The original Valkyria Chronicles on PS3 scored very well, but despite some very loyal fan support it didn’t sell, with sales of less than a million (according to vgchartz.com). So Sega have opted to take the series to the PSP instead. Read the rest of this entry »
Valkyria Chronicles 2 (Preview)
February 9, 2010
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HookedGamers.com, PSP, Previews | Tagged: Brendan Griffiths, Hooked Gamers, Sega, Valkyria Chronicles 2 | 
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
ModNation Racers (Hands-On Preview)
February 6, 2010
Coming up fast behind Mario Kart is ModNation Racers from Sony and United Front Games. Rather than just another kart-racer you’ll have your chance to create your own tracks and characters. It’s the next game in Sony’s ‘Play, Create, Share’ push started by Little Big Planet. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Dealspwn.com, PlayStation 3, Previews | Tagged: Brendan Griffiths, Dealspwn, ModNation Racers, Sony, United Front Games | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
MAG (Review)
February 2, 2010
256 players online. What was the biggest before that? Resistance 2 with 60? That’s one hell of a step up. We’d have been impressed with a 100. It’s perhaps fitting then that MAG stands for Massive Action Game. So how does it measure up against the likes of Modern Warfare 2 and developer Zipper Interactive’s Socom games? You might want to upgrade your broadband for this one. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Game-Hub.co.uk, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Shooters / FPS | Tagged: : MAG, Brendan Griffiths, Game-Hub.co.uk, Massive Action Game, Socom, Sony, Zipper Interactive | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
PixelJunk Shooter (Review)
January 29, 2010
There are already a large number of 2D shooters on the PSN Store, but the genre hopping PixelJunk series from Q-Games has beaten them all with their first shot at the title. PixelJunk Shooter is a compelling game designed with a distinctive, simple, full-coloured style and perfectly balanced gameplay.
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
Nintendo DSi XL (Preview)
January 29, 2010
Despite the DS outselling its Sony rival and even the big consoles on a regular basis, Nintendo are determined to get one into every gamer’s (and their relative’s) hands. With the children’s market sorted they’re going for the grownups in force.
Handheld console manufacturers just can’t help but fiddle around. With both the DS and PSP getting numerous make-overs over the last few years getting bigger, smaller, slidier but rarely cheaper. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
ModNation Racers Limited Beta On Euro PSN Store Now
January 21, 2010
There are 100,000 public Betas for ModNation Racers available on the European PSN Store now. It’s a first come, first served limited download for European users to get an early taste of Sony’s Mario Kart-style racer where players can build their own tracks then share them online.
The download is just over 2GB and includes the track editor for Alpine levels. You’re going to have to be fast to snap up a code, so do it now!
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
Stop Stress: A Day of Fury (WiiWare Review)
January 19, 2010
The ‘Day of Fury’ part of the title probably gave it away, but this isn’t part of the Wii Fit-style wave of games. So there’ll be no breathing games or dragging out the balance board, instead it’s good old-fashioned hit-things-with-a-stick gameplay.
Everything in the game seems to be enraging your guy, so in order to keep his stress levels (like a health bar) down you need to smash everything up and occasionally calm yourself down by finding money or a brew. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
Blue Toad Murder Files: The Mysteries of Little Riddle Episodes 1 & 2 (PSN Review)
January 19, 2010
Episode 1: Little Riddle’s Deadly Dilemma
Episode 2: The Mystery of Riddle Manor
It’s about time PSN got some murder mystery puzzles games going. Professor Layton on the DS has had his own way for much too long now. So the creators of the Buzz! quiz games whisk us off to the “Quintessentially quaint” countryside village of Little Riddle. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | PSN (PlayStation Store), PlayStation 3, Puzzle, Reviews | Tagged: Blue Toad Murder Files: The Mysteries of Little Riddle (Episodes 1 & 2), Brendan Griffiths, Little Riddle’s Deadly Dilemma, Relentless Software, The Mystery of Riddle Manor | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
The Winners of the Game Hub Games of the Year Awards 2009
January 16, 2010
All your votes are in and counted. So who were the winners of the Game Hub Games of the Year Awards 2009? There are a few surprises amongst the obvious ones. Fortunately for all the nominees, nobody got zero votes (somebody got one though). So here are the Top 3 for each of the 13 categories:*
*I wrote this article for game-hub.co.uk after I arranged the voting categories a few weeks earlier.
Follow this link to be taken to the article at Game Hub.
Leave a Comment » | Features, News, PC, PSN (PlayStation Store), PSP, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 | Tagged: Battlefield 1943, Brendan Griffiths, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, FIFA 10, Game Hub Games of the Year Awards 2009, Little Big Planet PSP, Need For Speed Shift, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, Tekken 6, Uncharted 2 | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
Bayonetta (Review)
January 14, 2010
With no new Devil May Cry anytime soon, Kratos and God of War III probably thought they’d own 2010. Yet he’s having to face off a triple offensive of Darksiders, Bayonetta and Dante’s Inferno, one after another. Out of the three, original Devil May Cry director Hideki Kamiya has changed tactics the most by sending the sassy temptress Bayonetta in instead of yet another angry man. Hoping to charm her way in, before going berserk in a way we forgot Japanese games used to do. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Action, Beat 'em up, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Xbox 360 | Tagged: Bayonetta, Brendan Griffiths, Devil May Cry, Hideki Kamiya, Platinum Games, Sega | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
Darksiders (Review)
January 10, 2010
The hack n’ slash genre is back in force this year with the first quarter playing host to Bayonetta, Dante’s Inferno and God of War III. Amidst the hype of these three big names Vigil Games have been pretty quiet promoting their effort Darksiders. Turns out keeping their heads down and getting on with it has paid off as we have our first surprise of the year. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Action, Action / Third Person, Beat 'em up, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Xbox 360 | Tagged: Brendan Griffiths, Darksiders, Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Mark Hamil, THQ, Vigil Games, War | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn’s Quest (Wii Preview)
January 3, 2010
This will be the first Lord of the Rings game since Warner Bros. Interactive obtained the license from EA. Warner are using this game to rekindle interest in the Tolkien franchise before the new Hobbit films and their inevitable film tie-ins in 2011. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
Testing the PSN VideoStore on PS3
December 17, 2009
Ok, so the new Video Delivery Service has been online in the UK for a couple of weeks now and the collection of titles is fattening up nicely so it’s about time we got stuck in.
