Saints Row 2 carved out a niche in the open-world crime genre, standing apart from the more dramatic and realistic portrayal of urban crime that we got with Grand Theft Auto IV. Now it’s time for the sequel and Volition have offered something packed to bursting point with sexually suggestive weapons, crude humour, and a button entirely dedicated to crotch punches. It’s the kind of game that actively encourages you to take off all of your clothes and prowl the street with a giant purple sex-toy; the kind of game that takes a self-aware delight in just how crazy and ridiculous it can be. Unfortunately this hyper-dose of the obscene also comes at the expense of cohesion, and the impressive spectacle that the game otherwise excels at is hampered at times by underwhelming writing and a very obvious lack of focus. 

After a bank robbery gone wrong you’re dropped into the city of Steelport, another concrete jungle of twisting highways, docks, and sky-scrapers. It’s a new city in layout but not in tone, with nothing practically changing between the local in the last game. Steelport is nice enough, with your typical New York sandbox giving the player a few changes of urban scenery, but in all honesty I’m finding that the setting is getting old now.  Steelport serves as a backdrop to all the madness in the game, but never does the setting feel anything other than incidental, feeling more like the playground than it is than the living city it should be.

Steelport is the ultimate playground for reckless carnage, but the city itself is a little lacklustre

 Dropped in this new city and with a rival organisation gunning to ruin The Saints new media empire, you have to start out from scratch and tear down all who oppose you. It’s essentially the same story from the last two game where you’re progress revolves around recruiting a cast of useful side-characters and then eroding the influence of the rival gangs. 

Each mission is staged as a way to disrupt another gangs operations and this being Saints Row they’re usually done in the most violently gratifying way possible. Throughout the games campaign you’ll be put in control of fighter jets, given access to predator drones and air strikes, go into a Tron-inspired virtual reality showdown and base-jump into an enemy penthouse to the tune of Kanye West’s Power. I was constantly and pleasantly surprised by just how far the game goes to surprise you, and if you’re looking for absurdity then Saints Row: The Third will deliver in spades. This isn’t without its drawbacks though. 

The game can put you in a scenario that’s thrilling and absurd in equal measure, but they often suffer from a lack of context. The missions are a good length but feel far too compartmentalised. You’re driving to a building, hit a checkpoint, and now you’re waking up in captivity with only the most cursory piece of exposition to link the two. Saints Row: The Third does often deliver on thrill, but its lack of inner-mission focus is reflected in the story as a whole. Reasons for performing these gloriously excessive tasks are often hard to come by and by around the half way mark I stopped really caring why I was doing any of this.

Some newly refined controls makes it simple to pull off some entertaining moves

Take the gangs for instance. There are three who you’ll have to vie with for control of Steelport, each one suitably unique, but they prove to be a wasted opportunity. Antagonists are introduced and barely expanded on before ducking out of the action and their individual mission lines feel stunted and inconsequential in the grand scheme. “Just roll with it” seems to be the games excuse, and while I was willing to suspend disbelief and experience every separate shooting gallery as simple exercises in gameplay and spectacle, the Saints over the top antics would have been all the more gratifying for letting me see the necessity of them. Saints Row: The Third tells a stock story with a varied cast of fairly interesting characters, but fails in its deliverance. 

While there’s weak storytelling and little cohesion to bind them, the missions are well paced from a gameplay perspective, if not from a narrative one. Saints Row: The Third controls adequately though not impeccably. A lack of a cover system means you’ll have to manually manage your crouching and use scenery to your advantage, while whittling down the hordes of gang members. A few new control options raise the bar in other areas though. Sprinting while attempting to carjack sends your character fly-kicking through the windshield and into the driver’s seat, while a running melee attack will activate a quick but satisfying takedown. A handful of QTE sequences enhances the visual spectacle, but at the expense of your control. Vehicles handle better, with a challenging and satisfying learning curve behind them which made driving from A to B a pleasure. Control never shines on its own merits, but altogether is sharp enough to get you through the missions and the various sandbox distractions without getting in your way.

Customisation is a focal point and anyone not cruising around in classic Saints purple is doing it wrong.

