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Tom Orry, Editor – Everybody’s Golf, PS Vita
In between playing some less than stellar Vita titles, I’ve been getting in a few rounds with Everybody’s Golf. If you’re someone who thinks games should always be looking at introducing new ideas, this won’t be to your liking as to me it feels just like the game I’ve played before on PSP and PS3 – but that’s no bad thing in this case. There’s just something about the simplistic tap swing mechanic, colourful environments and outlandish characters that makes Everybody’s Golf a fun game to play. It doesn’t offer the level of sim found in other titles and certainly doesn’t feature courses you’ll be familiar with, but it’s addictive. It also doesn’t try to ram a Vita control feature down your throat when it’s not needed, with its use of the gyro and rear touch panel likely to go unnoticed unless you look for them.
Martin Gaston, Reviews Editor – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Xbox 360
Great moment this week. I was on the hunt for Gaius Maro, a member of a spoilery security force prowling the chilly fields of Skyrim, and had tracked him down to The Bannered Mare in Whiterun. This is fine, I thought, I’d just hang around in the pub for a few hours and wait for the guy to show up. Before I know it I’m being challenged into a drinking contest and I thought, well, what’s the harm in that?
Three drinks later and I pass out, eventually coming to in the Temple of Dibella. Where’s that? It’s in bloody Markarth, of all places. And I’ve wrecked the place, and I’m not allowed to leave until I’ve cleaned it up. The problem with all this is that Markath is absolutely miles away from Whiterun, and if I didn’t get back to The Bannered Mare within a few hours Maro would leave and go to the next city – where killing him would be much more difficult.
When I finally get back to Whiterun it’s too late. I’m too late. Much too late. But then it turns out I got the days of the week wrong and Maro would actually turn up in a few hours, so feelings of panic and dread quickly dissipated, and I sat in the bar waiting patiently this time. Score.
Emily Gera, MMO Editor – Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a fantasy vacuum. It sucks in every RPG reference from the last two and a half decades then shoots them back out over something like 60 hours worth of content. It’s a tough game to get your head around to be honest. It’s not particularly innovative or forward thinking, and the result is something that doesn’t entirely have a lot in the way of personality. But it still manages to be a hell of an RPG that gets all the technical stuff right. I reviewed this the other week, but the reason I’m writing about it here now is that there’s still so much left in the game to do – exploring, crafting, and the like. It’s a by-the-numbers RPG but it’s an example of how not breaking the rules can sometimes work brilliantly too.
