Platforms: PS3 (reviewed) | Xbox 360 | PC

Developer: Codemasters

Publisher: Codemasters

This is not a traditional rally game. It’s an important point to remember for fans of Codemaster’s epic DiRT series. What it is though, is fun. Car smashing, exhilaratingly arcadey fun.

While DiRT 3 seemed caught in two minds as to whether to carry on with the impeccable rallying from the near-perfect DiRT 2 or try and turn your car into a demented pole-dancing skateboard, Showdown feels much more focused, admittedly more towards a Mad Max meets X-games mashup.

Gone are A-B timed stages in favour of a full on festival of car on car violence and general, well, pissing about. Think back to games like Destruction Derby and Twisted Metal, but pretend they were never crap.

The handling model has been toned down rather than dumbed down. Cars still drift around corners with an almost obscenely pleasurable grace and only mild taps of the handbrake are needed for the tightest of hairpins. For many races you barely need the brakes at all, just taking your foot off the gas is enough to line up those corners. This would feel too light and simple for a regular DiRT game and serious A-B events, but for what lies ahead in Showdown, it’s just right. A turbo button has also made its way onto the pad and I’m loving the complete pad setup customisation too.

Platform: PS Vita

Developer: Nippon Ichi Software

Publisher: NIS America

After a strong launch line-up the Vita’s release schedule has been worryingly quiet. It has also been without anything resembling a decent RPG to really get our teeth into. Hopefully that’s all about to change as Disgaea 3 gets a re-release.

We’re not entirely sure why NIS didn’t release Disgaea 4 instead as it’s generally seen as the superior title. What you have here is a full priced game that has been out on the PS3 since 2008 and available for under a tenner today. On the plus side, Absence of Detention does come with all the separate DLC from the PS3 game, including an extra four chapters. Not that you’d miss it, this game is huge. You can level up to Lv. 9999 type of huge.

From the screenshots you may have already gathered this is a tactical RPG in a similar vein to Final Fantasy Tactics. So instead of both sides standing on the spot taking turns like a spells and stabbing dance off, they must navigate the isometric maps to gain the advantage. For better or worse, depending on how you like it, this means battles can take ages.

Platforms: PS3 (reviewed) | 360

Developers: Konami (original devs) | Hijinx Studios (HD versions)

Publishers: Konami

They always say you should never go back. And considering the gruesome nightmares of the body and mind that the Silent Hill tourist board have been selling for years, perhaps we should heed the old adage. Against our better judgment though, we’re going to go and poke its festering corpse with an HD stick.

There have been plenty of HD re-releases of late and the majority of them have been awesome. God of War, Metal Gear Solid and Sly Raccoon are still fantastic games to play. Silent Hill may prove to be a rotten horse flaying too far though.

PS2 gamers will barely need reminding that Silent Hill 2 was a pioneering powerhouse of survival horror. The lonesome soundtrack, the “what the f**k was that!” sound effects, the atmosphere and the story still stand up today. And holy shit that ending? Still one of the most emotional to come from the gaming medium, but I’m afraid the journey there hasn’t aged particularly well.

Platforms: PS3 (reviewed) | 360

Developer: Vatra

Publisher: Konami

Survival Horror has been a festering corpse for a while now. Resident Evil and Dead Space have mutated in shooting games with limited ammo and we're left with the Silent Hill series that's been struggling since SH3. Nowadays we have Demon’s Souls (ish) and Amy, the later being my (and probably Matt's) frontrunner for worst game of the year.

I'm all for giving Silent Hill: Downpour a shot as it has to be better than SH: Homecoming at least. And I'm glad to say it is. Thankfully, the new developers, Vatra have at least played Alan Wake, one of the rare gems the genre has produced in recent times. Hold it; I should probably put a hold on the semi-optimistic slant this review was heading. This game's no Alan Wake beater, just so you know.

For this visit to Silent Hill, you play as an escaped convict, Murphy Pendleton. The introduction sees him boarding a transfer bus to be moved to a different facility, with a fantastically atmospheric walk through the prison setting up a tense start, in large thanks to the music more than anything else.