Absurdity is the calling card of Saints Row: The Third and nothing helps reinforce this more than the amount of customisation. There are a pleasing number of body and clothing options, though the customisation has been slightly scaled back this time around. You can opt to have your character speak in zombie growls, pimp out a mega-mixer in classic Saints purple with gold trim or sprint around dressed as a Japanese cat mascot. All of the customisation options serve to underline the silliness that the game builds itself on. On one side-mission I had to find a golf buggy to draw out a target, so I phoned in my customised purple/gold cart with wheel spikes and nitro and tore up the city dressed like a deranged Willy Wonka. Scripted diversions including trail-blazing, insurance fraud and the bizarre Professor Genki’s Reality Climax offer some mild distractions, though the majority of them are lifted from Saints Row 2. They quickly get punishing but the reward of more money and respect actually has some meaning in this world.

Respect is used as a levelling system, rather than locking off sections of the story like in earlier games. You can use your cash to buy cosmetic items and ammo, but most of your mission bounty ends up being spent on upgrades, ensuring that to progress you need to invest yourself in some of the secondary activities. The economy toes the balance between having to grind to buy items and having the in-game currency completely meaningless. The upgrades start slow – 25% more sprint, fast damage recovery, more ammo capacity – but the later perks can make you partly invulnerable for a massive investment. It’s good to see that a sandbox incentivises itself and gives the player a reason and reward above and beyond the thrill of participation. Driving an enraged tiger around the city while trying to avoid traffic is fun, but becomes all the more worthwhile when you know you’ll be able to upgrade your crib into a purple neon lit skyscraper with the reward.

Bottom Line: This is a game that’s here to make all your absurd dreams come true at once, and for that it’s a fun and varied romp with lots of extras, and story missions that offer some brilliant set-pieces. While the games control and combat is nothing to particularly write home about it’s the complete absence of pacing that’s the biggest detriment. The game obviously seems custom built to be a great big stupid playground for you to fuck around in, but too often does it retain that artificial feeling, never managing to make the leap to a cohesive world. A handful of frequent graphical glitches further undermines this. Saints Row: The Third is best described as a big, stupid, fun game. It’s certainly not got the intelligence or satirical edge of its contemporary, but the sheer number of unique toys that are eagerly pressed into your hands means there are plenty of unique, water-cooler moments to be had in Steelport. The writing might be pedestrian, the city samey and the pace non-existent but Saints Row: The Third is a game that lets you cruise the streets on a military hover bike, dressed as a cockney superhero, firing a gun that summon sharks, and for that I can’t help but applaud it. 

Seeing the iconic green grass and bronze dirt of Green Hill zone blurring into one wash of colour as I boosted through a horde of enemies was what I wanted from Sonic Generations since its announcement. I wanted the tight level design and speedy thrill of the Megadrive games converted into the third dimension in a way that most one of the past 3D games have quite been able to capture. Sonic Generations almost delivers on this promise, giving players a nostalgic, adrenaline-pumped rollercoaster ride through some of Sonic’s best moments, as well as some more of the more questionable ones. It’s clear that Sonic Team have almost nailed the formula, but not quite. Yet despite some lingering design and control issues it finally feels like the blue blur is getting back to strength and Generations acts as both a celebration of Sonic’s past and a promise of a brighter future.

There are nine stages on offer, each one representing a period from Sonic’s chequered past, from Sonic 1’s Green Hill Zone to Sonic Colours Planet Wisp. Each of the nine zones has two versions, one classic and one modern. Classic zones are side scrolling with an emphasis on platforming and are a nice counterpoint to the faster, more speed orientated affairs of the modern stages. Gone are the sluggish physics that blighted Sonic Team’s previous side scroller, Sonic 4. Sonic is lighter and more nimble, allowing you to flick him from platform to platform with ease. While classic Sonic offers some of the best platforming in Sonic’s recent history, it’s the modern versions of the zones that I personally found most enticing. Seeing old favourites like Chemical Plant Zone or Sky Sanctuary in full 3D, with fantastic remixes of their classic soundtracks to boot, was thrilling thanks to more than just  nostalgia.

Seeing old favourites looking this slick is a nostalgia blast indeed.

