Gamerscore Addicts

Fri May 03, 2013 1:31 pm by TreeMunky

Developer ~ Saber Interactive

Publisher ~ Atlus

Price ~ 800MSP

God Mode is a third person horde shooter that can be played alone for the socially impaired or together as a monster slaying team of four cadavers. Set across a choice of five Milton inspired levels; each of these is made up of multiple battlefields linked together by portals. The premise of the game is to kill everything you see move into the next arena and then rinse and repeat, culminating in a boss fight. You and your fellow monster slayers then get to spend a couple of minutes running around a treasure room collecting gold that spawns. With friendly fire on you get to waste your former comrades for the chance of a little more shiny gold. Playing God Mode in single player is not the way to go. The game is poorly balanced for single play that it makes for a frustrating time and a far better time is to be had by roping in some comrades in arms.

If you're looking for a game with an immersive story, you will need to load up something else. The most you can glean from God Mode comes from a combination of the game’s narrator who mocks you everytime you die from a pummelling by a monster or two or three to the snippets on the loading screens. Almost as epic as The Iliad the story has you cast from Mount Olympus by Hades where you must redeem yourself and escape the Underworld. But have no fear this is not a fifth year History lesson in the Classics, this is God Mode where story has been put to death by the bullet.

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Comments: 10

Tue Apr 30, 2013 8:09 pm by GrahamOfTheDead

POKER NIGHT 2
Developer: TELLTALE GAMES
Publisher: TELLTALE GAMES
Price: 800MSP

Before we begin, I need to admit something. I suck at poker. Really. I am terrible at it. I can never remember what hand outranks what and I never really know when to quit while I'm ahead.

With that confession out of the way, I obviously went in to Poker Night 2 with more than a little trepidation. I've played a few XBLA poker games in the past (Texas Hold 'em, Full House Poker) and enjoyed them for a little while, before getting bored. What would make Poker Night 2 any different?

Well, for starters, it's from the guys at Telltale Games. They're more well known for their adventure games (including last years stupendously good Walking Dead) than anything else. Secondly, it features a cast of characters from various media, who are eclectic to say the least....

-Sam, from Sam & Max.

-Claptrap, from Borderlands.

-Ash, from the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies (sadly not voiced by Bruce Campbell).

-Brock Samson, from the Adult Swim series The Venture Brothers (voiced by Patrick Warburton).

You face off against those 4 in each poker tournament, but the special guests don't end there. Mad Moxxi from Borderlands is serving behind the bar, Max keeps popping up in the background and chiming in with the banter and the dealer? Well, the dealer is everyone's favourite sociopathic AI, GlaDOS from Portal. It is this array of personalities that tells you that this isn't going to be a game for those looking for a serious …

Thu Apr 04, 2013 1:23 pm by Waggly Bean

Developed by The Behemoth
Published by Microsoft Game Studios
Price: 1200MSP

Being a fan of both Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, I started up Battleblock Theater with extremely high expectations. I was a little apprehensive, as The Behemoth have once again attempted an entirely different genre; this time with a puzzle platformer. The object of the game is quite simple, and certainly a bit of homage to retro gaming. The game is broken down into levels, and in each of these you will need to find three gems and get to the exit. Sounds simple, and possibly a bit dull, right? Well thankfully The Behemoth have thrown in tonnes of additional content, a rich story, and loads of unlockables. Read on to find out if it is worth the purchase!

The story of the game is an odd one. We have a boat full of friends (named The S.S. Friend Ship - geddit?) which gets caught up in a huge storm and ends up shipwrecked on an island. This island houses a strange theatre that is run by sadistic cats, who seem to have possessed the kindest friend on the boat, Hatty Hattington, and put him in control of the place. They have locked you and all the other friends up and now force you all to battle your way through games they have devised for their own entertainment.

Hopefully you're still with me at this point. You are introduced to the story in the opening scenes of the game by a very energetic and enthusiastic narrator. The slapstick humour of The Behemoth's previous games is captured …

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Comments: 6

Mon Apr 01, 2013 9:48 pm by TreeMunky

Developer – Irrational Games

Publisher – 2K Games

When there is no opportunity left in the depths of the ocean there is only once place you could possibly go. Bioshock Infinite is a game of opposites, where Bioshock brought us to a dark claustrophobic dystopia built on the tenets of a misguided business magnate. Infinite takes us far far away to a lofty Utopia very different and perfect in almost everyway…

Columbia, poetic personification of the United States of America

See, there is a city called Columbia that was once the technological marvel of the United States, not any city mind you, a beautiful flying city where steampunk meets Bespin. When an international incident befouls Columbia, the city claims its independence and breaks away from the America it was built for and sets sail off into the distance as a ‘perfect society’. However thing are never that simple surely?

Like its predecessor the story in Infinite is exceptionally well told. The opening sequence where we meet our protagonist is all too familiar and the ‘waves’ of nostalgia I felt just made my journey to Columbia all the better. You are Booker DeWitt a war-veteran and former Pinkerton detective agent with an unknown debt to your name. Even more depth to the story is added through audio recordings you discover called voxophones, which serve as personal diaries to yours and others past events. You are tasked with infiltrating Columbia to rescue a young lady atop a tower by …

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Comments: 11

Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:03 pm by GrahamOfTheDead

TERRARIA
Developer: ENGINE SOFTWARE
Publisher: 505 GAMES
Price: 1200MSP

Minecraft was, and is, a bit of a phenomenon. It has become the poster boy for indie games everywhere and in the process captured the hearts and imagination of millions of gamers. It's probably the biggest success story of this generation.

Inevitably, when you're successful you spawn imitators. Minecraft is no different, but how do you stand out from the crowd? Terraria has found several ways to do so.

Originally released for PC back in May 2011, as of January 2013 Terraria has sold 2,000,000 copies. Now it's arrived on Xbox Live Arcade.

It is a tad unfair on developer and their game to describe it as a Minecraft clone. Yes it has the mining, the building and crafting, but it more than holds it's own. It would probably actually be fairer to describe Terraria as a 'Metroidvania' game. That is the biggest difference Terraria brings to the table....2D over 3D.

Losing a dimension does little to no damage to the sandbox-esque gameplay. It follows a similar pattern to Minecraft by creating a random world (you can choose either small, medium or large.) and giving you the freedom to do whatever you like. This is where the crafting comes in. You start off with three basic copper tools in the form of a sword, a pickaxe and a regular axe. Mining and felling trees gets you your basic materials but as you delve deeper in to the world you're going to need equipment that is a bit more substantial. To forge these new tools you'll need …

Tue Mar 26, 2013 12:53 pm by Tenlo

Developed by: Black Forest Games

Published by: bitComposer Entertainment

Cost: 1200MSP

Now if you're a big retro fan (and I know some of you guys are), you'll have heard the name of Giana Sisters. A cult favourite on the Amiga, it was removed from sale due to being a little to similar to a famous pair of Italian brothers. But that was years ago and now decades later (and it pains me to say decades as I feel my age), the Giana Sisters have been brought back from the sidelines and given a brand new game. The question is are they even relevant nowadays or is this just some fanboy thrill ride.

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, thankfully only keeps the bare minimum of similarities between its original title. It is still a 2D platformer at heart but it has plenty of modern twists. The story seems to be that the Giana Sisters find a magical crystal one night which opens up a portal to another world where one sister is whisked away by a giant dragon and the other has to try and find her. So far, so pretty familiar video game tropes! However, it's here that the innovations come in.

See as girls grow up they go through transitions and the sister rescuing (whom I call Giana for now to make it less confusing) is going through a period of rebellion. As such you get two versions of Giana to play with "Cute" and "Punk", or yellow hair and red hair! Now the interesting thing here is that each version has it's own special move, Cute Giana does an extra jump then pirouettes gently down …

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Comments: 7

Tue Mar 19, 2013 8:14 pm by KENT HAMMER

Gears of War: Judgment
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Developers: Epic Games, People Can Fly
Reviewer: Kent Hammer

Gears of War: Judgment is set many years before the original trilogy and this time the action centres around Kilo Squad. A rag tag group of soldiers led by Damon Baird and Augustus Cole plus newcomers Sofia Hendrick and Garron Paduk.

