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As a whole, The Walking Dead: The Final Season makes its farewell to Clementine by debating the thought-provoking idea of knowing when to break a cycle. For years, Clementine has been compelled to protect her young companion A.J. at any cost, exactly as Lee did for her in the first season. The cycle of survival, of carrying on the lessons imparted to her, is wired into every fiber of her being. It’s what has kept them alive. In the final four episodes of the series started by the now-shuttered Telltale Games and finished by part of the same team (now at Skybound Games) we’re asked what happens when Clem and A.J. might no longer need to run and begin to have some semblance of a normal life, and after a bit too much exposition and padding it leaves them in a satisfying place. The Final Season is the most focused arc in the series since its debut, with the adopted mother/son dynamic between Clem and A.J. creating some of the most harrowing choices I’ve made in a Telltale game. On a global level, it also offers new perspectives about the walkers, attempting and occasionally succeeding in showing us that there’s more to them than primal noises and a lust for human flesh. They were human once before the outbreak, so does Clem and A.J.’s reflexive response of killing every walker they see need to be changed, too? The Final Season points at the possibility of old habits breaking as new ways to live in this world arise and hope trickles in. The Final Season has a mix of truly riveting moments and dull, superfluous exposition, but the destination is worth the occasional speed bump. Still, the destination is worth the occasional speed bump. Each episode has at least two or three pivotal moments that made me feel like reloading my save and making the other choice, only to realize that either way would leave me with mixed emotions. Breaking the cycle is hard for Clem and A.J., but it also turned out to be hard for me to bring myself to make those cycle-altering choices. Clem and A.J. have the chance to change their ways, but after knowing these characters for so long it’s difficult to want to see them act differently. Looking back on the first few minutes of the first episode, Done Running, I’m struck at how well it foretells the major themes of the season. We see A.J. in the backseat of a car, spinning the cylinder of his revolver like it’s a toy. They haven’t eaten in a while and he’s hungry. When Clem holds up a silly toy called Disco Broccoli and talks in a funny voice, A.J. isn’t amused. Nor is he happy when Clem calls him “goofball.” He’s six and, unlike Clem, hasn’t had a day of a normal life as a little kid. So rather than laughing and being a goofball with Clem he sits there with a revolver, obviously comforted by the fact that it helps keep him safe. It’s a sad opening, but it paints a vivid picture of Clem and A.J.’s current dynamic and alludes to the struggles they’ve overcome on the road that have made A.J. perpetually on edge. When they stop to enter a home in search of food, they find a married couple who tied themselves to chairs in front of the window before they turned, with a note asking for anyone who finds them to leave them be. I wondered why they wanted to be left in that state, and why I looked at them differently than the walkers I had just killed on their property. For the first time in the series, I saw them as something more, and I almost felt bad for raiding their house, even though they no longer had any need for their goods. When a group of survivors takes Clem and A.J. in, Done Running does a significant amount of the heavy lifting for setting up the biggest problem that Clem will need to confront: Teaching A.J. how to live in a “safe” world amongst others. Because of his upbringing he’s always on guard, which leads him to bite and hit other kids when they startle him. He’s never been close to anyone but Clem, and watching him navigate this new, more civilized existence is the most intriguing aspect of the episode, especially since your input as Clem often guides how he acts. He always listens to Clem, which adds significant weight to each of your conversations. Even simple things, like sleeping in a bed, are hard for him to understand, and you can decide whether to indulge his survival instincts or compel him into a small degree of normalcy. The big mechanical change from previous seasons is that a portion of each episode plays out like an unscripted third-person adventure game, giving you full control of the camera during combat. Confrontations with walkers are more dynamic as a result. It’s a barebones system, however, as you’ll still see button prompts and quicktime events in action sequences, and there are noticeable framerate drops that occur in particularly hectic scenes with lots of walkers. Camera control makes certain quicktime events more interactive, but the playable area for each scene is confined and running into invisible walls is a frustratingly common occurrence. Overall, the third-person action sequences work fine, but they rarely add much of interest. More often, the free-roaming sequences have a negative effect, such as when you’re asked to walk around and examine multiple objects or engage in small talk with the other kids to advance the story. These tasks just get in the way, as the world around you is more static than it looks and the amount of things you can actually touch is minimal. There’s no exploration or discovery here; it’s merely an extension of the on-rails nature of the series under the guise of freedom. Done Running subverts your expectations in its climax. Up until now, AJ took Clem’s word as the gospel. He’s essentially a shadow – a mini version of Clem, much like Clem was a mini version of Lee. Betrayal and deceit leads to a shocking confrontation in front of the school they’ve settled in, one that could have seemingly been defused without further violence. Clem, being older and more mature, can see this. The scene brutally demonstrates that A.J. has a black and white view of the world, one that Clem herself taught him. Now that they’ve entered quasi-civilized society, it’s clear that her teachings, the lessons that Lee taught her, aren’t always compatible with this new way of life. It’s a profound realization for Clem, and one that genuinely changed how I approached the dynamic between them going forward. After this moment, I thought more carefully about everything I said to A.J. Suffer the Children’s best moments effectively get you to think differently about the walkers. The consequences of A.J.’s actions come to a head in the next episode, Suffer the Children. Serving as a setup for the external conflict with a group of raiders, Suffer the Children’s best moments effectively get you to think differently about the walkers. Two characters in particular, James and Tenn, contribute to this alternate worldview. James used to be a killer but now preaches non-violence and goes to grotesque extremes to avoid it. Like the opening scene with the walker couple, I felt compelled to leave walkers be, to see them as something a little more than what meets the eye. Meanwhile, Tenn – who is A.J.’s first friend at the school – has other intriguing ideas about walkers. He believes that like other ages in history, the “Walker Age” will come to an end. He also has the capacity for forgiveness and draws a picture of himself, his sisters, and the walkers who he thinks killed them as people again. There’s a stark contrast between Clem and A.J.’s worldview and that of their new friends, and the voices and philosophies of James and Tenn began knocking around in the back of my head when making choices for A.J. Besides those insightful interactions, Suffer the Children meanders along with a series of uninteresting free-roaming sequences and conversations. Part of the problem here is that so much of the episode relies on the relationships between the kids at the school. While the supporting cast is filled with diverse, interesting characters, there simply isn’t enough time to turn each of them into people you actually care about. Again, the climax delivers, setting up a scenario where the children have to leave the school for a high-stakes mission. That mission eventually unfolds in a grand fashion in episode three, Broken Toys. Getting there requires working through chunks of disappointing gameplay similar to that of Suffer the Children. The payoff, however, is worth the hiccups. can go down, but both are unique. No one said breaking the cycle would be easy, and the final moments of Broken Toys indeed left me broken and conflicted. As the bookend to a series that has had its fair share of ups and downs, Take Us Back brings the cycle to a close on as strong of a note as I could’ve imagined. The most gut-wrenching scene in the series is beautifully juxtaposed with a moving flashback scene. Take Us Back carefully treads the line of emotional mani[CENSORED]tion, but it fittingly embodies the cyclical themes of The Final Season and the series as a whole.

