This is the first time the game has been published by EA and you can tell straight away thanks to the visuals. It’s the best looking Super Mega Baseball yet, with excellent stadium crowds, characters, the stadiums themselves, and visual effects. There are six brand-new stadiums. Game cameras and cutscene animations have also been overhauled for the first time since the original Super Mega Baseball, with new variations and perspectives. It’s crisp and technically impressive without losing the cartoon charm the series is known for. The superb caricature characters come in every shape and size. Superbly placed sound effects and commentary play on the humour and enhance the immersion, as well as tremendously lively animations bringing a smile to your face.

Super Mega Baseball 4 is highly accessible. Batting and fielding have retained their arcade style meaning anyone can pick up and play through a regular exhibition match in no time at all. However if you really want to dig deeper into some of the more complicated play styles there are whole host of controls to remember to make the game more of a simulation. Difficulty can be tweaked to any level with the ego scale the small increments mean you can find the perfect level depending on your experience.

There are a huge amount of game modes to take part in. From standard exhibitions to pennant races, seasons, shuffle drafts and elimination.

In Pennant Race players choose a team to compete and face a series of randomized online opponents to compete for the top of the rankings. Players can choose to play cross-platform or same-platform, but they are then placed into a Division of up to 15 players based on their general skill level. It’s a great way to play random opponents.

Franchise mode adds a new player loyalty system which give you interesting decision to make to keep players happy, build their loyalty and keep them on your team, but it’s not the most satisfying mechanic: you always leave someone on your team upset and this black and white decision making reveals its limitations quickly.

The player development opportunities provide interesting decisions that can grant improvements or reduce a player’s skills. The risk verse reward aspect of this keeps you on your toes, and there’s an impressive number of different opportunities that crop up.

My favourite mode so far is Shuffle Draft, where you get repopulate the entire league. You have a choice of starting a Franchise, Season, Elimination or Online League season with your draft. You’ll start with a bank team and go through 22 rounds of each team picking a player. You’ll be given a choice of 8 players each round and its up to you to ensure you get the right balance of finding strong players and optimising your teams chemistry. It’s great fun a and keeps the game fresh.

Another huge area of fun comes from the awesome customisation menu. SMB4 has multiple options for both character and team customisation. In terms of players, you name it, you can customise it. All of the characters physical features can be changed as well as their stances and skills. Teams can have all sorts of visual and audio features changed, including the sounds that are made when they hit a home as well the logos.

The online experience is excellent too, especially now that game supports cross-play between all the major platforms. Sending invites is simple and you are in a game before you know it.

Super Mega Baseball 4 is the best in the series, with so many teams and legends to play as you will always find something different to play with someone different. Its the most accessible version I’ve played and the fantastic presentation is a real highlight.

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You play as an unarmed character that can be customised as you unlock new parts and their inventor grandpa who embark on adventure to search for inspiration to help reinvigorate his rundown amusement park with your little robot buddy in tow. 

You’ll visit the deepest jungle, sun-drenched deserts, a bustling city corner, a towering medieval castle, and tropical Caribbean islands as you progress through the game. Each world will require you to explore and solve various building puzzles to unlock new areas as you move around. You ‘ll meet and help the minifigures of these worlds by solving puzzles and unlock new skills throughout the story to further explore these worlds and uncover the many secrets and mysteries they contain.

Unlike the licensed TT games LEGO titles where all you have to to do is hold down a button to build a structure, in Bricktales you need to have a proper think about how you are going to build each structure.

One of the first things you’ll need to build is a bridge, which is hardly surprising since it’s made by the same team responsible for the entertaining Bridge Constructor series. You are given various bits of LEGO and an area to build it in, you are then left to your own devices to complete the task. Before you can move on you’ll need to prove your structure is solid but testing it with little robots.

As you progress through the game the builds become more complex with more bits of LEGO to use. It’s pretty unforgiving, there are no hints or tips to help you, you are purely relying on trial and error each time you build which at times can become a little frustrating. The only guidance you have shows bricks in red if they can’t be placed or are out of the build area. Hardcore LEGO builders will welcome the challenge while younger players will find the this game pretty difficult.

