The Order: 1886; Dead or Alive 5 Last Round; Grow Home, gaming reviews
Third-person cover shooter set in Victorian Britain features secretive order of knights and mysterious forces
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***
PS4 (£49.85)
Set in a steampunk version of Victorian Britain, you play as a member of a secretive order of knights, sworn to protect the realm from mysterious forces. The game is a relatively standard linear third-person cover shooter. You traverse through relatively simple combat, with a decent enough array of weapons, moving toward the next cinematic. It's refreshing to get a new IP rather than a sequel or re-release, and this is a competent game with a few great moments. It's also more intriguing than it has any right to be within a big-budget action-adventure game like this.
Jack Fleming
Dead or Alive 5 Last Round
***
Xbox One, PS4, PC, PS3, Xbox 360 (£39.99)
This technical three button fighting game is easy to pick up, but offers depth to the more experienced player. Originally released on the PS3 and Xbox 360, Dead or Alive 5 is certainly the best entry in the series and Last Round improves the visuals and adds characters previously released as DLC. It is hard to ignore the objectification of the female characters, however, which makes the fact that this is actually quite a good game all the more annoying.
Jack Fleming
Grow Home
****
PC (£5.99)
Grow Home is a meditative platformer for the PC. Players control BUD (Botanical Utility Droid), a procedurally animated robot who's on a mission to save his home. He does this by harvesting an alien planet's seeds as he stimulates the growth of vines between floating islands and climbs ever higher. Players move each of BUD's hands independently, ideally using the shoulder buttons of a controller. As you develop you can unlock more platformer abilities, like a jetpack and a leaf glider, which open up the world. Wonderfully relaxing.
Max Wallis
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