We were shown footage of the fungus, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, which a member of the Naughty Dog team saw on the aforementioned Planet Earth documentary. We saw how the fungus interacts with the indigenous ant species in the tropical climes where the corruption grows. Once an ant ingests the spores from the fungus, it alters the way the ant behaves, forcing it to fall from its home in the trees and climb onto the stem of a nearby plant.

Upon climbing the plant, the ant clamps its mandibles together on a leaf and stays there until death. The affliction then sprouts from the ant’s head, after consuming any living tissue, and releases its spores for the purposes of spreading even further. The scourge is so dangerous that it can wipe out entire colonies of ants, erasing them from the face of the Earth.

The ants have become so used to this cycle that, when they notice a member of the colony is riddled with the substance, a healthy ant will drag its comrade away from the colony, preventing the exposure of spores to the rest of the dominion.

The professor then went on to show us how this isn’t isolated to fungus alone.

Another instance that we were shown of a parasite controlling its host, was with the Nematomorpha, a parasitic worm that infects a variety of insects. Once the spindly sycophant has had its fill, it controls the nervous system of its host and leads the insect to water, where it can exit its victim and begin the cycle anew.

After the videos had finished, the professor took to the stage to go into a bit more detail about making the game as plausible as possible for a modern audience.

“Hollywood and the gaming industry are very focused on this dystopian angle, like the film [28 Days Later] which shows a deserted London. It’s something that’s rather spectacular, because we never think of cities being deserted.”

And he’s not wrong. Whether it’s Fallout or Resident Evil, gaming is saturated with this type of scenario. So it makes sense for the studio to at least make the situation as believable as possible, especially with the – much touted – focus on building believable characters.

“For example, in this modern scenario, in the whole human population, more than half of us live in cities in these terribly dense situations. In a city like London, this has always been the case and we’ll always have large population centres.”

Part of our morbid fascination with post-apocalyptic fantasies is also the chance to explore an area that’s usually bustling, only… when it’s deserted. Obviously, in real life it wouldn’t be much fun to be in this situation, but gaming is a way to escape to a fantasy world, however morbid the fantasy.

The thing is, we’re not as safe as you may think, and the people around you can do you harm, regardless of intention.

“Large population centres are breeding grounds for parasites and diseases, and this is really fuelling a lot of this sort of dystopian view that’s become part of popular culture. We’re all primed to think about the next pandemic, mainly because basically we’re all scared to shit of the next pandemic.”

Look back at the impact Swine Flu had in the UK in 2009, and it’s easy to see that even something comparatively tame – compared to zombies and mushroom monsters, at least – can wreak havoc with our normal way of life.

“Even though London has cleaned up its act over the last few hundred years, since the major plagues, such as the bubonic plague, we’re still getting into incredibly crowded conditions. And it doesn’t take much for one of those individuals to be infected having got off a flight from Hong Kong, for example, then spreading that infection to vast numbers of people.”

Which again, did actually happen back in 2003. An outbreak of the SARS coronavirus in Asia led to the deaths of many across the globe. The virus highlighted how woefully underprepared for an outbreak of this scale, with air travel playing a huge part in the spreading of the infection. In the end, over 700 people died as a direct result of the pandemic.

Seven hundred people, dead.

“So, what’s interesting about the Naughty Dog scenario is, they’ve taken this dystopian view, but they’ve gone twenty years in the future and you see that the cities have been encroached upon by nature. And one interesting thing is there has been a particularly unusual phenomenon, which is a zoonotic jump, which is the jump of a disease which is in an animal to being inside  of a human.”

Again, this is something that happens outside of the realms of fiction with a variety of documented cases of diseases mutating and infecting different species altogether. We have seen this in the aforementioned Swine Flu epidemic, there was also the Avian Flu – or Bird Flu – outbreak, and the jump can also be transferred from a bite in some cases, like with Rabies.

“So the developers of the game saw the fungal infection of the ants, that we saw in the video, and they said, well, let’s imagine if that happened to humans. It’s Cordyceps Militaris, which importantly, is not a zombie. A lot of zombies are viral in origin – I’m also the consultant on the Brad Pitt movie, which is coming out next month and there I was giving some insights into collective behaviours.”

The science behind the game is interesting, for sure, and hopefully it’s expanded on more in the game itself, fleshing out the backstory. One thing’s for sure, Naughty Dog are putting everything into this title to make it a believable and, hopefully, powerful experience.

I’ll leave you with some words of wisdom from our professor.

“What I like about the Naughty Dog thing is it’s a lot of really cool biology.”

Indeed it is, Professor… Indeed it is.

Although this set piece is as familiar as breathing, somehow it still manages to feel incredible. Partly because everything is exploding and sparking, giving the player a satisfying sense of feedback, and partly because the helicopter is blasting ‘long Tall Sally’ from its speakers, causing intense feelings of awesome.

There’s no worry about the gun overheating – you just stick out your tongue, cross your eyes and squeeze the trigger whilst stuff happens.

"The year is 2007, and it’s the future - at least a vision of the future, as seen through VHS goggles. A future where everything is clinical and neon. "

The year is 2007, and it’s the future – a vision of the future, as seen through the VHS goggles of a 1980s cinema goer. A future where everything is clinical and bathed in neon light. A future where the heroes are men – well cybernetically enhanced, cyborg men, at least – and the villains are fodder.

This silver tongued DLC is part pastiche of ‘80s action movies, and part self referential parody of video games, with Michael Biehn taking centre stage. If you grew up in the ’80s, you’ll likely know the name which is synonymous with action films of that generation.

After the explosive opening, the game treats you to the best, worst tutorial you have ever seen – displaying messages like, “Press X to demonstrate your ability to read” and, “Move forward to move”.

There are countless times throughout where I found myself chuckling to… well, myself, and there’s a healthy injection of humour throughout proceedings.

In fact, the whole game is teeming with personality, and it’s hard not to feel enraptured by it.

Instead of cutscenes, the story is displayed by 8-bit  panels, backed up by cheesy ‘80s music – recalling childhood memories of bad Jean-Claude Van Damme movies – and in retrospect, they were all bad. Yes, even Bloodsport.

Outside of the retro panels, the aesthetics are just as pretty as Far Cry 3, with primary colours dominating the screen. Cold blue buildings and neon lights pop to the foreground with a perpetual thunderstorm framing them on the horizon.

The visuals work a treat, with the bright primaries and garish lights contrasting beautifully with the constant black of night. Even the enemy garrisons have a beam of red light coming from their command centre, right into the sky, making placing waypoints almost redundant – this also means you will spend more time immersed in the game, not having to consult the map constantly.

"Even the enemy garrisons have a beam of red light coming from their command centre, right into the sky, making placing waypoints almost pointless."

The weapons fire neon tracers, and red sparks indicate the position they are landing. Your eyes are always drawn to something of import, and although the night setting means you lose the beautiful vistas from Far Cry 3’s islands, it gives this DLC a visual identity of its own.

Blood Dragon finds itself in a unique position: succeeding where other games that have attempted parody have failed. You see, if you’re going to take the piss out of something, you had better be damn sure that you do whatever you’re mocking better than the victim of your derision does.

Chances are, if you liked the combat in Far Cry 3, then you’re going to enjoy this just as much, maybe even a teeny bit more. All of the weapons feel powerful, with plenty of recoil from each shot and the enemies reacting to each hit, giving the player lots of visual cues which work synchronistically with the meaty audio of your arsenal. Special mention needs to go to the games’ shotgun, which is one of the best in any shooter I’ve seen for a long time. And I’m a strong believer that shooters can be fairly judged on the quality of their boomsticks.

