AWARDS SEASON: BEST GAME OF THE YEAR 2016

Overall winner

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
A great way to end a franchise, and my personal favourite of all the instalments.

Honourable mentions

Ratchet & Clank

The Last Guardian

Dark Souls III

Clustertruck

AWARDS SEASON: GAME OF THE YEAR 2016

2016 Game of Year

Please note that this list is not about what I claim to be necessarily the best game of the year but rather which games have had the most impact, good or bad.

#01: No Man's Sky

Incredibly controversial, people angry at “lies”, hate campaign against Hello Games, Complaints about too much communication then too little, possible redemption in updates

#02: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Single player transactions, ending-DLC fiasco

#03: HITMAN

Biggest game ever to try the episodic model, could be the first of many

#04: Overwatch

Taking a formula similar to TF2 and sprinkling in some MOBA elements, leading to plenty of clones

#05: Ratchet & Clank

Showing us that platformers aren’t dead and still have much to offer

#06: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

Pay to win micro-transactions and PC release fiasco

#07: Final Fantasy XV

I understand that this is supposed to be goofy or whatever, but even so, do you really think that's how Cup Noodles want to come across in this game? The fact it's even in there though, it is really is something.

#08: Stardew Valley

Indie title by a one man team that many people enjoyed, especially as a call back to older gaming and has to be the surprise success of the year

#09: Pokemon Sun & Moon + Go

The most successful Pokémon launch ever partly in thanks to the Go craze

#10: The Last Guardian
After so many years of development it finally releases, and certainly divides opinion.

THE LAST GUARDIAN (2016) REVIEW

Tedious and frustrating at times, yet carries a very beautifully told story.

PS4 exclusive.

The Last Guardian is a puzzle-adventure game published by Sony and developed by Gendesign for the Playstation 4.

GAMEPLAY
It sounds strange to say it but I'd most closely pair this game with point and click adventure games as Trico takes the front seat in so many of the set pieces, if anything it's like playing as Clank all throughout a Ratchet game, meaning you just watch the action and get to do a few puzzles. Basically it's like a point and click with more platforming like puzzles, or something like that. I'll give them that it's a pretty bold move to essentially go with the companion of the story, rather than the real main character.

There is a section that involves Trico diving into water, and it is genuinely among the worst segments I've ever played in a video game. All you need Trico to do is dive down and emerge on the other side of an underwater passage, but he simply dawdles around before moving back to land. Something that should take a minute or two can end up taking ten or twenty minutes, and this is a common theme throughout the game. The specific water bit I refer to actually required restarting the game, so that's a bug to hinder progress, at least they seem somewhat rarer, but that's pretty bad. Something else worth I feel is worth mentioning is that once you get past this underwater part the game does improve a bit, Trico seems a bit more responsive and the game does at least seem to step up a bit.

I understand they wanted to make Trico more realistic but there should always be a sacrifice between realism and gameplay, I mean, that's why we all play games in the first place right? Trico's AI just makes the game frustrating at times and I often found, whenever I started to think the game was really getting good, the AI would find another way to ruin it for me. There was a specific segment where Trico kept having to jump from tower to tower and it was quite fun, but got bogged down by the boy flying off a couple of times, and another where Trico kicked the boy off the tower by accident.

The way the boy moves around can also be annoying at times, such as the way he rag dolls when he falling off things, or sometimes moving the wrong way when climbing things. Perhaps the best way to describe the boy would be like some kind of slime that sticks really well to things, but when it loses grip it slips and slides all over the place and is a pain to deal with. Sometimes he can even slip through holes that lead to areas you've already done, meaning you have to restart from the last checkpoint (Which to be fair, usually isn't too far away). Undoubtedly some of the game gets drawn out too much when it doesn't need to be.

Some of the set pieces are nice to look at, but almost every time you won't have to do anything as Trico will be doing them all for you.

Plenty of people complain about the camera in this game and sure it was a bit disappointing as I really liked Shadow of the Colossus' camera at times, and this one is difficult at times, but generally I think the game has bigger problems than the camera getting stuck on things every now and then. I also feel it could have been improved if perhaps they added in a zoom button so you could look around a bit better, something like the one the PS1 Spyro games had.

The game is also keen to remind you on the basics, explaining how to climb and grab things every time, but when it comes to other important information, such as being able to pull soldiers helmets off, advice rarely shows up. There's also no option to enable or disable this stuff, so you've got no choice but to be drawn out of the game a bit sometimes.

