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The original Modern Warfare remains an indisputable classic. Infinity Ward redefined the first-person shooter back in 2007, changing the formula for years to come. Now we’ve come full circle with a complete reboot of Captain Price and company. History has been rewritten, erasing all the progenitor’s events to give the series a clean slate. 

Boasting a solo campaign, dedicated multiplayer and the return of Special Ops, Infinity Ward’s new vision for Modern Warfare is a surprisingly conventional one, yet still excels where it matters. War, what is it good for? Rebooting blockbuster shooter franchises, apparently. 

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare acts like its forefather never happened. For the time being, iconic characters as Viktor Zahkaev and Soap MacTavish are nowhere to be seen, pushed aside in favour of a new cast who get the job done, yet seldom elicit the same witty banter and emotional crescendos that inspired them. 

The plot follows a similar path, depicting a small group of experienced marines and ragtag marines teaming up to thwart a Russian threat. Jumping from the bustling streets of London to the sandy plains of fictional Urzikstan, the campaign is a skin-raising blast clearly inspired by Zero Dark Thirty and other modern military thrillers. However, its stakes never felt truly cemented, leading to an underbaked conclusion that left me wanting more. 

Opening with a bombing of Piccadilly Circus and condemning hundreds of innocents to death sets a bleak and realistic tone that Modern Warfare follows through right until the very end. War is hell, and the sacrifices made to keep this world safe leave scars. “At the end of the day, someone has to make the enemies scared of the dark,” Captain Price mutters at one point, describing the morally grey line soldiers walk in the field of battle, one that is explored to great effect throughout the campaign. 

But this is still a military shooter, so western forces reign supreme in the end, ushering forth a new era for the franchise I’m excited to see explored. Farah is a personal highlight of mine, a freedom fighter seeking to overthrow a Russian dictator after years of oppression. Her stakes matter, and she has far more invested in the conflict than Captain Price, who simply tags along and acts tough all the time. 

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Due to the more grounded tone, some might find the solo campaign underwhelming. It isn’t awash with explosive, over-the-top set pieces and nonsensical thrill rides. If I’m honest, it’s somewhat muted, giving you more time to take in environments and formulate an approach to encounters that feels tailored to your playing style. In past games I could waltz through with an assault rifle and call it a day, but here I felt compelled to switch things up. 

Claustrophobic hospital corridors called for a semi-automatic shotgun, while vast desert plains made toying with sniper rifles essential. Every skirmish is a thrilling firefight ripe for replayability, which is good because the campaign is woefully short. It’s clear Infinity Ward isn’t done with this universe, teasing a few excellent reveals I won’t spoil here, but spell a very ambitious future for Captain Price and beyond. 

For many, multiplayer is where the real meat of Call of Duty sits, and Modern Warfare doesn’t disappoint. It feels like a back-to-basics approach in many ways, abandoning the likes of score-streaks, wall-running and complicated class-based approach to loadouts that arguably hamstrung the series in the past. Echoing the original game, Modern Warfare is a twitch shooter with simplicity at its core, and is all the better for it. 

A new gameplay engine enhances every facet of Modern Warfare. Firearms are weighty, with every trigger pull leading to monumental recoil so every shot landed feels like a triumph. Foes fall with grim realism or absurd slapstick acrobatics depending on the situation, which is a tonal mismatch if I ever saw one. But given the pace of each multiplayer match, this hardly matters. 

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Whether you’re playing Team Deathmatch or the newly introduced Gunfight and Cyber Attack modes, each round of Modern Warfare has a melodic pace that’s somewhat slower compared to previous entries. Moving tentatively across maps, hugging walls and sticking to interiors is a viable strategy, picking off opponents as they appear. Running out into the open is suicidal, a hunting ground for long-ranged snipers. 

Breakneck firefights still erupt though, particularly in Domination where flanking a point to wipe out an entire team often left a beaming grin on my face. It’s a do-or-die situation, and emerging unscathed with a few more killstreaks to your name is borderline euphoric. Old favourite killstreaks such as UAV, Chopper Gunner and Care Packages are present and accounted for, as are perks such as Hardline and Shrapnel. 

The traditional match template and progression system is very welcome in an online battleground dominated by battle passes and seasonal updates – a practice Modern Warfare will soon adopt. For now, it’s undeniably vanilla and benefits from it. You can select from unlockable operators to determine your look and voice, adding a nice layer of personality to otherwise generic proceedings. Beyond this, the usual bells and whistles you’d expect from Call of Duty customisation return. 

Ground War is a major addition, hurling 64 players into a massive map filled with vehicles such as tanks, ATVs and goodness knows what else. The aim of this mode is capture objectives spread across the map, holding them as long as possible in order to accrue points. It’s essentially Conquest from Battlefield, albeit with a welcome Call of Duty twist. It’s fun, although the maps look rough, even on PS4 Pro. It’s clear this engine doesn’t scale particularly well in large environments with plenty of dynamic action.

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Multiplayer maps range from a dilapidated palace flanked by military munitions to a crumbling shanty town ripe with camping spots and sudden changes of geometry. Verticality is paramount, meaning you need to keep your wits about you when identifying sightlines and how vulnerable you are in any situation. Camping is still a little too frequent for my liking, and spawn locations still need ironing out, although these are quirks you’d expect shortly after launch. 

