All posts by Brendan Griffiths

Hands-on previews, PC, PlayStation 3, Previews, Video, Xbox 360

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (Hands-On Preview)

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When the developers first announced there wouldn’t be a cover system for this third-person-shooter it raised a few eyebrows. Now that I’ve seen the suicidal nature of a swarming orc hoard eager to test the might of a Space Marine’s weaponry, it seems it was a great decision.

So forget about turn-based choices, real time strategy and dice rolling, this is the full-on action title we’ve been waiting for. Strategy fans have enjoyed the Dawn of War games, but action fans always intrigued by the rich sci-fi lineage of the series can now look forward to the first decent Warhammer game since Fire Warrior.

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Action, Platforms, PlayStation 3, Reviews

Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon (Review)

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The EDF (no relation to Red Faction’s EDF) games have been something of a cult hit on the 360 for a while now and the series has finally made its way to the PS3 too. New recruits listen up; your mission in this arcade third-person shooter is to defend the planet from an invasion of giant bugs. Ants, spiders and wasps have all been super-sized to form an alien army of nature’s bastards. Over-turned cups and rolled up newspapers aren’t going to cut it anymore.

The carnage over the game’s fifteen levels is simple enough to grasp: kill everything in sight and occasionally plant a demolition charge. The single-player campaign missions match those used for multiplayer, so levelling up is consistent across the board. Playing offline is clearly not the way the game was intended to be played, as your AI team-mates struggle to focus on taking down bosses, although they are impressively reliable for reviving you, which is more than can be said for some players online.

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Action, Platforms, PlayStation 3, Reviews

Captain America: Super Soldier (Review)

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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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Features

Globetrotting Through Time: When and Where Next for GTA V?

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We all know Grand Theft Auto V is on its way, although Rockstar have yet to officially announce it. The ‘leaked video’ is in all likliehood a complete fabrication, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t reignited the fires of expectation and speculation that only GTA seems able to feed. Where and when will GTAV be set?

Sure Call of Duty and Halo might have been taking all the limelight and some serious dollar in recent years, but let’s face it, we all know what to expect with those games. The mere locale for a new GTA game is enough to send fans crazy with desire. On the other hand, Rockstar have been known to recycle their settings, Liberty City being the biggest offender. New York (aka Liberty City) is done and needs to be banned from all GTA titles for at least another ten years. She’s served us well, but too many games are obsessed with the Big Apple: Prototype, Crysis 2 and so on. Unless it’s Spider-Man, stay out.

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Platforms, PlayStation 3, Previews, PSN (PlayStation Store), Regular previews

Amy (Preview)

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Survival Horror is a well-loved genre that keeps making glorious comebacks until the next game in a series heads in an action-shooter orientated direction. Dead Space 2 and Resident Evil 5 being prime examples of games that went for action over horror. With Silent Hill being dead on arrival every time this generation, our main hopes for actually being afraid of the dark again might be better invested in a new IP, something like the upcoming summer PSN title, Amy.

This new title merges the despair-smothered atmosphere of the Silent Hill and Dead Space games with the ideal of protecting another character through it all, as perfected in Ico and more recently with Bioshock 2’s Little Sisters. It also seems to be attempting to upstage Elizabeth in Bioshock: infinite. Older gamers may also be interested to know that the creator of Flashback (1993), Paul Cuisset, is one of the key creative staff members on board.

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News

PSN Roundup: Store Update June 29th

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The DLC Sale is the biggest highlight this week with some tasty reductions to content from Borderlands, Mafia II, GTAIV and Red Dead Redemption. Demos include Dungeon Hunter: Alliance, Gatling Gears, Star Raider, Homefront multiplayer and MotorStorm: Apocalypse. If you still have your PlayStation Plus subscription going or you bought Infamous 2 you’ll be glad to know that the Uncharted 3 Multiplayer beta is now live. I’ll presume you’ve just dashed off for that right away.

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Action, Platforms, PlayStation 3, PSP, Puzzle, Reviews

PSP Minis Roundup: A spinning octopus, block dropping and a Ninjamurai?

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It’s been a while since we’ve had a look at some of the PSP’s Minis, mainly because of the PSN crisis and recently a lot of them looked like complete pump. There hasn’t exactly been a deluge of titles since PSN resumed normal service either. Two of the three games we’re looking at today come free with PlayStation Plus, which some gamers might still have as a part of their Welcome Back package.

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News

MCM Comic Con Coming To Manchester This Summer

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Fans of comics, games, sci-fi, manga, anime, movies and cosplay listen up. The MCM Comic Con is coming to Manchester on Saturday July 30th. The venue will be the spacious Manchester Central, which, used to be known as the G-MEX arena.

Our very own Tom Silkstone attended the London MCM Comic Con in May and had an awesome time. There were plenty of games there to play, panel discussions and Q&A meets. Take a look at his coverage to whet your appetite. See, worth a look for any gamer, even if you’re not particularly interested in comics.

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News

Sony: “Sorcery Is Still In Development”

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Missing PlayStation Move title pulls re-appearing act

Good news everyone, the promising PlayStation Move title, Sorcery, is still in development despite disappearing from our radars for almost a year. Hugo Bustillos, Sony’s UK PR Executive today confirmed to us: “Yes, Sorcery is still in development.”

There are no details on a release date as of yet, we imagine there’s still some time to go. The last sign of life we had from the developer, The Workshop, was a job listing at Game Guzzler for a UI (User Interface) Artist, posted back in May this year.

