PES 2018

PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Konami; cert: 3
★★★★
Luis Suárez’s unlikely PR revival is seemingly complete, as he fronts Konami’s new partnership with FC Barcelona in the latest iteration of Pro Evolution Soccer. He has chosen a good platform, as PES 2018’s player likenesses and crowd animations look sublime.

While official licences remain to Fifa’s advantage, PES has been focusing on gameplay. Close control, once the defining feature of early PES games, makes another step forward with a silky first touch, attack-minded dribbling and off-the-ball movement. Another welcome change is the slower and more natural pace of play, while player jostling, deflections and goalie spills feel unpredictable and lifelike. Player attributes also feel accurate, including the oddly fun addition of a playable Usain Bolt character to rival Arsenal’s speed demon, Héctor Bellerin.

Konami has reintroduced popular features such as random selection match, auto-filling a team with players to trade with an opponent. These games feel well balanced and offer variety, in contrast to Fifa where the temptation is to stay loyal to a club, while Master League now offers pre-season tournaments and a refined transfer system. Solid updates, then – certainly enough to give Fifa diehards pause for thought. FA

Windjammers

PS4, PS Vita, DotEmu; cert: 3
★★★★
Originally released for the Neo Geo arcade system in 1994, Windjammers is fully deserving of its cult status – it might remain a footnote in gaming’s records but for the few who played it remains deeply beloved. For all its credibility among arcade aficionados, the game is in essence a spin on Pong, albeit one festooned with mechanical and aesthetic trappings. Those extras, however, present a truly magnificent game, especially for multiplayer. And now it has been brought to PS4 and PS Vita, extending the multiplayer offering to online.

Fundamentally, it is frisbee tennis, with two rivals on court launching a flying disc at one another while defending goals. There are special shots and curled throws to master, but it is the elegant simplicity that marks out Windjammers as exceptional. Run alongside the Neo Geo original, the port accuracy is superb. Some online matches fail to launch, a problem fixable with an update, and one that barely detracts from a near perfect arcade game. WF

Resident Evil: Revelations

PS4, Xbox One, Capcom; cert: 16
★★★
In 2012, Resident Evil: Revelations was released on the 3DS and wowed audiences. It managed to pack a full console experience into a handheld, putting players into the shoes of secret agents aboard a stricken cruise ship, fending off mutants while unravelling a complex plot of intrigue and bio-terrorism.

Now Revelations returns to consoles (for a second time) and it’s showing its age. A five-year-old game built to run on handheld hardware nearly 10 years old, Revelations just doesn’t measure up as a console game in 2017, especially in wake of the series sea-change that was Resident Evil 7. The environments now feel small and bland, with clunky gameplay that comes across as a throwback. What this remastering offers is a bundling of all the original game’s DLC, plus the action-packed raid mode that remixes levels and enemies, but little that is truly new. Where Revelations was a great 3DS game, on state-of-the-art consoles it is but passable at best. PH