One challenge for all players however is the camera. Bricks can be rotated and moved up and down through the levels and placed wherever you think is best, but the camera makes it really difficult to see where you are placing bricks, especially when you are trying to be precise with your build. I often found myself placing breaks wildly out of place too often which became really frustrating. Once you had completed a difficult build however it was very satisfying. 

When you have completed a build you are able to go back in and add extra flourishes with new colours and bricks, apart from a purely cosmetic need there was little reason for me to do this though. 

I love the fact LEGO Bricklates goes back to basics with non licensed LEGO worlds to explore with a cute story about family. Each of the worlds are fascinating to explore and they all look great, it’s just a shame the puzzles are let down by such awkward camera movements.

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Central to the game is the Knights Headquarters, the Belfry. This central hub allows you to choose and customise your character, talk with the other nights and assess your evidence board. Evidence is collected through nightly patrols where you all scan for crimes and stop them from happening.

The majority of Gotham is available immediately so you can explore and discover crimes all over the city. They’ll range from simple muggings to fully blown gang operations. Certain enemies you defeat will give you intelligence about premeditated crimes that will take place on future nights. While some enemies will automatically give you intel, others will need to be interrogated.

You have complete freedom to spend as long as you want in the city, however when you decide to return to Belfry any crimes you haven’t stopped will be gone forever. It’s the same result if you are killed during a fight. When you return your evidence board will be populated with future quests.

Completing patrols also rewards you with XP, allowing you to mould your favourite character into the kind of fighter you want to play as. Levelling up grants you skill points that can be spent in the skills trees for each character, dictating what they excel at. If you want to play heavy-handed you can concentrate on combat skills and gadgets, turning you into either a tank or DPS character that can soak-up or deal heavy damage respectively.

Meanwhile, focus on stealth instead and you can become a master of opportunity takedowns, making yourself practical undetectable to enemies and even security cameras to allow you to prowl around unmolested. You could even focus on critical hits and dodging, making you a slippery, hard-hitting combatant. There’s a great variety of skills that help make the experience fit your preferred playstyle.

Each of the four knights have the own individual style, Batgirl is highly trained in a variety of fighting styles, such as kickboxing, capoeira, and jiu-jitsu. Her signature weapon is the tonfa. She is also great at hacking or coding in computers and technological systems to dig for information.

Robin is an expert fighter armed with his collapsible quarterstaff and skilled in the art of stealth. Nightwing boasts mastery in acrobatics and is an expert at taking down enemies with his signature dual escrima sticks, while Red Hood is proficient in multiple combat techniques with all manner of weapons—both traditional and high-tech.

Gotham Knights lacks the fluidity of the Arkham games, both in traversal and combat. Moving around the space feels clunky and unresponsive. Character movement has momentum and acceleration, making movement look realistic but feels delayed, this is especially noticeable when making turns in vents or moving from a stationary position.

Each character has a grapplehook to aid in their traversal of the environment but there’s a surprisingly limited amount of verticality in some areas, or even points that look like they should support your grapplehook but don’t offer you that option. Meanwhile, running and jumping doesn’t feel accurate, making it all too easy to fall off points of elevation or fail to escape an area quickly because you can’t vault or climb something without bashing a button repeatedly.

Meanwhile, combat feels decent but ultimately an imitation of the Arkham system, it’s mechanically the same, incorporating light, heavy, ranged and grab attacks to manage your foes and exploit their weaknesses, with the now ubiquitous dodge rounding out the experience, however, while the combat looks fancy enough, and certainly gets the job done, there’s a lack of feedback in terms of sound effects and even in controller rumble.

There’s no denying the satisfaction it brings as you pound enemies into the ground, or into nearby obstacles, but it’s not as impactful and smooth as seen in the Arkham games and Lord of the Ring Shadow titles. It’s pleasingly cinematic though. The acrobatics are nicely animated and there’s a variety of slow-motion takedowns to enjoy, with some neat looking attacks when you cooperate with nearby teammates. Meanwhile, the particle effects from things like Molotov cocktails looks terrific, and the visual cues for dodging and avoiding bullets or thrown objects is pleasantly obvious.

