I jumped back on this with the intention of finally getting the Plat trophy (the servers were miraculously hanging on for dear life despite a shutdown from Ubisoft in 2022). I was actually pleasantly surprised by the story at the start (which i’d all but forgotten) and I really like the twist that it manages early on. But whilst the rug is effectively pulled from under you, so is only charming and playable personality in the entire game. The replacement is Connor, an overly serious, Anakin-In-Attack-of-The-Clones style hero. His setup and history is interesting but his characterisation is anything but. As each cutscene starts it says ‘hold circle to skip’ in the bottom right, and I found that impossible resist eventually.

Then comes the atrocious performance on PS3. This thing chugs along like it might brick your PS3 at any given moment, regularly dropping to what can’t be any higher than 20fps (although if you’re swimming in the open waters with only the sky in your view, you will, for a moment, see a very silky smooth frame rate!

The gameplay has its usual Assassin’s Creed pleasures and problems; Parkour is fun and frustrating, and Connor will often clamber up invisible walls and make jumps in the wrong direction.

I think a lot of the music in here by Lorne Balfe is some of the series’ best, though, even if the samples he’s using are a little outdated now.

Anyway, I didn’t even manage to Plat it because the servers have officially died this time, right as I had one multiplayer trophy left to get.

Short and pretty sweet! Rights some of the wrongs of the first game but introduces its own issues. The controls sometimes trip up on themselves in the heat of battle (grabbing a weak enemy - an essential tactic to healing and getting ammo from enemies - is bound to the same button as grabbing a weapon off the floor) but the gameplay is generally fast and fluid. The art style is fun and the game has a ton of personality, even if our protagonist, Jackie, is largely unlikeable; Who knows what Jenny sees in him.

The bonus co-op Vendetta mode was good fun for an afternoon with a buddy!

The first 10 hours or so of this feel almost perfectly pitched; A constant barrage of new ideas and things to consider as the leader of your newly found cult. It doesn’t quite sustain that momentum but it’s never less than engaging and will even have you struggling to put down the controller fairly often.

I’m reviewing the base game here, where the length feels just about right as repetition starts to set in during the 4th combat area. The environments, enemy types and combat aren’t varied enough for the roguelite half of this game to stay fresh at the finish line, but it’s close.

The less said about both major DLCs (Relics & Sins at the time of writing) the better. Both have you praying to the RNG gods whilst you venture back through all 4 combat areas in order to progress what little extra ‘story’ and lore there is to see. They are free at least and aren’t totally without charm (in the form of follower mating).

Music, sound design and presentation are all major plus points here, full of confident personality.

Even given that there isn't really much game to play here, I found this to be a fun and even addictive experience. I didn't realise this was more on the tactical side of shooters with a healthy dose of stealth and difficulty before I went in so I was pleasantly surprised to get my arse kicked on a few of the missions. You will see the same environments at least twice over, and then again in reverse another two times, and that's a genuine shame; Just a few more environments could've helped this feel fresh throughout.

The game handles nicely and the 'auto' aiming works just enough that you feel slick while you pull off fast headshots but not godlike as you likely won't survive a face off with 2 or more terrorists looking directly at you while you aren't in cover. Co-op is (was, given nobody is playing anymore) a welcome addition and the randomised dynamic missions are interesting enough to keep you playing just a little bit longer.

I guess the biggest plus for a title like this on handheld is that I would finish a mission and immediately want to jump into the next one and see if I could get 5 stars on it first try. I had just as good a time with a Vita exclusive like this as I did with Uncharted: Golden Abyss, which I hope is a testament to the gameplay.

I should note, I don't find it comfortable playing the Vita in any capacity without a third party case grip that emulates the feel of a traditional controller. I tried briefly to play without one and it just feels fiddly, particularly on a shooter like this.

