Return to Monkey Island Review (Switch)

It still seems barely believable that this game actually exists. As long time Monkey island fans we have played through the original four games, the two remakes and even the episodic series, so to have another full entry arrive is as wonderful as it is surprising. Even when we were reviewing Thimbleweed Park and Broken Age it never really even crossed our minds that a new Monkey island would even be possible at some point in the future. But here we are. No pressure on the team then!

For those new to the series, the games follow Guybrush Threepwood, a wimpy aspiring pirate who continually clashes with the ghost pirate LeChuck as he searches for the Secret of Monkey Island. The opening menu will get you up to date as it gives you access to a scrap book where players can have the previous four main Monkey Island games explained to them through a host of amusing anecdotes told by Guybrush.

After choosing to play on hard or casual (which removes key chains in the puzzles that need to be solved), you’ll be thrown into the game seemingly at the end of the Monkey Island 2. After a genius resolution on how that game ends you’ll then embark on your new quest in what is about as traditional a point and click adventure as you can get these days.

In terms of the new graphics style it has a paper/card element to the design which is similar to something like Tearaway or a sort of digital pop up book. It works really well and adds to the feel of an old tale being told with players sort of moving through the pages. It also helps to make the environments looks absolutely stunning at times.

Presentation mimics much of the original games with it playing out over what essential amounts to a 2D set of screens. Each screen has point of interest for you to interact with and you can select these by pushing the analogue stick or have Guybrush walk close to them in order for them to highlight.

Puzzles are solved by finding and combining objects and then taking them to where they need to be used. An early example of this is needing to get hold of a key to open a door. Here you’ll need to find a magnifying glass to read the lock serial number then take the number to a lock smith to have them make you a new key. Exactly how many steps each puzzle has depends on if you are playing on casual or hard.

The puzzles throughout are of an excellent standard and carry on the tradition of players needing to think outside the box but not descending into the trope of needing to try everything in your inventory on everything else in the hope that something works. There is a kind of strange logic that runs through the game (and the series), and it remains consistent throughout.

Much of the early part of the game will be familiar to long time fans as many of the locations from the first game are back with the initial section set exclusively on Melee island. It’s great to see the original screens recreated here and a fair few of the jokes play on what has or hasn’t changed. While the game is welcoming to new fans there is certainly a lot to be gained from being familiar with the other games as well as nostalgia plays a big part in much of the dialogue.

Overall, Return to Monkey Island is better than we could have ever hoped for. It can happily sit alongside the other games in the series and may have hopefully shown there is life to get another game or two going, or at least get the HD remakes on the Switch. It’s an essential experience for those who have grown up with the series, but it is also welcoming to newcomers and will likely create a lot of new fans as well. Maybe there isn’t anything here quit as genius as insult sword fighting but the writing is great, the puzzles are clever and the audio work is second to none.

Overall 8/10

Hotline Miami 2 Review (Switch)

 

The first Hotline Miami was a revelation. A mix of precision, speed and ultra-violence it pumped along to an incredible soundtrack that pulsed through your very veins as your balletic murder spree spread red pixels across the walls and corridors of intricately designed levels. It’s a lot to live up to and expectation for the sequel were always high. It had a somewhat mixed reception upon first release but how has it aged?

Unlike the original, the game now follows a number of different characters and stories as they make their way through the neon tinged world. It also jumps around in time to both before and after the events of the first game. There are dream sequences, drug fuelled sequences, some of it’s a movie – basically you’ll never really be sure what’s real and what isn’t and that’s part of the fun.

Throughout the game you’ll play as a grizzled detective, a soldier (who later becomes the shop owner in the first game), and a movie star losing his mind, a writer, a group of copycat masked killers and various goons. Most of them have something which distinguishes them from the crowd – such as the writer not killing people or the different masks that the ‘fans’ wear giving them different abilities. It’s a different system to that of the first game and as a result you may feel a little more restricted in the levels.

