A trio of
new games available to play on your Windows computer
Skyrim
Skyrim
Verdict: 
Price: $45
Web: www.elderscrolls.com/skyrim
Age rating: 15
Publisher: Bethesda
Developer: Bethesda
Multiplayer: No
Requires: 4.2
Wants: 5.0
May we
present an entire country for your amusement?
The sense of freedom
in Skyrimis dizzying. It’s hard to walk for a minute in any direction
without encountering an intriguing cave, a lonely shack, some strange stones, a
wandering traveller, a haunted fort. It’s teeming with fascinating places, all
distinct.
Your character gets
better at whatever you do: firing a bow, sneaking up on people, casting healing
spells, mixing potions and swinging an axe. You don’t have to decide what
you’re going to focus on when you create your character, you can just let it
develop originally. You also level up. When that happens, you get a perk point
– something you can spend on a powerful improvement to a skill you particularly
like.
Dragon Shouts are like a manlier version
of conventional magic. One can send a giant flying, another lets you breathe
fire.
Skyrim
- Dragon Shouts
Dragon Shouts, gained
by exploration and killing dragons, are like a manlier version of conventional
magic. One can send a giant flying, one lets you breathe fire, another makes
you completely invincible for a few seconds.
The enemies you encounter
are, in some cases, generated to match the level of your character. But even at
level 30, your most common enemies are still bandits with low-level weapons.
And you’ll still run into things too dangerous to tackle.
A great new feature is
sidekicks, which add a wild side to fights. An arrow from nowhere can end a
climatic battle, or a misplaced Dragon Shout can accidentally knock your friend
into a abyss.
The main quests
themselves are mostly good, a happy mix of secrecy, adventure and exploring
incredible new places. Everywhere else, the quests are magnificent. Chance
encounters lead to sprawling epics that take you to breathtaking locations,
uncover old secrets and pull interesting twists.
WEI score
Your PC’s Windows
Experience Index (WEI): The WEI measures the performance of each component in
your PC, and gives you an overall score, so you get an idea of how well games
will run on your computer. To find your PC’s WEI, type performance into Start
Search and open Performance Information and Tools. If you’re running Windows
Vista, click ‘Update my score’. If you have Windows 7 installed on your PC,
however, you should click ‘Re-Run assessment’ instead.
L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition
Verdict:
Price: $26.99
Web: www.rockstargames.com/lanoire
Age rating: 18
Publisher: Rockstar
Games
Developer: Team Bondi
Multiplayer: No
Requires: 3.8
Wants: 4.5
L.A.
Noire: The Complete Edition
Hard-boiled
or half-baked?
Thanks to its
proprietary MotionScan technology, the characters in L.A. Noire feel
truly alive – spookily so, at first. Leave them be and they’ll look around, and
blink. Ask them questions and you can practically read their feelings – the
tiniest squints or downward glances can help you to convict a murderer, or set
an innocent person free.
The game’s plot sees
you take the role of Cole Phelps, who begins his career as a uniformed cop but
works up to homicide. However, Phelps is a troubled man and his war experiences
come back to haunt him in flashbacks.
L.A.
Noire: The Complete Edition
Despite the adherence
to genre rules and the innovative facial animation, L.A. Noireis still
somewhat lacking. Each case you’re given is intriguing enough, but you just can’t
seem to mess things up to any serious degree. You always solve the case
eventually and it feels like the game only exists to serve the story.
The worst part is that
after all this, it still doesn’t look that special. L.A. Noire may have
the most realistic face ever, but it doesn’t change the fact that most of the
bodies look like they’ve been sculpted from mashed potato.
Batman: Arkham City
Can you
beat the best superhero game ever?
Verdict:
Price: $45
Web: http://community.batmanarkhamcity.com
Age rating: 15
Publisher: Warner Bros
Developer: Rocksteady
Studios
Multiplayer: No
Requires: 3.8
Wants: 4.5
Batman
- Arkham City
Arkham
Asylum
had only one major flaw – the game was so perfect, there couldn’t be much left
to accomplish in a sequel. Yet from the moment you start ArkhamCity, you
think ArkhamAsylum was practice. The most obvious upgrade is scale –
it’s at least four to five times as large and, if anything, more detailed.
It’s such a
spectacularly realized setting, you’ll want to spend a lot of time there.
Thanks to the generous side missions and ridiculous number of collectables, you
can. Interwoven throughout the main story are optional, yet extremely
substantial and satisfying, mini quests.
Batman
- Arkham City
Rocksteady has upped
its game with ArkhamCity and it expects you to do the same. Previously,
a simple counter move or quick escape to a gargoyle could get Batman out of any
sticky situation, but now enemies carry shields, wear armour and swipe at you
with knives or electric rods. Luckily, you’ve got new gadgets and new moves to
match. A gun that freezes thugs in their tracks, a smoke bomb that enables you
to perform silent takedowns in the middle of a brawl and much more.