The story this time has them trying to save the city of Halvo Bay from an overwhelming number of bad ass motherfucking grubs!

We meet the protagonists in a military courtroom and the impending drama all unfolds from here. The action is in the form of flashbacks of their testimonies and you get to play through the each act and begin to piece the stories together.

We have to usual Casual, Normal, Hardcore and Insane difficulties but the twist this time is the declassified missions. These are an optional challenge you can select at the start of each mission, by doing so you enable the easier acclumation of stars with a max of three each time. Bronze on Casual, Silver on Normal, Gold on Hardcore and Onyx on Insane. I felt this really added a great new addition to the action and it also adds great re-playability of the campaign and provides a fun and satisfying challenge.
Although getting every star on Insane will only be possible for me by making a few of you horrible scrotes play along with me whilst I hang back and snipe and revive!

Examples of declassified mission might be completing the chapter using only sawn off shotty's or all the grubs are equipped with one-shots (you …

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Comments: 30

Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:55 pm by Markav

Developer: Enigma Software

Publisher: Kalypso Media

Price: 800MSP

Kalypso Media's Alien Spidy, a digital action-adventure game starring a swinging alien spider, for Xbox LIVE. A colorful 2D platformer with an adorable alien spider whose space ship has crash landed on Earth. In order to escape, Spidy must rescue his female companion, Virgi, and collect the lost parts of his craft. Alien Spidy’s unique web-swinging mechanics and beautifully illustrated environments make the game accessible to gamers of all ages, but it’s the game’s increasingly tough levels that are likely to engage hardcore players.

With more than 60 levels and three distinct landscapes This is a game with a seriously old school difficulty if it is to be mastered as the difficulty of scoring high on even the earliest levels require absolute perfection in the quickest time possible.

You play as spidy and use his spidy abilities to spring a web and swing through the levels. You’ll also come across special items that allow you to go under water in a bubble or to jump high over other obstacles. As you progress through each level you’ll be collecting coins and putting together scoring streaks – the more coins you collect in a row, the higher your score will be. A high score is what this game is all about and you are graded on your overall performance. You’ll want to do the best you can to get through a level as quickly as possible. You’ll lose points if you take too much time and you’ll certainly lose points when you die. I say …

Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:18 pm by Tenlo

Ask anyone over the age of 25 which are the three biggest icons in gaming and the answers you'll get will be Sonic, Mario and probably Lara Croft. During the late 90's Lara Croft dominated the gaming world with her adventures and managed to be one of the first computer game characters to really transcend into the mainstream.

However later games diluted the franchise to the point that in 2003 the original developers Core were stripped of the game and it was handed onto Crystal Dynamics who had also turned around the Legacy of Kain series. This resulted in the trilogy of titles Anniversary, Legend and Underworld which held a connecting story thread. These titles did pretty well and while they didn't bring the franchise back to its once great heights it saved the series from disappearing.

Fast forward to today and we see the franchise being returned back to its start with a story telling the origins of the Lara Croft we know and a side of here we haven't seen before. But will it be the final nail in the coffin or a glorious resurrection.

With a logo bearing no resemblance to its predecessors and a title which marks its reboot credentials even more so, Tomb Raider presents you a Lara who has yet to reach the levels of confidence we know her to have. Here she is a young girl with little experience of the world's we know her from. The story …

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Comments: 11

Sun Mar 10, 2013 10:56 pm by Riled Assassin

When Crysis was released back in 2007 it set the benchmark in terms of what was possible with games and is still used as a measure of quality now. With Crysis 3 being a multi format title can it measure up to the standard of its predecessor?

Crysis 3 takes place several decades after Crysis 2 and is set once again in the shattered remains of New York which now looks and feels more like a real jungle than a concrete one after having been left mostly abandoned for so long. We also get to see some interesting character from the original Crysis return Prophet and Psycho and given what happens to prophet in the 2nd game it leaves you starting the new game feeling there are a lot of question that need answering.



Crysis 3 does deliver with that as well as bringing a lot of new elements to the story it also helps tie up the loose ends from the first and second game which is good as there were a few. It also brings in some good new game play elements such as the predator bow for killing while in stealth mode. Hacking door locks, mines, turrets and more are also an interesting way of getting you to interact with the environment more and can alter the way you play and the routes you take when playing on larger and less linear designed maps.



The story has a greater depth than previous games due to the fact you get to discover more about the characters and their …

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Comments: 14

Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:36 pm by Waggly Bean

Developed by Candygun Games
Published by Kalypso
Price: 800MSP

If I had to explain Dollar Dash in short, I would suggest that is a hybrid of Bomberman and Bonanza Bros. Candygun Games' latest creation sees you take the role of one of four differently coloured robbers in an attempt to grab as much cash as possible. Let me get this straight though - there is no story here and no campaign mode either. What you get for your 800MSP is purely a party game.

Starting up the game you will be treated to a short introduction movie to set the scene. It's quite nicely made, and gives you a feel for the style of the game. The graphics are cartoony yet professional, and the cel-shaded characters and worlds have enough polish to make it visually appealing. In-game it is a top-down arena based affair, so characters can be quite small, but it all still looks nicely finished with lots of detail on each level.

Dollar Dash features three competitive game modes, each of which uses the same basic game mechanics, but still has just enough variation to justify it being its own game-mode. The first and most complex game mode is titled Dollar Dash. You can see that the most work has gone into this one, and could therefore consider it to be the main game-mode. It basically revolves around grabbing money that appears around the level, and taking it to the getaway vehicle to bank it. The first to 'bank' $5000 wins. Of course there is always a catch - you can actually beat the living hell out of each other in order to steal each others swag. …

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Comments: 9

Tue Mar 05, 2013 3:03 pm by Leigh36295

Developer: Platinum Games
Publisher: Konami

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is the latest game in the Metal Gear series, however it takes a completely different direction to previous games by focuing purely on fast paced hack & slash swordplay. It's developed by Platinum Games who also made Bayonetta and Vanquish so if you enjoyed any of them then you are likely to love this.

You play as Cyborg Ninja Raiden, who is working for the Private Military Company, Maverick Security, until a band of terrorirst cyborgs kidnap the prime minister that he was assigned to protect. I won't go too into the plot at risk of spoiling it for others, but it can be a rather dark story at times with a large part of it being based on child trafficking to steal brains to create a cyborg army.

Graphically it's the classic Metal Gear bland grey and white areas, it's nothing to shout home about but there are much worse looking games out there. However this graphical style seen to work perfectly and fits in with the high speed constant action. Music plays a big part with a strong heavy rock soundtrack during battles which fits perfectly with the game and keeps the intense fast paced action feeling flowing.

It can be a quite difficult game right from the start, with little explanation on how to do anything, the little it does show you is easily missed as it is just a small bit of text thrown on the screen while you are already in the midst of battle. I had to quickly watch a youtube …

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Comments: 4

Tue Feb 26, 2013 10:36 pm by Leigh36295

Developer: Visceral Games

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Dead Space 3 is the latest entry in Visceral Games 3rd-person survival horror series. You play once again as Engineer Isaac Clarke, who starts off hiding away from his past and growing a respectable beard, until he finds out his beloved ex-girlfriend Ellie has gone missing on the planet Tau Valantis, which could hold the key to finally destroying the Markers.

The one big difference between this game and past games, is that Visceral have decided to trade in the whole horror aspect for a more action packed, bigger guns, more enemies style. The main thing I liked about the first and second games was the crap your pants atmosphere and well timed scares, and although the shooting and killing was plentyful it never felt like there was too much and so the atmosphere remained throughout. Now, that one thing I really liked is basically gone, and instead I seemingly have to kill horde after horde of enemies, just to get a few more bullets to kill the next lot. But I'll get onto that later...

