Tom Bramwell
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Eurogamer Latest Reviews
So where does that leave us? Well, as long as you're reading this in October 2014, Pix the Cat should still be free on PlayStation Plus, so you can decide for yourself whether I'm mad to only like part of it. If you chance on these words a little later, though, I would suggest Pix the Cat is full of good ideas but for the most part flatters to deceive. Punch through to Nostalgia mode, though, and you may discover that this game, which adopts the finery of a retro remake without actually being one, does a much better job when it returns to its fictional roots.
And then there's me. I've played Nintendo games all my life, and while I enjoyed DKC Tropical Freeze, I can't help feeling saddened by it at the same time. DKC is becoming another Nintendo series where quality grows and importance shrinks with each faithful new instalment. Not all Nintendo's franchises have fallen into this pattern, but games like Tropical Freeze make me wonder whether they all eventually will, turning up to be damned by praise that appears fainter with every passing chapter.
Dead Rising 3 is the weakest in the series, then. It's no kind of technical showcase for Xbox One, although that didn't really bother me once I got into it, and if all you want for a launch title is something passably entertaining to plug away at for a few long evenings, it will suit you fine. Just beware, once you get over the pleasure of the first few combo weapons, Dead Rising 3 is just a solid zombie brawler set in an open world, not the strange game of tender heart that used to be so funny and surprising.
Players both old and new will devour the same content with comparable relish, however. For newcomers Mass Effect 2 gently constructs elements of your back-story in one of its initial scenes in order to compensate for the lack of a save-game to import, although the game makes certain decisions for you in a manner that fits the story most naturally, allowing for outcomes that might be deemed more valuable, like potential romantic entanglements. And while old characters inevitably need less introduction than new ones, they are handled in a way that should retain a new player's interest rather than excluding them.
Before you go after anybody though you will want to reclaim some Agency Supply Points, or else you'll keep having to start over from the Agency Tower. The Tower's not so bad - there's the supercar, an awesome drive-over-anything SUV and a truck cab on permanent standby for deployment, along with tunnels to each of the three ganglands - but supply points are nearer to the action, not to mention more, er, vertically exciting. When you're close to one, it shows up on the mini-map and needs to be reclaimed from a token enemy force. Claim it and you can use it to store weapons (any enemy weapon deposited at a supply point is available through the supply point network), respawn in the event of death, or even teleport throughout the network if you fancy heading off somewhere else.
And so, with the Bando Gora threat extinguished, it's clear that LucasArts has made another pretty and stylish foray into their galaxy far, far away, encompassing virtually all of Jango's myriad exciting abilities just as it said it would. Meanwhile, production values are on a par with the likes of Jedi Starfighter and The Clone Wars, but ultimately the familiarity of the Star Wars characters, the injection of John Williams' ubiquitous score and the addition of quirks like secondary bounty hunting can't mask the shallow, unexciting gameplay from view.
It may seem like an old reviewer's cop-out to say it, but Resident Evil is a game you will either love or hate. You will either love it for the new ground it breaks and the way that it's been rescripted to scare old fans anew, or you will begrudge its retreading of a tiresome and irritating path to the point that its unparalleled visuals mean virtually nothing. For me, it's a shockingly scary game which really keeps your heart pounding, besmirched by only a degree of old-hattedness. Have no fear though, Resi fans, it's still definitive.
Luigi's Mansion is a delightful little game, instantly appealing to anybody with more than a passing interest in its heritage, but it isn't the GameCube equivalent of those platform classics I name-checked at the start of the review. A competent, atmospheric adventure and truly a new direction for the characters, but at this length it simply isn't worth the £35, let alone the cost of the console. If Miyamoto's vision of shorter games more often is to become reality, then the pricing structure will need serious adjustment...
Despite its movie-like production values and incredible opening, Onimusha leaves its audience guessing at the end, and given that it's only 10 hours long (less if you gun through it quickly), it's almost disappointing. I certainly wanted more, but then I completed it in just two sittings. The problem is, once you know the ins and outs there isn't much replay value. It's true, hacking people to bits with swords doesn't grow old, and you can be quite creative with Onimusha, but really you're looking at 10 hours or so of gaping awe, followed by twenty ...