Codemasters' easiest, most entry-level game. The car handling is very forgiving, but with just enough fight in it to teach you the basics of corner-braking and throttle-control. It's got full-race weekends, strong opponent AI, and tons of variety in its racing formats. It's a great point-of-entry for people curious about sim-style racing, and fun for more hardcore drivers who just want to relax.

Basketball has a hard time garnering attention from UK sports fans, but while football games still struggle to nail the subtleties of their chosen subject when it comes to jostling, improvised finishing or increasingly prevalent shithousery, NBA 2K plays such a realistic game of basketball that, frankly, it’s a bit eerie to watch. The sheer quality of its simulation is obvious in every player-specific jump shot animation, every stutter-step, every gum shield hanging from a player’s mouth as they line up a free throw. All of it culminates in a virtualised sport that feels … human. Whatever you’re doing on the court, the nine AI players around you are generally doing an admirable job of behaving like reactive professional athletes. Thanks to controls that have been continually perfected year-on-year for decades now, setting screens and pulling off pick-and-rolls is easily done, and a staggering range of context-specific moves and finishes are squeezed on to the controller. James Harden’s penetrating Euro-step is only three button taps away. Chris Paul’s no-look dishes are as easy as holding down a bumper and tapping pass. Steph Curry’s league-changing three-pointer is at your fingertips, too, slightly easier to pull off this year thanks to a new and improved shot meter. In its controls, animation and immaculate presentation, this is as good as sports games get. The problem, for both 2K and for the player, is that all this has been true for several years now. Fans tend to take it for granted at this point that the fundamentals of the sport will be just about peerless. Yes, it can feel sticky at times, locking you into an animation that briefly turns you into a passenger until it plays out, but that’s the trade-off for mapping such a broad lexicon of basketball on to your controller. To make you feel like an elite NBA star, it’s generous about assisting your movements. 2K’s NBA series has been serving up a cinematic career mode starring recognisable actors since Fifa’s The Journey was a twinkle in an EA Sports developer’s eye. (One of them – undoubtedly the worst, as it happens – was even directed by Spike Lee.) Following aspiring NBA star AI as he struggles to make a name for himself in China and then G-League basketball in the ignominy of rural Indiana, MyCareer feels at times like a glossy Netflix series, and duly injects meaning and motivation into the many, many games of basketball you’ll play. It can be a bit of a grind. Virtual currency, for which you can trade in real money, has crept into NBA 2K’s every nook and cranny like poison ivy throughout the last decade, and although last year’s game and the subsequent outcry appears to have been the nadir, it’s still a problem. It costs about 200,000 VC to upgrade your player from a 60 overall rating to an 85, and you earn about 1,000 VC from one game. Anyone hoping to compete online where 85 overall is the absolute baseline is in for either a long slog or £40-worth of extra investment. With an air of inevitability, then, the strengths and weaknesses of this long-running and profitable franchise remain roughly the same as they have for years. What’s on offer is the chance to experience what it’s like to be a sports superstar whose off-court life is also artfully documented in cinematic sequences. The price to pay for that fame and fortune can get high, though, whether you trade away your time or your real-world cash.