The modern stages mix a large dose of speed into the platform orientated play of the classic levels, and the result is something very thrilling. A combination of boost, side-step and homing attack allows you to keep the frenetic speed at a constant and most of the levels allow you to breeze through at a speedy pace, making split second decisions to choose between divergent paths that can save you time or reveal a hidden treasure. Modern Sonic really is at its best when it mixes in speedy spectacle with light platforming and I’m pleased to say that most the levels achieve this. The first two-thirds of the game are the strongest, where the level design is kept cleaner. After that the difficulty ramps up and with it the problems being to emerge.

Sonic still has some underlying design and gameplay niggles that keep it from shining quite as brightly as it could, and the later levels, with more aggressive enemies, perilous platforms and numerous traps, serve to underline these issues. The homing attack can be a fickle thing, and using it when prompted occasionally caused me to get stuck on an intervening bit of scenery and drop to my death. There seems to be a very precise way in which to play these levels and when players step out of line with this death usually occurs. That said both the retro and modern levels from beginning to end typically deliver on the high-octane platforming that the series has been beloved for. It’s not quite a full return to Sonic’s halcyon days of glory, but it feels close and many of the modern levels successfully transfer the feeling of the classic games into the third dimension.

Most levels include some impressive and colourful set-pieces.

There is a smattering of boss fights, though less than I’d have liked and they lack for variety. A mid-game showdown with Shadow is played along to some remixed Crush 40 tracks from Sonic Adventure 2, and as wonderful as the atmosphere is the battle bottles down to a meagre race. Many of the bosses follow this tract, which is disappointed considering how intricate many of Sonic’s boss encounters have been. The absolute zenith of the game is the final boss, which is baffling, frustrating, visually confusing and badly designed in equal measures.  

There are nine levels in total, meaning Sonic Generations errs on the short side. There are reasons to revisit it though. Various challenge levels are unlocked, offering revised segments of the levels to complete under different circumstances, some of which are more entertaining than others, and there are the obligatory ranks and collectibles to be gotten in each stage. Completing the challenge levels unlocks an impressive library of level music themes and you can then apply these to whatever level you want for a degree of customisation. I can see myself revisiting the game, however, not for these auxiliary features, but for the sheer, heady thrill that most of Generations manages to deliver, as well as some impeccable visuals and music. Sonic Team have certainly done a commendable job in bringing classic Sonic zones into bright, bold HD.

The earlier levels are the simpler, and best designed ones, with the later ones difficulty exposing the games flaws.

Bottom Line: Sonic Generations moves the franchise closer to a semblance of its past glory. Classic Sonic is as simple and as slick as it’s ever been while modern Sonic finally feels like it’s beginning to work. The satisfying side scrolling platforming mixed with sections of visceral speed lust and colourful spectacle feels like a long-overdue three dimensional realisation of Sonic’s glory days, albeit with a little more refinement due. The game is short, and more than anything it feels like a promise on Sonic Team’s part to keep improving on a franchise that many had written off as dead. Generations has its fair share of annoyances and exasperating design but it comes off as an earnest and successful attempt by Sonic Team to shift their mascot back onto the right track. 

Waking up after the events of a destructive, apocalyptic event known as ‘the calamity’ The Kid makes his way to the titular Bastion – the place where everyone agreed to meet up should things go wrong. Things have indeed gone wrong. The world is a fragmented, eerie place, made up of floating platforms that arrange themselves ahead of you and the remaining wildlife are hostile and numerous. Bastion occupies a lofty position thematically, somewhere between fantasy, post-apocalypse and western, while gameplay-wise it’s a mixture of RPG, action and hack-and-slash. Did I mention the dynamic narrator? He sounds like someone’s grandfather genteelly sipping a rich whiskey while telling a campfire story on the side of some dusty, western trail. It’s a nice touch, and probably the one that Bastion will remain known for. However, beyond these superficial features is a tightly designed game with plenty to endear itself to any player.

First Bastion gets you with its looks. The world itself is a kind of autumnal apocalypse, all floating precarious platforms against a backdrop of bold water-colour. For a game set after the end of the world the environments themselves keen and alive. The areas you visit teem with wildlife that will rise up and stalk you in groups and each area is cluttered with destructible items. Old Corinthian pillars, satin pillows and disused wagons will all crumble under your array of weaponry, should you feel the compulsive need to methodically clear out each area to check for hidden health tonics.