Gotham Knights nails the Batman atmosphere and aesthetic. The city of Gotham is wonderfully dense, gothic and noir in style, and each of the characters looks and sounds perfect. Strong voice acting and a script that feels true to each character helps immerse you. Furthermore, a rich selection of suits for each character lets you enjoy your crime fighting in style – once you unlock them. Even the way villains are portrayed and how their related missions play out feels appropriate to the source material. An early Harley Quinn mission ends up with a huge prison brawl to a punk rock version of Ricky Martin’s Livin’ la vida loca playing in the background, feeling absolutely perfect for that character’s special brand of insanity.

Where Gotham Knights excels is its handling of the co-op. While your partner is in your world they are free to do whatever they please aside from main and side missions that need to be completed together. If you decide to fight a crime together you can or you can divide and conquer if you prefer. What I liked most was that if you weren’t hosting and completed a mission further on that you had got to in your save when you reach that point in your save the game will recognise you have completed it already but will give you the option to replay it. Enemies are scaled called based on your skill level so it’s a fair fight for whoever plays. The biggest shame is that it isn’t 4 player co-op.

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Arcade Paradise taps directly into this almost Neanderthalic part of the older gamers psyche and turns it all the way up to 11.

From the opening cinematic with its nod to early 90’s trends; the drone of the alarm clock everyone owned, the orange foam headphones and Walkman, and even the parody NTV music channel all draw you in to Ashley’s world from the outset.

You have just left your job at the “Pizza King” and your dad Gerald, voiced by the unmistakeable Doug Cockle, has seen fit to let you loose to run the local Laundrette he owns while he relaxes on the Riviera. This requires you to clean up after the slobbish patrons, load their laundry to wash and dry, while making sure the facilities don’t break down. The major perk is that the laundromat back room is kitted out with a couple of arcade machines from when your older sister undertook this parental rite of passage before you, and these are far more profitable than your first day washing clothes. Against your father’s instructions you and your sister conspire to make the Wash King Arcade successful to prove him wrong.

As you progress and upgrade the laundrette,  you will get tips and new opportunities from your sister as she tries to help you make a success of the business.

Most of the tasks you perform requires you to complete a simple minigame, from cracking the lock on your safe to deposit your daily takings, attacking the toilets health with a plunger to unblock it, or even timing the perfect pull to remove stubborn chewing gum, you will find yourself quickly getting a routine for these tasks as the days roll on, with some rewarding you additional cash depending how well you perform the task.

Thankfully, it is not long before you earn enough money to increase the arcade machines you have in stock, or even expand your property to give you even more room to fit cabinets. Playing and completing goals on each of the machines improves its popularity meaning more games per hour and more money in your coffers. There is a very well-balanced progression in the early game, with more of your time focused on the running of the laundromat, rushing off any time your watch alarm goes to notify of a completed wash. Delay too long, and your earnings fall rapidly so to begin it is quite difficult to balance the books while also getting time to play the arcades, until the cabinets become profitable enough that you never need to wash another garment again.

As you progress, you also unlock daily to-do tasks which reward you with a second, premium currency allowing you to buy upgrades ranging from reducing how often the facilities or cabinets break, unlocking new functions on your very basic PC, (including minesweeper and solitaire!!!), advertising your business, or hiring an assistant to collect your profits from the hoppers for you, all helping to leave you free and clear to play as many arcade games as you want.

The games themselves are pretty faithful recreations or interpretations of classic titles like Outrun, Pac-Man, Merc and even air hockey, and with over 30 cabinets there is bound to be a few that you will find yourself being told to leave the property at 2am because the working day is over. Racer Chaser featuring prominently with the additional mechanics of being able to pick up a speed boost that lets you outrun pursuers, or even run to a new vehicle whenever you are caught, stunning police with your Ghetto Blaster music, allowing a little more flexibility and survivability over the original game.

Early on you unlock a jukebox as well which has an eclectic mix of trance, grunge and pop all reminiscent of the hey-day of 90’s music which just elevates and accentuates that “lightning in a bottle” that was 90’s gaming.