Also, the game has so many different interesting creatures on the loading screens and we never see any of them aside from Trico. I'm not putting it down as a negative or anything, if anything it at least expands the lore of the game a bit, it's just such a tease.

STORY
The story is sweet and from the heart, the way the boy and Trico interact is nice, such as how Trico cares for the boy, wants petting and does his best to both protect and stay with the boy, as well as the boy growing from apprehensive to caring too. Even if the game is incredibly frustrating at times you still can't help but feel a connection between the two and however annoying the game gets you'll still want to see their story through to the end. The game even got me feeling emotional, and that doesn't happen too often! It's just a shame that the good story couldn't be balanced out with the often lacklustre gameplay, as I'd say this was the best character driven story in a game since The Last of Us.

GRAPHICS

Frame rate seems to drop below 30 FPS quite often and it doesn't even look as good as some other games I've played on PS4. Of course the game looks nice, and I wasn't expecting amazing frame rate considering how Shadow of the Colossus was, but it's still a bit off putting at times. It does make you wonder how terribly the game would have performed on PS3 though.

SOUND
The soundtrack is very nice and it was refreshing to hear such an orchestral driven sound in a video game. It had lot of work to do, as so much of the story relies on the characters interacting without words, meaning a poor soundtrack could have really brought the game down, but it does a wonderful job of conveying both those and many other parts of the game such as the sweeping scores of relief when you escape danger. It probably ranks alongside the very best in gaming just like Shadow of the Colossus' soundtrack did.

VALUE FOR MONEY

I'm not really sure it's worth general retail price for games these days (£50) as it does certainly seem to share a lot of aspects with older games, it would have been nice if they did what Insomniac did for Ratchet & Clank, which was in a similar situation as it was based on an older game, but sadly not. If you're a sucker for a good story, enjoy puzzle games, or other Team Ico games (Ico at least, maybe not Shadow of the Colossus as this is very different gameplay wise) it might be worth a shot at full price, but if you're not certain about getting the game, or aren't a huge fan of character driven games then it's probably worth holding out for and waiting for a cheaper price.

OVERALL
I don't think I've ever felt a game be so heartfelt as well as incomprehensibly frustrating. Every time I thought I was really beginning to enjoy it it slapped me in the face with it's sometimes poor AI, awkward camera and annoying controls. If you enjoy story games then this might be for you, but I just can't bring myself to say that the game itself is outstanding with so much outside of the story that could have been vastly improved.

The game had a lasting impact and will probably keep you thinking about it once it's over. I think it's fair to say that there is a fantastic game somewhere in here but I'm just going to repeat what I've said already. This game has been receiving such wildly different reviews all round though, perhaps I'll change my mind on it further if I play through again in the future, or if it even just improves with further patches.

On retrospective I feel a little more forgiving of some the earlier frustrations in the game because it's actually supposed to be somewhat awkward and not quite right to start with, Trico and the boy start off on an uneasy alliance that blossoms into their beautiful relationship later on. Without the frustrating lows of the start the development between the two wouldn't have quite had the same impact as when it reaches such heights at the end, because there wouldn't have been that much struggle to begin with. Of course that doesn't fix every one of the problems within the game but it really did improve my opinion of it.

The Last Guardian really showed me how sometimes rating systems just don't work. At times I really would have described the game as poor, but at other times it really is outstanding. Part of me really wanted to give it a low score, while another part demanded a high one. The touching story pushed me to give it the rating I have, it could have been higher if some of the problems listed were ironed out, or it could have been far lower if the story wasn't so brilliant. Quite frankly I'd ignore the scores anyone gives them game. If you like story games then you'll enjoy this immensely, but if you're looking for groundbreaking gameplay then it's probably not for you. Perhaps it's even worth just renting to start with, it probably won't take that long to complete if you have the time and then you can purchase it properly if you really love it.

One thing I can say for sure about The Last Guardian though is that it is a great showcase to demonstrate how video games are indeed a form of art - something Fumito Ueda has a very good track record of producing.

DARKSIDERS: WARMASTERED EDITION REVIEW

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PC version reviewed.

Darksiders: Warmastered Edition is an action adventure game publishedand developed by Nordic Games for the Playstation 4, Xbox One, Wii U and PC.

Reviewed here: https://theunorthodoxnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/darksiders-review.html

DIFFERENCES FROM ORIGINAL

OVERALL

DISHONORED 2

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 version.

Dishnorored 2 is a game published by Bethesda Softworks and developed by Arkane Studios for the Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC.

GAMEPLAY


STORY


GRAPHICS

SOUND


VALUE FOR MONEY

OVERALL

THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM SPECIAL EDITION

Reborn Dragonborn.

