Crysis 3

I liked Crysis 2. It took a lot of the cool enemy tagging and freeform tactical combat fromCrytek's previous games and presented it in a more coherent way. It was an intelligently streamlined experience that, as a person that couldn't get into the first game's wide-open antics, split the difference between the first game and the more guided, rollercoaster-style take on shooter campaign design that was, at one point anyway, all the rage. Crysis 3, on the other hand, feels like a developer attempting to push its luck a little too far. It picks up where the previous game left off and doesn't make dramatic changes. For the most part, it's well-made, and on thePC it's still quite a graphical showpiece, but that doesn't make up for the prosaic nature of the rest of Crysis 3. Crysis 3 reunites Prophet, the nanosuit-wearing super soldier of record, with Psycho, the playable character in the old side-story, Crysis Warhead. In the years since that game, Psycho has been painfully yanked out of his nanosuit, and Prophet--whatever the heck he is at this point--has just been broken loose by Psycho and a ragtag group of rebels who are up against CELL, which is your typically evil corporation-slash-private-military-slash-toying-with-power-it-doesn't-understand. While the rebels are obsessed with CELL, Prophet's worried about the greater threat of the Ceph, the alien race he crippled in Crysis 2. With Prophet being, well, a prophet, it shouldn't surprise you that you'll spend more time in Crysis 3 fighting off the alien menace. The story hinges on your ability to care about Psycho and Prophet as characters, something that the previous games haven't exactly made a priority. As a result, the reasoning behind the action is straight-up bland, skirting dangerously close to the same "only One Man can save us from this Ancient Alien Threat" story that seems to drive so many different sci-fi trilogies these days.The action end of Crysis 3 is totally competent, with the same suit powers you saw in the previous game. The cloak lets you move slowly and quietly to get behind enemies for stealth kills, while the armor mode lets you get out of a jam when you get caught. This time around, Prophet can wield a bow, giving you another way to kill enemies while staying fully cloaked. If you're the patient type, the bow is overpowered, letting you trivialize many of the game's encounters as long as you're willing to back off and let your cloak energy recharge. If you're the gung-ho type, it's useless. The game also has collectable upgrade points that unlock perks across four different categories. The game takes the Call of Duty comparison a step further by offering upgraded versions of those perks that unlock when you complete in-game challenges. So you may have to get 25 stealth kills to make your cloak last even longer than it would normally, or perhaps your ability to tag enemies extends even further when you tag 25 enemies with your spotting scope with the basic version of the upgrade equipped. There are a lot of different options to unlock and use, but I found that the vast majority of them didn't fit at all with my style, so I had already selected and upgraded the optimal perks well before the game was over.

Syndicate

Recreating a classic game in a new genre runs an overwhelming risk of failure. Not only must the product satiate fans of the original experience, the new game also needs to stand on its own with successful design choices and innovation. Oftentimes the redo reflects the exact standards and formulas of its new genre rather than marching boldly into new territory. Syndicate falls into this trap, telling a boring tale of swapping allegiances amidst flurries of gunfire. Yet it escapes the "just another shooter" label by executing an entertaining co-op mode, fun, manipulative gameplay, and good scoring ideas -- it just doesn't take them far enough to be great. Giant corporations rule the world in Syndicate. Each employs deadly agents to fight over turf and technology. In this horrifying future, every citizen has a chip implanted in their head which the manufacturer can access. Eurocorp, the company employing Syndicate's protagonists, created top tier technology in the form of DART 6, a chip so powerful it allows its owner to slow down time using augmented vision and break into other's chips. This shooter draws inspiration and a few details from its 1993 PC origins, but sets itself up as a completely new experience. There's no isometric strategy here, Syndicate is all shooter.The single-player plot tells the tale of Miles Kilo, a newly prepped agent who rediscovers his mysterious origin, and struggles with questions of why he fights and who he's fighting for. It's a generic story that cycles like an exercise in familiarity. Regardless of the player's choices at various junctures, Syndicate follows a singular route that doesn't reflect the player's behavior. While the lack of control is thematically congruent, all gameplay indicators point to a more open-ended conclusion which is frustrating. The co-op campaign takes a different route, opting for a "day in the life" approach rather than a story, which makes the missions more fun to fight through as they don't force plot into action.

Mirror's Edge

Just a few years ago Electronic Artswasn't exactly known for taking chances on fresh ideas with new intellectual properties. This holiday season has already seen one stellar release from the mega publisher in the form of Dead Space and now we have the company's second attempt at establishing a new videogame franchise. It comes to us in the form of Mirror's Edge. Mirror's tells the story of Faith, a runner in an unnamed city almost completely devoid of personality thanks to the overbearing totalitarian government that rules the region. Faith's job is to deliver important pieces of information to an underground network who still live with a modicum of freedom. She uses her considerable acrobatic abilities to outrun, out-leap, and out-swing "Blues" (cops). Throughout the game players learn that Faith's sister, Kate, has been wrongly accused of murder. Faith must clear her name.The story isn't quite as involving as it reads. Characters are fairly uninteresting with few emotional ties to the player. It doesn't help that all of the cutscenes are presented in a style that's reminiscent of Esurance commercials which instantly hurt my ability to enjoy them. Luckily the story doesn't last long as the game clocks in at less than six hours and even less on your second time through.

