Table of contents for No. 179 in GamesTM

If there was one element of the PS4 Pro announcement that surprised me above all others it was not the colour contrast of HDR, the impressive upscaling of games to 4K or our first look at Mass Effect Andromeda gameplay (as excited as I was). It was the lack of an ultra high-definition Blu-ray player. Now, I don’t own any UHD Blu-rays and I had no plans to buy any. I’m perfectly happy streaming movies through Netflix and other subscription services these days, but the surprise I felt wasn’t about what I wanted from the console; it was about what I expected from a Sony gaming machine with its great legacy of using the PlayStation as a Trojan horse for new media formats. The PlayStation helped to solidify the grasp…

“Did you know Frank West moisturises his knuckles, hates baseball and is a little touchy about his age? Well now you do” GEOFF COATES CAPCOM VANCOUVER CONCEPT • Frank West returns to the town where it all began to fend off the seemingly never-ending zombie horde, unravel some mysteries and take a few snaps. INFORMATION Details Format: Xbox One, PC Origin: Canada Publisher: Microsoft Studios Developer: Capcom Vancouver Release: 6 December Players: 1-4 Developer Profile Founded as Blue Castle Games in 2005, the Burnaby, British Columbia outfit started life as a baseball game developer for The Bigs and MLB Front Office Manager through 2K Games. It was quite a surprise then when it was tapped up by Capcom to develop Dead Rising 2 and it’s been making the series since.…

CONCEPT • South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone once again join forces with Ubisoft to create a sequel to the critically acclaimed South Park: The Stick Of Truth. INFORMATION Details Format: PS4, Xbox One, PC Origin: USA Publisher: Ubisoft Developer: Ubisoft San Francisco Release: Q1 2017 Players: 1 Developer Profile Established in 2009, Ubisoft San Francisco was responsible for developing the Rocksmith series and the technology that drove it. It’s a purposefully small team, designed to be agile in the development space, promoting an ‘indie vibe’ above all else. Developer History Rocksmith 2011 [X360, PS3, PC] Just Dance Kids 2014 [Multi] Rocksmith 2014 2013 [Multi] Tetris Ultimate 2014 [Multi] High Point In an effort to teach a generation of Guitar Heroes real guitar, San Francisco built a game…

MAIN PROCESSOR Single-chip custom processor: Same as in the original PS4 and new slimmer model. • CPU: x86-64 AMD Jaguar, 8 cores: Same CPU as in the original PS4 and slimmer model. The clockspeed has not been revealed, but Sony says it is faster than the original PS4, measured at 2.1GHz by some compared to the base console’s 1.6GHz. This should give it slightly improved processing power for non-graphics related information. • GPU: 4.20 TFLOPS, AMD Radeon based graphics engine: More than twice the graphical processing power of the 1.84 TFLOPS of the PS4. This is where the PS4 Pro will get its higher-quality rendering of images, more objects, better lighting, higher framerates and higher resolutions. • Memory GDDR5 8GB: Same RAM as original PS4 and new slimmer model. •…

The world of TVs has evolved and become a little foggier than when HDTVs were all the rage. Things like contrast ratios, which were once so important, are now a more difficult thing to trust when buying a TV. For the UHD TV market there are a whole new bunch of things to look out for. Here are the most important stats and language to look out for. WATCH YOUR NITS • A nit is a measure of luminous intensity, basically how bright something is. You might also see it written as cd/m2 (candela per square metre) measurement, but they’re the same thing. The industry standard for ultra high-definition TVs capable of HDR differs between LCD and OLED screens, so you’ll need to look for different things depending on the…

While the campaign for Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare will edge toward seriousness and the multiplayer is a focused test of your ability, Infinity Ward’s take on Zombies co-op is going to be purely chaotic. In fact, you’ve never seen anything like this from Call Of Duty before – it’s insane, totally tongue in cheek and it features David Hasslehoff. Trust us, you’ve never seen or played anything quite like Infinite Warfare’s accompanying co-op mode, Zombies In Spacetime. So how was it created? How do the Infinity Ward developers – led by project director Brian Bright – actually sit down to brainstorm something so ridiculous? Well, it takes “three tabs of acid and a bunch of beer,” the veteran ex- Neversoft developer laughs. “No, no it was only a little…

