We can see you quivering on the back there. There are few titles in Nintendo gaming history that carry the hardcore gravitas of the words ‘Fire Emblem’. To outsiders it’s ‘the one with Marth and Roy from Smash Bros’, to these within the know, it’s Nintendo’s best kept secret. And with the appearance of Awakening, the word is set to get out.

If you are unfamiliar, Fire Emblem is a technique RPG which puts a human face to its units. Every troop at the battlefield is a personal character, with their very own hopes, dreams, fears and – in a goofy manga-inspired twist – mad crushes on follow cast members. It may well sound obvious, but plonking a character on what’s often a chilly lump of statistics works wonders at pulling you into the sector.

Underneath this characterful crust lies a deliciously stern game of strategic smarts. You’re plonked onto a gridded battlefield and given simple objectives, customarily revolving round the total annihilation of an opposing force. Units can move a undeniable selection of spaces per turn and answer to a strict power triangle of weapon types – swords beat axes, axes beat lances, lances beat swords – meaning squad positioning is your key concern.

If all this tactical talk causes your toes to twist, then allow us to put you comfortable: Awakening is well probably the most approachable game within the series, and an ideal entry point for gamers curious about the genre. At the side of quite a lot of concise and simple-to-understand tutorials that seem at the bottom screen as you encounter each unfamiliar game situation, there’s also the addition of a Newcomer mode, which must be very useful to rookies wishing to profit the fundamentals.

Crucially Newcomer mode disables ‘permadeath’, Fire Emblem’s signature quirk. With permadeath enabled, if considered one of your units dies they’re dead forever and cannot be used ever again in battle. While this will likely be considered a daft concept in most RPGs – imagine the crushing sadness of getting to clean out a now-empty Pokeball – it’s what makes Fire Emblem’s battles so tense.

a regular Fire Emblem battlefield

After devoting hours towards levelling-up your strongest characters, do you place them at the frontline of battle and risk losing them forever Or do you send weaker units in first to melt up the enemy, although causes them to die within the process This can be a crucial decision Fire Emblem fans must make time and time again. Without a doubt , it isn’t a problem in Newcomer mode, and this helps overcome the paralysing fear that has, in past Emblems, prevented newbies from experimenting in battle.

Instead, if one among your units ‘dies’ during a battle in Newcomer mode they instead simply drop out of the fight and return to your next battle. Only your customisable lead character and key character Chrom can truly die here, with their deaths triggering an instant Game Over. It is a good way of learning the ropes and practice for lots ‘classic’ death-enabled runs later.

The Waking Dead

The battle system is Awakening’s bread and butter, and it is so all-consuming that we’ve already fallen down a few manholes at the walk in to work. The tactical RPG genre often evokes thoughts of a slow, almost chess-paced game, but Fire Emblem moves at an unconventionally brisker pace.

Units zip round the map at top speed while you move them, battle cut-scenes are brief (and might be fast-forwarded when you are less patient) and the Enemy Phase sections (where you chill out because the CPU takes its turn) are mercifully short as decisions are made with lightning speed. Essentially, in the event you know what you’re doing, battles proceed at an even pace.

Also useful are different visual guides that assist you get used to both the grids and the rock-paper-scissors style system used for determining which units work best against others. The primary of those guides is a pink grid that are toggled off and on with the X button. When on, it lies over the foremost grid and shows the areas the enemy units may be able to reach and attack during its next turn.

This implies any of your units standing on a pink square are in peril of taking damage when your turn ends. The pink grid, then, makes it so much easier to play defensively and quickly see at a look which squares at the grid are safe from the enemy.

One of the complaints levelled at Luigi’s GameCube-shifting original, back in 2002, was that it was just too short. Weighing in at slightly under four hours, Luigi’s Mansion was a lean distraction as early adopters awaited the total-fat Super Mario Sunshine that appeared later that year.

In long-awaited sequel Luigi’s Mansion 2, however, that distinctive whinge was well and actually handled. To not put too fine a degree on it, it’s huge, boasting a fifteen-20 hour main story and overflowing with genuine, compelling reasons to maintain it wedged on your 3DS’ rear slot.

This day out Luigi’s summoned by returning professor Elvin Gadd to recover pieces of the Dark Moon. This usually sky bound artefact (which was dropped from the yankee subtitle of the sport for its European release) prevents the ghosts of Everglade Valley from spiralling off into rascally abandon. When it’s mysteriously pilfered and split into pieces the apparitions of the valley go bananas. Clearly a hero is required to plumb the local spectral haunts, so with Poltergust 5000 in tow – essentially a vacuum cleaner for ghosts – the leaner, greener Mario brother sets out.