The chain gun is another beast, spitting 700 rounds until you release the trigger, never overheating. As you fire, our Snake Plissken-inspired hero lets out a war cry that even Arnie would be proud of, which is just one of many little touches that I find myself appreciating. Later on in the game, you get another weapon, totally unlike anything seen in in the series before, but I’ll let you discover that for yourself – just know, it makes you feel like Superman… on steroids.

Before you ascend to beefy superhero status, though, you will find the dark of night and the length of grass are your closest allies. Yes, stealth is back, and you may have forgotten that by now, with me recounting the bombastic nature of this DLC. It’s not all ‘boom’, and the game manages to somehow make stealth even more satisfying than before.

Playing as a fresh character comes with a few benefits. Firstly, you have a new progression path as you gain experience, with many of the more advanced stealth techniques open from the start – like the ability to jump down on an enemy, sinking your neon dagger into his chest, pulling it out and finishing his friend off in one smooth motion. And then you can stick your middle finger up at them.

Yes, the game has a button for vulgar gestures, which is almost as good as 5o Cent: Blood on The Sand’s ‘swear button’.

As well as some old, rarely used abilities, Rex Power Colt comes equipped with a range of new talents – being a cyborg and all. Now you can survive any fall, breathe underwater indefinitely, swim and run faster than most vehicles can move, and you also get shurikens to throw at enemies’ skulls.

These extra stealth skills come in handy when capturing enemy garrisons, as well as when completing the side quests that become available upon liberation. The garrisons are much more secure than the shanty camps that took their place in the main game, and their location more varied – with an assault on an oil rig being a highlight. The side quests come in two flavours: hunting rare animals, and rescuing scientists with sneakiness – just enough to spice things up, and pad out the extra content if you wish, with each unlocking a weapon attachment.

"You can sneak into the base and bring down the shields - this causes all nearby dragons to attack the base whilst you sit back and watch like a cyborg Attenborough."

All the core tenants of the Far Cry experience are present and correct, including mutated versions of animals dotted around the sizeable island for you to shoot. I wonder what PETA’s stance on genetically altered, cybernetic creatures is.

You can’t upgrade your equipment with their hides, but they do all carry money… because it’s a game, and it knows it is.

There is a new creature, however, that won’t be bullied easily – the titular Blood Dragons. They’re not really your typical dragon: they have poor eyesight, can’t fly, and they look like they just got back from an underground rave, which would explain their sensitivity to loud noises.

Although funky-looking and partially blind, these new animals pose a massive threat on their own, and even more so when in a pack. The presence of one of these creatures is signified by a health bar on your HUD, warning you to crouch so that you may sneak by, unharmed.

If you do manage to kill one, you’re treated with a massive fistful of experience points for your trouble. You don’t have to be antagonistic towards the dragons though, you can be friends. Well, master and thrall.

When liberating the aforementioned garrisons you can use cyborg hearts – obtained by ripping them out of your enemies’ chests – to lure the dragons to do your dirty work for you. Or, if you prefer, you can sneak into the base and bring down the shields – this causes all nearby dragons to attack the base whilst you sit back and watch like a cyborg Attenborough.

Much like the main game, most of the brilliant moments come from the sandbox mechanics working with the volatility of the AI to produce emergent moments, completely unique to each player. My personal favourite came from heading towards a garrison and happening upon a pitched battle on a grassy verge. There was an inferno raging whilst the two factions exchanged fire, and I stood and watched a mutated cassowary run through the flames and kick the shit out of everyone.

"This short, self-contained story, manages to put many boxed releases to shame. "

Or was my favourite moment when I saved a scientist, only for him to fall off a cliff after I completed the mission. It’s ok though, as the next one got mauled by a disco tiger – be prepared for the mountain of unintelligent game design editorials.

It manages to blend sandbox elements like this with the strict linearity of some of the main missions, and succeeds. It even breaks the fourth wall on occasion, with a rant about video game violence being a highlight – just remember, kids: genocide is fun. And it’s all held together with one of the strongest final acts I’ve seen for some time.

My point is: these are my favourite moments, but yours will be completely unique to you. The only advice I have for you is to take your time – take over all the garrisons, complete every side quest, unlock every attachment – and most importantly, bask in the game world. If you don’t heed this advice, it will be over in the blink of an eye – it is DLC, after all. And that’s easy to forget, as this short, self-contained story, manages to put many boxed releases to shame. A must buy for anyone who likes stealth, shooting things, and fun.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3.

We were shown the first portion of the single-player campaign in our hands-on. It started as a slow crawl through an icy cavern. It attempted a slow burning build up to the action, but wasn’t completely successful, with the quiet of the cavern pierced by the sound of you shooting sentient tulips in the face after a mere twenty seconds of exposition. A minute later and you’re taking part in a QTE.

The game isn’t ashamed of what it is, never shying away from its nature, it’s all about shooting indigenous alien creatures in the face, sometimes while on foot, and sometimes crushing them underfoot from the relative safety of your Rig.

Since you will be doing a lot of shooting, it’s worth mentioning that – in the Xbox 360 build I played at least – the aiming feels a bit erratic. Slight inputs on the stick seem to hardly move at all, whereas a medium input leads to you spinning around like a meaty planet.

The Rig combat wasn’t really shown, just a short stomp from the hub area – where you can buy weapons and upgrade your Rig – and then a staircase, forcing you to eject and proceed on foot. Upon returning to the mech, the player is assaulted by the tulips, but walking over them seems to work just as well as swinging the Rig’s limbs around.

The left trigger controls the Rig’s Claw Arm (Mr. Grabby) and the right controls the Drill Arm (Mr. Stabby).

Inside the Rig, it feels satisfyingly weighty, with the screen shaking as you stomp around. You can even listen to music inside the machine, and listen to video logs sent from Earth by your friends and family. I can’t tell you if the music was any good, because it was drowned out by the game’s orchestral soundtrack, and the sound of bullets squelching against alien hide.

The characterisation seems good – especially between the protagonist, Jim, and his Rig mechanic, Gale – and you can feel the Western influence permeate in the cutscenes. On top of the short single-player hands-on that was shown, we also witnessed a developer playing and additional activity called ‘Platform Mode’. In this mode you must protect your Rig, as you turn it into a drilling platform to acquire additional Thermal Energy.

Platform Mode is basically just wave defence, where spindly alien legs penetrate metal more than a misplaced grenade by the player. The creatures filter in, attacking your machine, presumably because they don’t like vibrations, whilst you defend and repair it, with a stick-twiddling mini-game.

There are even sniper tulips.

Again, it’s nothing new, and like with everything else that was shown, it’s hard not to feel a little underwhelmed. Inside the context of the main game, it might all form together to make a satisfying whole. Upgrading your Rig, and completing side quests could be completely intoxicating in the boxed release, but the separate sections of gameplay don’t stand up very well on their own.

After the short single-player, we were taken into another room where we got a chance to try out the game’s multiplayer component. The mode we got to try is called ‘Scenario Mode’, which is different depending on map choice.

In one map you may be defending bombs whilst the enemy sets them. In another you might be defending a drill whilst the opposing team shoots the drill. Again, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but I had much more fun than I did in my short time with the single-player.