PC version reviewed.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition is an open world RPG published and developed by Bethesda Softworks for the Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC.

Original reviewed here: https://theunorthodoxnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-2011-review.html

DIFFERENCES FROM ORIGINAL

OVERALL

CLUSTERTRUCK (2016) REVIEW

A great initial experience, but trucking frustrating later on.

PC version reviewed.

Clustertruck is a first person shooter published by tinyBuild Games and developed by Landfall Games for the Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC.

GAMEPLAY
I'd go as far as saying the final level is the most frustrating I've ever come across in a game before. Not just because it has a huge difficulty spike and learning curve, but because it just feels so out of place, being completely different to the rest of the game.

GRAPHICS

SOUND
I really liked the soundtrack, the redeeming part of the final level would have to be the really good music over it.

VALUE FOR MONEY

OVERALL
While I would have said this game was great, a few levels in the later worlds, especially the final level, made this game more frustrating than it should have been.

HEROES & GENERALS (2016) REVIEW

A bad, budget Battlefield clone.

PC exclusive.

Heroes & Generals is a first person shooter published and developed by Reto-Moto for the PC.

GAMEPLAY
Pretty much pay to win, different guns, vehicles, tanks, planes, anything you either need to grind for hours for, or buy with money. This wouldn't be a huge problem if they allowed new players to use more than one gun, the starting one will be a semi-automatic rifle, useless at close range against machine guns and also useless at long range against the snipers which can one shot you from ages away by hitting anywhere on your body, yes, that's really a thing, and plenty of these weapons will probably have been brought, rather than earned.

If you're finding them annoying, then the only way to really beat them is by joining them and buying guns too, or by doing the online equivalent of bashing your head against a brick wall and eventually being able to earn another gun. The fact that you can't even chose between a few different guns at the start of the game, in case you don't like semi-automatic rifles, is really the problem. The game seems to be designed to push you towards buying more guns, rather than at least having the ability to change to something that might suit you more, or at least give you a bit more variety in your approach.

So it seems being infantry isn't working out for you, so why not switch into a tank, or a plane? Well to do that you have to continue to grind for hours and hours, or buy it with your real money. You could always drive a car, or join someone in one, although don't expect to be able to use your weapons inside vehicles, because that would simply be too dangerous.

If you want to switch sides between the Americans, Germans and Soviets, you'll have to pay to do that, and if you want to customise your different soldiers for each side, you'll have to pay for that, and for more load out slots. You even have to pay to change any of your soldiers names.

You can't change your load out while battles are in progress, meaning that if no one on your team has selected to play as a tank driver, good luck being able to stop your enemies tanks, or even if you simply want to change between a machine gun and a sniper because no one is taking the enemy snipers out, you'll have wait till the end, at which point you probably won't need to change.

The spawns are simply awful, allowing the other team to spawn camp and kill you without you really being able to do anything about it if you've been pushed back to your final point.

The spawn delay timer is a mindbogglingly stupid decision. You have these massive open maps that could fit hundreds of players in at once, but instead limit it to just below 20 most of the time, with players having to wait for other players on their team to die before they can rejoin the battle. I can't even begin to fathom how that's a good idea, unless the engine can't handle more people, which would be terrible when you consider the size of the maps.

Report system for griefing or hacking is pretty bad. There is no option to kick, only to give them a strike if they kill you. These people seldom seem to get banned though, so the likely hood of you finding more people like them certainly seems plausible. There are also numerous reports of players being banned because people simply complained about them en-mass, even though they had done no wrong, and them getting for people whining about them.

Three way battles are at least a nice idea. It would be nice if there were more factions though, the British, French or Italians should surely fit in somewhere, although for all we know the Americans may have conquered the whole of Western Europe, the Soviet Union the whole of the East, and Germany took Central Europe, the game never really explains why the Americans are fighting the Soviet Union.

GRAPHICS
The game isn't gritty enough for a WWII game, when I play games like Call of Duty: World at War, I see limbs flying everywhere, people crying desperately, ruined cities, graves and even unwelcoming, dark music. In Heroes & Generals I spawn in and see a small countryside village and a few tanks around, it doesn't look or feel like a place locked in fierce battle like any WWII game should.

SOUND
You won't hear either side upset by the horrors of war or anything, sometimes characters don't even seem to scream when they get killed. The guns and other things sound alright, far from the brilliant effects you'd usually hear in franchises like Battlefield though.

