Helldivers is the finest cooperative game since Left 4 Dead, a frenzied team-based shooter where, if your enemies don’t get you, you’ll be got accidentally by your friends instead. It’s Starship Troopers meets Keystone Cops, a blend of frenetic action, tongue-in-cheek satire and slapstick comedy. It’s also fearsomely challenging and richly rewarding, taking no prisoners … Read more
The decline, evolution and future of the RTS To speak of the ‘death’ of a genre is always a bit ridiculous, but real-time strategy as traditionally conceived has certainly seen better days. If the genre were a round of deathmatch we’d be well into the final third, with all resources tapped, the majority of key … Read more
We’ll go to very distant lands NI NO KUNI is back! Are you excited? Once again, it looks as though we’ll be playing as a little boy going through some tough times, though instead of fish-out-of-water Oliver dealing with grief and thrown into a fantasy land, we’ll be focusing on Evan. Actually, King Evan Pettiwhisker … Read more
How very Outlandish… Of all the developers we expected to announce a game with a pre-rendered cinematic trailer, Housemarque was the among the last. For a studio that’s repeatedly made ripples in the industry for its visually impressive arcade shooters, and consistently innovative 2D-plane mechanics, a CGI trailer feels… at odds with the developer’s typical … Read more
The space-based dogfighter setting out to define modern VR gaming The countdown begins as our ship adjusts itself on glittering red lanes before locking into place. Three… Two… One. Suddenly we’re propelled forward at such force we almost fall out of our chair, the speed and the roar rapidly increasing until there’s nothing but silence. … Read more
Everything we currently know about Mass Effect: Andromeda, the franchise’s debut game for Xbox One In classical mythology, Andromeda was a pretty lady who had to be fed to a giant sea monster after her dad annoyed the gods. She was spared this fate when the hero Perseus came by on a winged horse. Typical … Read more
Mixing the historical and hysterical in the land before time Is relocating Far Cry to 10,000 BC really so radical? The modern-day games may arm you to the teeth with modern-day killing machines, but they do tap into man’s more primitive ways. Outposts are seized one slit throat at a time; long grass is crept … Read more
The Creative Assembly talks about Orcs, the campaign map and the art of making a faction In the grim darkness of far Horsham, there is only Warhammer. This time I’m at The Creative Assembly’s top secret headquarters (it’s the giant building opposite the church steeple), to see Total Warhammer’s campaign mode and to talk to … Read more
The anti-authoritarian adventure that opened a window to a new world of first person play Mirror’s Edge arrived in 2008 as a searing white riposte to a jus t-ended generation of over-brown WWII shooters and firstperson trudging. It was different, and new – different partially because it was new, forming a partnership of opposites with … Read more
Getting into the thicket of it Beneath goofy scenes of a wand-wielding rose turning opponents into goats, zombies charging around on roaring jackhammers, and an angry stick of corn spitting projectiles while wearing a soggy bowl of cereal around his neck, Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is serious business. With this sequel, PopCap’s energetic … Read more
How a team of Swedish programmers redefined ‘niche’ Paradox’s position as standard bearer on the field of grand strategy is fitting, given it claims to have invented the genre. It’s near impossible to discuss games of invasion and diplomacy on a global scale without some reference to its dogged, 20-year effort to simulate and pervert … Read more
Kazuma Kiryu finds life more than acceptable in the ’80s Ten minutes in, we finally get to press a button, and it’s to skip a line of dialogue. Soon afterward, we’re strolling through the streets of ’80s Kamurocho, with red no-entry signs forbidding us from exploring any side alleys. As we push through a group … Read more