As a mid 30s dude, WWE (we all know it's WWF really) games hold some form of nostalgia for me. I was a kid at the height of its popularity and loved wwf warzone and attitude. If you go back now, these games are almost unplayable. The controls are mental and you need to remember a bunch of random button combinations. The later WWE games on the system realised this and have simplified things a great deal. You now just need to grapple and use the right thumbstick to pull off a variety of moves, which personally I think is a good thing. One nice thing I will mention about 2K16 is it has a stone cold story mode, where you play out scenarios from stone cold's career. As a fan of this era, that was a nice touch and it has been done well, feeling like a quality package. Aside from that, there are not a great deal of differences from the other WWE releases around this time, and unless you are a big stone cold fan, you can probably also look at 2k15 or 2k17. I quite enjoyed this one, but I'm not a huge WWE fan so take it with a pinch of salt.

Having played a couple of the earlier Moto GP games (07/08), I wanted to try something a bit more recent, so I gave 14 a spin. I wasn't expecting much, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike some yearly racing franchises, which are dedicated to releasing basically the same game each year (WRC I'm thinking of you), Moto GP 14 is really quite a big step up. First and foremost, the game looks and feels great. The bikes handle well but are still challenging and require skill to master. You won't be able to win races when you first start playing, but after a little bit of practice, you start to feel out the controls and the game becomes quite enjoyable. It doesn't feel like the impossible mountain of a challenge that previous entries presented. One aspect I particularly enjoyed was the challenges they have added which are based off real life events, very cool. Additionally the career mode feels more fleshed out, starting as a rookie driver in moto3, you really have to work your way to the top. Overall, it's still a pretty niche title, but one that I would argue most players will be able to enjoy.

The golden compass is one of two games on the console that features a mission asking you to sweep up shit. Just like Risen (the other of the two games), I actually quite enjoyed this one, and consider it quite underrated. Based on a movie, which I haven't seen, which is in turn based on a kids book that I haven't read, this game really stands out for both good and bad reasons. Starting with bad, the story makes absolutely no sense. The levels are cut with various clips from the movie which seem to have tenuous links at best to whats happening in the mission. It's a shame because it does seem like quite a nice idea for a story, particularly for younger players. The game also isn't great at explaining at what you have to do and I had to use a guide a some points, which isn't great for a kids game. To be honest I'm probably just an idiot. On the positive side, its really quite different from a lot of other movie tie in games. For a start the levels look really nice, the graphics aren't anything special, but many of the levels are very colourful and the variety of levels really stands out. You go from a frozen tundra to a stately home in oxford to a pirate ship. It's a nice change from the dull gray levels we see in a lot of similar budget games. The gameplay also is quite unique. There's a mix of some platforming, fetch quests, puzzles and simple combat and dialogue challenges in the form of mini games. None of them are anything special, but all fairly enjoyable. My favourite aspect is the alethiometer. There are hidden symbols that you can find throughout levels. These are used to solve riddles using the aethalometer. If you find them great, but if you don't you can still make educated guesses. Its a nice incentive to explore levels without forcing you to replay them, and a unique gameplay feature I haven't really seen in other games. If you are looking for something a little different, I would recommend giving this one a try. A worthy addition to any collection.

I haven't got through all the Moto GP games yet, but I'm predicting this to be my favourite of the series. Moto GP 14 was great, it added some interesting features and just made racing fun. Moto GP 15 is very similar to its predecessor, but polishes things up where they really matter, in the racing. The bikes feel better than ever and handle very well. It's difficult to explain what changes have been made, but the racing just feels right. Different bikes handle differently. Different race strategy can really make or break a race. You'll find yourself remembering corners from previous races and whether the tactics that you used on that corner worked or not. While I'm maybe not being critical enough of milestone for how similar this is to 14, I had a lot of fun with it and that's what counts.

There are a lot of games on the console which have beautiful worlds, good stories, nice graphics, interesting mechanics but ultimately are not fun to play. WET is basically the opposite of all those games. It's a fairly dumb game, with dumb enemies. One of the most unlikeable protagonists in gaming history. Horrible stereotype characters. A very poor representation of Hong Kong in it's bland an uninspired gameworld. A story which feels like it was written by a 12 year old tarantino fan. Some weirldy repetative and aggressive music, which actually is kinda good in parts. Yet, with all these flaws, it is fun to play and remains so throughout its 10 ish hour campaign. The makers of WET have basically taken what made stranglehold and Max Payne fun, flesh it out a bit, added in some scoring and score multipliers and made a game out of it. The 3rd person shooter/ brawler/ almost tony hawk's esq gameplay is really a joy to play. Slide along the floor with time slowed down while shooting enemies in the head. Wall run into an enemy and slice his head off. It really never gets boring. The best part of the game are the artistic blood levels where everything turns red as you enter a rage mode. In these levels you have extra carnage, shooting and slicing enemies at an even quicker rate, building up combos as you dance from enemy to enemy. It's really hard to say this is a good game, but it most certainly is a fun game and that's what matters. A worth addition for any action fan, but doesn't quite reach the heights of the similar stranglehold.