Special Ops is a mixed bag at the moment, mostly due to uneven difficulty across certain missions. Even with four players co-operating as they seek to complete objectives, it’s far too easy to become overwhelmed by enemies that spawn out of nowhere. One stage has you navigating across a giant stadium, destroying radar jammers in a nearby car park before taking to an airship to destroy hostile tanks from above.

Every mission comes with a vast, distinct environment alongside tasks requiring players to work together. Split up and you won’t last long – something I learned the hard way several times. Squadmates must stick together to stay alive, reviving, flanking and supporting one another whenever the situation calls for it. When everything falls into place it’s a blast, although can frequently fall into chaos that feels distinctly unfair. This could easily be addressed with future patches, and with any luck we’ll see new missions introduced with major updates.

Survival Mode in Special Ops is exclusive to PS4 for 12 months. I’ll be honest, other platforms aren’t missing out on much. It’s a fairly simplistic horde mode where you fend off waves of varied foes. You can purchase weapons and killstreaks between rounds, formulating a strategy depending on which map you’re playing on. It’s fun, but a little too vanilla to remain engaging without a concrete goal in mind.

Should you buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare?

Infinity Ward’s reboot of the iconic classic doesn’t surpass the original, but does a fantastic job of translating its formula into the modern era. A thrilling solo campaign alongside a robust selection of multiplayer options ensure this package is well worth a visit, even if the long-awaited return of Special Ops just about misses the mark.

The campaign often relies on shock and awe over rampant spectacle, inviting controversy with the gunning down of civilians and chemical warfare, but it rides this tonal rollercoaster carefully enough that it works. The multiplayer’s back-to-basics approach is wonderful, prioritising sheer skill over fanciful hero abilities and futuristic acrobatics.

It’s clear the Modern Warfare name isn’t going anywhere, with this reboot etching out foundations that will be build upon for years to come.

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From Super Mario Odyssey to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, games that feature Nintendo’s full roster of flagship characters are often oozing with fun. It may then strike you as odd that Luigi’s Mansion 3 – a quasi-horror game featuring Mario’s big bro – is a game aiming for unbridled fun even more than those aforementioned joyrides.

Most games try to be fun in some way, so – to be more specific – Luigi’s Mansion 3 aims to be a playground that’s full to the brim with whimsical moments and a range of toys to allow you to goof around to your heart’s content.

You’ll lose yourself in this game like you would exploring an expansive world in games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Horizon Zero Dawn. Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a lot smaller than those games, but it encourages you to look under every rock and peak around every corner – rarely leaving you unrewarded.

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There isn’t much to the gameplay in Luigi’s Mansion 3 – everyone’s second favourite plumber has a ghost-busting vacuum that has a couple of extra tricks up its sleeve, but not much more. You’ll climb the hotel to find your buddies Mario, Peach and two Toads – needing to collect elevator buttons along the way to reach the summit.

For the most part, Luigi’s Mansion 3 has no frills. You’ll encounter a variety of enemies but many function very similarly – you usually blind them with a light attached to your Poltergust ghost capturing machine and then suck them up. While you are capturing them, you’re able to bash them around a bit – even using them to damage other enemies.

The majority of encounters go as described above, but – in the same way some hack and slash games see you do similar attacks over and over – it’s the swashbuckling pace of the action that keeps it interesting.

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There are some neat additions as you make your way through the game. Early on, you get access to a suction cup which aids you in interacting with some harder to reach or heavier items. Then, there’s the Dark Light, which allows you to reveal hidden secrets – sometimes ghosts and sometimes hidden pathways. This mechanic is responsible for what is the only irksome part of the game. 

Luigi’s Mansion 3 provides most of its fun through smashing and rummaging but Dark Light is sometimes needed to progress – meaning you may have to scour a room for some time just to find one small thing that this light can reveal… which is not ideal.

We can’t forget the delightful Gooigi – a new addition for this entry in the series. Gooigi marvelled fans in the trailers. However, while the flubber-like replica of Luigi introduces some fun mechanics, Gooigi doesn’t have as big of an impact as some might have hoped.

What Gooigi does offer is some interesting ways to defeat the bosses. Some bosses feel beatable by just struggling through with good ol’ Luigi. However, several can be overcome much easier if you use your noggin and deploy Gooigi.

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Luigi’s Mansion 3 does a very good job of differentiating bosses in a game that otherwise has a pretty basic set of mechanics. From amping up fights with the introduction of water – something you’ll want to keep Gooigi safe from – to turning aspects of gameplay into a puzzle that requires you to keep a close eye on several elements at once.

All that is well and good, but it doesn’t feel like those elements are the heart of Luigi’s Mansion 3. The joy of it feels somewhat indescribable – but let’s give it a shot.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 seems to live by Facebook’s old mantra – stay with me – of “move fast and break things.” You can think of the hotel in Luigi’s Mansion 3 as a giant pinball machine – with some trap doors and eccentric characters to jazz it up. 

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As Luigi, you’ll smash and vacuum your way through the setting and are often richly rewarded the more you do so.  The combat is decent enough but just being in the world is an absolute blast, duly broken up by slapstick cutscenes to keep the game from going stagnant.

