. Plays, 13th June 2015

Tom Orry, Editor – Bios, PC, You Must Build a Boat, PC

I can't remember a single game I've played this week, other than two I played very briefly. Bios, a fast-paced FPS that is all about finishing stages as quickly as possible, certainly showed promise, but it crashed so often on my laptop that it's hard to say much else about it. Secondly, having seen loads of people talking about You Must Build a Boat, I gave it a whirl only to find that my horrible portable mouse wasn't really up to the task of the fast dragging required. If I could match the tiles at a greater speed perhaps I'd have got farther. Sorry if you've found that paragraph completely uninformative.

Also, it's almost E3!! It's the most magical time of the year, except it's also highly stressful and I get little sleep. Enjoy the announcements though.

Steve Burns, Deputy Editor – Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, PS4, Metal Gear Solid 2, Xbox 360

Last week I went and played MGS5. Turns out it's pretty good. Well, that's putting it lightly. It's actually brilliant in about fifty different ways, not least that it's the apex of stealth gaming. There's been a lot of rubbish swirling around about Kojima recently, but it appears he's simply gotten on with business. Pity that it's got an hour's worth of prologue tacked on the front which is so wildly out of step with the rest of the game that many may not even complete it.

Talking about total nonsense, Jim and I had the displeasure of sitting down with Metal Gear Solid 2 this week. It is immensely shite. It gets worse each time I play it. Poor old Jim: he hasn't played it in years, and his main question was 'why does your dad keep calling you to talk about nothing?'

Exactly.

Dave Scammell, News Editor – Splatoon, Wii U

You know what, Splatoon's great, but I don't know long its appeal will last - and I wonder if Nintendo knows it. The limited number of maps and modes available at launch (and the even smaller number of arenas put into rotation each day) means that Ninty can easily keep interest levels up as new content is introduced, as we saw with last week's update. An interesting approach, assuming that's the intention.

Credit where it's due, though: at least Nintendo hasn't stripped out content to sell at a premium, but at a base level Splatoon still feels lighter than I'd have hoped for a shooter built for long-term online play.

The main thing, of course, is that it's fun. There's something about spraying the walls red, green or neon orange before popping out the ground to surprise an opponent that I adore. But I just can't shake the feeling that my interest in it may begin to dwindle disappointingly soon.

Simon Miller, Head Of Video Production - This Month’s PS+ Games, PS4

A few months ago I would use this space on the internet to gush about good PS+ was. The ultimate way to find games that otherwise may pass you by, it was a reason to invest in Sony’s service.

Those days seem a long time ago…

This month’s Skull Of The Shoguns, Super Exploding Zoo and Futuridium have left me feeling sad. While they’re not bad games in their own right - Super Exploding Zoo being the exception, which is instead the thing of nightmares - they just don’t have the same weight as others that have been offered recently.

Rogue Legacy remains top of that list, and gems such as Guacamelee justify the price of admission alone. The latest batch does nothing to make me feel a similar way.

Ultimately I’m sure as many will disagree as those that see where I’m coming from, and Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes is a damn good addition either way. Without the price tag, there’s not too much to moan about.

Here’s to July’s.

Brett Phipps - Guides Editor - Splatoon, Wii U

I’m a massive baby, because I love Splatoon. At first I didn’t quite get it, it felt like a passive game where I redecorated someone’s garden for three minutes. But now, I enjoy how it’s equal parts relaxing and exhilarating.

It does away with the trigger-finger anxiety or the constant death-cycle of traditional online shooters, and focuses its attention instead on the idea of marking as much territory as possible, like a dog in a new tree-laden park.

I’m yet to touch the single-player because playing just a few matches of an evening is more than enough to entertain me. Three minute bursts of fun is preferable to the 15-20 minute slogs across a battlefield on most occasions. Christ, I’m getting old. I’m an old baby.