You can grapple up to vantage points to get the drop on your enemies. Rigs also appear near the spawn, allowing lucky players to get a few easy kills.

There are your usual selection of guns and perks, with some interesting and one in particular being potentially game breaking. A journalist who was sat next to me kept using ‘Noxious Gas’ a perk that’s activated after death, killing anybody nearby with the toxic fumes. He came second in his team, and nearly all his kills were from dying – presumably in retaliation for his cowardice, the game later locked his character into an animation with his arms outstretched, unable to shoot.

At one point my gun also disappeared, which put me at a slight disadvantage.

It’s hard to judge a multiplayer game fairly after half an hour, but from what we played it seemed fun and functional, just don’t play it before the single-player. The reason I say this is because after looking at the character selection screen, with characters from  the main game split by faction, it didn’t take a neurologist to guess where the story was going.

The game seems to be ambitious in scope, and I felt like I barely scratched the surface of the hostile planet, so don’t base your purchase decision on this preview. But I would suggest you wait for our review, to see if it makes us hot under the collar with Thermal Energy, or it leaves us feeling cold.

Yet this character does have an important part to play. In the game’s multiplayer, that meathead is you. He’s like your own personal Olympian, albeit one that’s been disqualified for substance abuse. You can dress your meathead up in a variety of stylish armour, with all of them showing off a flash of sinewy leg. Ooh, matron!

Each piece of equipment changes the stats of your character so, if you’re like me, you’ll go for MASSIVE DAMAGE and no defense, because my focus is to kill them to death.

Or, if you are a bit more conservative, you can go for more defence, or maybe some magical power.

I just like to cleave ALL of the limbs off, as quickly as I can. Obviously, the god that you align yourself with initially will determine which area you should focus your attributes on. I plumped for Ares because slicey, slicey.

Your avatar has just escaped eternal imprisonment by dying. Cunning. He was incarcerated for breaking his oath with a god. So, once you’ve pledged fealty to one of the four gods, you can always break your oath again and plump for a different class. For example, you may want to get shocky with Zeus, get sneaky with Hades, or get… um… wet with Poseidon. There also seems to be an empty pedestal – DLC, anyone? Regardless of your choice, you can always change your mind later.

Each of the classes has a tangible difference in play style, mainly due to the tweaked statistics for each character class, but also because of the varying tools of death available to them. There are your usual suspects: hammers, swords, spears…etc. And there are also a few surprises, like dinner forks for ass attacks (read: tridents).

You unlock new equipment in battle, and you can also level your equipment up, making it more resilient once you’ve whet your blade sufficiently. You can also choose your allegiance-specific magic ability, which you unlock by gaining levels and you can also upgrade by spending skill points. The same can be done with your character items too, which focus on escaping from trouble.

And depending on which game mode you choose to jump into, you may be in constant trouble.

Firstly, there’s Favour of the Gods, which can be played in free-for-all, or as a team. In free-for-all, this is the most basic of game modes, with the sole objective being to out-stab the competition. The team version shakes things up by asking you to control specific choke points on the map, and most are covered with siege weapons, like a projectile based Ballista. A change of arena also throws in a couple of game-changing objectives, like stabbing a cyclops in his good eye for extra points.

This team mode is the meat of the multiplayer experience, with a plethora of traps and environmental dangers that you can use to your advantage. These stages are also quite sizeable, which is good because it’s hard to tell what’s going on when all eight players are in close proximity.

There’s also the obligatory Capture the Flag mode, in which you capture a flag.

Then, there’s the cooperative mode called Trial of The Gods, which you can play alone or with a singular ally. You take on waves of AI in this mode, with each kill extending the time limit.

The combat doesn’t work as well in the co-op mode. This is mainly because the timings for the strikes have been subtly tweaked, causing the the breaks between swings to be considerably different from that seen in the single-player campaign.

The combat, however, retains familiarity, whilst also managing to feel completely fresh, and perfectly suited to competitive multiplayer.

Light attacks are swift and effective, they will also always cancel an incoming power attack. The disadvantage of light attacks is that they can be blocked or parried. If your attack is parried, then you open a window for the enemy – a window… to your face.

It feels fantastic when you’re under a barrage of abuse and a perfectly timed parry sends multiple opponents reeling, allowing you to launch into a counter assault.

Power attacks have the advantage of breaking your enemy’s guard, and if you charge it up you can launch them, allowing you to perform a devastating juggle. You can then use the grapple to carry on your onslaught whilst your opponent is in a vulnerable position. Your adversaries are also open to grapple attacks when running or dodging.

Dodging is the only way to avoid a power attack and running is what you do when you’re a wimp. Joking aside, running can actually be a sound tactical decision, whether you notice an environmental advantage, weapon, or a health/mana pickup. Timing is everything.

There is also a physical attack, which is mainly used for kicking your assailant into the ether. The physical attack is swapped out for a secondary weapon when you pick one up. These are dotted around each map and they range from the mundane (hello, shield) to the magnificent (hello, Gorgon thing that turns my enemies to stone and lets me insta-kill them).

On top of this, there is a mixture of magical attacks, each giving an advantage in a specific situation. For example, one of the fire attacks sends your enemies flying backwards, which is handy for when you have a few antagonists with their backs up against a long fall. There is another that zooms you into the sky, coming back down with a thud. I mainly used this to allow faster, invulnerable movement when carrying the flag in CTF mode. There are many more magic abilities, and I’m sure you’ll find a perfect opportunity to annihilate the opposition with them.

As well as magical abilities there are also items, which act as a way to break out of a brutal combination, allowing you to spring instantly into a counter assault.

As I said previously: timing is everything. It feels fantastic when you chain together a flawless string of moves, interspersed with parries and blocks. You really feel like you’re outsmarting your opponents in a game of deadly rock, paper, broadsword.

I wasn’t expecting much from the multiplayer mode in God of War. I mean, it’s cool to hate on tacked-on multiplayer modes, isn’t it. But I have to say, I really enjoyed this – heck, I still am enjoying it, and I would even go as far as to say that I enjoyed it more than the single-player offering.

The combat is slick and satisfying, and apart from the hammers having slightly too much physical force and knocking everyone out the arena on the smaller stages, the game feels perfectly balanced. In a world saturated by online shooters, stabbing the shit out of someone repeatedly feels fresh and unique. I know I’ll be experimenting with my loadouts until I find the perfect set up in the coming months.

I sat down, the giant TV in front of me and an Xbox 360 controller gripped firmly in my hand. The wire on the controller didn’t lead to an Xbox though, and I can only guess the specifications of the monster whirring away inside the cabinet it was housed inside.

It’s 1912, and you’re back in the sea. But this time you’re safely aboard a boat, with a man/woman double act ferrying you to the lighthouse, looming in the distance. The male announces that Booker (the protagonist) doesn’t row, and something feels off.

The odd couple in the boat have a surreal aura about them, and there’s a definite sense of ‘Twilight Zone’ about the affairs unfolding in front of you. The story instantly grabs you by the face and shoves matchsticks in your eyes, enthralling you in its mysteries.

Booker doesn’t row.

It’s not only the conversations that draw you in, however. Every scene is crammed with an abundance of detail. The waves wrestle with one another, as a thousand crushed diamonds glisten on its surface.

Every texture is like fast relief Prozac for your eyeballs.

The aforementioned lighthouse functions as an elevator to the floating city of Columbia, much like the elevator that took you into the depths of Rapture, but ascension is a more impressive spectacle.