“THE QUESTION OF WHETHER GAMING HAS A GAMBLING PROBLEM IS NO LONGER A TRIVIAL MATTER; PEOPLE ARE GOING TO COURT AND MORE THAN REPUTATIONS ARE NOW AT STAKE” Gambling can be a dangerous two-way street. The adrenaline rush of achieving victory – feeding that dopamine high as more money materialises before your weary fingertips – can be a feeling unlike any other. But while it can be fun in bursts, it isn’t often smart. Everything can be ripped away from you in an instant, thousands lost in the turn of a wheel, the play of a hand, and often when you least it expect it – such is the pitfall of engaging in a game of chance. Lives can fall apart and there’s often nobody there to pick up the…

DETAILS FORMAT: Xbox One OTHER FORMATS: PC ORIGIN: UK PUBLISHER: Square Enix DEVELOPER: Bulkhead Interactive PRICE: £15.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A About halfway through The Turing Test we were worried it was going to continue to be a rather pale imitation of a great first-person puzzler. We can’t avoid the comparison with Portal and we’re not sure Bulkhead would want us to. The appreciation and understanding of how the Valve puzzle game worked is apparent. Thankfully this game is more than just a cheap copy, as it uses our expectations and understanding to play with some interesting ideas. That all said, The Turing Test offers little by way of truly innovative gameplay, so if you’re looking for a puzzler that’s going to…

DETAILS FORMAT: PlayStation 4 OTHER FORMATS: Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 ORIGIN: USA PUBLISHER: EA Sports DEVELOPER: EA Tiburon PRICE: £49.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-4 (2-32 Online) ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes There are few areas in this year’s edition of digital gridiron that feel untouched. Visual presentation, animation quality, player intelligence, playbook options and more have been improved over last season. It’s taken three iterations, but the drastic redesign that began with Madden NFL 15 has finally provided fruit. Fans of the series will notice immediate improvements. Madden NFL 17 makes it easier than ever for newcomers. After an introductory piece of questionably written high-drama in which you play as the LA Rams in the closing moments of a tight match, you’re thrown straight into the Skills Trainer and…

DETAILS FORMAT REVIEWED: PS4 ORIGIN: Japan PUBLISHER: Deep Silver DEVELOPER: SNK PRICE: £49.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-2 ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes For a while there, it looked as though SNK’s comeback was going to be a disaster. Polygons have been famously unkind to the King Of Fighters series over the years and especially coming off the back of XIII’s absolutely beautiful sprite work, seeing what looked like bad fan renders in the initial reveal was nauseating. Credit where credit’s due, SNK put in a lot of work in the months that followed on that front and while we’re still no fans of the models or the style, it’s only fair to commend the team for how much the game improved visually between announcement and release. Auto-combos, improved tutorials and relatively…

DETAILS FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: Argentina PUBLISHER: WG Labs DEVELOPER: NGD Studios PRICE: £24.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-8 MINIMUM SPEC: 64-bit OS, 2.0GHz Dual Core CPU, 2GB RAM, 512MB GPU, 15GB Hard Drive space ONLINE REVIEWED: No It’s one thing to remake a story-based franchise whose aged visuals and archaic gameplay can be a deterrent to those who once loved it and those who – having heard of its glory – would like to experience what is locked to the annals of time. But to update a 4X strategy game whose significance (and there’s no understating Master Of Orion’s importance in the genre) is born from its gameplay alone? Well, that’s a little harder to understand. Rather than create a fully-fledged sequel, then, we’re given a shinier, more modern equivalent…

How did you get involved with programming the Amiga and Atari ST versions of Parasol Stars ? I was working at Ocean, and had just done an Amiga/ST game called Darkman (based on the film). So I think it was largely that I was available at the time, and had experience doing platform games. Were you familiar with the game before you started working on it? I was a big fan of both Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands, however, I’d not played Parasol Stars before. What gameplay reference did you use for programming the game seeing as there was no actual arcade version? We used the PC engine version… at the time nobody seemed sure if there was an arcade version or not, or if there was…