One thing I have to give credit to, is the graphics. Almost every minute of the game is visually stunning, even just bland gameplay sections set in corridors look amazing, with some of the best lighting I've ever seen in a game, but the big epic looking vistas of space with distant stars and planets were simply breathtaking and made me stop playing every so often just to take in the visuals.
Sound is very impressive too, but just doesn't have the same effect of fear of not knowing what …

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Comments: 4

Tue Feb 19, 2013 7:36 pm by TreeMunky

Developed by Zombie Studios

Published by Atari/MicroProse

Price: 1200 MS Points

‘Special Forces: Team X’ is an on-line only third person team centric shooter brought to you by Zombie Studios, the folks behind Blacklight. Customizable warfare against ‘politically acceptable’ enemies has arrived on XBLA.

An interesting take on the genre Special Forces: Team X doesn’t look or play like your average shooter. Born to a genre of overly serious military shooters, the launch video showcases a manic third person shooter that looks like the bastard offspring between GoW and Borderlands. Set in a not too distant future where urban warfare is dealt with by Chuck Norris clones and an endless supply of reckless (albeit stupid) attack dogs.

Chuck Norris or not, you’re a killing machine with a truck load of customization to take on the bad guys. These custom options let you do all manner of good things to your spec-ops persona ranging from new character skins, weapons and attachments and perks. These are tied into a levelling system with experience points given at the end of each match. You have the option to build two loadouts for selection before spawning into a match and when you inevitably die. Nicely laid out in the menus it is not too difficult to kit yourself out, however when you open up new items it was a pain to work out what you had been given.

Explosive finger pointing available at lvl 22

Level design is where Special Forces: Team X …

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Comments: 13

Sun Feb 03, 2013 2:25 pm by GrahamOfTheDead

SKULLS OF THE SHOGUN
Developer: 17-BIT
Publisher: MICROSOFT STUDIOS
Price: 1200MSP

You're a samurai general. You arrive on the shores of the afterlife and meet up with other recently deceased samurai. Betrayed, you're seeking revenge and nobody will stand in your way. Welcome to the turn-based world of Skulls of the Shogun.

Sounds pretty good right? Sounds like it could be a pretty brutal story. Well, think again because this tale is told in an art style that wouldn't be out of place on Nickleodeon or CBBC. Don't run off just yet though, because although it may look like a Saturday morning cartoon it simply exists to make this deep and intriguing game even more accessible than it otherwise may have been.

Skulls of the Shogun has been a long time coming. It's well over 2 years since the game was first revealed and a launch date alongside Windows 8 came and went without sight nor sound of either a skull, or indeed a shogun. Delays in this case though were understandable, as Skulls of the Shogun wasn't just launching on XBLA, but on Windows 8 and Windows Phone as well...all with the promise of cross-platform play.

Well finally the game has arrived, so how does the XBLA version stack up?

Short answer? Very well indeed.

The turn-based strategy genre seems as though it's been relatively underserved of late. Civilization is probably the standout title in the history of …

Fri Jan 25, 2013 6:43 pm by Tenlo

Developer: Double Fine

Publisher: SEGA

Price: 1200MSP

Ron Gilbert may not be a name which instantly springs to mind, however the games he has created certainly will. With a resume including Manic Mansion, it's sequel Day of the Tentacle, recent XBLA title Death Spank as well as its sequel Thongs of Virtue and of course the famous Monkey Island series, Ron Gilbert has a fine history in gaming. So when it was announced he would be creating a brand new game with Monkey Island co-creator Tim Schafer's company Double Fine, people paid attention. Now The Cave is here, but the question is does it stand up to the legacy of Ron Gilbert's previous games.

The Cave is a game which could be called the modern successor of the Adventure game. You choose three out of a total of seven characters to enter The Cave (who provides its own narration – yes, its a talking cave) and then proceed to travel throughout the cave solving puzzles and finding out more about your chosen characters as you progress. Each character has his or her own special ability which really comes into play in their specific puzzle areas, such as the Hillbilly breathing underwater indefinitely or the protection from damage the Knight has. Many of these abilities will only be of use in their particular area but many can be used to your advantage in other puzzle areas too.

Fans of adventure games will be either …

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Comments: 10

Wed Jan 09, 2013 10:26 pm by Colne Crusader

A Game By:Vblank Entertainment
Price:800MSP

Aaaah the good old days! As you get older and more decrepit, you start to think more and more about your mortality, and start wishing you were younger. I always wish that we’d had the kind of amazing tech we have today back when I was a kid playing on my £2.99 Casio Calculator watch, or playing 16 Kilobyte games on my black and white TV! How did we get by without it?!! I’ll tell you what though, I’m so glad I’m an old fart, because it means that I was there to experience the great days of early video gaming, and I can play those old classics now and revel in the nostalgic glow that these young whippersnappers simply can’t experience because they weren’t there the first time round! Perhaps they have their games that they will look back on warmly in years to come like Call Of Duty 2 or Half Life, or Gears, but I have it all baby!!! So there!! Thank-you mummy for bothering to conceive me back in 76!

Retro City Rampage is a tongue in cheek parody of open world action games, and is presented in a retro style as though it was pulled straight from those heady days of which I speak.

The idea for this one man project was initially conceived back in 2002. Brian Provinciano decided he would try and re-create Grand Theft Auto III on the 8-bit Nes console. He called it Grand Theftendo.

The project grew and evolved as he began adding references and testimonies to his favourite characters from video games and movies, and it eventually became a full time project. Retro …

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Comments: 9

Fri Dec 21, 2012 11:08 pm by Colne Crusader

A game by: Grasshopper Manufacture
Published By: Digital Reality
Price: 800MSP

Black Knight Sword is retro platform cum hack and Slash side scroller, which delivers old school sensibilities and a disturbing macabre setting, with none of these attributes being for the faint hearted!

Everything starts off relatively nicely. The game is well presented as a theatre production. The stage curtains frame the screen at all times and while you wait for the game to load, you can hear the audience chunner and musicians preparing. As the curtain draws back however, you get the first glimpse of the game's dark mood, as your character becomes the black Knight, with powers bestowed by some kind of little sprite type creature who accompanies you along your journey. Very little else is known at this point, or any point throughout the game! The plot is deliberately non existent and only adds to the atmosphere, as you are left to conjour your own story for this faceless Black Knight. As you leave the opening room, you find yourself traversing a tutorial section with one dimensional interior stage sets and props popping up everywhere. Next you find that doors used to progress are presented as colourful medieval jousting tents, before you are thrust into a dark and grimy exterior noire with sillouhetted buildings visible in the twilight yonder, as you are attacked by a range of odd cardboard cut out characters pulled straight from one of Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animations. Just as you think you are residing in some kind of …

Mon Nov 12, 2012 3:29 pm by GrahamOfTheDead

Developer: M2
Publisher: SEGA
Price: 800MSP

Ahh...the 90's. They have a lot to answer for. Colour-changing t-shirts. MC Hammer. Mr Blobby. But one of the highlights was the 16-bit gaming era. This was the time when Sega were at their peak and the Mega Drive (Genesis to our transatlantic cousins) was the console of choice for a lot of gamers.

While they may be out of the hardware game now, Sega are still around and of late they have been revisiting their glory days with the Sega Vintage Collection releases. The latest of which is ToeJam & Earl, a bundle of the two games Sega put out in the early 90's.

It has taken a while for these games to make it to Xbox Live. A couple of years ago Sega held a survey about which classic game people would like to see re-released on XBLA and ToeJam & Earl was a resounding winner. So...what exactly are these games all about then?