Columbia is the perfect contrast to the apocalyptic Rapture. The amount of detail in every scene puts many games to shame and you can absolutely tell that it’s a labour of love. People mill about, engaging in conversation, whilst hummingbirds hover near the flowers in the long, flowing grass. Light beams through the clouds and dissipates through every small gap in the trees, as fireworks explode all around you. Buildings, adorned with balloons and propaganda, shift and float into place in front of your very eyes, as far off islands linger on the horizon.

Red, white and blue adorn absolutely everything and the city and its denizens are exploding with a sense of misplaced jingoism.

Extreme patriotism isn’t the only vibe you get from Columbia, though. The citizens are brainwashed by the propaganda that bedecks every street corner, like the Kinetiscopes, which essentially play you a silent movie – one of the most aptly named being: ‘How To Deal With The Irish Problem’.

Propaganda like this litters Columbia.

The themes of racism are dealt with subtlety and maturity, which is important to note. And I found it refreshing that a game was willing to tackle such a controversial and adult theme.

‘Mature’ is a word that many games throw around in PR blurb, usually because of breasts and decapitations, so it’s exhilarating for a game to tackle proper adult themes, such as racism, chauvinism and children bearing arms. It’s not just thrown into the game for the ‘shock factor’ either, as these themes sit comfortably within the game’s timeline.

There is one scene in particular, that I won’t spoil for you here, but it shocked me to the core and I’m surprised it wasn’t censored. I’m glad it wasn’t, though.

The similarities between Columbia and the ill-fated Titanic, which sank the very same year, are notable. In another parallel twist on reality, that same year a patent was applied for, to synthesise the drug MDMA. Much like the drug-like Vigors that the Columbian citizens drink to imbue them with supernatural abilities, but we’ll go into that later.

Time plays a huge role in the labyrinthine plot.

Not long after Booker’s arrival in Columbia, I was strolling around, soaking up the ambiance and noting every incidental detail that I happened to stumble across. I came across the ‘Bee Sharps – Columbia’s gayest quartet’ and I stood and listened for a while, aurally devouring their dulcet tones. Then it hit me. They were singing a Beach Boys song and the more astute among you will notice that this song is from the swinging sixties.

Do you think Ken Levine and co. made a period error? I certainly don’t.

As in the original Bioshock, the technology on display is far ahead of what we had at the time and the mechanisms run via alternative power sources. There are robotic vending machines and gun turrets, as well as robotic horses, so no fear of them ending up in your lasagne, I suppose.

This game has ALL the vistas.

Once I had finished wandering around in awe, I decided to play some carnival games. These are essentially cleverly disguised (and completely optional) tutorials – teaching you the basics of Vigor and firearm usage.

The first Vigor that you acquire allows control over machines, allowing you to turn turrets into allies and make the robotic vending machines spit coins at your feet. This power is extremely handy when things inevitably kick off. The build up to the action scenes is quite a long one, made even longer by my procrastination, but the build up was something I enjoyed and I wanted to be saturated by it.

Many games wouldn’t get away with such a creeping crescendo, but I just wanted to bathe in it and breathe it into my lungs.

With such an unconventional opening, it’s a good job then, that the action holds up to the same lofty standards. Your first encounter is based around melee combat, where you use the Skyhook (that you attain by brutal methods and is like a drill arm, but un-drilly) to pummel the faces of your adversaries.

These meaty hooks, uppercuts and hurried backhands, sometimes take the enemy’s head clean off.

Melee attacks are handled with a click of the right stick (if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it) and the attacks home in, semi-automated, straight into your victim’s face. It’s not long before you pick up a pistol, which functions with a snap-to aim when looking down the iron sights, and things start to get shooty.

By default, satisfying RPG-like numbers pop up as you damage your enemies, and also signify when your target is vulnerable to damage. I didn’t find these intrusive, but they can be turned off if you find them distracting, or that they take away from the immersion.

The Vigors, akin to the Plasmids in the first Bioshock, allow you to fight in a more tactical manner: laying traps and turning enemies to your side. More will be available in the full release, but the ones in the preview build all felt good to use, and gave you a specific, tactical edge.

It’s a good job that you have these supernatural abilities, because you’re not just here to sightsee, you’re here to save a damsel in distress. Elizabeth: the Lamb of Columbia.

When you finally arrive at the prison, masquerading as a gleaming statue, you enter through a web of labs and testing chambers containing research notes and audio logs. There is a room with subwoofers pulsating to an ethereal song and seemingly trying to harness some sort of power resonating from the young lady located deeper within the compound.

You feel like a voyeur, spying on her through one-sided glass as she wanders about in her chamber, blissfully unaware of your presence. She opens a rift in space-time, and you see a window into the future, with a cinema showing ‘Revenge of The Jedi’. The vision of times to come is cut short however, by a van careening towards the young lady, forcing her to close the rift in a panic.

Once the thimble fingered Elizabeth joins your company she never feels like a burden. In the calm moments she carves her own path, never forcing you to follow or to wait. During combat she stays out of the way and you have no need to protect her.

In fact, in combat she soon becomes weaponised.

She makes herself useful by throwing you weapons and ammunition as well as health packs. She calls to you when she has something of use and a timely button press prompts her to throw and Booker swing around and catch. She scavenges money outside of battle, too – flipping a coin to Booker, in a lovely touch.

Elizabeth is bad ass.

Her ability to open rifts also comes in handy during conflict, allowing her to pull things into existence through time itself. These seem to be varied, for example, in the section I played there was a turret that you could pull through time to aid you, complete with a defensive wall. The other option was to phase a balcony into the present, allowing you to gain a vertical advantage on your enemies, from where you can do a variety of things, like send a flock of crows to peck out their eyes.

The way you phase these into existence feels a bit fiddly at first, but this was shown near the end of the preview, so only time will tell if it gets better with practice.

One area of the game that does feel instantly intuitive, though, is the way the player uses the Skyhook for traversal. There are hooks dotted around the environment, and when you look at them they emit a haze, signifying that you may attach to them. This is done with a quick tap of the jump button, which sends you zooming towards the intended location, where you hang until you look at the spot where you want to land (often an enemy’s face) and jump again.

When used in conjunction with the rollercoaster-like Skyrails it provides a feeling of euphoria of which I’ve not felt in a game for a long while. These airbound tracks zip you around Columbia with grace and ease, even allowing you to jump mid-descent so you can speed up the traversal if you’re under fire. It feels intuitive, and more importantly for a game, it feels fun.

Fun isn’t hard for Bioshock Infinite to pull off when the intensity heightens, as it’s a game that manages to make exploration fun in itself. When I get my hands on the full game I’m going to crawl through it and bask in the rich universe created by Ken Levine and his brilliant team of visionaries.

Everything I saw in the preview just left me wanting more – it feels like a shot of originality straight to the main vein and for me, March 26th can’t come fast enough.

Then it grabbed me by the nipples with its arresting visual flair. The game is the end result of a collaboration between Dark Cloud creators, Level 5 and Studio Ghibli, who are basically the Japanese Disney; creating classic anime films such as Spirited Away.

The Japanese animation inspired visual design feels like injecting a rainbow into your retina, or getting slapped by the ocean on a summer’s day.

Vivid strokes of colour dance across the screen as the characters interact animatedly. The animation, in the Ghibli created cutscenes especially, is remarkable. At times, you actually feel as though you’re inside of a Ghibli classic and you feel like a kid again. (Unless you are a kid and then you’ll just feel like you, I suppose, albeit with a happy eyeball).

