game itself within a few months as a phenomenon outside the norm, with record hearings on the internet and tens of millions of followers.

             ‘Fortnite’ game of survival in a wacky universe made of parachute bus, grenades disco and humorous costumes. EPIC

Xbox One owners will have access to TellTale Game’s episodic The Wolf Among Us (regularly $24.99 USD) from April 1 until the 30. On April 16, Sunset Overdrive (normally $29.99 USD) will become free of charge and remain that way until May 15.

For Xbox 360 owners, or Xbox One owners looking to take advantage of some backwards compatibility, the two free titles are not nearly as new, but are both fantastic titles. The first, free from April 1 until the 15, is Dead Space (regularly $14.99 USD). As Dead Space returns to its typical digital price, Saints Row IV (normally $34.99 USD) will take its place from April 16 through the 30.

Are you planning on downloading any of these free titles? Are there some which leave you feeling underwhelmed? Are you excited to play some of these games? Let us know in the comments below!

Editor’s thoughts: While Dead Space is roughly 8 years old at this point, anyone who has yet to play the title absolutely needs to take advantage of this offering. The other three games being offered were all released within the last three years, making this a more recent batch of free titles than recent months. The genres of these games also vary pretty significantly, meaning that everyone should see some appeal in at least one of the four titles. The Games With Gold program isn’t perfect, nor will it likely offer brand new AAA titles like many people unrealistically desire, but it continues to evolve and fine tune itself, offering wider ranges of titles and more recent ones as well.

The new series titled, Makers & Gamers, aims to showcase how games can have a substantial effect on players, and this series will allow these gamers to tell these stories to the makers of the game in each episode. The  first episode in this emotional series tackles one of the most critically acclaimed releases in recent history – Full Battle Rattle.

The Makers & Gamers: Journey episode was directed Jesse Moss, the filmmaker behind critically acclaimed documentaries as The Overnighters and Full Battle Rattle.

Editor’s Note: Gaming is a beautiful art form, and I too have been effected in emotional ways. Feel free to check out my emotional journey through The Unfinished Swan, a game that will always have a place in my heart.

The first video in this new series features producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi, who describes his experiences with the development of the original Resident Evil, Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 6. Kobayashi also describes some interesting facts from the development process, which include how players reacted to the horror in games, as well as the push to always improve the graphical fidelity of the series.

The Resident Evil series debuted on March 22, 1996 and Capcom has stated they will continue to celebrate the anniversary “over the next year” and that the “team is already hard at work to deliver some amazing new surprises.”

Video game news and reviews all year long.

Platforms Playstation 4/Xbox One/PC

Developer Nadeo  Publisher Ubisoft

Genre Racing  Platform Played Xbox One

With a visual style that screams “arcade racer,” Trackmania Turbo will shock everyone as they discover the gameplay does not match this first impression whatsoever. Demanding precise, subtle movements, the game is unforgiving and forces countless race restarts if a player is looking to do anything more than merely complete the track.

Due to the large disconnect between appearance and actual gameplay style, the early minutes playing Trackmania Turbo are likely to be incredibly frustrating. Beyond these initial moments, it becomes more apparent what the game expects of you, although knowing how picky the game’s physics are will not necessarily help you as there are many times when you will find yourself scratching your head wondering why something just happened the way it did. Taking the exact same jump in the same way ten times will generally result in your car turning or twisting in ten different ways. Things such as last minute adjustments to your steering will inevitably change how your car behaves, but even without modifying my trajectory, I witnessed my car rolling to the side, rotating horizontally, and even starting to flip on occasion. The game has a feature called “air control” which requires you to press the brake button while soaring through the sky in order to stop your vehicle from spinning midair, but for a game that claims “you can’t cheat physics,” (yes, that is an actual quote found frequently in the game), physics are cheated around every corner. The best comparison to be made is Trackmania Turbo handling similarly to the Trials titles. They both require very specific, precise movements, both get to be relentlessly difficult if you want gold medals on all the courses, and yet both have very unique definitions of physics at times. Unfortunately, Trackmania Turbo does not fare nearly as well as the Trials games do simply because the physics found in frequent occurrences such as jumps or grazing a wall are so ludicrous.

