32 public written reviews
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Publisher: SEGA (Known For: Sonic The Hedgehog, Football Manager Series) Developer: Sumo Digital (F1 2011, Hasbro Family Game Night) In the modern gaming landscape, it would be true to say that SEGA as a company is a mere shadow of its former self. The heady days of the 1990′s when sonic and SEGA could go toe to toe with Nintendo and their mustachioed front man in the console wars and come out with a respectable…
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Developer: United Front Games The karting game is a niche, but fiercely competitive genre. Few developers turn their hand to it, but the ones that do have to be prepared to bring their A game. That big Mario shaped elephant in the room aside, the PS3 alone is home to a small but brilliant selection of kart racers. Encouragingly for Little Big Planet Karting, developer United…
Developer: 343 Industries Publisher: Microsoft Since Halo: Combat Evolved smashed its way into our consciousnesses back in 2001, the video game landscape, particularly in a first person capacity, is an almost unrecognisable place. Call Of Duty has sprouted up and has been happily running the show for around five years now, with the recent release of Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 showing no signs that Activisions money…
Developer: Firaxis Games (Known For: Civilization IV, Sid Meiers Pirates) Publisher: 2K Games (Known For: Borderlands 2, Bioshock) XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a game that will attract as many as it drives away. It’s difficult and very often brutally unforgiving. Missions going according to plan can be turned on their head in a matter of seconds, leaving a squad decimated and severely underprepared moving forward. XCOM is…
Developer: Gearbox Software (Famous for: Borderlands/Brothers In Arms) Publisher: 2K Games Let’s just get this out in the open. There is absolutely nothing remarkable about Borderlands 2. If we take each aspect of the experience and evaluate them on their own merits, nothing that it has to offer is especially brilliant. The mechanics are responsive and well designed but aren’t groundbreaking in any way; the art…
Annual game franchises are a curious beast. As with all sequels, players want a game different enough to warrant our hard earned cash and time, but similar enough that it still bears the hallmarks that made the older game so enjoyable. With annual franchises though, consumers expect these contradictory yet true statements to be repeated year on year, honing and improving upon components of the previous game in just…
Developer: EA Tiburon Publisher: EA Sports Looking back at the Madden franchise over the years, you could be forgiven for thinking that EA Sports merely rebrand their cover art and plop out a roster update…wait a minute, that’s exactly what they do. Content to rest upon those hefty muscular laurels, the Madden franchise over the years has become a symbol of staleness among iterative media. While other EA franchises…
Miyamoto once said that having established characters and franchises such as Mario allow development teams the freedom to effectively create a new IP with each release of a game under the Mario banner. This statement seems odd at first, however closer inspection suggests some truth to the claim. Just think; Super Mario Brothers, Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy share almost nothing in common other than the basic art style…
Developer: Tequila Works Publisher: Microsoft Those who have watched trailers for Deadlight will be all too aware that there are more than a few similarities in art direction and style between this years Summer of Arcade title, and a certain previous SOA big hitter Limbo. Having been in development since 2009, it is claimed that the title was originally more like the black and white masterpiece than the finished…
BY – POSTED IN: DAVID'S POSTS , MICROSOFT , PS3 , REVIEWS , REVIEWS ARCHIVE , SONY , XBOX 360 Developer: Bethesda Publisher: Bethesda The time has come. The time has come that fans of Oblivion have been waiting for. The time has come that they can delve into a world that the average player wont even see half of. The time has come to close the door to the outside world. The time has come to forget about the outside…
Developer: Infinity Ward Publisher: Activision With the leviathan of a PR machine, and inevitable fan boy war that comes with the release of every Call Of Duty game, it is increasingly difficult to remove ones self from the masses of hate and love gushing from the respective camps. The waves of the internet are inevitably strewn with battleships, intent on blasting anyone that doesn’t agree with their opinion,…
Developer: Sumo Digital Publisher: Codemaster Signalling that Formula 1 2010 sold reasonably well, the 2011 iteration of the series has reached our shelves promising a better, more engrossing and exciting affair than last years model, but does it stand up to these claims? Visually F1 2011 is almost identical to its predecessor. Cars still look brilliant, and the scenery and tracks surrounding them sit somewhere in…
Developer: Ubisoft Publisher: Ubisoft It is a worry that Rayman Origins arrived on our shelves when it did. Amid the deluge of triple-A releases, there is a real worry that Rayman will go relatively unnoticed. This would be fine if the game was terrible, but in reality, Rayman could end up being a standout title for many gamers as they look back over 2011. Visually, Rayman Origins is stunning. The 2D side scrolling…
Ever since Apple catapulted mobile gaming into the limelight some years ago, the successes of these games have continued to grow exponentially. Today it is common place to see plush toys of games like angry birds on store shelves, or the odd person wandering the halls of gaming conventions wearing a cone on their head (A’la Plants Vs Zombies). Throughout these releases though, there was one question that remained on…
As Uncharted 3 hits shelves, the title is in an odd position. The only game that it’s looking to emulate is its predecessor. Uncharted 2, was and still is one of the best 3rd person action adventure games not only of this generation, but ever. It is by no means an understatement to say that Uncharted 3 has a lot to live up to if it is going to achieve the same dizzy heights of its older brother. The third…
Let’s cut the crap and get straight to the point. Dead island is a game that will likely divide the masses. Fans of the RPG genre should at least take it for a spin. Those familiar with the Fallout games will find something vaguely familiar, even if they can’t quite put their finger on what that something is. There will be those that find a level of charm and intensity within the world that at times can be truly…
