VideoGamer.com Plays August 30, 2014

Tom Orry, Editorial Director – Velocity 2X, PS4

Recently announced as the headline game for September’s PlayStation Plus freebies, Velocity 2X is soon to get a massive influx of players. Those people should have a good time next week, although the game’s mixture of speed and warping means this isn’t something to play when you’re tired. When your brain is functioning properly and your eyelids aren’t drooping, it’s possible to warp all over the place, at speed, without really knowing how it’s happening. Some kind of futuristic auto-pilot takes over. Sadly, at the moment my auto-pilot feels like it’s built on a ZX Spectrum.

Steve Burns, Deputy Editor – Not playing BMX XXX

As many of you will know, last week I waved goodbye to the office and flew off on holiday. While there I found a machine that enabled me to pay to play an original Xbox with loads of games, ahem, legally installed. Among genuine classics such as PES 5 was probably the worst game of forever, the truly appalling BMX XXX.

For those of you fortunate enough to never have played it, it’s a version of Matt Hoffman’s BMX game, a Hawk-style trick attack. But instead of Hoffman, taste, decency, or even sense, XXX is all about collecting stuff so you can see grainy footage of women stripping. Yes.

Brett Phipps, Staff Writer – Madden NFL 15, Xbox One

I’m having a lot of fun with Madden. I usually burn out on the game pretty quickly, thanks to only being interested in offence, but thanks to the improvements on the other side of the ball, I can’t stop playing.

This is the first year I’ve really invested into Madden Ultimate Team. Getting the most exciting player in this year’s draft, Johnny Manziel, was certainly a good start. I still give throw more interceptions than Eli Manning, but hopefully I’ll improve and become a semi-decent player.

You can check out myself and Jim playing Madden below, or have a glance at my review.

Jim Trinca, Video Producer – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, PC (a PC I now own, in case you haven’t heard)

After an 8 year absence from PC gaming, I decided to dive down that rabbit hole again and blow a load of dosh on a new computer, and it’s been amazing. Running everything I throw at it in 1080p at a silky smooth 60fps, it’s been a joy to test out, and I can’t wait to log some some serious play time on this thing. Expect a feature from me next week on this very subject. If you’re thinking about taking the plunge, do it. You’ll thank yourself later, even it means you’ll be eating beans on toast for the next six months.

Predictably, I’ve been playing a lot of Skyrim on this new beast, and it feels like an entirely new game. At a solid high framerate, the combat isn’t anywhere near as shonky as it is on consoles, and actually becomes a lot of fun as opposed to a daft, flailing trigger mashing panic through a slideshow of awkward animations. Simply walking around becomes less about getting to the next quest marker and more about drinking in the beauty of its world.

Also, knowing you can run any one of the plethora of new things popping up on Steam every day makes you wonder why anyone puts up with the drip fed, stop-start release schedule currently plaguing the 8th gen consoles.

I’m beginning to get it now.

Dave Scammell, News Editor – Grand Theft Auto 5, Xbox 360

After actively distancing myself from GTA 5 to avoid burning out ahead of the new-gen release, guess what I did this week? I burned myself out on GTA 5.

Despite the new consoles having hit shelves since, Rockstar’s latest somehow still feels every bit as magical as it did day one. The world feels alive and full of character, something InFamous: Second Son certainly does not, and it has that feel of quality and craftsmanship that Watch Dogs often lacks. Frankly, it puts a lot of PS4 and Xbox One games to shame.

So yeah, new-gen GTA 5. Game of the generation?