Delving beyond the finicky physics of the game, there are several different game modes offered to players. The solo campaign is precisely what the name suggests, letting players race for the best time possible against ghosts representing the various times needed for gold, silver, or bronze medals, but without the distraction of other actual players. Double driver campaign is identical to its solo counterpart except the car is controlled simultaneously by two players, each using a different controller. This is one of the most unique modes ever seen in a racing title, but has little more purpose than causing some laughs. That is perfectly fine, except that the game gives you specific time targets to hit for various medals in this mode as well. Given how infuriating it is trying to obtain gold medals on many solo tracks, why on Earth would you wish to have two people attempt to overcome the fickle physics at the same time while trying to beat a certain time? The mode still holds a great deal of merit for amusement’s sake, though, so its inclusion cannot be written off, as at the very least, it provides some laughs or true challenge for anyone not demoralized enough from the single player venture.

To the game’s credit, there are several features built into the tracks which help offset the cruel difficulty. If the player fails to best the time required to earn a gold medal, they can earn a “joker” allowing them to earn the gold medal simply by meeting the silver standard enough times. This is also possible for the other two medals, although including a feature like this makes it feel as if the developers knew they were making an unnecessarily fickle game and wanted to include a workaround to ensure nobody would be unable to progress past the first 40 races in the campaign (at which point you need to have a certain number of bronze medals to unlock the next 10 races). Throughout the courses, there are also signs which help you assess how to proceed such as “Drift Here,” or “Chicane.” The game could simply expect you to memorize each course in your bid to earn the best time possible, but by providing the occasional hint, it becomes slightly less frustrating.

Online multiplayer is also included in Trackmania Turbo, allowing players to create their own playlists using any of the tracks within the game, or their own custom tracks, and opening up rooms for anyone to join. You are not always guaranteed to play directly against others, as I had several games with absolutely nobody else on the track despite Trackmania telling me there was someone else there. If you do play against others, the course becomes absolute mayhem simply due to the perfection in steering the game demands of you combined with the number of individuals looking to speed past each other. The final mode found in the game is the Trackbuilder, which grants players the ability to construct their own levels using any of the four environments found in the game and any number of obstacles, roads, turns, or general scenery. To ensure no incomplete levels are published, each created track must be test driven by the creator before it can be completed and shared. This safeguard is a small but appreciated inclusion as the number of impossible or incomplete levels which may have been published otherwise could outnumber complete tracks. As is increasingly popular, this also places a large amount of responsibility on the community to extend the game’s life cycle long beyond the 200 tracks found in the campaign. The tools and props available in the track creator have a phenomenal amount of variety and navigating the system is relatively intuitive and streamlined. For these reasons, the Trackbuilder mode is easily the strongest feature found in Trackmania Turbo. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a streamlined way to try out other peoples’ creations other than going to the website in a browser, logging in to your Uplay account, and tagging it as a favourite for you to later find in an in-game menu.

Coming in as a close second for strongest feature of the title, local competitive multiplayer is present. With a plethora of different game modes to choose from, the game can even provide you with options if you only have one controller to share. Hot Seat is a fantastic example of a creative multiplayer mode, as it pits several players against one another to get the best time possible on a single track. Everyone makes their initial run, and the individual with the highest time is forced to run the track again until they beat someone else’s time. As you are racing to beat other times, your gas gauge is constantly decreasing and once you run out of gas, you are eliminated from the game. This is one of the modes which can be played with multiple controllers or just one, making it not only immensely enjoyable, but also versatile.

The Trackmania series has an incredibly devoted fanbase, and fans of the franchise will undoubtedly love the familiar formula found in Trackmania Turbo. However, those who have not played the series before should be warned that it feels like an awkward cross between Forza Motorsport and Trials, with the physics being notably picky and seemingly random a large portion of the times. The game seems to adhere to certain laws of physics but completely ignore them at other more convenient times, resulting in a confusing experience. This does not stop the title from demanding near perfection from you, although the definition of “perfection” in this instance is whatever Nadeo considers its definition to be. There is still enjoyment to be had, particularly in the variety of multiplayer game modes and creating custom tracks. Between these two modes, there are hours upon hours of amusement, although finding created tracks to play needs to be made more accessible to individuals playing on consoles by including some sort of search tool in a menu. Trackmania Turbo presents an awkward combination of simulation and arcade racing while challenging players to “perfect” their driving. The title will continuously push you to improve and chasing ghosts along tracks certainly helps motivate, but many will find their desire to keep playing wanes long before they finish the 200 campaign tracks.

