It’s been a fairly lengthy wait for a new game in the series, being that the last installment, Hitman: Blood Money, was released six years ago.

Hitman: Absolution is an attempt to broaden the appeal of the series, although only time will tell if it has been a success.

Irrational Creative Director Ken Levine believes that the delay will allow the developer to make a better game, after uncovering opportunities to do so. Multiplayer perhaps? There’s also a little game called Grand Theft Auto V on the way, which could have had at least some bearing on their decision to delay the game.

With the current crop of consoles now being over five years old and high end PC gaming being a generation ahead in terms of visuals, these days it’s a somewhat insurmountable task to port across a game that was made exclusively with PC’s in mind, particularly when it’s a stunning looking game like The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. But developer CD Projeckt Red have risen to the challenge of bringing the well regarded RPG to a new audience as well as to more modest technology.

The Witcher 2: Assassin’s of Kings is a strong port that obviously isn’t as visually sumptuous as the highest spec PC version, though the developer has done their utmost in crafting a worthy imitation, which largely runs smoothly and, with its glowing sunsets, sunlight filtering through trees, detailed character models and dense forests, it’s easily one of this generation’s most lavish games.

Garelt of Rivea is a Witcher, a mutant monster slayer with spooky, glowing eyes, who becomes wanted for murder after being found in the presence of a dead king. Garelt must hunt down the mysterious kingslayer and discover the murderer’s motivations, to clear his name. It’s a complex but well constructed and engaging narrative and is mature in the true sense of the word and whilst it has plenty of bloodletting, bare breasts and some of the worst language in the medium of gaming, the content is in this case executed in a relatively mature manner, to the point that it never feels truly gratuitous.

As is typical for RPG’s of the western variety, you’ll get choices along the way, offering you a certain degree of authorship over the story. There’s no real morality system and choices are more grey than black or white as opposed to something like the Mass Effect series, where there are nearly always clear cut good and evil choices. One choice early on gives you two contrasting paths that have an enormous effect on your experience through much of the rest of the game, offering tremendous replay value for what is already a game that weighs in at about thirty hours.

The world in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings doesn’t, in terms of space, have the scope of the likes of Skyrim. It’s a much less freeform game in that regard, and progression can result in areas becoming locked to you and in turn, the failure of certain side quests. Areas are generally still reasonably sizeable though, offering up plenty of opportunity for exploration.

Of course there’s also plenty of enemies along the way too, both of the monster and human varieties. The combat rewards skill above button smashing, often requiring well timed parries and evasion manoveoures. Geralt has two swords: a steel type that works well against human enemies and a silver variation that is effective against monsters.

Geralt also has, at hand, some magic spells that can turn the tide of battle if used at the opportune moments; he can shoot fire from his hands, conjurer magical barriers, turn enemies against each other and paralyse them. One spell at a time can be mapped to a button, whilst the others are always easily accessible through a menu.

Preparation before battle can be important too – you’re able to lay down traps on the battlefield to inflict additional pain on your foes. You can also create portions and then swig them down to grant you various enhancements, such as increased armour, strength or immunity to status changes. What is sure to be strange to many a RPG fan, is that you’re not able to use portions during combat, further displaying the need for good preparation beforehand.

Character growth is carried out through the skill tree, with four schools of abilities, training, swordmanship, magic and alchemy, of which, provided you have learned two skills on the training path, you can then choose to spend any subsequent skill points, that you’ve won through levelling up, perhaps spreading them out through all fields or choosing to focus on one, as is often the case for western RPG’s it’s flexible enough to give you the freedom to make your character strong in the areas that you desire. Further enhancement comes with Mutagens that you’re able to attach to certain learnt skills, granting you additional stat bonuses.

Problems in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings are few and far between, but they do exist. Sadly the map can occasionally be confusing in its layout, leaving navigation as a bit of an issue, whilst picking up items can be more fiddly than need be, but these are rarely bad enough issues to really hurt the game.

With The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, developer CD Projeckt have delivered a port that is far beyond third rate, instead working best with what they’ve got and ultimately building a game that is one of this aging generations technological wonders. Its beautiful visuals are merely a bonus though – this is a game crafted by a developer that really knows how to make an RPG shine, just like the eyes of Geralt himself.