First up I tested an SD version of Escape from LA (101 mins) starring Kurt Russell. The file size was 1570MB and my ‘20 Mbps’ broadband was running at its typically poor Friday night rate of around 10 Mbps. Wanting to test how good the film would play while it was downloading, I gave it a few minutes head-start, during which time it got up to 5%. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Features, News, PSN (PlayStation Store), PSP, PlayStation 3, Reviews | Tagged: Brendan Griffiths, Escape from LA, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, online film rentals, PSN, PSN VideoStore, X-Men Origins: Wolverine | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
The Saboteur (Review)
December 14, 2009
You are Sean Devlin, an Irish racing car driver who becomes The Saboteur on his road to revenge against the Nazis. While the visuals are painfully average and the open-world gameplay offers nothing new, you might just get find yourself sucked right in anyway with fun gun battles and the optional stealth approach.
A neatly condensed Paris and its nearby countryside make up the landscape of the game. You help out members of the French resistance and British spies to help liberate Paris and send the Germans scurrying back to sausage country. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Action, Action / Third Person, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Xbox 360 | Tagged: Brendan Griffiths, EA, Game-Hub.co.uk, Nazis, Pandemic, Paris, The Saboteur, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
Bayonetta (Preview)
December 7, 2009
With Devil May Cry’s creator, Hideki Kamiya directing, it would be fair to say that Bayonetta could be Dante’s ideal date, as comparisons between the two are obvious. Bayonetta might just prove to be a little bit more, well….mental. And we like it. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Review)
November 28, 2009
Who would have thought one of the Wii’s most engrossing games of recent months would totally forgo any motion controls and be a 2D side-scrolling RPG slash-em-up? That’s right; you can sit and play this Wii game all afternoon without worrying about waking up the next day feeling that familiar tightness in every muscle. Well, your thumbs might take a slight pounding, but nothing the little brutes can’t handle. So dust off the pad for this one folks. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Beat 'em up, RPG, Reviews, Wii | Tagged: Brendan Griffiths, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Odin Sphere, Rising Star Games, Vanilla Ware, Wii | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
F1 2009: Formula 1
November 25, 2009
It’s been years since the last F1 game and it’s a little surprising to see Codemasters test their newly acquired license on the Wii first, but probably a wise decision seeing as Dirt 2 and Forza 3 are keeping the non-Wii crowd busy for now. While Codemasters’ modern classics of Dirt 2 and Grid were developed in-house, Sumo Digital are in the driving seat for this one. Sumo do have a history of racing titles, but admittedly nothing that comes close to Codemasters’ recent output. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Racing / Driving, Wii | Tagged: Brendan Griffiths, Codemasters, F1 2009: Formula 1, Monte Carlo, Sumo Digital, Wii racing | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
PSN Video Delivery Store Launches in the UK: An In-depth Look
November 20, 2009
Well, it took more than a while but UK PS3 owners can now rent and buy films over the PlayStation Store by downloading them straight to their hard-drives.
The new part of the store launched at a Soho London party this week with a live performance from Little Boots and a set from radio 1 DJ Annie Mac in what essentially felt like Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Features, News, PSN (PlayStation Store), PSP, PlayStation 3 | Tagged: Annie Mac, Brendan Griffiths, Little boots, PlayStation Network Video Store, PSN, Sony, Video Delivery Service | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Review)
November 16, 2009
The game that has been looming over the Christmas release schedule is finally here, after most of the competition has fled for a release early next year, leaving you plenty of time to clean up online.
The first Modern Warfare wowed shooter fans with its gripping story scenes and peerless multiplayer, and you should prepare to feel the love again. There are a few flaws in the single player game but they’ll fade into memory soon enough as the multiplayer experience dominates Modern Warfare 2. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Brendan Griffiths
Ju-On: The Grudge (Review)
November 11, 2009
This ‘fright simulator’ loosely borrows from the films to provide a few cheap jumps and puzzles. You control a girl that enters an abandoned warehouse to retrieve her wandering dog. Naturally it’s cursed, now you are too and you better start to work out how to appease the spirits of these spiteful child ghosts before they claims your soul, or something.
You navigate your way around the darkness in a first-person viewpoint with your wiimote controlled torch that works well when moving forwards but struggles to keep up if you try and turn too quickly. Poking around the chilling locations in the dark does feel quite immersive though as you are in direct control of what you aim the light at. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Horror, Wii | Tagged: Brendan Griffiths, Fright Simulator, Grudge game, Ju-On: The Grudge, Rising Star Games | Permalink
Posted by Brendan Griffiths