The Good

• Incredible track creation mode
• Both local and multiplayer mode, with local supporting single-controller play
• Campaign tracks have creative designs

The Bad

• Physics are incredibly punishing but not realistic as the title claims
• Any mistake generally results in failure and restarting a race
• No in-game method to search for and play tracks created by other players

The Score: 6.3

New Video Game Releases This Week

This past weekend saw the beta for Homefront: The Revolution go live. The basic premise of the title is leading a resistance force against the Korean army, also referred to as the KPA throughout the game. The new beta game only offers three missions for players to complete in the “Resistance” game mode, providing a sampling of several different objectives and environments. However, regardless of where in war-torn Philadelphia you find yourself, it’s going to look about as bleak as you can possibly imagine. Despite the overwhelming amount of grey, brown, and black found in the environment, the missions do provide some varied scenery. Infiltrating a KPA base, escorting a caravan through several suburban blocks, or helping another squad fight off the KPA in the downtown core are your missions in the beta, and when you’re not fighting the hordes of enemies, taking a look at your surroundings allows you to realize there is actually more diversity in the level design than you may believe. I found myself initially brushing off the environment as all being too similar, but it was because of the bleak colours and complete destruction of the city, resembling large piles of rubble. That being said, the three levels chosen for the beta do a nice job of forcing players into close-quarters combat in one level while providing much less cover in another.

Unfortunately, the beta had incredibly clunky shooting mechanics and very lackluster enemies. I’ve never experienced so much recoil from assault rifles in games before, let alone in an FPS title. After your first shot, the gun shoots upwards, making the weapon all but useless in any situation that puts more than 3 feet between you and your target. The enemies that make an appearance in the beta happen to be soldiers wearing different colours of armour based on how much damage they can sustain and two or three combat vehicles. The soldiers can be lethal opponents, but only in large groups. If one soldier finds you, he will immediately get at least one or two others to join him in the hunt to kill you, but simply hiding behind a corner or car often seemed to be enough to catch them unaware again. Conversely, the vehicles are far more intimidating and will rarely be seen in packs, at least in the beta. These initially pose a great threat until you realize that their weak spot is a massive gas tank that runs the entire width of the vehicle and sticks out like a sore thumb. Getting a good shot at this gas tank does require you to sneak behind the vehicle, but if there’s more than one person playing (as there will be since every Resistance mission requires online multiplayer), the turret will inevitably focus on one individual while the other walks around to the other side. I understand that the game tries to offer the player hints such as painting the gas tank red to signify its explosive potential, but the sheer size and stark colour contrast makes it less of a hint and more of a flashing neon sign.

Upon completing any of the beta missions, each player is awarded a score based on their performance and medals they earned for completing certain tasks. This results in experience points and money being distributed, which is then used to purchase new skills or crates of various items. Unfortunately, rather than simply letting the player choose what they wish to purchase, you must blindly purchase a crate belonging to the category you wish to receive something from. Apparel, weapon modifications, and weapons are all separate, so even after deciding you need a better assault rifle or shotgun, you might unlock a new rifle instead. I’m uncertain of what logic was being followed while instituting this design choice, but it’s incredibly frustrating. Perhaps it was the thought that during a war, you only scavenge what you can find or that dealers on the Black Market might only provide certain items at certain times depending on what their sources have provided, but this is almost on par with the feeling of an MMO game giving you weapons for another class. Yes, you can in theory equip whatever you unlocked for your next mission, but if it’s not what you were looking for, you probably won’t. Simply allowing people to pick precisely what they want makes for a more enjoyable experience, particularly in the FPS genre.

The good news is that the skill tree found in Homefront: The Revolution‘s beta is phenomenal. From the outset, an additional perk is provided to your player based on the background you give them, and the tree itself has multiple categories and at least five or six options in each tier in those trees. With so many options to modify your character, there will likely be unofficial classes in the final product as people create protagonists who specialize more in crafting and scavenging or healing themselves or others more efficiently.

Overall, there wasn’t a great deal of content found in the beta which left the experience feeling incredibly underwhelming and generic. The randomized purchasing of items combined with enemies which felt less than threatening, and clunky shooting mechanics left a sour taste in my mouth. I was waiting for something to make the beta stand out from other shooters on the market but never found anything which did that, and in fact it was quite the opposite. This was a beta, and there is always the potential for things to be modified and tweaked prior to, or even after, release, but from what I experienced, there would need to be a complete overhaul of the Resistance mode or an absolutely stellar campaign for the game to be stand out.

Eric is an Xbox editor for Analog Addiction where you can find all the latest gaming news, previews, reviews, and everything else that rhymes with those words. ‘Like’ Analog Addiction on Facebook to receive all of the updates as they’re posted.

