This is what we’d like to see more of, good Wii games in HD, instead of violating our beloved HD screens with scart leads. The series has already had its second game on the Wii, but this is just the first game polished up. So don’t fret if you’re new to it, but perhaps feel a bit annoyed they didn’t put both titles on one disc for the asking price.
The story in this bizarre beat em’ up is one of an assassin named Travis Touchdown (see how close they came to making Travis a cool name?). Not happy with always being strapped for cash, Travis decides to take out the Top 10 ranked assassins to become the new number one and score with a hot French chick. Kill Bill, meets Highlander with Suda 51 refereeing if you will.
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I recently enjoyed the single-player side of SOCOM: Special Forces and gave it a shiny 8/10 for its efforts. Now the PSN is finally back online I’ve had a chance to get online with the game and see if the multiplayer was worth the wait.
Matches can feature up to 32 players, but many match-types seem to limit the action to 20. Even so, there’s no sign of lag at all, even during busier matches. I suppose the servers get a break seeing as there’s rarely a full field of players alive at once, someone’s always a wrong turn away from having to respawn. At least you only have to wait a few seconds to get back into the fight.
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After a brief dalliance with the FPS genre for the 256 players and 5 minutes of fun MAG, Zipper Interactive return to their long-running third-person military shooter series.
Thanks to the recent PSN crisis I was afforded more time to play the single-player side of the game. It was a great surprise to find that there’s a great campaign to be played through along with some addictive stand-alone solo levels.
The last game, which barely made it to UK PS3s, was online only and was the sort of game you were relieved you only rented. Back on the PS2 the first game had too many squad commands, with dodgy voice-commands if you were foolish enough to trust the headset and was a very dry experience for only the most patient gamers. But respect where it’s due, SOCOM was an early success on the PS2’s babysteps into online gaming.
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I wanted one thing from this game: for it to be better than last year’s Iron Man 2 game that I gave a 5/10. Thor needn’t worry though as this is a much better tie-in.
Rather than follow the earth-bothering, flannel-shirted nature of the movie, this game simply takes place in the fantasy realms of the Thor universe in a separate story-line, which turns out to be a good move.
Famed comic book writer (and unfortunately the scribe of the afore-mentioned Iron Man game), Matt Fraction, has penned a very basic plot, but it is at least unobtrusive. We’ll presume he saves the compelling material for the comics.
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It can be a bit of a tough sell trying to get pumped up for Yakuza 4, seeing as it’s been out in Japan for a year and they’re getting close to the release of the zombie-packed sequel Yakuza of the End. But hell, Yakuza 3 was a pretty damn awesome beat em’ up adventure game and we won’t be seeing the Kamurocho walking dead anytime soon so let’s just try and enjoy it.
Unlike the past games you’ll be playing as four different characters, each of whom has their own storylines although their paths occasionally cross. Each of them also has a different fighting style and access to some exclusive character-specific minigames and side-quests.
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The take on this familiar tale is that of Samwise Gamgee retelling the story to his children from the fireside’s warmth back in the Shire, focussing solely on Aragorn’s adventures. Naturally he’s added a few extra details here and there to keep things interesting.
Which is actually a quite decent excuse for a few elements that are out of sync with the film, such as spiders in Moria, a Balrog chase scene, fights with Wildmen in Rohan or having to fight your way out of a goblin infested cave on the way to Weathertop. Read more…
Looks like Ready at Dawn Studios have done it again. They’ve only gone and made the best action title on the PSP, again. God of War: Chains of Olympus provided a PSP prequel to the original PS2 game and now Ghost of Sparta looks to fill the gap between God of War 1 and 2.
The story follows Kratos as he searches for his younger brother, Deimos, who was taken from him when they were both young Spartan children. We finally get some answers about Kratos’ facial scar and his red tattoo. We also get to find out what really happened to the legendary city of Atlantis.
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God of War: Chains of Olympus is a real slap in the face to other developers trying to wrangle a half-decent looking game out of the PSP. One look at these screens is enough to show that Ready at Dawn have an understanding of the PSP that nobody else is even close to obtaining. On top of that they’ve kept the God of War brand in great condition while Sony Santa Monica press on with God of War III.
This game is a prequel to the original PS2 title where Kratos is still on the Olympian’s payroll. The tale begins with Kratos taking on an invading Persian army before the true enemy, Morpheus is revealed. The gods believe Morpheus to be behind the recent disappearance of Helios, the Sun god. If Morpheus is not defeated soon, it may be the end of the gods.