From 1991, the original game follows the exploits of the titular alien rappers (yup!) after they crash their ship on Earth. What follows is what can only be described as one of the most surreal moments in gaming. At it's heart, ToeJam & Earl is a top-down 'dungeon crawler'. Each level begins completely undiscovered and has you exploring for the elevator to the next level and the missing ship parts. However there are obstacles in your way in the form of the bad guys....from groups of nerds, gophers, mailboxes. It seems everything on …

Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:32 pm by Ba5sett

Developed by EA Canada
Published by EA Sports
Review by Ba5sett

Another year another and another instalment of EA’s FIFA franchise hits the shelves, for most FIFA and football fans the updated team rosters will be enough to justify the purchase but despite the lack of any huge changes such as last year’s physics engine and complete overhaul of the defending (although these have both been tweaked and improved) there are a number of new gameplay improvements that give this year’s game the edge over FIFA 12.



The first major change this year is something that EA calls ‘first touch control’ this changes the way that each player receives the ball based on a number of factors such as the speed and trajectory of the pass and the skill levels of each player. A simple pass across the ground is likely to be controlled first time while a 30 yard one smashed across the pitch is going to be harder to control and may result in the ball bouncing off in an unexpected direction, sometimes this works in your favour sometimes it doesn’t but it adds a new layer of realism to the game and introduces an element of controlled randomness that makes each match more dynamic

The second of the headline features this year is ‘attacking intelligence’ this is basically an improvement to cpu player AI. Your team mates are now a lot smarter than in previous games they will make more runs off the ball and get into better positions for passes, …

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Comments: 7

Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:57 pm by KENT HAMMER

Developer: 343 Industries

Publisher: Microsoft Studios

This Review is brought to you by Kent Hammer Productions

HALO 4 is not as it turns out about a Master Chef and his love of his old Ford Cortina, but is in fact a futuristic sci-fi romance between one man army Master Chief and his beloved Cortana an AI sidekick.

This game is both EPIC and Orchestral in size and scope, even if you just leave it sitting on the start screen you feel uplifted and inspired by the sounds that flow over you.

Without question this is the fps game of the year, it makes the storyline in Gears 3 seem small and lacking in scope and vision.

Here you will experience extreme struggle with your fellow Spartans or feel the odds are insurmountable as your one man army ploughs a lone furrow against the evil alien horde.

This time around Master Chief returns to conquer new enemies and mind blowing new technology after finding himself shipwrecked on a mysterious world. With only his extremely hot and sexy blue AI Cortana and her buns of steel to guide and inspire him on his quest.

The campaign can be played with upto 4 players or as I did with my review copy, solo against the universe! I elected to play on normal difficulty and even this was a great challenge at times with multiple deaths and start again from the save point shenanigans.

I don't want to ruin any of the awesome story or plot twists but lets just say you will smegging love it!

Your journey will take you through foggy jungles …

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Comments: 25

Tue Oct 30, 2012 9:43 am by Tenlo

Developers: Cyanide Studios & Spiders

Publisher: Focus Home Interactive

Orcs have for many years always been seen as the bad guys in fiction. Since Tolkien coined the name in his tales, they have always been the brutish warriors of fantasy, ruthlessly destroying everything in their path. However in recent years this has changed. The Warcraft series showed the Orcs steadily in a different light and the Orcs book series by Stan Nicholls reinforced this view. Now we have Of Orcs and Men which follows this theme and shows Orcs in a far from traditional light.

In Of Orcs and Men, the Emperor of man has decided to take a grudge against the Orcs and sets out to murder or enslave the entire population of Orcs. The nature loving, shamanistic tribes of Orcs are unsurprisingly a bit miffed and so for the last decade the warring nations have fought with the humans slowly winning the conflict. It’s now down to a last ditch attempt by the elite Blood jaws to assassinate the Emperor and end this war before the Emperor forms an alliance with the Dwarves and Elves to wipe out the remaining population of Orcs.

In game you play as Arkail, a Blood jaw Orc who suffers from berserker rages when pushed too far, and Styx, the only Goblin in existence who can talk and has intelligence and Arkail’s guide through the human lands. It’s this unlikely pairing which have been tasked with assassinating the …

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Comments: 9

Wed Oct 24, 2012 10:25 pm by TreeMunky

Developed by Croteam

Published by Devolver Digital

Price: 1200 MS Points

‘Serious Sam 3: BFE is a glorious throwback to the golden age of first-person shooters where men were men, cover was for amateurs and pulling the trigger made things go boom. Serving as a prequel to Serious Sam: The First Encounter, Serious Sam 3 takes place during the Earth’s final struggle against Mental’s invading legions of beasts and mercenaries.’ A port of the PC version Serious Sam 3 BFE has hit XBLA.

Once upon a time a first-person shooter didn’t need to be intelligent blockbuster hit with big budgets about honor or duty. No siree a tried and tested formula of big guns with bigger explosions, blood and guts, adrenaline filled music with sound effects to boot and hordes of aliens with intergalactic PCP habits hell bent on ripping your head off and $#!&ting down your neck was all that was needed! Oh a really serious badass protagonist always helped. Well Sam Stone is a badass indeed and anything but PC. The games opening cinematic finds you in a chopper over familiar sandy territory with Sam enlightening his pilot that he should be ‘doing blow off a stripper’s ass right now’. Welcome to Serious Sam 3 BFE, the opening cut scene sets the flavour of this first-person shooter throwback.

Our hero lamenting lost opportunities of blow covered hooker asses.

Gameplay kicks off when an attack on your chopper dumps you onto the rooftop of Cairo apartment block …

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Comments: 8

Wed Oct 24, 2012 6:04 pm by KENT HAMMER

Developer: Turn 10 and Playground games
Publisher: Microsoft

I have been racking my brains thinking of the best way to describe this awesome new racing game from Microsoft, then it came to me!

Basically if Forza Horizon was a movie it would be the “Hangover” because its multi layered and more details unravel and reveal themselves as you race through the game.

Its like Forza Motorsport 4, NFS Hot Pursuit, DiRT 3, Burnout Paradise and Test Drive Unlimited 2 all went on weekender bender to Las Vegas!

Forza was downing the tequila, Need For did indeed score some speed, DiRT was chugging back twenty beers with whisky chasers, Burnout got a slap for feeling up Test Drive, it was carnage! 8-)

Then they all woke up the next day with throbbing melons, desperately trying to piece together what the hell happened the night before.

A couple of months later Forza realises she is up the duff and then seven months more and we have a little baby- FORZA HORIZON!

The least said about how Forza got preggars and by who the better as this is a family site *-) But a few of the lads looked very sheepish!

The good news is we do now have FH in the world and its a better place for it.
If you liked the cars and driving engine from Forza 4 but found it abit dull and repetitive then you are going to love this game just as much as I do.

Its got everything good from every driving game you have ever played all rolled into one.

The setting this time around is in Colorado and its a huge open world expanse with which to race and chase on.
…

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Comments: 28

Tue Oct 23, 2012 2:17 pm by TheTCD

Developer: EXOR Studios

Publisher: Cyberfront Corporation

Price: 800MSP

It is probably not disingenuous to say that the vehicular combat genre has been tried many times over the years by developers of all calibres, to varying degrees of success. For every Twisted Metal or Micro Machines that ably demonstrates how well the concept can be executed, there is an inferior counterpart that could convince you otherwise. Now the relatively unknown Polish developer EXOR Studios has thrown their hat in the ring, but have attempted their own spin on proceedings by adding everyone's “favourite” doomsday plot device, Zombies.

The story involves a disastrous chemical accident that turns almost an entire city into ravenous, flesh-hungry monsters, and as a civilian survivor you find yourself tasked with running errands for the military in a bid to stem the tide of shamblers and save the day. It's fairly standard apocalypse material by any measure, but honestly I doubt even the developers would try to convince you that it's anything other than a flimsy premise to put you in a car and have you kill everything that moves. Sure, you're given briefings between missions that will tell you about the unfolding disaster, but anyone expecting gripping narrative and strong character development will be sorely disappointed. This is one game where brains are best disengaged on entry, and I don't think it would be discrediting anyone involved in its …

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Comments: 15

Fri Oct 19, 2012 10:42 am by Tenlo

Developer: Arkane Studios

Publisher: Bethesda

In the usual build-up to Christmas there is always a huge rush of sequels heading out for the public to buy. However this year Arkane Studios and Bethesda have decided to break the mould and release a brand new IP in the pre-xmas rush, but is it good enough to compete against the established big franchises.