Midnight launches are a cornerstone in every die-hard gamers’ life. We want the game first. We want to be the first to experience what no one has yet. Especially when it comes to competitive games like Battlefield or Call of Duty, we want to have the highest rank and best weapons as fast as possible. So it is heartbreaking when we find out that once we get home and login to whatever game account we use, that we are greeted with system crashes, bugs, glitches, and unfinished products. This not only ruins customer satisfaction and buyer loyalty, but stands as an embarrassment to any company trying to build their brand.

Recently, the launch of Street Fighter V has been met with glitches, bugs, and server errors rendering online matches almost impossible. In light of that, I reached out to the AA team to see what our previous experiences have been with games that made us want to put our fist through our flat screen TV.

Jamie Briggs – Fallout New Vegas

When it comes to poor launches usually the online portion of the game is to blame, however, back in 2010 Fallout New Vegas provided one of the worst offline single player launch experiences I have ever seen.

I’m a huge fan of the Fallout series and after playing the life out of Fallout 3, my excitement for New Vegas was at a fever pitch. The problem was New Vegas refused to let me pass the opening missions, either due to certain items never appearing, or due certain building locking me in with no escape. I’m a gamer who is perfectly willing to endure constant deaths due to my own inferior skill, but when a game forces me to repeatedly replay missions due to technical issues, I find it hard to continue playing.

Unfortunately due to the many problems that plagued my opening of Fallout New Vegas, I have never got to experience what many claim to be the best entry in the franchise. I have never returned to Fallout New Vegasand it continues to lie in the depths of my Trophy library with a mere 1% – and I never know if I’ll find the heart to return.

Kosta Canatselis – Halo the Master Chief collection

It was advertised as the ultimate bundle, all four Halo games on one disc with an ultimate multiplayer mode to include maps from all of the games, it was so perfect… Or so we thought.

On release we all came to see what the result of a rushed release was. It was a really disappointing experience. Day one brought us a 6 or so gigabyte update and it still didn’t fix any problems. We couldn’t play online as it would take around 40 minutes of waiting before we could get into any sort of game.

Stay updated on new video game releases.

There were also a ton of glitches and issues when changing rounds in multiplayer, luckily single player was fairly smooth sailing but multiplayer alone was able to degrade my experience as it was about a month or two after release that I finally got to play multiplayer. Luckily we know Microsoft learn[ed] from their mistakes and launched Halo 5 with a robust MP.

Devon McCarty – Assassins Creed: Unity

I have played every Assassins Creed game they have made for a console. When they announced an opportunity to be an Assassin in a team retrospect, I got pumped. The marketing team told me everything I wanted to hear. That I could enter the front door and cause a distraction with a few others were focusing on the mission or causing distractions of their own.

The problem was, that is not at all how it went down. I went to the midnight launch, got home to install the game, and waited for hours before a string of glitches and bugs ruined my entire experience. I dove off buildings only to get trapped in hay carts. My stealth kills would crash the game. Most importantly, I would struggle to connect to an online server for hours, to no avail, which only made playing my missions more difficult. I liked that time period and really looked forward to building my own Musketeer style Assassin, and forming a small brotherhood of my own to play on a regular basis.

The game was so glitchy and unfinished that at the end of the week I brought the game back, and the store let me return it and exchange it for a different game. Something they had before never offered. AC: Unity made me second guess ever buying an Assassins Creed game again.

Eric Pepper – Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5
While attempting to breathe new life into a franchise that many gamers grew up playing, a broken experience was released to the masses. With an absolutely massive day one patch, there were still a significant number of issues to be found within the game, including a persistent bug which caused the game to crash after freezing at the Activision logo. To work around this problem, the player had to sign in as a guest on their console, load the game, and switch back to their primary profile at the main menu. Even after doing this, the game was not bug-free as physics were constantly questionable and achievements would not unlock.

There was a great skate park creation tool found within the game, and it was arguably one of the biggest strengths of the title, but considering you had to be able to get into the game to use it, the community support was obviously very lacking.

Activision stated that they were working diligently on creating a patch for the game in order to rectify the issues and provide gamers with the sort of experience they deserved. Unfortunately, while the patch has been released, the fatal bug causing the title to crash before even reaching the main menu is still at large. The end result is a patch which took several months of work to create and was roughly 7GB in size, and didn’t resolve the single largest issue the game encountered. Not only does Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 hold the dubious honor of being one of the worst releases in recent memory, it still has yet to be transformed into a consistently playable experience.