Regrettably, during my playthrough I did have a few irritating bugs occur. Most are minor such as To-do tasks failing to update, individual hoppers becoming un-interactable until you return the following day or reload, and I even had a critical bug where the delivery guys dropped off a cabinet twice, locking me into the map as there was no space to place the second cabinet. (Thankfully this occurred early, as I had to completely wipe all saves to allow me to start again, but I was always wary about buying a new cabinet in case I didn’t have room).

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This year Madden 23 focuses on making the game as accessible to people as possible, they’ve introduced some new mechanics but do lots to make sure you play in the style which you prefer.

You’ll begin the game by playing through the Madden Legacy Game: In celebration of the NFL legend, you can play through a unique experience featuring coach John Madden himself – from different eras – with teams composed of some of the players Coach loved the most. 

You are encouraged to let the whole match play out and not skip scenes as there are lots of interesting facts about Madden, his career and life. It’s really well put together and it’s a great tribute.

Once you are past setting everything up you have a huge amount of game modes to play through. Franchise mode has had the biggest amount of improvements, notably NFL Free Agency. With all new screens, additional evaluation periods, player motivations and added salary cap functions there is a whole new dynamic to engage with when trying to put together the ideal roster. Players’ emotions and motivations come into play much more.

They will weigh offers taking into account things like their desire to play for a winning organization, joining a team close to making a Super Bowl run, or with a franchise QB; playing in a big market; making sure they sign with a team close to home; and more. It adds an interesting new dynamic to the mode, trying to sign the best players and then trying to meet their expectations. It’s a deeply rich mode and a lot of fun.

Face of the Franchise has had a much needed narrative change, you start as a journeyman player who happens to be a free agent who get their chance to prove their worth with a one year contract. The improved player lock gameplay makes it much easier to focus on your position during matches. The new side activities are a welcome addition too.

Ultimate team returns with lots of improvements to the gameplay, setting clear paths for you to build the best team possible with all of your favourite players. A brand new field pass gives you lots of rewards during your time in the mode. Complete objectives for specific rewards within the new Field Pass system. You will find 3 different Field Passes at launch: Season, Competitive, and Program. The Season Pass lasts for two months and has some special rewards tied to it. The first reward you earn is Coach Madden himself so you can have him coaching on the sidelines. At Level 50, you’ll see an All- Madden version of former Raider and Coach Madden favorite, Dave Casper. There will be an initial set of objectives that earn you XP and more will continue to be released as the Season progresses

With the new modes out the way you are probably wondering how the gameplay is this year. PS5 and Xbox Series X users will be able to make use of FieldSENSE. Passing has been improved thanks to more refined passing options, giving you more control and accuracy over where the ball will fall. It takes some getting used to but it’s worth trying out to see if it improves your game, if you prefer a more classic style however you can just swap back to that. New animations during plays see players performing mid-air knockouts and standing tackles to force turnovers. There is a noticeable difference to Wide Receivers vs Defensive Backs too, its nice to see some focus on other areas of the field.

As you would expect from any EA sports game. The presentation is fantastic. The detail that goes into every stadium is enough to distract you from the actual matches themselves, coaches and teammates get animated according to on field action while teams in the field look better than ever. It’s not always perfect, players body part contort in odd ways and collisions cause odd reactions. They do nail the big hits though and they are satisfying as ever. Commentary is still brilliant although at times they talk over the referee which makes it difficult to understand what decision has been made. 

There are lots of improvements to Madden 23 this year that make it a worthwhile purchase for hardcore and casual players, the tributes to John Madden are excellent and the game looks amazing, there s something for everyone in this game.

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The first thing you’ll notice apart from Fernando Alonso looking like he is surrounded by drivers half his age is the introduction of F1 Life, a rather odd hub where you can decorate a social hub to your tastes all while showing off a supercar collection worthy of a F1 driver. All of these items can be bought in the games store using, supercars can be unlocked using tokens earn from completing challenges such as driving a certain amount of miles. Your hub can also be used as a multiplayer lobby so you can show off your hard work to your mates. To be honest it all feels it a bit lifeless and a bit of grab to get you spending for cosmetics that aren’t needed, you’ll love my lampshades and I won’t be paying any extra!