One of the things I noticed, and I know it doesn’t sound very impressive on paper/the internet, is how the main character actually has a dedicated animation for descending stairs. The JRPG evolution has arrived! I don’t mean to sell it short (I was actually impressed) as this really is a big deal in a genre more interested in stats, than aesthetics and immersion.

Most JRPG’s are focussed on the aforementioned stats and stories. Ni No Kuni is no different – except the story is much more relatable than your standard JRPG fare. Oliver, a boy of thirteen, lives in small-town America, called Motorville, complete with white picket fences and OCD afflicted gardeners.

The story starts out with its feet firmly planted in the realms of reality and promptly burrowing deeper into the rabbit-hole.

After a traumatic experience in the ‘real world’, Oliver is promptly whisked off to a parallel version of his reality by his stuffed toy, Drippy, who came to life after being activated by the tears of the crying boy.

Drippy claims to be Lord, High Lord of the fairies, in a land called Ni No Kuni, where Oliver may be able to fix the cause of his recent trauma. in the process stopping the evil Shaddar, who is stealing portions of peoples’ hearts.

There are hints throughout, that the fantasy world you’re spirited to, is just that… a fantasy. The experiences faced by the young Oliver, are enough to make anyone retreat into a fabrication in the recesses of their mind. It’s always hinted, but never explicitly stated, making for a more interesting and involving narrative for an inquisitive mind.

The alternate dimension is filled with doppelgangers of the people Oliver knows back in his hometown, and even some of the animals. Also, when he is inside Motorville (as you travel between worlds to overcome certain problems) nobody acknowledges his otherworldy companions.

If Ni No Kuni is a construct of Oliver’s mind, he must have the disposition of an artist.

When you enter the exceptional environment for the first time, you are greeted with vast expanses of green fields and blue skies. Birds fly past, clouds roll across the sky, tracing shadows along the ground beneath your feet. Little traces of light flash across the sky, and the grass sways in the wind. It is the most detailed ‘world map’ I’ve seen in the genre.

It isn’t long after you first enter this lush landscape until you encounter an enemy, who are all visible, and avoidable, in the field. These play out in real time, allowing you free movement on the battlefield so you can make space between yourself and the enemy, evading attacks and setting up abilities. It starts off simply and drip feeds mechanics, sometimes during boss battles, infuriatingly.

As your quest develops, you gain access to a myriad of friendly creatures called Familiars. Each has a specific combat role and gains in experience alongside the antagonist as the game progresses.

As they ‘level up’, they gain access to new skills and can eventually be forced into evolving by feeding them a specific item. When you evolve the creatures it resets their ‘level’ to one, but once they reach the point they were at originally, they will be much more powerful versions of themselves.

In battle, you can only control Oliver or one Familiar/ally at a time. Each Familiar has a timer that ticks down until they eventually pass out from overexertion. This is a means of encouraging you to use your whole arsenal, but is a mixed success. In most of the big battles, you can get through it by running from your enemy as Oliver and firing off spells when they inevitably miss a strike.

As long as you can time your use of the defense command and can top up your MP when it’s low, you can win the majority of the bigger encounters with this tactic. That’s not to say it works on them all, however. In fact, some of the encounters are controller-snappingly infuriating.

The difficulty just sort of ambles along at a steady rate, spikes suddenly and then dips again, dramatically. The frustration only increases in tandem with the number of companions and usable abilities at your disposal.

When it does work though, the battle system feels fresh and hands-on; the free movement adding a layer of involvement into proceedings, especially as you need to keep an eye out for restorative Glims. Glims come in three flavours: blue for magic, green for health and gold to unleash a powerful, character specific ability.

Seeing all the different Familiars’ Miracle Moves (as the Golden Glim attacks are called) is compulsive gaming at its best, and collecting the perfect team of miniature critters is as addicting as it was when a certain game popularised the concept.

You capture them by beating their asses until they love you, and then using one of your allies’ skills to serenade them.

Each Familiar has a star sign and creature type. Each human character has preferred familiar types, and after it’s explained to you, it’s down to you to find the miniature icons representing preferences.

This is the point where I find the game slightly inconsistent: things that should be simple, are sometimes vague, yet the things that could be used to add a layer of thought to the exploration are overly simplified.

As you progress through Ni No Kuni, you meet people who have had their hearts broken by Shaddar, and it’s up to Oliver to fix them. You do this by finding out what it is they’re missing and then finding somebody with an excess of the trait they are lacking.

How do you find what they are lacking/overflowing in, I hear you ask? You find out because the game tells you exactly what you have to do, taking any thought out of the process.

Even when you know what you must do, you can’t pull up the magic menu and do it. Oh no, you have to wait for the game to categorically tell you that it’s time to perform the action.

There are many spells that you can cast in the field: whether to aid you with the completion of a puzzle, or to open up a blocked path. But they can only be used at predetermined moments, negating the need for experimentation.

One thing that does make up for this, however, is in the game’s alchemy. You can conjure up some inspired creations by getting your genie to mix a concoction from your collected items. There will probably be guides available online since the game has been out for a while overseas, but I found it a joy to just tinker with a bit of risk/reward item stirring, instead of letting someone else discover its intricacies for me.

Like a mortar and pestle, the game mixes ingredients both old and new, in an attempt to create a synergy; sticking with traditional JRPG mechanics and introducing a few of its own. It’s a mixed success. It is both brilliant and average, compelling and tedious. Whilst it is at times brilliant, there are just a few minor annoyances holding it back, and in a game with such a long runtime, little irritancies can really start to grate. Not you though Drippy, mun, youer tidy. (That was my best Drippy impression and it wasn’t very good).

It’s very hard to dislike the game just based on pure characterisation. Mr. Drippy manages to make a podium finish as one of the best sidekicks in gaming, and the whole world just oozes personality. So while not quite the evolution I was hoping for, still, an inter-dimensional leap forward for the JRPG, to a parallel world where they were still awesome.

This game was reviewed on the PS3.

A lone sniper is standing on the West tower, so I pull out my silenced rifle and take him out with a single shot to his head, a red mist hangs in the air as his body folds into a heap on the floor. The camp remains calm, so I slide down the slope and take cover behind the large hut in front of me. To the right of the hut stands a sentry; in front of him are two others engaged in a worldly conversation. I strike like a panther, jumping from my cover and slicing the guard’s throat; quickly snatching the pin on his grenade and kicking him towards his allies.

The calm is punctured by screaming and three bodies fly off into different directions, as the grenade detonates and forces them into the air. The alarm has been raised, so I pull out a light machine gun and start peppering the soldiers who are running at me with bullets. A stray bullet strikes an ammo dump inside one of the huts, causing the inside of the hut to flash and crackle in its own, private fireworks display. The side of the hut soon ignites and spreads into the grass, killing countless enemies and spreading to the cage of a detained tiger.

Absolutely stunning.

The front of the cage breaks off and the tiger darts towards the militia, pouncing on them and tearing out their throats. The tiger kills the two remaining soldiers and turns around, seemingly spotting me; so I pull out my RPG and prepare to write a letter of apology to PETA. This was an actual experience I had in the game, along with countless others, I could just write a list of the amazing experiences I’ve had and if you were to do the same, yours would be completely different from mine.