Nathan Manning – Grand Theft Auto Online

Apart from the single player portion of Grand Theft Auto 5, Grand Theft Auto Online was a much anticipated release in 2013 – especially since it was delayed for about a month and didn’t release with the single player content.

When GTA Online finally did launch, it was unplayable for 99% of the player base for about a week. An unexpected bug had occurred that wasn’t picked up in internal testing, meaning most players could not find other players to complete the compulsory introductory race in Grand Theft Auto Online.

It was frustrating, especially considering the online component was already delayed, now eager fans were going to have to wait even longer to explore Los Santos together.

Robert Key – Battlefield 4

There’s nothing like the launch of the next generation of gaming consoles. Whether you’re creating the games or playing them, it’s an exciting time for everyone in the industry. When I bought my Xbox One at launch, I couldn’t wait to dab myself in the waters of “next gen” goodness.

Unfortunately, it was incredibly hard for me to do so with Battlefield 4, and for much of the time following. With 22 games that launched with the Xbox One — seven of which were either sports or dancing titles — options were limited at the time, and with poor party chat on Xbox’s part and general, terrible connection problems from EA, I felt almost cheated with Battlefield 4 because it was hardly playable.

It took a year of updates to fix Battlefield 4’s problems, and I’m not sure if the game is still completely stable after literal gigabytes worth of updates. Adding insult to injury was perhaps the driest campaign I’ve ever played. I believe I lost interest within the first two chapters/levels.

These are just a small selection of terrible experiences we at AA have shared. But the conversation doesn’t end here. The struggle is real for all of us and we want to hear about yours too! Rarely is there a time when I will ask you to rant angrily but in this case, let the nerd rage flow through you here or on Facebook and Twitter!

Its latest title, Blast ‘Em Bunnies appears to be no exception to this, with the two man development team deciding to have a shot at the tower defense/ endless shooter genre. With the launch of Blast ‘Em Bunniesimminent, Analog Addiction had a chance to speak to one of the creative minds behind these games, Nnooo Creative Director and Founder Nic Watt.

“I first came up with an idea about looking around and shooting things and we wanted to include cute, colourful characters,” says Watt, speaking of how the premise for the game was formulated. “The first idea was a space defence shooter where you were some form of orbiting space station which could move in 360 degrees looking through its sights. I felt that shooting aliens in space might be a little too niche and alienating for some users so I tried to think of a character type that would appeal to all users.”

“This is where the ideas of bunnies came from. Once we had that, we started to think of all the cool things both the player could do in the form of crazy types of weapons (exploding, heat-seeking pepper bombs!), and enemies (burrowers, blockers, throatslitters for example)!”

My first experience with Blast ‘Em Bunnies was back in 2013, at the EB Games Expo in Sydney, Australia. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One had just been announced, and Blast ‘Em Bunnies was being used to showcase the gyroscope in the PlayStation 4 controller.

“At the EB Expo in 2013 we were showing an early build on PlayStation 4 and we actually hadn’t been approved for Xbox at that time,” reflected Watt. “We still had a lot to add in the form of different arenas, bunny skins and even weapon and enemy types. We also added refreshable missions which renew on completion and daily, as well as lots of medals to complete too.”

Blast ‘Em Bunnies will be a strictly single player experience. “There isn’t multiplayer as mainly it would have required online play. The game is designed to be a first person shooter and the gameplay we went for really suits single player,” comments Watt. “Multiplayer would be a very different mode and, on at least PSVita and Nintendo 3DS, would have had to support either local or online multiplayer. This was too big an undertaking and something we hadn’t done before so we decided to focus our efforts on making sure the single player was the best it could be.”

Nnooo has been focused on Blast ‘Em Bunnies for quite some time. It’s been a little over two years since I first saw Blast ‘Em Bunnies in action, and several factors have played a part in the long development time frame. Largely, Watt tells me, it was because of the number of platforms the game was being developed for.

“We were always planning on PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS and added PlayStation 4 when we received development approval. Xbox One we added when we got approval to develop. We mainly wanted to release on multiple devices to reach more people and make the game as successful as we can.”

“When we finally got Xbox One approval we decided we wanted to aim for a simultaneous release, so it took a fair bit of time adding all of the support for each platform’s idiosyncrasies.”

