The Best Game Collections

For a long time, I’d always claimed it was practically impossible for Creative Assembly to make a bad game. Sure, it produced the woeful Stormrise, but that was more the exception that proved the rule – as long as the company stuck to historical battles, it was on a winner. But Rome 2 changed all of that. I’ve sunk over 100 hours into pretty much every Total War release – but I couldn’t make it more than 20 hours, if that, into my Rome 2 campaign. That’s just... depressing. And it must be astoundingly depressing to the developers of the game, who are very aware of their game’s issues. To their credit, they’ve been very upfront about getting the game fixed, and have even suggested that, currently, the best way to enjoy the game is to use mods from some of the guys who’ve been modding the series for decades, especially Radious – his complete mod updates have always been superb. However, the thing with Total War in relation to mods is that, generally, the base game itself is compe...

The game releases in early access mode on steam – but is this alpha release really worth it? In one of his last updates to the DayZ dev blog tumblr, Dean ‘Rocket’ Hall, the game’s creator, made an interesting, and somewhat surprising, admission. “We strongly advise you not to buy and play the game at this stage,” he said, “unless you clearly understand what Early Access means and are interested in participating in the ongoing development cycle.” Annoyingly, it’s something that cannot be said enough. All across Steam and various DayZ community forums, there are cries that the Standalone, or SA, release is broken, or it’s not with the money, or ... whatever. It’s a shame because Hall has been very up-front from the get-go about what your $30 currently gets you – a chance to test the game in a very early, very limited form. While the reaction of some shortsighted players may be disappointing, what’s very surprising is just how good the game is in its current form. Hall’s wish list...

Now this is a tough one to call. Just how do you review a game that you’ve already completed nearly a year ago and has now been released on a shiny new console with a sexy new makeover? Tomb Raider was unquestionably one of the best games of 2013, and one of the best-looking, too, so we’ve certainly no problem with seeing it getting an Xbox One outing – but with nothing really new added to the package it’s easy to be divided between judging this Definitive Edition on what it delivers and what it doesn’t. As a game the Definitive Edition is exactly the same as last year’s offering. Absolutely everything is in the same place as you’d have found it last year and the missions and the story all play out just as they did before. Even the Achievements are the same, which seems like something of a missed trick to us, and if you’ve already completed Tomb Raider it’s hard for us to recommend shelling out another £50 just to play it again with improved visual finesse. Don’t get us wrong, Tomb...

Have you ever wished that an annoying younger sibling would just disappear and leave you in peace? Well be careful what you wish for, as Max does exactly that and his brother gets sucked into a cartoon wilderness where a creepy old guy wants to steal his youthful spirit. Armed with only a magic marker and his youthful bravado, Max sets off to save him in what proves to be a hugely enjoyable puzzle platform adventure. Technically a sequel to 2010’s non-Xbox release, Max & The Magic Marker, The Curse of Brotherhood is a far more accomplished title, stretching into a full 2.5D side-scrolling world. And where the original was a low-budget twist on the Scribblenauts theme, with you drawing objects on-screen to help Max keep moving, this is a more scripted but certainly no less challenging game. With a degree of cute visual finesse and some clever physics-based problems to solve, it’s a healthy early example of how well digital titles are being polished for the new console. ...

Although we’d all hoped that there would be a new Halo title to guide the infant Xbox One through these tentative early days, few would have expected a five-month-old, Chieffree, topdown spin-off to take centre stage. But that’s what we’ve got and a rather tasty side dish it is, too, though one that’s sadly lacking in both content and character. Released for PCs and Windows 8 Phones last July, Halo: Spartan Assault places you in the boots of a couple of young Spartan soldiers (one being the future Commander Palmer) in events that link the stories between Halo 3 and Halo 4. Only you’re not actually fighting in those battles, just replaying a training simulation of events – and from the moment that an AI hologram explains this, all sense of immersion and interest in anything resembling a story is lost. There’s some paper-thin background info for Halo enthusiasts to ponder, but otherwise Spartan Assault is devoid of narrative and personality throughout. The gameplay itself is much ...

If you don’t like Top Gear or basketball, chances are that you thought Dead Rising 3 was the Xbox One’s best launch game. Despite a few technical niggles it remains an absolute riot and is certainly a game that we’d recommend to everyone – which everyone apparently agrees with, since it shifted over a million copies in just a month – so we were pretty dang excited about the quartet of DLC planned for 2014. Sadly, though, we’re pretty dang disappointed with everything about this first installment. Operation Broken Eagle is the first of four slices of downloadable content know as Untold Stories of Los Perdidos – four standalone stories featuring a new protagonist (or, in this case, antagonist), weapons and vehicles, with events that intertwine with the main game as seen through the eyes of Nick Ramos. You even get to take the new weapons and vehicles back into the main game with you afterwards. All sounds pretty cool – until you realize that it took longer to download the 13...

Aveline de Grandpré is a woman, you can tell. She doesn’t go to the trouble of killing alligators so she can use their skin to fashion a belt, or for food, or for flesh to trade or to not get eaten. She leaves their bodies bloating in the sweltering swamp and instead searches for their nests, since should she gain 12 reptilian eggs she’ll earn a nice new hat. Disused shops don’t inspire her to invest some money into bringing life back to the high street or enter commercial enterprise; she sees another venue for one of the many changing rooms she uses to switch between her three favourite styles of outfit when she’s out and about. And you’ll never see her leave water with wet hair; it’ll always be dry, as will her clothes – though that’s more about the game engine than it is her desire to not look dishevelled in public. So Aveline is definitely a woman, of that there can be no doubt. She can’t even saunter through the streets of 18th Century New Orleans without men mumbling ...

Life can be tough when you’re a small kid in a world so grown up that its everyday demands often cause adults to squabble like children. And now it’s even tougher since everyone that Clementine has ever loved is either dead, missing or stumbling about somewhere performing the Thriller dance. Starving and exhausted, there are some brief but endearing moments of respite in this season opener when she enjoys the opportunity to wash her face to see the tiny human beneath the grime, as well as a chance to play catch with an abandoned and seemingly chummy dog. Neither last long, all end in sorrow, so if you’re expecting some light relief then you’ve come to a very wrong place. Telltale’s Walking Dead games have always been about the player putting emotional investment in characters, and by focusing on Clementine the developer has forced us to go from being her carer to actually playing as her. We see her develop considerably from when she was the frightened wee thing that Lee ...