An invincible army of cybercommandos, neon-pink pulsing colour schemes and the throbbing sounds of a Morodor-style baseline – Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is every bit the dumb Eighties action game on the surface, but underneath it might actually be one of the most interesting approaches to mainstream gaming in a while.
It has to have been the trailer, there's really no other explanation. Before the original Dead Island came out, there was a trailer. And not just a trailer, but the trailer – probably the most finely-crafted, greatest piece of teaser content ever created for film, TV or games. It's the only possible reason why Dead Island sold as well as it did... and unfortunately, there isn't a similarly brilliant trailer for its sequel, Riptide.
After a long break from thievery – both in the real world and in the anthropomorphic universe he calls home – dapper gentleraccoon thief Sly Cooper is back doing what he does best: pinching things. It's been eight years since Sly and the gang pinched things in the globe-hopping PlayStation 2 caper Sly 3, and now he's returned to a more powerful console and with a different developer – can the ageing mascot still hack it in the modern day?
The bassline starts, "1979" flashes up on screen and, over a scratchy recording, the voice intones "Walking down the street, I get punched; you're walking down the street, you get punched".
PunksNotDead's not going to hold your attention for more than a few minutes, but in those few minutes, this hyperkinetic, luridly day-glo explosion of punk attitude and violence encapsulates everything that's great about the indie games scene – it's the ideas, stupid (and they're free).
It’s easy to understand, while you’re being chastised by a pair of psychedelically coloured elephant-like beings over your inability to collect enough coins, why this new game from indie developer Jake Clover has been described as the most WTF game ever.
We're at a moment of change in games – new consoles, new ideas, new ways of playing. And what better game to usher out one era and in a new one than BioShock Infinite?
This first-person shooter is still wedded to the core mechanics of traditional big-budget console gaming, but layered on top of a core of classic run-and-gun is a series of innovations in terms of character, script, gameplay and scope of theme that point to exciting potential future directions for the next generation of games.
As the sun sets on the age of the Xbox 360, its swansong is an entertaining game that shows promising potential, but doesn’t really knock your socks off. A prequel to the previous Gears of War games, Judgement opens in the days immediately following the "Emergence Day" on the planet Sera, when the original inhabitants of the planet decided to crawl out of the woodwork and wreak havoc on mankind.
You have just walked into a large white room. The only thing in the room is a sign on the ceiling. You look up. The sign says, "Don’t look down." You immediately look down. Before you have time to run, the floor has melted away beneath your feet and you are tumbling into an abyss as punishment for obeying your reflexes.
Like a faded star, wearing the moth eaten dresses of her past, still stalking a shuttered Hollywood set, Lara Croft has seen better days. Ah, the old days – she made or broke consoles, appeared on fashion magazine covers, had Angelina Jolie play her in the movies.
Crysis 3 arrives as the current generation of console hardware is being shuffled over to make way for the next – normally a very fertile time for games. Usually, the best games come out late in a home console's lifespan – when developers have learnt how to make the most of the hardware and tools they have, when creators can concentrate on just making good games and good art.