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Vanquish is the latest effort from Platinum Games, the minds behind Bayonetta. This time they’re looking to put a boot up the backside of the third-person cover-shooter genre. How? By combining rocket boosting, bullet-time and cover-shootouts that’s how.
The story is nothing more than a vague excuse for the fantastic setting on an orbital colony built on a looping surface with lots of bots and giant mechs to blast apart. It’s the future and a Russian rebel group are trying to take over the world (but in space). Just go with it. Read more…
This adaptation of an old Chinese novel has been written by Alex ’28 Days Later’ Garland and Tameen Antoniades. Set 150 years into the future, many wars have taken place and the human race is almost nothing than a memory to the wastelands. People are outnumbered by the mechs; leftover robots from a forgotten war, still running the same programmes of kill anyone that they come across.
You play as the brutish Monkey who is forced to escort the slender young woman Trip back to her home after they escape from a slaver ship. He’s forced because she slipped a slave headband on him that forces him to obey her and comes with the other downside of killing him if her heart stops beating. Read more…
Well that didn’t take long. On the same day PlayStation Move arrives and impresses with a mighty 9/10 score for Sports Champions, we get our first stinker for the motion control device.
The concept is sound for a game idea, if not a little barmy. You slide down busy Hong Kong-esque streets on an office chair, baby seat or some other inappropriate device, aiming to get to the escape van at the bottom of the hill, while collecting cash and points along the way by kicking Yakuza thugs and performing tricks. If you can remember Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam, you’re in the right ball park. Read more…
It’s been a while since I’ve dusted of my old PS1 GTA games, so will this be a nostalgic experience or a grim reminder of why some titles are best left in the past?
The top-down view in the crime-sim raises obvious comparisons with the old GTA games, but for a £3.49 PSP Minis title it definitely has my attention. Read more…
‘What a difference a few extra months in development makes,’ was what we all thought when Arkham Asylum finally arrived. With an even bigger delay preceding the eventual arrival of Obsidian’s Spy RPG many gamers started to worry about the condition of the nevertheless eagerly awaited title.
The idea of being able to actively affect the story with your own choices in conversations and via your actions had minds swimming with possibilities of combining gameplay styles of the legendary JB trio of James Bond, Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer. Read more…
It might have the Iron Man 2 movie poster for the front cover, but this is pretty far removed from the film, with only Iron Man, War Machine and Nick Fury putting in a decent day’s work. At least their movie-counterparts faces and voices have made it in.
The game takes place ‘beyond’ the movie with the Russians stealing some tech from Stark Industries to make their own robot armies and so on. Players have the choice of playing as Iron Man or War Machine which is a nice touch, but the lack of a two-player option feels like a missed opportunity. You can at least change character at the start of each mission. Read more…
Kratos and God of War III have patiently sat atop Mount Olympus watching the likes of Bayonetta, Darksiders and Dante’s Inferno clamber their way upwards in their efforts to usurp him. He’s let them get tantalisingly close, before stirring and smiting them from the mountain in amused rage at their audacity.
The end of the trilogy begins where GOWII ended, with Kratos clambering up Mount Olympus with his new Titan buddies for the climactic war to kill Zeus and any gods that cross his path. There’s seemingly nowhere for the Olympians to hide anymore seeing as he’s dispatched pretty much every mythological monster they’ve thrown at him already. Read more…
How to describe Yakuza 3? Well it’s an RPG beat ‘em up stuffed with a huge variety of mini-games to distract you from the games story that involve multiple Yakuza gangs and government conspiracies in Tokyo and Okinawa. Oh and you look after an orphanage too.
Players new to the series are welcomed by detailed compilations of cutscenes from the first two games that make a decent effort of bringing you up to speed. Long story short, Kazuma (that’s you) climbed the ranks to become the 4th Chairman of the Tojo Clan of the Yakuza, didn’t fancy it and went to start an orphanage on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Read more…
Set in Feudal Japan you star as an injured Samurai, regaining consciousness on a battlefield surrounded by corpses of other warriors after a bloody battle. From here on in you get to decide how to shape the story in this sedately paced Samurai-sim.
The series, which started on PS2, has always prided itself on the amount of choice it provided to gamers with multiple endings being a key selling point. This time there are over twenty of them. Players are allowed a degree of freedom in shaping their adventure by selecting from multiple dialogue options, usually based around being nice or nasty. Read more…
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 more…
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 more…
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 more…
This is what we’d like to see more of, good Wii games in HD, instead of violating our beloved HD screens with scart leads. The series has already had its second game on the Wii, but this is just the first game polished up. So don’t fret if you’re new to it, but perhaps feel a bit annoyed they didn’t put both titles on one disc for the asking price.