GHOST WARRIOR

As he gibbers and shakes his way through each mansion, terrified by anything and everything going, it’s impossible to not be charmed. Here is in no small part attributable to Charles Martinet’s fantastic voice work, with ‘waaahhh’s and ‘oh-no no no!’s aplenty, let alone the endearing ‘yello’ whenever E. Gadd gives our hero a choice on his Dual-Scream (an original DS, utilized in the sport as a radio and map tool). Character animations also are superb. Luigi’s hands shiver with trepidation as he reaches for a door knob, his thumbs twiddle nervously while riding a boost (complete with the game’s infinitely hummable theme tune, reinterpreted in an elevator-perfect muzak style) and each other room contains slapstick waiting to be triggered.

And there is various slapstick. Luigi constantly falls for ghosts’ Home Alone booby traps, trapping himself in a sun lounger, tumbling down stairs or maybe getting sprayed by a sabotaged toilet flush. Even the ‘mission complete’ signals make the chap practically jump out of his overalls.

The mansions range from typical haunted house fare to sand-filled Egyptian crypts

The game’s mansions and their spectral denizens are only as compelling. Locate every bit of the Dark Moon and a piece of fog clears revealing another mansion to explore. These range from an ordinary haunted house, inclusive of the Gloomy Mansion opener, to ice dwellings and sand-filled Egyptian crypts.

Each is divided up into smaller objective fuelled stages lasting around 15-half-hour each and E. Gadd’s Pixelshifter device teleports Luigi to varied locations, scaling down on backtracking time. All which means Luigi’s Mansion 2 is more suited to relatively quick-fire, on-the-go gaming. It even integrates an Angry Birds-like three-star system to measure your success against.

The original Sniper: Ghost Warrior had various promise but was let down by horrible AI and odd difficulty curves. The sequel, while slightly improved, remains to be lacking in these areas.

The premise is this sort of gung-ho nonsense you’d expect from a foul action movie, with the player taking control of Captain Cole “Sandman” Anderson as he snipes the faces off of lots of enemies around the globe, from Burma to Tibet. There is a plot jammed in there somewhere, but it is so packed with clichs and bad acting that we’re depressing ourselves by even focused on it.

This is partly owing to the dialogue, that’s sometimes over-dramatic (there’s a variety of clichd in-fighting between Anderson and his superiors), confusing (military buzzwords are thrown around like confetti), sweary, and downright unrealistic silly (whenever you blow up an Al Qaeda camp near the beginning of the sport, their foreign yells are translated somewhat unconvincingly as “Jesus Christ!”). Basically, it’s every war B-movie you have ever seen crammed into one disc.

Gameplay is a mixed bag, and is usually split right into a choice of differing types. The foremost entertaining are the sections where you’re sniping to support the remainder of your team, taking away various enemies who’re within the way in their planned route. You’re backed up by a ‘spotter’, who indicates over radio which enemies to take out, at which point a target icon appears above them and also you then line up and fire your shot.

It’s little greater than a terribly slow lightgun shooter but it’s still entertaining – not just for the reason that actual act of sniping enemies is satisfying, but because being told who to take out eliminates the necessity to take care of the game’s ropey AI.

Mess-ley Snipes

This happens in the course of the sections where Anderson is divided up from the remainder of the team and has to move it alone. When each situation is less scripted and every enemy isn’t presented to you so as, it’s as much as you in deciding which enemies to take out in an effort to avoid anything else noticing. However, since the AI is so erratic and as unpredictable as a vote for the subsequent Pope, a variety of this becomes a case of trial and blunder.

Some enemies will completely ignore their partners slumping to the floor mere feet clear of them, provided that their back is turned. And yet, oddly, a single missed shot hitting the roof of a wooden shack can not only cause each enemy within the area to note it immediately, but in addition have the capacity to instantly spot you to your camouflaged sniper position miles away, and attack you en masse resulting in a probable death.

Whether missed shots actually happen with regularity relies entirely at the difficulty level you opt. This can be a tricky decision because Medium difficulty makes sniping far too easy (a red dot is shown which flags exactly where the bullet will hit after taking distance and wind into consideration) and difficult difficulty makes it far too hard (the red dot is removed, but your first shot still has to count so that you avoid detection). This isn’t a game Goldilocks would enjoy.

The stealth sections also feel like pure guesswork every now and then, as crawling around within the grass will sometimes assist you to lie right next to unaware enemies (while mutually having a noisy argument along with your chief over your radio, amazingly), whereas other times you can be spotted from a distance doing kind of an identical thing.

Despite our complaints, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 isn’t completely ignored. Sniping enemies from a distance is satisfying, and the sections through which that’s all you’re tasked with could be very entertaining… while they last. Like the first game, it’s never long before the silly stealth sections and moronic AI return. Here’s hoping it’s improved for Ghost Warrior 3, eh

In the last episode, Connor learned the facility of the Wolf Cloak, which lets you turn invisible as you progress between cover. During this episode the flexibility he unlocks is way more dramatic: the ability of flight.

It’s the eagle whose magical powers Connor – sorry, Ratonhnhak:ton – has harnessed this time, and it really works in much a similar way as Batman’s grapnel inside the Arkham games. Aim the camera at very nearly any surface until an icon appears, then hit the flexibility button to convert right into a shimmering eagle and fly towards it. Just like the Wolf Cloak, earning Eagle Flight involves navigating a chain of platforming challenges in a dreamlike spirit world.

