Genres

Mario has long enjoyed a wide variety of spin-offs. Best known is Mario Kart, although the little plumber that could has never been completely tied to to the racetrack. This tradition of allowing an untrained fat man to star in various sporting events continues with Mario Tennis Open for the 3DS.

Resident Evil: Revelations was a hit when it came to 3DS ahead of Resident Evil 6 and the controversy surrounding it. A handheld Resident Evil title that seemed to manage to successfully bridge that gap between the old and the new, the survival horror of our youths and the more action-based focus of today.

Payday 2 worked incredibly well as a digital only co-op shooter, its shortcomings easily overlooked thanks to it offering far more value than its asking price. Payday 2 is bigger in scale and comes with a price boost as a result, but is it a crime gone wrong or a heist worth getting behind?

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.

Project X Zone should perhaps win the award for the most exciting game with the least descriptive, least exciting name. It sounds like a fantasy extreme sports simulator, like Dead Ball Zone or something of that kin. And yet, behind the name there lies not only a cross-over project perhaps unrivalled in gaming - only beat perhaps by The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen elsewhere - but a decent tactical RPG that will suck you into the genre whether you have prior experience.

It’s hard to judge a sequel without comparing it to the original. Broken Sword: Director’s Cut set the standard for the series, which I praised in my review. Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror - Remastered is a decent game, however, it simply does not measure up to the original in most categories.

After playing through chapter one of The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief, I walked away with mixed feelings. The puzzles were a mess, and the story was a downright bore until Constable Zellner hopped aboard a ship headed to Cairo to continue his search for The Raven, who is hell bent on stealing the second Eye of the Sphinx. It was during this final act, with the murder on the ship, the detective work that followed, and the cliffhanger ending, where the game finally piqued my interest in the next episode, Chapter II: Ancestry of Lies.

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.

While everyone was still celebrating the announcement of DuckTales: Remastered, the reveal of another modernization of a bit-era Disney classic flew by everyone's radar: Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse.