Call of Duty may aspire to realism, but it's a better game when it acknowledges its silly side.
Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy brings a great series to a close in fine style. It doesn't take many risks with the established formula, but its story is engaging, intelligently written and compelling to the end.
It's a real pity. Wii U's eShop has been starved of decent fare of late, and Nintendo should be leading the way. Yet it's easy to see Dr Luigi as a symptom of the current malaise affecting its home console business. It features a strange gimmick no one's really that interested in, it highlights an increasing reliance on past glories, and most will find it somewhat overpriced. The outgoing Fiscal Year of Luigi draws to a close with a whimper, then - here's hoping the coming months see Nintendo offer a more convincing tablet-based cure for what ails it.
There are deeper strategy games, but few where you'll feel quite so invested in the outcome. Recommended.
Dino crisis.
World Tour is more than a match for Everybody's Golf in the quality of its courses and the breadth of its options.
Suck it up.
The episode ends on a cliffhanger that's agonising in more than one sense, and a 'next time' preview that leaves you decidedly unclear on where Clem and the gang might go next. What could easily have been a mid-season lull feels instead like a peak. If Telltale can maintain this standard for the rest of the season, it could yet top The Walking Dead's first run in terms of quality - if not novelty.
But a small handful of highlights is not enough to save Entwined. It's a game that strains for profundity and meaning - that's particularly evident in its Trophy titles - but finds them ever beyond its grasp. Some will be soothed by its contemplative mood, others will relish the challenge of mastering those devious patterns, but to me the two felt like an awkward mismatch. Sony might have given Entwined a gentle shove into the spotlight, but there are surely better, more deserving PS4 indies waiting in the wings for their time to shine.
FIFA 15 is still one of the best sports simulations around, with superb animation and big-match atmosphere.
Some will no doubt relish these barbs as further encouragement to beat the system; others will see its steep challenge as a mountain that must be conquered, whatever the cost to their sanity. But for my money Stealth Inc. 2 falls short of the games I'd consider its peers, never quite capturing the simple ingenuity of Toki Tori 2, the nervy thrills of Mark of the Ninja, nor the physical comedic energy of 'Splosion Man. It's just too demanding and too laborious too often. It may no longer be Bastard by name, but by nature it's a bit of a git.
PES returns to the Premier League in its best iteration in years.
Without these problems, I'd have no hesitation in saying this is the best LittleBigPlanet game to date. The deeper integration of creative elements into the story is a big plus, as is the superior level design, and the new characters are very welcome, even if they're ultimately underused. But in its current state, it's hard to recommend without some serious caveats. Held together by Sellotape rather than superglue, LittleBigPlanet 3 is in constant danger of falling apart.
The result is almost certainly the definitive version of Smash. Not all of it works, but plenty does, leaving us with a fine solo game and a wonderfully, wilfully chaotic multiplayer brawler. Smash is still too unrefined to be the choice of the Nintendo connoisseur, perhaps, but as long as you don't take it too seriously, it is riotously good fun.
It's a few minor tweaks away from something special, and the same applies to Screamride as a whole. While there's nothing in Frontier's latest to make your stomach churn - with the possible exception of its honkingly awful dubstep soundtrack - there's not quite enough here to get your pulse racing either.
Such is the nature of a game that's trying to offer something for everyone; invariably, there's never going to be quite enough of the stuff you like. And perhaps Mario Party's desire to be truly inclusive will always hold it back from being a classic. This is, at least, in the upper echelons of the series: a little short of the Hudson Soft heyday, maybe, but better than every entry since the fifth, and certainly superior to the anaemic eighth entry and the pointless handheld versions. Wii U owners already have deeper and more substantial multiplayer options, but few - if any - of them are quite so welcoming to all.
Such is the quandary at the heart of every long-running game series. Type-0 HD bears all the hallmarks of a game simultaneously keen to escape its past while being forced to embrace its heritage. At its best, it's a fine, smartly-paced action-RPG with thrilling combat mechanics that just happens to be a better fit for a handheld than a home console. But, crucially, it represents a promise unkept: this isn't so much a blend of new ideas, more a melange of existing ones. It may have been conceived as a fresh start for Final Fantasy, but Type-0 is more often a false dawn.
This unorthodox take on squad-based strategy can be muddled and mulish, but it’s also thrillingly distinctive.
Tim Schafer's warm, humanist adventure is a game of two halves, but its triumphs outweigh the flaws.
This is a remarkable, progressive, absorbing game, one sure to prompt fervent discussion among its players, no two of whom will have shared the same experience. Your actions and deductions may not lead to a virtual arrest or conviction, but the curiosity of your inner Columbo will surely have been sated.