The storyline has a familiar ring to it as you play the role of Corvo Attano, the Royal Protector, who gets accused of a crime he didn’t commit and gets thrown into prison. From here you have to escape and wreck either a bloody or bloodless revenge upon your enemies. This choice to play as lethal or non-lethal assassin brings us to the most important point about Dishonored, the variety of the gameplay.
As you could expect from a development team including the co-creator of Deus Ex, every mission has a variety of different ways to be completed. You can go full on sneaky mode and try to avoid killing anyone or even being spotted and be richly rewarded for doing so, or you can go full on psycho killer and murder everyone in sight. Or you can go for somewhere between the two, the choice is all yours and all methods are viable.

Originally I adopted a stealthy approach avoiding all killing and trying not to be spotted by enemies and thoroughly enjoyed it. I then decided to go back and go all out blood lust in my second play through and it was like playing a completely different game. But they both worked well even though they were two …

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Comments: 15

Mon Oct 15, 2012 10:44 am by Tenlo

Developer: Behaviour Interactive

Publisher: 505 Games

Price: 1200MSP

If you go down to the tropical island woods today, you’re likely to find a multitude of mutilated corpses and general property destruction as Naughty Bear has made his return to Xbox via the Xbox Live Arcade.

For those who didn’t know Naughty Bear started off as a retail release back in 2010 and received mediocre reviews due to some glaring gameplay issues, although the concept of the idea was praised. Move forward two years and we’re presented with its XBLA sequel Naughty Bear: Panic in Paradise. But has it learnt from its mistakes and improved.

The story is quite simple and explains that all the teddy bears have gone on holiday to Paradise Island but have purposefully not invited Naughty Bear. Naughty Bear finds this quite offensive and in typical behaviour heads off to Paradise Island to explain how upset he is by causing fatal bodily harm on as many bears as possible in a multitude of inventive ways.

The gameplay consists of mixture of Metal Gear Solid meets Hitman as you’ll spend your time hiding in the woods before sneaking up on unsuspecting teddy bears, grabbing them by the throat and then using various weapons and environment objects to murder them violently. What makes this trickier is the various guard bears will attack you on sight and while to begin with the guards will just knock …

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Comments: 13

Mon Oct 15, 2012 10:35 am by Ba5sett

Developed by Arkedo Studios
Published by Sega
Review by Ba5sett

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Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit is a 2D side scrolling platform adventure game from small French developer Arkedo studios and published by Sega.

You play through the game as a rabbit called Ash who also happens to be the crown prince of hell; Ash gets snapped in the bath with a rubber duck by a paparazzi who posts the pictures all over the hellternet (no I am not making this up!). By the time Ash finds out 100 hellizens have viewed the pictures so Ash sets out to kill them all and restore his reputation.

So crazy story out of the way Hell Yeah is basically a 2D side scrolling platform adventure in which you must hunt down and kill the 100 monsters in question. The game proudly wears its influences on its sleeve, Ash’s repertoire of moves come straight from the 16 bit classics, he has Metroid’s shooting and double jump, Sonic’s spin dash and Mario’s wall jump, and the whole hunt and collect (or kill in this case) is reminiscent of pokemon. Being a child of the Megadrive / Snes era I found this to be a hugely fun return to the type of games that I grew up on.



The game is split into a series of gated levels you must hunt and kill all of the monsters in a particular area in order to open the gate and move on to the next, I sometimes wondered if it would have been more satisfying to remove the gates and have the game as a huge open hunt for the 100 monsters but the gating system does keep the game flowing and helps to …

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Comments: 15

Sun Oct 14, 2012 12:06 am by Slayer1189

Developer: SEGA
Publisher: SEGA
Price: 800MSP

First released on the Dreamcast back in 2001, Sonic Adventure 2 has returned on XBLA. The Battle content from the Gamecube release is also available for the extra cost of 240 MSP. Sonic Adventure 2 is a huge sonic game content-wise and was received very well back in 2001. Does it still fare well? Do you have what it takes to collect all 180 emblems to unlock a secret gift?

Sonic Adventure 2 has a unique story as far as Sonic games go. You can choose to play the Hero side (controlling Sonic, Tails and Knuckles) or the Dark side (controlling Shadow, Dr Eggman and Rouge). Each side of the story has its own set of levels – therefore playing through as each side is needed for a full experience – all of which are executed in 3 main styles. Other than this feature of playing Hero or Dark, the story is the ‘tried and tested’ formula that Dr Eggman wants the Chaos Emeralds and it’s up to Sonic and friends to stop him.

Though the Hero story sees the return of 3 very familiar faces (I’m almost certain my gran could identify Sonic, Tails and Knuckles ), two of the characters present in the Dark side are not as well known… in fact, Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat made their first appearance in the original release of Sonic Adventure 2 way back in 2001, though they have both re-appeared since in other Sonic titles.

Shadow is an artificially created life-form who bears a large resemblance to Sonic. He manages to attain the speed of Sonic by using hover shoes in …

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Comments: 14

Fri Oct 12, 2012 6:23 pm by KENT HAMMER

Kent Hammer's Rocksmith journey- Day One

Firstly a big thanks to the guys at Ubisoft for sending me my review copy of Rocksmith and the cable to plug my guitar in.
You have now set me off on a wonderful yet scary and daunting adventure to try and become an axeman!

Right, first things first I need to buy a cheap guitar!
I searched the net and found a cool blue epiphone guitar that took my fancy and ordered it from reddog music.

Here's a pic of her lying naked on my leather sofa, untouched and yet to be broken in-

the second image is of her flipped over, so you can check out her behind.

I am sure you will agree she is a looker and £99 well spent!

The next thing you have to do is stick the little numbers on your neck so that you know which fret is which when playing the game.
This system works well but you have to take only quick looks or you will start missing notes and boy how I missed notes!

I must mention at this point that I am not in my first flush of youth and I have never played guitar of the non plasticky fisher price variety before!
So this is a real stretch for me and will be a battle to hang on in there.

I loaded up the game and was immediately hit with the tuning screen, strum each string and then turn the knobs on the headstock to until you get a zero on the screen. Quite easy and simple and made me feel like I knew what I was doing(this …

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Comments: 47

Wed Oct 10, 2012 11:33 pm by Colne Crusader

Release date:October 10 2012
Developed by:Warner Bros. Interactive
Published by:Team-17
Price:1200MSP

The Worms series of games have been around for about 17 years now. It is a highly regarded series and I’m sure every gamer in the land has at least heard of, if not played at least one Worms game. Worms Revolution is the latest in the Franchise that now spans nearly 20 games. Published by Team-17 the legendary Commodore Amiga developers, known more recently on Xbox for the Alien Breed games on XBLA, it is a Turn based strategy game in which you pit your team of worms against an opposing spine free force over various fields of battle. To aid you in combat, a plethora of items and weapons can be employed on each turn, from Bazookas to farting old ladies!! The strategy comes from knowing where to position your worms, which objects to use and when, and utilizing the environment!

This latest iteration thankfully leaves the 3D efforts behind and sticks to the much loved 2D perspective where you can glance over the entire game area, which I always think is essential for Worms. The gameplay is instantly recognizable as Classic Worms, however there are a couple of additions to proceedings that change things. First up is the addition of classes. You can now choose from four worm varieties. Soldiers are the normal worms, Scouts are faster and lighter; They can jump further and fall further without damage. Scouts are a pleasure to move around the field as they seem …

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Comments: 9

Mon Oct 08, 2012 12:00 pm by GrahamOfTheDead

Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Price: 800MSP

The Sega Saturn. Not a very fondly remembered console, perhaps unfairly in retrospect. However despite it's relatively short lifespan it did play host to several classic games.

