Enslaved

Enslaved is the latest game from Ninja Theory, the devs behind painfully average actioner Heavenly Sword. Wait, come back! The one beacon of light in Ninja Theory’s last effort was Any Serkis. As well as voice acting and mocapping king Bohan, the game’s bad guy, he also directed the cut scenes and had a hand in writing the story. The game is full of fun adventure, and excitement gameplay.

Serkis has had a similar hands-on role for Enslaved. He voices and mo-caps a wandering loner called Monkey, in a story loosely based on ancient Chinese novel Journey to the West, as we are pretty sure that didn’t take place in a post apocalyptic wasteland where the last remains of the Human race fight for survival in world over run by robots.

This time the story’s written by Alex Garland, who planned The Beach and 28 Days Later. And it goes a little something like this… After a girl named Trip sticks a headband on you designed to crush your skull if you don’t obey her orders, you have to help her get home. We don’t know where ‘home’ is, but art shows a ruined New York reclaimed by Plant Life.

Dead TO Rights: Retribution

The first three Dead To Rights titles were forgettable at best, so we weren’t exactly looking forward to the latest in the series, Retribution. It comes as a great relief, then, that on playing the game- which is a reboot, for want of a better description, we can see it has something going for it. It isn’t a world beater, but it could easily occupy the same territory as games like 50 cent: Blood On The Sand. A laugh. A muck about. A game. We went from not really caring to actually looking forward to this one, if only a bit, in a very short space of time.

Players control ‘cop on the edge’ Jack Slate as he travels through Grant City with his trusty K-9 hound Shadow and his pocket full of bullet-time, trying to unravel a web of corruption, deceit and other such naughtiness you’d expect from an action game/movie. While the game goes out of its way to show you it has noir influences on top of the standard bombastic action, it’s all still pretty much ignorable. The meat of the game comes through the combat, which is frantic, simple to control and over the top enough to be great fun.

Naruto: Rise of A Ninja

Young Naruto is a trainee ninja. He’s got a Nine Tailed Fox (Japan’s mythological spirit) bound inside his body whether that contributes to his pathological exuberance or not is in question, but his raucous behavior has earned him enmity of every single person in his home village. Following the plot of the mage and the cartoon series, Naruto gradually wins over his teachers, classmates and fellow villagers by undertaking dangerous missions and solving town problems. Its classic RPG mixed with a beat’em up, and you don’t need to know anything about the plot to pick up the game.

What you will need noticed straight away, however, is the beautifully rendered cell-shaded world. Beneath it all inst the most powerful engine, but the style isn’t just perfectly thought through. The roaming world and gradually unlocking travel and special powers make the game feel like the classic Jet Set Radio Crackdown, as you gleefully leap from rooftop to rooftop.

Everything about the game is easy to learn and it never feels like the game is holding your hand, even if it’s a touch easy. When the plot requires combat, you drop into arenas, where you can use your combos to setup Justu (Super Special Move) opportunities; if you fail, Naruto can call on his good memories to help him recover. The rich plot and endearing world means that Naruto leaves you waiting to know more about the cartoons series.