Platform: PS3
Developer: Naughty Dog (original devs) / Mass Media (HD version)
Publisher: Sony

The PS2 was spoilt for choice with platforming adventure titles, Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper and of course Jak & Daxter. So an excuse to dive in again in shiny HD with widescreen support was a no-brainer.

Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy is admittedly one of my favourite games, but have I been remembering the game through rose-tinted glasses, was it really that good? Hell yes it was. Originally released in 2001, this was ridiculously impressive both technically and in terms of gameplay. All the levels are linked together, and you can run from one end of the game to the other without a single loading screen.

This original game was the purest of the three with a heavy focus on platforming. Jak’s movement skills are second to none. In addition to a standard double-jump, he can do a spin attack in the air that acts a brief hover to slow down your landing. Better still is the rolling jump where you spring forwards a longer distance than a regular jump. There’s a great risk/reward factor as if mistimed you’ll roll off the edge. Astonishingly, this move was removed from the fourth game released a few years ago on PS2/PSP, and it stank accordingly.

Platform: PS Vita

Developer: Zipper Interactive

Publisher: Sony

Third-person shooters were something to be avoided on the PSP, but thanks to the Vita’s second analogue stick we can now safely embrace the genre on a handheld device. Unit 13 comes from Zipper Interactive, the team behind the Socom games, most recently the impressive Socom: Special Forces, so there’s potential here.

Despite Zipper’s last game having a decent plot, this game is very much business only and broken up into individual missions with no story at all. Essentially, you pick one specialist from the unit and get dropped into a level to kill terrorists, kill leaders, kill intel, I mean pick up intel and diffuse bombs. Standard 9-5 counter-terrorism.

Stages vary in length and will often have different parameters affecting difficulty. Some won’t have checkpoints (will cause rage) and no regenerating health and others will have a time limit. Thankfully there are more relaxed ones with checkpoints and regenerating health.

Platform: PS Vita (download only)

Developer: VooFoo

Publisher: Sony

A cheap price and pool on the go are certainly good ingredients for the Vita’s take on our favourite pub game. No arguments over whose 50p is on the table at 3am either, which is always a good thing.

A very long tutorial begins well enough by telling you how to use the three different cue shot methods and spin shots. But the help and controls for jump shots and straight backspin are terrible and anyone who can do these shots in real life will no doubt be shouting “Bullshit!” many times over.

Hustle Kings likes to think that it’s cool, but the way jump shots are handled makes it look like a punk. You have to switch to ball-cam mode to see the trajectory of the ball, but you can’t tweak the aim from there, making it a long back and forth effort, only to fuck it up anyway. It should have been a fun part of the game, but you’ll learn to use the cushions instead.

Platform: PS Vita

Developer: Novarama

Publisher: Sony

Until Street Fighter X Tekken arrives on the Vita the fighting market is pretty open. Sure you could go for BlazBlue, but some may prefer something a little different and a new IP to go with their new handheld. Reality Fighters comes loaded with gimmicks, but does it pack enough punch to warrant a place in your collection?

This arcade fighter’s hook is letting you put your own face onto the fighters. A further use of reality takes advantage of the Vita’s rear camera to fight against a real-world background, in real-time or from pictures you snapped earlier or from a few glossy pre-loaded ones.

Platform: PS Vita (download only)
Developer: Fun Bits
Publisher: Sony

Within the first few months of the Vita’s release I expect we’ll be seeing this sort of thing a lot. What, artsy black and white puzzle games? No, that would be fine; I mean games with overly-reliant touchscreen and touchpad inputs hampering a potentially enjoyable experience. These aren’t the only flaws behind Escape Plan, but they certainly tip the scales towards indifference.

The premise is simple; controlling two characters you must escape a long series of 2D challenge rooms. A sideways screen swipe makes them walk and a tap stops them. Interacting with the environment on their behalf is the key to their freedom.  Drawer-like platforms can be pushed out from behind for a limited time, so timing your walks (they can’t be called runs) across them is of vital importance. Not being able to use the X button to start/stop walking is a miserly and foolish omission as the touches don’t always register first or second time.