9/10

Trials HD was such a good challenge. This was a game that was as much about fun as it was about skill. In this age of dumbing down, Trials HD was certainly one of the games to turn to if you were wanting something that required you to be constantly on the ball. Now, well over two years later, Trials Evolution has come along and made the original look rather inadequate in comparison.

Don’t worry Trials HD veterans, Trials Evolution is still a game with a very good memory, and if games do indeed have memories, then this one certainly seems to remember all the good groundwork that its precursor laid down. Trials Evolution is still very much a Trials game, but everything has been blown up, things have been added, and, as a result, it’s just one of those sequels that you can truly class as a dream follow-up.

For those not in the know, RedLynx’s Trials games started life as a flash game, although the series is definitely best known for the Trials HD release on Xbox Live Arcade in the summer of 2009. The series is a 2.5D game, in which skilfully riding a motorbike through various courses is your task. Speaking of skill, developer Redlynx did a really marvellous job in tuning the physics to perfection, and you really have to keep a steady nerve to stay seated on the bike. To some, Trials HD got all too difficult all too fast, while others relished in its brutal difficulty.

Trials Evolution certainly addresses the difficulty level for the less confident player. The sequel has a much gentler learning curve – always increasing in difficulty with each new event, but, with licence tests that school you on the very basic to the much more advanced techniques, never suddenly throwing something at you completely out of the blue, that you may not have a complete understanding of. But skilled veterans need not worry, as Trials Evolution still has some challenging courses, although they just take a little longer to become available to you.

Speaking of courses, in both their colour palette and their locations,Trials Evolution has much more variety than Trials HD, which mostly took place indoors. Evolution gives you the opportunity to battle with the bike throughout around 60 amazingly varied courses – there are so many different backdrops and obstacles to deal with, that getting bored would be almost impossible. You’ll be racing through woodland, alongside a castle, across a bridge suspended high in the sky, over collapsing dams, and much more besides. There are even a few courses inspired by other games, with gaming gems such as the likes of Shadow of the Colossus and Limbo receiving this very special treatment.

The track design is genius, as is the manner in which the difficulty of each track increases. RedLynx certainly know exactly what they are doing when designing a track, and if anyone asked me which are the bad ones of the bunch? Well, I just couldn’t answer them, as each and every one of these tracks is masterful in their design. Tracks are slotted into beginner to the much more technical and tough extreme courses, and you’ll have to be really confident in the bike saddle to get through the lot. Luckily, if you are struggling with a course, you can always refer to viewing the runs of the top players on the leaderboards, and learning from the best is definitely key to improving your own game.

Trials Evolution also has plenty of replay value. When you reach the end of a course, you’ll be awarded a bronze, silver or gold medal, but for some a bronze or silver just won’t be good enough, and they’ll be back again and again in order to get hold of the shiniest medal, with platinum medals becoming available later on. There are also those out there who will just want to beat their friends best runs, and seeing them out on the track certainly adds a competitive edge. Speaking of competition, Trials Evolution introduces multiplayer.

The multiplayer certainly doesn’t feel like an afterthought. You are able to race against the live ghosts of others across all the tracks that you’ll be riding on in the single player portion, although it’s also possible to race side-by-side on Supercross tracks, and, with a pleasing scoring system, this is where the multiplayer is at its best. Supercross racing (restricted to online play) penalises you for taking a tumble off your bike, docking you a point each time you crash, and you’ll also lose points if you finish lower than first position. Multiplayer can be played locally or online, and, as it adds so much to the Trials Evolution download, it’s more than a mere extra.

Then, of course, there’s the returning track editor, which allows you to put together your very own tracks. Being that this is exactly the tool that RedLynx used to create their own tracks, obviously the passionate creators out there can truly put their own stamp on their designs. That said, whilst it’s unlikely that you are going to beat RedLynx at their own game, it’s certainly very possible to match their best track designs. The feature was present in Trials HD, although it wasn’t possible to share your creations with others around the world, so this is yet another feature that is going to add endless longevity to the game.