The supercars can actually be driven on track to compete in challenges ranging from time trials, drifting competitions and Pirelli Hot Lap challenges, it’s cool being able to jump in the safety car to experience a different view. It takes a bit of getting used to because of the huge difference in the way the F1 cars handle themselves on the circuits, however its a welcome distraction from the rest of the game.

In terms of circuits, the Miami International Autodome has been added and its a great drive, not only do you get to race around the Hard Rock stadium complex, but with 3 DRS zones its designed for some really exciting racing.

Existing circuits have also had some changes made to them, with lots of changes to turns and camber, as well as improved graphics. Which all adds to the authenticity of the game.

That's right, @Circuitcat_eng isn't the only circuit with updates coming to #F122game at launch ?

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— EA SPORTS F1® 22 ? Now w/Cross-Play (@Formula1game) May 23, 2022

Audio has also been improved, first of all, no more Jeff! I sort of miss him but I’m sure we’ll grow tired of his replacement soon enough. The commentary has had a big improvement with brand new commentary recorded with teams across multiple regions as well as dynamic music on-track which you can pick up while racing.

Moving to the on track experience, there are a host of improvements that create a greater experience for drivers no matter what you ability is. A new adaptive AI reacts to your speed and lap times by increasing or decreasing the difficulty of your opponents, it works really well and gives you a real sense of being competitive.

This year also see the introduction of simulation formation laps, giving you the chance to get warmed up before attempting to park as accurately as possible. As you approach the line a coloured indicator changes colour, the better you line up, the better your start is when the lights go out. Pit stops have also had a slight change, with a timer prompting you when to dive into your garage. The outcome is more noticeable here with an impact on the overall pit time based on how good your timing is. Both take a little bit of getting used to but are worth having enabled.

All of these options can be turned on and off in the excellent settings menu that really allows you to customising your racing experience to the finest detail, this continue to be one of the games biggest strengths as it completely determines your experience.

The cars look brilliant with their new front and back wings, as well as the huge new tyres and all of the cars new handling has been reflected into the game, the cars feel heavier and take just that little bit longer to brake, so even veterans of the game will take a little time to adjust to the cars. There are lots of new cut scenes which all add to the broadcast experience which as you would expect from an EA sports title.

Unfortunately the FIA still seem to be in a bit of disarray with some of their judgements in game defying logic. I’ve been wiped out (and wiped opponents out) by AI without consequences, yet have been given the dreaded 5 sec penalty for minor infractions. It’s all stuff that can be patched up no doubt.

My Team has had a good new feature added with the ability to specify what sort of backing your team has from the owners, teams pushing Red Bull and Ferrari will get given more cash and R&D changes already implemented giving you that extra edge. While lower team will start with less cash and resources. Once you are in and playing however the mode doesn’t feel significantly different.

All the regular games modes are still present and for those of you who are extra brave the Multiplayer and eSports modes are there so you can take on the world via leagues and competitions. There is also the Podium Pass which unlock all sorts of cosmetics for you driver, cars and items that can be used in F1 Life. The pass come with challenges that include targets such as setting a certain lap time in Time Trial, achieving a one-two finish in My Team or completing three online races without incident. If F1 2022 is your main game then having the Podium Pass is definitely worth it.

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Vampire the Masquerade: Swansong is a narrative-focused, RPG, which puts you in the shoes of three vampires. Gameplay switches between these characters, each of which have their own abilities, personality, extensive lore, and current object. It’s your task to investigate areas, people and other vampires to initially find out about a breach of security and massacre at a vampire party, and to meet the expectations of the Camarilla prince of Boston, Hazel Iverse, who has tasked you with solving the debacle.

There’s a lot of lore to get your head around when it comes to the World of Darkness and the masquerade that hides the existence of vampires and other supernatural forces from humanity. Learning it all greatly informs you on how you should conduct yourself in the world and what burdens of history are relevant, as well as what other creatures and vampire sub-species you should be aware of. Fortunately, you don’t need to know anything going in. Swansong gradually reveals things to you either directly through conversations and tutorials, or through an encyclopedia that collects information that you can peruse at your leisure. The universe is intuitive enough for you to immediately feel familiar with it but has hidden depth that vastly improves the enjoyment if you have the inclination to learn more. It’s a balancing act that Swansong pulls off effectively, giving you enough to navigate by and build intrigue without hitting you over the head with too much information.

