Out this week: Grow Up, F1 2016, Bound, Inversus and more

Considering Ubisoft is renowned for extravagant launch campaigns, it’s sad to see Grow Up – the sequel to the rather lovely Grow Home – slip out on the sly this week. We’d even go as far as saying that Ubisoft’s own Uno has received more press coverage, with reviews appearing a few days before launch.

Grow Up marks the first time BUD has stepped foot on Xbox One – the original was PS4 and PC only. With reports of a slight sense of over-familiarity in Grow Home, it could well be newcomers that get the most out of this sequel. “Some of the new features could’ve done with pruning, but Ubisoft’s willingness to nurture indie style experiments continues to bear fruit,” said The Metro before handing out a solid 7/10.

F1 2016 is another that hasn’t arrived to much fanfare, with no reviews yet available. We imagine that it’ll be a marginal improvement over F1 2015, as opposed to a marked improved. The F1 games tend to see only see small enhancements, rather than complete overhauls.

Codemasters’ racer isn’t the only new retail release for this week – Tropico 5: Complete Collection also launches on PS4. We’d be more excited about it if the vanilla Tropico 5 wasn’t given away for free, via PS Plus, just a couple of months ago.

At least plenty of reviews of Bound are around. Unless mistaken, it’s the first PlayStation VR compatible game out the door (the headset isn’t essential, we should note). It’s an abstract platformer in which a female leap, runs, jumps and dances through heavily stylised environments.

“Carefully choreographed interactions between limbs, muscles, arcs and twists provide one of the most lovely examples of human movement in gaming history,” said Polygon, before comparing it to Journey and Abzu. Review scores have generally been higher than the recent Abzu however, such as this 7.8 from GameInformer: “Bound disappoints in some areas, but it did give me a deep appreciation of ballet and dance, which was entirely unexpected.”

Sticking with PS4, the well-received Absolute Drift: Zen Edition parks up onto PSN. That’s joined by Paragon, Lifeless Planet: Premier Edition, Organ Trail Complete Edition and Inversus, a minimalistic shooter. Destructoid compared it to a “pared-down Geometry Wars” (in a favourable sense) before handing out a whopping 9.5. Some reviews have been less flattering, though, including a 6.5 from God is a Geek.

The PS Vita isn’t without a new release either, with the colourful tag-team action RPG Dungeon Punks making an appearance.

In addition to Grow Up and Uno, the Xbox One also gets the free-to-play Prominence Poker and the Mexican-flavoured Unnamed Fiasco, a local multi-player game in which clones come back to help every time you die. That sounds suspiciously similar to last year’s Extreme Exorcism.

This leaves us with Hitman Episode 4: Bangkok. The only review at the time of typing comes from Destructoid, who dished out an “all right” 6.5. “It’s a little too similar to Paris with its posh, multi-tiered setup, not as unique as Sapienza, and a touch better than Marrakesh’s barren environments,” they said. That sounds alright to us, too.

Next week: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (PS4, Xbox One, PC), Worms W.M.D (PS4, Xbox One, PC), Madden NFL 17 (Multi), A.O.T. Wings of Freedom (PS4, Xbox One), The King of Fighters XIV – Day One Edition (PS4), Assetto Corsa (PS4, Xbox One), Obliteracers (Xbox One), Solar Shifter EX (Xbox One), Valley (PS4, Xbox One) and Alone With You (PS4).