Scenes often show our hero shivering in terror before being gazumped by a mean or despicable looking poltergeist. The story is so light and the level of difficulty is so inviting that you’ll find it unbelievably easy to pick up Luigi’s Mansion 3 for a couple of hours.

The game comes in at around 15-20 hours total, that is, if you aren’t an ardent explorer – it could go on for much longer if you want to find all the secrets in the game and collect all the collectables.

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This instalment even offers an online mode to play with friends – a welcome addition as you’ll likely be downbeat after completing the game. The mode is called ScareScaper and is essentially a horde mode with a timer. 

You’re required to capture a specific number of ghosts across a floor before moving up – with 10 floors to climb in total. The mode is far from essential but why wouldn’t you want to play more of this charming funfest?

Verdict

If you’re looking for a challenge then Luigi’s Mansion 3 might not be for you. The game is only mildly difficult but – for most – that won’t really matter. Luigi’s Mansion 3 is an absolute delight from start to finish, bursting with charm and re-playable mechanics.

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MediEvil debuted alongside the likes of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro The Dragon, acting as yet another platforming mascot for Sony throughout its early days in the console space. Sir Daniel Fortesque was a clumsy, strangely adorable oaf who roamed gothic graveyards and dilapidated towns fighting off zombies, solving puzzles and making up for lost time after years of deathly slumber.

Despite spanning multiple games, the series never really found its footing, vanishing into obscurity before emerging once again with this unexpected remake from Other Ocean Interactive. Sadly, such a frankly mediocre revival is perhaps a sad reminder that MediEvil was better off staying buried, Fortesque’s one remaining eye a sad reminder of a singular vision of platforming we’ve long since left behind. 

If you’re a passionate fan of the franchise, this remake is faithful to a recognisable fault. It begins with Sir Daniel Fortesque falling into the Battle of Gallowmere. Our poor knight is taken down with a single arrow, piercing his pupil and creating a goofy look that remains iconic to this day. Many years later, he’s revived and tasked with defeating a deadly sorcerer known as Zarok. 

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He’s a nasty piece of work, bringing all manners of ghouls, goblins and other paranormal creatures back to life in an effort to thwart your plans. The narrative is incredibly simple, with little being fleshed out when compared to the 1998 original. You’ll come across plenty examples of campy flavoured text amidst environments, but they serve a simplistic plot that’s more of a foundation for the action platforming than anything else. It’s charmingly passable.

After awakening in a dusty old crypt, I’m given free reign over a few small, claustrophobic rooms to learn MediEvil’s basic mechanics, many of which are relatively shallow. Attacks are designated to the square button, with the swinging of swords, clubs and other melee weapons beating most foes to a satisfying pulp. Unfortunately there’s little finesse to attacks, movements so erratic that hammering away aimlessly is the best way to get things done. 

Ranged weapons are equally unfulfilling, automatically locking onto foes within a certain range. All you need to do is spam the right button and foes will eventually die. The majority of MediEvil’s combat encounters are bland and repetitive, with many also bordering on frustrating thanks to the needlessly tight level design. Holding square will unleash a secondary attack with most weapons, making it easier to wipe out multiple baddies at once. 

On many occasions, I found myself a victim of the camera, as evil scarecrows spammed attacks I couldn’t avoid. Death means restarting the entire level from scratch, too. It simply isn’t fun, and combat encounters and level design feel inherently at odds with one another as you stumble aimlessly around tight, grubby looking areas that feel relatively barren beyond the endless slew of ghouls. 

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Controlling Sir Daniel Fortesque is a mixed bag. Thanks to a dash ability acquired in the opening hours, moving through dense, complicated levels is a breeze. A blessing since you’ll often find yourself backtracking to find hidden collectibles or repeating ardous tasks after an untimely death. Platforming is far less enjoyable, our undead knight’s few jumping abilities proved a frequent nuisance.

It’s simply not very responsive, an early example requiring you to dodge boulders while ascending a mountain proved to be more than a little clumsy. Daniel can also block attacks with his trusty shield, although it doesn’t take much punishment before shattering into a million pieces. This means that defending yourself from attacks is a temporary measure, introducing a fun idea of fight-or-flight that could’ve been excellent, but the environments simply aren’t built for it.

Levels grow larger and more ambitious in their topography later into the campaign, providing multiple pathways to roam down in search of both your primary objective and loads of hidden secrets. These are easily some of MediEvil’s highlights, showcasing examples of puzzle design that are a delight to solve, yet often too brief in the grand scheme of things. Before you know it, you’re back to the tireless grind of murdering enemies in pursuit of the Chalice – a special item hidden across each stage.

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To acquire these you must gather a number of souls and nail down its hidden location. Each chalice grants you a new unlockable in the Hall of Heroes. This magnificent dining room is filled with the statues of famour warriors, many of which are willing to strike up a conversation, given you’ve collected enough chalices. Among other things, you’ll acquire the crossbow, hammer and a number of upgrades that allow Daniel to carry additional health potions. You’re automatically teleported here after each level, so it doesn’t hurt to look around.