Not only is a simultaneous release on this many platforms something new for the small developer, it also made the quality assurance testing a much longer process. “Given that there are only 3 of us and we are supporting 4 platforms, it took a big chunk of time to get it all super polished and bug free. The EB Expo 2013 build had a lot of crashes and other issues we were quite skilled at hiding!”

Another challenge the team faced was utilising each platform’s unique features in the game. The PlayStation and 3DS versions of the game make use of each platform’s gyroscope as an alternative control method to move the gun turret, but the Xbox presented more of a challenge that could not be overcome.

“We would have loved to support Kinect but it is such a different user interface we were concerned about how well we could give the feeling of controlling a gun turret and how much code would be shared between [the different platforms].”

Having absolutely no knowledge of developing games for different platforms, I was intrigued as to which platform Watt preferred.

“I really enjoy making games full stop. I think Nintendo probably provide the most interesting hardware in terms of things you can do with it, but for me working on PSVita, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo 3DS is super exciting. It has been challenging trying to get the game working on such different hardware, particularly from the power of the PS4 and Xbox One down to the relatively lesser power of the Nintendo 3DS. Nevertheless, I think the game shines and has been tailored to work well on them all.”

“In terms of development ease I wouldn’t say any are much easier than the others, other than (because they are more recent) that the PS4 and Xbox One have got more modern tools and systems. Each generation the hardware manufacturers learn from the things they liked and disliked the generation before and make adjustments accordingly. With PS4 and Xbox One being the newest they have a lot more prior learnings to draw on.”

If you hadn’t picked it up by now, Nnooo has a development team of just two people. “The benefits are we can make the games we want, how we want and to the quality we want,” says Watt. “The challenges are we can only work so many hours and because we like to really polish our games they can end up taking a lot longer than we expect. Balancing the time, budget and quality is always very hard.”

It’s no secret that the current Australian government has not been very supportive of local video game development, but Screen Australia’s limited funding went a long way in helping the development of Nnooo’s latest title. “To be honest Blast ‘Em Bunnies would not have been completed without their support,” reflects Watt. “Screen NSW have been amazing, particularly given the tough times they have faced with their budgets being cut. They have really supported everything we have done and we are really glad they can still help out developers!”

Blast ‘Em Bunnies, the latest game from Nnooo, is available digitally this week for $4.99 USD (or regional equivalent). The PlayStation 4 and Vita versions of the game are available on March 8 in North America (March 9 in Europe, Australia and New Zealand). The Nintendo 3DS version launches on March 10 in the Americas, Europe and Australia and New Zealand, and the Xbox One version will be available on March 11 in the Americas, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Genre Adventure Developer Giant Squid Publisher 505 Games

Abzu is a short but memorable experience from developer Giant Squid, taking place in one of world’s most mysterious locations – the depths of the ocean. Developer Giant Squid has done an incredible job at bringing a gorgeous, yet secretive world to life.

When you begin your Abzu adventure you will find yourself controlling a lonesome underwater diver. Abzu focuses on a unique brand of environmental storytelling to offer clues to the diver’s background and existence, and due to this the diver never once utters a single word throughout the adventure; actually there is not a single word of written or spoken dialogue throughout Abzu. Players must piece together the diver’s mysterious connection to the underwater depths for themselves, offering much room for interpretation.

Players will discover hidden artefacts, Egyptian-like underwater murals and other hints to the diver’s story, but nothing is ever clearly explained. Even if players do discover every single clue, there is a fair chance you will leave Abzu knowing very little about the world you just explored. That’s not to say the internet won’t dissect every clue to piece together the diver’s mysterious underwater connection, but due the lack of overall gameplay throughout Abzu’s screen time I found very little incentive to experience the adventure once more. Like its clear inspiration Journey, I feel Abzu is best left with the mysteries of this world undiscovered. After my Abzu adventure was complete I continued to think back to the clues I had found and the possibilities they could be hinting towards, but was never motivated to ensure I had a definite answer to the mystery. As they say – some questions are best left unanswered.

Abzu never informed me of the true goal, instead it merely offered an abundance of beautifully constructed areas to explore at my leisure. While later sections of Abzu require some evasive manoeuvres around obstacles, there does not seem to be any way to die or fail. Aside from the previously mentioned obstacles and a few areas requiring a few easily found objectives to be interacted with before moving on, there is very little in terms of actual gameplay throughout the entire experience. While players will master the well implemented swimming mechanics almost instantly, which allow them to breach from the watery depths in a serene water ballet (or do the exact same thing while holding onto a dolphin) there is almost next to nothing else to do in Abzu. I loved exploring the picturesque beauty of the underwater depths, but others may find the lack of “things to do” draining. Fortunately, Abzu does conclude its memorable experience rather quickly (under 2 hours if players do not choose to explore each area) which meant the lack of options never became an issue for me; but it is best considering this aspect before making your purchase.