The characters are what set each level apart here as the design is somewhat different. Each level in the original game had something that made it stand out. You had the train arriving, or the car smashing through the wall of the disco. There’s even the level where the swat team charge in half way through. Unfortunately, there is nothing like that present here and after a while the levels do begin to blur together a bit. We can see what they have tried to do by turning things on their head with the approach and variety now dictated by whom you are playing but it does lose some of the magic.

Levels are also much less tight now. Many of them have wide open spaces to traverse and your ‘look’ command will often not see to the end. This is a real pain as a number of times we were killed by enemies we couldn’t see and had no real way of knowing were there. It turns many of the levels into more of a memory test which is something we really don’t like.

The new level layouts change the flow of the game as well. You need to take a much slower and more careful approach to your slaughter as you are never really sure what is up ahead. While this does raise tension levels it often just ends up being frustrating. The fact you pretty much have to carve a set route out of the enemies also doesn’t help this as you can end up repeating the same starting actions over and over again.

The levels also go on a bit longer in the main which is difficult when you are basically being asked to perfect run a killing spree of thirty plus goons. You do get used to it but much of the time we really weren’t having fun and that never happened with the original. There are also some bugs with objects and characters getting stuck in things and occasionally a level will start with the cursor stuck in the middle of the screen as well which makes moving around interesting to say the least.

When the game works it does do a great job of making you feel like some kind of super hero. When you’ve got the sequence of a level down and you know where the bad guys are you can cause some serious chain damage and come out feeling exhilarated. It’s moments like this that you realise how good the game can be – but there are far less of them than before.

There are also moments of crazy genius at work here. Picking the duck mask for instance gives you two on screen characters to deal with. One uses a chainsaw while the other uses a gun. It’s mad as you pile through cutting and blasting and feels wonderfully unhinged. The story arc and writing is also exceptional and once you work out what the hell is going on and how everything links up with the original you can only admire what’s been done here. The music is also exceptional and tracks set the scene perfectly for the levels they are attached to.

Overall, it is fair to say that no other game has caused us some many headaches when it has come down to working out how we feel about it. At times we loved it and at times we really despised it. It moved from a six to an eight and back even within the same level and at its core this is the issue – it’s not consistent with its quality. Sometimes it’s brilliant and sometimes it’s downright bad. Fans of the original will both love and hate it in a single play through but it does do a lot of things right. It’s a difficult one to score. It’s both a six and an eight so we’ll take the middle ground and call it a seven.

Overall 7/10

Hotline Miami Review (Switch)

Hotline Miami’s legacy has lasted long after initial release on the PC. A retro themed, neon trenched, blood bath, It has found favour with both gamers and critics alike. It now seems to be an ever present in the gaming world, moving from system to system as each new console releases. It has now arrived on the Nintendo Switch and is still as vibrant and frenetic to play as ever.

The game casts you in the role of Jacket. An unreliable narrator, we view the world through his eyes as he commits acts of horrific violence. Without giving too much away it’s clear from the start that something isn’t quite right and you will likely spend much of your play through trying to work out exactly what is real and what isn’t and what on earth is going on.

Our anti-hero is drawn to each new location via the answering machine in his apartment. Each night a new message is left detailing a location and time. This then leads into the next level where you must choose which mask to wear and go about causing chaos and mayhem.

Viewed from a top down perspective, the game has a highly unique visual aesthetic. It’s certainly retro styled and characters and levels are built to look like this in an old eight bit game. The colours used though are often vibrant and strong. This makes things like the constant flow of blood seem to stand out and highlights just how much damage you are doing. Indeed, we can’t recall when pixelated violence looked quite so painful and disturbing.

Along with the strong visuals comes an incredible soundtrack that keeps the adrenaline pumping throughout. The film ‘Drive’ is a heavy influence and the sound certainly seems to have taken inspiration from artists who had their music on the film. Kavinsky is the heaviest influence as the beats pump and pound away while the bullets fly and bones crack.