THE THREAT OF DEATH AND THE THRILL OF SURVIVING WERE THE TWO OPPOSING FORCES THAT ESTABLISHED BURNOUT’S MAGIC GRIP OVER ITS PLAYERS Released: 1 November 2001 Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment Developer: Criterion Games System: PS2, GameCube, Xbox WHAT IS IT about jumping behind the wheel of an impressive concoction of metal and mechanical engineering that we find so damned appealing? All it takes is the roar of an engine and the squeal of burning rubber to edge a dangerous smile from ear to ear. Ease your finger onto the trigger, feel yourself get thrown into the back of your chair and before long you’ll become mesmerised by the world whipping past you at 100mph; racing games have been a cornerstone of the videogame industry since the Seventies. They offer cerebral escapism,…

“Perhaps the greatest proof of what VR could actually achieve though is Resident Evil VII” Hardware is only as good as its most attractive game. Potential will take you some of the way and perhaps even give you a solid launch, but without a game to pin it around it won’t amount to much. It’s the reason why the Wii was a massive success and Wii U hasn’t been: one had experiences that really drew players in and the other has some great games, but nothing that’s captured the imagination. With their intimidating price points, VR headsets have so far been impressive, but have not made themselves essential. PlayStation VR offers what could be the best compromise of price and quality, hopefully breaking through that affordability barrier for many of…

“This was the game where I realised that elements could be randomised in a game system ” HARVEY SMITH, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, ARKANE STUDIOS “Back in the Atari 2600 era, a game I loved was Adventure . This was the game where I realised that elements could be randomised in a game system. It was very formative for me as a player and a creator; seeing how it worked and how the bat worked to randomise the pieces even further. You can follow that thread through to other games such as Dungeon Master , Ultima Underworld and System Shock .”…

“Platinum Games [is] known in Japan as a great developer, but I think [it’s] even more popular in the West. I wanted this game to be more accessible worldwide” YOSUKE SAITO SQUARE ENIX CONCEPT • An action-RPG seeking to expand upon the niche success of the previous Nier release through improving combat, exploration and visuals. INFORMATION Details Format: PS4, PC Origin: Japan Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Platinum Games Release: 2017 Players: 1 Developer Profile Founded in 2006 by three formerly key figures at Capcom, Platinum Games smashed its way to relevance by releasing Bayonetta and MadWorld in 2009. Since then the studio has gone from strength to strength and has carved out a reputation as one of the best action game developers in history. Developer History Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:…

“Since we’ve never let people play a game at such an early stage before, we feel lucky to have had so much support ” KOJI IGARASHI INTI CREATES CONCEPT • It’s Castlevania, only not. Bloodstained has everything but the name – creator included – and stands to be possibly the most fan-pleasing metroidvania out there. INFORMATION Details Format: PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS Vita, Wii U Origin: Japan Publisher: Deep Silver Developer: Inti Creates Release: Q1 2018 Players: Asynchronous online multiplayer Developer Profile Koji Igarashi doesn’t look like your typical game developer. There’s a certain ruggedness to his presence that befits his propensity to wear a fedora and carry a whip around in public settings. He could pass for a Japanese Indiana Jones, and his work – most notably on…

1 SMASH+GRAB Format: PC Publisher: United Front Games Developer: In-house ETA: TBC 2017 You may remember United Front Games as the developer of Sleeping Dogs and ModNation Racers, and this is the team’s latest project. It’s a multiplayer loot-a-thon and beat-’emup as you create a small band of players and AI to take on an opposing force, looting shops for upgrades and materials to defeat your enemy. It’s all set in a classic neon dystopia and seems like a good mix of Triad Wars with a MOBA. Melee combat appears to be the main focus, but moves are varied, the team dynamics offer lots of class variation and there’s interesting tactical ideas there. It’s in Early Access on Steam right now. 2 LITTLE NIGHTMARES Format: PS4, Xbox One, PC Publisher:…

YOU HAVEN’T TRULY LIVED UNTIL YOU’VE ATTENDED AN EVENT DEDICATED ENTIRELY TO CALL OF DUTY . It’s a swirling, sweaty maelstrom of testosterone; a contained cultural calamity where blood-curdling screams can be heard echoing from areas unseen, the distress unknown; an opportunity to lose your bearings among a sea of black hats, each burning with the vivid green Monster branding – as if these kids need any more taurine pumping through their veins. Okay, so they aren’t kids, per se, but it is all too easy to feel the cruel grasp of time in this particular environment. Surrounded by Call Of Duty: Black Ops III pro players from around the globe, 32 teams of four are all fighting for a slice of a $2 million prize pie. Then…