Exploration, collecting information, puzzle solving, and conversations are the primary components that makes up the experience of Vampire the Masquerade: Swansong. Thanks to the three different characters you play as, you manage to see a pleasant variety of locations and interact with many different individuals. There’s a huge amount of dialogue and voice acting on offer that, for the most part, carries the story and characters along nicely enough, but does stumble occasionally. Conversations aren’t always the most engaging, with a lack of emotion making them dull and lifeless. When conversation is such a big part of the experience, it’s a letdown when those conversations are less engaging and enjoyable. It’s partly due to tone. There just isn’t a character with a sense of humour to help alleviate and add contrast to the serious parts of the narrative. Meanwhile, as varied as the locations are, there’s very few that offer anything interesting or unique. There’s no sense of you being in Boston at all, it could easily be any American city.

The narrative has an intriguing premise and some nice twists and turns, but its delivery isn’t great. The conversations and dialogue are certainly the biggest issue with it, but even still it’s not the grandest of tales. What it does well is give you the opportunity to play vampire-detective; exploring areas and talking to people to uncover information is enjoyable. Moreover, your decisions affect the story in big ways, giving you strong agency across the ten to fifteen hour experience. However, you’d be forgiven if you forget this is a game about vampires. You can occasionally feed on people to boost your abilities, and your abilities play a part in manipulating conversations and maneuvering around the environment, but a lot of the puzzles require nothing supernatural, and even the abilities used in conversation can feel a bit speechcraft more than mind control. You also don’t always have the best abilities going into a situation. Upgrades are handled at the end of each scene for each character, and the points you can spend on them are determined by how well you’ve done in the scene. A bad scene can really limit your character’s potential.

Vampire the Masquerade: Swansong suffers a little from an identity crisis. It’s a talking-simulator, stealth game, detective game, Hitman-lite, puzzle game, adventure game all rolled into one, with no particular mastery of either. A lot of the stealth sections are forced and frustrating, the puzzles are uninspired, and there some odd adventure game style sections that feel incongruous with the vampiric natural and powers of the characters. It feels a little half-baked, like a mishmash of ideas not fully formed. This sense of unpolished carries over to the visuals, were characters look lifeless and lack facial details, have terrible mouth flapping animations, and the occasional wild physics with hair. Meanwhile, plenty of texture pop in leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Environments on the other hand, look fantastic, with smooth frame rate throughout.

Vampire the Masquerade: Swansong suffers from lackluster dialogue and some scatterbrain gameplay but makes good use of the already existing lore to present an intriguing story with some really enjoyable sections. It feels unpolished but there’s certainly a lot of potential here, and for fans of the World of Darkness, Swansong is absolutely recommended. For new comers, the issues with Swansong are more of an obstacle, but playing vampire-detective is still an enjoyable experience if you can manage to look past them.

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The Skywalker Saga is no exception. Wacky humour, exciting gameplay and cutscenes alike have captured the nostalgic feeling of playing the original games brilliantly. Whether you are fighting Darth Vader on Bespin or speeding through the inside of a Lucrehulk battleship as Anakin, the combat feels fresh and interesting every time.

There are many new features in this new game, some of which have never been seen in LEGO games before First, the open world format has been used, meaning that players can travel around the galaxy freely and choose whether they want to follow the story or travel around to different planets. Then, when you arrive on a planet, you aren’t limited to one area. Each planethas different parts, so you can choose whether to explore the Jedi temple on Coruscant or the financial district. This adds a lot more exploring to do on each planet.

Also, there is now an upgrade system, which allows you to spend a mix of studs and kyber bricks (which can be found around the map or unlocked after completing a level in the story) on upgrades to your character, such as getting a stud magnet or extra damage. There are general upgrades, but also upgrades to specific character classes. For example, there is the Jedi class, for characters like Obi-Wan and Luke Skywalker, bounty hunter class for Boba and Jango, along with many others. These features keep the game fresh and replayable for a long time. The game also has 2 new episodes that haven’t been playable in Lego before. Now you can play through the 8th and 9th episodes, completing the sequel trilogy and the Skywalker saga.