Indeed, if it ever came out that the game was based on the Drivers untold back story it wouldn’t really seem that surprising (minus the surrealism perhaps). Although it’s very hard to tell, it seems to us that the main character in Hotline Miami is also donning the iconic white scorpion jacket, but perhaps that’s just our imagination running away with us.

Of course, all the style in the world doesn’t mean a thing if the game doesn’t work. There’s no need to worry on that count as once you get used to how the control system works it becomes almost second nature. The ‘gimmick’ as such is to chain kills together for as long as possible. In order to do this you need to move quickly. Taking a single shot or hit will also kill you and require a restart of the current stage.

There are a vast array of weapons at your disposal to deal out the death and destruction. Guns are plentiful, but firing one will alert other enemies in the level to your presence and send them charging after you. It’s often better to use a bludgeoning weapon and sneak up on enemies before dispatching them. Simply punching also works but only stuns your opponent (see also - hitting with doors or throwing a weapon) and you will then need to spend a few seconds finishing your opponent off by smashing their head repeatedly against the ground.

To aid your progress are the different masks which can be worn throughout. Some you get for completing stages while others will need to be found hidden away in the levels. These all have different properties and allow you do things such as kill with punches or kill people by bashing them with doors. Finding a mask to fit your style is all important as you will want to return to completed stages to better your time, score and overall grade. It’s incredible how much better you become at the game as you progress and stages that took ages will soon turn into a race for the biggest kill combo. Levels also never become repetitive with the layouts offering up different types of scenario to play around in. There are also more than a fair few surprises to keep you on your toes as you progress.

Each stage is set out to test not only your reactions but also your puzzle solving skills. Often gunmen overlook corridors safely from behind windows or an enemy may be sitting down and thus hiding the weapon they carry. Working out the order to take out enemies is as vital as actually trying to kill them as one wrong move and it is all over. There are variables as well and enemies don’t always patrol in the same way or carry the same weapons upon restarting after death. This means you also need to be able to think on the move in order to make it through.

The games controls do take a bit of getting used to and feel awkward to start when using handheld mode as the Switch buttons are just that little bit too spaced apart when using multiple inputs at once. As you progress things do become second nature though,

The lock on control can also be a bit fiddly. It would have perhaps been better to lock onto the enemy who is nearest to you as you can often be left firing a gun at a character two rooms away rather than the three gangsters bearing down on you. We also found the lock on cursor to be very hard to see on the handheld screen and colour blind gamers will struggle even more. A number of times we had to unlock, and lock over and again to try and work out exactly who we had targeted. These are very small flaws though and there was nothing here that prevented us from making our way through the game.

A few (mostly colour blind related), niggles aside it is no over exaggeration to say that this remains a master piece of game design. It’s hard but fair and it always leaves you wanting one more go. Aesthetically perfect it has managed to capture an ethos and moment in time and as such remains visually iconic. This remains one of the most essential games to come out on any format and is perfect for the handheld nature of the Switch.

9/10

RONIN Review (PC)

Another week and another retro styled platformer with slick presentation and the promise of something a bit different arrives. Devolver as a publisher and developer have certainly been at the forefront of this indie surge and also normally good value on the promise of bringing games with a retro style but that also add something a bit different to the  market. RONIN is no different.

Following the story of a heroine who wears a bikers helmet you are set with the task of taking down five key figures in a corporation. Revenge is high on the agenda as the story (such as it is), slowly unfolds and faces on a photograph are first circled and then crossed out.

The game is heavily influenced by Mark of Ninja and there’s a bit of Gunpoint and N+ in there as well but it has its own key gimmick that sets it apart from almost everything else out there. You start by jumping, climbing and sneaking around but when enemies see you time freezes and the games goes into a turn based mode. It sounds a bit strange but it works excellently.

When in turn based mode you can see where the enemies are going to shoot (or teleport slash with swords), and the idea is to time your jumps and strikes to avoid the maze of red sight lines. If you are hit you die instantly and have to start from the last check point so it requires a perfect run through each section of the game. It takes a while to get used to but once you have worked it out it’s quite unlike anything else. 