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2's cosmic battles are spectacular. There's a trio of vaguely 4X-y campaigns following the three of the Warhammer 40K factions: The Imperium, Necron Empire and the nasty Tyranid Hives, but you can ignore them if you want and just dive into some messy skirmishes full of spiky space cathedrals colliding with giant, tentacle-covered leviathans. The real-time tactical combat manages to be thrilling even when you're commanding the most sluggish of armadas. You need to manage a whole fleet while broadside attacks pound your hulls, enemies start boarding and your own crews turn mutinous. And with all the tabletop factions present, you can experiment with countless fleet configurations and play with all sorts of weird weapons.

You know a space flight simulator’s doing something right when NASA and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk start getting interested. Despite the cutesy appearance of its astronauts, Kerbal Space Program is an incredibly detailed physics-based space game which lets you design and construct your own spacecraft before launching it into orbit and then doing impossibly complicated things like docking with other vessels or landing your wobbly phallic construct on the moon. Since the earliest version of KSP released in 2011, its community sprang into action with mods, written and video tutorials, a cornucopia of user-created spacecraft to try out for yourself, and a recreation of The Martian. Its po[CENSORED]rity prompted NASA – as in actual NASA – to reach out to developers Squad and collaborate with them to create new in-game content based on real missions. Is it 100% realistic? Given that it’s simulating one of the most complicated human endeavours ever undertaken and letting you have a go with your mouse and keyboard, there’s an element of creative licensing. However – it’s about as close as the medium has produced. Every physical object in the game abides by Newtonian dynamics, which is why that rocket you built to look like Gary Busey’s face collapsed and burned itself to cinders the second you hit the thrusters. Its model of orbital mechanics has also been praised by those in a position to assess that sort of thing.

Spike Chunsoft have announced that their Action RPG Crystar will be coming to the west on August 27 for PlayStation 4 and Steam. The localization will include support for both text and voice acting. If bought on the PS4, the standard edition contains the Summer Collection Costume DLC, while the Day One Edition includes a mini art book.

Why should you buy this? It’s the best version of the most po[CENSORED]r console and has the highest number of high-fidelity games. Why we picked the PlayStation 4 Pro: The PlayStation 4 Pro is the best version of the most po[CENSORED]r game platform available today. With 4K, HDR 10 compatibility, and the PlayStation 4’s exclusive game library, it is currently the best plug-and-play gaming platform. A very large majority of both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One libraries are available on both platforms. Though both platforms have po[CENSORED]r exclusive franchises, the PlayStation 4 (Pro or standard) sees more exclusive games each year. The PS4 also has access to a small number of less well-known indie games and niche titles, such as Japanese role-playing games, that the Xbox One does not. That’s the main reason for our pick. The PS4 has the best games, and the PS4 Pro makes them look as stunning as possible. The Xbox One X is technically even more powerful — but it lacks must-have exclusives. There’s just not as much to play. Picking PlayStation 4 also opens the door for you to pick up PlayStation VR, which, as we’ve noted, is the most affordable premium VR headset available. Microsoft, meanwhile, has confirmed that VR support is not coming to the Xbox One X. While it can be difficult to take advantage of the PlayStation 4 Pro’s advanced features, namely HDR support, the improvements it provides to even unoptimized games make it the most technically impressive way to play the largest number of games on a console. Most major games offer some form of support for the system, whether it be improved framerate, 4K resolution, HDR support, or all three.