It's not a thing you would hear people say now, but I really like the call of duty campaigns. Call of Duty 1 was one of my first forays into modern shooters. It got better with United Offensive and then Call of Duty 2 blowing me away with how well it ported over to consoles. It really gave you the feeling of being a nameless grunt in a horrible situation. Call of duty 3 is the third in the mainline series and I have to say it really misses the mark. Now keep in mind I'm focusing on campaign only, because even though some of these games are still populated in 2023, most of them don't deliver the complete original experience. The campaign seeminlgy changes very little from the previous games. It looks similar, the same weapons and enemies. It feels the same, the controls work as intended. But it's just not as good. It's difficult to put your figure on exactly what they messed up here, but I'll try my best. Firstly, the campaign feels a lot more linear and less open, feeling a bit more like a corridor shooter. Epic battles where you are working which big groups of AI teammates were one of my favorite aprts of 2, and it is really lacking in 3. Yes you have AI teammates, but you often end up ploughing through areas on your own. Small tweaks like the annoying mini games, the less interesting locations, the ammount of time spent in the car and the unskippable cutscenes just seem to detract from the immersive and epic hell that was call of duty 2, and give more of a sloppy feeling. The AI also feels like a step down, both in terms of friendlies and the enemy. I can't recall an instance of a teammate coming to my aid or feeling stuck in a certain corner as the enemies had my number. It just feels average. It's kind of difficult to explain nowadays as COD isn't what it used to be, but going from COD1 and COD2 to this, felt like going from Call of Duty to Medal of Honor or another lesser copy. Still a fine game, but nowhere near the feeling of 2. With the sheer number of COD games on the console, this is definitely one to avoid.

Some games have such a bad ass premise that they are almost destined to fail. Fighting Mythical creatures in NYC, the badass boxart, distributed by gamecock, protagonist call Dickhard, wait what? Legendary in many ways suffered from its own success and ended up with terrible reviews. Well, I'm here to tell you that these reviews were probably too harsh, and Legendary is pretty fun. It's a member of the 4 hour campaign crappy FPS group that I am overly fond of. Playing as Dickhard, you have to blast your way through waves of enemies, more doom style than call of duty, including minotaurs, griffins and werewolves. The enemies are pretty badass, and you have to deal with them in different ways which adds a bit of variety. Werewolves have to be shot in the head after they die to stop them regenerating, fairies can only be shot when they are attacking, human soldiers can only be killed if you can aim the shitty controls. Yes this game is made by the same people who made turning point, so its no surprise that the controls are quite slow and unresponsive. It is however a huge improvement on Turning Point, both in terms of controls and how much fun it is to actually play. It reminds me more of a budget F.E.A.R than Turning Point, with its difficulty and how quickly the enemy soldiers kill you and while the horror elements mostly miss the mark, they do help the game stand out from the crowd of generic FPS games. I was wuite disappointed with some of the level locations. It's awesome to start off with civilians get eaten griffins in time square and seeing big ben getting smashed by a giant Kraken was dope, but the intermittent sewers and metro station levels are far less imaginative. I also want to give a shout out to the wolves for always glitching out and getting stuck in walls so you can't blast their head off, thanks guys. Yes it's kinda bad, but no where near as bad as the reviews state and it IS fun to play. Worth picking up cheap just to experience the short campaign and see if you disagree with the critics.

I've seen reviews of this game which highlight it's "massive" open world and it's "amazing" and "forward thinking" pawn system. Personally I was quite baffled when I played the game. I spent most of my time walking between the same two towns of a map which is hardly massive. The pawn system while fine is nothing to write home about, I would rather have companions that actually have something interesting to say. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the game. It has its charm, the combat system is good, you are able to grab onto enemies and team up with your pawns, the quests are fairly solid too. Unfortunately, its bogged down by walking over the same boring path with the same enemies who respawn in exactly the same places. On the other hand you can use a warp stone and skip most of the game. If you are a fan of action RPGs, especially difficult ones, then this is a semi- enjoyable romp. The side missions are quite detailed and normally have an interesting set up. The graphics are quite nice. However, it feels like it could have been better and in many ways seems a little over-hyped.

