Daxter

Released in 2006, this spin-off of the Jak and Daxter franchise puts you in the shoes of well, Daxter as he embarks on a quest to find Jak. The journey will take you through a wide variety of levels filled with all sorts of platforming obstacles, and overcoming those challenges remains a consistently fun affair. The combat isn’t as dynamic as the mainline entries, but Daxter does feature a simple melee-based combat system that serves well to break up the pace from the platforming sections.

Grand Theft Auto 5 – Xbox 360/PS3

Rockstar delivered an excellent open world in the form of Grand Theft Auto 5, which features an extensive single player campaign alongside a live service multiplayer component that continues to rake in enormous cash to this date. Grand Theft Auto 5 was originally released for the PS3 and Xbox 360, and while it did certainly push those systems to their absolute limits – there were visible signs of crack all around. The textures were blurry, and the dense world streaming caused loads of slowdowns and frame rate drops which resulted in a very sloppy experience.

Further making matters worse is that support for the online component has been prematurely shut down for these platforms, and those who previously played the game on the seventh generation platforms couldn’t team up with those on PS4 and Xbox One. While that doesn’t completely ruin the enjoyment of the game, there’s little doubt that it is a compromising experience that would have been best if it was restricted to the eighth gen machines only.

The Xbox One has so far consistently lagged behind the PlayStation 4 when it comes to sales worldwide, leading to some uncharacteristically aggressive moves and co-branding deals by Microsoft. Two of these fortuitously happened in the UK last week, with the Xbox One getting another price cut (effectively its third price cut in less than a year), and the launch of FIFA 15, which, in a football crazy nation, is still promoted as being ‘better on Xbox One.’

And this combination seems to have worked- the Xbox One managed to sell more than the PlayStation 4 in the UK last week, although it must be noted, the PS4 version of FIFA 14 still outsold the Xbox One version of the game (meanwhile, the Xbox 360 version of the game handily beat the PS3 version of the game).

Microsoft must be heaving a sigh of relief- between this, and the successful launches that the Xbox One managed in Asian regions, this console war is far from over yet.

Remember all the fuss last year when EA Sports revealed that there wouldn’t be any female players in FIFA 14 with fans going so far as creating a petition for the same? Well great news: Female players won’t be in FIFA 15 either.

Lead producer Sebastian Enrique was asked by Play if it was something under consideration. “We have thought about it, yes, and we get asked about doing it.

“People ask us for a lot of things every year, including female teams and even including FIFA Street within a FIFA game as a five-a-side mode. And that’s good – I want people to tell us what they want in the game.

“It’s always a matter of balancing what we want to build with what we can build. We always need to make sure that what we can build and what we include ends up being the right package and so far women’s football hasn’t made the cut.”

Maybe next year? We wouldn’t hold our breath at this point to be honest. FIFA 15 is out on September 23rd in North America and September 25th in Europe.

Rebellion’s Sniper Elite 3 may not be the most critically acclaimed WWII shooter out there but it’s certainly popular in the UK. This is according to the latest UKIE game charts courtesy of Gfk Chart-Track which reported that Sniper Elite 3 was the highest selling game across all platforms in the UK for the second week.

This was followed by Watch Dogs, Ubisoft’s biggest foul-up since Assassin’s Creed III, and FIFA 14, which saw a 15 percent increase in sales to put it in third place. Titanfall is in at fourth place while Wolfenstein: The New Order is at fifth. Call of Duty: Ghosts has managed to hang on to the top ten at sixth place, followed by EA Sports UFC and 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil. Meanwhile, Minecraft: PS3 Edition and Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition occupy the ninth and tenth spots once more.

It remains to be seen just how long Sniper Elite 3 will last considering sales dropped by 36 percent and that there’s no big name game releasing for the next few months. What are your thoughts? Let us know below.

EA Sports has begun pre-orders for FIFA 15’s Ultimate Team Edition as a listing for Amazon indicated today. Given that Ultimate Team mode is one of the highest revenue earners for EA, it would only make sense that the developer would choose to expand on it further.

Case in point, according to the Amazon, “The Ultimate Edition includes up to $40 of bonus content. Build your dream team with 40 gold packs! Code available in product packaging.”

FIFA 15 will be out on September 23rd and will be heading to the PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC. It will have several new features including an emphasis on more up close and personal battles between players, Emotional Intelligence, dynamic match presentation and of course, the use of EA’s Ignite Engine for the next gen console and PC versions. Are you looking forward to the next iteration of FIFA? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Earlier this morning, EA caused a furor when its demos for several EA Sports titles, such as FIFA 14 and UFC, were listed on Xbox Live as paid software- $5, specifically. A lot of people cried foul, and most people immediately jumped to the conclusion that this was yet another attempt by EA in a long line of moves to continue to wring money from their customers. To their credit, EA does indeed have a shady history with trying to charge money where none should be charged.

However, EA immediately rectified the error, and clarified that the demos were never meant to be gated behind a paywall at all, that it had in fact been a technical error.

“The price associated with the FIFA 14 and EA Sports UFC demos was due to a technical error. Both demos have now been fixed in the Microsoft store.”

So there you have it, folks. One less reason to shit on EA, for now. Unless… unless they did actually make the demos paid on purpose to gauge the reaction, as a testbed for the future!

Yep, get right back to hating EA, guys.

FIFA 14’s World Cup update for the Ultimate Team Mode was delayed yesterday following the need for more polish. The update is however now available though according to EA Sports community manager Rob Hodson on Twitter.

“Xbox One: Update live, Kick-off available, online unavailable. | 360 Update live, no menu change until online is available.”

The World Cup update is only available for Xbox platforms though and Kick Off is currently available offline. The update will be heading to PS3 and PS4 as well so stay tuned for more information on the same.

As E3 2014 approaches, we’ll find out more about EA Sports’ sports offerings for this year. Will FIFA 15 be announced at E3? We’ll have to wait and see. Till then, let us know what you think of the World Cup for FIFA 14? How do you find the Kick Off mode for Xbox One though its currently offline? Let us know in the comments below.

The World Cup mode update for FIFA 14, which is free and due to go live today for all platforms, has been delayed by EA. It would add World Cup to the Ultimate Team Mode to all versions while the PS4 and Xbox One would also receive World Cup Kick Off.

On its official forums, EA stated that, “To ensure the best possible experience, we have decided to delay the launch. Knowing that our players have been so excited for these new modes made it a tough decision. However, as we progressed through final testing we encountered unforeseen issues that would affect all users who downloaded the update, so it’s important to address them first before release.”

“Our team is currently working hard to have the update ready to release in the coming days.” It seems the publisher will provide a new progress update later today so stay tuned for more information as it arrives.

According to the latest UKIE Media Charts courtesy of Gfk-Chart-Track, Machinegames’ Nazi-killing bonanza Wolfenstein: The New Order is the number one selling game across all formats in the UK. It nudged out last week’s number one entry FIFA 14 (which fell to third place), while number two entry Titanfall fell to the fourth place.

Meanwhile, Minecraft: PS3 Edition managed to rise up to third place. 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil is in at fifth place followed by Call of Duty: Ghosts at sixth. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition slipped several place to seventh place and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 continued its descent, coming in at eighth place. Battlefield 4 remains static at ninth while The LEGO Movie Videogame is in at 10th place.

It will be interesting to view these week’s top 10 in the UK especially since Watch Dogs debuts across all current and previous gen consoles (barring the Wii U). Have you picked up Watch Dogs yet? Let us know what you think in the comments below.