The system isn’t perfect as there are certain moves like climbing over ledges or simply walking forward a few paces that you can’t do in the turn based sections. Instead you are restricted to leaping, striking and swinging on the grappling hook. This can be frustrating when an enemy is just out of slash range and you have to leap over to them instead of move a few paces but in general it works and holds up well throughout the games more hectic levels.

Completing all the objectives in a level (spare civilians, kill all enemies, don’t trigger alarms), allows the spending of a skill point on extra abilities which you’ll need to have any hope of progressing through the later levels. These skills fall into three categories - throwing your sword, creating decoys and throwing shurikens. If you level up one area completely you can also teleport. Using these skills requires a meter to be filled within the turn based time by knocking over and killing enemies.

There are times while playing that you’ll find yourself repeating sections numerous times as this is one tough nut to crack once you get to the later stages. There are also a few issues with regards to the guide arrow for your jumps and swings. Several times we leapt for a ledge only for the second turn to show we were clearly going to miss it and plummet to our doom. There are a few issues with the stealth elements of the game as well but nothing that’s going to stop the fun.

Negatives aside there’s something about RONIN that kept us hooked from start to finish. It’s got a great style and the music is exceptional. When you get into the flow there’s something almost hypnotic about the turn based slaughter and we always kept pushing through to the next level. It took us about five hours to complete but we’ll be diving back into new game plus very soon.

Overall, RONIN tries something different and just about manages to pull it off. There are a few elements that don’t work quite as well as others but this is a well put together and well-designed game that offers something different to what’s already out there. You’ll need a bit of patience and perseverance but it’s a game that’s well worth getting into and shows real promise from the developer.

Overall 7/10

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Review (PC)

Written by Thomas GJ Sharpe

In revisiting the world of Hotline Miami, I assume Dennaton rubbed many chins and temples as they decided on where to take their viciously slick surprise hit. Design, presentation and gameplay choices will, and have, divided fans of the original. I sit fairly happily in the positive camp, believing the direction taken to be a deliberate departure, neither for better nor worse, simply differently enjoyable and differently flawed than the first title.

If this more langourous and slow, more intricate and obtuse game had appeared instead of the original, I honestly feel that it would not have had the same impact. The first Hotline was a pitch-perfect exercise in psychotic combo stacking, on-the-edge, twitch gun n' runnin', with a disturbing and oblique narrative, and spot-on soundtrack. It's success lay, for me, in the flippancy of the violence; once killed, you threw yourself back into the level as if each attempt was a feverish nightmare of your character, meaningless, with only the successful run being the reality. Married to infallible controls, Hotline Miami is one of my favourite titles.

Wrong Number handles differently for many reasons, but most notably, it is the overall scale of the thing. Tight levels are replaced by longer sequences and a singular protagonist is expanded to an ensemble cast. At first, these seem logical and positive things, but the risks associated are game breakers for some. Personally, I adore the expansion of the world through larger arenas and bigger character list, primarily for the story and atmosphere. From movie sets, nightmare-scapes, to Platoon-esque jungle scenarios, to open-road Lynchian cutscenes, Wrong Number delivers a more distinct, dramatic and thorough world.

Taking control of narrative sections will infuriate some, perhaps seeming like padding between the viscera, but taking an active role in the story generates a better understanding of the world. This is especially helpful as the storyline is delivered without hand-holding, through flashback and forward, dream-reality blends, drug-induced episodes and all without explicit exposition. To me, this is a fantastic prop to the action during the levels. It asks more investment, but not so much that it detracts from the missions.

On that note, the gameplay during the missions is, sadly, the weaker element. All of the vitals remain; door kickin', knife flingin', executions (more varied and vile, this time too) and frantic kill-sprees, so much dynamism in so few pixels. Due to larger areas, however, some of the original spark has been lost. On the whole, the action takes place in a convincing way, but the sequences of areas require more enemy pattern learning and more patience than before. Some levels feel less “natural” (if you could apply that word in this title), with conga lines of goons, ruining any sense of a real place. I always enjoyed surprising enemies on the toilet. There is something cold and unatmospheric about them marching around. A small gripe, but representative of the direction Wrong Number has taken.

