By injecting new mechanics into an old school shooter — or maybe they injected old mechanics into a new school shooter — the good people at ID Software have done something interesting with the new Doom (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC). Though how much you’ll enjoy this sci-fi first-person shooter will depend more on how much you appreciate those old school mechanics more than the new ones.
Category: PlayStation 4
With Shadow Of The Beast (PlayStation 4), the good people at Heavy Spectrum Entertainment Labs have resurrected a cult favorite that dates back to the era of the Commodore Amiga. Even cooler, they’ve made an compelling and addictive 2D side-scrolling hack & slash action game that doesn’t require you to be familiar with the original, or even the Commode Amiga, to get a kick out of. Or slice out of, as the case may be.
Much like their Borderlands games, for which this is an obvious spiritual successor, Battleborn (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) is a sci-fi first-person that was designed by the good people of Gearbox Software to be a co-op game, but could be played solo if you really felt like it. But while some co-op games work well solo (The Division, Destiny), not all of them do (Rainbow Six Siege). And it’s somewhere in between, though leaning more towards the former, that we find Battleborn.
With Uncharted 4 A Thief’s End (PlayStation 4), Naughty Dog are saying good bye to the third-person action-packed adventure series they first launched in 2007 with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. But while it’s not the best game in this series (it’s no Uncharted 2) nor the best game of its kind in recent years (it’s no Rise Of The Tomb Raider), it’s still an epic adventure and an equally compelling workout for your reflexes. Well, once it gets going, anyway.
When thinking about movies that could inspire fun pinball tables, the Alien series is second only to Indiana Jones, and even then just because the former has that iconic scene with a giant ball.
But while we wait for Doctor Jones to get his butt in gear, we can enjoy the new Aliens Vs Pinball Pack for Zen Pinball 2 (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Vita), Pinball FX 2 (Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC), and Zen Pinball (iOS, Android, Amazon). Well, for the most part.
Alienation Review
With a name like Alienation (PlayStation 4), and a release date of 4-26, you might think Housemarque’s new shooter might not be serious. Or that it’s connected to the Alien movies. Turns out that neither are true. Instead, Alienation is a new, and rather interesting arcade shooter that layers the genre’s classic and still viable tenets with some creative mechanics not normally associated with this kind of game.
Because most video game remakes only improve the graphics, and even then only slightly, they’re usually pointless for anyone who’s already played the original. But the good people at Insomniac have thankfully bucked this trend, and in a big way, with this upgraded and (more importantly) updated version of Ratchet & Clank (PlayStation 4).
Another day, another old game getting a makeover. This time it’s Shadow Complex Remastered, which is bringing an upgraded version of the 2009 side-scrolling, sci-fi shooter Shadow Complex to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. But while it doesn’t add enough to make it worth a double dip, the game does hold up rather nicely, especially for fans of the Metroidvania genre.
At a preview event for Tom Clancy’s The Division (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC), Creative Director Magnus Jansen said that while this open world, third-person shooter RPG was built for co-op, you could play it solo, and have a good time doing so.
Well, as someone who doesn’t play well with others, I wanted to see if this was true, so I played the game by myself. And while I found that the game does have some issues when you play solo, in some ways, it actually works better if you play it on your own.