Also revealed were some pre-order bonuses for the game. The BlackJack’s Briefcase package offers you double XP for a limited amount of time and also grants you additional money to spend on weapons. The ISA M224-A1 package meanwhile will give you access to a powerful machine gun to take down the enemy with.

Halo 4 is a new beginning for the series in more ways than one: a fresh story arc, a new composer and of course it marks the first time that the series hasn’t been in the care of creator Bungie, instead being crafted by new developer, 343 Industries.

The game takes place four years after Halo 3 and once again sees the return of Master Chief, who now talks in game but is nevertheless still a bland and boring protagonist. He is once again accompanied by his far more interesting AI companion Cortana, who this time around is suffering from rampancy, which is best described as a digital dementia of sorts. The story isn’t without its intrigue and highlights, though quite frankly it’s convoluted nonsense and not one of the games strengths.

With their first Halo, 343 Industries have retained all the important facets that Bungie implemented to make Halo into the beloved series that it is today. It sees the return of the famous 30 seconds of fun, which has you attacking your enemies and then rushing to cover to recharge your diminished shield, before you can start the process anew. The excellent gunplay has been retained and there’s still a satisfying combination of on foot and vehicle based combat.

The enemy AI also continues to impress with its illusion of intelligence, ducking in and out of cover, diving out of the way of grenades and just generally giving you the sense that they’re far beyond targets in a shooting gallery and are genuinely fighting for their very lives. The Covenant have returned from previous games, whilst the Promethean’s are new adversaries with new behaviour patterns that you’re required to take into consideration. For instance, the knights teleport around the battlefield, whilst watchers will support their allies, by using shields and summoning other enemies.

The weaponry of such importance to the FPS genre is as gratifying as always and is finely balanced, with even the less powerful weapons having their uses, for instance the humble pistol is equipped with a scope. All the favourites from throughout the series decade long history are present such as the needler, which fills your enemies full of explosive needles, the plasma pistol allows you to charge up a shot to instantly break the defences of shielded enemies and even less exotic and more ordinary weapons like the battle rifle are satisfying in their own ways with their sheer impact. The new weapons are stylish and satisfying too, particularly the way that they form in your hands, though in contrast their method of shooting is unimaginative.

From a visual standpoint, Halo 4 is far and away the most lavish game in the series yet, particularly when it comes to the lighting, though perhaps because of this leap in quality comes at the cost of diminished scale and the sprawling open battlegrounds from past games are largely absent in favour of more restrictive and compact environments, which is easily the most disappointing aspect of the campaign.

The music meanwhile doesn’t have the same impact as original composer Marty O’Donnell’s grandiose work, which isn’t to say there isn’t some fantastic pieces on offer, but on the whole it just isn’t as memorable and complementary to the experience.

Halo 4 isn’t without its disappointments, but nevertheless going forward, the series is seemingly in good hands, but in spite of Halo 4 being the work of a fresh development team, it isn’t as different as you might think, though perhaps 343 Industries are initially showing that they understand the nature of Halo well before they commit to bringing more dramatic and inventive changes to the series and, in turn, ultimately making it their own.

8/10

First up will be Pikmin 3 on the 26th of July. Meanwhile Super Luigi Bros. U, the DLC for New Super Mario Bros. U will arrive on the Wii U eShop on the 20th of June, but newly announced was the fact that the expansion will also be released as a standalone game on the 20th of July. Finally, the Platinum Games developed The Wonderful 101 will be released on the 23rd of August.

The three games will be published by Nintendo themselves. One of them will be Mario and Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games for Wii U. The game will use the Wii U Gamepad and Wii Motion Plus and events include snowboarding, skiing, bobsledding, skating, amongst others.

Another is Sonic Lost World, a platformer for Wii U and 3DS, though unfortunately details don’t extend any further than this at this point in time but new details are expected before E3. The third game is yet to be announced, so presumably this will be the last of the trio to be released.

The story sees the heroine Toki’s marriage to a knight end in tragedy, when a group of assassins attack leaving her would be husband mortally wounded. It’s up to Toki and her alter ego Towa to travel through time to save his life.

The battles are of the real time variety and you’re able to switch between Toki and Towa to make use of their unique capabilities, for instance Toki is focused on ranged combat, whilst Towa prefers to use her fists.

It goes some way for storytelling when narration is able to turn simple shapes into characters. This is certainly the case with Thomas Was Alone, a popular indie game with simple but likeable visuals and music, which first appeared on PC and Mac formats last year. Without Danny Wallace’s narration, Thomas Was Alone would be a lot less memorable, but with the narration the game and its characters are truly brought to life.