Going back to the combat mechanics, the game has multiple attacks that can be used to break blocks by the enemy soldiers. Rather than just spamming one button over and over to kill someone, the enemy will now block your attacks if you use the same one too much. To break the block, you must use a different attack, such as an air launch or a heavy attack, along with other combos. In aerial combat, the fighting isn’t too difficult, and lets you use laser blasts and sometimes proton torpedoes to annihilate the enemy defence.

Graphically, the game looks amazing. There are details around every corner and no matter where in the galaxy you are, the lighting and colours cause a unique feel to every planet. The game manages to capture detail and all the while keeps a steady frame rate throughout the levels. This, and the game still manages to capture the nostalgic look of its predecessors. All the way through the game there are small bits of wacky humour that would make any star wars fan laugh, referencing parts of the movies and the memes that came with them.

Overall, Lego Star Wars the Skywalker Saga is a brilliant and exciting mix of the Lego Star Wars games that came before it, but better than ever before. With tons of brand-new game changing features, this game is fun for hours, and replayable over and over. It has many hours of gameplay for all types of players, whether you like to mess around blowing stuff up or collecting every last thing the game has to offer.

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Driven to Glory sees you been given the opportunity to race for Senaca Racing to go up against the undisputed champions Ravenswest. The story is told via a series of interviews and fly on the wall cut scenes as part of a sports documentary. All of the actors are filmed against digital backdrops much like how The Mandalorian was filmed.

All of the actors do a good job of playing their parts, your teammate is a driven winner that has high expectations of everyone, while Nathan McKane plays the cocky daddy’s boy as Ravenwest’s Number One driver, fans of older GRID games will recognise the McKanes as AI opponents of yesteryear.

Of course there is plenty of racing to be done using a big array of vehicles across a series of different events. Each race has an objective to meet to be able to move across the 36 chapters of the story. It took me about 6 hours to complete.

All of the XP and credits earned can be used in the main career of the game, the credits can be used to purchase new vehicles and to develop your teammate and mechanics. You can upgrade your teammate across three groups, Race Strategy, Team Synergy and Racing Knowledge. Improving these will help you out on the track as they are less prone to mistakes and respond to team commands more efficiently. Improving your mechanics stats leads to cheaper upgrades and repairs and more opportunities from sponsors. Your sponsors will set you objectives such as driving certain distances in a specific class of car or performing well in events, this will lead to XP and cash rewards that can be spent on your team.

The racing is excellent, the cars all feel great and bring their own unique characteristics, for example when racing in trucks you can feel the suspension straining as you go round corners but once you hit the straights you can really feel the power of the engine kick in, electric cars feel like they are gliding around the track while classic touring cars feel rough and ready as you smash into your opponents. The AI responds to your driving style through the nemesis system, clean racing won’t cause you any issues but bump an opponent too many times and you cause them to become a nemesis. They’ll take any opportunity to push you aside and give you a tougher race. 

I particularly enjoyed the randomness of cars breaking down in a plume of smoke, or seeing tyres randomly come loose and race off away from their owners cars, occasionally you’ll also see cars flip in bigger crashes. It probably happens too often but it adds a layer of excitement to the game while you are racing.

The game looks brilliant running at 120hz, gameplay is smooth and the weather effects all looked fantastic. The circuits based around the world were all interesting to race, the crowd taking photos mixed in with the fireworks greeting you at the finish line really helped with the immersion. The thing I enjoyed most was the empathic soundtrack that reacted to your racing, when things were going smoothly the score was intense and pushed you along. If you crashed, the music would become dull and  and would need to build up again. It reminded me of Split Second, the Disney racing game from 2010.

I really enjoyed jumping into the social side of GRID Legends, you can jump straight into a quick race, search for a session or create your own. Depending on the time of day you may only find yourself racing against a few human racers but the game bolsters the lobby with AI and quickly swaps as more people join the races.

