Computer And Video Games - Reviews

Street Fighter IV

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:27:00 GMT

Better in the lounge?.
There can't surely be many people out there reading this who haven't heard of or played any of the Street Fighter games before. One of the most successful and iconic computer games to ever be committed to memory, versions of the second game even appeared on the Spectrum in its dying days. Best not to imagine that though, as the images are still scarring my mind to this day. What we have here is Capcom's return to producing a full new iteration of the game, getting rid of all this Super Alpha X Edition nonsense.

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Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:20:00 GMT

The unchanging man.
Some things - like the economy - get worse; others - like your 'lady' prowess - can only get better; but some things can't manage the distinction of either. Some things - like the Tiger Woods PGA Tour titles - just stay exactly the same.

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Anno 1404

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:12:00 GMT

Feudal Fatigue.
The Anno series has been delivering solid if unspectacular city-building and strategy for a few years now. Imagine a straight-faced The Settlers and you're getting there.

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Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:55:00 GMT

Medal of dishonour.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I am f***ing awesome. If the mark of a good western FPS is making you feel like the most badass gunslinger this side of Tucson, Bound in Blood is the best yet. It's also a massive improvement on the 2006 original. Chances are you never played that, which is a shame. Call of Juarez was, if not a genuine diamond in the rough, at least a pleasant enough cubic zirconia. It had a decent story and solid shooting, marred mostly by godawful stealth sequences and infuriating stop-start action.

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Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:30:00 GMT

The empire strikes cack.
Maybe this is all in our fevered minds, but we could swear that nary a month passes without some form of Dynasty Warriors torture being inflicted upon our fragile consciousness. Yet no matter how much we castigate, how sadistically low that number in the bottom right corner plunges, the misery keeps on coming.

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Fight Night Round 4

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:17:00 GMT

Coming back to knock your block off your shoulders all over again, the big hitter of PS3 beat' em ups gets back into the ring for a really brutal, but fun, punchfest.
Clearly we're all spoilt for choice when it comes to PS3 fighting games. While there's something satisfying about connecting a Hadouken or locking in one of Tekken's outrageous grapples, sometimes you just want to pummel your foe's face until it looks like a piece of used chewing gum.

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Another Code R: A Journey into Lost Memories

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:03:00 GMT

The R stands for reading, remembering and RSI.
What are Nintendo playing at? "Read and solve like a mystery novel" says the sticker on Another Code R's box. What an awful recommendation. These are the words of a soulless marketing husk ashamed to be dealing with videogames. "What, a game? URGH! Disgusting. No, don't be silly, it's nothing like that."

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Tales of Vesperia

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:43:00 GMT

Packed with pipe-puffing pooches...
Statto alert: Vesperia is actually the tenth 'flagship' title (there are even more spin-offs) in the Tales series, a role-playing monster that curries almost as much favour in the Land of Levelling Up as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Arguably the most 'Japanese' of all JPRGs, this latest entry has finally found its way over here after nearly a year on shelves in the States. Seeing as 360 seems to be a fly-tipping sanc-tuary for mediocre role-players, should Namco really have bothered?

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Overlord II

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:11:00 GMT

Boss man.
One of the most annoying things about the original Overlord Raising Hell was the frequent prospect of building up your minions significantly with upgrades throughout the course of the game, only to have them cut down during a battle. Their unique powers would be lost; you'd turn off the PS3 there and then and reboot the game to pick up just prior to where you lost yet another favourite minion. How tedious. Thankfully, this sequel fixes that aspect - one of the numerous attempts to improve upon the flawed potential of the first game.

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Overlord Dark Legend

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:23:00 GMT

Overlord, under worked...
We had this fantastic first paragraph lined up about how great it would be to have an army of minions at our disposal. Alas, NGamer editor Nick used that very paragraph to open last month's preview. Turns out, along with the NERFings and other random acts of humiliation, Nick is allowed to swipe our ideas. You see, he's our Overlord. Thankfully, Dark Legend gives us underlings a taste of things at the top.

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Virtua Tennis 2009

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:27:00 GMT

Going through the motions, to brilliant effect.
Just when you thought you'd seen the back of Tim Henman, here he is again, teaching rookie players how to lob, slice and smash, and sharing tips on how to not win Wimbledon even once in your career.

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Ghostbusters

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Review: Do cross the streams...
For the purpose of this review we're going to assume everyone is a Ghostbusters fan. Because if you're not then you must have died before they made it. In which case you're not reading this because you're dead.

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ArmA 2

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:39:00 GMT

If you've got the time and patience, you won't find a better war game.
Shooters make a pact with you. Half-Life 2, Far Cry, even BioShock all have a basic formula: standard controls, guns that put bullets where you tell them to, enemies who are just looking for a lead injection. These games spit in their hand and tell you: "Yes, we will make shooting many, many people an easy thing." Offer your saliva-soaked hand to ArmA 2 and the game will slap it away. If you want easy, go somewhere else. What you'll get in ArmA 2 is a soldier's worst nightmare.

