Gareth Brierley

Huge creatures trampling over cities is a 2018 trend. Rampage, the film based on the old arcade game is hitting the cinemas starring The Rock, a big gorilla, and a huge flying wolf thing. But over in the gaming scene and Extinction has its own big bad monsters hitting us up, and with their own violent agenda to put forward, it's up to you put an end to their bulldozing ways. It's a title that is hoping to excite the David and Goliath within all of us, but is it a giant-killer of a game?

I have twice travelled to Montana in the good old US of A this year. The first time I went as a farmer; plowing fields, raising chickens and selling grain. It was a peaceful time, with the only excitement being whether I had enough fuel for the tractor. The second time I arrived in Montana I was kidnapped by a cult, thrown out of a plane, wrestled a bear and partook in a gunfight with 20 people across a bar. In case you hadn’t guessed by now, Far Cry 5 was the second experience - and it's a mad roller-coaster of a vacation.

The world of Assassin's Creed is a deep and complex one. I can't quite remember how all the different timelines, story threads and modern ages combine with the historical animus setting, but it's been building a universe as large in scope as some of the biggest franchises in the film, game, and comic industry. The latest comic series to come out of Titan Comics deals with the world from the latest release, Assassin’s Creed Origins. In that game, we journey through ancient Egypt and find out about the start of the Creed and the characters involved from the very beginning. In this first issue of the comic, we follow the journey of Aya after she's left Egypt and ventured across the sea to Rome.

Assassin’s Creed Rogue instantly feels like the add-on to Assassin's Creed 2, adding some extra bits of gameplay and different locations, and a bit of a hybrid between Assassin's Creed 3 and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Using the North America and Atlantic locations as a backdrop, as well as the odd vacation to Lisbon and Paris, the game follows a different protagonist and his adventures.

In the film The Martian, it was clear from the beginning that Matt Damon, suddenly stranded on Mars, wasn't about to be having an easy time of it. It wasn't a nice little vacation away from the family, but clearly an exercise in trying to stay alive for every minute of the day. Symmetry is a game that plays on the same principle of that film - being stranded on a planet, having to survive and eventually trying to escape. Except there is more than one astronaut and if one of them dies you have some big questions. Do you give your colleague a decent burial, or eat them for valuable calories? The choice is yours.

We've all woken up without any idea of where we are, or what has happened the night before. Haven't we? It must be true because I can't remember half of my mid-twenties. But what would happen if you woke up surrounded by cats with boxes on their heads, in a petrol station in a middle eastern country and you can't remember your name? Well, the protagonist in Abo Khashem starts the game with that exact problem, and as you gather yourself to find out the truth about your circumstances, this weird, crazy, very funny journey begins to slowly unfold.

So I'm back again in the desert, with a flaming sword in one hand and a piece of sharp metal grafted onto my wrist in the other. Oh, and my middle finger is missing. Ah yes, it's Assassin's Creed time again. But why am I back? I've killed Caesar (sorry for the spoiler), founded the actual Assassin's Creed organisation and have travelled the seven seas. Well, now there is something supernatural afoot and all the buried pharaohs are appearing as mummies in city centres, slaughtering the public. You know who you're going to call? Yep, it's your faithful man Bayek of Siwa, back for one last roll of the dice.

I've spent a lot of time working hard in many make-believe sim worlds. I've had to manage a frozen city and get all hot under the collar about the cost of underwater heating in Cities: Skylines, I’ve run a small fantasy shop in a medieval village with Shoppe Keep and I've tried my best to ensure the good people of the UK had a reliable train service with Train Sim World: Founders Edition. It seems like I’m a glutton for punishment though as today I'm trying to build a successful farming empire… again!

The sim world is all-encompassing and it can suck every inch of your life away. Ask any Football Manager fanatic who has burned hundreds of hours in their quest for trophies. But our appetite for these games is huge. Maybe it's the chance to escape into another person's life for a moment, and sharing their experiences at work that appeals. And with that in mind, when you were a kid, everyone - and I mean, everyone - at least at one point wanted to be a train driver. Train Sim World: Founders Edition gives you that chance.

The switch from 1999 to 2000 left me worried about a lot of things. My underpowered PC was getting ready to turn into the Terminator thanks to the 2K disease, and if that didn't get us then it would be the eclipse that threatened to herald the end of all days. But I was most worried about my PS1 - which was already on its last legs - and the fact that it may not be able to allow me to complete the brilliant looking, upcoming, Fear Effect. See, I was all ready to love this game, its use of cell-shaded graphics, the wonderful characters, utterly innovative gameplay and the amazing looking world. But now Fear Effect is back, is it good to go and revisit the start of the millennium again?

It wasn't a particularly pleasurable time in the Middle Ages. You didn't have proper healthcare, wars were erupting in every corner and there wasn't even Uber.

The point and click story-driven adventure game has come into its own over the last decade, starting with Telltale’s "The Walking Dead" before developing and morphing into the latest “Life is Strange" series. This genre has shown how games don't shy away from death, gore, adult themes or how moral decisions can affect the world around you. The Council is a new game from this ever-growing genre and it hopes to tell an original story, and like Telltale who are plundering the DC and Marvel universes, it is also using some very famous faces indeed.

You don’t always need a 100 hour sprawling action adventure across 20 worlds, with a cast of 1000 voice actors to find the perfect game. Recent experiences like Edith Finch and Three Fourths Home prove that the shorter games can be just as rewarding as the behemoth time killers that litter the market. One Eyed Kutkh - as well as being the hardest title to pronounce in the world of gaming - is a short experience running at only 30 to 45 minutes long. But is it the perfect length? Or is it like a tasty dessert that leaves you wanting more?

From the holy trinity of the Matrix movies to the trippy drug modes on Far Cry and GTA, and the whole of The Evil Within franchise, developers get the chance to be as creative as they want, bend all the rules and have a bloody good time doing it. In Past Cure the same tropes are in action once more and the small team of developers at Phantom 8 Studio are hoping to live up to the highs of the entertainment mentioned above, but will they do it?

There have been a handful of games that have successfully mixed real-world cultures with that of magic and adventure. Never Alone was a good example of a game that did both, with its clever understanding of the Iñupiat people. Now we have Mulaka which is based on the culture of the Taramuhara people who reside in Northern Mexico. This is the focus of the game, along with the examination of the lore surrounding their culture and the world they inhabit. But how does it play?