Street Fighter 2 was the first video game I every played, and for that reason I loved it. The popular 1 on 1 fighting series basically revolutionised console fighting games and most modern fighting games in some way pay their respects to that absolute classic. The console realease of Street Fighter 4 also garnered a lot of praise and is apparently one of the best fighting games on the console, but for me, it's fairly boring. That's ok. We are all different and some games just won't gel with us, even though they are supposed to be excellent, but 7 year old me feels sad. SF4 has been praised for it's netplay and online modes, which isn't really relevant to me. Its graphics, which are beautiful. But most of all praise was heaped upon its deep gameplay. I think that is probably the issue for me. As far as a pick up as go fighter, SF4 isn't really it. It feels sluggish and slow to start off with, and combos and special moves are really hard to pull off. Another issue I have with the game is the lack of story and the poorly animated cutscenes. The characters and their backgrounds was one of the main draws of the SF series, yet it seems to have been slightly ignored here. I'm sure If i stuck a good 20 hours into this game I would love it, but so far in my 4 attempts I haven't got much out of it.

As a series need for speed is exhausting. When you pick up one of these games you never know what you are going to get. Games like Most Wanted are street racing and battling rivals. Shift went more down the simulation route. The Run introduced some weird giant race mechanic. Rivals is the last game released on the 360 and one of the better ones in my opinion. The game seems to follow on from the Hot Pursuit series, mixing up some underground gangs and police chases. You have two parts of the game, the police side and the gang side, both offer slightly different gameplay. You are dropped into a decently sized and quite pretty open world map and given 3 different sets of challenges. You work your way through the ranks, completing these tasks in any way you choose, and leveling up unlocking different cars and gadgets. The tasks are quite nicely varied and the cars handle well and are fun to drive, but its nothing particularly special. Perhaps I am jaded from playing too many crappy NFS games, but as I had such low expectation I was almost able to ignore the shortcomings of this game. At the heart of it, it is Hot Pursuit 2. All of the criticisms that I levelled against that game are even more relevant here. It is everything a bland modern racer stands for and sticks far too closely to the standard set up of many racing games of this era, making it very forgettable. However, it is still a fun fast paced arcade racer. It doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, but fans of simple arcade racers will enjoy it.

Revelations, a side story to the mainstream resident evil games, start with a 3DS game which was then ported to other consoles. Here, rather confusingly, we have the sequel. It's a sequel in loose terms as it links to the first game, but isn't really a direct continuation of the story, or at least it doesn't feel like it. The game is split into two main story arcs, Clair and Barry's daughter and then Barry and some random kid, with each story split into 4 sections. This intense segmentation of the game is because it was released in small installments, similar to the walking dead or the latest series of hitman. This seems like a strange decision, and I'm really confused as to why they did this, luckily its all available on the disk. The game actually starts off quite nicely. The first segment of the game is a lot of fun. It has coop gameplay throughout and is perfect for couples with a more dominant character doing most of the combat, and a side character helping out with finding hidden objects and distracting enemies. After playing through a level with Claire and Barry's daughter you then get to try a different route on a later timeline with Barry and the random kid. Unfortunately, the level design gradually gets worse, meaing it becomes a real pain to repeat these boring levels again. It's a shame because the game starts off so well, the gradual decline to bore fest is sad to see. The game also includes the excellent mercenaries levels, where most of the fun can be had. You take part in various combat challenges in coop or with friends online, from levels from previous games in the series. This mode is fun, and the call backs to enemies and locations from previous games is a nice touch. Overall the mercenaries section saves this game which ends up leaving you feeling gradually more and more disappointed.

Having played and enjoyed Battlefield 2 and Bad Company, I decided to skip 3 for now and move onto 4. The series has always excelled in its online multiplayer, so of course looking at the game as an entry into your collection today is perhaps a little unfair. I do think B4 is a worthwhile addition to your collection however, as more of a reference to the history of FPS games than for a solid single player campaign. In my mind Battlefield 4 is the perfect example of a modern or at least Xbox One style modern FPS game. It feels modern, with its highly detailed and dramatic cutscenes, it's excellent modern feeling control scheme, the online functionality, huge levels, good physics with explosions and bullet drop, some of th ebest graphics on the console and of couse a bunch of bugs. The campaign itself is a great example of this. Like a lot of modern shooters, the campaign feels like a an afterthought hidden behind a shiny Hollywood blockbuster story and set up. The story, voice acting and the feel of the levels can be commended. It feels like a lot of effort has been put in and on the surface level it's really impressive, but delving deeper the cracks start to appear. Firstly, the epic story doesn't really match the campaign. With only 7 levels, the campaign is very short, but the story seemed to be designed for a bigger project, which leaves it feeling very rushed and confusing. The levels themselves are also a bit shallow. The first mission is fairly epic and sets up the campaign well. Things go downhill fairly quickly however, with most missions feeling very narrow and linear, and a number of strange difficult spikes and strange tank destroying sections. It's a real mix of highs and lows and it gives the feeling that it could have been a great campaign if more time and effort was put in. There's a great section in the campagin where you are battling through a damaged city to reach the last base of resistance holding out deep in enemy lines. There's a great feeling of relief when you finally make it behind the friendly walls, seeing all the exhausted and depleted soldiers in the base. I was quite excited by some epic last stand style mission following this. Instead, we were greeted by the commander who basically told us to F off, and we just left in a car. These issues don't ruin the campaign, it's still pretty fun in parts. But It seems like this could have been an epic Modern warfare 1 style adventure, and what we are left with is slightly dissapointing. A very interesting but flawed campaign.