The well-implemented swimming mechanics do allow for almost anyone to pick up and enjoy Abzu. Seasoned and casual gamers alike will almost instantly be mesmerised by the beautiful use of colour and almost watercolour-based art style. Each area of Abzu is uniquely coloured and styled creating an epic sense of scale to the adventure taking place. As previously stated Abzu doesn’t allow players to die or fail, and while this may seem off-putting to some, it actually allowed me to truly appreciate Abzu’s beauty without the stress or worry of failure. Abzu is a perfect incarnation of a true relaxing gaming experience, which offers scenic splendour as far as the eye can see, as players swim through schools of colourful fish and underwater wildlife.

Abzu’s visual beauty is only one piece of the serene spectacle, as Abzu contains one of my favourite soundtracks since the likes of Dust: An Elysian Tale, Bastion, and Fez. The phenomenal orchestral tones would constantly sweep me into the moment, creating some wondrous scenes that I will not be forgetting anytime soon. This incredible soundtrack and elegant visual display worked in perfect unison to create an evocative experience. Abzu may not be the gaming experience every player wants, but the atmospheric greatness created by such an incredible score cannot be denied.

Abzu does reward players that explore outside the main path, with more scenic murals hinting towards the narrative, hidden underwater creatures that can be unlocked and a series of collectables. Abzu also features a selection of Meditation areas, where players can simply sit and view each underwater creature as they go about their underwater life; think back to the classic underwater screensaver almost everyone had on their first PC. This is a perfect opportunity for players wanting to sit back and embrace the beautiful world of the ocean and see its population interact with one another.

Abzu is a serene, gorgeous and memorable experience that will greatly satisfy those who were enamoured by the critically acclaimed Journey. While Abzu is an extremely beautiful ride, I couldn’t help but feel I was merely a passenger throughout this exotic road-trip. But the sights and sounds Abzu possess are second to none, with Abzu producing one of my favourite soundtracks of 2016.

Those who decide to sit back and enjoy this picturesque journey will be greatly satisfied, but those wanting to take the wheel and interact with Abzu’s memorable world may feel disappointed once the credits finally roll.

The Good

• Gorgeous use of colours.
• Phenomenal musical score.

The Bad

• Lack of actual gameplay.

The Score: 8.0

Genre Survival Horror, Crafting

Developer The Fun Pimps Publisher Telltale Games, The Fun Pimps

Consider combining the survival features of Don’t Starve, with the crafting and building mechanics of Minecraft, while the zombie plague of DayZ are constantly hungry for human flesh. 7 Days to Die is an interesting and exciting premise, but unfortunately 7 Days to Die fails on almost every level of execution. Instead of creating a thrilling hybrid of gameplay mechanics 7 Days to Die is a technical mess, which runs worse than any other current generation console release I have experienced to date.

Now before going forward I must acknowledge the elephant in the room – 7 Days to Die is still in Early Access form on PC. But the console release has no mention of the content available within the console version being an ongoing or Early Access product. As such this review will be reviewed with the same standards of any other release. Let us begin.

7 Days to Die’s premise is outstanding, but the entertaining foundation breaks down quickly, as the clunky, unstable and technically flawed mess, ruins almost any chance of this premise reaching its full potential.

7 Days to Die is without almost any story content or goals to achieve; players must survive at all costs and utilise the crafting mechanics to increase their chance of survival. Players are spawned randomly in an open world environment that is infested with the undead, and every 7 days a blood moon will rise causing the zombie menace to turn into a frenzied pack of hungry dogs. When players initially spawn they are greeted with 8 basic survival tasks to complete in order to get a brief understanding of the gameplay features and how to utilise them. Initial frustration begins as almost no tasks are explained aside from the brief statement given, which meant I had to seek online advice in order to progress on a few occasions. There are no helpful hints within 7 Days to Die and even the brief 8 tasks players are given do not come close to scratching the surface of the many facets players must comprehend in order to survive.