There isn't really much of a soundtrack, there's some music at the main menu and some more plays towards the end of rounds, it's nothing special anyway.

VALUE FOR MONEY
It seems a bit odd to be doing this for a free-to-play game, however considering you need to spend money to even try and play this game on the same level as others, I think that justifies it. Quite frankly, if you want to enjoy the game you will need to spend money, or at least grind for hours with inferior load outs to other people, and if you don't enjoy the game you won't have to spend any money on it. If you have as much fun as I did playing it, hopefully you won't have to worry about spending anything.

OVERALL
I really can't justifying playing this game over other franchises in the genre such as Battlefield, or even Call of Duty, even the fact it's free isn't appealing once you realise why it is. The fact that this game came out of early access without any update or any kind of fan fair, but just decided to slip out one day suggests that not even the developers thought it was worth promoting. The only redeeming factor to this game is the fun you can have messing around with friends in it, otherwise you should avoid this game.

ZOMBITATOS THE END OF THE PC MASTER RACE (2016) REVIEW

Should have stayed red lit.

PC exclusive.

Zombitatos the end of the Pc master race is a point and click game published and developed by Bmc Games for the PC.

Before really getting into it I think it's worth clarifying that this game isn't even a funny kind of bad. This thing is just so awful you'll want to turn it off soon after you start, regardless of if you thought it looked funny, and you should really save your money and support some real games on Steam, rather than promoting things like this.

GAMEPLAY
The game does actually have a few multiple choice parts, although if you actually make a wrong choice and get a game over screen you have to watch the unskippable intros to the chapter you're on, which was certainly annoying.

Quite frankly this isn't really a game and wouldn't really even qualify as one of those point and click DVD games that some family movies had in the early 00's. It seems that the people behind this game had too much free time between lessons and decided that they wanted to put a game on Steam, with this being the result.

STORY
Terrible jokes, no zombies and seemingly no acting. Despite obviously being a joke, this game really isn't funny, the only part that comes remotely close to being so is that they had the audacity to charge people money for this.

GRAPHICS

The game can't even go full screen and everything looks like it took a few minutes to produce.

The grammar in the game is also pretty bad, along with just about everything else.

SOUND
At least you could skip past the song at the start.

The cutscenes were mostly recorded in a school/college courtyard so the sound of vehicles, children and other things make up the background.

VALUE FOR MONEY
If this game was free it would seem like it was just a bad student tech demo or something but it's not worth any money, let alone your time. This game will take about 15 minutes to complete.

OVERALL
Zombitatos raises the question of just how successful Steam Greenlight is, and as to whether there should really be a greater bar of entry for games to be put up. You could better spend your money by throwing it into a fountain and making a wish, rather than "playing" this game. There are thousands of games on Steam to buy, some around the price of this one, some that are actually funny, and some that would be worth saving your money towards. Do that instead, and ignore this thing.

NO MAN'S SKY (2016) REVIEW

A space exploration game that has ended up being very divisive. Sound familiar?

PC version reviewed.

No Man's Sky is an action-adventure game published and developed by Hello Games for the Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC. The games' main premise is to explore the universe, with the eventual goal of reaching the centre.

I liked Spore. Yeah, I said it. No Man's Sky isn't bad either and seems to have suffered from its own hype. It would certainly be interesting to see how people would be treating it if the huge hype and expectations hadn't have been around. Sadly I think some people have misinterpreted what this game was supposed to be, although some vague statements from those behind it haven't helped. If you ignore the hype and the expectations, then this game should be more enjoyable, but it's certainly not perfect.

GAMEPLAY
Exploring can be a blast at times in this game, rushing up to an Earth like planet and then finding it's actually a toxic death trap can certainly lead to some interesting adventures. You can find cave systems with rich resources that sprawl from the land to the ocean on other planets, while some have sprawling forests with animals intent on attacking. All of these things can be going on while you're in the shadow of the other planets in the solar system, lurking far beyond the nearby mountains.

Some locations can just end up being dead end places you'll want to leave immediately, due to the whole thing just being large rocks and dust, or you can spend hours admiring the views some planets have to offer. Perhaps one complaint I'd have is how once you've been on a planet for a few minutes, in most cases you'll have seen it all, some planets do have enough variety and fascination about them to keep you there longer though.

The game is undoubtedly repetitive, with resources required to be collected to create new things for both you and your spaceship. While it can be quite fun scouring some planets for certain resources some people will certainly find it a bit dull, exploring is certainly where this game shines, and at least many resources push you to explore more interesting parts of worlds, rather than just the same old interiors in buildings.

