Today sees the first of the truly "next generation" consoles launch – the Microsoft Xbox One. It promises to revolutionise gaming. But in fact, it could well be the last gasp of a dying form of interactive idiocy.
The Ratchet & Clank series has, largely, been a brilliant reminder of how much fun videogames can be. It neither had lofty ambitions of narrative and thematic depth, nor the headache-inducing sturm und drang of the current crop of action games. Sadly, this last entry in the series goes out with both too much bang and too much backstory.
The original Chainsaw Warrior was a single-player boardgame, published in 1987 by tabletop gaming powerhouse Games Workshop - home to the better-known Warhammer 40,000 wargame and endless shelves of lead miniatures and associated acrylic paints. An odd mix of solitaire card game and dice-based RPG, the game cast you as an archetypical Eighties Bad Dude tasked with fighting waves of zombies and mutants to defeat an evil entity known as Darkness at the heart of a ruined New York.
It's the disease most feared among all mainstream videogame franchises – featuritis. That is, the endless quest for some new marketing tick box addition dreamed up to ensure the fans keep coming back. That, sadly, appears to be the rapidly looming fate of the Assassin's Creed series.
Games provide the illusion of choice, they pretend you interact with them. Really, most videogames simply wait for you to press the right button before advancing one step to the next point where you have to press the next right button. Both The Stanley Parable and Device 6 explore the idea of choice brilliantly.
There is something very familiar about Star Command. It's not just that this Kickstarter-funded game has been in development since 2011, nor that the setting superficially resembles Star Trek. It's more that there are several other games that do what Star Command sets out to do and, unfortunately, do it better.
Stunningly good entertainment, interesting art, rubbish game. Beyond: Two Souls does more than any other videogame around to further the cause of interactive narrative fiction – sadly, by jettisoning most of the "interactive" bit.
"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.
Blackbar is a game about censorship. I say "game", but in a sense it is more an unfolding narrative that you unlock by solving puzzles. In this it has much in common with puzzle games like The Room or even the Professor Layton series. Blackbar just makes its linear nature more obvious than most.
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.