Many of MediEvil’s faults come from its dedication to the source material, unflinching in a design philosophy that in the context of today’s gaming landscape is downright archaic. Spyro and Crash superseded such things thanks to boatloads of charm and solid mechanics at their core. MediEvil forges no such path, lumbering clumsily in a perpetual state of mediocrity. It’s a shame, since this series has so much going for it, and a more ambitious return might have worked wonders.

Should you buy MediEvil?

Unless you’re a hardcore lover of the original MediEvil, I can find little reason to recommend this remake when there are numerous superior platformers available on PS4. Heck, even Knack manages to produce a more compelling experience than this, surpassing the brittle bones of Sir Daniel Fortesque in almost every department.

As someone who was equally enthralled and terrified by the original duo of games, this is an unfortunate dissapointment.

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From the Dungeons & Dragons style character sheet to the branching create-your-own-adventure mission structure, the influence Bethesda’s RPGs have had on The Outer Worlds is unmistakable. 

That’s no surprise given the game’s creator, Obsidian Entertainment, was responsible for the hugely popular Fallout: New Vegas. What’s more of a shock is The Outer Worlds isn’t merely a New Vegas sci-fi clone, but a vastly improved RPG venture that feels like a significant but natural evolution nine years later. Put simply, Obsidian is beating Betesda at its own game. 

While the likes of Fallout 4 promised players the opportunity to adopt any playstyle they fancy, it still felt very much like a classic run-and-gun shooter with extra features tacked on top. The Outer Worlds can’t be accused of the same sin, with the opportunity to avoid combat altogether persistently present. 

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With enough stealth skill points applied, you’re able to sneak and lockpick your way through enemy-riddled buildings without detection. Or instead, you could become a computer wizard, hacking computer terminals to open sealed doors and configure the artificial intelligence of guard ‘bots so they fire at their mechanical mates. My favourite skill of all though was the dark art of persuasion, as I sweet talked others into doing the dirty work for me and convinced trigger happy characters to set aside their guns.

Persuading a character wasn’t simply a case of upgrading my Dialogue skill and choosing the most complimentary speech options. I had to gather intel from computers, gossip with NPCs and make Sherlock-esque deductions from the environment in order to unlock the desired dialogue option. It’s a lot of work, but the payoff from diplomatically defusing a situation feels absolutely incredible. 

That’s not to say gunning down enemies isn’t fun though. The Outer Worlds is brimming with a variety of weapons, including your traditional sci-fi plasma blasters to more quirky additions such as the shrink ray and a flame-powered scythe. 

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The implementation of a rock-paper-scissors combat system encourages experimentation with its diverse arsenal of weaponry, preventing you from relying on one over-powered rifle. For example, plasma weapons are capable of disintegrating fleshy foes, but aren’t so effective against the steel-clad machines and the reptilian Mantisaur monsters – corrosive bullets prove far more useful here.

Going for the violent option too frequently can also have severe consequences on the game world. Most (if not every) NPC can be murdered, and doing so can close off select missions. Your actions will also influence your reputation among several factions, influencing vendor prices and the hostility towards you. Rarely have I experienced a game world that feels so immersive and malleable, increasing the gravity of every one of my decisions while making planet revisits a far more fascinating prospect. 

It’s near-on impossible to please everyone too, as you’ll have to make tough decisions where both options are morally ambiguous. One early mission forces you to pick between two candidates to become the leader of a small town. You can either side with a corrupt factory boss who overworks his employees to illness, or a feisty rebellion leader who digs up human remains for fertiliser. Abandoning the typical “good” and “bad” morality meters in favour of these murky ethics makes for far more engaging and memorable storylines.

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On paper, such storyline might sound bleak, but The Outer Worlds sets a wacky, tongue-in-cheek tone from the get-go, rich with laugh-out-loud dark humour. Within a few hours of play, I had the spaceship AI bluff a self destruction sequence in an attempt to scare me off, while a commander expressed concerns about the work ethic of a soldier who died during their work shift. 

Obsidian has included lots of tiny details into The Outer Worlds to weave into its humour, including random emails, environmental storytelling and even item descriptions in your inventory. My personal favourite for the latter can be found on the Flamethrower, which reads, “For when you absolutely, positively have to set everything you can see on fire”.

The cartoony and vibrant art style compliments the tone very well too, while also providing a distinctive character to the many planets you explore. Unlike the likes of Skyrim and Fallout 4, The Outer Worlds doesn’t take place on one massive open-world map, but several smaller hub worlds. This has the benefit of allowing the seismic narrative-altering consequences from various missions to remain potent on each planet, but without affecting the entirety of the game.

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The only drawback to having several hub worlds is planet hopping involves a couple of nuisance loading screens. That said, I get a joyous Guardians of the Galaxy vibe every time I join my ragtag crew aboard The Unreliable ship and watch it jet across the galaxy for another adventure. 

Your crew is made up of select NPCs recruitable via side missions. They operate very similarly to Mass Effect, in that you can upgrade their skills, provide them with weapons and even complete character-focused ‘Companion Quests’ for a bounty of experience points. From the shotgun-wielding vicar to the cleaning bot turned death machine, each companion is a pleasure to have at your side whether aiding you in combat or chiming in with the odd quip during NPC conversations. 

