Inspired by the recent Nickelodeon cartoon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutants In Manhattan (Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PC) is a fun third-person hack & slash action game that will engage fans of that kid-friendly animated series. But for older gamers who instead grew up on the ’80s cartoon or the original comic books — in which they were as big on Metallica as they were pizza — this game probably won’t hold your attention.
Considering that first-person shooters have been around since the early-’90s, you’d think any modern version would, at the very least, get the fundamental mechanics right. But that’s sadly not the case with Homefront The Revolution (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Mac), an open world first-person shooter that has some intriguing ideas, but is ultimately undermined by some rather basic but easily avoided problems.
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.
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.
Though it shares the same name, was recorded a few months later during the same concert series, and is a collection jazz that runs from the atmospheric to the noisy, the second Live At Okuden album (CD, digital) by jazz maestros Mat Walerian and Matthew Shipp — on which they’re joined, this time around, by Hamid Drake under the name Jungle — is anything but a rerun. Well, except in how good it is.
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.
Though there are some jazz musicians who can get the best out of anyone they play with — most notably Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon — many do their best work when they have a solid and consistent band behind them.
The latest example of this is Andando El Tiempo (CD, digital), the second and slightly better album from the trio of pianist Carla Bley, saxophonist Andy Sheppard, and bassist Steve Swallow.
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.
In Captain America Civil War, many of the tensions that have been building since the first Avengers finally come to a head, and the result, while not the best Marvel movie, is an exciting and explosive tale with far reaching consequences for this comic book-inspired series.