Hello, readers! You thought I’d forgotten about you? Believe me. I forget NOTHING. The extended break since our last Richie Report is really just down to the fact that 2015 has been such a slow starter you’d think that it had been born with 2014′s umbilical cord wrapped around its neck.

Indeed the first actual physical release of the year was a port of Saints Row IV. This, the most shark-jumpy of all the Saints Row games, probably didn’t need the remaster treatment as it’s not an old game, but it got it, complete with all the DLC and a brand new standalone adventure called Gat Out of Hell. It’s all good though as I love me some Saints nonsense. It’s just a shame that they didn’t fix the original ugly-assed graphics. You can’t polish a turd but you can smooth out the edges and put on some anti-aliasing. But for those of you who haven’t experienced the insanity of Saints Row IV with its Crackdown-influenced super-powered action, this is a decent game and at a fair price.

On the same day that the Saints returned, so did Resident Evil, a series that has long been crying out for a headshot and then another one just to be sure. Resident Evil HD Remaster is a sprucing up of the original PS1 survival horror pioneer. I bought it immediately and regretted it even sooner when I realised that the controls are bullshit and I aim my gun rather less well than Stevie Wonder trying to defend himself from the ghost of a ninja that’s taken a vow of silence at a Napalm Death concert. I hate it almost as much as I hate every Resident Evil game since Resi 5 (which I sort of liked despite it being as scary as a Disney movie and twice as racist).

Speaking of THE DEAD. Dying Light got in on the action with a survival- horror action adventure that was equal parts Dead Island and Mirror’s Edge. That is to say that you kill zombies with sticks mostly and then run around on rooftops when the whole thing backfires. Despite the fact that it’s just a bunch of fetch quests and the zombies are only threatening at night, I really liked this game. It’s tough, it looks good, and it is more compelling than you’d think. I liked Dead Island though, so what do I know?

Evolve was the next big title out. From the makers of Left 4 Dead, this monster-hunting online-focused squad-based shooter certainly had some marketing quids behind it. However, with such a big focus on the online play, it was soon apparent that this is one of those games for ultra-competitive cunts and if philosophy has taught us anything, it is that hell is other gamers. I’m avoiding this so hard that I expect to need physio to fix my skeleton afterwards.

At this time none of this mattered as the PS4′s obvious best game ever, Resogun, was getting its final DLC packs. The Challengers DLC added a bunch of reasons to play this digital-only shooter again while the Defenders DLC added two new gameplay modes, making Resogun even better.

With all that going on the developers, Housemarque, outsourced the PS4 update of their fantastic Vita title Super Stardust Delta to (checks Wiki)… some other pricks. Super Stardust Ultra brings all the modes and more of the fabby Vita twin-stick shooter but with no real care or class and all manner of graphical histrionics obscuring the action, it just wasn’t the Wu Banger we’d hoped for. It’s not bad but it isn’t the one.

3DS owners rejoiced as Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate got released. I know nothing about this thing but all the 3DS owners I know are certainly losing their shit about it so it must be alright. The Japanese go fucking mental for this stuff also. But then they also go mental for schoolgirls getting bummed by demons in all their hentai shit, so I wouldn’t trust that.

The 3DS also got a hardware revision that seemed to add the long awaited second analog stick except that it’s not really a stick. In fact it’s a tiny nub that would make a PSP feel like it were John Holmes.

Sony got in on the action with a bonafide first party release. The Order: 1886 is a Gears of War clone in a Victoriana horror setting and it looks fabby. It looks like an update of the classic PS1 game Nightmare Creatures and I’d be all over it except that getting review shit from Sony is rather less likely than dancing to Showaddwaddy at the Top of the Pops studio and not waking up with bum ache and no memory of the past three days. It also apparently clocks in at around £10 per hour of actual gameplay. Not this time, Sony.

That more or less takes us up to March which has started promisingly enough with Helldivers (decent looking online twin stick shooter), OlliOlli 2 (fab sequel to the not-endless skate ‘em up) and Zombie Army Trilogy (a standalone zombie ‘em up based on the Sniper Elite game engine).

With Bloodborne (by the Dark Souls guys), Borderlands: The Handsome Collection (the only game likely to get Mark off of GTA V), more Resident Evil stuff and loads of J-RPG releases due this month, it’s looking like things are hotting up. I don’t care though. All I care about is the incoming releases of Jamestown Plus for PS4 (a port of the amazing Steam shoot ‘em up) and Söldner-X 2 (a Vita port of the excellent PS3 arcade shooter) and they are going to be amazing.

So, how are the charts looking post-Xmas?

1. DYING LIGHT – when there’s no room left in hell, the dead will chase you around rooftops.
2. GRAND THEFT AUTO V – I wish there was a GTA where you played as Michael Donovan.
3. FIFA 15 – not as good as PES this year, idiots.
4. CALL OF DUTY: ADVANCED WARFARE – if these things were accurate it’d all be about setting off drone strikes from a comfy office.
5. DRAGON BALL XENOVERSE – it’s a bug hunt.
6. MINECRAFT: XBOX EDITION – sigh.
7. THE ORDER: 1886 – a damning inditement on the quality of Parcel Force.
8. ZOMBIE ARMY TRILOGY – when there’s no room left in hell, Hull will always do.
9. EVOLVE – we want our thumbs.
10. MINECRAFT: PLAYSTATION EDITION – sigh 2. Sigh harder.

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