Thomas Was Alone is a title that gives nothing away as to what the game entails, well other than the fact that there’s a character called Thomas who was once alone. The game is a 2D puzzle platformer, which takes basic and controllable shapes and presents you with 100 puzzles to overcome. It sounds really quite odd, and, well, it is.

Initially, you take control of the titular Thomas (an AI that has become self-aware and is craving freedom) who is very much alone to begin with. Thomas is a red rectangle, and you soon learn that your objective is to get Thomas to the white rectangle; a shape which he obviously fits snugly inside considering that he’s a rectangle himself. The game gives you plenty of time to grasp what is expected of you, before then introducing you to more shapes to take control of, most of which have mundane names such as Chris, Laura, John and Sarah.

Each of the characters in the game have their own ability, and you’ll soon learn that combining the shapes is the way to go in order to ensure that all the shapes in each level are able to reach their matching exit points. Perhaps a particular shape isn’t able to jump very high, and getting other shapes into a particular order will then create a staircase for the more inadequate jumper to leap up. This is just one example, and switching shapes and getting them into their places is the basic aim of the game. There’s a big block that can float on water, another that can double jump, one that is small enough to fit through little gaps, another that works as a trampoline etc. With the latter said, most brains will know what to expect in terms of the puzzles.

Where Thomas Was Alone falters is in its lack of challenge. Most who gain a complete understanding of how the game works will breeze through the 100 puzzles in next to no time, with little to stop them in their tracks. In fact, you could say that some of the puzzles aren’t really puzzles at all, with the solution being crystal clear, while the getting there does sometimes prove to be the difficult part. Creator Mike Bithell does suggest in the game’s commentary that he wanted to create a game that wouldn’t frustrate the player, although, while fun and strangely compelling, Thomas Was Alone is just too easy.

The thing that mainly kept me playing was certainly Danny Wallace’s narration, which adds so much to the game. The writing is such that basic shapes are given some personality, and there’s also a nice sense of humour in there, with the game also brilliantly tackling different themes such as loneliness, love, delusion, hatred, friendship, inferiority and more. It’s a masterful achievement to be able to turn everyday shapes into characters through the writing of the game, and some of these characters you may even come to care about.

Buy one version of Thomas Was Alone on a Sony platform, and you’ll get the other version for no extra charge. If you’re wondering which the best version is, I would definitely have to say the Vita version. The touch-screen controls of the handheld version makes for a very smooth experience, in which you can easily scroll through the available shapes and even instantly switch to a different one by simply touching it. For those who own both formats, the game also features Cross-Play, allowing you to save your progress on one system and then pick it up on another.

Thomas Was Alone is a bit of a difficult one to rate. The game’s lack of challenge is certainly detrimental to what is supposed to be a puzzle platformer at the end of the day, although the charismatic narration breathes life into the game and has proven to be something that has pushed many players to the end. If you’re looking for something to get the old brain matter working, Thomas Was Alone will unlikely satisfy, but if you’re looking for an easy to play game with a worthwhile story, then it may very well hit the spot while it lasts.

6/10

On offer will be new characters, including Momiji from Ninja Gaiden and Leon who was absent in Dead or Alive 5 will apparently make his return. There will also be new environments, some of which are inspired by Ninja Gaiden, as well as the return of favourite arenas from the past. Features that Dead or Alive Plus introduced like the in depth tutorial and Move Details Plus have also been implemented in this new version.

Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate is due in the Autumn.

This will come in exclusive steelbook premium packaging and will comprise of behind the scenes videos, soundtrack, dynamic theme and PSN Avatar bundle. But of most interest to the majority of people will be the fact that there will an additional half an hour of gameplay, details of which are getting revealed soon.

Beyond: Two Souls is due for release sometime in October.

The first DLC, The headless Knights and Starving Ruin Dwellers pack will arrive on the 28th May. This will feature eight fresh missions, new Beserker magic and two new bosses.. The 11th of June will see the arrival of A Drunk and Chef pack eight new missions and two bosses. Finally The Wild Wheels and Apparition pack is coming on the 25th of June and will again feature eight new missions and two fresh boss fights.

It has an interesting art style, is set during the Cold War and tasks you with infiltrating Soviet and US  Military installations, two countries of which are involved in an arms race that could wipe out humanity. It’s largely a single player game, though the developer is working on some sort of competitive element that apparently is more than just traditional scoring.