Speaking of buildings, almost every building or space station in the game requires an Atlas V2 or V3 pass, which only seem to be available from rarer star systems, or simply by chance. When you consider how many buildings have doors locked by these seemingly rare items, why make them so hard to find? It only tainted the experience of exploration for me a bit.

I've heard complaints that the game is perhaps a little too forgiving, and I feel I largely agree. There isn't much of a penalty for dying, as long as you save often enough and the chance of dying seems somewhat more challenging than it should be, as crashing your ship either leads to a small amount of damage or just bouncing off whatever you hit. Most sentinels also take a large amount of time to take you down. I don't usually mind games being too easy, but even if you have basic equipment and stand still it takes them too long to bring you down.

Enemies can damage you when you're talking to NPC's or at monoliths too, which is a small but annoying thing. A bigger annoyance is when the achievement screen invades you screen for a good few seconds, disabling your ability to interact with anything, usually to read a single word.

Sadly you're always left alone to combat things, as nobody will help you battle pirates in space, or journey with you around the universe. The combat is nothing special either and the game becomes a simple shooter when fighting things like sentinels on planets. While better combat would be nice, I don't think this is a huge flaw as the focus is on exploration.

The game has a real lack of space things for a game set in that big place. Gas giants, worm holes and binary stars are all things missing from the game. I understand that some parts weren't implemented into the game because they could have ruined the gameplay, however that excuse doesn't sit right with me as, for an example, you can't travel to any solar systems' sun in the game, if you go too close the game simply keeps them at a fixed distance, while that's annoying, couldn't the same feature at least be implemented for gas giants?

Black holes are used as worm holes for some reason, why they couldn't have them act as different things I'm not sure, but they could have had so many exciting mechanics and ideas for them. Imagine jumping into a new solar system only to find everything being consumed by a black hole and finding yourself needing to escape quickly, perhaps even finding a worm hole to escape into. Instead solar systems feel rather samey, no planet even has more than one moon.

Any of the places you can encounter aliens strangely only ever has one such life form there. Vast space stations that can be decorated as stock exchanges or cafes only ever have someone at the desk, as no one ever gets out their ship. Even just sitting another alien down at a chair or something would have been a nice touch, instead of leaving everywhere feeling almost abandoned. I understand the universe is a big place, but surely everywhere wouldn't really be so empty.

There are three advanced alien races in the game (four if you count humans) and none of them have a permanent home in the universe, as apparently everyone just zooms around in ships now, as it must be deemed classes to be spotted with someone else. There are no cities, towns, villages, or any form of real settlements of planets, only their small research labs. Outside of these labs, trading posts and space stations you won't find any other aliens out of their ships exploring. It seems, at least at launch, that you can't encounter other players either, hopefully that mechanic will be implemented in the future, because it sure does feel a bit lonely at times.

The lack of a real map for planets, solar systems, or galaxy's is annoying, as navigating the universe is really hard because of it. Going back to places you've already been seems like a task that's far too difficult, instead you'll just end up lost in other star systems with the path to the centre, or atlas way points, as your only real guide or sense of direction.

STORY
The game is very immersive and at times easy to get lost in, at least on some planets and hovering in space, such as watching ships or frigates fly by or warp in. It can be ruined a bit by the lack of other intelligent life forms around though, which I mentioned earlier. The lack of any real story or even direction is probably off putting for some though. For people who found games like Skyrim to be too open ended this game would be a nightmare. Obviously a big story wasn't the main focus here though.

GRAPHICS
The game looks beautiful at so many different times with planets aligning in orbit, moons being gazed upon by worlds dominating the sky and islands sprawling beyond the horizon as you gaze down from space. The bright colours of many worlds only enhance some of the incredible, often alien feeling views you can get. Everything feels huge too, which is great for a game set in space.

While I personally didn't suffer from many issues on the PC version, there isn't much of an excuse for how poorly the game runs on some PC's, with some people not even being able to launch it. The main issue for me was textures popping in too late, leading to some planets looking rather messy, textures only loading in seconds before I flew over them in my ship, which even hindered exploration at times, as potential locations of interest didn't always load in before I'd already missed them.

SOUND
65daysofstatics' soundtrack for No Man's Sky was released a few days before the actual game and listening to it certainly furthered my excitement for the incoming release, however as the music for No Man's Sky is, like its planets, procedurally generated, you often don't actually hear the full songs from the soundtrack. I remember hearing around one or two songs from the soundtrack in full, as I first took off from the starter planet and another when fighting some space pirates, apart from those I've only heard a few snippets.

