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Dragon's Dogma 2 is an absolute masterpiece in terms of offering a true sense of adventure.
Meet Your Maker's core premise is very strong, but the game's aesthetic and samey levels currently don't live up to that vision. While it can be fun in short bursts, raiding Outposts can quickly become tedious, although building your own stages for others to try is more fulfilling. There's potential here, no question, but we'll have to see how it fares on live servers before we deliver a full verdict.
If you're eager to get started with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, then the campaign will serve you well until the multiplayer and online co-op mode unlocks on Friday. With many missions that break away from the status quo, it's not always just about shooting the bad guys. From high-speed car chases and crafting systems to the turrets of an AC-130, Modern Warfare 2 thoroughly entertains when it's offline.
Windjammers 2 is an almost perfect revival of a classic 90s franchise. The sequel strikes an immaculate balance between new and old ideas, and presents the classic sports gameplay so vibrantly that it's hard not to be captivated by it all. There could, admittedly, be more meat on its bones – but it's online, with the gameplay's high skill ceiling, where the longevity will be found. We still want to spend a little more time testing this component, but our early impressions of the rollback netcode are positive to say the least.
Bravo Team's tactical combat is a good fit for virtual reality, and it's exciting peeking out of cover in order to take pot shots.
Project CARS 2 gives you loads to do and the incentive to experiment with all of its content, too. The title manages to tie together a dizzying number of vehicular disciplines, and it's a lot of fun flitting from one to the next. A tight handling model and the freedom to explore all of the release's content freely means that you'll lose a lot of time to this motorsport marvel, but presentation shortcomings do take the polish off this package the teensiest bit.
Everybody's Golf reaches the green at eagle pace and then proceeds to duff the green. Don't get us wrong, this is still a highly enjoyable arcade golf game with some brilliantly original ideas, but there are some bizarre design errors which seem to weirdly imbalance the game. Pair that with an unreasonable progression system and you're left with a title that needlessly undoes a lot of its own hard work.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite is more complete than Street Fighter V, and its accessible bouts fare favourably – even though they're likely to divide long-time franchise fans. But this package lacks the polish that you'd expect from such a high-profile title, and even accounting for its forgettable story, it still winds up feeling light.
RIGS: Mechanized Combat League may be the posterchild for PlayStation VR, but it's not the headset's MVP. While this future sports sim has a strong art style and some interesting ideas, it struggles to get the business done where it matters – on the pitch. Nauseating action and mushy combat really cause this contender to drop points.
PES 2017: Pro Evolution Soccer is an excellent football game in which fun and realism are balanced. Every pass, every tackle, every goal feels like it has meaning, and Konami has done a great job of creating the ultimate matchday atmosphere. Master League, with its new improvements, is more fun than ever and oozes personality, while the wide array of customisation makes the game personal and prevents the game from suffering too much from its lack of licensing.
The definition of a bigger and better sequel, Dragon Ball XenoVerse 2 doesn't try to fix what isn't broken, and instead focuses on building upon the foundations of the first game. With a crazy amount of content to blast through, an improved combat system, and new ways to develop and customise your very own Dragon Ball hero, this is very much the definitive XenoVerse experience, and an absolute must for fans of Akira Toriyama's manga and anime epic.
Watch Dogs 2 is a solid extension of the series and not the complete load of ctOSS it could have been. It's not quite the Assassin's Creed 2 of Ubisoft's hacking brand, but it's certainly a fun-packed, exciting ride, which benefits from less generic mission design and a vibrant open world to enjoy.
Think of the most frustrating gaming moments you had as a child. Add them all together, and you still probably can't even come close to Yasai Ninja. This is a game to be avoided at all costs. With no redeeming factors, and a whole catalogue of problems, Yasai Ninja is more painful to play than forcing down sprouts at Christmas, with about as much reward. A good ninja shouldn't be seen or heard, and the same can be said about this game.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a broken mess of a game. There are barely any redeeming qualities to be found amidst what can only be described as a massive missed opportunity. There is some serious potential in a single-player linear Lord of the Rings experience like this, but with outrageously dated level design, clunky controls, a severe lack of polish, muddy and unimpressive graphics, and a dull story, Gollum completely misses the mark. As massive fans of the books, films, and games, it's sad to see that there is nothing precious about this experience.
Sadly, Bounty Battle plays about as well as it looks. The goal is to empty the health bar of your enemies, but character animations are so basic and stunted that it's near impossible to tell what's going on — especially during three or four player fights. The controls are responsive enough, but the release is riddled with stuttering issues on PS4 — combat just never feels smooth, and that's a nail in the coffin of any fighting game.
Bubsy: Paws on Fire is a combination of elements that range from merely adequate to frustrating beyond belief. In fact, the best part of the game is often being able to break the rules and cheese your way to victory. With almost zero redeeming qualities to speak of, the only way this game could possibly offer anything of benefit is to Trophy hunters, as there are a fair number of easily unlocked gold trinkets. If that's not something you care about, then steer well clear - it's just not worth it. Despite the shockingly long legacy as a series, surely this time must be the last, right?
Left Alive categorically fails at everything it sets out to accomplish. Wonky and unreliable AI makes engaging in stealth a frustrating chore, poor gunplay leads to numerous misplaced shots whizzing past the bullet-sponge enemies, and an unfair difficulty means you'll need to repeat those enraging moments over and over again. This game could have filled a gaping hole in the market, but instead it needs to be taken round back and put out of its misery. This is a truly miserable experience for even the most die-hard supporters of the genre.
There's nothing else quite like The Quiet Man, and there's a reason for that. The blend of FMV and interactive combat sequences fails on every level with an unfathomable plot that raises far more questions than it answers, and encounters that fail to explain themselves and do little to engage. The Quiet Man is the most baffling release of 2018, to the point where a post-mortem investigation into its sheer existence sounds so much more exciting than this bizarre and convoluted comedy sketch.
New Gundam Breaker is a disaster. A near broken mess of an action game, even Gundam maniacs will struggle to stomach its many, many flaws. Its visual novel elements are so obnoxiously cliche that you'll have to stop your eyes from rolling our of their sockets, and the gameplay is a mix of clunky controls and unfathomable chaos. Add some unbelievably poor technical performance to the mix, and you have a Gundam game that's not even fit to be mobile suit scrap orbiting the Earth.
Even with what looks like decent ideas on paper, the implementation of just about everything in Out of Ammo is heinous. Looking for any semblance of positivity is like trying to find something new to watch on Netflix before your takeaway gets cold. No matter how good your day has been, Out of Ammo is willing and able to bring you down with a thump. You have been warned.