When Ian Smith conducted a threat assessment of the eSports industry, as part of his appointment as the commissioner of the eSports Integrity Coalition [ESIC], he discovered a number of credible threats to the integrity and stability of the industry. Chief among them, however, was the risk of match fixing – the act of deliberately losing a match in order to profit from betting fraud, either directly or indirectly. “We could be looking at legitimate betting markets of around $23 billion by 2020, which would be a combined market of at least $250 billion once you factor in the grey and black market gambling. That’s a level at which the betting becomes very interesting to the sort of people that you really don’t want interested in your sport or activity.”…

THE LONGER IT GOES ON, THE LESS DISCIPLINED RECORE BECOMES DETAILS FORMAT: Xbox One OTHER FORMATS: PC ORIGIN: Japan/US PUBLISHER: Microsoft Studios DEVELOPER: Comcept/ Armature Studio PRICE: £29.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Half an hour after starting ReCore, you may start to notice it all seems vaguely familiar. The combat feels like Earth Defense Force, the plaftorming like Enslaved, the exploration like Darksiders. But although it derives its various elements from better-known games, the final mix somehow feels fresh. As Joules, a scavenger and mechanic marooned on a desert planet, you pick through ruins (and the hulls of any robots you destroy) locating machine parts, which can then be used either to upgrade your android companion, Mack, or reawaken dormant engine cores inside abandoned dungeons. Tonally,…

IT’S CLEAR AFTER PUTTING SEVERAL HOURS INTO THE GAME THAT NO TWO PASSES, SHOTS OR TACKLES ARE EVER THE SAME DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 OTHER FORMATS: Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC ORIGIN: Japan PUBLISHER: Konami DEVELOPER: PES Productions PRICE: £49.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-8 (2-22 ONLINE) ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes It’s time for legacy PES fans to stop talking about the PS2. It was a long time ago, but this fact of life has eluded plenty of die-hards who still like to harp on about the good old days. PES 2017 is the best version of Konami’s football sim in a long while, and to compare it to the old days is a little unfair. This is a new beast, with new mechanics that represent the…

DETAILS FORMAT: Xbox One OTHER FORMATS: PC, PlayStation 4 ORIGIN: UK PUBLISHER: Ubisoft DEVELOPER: Ubisoft Reflections PRICE: £7.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Your first eagle-eyed view of Grow Up’s bigger, bolder, more beautiful world – stuffed with its wondrous fauna and flora – is simultaneously dazzling and disheartening. In the opening hours of this climb-and-collect game, you may feel you’ll never reach the dizzying heights teased by the tiny islands suspended high in the atmosphere. Manoeuvring character BUD is like wrestling a shopping cart; deliberately clunky and clumsy, you’ll spend a lot of time gritting your teeth as he careers off an island, fails to anchor after a jump or plummets hundreds of meters after losing his footing – sometimes taking your…

DETAILS FORMAT REVIEWED: PS4 ORIGIN: Japan PUBLISHER: Bandai Namco DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £49.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-4 ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes There’s been a distinct Rathalos-shaped hole in the PlayStation library ever since Monster Hunter Tri made the jump to Wii and while Capcom’s series continues to serve the hunting needs of those with Nintendo platforms, the battle rages on to find a proper replacement on Sony devices. Vita has had a great run in this regard – Soul Sacrifice, Toukiden and Freedom Wars are all great – but the only option on PS4 so far is the port of Toukiden update, Kiwami. While another upscaled handheld game is unlikely to change the landscape that much, options are never a bad thing. While Monster Hunter Generations…

“We didn’t know whether we were going to die, losing everything we had collected ” AGOSTINO SIMONETTA, EMEA REGIONAL LEAD, ID@XBOX “There’s this one game – well, it has been more the experience, really – but this game, Ark: Survival Evolved . It has provided some of my best gaming moments ever. Me and a couple of friends – I was probably only level five or six and my friends had just started – we decided to cross from an island over to a beach. We had a few bits and bobs, you know, clothes and torches, and we cross this river without realising it was the end of the day. One of us dies in the water, but we make it to the other…