And it’s also worth pointing out that despite putting many hours into The Outer Worlds so far, I encountered no bugs or technical glitches. You’ll see texture popping when you first spawn into a world and load screens are a tad slow on the standard PS4, but both of these are forgivable when you consider how densely packed each planet is with loot, enemies and side quests. Overall, The Outer Worlds feels very polished indeed.

Should I buy The Outer Worlds?

I’m only midway through The Outer Worlds, and won’t be delivering a final score until the main story (rumoured to be 30-40 hours long) is completed. 

If it continues its fine form though, this will not only become one of my favourite games of the year, but one of my favourite RPG experiences full stop. 

With a wacky dark humour, an expansive upgrade system and branching storylines that make every action feel significant, Obsidian Entertainment looks to set a new bar for RPG games. 

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The most frustrating thing about Ghost Recon Breakpoint is that there’s genuinely a great co-op stealth game buried beneath the bloat Ubisoft has piled on top of this stealth shooter.

Sniping soldiers from afar while your pal sneaks into an enemy holding is not only fun, but one of the few experiences where I felt rewarded for strategic co-operative play. Gunplay is excellent too, with high-level realism provided by rifle kickbacks and the juddering spray of a machine gun.  

Unfortunately, repetitive missions, technical bugs and predatory microtransactions grate so hard throughout this lengthy open-world venture that the positives are swiftly forgotten. 

Ubisoft’s influence is as blatant as bloody handprints in a crime scene, with its infamous cluttered map, obtrusive UI and uneven mesh of varying gaming systems making Ghost Recon Breakpoint feel like a Frankenstein’s monster assortment of past Ubisoft titles, with a shoddy Ghost Recon paint job over the top.

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Despite swapping swords for sniper rifles, Breakpoint shares many features with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, but does a worse job of integrating them. The average rating of your equipped gear – whether that be guns or armour – results in your overall strength level. This puts a large emphasis on raiding buildings for rare gear and provides an extra incentive to complete side missions and clear out enemy holds. 

The addictive cycle of attaining new loot isn’t as effective as it is with popular looter shooters such as Destiny 2 and Borderlands 3 though. High-level weapons only really differ from your standard gear in terms of damage and handling, rarely invoking any sort of excitement upon discovery. 

Armour is even more guilty for this, as you continuously swap unremarkable looking gloves, helmets and boots for slightly higher level unremarkable looking alternatives. I never felt like I was personalising my character to the extent that he stood out from the other armour-clad avatars at the hub base. You also climb through levels at such a rate you’re forced to swap gear constantly, preventing you from forming any sort of attachment to your gear while also making inventory management a chore. 

Every enemy in the game also has a numeric gear rating, but bizarrely their level fluctuates depending on your own when playing story missions, so you rarely feel out of your depth. The only enemy in the main campaign who does have a fixed numeral value attached to them is the final boss.

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Bizarrely, you can face Colonel Cole D. Walker (played by Jon Bernthal) whenever you fancy, similar to how Breath of the Wild gives you the option of fighting Ganondorf straight away. But just like in the Nintendo adventure, you’re extremely likely to be beaten to a pulp in a matter of seconds if you dare confront the boss prematurely, since Walker occupies an almighty 150 gear rating. 

Rather than emphasising the grandiose task ahead of you though, the capability to fight Walker from the start only acts as encouragement to grind. Factor in one of the very worst microtransaction stores I’ve ever seen – allowing you to buy any weapon, attachment or gear with real world cash – and this feature seems to only exist to tempt you into opening your wallet. 

In typical Ubisoft fashion, the map is cluttered with icons, signalling points of interests such as your next mission, potential camping spots and loot-filled crates. Breakpoint does at least offer an optional Exploration mode, which erases all of these icons from the map and instead provides you with environmental clues. This is a welcome addition, but I rarely had the urge to use it, mainly because the island the game takes place on is so damn boring. 

This island, entitled Aurora, is owned by billionaire Jace Skell who is the founder of a company that manufactures drones. This means that apart from multiple laboratories, warehouses, small residential areas and military bases, there isn’t much going on in Aurora. The island looks practically identical wherever you venture too, covered in dense forest and soaring mountains

While the map is dotted with icons signalling loot-filled crates and random NPCs offering up weapon blueprints, there’s rarely anything worth discovering. The level of loot you can find is limited by your own gear level, ensuring a gradual progression in strength, but also destroying any chance of stumbling upon exciting gear. This removes any incentive to explore the island, despite Ubisoft’s attempt to add survival elements.

Stumbling down rocky cliffs can temporarily handicap your stamina meter while injuries sustained from combat can burden you with a limp that can’t be fixed via the regenerative health system. Drinking water and applying bandages are instead required to address these issues. Such systems might be interesting in a more survival-focused title, say Breath of the Wild or The Last of Us, but feel oddly out of place in Ghost Recon Breakpoint, especially since you can just fast travel or spawn a helicopter in one of the many bivouac camping spots scattered across the island. 

I’m not convinced Ghost Recon Breakpoint occupying an open-world map actually improves the experience. At the very least it provides a more chaotic and unpredictable structure to missions, as random troops of soldiers can wander past and force you to improvise, but this quickly becomes annoying. I personally think splitting Breakpoint into multiple, smaller hub worlds, similar to the Hitman games, would be a far better fit for this stealth series.