It wouldn't be right to not give the music its own paragraph in this review. The music is incredible. Scaling itself against the content of the levels, each track is a joy. Nuff said.

In the end, Wrong Number has tried my patience more than the original Hotline Miami did. A couple of the levels in the last act are too long and too reliant on learning enemy patterns, which defuses the thrill of on-the-spot decisions and wild murder. Apart from this, sadly fairly large, design issue, Wrong Number delivers an evolution of the original. A bit bloated? Only in comparison to its ancestor. The essence of the game is bigger, bolder and more revealing than before.

Overall 7/10

Titan Souls Review (PC/PS4/PS Vita)

Written by Thomas G.J. Sharpe

I give certain favour to games that start as Ludum Dare entries (a video-game creation time-challenge) as I know from first-hand experience the environment where they are fostered. Developers who get into LD are ones who at the core want to make games and know the power of simplicity and originality. Just having a browse over the mass of titles made in the competition over the years, you will find some true gems, most outstripping mainstream games by miles in the design stakes, however crunchy the execution. I cannot claim that my efforts as a part of an LD team have been anything more than music and art assets, but I see the value.

Titan Souls is one of these gems that glittered a little brighter than the rest in LD #28, winning overall, audio and mood catergories. I include this historical information not only to show off my thorough researching abilities (and constant strive for review style that reads more like a Victorian old-man-of-letters), but these accolades serve as a three word springboard.

Set in a charmingly realised 2D-top-down-pixel-art world, you play a lone archer who has a lone arrow to let loose at nineteen different titans. The mood is silent and still, but sadly never reaches a deeper level for me. Waterfalls, lava, forests, ancient ruins are all great, but for all of the great art work, charming is all it ever is. Not ever foreboding nor beautiful, just... nice. The titans take various forms and usually have one-hit deaths, like your own character. This is the central conceit; enter boss arena, work out weak point, make your shot.

The difficulty arises in the arrow mechanic. You can charge your shot to get more distance, but you must remain still when shooting. Further, you have to retrieve your arrow physically or use a “call-back” style spell, which again, renders you still. The only other skill you have is a roll-dodge and run, bound to the same key. This simplicity is what makes this game so appealing to me. In practice, however, I found the play to be more about pin-point accuracy, perfectly timed dodging and, most of all, a lot... far too much... excessive... walking. When you die in Titan Souls, you return to the most local hub, which varies in distance from the boss areas. I have not found one that is close enough for me not to get frustrated. Truly, the opposite of Hotline Miami and it's psychopathically flippant restart mashes; back in the game, back in the game, back in the game. No, in a game breaking choice (for me), the developers force you to walk back through the charming, yet empty, environments again and again. As for on the most part, the bosses are tough, although repetitive, in their attacks and require large amounts of poise.

A lot of titans require you to see a full couple of attack patterns before you figure it out. Of course, guess at an angle of attack wrong and you could waste ten minutes on two or three tries, walking included. This is not a case of “yeah, brutal gameplay!” or “you ain't good enough”, it is simply inaccessible for me, through no fault of my own. In Dark Souls (Titan Souls clearly doing a bit of a nod) where you plan your attacks, develop strategy and die a lot, you don't ever feel cheated. It was always your fault. Titan Souls shouts “think fast!” and hurls a basketball at your genitals. So, to even get to the point of figuring it out, let alone practicing executing a strategy, requires so much walking that I really, really struggled to keep on playing.

I very much enjoy this game, and it is perhaps my impatience, but I want to be fighting, dying, figuring it out much faster, then having a little explore through the great world. The music is fantastic, by the way, as are the grunts and growls of the bosses. At its centre, however, lurks this ugly design issue that leaves me out in the cold, when all I want to do is swallow boss spirits and enjoy the atmosphere.

