Shuffling up to the zombie party the day after the night before can hardly be called fashionably late, but here we finally are. The Yakuza series is renowned for its unique blend of beat em’ up RPG, so it was surprising and (whisper it), slightly disappointing to see them announce a gun-packed zombie game when all I really wanted was a new city to play in with Kiryu and the rest of the face-stomping gang.
Previously, the series only used firearms as brief power-ups before the game got back to doing what it did best: letting you swing street thugs by their ankles face-first into lamp posts. Sadly, there are no options to enjoy such violent delights here. A few melee weapons remain, but for the most part it’s all about the boomsticks.
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Sport games are off to a good start on the Vita and the trend continues with Sega’s Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition. This game is almost identical to the PS3 version, which is certainly no bad thing. In fact, I’d go as far as to recommend this version over the PS3 one as the gameplay is better suited to the stop/start nature of handhelds, not that you can’t lose yourself for hours as well.
Graphically the game is on a par with the big consoles and has even inherited the dodgy likenesses. Take Djokovic, they’ve nailed the geeky haircut, but there’s something unsettling about his face. Oh and talking of unsettling, wait until I tell you about putting your own face into the game later on. It’s a bit Silence of the Lambs.
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If the Wii U makes it in time for next Christmas, this could be the original Wii’s last family outing. We’ve had some great times with Wii Sports, Resort, Play, Mario Kart and the last two Olympicstitles, so we were looking forward to a warm-up for next year’s London Games.
Thinking we’d start with some multiplayer games, we headed straight to the London Party mode. Instead of simply choosing a random mix of games or selecting specific ones from a list, we’re given something much worse.
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Aiming to please fans of both traditional and modern Sonic titles, Sega have included both styles in one game. Surprisingly this hasn’t resulted in the partial disaster I expected. But is Sonic still capable of a decent result in a genre that has unfortunately all but faded?
We find ourselves taking turns to play as the 2D side-scrolling scamp of old and the free-moving chatty rail-grinder. Time travel is the logic behind this merging of styles, as modern-day Sonic joins forces with his younger 1990s self. Together they must defeat Dr. Robotnik and Dr. Eggman, essentially two versions of the same villain. In addition to the fat moustachioed one(s), there’s a sinister creature that caused the time rift in the first place.
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Console bundled with Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games on November 18th.
With Nintendo hoping the Wii U will be bringing in the cash next Christmas, the blue console will be the Wii’s last chance to shine at gaming’s busiest season. Backwards compatibility for GameCube games and controllers will no longer be supported though.
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After a brief panic of thinking I’d spent a full year queuing for games at Gamescom I stirred myself awake to remember an early Olympics title would of course be released the Christmas before the event itself. Especially after the previous games on the Wii sold by the tonne. It’s still heart breaking to see Sonic standing next to archrival Mario with no signs of murderous intentions though.
Our hands-on session with some of our German cousins was in the form of a multiplayer party with laughs and smiles hiding the pride of wanting to win at all costs. Wiimotes at the ready then.
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After the recent relentless slew of comic book movie tie-ins ranging from hideously deformed horrors to the dizzy heights of ‘not awful’, it’s a great relief to be able to report we have a game we can call ‘good’.
Captain America: Super Soldier borrows from all the right places, namely Arkham Asylum, and stuffs its world with hidden objects to find to appeal to the gamer’s hunger to collect everything possible.
The game seems to run alongside the film rather than portray the same events. But you’ll hear Chris Evens as Cap and see enemy soldiers resembling the movie ones. The story is simple fodder, Cap must clear the way in a Bavarian fortress for the good guys against the Hydra army. The setting is WWII, which provides plenty of faux-German accents. They’re terrible and the dialogue is laughable but it all adds to the game’s charm and will raise a wry smirk and even a laugh or two.
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Not the best time to release a rally title as Dirt 3 is power-sliding into stores on Tuesday. But if you can’t afford that right now Sega hope you might drop a few points for their bite-sized rally release.
