"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance," wrote Aristotle. And you know what, the old Greek geezer knew a thing or two. While this downbeat stealth/platform game delivers a pure aesthetic thrill, it sadly fails to follow through in a cohesive theme or thrilling play.
If you think games are for kids, or not art, or beneath you – read on. Grand Theft Auto V, while flawed in many ways, proves you wrong. The latest in the controversial and 18-rated series has already broken first-day sales records for just about every artistic medium ever. Huge numbers of adults across the UK will be sitting down to play it tonight. Take that, Hollywood. Or, Vinewood, as the game would have it.
The greatest strategy videogames deliver a balance of time to think and pressure to act. The greatest strategy videogames deliver the thrill of battle mixed with clear strategic choice. Several entries in the Total War series count as great strategy games. But not this one. The eighth in the series fails on two distinct fronts, both in terms of execution – vital to keep its hardcore of fans engaged – and in terms of engaging content for new players.
A planet ravaged by snowstorms, home to a load of angry reptilian aliens, with human colonies surviving on a mix of giant "mech" walking vehicles and hoarding thermal energy – Lost Planet's setting has always been fairly interesting. It's a shame then that this prequel so badly bodges everything.
The Saints Row series has always been something of a magpie, stealing liberally from other games. It started out as a cheap second-tier Grand Theft Auto clone. But here, it transforms into a very silly, but great fun knockabout superhero game - the most gleefully rampaging fun gameplay you'll see this week.
In Deus Ex: The Fall you play Ben Saxon, a cybernetically-enhanced mercenary out for vengeance against a global conspiracy responsible for the deaths of his comrades. Saxon's plotline is a continuation of Icarus Effect, a tie-in novel to the PC/console game Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The two games share background more than plot, but that background is well drawn and makes for an immersive world full of assassins, hired guns and cyberpunk conspiracy.
This curious strategy series popped out of the head of legendary games-maker Shigeru "Mario, Donkey Kong" Miyamoto when he started gardening. But beneath the verdant landscapes and gigantic primary-coloured fruits there is a darker, richer soil.
Just go and buy it and download it right now, OK? Gunpoint is fantastic for so many reasons. But primarily it's fantastic because it plays fantastically. It's easy to lose sight of that fact when you learn the back story behind the game, when it's put in context. But let's not lose sight of this – Gunpoint is great fun to play.
Among gamers, suggesting that Nintendo is not a publisher of brilliant games is tantamount to heresy. Yet here it is: Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros. would, if it were not published by Nintendo, receive a far worse critical reaction than it's likely to get.
At first glance, Rogue Legacy looks like a straight retro platformer in the vein of Castlevania or The Lost Vikings. You must negotiate a castle and other environs made up of floating platforms, floor spikes and fireball-spewing traps while collecting loot hidden in chests or inside the smashable furniture while being harried by varied enemies who mostly follow set paths.