Like I mentioned when I opened this review, Trials Evolution is a true dream follow-up. Much has to be said for the amount of improvements and additions that have been added to this sequel, building upon an already hugely entertaining game, and somehow making it ten times better. I do have to wonder where RedLynx will take the series next, but, as sequels go, this first Trials HD follow-up is something truly special, a game which better caters to two very different audiences, and one that does more than enough to live up to its 1200 Microsoft Points asking price.

9/10

Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse has little actual information, although the publisher has announced that the voice cast from the cartoon will be doing the voices for the game, and that the game will be released this autumn on consoles.

Family Guy had a game back in 2006 on PS2 and Xbox, although it was met by negative reviews.

One of the many strengths of the great medium of gaming is that you’re able to take command of a variety of characters that are unlike you: ruthless criminals, hardened soldiers and warriors, adventurers, cartoony animals, and gods – and that’s in no way all that’s on offer. This brings me to Prototype 2’s James Heller, who is certainly one of the most empowering characters to ever likely exist in videogames.

The original Prototype had you playing as Alex Mercer, a mysterious hooded man with destructive powers and, as fans that explored its drip fed story are well aware, it turned out that Mercer isn’t a very pleasant fellow. Soldier James Heller discovers this firsthand, when the Mercer virus claims the lives of his wife and daughter, spurring him to attempt to get revenge – a bit of a misjudged decision to say the very least, when you consider that Heller is just a regular guy and Mercer is as powerful as god. But alas in their opening encounter, Heller somehow survives and he also picks up a bonus at the same time, being granted Mercer like powers, better evening up the odds for any subsequent encounters that may occur between the two.

James Heller is, from a personality standpoint, a bit boring, foul mouthed and one note, but he makes up for this tenfold with how immensely enjoyable he is to be in charge of, particularly later in the game. Amongst other things, he can leap as high as the Incredible Hulk, consume people to steal their identities, as well as to top up his health, he can pick up cars and shoot tendrils out of his body, and if you’re feeling like something a bit more conventional, he can also use guns and drive tanks, but don’t you think that’s a bit boring? The results of Heller’s powers are devastating, leaving people missing plenty of blood and body parts, tanks and helicopters end up as charred shells, and the New York backdrop, which is already in need of a right good clean up, becomes even messier.

Heller is fun enough to be in control of to make simple navigation an immense joy. Running up buildings and leaping, dashing and gliding through the air quickly become commonplace. It’s all executed with pleasing accessibility as well, meaning you don’t require god-like skills in this instance in order to play a god-like character.

Like the original game, Prototype 2 is set in an open world environment. It’s fairly nondescript appearance wise, though the chaos of a mutant infested New York is well conveyed. The city also has plenty of secrets to discover in the form of collectibles. They’re well worth the effort to seek out, as they further enhance Heller alongside a simplistic XP system.

As delightful as Heller is to play as, the mission design of Prototype 2 is disappointingly limited in its scope, which is even enough for the otherwise stupidly fun destruction to begin to feel wearying from time to time. There’s too much reliance on the beautifully gory and visually stunning action to hold the game together, leaving it at times in danger of falling apart.

There are bonus objectives in a fair number of the missions that encourage you to use skills that you may otherwise be neglecting and will award you a lovely XP bonus if you manage to meet their criteria, but it’s still not really enough to make up for the often lazy mission structure.

With Prototype 2, it still feels as if the series hasn’t yet evolved to its full potential. It isn’t a very nice or interesting looking game, it’s not very distinct and can be far too repetitive, but it’s easy for such problems to become less glaring when you proceed to lay waste to your enemies with your terrifying powers and its here, where the true strength of Prototype 2 lies.

7/10

The game sees two friends, Aden and Sonja become cursed, resulting in them sharing one body and sending them to a mysterious island. You’re able to explore  vast oceans and dark dungeons, battle monsters, try your hand at lots of different activities and run your own farm, amongst other things.

This looks to be even more outlandish than the primary game. It takes place shortly after the conclusion of Saints Row: The Third and sees the leader of the Saints, being captured by aliens and sent into a virtual reality world, which looks like Steelport, but grants you all new superhuman abilities, allowing you to leap high into the sky and move at rapid speeds.