Really solid Enhanced Edition. The modern tweaks and general quality-of-life enhancements here make the original Borderlands far more playable and thus more enjoyable.
Props to Blind Squirrel Games.

Can't speak to the quality of the game itself, as I didn't manage to play it. I tried an Xbox One controller (both bluetooth and wired), a wired 360 pad, and a Steam controller, and WRC7 wouldn't recognise any of them. A browse of the game's forums indicated that others have had this problem, and it hasn't been addressed by the developers. I tried some general troubleshooting, but given that each of my gamepads work fine with the rest of my game library, I suspect it is a problem with WRC7. Thankfully, I was inside the cut-off for requesting a refund.

Back to DiRT!

HITMAN 2 improves on 2016's reboot of the series in every way, while retaining the extremely polished core gameplay and systems that made the previous game such fun to play. If you enjoyed the 2016 reboot, this title will give you mroe of that enjoyment in spades. Add to that that owning the 2016 game gives you all of the first season missions (Paris, Sapienza, Hokkaido, etc) in addition to the new content makes for a fantastic value proposition. Hitman games are made to be replayed, and experimenting with 2's new toys and mechanics in 1's old playgrounds is reason enough to revisit those missions.

Criticisms are minor. I remain underwhelmed by IO's insistence on timed content for elusive targets and seasonal missions. While these give a great sense of urgency to one-off targets, players who pick up the game late (like I did with HITMAN 2016) might feel punished for not having bought in early. Maybe there is a way to ensure the rewards for these missions remain timed without locking off the whole mission entirely? IO also remains stubborn with the always online nature of the game, where progression and unlocks are predicated on you being connected to their servers. With a relatively consistent connection I found very few problems, but I remain unconvinced that I *need* to be online to play what is predominantly a single-player experience.

Mostly though, I am very happy to see HITMAN 2 getting some love. IO's turbulent last couple of years makes their victory here all the sweeter, and I hope the series continues to go from strength to strength. I was extremely satisfied with this product at full price, and would recommend it at that £45/regional equivalent or any less. My personal GOTY for 2018.

Barring some small complaints, Dishonored 2 is an excellent continuation and evolution of the systems-driven gameplay of Dishonored. Gameplay-wise, the sequel iterates on Dishonored, and that's a good thing. Whether playing in high or low choas, the game is reactive to your inputs, making for great emergent, moment-to-moment play.

Some of my gripes with the first Dishonored sadly apply here, though: the story is rather similar to the first, and not particularly compelling. The mission style forces a macguffin-y story that requires you to find a thing or eliminate a person. Thankfully the level design is simply sublime throughout: Dishonored 2 is at its best when played blind, experiencing the twists and turns of each level and environment organically.

In terms of technical aspects, Dishonored 2's port is pretty poor. With a good system, 60FPS was generally consistent, although frequent random dips to the mid 40s did occur. One mission in particular had significantly worse performance. I also found myself disappointed with the sound, another hangover from the first game. Noises, especially NPC/enemy voices, can be difficult to place as being nearby or far away, with or without headphones. Usually, this would manifest as dialogue being loud, but the character not being nearby. For a stealth game, this did detract from the overall experience at points.

Overall, though, Dishonored 2 is an astonishingly good game. The systems-driven gameplay and best-in-class level design make the lackluster story and technical gripes a mere sideshow. A fantastic title.

I'd love to be able to review this title, but thanks to the abysmal PC port I wasn't able to even get to any of the proper gameplay, let alone experience the full story.

I've tried for almost four in-game hours to get to the bottom of an issue where the game crashes every 5-10 minutes, without an error message. My PC comfortably exceeds the system requirements and my CPU and GPU temperatures are fine, and the game runs at 60FPS. Various suggested solutions found online (updating Windows, running the Xbox app in the background) haven't fixed the problem, and given the game's relative age it would seem I am at a dead end.

Other users have reported crashes on startup, similar random crashing bugs after a given period of gameplay, as well as lockups/freezes once a certain chapter is reached.

Maybe Quantum Break is a mediocre, good or even great game, I couldn't tell you, though, because even the greatest game isn't worth playing if it crashes every quarter hour.

Despite a handful of crashes and some inconsistent performance, I enjoyed Arkham Knight. Having played the previous three games, AK is a fitting end to the series that polishes and builds on the excellent gameplay mechanics of Asylum and City. The freeflow combat and the predator sections (my personal favourite) are at their best here. The story is perhaps the weakest of the mainline trilogy, likely because DC's Paul Dini did not continue with the series after his work on the first two titles. The atmosphere is excellent, but is let down by some uneven pacing and generally forgettable writing.

One aspect that was heavily criticsed on release was the presence and use of the Batmobile, and unfortunately it did hamper my enjoyment in places. The tank battles are boring and repetitive. By late game, the basics of tank combat are unchanged from the early game: rather, a greater quantity of enemies is thrown at you instead.

Despite these flaws, Arkham Knight hits more than it misses. Now the price has dropped since release, AK is a good bet, especially if you can grab it in a sale.

Hell's Highway is the definition of a good-not-great game.
The (as of 2018) last Brothers in Arms game tells a decent story, continuing the Matt Baker narrative from the previous titles, and atmospherically it shines with a solid score and good moment-to-moment play.

Hell's Highway is let down by repetitiveness. Though the standard gameplay (moving from cover to cover, directing troops to execute flanking maneuvers on German troops and artillery) is very good, the game barely iterates on it between the first and last mission. Too many objectives are simply "destroy the enemy 88s", with the sole difference being more, rather than different, stuff to shoot in the end game compared to the start. Where the game does try to change things up, it does so with banal tank sections and lone-wolf levels, which seem out of place. I beat the campaign in about seven hours, and was for the most part pleased it was not much longer. There's little to do outside of the campaign. The port is not very good, although the game is old enough now that most newer hardware should not have much of an issue anyway.

Overall, I recommend Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway for anyone who enjoyed shows like Band of Brothers and fancies a solid WWII campaign. That said, I would wait for a sale - I paid £2.14 in a sale (75% off), and for the content available I would be wary of paying much more. Otherwise, a decent title that just about deserves a recommendation.