AsheZx

An excellent, innovative zombies mode and fantastic campaign is brought down by a terrible multiplayer experience that is clearly incomplete, rushed and poorly executed. Not to mention the plethora of technical issues, such as challenges not completing, game crashes, visual bugs etc. that plague this game. If you buy this game, buy it for it's campaign and zombies, and don't ever pay full price for it. £15 is all this game is worth.

I think we all hoped Black Ops III would hail a new era for the Call of Duty franchise. Unfortunately, a mixture of dodgy and slightly clunky feeling movement mechanics, age-old issues and drag and drop ideas from other franchises has left this Call of Duty feeling cobbled together and inconsistent, although the graphics really do help this game achieve the 5 I gave it. The campaign tries to do something special with it's story, allowing for 4 player co-op, a new special ability upgrade system and even character customization but ultimately it all falls apart. The story is downright confusing, and is clearly designed for Black Ops IV leaving an unsatisfying conclusion, the 4 player co-op is nice - but why bother when you've got the far superior zombie mode? The various upgrades and custom classes in the campaign is nice, but really it's just an extension of what was achieved in Black Ops 2. In fact, i'd go so far to say that this is a step BACKWARDS for the franchise. Black Ops II had branching storylines, tactical strike force missions and the whole thing felt epic and well thought out with an, admittedly, over the top story - all of that is gone in Black Ops III, with a linear, confusing story replacing it. What a shame. And you can play it all again with zombies! (I'd highly recommend Nightmares mode though, it makes more sense than the normal campaign) On to multiplayer, and this year Treyarch attempts to spice things up by introducing Specialists. Playable characters that have their own backstories and each have an ability or weapon that you can choose from. However, I found these more annoying than beneficial. Finally getting your death machine (sorry, Scythe) and losing it after dying was ragequit inducing rather than fun. In the end, I just rocked with the Commando Lunge knife called the "Ripper" because it was the one you earned fastest. There's very little tactical counterplay between specialists, it's just pick one and annihilate. Also some of them specialists are just plain bad ideas that, in Call of Duty fashion, somehow make it into the final game - for example, there is one specialist, Nomad, who has a 6-round unavoidable trip-mine grenade launcher and a "Final Stand" specialist ability. Why? No idea - but the team at Treyarch thought (incorrectly) that it would be a good idea. Other than that, it's largely Black Ops II with thruster packs. Seriously. Pick 10 is back. Scorestreaks are back. Did they reinvent Scorestreaks and add some exciting new ones to fit in with the 2065 setting? Nope. They are literally copy and paste from Black Ops II. There's maybe 5 new Scorestreaks? Unacceptable for a 3 year development game. While I appreciate the Pick 10 system, I still do not understand why a smoke grenade is the same value as a Light Machine Gun - it makes certain things completely void because nobody will use them. Customization in this game is limited, with each specialist character having their own outfits... with two variations of outfit... each with around 6 different colour schemes. Yeah, it's that basic. However, I do appreciate the Paintshop and Gunsmith options - they're pretty cool ideas and worked out well - though I wish my named gun was shown during a match. Something I don't appreciate however is Unlock Tokens, these essentially block you from unlocking everything FORCING you to prestige if you want to experience the whole game. What an awful idea. Finally on to zombies, and - well, for 3 years... it isn't great. They've added a new "Gobblegum" system that gives you temporary perks which is a cool idea but, for the powerful ones, you have to spend Liquid Divinium's to spin a Vat which gives you a random one, which is used up if you eat it in game. Unfortunately, this was a ploy to sell you Liquid Divinium's because you can now buy them with real life cash. The zombie map, Shadows of Evil, is okay. It has a surprisingly steep learning curve and it has the amazing ability of making not want to play zombies because of it. To Pack a Punch, you need to do 4 "Survive in a certain area" type challenges, kill 3, 3-headed monsters that can one hit you and gather some worms. It's too difficult for the casual audience and makes the game unnecessarily difficult, which puts you off playing the game. To conclude, Black Ops III is a mediocre game that has a lot of content, but not much quality. If you can get it cheap, and I mean cheap, it's worth picking up - otherwise don't bother.

It's Minecraft. There's nothing a whole lot more to say if I'm perfectly honest. It's not a huge upgrade over the 360 version (sure, there's bigger worlds and better draw distance but co-op connection is still poor) - if you like Minecraft then go for it, you'll love it. If you don't like Minecraft, then this won't change anything.

8.5 - A great game that is near excellent. Far Cry 4 takes everything that Far Cry 3 did and builds upon it. You play as Ajay Ghale, a Kyrati-born American looking to spread the ashes of his mother, Ishwari Ghale, at the mysterious Lakashmana in his mothers homeland of Kyrat - only to be swooped up in a revolution against the king, Pagan Min. Far Cry 4 is no doubt a really fun game packed with lots of stuff to do and lots of animals to hunt. You will easily get 15+ hours out of the single player. You will be doing everything from setting fire to dangerous elephants to exploring the mystical land of Shangri-La. This is a diverse, fun game that is even better with the addition of drop-in, drop-out "buddy" style Co-Op. The main disappointment with the game is with the story. Sure, it's a good story but the characters feel a little two dimensional - and the campaign under-uses Pagan Min, which is a real shame. The other problem is the bell towers. I was never a fan of the radio tower system from Far Cry 3, so to bring it back to Far Cry 4 was a little frustrating - luckily you can get a helicopter in the game so you can just fly on top of the tower and do it instantly. Other than those two minor drawbacks, this game is a lot of fun and well worth the £40 asking price. Once you're done with the satisfactorily 15 hour+ single player, you can have a go with Far Cry 4's chronicals of Kyrat multiplayer which is a 5 v 5 game mode... Pagan Min's troops vs the Golden Path. It's a good multiplayer, if not a little slow at times, and calling in bears and shooting enemies with a bow and arrow is equally as fun as blowing up bears with RPG's. This is a great game that is near-excellent and I would recommend it to anyone.

