Action

The match 3 puzzle genre has been lacking innovation as of late. Thankfully, Futurlab has an extraordinary habit of changing up the ‘norm’ and Surge Deluxe is certainly no exception!!

Assassin's Creed Liberation HD might have been a good idea six months ago. Take a popular, critically successful Vita game and port it to consoles and PC. Why not? There are a lot of people that wanted to see this chunk of the story but weren't willing to by a handheld for it. Sure, six months ago it would have gone down a treat, and would have nicely bridged the gap between Assassin's Creed III and IV. With Black Flag on the market though, Liberation HD feels like a leap of faith gone wrong.

Yearly franchises rarely manage to surprise, but this year Assassin's Creed did just that. The franchise that originally had you climbing up rectangular buildings in the Middle East has now taken to the waves, adding ships, exploration and naval combat aplenty. It wasn't a change that happened over night, but Black Flag shows how far the franchise has come, and, as our view at the top our pirate ship attests, it has come an awfully long way.

Assassins Creed IV Black Flag is Ubisoft’s latest attempt at reinvigorating their flagship franchise. With the disappointment that was Assassins Creed 3, especially considering the massive marketing campaign associated with the title, many questioned whether or not the series can still stay relevant. This new sequel is a direct result of Ubisoft’s awareness with the problems plaguing Assassins Creed 3. AC IV: Black Flag is a stunning and lighthearted action-adventure feast that offers up a gargantuan amount of content.

The developers behind Deadly 30 absolutely have to be zombie game fans. It's a cunning combination of Call of Duty's Zombies, Left 4 Dead and a dozen other supernatural franchises that have defined the last few years of undead-erific fun. It's not a complicated idea: survive. But that's not quite as easy as it sounds, and it'll take every second of your 30 day "holiday" to really make it out alive.

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance sent up some red flags when it was announced; it didn't have Snake as a playable character, it wasn't part of the main Metal Gear storyline, and it was an action game with very little of Metal Gear's genre-defining stealth gameplay. However it was developed by Platinum Games, the studio behind Bayonetta, so it wasn't such a surprise that Revengeance turned out to among the best action games of 2013. Alas, it was only available for consoles, leaving PC Gamers out of the loop until now.

Persona 4 Arena, developed by Arc System Works and published by Atlus, takes the stars of the critically acclaimed JRPG Persona 4, and places them in a 2D style fighting game, where they are forced to do battle with one another in order to progress, and must discover why their close friend Teddy is hosting the fighting tournament, P-1 Grand Prix.

Killzone is one of Sony's staple franchises, partly because of how fantastic they always look. The gameplay is always hit and miss, you'll either love it or hate it. The heavier weaponry, the harder-to-kill enemies - this isn't Call of Duty or Battlefield, and it never tries to be. Killzone: Shadow Fall is the latest in the series and one of the lead launch games on PlayStation 4. Can it hold the next generation on its shoulders?

The biggest mistake people made concerning the Call of Duty franchise this year was in presuming that it would be "next-gen." Call of Duty is one of the biggest entertainment IPs in the world, they're not going to do anything that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 can't handle. That's not to say that the PlayStation 4 version of Call of Duty: Ghosts isn't worth playing, or even upgrading to. You just have to expect a cross-gen Call of Duty sequel.

There are people claiming that the PlayStation 4 launch was weak. Those people haven't played Resogun. With its fast pace, easy-to-pick-up gameplay, beautiful graphics and fantastic soundtrack, it's the surprise hit of the early part of this generation. While it might not alone convince anybody that it's worth investing in a brand new console, it'll definitely keep you busy for the time being.