It’s always exciting when games pop through the letterbox, but a few years ago, I was sent Sony’s DanceStar Party for the PS Move. I was dreading it, but ended enjoying it a lot more than I expected. So, when Just Dance 2014 turned up one bleary-eyed afternoon with its neon-nightmare box art, I knew it was that time again. Time to close the curtains. To apologise to the cat in advance. Time to move the sofa too close to the door. Time to stretch. Time to have a beer. Oh, and time to borrow a Kinect.
This is the fifth full game in the series, which has become frequent enough to ditch the numbered sequels and stick a year on the box. You’d be forgiven for thinking not much has changed; the art style is largely the same with real-life dancers on-screen painted in thick bright colours. Steady improvements have been made to the game itself though. Admittedly, the series started on the Wii with a motion controller that wasn’t up to anything more complex than bowling.
There are a lot of racing games on their way, perhaps too many for those of us planning to splash out on a next-gen console soon. So which of them are shaping up to be worthy of your attention? I endured the queues and hardware crashes of the Eurogamer Expo to tear around various racetracks to bring you my impressions of five of the most anticipated racers of the future on both existing and next generation platforms.
A few weeks ago, Microsoft were fighting a losing battle against the PS4. Every time they said anything via statement or twitter, gamers would become enraged and bewildered at why the company seemed determined to alienate consumers around the world. But then they sobered up ditched the two features of the Xbox One that may have handed an early victory to the PS4 – pre-owned blocking and daily online requirement.
However, is the damage already done? We’re far from writing off the big company yet, just look at how many times they’ve screwed up Windows and survived. So here’s our Sunday Seven on How the Xbox One Could Win Next-Gen.
UPDATE: We can confirm via a press release that the game will indeed be a reboot origins story: “The new Mirror’s Edge reboots the franchise for the next generation with advanced visuals and an all-new origin story for Faith.”
EA and DICE have just announced at E3 that we are finally getting a new Mirror’s Edge game. A new trailer even shows us some early gameplay using a new engine.
What is also interesting is how we see Faith getting her trademark tattoos for the first time. The star over the eye and the weird grid thing on her arm are getting inked onto her inbetween the action shots in the trailer and the one her face looks like it’ll be stinging for a while. Rather than keep it out of the sun though, we’re sure she’ll be running around crisp, bright and clean rooftops again soon.
Another hint that it’s not a direct sequel, at no point do they call it Mirror’s Edge 2, even in the small print at the end. We’ll keep you posted.
The No Sleep Gamer 