Second opinion from Gareth

I agree with pretty much everything that Tom has said here. However, the walking issue was much less of a problem for me. It really would have been a useful addition to put a save point before the entrance to each guardian as they do have a tendency to kill you in seconds. That said, Most of them are set within a few screens of the save point. It is a strange design choice but not something that I would say brings the experience down that much.

It also has to be said that the Vita stick isn’t quite up to the job for the level of precision that is needed for a game like this. It gives it a good go but I would recommend sticking to the PS4 or PC version for taking out the super tricky beasties.

The design of the world and the individual Titans is strong and defeating one certainly brings about the same feeling of achievement as found in games like Dark Souls and Shadow of the Colossus - two games which have clearly influenced its design. I would certainly recommend this to anyone who likes a challenge as there’s some clever design at play and an interesting world to explore.

Tom’s Score 6/10

Gareth’s Score 7/10

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Review (PS4/Vita)

The first Hotline Miami was a revelation. A mix of precision, speed and ultra-violence it pumped along to an incredible soundtrack that pulsed through your very veins as your balletic murder spree spread red pixels across the walls and corridors of intricately designed levels. It’s a lot to live up to and expectation for the sequel have been high. It’s now here and it’s probably not quite what you expect.

Unlike the original, the game now follows a number of different characters and stories as they make their way through the neon tinged world. It also jumps around in time to both before and after the events of the first game. There are dream sequences, drug fuelled sequences, some of it’s a movie – basically you’ll never really be sure what’s real and what isn’t and that’s part of the fun.

Throughout the game you’ll play as a grizzled detective, a soldier (who later becomes the shop owner in the first game), and a movie star losing his mind, a writer, a group of copycat masked killers and various goons. Most of them have something which distinguishes them from the crowd – such as the writer not killing people or the different masks that the ‘fans’ wear giving them different abilities. It’s a different system to that of the first game and as a result you may feel a little more restricted in the levels.

The characters are what set each level apart here as the design is somewhat different. Each level in the original game had something that made it stand out. You had the train arriving, or the car smashing through the wall of the disco. There’s even the level where the swat team charge in half way through. Unfortunately, there is nothing like that present here and after a while the levels do begin to blur together a bit. We can see what they have tried to do by turning things on their head with the approach and variety now dictated by whom you are playing but it does lose some of the magic.

Levels are also much less tight now. Many of them have wide open spaces to traverse and your ‘look’ command will often not see to the end. This is a real pain as a number of times we were killed by enemies we couldn’t see and had no real way of knowing were there. It turns many of the levels into more of a memory test which is something we really don’t like.

The new level layouts change the flow of the game as well. You need to take a much slower and more careful approach to your slaughter as you are never really sure what is up ahead. While this does raise tension levels it often just ends up being frustrating. The fact you pretty much have to carve a set route out of the enemies also doesn’t help this as you can end up repeating the same starting actions over and over again.

The levels also go on a bit longer in the main which is difficult when you are basically being asked to perfect run a killing spree of thirty plus goons. You do get used to it but much of the time we really weren’t having fun and that never happened with the original. There are also some bugs with objects and characters getting stuck in things and the game also crashed out on us right at the end of a very long and tricky section which made us cry a little bit. Occasionally a level will start with the cursor stuck in the middle of the screen as well which makes moving around interesting to say the least.

When the game works it does do a great job of making you feel like some kind of super hero. When you’ve got the sequence of a level down and you know where the bad guys are you can cause some serious chain damage and come out feeling exhilarated. It’s moments like this that you realise how good the game can be – but there are far less of them than before.

There are also moments of crazy genius at work here. Picking the duck mask for instance gives you two on screen characters to deal with. One uses a chainsaw while the other uses a gun. It’s mad as you pile through cutting and blasting and feels wonderfully unhinged. The story arc and writing is also exceptional and once you work out what the hell is going on and how everything links up with the original you can only admire what’s been done here. The music is also exceptional and tracks set the scene perfectly for the levels they are attached to.