“You must survive using the tools found on the station – your wits, weapons, and mind-bending abilities. The fate of the Talos I and everyone aboard is in your hands” ARKANE STUDIOS PRESS RELEASE CONCEPT • Prey is Arkane Studio’s new passion project. A sci-fi sim in which you must improvise and innovate in order to survive a deadly alien assault. INFORMATION Details Format: Xbox One, PS4, PC Origin: USA Publisher: Bethesda Softworks Developer: Arkane Studios Release: 2017 Players: 1 Developer Profile Formed in 1999, Arkane Studios has spent many years learning from the best in the business. After stints working with Valve in secret and providing assistance on BioShock 2’s level design, the studio made a name for itself with the release of Dishonored in 2012. Developer History Arx…

“The focus for Dawn of War has always been raw fun” PHILIPPE BOULLE RELIC GAMES CONCEPT • Relic Entertainment brings the Dawn Of War franchise back to life, seven years after the sublime second instalment assaulted computer systems around the world. INFORMATION Details Format: PC Origin: Canada Publisher: Sega Developer: Relic Entertainment Release: 2017 Players: TBC Developer Profile Founded in 1997, Relic Entertainment has long been one of the best and brightest propagators of the real-time strategy genre. Constantly striving for innovation and delivering expertise across both historical and science-fiction videogames. The Relic name has become an authoritative seal of quality on any strategy PC game. Developer History Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War II 2009 [PC] Company Of Heroes 2006 [PC] Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War 2004 [PC] Homeworld 1999…

“Get Even is the biggest title that has ever been produced in our studio” WOJCIECH PAZDUR THE FARM 51 CONCEPT • Cole Black has woken up without any memories, save for an attempt to save a teenage girl with a bomb strapped to her, so can he piece his past back together? INFORMATION Details Format: PS4, Xbox One, PC Origin: Poland Publisher: Bandai Namco Developer: The Farm 51 Release: Q2 2017 Players: 1-TBC Developer Profile The Farm 51 has been working in some interesting areas of FPS development over the years, dipping its toes into action adventure briefly and ill-fatedly as it turned out with Deadfall Adventures. Still, it’s a studio that has shown some promise and it’s been working on Get Even for some time. Developer History Time Ace…

Does 4K really matter? It’s hard to say at this point. Unlike the move from standard to high-definition over a decade ago, we’re not necessarily going to see a massive improvement in character modelling and realism with this new TV compatibility. What we will see is smoother, crisper experiences, something more incremental, and that’s what the PS4 Pro (and we assume Xbox Scorpio) represent; incremental changes. This is a massive shift in approach for Sony and Microsoft, who sat on the same tech for six or seven years before finally beginning a new round of hardware. Now we have improved performance from both hardware manufacturers only three years into this cycle. It’s closer to the Apple method of a new iPhone every year with incremental improvements along the way. It…

CPU • We’ve seen a few different attempts by others building a PS4 Pro-like PC to get close to the custom Jaguar CPU. It is however the one piece of the puzzle that refuses to be closely repeated. While the AMD FX 8350 is very close in most regards, it runs at almost twice the speed. The AMD APU Athlon 5350 Quad Core Processor is closer in clock speed and far cheaper. PRICE RANGE: £34-134 GPU • The PS4 Pro’s AMD Radeon is a far easier thing to match with the AMD RX 480 running at around 5.2 TFLOPS, which is a little more powerful than the one Sony uses, but not far off. There’s rather a large range of variations in the RX 480, but the 8GB GDDR5 memory…

1 A WHOLE NEW WORLD Welcome to Alola, the most varied and interesting Pokémon region yet Setting can make or break a Pokémon adventure and while Alola – based, in case you hadn’t worked it out, on Hawaii – might have those who moaned about Ruby/Sapphire’s wetness worried, we’re a little more optimistic. It’s set across four large islands, each a self-contained mini-region of sorts and with amazing variety not only on a per-island basis but on a global scale. Most of what we’ve seen so far comes from the first island, Melemele, which looks to be the most ‘traditional’, while the others (which are currently nameless) can be seen from the map artwork to be more themed and, interestingly, more vertical – one is built around a volcanic formation,…