Did I ever tell you about the time I went shark hunting on my boat, so I could craft a bigger weapon holster? Well I did hunt some sharks, but I also went for a swim with some stingrays; it was the most serene, relaxing game experience I’ve ever had. You can get sidetracked so easily in the game, with various activities keeping you busy outside of the main mission of saving your friends from the maniacal antagonists. “Look guys, I know you’ve been captured by a Mohawk-sporting fruit-cake, but I really wanted to fly around the island on this hang-glider and pretend that I’m a bird; CACKAW!”

There are countless moments like this, where the game disappears and it becomes an “experience”.

The aforementioned Mohawk fruit-cake, really is the fruitiest of cakes. Vaas is one of the main antagonists and his seething presence is one of the highlights of the game, his voice acting is superb and the people responsible for casting him deserve a respectful nod of appreciation. The weakest voice actor is the protagonist, not because he is a bad actor, just that his voice is so whiny and wimpy. Yet he can kill a shark with his fists. His voice just contrasts with his character hugely, although it does make a change from gruff, brooding soldiers you usually play as these days.

The island’s inhabitants are suitably crazy, which seems to be the theme for the game, really. What does isolated dictatorship do to the human psyche? Even down to the game menus, everything is mirrored, giving the impression of a Rosarch inkblot. The loading icon is two mirrored guns; is it meant to be a butterfly? No, it’s an inkblot. When you notice it for the first time, you will start seeing them everywhere; it’s a neat little trick and helps everything feel consistent.

The island may be isolated, but it is absolutely vast. Although the map is huge, every inch has been given some deep thought, so there is no filler here: underwater caves, waterfalls, vehicle missions, random encounters, wanted posters, the list goes on and on. In a similar mechanic to Ubisoft’s own Assassin’s Creed games, parts of the map are blacked out and you reveal them by scaling a radio tower in the area. Each one plays like a first-person climbing puzzle, gradually increasing in complexity, but never frustrating. You leap and climb to the top, whilst the tower creaks ominously around you. There are coils of rope hanging from the edges of the climbable surfaces, so you are never leaping at the wrong edge in vain. When you get to the top you are treated with a beautiful vista, before you disable the the electronics, revealing the map in the process. Instead of making us like Ezio and leaping off into a bale of hay, you jump on a zip-line and make an adrenaline fueled descent to the ground below.

I’m the fire-starter, twisted fire-starter!

Then there are the enemy camps that need occupying. There are dozens of these dotted around the map and each one needs liberating, so you can move your tribal allies into the camp and lower the enemy presence in the area. Each one is a sandbox and has limitless ways to achieve your objective: you can sneak in and pick them off one at a time, go in guns blazing, use the wildlife to your advantage, or just start a fire and let nature’s fury deal with them. The stealth is much improved in this iteration, the foliage makes you invisible and there is an indicator for when you are about to be spotted, which allows you to get in cover.

The soundtrack pumps in at key moments, with swelling baselines adding paranoia to the already tense atmosphere. In one of my favourite missions in the game you even get treated to a bit of Skrillex, as you set fire to a cannabis field with a flamethrower. It just works perfectly and intensifies the fun of the section. The fire is amazing, it’s the best illusion of the deadly, unpredictable element ever seen in a game. Other than flamethrowers, there are multiple weapons that you can buy and fit attachments to; every time you scale a tower a shopkeeper makes a weapon free to purchase.

Apart from buying and upgrading weapons, there are three skill trees, which unlock health buffs, damage resistance, killer moves, let hold your breath longer underwater and so on. You can also make medicine syringes by picking flowers (in a real manly way) and crafting various medicines, like things as simple as health replenishment, to the more impressive flame retardant. The skin of animals you hunt can be used in a similar fashion, upgrading your carrying capacity; making ammo pouches and gun slings.

There are various vehicles to use throughout the campaign, each handling differently, but each handling beautifully. It feels amazing to make a clean run through the jungle in a jeep, it feels just as awesome when you flip it over or crash into a tree. The boats all feel great too; you can’t beat whizzing around the beautiful, blue ocean and taking in the sights. Most of the vehicles have radios too, so you can just go for a cruise around the island, head-bobbing to some smooth reggae. Some of the vehicles have missions attached to them too, and upon completion your time is posted onto a leaderboard.

Hmm, death related choices.

There are some trials dotted around the map, called Trials of the Rakyat. These missions are basically score-based, time-attack diversions, that force you into using one set weapon for the duration of the entire mission. These are more fun than they have any right to be; you can extend the time by shooting blue barrels and there are plenty of conveniently place explosive barrels lying around. You get more points for stealth kills, headshots and killing tougher enemy types; and it all feeds into an online leaderboard, which encourages replays.

Then there are the multiplayer modes, which I unfortunately didn’t get chance to test, as nobody was playing. The single-player is worth buying the game for, however, and having a fully fleshed-out, four player co-op mode and competitive multiplayer, certainly doesn’t lower the quality of the main game. Are you sick of buying map-packs for shooters? Good, because with Far Cry 3 you won’t have to, as there is a ridiculously extensive map maker thrown in for good measure. Little Big Headshot indeed. So you have a massive, immersive campaign, a full co-op game and a multiplayer game with infinite maps. Value for money? Yes.

There are the odd drops in framerate, but it isn’t nowhere near Rimlag proportions and it certainly isn’t game breaking. Fast-travel is now in but if there are multiple points of interest on the map, clustered together, it can be fiddly to choose the fast-travel option. Sometimes you can catch the textures loading as you get near the geometry of the game, but it is handled more subtly than Unreal Engine’s texture pop-ins. I really am grasping at straws here, because these are the only criticisms I have for the game and the rest is as close to gaming perfection as we have come this generation.

Boom boom!

The weather effects are used sparingly, adding to their potency, because you aren’t over-saturated with them. When a tropical storm kicks in as you stalk through the jungle, the atmosphere grabs you and refuses to let go. There is also a day/night cycle and you can’t help but stop and appreciate the sky turn red, as the sun sets on the horizon.

If you enjoy shooters with a bit of brain, buy it. If you are a fan of the RPG genre, buy it. If punching a shark sounds awesome, buy it. You know what, just buy it- it’s the best game of the year, if not the generation.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3.

Treyarch has really endeavored to improve upon the tried-and-tested single-player formula in this sequel, but unfortunately its a mixed bag. Some of the missions feel a bit more open, sometimes you can go left OR right, but don’t expect an open-world. The choice to go left or right doesn’t really add anything, however, it’s just two linear tunnels, both filled with enemies.

There will be explosions… duh.

Then there are the Strike Force missions, which are designed to bring some strategy to the campaign: taking command of an array of units, placing them in strategic positions and holding off waves of enemies. The idea is that these missions play similar to an RTS game, adding a tactical layer to the campaign. The player gets reinforcements at key points to fill up their dwindling ranks, and they have a set amount of time to hold off the enemy. You can zoom out and command the units from a birds-eye view, or control each unit directly whilst issuing orders to your comrades. The idea is great, it’s just a shame the execution is less than perfect.

Controlling the units was my default approach to these missions, as the artificial intelligence can’t seem to cope with the enemy without input from the player. When I was playing these battles directly, they felt like a wave-based objective mode where you run from one side of the map to the other, defending key points on the small maps. If the maps had been a bit larger, there would have been more scope for tactical input, but with small maps you only need to cluster your forces in a few key points.

