Some of the additions in Afterbirth break whatever thematic cohesion might have existed more than what has come before. Laser-cyborg Isaac doesn't quite fit with my reading of the game but then, what the hell, maybe it's just a game about shit, blood and tears after all. And it's a fantastic example of the form.
A soft-science city-building game set on the red planet, Surviving Mars takes Elon Musk's dreams and makes them a reality. Occasionally clunky controls on the PS4 don't mar a game that adds the storyline of 'mysteries' to the usual resource gathering and settlement managing simulation, with a few twists.
While it is an enormously satisfying and well-crafted game, SOMA never managed to convince me that its themes and plot were in tune with its more traditional first-person frights. It scared me and it gave me cause to think about some of the issues raised, but now that I'm done, I doubt it'll stay long in my mind, or plucking at my nerves.
Tower of Guns mixes up its shooting with platforming and freedom of movement, but Ziggurat battles its way to the top of the pile by scratching my Isaac and Serious Sam itches simultaneously.
Whatever time was wasted traipsing across the same screens repeatedly, I sure as hell don't regret the twenty-odd perfect shots that happened along the way. The beauty of Titan Souls is that if you enjoy the demo, you'll find more of the same in the full game, with consistently inventive enemy designs.
For all of its speed, channelled from FPS games of the distant past, Tower Of Guns encourages thoughtful play. Despite the randomisation of enemies, pick-ups and areas, every distinct element that can appear is a known quantity, and that means the risks and possibilities are always obvious. But no matter how much experience you have, if you can't think fast enough – and, no insult intended, you probably can't – you'll still struggle to survive.
If it's playing I can close my eyes and feel what HLM made me feel. Because my associations for HLM2 are confusion and frustration more than exhilaration and escapism, the second doesn't seem to have power. But there are some lovely pieces in there for sure.
Apart from the splendid graphics, there's nothing particularly outstanding about White Night, but it's a decent horror-mystery game. It'd fit beautifully under the Alone in the Dark banner and seems like a much more obvious successor than…well…
Like the best open world games, it's a factory for anecdotes and you'll create plenty of gems in its company. That's worth celebrating, no matter how derivative the various machines in that factory might be.
If you've never played the remake at all, it's worth visiting the mansion again just to meet Lisa Trevor, and if you've never played Resident Evil at all, now's the time. It's a slice of cultural history that has exerted enormous influence but has mostly avoided direct imitation. When something is this well-crafted, the flaws of a counterfeit are obvious.
With Inquisition, BioWare have handled the narrative and consequence of conversation and action with more assurance and depth than Telltale, while also constructing one of the finest and most forward-looking CRPGs ever made. And I'm as delighted and surprised as anyone.
WWE 2K15 is a lot like the WWE itself – burying its female performers, mishandling its roster, screwing up its own booking and failing to establish characters. I say that as a fan. But maybe if we want a daring, innovative wrestling game, we'll need to wait for somebody else to jump into the market.
Creepy, surreal, intense and occasionally very clever indeed, The Evil Within isn't undone by its ludicrous setting – it embraces it to wonderful effect, always ready to add another layer of bizarre hand-stitched horror. But the overall experience is frustrating, never managing to fully escape that narrow field of view, making me feel as boxed in as the game's posterboy.
At the centre of the debate will be one of the finest entries in the Alien canon in any medium, and one of the finest horror experiences in ours.
Like its protagonist, Murdered is dead on arrival. But if you do play it, gather an audience and have some fun. Sure, you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but it's the best way to endure this particular afterlife.
It feels good to finish on a complaint. When I was writing about Path Of Exile a few days ago, I felt a bit mean finishing on a sour note, but The Hobbit left me feeling a bit grumpy. Admittedly, burning through a Lego game as quickly as possible isn't the best way to play, and I'd probably feel more fondly toward this one if I'd dipped in and out over a period of weeks.
Tales From the Borderlands might not pack the emotional punch of The Walking Dead at its best, or the style of Wolfamongous in full swagger, but it's bloody good fun.
It's an unusual game, not because of its content, which is all fairly typical, but due to the precision within which excess has been surgically removed. A shame that the cuts from that surgery are sometimes a little too messy because there's a clever core here and it deserves an audience. Light on content but with enough sharp ideas to keep me coming back for several days, Crowntakers is pint-sized and happily enjoyed in moderation.
With a party of four, it's an enjoyable diversion and the four classes are well balanced and complementary, but the traps, layouts and enemies aren't quite disruptive enough, and even on higher difficulties the routine of combat tests endurance rather than creative solutions.
For all its mechanical similarities to the RPGs of yesteryear, it's that character, wit and playfulness that most capably satisfied my nostalgia and made me look forward to whatever InXile put their minds to next.