One of those games was the 1996 release Nights into Dreams, developed by Sonic Team. The game revolves around the dreamworlds of Nightopia and Nightmare and involves the evil ruler of Nightmare, Wizeman, as he attempts to take over Nightopia and eventually the real world. There is also a lot of backstory about representations of dream personalities and other things, but it isn't really of consequence as the game gets by without really divulging much story.

You initially control one of two children (Elliot and Claris) who escape into Nightopia while suffering nightmares. They end up releasing Nights, a "Nightmaren" created by Wizeman who has rebeled against him. By walking up to Nights, you release him from captivity and then you take control of him instead. This results in the main crux of the game as you guide Nights through a variety on-rails flying section to release the orbs that represent the kids dream personalities. Successfully complete the 4 sections in a stage and you will then engage in a boss fight.

At first glance, with only a handful of stages the game can seem short and truthfully there isn't really a lot of content here, but Nights comes …

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Comments: 3

Tue Oct 02, 2012 8:57 pm by KENT HAMMER

Borderlands 2
Developer: Gearbox Software
Publisher: 2K Games

Welcome to Pandora, You are truly in for a running, gunning, rooting, tooting and looting experience of a lifetime!

Borderlands 2 is not just a game, its a way of life for me now. If this was an episode of Red Dwarf it would be “Better than Life”, because you just never want to leave.

Today I was playing online with my brother and some mates and we all went the whole day without remembering to eat any food or peel ourselves off the sofa to get a drink or even take a pee!

This game takes grip and does not let go.
Its bigger and badder than the original and I smegging love it!!!

This time around the story is set five years after the original. We have 4 new vault hunters battling to free Pandora from the clutches of the Evil Handsome Jack!
Handsome Jack wants to waken an ancient alien evil only known as “The Warrior”.

You can choose to follow the story alone or play upto 4 player online co-op and 2 player split screen or a combo of both. I have played through once on my own where I really drank in all the storyline and laughed at all the awesome jokes and funny shit that happened. Plus I have another play through with a different toon that I use for online co-op goodness.

The characters offer great scope for variety in gameplay and are as follows-

First up we have Axton the Commando whose special ability is his Scorpio Turret that he can throw down and it will unleash all kinds of hell on …

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Comments: 26

Sun Sep 30, 2012 9:42 am by Tenlo

The Eurogamer Expo is the largest game convention in the UK and now in its fifth year is still growing stronger. On Friday I travelled up to London to experience my first ever Eurogamer Expo and to be honest my first convention.

After traversing the ever enjoyable underground system I arrived at the back-end of Earl’s Court to find some impressive sized queues already, but due to some excellent organisation by the staff entry was quick and simple and on time. They even gave away freebies for all us early entry and press members.

Once in the it was quite impressive to begin with on how much had been packed into the building. It took me a good few hours to get my head round the set-up of the place but as I was on a mission to play certain games they were my first call.

First on my list was the new Tomb Raider game so off I went to find the game and see whether Lara Croft had been done justice. The demo itself was a pre-beta version of an early part of the game. Thankfully it was not the demo shown off so many times in E3 and other conventions already of Lara escaping from being captured but showed off some of the meat put on the game by its new open world setting.

The first thing to note is that the game looks amazing, especially considering this was pre-beta gameplay. Lara looks like someone who is afraid and injured and reacts accordingly, and the in-game cut scenes added to atmosphere and really drew you in. Crystal Dynamics have done a fantastic job of making Lara feel realistic with little …

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Comments: 15

Wed Sep 26, 2012 7:49 pm by TheTCD

Developer: Blit Software

Publisher: Sega

Price: 800MSP

After much clamouring from fans, Sega has bowed to demand and is releasing a trio of classic games from it's back catalogue onto the Xbox Live Arcade. The first to arrive being Jet Set Radio. Initially released on the Sega Dreamcast back in 2000, the game sold relatively poorly but amassed a cult following due to it's unique presentation and compelling score attack gameplay. Sega had their work cut out for them if they were to deliver the port that fans would expect, and after their butchering of Crazy Taxi, and the solid but underwhelming attempts at Sonic Adventure and Sega Bass Fishing, anyone would be forgiven for thinking that this particular project would be doomed from the outset, right? Wrong. Sega have learned their lessons, and have set out to show their new found focus.

I should probably get this out of the way first; this game is hard. Brutally hard. It's a 12 year old game and it shows, as absolutely NO concessions are made to the audiences of today. No checkpoints, no 'restart level' option on the pause menu, and combined with a steep learning curve and overall difficulty, this game could quite possibly alienate a lot more people than it will charm, a statement that totally belies it's cult status. A little perseverance goes a long way however, and with some practice you'll have the basics of the game under your belt, and will be able to play the game with some semblance of competence. You aren't going to be able to breeze …

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Comments: 18

Tue Sep 25, 2012 10:47 pm by TreeMunky

Developed by Lexis Numerique

Published by Namco Bandai

Price: 800 MS Points


Red Johnson Chronicles - One Against All is a 'puzzle investigation' point and click game that is the sequel to a 2011 PS3 exclusive.


It started out like any other day…

RJC follows the story of Red a young red-headed Private Investigator as he kind of cleans up the city of Metropolis. The game opens with a film noir inspired scene used as a vehicle to steer you through the plot of the first game (I'm none the wiser to be fair). The story finds you in Metropolis, an alternate Soviet city in the grip of the enigmatic kingpin ‘Uncle Teddy’. While dodging Uncle Teddy’s $150’000 bounty on your head (dollars possibly being what makes Metropolis an alternative Soviet city?) Red finds out his brother has been kidnapped by almost necking his severed finger in a frosty cold one at Duncan’s Place and so begins ‘One Against All’….

Duncan's Bar where panty sniffing PIs like to hideout

Game play is split between action cut scenes, puzzle environments and interrogation sequences. The action cut scenes (QTE) were frustrating for me; they popped up unexpectedly and were sometimes so quick I hadn’t even spotted the button press required. This meant doing the QTE again, with a different sequence of button presses! But these are few and far between so my failure was short lived. The puzzles to find and solve are …

Mon Sep 24, 2012 8:02 pm by KENT HAMMER

After 2010's stellar Transformers release, High Moon Studios knew they needed to step up their game for this one. They certainly do not disappoint, as Fall Of Cybertron is the best Transformers game ever made, and is one of the best 3PS games in recent memory.

Single-Player: Rather than letting players choose which faction to start with, and which iconic character to play as, HMS made this one more linear. Now before you start ranting of how bad this decision is, let me say that it actually helps the gameplay to feel more varied and unique. In War for Cybertron, after playing half the game, we had really played all of it. The game had two first levels, two second levels and so on. Additionally, this game does not waste "chapters" for boss fights, so the game is longer. The story spans 13 different chapters, and lets us play as at least 10 different transformers. Optimus Prime and Megatron each have two levels, but some fan favourites are also present too. Finally we get to play as Transformers such as Cliffjumper, Vortex, Swindle, and Jazz. We also get to play as Bruticus, and Grimlock.....yes, Grimlock. He has one of the best sequences in the game, and chapter 12 is all about the Dinobots and their origins. It is worked perfectly into the storyline, and the impact is certainly felt. 

Variety is the name of the game here, and the transitions between characters and levels are perfect. One level we are Optimus Prime, using Metroplex to call in air strikes on the Decepticons, but then the next level we …

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Comments: 6

Mon Sep 24, 2012 8:13 am by Tenlo

Developer: Wizarbox

Publisher: Focus Home Interactive

Price: 1200MSP

Hack n slash games although having a very limited range of gameplay have remained very popular over the years and many of us still have fond memories of the original king of this genre, Gauntlet. Although we were promised a version of Diablo 3 on consoles, it has yet to arrive and with the lack of any decent contenders does Wizarbox’s Realm of Ancient War stand tall to take the crown.

