micro-load, is preparing to award a trophy, or is switching to a rare, fixed camera angle. It’s a legitimate problem, but it never happened as I was fighting or during the chase sequences; it never got me hurt.

I’m playing apologist. I adore this series; I will never be sorry about that.

Welcome to the fold, Murphy.

Buyer's Guide: Cheaply available on both PS3 and Xbox 360. Oh Neg, you bittersweet summer child. You had no idea what the world (and corporate entities) would do. When you're done laughing at me, reader, click here.

3½ Todd Manning Scars out of 5

Grand Theft Auto Online (2013)

Genre: Sandbox  |  Players: 1 - 16  |  Developer: Rockstar North

I’ll begin with a confession: I'm not a fan of online gaming. There are some exceptions, but primarily I play a game to be immersed in story, not for social interaction. I’d much rather someone who cares about online gaming review this, but unfortunately you’re stuck with me.

I'm not being puerile when I say I agree with RS that GTA Online is a separate game; albeit one that uses the same resources and game mechanics as the one player aspect. It has its own levelling-up system, its own monetary system, its own property market and, most importantly, its own unique missions.

It’s set two months before GTA V, so people you may have assassinated there are still available here to offer you jobs. Complete jobs or activities and you’ll earn Reputation Points (RP). Get enough RP and you’ll level-up.

Working your way up the ranks unlocks new items that you can purchase from the in-game stores; things like silencers for guns, engine and transmission upgrades for your personal vehicle, or new clothes.

Jobs also earn you money. Everything revolves around money and not having enough of it. You’ll work your ass off just to afford a new engine. Acquiring enough for an entire car will take a long time.

You could steal a flash car but the mod-shops will refuse to respray it and the cops will have such a hard-on for you that it’s not worth the hassle. Losing your wanted level only stops them for a short time. That means you’re either stuck with a shitbox or you buy your own and upgrade it; and don’t forget to insure it or you’ll have wasted your cash when it eventually gets blown to pieces.

At time of writing, the Heists aren't yet playable, but are promised as FREE DLC in the not-too-distant future. It’s a shame, becuase they're the only part of the online experience that I was genuinely interested in.

Similarly, the Content Creator is still forthcoming.  he official word from RS is that it'll be initially limited to Death Matches and Races (yawn). Perhaps in the future there'll be an option to create custom jobs and rewards.

The potential to add to the game-world over time is reportedly “endless”, which is overly optimistic in my opinion, but admittedly there's scope for a large number of variations on a theme. If they can keep those variations fresh and interesting it'll help distract from the repetitious nature of the theme.

3½ fetch and carry missions out of 5

Grand Theft Auto V (2013)

Genre: Sandbox  |  Players: One  |  Developer: Rockstar North

Note: This is for the single player aspect only. GTA Online is included on the disc but is essentially a separate game, so is reviewed HERE.

GTA IV was a depressing game. I would go into it for escapism and come out feeling worse. TLaD is hardly worth mentioning, but TBoGT proved that Rockstar could do better if they tried. With V, they tried and they succeeded. Hell, they excelled. It’s still minus some key elements from the series past that I suspect were held back perhaps for future DLC episodes, or maybe even for GTA Online, but what’s included on the disc is a vast improvement over the miserable fourth numbered entry in every way. Nico is just a bad memory; that pleases me.

How is V better? There are too many reasons to list them all, but here’s a few: the driving is fixed (motorbikes are again the best way to travel); the targeting is fixed; saving your game is simpler; mission structures are more varied; the protagonists are more entertaining; the humour is back; and the radio stations are more interesting. RS learned a lot from the success of Red Dead Redemption, and quite rightly they've included the best bits of it in GTA.

Contrary to what the tabloids claim, it's not just a senseless murder simulator. I'm not trying to pretend it’s high art, it’s not, it’s just a game, but it’s a game that takes a long, hard look at the world in which we live and dares to make a statement about why it’s a complicated mess of selfish ideals, political chicanery and social stratification. It’s a game that takes the American dream and holds it up to a filthy mirror. It’s coloured with biting satire and pop culture spoofs while being critical of television, radio and newspapers, and that most abhorrent of control mechanisms: the opiate of the masses. And that’s just scratching the surface of what you can find within.

The amount of small detail that RS have included is staggering; I've never seen anything like it. I’d occasionally just stop and listen to NPC’s, drink in the ambience and exist for a short time in the game world.  Check out this time lapse video and see for yourself just how alive the City seems to be: CLICK ME.

My only criticism is that the game world is too big. That may seem an odd thing to say, but the scale of it makes it impossible to take in and less intuitive to navigate.
You should also be aware that while it’s bigger geographically, it's also shorter in length than previous games and the difficulty level is lower. I've played all entries since III and this one is by far the easiest of them all.

5 carefully planned heists out of 5