Action

Ambitious, evolutionary, generation-defining: these terms have all been applied to Grand Theft Auto V, most of the time before anybody actually had their hands on the title. And with over $1 billion in sales reported within the first week of release, there's no denying that GTA V will be viewed as an undeniable success. But id it worthy of such descriptors? The answer - like the game itself - is anything but simple.

Taking on the challenge of creating Sony's own first-person shooter blockbuster, Insomniac Games released Resistance: Fall of Man as a launch title for the PlayStation 3 with two sequels following it afterwards. With a unique alternative history setting fused with science fiction and a flair for designing inventive weaponry, Insomniac created a series that offers three unique first person shooter experiences. And while it may not have reached the popularity it deserved, Resistance offers some of the most exclusive experiences of any shooter.

There have been plenty of attempts to recreate the first-person shooter experience on handheld, many of them either missing the mark or ending in a complete disaster. Well, Sony and Guerrilla Cambridge have aimed to change all that with Killzone: Mercenary, a spin-off of their popular console franchise that puts players in the role of Arran Danner, a gun-for-hire soldier willing to take on any dirty job, as long as it pays well.

Heavy Fire Shattered Spear's biggest mistake is that it looks and feels too much like a Call of Duty game. Sure, the graphics aren't great, the voice acting is like something out of a bad YouTube video and the gameplay, nothing like Activision's behemoth franchise, leaves a lot to be desired. All of that just makes Heavy Fire an average, generic title most people will overlook. That it looks so much like Call of Duty - with its setpieces and "foreign looking" enemies - is its biggest mistake because it made people take notice. It meant Heavy Fire had built ...

After the success of the Bioshock franchise, many have tried to look back at other games involving creator and lead writer Ken Levine. Most roads lead back to System Shock 2, a game that was obviously a deep influence for the team’s later work on Bioshock. For the first time, System Shock 2 has been made available on Steam, a chance for gamers to look back at an important part of gaming history. Despite a few crow's feet, it has managed to age very well.

Like everyone, I looked at Disney Infinity when it was announced and saw only a money grabbing rip-off of Activision's popular Skylanders series. ANOTHER game where I have to buy overpriced toys to unlock some on-disc DLC? Ridiculous.

The Wonderful 101 is what happens when you take Nintendo's charm and core-appeal and stuff it into a Saturday morning cartoon format. This is a world where heroes scream the name of their power before using it, in which every ability is mercilessly explained in detail, in which you're the hero and in which you'll die. A lot.

Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth was a Kinect game originally, and was ported to the Wii U along with an alternative control scheme in the hopes of entertaining a new market. It's actually a really difficult game to review, because although what's there is, by and large, pretty decent stuff, it amazes me that there's enough content here to even fill the blurb on the back of the box.

When the Wii U was released, it brought with it a handful of ports and "enhanced" editions, partly because they were awesome games and partly because Nintendo wanted to prove that the Wii U was just as capable of playing "grown up" games as any of the other consoles. That they didn't need to worry about proving themselves in that way, and that many of the quickly-rushed ports actually seemed to prove the opposite probably didn't come into it.

The Saints Row series started out as a free-roaming criminal rampage game that was very close to Grand Theft Auto, but by the time Saints Row The Third showed up the developers had pretty much abandoned the idea of edgy crime drama and made a game where gamers could drive around on the Light Cycle from Tron, shooting people with a Shark Gun while their pal Burt Reynolds helped them beat up zombies.