Ailenware 14

Over the last few years, Alienware's designs have grown stagnant with the company focusing primarily on spec refreshes and subtle tweaks. But now, Dell's enthusiast PC gaming arm is revamping its laptops with brand new designs, premium components, and state-of-the-art processors from Intel and Nvidia. The new Alienware 14 (previously the M14x) now acts as the entry-level model in the range, delivering significant punch in one of the category's more compact form factors.Regardless of whether you're a fan of Alienware's other worldly aesthetic, there's no questioning that its new designs are a vast improvement over the previous generation. The company has traded matte black plastic casing for a predominantly aluminum and magnesium alloy chassis in a charcoal color palette. Its rounded edges, thin illuminated cutaways in the lid, and wraparound LED lining at the base give it a distinctly modern, yet futuristic vibe.Despite its sleek new look, the Alienware 14 hasn't shed much in the way of thickness or weight. At 1.6-inches thick and roughly 6 pounds, it's a still quite a beefy laptop. Although the market is quickly moving toward ultra-thin, lightweight designs, like the MacBook Pro or Razer Blade, Alienware is still committed to maintaining power and customization. The Alienware 14 is designed with plenty of headroom to maximize airflow across its quad-core Intel Core i7 and GTX 750M or GTX 765M processors, driving peak performance and ensuring a longer livespan.

RockSmith

In a noted departure from preexisting guitar-driven rhythm games, Rocksmith has you using an actual guitar, and not just in that "actual guitar with some Xbox 360 guts thrown in" way, but any electric guitar with a 1/4" jack will work. Connecting your guitar is a snap, simply plug the USB end of the included cable to your Xbox and the audio jack end of it to your guitar. Following this, the game will enter a tuning mode that will ensure that all six of your strings are in tune, and then you're all set to embark on your journey to rock stardom. There are a few minor hurdles to get through before you get rocking. Rocksmith requires you to own an actual six-string electric guitar and won't work with any old plastic peripherals you have lying around. It's a great excuse to dust off the old axe if you have one, but the high cost of picking up the Epiphone bundle or a separate guitar will be prohibitive for some players. That said, wielding an honest-to-goodness instrument of rock is what makes this game so fun. Once you have the requisite guitar in hand, you plug it into your system using the included 1/4-inch adapter cable, but it takes some fiddling to get a comfortable response time between the visual and audio lag. Running the sound out via analog audio cables into a stereo offers the best performance, though there are a few different options to explore. Once you get that mess sorted out, it's time to melt faces. Well, eventually.

Gary's Mod

Garry's Mod was a user-made set of tools which, among much else, enabled you to pose ragdolls. The boorish humour value in doing that badly, obscenely or grotesquely has made it so hugely popular that it's nearly eclipsed the physics tinkering that actually makes the mod so wonderful. In the course of 20 successive versions of his free mod, British programming genius Garry Newman has added more and more tools to string, weld, spin, pump, winch, propel, ignite and levitate any object from the Half-Life 2 universe. All this is achieved with a Manipulator Gun and a pop-up menu: to all other intents and purposes you're playing Half- Life 2 - albeit in a weird open arena.

Other mods have tried to give creative gamers an outlet, and Garry's has beaten them at every turn by being far more intuitive, updating far more often and giving people new features they never knew they needed. That's what your £6 is getting you here: Garry's going to carry on updating this retail version for free via Steam, while version 9 (still free here) is left alone. It's also worth the asking price just to be on the same version as the majority of Garry's Mod players: jumping onto a random server exposes you to some of the most surreal, hilarious and inspired sights of any world, virtual or real.

A typical five minutes: a Combine soldier seems to be trying to make a catapult. Dr Kleiner says "Imma make a robot", summons a large metal sphere and paints eyes on it. I, as Judith Mossman, wonder if I can make a tombstone into a plasma-jet powered hoverboard. Thanks to hoverballs - a new gizmo to keep any construction stable at the altitude of your choice - it takes about 20 seconds. Kleiner attaches two long blades to his spherical friend, it takes off and starts spinning dangerously. A new player shoots my floating grave with the Duplicator gun to create a copy, and attaches a spinning blade to the front. Kleiner zooms by on a pimped-out hovering airboat, jets of flame streaming from its rear and an intent look on his bespectacled face. The Combine steps into his own catapult and is slammed straight into a support post, sending his body cartwheeling over the apex to land with a thud four feet away. The catapult catches fire.