One set-piece particularly makes brilliant use of this new ability. Connor is stripped of his weapons and has to flee a jail packed with Washington’s guards. Using Eagle Flight he can leap down from the rafters, choke considered one of them out, then soar back to his hiding spot right away before anyone notices. It’s absurd, but enjoyable, and essentially the most fun we’ve had in an Assassin’s Creed game since using Ezio’s bombs to toy with guards in Revelations.

Eagle Flight also makes traversing Boston, the setting for this episode, an absolute breeze. You’re able to chain your bursts of flight and travel around the whole city, flying from chimney to chimey, uninterrupted. It also makes chase missions laugably easy. That you could get closer your target in seconds. It almost makes you ponder whether the series is stifled by its dedication to historical accuracy. They’re obviously having fun experimenting on this DLC, and it’s infectious.

Mission design is more forgiving. Assassin’s Creed 3, and the primary DLC, are jam-packed with infuriating instant fails, punishing you for not playing the sport exactly because the developers want you to. When compared, this episode has more secondary objectives. Being spotted in stealth sections, typically, won’t instantly end the mission; but you will not get full synchronisation.

This is the simplest of the 2 DLC episodes to date, and mixing the Eagle Flight and Wolf Cloak powers makes for some interesting stealth. The pace of the tale also picks up, and we’re given more potential clues about how Connor ended up inhabitating this new edition of himself.

Ridiculous Fishing is a game that carries a tragic story (cue violins).

Vlambeer, the indie studio based within the Netherlands (more violins), was engaged on an iOS port of its hit Flash game Radical Fishing when the team discovered another games studio had stolen its idea and used it to win acclaim and generate App Store cash.

Crushed by the theft, Vlambeer was reportedly near to canning the project altogether, but was buoyed by an outpour of support from the community.

It’s said that to achieve success at the App Store you need to either be first or best. Vlambeer wasn’t first with its own idea, nevertheless it clearly has outperformed its imitators. Ridiculous Fishing is a cultured and exquisite blast of iOS entertainment that – sob story or not – is a valuable game worthy of your attention.

It has about as much in common with fishing as Mario 64 does with plumbing. Play is divided into three sections: First you cast your line into the water and descend your lure as deep as possible, avoiding a number of the fish and jellyfish that populate the sea. Once a fish bites, the tables turn and players must pick up as many fish as possible because the lure pulls to the outside.

When it finally does reach fresh air, the entire gathered fish are flung skywards, initiating a bonkers shooting gallery within which your fisherman must gun down his catch using an arsenal of uzis, miniguns or even a bazooka (it truly is Vlambeer, in any case).

That is the ‘ridiculous’ portion of the fishing, but it’s in no way brainless; each fish will flap throughout the sky differently, and so gunning a mixed batch down requires quick reflexes and fast thinking.

Each kill earns the player cash, varying in line with the rarity of the fish. Money is then spent on upgrades that can assist you catch more fish and earn much more cash.

Purchasable items range from the easy to absurd; various lengths of line could be unlocked (with an unlimited length one because the final unlock), allowing you to descend further into the depths of every location and find rarer fish lurking on the bottom.

Then there are sorts of lure, including a chainsaw which are used to carve through fish in your way downwards.

Bathtub suicide devices, specifically a hairdryer and toaster, can be bought and may zap fish which try and bite – essentially offering players one other life. Meanwhile, improved weaponry like magnums and shotguns allow you to gun down much more airborne aquabeasts. After which there are the hats, simply because.

Fishing for compliments

It’s not the depth (ho ho) that at the beginning catches the attention when playing Ridiculous Fishing, however the distinct art style. The sport brings together a fascinating mix of angular, geometric graphics (the ocean surface is corrugated and the moon is a hexagon) together with jazzy chip-tune music that presses the entire right buttons.

Meanwhile, Byrdyr – the game’s fake-but-real Twitter app which updates with fictional status updates from fishermen – is a delight to browse.

It is usually refreshing to have an iOS game with an in-game store that does not attempt to badger players with any real-money in-app purchases from the instant you begin playing.

Ridiculous Fishing is nonetheless a finite title, one that should be would becould very well be finished in a question of days in case you are adequate. Billy’s Fish-o-pedia, which collates and gives hints on the way to catch each fish, is the sole reason to maintain playing beyond unlocking the four main areas. It also gets slightly repetitive fairly quickly when the newness wears off, and you’re left with what elementally is a dodging mini-game, a catching mini-game and a basic shooting mini-game.

It is not a necessary purchase then, neither is it Vlambeer’s best work. Ridiculous Fishing has pushed a dodgem game idea so far as it will probably go and the outcome can sometimes feel like there’s more style than substance.

Whether that appears like a game worth £1.99 will determine whether you’ll bite.