Developer: SEGA Publisher: SEGA Before we get started, let’s just get the elephant in the room out the way. Yes, it’s a movie tie-in game, and yes it probably suffers from that a little. Games like like Goldeneye on the N64 have shown that movie licensed games can work (on rare occasions, excuse the pun), but in all honesty developers would be better taking the character and building their own story around them.…
Developer: Epic Games Publisher: Microsoft Six years on from the debut of Fenix and his band of merry men, Gears of War 3 brings the trilogy to a climax, and what a climax that is. Whatever problems humanity had after the end of Gears 2, they’re nothing to what’s going on in the third instalment. Humans, already pushed to near extinction, are on the ropes with the Coalition of Ordered Governments (The COG) all but…
Developer: Ubisoft Reflections Publisher: Ubisoft Let’s be honest. On paper, Driver San Francisco shouldn’t work. The premise is absolutely mad, and the last iteration displayed serious fatigue even when it was released. Making things worse, since the release of Driver 3 the genre has taken leaps and bounds in terms of progress, with only a select few driving titles making their mark. With the realities of the…
Developer: HB Studios Publisher: 505 Games FIFA games have made lots of progress over the last few years. It is perhaps the luxury of trial and error brought with an annual franchise that has allowed the kings of the video game footballing world to sculpt and hone their masterpiece into such a fantastic game. Unfortunately for rugby fans, the annual release isn’t something that they have been afforded and it may be…
Developer: Guilford Studio Publisher: Codemasters The world has gone to hell, and needs saving. Luckily though there’s an agency known only as “The Network” here to save the day. As an agent of The Network, it’s your job to get in there and sort things out when governments lose control. A war has broken out in Africa, so The Network have sent you in to figure out why, before finding a way to re-establish peace in…
ATTENTION: Due to the timing of this review, and the recent updates to the mobile devices, the games on offer on all platforms are almost identical. It is with this in mind that the review has been written with all platforms taken into consideration. For those interested in the benefits of a particular platform, there is a note at the end of the review. Plants Vs Zombies. Plants Vs Zombies? What kind of a name is…
Developer: Double Fine Publisher: THQ Xbox Live Arcade, and the PlayStation Network are home to some of the most innovative, and interesting ideas in gaming today, and Tim Schafer’s Stacking is definitely one that falls into those camps. Players take the role of the smallest of a family of Russian dolls. The opening sequences of the game show his brothers and sisters being taken away to work as slaves. Not happy to…
Developer: Codemasters Publisher: Codemasters Operation Flashpoint made its name on the PC, and with the release of this game, it is perhaps not surprising that many console gamers don’t know much about the series. On the face of things, Flashpoint looks and feels like any other shooter. However this notion quickly disappears after players begin shooting at their targets. Operation Flashpoint is in fact very…
Developer: Danger Close Publisher: EA Once upon a time, The Medal Of Honor series was the premier shooter on consoles. Not unlike Call Of Duty, it learned its trade in World War 2. Whether you were taking down the Germans from the inside via an undercover mission, shooting up the streets, or sleuthing through the French sewers as part of the French resistance. Medal Of Honor was the place to go if you needed a…
Developer: Bioware Publisher: EA During the life cycle of each console generation, there are always a small number of titles that emerge and become instant classics. The Mass Effect series, in particular Mass Effect 2 (ME2) is definitely one of those games. Continuing the story of Commander Shepherd, ME2 follows a very similar path to the first game. Shepherd is presented with an insanely dangerous mission, then…
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier Publisher: Ubisoft Had it not already been appropriated to a specific type of game, sandbox would have been the perfect way to describe From Dust. A completely different concept to the GTA and Saints Row games, From Dust can probably be more closely compared to the Black And White games than anything else, but again there are stark contrasts between the two. The easiest way to describe…
Developer: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Publisher: Supergiant Games This game has seemingly appeared from nowhere. Kicking off the 2011 summer of arcade on Xbox Live, Bastion has blasted its way onto the scene, taking many gamers by surprise. Although publicised, it arrived with little to no fan fair and after playing the game, the only question to be asked is why not? Bastion is a top down RPG set in a…
Developer: Natural Motion Publisher: 505 Games Although not originally an ios game, Backbreaker made its name as a pick up and play mobile game that utilised touch and tilt controls. Giving players a fun little game that could easily fill in a commute to work or school. Now though, Backbreaker has attempted to make the step back onto the home console market, but can a game famed for its simplicity and pick up and…
Developer: IO Interactive Publisher: Eidos Dog Days is the sequel to a game that in all honesty, nobody really wanted. The first outing for the duo was early on in console life cycles and was met with mixed response, but certainly didn’t warrant a sequel. Still IO plowed on and produced a sequel. On the face of it the game is actually quite promising. Documenting Lynch’s further descent into madness, the game takes…
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios Developer: Playdead Studios In a market saturated by doing nothing but asking players to shoot varying enemies in the face, as you rampage through the game world, it’s much easier for games to be noticed should they step out of the mould. This can be work both for and against any developer attempting to do just that. On one hand, the game will likely catch the eye of the public. On…
Developer: EA Swiss Publisher: EASports Early on in the Xbox 360, and PS3’s life cycle, Fight Night Round 3 set message boards ablaze with excitement over the impressive visuals on offer, quickly establishing itself as a benchmark that gamers would measure other games up against. Even after Fight Night Round 4, people would still admire the achievements of its older brother. The fifth game in the series Fight Night:…