Thoroughly average. The campaign does the usual excellent job of punishing you for playing the game instead of sitting on the rolocoaster of predictable storylines. Lots of invisible walls, lack of constancy with the exo-suit abilities and what should have been a fairly enjoyable CoD campaign has turned into the usual shoot dumb enemies, complete the objective SPECIFICALLY to how the computer wants you to fulfill them... wait for AI team mates and listen to Spacey give the most cheesiest "I hate you all and I'm going to start WW3 speech" - I don't blame Spacey, he's making the best of a, quite frankly, awful plot and, at some points, cheesy writing. Oh and the campaigns only 6-8 hours, which for a £45 game, seems short - sure there's a multiplayer and an exo-yawn, sorry, survival mode but 6-8 seems a little short (but let's be thankful it's not another 4 hour campaign). After the chore of the first half, the campaign does pick up in terms of fun - especially when you get the grappling hook. Multiplayer - I admire Sledgehammer for not doing the same old Cod again but most of their tricks haven't payed off. The exo-suit is clunky and too easy to use when you don't want it, the dash ruins any hope of precision, the spawn system is just down right awful (especially on Free for all modes), the guns are hopelessly unbalanced, the loot system is broken, most of the maps are awful and any maps that could have a glimmer of being good are held down by Sledgehammer games' ability to come with ruddy awful ideas and implement them, without actually thinking. It's the sort of multiplayer you'll spend hours raging at, due to the hundreds of flaws and you'll quickly realize they've done nothing to fix the core problems that CoD had. Exo-Survival - Yawn, it's average at best. Now they've added an Exo-Zombie mode, which you have to pay for (£11.59), so - yeah, Co-Op has been turned into a cash grab by Activision. A thoroughly average shooter, that does nothing spectacular.

Mediocre Call of Duty clone that doesn't bring anything original to the table. The campaign is linear, but well done and does stay true to a spy-esque game. However, a complete lack of any meaningful stealth mechanics makes it far easier to go in CoD style and shoot everything. The multiplayer is your standard create a class based shooting action with no resemblance to Goldeneye at all. Basically, it's CoD without Killstreaks. Finally, MI6 Ops. The stealth ones are quite fun (and challenging), but the other two modes are just a generic kill all enemies and survive affair. All in all, if you want to play this game - play it only for the campaign, the other two modes are just not worth while.

Has nothing original to bring to the genre, and the game play is mediocre. However, this is by far, the most comedic game I have ever played - and I still laugh at it to this day,

It's basically a port to DS. It's a good game that is fun to play on the go, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes simulation games. I would have liked to see maybe a small graphical update - but nevertheless this bullfrog classic has made a smooth transition to 3DS.

This is the best game I have ever played, full stop. This is the first time I have ever handed out a 10/10 on Metacritic. There is not a thing wrong with it and if you plan on buying it, I'd wait for the 3DS version to come out. It's more likable than Ocarina of time in my opinion, because the story is just so much more developed and darker - with noticeable themes running through the game as you explore Termina. As said, it is my favorite game of all time. 10/10

This is an outstanding game. The graphics (even though the game is 10+ years old) still look as charming and as beautiful as they did back in 2000. The audio is great as you listen to the music inspired by ancient Egypt whilst hearing the sound effects of your bustling city. The game play is fun, varied and you will not get bored as there is always something to be doing. If you want to run this game on modern Windows, I've found it runs best on Windows XP SP1 - though this varies between people. If you get bored of the 100+ pre-built levels, you can create one using the in-game Map Editor which has a nice clean, easy to use interface which allowed me to create the maps I wanted with ease. The only criticism I have of the game is that it can get repetitive in the 'campaign' - as you have to keep on building cities with no real variation of objective. However, if you enjoy city builders then you will, without a doubt, love this game like I do. This is very close to a masterpiece, 9/10.

This is an extremely poor game. The campaign is bland and boring, the multiplayer is bland and boring and the co-op is bland and boring (seeing a pattern emerging?). The graphics are hardly next gen, the colours look washed out and the lighting is pretty poor. The audio is okay, but nothing special. The game-play is none-existent, you will hate every second of this game no matter what game mode your playing. The only time i'd recommend playing this game is if someone paid you. What is the 1 for you ask? It works. It's the first Call of Duty game that worked on launch and still works properly.

No doubt this is a solid shooter with good mechanics behind it that with more development could become amazing. However, the woefully undeveloped story, the amateurish and repetitive level design and the bog standard multiplayer hold this game back from being good. The only real reason to buy this game is if all your friends are playing it, otherwise it's just an alright shooter, that (on your own) you'll get bored of quickly.

A masterpiece. You will not regret your purchase of Skyrim, the only reason it's a 9/10 and not 10/10 is because there are far too many glitches present in the game. However, these glitches are usually minute and will only rarely impact on your game.