The Strike Force missions also affect the games story, so if you are planning on skipping them, you will face the consequences. Branching story-lines are another new addition to Call of Duty, and aside from the SF missions, you occasionally get a binary choice in a cutscene. It’s a nice addition and it certainly doesn’t take away from the tried-and-tested formula. At the beginning of each mission you can also choose your loadout, picking weapons and equipment for the upcoming battle. You can see the intent to change, but the execution is slightly off.

The arsenal you can choose from is vast, and as well as the usual suspects: AK-47, M16 and so on. There are a variety of futuristic weapons to get shooty with. This is because the game’s narrative flits between near-future scenarios with flying drones and mechs, to not-too-distant past scenarios with horses and men with rags around their faces. There are scopes that detect people through walls (which is always handy in a game about shooting men through walls), there are sniper rifles that you can charge up; expending more ammunition but causing more damage, and you get a wrist-mounted gadget that fires grenades.

This looks a lot more fun than it is; essentially you are just strafing, but in the air.

The future setting does help the single-player feel fresh, but it also serves to highlight how uninspired the flashback missions are. Even giving you control of a horse in the Afghanistan mission doesn’t serve to spice things up, you are doing the same stuff as always. You just have a horse’s head protruding from your crotch. When contrasted with the (admittedly more linear) nightclub mission in the future, it just seems like a step backwards.

In the nightclub there isn’t that much shooting, and it is mostly a barely interactive cutscene, but the amount of detail packed in tells the tale of an art team finally free of their shackles. The club is packed with detail: advertisements that read your biometrics, changing the face of the model to look like whoever comes near- it is jam packed full of detail. The level is baked in a black and gold hue, no doubt taking buckets of inspiration from Deus Ex: Human Revolution and its future-renaissance style. The advertisements you come across evoke the Mass Effect series, and you can see the team looked for inspiration in some of the right places.

The actual gameplay feels largely the same, which isn’t a problem because it has always been one of the smoothest, fastest shooters on the market. The graphics are also largely the same as past entries and they even re-use assets from the previous games. You come across a dog at one point, it’s the same dog from the last Black Ops and WaW. There are many instances of this repeated throughout the campaign. Some of the textures on the debris-like objects are looking rather dog-eared, especially when next to the chunky and detailed character models.

Guns! Explosions! Death!

The game is still running on the same engine as COD: Modern Warfare, and now we are so familiar with it, it is much easier to see through the smoke and mirrors. There is one section where you are (barely) controlling your descent in a freefall, the ground is just a pre-rendered backdrop, and the game uses clouds to obscure your vision whilst it swaps it out for a new, closer pre-rendered background. Black Ops 2 still runs at a silky smooth 60FPS, which makes everything feel immediate and satisfying though, and this sort of technical wizardry still has not been matched by its rivals.

There are a couple of vehicle sections throughout the game, which mostly feel like controlling a child after ten cans of energy drink . The driving sections are largely choreographed, penning you into a road that is only wide enough for a couple of vehicles. Then there is the jet section later in the game. I absolutely hated this part with a vengeance, the plane controls like you are playing a game of Quidditch. In fact a length of wood would probably be easier to tame.

The control scheme stays the same for flight as it does for shooting and I had to go into the options and invert them for flight, as it just feels weird not to. When you are in the small area the game wants you to be in, the jet turns relatively fast, but if you stray mere meters away from the zone the game wants you in, you will fail the mission. If you crash into a building head-on, you will just bounce off. The whole section is just weak and should have been either more fleshed out, or cut out completely. The vehicle sections would have benefited hugely from a control tweak, as they often feel like controlling a man on skates, not a machine.

The guns are deadly as always, but I found the sound design lacking the heft of similar titles. A shotgun shouldn’t sound like Puff The Magic Dragon with hay-fever. Nevertheless the guns are lethal and a couple of well placed shots will down the organic enemies. Yes, you wont just get to control robots, but you will get to shut them down too. Bored of killing? Shoot some synthetics.

Zombies is the mode that has undergone the most radical changes.

The multiplayer has undergone a few changes. You still have score-streaks instead of kill-streaks, which encourages team play. However, most of the players I came across still preferred to play as lone-wolves. The perk and equipment system has undergone a drastic change too, and you can pick from ten things: attachments, perks, equipment…etc. So you can build much more personalized loadouts this time around; want more perks and aren’t bothered about a secondary weapon? You are now Sir Perkalot.

The maps are classic COD, tight funnels, with death coming from most angles, no spot is truly safe and there are multiple entry points to most sniping areas. Another new addition to the multiplayer is Codcasting; you can stream your matches online with someone commentating over the action, in a bid to make the game prominent in the world of E-Sports. The reason games like Counter Strike are big E-Sports titles, is because of purity of design: no respawns, no killstreaks, every time you die is because someone has a higher skill level. With COD, sometimes the deaths feel unfair, and only time will tell if the game is balanced enough to carve a foothold into the scene. There are also League Matches, which track your skill against the rest of the world, all the equipment and perks are available in this mode, allowing for a completely level playing field.

The new additions are great, and there are a multitude of game modes to play with your friends. It is still a fun, solid online experience, but it is essentially a re-skinned version of the same game. If you are buying the game because you are a big fan of the series and just want new maps and guns for the online mode, you won’t be disappointed.

The multiplayer is as frantic as ever.

You can directly control most of the scorestreaks, and the majority of them have a pretty clear tactical benefit, besides just killing people. The knifing seems to be a touch harder to pull off, although that could be down to my skills being a bit rusty. I didn’t have a problem with mowing down the enemy with gunfire though. Every assist you get feeds into your score-streak, even if you have a UAV up and your allies are netting all the kills, you will get a healthy boost for every kill they score, as long as your UAV is active.

The Zombies mode has also undergone some changes. There is a new mode called Tranzit, where you can travel between the maps on a bus, which is controlled by a weird robo-skeleton… thing. If everyone boards the bus and leaves you alone, you had better hunker-down and survive until it makes its way back to you. Moments like this can trigger desperate dashes to the bus, as its horn signals its imminent departure. You can also upgrade the bus, with parts found throughout the game world: fixing rams to the front, ladders to the roof, allowing bus-surfing zombie shooting.

Another addition to zombies mode is called Grief, where you face off against other players, but you can’t attack them directly. The idea is to draw the shambling dead towards the enemy, essentially outliving them and trying to hinder their progress. Or, if you want the vanilla zombie experience you can play the traditional Survival mode. If none of that takes your fancy you can create custom games and decide your own rules.

As a package it’s easy to see why the franchise is so popular. The game offers so much content, and here’s the kicker- it’s free. Not the game you understand, but there isn’t a whiff of the dreaded “online pass”, you buy the game and you have access to all the features from the get go. If you want to buy the inevitable map-packs down the line, that’s optional. Remember that subscription service “Call of Duty: Elite”? Yeah, that’s free now too. Every shooter tries to ape Call of Duty, but nobody is aping its value for money. Maybe that’s where they are going wrong.

This game reviewed on the PlayStation 3.

The game’s main chunk of action lies in the Attitude era, story mode. In this mode you play through the storylines of yesteryear, living through some of the finest moments from some of the most popular superstar’s careers. In this mode you have bonus objectives: like performing a jumping attack from the top rope, or hitting your opponent with a chair; basically things that happened in the actual fights when they were aired.

The bonus objectives are a nice addition, adding a layer of thought to the pretty basic combat. The problem is, it feels more than a little ironic, as the game seems stuck in the past along with its storyline. Last time I played a WWE title was about eight years ago, and it seems that the series hasn’t really gone anywhere since, other than a few changes to the control scheme.