The fact that the soundtrack seems to have been chopped up is a shame because I was really looking forward to swooping down and zooming across planets with the fast paced, action packed sound I'd heard off the soundtrack release, but instead you hardly get to hear the songs in full. If some of the songs had been around longer, rather than cutting back to soundscapes, I really think it would help improve the game.

VALUE FOR MONEY
The game is probably a bit on the expensive side at launch, but if you enjoy the game and its simple premise it'll most likely give you numerous hours of content before you get bored, as it is essentially endless.

Due to its open ended nature it certainly feels like a game you can pick up at any time, whether you want to go and explore for a few minutes or go on a journey across the universe lasting hours. If Hello Games keep their word and add plenty of content in the future, especially for free like they've teased, then this game could potentially become a certain investment.

OVERALL
To put it one way, calling No Man's Sky boring would be like calling a trek up a mountain boring, if you like exploring, you'll like this game. If you're looking for more than just visiting interesting planets, such as a cutting edge space simulator then that is not what this game is. Even with its sometimes beautiful and intriguing worlds, the game feels like it could use a bit more depth to it.

I came in expecting a game where I could go around and explore space. If you're expecting something similar I'd recommend the game. If you're someone who's expecting the potential to do anything in the universe then I'd advise to either wait for the game to go on sale, or at least hold off and see what may yet be added to the game, as in its current form it's bound to disappoint some.

Thanks for reading about my opinion on one of 2016's biggest releases.

HUMAN: FALL FLAT

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PC version reviewed.

Human: Fall Flat is a comedy puzzle game published by Curve Digital and developed by No Brakes Games and for the Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC.

GAMEPLAY


STORY


GRAPHICS

SOUND


VALUE FOR MONEY

OVERALL

UNCHARTED 4: A THIEF'S END (2016) REVIEW

How to tell a final chapter.

 PS4 exclusive.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is an action adventure game published by Sony and developed by Naughty Dog for the Playstation 4.

This review has some spoilers!

GAMEPLAY
This one feels like the real next step for the franchise, expanding gameplay considerably from the previous couple. The grappling hook changes the whole game, from platforming to even fighting, while other new additions such as the piton and being able to approach many combat encounters with a stealthy approach or go in all guns blazing.

At some points the game feels a bit like Naughty Dog tried throwing everything they could in, which is great, but some of the new features feel a little empty and more like they were just ticked off a checklist, rather than bringing anything meaningful to the game, for example the multiple choice dialogue options, which only show up at about three points throughout the whole game and don't impact the way it continues at all.

Considering how many new ideas got thrown in it's perhaps a little surprising, to me at least, that there wasn't any co-op, especially when throughout almost the whole game there is at least one other person with you. I know there's co-op survival and things but I mean there really was space for it in story mode.

Friendly AI is useful, usually good in combat and I liked how they helped you out in other segments sometimes. Rarely they did get in the way though during a couple of sections, which can set you back but I only encountering issues like this once or twice.

Enemy AI can be a little off, at one point the game allowed me to run straight up to an enemy without using any stealth and use a stealth move. I've also seen in some parts with the AI just running into the player and going down too easily.

The path building element from The Last of Us in unsurprisingly featured a fair few times in this game. While it generally worked in that game I wasn't always convinced by it here, a couple of times where it seemed Drake could have used is grappling hook or a nearby table to get up to somewhere rather than dragging a box off a cliff frustrated me a bit.

Treasure are a bit boring, I don't why they didn't add a description or anything to them to at least make them worth looking at more, however the things you can unlock from collecting them is pretty awesome. Collecting enough treasures can unlock things like your standard bonus things like concept art and skins, but there are also more unique and awesome things like cell shaded graphics and bullet time.

STORY
I really liked the way Nate and Elena's relationship was presented, it didn't feel forced, or cheesy, it just felt organic and real because of the way they interacted with each other. It was so refreshing to see something like that in a game, rather than the often ham-fisted efforts developers usually end up with between characters.

Obviously one of the big conflicts in the story is Nate and Elena trying to give up their adventures, something Elena, at least at the start, is more open to doing than Nate. Nate goes off adventuring again because Sam lures him back and Elena eventually finds out and isn't too pleased. Eventually however she begins to change her mind in what I think is one of the best moments in the game.

When Nate and Elena find most of the pirate lords and begin to figure out what happened to them, the scene shows Nate piecing everything together and he's clearly enjoying it. However the game shifts the focus off him in the cutscene and pans to Elena watching him and you slowly begin to see her realisation that not only does Nate still love doing what he does, she still enjoys these adventures too and recognises that they can't give up something that they both still actually enjoy doing. It's an incredible moment of character development.

