Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst
PS4, Xbox One, PC, Electronic Arts, cert: 16, out now
★★★★
Rebooting the 2008 original, Catalyst expands both its dystopian lore and its first-person gameplay. Players inhabit Faith, a “Runner” whose rooftop parkour and melee combat skills serve her well as an off-grid courier for anyone evading the Orwellian corporations that rule the glistening yet sinister city of Glass.
While Mirror’s Edge disrupted its otherwise sublime free-running with clunky shooting mechanics, Catalyst opts for Zen-like forward motion. Gone is the linearity of the first game, replaced with a stunning open city. Controls are simple, relying mainly on shoulder buttons; navigating Glass, completing missions and side quests in the process, becomes an exercise in elegance. Gone too are guns – Faith is a living weapon, swift kicks and punches her bullets. It’s a more streamlined experience, and better for it.
It’s also a grimmer one, however, with few likable characters, even this revamped, younger Faith. Glass itself is oppressive and at times Catalyst’s plot fails to reflect the joy and freedom of its gameplay.
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter
PS4, Xbox One, PC, BigBen Interactive, cert: 16, out now
★★★
Sherlock’s latest adventure sees him engaging in a series of loosely connected cases, leading to the eponymous Devil’s Daughter. The vignette format works, echoing Doyle’s short stories, while developer Frogwares successfully incorporates Holmes’s skills into gameplay. Uncanny reasoning takes the form of quiet observations where you’ll pick out clues or evidence from characters or locations, while the detective’s penchant for disguises offers a wardrobe of outfits required for certain cases. Even the Baker Street Irregulars, Holmes’s network of wily street urchins, make playable appearances.
Frogwares’s recreation of Victorian London is well realised, if largely non-interactive. Disappointingly, several locations are reused from the earlier Holmes game Crimes and Punishment, though translating point-and-click mechanics to 3D environments works well.
Devil’s Daughter’s biggest failing is a questionable concession to “active” gameplay. Frustrating sections require you to centre the controller’s thumbsticks on to onscreen markers, which feels more like a matter of chance than skill. Inconsistent pacing and slow loading frustrate further, but not enough to ruin an enjoyable brainteaser.
Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator
PS4, PS3, PC, Pqube, out now, cert: 12
★★★★
Guilty Gear has always been a delightfully unhinged experience. Featuring possibly the strangest dystopian-future setting in fiction, it’s painted in heavy metal references, with a cast of brawlers that includes a witch prone to guitar solos and a time-travelling Axl Rose lookalike.
Revelator embraces its anime aesthetic with a lengthy but separate “movie” exploring the world, a fishing minigame and customisable avatar to play around with. It doesn’t really need those distractions though, fun as they are. The game’s main event – colourful characters engaged in lightning-fast fisticuffs with eye-watering visuals – is top class, with solid online play.
Unfortunately, newcomers may struggle, as controls are unorthodox. Revelator uses an odd five-button system – punch, kick, slash, heavy slash and “dust” – to create byzantine combos that aren’t as immediately accessible as, say, Tekken. Persist, though, and Guilty Gear proves itself one of the most satisfying fighters around.