Well things start off well with Wizarbox sticking to the tried and tested formula of three classes of warrior to choose from. You have the melee focused Warrior, range attack master Wizard and the general all rounder Rogue. The game itself is very similar no matter which character you choose apart from the opening prologue levels changing (in fact a script error meant that one character believed that the Rogue was a man!) and to be honest the story itself is a fairly predictable and familiar tale of saving the world from evil.

However story and classes are not the main importance of hack n slash games and RAW shows its influences proudly. Although the looting is reminiscent of Diablo I was often reminded of Gauntlet more often while playing due to the sometimes huge amount of enemies on screen at once. You will pretty much spend most of your time hammering at the buttons to destroy creatures as soon as possible before you get swamped by the hordes.

The …

Sat Sep 15, 2012 3:18 pm by Slayer1189

Developer: WayForward
Publisher: Majesco
Price: 800MSP

Double Dragon was one of the first brawler games ever. Its success made it a staple for the future games of the genre, such as Streets of Rage, Final Fight and Golden axe. Double Dragon: Neon aims to kick life into the old dog without teaching many new tricks. The result of which is hoped to be a fresh new game which is bursting with old skool flavour! Does it deliver? Can old skool gameplay still make the cut in modern day gaming? Let’s find out!

The story revolves around the cliché ‘girl gets kidnapped, best go save her’ theme with the Damsel – Marian - being kidnapped by the badass skeleton, Skullmageddon. The game then takes a very humorous path with many jokes and references to the 80’s era. Humour plays a strong part in every aspect of Double Dragon: NEON and the mockery present is ‘so bad it’s good’ in my book and had me chuckling away as I played.

Gameplay is the main constituent to a good brawler and Double Dragon: Neon gives a big metaphorical nod of the head to the early days. The gameplay is very old skool and could easily be compared to the original Double Dragon games, Final Fight and the Streets of Rage series. With the developers aiming to create a 2012 release that stays true to its roots, don’t expect to see too many new developments. The game has inherited the good, the bad and ugly from the older games but still managed to infuse some new gameplay features.

There is …

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Comments: 7

Sun Sep 09, 2012 12:13 pm by Tenlo

Developed By: Qooc Soft

Published By: 7Sixty

Price: 800MSP

Chinese Kung-Fu films have always had a special place in my heart. From my introduction to the genre with Enter the Dragon by my granddad to the over the top antics of Chinese Ghost Story and The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk series, I’ve always been a fan of these films. So when I heard there was going to be an XBLA title based on this style of film I was eagerly anticipating it.

Any fan of the genre will soon recognise which type of tale Kung-Fu Strike tells pretty early on. You play General Loh who travels to the home of his teacher, Master Mo, to establish a base against the rebel forces but learns of a much darker secret which will lead him on a path of destruction to enact revenge and retribution. The story itself is told via a series of drawn panels along with subtitles shown during the loading screens. All these panels are styled in a similar fashion to Chinese paintings and calligraphy and compliment the feel of the story perfectly.

Gameplay consists of a series of arena-style levels where you will face waves of enemies which need to be defeated to move on. You will also regularly come across various boss battles which range from unique enemies to powerful versions of previous enemies you’ve come across. The combat system itself is very cleverly designed allowing people to pick up the basic controls very quickly but to traverse the later levels will require not only a good understanding of the intricacies of the combat system but also …

Sat Sep 01, 2012 2:47 pm by GrahamOfTheDead

Developer: Harmonix
Publisher: Harmonix
Price: 1200MSP

Music games. For a while there they were pretty much everywhere. The Guitar Hero franchise was absolutely massive and Rock Band wasn't far behind. And then....nothing. No entry in either series for a couple of years after poor sales for the last instalments, which was a shame as both had developed their own identities and delivered probably their best games yet.

So, that brings us to 2012. Rock Band 3 is still supported by a regular stream of DLC, but not a peep from Guitar Hero since 2010. Is the time right for a music game renaissance? Probably not, but Harmonix have gone and made a new Rock Band game anyway.

However, Rock Band Blitz does things differently. While it may bear a familiar name, it actually owes a lot to Harmonix's earlier efforts such as Frequency and Amplitude and the handheld Rock Band Unplugged. Don't own any instrument controllers? Never got on with the singing side of previous Rock Bands? Just plain sucked at the drums? That's fine. Rock Band Blitz is the most accessible Rock Band game yet. All you need is the game and your bog standard controller.

Rhythm/Music games have always been tricky prospects when using a standard controller. A lot of the time, the controls don't match up with where you instictively want to press. Harmonix have overcome this in a deceptively simple way.

As with previous Rock Band games, each song is split into up to five tracks …

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Comments: 9

Wed Aug 22, 2012 1:55 pm by Ba5sett

Developed by 5th Cell

Review by Ba5sett

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Hybrid is a third person cover based online shooter from developer 5th Cell previously known for their entertaining DS and iOS puzzle game Scribblenauts which allowed you to conjure up pretty much any object that you wanted to get past the various traps and puzzles in each level. Hybrid is a fairly big departure from their previous game but maintains the developers desire to do things a bit differently.



The story in Hybrid is fairly generic and only really serves as an excuse to set up the action, taking place at some unspecified point in the future, humanity is under attack by an alien race called the Variants and uses its own army the Paladins to fight back.

Matches in Hybrid take the form of squad based 3 vs 3 matches with all of the modes that are now standard for any online shooter: team deathmatch, king of the hill, base capture, capture the flag etc etc.. The main difference in Hybrid is the way that you move your avatar around the screen. Being a third person cover based shooter I was expecting the game to play a bit like gears but in reality it couldn’t be any different. Ground movement has been completely removed from the game, you have a jetpack but can only fly from one cover spot to another. It’s a strange departure especially with us all being hard wired into a certain way of playing from years of Gears of War, Mass Effect and all of the other similar games out there but in practice it actually …

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Comments: 6

Wed Aug 15, 2012 9:54 pm by GrahamOfTheDead

Developer: Humble Hearts
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Price: 1200MSP

Sometimes, with blockbuster releases like Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty and Halo stealing all the headlines, you tend to forget what gaming is all about and where it began. Back in the day, there weren't teams of hundreds working on titles.....more often than not you'd be able to count development teams on one hand. Hell, it wasn't uncommon for some of the most popular titles to be the work of one guy programming in their bedroom.

That brings us to Dust: An Elysian Tail. This is the work of developer Humble Hearts......essentially just one guy, artist and animator Dean Dodrill. Initially, the game was going to come out via the Xbox Live Indie Games channel, but after winning Microsoft's 'Dream.Build.Play' contest in 2009 it became a full Xbox Live Arcade release. The game arrives finally in 2012, pride of place as one of the standout titles of the 'Summer of Arcade' promotion.

You control the title character, Dust, an amnesiac warrior in search of his true identity who teams up with sidekick Fidget and talking sword the Blade of Ahrah, on a journey to uncover his past while assisting the innocent citizens of Falana who are under assault from a mysterious enemy. I'll refrain from going in to any more detail regarding the plot as that is one of the games biggest selling points.

It sounds like a standard action-RPG plot...and for the most part it is, but what sets …

Wed Aug 01, 2012 8:07 pm by Tenlo

Developer: Tequila Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Price: 1200MSP

Ahh the 80’s - famous for bad hair styles, over the top clothing, giant mobile phones and the zombie uprising. Oh hang on, maybe not the last one unless you’re playing Deadlight. Yep, it’s time to go back in time and survive the zombie apocalypse once again but this time in the era that time tried to forget.

The story revolves around Randall Wayne, a forest ranger, who has been split from his family and has travelled to Seattle to try and find them in what is reported to be the last safe place in America. As you can imagine though this is not going to be that easy as there are tons of Shadows (as we all know the term zombie is SO last year!) and Randall has to jump, climb and fight his way through the undead masses to try and find his wife and daughter.