“He gets up. Sets off for The Bastion, where everyone agreed to go in case of trouble. Ground forms up under his feet as if pointing the way. He don’t stop to wonder why”

You look down at The Kid from a third-person isometric viewpoint, meaning the cluttered landscapes can occasionally be overwhelming and the precise point where paths begin and end can get lost in the dense, colourful artwork. Accidently tumbling over a ledge happened to me a lot, though the visual niggles that stem from this isometric view can be forgiven once you’ve found yourself lost in the bold, autumnal loveliness of the painted worlds. 

The ambient soundtrack traces its roots to both western and eastern influences, blending oriental sitar riffs with the acoustic rhythmic strumming of country and western. It’s a soundtrack that settles you into a rhythmic state of play, despite the often frantic and cluttered nature of the combat. Much about Bastion feels like you’re drifting through a dream or playing through a short-story, and much of this is owed to the narrator. The narrator isn’t entirely as dynamic as the game would have you believe, but his rich, whiskey voice is usually spot on, commenting on items you find, routes you take, defeats and successes. Ruck’s narration serves to spoon feed you the games story and the background of the broken world you find yourself in, but he also serves as a companion on your lonely journey, offering you a familiar voice in the hostile wilds.

Bastion looks great, but the sheer number of objects - moving and stationary - can cause some confusion when the fighting begins.

However, good as these things are, they aren’t really what make the experience and soon they become nothing more than pleasant garnish on an otherwise awesome cake. It’s the compelling customisation and inherent replayability that elevate Bastion from ‘that’s nice’ to ‘that’s fun’. Bastion doesn’t over-reach but takes the simple things and makes sure to get them right. At any one time the screen will be writhing with enemies, all signalling attacks and spitting out projectiles to dodge. It would become overwhelming if your dodge move wasn’t so agile or your shield so easily at hand. The constant flow between dodge, swipe and block is an easy one to settle into and it’s satisfying while still challenging. The game features melee and ranged weapons and each one fills its own distinct niche in combat. Each one is worth investing in and each one has its own distinct feel. There are no right answers when choosing a weapon, and players will likely find themselves drawn to different ones. 

Once you’ve wrestled a shiny core from the uncooperative local wildlife you’ll be back to the Bastion to upgrade it with buildings. In Bastion all of the RPG systems are locked up in the Bastion itself. A distillery unlocks spirits with typical RPG boosts. A lost and found acts as a shop. You equip yourself with two weapons at the armoury, and upgrade them at the forge. That the RPG systems are explained and embedded in the world is a great success for world-building, and the systems themselves are balanced, while inviting players to keep coming back to try out new weapon combinations, upgrades and abilities.

The Bastion is your downtime between combat areas, and it’s the safe-haven you need to gradually piece back together.

Something else that’s a success for world-building is the story. Bastion plays like a short-story, dealing only with a small number of characters with their own arcs. The events that transpire are focused and intelligible, but there are allusions to a greater world here. The people of Caeldonia and the Ura -their history, culture and motivations – are only mentioned in passing, but these mentions help build a world with character. It’s a world that exists around the edges of the game, whose mere presence is felt all throughout. When you are called upon late-game to make some important decisions it’s the weight of an implied fantasy world that gives them gravity.

These later decisions offer a reason for a second playthrough, but there are more reasons to return. Bastion is interested in variety and invites repeated playthroughs with its New Game plus mode, but also through its temple. The Bastion’s temple allows you to invoke the power of various Gods. They essentially act as combat multipliers, much like the skulls in Halo: Reach, and each one offers a greater challenge for greater reward. Once I had finished the game I couldn’t resist ducking into a few more levels with some gods active to see if I could strike the perfect balance between fun and challenge.

Bottom Line: It’s these well-balanced systems that really make Bastion. While it’s easy to appreciate the game because of its visual and audio flair, it’s ultimately the solid gameplay that keeps Bastion afloat. Bastion is only ever a lean action-RPG, but it’s one done with impeccable polish. What it sets out to achieve it does and it never disappoints by over-reaching. Coupled with its absorbing art and the impeccably voiced narrator Bastion is an extremely refined action-RPG. Its systems are simple and it’s combat basic, but Supergiant have given enough scope for customisation and experimentation for it to keep its allure after your first completion. It’s a pleasant game in every sense; satisfying to play, lovely to look at, fun to experiment with and absorbing in its narrative simplicity.

