Honest Xbox Reviews

Cutting to the chase, I am perhaps one of the worst people to ask when it comes to being a stealthy, quick thinking assassin in any video game, let alone one who must use his surroundings and anything he can get his hands on to wipe out numerous targets. Agent 47 while supposedly being a great hitman in video game lore, in my hands is like if Mr Bean was given a silenced pistol and told to go at it and not cause too much damage. Hitman 2 takes what made the last game a great little adventure and......well, puts a 2 in the game title and offers you some new locations to mess about in, and just have a bit of innocent mass murdering fun in them.

What does it offer I hear you ask? Well, the game offers owners of the original game the chance to dip back into previous levels and take them on again if they so wish, but the game also offers new locations for you to play too. Never played a Hitman game before? Well, it's all pretty simple stuff. You can just load up a location and take do…

So, this is one I knew very little about before it appeared in my inbox, but I was interested in it from the get-go. I've always had a love for the Metroidvania style of game. Ever since playing Super Metroid for the first time, I've had a soft spot for the particular gameplay hook of re-exploring previous areas with new skills, allowing you to open up even more areas, and discover even more skills. Eventually though, across multiple playthroughs, you get to know every route, you remember every shortcut, and have every item location memorized. That great feeling of exploration, of discovering secrets, is lessened, and eventually lost completely, because you know exactly where everything is. Wouldn't it be nice if it was different each time? If every time you played, you had a new layout to explore? The people over at Bit Kid, Inc certainly thought so and decided to work a procedurally generated layout into the design of its newest release, meaning that although you'll…

For as long as I can remember, I've found space and technology absolutely fascinating. Both in reality and in fiction. Especially in fiction, I suppose. Anything sci-fi would instantly catch my eye and franchises like StarWars and StarTrek had a major impact on my formative years. The idea of journeying between the stars, discovering new life and new worlds is fertile ground for the imagination and the concept is obviously ripe for a video game. I'm sure many people like the idea of sailing between the stars, captaining a crew, exploring the universe and that feeling is what "The Long Journey Home" tries to tap into.

The game has a simple premise. You hand-pick a crew, choose a ship and lander, then head off into the endless void. Your mission? To test humanities latest breakthrough, an engine capable of interstellar travel. While on this maiden voyage, something goes wrong. When the jump drive is activated, it mis-fires, flinging the ship and crew far across the ga…