Platform: PS Vita
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega

Sport games are off to a good start on the Vita and the trend continues with Sega’s Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition. This game is almost identical to the PS3 version, which is certainly no bad thing. In fact, I’d go as far as to recommend this version over the PS3 one as the gameplay is better suited to the stop/start nature of handhelds, not that you can’t lose yourself for hours as well.

Graphically the game is on a par with the big consoles and has even inherited the dodgy likenesses. Take Djokovic, they’ve nailed the geeky haircut, but there’s something unsettling about his face. Oh and talking of unsettling, wait until I tell you about putting your own face into the game later on. It’s a bit Silence of the Lambs (see the third picture below).

Platforms: PS Vita
Developers: Clap Hanz
Publishers: Sony

In many ways, Everybody’s Golf is a perfect fit for the PS Vita handheld. It’s a fast-loader, gameplay is quick and it can be played for hours or just a few holes at a time before slipping the game into sleep mode when the ad break finishes. One negative that it does find though is being on your new, shiny and expensive console that probably has no desire to be thrown at a wall, punched, bitten or burned, which are all possibilities when the game f**ks you over again then runs off giggling with its stupidly happy cast of freaks. So, um, yes, I really like Everybody’s Golf on the Vita, but I want to kill it.

I suppose I should talk about the rest of the game before the red mist takes over again. If you’ve played the PS3 or PSP versions, then you’ll know what to expect. The game provides a generous six 18-hole courses (plus the mirror versions) for you to play and I’m pleased to report that they’re new and not just ports of the PS3 ones.

The challenge mode consists of a large number of tournaments, rewarding you a gold star if you win. Get enough stars and you’ll compete one-to-one against an AI character in real-time, instead of the usual leaderboards. Rather than get bored watching an AI opponent take a shot, it’s a fantastically tense experience as you glare at the screen willing the gods of Epic Fail to strike your opponent down. Seeing the AI shank a drive or miss an easy putt is just ace. As you progress, the tournaments get tougher and may feature different rules such as only having 15 seconds to line up and take a shot or the Mega Cup where the hole is twice as big. Before long, you’ll find yourself playing in rain, strong winds and trying to avoid the never-ending trees, bunkers, buildings and bears. Yes, bears.

Platforms: PS Vita
Developer: Bigbig Studios
Publisher: Sony

This collection of thirty minigames is aiming to tempt gamers as a launch purchase as it utilises all of the Vita’s functions. Except the analogue sticks. And the face buttons. In fact, were one to produce a running audio commentary on the playing styles stuffed into this game, an eavesdropper might well come away with the mental image of a Chaucerian bawdyhouse rather than a child-oriented Vita launch title. So yes! Prepare to smear, tickle, rub, wobble and even sing your way through the world of Little Deviants!

The visual style is clearly aiming for a younger market, but nothing’s so garish as to make it unplayable for adults too. So you won’t feel like a berk playing it, unless people are watching you. You play as a race of aliens trying to rebuild their ship so they can return home. This will involve not attacking humans and defending their planet from zombies and robots. As you do.

The games take advantage of the Vita’s unique functions for activities that you’ll be familiar with from other games -especially mobile games- or from real toys. Tilting the Vita itself is a simple one to grasp as you roll a balled-up Deviant around an obstacle course, collecting stars and time-extension clocks before reaching the exit. Or you may be rolling around a Pac-Man-style maze. These are simple games, but instantly playable, with fair room for improvement as you get used to the more subtle movements required to navigate trickier sections.

Platforms: PS Vita
Developers: Sony San Diego Studio
Publishers: Sony

Gaming’s best kart track editor on a portable device? Damn straight we’ll have some of that. The PS3 game suffered from long load times and some miserably tight (and cheaty) AI, but here’s a chance to really push the game into a contender position.

Diving straight into the now cutscene-bare (yay!) Career mode, I was pleased to see new tracks galore. With the series having such a large focus on its impressive track editor, it would have been a shock if they had just reissued the PS3 ones.

