Pokémon Go
Android, iOS, the Pokémon Company, cert: 3
★★
The concept of Pokémon Go is tantalising: GPS location-mapping blends with augmented reality, generating Pokémon hidden in the world around you to catch and battle on your phone, all while exploring your surroundings. In mere weeks, it’s become a global phenomenon, the most successful mobile game ever.
But now, with some proper play-time under the belt, there is a major problem – it doesn’t work. The app is full of errors. It’s often incapable of even opening, victim of developer Niantic’s inability to meet server demand. When it does open, many features are unusable. PokéStops – points of interest that should reward visiting players with useful items – often won’t load. A Pokémon tracking feature never actually tracks. Most frustrating are the frequent crashes when capturing Pokémon, leaving you short on items without a catch to show for it.
When Pokémon Go works, it’s joyous. Even in this broken state, it has brought players together. We want this to be great. Unfortunately, until many faults are addressed, it is, despite all the headlines, effectively unplayable. MK
Hawken
PS4, Xbox One, PC, Reloaded Games, cert: 12
★★★
While piloting a robot vehicle has always been a popular subject for game-makers, the genre is currently undergoing something of a renaissance. As with 2014’s Titanfall, Reloaded Games’ Hawken, which has had a complex release history on PC, delivers a first-person shooter that puts players in the cockpit via their consoles.
The stern military sci-fi setting will feel familiar to first-person shooter devotees, but there are enough fresh ideas here to make Hawken distinct. The pace and movement is atypically unhurried for the genre, encouraging a refreshingly strategic gameplay style befitting of the robot stars.
Reloaded’s title is also online, meaning most of it is available to you without paying a penny; shelling out real cash for extras is optional. Fortunately, this element is reasonably pitched; while many cosmetic changes demand investment, ability upgrades can generally be earned with or without payment. Which makes for a good deal: a solid, occasionally tantalising FPS that costs nothing to try. WF
Hyrule Warriors Legends DLC pack 2
3DS, Nintendo, cert: 12
★★★★
Koei Tecmo’s ever-expanding hack-and-slash love letter to the Zelda franchise continues to grow with the second in a series of four downloadable packs. These focus on the handheld lineage of the series and start back at the beginning with the 1993 Game Boy favourite Link’s Awakening. The bulk of new content is accessed via the tough new Koholint map, another sprawling grid of large-scale skirmishes with a variety of victory conditions.
This pack also introduces that game’s gull-loving songstress, Marin, and her Sea Lily’s bell weapon, which summons the legendary Wind Fish. Link’s female counterpart, Linkle, also receives a pair of weaponised boots that replace her crossbow combat with a more, well, feet-on approach. Finally, there are a dozen new pieces of My Fairy equipment to round out the package. There’s nothing even remotely revolutionary included here, but it does continue to provide the finest fan-service known to Hyrule and is sure to bring a smile to the face of Zelda devotees. RH