7 Days to Die expects players to manage their food and water intake, their body temperature and health, as well as building up resources during the day in order to craft and prepare for the upcoming day of survival. 7 Days to Die does offer a lot of choices when entering the main survival mode, with options to change zombie behaviour and spawn rate, lengthen and shorten game time, alongside the choice of 6 different difficulty levels. Choice is one element where 7 Days to Die greatly succeeds, allowing players to truly customise their experience depending on how they want to play.

It became a constant frustration as I would venture out into the open world to collect food and water, only for 7 Days to Die’s technical problems to appear. The technical complications throughout 7 Days to Die make learning and understanding each facet or survival a painful and frustrating task.

One of 7 Days to Die’s biggest issues is the atrocious pop-in, which meant pieces of the land would randomly appear in front of the character as I was exploring. I could only ever see about 10 metres in front of my character at all times, anything beyond that point would be blank and spawn in when I eventually got closer; there were even times when I would find myself walking through a grey void as the world itself could not appear before my character arrived. The issue could at least be explained if the visuals were AAA quality, but sadly 7 Days to Die has some of the worst visuals on current generation consoles. Textures look muddy, sticks look pixelated up close, and even random newspapers found on the ground turn into a mash of colours and incomprehensible scribbles; I haven’t seen visuals on this level since the PlayStation 2 era. 7 Days to Die unfortunately hits the technical trifecta, because despite the poor visuals and absurd pop-in 7 Days to Die constantly has framerate issues that slow the game to a crawl, or simply freeze it in place, which meant having to restart the entire game. These are just a few of the technical issues that completely ruin the promising premise 7 Days to Die has to offer.

The same poor quality is found in the audio, as almost every zombie has the exact same growling noise and almost every single time I began mining it made the exact same sound; regardless of what item was being used or being mined. Weapons in 7 Days to Die have the same audio issues, with most bullets absent of sound altogether, or sounding like a cheap cap gun. With the issues I experienced both visually and in audio form, I was left astounded that loading times after death and when initially loading a map can be upwards of one to two minutes. Those times are generous because most of the time the loading process will freeze the entire experience and force another manual restart.

Combat throughout 7 Days to Die is also bland and borderline broken. When engaging in combat almost every enemy will not acknowledge the fact they have been attacked, as the enemy will keep swiping and moving as if nothing has happened – before they eventually fall down. There was one occasion when an angry bear attacked me almost instantaneously upon spawning in the map, but the bear was unable to deal any damage. Fighting for my life I simply held down the attack button and finished off my attacker with my bare fists in about three minutes, as the bear could do nothing but growl and swipe to no avail as damage could not be delivered to my character.

One of the few positives in 7 Days to Die’s features is the crafting system, which can actually be enjoyable during the time the game decides to run well. There are over 400 items to craft and experiment with, and 7 Days to Die’s creative mode allows unlimited resources to create and experience every item. Crafting is not without its issues as navigating each menu mirrors the cursor-like control system found on the PC, meaning every selection and decision must be made utilising the analogue sticks with no options to simply manoeuvre each menu with the directional pad. This cursor control system is clumsy and made crafting and experimenting with items become an agonizing process.

7 Days to Die does feature local split screen and online multiplayer, but the experience within both of these options is much worse than playing alone. Split Screen can actually provide some enjoyable moments, but due to the horrible performance that enjoyment is quickly squashed. Online is even worse, as the framerate and pop-in issues become a constant battle. There were minutes at a time where I was running through nothing but grey empty void, as 7 Days to Die could not keep up with the fact I was walking through the environment. Even when I did experience a few seconds of smooth gameplay, it wasn’t long until 7 Days to Die would either freeze or simply remove me from the online session with an error message. 7 Days to Die’s multiplayer experience is so horribly produced that the entire feature is barely playable and the split screen options (while appreciated) can hardly perform under the strain of double the activity on screen.

7 Days to Die is a horrible port that is so technically broken that I cannot even comprehend how it has been launched in this state. Despite having a unique and interesting premise, the console execution has been so poorly produced that it should be avoided at all costs.

If you desperately want to experience 7 Days to Die’s unique brand of zombie survival crafting that is your decision, but be mindful 7 Days to Die is borderline unplayable, broken, and frustrating. With such an interesting premise, it is unfortunate to see such an excellent idea presented in such a poor product.

The Good

• Interesting and unique premise.
• Fun crafting system…

The Bad

• …ruined by poor cursor-based menu navigation.
• Ugly visuals, atrocious pop-in and constant frame rate issues.
• Constant game freezes that require restart.
• Basic and bland combat.
• Poor multiplayer performance, both online and locally.

The Score: 2.0