There’s always a hero, there’s always a princess and there’s always a villain. There’s always a dungeon full of traps and perplexing puzzles. There are always many things you recognise in The Legend of Zelda, such befits its status as a legend, both as its own story and as an enduring icon of videogames. However each retelling of this legend gives you different details – each one a Chinese whisper of a broad story that changes with each telling. The items you find might differ, the places you visit will change, the tone, the supporting characters and the music will be fresh on the outside, but each one is distinctly Zelda at its core. Every game tells the same basic fairytale in a broadly similar way, but each one is just different enough. On The Legend of Zelda’s 25^th anniversary we have a new version of the Legend – Skyward Sword. As befitting of a new Zelda game it’s the same story you know, told in a fresh way, representing a mark on an ever-expanding constellation of Zelda experiences. Skyward Sword is thoroughly a Zelda game, yet it offers its own interesting inflections on the formula in a way that’s reassuringly familiar but new.

An opening cinematic shows static, stylised images with scrolling text, setting the scene for a story that is told in broad, simple strokes. From the very beginning it’s made clear that Zelda isn’t complicated. Villains aren’t humanised and heroes are never called away from their god-given tasks to engage in heart-wrenching moralising. Zelda is ostensibly a fairly-tale – a stock and token story about a land under threat and the hero who rises to save it. Skyward Sword is every bit as predictable in its wider narrative arc as we’ve become to expect from a Zelda game. Characters speak in clipped grunts, shouts or yells, if at all, and all communication is done in text. In an age where voice acting has become the industry standard it’s easy to mark Zelda down for being old-fashioned, but I never minded the lack of voiced characters. The characters in Skyward Sword, who are mostly delightfully quirky, are usually broad caricatures and voice acting them would only serve to underline the writing that would otherwise seem painfully out of step amongst an industry doing its best to be complicated and mature. Zelda doesn’t want to be complicated or mature though. Zelda seems to want to be as airy and light as possible, delivering a breezy fairy-tale to lose yourself in rather than an ‘important’ narrative with a kick.

The most striking part of Zelda is its gentle, simplistic atmosphere.

While most games make an effort to blow you out of the water in its opening scene Zelda is a slow start. Rather than throw you into the action right away Zelda takes its time, introducing you to Link the academy student, and letting you grow into the role of the hero. Such a leisurely approach isn’t for every game, granted, but in Zelda it’s exactly what’s needed to keep the game personal over its forty hour run time. Many will no doubt find the opening – full of tutorials and menial tasks for most every function and feature to come – completely tedious, but know that this slow start is the price of entry to a world with a simple mythical elegance. 

Technically Skyward Sword looks very primitive next to any other current-gen games. The Wii is a relatively obsolete piece of hardware at this point and it does show. Technically Skyward Sword isn’t going to be noted for its achievements, but visually it’s spot on, giving a stylised, cell-shaded look to correctly proportioned models. Backgrounds look like cheerful watercolours, while the foreground and character models are draped in cell-shaded shadow and highlights. Altogether it gives the game the light-hearted optimism of Wind Waker but without the cartoonish style. In creating a world, Skyward Sword isn’t the most technically established portrayal, but it paints a lovely picture regardless. Few will be surprised to find the music is absolutely stellar. A fully orchestrated soundtrack plays you through the various locations and scenarios with a series of melodies that run the entire gambit of the games emotions and matches each one perfectly. Several, such as the titular Ballad of the Goddess, have become instant classics, worthy of the franchises rich musical heritage.

Skyward Sword is a more personal story, casting Zelda and Link as childhood friends.

While Skyward Sword never bothers to reach beyond the trappings of the Zelda series is does add some flair here and then, and certainly carves out its own niche within the series. Growing up on the floating island of Skyloft, far above a surface world hidden beneath a bed of clouds, Link and Zelda are childhood friends. The set-up is essentially that of an innocent boarding school romance, complete with bull-headed bully, and when Zelda is inevitably whisked down to the surface against her will you begin your quest only with the intention of finding her. Bigger stakes don’t arise until quite a bit into the game, and even then you’re still fighting to save your friend. While not a huge deviation, Skyward Sword is a little more personal and the relationships between characters come a little more to the forefront.

