Peter Chapman
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Writing For
TheSixthAxisLatest Reviews
That idea of never being comfortable with how the game is unravelling is something that feels quite unique and it’s extremely well imagined here. Plenty of survival horror games have you feeling vulnerable as you essentially fulfil the role of a hero but things are different here. In Alien: Isolation you’re not the hero, you’re the prey.
Horizon 2 gets the basics right: It’s a great core driving experience with plenty of variation to the events, a respectable catalogue of cars and a large map to explore, but there’s significantly more to it than that. The online system, friendlist leaderboards and clubs system are all relatively unobtrusive if you don’t want to use them but impressively powerful when you do and, although they still go big on the DLC car packs, the return to a lack of micro transactions is very welcome too.
Forza Motorsport 5 is a great game, but it comes with some quite significant problems. It has fewer tracks and cars than its predecessor, prices have been hitched up several notches on its in-game cars and the excellent, ever-building, system of rewards has disappeared. Multiplayer is a little anaemic and Free Play mode has been pared back too.
Contrast is, quite fittingly, a game of stark separations. There are elements of real quality but those are unfortunately juxtaposed with certain areas where the game fails to quite live up to its potential. With some very interesting ideas and some genuinely clever puzzles, it’s a shame that it has moments that feel a little rushed, a narrative that doesn’t hold any real sense of surprise or intrigue and a cast of characters that it’s difficult to empathise with.
GTA V doesn’t break new ground. It’s not going to change the world. It is, after all, the fifth numbered title in a well loved series and for the most part it is simply delivering more of what the developers must know the fans want to see. To expect otherwise is idiocy. But it is engaging, compelling, interesting, clever, funny and packed with things to do and see. It’s a personal story, or several personal stories, set in a magnificent world that ebbs and flows with thousands of people who all seem to be living their own personal stories. It’s a genuine landmark event in the history of videogames and it’s one that you definitely shouldn’t miss.
Guacamelee! is not entering a particularly overcrowded pool of similar games on the PSN but lack of competition hasn’t stifled creativity. It’s Drinkbox’s best game so far (and I was a big fan of Mutant Blobs Attack on Vita) and it’s the best combo-brawler on PSN. It’s also one of the best platform puzzlers and one of the best Metroid-vania style games. Not content with that list of “bests”, Guacamelee! is also one of the best games for your Vita.
Saints Row: The Third has no pretence. It’s a hugely enjoyable videogame and seems happy just being that. And so it should be. There are no heavy plots to become embroiled in, each mission is essentially just a method of throwing you into another zany situation and then rewarding you for getting out of it. That’s the strength of this game: that it just wants to make you smile. Sure, occasionally the humour is like something a twelve year old might find hilarious – out of place in this adult-rated title – but there is also a thinly veiled intelligence to a lot of the comedy.