The whole story was structured around learning to let things go and was brilliantly presented and portrayed. Like the Last of Us, the game has incredible character depth that goes pretty much unrivalled in video games and could be compared to acclaimed movies. In terms of storytelling I have no doubt that Naughty Dog have set the bar once again.

GRAPHICS

Probably the best looking game on the market at release, environments look beautiful and characters look great with their amazing facial animations.

SOUND
I thought the soundtrack was the most memorable in the series. There was a moment in the game where you're just driving along, no set pieces, no hand holding like a lot of the game does, you're completely in control of what's happening, driving towards the next objective, and a very melancholic piece starts playing, it's not too long after Elena finds Nate and they're heading to New Devon. It fills in a moment where words are hard to find for either character, yet aren't necessary at all, it's one of those moments where you just sit back and let things happen. It's amazingly done.

VALUE FOR MONEY

Around 15 hours long, not including collectibles and things. There's also survival mode and multiplayer. Not to mention the story is one that will stay with you and you can look back and analyse it because it has that much depth and is so well told.

OVERALL
Before this game I liked the Uncharted games, I thought they were great games that plenty of people could enjoy. However I didn't really get the hype around them claiming they were some of the best games ever made. This game was the one that really made me a fan of the franchise though, the story has some groundbreaking moments just like the Last of Us and absolutely sets the bar for story telling in video games.

This game ends the story of Nathan Drake on a high note with what is the best game in the series and one of the best games you can buy. If you've got a PS4 then you have to play this game.

DON'T STARVE TOGETHER

Fun with friends.

PC exclusive.

GAMEPLAY


STORY


GRAPHICS

SOUND


VALUE FOR MONEY

OVERALL

RATCHET & CLANK (REIMAGINED, 2016) REVIEW

Best game based on a movie ever.

PS4 exclusive.

Ratchet & Clank is a platformer published by Sony and developed by Insomniac Games for the Playstation 4.

This review has spoilers!

DIFFERENCES FROM ORIGINAL
Whilst I am counting this as a remaster it has some new stuff, removes some of the old stuff and is so different from the original that I'm going to use the normal review format instead, although still won't give a rating at the end.

GAMEPLAY
Takes plenty of the good bits from the whole series and integrates those ideas into the first one's setting. You've got the levels from the original, certain story threads from the original trilogy coming in earlier, weapons from Tools of Destruction and A Crack in Time, the jetpack from Into the Nexus, and more from other parts of the series. Basically most of the good stuff from the PS3/PS4 eras.

I know that there wasn't any arena in the original game, but it would have been nice if there was one here, as even with Into the Nexus it added a nice little side thing to do. Perhaps it made more sense for this game, but I think it'd be nice for the series to return to that open world style that A Crack in Time was at some point. And what about the hover boots too? Insomniac sure have plenty of stuff to still add back in, regardless of how they continue the series.

Weapons are very satisfying, as per usual, and the new pixelator is awesome.

Clank sections take a lot from Going Commando which I think was one of the better games for Clank, however they still aren't as good as the sections in A Crack in Time.

The ship sections were fine too, and the hover boarding was massively improved from the original, I'm still not quite sure how they messed it up back then, but it's much more fun now. It kind of sets the tone for the whole game really, 14 years hindsight and Insomniac managed to fix almost every problem from the original.

Sometimes the game would think you're trying to grapple, when in fact you're trying to fight some enemies, so you end up flying up and down and having to move to a different place to stop it from happening so you can finish the fight.

STORY
A redone version of the original story, perhaps I preferred the original version of Qwark's story, attempting to recapture former glory as a washed up hero was pretty good, rather than simply being jealous of Ratchet and Clank like in this one. Regardless, the game has some funny moments and manages to recapture the magic of the best games in the series.

GRAPHICS

Looks fantastic. If it makes sense, the characters look like themselves again too, as I thought many of them looked a little off in Q-Force and Into the Nexus.

SOUND
Great soundtrack

I'm glad they got all the same voice actors back again, and to hear Ratchet's main voice actor being able to lend his voice to the game, rather than the one they had for the original. Chairman Drek didn't have the same voice actor as the original though, and I personally preferred his old one.

VALUE FOR MONEY

Insomniac made sure to price this game a bit cheaper than standard retail price due to the length of a single straight forward playthrough being around ten hours, you could double that with collectables and challenge mode too, so fair play to them. I think it's certainly worth the price.