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News

Dungeon & Dragons: Daggerdale Now Released on PC

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Fans of orc-hackery and deformed dice rejoice, Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale has finally been released on the PC platform a few weeks behind the release on PS3 and Xbox 360, which we reviewed here.

This hack and slash RPG takes place in the mythology of the Forgotten Realms. You must defend your homeland from Rezlus, the evil Zhentarim Cleric who is trying to resurrect the Black Lord Bane. To do this you’ll have to vanquish the legions of darkness from the Mines of Tethyamar and the Tower of the Void. Expect lots of stabby action supported by the usual fetch missions.

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First Person Shooters, Party, Platforms, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Move, Reviews

Ape Escape (Review)

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The Ape Escape games on PS1 and PS2 utilised the dual-analogue sticks of the controller to masterful effect, so it felt natural to be excited about how the PlayStation Move motion controller would add to the game’s experience.

The original games were action-packed platformers where you had to capture cheeky monkeys. The right stick controlled gadgets like nets, catapults and monkey detectors with fantastic efficiency. The logical step for the Move would have been to use the navigation stick or Dualshock to run around and the Move controller to swing your net and other gadgets.

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Platforms, PlayStation 3, Puzzle, Reviews

Akimi Village (Review)

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Many console gamers have avoided this kind of game on facebook for years, but put a genre back onto consoles and I just can’t help but take a look. Akimi Village is a light-hearted building sim where you control a giant avatar, plodding around a floating island helping the Akimi recreate their world. The genre is almost non-existent on PSN, but XBLA regulars might remember NinjaBee’sKeflings’ games, which are very similar to this one.

Most of the land is shrouded in a dark cloud called ‘The Gloom.’ Any Akimi folk under this cloud are unable to work and you can’t build on the land either. You must plant healing acorns to clear the land of Gloom and liberate the wondering little dudes. These elusive acorns can only be earned by rebuilding the settlement.

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News

Best of E3: Game Critics Awards Nominations

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The North American games press have just voted to bring us the nominations for their picks of E3 2011. Why should you care? Well, the winners will be the ones with that little E3 sticker on the game’s box come release day. It’s a mark of pride that few review quotations can come close too.

Sony and EA lead the way with 14 nominations each, which leaves Microsoft and Nintendo looking pretty miserable. Bioshock Infinite and Uncharted 3 proved to be the most popular games with four nominations each.

Check out the full list of nominees below and click any of the links to be whisked away to our E3 coverage of that title. Feel free to add your own picks of E3 to the comments section too.

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News

PSN Roundup: Store Update June 22nd

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Today’s PSN update is a little light on the new games front but the new village growing pursuits of Akimi Village could be interesting. We’re more than tempted to revisit the original American McGee’s Alice too; as we’re sure it’s better than the recent Alice: Madness Returns. Cheaper than forking out for the PC original on eBay too.

To celebrate Sonic’s 20th birthday (yes really) there’s a collection that features, Sonic 1 & 2, Sonic 4 Episode 1 and Sonic Adventure plus DX). Tomorrow will see the release of a new Sonic Generations demo, which we’re pretty psyched for after Matt’s hands-on preview at E3. DLC highlights include a new case for LA Noire and Killzone 3 maps.

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Rainbow Moon: First Screenshots

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After teasing fans on facebook for the last couple of days, Eastasiasoft and SideQuest Studios have finally released a batch of screens for their upcoming PS3 strategy RPG title, Rainbow Moon. A genre usually relegated to the PSP or DS looks set to come back in gorgeous fashion to the console market. No blocky sprites here, just wonderfully smooth and vibrant hand drawn-style visuals. There are no solid gameplay details to report as of yet, but we’re sure it will be different to the studios usual output of the Soldner-X side-scrolling shooter games. Expect a release towards the end of 2011.

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New Shadows of the Damned Trailer

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If you’re still looking for something to buy this weekend, maybe this new trailer for Shadows of the Damned will tempt you. Any game that manages to get Suda 51 (Killer 7, No More Heroes) and Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Vanquish) together is always going to be worth a cautious look. Expect lots of monsters, chicks in leather, stylish combat and buckets of filthy humour stirred in amongst the giblets. Oh, and the hero is called Garcia Hotspur (Suda’s a Tottenham fan) and looks set to speak nothing but craptacularly cheesy lines, but you’ll love it. For an extensive hands-on look, you can read Felix’s enthusiastic musings about the madness here.

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Action, Platforms, PlayStation 3, Reviews

Infamous 2 (Review)

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Our electrical star of Infamous, Cole MacGrath, begins the game with an encounter against ‘The Beast’ an almost god-like deity, hell bent on destroying everything. Cole is unable to stop the destruction of Empire City and is forced to retreat south to New Marais while he prepares himself for round two.

The city of New Marais is inspired by New Orleans, so the settings include recreations of the Latin Quarter, swamps, vault-packed graveyards and also the poorer areas of the city. After the eternally grey Empire City, the new setting is an inspired choice, especially the eerie swamps and the neon lights of the city’s nightlife district. The colours of some of the sunsets are real showstoppers too; seriously, you won’t see better skies anywhere else. The terrible real-life effects of Hurricane Katrina are also mirrored, as Cole arrives years after a flood, to find large areas still submerged with a few nods to the lack of government support New Orleans suffered. It feels tastefully done, as ignoring such an event when basing your location on New Orleans would have been insensitive.

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