Overall, it is fair to say that no other game has caused us some many headaches when it has come down to working out how we feel about it. At times we loved it and at times we really despised it. It moved from a six to an eight and back even within the same level and at its core this is the issue – it’s not consistent with its quality. Sometimes it’s brilliant and sometimes it’s downright bad. Fans of the original will both love and hate it in a single play through but it does do a lot of things right. It’s a difficult one to score. It’s both a six and an eight so we’ll take the middle ground and call it a seven.

Overall 7/10

Luftrausers Review (PS3/Vita)

We first came across Luftrausers at the Euro gamer Expo where it was set over in a corner with little explanation about how to play it. After attempting a few flights we gave up after dying within seconds. We’re pleased to say that now we have got hold of it on a home system and spent some quality time with it that the game absolutely shines.

The game is quite simple in concept- you launch your little plane and fly around an arena shooting down enemies and blowing up ships in order to build a high score. The top and bottom of arena are bordered by a cloud bank and water and you can infinitely fly left and right. It’s not dissimilar to something like Time Pilot crossed with Defender. To start with you are only dealing with small planes, but the longer you last and the more you shoot down the bigger and more difficult the enemies become.

There are a whole host of planes and ships to take on and each of them have their own characteristics and ways they must be approached. Planes are soon joined by super-fast jets and dog fighting aces, while boats become the side show to missile launching submarines and full on battle ships. Soon you’ll be weaving through inches of space as the screen fills with gun fire. Survive long enough and you might get to see the laser ace or the dreaded blimp.

Controlling your Rauser is easy but a little unconventional. You have your standard fire button but movement is more about momentum than just pushing a direction. Pressing up or the shoulder button propels you forward and you can then use the direction buttons to steer. This allows you to perform stalls and dives and turn the tables quickly on pursuing attackers. It might take a little while to get used to but it works perfectly once you get the hang of it. You’re plane can also take a few hits with releasing the fire button allowing you to heal.

As you progress you will unlock different parts for the plane. Each of these adds different properties such as being able to ram things without taking damage or changing your firing weapon. They all have pros and cons and there is no such thing as a perfect load out. Each part also has a number of different challenges to complete which helps to unlock more parts and raise your Rauser level. Our personal favourite is the part that allows you to dive into the water without taking damage. With some clever use of components you can use this and the battering ram part to turn your plane into a water skimming missile.

What at first seems like it could be a fun five minute game soon reveals the depth and complexity of its scoring system. There are over a hundred different combinations of plane parts and challenges continually unlock as you play and once you take down a blimp it really gets crazy. It’s a high score game at heart so the more friends you have to show up on the leader board the better but even taken on its own merit this a game that every Vita owner should own. It doesn’t seem to fit the PS3 quite so well but that’s mainly down to the Vita proving to be a natural fit.

Overall, Luftrausers has managed to take all the best elements from the early days of arcade shooters and package them into this crazy game. It’s the sort of thing you pick up for five minutes and then put down two hours later and as a pure gaming test of skill there is very little else out there to match it.

8/10

Hotline Miami Review (PS3/PS Vita)

Hotline Miami has been causing a stir for quite some time now in the world of PC gaming. A retro themed, neon trenched, blood bath, It has found favour with both gamers and critics alike. Now, in what seems to be a clever move by Sony, It has made its way to the PS3 and Playstation Vita. We’ll save you the pretense of implying it’s all gone wrong, it hasn’t. This is a glorious game, read on to see why.

The game casts you in the role of Jacket. An unreliable narrator, we view the world through his eyes as he commits acts of horrific violence. Without giving too much away it’s clear from the start that something isn’t quite right and you will likely spend much of your play through trying to work out exactly what is real and what isn’t and what on earth is going on.

Our anti-hero is drawn to each new location via the answering machine in his apartment. Each night a new message is left detailing a location and time. This then leads into the next level where you must choose which mask to wear and go about causing chaos and mayhem.