Sackboy brings with him all of the important charm and style of LittleBigPlanet, alongside a ‘new’ 3D platforming flavour which allows for a bunch of fresh mechanics in the form of swinging, hovering, boomerangs, guns(!). The whole thing is really good, simple family fun that looks great and plays intuitively.

So, a great shame then that a game that so clearly should be played cooperatively has so many annoying little issues on that front; the ability to hit your partner is funny for about the first 5 times it happens, but as the levels amp up and the difficulty increases, hitting your fellow Sackboy is a pain for both of you, and happens often. Although not nearly as often as starting a roll and your buddy being dragged along on top of you without a choice, essentially ruining any of the platforming sequences they were currently trying to conquer. The cherry on top is the ability to bounce on top of another players head, except this happens in all the wrong scenarios like the middle of a treacherous jump together, inevitably sending one of you to death. Maybe these criticisms are bearable played locally, but online play can be jittery and janky for everyone but the host, with plenty of ‘I made that jump on my screen?!’ and ‘the enemy never even touched me?!’ shouted during every other stage. These issues are exacerbated in the otherwise deeply enjoyable musical numbers where the levels and their traps are synced to a number of high profile licensed tracks (and covers of) that will have you questioning the likely astronomical music budget of the game - these are highlights of the experience!

This is a critical 4/5, but given that my partner who I played online with experienced a bunch of the annoying connection issues from start to finish, I know his score would be lower and I should at least reflect that in this critique. But don’t get me wrong, this is a super fun platformer that looks, sounds and plays fantastic - just play it locally.

I think this is one of those games where you probably already know if it's for you or not.

I really enjoyed Steep, really enjoyed this, will probably really enjoy the next one if it ever gets made.
I found the downhill biking and wingsuit events genuinely quite exciting (especially in first-person) and the various collectibles that are dotted around the giant and varied map were actually pretty fun to collect thanks to all forms of sports being constantly available to you.
The UI is definitely over-complicated and the matchmaking falls apart given everyone is riding with different level transportation (and those levels massively affect the speed at which you travel), but as a single player experience (which, granted, you stupidly cannot access whilst playing offline) I thought this was a blast in which I was more than happy to see to the end of each sports career.

I remember the licensed Steep soundtrack being way better than this though and ended up resorting to playing Spotify from my PS5 whilst playing which works a treat!

A generally relaxing and comfortable afternoon experience with occasionally gorgeous presentation; that’s the real driving force behind enjoying Hoa, a game which is otherwise over very quickly and never wishes to adventure far beyond press X to jump. That saving grace in the form of visual and audio splendour is apparent most in the opening couple of stages where the the music is clearly performed by a live orchestra and lush greenery is everywhere your eyes can scan across the screen. Both of these welcome attributes slowly but surely disappear until you’re left with a black and white canvas accompanied by virtual instruments. Admittedly these final 30 minutes do push the gameplay boat out a little further in the guise of reversed controls and wonky perspective but it almost comes across as an afterthought, as though you can hear the developers suggest that games tend to need a little more than pretty music and vibrant images, the answer to which is yes, and no.

The classic Borderlands gameplay loop is at its best here thanks to great performance on PS5 and a few new welcome gameplay features, but the story content is just not good; It boils down to a ton of waiting around for characters to finish their excessively long stretches of dialogue so you can either go fetch them something, kill someone, or place/remove an item in their hands. The DLC only rubs salt in the narrative wound with another 15-20 hours of largely boring and repetitive characters written by the teenage sons of all the developers (Bounty of Blood is the best of the bunch thanks to its setting and array of new enemies which felt Oddworld-ish).

This is also the easiest entry in the series by quite a stretch, and as soon as you hit max level (which I did long before my time was over with the game) everything begins to feel moot as you race from objective to objective killing enemies with a single bullet. You can crank things up with a later added Mayhem mode but why bother? Sure, I can get marginally better loot, XP and rewards, but for what? To kill enemies that I made tougher by my own design? It just doesn't make sense to impose more suffering on yourself in the form of extended health bars and shields.