A solid entry but it's getting a bit tiresome now.
If you are new to this sort of thing, it's a good introduction but be prepared for a tough experience.
For Honor brings us a surprisingly deep and downright fun co-op / multiplayer fighter held back from greatness by an incoherent, mundane single-player campaign and the use of peer to peer networking for online matches.
Embrace the grind!
Destiny 2 is a better game than the original but more akin to a reboot than a full sequel.
A solid return to its roots, Call of Duty WWII reminds us what made us all fall in love Call of Duty in the first place. It ticks all the boxes which is both a blessing and a curse. Good fun and worth your time but offers nothing exceptional.
Offering many hours of solid city building gameplay, with the potential to play from your couch and bringing to the table an actual campaign rather than just countless sandboxes, Aven Colony is an excellent little title, which we can particularly recommend for console players.
Overcooked Special Edition on the Nintendo Switch is a fantastic slice of old school local player co-operative fun.
A beautiful JRPG throwback with deep combat, held back by punishing difficulty spikes and far too many technical issues on PS4.
State of Decay 2 feels very much like a remake of the original (or how it should have been released initially) rather than a new game, complete with bugs galore and tedious long term gameplay.
The baby brother of the world's most successfull football management sim has plenty of depth along with the trademark gameplay, but it is unfortunately hampered throughout by a clunky user experience.
A fun and educational city builder which unfortunately drags thing out a little too long.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China is sadly a bit of a let down. Gorgeous to look at, fiddly to control and a tad dull to experience, this is yet another AC iteration that falls flat. A bold idea, poorly executed.
There isn't anything particularly bad about Battlefield Hardline, it's solid enough, but one cannot help but lean towards those initial detractors who were very vocal in the run up to launch. Despite a clearly big effort and no doubt a ton of money, we are still without a decent Battlefield campaign and what we are left with is a Battlefield off shoot with no long term life in it.So there we have it, a Battlefield game with weak single player and solid if underwhelming multiplayer - absolutely no one saw this coming.
The key problem with the expansion is that Saints Row has now become impossible to one up, even by its makers, due in no small part to the fact that it went off the scale bonkers in the main Saints Row IV adventure. Mix this in with the fact that the port is poor, bordering on shoddy, and you are left with a game that looks last gen, plays last gen and offers very little in the way of new content.
Gripes aside though, the story, LA Noire - like investigations and general tone of the game pull it through. It's interesting, ominous at times and has a really solid atmosphere throughout. Not a masterpiece and sadly quite flawed in places but ultimately at a time where game releases are few and far between, you could do a lot worse than play through Murdered: Soul Suspect.
It's arguably not fair to criticise a Lego game for being a Lego game but having seen three on the Xbox One (or PS4) since its launch, it is becoming more and more difficult to hold back the feeling of repetition. Lego The Hobbit is better than The Lego Movie Videogame but that's not a massive accomplishment and sadly neither are as good as Lego Marvel.
The sumptuous graphics are enough to keep you playing even if the missions have bored you and the combat whilst tricky initially really sours when you have acquired a few of the obtainable powers. It's genuinely fun once you hit that sweet spot and shows off the PS4's potential in a big way, it's just a shame that it plays it very very safe throughout. Here's hoping the next Infamous game pushes the boat out that little bit further in terms of world and gameplay.
Zoo Tycoon is challenge free but a fun, fuzzy, warm experience that could just be the change of pace that some gamers would welcome, particularly those with small children. Reasonably deep and utilising the Xbox One pad really well, Zoo Tycoon can be fun if severely limited in challenge. It remains one of the most random launch titles of all time but is well worth a purchase if you are looking for something that isn't a first person twitch fest.
Yes it screams "I used to be a Kinect game," yes it's limited in story as well as combat and yes, you've played many, many games like this previously, better games with more systems and gameplay but...but...crucially, Ryse: Son of Rome looks breathtaking. The perfect launch game, doing nothing new, arguably less so than current gen games but adequately showing off the new hardware - think of it as a tech demo with quick time event executions and you will not be disappointed.