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The ridiculous number of technical bugs in Ghost Recon Breakpoint doesn’t do the open-world format any favours either. During my 25-hour playthrough, I stumbled upon countless enemies walking into walls or sitting idly in a car after all their fellow troops had been gunned down. There were also too many game-breaking bugs to forgive: I fell through the ground into the abyss on a couple of occasions and even had to restart a couple of missions after objective-compulsory items failed to spawn. Even a week after launch, many of these issues are still prevalent. 

Technical issues also creep into story-focused cutscenes, with clipping and shoddy animations making serious and dramatic scenes inadvertently humorous. Perhaps they’re a welcome distraction in this instance though, as the writing and narrative is laughably cringe-worthy. 

Ghost Recon Breakpoint focuses on Walker’s attempt to take over the island via his army of drones. There’s little more depth to it, with the majority of cutscenes focusing on flashbacks with the main purpose of explaining and justifying Walker’s betrayal of the US army. Jon Bernthal at least puts in a decent performance as the main villain, but essentially just portrays a one-dimensional version of the Punisher with stubborn pride and more testosterone than a sperm bank. 

The story missions also lack any sort of narrative pacing, with little sign of a difficulty curve or variation on the typical base-infiltrating mission structure. There’s not much build up for the final showdown with Walker, and even that results in an anti-climax. Of course, a cinematic cliffhanger suggests there will be more story content arriving in the future, along with raids and new weapons/gear, but I for one have absolutely no urge to ever return to the drone-infested island of Aurora.

If I ever do return to Ghost Recon Breakpoint, it would only be for the PvP multiplayer. Squads of four face off against each other, encouraging cooperative and strategic play. Maps are usually fairly large, but with almost every player armed with a sniper rifle, it’s compulsory to stay behind cover and sneak undetected through the battlefield. 

Drones can be picked up around the map, which allow players to scope out the enemy and mark them on the mini map temporarily. If you hack into a computer terminal located in the centre of the battlefield, you can have every enemy flag up on the map for a lengthy amount of time, which often results in a sniper turning your head into a raspberry firework. 

One feature I really like is that you only can be revived at any point in a multiplayer match until every one of your teammates kicks the bucket. This forces you to defend downed enemies from hopeful medics or risk the opposition escaping the brink of destruction and reviving every single member of the squad. 

A massive downside of the PvP matches though, is that you’re able to carry the gear and weapons looted from the story campaign over into multiplayer. High-level loot perks are seemingly removed for PvP, evening the odds by some extent, but gold-tier guns naturally handle better and can equip more useful attachments than what you start off with. 

This unfortunately means multiplayer matches feature a pay-to-win element, as buying the best guns available via the microtransaction store will undeniably give players the advantage. Ubisoft has clearly done this on purpose as another incentive to part with your cash, with little concern for the enjoyment of those unprepared to pay more than the cost of the base game. 

Verdict

Ghost Recon Breakpoint gets the fundamentals right, with excellent gunplay and fun stealth missions that encourage strategy with a friend via online co-op. Unfortunately those are the only positives in a game riddled with technical issues and exploitative microtransactions.

Ubisoft attempted to cherry pick the most trendy elements of modern video game for Breakpoint, featuring an RPG-style loot system, a survival mechanic and a sprawling open-world map. Unfortunately they don’t feel like a natural fit for this series and end up feeling like a cluttered mess detracting from the core shooter experience. 

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Little Town Hero is a bold new RPG from Game Freak, the beloved studio behind the extremely popular Pokemon series.

The basic narrative premise is that you are a hero in a hamlet where the villagers cannot leave, under oath from the castle. The only way to get out of the village is to go through the castle itself, which is guarded. Beyond the castle is the outside world, which our hero dreams about visiting as a young man. That is until a suite of monsters invade the town and cause havoc, forcing you to step up to the plate and defend your friends and family.

It’s split up into chapters and separates gameplay between meandering around town talking to people, solving puzzles and a brave new take on RPG combat.

The battle system is where things get truly unique. Attacks appear as possibilities called ‘Izzits’ that you have to internalize and become confident about before you deliver them, turning them into ‘Dazzits’, which use your attack power. You can get red, yellow and blue Dazzits, which correspond to attacking, shielding or using magic. Dazzits are like cards from your preferred collectable card game (CCG), and have attack and defence points, breaking when they hit zero.

You deal damage by breaking all of your opponent’s Dazzits and delivering blows with the attack ideas you have left, which do direct damage to their hearts. Guts protect the hearts from immediate damage but are depleted if a monster’s Dazzit eclipses yours in power. If you’ve played a digital card game before, like Hearthstone or the upcoming Legends of Runeterra, you should feel right at home with the initial play process.

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Little Town Hero is all about manoeuvring through these combat puzzles, but the introduction of a few more layers adds the real complexity that may puzzle the typical Game Freak fan. The game introduces the Headspace tab where you can swap out better ideas in battle in exchange for your precious power, but there’s also the Environment tab to deal with, which zooms out to a birds-eye-view of the battleground, depending on which part of the little town you’re in.

This unusual system dictates that you must move around the map constantly, the distance designated by a dice roll at the end of each turn, Mario Party style. On top of that, you also have support characters and Gimmicks, battle boons that sit in particular spots on the map.