This really is a small game though. Five tracks are all you’ll find here, along with 13 cars and modes. The initial tracks are a tropical jungle with mud and sand, a canyon with dirt and tarmac, and an alpine mountain pass with tarmac and snow sections. The time limit between sections returns, but never actually presents anything resembling a challenge, unlike the older games.
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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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After not quite doing the job Henman and Murray style with Virtua Tennis 3 and VT2009 on this generation’s consoles can Sega’s arcade tennis classic still cut it? Thanks to a long awaited upgrade to the World Tour career mode, they’re in with a fighting chance.
Before getting stuck into the World Tour mode you might want to warm up with a few exhibition matches. The leading names of modern tennis are all present except for one of the Williams sisters for some reason. The PS3 has a few exclusive classic characters too, leaving the 360 version with a comparatively small roster. There isn’t particularly much scope for extra players via DLC either as the favourites of Nadal, Federer, Murray, Sharapova and so on are all present and tennis isn’t exactly brimming with superstars like the WWE.
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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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You’ll be glad to hear Sonic 4 features no story, no talking, no towns, no RPG elements and most definitely no Werehogs. This is very much traditional 2D Sonic from the glory days of the Mega-Drive that saw the best titles for Sega’s blue spiky mascot in Sonic 1-3 and Sonic & Knuckles.
There are four main stages with four acts each, the seven special stages and then the final boss. You can access the four main stages and first three acts in any order. All the stages are basically remixes of old ones with the main differences being HD shine, some new textures and the layout being put through the randomizer. Episode 1 features, a Green Hill Zone-style outdoor location to begin with followed by a labyrinth with underwater sections, a night-time casino and an industrial factory. They look nice, but there’s no avoiding the disappointment of getting nothing genuinely new. Read more…
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…
For months I’ve been feeding a slew of PSP Minis into my PSP in a vain quest for something with a little substance. Then September rolls up and throws a new Kingdom Hearts title, Valkyria Chronicles II and now Phantasy Star Portable 2, or PSP2, just to mess with the search engines.
Sega’s long-standing series is more sci-fi orientated than the usual RPG-fare, but there’s plenty of familiarity that is universal to the genre. Don’t be worried if this is your first look at the series, the story is relatively new and doesn’t punish newcomers. For those that did play the last game, it’s now three years later after the Seed were defeated, but guess what, peace never lasts. Good thing too seeing as you’re a freelance mercenary. Read more…
Many fans, myself included, were worried that the transition to PSP from PS3 would be an awkward one for the well-loved original title. We needn’t have worried though as Sega have managed to get the PSP to really stand up to the challenge.
The story for this tactical JRPG once again takes places in Gallia a small country in fictional Europa, after the war that took place in the original. This time around the conflict isn’t based around an invasion, it’s a civil war. You don’t need to have finished or even played the first game to enjoy this one as the story is new and uses a different set of main characters. Fans of the original will enjoy some cameos and will most certainly settle into the combat much easier. 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…
This is more like it. After recent incarnations of the more realistic (dull) plane combat games like Tom Clancy’s Hawx or Blazing Angels, it’s good to see a more fun-minded arcade game return. You won’t find a more fondly remembered fighter plane game than After Burner either.
Rather than succumbing to modern pressure, the series still seems to play in its familiar style of blasting towards the horizon, with players concentrating on avoiding enemy gunfire in a relatively 2D space. Read more…
If the likes of Final Fantasy XIII and White Knight Chronicles haven’t been hardcore enough for you as JRPGs, then this game from Tri-Ace would love to dominate you in a cruel way that your sick mind will love.
The cutscenes are nice to look at despite large amounts of foppishly designed miserable emo teens and them not really explaining anything well at all. The towns of the game world make a decent effort of cramming in a lot of detail too. The dungeon or linked arena levels are very sparse and repetitive though. Read more…
Shuffling up to the zombie party the day after the night before can hardly be called fashionably late, but here we finally are. The Yakuza series is renowned for its unique blend of beat em’ up RPG, so it was surprising and (whisper it), slightly disappointing to see them announce a gun-packed zombie game when all I really wanted was a new city to play in with Kiryu and the rest of the face-stomping gang.