Zelda certainly deviates from what many people want from a videogame now-a-days. With many people wishing for more maturity in their games, Zelda might represent a step back for the industry. However, know that Skyward Sword is simple by choice, and remember that simple needn’t mean stupid. Skyward Sword is an uncomplicated story, running on simple themes with stock characters. It’s a colourful, uncomplicated adventure with brave heroes, great evils and dire stakes. It’s a classic fairy-tale that you get to play, and it takes a childish glee in being what it is, without ever pretending to be more.

Skyward Sword is also the definitive Zelda game for the Wii. While Twilight Princess got away with some incidental motion afterthoughts, Skyward Sword is designed ground up for use with the Wii motion plus, allowing you to control your sword 1:1. Motion controls are also used for flying your bird, swimming, aiming and steering. Skyward Sword probably has the best mixture of motion controls and traditional controls ever, though at times they can still feel forced into the game. The sword is an important piece of control as most enemies in the game require you to aim the directions of your sword swings to bypass their defences. While hacking at grass using careful swipes feels tedious, the techniques required for most of the boss fights really validate the control scheme. The fights concentrating on trading sword strikes and shield bash were legitimately tense, and are something that couldn’t have been done quite as well otherwise.

Skyward Sword demands that you master its controls to fell its enemies. Luckily they work well.

However, while motion controls for the sword earn a pass because of their unique implementation, not everything adds as much. You have to wonder why throwing and rolling a bomb had to be done using motion, rather a traditional tap of the button, if not to simply involve the former control scheme as much as possible. Controls like this really don’t add anything to the experience and only serve to frustrate when the user fails to contort the controller in quite the right way. The Wii has a certain amount of lag in processing your movements as well. Several of my attempts at shield bashing were thwarted by lag, though my sword play usually seemed to keep up. Much of the control used in Skyward Sword is there for gimmick’s sake alone and while much of it is incredibly well executed and inoffensive gimmick, the fact remains that traditional controls would serve their purpose just as well. However, while the majority of the controls seem token the sword play was genuinely engaging in a way only motion controls would allow. While motion control being present never hurts the game, it’s not always the case that they’re in its best interest. 

Zelda fans might be put off to learn that Skyward Sword is more limited in scope than almost all previous games. There’s no overworld to speak of, and instead you get the hubworld of Skyloft and some surrounding floating islands. There are three surface areas to access – typical forest, volcano and desert areas that contain the bulk of the questing and exploring. To anyone this might seem like a criminal lack of content and my initial impressions ran along the same lines. The three areas are revisited throughout the game, yet never really become repetitive. Each time you dip back into Faron Woods or Lanayru Desert you’re directed towards a new part of the map, requiring minimal backtracking. Skyward Sword is the most concisely designed Zelda game yet. The dungeons too will immediately appear stripped down, but in reality they’re just far denser than past iterations. The sky might at first seem like a raw detail compared to the fields or seas of past Zelda’s, but Skyloft has more to offer than you’ll first appreciate. The dungeons, the exploration beforehand and all the trips and fetch-quests in between might feel repetitive but each one offers a very different experience so that I never once regretted having to take another trip down to the surface before I could progress. Syward Sword is simply a very focused take on the Zelda formula. It unfolds methodically, moving with a careful pace that balances puzzling, fighting and exploring with an uncommon elegance.

Areas are often revisited, but they always deliver something new.

Bottom Line: This iteration of the legend is a quintessential Zelda game while simultaneously offering a new take on the franchise in its own small ways. Skyward Sword spins a familiar mythical yarn with some new, pleasant inflections. The method of control, while not entirely meaningful, is important and functional in the right places. Puzzles unfold in a methodical, satisfying way, combat is satisfying and challenging, while up in Skyloft there’s a pleasing number of side-quests to take part in. Skyward Sword is an incredibly dense game, making up for a more limited scope. Even despite its niggling control issues and reigned in focus Skyward Sword is ever bit a Zelda game in spirit and play. The joy of figuring out a puzzle, being rewarded with a new item or felling a mighty foe is a joy that still endures and the airy setting and fairy-tale story wraps it all up in a beautiful exterior.