3 New Games You Should Play

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time

Crash Bandicoot 4 retains iconic Crash elements like wumpa collection, zany (often annoying) enemies and key mini-levels to research, while presenting a challenge that will either have you giggling in glee or prepared to throw your controller through your screen. On top of these traditional elements, we also have a range of new features which add a modernity to the gameplay, such as rail-grinding, controlled camera freedom, Quantum masks that grant unique skills, and the opportunity to play as other characters. It's a wonderful change from just running, jumping and turning. Mastering timing has always been a part of the Crash formula, but these new mechanisms add an additional layer to the mix, which makes these sequences a lot more complex. They also add a puzzle-like quality to the standard platforming Crash has ever been about.

I love this game and I hope to see it on the new generation consoles - PS5 and Xbox Series X. I'm sure you will be able to buy cheap PS5 games like Crash Bandicoot 4 very soon. Speaking of puzzle-like quality, this is showcased most in the ice level in which you have access to a Quantum Mask that slows down time. With this, Nitro crates no longer break when you touch them and may be utilized as platforms. After the mask is triggered, the countdown for TNT crate explosions is postponed. This opens up an entirely new route for the programmers to experiment with the established formula and make the fundamentals more complicated as a challenge to new and old fans alike. Crash Bandicoot 4: It is About Time is the first direct sequel in the sequence for more than two decades. It's About Time places players in control of five playable characters as they traverse several levels, each filled with enemies, crates, wumpa fruit and risks, with the objective being to receive from the beginning point to the goal much like the original trilogy.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
Developer: Toys for Bob
Publisher: Activision
Release date: 2 October 2020
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One

• Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time PS4
• Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time Xbox

Dirt 5

DIRT 5 will land on Xbox Series X and PS5, as well as current platforms and PC. It supports Smart Delivery on Xbox Series X -- meaning you'll get it for free on Series X if you have it for xbox one -- and while the game is guaranteed to run at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second on both next-gen systems, the Series X version has been confirmed to support a 120 frame-per-second mode. It's unclear at this point if that option is likely to make it to the PS5 launch as well. Is that lightness of touch going to offend longstanding Dirt fans? I am not sure it needs to - Dirt Rally shows no signs of stopping, with a new instalment in the works before Codemasters begins its stint on the official WRC permit from 2023, and an available, all-encompassing arcade entry in the game series is more than welcome.

After the somewhat disappointing Dirt 4, a videogame with loads of promise that suffered from its own identity crisis, it appears smart that Codemasters has split the game series cleanly in two, allowing Dirt Rally to go more hardcore while Dirt 5 indulges the series' arcade fashions. I would happily take that. From the introduction of head to head automobile racing with the original DiRT, to Gymkhana in DiRT 3 and the stunt arcade surplus of DiRT: Showdown, it shifted so much toward arcade thrills that DiRT Rally had to come together as an Early Access experimentation to prove that, yes, people do want sim rallying. DiRT 4 swung back in that direction as well, with more accessible handling and randomly generated rally stages, but was outshone by the Rally games it was sandwiched between.

• Buy Dirt 5 PS4
• Buy Dirt 5 Xbox One

Mortal Shell

Mortal Shell is among the year's biggest gambling surprises, offering a deep, fascinating journey into a melancholic world that is well worth taking. It requires evident inspiration from Dark Souls and Bloodborne, yet builds upon the battle and progression of such classics that it stands on its own two feet. Since Cold Symmetry's debut title, Mortal Shell guarantees that they are a studio to walk as we dive into the coming generation. It maintains so many of the hallmarks and mechanics of a soulslike videogame -- such as the inter-connected level designs and unrelenting difficulty -- in such a small package it feels distilled and more potent. It is pared down, but that doesn't make it less than. It makes it elegant.

You play with a faceless, voiceless being dubbed "The Foundling," more akin to a soul than a person, who leaves what seems to be a sort of astral plane in order to venture into a decaying, poisonous world called Fallgrim. There, you meet different characters who give typically spooky, mysterious addresses about the slow degradation of the planet and the religious zealots who populate it. Practically, just about anybody you come across wants to murder you, and in your white spirit-ish form, you're little match for them--one hit will destroy you.

• Buy Mortal Shell PS4
• Buy Mortal Shell Xbox One