DETAILS FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: US PUBLISHER: Blizzard Entertainment DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £34.99 + subscription RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: Massively Multiplayer MINIMUM SPEC: 3.2 GHz Dual Core CPU, 512MB GPU, 2GB RAM, 45GB hard drive space, internet connection ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes With a new WOW expansion pack you’re not really critiquing the state of MMOs anymore. You can’t compare it with more recent, modern equivalents, argue that the genre has moved on beyond the incredibly archaic hotkey-based combat or even draw attention to innovations that have failed to reach the decade-old game. No, instead it seems that nowadays there’s little else for comparison beyond World Of Warcraft – and its numerous expansion packs – itself. And if this is the case, well then Legion ought to stand…

DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 ORIGIN: Poland PUBLISHER: Sony DEVELOPER: Plastic/Santa Monica Studio PRICE: £15.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A With gaming now well into its fifth decade, you’d be forgiven for thinking that developers might be starting to run out of truly original ideas. Granted, innovation within the triple-A space typically happens on a modest, iterative level within tried-and-tested formats where overthinking mechanics and designs can end up costing millions, but the indie scene remains a hotbed for creative concepts and experiences you’ve never seen before and likely never will again. That’s a description that certainly stands up for Bound, a playable piece of performance art with stunning stylised presentation and an intentionally vague narrative and a creative work where style over substance isn’t necessarily a criticism. It’s…

DETAILS FORMAT REVIEWED: PS4 ORIGIN: Japan PUBLISHER: Sony DEVELOPER: Q-Games PRICE: £15.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: Massively Multiplayer ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes It’s not entirely clear whether The Tomorrow Children is playable political commentary on communism or merely proof that the ideology really doesn’t work in videogame form. For it to have a chance of succeeding, you at least need a community worth supporting and a vision of how it might grow – two key factors that are extremely limited here. The former is impossible with the game’s bizarre net code, which sees citizens pop in and out sporadically, and without being able to see the constant busywork of others, your own feels less gratifying. As for the latter point, minimal options and potential for town improvement…

DETAILS FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: Belarus PUBLISHER: Nordic Games, EuroVideo Medien DEVELOPER: Weappy Studio PRICE: £13.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 MINIMUM SPEC: Windows XP 32, Dual Core CPU, 2 GB RAM, Geforce 7800, AMD HD 4600, Intel HD3000 or similiar, DirectX 9.0, 5 GB available space ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A If there’s one glaring issue with This Is The Police , it's that it lacks a little finesse. Not the worst crime for an indie developer to commit, you might think. Smaller teams and smaller budgets might logically lead to some rough edges and cut corners. But when you play the game and imagine what it could have been, how close Weappy Studio came to making something really interesting, it begins to feel much more like a horribly…

WHEN FUKIO MITSUJI created Bubble Bobble in 1986, he crafted the beginnings of a coin-op legacy that would go on to outlast its own creator (he sadly passed away in 2008). After cutting his teeth on quirky releases such as Halley’s Comet, Mitsuji created an intricately-designed arcade game that was rich in gameplay and awash with deep secrets. An instant hit in the arcades and later, on home computers and consoles, Bubble Bobble turned into one of Taito’s flagship games and a slew of sequels followed. Unravelling the actual series can be rather tricky, namely thanks to several rather confusing titles, it’s not always clear which game is the true sequel to Taito’s 1986 hit. It doesn’t help that so-called conversions are actually anything but, either sharing little, if anything,…

TRAFFIC LIGHT OFFENCES • You don’t win races by observing the rules of the road and that means you’re often committing every driving offense in the book during your time with Burnout. But when that timer is ticking away, when a checkpoint is in sight, the last thing you have time for is stopping for a red light. In Burnout, Green means Go; Yellow means Keep Going and Red means Go Even Faster. Prison: N/A Fine: £1,000 Penalty Points: 3 VIOLATING SPEED RESTRICTIONS • Burnout is all about driving fast, real fast. In fact, if you don’t drive fast you’ll probably fail out of a race before you’ve had a chance to complete a single lap. With a 70mph restriction attached to most motorways, that just isn’t going to cut…