The gameplay itself is very reminiscent of Another World, the cult classic from the early 90’s, as well as visually. You play from a side-on view of the world but much like the recent Shadow Complex there is plenty of detail going on in both the background and foreground as well. The main portion of the game will have you guiding Randall through the landscape climbing around and jumping from platform to platform to continue on but more importantly avoiding the Shadows which swarm everywhere.

The combat in the game leans towards the realistic approach and as such Randall can hold his own against a single Shadow (and with the aid of guns 3-4 at most) but against …

Sat Jul 28, 2012 1:01 pm by Slayer1189

Developer: Iron Galaxy Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Price: 800MSP

Wreckateer is the second game to be released as part of the ‘Summer of Arcade’ line-up for 2012. It is a Kinect required game in which the object of the game is to launch boulders with different power-ups at Goblin castles to cause as much destruction as possible. Sound familiar? Well, it should! Wreckateer is basically a 3D version of the hit game, Angry Birds. It plays in a similar manner but through Kinect rather than the touch controls of a smartphone.

Wreckateer is also one of the first games to feature ‘Avatar Famestar’ support, a service which will be incorporated into more titles. This service rewards players with ‘Fame’ points for meeting requirements similar to achievement requirements. These points can then be used to purchase Avatar awards including full outfits. Full details can be found here.

The tale starts with you getting accepted for your first trials in wrecking. Experts Wreck and Tinker guide you through a tutorial on how to become a Wreckateer - perhaps one day the player could match the wrecking potential of Wreckateer legend ‘Wreck Wreckington’ - and that is about as far as the story goes.

Throughout the game, Wreck and Tinker will always be with you and explain how new features work. They also like to make the occasional humorous remark in amongst the tutorials and pep talks. These humorous comments aren’t the greatest and are somewhat cliché - …

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Comments: 7

Sat Jul 21, 2012 3:08 pm by TreeMunky

QUANTUM CONUNDRUM

Developed by Airtight Games

Published by Square Enix

Price: 1200 MS Points

You are an anonymous youngster visiting his scientist uncle, Prof. Fitz Quadrangle, owner of Quadrangle Manor an impossibly large mansion perched on a precarious looking hilltop. Left at the mansion by your mother, you are an unwelcome distraction to you uncle who is not there to meet you. Cue cataclysmic science explosion! Upon entering the mansion you become your uncles’ only hope when it’s discovered he has become trapped in another dimension. So it is up to you to find, and ultimately rescue, your uncle with the help of his latest ‘Doc Brown’ invention, a reality-warping gun glove, the astonishingly named Inter-dimensional Shift Device (IDS)…oh and IKE (a name tag wearing Interdimensional Kinetic Entity).

[size=18]Gameplay

Using the Unreal engine, Quantum Conundrum is a non-violent (and by non-violent I mean death will come from lasers and likely by drowning in ‘science juice’ but that will be your fault alone), XBLA 1st person puzzle platformer title. Quadrangle Manor is split across three coloured zones, blue, yellow and red and The Core. It is in these zones across multiple levels (51 to be exact) that players are tasked with using the IDS to shift between dimensions to manipulate the environment to solve increasingly cunning puzzles.
You are able to instantly switch between five dimensions, Normal, Fluffy, Heavy, Slow Motion and Reverse Gravity. …

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Comments: 6

Sat Jul 21, 2012 11:32 am by Tenlo

Developer: Softmax

Publisher: NEXON

Cost:: 800MSP

Just recently I was reminiscing about the older generation of games and how they’ve stopped being made. One of my favourites was always Streets of Rage and its kind with its 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up gameplay. Well what do you know, by strange coincidence I’m now here to review a brand new 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up but with some modern gaming twists.

Dungeon Fighter Live: The Fall of Hendon Myre is the first release on Xbox for Nexon, creators of the ever-popular 2D MMO Maple Story as well as Dungeon Fighter Online which Dungeon Fighter Live is based upon. The premise of the game is that you play as one of three characters (each with unique fighting abilities) who have been sent to the town of Hendon Myre to investigate the recent increase of the mysterious illness afflicting the residents. You do this by beating up lots of monsters while performing quests for the residents of the town which if course is the norm in gaming (a game based around rational discussion would be boring).

The gameplay itself is very similar to the old 2D beat-em-ups of the 90’s with your characters working their way round maps beating up every creature they come across using the moves at their disposal. You start off with basic simple attacks but as you level up you’ll unlock special moves which can either be mapped to certain keys or performed using basic combinations of movement and button presses. It’s all very simple and draws you in …

Wed Jul 18, 2012 12:47 pm by DoctorMambo

Developer: Zombie Studios

Publisher: Konami Digital Entertainment

Price: 800MSP

It was way back in 1981 that Frogger first hopped onto our arcade screens and I remember it like it was 31 years ago. I first encountered Frogger as an impressionable 8 year old, growing up in a seaside town with a wealth of amusement arcades. I used to play Frogger in the children's area of a beer garden in a local pub, I was never a big fan of it then, but it was more enjoyable than talking to the adults I was with.

Fast Forward 31 years and we now have Frogger Hyper Arcade Edition, available to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace. The core game play has not changed – your goal is to guide your frog across a road full of vehicles travelling at varying and progressively faster speeds and then across a river, navigating moving logs and occasionally sinking turtles to reach your destination – a row of 7 lily pads at the top of the game screen. This version has 8 game modes to keep things fresh.



First we have Tile Capture (see above picture) – a multi-player mode. It can be played with four friends around the same TV or you can fill the spaces with bots. The aim of this game mode, as before, is to reach the lily pad at the top of the screen by taking a scenic route and lighting up as many tiles as you can on the way to your destination. This scores you more points and the most points wins. It can be played two ways, both have a five minute maximum timer …

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Comments: 5

Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:11 pm by Slayer1189

Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
Price: 400MSP

Summary
The Walking Dead Episode 2 is a direct continuation from the story of episode 1. I would recommend that gamers play through the first episode before starting this one, as choices from the first episode affect aspects of the second – such as who is alive and present and some other, smaller details. My GSA review for the first episode can be found here. Telltale Games have recently announced that the episodic series will also be released as a retail disc after all episodes have been individually released on XBLA.

Story
The story continues to unfold with you playing Lee Everett. Without detailing spoilers, the theme for part two is the struggle to find food; everyone is starving... but then the group of survivors are presented with an opportunity they cannot refuse. Although the episodes will tell a five part story, part two throws the survivors into completely different circumstances from that of the first. The second part is also more action packed due to the introduction of the main characters being mostly covered during part one.

The new characters presented in part two aren’t given as much coverage, however - this is deliberate on part of the developers to create an air of suspicion and perhaps to deter players from forming bonds to the same extent as with the main characters. Due to less direct character development more time is dedicated to presenting new …

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Comments: 10

Mon Jul 09, 2012 4:17 pm by Tenlo

Developer: Stainless Games

Publisher: Wizards of the Coast

Price: 800 MSP

CCG’s are a big thing (Collectible Card Games for those not in the know) and while many speak of Pokémon and Yu Gi Oh, the granddaddy of them all is Magic the Gathering. Even I was a victim of the game known to some as cardboard crack! In my teens I spent hours shifting through piles of cards in the back of my local RPG shop trying to find a rare card or just the perfect creature card to finish off my deck. But then I left school and I found plenty of other vices to entertain my time with.

So it was with trepidation that I booted up Magic The Gathering: Duel of the Planeswalkers 2013. Would it still be the same over a decade later would I still enjoy it like I used to do and would I even recognise the game in its current form? Well it’s a little from the Yes column and a little from the no column.

For those new to the series, Magic the Gathering is all about destroying your opponent’s life force before he/she does the same to you. You do this by casting various spells or summoning creatures to attach your opponent with. The spells come in various types ranging from healing and damage dealing to giving bonuses to your creatures. The creatures themselves range from weak little creatures to huge hulking behemoths that are virtually unstoppable. All these cards are activated using Mana which is produced from Land cards with the more powerful the Magic card the more Mana required. Sounds simple enough but like most …