The controls are pretty basic: one face button for strikes, one to grapple, one to irish whip etc. Holding down the grapple button performs a submission, during which you have to batter all your face buttons, which nearly broke my pad. One shoulder button makes the character run, another causes you to climb in and out of the ring or pick up weapons, and another performs a reversal. The timing window for a reversal is slight, but rhythmic taps will see you through the majority of encounters.

One thing that fans of the series will love is the amount of content packed onto the disc, as there are countless match types to sweat through. There are all the modes you expect from a wrestling game and on top of that there is a hugely comprehensive create mode, where not only can you create the gimp-like wrestler of your dreams/nightmares, but you can create whole stories to play through: controlling every aspect including creating rivalries, match types and even camera angles. There really is a lot of potential with this mode, and with the ability to share your creation/abomination online, there is a limitless pool to dip into.

Like I said, the roster is huge, so too are the amount of game types.

It’s a shame then that so many things let the game down. The animations in particular are a stilted mess and the characters seemingly have no weight and skate around the ring like Michael Jackson doing a front moonwalk.  When you are out of range and are throwing strikes, instead of closing the small distance your character will just wail into the air, punching phantoms whilst your opponent most likely does the same; which looks absolutely ridiculous.

When you perform an Irish Whip it only throws your opponent in the desired direction about 50% of the time. If you whip your opponent at just the right angle into the ropes they will run crab-like, really slowly, until they reach the corner where they will slump as if hit with monumental heft. You can set a table up in the middle of the ring (tables and other weapons don’t cast any shadows either) just for your opponent to walk into it with another weapon, and it will magically fold up as if intimidated by this new object.

When you swing the weapons, the force is comparable to someone underarm bowling a slice of own-brand bacon at your head, and the wrestlers drop as if hit by a nuclear warhead. When you are knocked down by an underwater-like strike, you will eventually have to escape from a pin. The pin is handled with more grace than a submission, and to escape you hold a face button, which raises a bar that you must release inside of a sweet-spot. This is much preferable to the moronic exercise of smashing your pad into oblivion, it’s a shame they couldn’t think of something more elegant for the submissions, as you look like a nutcase rubbing your pad ferociously.

For fans of wrestling, and even those wanting to relive its animal-charity-baiting glory days, there is a lot to like in terms of content. Just don’t come into the game expecting a deep or polished experience as there were better technological displays last generation. If the first paragraph of this review angered you and a little vein popped out of your forehead, the game is probably a must-buy just for sheer content alone. If the first paragraph made you chuckle and you are a games fan but not necessarily a wrestling one, you may have fun with friends but don’t expect to enjoy the games singleplayer, which asks its audience to know each specific wrestlers signature moves.

 This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3.

Life is all about choices. When I got off the tube in the capital, I could have walked left instead of right and I may have never reached my destination. The London locals didn’t want to talk to a foreigner from the Middle East (read East Midlands) and I had to trust my gut. I got lucky. In Haemimont Games new gangster epic you will be faced with a lot of choice, so I will ask you a question, do you feel lucky?

Down a side street was my destination, a detective agency , tucked away to avoid attention from the liquor police, “Tommy ‘Two Gun’ Tucci sent me” I said meekly to the man on the door, “Oh, hi!” he said politely, “we are just setting up if you want to get a coffee”, so I politely accepted and went to go in. The thing is, he meant a coffee in a coffee shop. I felt like a tool.

So after my reasonably priced coffee (I was expecting the price to destroy my soul) I headed back to look at Omerta the period, gangster sim. This time the door was closed, so I used the buzzer. “Who sent you?” said the raspy voice on the other side, “Tommy ‘Two Gun’ Tucci”, I replied. The door unlocked and I made my way down the narrow staircase ahead. At the bottom I was met my a lone man sat at a desk.

He was wearing period clothes and on his desk sat an antique typewriter, not unlike the ones in Resident Evil, and the ashtray on his desk contained the ends of countless used cigars. The room itself was minute and I was starting to doubt myself, then suddenly he stood up and made his way to the large bookcase bulit into the wall. He moved a book and the whole bookcase rotated, revealing a rather expansive bar, and beyond were countless gaming laptops. What an introduction.

Atlantic City in all its isometric glory.

Omerta is the story of two brothers from Sicily, who moved to Atlantic City in America during the prohibition in the1920’s. One brother sees the prohibition as a chance to make himself a better life and the other chooses to enforce the law. You will never guess which brother you play as. The word Omerta is a code of honour, preventing people from within criminal syndicates divulging trade secrets. Gangsters don’t take well to snitches.

The game is a mix between Sim City and XCOM, but in a universe similar to the one seen in tv series Boardwalk Empire, which is no bad thing. From what I saw, it lacks the depth of either of the aforementioned games, but that is to expected as they are much more focused affairs. That is not to say the game isn’t deep though. At the heart of the game you are building up an empire, you can play the build section of the game relatively cleanly: bribing officials, trading, building alliances with rival gangs, building legitimate businesses. Or the opposite: killing officials, stealing everything, killing rivals, building illegal distilleries.

For any action to be completed, you must either go personally or send one of your hired goons to do the dirty work, and when you are all assigned tasks there is nothing to do but sit and wait. Hopefully they add the ability to speed up time for the finished build of the game, although this may be alleviated slightly when you have a bigger mob later in the game as I only played an early section. In the story mode you get a set of objectives to complete, one of the first is to build up a set amount of money by stealing/trading, but every now and then a random event will occur and battle will commence.

The camera zooms in for the combat, which is turn based. Your avatar and mobsters all have character specific skills, and as is the trend these days you can also assign perks which improve your proficiency with a desired weapon, amongst other things. Weapons also have unique skills: a shotgun gives you a cone target which can injure multiple enemies, a Tommy-gun is spray-and-pray and damages the enemies morale, pistols fire more in a turn and can target a specific area, and double revolvers let you fire first if attacked.

The turns are based on character statistics, so you don’t take it in turns by team, and a character won’t necessarily get only one turn per round. This leads to frantic prioritising of targets, trying to end them before they get their turn. You can use cover to your advantage, but unfortunately the combat zones seem pretty flat, and don’t seem to take advantage of verticality.

The combat is probably the highlight from what I saw, the only downside is that there are no rogue-like elements, like perma-death. If your characters die in battle, you currently just have to wait in the build mode until they are fit for duty again. One nice touch though is if your characters are arrested you have a few choices: you can be boring and bribe police, you can wait, or you can launch a full-scale assault against the station to destroy evidence. I choose option three.

There are some nice little aesthetic touches in the game, people getting out their umbrellas in the rain, the city itself featuring known landmarks from the time. Graphically the game is pretty simplistic, which suits the game really as the user interface is kept free from clutter, some dynamic camera angles in the battles would have helped with immersion though.

You can hit people with bats to inflict concussion, which affects the amount of action they can take.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to try out the two online modes, as they sound pretty promising. You can take your mob from the main game and pit them against your friends, or strangers, and keep the spoils of victory. You can also team up with your friends in some of the co-operative modes. These, along with the sandbox option, should provide longevity well after the main campaign is finished.

Haemimont Games sure know how to make a strategy title, they make the brilliant dictator-em-up Tropico series after all. From my time with the game it looks very promising, it’s hard to get the full picture though in a couple of hours, with a game this gargantuan in scale. Any fans of the strategy genre should definitely keep an eye on this. Ever since I remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. Now I can.