Make tactical decisions to arrive at a spot they’re occupying and you can receive a bonus they’ve been brewing up. This is all without touching the Pow Meter, Battle Points and the fact that ideas will fade away over the course of a battle as you daydream, making urgency crucial. It’s an incredibly ambitious RPG combat system, but as you can imagine, it all becomes extremely confusing very quickly. The combat system is also extrapolated out and used in other puzzles, like in the early game where you shear a sheep by breaking its Dazzits so it’s vulnerable.

You can see the Pokemon DNA seeping through the entire game, from a mother’s warning at the start of the adventure to your colour-palette swap of a rival in Matock, a goodie-two-shoes who wears ripped jeans. As the eponymous Little Town Hero, you have to prove yourself in the eyes of Professor Oak stand-in Angard, who holds the keys to the outside world and the lands beyond. Yet, in this case, he’s a total hack and you blackmail him into training you by threatening to alert his superiors about his drinking problem.

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Your lush hamlet is filled with charming residents and businesses, from a cheese shop in which an old woman shares the secret to her smooth skin to a coal mine full of NPCs with the same face model. Your dad was also a coal miner called Cole (yes, I groaned too) but he left when you were small and is out there in the world beyond the castle, achieving the life you could only dream of.

Little Town Hero is lovely to look at in handheld mode thanks to a very distinct and appealing art style, so it’s such a shame that the UI is spotty. There’s the wonderfully detailed quest log that collects your adventures in scrapbook style, but the battle screen looks like it’s still in the prototype phase of design. For a game with such flair and ambition, it’s a shame they couldn’t make the space around the action sing some more. Wandering around the township is a true audio-visual delight by comparison, and the quiet melancholy hamlet is brought to life by a dynamic soundtrack, which changes in tact between zones in a seamless fashion. 

I’d often stop to take it in as I indulged in the cute side quests proposed by the villagers, which litter each chapter and provide a respite from the main story. Yet eventually I started to become frustrated with the camera, which often gets stuck at a tricky overhead angle, meaning I couldn’t gawk at the environments around the protagonist.

You’re destined to look at your feet at times, and it feels restrictive given how much passion has gone into crafting the visuals of the town. In docked mode, the frame rate can tank if you’re pushing the camera too hard. The game also has a tendency to halt as it loads NPC dialogue or a new battle, which really pulls you out of the experience. It’s not so bad that it’s unplayable, but you’d be best sticking to handheld mode to enjoy the soft-edged visuals without the performance hiccups.

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As well as the brand new battle system, Little Town Hero tries to change how we solve puzzles in RPGs. Throughout the game, you learn keywords by talking to the townsfolk, which then inform a supposed solution. Little Town Hero is all about the process of internalising and using ideas, both within battle and outside of it, which in practice makes the game feel very high-concept at times, but it often belies some frustrating simplicity. For example, an early quest asks you to figure out how to lure a hungry soldier from his post. So you find a number of keywords around town, including Cat Food, Smell, Lure and Curryquette. 

To solve the quest, you have to relay the idea in a particular sequence, with some keywords designed to throw you off. If you were arranging the words in a sentence it would make sense, but you’re left to figure it out and, inevitably, trial and error the sentence structure that the quest giver wants to progress. The NPC often treats you like a fool for switching words around, even thought they would still make grammatical sense, or are too similar to one another to really matter. It feels like it’s been overthought by the design team, and could have been achieved with an approach that respects the player a little more, especially given that the battle system is already very confusing.

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To talk more of the game’s impeccable soundtrack, the man in charge is Toby Fox, the multi-talented musical genius behind Undertale and Deltarune. From soaring town-exploring tunes to the high-octane battle themes, his special maker’s mark is felt throughout every facet of the game, and it’s almost worth the price of admission alone to hear his heart-puncturing score. Fox captures the anxiety and melancholy of small-town living with ease, and the music only becomes more meaningful and intense as our protagonist’s lives are flipped upside down by machinations beyond their control, and they stray from naivety.

Verdict

Little Town Hero is a solid RPG with several unique, ambitious new systems that light up different parts of the brain than you may be used to. However, it also feels like it’s still in the prototype phase, and is let down by some awkward visual design choices, performance bugs and a puzzle system that lacks any of the intuition that the developers had clearly intended.

The battle system is fun to figure out, but ultimately combat is so drawn out and confusing that it becomes exhausting, and as the turns start to cloy, you may have to put the game down for a while and play something else. Unfortunately, it’s not as snappy and enjoyable in quick bursts as Pokemon, which may be the thing that doom’s Little Town Hero’s clear potential as a brain-teasing game to play on your commute.

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What is the Nintendo Switch Lite?

The Nintendo Switch Lite is a new resigned edition of the standard Nintendo Switch, dedicated entirely to portable play and coming with all the advantages and disadvantages you’d expect from such an ambitious pitch.

The original console was designed as a hybrid machine, capable of acting as a home console while switching to a portable at a moment’s notice. The Switch Lite lacks this versatility, but boasts a design better suited for on-the-go gaming. 

Improved battery life and a more comfortable design also sit alongside existing features that have already proved a hit, making this a tempting proposition for both new and existing owners. 