The drifting remains an absolute pleasure. It might not offer the directional changes of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, but there is room for manoeuvrability back and forth on the angle you’re sliding around at. Unfortunately, that’s about the best thing about the racing.

Platform: PS Vita
Developer: Sony Studio Liverpool
Publisher: Sony

As the next generation of portable gaming steps forward, the WipEout series returns to its roots. 2048 is the first official season of WipEout’s familiar antigravity racing league, with a compelling intro video showing the Feisar team’s growth from traditional racing in the 1960s and through the generations and more advanced vehicles all the way up to the vicious arrowhead-shaped beasts we know and love.

Just because the game predates the others in the timeline doesn’t mean it’s particularly different. A few tracks start at street level, complete with road markings and tarmac, but it isn’t long before you’re racing up the sides of skyscrapers. The developers have featured wider sections of track in some areas to encourage combat, but in reality most of the tracks are still tight, especially when you’re coming into a corner at top speed amongst a pack of rivals. There’s a larger emphasis on skillcuts, difficult shortcuts that will give you an advantage as long as you don’t bounce wall to wall all the way through them. All the AI opponents seems to know about them and don’t blunder their way through like you will for you first dozen attempts. With no difficulty sliders available, there’s no getting around that this is one of the tougher WipEout games.

Platform: PS Vita
Developer: Sony Bend
Publisher: Sony

It’s strange how the one thing many of us gamers clamour to first for a new console is something familiar. It’s a brand new machine, but let’s not go nuts. With most only buying one or two games at best for launch, you’ll want something reliable, familiar and with just enough ‘new’ about it to make that transition to a new machine that little bit smoother. Uncharted: Golden Abyss is the perfect purchase for that purpose.

This is a great entry point to the series for non-PS3 owners as the game is a prequel, with a story that never relies on past knowledge of the series, not that there aren’t a few familiar characterisation elements for fans to enjoy. This time Drake is in the jungles and ruins of Central America. Initially hired as a sort of archaeological plundering partner in crime with new-guy Dante, Drake stumbles upon a mad army General intent on a typical power-mad scheme. With Elena not yet on the scene we’re introduced to new girl, Marisa Chase. Sharing -and perhaps really kick-starting- Drake’s passion for all things ancient, it’s not long before a new friendship is born. This relationship is well written with plenty of Uncharted’s trademark humour despite Naughty Dog not being at the helm. The writing and the flow of the story is pretty dam excellent throughout to be honest. A few hours in and you realise that we have another development team that can do the series justice.

Portable handhelds, as we know them, are under threat. As smartphones become more powerful, tablets become more prevalent, and the wealth of functions offered by Android and iOS surpass in breadth and depth those of the old crop of pocket-sized games consoles, traditional models are in jeopardy. So there's no better time, one would think, to pull out the stops. Sony's (rather large) new handheld strives for exactly that - with more gadgets, features, bells and whistles than you could possibly imagine, including, crucially, two analogue thumbsticks. But is it worth the £230+ price tag? Can the Vita really offer an experience that surpasses those offered by the likes of Apple, Google and Nintendo? We look for answers in our MASSIVE Playstation Vita hardware review below...

Setting Up

Getting started out of the box is simple; with the battery being built in there’s not much to do apart from turn it on. You may find a small amount of battery charge on it already, but you’ll want to plug it into the mains for its first proper charge before you do anything else.

The proprietary USB lead has a unique head on one end to fit into the Vita with the regular USB end fitting into a power block that plugs into the mains. Or you can slot the USB into a power-emitting USB port on a laptop, netbook or your PS3. Despite the Vita end of the cable fitting both ways, it only actually works if the PS logo is facing up. So don’t go thinking it’s broken when you can’t get it working at first.

Sometimes it's nice to look outside the boundaries of the little plastic jewel cases, beyond the confines of the monitor or TV screen and explore the realm of transmedia. But in this case, it's not hastily penned videogame fiction nor dispassionate Dorling Kindersley encyclopaediae, but rather a unique insight into one of the most popular adventure franchises on the planet, helmed by one of modern gaming's most iconic stars.