Back in the early days of the 360, the draw of a good multiplayer game really excited people. Xbox live was getting more popular and improving each year and the number of decent online games couldn't keep up with the demand. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare dropped in early 2006 and was a huge hit. The online coop and versus modes were polished and better than most of the competition. It was lauded for it's smart AI and beautiful graphics but most people stuck around for the online play. Reviewers loved the game and it ended up with a score of 91% on Metacritic. 20 years later, with the multiplayer no longer really playable, does this hold up? No absolutely not. GRAW is a 3rd or 1st person shooter, with most of your time spent in a team of 4 soldiers. The story focuses around saving politicians and something called the football? To be honest I wasn't paying much attention, but its very much your standard mid 2000s anti terrorism type of story. Levels take place in fairly realistic environments and the you do get a good sense of urgency and danger as you play through the levels. The enemy AI does hold up and gives you a fairly hard time at parts, and the feeling of being pinned down by enemies, with the now common cover system works well. I think that is the issue with this game, anything it did well has become pretty commonplace nowadays. The cover system, enemy AI, online coop, teamwork aspects, all of it is not so impressive in 2023. I found myself having fun through the 8ish hours of the campaign, but it wasn't particularly memorable. One of the bigger frustrations is the tactical nature of the game. Previous advanced warfare games in the series were very tactical affairs, requiring planning and skill to get through missions. GRAW 1 has dumbed things down for the 360 generation and a lot of the fun has been taken out because of it. It's pretty easy to run and gun through the campaign without the help of your teammates. Your AI teammates also make the game too easy in some parts. Acting as meat shields, they draw the fire of enemies while you pick them off from afar. It takes away from the tension of the game, and I found myself enjoying the single player sections a lot more due to this tension. Its hard to imagine anyone giving this a score of 90% nowadays and it really doesn't hold up to this score. There is fun to be had here, but don't get your expectations up.

If there is one simple joy in video games that is universally recognized, it's gotta be shooting red barrels equals a big fun explosion. Battlefield Bad company is that idea bottled. In previous battlefield campaigns EA hadn't really bothered with the campaign. I guess after the success of the COD games like MW1 they decided to follow suit and flesh out the campaign with some characters and a story, and it works pretty well. The story is fairly interesting and the characters have some memorable lines. It controls well and has a nice variety of different guns and explosives, plus a bunch of vehicles to have fun with. It's one of the hardest campaigns I've played on normal, and I really enjoyed the challenge. This is slightly ruined however by the fact that when you die you just respawn and the enemies don't, which makes the difficulty pointless. I much preferred the never-ending wave of enemies style of Call of duty two. I even got a chance to play a bit of multiplayer too which was excellent. Overall a pretty decent shooter, let down by the respawns. Worth a shot for FPS fans.

Is it worth a try still?
Worth it for the explosions alone.

After loading up the game and being greeted by a bunch of random warning, yes it's ok to autosave no need to make a warning box about it, DOA5 informed me I needed a online pass. I loaded up the marketplace tab to enter the code on the back of my booklet and was greeted by a selection of purchase able costumes. Bikinis and bunny costumes galore. "You might find it hard to keep your head in the fight with this sexy cheerleading uniform", the marketplace proudly states. Errr right.... It was off putting to say the least. Luckily my code from my 2nd hand game worked ( I guess they don't expire), not that it mattered as the online was predictably dead. Ready to hate the game, I started off on the story mode. I was met with some really nice graphics and a very detailed story, which while extremely cheesy, was quite impressive, especially the voice acting. The fights themselves are interspersed among the story scenes and are directly related to the story. The fights themselves act as an excellent tutorial. Each fight teaches you a new move, from simple punches early on, to blocking, countering and combos later on. This is such a nice change from so many fighting games that fail to adequately explain the game mechanics and it really helped me understand and enjoy the fights. The fighting system itself is simple to use but difficult to master. Moves link together well so it is easy to pull of combos. Blocks are simple to execute and really give you a good chance to counter the enemy fighter. The system itself just feels great and is really nice to play. Perhaps I have acieved complete pervert status by enjoying a game famous for it's boob physics, but it's hard not to be impressed by DOA5. As with all fighting games, the death of the online community is a huge drawback nowadays, and there are definitely better fighting games out there, but DOA5 holds its own as a fun game for both perverts and non perverts alike.