GRID Legends is a welcome return of the GRID series, the documentary style story mode was excellent while the racing and presentation worked really well. Despite big hitters like Forza Horizon and Gran Turismo 7 available for racing fans, there should be plenty of room for GRID Legends to part of your library.

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Starting with the first mode, All out warfare it’s here where the big battles take place. Conquest and Breakthrough are the two game modes available and are playable on the largest maps ever for the franchise and for the first time, up to 128 players on consoles and PC. As exciting as this sounds I found the experience to be pretty frustrating, with so many players the games become quite overwhelming and before you know it you are travelling a large distance to get back to action, which can take a while if you don’t have a vehicle.

The first new mode is Hazard Zone, which puts you in a team of four against 28 other players and AI. The objective is to find and extract as many data drives as possible, it sounds simple but the execution is much more challenging. At the start of each match you’ll need to perform some recon to establish where the drives might be, 

The gamble is whether you decide to extract straight away or gamble and extract at the end of the match. The risk is that you’ll face up against other squads and lose everything, you only need one squad member to survive in order to be rewarded but is it worth the gamble? If any of your squad die during the match you are able to revive them using a tactical upgrade or by finding a reinforcement uplink.

You’ll earn points for the drives you extract that can be used to buy better weapons and upgrades so that the next time you play you can improve your loadout. You won’t just be against other opponents, you’ll have to deal with that pesky tornado too. In one match my squad played we got hit by a huge sandstorm and it really added a lot of tension to the game.

In this mode you are restricted to one type of specialist per squad, in conquest and breakthrough however not only can you be who you want, but loadouts are not locked to a Specialist. Upgrading a weapon makes this version available to all Specialists, offering more freedom to play how you want. I’m a big fan of the new Plus System which allows players to swap out weapon attachments during gameplay to change their capabilities during the battle. I really love the flexibility this gives you as you.

Battlefield 2042 boasts some huge maps to battle in, you’ll fight in South Korea, India, Qatar and even Antarctica, they all look fantastic but what is particularly brilliant about the maps is the fact they are dynamic, there is destruction, ground deformation and weather states which can all affect the match you are in. If you played in the open beta then at some point you would have experienced one of two things; the Rocket taking off or the tornado moving across the map. Both are spectacular additions, even more so if you are up close. 

As you continue to play you will notice destructible antennae and large signage on the top of skyscrapers that fall to the ground on the Kaleidoscope map. Winches that pull down large sections of the beached ships on the Discarded map. The “Wall of Sand” event you see on the Hourglass map that sees you experience a massive sandstorm, and destructible fuel tanks and silos that create debris fields and permanent fires when destroyed on the Breakaway map. Moving up through buildings has also been made easier with plenty of ziplines to help you gain height, you can also move cranes and raise and lower bridges to help give you an advantage.

Visually the game looks great, the set pieces are fantastic especially when the weather events kick in. The gunplay is good although I wasn’t impressed with how the guns sound, compare the weapons to Call of Duty and you’ll easily notice the difference in quality.

The shining star in Battlefield 2042 is Portal, where players will have the complete Battlefield toy box at their disposal, featuring powerful tools to create new and completely unique Battlefield experiences.

Portal gives you the ability to join experiences that have been created by the community or you can build your own to share. What is most impressive is the huge array of options, you are able to bring weapons, equipment and vehicles from Battlefield 1942, Battlefield 3, Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 2042. You can build the experiences on the 2042 maps as well as 6 maps from the other games.

Some of the community creations are excellent, there are various versions of Gun Game, Snipers and Knives and there is even a mode where there are 116 Zombies vs 12 humans, it’s incredible to see the variety of modes. You can create public or private servers depending on how you want to play too. 

What’s most impressive in Portal is the online builder. You’ll need to set a few parameters before you get into building. You will choose a game type, choose which map(s) you want it to rotate through, then define weapons, attachments, vehicles etc before diving into the rules editor. The visual scripting tool that manipulates game elements using Logic Blocks, it’s quite daunting at first but there are plenty of tutorials to help you. If you find an experience that someone else has created you can take a copy and modify it as you wish, it’s a great way to learn how the different modes are put together.

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