Out this week: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5, LEGO Dimensions, NBA 2K16 and more

Two days have passed since its US release and we’re still yet to hear a single positive thing about Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5.

Crash bugs, glitches, non-existent physics and dated visuals appear to be the least of its woes, worringly – a Polygon journalist claims they had to create a new Xbox account just to get the cursed thing to boot up. Unbelieveable.

How the last-gen versions – limited to certain retailers in the UK – fare is a mystery but we’d wager that they aren’t particularly impressive either. It’s sad to think that Activision will no doubt write-off this franchise revival as a commercial failure and we’ll never see the Hawkster again. At least there’s hope that EA’s Skate series will make a comeback.

LEGOD

Providing you have an overflowing piggy bank, LEGO Dimensions is a better way to spend your money – the starter pack clocks in close to £100, with additional add-on packs at £25-£30. Reviews have generally been very good however. 8/10 appears to be the most predominate score, putting it in-line with the top-tier games in the series.

NBA Live 16 and NBA 2K16 are also battling it out this week. Word has it that NBA 2K16 – which has a story mode penned by Spike Lee – is the better of the two, and by some margin. EA’s annual update is on the receiving end of 6s and 7s while 2K Sports’ sim has plenty of 8s and 9s behind around.

The remaining retail releases strike us as an odd bunch. On 3DS there’s the allegedly rather limited Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer and the doubtlessly rubbish Thomas and Friends – Steaming around Sodor, while the PS4 sees retail releases of Yasai Ninja and Journey Collectors Edition plus Samurai Warriors 4 II. From the looks of things the PS3 and PS Vita versions of Koei’s latest hack and slasher are digital only. They’re available to download now.

It’s curiously quiet week on PSN. Just three games are joining the digital versions of Tony Hawk’s 5, NBA Live 16 et al – Arcade Archives Moon Cresta (£7.99) and Toto Temple Deluxe (£8.99) on PS4, and the PSone classic Harvest Moon: Back to Nature on PS3 (£3.99). As fans with testify, it’s one of the highlights in the series.

the Harrison Memorial Hospita

2D party game Toto Temple Deluxe is out now on Xbox One as well, alongside abstract first-person puzzler Standpoint (£7.99), colourful multiplayer-only space shooter Orbit (£5.59) and The Escapists: The Walking Dead (£13.49 with Gold; £14.99 otherwise).

Try as we might, we fail to find a single review of that last one. From the sound of things though it follows the timeline of the comic books very closely, starting with Rick Grimes’ escape from the Harrison Memorial Hospital. Vanilla The Escapists went down well, so we’d imagine this is a safe purchase.

Next week: Rock Band 4 (PS4/Xbox One), Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection (PS4), Transformers Devastation (Multi), Elite Dangerous (Xbox One), Farming Simulator 2016 (PS Vita), Dragon Age Inquisition: – Game of the Year (PS4/Xbox One) and Kaiju Panic (Xbox One).

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