Minecraft is a testament to the capability of a sandbox environment. If you haven’t heard of Minecraft yet, you might look at the blocky graphics and dismiss it without a thought, but by doing so, you would be ridding yourself of a chance to explore the unimaginable depth that lies buried beneath the surface. Every single thing you can imagine has been built by the Minecraft community Complex castles, underwater cities, ancient Egyptian colonies, recreations of famous film scenes and much, much more. When Minecraft made its way to consoles, it was sadly restricted by the limitations of the hardware on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 Console. But now that it has made the leap to the PS4, Minecraft: PlayStation 4 Edition is the definitive edition of Minecraft on consoles. The powerful hardware of the PS4 allows players to create and explore boundless worlds. You are no longer limited...

If War Thunder was a movie, it would probably have Steven Spielberg behind the camera. There are epic battles, massive explosions, hair-raising combat sequences and the sheer size and scale of the conflicts involving planes and tanks gives it the look and feel of a big budget film. WWII has been a well that game developers have perhaps visited one time too many, but Gaijin Entertainment still manages to draw a lot of good fun from the setting. While the confusingly large number of options and clunky interface can be a little off-putting, the action makes the game worth playing. War Thunder is a freely downloadable game And even though you can speed up your progress slightly by unlocking vehicle and weapon upgrades through in-game purchases, the game doesn’t force these on you. If you are persistent enough, you can unlock all the upgrades naturally over the course of playing the...

The executives at Sony have probably been breathing easier the past couple of weeks, because with Bloodborne, they finally have their first true system-seller for the PlayStation 4. This is the must-have game that The Order: 1886 failed so spectacularly to be. Despite both featuring beautifully rendered atmospheric Victorian-style settings, the two games are polar opposites. The Order was universally panned for being short, more of a movie than a game (and still having a ridiculous and poorly executed story), and dully conventional (PS2-like, even) in its gameplay. Take note, game developers. If you’re ALL about the story, 1) that story better be good and 2) you’re probably better off making a short game. Bloodborne, on the other hand, Indulges only rarely in cutscenes and tells most of its story through environment (and in-menu item descriptions). There’s kind of a story there, but it emerges mostly in hints and impressions and...

Troy Baker, the actor who plays Joel in The Last of Us, has been widely quoted on his character’s departure from video game tradition as to say, “He’s not a hero, he’s not a badass,” nor “a strong archetypal character. . . . I really think it’s going to turn the model of the hero on its ass. Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic survival drama makes good on that promise, and in the process teaches us something about what we’ve come to expect from the characters we play in video games. The Last of Us Gives You Control of a New Kind of Protagonist—and You May Not Like It Joel in The Last of Us represents a less-travelled region of morally complicated protagonists. Joel’s decisions are brutal and goal-oriented, and from the beginning, the game denies players any indication that Joel is making them for the “right” reasons (though it doesn’t make this...

Who would’ve thought plants and zombies would make natural enemies? When PopCap Games first introduced the world to this epic rivalry in 2009, gamers took an immediate liking to the cute graphics, silly humor and wacky presentation. Cut to several years later, and our beloved tower defense franchise has blossomed like the sunflower plant into a fun shooter that still stays true to its roots. Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 has everything you love about the series If you’ve played a Plants Vs Zombies game before, you’ll notice the major difference immediately. Plants and zombies are now on opposite ends of a single map, with some disputed territory in between. There’s a lot of Easter eggs and collectibles around the map, along with several fun and potentially addictive mini-games. The plot explains the rivalry between the plants and zombies in a characteristically quirky fashion, and gives you enough to get the...

Batman is a complicated guy. Several times over Batman’s storied history, writers have talked about the emotional and psychological toll his actions have. This game is available on the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One Consoles. Is Batman the cause of all the problems that Gotham currently faces? Has he, as a shining symbol of justice, inadvertently caused the rise of a new kind of super-criminal? Is one man truly capable of protecting Gotham from itself? These and other questions have been fodder for some of his greatest stories, including the ones that developers Rock steady have imbued the previous Arkham games with. In Arkham Knight, we revisit The Dark Knight’s greatest fears. The result – a magnificent, rollicking ride that features the who’s who of the Batman rogue gallery and good guys. Game Background: This is a spectacular way to go out. Through the Arkham series, they’ve given gamers not...

The Uncharted series of games have always been about scale – the scope of the stories is epic, the visuals are beautiful and the landscapes you journey through are vast and diverse. When you consider the sheer amount of crazy, over-the-top, spectacular set pieces that the game has delivered over its three previous iterations, it is hard to imagine how things could get better. And yet, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End manages to do just that. It ups the ante for everything you’ve come to expect from an Uncharted game and grounds it with a moving, impactful story about grief, betrayal and redemption. In many ways, A Thief’s End is the most personal journey Nathan Drake and his companions have been through. In previous games, Naughty Dog had us explore several different parts of the globe, such The Amazon rainforest (El Dorado) and the Himalayas (Cintamani Stone). In this game, we...