This is a handheld console, arguably replacing the 3DS that has seen its first-party releases reach an eventual crescendo in recent months. Now, Nintendo is hoping to move its entire audience onto Switch by offering a wide range of choices. From our testing, it’s definitely on the right track. 

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Nintendo Switch Lite design – A surprisingly small yet agile experience

You can purchase the Nintendo Switch Lite in three colour: Grey, Turquoise and Yellow. We received and are reviewing the latter of the trio, boasting the sharp yellow tones of Pikachu or, heaven forbid, a Minion. It’s a bright and attractive device, fitting perfectly into the palm of an adult hand – although balancing the £200 console was a tiny bit precarious. 

Having a decent choice with regards to aesthetics is a nice touch, and this will only get better in the future, with the Pokémon Sword and Shield console looking especially snazzy. The colours on offer  won’t be for everyone, but certainly reflect the happy-go-lucky idea of whipping your Switch out on the commute to hoover up ghoulies in Luigi’s Mansion 3. It’s undeniably eye-catching, a far cry from the blacks and greys that have dominated the console market for so long. 

The overall blueprint of the console has been reduced dramatically, now measuring in at 91.1 x 208 x 13.9mm and weighing just 275g compared to the original’s 102mm x 239mm x 13.9mm and 297g. It makes its older sibling look gigantic in comparison, which is something I never expected.

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Nintendo Switch display – Bright, colourful and more dense with pixels

The screen is smaller here, now just 5.5in compared to the original’s 6.2in. Nevertheless, it still possesses the same maximum resolution of 720p.  You aren’t losing anything in terms of picture quality, and a larger pixel density of 267 per inch arguable improves the visual quality. 

Due to the lack of docking, there’s no way to upscale anything to 1080p, but the smaller screen real estate makes it difficult to notice any major differences throughout testing. Intensive experiences such as Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 look better on the smaller screen when things aren’t blown up to fit a 50in plus display too.

Even though the screen is smaller, the lack of an aggressive bezel helps it shine, resulting in the Switch Lite boasting a more distinguished premium feel that won’t fall apart in your hands. I definitely wouldn’t risk dropping it on the floor, though. 

The Joy-Con controllers are now built into the console itself, meaning there’s no way to detach them for use in spontaneous multi-player sessions. This also eliminates major features such as the IR sensors and dedicated motion controls in titles such as 1-2 Switch and Just Dance – although, if we’re brutally honest, this is a compromise worth living with for the attractive form factor and luscious design.

This doesn’t discount some of the other qualms that surface with the design. When playing experiences with lots of text, such as Fire Emblem: Three Houses, it can be hard to read smaller portions of text in menus and during dialogue scenes. As such, it’s often necessary to hold the screen closer to your face. It isn’t a deal-breaker, and only surfaces in a handful of games, but certainly worth noting.

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Nintendo Switch Lite performance – Battery life, buttons and games

Distractions from the small device also emerge with the button layout, particularly with the thumbsticks. It’s likely the size of my hands, but it can be uncomfortable to control a game’s camera using the right stick without developing cramp in my thumb. I soon became used to it, but it seldom felt natural; it lacks the comfort of the original console, or even a Pro Controller when docked. 

Thankfully, all of the buttons – whether D-pad or face buttons – feel soft to the touch and beautifully responsive in action, although you’ll quickly notice they lack the clickiness of the vanilla console. You could always connect additional controllers or other peripherals, but the lack of kickstand means there isn’t a way to prop up the console to play alongside friends.

This nullifies a small yet valuable portion of the console’s library. With the exception of wireless connectivity, the Switch Lite feels far more geared towards solo play. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing, but sine its inception, the Switch has been marketed as something that brings people together, so it feels strange to abandon so many features that emphasis that quality. 

Battery life for the Nintendo Switch Lite can range between three to seven hours, depending on the application being used and the brightness intensity of the screen. There’s myriad factors to consider when testing a console such as this, so we put the Lite through its paces by continuous sessions of Super Smash Bros Ultimate and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. On the former, the latter tapped out just shy of the four-hour mark during an eight-player battle.

Less intensive titles such as Undertale and Untitled Goose Game fare better, squeezing far more time out of the battery. You’ll notice increased fan noise and a high temperature towards the top of the unit while playing more graphically intensive games, but it’s seldom distracting enough to be an issue.

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Nintendo Switch Lite Games – Do they all work correctly?

The Nintendo Switch Lite is anomalous in some regards, largely because it makes a small selection of existing games defunct due to the lack of detachable controllers. Titles such as Super Mario Party, Nintendo Labo and 1-2 Switch simply aren’t supported in handheld mode, requiring individual Joy-Cons to function.

In some cases this could be remedied by buying and connecting individual controllers, but the lack of a kickstand makes this a very inconvenient solution. Beyond this, the majority of games I tested using the Switch Lite worked perfectly, with visuals, control methods and performance living up to the original console’s standard – or even beyond in some cases.

Should I buy the Nintendo Switch Lite?

The Nintendo Switch Lite is an excellent portable console that refines the display, buttons and overall form factor of its older sibling. However, the sacrifice of docked play will be a deal-breaker for some.

If you’re yet to purchase a Switch, though, and are purely interested in portable play without the need for local multiplayer, the Nintendo Switch Lite is a no-brainer.

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