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Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:50:00 GMT

Quick-time events. Why'd it have to be quick-time events?.
We're playing one of the greatest adventure games ever made, a title with excellent dialogue, a wonderful plot and satisfyingly fiendish puzzling. But enough about Fate Of Atlantis - what about Indiana Jones And The Staff Of Kings?

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Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:22:00 GMT

Fallen for you.
Fantasy conventions are hard to break. It's why, apart from one quirky mountain lion pun in Oblivion, we continue to slay rats in cellars. And it's why we'll forever be tasked with spying on clandestine gambling/skooma/necromancy rings for lazy town guards.

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Prototype

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:53:00 GMT

With great power doesn't come great responsibility.
It was somewhere in between bowling an old lady from the top of the Empire State Building and halving thirty people at once with a whip of an infected tendril that it finally clicked: Prototype isn't aiming for subtle. Carnage on a grand scale. Enough blood to earn a truck load of platinum donor cards. Civilian deaths in their thousands (onscreen pop-ups take great glee in delivering the toll). It opens with you performing elbow drops on tanks in Times Square - and this is a quieter moment. Once more with feeling: subtle it ain't.

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Star Ocean: The Last Hope

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:15:00 GMT

Drowning in a sea of mediocrity.
Some may say it never went away, but sci-fi is pretty cool at the moment. Christian Bale's about to unleash some of his patented rage on Skynet, Battlestar Galactica sticks two fingers up at dilithium crystals and JJ Abram's Star Trek revival takes the shat out of Shatner and goes boldly where Trek has never gone before: goofy space fun that anyone can enjoy. We never thought we'd see the day when you could attend ComicCon in good confidence you wouldn't get stabbed by a jock. Then tri-Ace go and do this.

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Red Faction Guerrilla

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:08:00 GMT

Creative destruction.
Blowing shit up is fun. Therefore Red Faction Guerrilla, with the best in-game destruction system ever to grace an open-world of pixels and polygons, should be bloody entertaining. And for the most part, it is.

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The Sims 3

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:21:00 GMT

Life affirming.
My wedding was a disaster, beginning when one of the guests died during the party. We weren't close, but witnessing his ghost prompted a recurring wish to see more. Soon I was wandering the catacombs beneath the graveyard, getting emotionally scarred by zombie bears and emerging, smeared with dirt, in only my underpants.

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FUEL

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:15:00 GMT

Bigger isn't necessarily better.
FUEL is a big game. Like huge. The overall racing area covers roughly 5,000 square miles of terrain, from icy mountain tops, to arid desert lowlands. It's ten (maybe twenty) times the size of GTA IV. The epic scope of what developers Asobo have created is incredible, but at the same time there's a whiff of quantity over quality.

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Virtua Tennis 2009

Fri, 29 May 2009 15:29:00 GMT

Review: The Pete Sampras of tennis games.
Now in its fourth home console iteration, Virtua Tennis is no stranger to fending off the competition. Sega's flagship racket game has seen off the likes of TopSpin and Smash Court Tennis over the years. But it's 2009 (as the new title affirms) and there's Wii Sports and EA's Grand Slam Tennis to contend with. Can Virtua Tennis change it up enough to feel fresh or has the tennis genre gone as far as it can?

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Terminator Salvation

Fri, 29 May 2009 10:48:00 GMT

I'll be back... to the shop, with a receipt.
Don't fear spoilers. In spite of the name it shares with the movie, Salvation tells a tale from the early days of the war against the machines, back before T-600s introduced rubber skin and long before Arnold's T-800s popped up with inconspicuous human flesh stretched over massively conspicuous muscles the size of basketballs.

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Pokémon Platinum

Fri, 22 May 2009 13:19:00 GMT

It's back! It's bigger! But is it better?.
Pokémon isn't kids' stuff. When you look past the cards, the cartoon and the Pikachu lunchboxes there's a core game that's one of the most complex and customisable around. Bar the cosmetics, it's also largely unchanged since the series' 1996 beginnings on the original Game Boy, and Pokémon Platinum is just an update of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, the games that marked the series' debut on DS almost two years ago. Chances are if you've been sucked into the phenomenon you've already played something very similar to this. So does it still work?

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Damnation

Fri, 22 May 2009 09:46:00 GMT

A steaming pile of steampunk junk.
Damnation is a glowing example of how technology in the wrong hands can lead to disaster. Now, when we say this, are we referring to the story, which sees you taking on an army of evil robots in an alternative, steampunk version of the US Civil war? Or are we referring to the fact that Blue Omega have made one of the worst Unreal Engine-powered games we've ever seen? Hmm...

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Punch-Out!!

Thu, 21 May 2009 10:18:00 GMT

The classic returns - and that's KO by us.
There's an idea in Punch-Out!! that really shows Nintendo at their best. As Little Mac you're capable of taking two knockdowns before it's lights-out with a KO. The devs clearly relish the moment - lose that third energy bar and the camera whips around with Raging Bull panache to follow a bruised Mac to his knees. But it's not over. Hammer attacks as you hit the ropes and there's a chance Mac will get up. And at a turning point in a tricky bout this is just incredible.

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