Borderlands 4 (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £59.99)
Verdict: Crash landing
As I tell all the ladies, I have a pretty beefy gaming PC at home. But, even so, it still struggled to cope with the demands of Borderlands 4. The graphics kept on stuttering. The gameplay slowed down. It crashed more than once.
And it appears I’m not alone. Go online, and thousands of people are reporting problems with their playthroughs. The makers of Borderlands 4 have released some downloadable updates since it was launched, to help fix things — but issues still remain.
Choose your weapon. Do you want fire? Or ice? Amon the Forgeknight hedges his bets
Which is a shame, as the experience of simply getting Borderlands 4 to work is standing in the way of what is a pretty good game. This is Borderlands as you’ve always known it, but also as you’ve never known it before.
First, the familiar: here is another looter-shooter in which you exterminate baddies on a far-flung planet in the hope that they’ll drop better and better weapons for you to appropriate.
It’s still as free with its (often groanworthy) quips as it is with its bullets. And it still has that same pleasing, comic-book-y art style.
Purple patch: Vex the Siren is one of the characters you can play as in Borderlands 4
What’s new isn’t just the game’s latest world — Kairos, ruled over by a nasty space-dictator called The Timekeeper — but the fact that it’s an open world.
Your Vault Hunter is now much freer to wander in whatever direction he or she chooses, pursuing the main story at their own pace.
Of course, that’s hardly revolutionary when it comes to games as a whole. But it’s revolutionary for Borderlands — particularly as you also get new, enjoyable ways of moving, including a grappling hook and a glider. Up, up and a… oh, darn, it’s crashed again.
Towa And The Guardians Of The Sacred Tree (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, £24.99)
Verdict: Long on ideas
Towa And The Guardians Of The Sacred Tree isn’t just a long name, it’s also a lot to explain. A lot. Where to start?
Perhaps with the story?
It involves Towa, who’s the designated guardian for a village under siege by terrible demons from Japanese folklore.
She gathers eight companions — from a good witch in an origami dress to a warrior who’s half-man, half-carp — to help her in this task.
Eight is great: Towa (and you) can enlist the help of eight companions to help her in her mission
But before they’ve achieved much, the main baddie somehow scatters them across time so that…
Actually, that might not be the best place to start. How about the gameplay?
In basic terms, it’s much like the brilliant roguelite Hades: you progress from area to area, trying to clear each of them of baddies, upgrading your skills and weapons along the way, hoping to get to the end before dying and being sent back to the beginning. It’s a game of try, try and try again.
But that’s only in basic terms. Towa adds dozens of delightful complications, the main one of which is to give you two characters to play with at any particular time.
One of Towa’s companions takes the attack role, and is more directly under your control, while the other takes a support role, and helps out automatically.
It’s a winning combo, especially when the two characters start nattering to each other between fights. You’ll grow attached to these weirdos, which makes it even tougher when you have to…
Oh, I won’t get into that. Nor the spell system. Nor the weapon durability constraints. Nor even the amazing soundtrack.
Like I say, Towa is a lot. In the best possible way.
