The evenings are drawing in, which means ‘big game season’ is upon us. Right on cue, not one, not two, but three spare time-draining ‘live service’ games are upon us this week, catering for all budgets.
Destiny 2: New Light is the new free entry point for the series, launching alongside the £29.99 Destiny 2: Shadowkeep – Bungie’s first standalone expansion, requiring no previous content. You can find the trailer for Shadowkeep below. Now free of Activision’s shackles, there’s little reason to doubt that the future of Destiny is brighter than ever.
Then there’s Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint. The Ultimate and Gold editions are available now, priced at an eyebrow-raising £92.99 and £84.99 respectively, while the standard edition launches 4th October for a slightly more modest £49.99.
No critical reviews are live yet. However, and somewhat worryingly, word has it that it’s rammed full of microtransactions. These include gun attachments, which players fear will turn the open-world shooter into a pay-to-win experience.
Impression videos on YouTube also paint a bleak picture, with Upper Echelon Gamers claiming that “it’s is a mashup of mechanics that do not blend, do not mesh, and do not combine into something greater than the individual partsâ€. Skill Up simply noted that it wasn’t ready for launch. While we don’t doubt that Ubisoft has nailed the basics, it sounds like this package hasn’t quite come together. Definitely wait for more reviews before pulling the trigger.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered needs no introduction – when it launched in 2009, everybody was in universal agreement that it was the greatest Ghostbusters game of all-time. It’s back this week on PS4, Xbox One and Switch, available for around £20-£25.
The Switch also receives a re-release of Sniper Elite 3: Ultimate Edition, featuring every single piece of DLC released for the grisly stealth shooter. The original launched on PS3 and Xbox 360, and so it comes as no surprise to find that it performs remarkably well. We’ve rounded-up reviews below.
Sticking with conversions, visual novel One Night Stand makes the jump from PC to PS4 and Switch, with the latter sporting motion controls. As the name suggests, it entails a drunken night out which results in waking up next to a stranger. It’s up to you to put the pieces together.
The SEGA Mega Drive Mini arrives in Europe this week too. As you’ve no doubt heard by now, it’s one of the best mini retro systems around. After several – countless, even – botched attempts, SEGA managed to get this one right. A combination of M2’s emulation expertise and an excellent selection of 16-bit hits makes this a delectable package. The only downside is the lack of Sonic 3/Sonic & Knuckles, which is allegedly down to an ongoing dispute regarding music rights. Bah!
Also of note are Sony’s cutesy dungeon crawler ReadySet Heroes, the Q*Bert alike SlabWell on PS4 and Xbox One – which we reviewed on Switch – and We Were Here Too, the sequel to one of last month’s Xbox One ‘Games with Gold’ freebies.
God of War, Gran Turismo: Sport and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy all join the £15.99 PlayStation Hits range this Friday too. A bargain one and all.
New release showcase
Sniper Elite 3: Ultimate Edition
8/10 – GameSpew: On Switch, Sniper Elite 3: Ultimate Edition is just as good as it’s ever been, which is to say that it’s very good indeed. It looks great, performs well, has plenty of content where it really counts and doesn’t skimp on online multiplayer like so many Switch ports often do.
8/10 – Nintendo Enthusiast: I was a big fan of Sniper Elite 3 on Xbox One, and I really like Sniper Elite 3 Ultimate Edition on Switch. While it doesn’t have quite the same visual impact on Nintendo’s hardware, it is still a good-looking game. And the actual adventure is as good as ever.
7/10 – TSA: Sniper Elite 3 Ultimate Edition acquits itself nicely on Nintendo Switch. It looks good, it performs solidly, there’s a couple of nice tweaks made for the Switch, and there’s a wealth of great stealthy sniping content to be found within this compilation. Really it’s a fairly standard feeling port, but alongside the V2 remaster, it’s a good excuse to revisit the series and see how far it’s evolved.
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint
Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered
One Night Stand
ReadySet Heroes
SEGA Mega Drive Mini
Sniper Elite 3: Ultimate Edition
8/10 – GameSpew: On Switch, Sniper Elite 3: Ultimate Edition is just as good as it’s ever been, which is to say that it’s very good indeed. It looks great, performs well, has plenty of content where it really counts and doesn’t skimp on online multiplayer like so many Switch ports often do.
8/10 – Nintendo Enthusiast: I was a big fan of Sniper Elite 3 on Xbox One, and I really like Sniper Elite 3 Ultimate Edition on Switch. While it doesn’t have quite the same visual impact on Nintendo’s hardware, it is still a good-looking game. And the actual adventure is as good as ever.
7/10 – TSA: Sniper Elite 3 Ultimate Edition acquits itself nicely on Nintendo Switch. It looks good, it performs solidly, there’s a couple of nice tweaks made for the Switch, and there’s a wealth of great stealthy sniping content to be found within this compilation. Really it’s a fairly standard feeling port, but alongside the V2 remaster, it’s a good excuse to revisit the series and see how far it’s evolved.
New digital multi-format releases
- Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered
- One Night Stand
- SlabWell
- Northgard
- Legrand Legacy: Tale of the Fatebounds
New on PSN
- YU-NO A girl who chants love at the bound of this world.
- Beep! Beep! Deliveries
- ReadySet Heroes
- MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM BATTLE OPERATION 2
- Tic-Tac-Letters by POWGI
- A Hole New World
- Carly and the Reaperman – Escape from the Underworld
- Ling A Road Alone
New on Xbox One store
- We Were Here Too
- Asdivine Kamura
- Maximum Football 2019
- Petoons Party
New Nintendo retail releases
- Ghostbusters The Video Game Remastered
- Friday the 13th: The Game – Ultimate Slasher Edition
- Sniper Elite 3 Ultimate Edition
Next week: GRID, Concrete Genie, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince, Atlas, A Winter’s Daydream, Draw a Stickman: EPIC 2, STELLATUM, Active Soccer 2019, TwinCop, Soccer: Tactics & Glory, Trine: Ultimate Collection, Call of Cthulhu (Switch), Yu-No, Indivisible, Frostpunk, The Alliance Alive HD Remastered, Boxvr, and AeternoBlade II.