Any chance to take a look behind the scenes of the Uncharted series is always going to be eagerly snapped up, even more so when Nolan North, the man behind Nathan Drake is the guide.

Gaming’s most respected voice actor has written this book to share his experiences on the set of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Unlike many games, the Uncharted series’ creators Naughty Dog, have their voice actors physically act out their roles together over months of work. Compared to the industry standard of sitting in a recording booth for a few days and then picking up a pay check, Uncharted is a huge gig and warrants a deeper look.

Platforms: PS3 | Xbox 360 (reviewed)
Developer: Bluepoint Games / Konami
Publisher: Konami

If you only buy one HD collection this year, make sure it’s this one. Pretenders to the stealth genre have come and gone over the years, but the Metal Gear Solid series has outlasted them all and with good reason.

This collection includes Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and the PSP title Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Yes, that leaves one glaring omission, the original PS1 Metal Gear Solid. Considering it was remade for the GameCube, it’s a missed opportunity. However, we expect it will get its own release soon. Considering the quality that we do get in this collection though, it’s hard to stay mad for long.

MGS2 and MGS3 looked better than most other games back in their day on PS2, so it’s no surprise that they still look great today after a HD polish. MGS2’s Big Shell and Tanker look incredibly clean and the jungle of MGS3 features the best leaves seen in gaming, full stop. When you’re crawling through tall grass, you can see how every leaf looks real, instead of a flat blocky mess. Coming from the PSP, Peace Walker stood to get the biggest visual update and it certainly does look better than before, but compared to the other two, it looks a little rough.

Less than a month to go now before the PS Vita arrives and we can’t wait. There’s a fantastic number of titles available around the launch and we’ve been everywhere from LA and E3, Germany and Gamescom, and more recently London and Manchester to try them out. So take a few minutes to look through our guide to see what you fancy picking up.

MotorStorm RC

Developer: Evolution Studios
Publisher: Sony

Anything that reminds us of Micro Machines or Mashed is always going to get our attention so this looks ace already. This simple top-down racer is a much more casual affair than the other MotorStorm games, favouring quick thrills over gruelling punishment. There are plenty of modes to choose from in addition to races. Some events task you with overtaking as many opponents as you can before time runs out. The most addictive game so far has to be the lapped time trials where you chase trailing arrow ghosts around the track trying to beat a medal time. After that you’ll want to beat your friends’ arrows and then the rest of the world. The devs told me they lost “weeks of development time” competing amongst each other at the office, and we can see why. The game will be released for the PS3 and Vita as a single download, allowing play at home and on the go, all for a “competitive” price. Click here to read Matt’s interview with producer, David Bramhall.

MotorStorm RC might initially frustrate a few series stalwarts. The controls are a little fiddly and may take some getting used to, but for anyone bred and raised upon a feast of quirky 90s top-down arcade racers, this will be a nostalgia trip of pure joy. The game looks gorgeous on both machines, there's plenty of fan service packed in there from Evolution and, fired up four ways on a PS3, we can see this being a straightforward party hit. - Matt

Platform: PS Vita

Developers: Sony Bend

Publishers: Sony

If there’s any name in PlayStation gaming that demands attention it has to be Uncharted. The signs are pointing to a mightily positive launch title that should be on everyone’s pre-order list.

The game has been developed by Sony Bend studios rather than Naughty Dog, but that certainly hasn’t harmed the brand. The best comparison would be the amazing job Ready at Dawn did when they brought the God of War series to the PSP.

We’ve been lucky enough to get our hands on this handheld wonder a few times now. Germany, London and thanks to the recent PlayStation Access event, Manchester. The most recent demo showed off some platforming and gunplay, both of which feel instinctively ace. Presuming you’ve played the Uncharted games before, you’ll find the format familiar and undiluted. Gameplay staples include third-person shooting, brawling, puzzles and clambering around precarious environments.