Persona 4 PT. 2

here's a healthy mix of fighting types to be found among the cast to suit every style. I enjoyed playing the ranged type (Yukiko or Persona 3's Elizabeth) the most, but stronger, closer characters like Akihiko and Kanji were equally as fun. Aigis, another Persona 3 entry, is also ranged, but has some tricks up her robo-sleeves with an alternate stance and would be a good fit for more experienced players. I think creative players will enjoy exploring some of the game's more inventive and uncommon moves with characters like Teddie or Naoto. Really, there are no duds inP4A's roster. While there is a lot in the way of dialogue and story, P4A is a fighting game and a great one at that. This is more of the Arc System Works (BlazBlue, Guilty Gear) side, of course. What comes from their side is all that you'd expect: a solid, tight fighting game engine, lovely animation, and net code that fighting game fans can really get behind. The game's battle system lets each fighter use their respective Persona in battle, essentially giving the player two characters for one. Two of the four attack buttons are assigned to character attacks (weak and strong), and the other two call forth their Persona for stronger and often flashier ones. In a sort of tag fighting mechanic, character and Persona attacks can be used in tandem, opening the door for combo-ing and chaining, and further interplay between character and Persona begs to be explored. But even from their most basic uses, like mashing the weak attack button for auto combo-ing, these four attack buttons alone make for some pretty solid fighting game play that just about anyone can get into.

Persona 4 Arena PT. 1

I am an Anime fan and a fighting game fan so what to have a game of both. Persona 4 Arena the fighting game with anime characters hand drawn. I have been wanting to find a game like this. So now the Review. Arc System Works has been making great fighting games since I was a teenager (read: a really long time). Both of its flagship franchises -- Guilty Gear and BlazBlue -- have enjoyed a passionate niche following for years. Yet despite having standout visuals and one-of-a-kind play mechanics, they've never caught on the way Capcom's or even SNK's offerings in the genre have. In fact, even amongst hardcore fighting game aficionados, these games and others like them bear something of a scarlet letter on their heads. We call them “anime fighters”, a term as useless as it is pointless. Maybe it's the technically demanding fighting engines, or perhaps the cross-dressing nuns, but for whatever reason this sub-genre within a sub-genre has always been forced to stand in the corner. For beginner players there’s the All Out Attack. In Golden these saw the entire party pile in on a downed foe in a cloud of fists and feet; here, you press A and B together and your character sprints towards your opponent. If it connects, furious mashing of A will dole out a flurry of blows, while finishing off with a different button will knock your foe to the other side of the screen or up in the air where the combo can continue. Every character has access to one basic, but powerful combo: as long as your SP gauge is half full, successive taps of A will perform a three-hit chain, followed by a special move, cancelled into Super. There’s an extensive tutorial, too, that’s every bit as thorough and helpful as Blazblue’s but is, oddly given the story mode’s excesses, pleasingly less text-heavy.

Mortal Kombat

The story is weak compared to other recent, non-MK video game efforts. I was entertained from start to finish -- partly because of all the dismembered limbs and the fact that Baraka is a total joke -- but it was a cheesy ride. Mortal Kombat has returned to a 2D plane, which I've always preferred for fighting games. Both one-on-one and tag team matches are available, so there's plenty of options when you're setting up a fight. When it comes to the basics, each character has a set of simple moves as well as a bunch of special attacks. I found combos and special attacks easy to execute, but stringing together attacks and keeping an opponent stunned/juggled will take some time to get. The crux of Mortal Kombat's fighting engine is the super gauge, which fills as you give and receive damage. This is where a fair amount of Mortal Kombat's strategy comes into play. The gauge is divided into three segments, and those segments can be spent in different ways. Expending one segment will enhance any of your character's special moves. So instead of Nightwolf's single glowing green arrow, he fires three. If you fill the gauge more and spend two segments, you can break out of an opponent's combo. This is a critical defensive option if you find yourself flailing through the air with a rapidly depleting health bar. Lastly, spending the whole shebang will unleash a devastating x-ray attack, which deals terrible, terrible damage to your victim. It can turn the tide of a fight, but missing it will put you in an awful spot with no super gauge to spend.

Injustice: Gods Among Us

Black Adam streaks towards Earth, wreathed in golden-hued lighting. He touches down on the streets of downtown Metropolis with a simple proclamation: "I have returned." Cut to its guardian, the son of Jor-El, tearing his suit off to reveal the iconic “S” beneath it. After being slammed through a skyscraper, Black Adam rears up and shouts, “SHAZAM!” rending Superman with a massive thunderbolt. Supes responds by punching Black Adam into the atmosphere, flying up past him, and sending him crashing back down to Earth with a towering overhead smash. It's exactly the kind of glorious fight you expect from the DC Universe's mightiest, and Injustice: Gods Among Us makes it almost as fun and rewarding to watch as it is to play. NetherRealm’s follow-up to Mortal Kombat is both a very good brawler and a big old sloppy love letter to fans. And while it buckles just a bit under the weight of all it tries to do, Injustice definitely earns its spot on the shelf of fighting aficionados, whether they dig comics or not.