OVERALL
If you've read my review for the original 2002 game, you'd know that I wasn't a huge fan of it, although I did go on to enjoy the games after it. There's little point to the original now other than that it makes the 2nd and 3rd more cohesive. What this 2016 title has done is show that both this franchise and its genre have plenty of life in them and still have much to offer.

I'm really interested to see where this platform goes, whether it continues where Into the Nexus left off, if Insomniac continue re-imagining their old games, or if they even ever make another Ratchet & Clank game (Please do!).

RATCHET & CLANK: THE MOVIE REVIEW
I thought the Ratchet and Clank movie was at best mediocre. When you think of the franchise you think of crazy guns, gadgets and levels right? No one thinks of the series and thinks "wow that story sure was incredible. I wish they'd make a movie about that". Sure, A Crack in Time has a fairly nice story but even that one isn't worth making a movie over, let alone the first game. I know they re-imagined it a bit, but there was nothing radically different that made the story stand out more.

Something I found odd about the movie was how Ratchet never really used any guns, outside of the training montage where he's shown to be inadequate with them. It'd be like making a Sonic the Hedgehog movie and not letting him run fast. In essence the movie seems to miss the point of what made some of the characters great from the original games.

Quark is actually competent and actually grows jealous of Ratchet, who is instead incompetent and keeps getting the credit for what Clank achieves. Having Quark as some washed up has been was much more fun than him, quite frankly, rightfully getting angry when someone flukes their way through everything. As a fan of the franchise it hurt to hear Ratchet literally say "He's too good" when fighting Quark near the climax.

Dr. Nefarious was not necessary in the movie and having him destroy Drek robbed Ratchet and Clank of the important moment in the original where they cemented their friendship at the ending. Not that it mattered much in the end as they both get on straight away in the movie and don't really have the same conflict and development. Judging by the after credits scene the only reason for Dr. Nefarious being in the movie was so they could set up future ones too.

The animation was quite nice and actually looked pretty good considering the budget but the bland characters and weak story weren't strong enough to stand up on their own or against the original story from the games, even ignoring the gameplay that really made them. It's a real detriment to the movie when the game it was based on from 2002 seems to be able to tell a better story.

I will give them a little bit of credit for getting some of the humour right, the movie did make me smile a couple of times, but it's never as good as in the actual games. They also put quite a few Easter eggs about the games in too, so at least for fans of the franchise some may at least find it worth sitting through to find them.

The soundtrack and voice acting was fine, probably because the games had already sorted out any problems there, having James Arnold Taylor as Ratchet now for the original story is great, since Ratchet's voice actor in the 2002 game felt out of place. I do wish they hadn't have replaced Kevin Michael Richardson as Drek though.

I've heard people say don't bother with the movie and just play the game instead, and while the movie does point out a few things that the game misses, such as Dr. Nefarious motives, these missing things probably would have been explained if they weren't trying to get you to watch the movie too. Doesn't the fact that people think the movie isn't worth watching, despite telling the same story as the game, show you the key problem with video game movies though? If given the choice between more games in a franchise or more movies, people will tell you games, I know I would with any series I enjoy.

This just exemplified the main problems I have with video game movies, and that's that if you want to make a good one then you need to set in within the established universe of the game, then make your own story within it. So you can use the characters and different settings, but where the real meat of a movie should comes from, the story, will be able to stand out more - rather than being a poor retelling or just reusing names for something totally different.

The terrible box office performance of this movie probably means there won't be a sequel, and that Sly Cooper won't be getting the same treatment after all. I'm happy that this movie brought us another Ratchet & Clank game though, and I hope they keep the franchise going, especially since the game has seemingly sold well. I wouldn't rush out to see this movie at the first chance you can possibly get, but it's probably worth a watch if you've got nothing better to do, if you're a fan - even if it messes up the source material. If you're not a fan, I wouldn't bother. It doesn't bring much new to the table and you'll forget about it soon afterwards.

DARK SOULS III

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PC version .

Dark Souls III is a RPG published by Bandai Namco and developed by FromSoftware for the Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC.

GAMEPLAY
Best bosses of the trilogy

Takes elements from the first game and Bloodborne, far more than Dark Souls II.

Still a lack of interconnected world like the original and Bloodborne.

STORY


GRAPHICS

SOUND
Best soundtrack of the trilogy

VALUE FOR MONEY

OVERALL

ASHES OF ARIANDEL EXPANSION


THE RINGED CITY EXPANSION
Possibly the best DLC in the Dark Souls series. The final two bosses are excellent.