Stefan L's Reviews
Project CARS is an ambitious take on the racing simulator that brings a lot of fresh ideas and improvements to the genre. A number of patchable flaws hold it back, but with an innovative career structure and the challenging but rewarding car handling and racing, this is almost essential for racing fans.
In the shadow of the incredibly powerful second episode, the midpoint in the series is a solid episode that felt for large parts like it was waiting for the next big thing to happen. Thankfully, Dontnod did just that with an almighty twist in its final few scenes that has you on tenterhooks with the seemingly infinite possibilities the story now holds.
We didn't review the original release of Payday 2 – which is part of the reason why we are scoring this Crimewave Edition – but even then, this was a game with a lot of depth and variety to the scenarios it put you in, and that's great fun to play cooperatively. Though it still has its flaws, the added content and changes that have been brought together in the Crimewave Edition build upon the original release and mean that there's plenty of reasons to sink back into a life of crime.
MotoGP 15 is still an accomplished racer, but it offers little to draw fans in, compared to last year's entry. There's a few nice touches, like having your own team in career mode, and the bike racing still manages to strike a balance between being accessible and being very challenging, but from the all-too-familiar double loading screens to the lacklustre environments and beyond, we're still waiting for Milestone to fully take advantage of the latest generation of consoles.
F1 2015 doesn't have many of the features and game modes that we've seen over the years, and this feels disappointing given delays during development, but it gives a solid basis for future growth. With lush visuals, tight car handling, good racing and a sprinkling of fresh ideas, this is exactly the fresh start that Codemasters needed.
Road to Gehenna is perhaps not as deeply thought provoking as what I've experienced in the main game, but it's no less fascinating to visit a little commune of rejected thinkers, bringing with you the news that the world is coming to an end. And there's some excellently crafted puzzles, too.
They say that crime never pays, but in The Swindle you can come out ahead if you play your cards right. In this madcap steampunk rendition London, a city of ludicrous buildings filled with robots and traps, the key is learning how to quit while you're ahead. It's all too easy to slip up and foolishly get spotted – and yes, the occasional glitch or quirk of procedural generation can feel unfair – but it makes each success all the more tense and rewarding.
N++ is a further distillation and refinement of what made N and N+ cult classics in the first place. Rather than replacing those games, it expands upon them greatly, with a bafflingly vast array of levels that come to test you mastery of the game's pure platforming, and the tools to make even more.
As the credits rolled at the end of the episode, I was left trying to digest not just the final few moments, but the episode as a whole. There were several very powerful moments, with Dontnod's mature approach to the subject matter and ambiguous decision making key, as they tackled the theme of life and death that ran throughout. Alongside some great puzzles and use of Max's time warping power, this is the best episode yet.
Coming off the back of Thomas Was Alone, Volume is a much more ambitious and expansive project, and there's little sign of this being a difficult second album. It can miss the mark in a few areas, depending on how you play, but this is a clever distillation of the classic stealth genre wrapped up in an excellent retelling of a classic English legend.
Tearaway was a game deserving of a much greater audience than the one that it got on the PS Vita, but Unfolded goes a long way beyond simply trying to port that game across to the PS4. It reimagines many of the ways you interact with the game's papercraft world and it expands and builds upon some of the ideas in the handheld version, yet never strays too far from what was already a wonderful experience.
The Taken King and the patch that it brought with it have been a grand revisionist move by Bungie. Very few parts of how the game works haven't been touched, tweaked and altered in some way to improve upon the flawed aspects of the game's original release. With a fun new story, plenty of content that runs alongside it and an outstanding new raid, it's a good time to be playing Destiny.
The Phantom Pain makes a major departure from the gameplay of the earlier home console games, but it’s brilliant for it. The story loses its momentum half-way through and the boss fights can fall flat, but those are minor points compared to the outstanding open world that has been created for you to play in and the freedom to do so.
Carving your way through a level in Broforce is chock full of muscle flexing carnage, and it's brilliant for it as explosions rock the screen and you tear through the scenery. Though inventive, some of the boss fights halt that fun, and the way co-op deals with lives is too unforgiving, but it's always throwing out something new, whether it's a different looking environment to blow up, a new type of enemy to blow up or another new bro to add to the team and blow things up with.
If you've been waiting years for a good rugby union game, the wait will continue for some time yet. There is little to redeem the myriad of fundamental flaws and inadequacies that are apparent throughout.
Cities: Skylines remains a fantastic city builder, and with After Dark it's getting even better, regardless of whether you buy the DLC or not. Just the gorgeous day-night cycle would have been a worthy addition, but Colossal Order have shown a degree of ingenuity in tying this to new gameplay mechanics, while also giving more options for players in how they want to run their city.
Of all the Toys to Life games, Lego Dimensions is perhaps the most literal interpretation of the genre yet. Thanks to some clever ideas with the Toy Pad and the inherent flexibility of Lego itself, it's able to breach the divide between the game and the real world in some interesting ways. It doesn't always get that blend quite right, and the price of entry is very high, but it's an excellent first attempt that's full of nostalgia and more than a few moments of brilliance.
With an excellent trio of ports from Bluepoint and the fourth game on the way in March, there's never been a better time to play these games, whether a newcomer to the series or someone looking to relive some of the PlayStation 3's best games.
Minecraft might not have a story and lore of its own for Telltale to build upon, but that just means that a Telltale story can fit right in.
The fifth and final episode of Life Is Strange is a satisfying ending to what has been one of the best examples of modern storytelling within games. The elements of time travel have ben a fascinating and interesting hook that has allowed Dontnod to explore several characters and relationships, to the backdrop of a college campus that's steeped in mystery. It has its weaknesses and flaws as a game, but this is a deeply impactful game that shouldn't be missed.