Viewed from a top down perspective, the game has a highly unique visual aesthetic. It’s certainly retro styled and characters and levels are built to look like this in an old eight bit game. The colours used though are often vibrant and strong. This makes things like the constant flow of blood seem to stand out and highlights just how much damage you are doing. Indeed, we can’t recall when pixelated violence looked quite so painful and disturbing.

Along with the strong visuals comes an incredible soundtrack that keeps the adrenaline pumping throughout. The film ‘Drive’ is a heavy influence and the sound certainly seems to have taken inspiration from artists who had their music on the film. Kavinsky is the heaviest influence as the beats pump and pound away while the bullets fly and bones crack.

Indeed, if it ever came out that the game was based on the Drivers untold back story it wouldn’t really seem that surprising (minus the surrealism perhaps). Although it’s very hard to tell, it seems to us that the main character in Hotline Miami is also donning the iconic white scorpion jacket, but perhaps that’s just our imagination running away with us.

Of course, all the style in the world doesn’t mean a thing if the game doesn’t work. There’s no need to worry on that count as once you get used to how the control system works it becomes almost second nature. The ‘gimmick’ as such is to chain kills together for as long as possible. In order to do this you need to move quickly. Taking a single shot or hit will also kill you and require a restart of the current stage.

There are a vast array of weapons at your disposal to deal out the death and destruction. Guns are plentiful, but firing one will alert other enemies in the level to your presence and send them charging after you. It’s often better to use a bludgeoning weapon and sneak up on enemies before dispatching them. Simply punching also works but only stuns your opponent (see also - hitting with doors or throwing a weapon) and you will then need to spend a few seconds finishing your opponent off by smashing their head repeatedly against the ground.

To aid your progress are the different masks which can be worn throughout. Some you get for completing stages while others will need to be found hidden away in the levels. These all have different properties and allow you do things such as kill with punches or kill people by bashing them with doors. Finding a mask to fit your style is all important as you will want to return to completed stages to better your time, score and overall grade. It’s incredible how much better you become at the game as you progress and stages that took ages will soon turn into a race for the biggest kill combo. Levels also never become repetitive with the layouts offering up different types of scenario to play around in. There are also more than a fair few surprises to keep you on your toes as you progress.

Each stage is set out to test not only your reactions but also your puzzle solving skills. Often gunmen overlook corridors safely from behind windows or an enemy may be sitting down and thus hiding the weapon they carry. Working out the order to take out enemies is as vital as actually trying to kill them as one wrong move and it is all over. There are variables as well and enemies don’t always patrol in the same way or carry the same weapons upon restarting after death. This means you also need to be able to think on the move in order to make it through.

One minor point here is that on the Vita screen it can be very difficult to see the dogs when they move through dark coloured floor areas. There were a few occasions when we died without realising a dog was standing right next to us. It can also be difficult to spot the mask and secret message pick-ups due to the screens smaller size. This isn’t really a major problem though and once you have cleared out a level you are free to search around for things anyway.

The games controls do take a bit of getting used to and feel awkward to start. As you progress things do become second nature with a couple of minor exceptions. The drag to look control on the Vita can be difficult to implement unless you are certain you’re safe. It’s not easy to look a room ahead when the enemy are closing in and this can lead to a few leaps of faith. 

The lock on control can also be a bit fiddly. Pressing the square button locks onto the enemy  you are facing (you can also use touch on the Vita), but it would have perhaps been better to lock onto the enemy who is nearest to you as you can often be left firing a gun at a character two rooms away rather than the three gangsters bearing down on you. We also found the lock on cursor to be very hard to see on the Vita and colour blind gamers will struggle even more. A number of times we had to unlock, and lock over and again to try and work out exactly who we had targeted. These are very small flaws though and there was nothing here that prevented us from making our way through the game.

A few (mostly colour blind related), niggles aside it is no over exaggeration to say that this is a master piece of game design. It’s hard but fair and it always leaves you wanting one more go on a level. Aesthetically perfect it has managed to capture an ethos and moment in time and channel it into an exception game with an intriguing and disturbing story. This is one of the most essential games to come out on any format and should be owned by every PS3 and Vita owner.

9/10