Connor Pearson

I've always enjoyed Nick Cage movies, and this really is one of the best, littered with references and almost a love letter to things fans have enjoyed about him for years! The duo of Cage and Pedro Pascal works really well and there's definitely many laughs to be had as well as the action. I don't want to say too much because I think you should see it yourself, but I don't think you have to be a Cage fan to go and see this and really enjoy it. Now I really want to go and watch Paddington 2 for some reason.

Hotwheels Unleashed is a decent racing game that on occasion features great tracks with a beautiful visual design and works brilliantly - but taking nostalgia out of the equation, it isn't exactly a great racing game. Vehicle handling ranges from 'not very well' to 'even less very well' and several of the tracks in the mid-late game feel like they were never properly play tested with the fastest cars. Tracks feature tight corners that you see late and various hazards which provide the AI a lot of opportunities to take advantage of the heavy rubber banding. The track builder is fantastic but in normal racing modes it gets repetitive very quickly, the blind box mechanic means that you can go a long time without getting a car you want, and the multiple planned season passes is content the game should have launched with but they'll charge you extra for the privilege. The game is better than I expected when I first heard of it, and it does have its moments, but the rave 5 star reviews from gaming sites, racing youtubers and several others here on Google... it's truly baffling to me!

Good fun to play offline and accessible/entertaining... do yourself a favour and avoid online though because it's the sweatiest cesspit I've encountered in years, and even when you specify the search parameters for 5* connections only, these connections are still really, really poor. I know it's not me because our internet is ridiculously fast, so there's either a server issue going on here or the server is an extremely poor judge of connection strength/speed stability. Infuriating to play.

Cyberpunk 2077 has a great main quest, impressive visuals and perhaps my favourite soundtrack from any video game... as well as some decent character motivated side quests and 'gigs' which are essentially small quests given to you by crime bosses/fixers in certain areas. Unfortunately, the game is very unfinished, absolutely littered with bugs (the glitchiest game I've played since Fallout New Vegas on PS3, and I was playing on PS5, not PS4 here) and incredibly shallow outside of the things mentioned in the first paragraph. There's no real character customisation outside of the very first character create scene, police are laughably poorly implemented, NPC AI is supremely dumb, gunplay is actually quite satisfying but nothing special, and whilst I found the driving to be also quite okay and stands out as different to other games, it's also far from brilliant. The game has many promised features that just aren't in the final version of this game, and at this point in time, unfortunately I think it's becoming quite clear that this game is not going to be saved by the devs any time soon. Which is a shame, because it really does have potential to be a classic, but as it stands, not really - a good, if barebones game at it's core, but crippled by missing or poorly implemented features.

I really want to like Sleeping Dogs - and to an extent, I actually do - but that doesn't mean that it's not a flawed game in many regards. The actual story of Sleeping Dogs is highly engaging and well written and I definitely recommend playing the game, the setting of Hong Kong is relatively unique and the game absolutely has a sense of charm to it in many respects, but objectively speaking, the vehicle handling is poor, the gunplay is far from fantastic, the fighting is quite shallow, there's several other activities that you can also technically do which also prove to be quite shallow - for example, you can meet different women throughout the game and 'date' them but they only actually programmed one date per girl! The game is easy to like and it's quite unique, but it's quite janky and you'd have to be an absolute fanboy of the highest order to not recognise the title's obvious flaws. In spite of those, I still think it's worth your time, but no point in pretending that they don't exist.

Better than the sequel in every way EXCEPT the general tone. Don't get me wrong, I like the new crew (especially Marcus, Wrench, Josh etc) and the writing can be quite funny but I think it's way too light hearted when it covers certain topics, compared to how gritty the original game felt and makes it seem that what is happening in game is less serious than it really is - it would benefit a lot from adjusting this tone in certain situations I think. Nevertheless, San Francisco is a beautiful place to explore with plenty to do, and there's a good selection of missions in this game that are amongst the best I've played in any video game. I got this on sale for about £15 last year and at any price similar to that, it's genuinely one of the best ways to spend that kind of money on any game.

Watch Dogs Legion is a game with a lot of potential, unfortunately a lot of this potential did not get realized, with many things you could do in either Watch Dogs 1 or 2 cut for seemingly no reason, which weren't much but made the open world feel slightly more alive. When I played at launch (so it might have been fixed since, I'm not sure) the police were quite broken and after beating the main story you literally could not get them to chase you at all unless you did a side mission that gave them to you. But, the actual story itself - and in particular, the writing (especially Bagley) is legitimately quite good, as is the whole idea of being able to recruit pretty much anyone into your team. The combat is good, the worldbuilding is good (although I wish there was slightly more to do in it) and given the price you can get this game for now, it's worth your time.

The best Need for Speed game since Hot Pursuit 2010 - with fantastic arcade handling and an absolutely brilliant day/night system that sees you earn money from legal races during the day and reputation from illegal races at night - which offer great thrills as you make sure your vehicle doesn't get too damaged as you weave between traffic at over 200 mph and evade the police, which are really well programmed. The story is short and cheesy, but that's to be expected for Need for Speed. The soundtrack is also quite bad, but it's very easy to play your own stuff instead.

Need for Speed Payback is a game that's great for a casual playthrough, with a satisfying handling model, nice map and a story that although cheesy, like most NFS games, is ok. It has some good ideas, like the clubs/leagues you have to defeat throughout the game, but also some quite bad ideas, aka the upgrade system and the collectibles can get quite annoying especially in endgame cars as several are only obtainable by going a very precise speed at a very precise angle off a jump as the hitboxes are very small for them. Some of the speed zones can also be difficult to get 3 stars on even in endgame cars but considering how cheap this game can be on a decent sale it's definitely worth your time.

Very decent racing game but mostly inferior to the original... whilst The Crew 2 brings nicer graphics and an improved handling model, none of the other additions actually improve the experience. Planes, boats and bikes feel quite half-baked and aren't very fun, personally think the game would be better without them and extra focus on the cars (which is what we all want). It's also got the cringiest atmosphere and writing of any game I've ever played and is far inferior to the original The Crew game in this respect. It's still a decent racing game when you do your best to ignore how 'off' the tone feels and you're driving a car, but I'd genuinely recommend staying with The Crew 1 as it's got the exact same map and is better in most ways.