For many, Demon’s Souls will be like Marmite, with its love it or hate it appeal. That’d be fine except many gamers will be struggling to get the lid of the damn thing. This RPG game’s tutorial gives you a few weak enemies while going over the controls and just as you start to think ‘this isn’t so bad,’ a boss appears and kills you in one hit. Welcome to Demon’s Souls, meatbag.
In this dead Soul form, your health is greatly reduced and you’ll have to defeat a boss to get your body back. To avoid going insane, it’s best not to think of yourself as ‘dead’ in the traditional sense. You’ll be spending most of the game in this state, so just get on with it. Continue reading Demon’s Souls (Review)→
With over 800 games on show at E3 2010, some were always going to fall between the cracks of coverage as we all clamoured over the like of Gears 3, Killzone 3, Halo, Need for Speed, Call of Duty, Zelda, Kinect and Move. We’ve covered our picks of the big games, so let’s have a look at some other titles that we feel deserve a little push too. Continue reading E3 2010’s Hidden Gems→
The world’s biggest game show continues in LA with E3. It’s Sony’s turn to take to the stage and stake their claim for bragging rights for the next year of releases. 3D gaming is gets a real push and like Microsoft, motion control is going to be play a big part in the show. But will they be ignoring gamers in favour of the casual market too? We’ll tell you below while also looking at some proper games.Continue reading E3 2010: PlayStation Press Conference→
Last month I was pleasantly surprised with Gaijin Entertainment’s effort to tackle Burnout with Anarchy: Rush Hour. Well they’re off starting fights with the big boys again, stepping into Blur’s and Split/Second’s territory. Admittedly this game started off life on the PC and predates the newcomers.
So it’s a car-combat racing game with destructible environments set in the future. The tracks tear through the crumbling remains of (our modern day) versions of London, Bangkok, New York, Moscow, Prague and so on. The first thing you notice is how good the game looks for a PSN title. Although a little rough, there’s a lot of detail built into each track. They bristle with colour and run at a smooth frame-rate. It’s certainly a better looker than Anarchy. There are lots of branching routes and even short-cuts to unlock. Pretty impressive design overall. Continue reading Death Track: Resurrection (Review)→
Ubisoft seem to want a piece of the World Cup cash pie, not content with EA having the pitch to themselves. Ok, so this isn’t an official South Africa tie-in, but it’s international teams only and the final ends in South Africa. Coincidence? The hell it is.
Ubisoft are actually ripping off Fifa Street though instead. It’s five-a-side football with outrageous shots and tricks the order of the day. While the last Fifa Street was a bit meh, this is just bollocks. Continue reading Pure Football (Review)→
Prime your eyes for a full on assault with the return of the high-def retro shooter, Soldner-X 2. It’s side scrolling, in space, you shoot to the left, dodge a lot of lasers and try not to die.
You can initially choose beginner or normal difficulty levels, but the game will also adapt on the fly. If you are doing really well, it will throw more enemy fire at you, while easing up (a little) if you’re getting perforated constantly. Your ships handle with a nice balance of smooth flying, but quick and nimble enough to perform some beautiful dodging. You have a health bar rather than the typical one-hit-per-life syndrome many of us grew up with. I’m not complaining by the way, PS3 pads are expensive items. Continue reading Soldner-X 2: The Final Prototype (Review)→
The best fun to be had on two wheels so far this generation has been with Burnout’s hell-powered bikes, with Moto GP and the first SBK game missing out on the love, failing to please arcade or simulation fans.
SBK X has split itself into three modes (Arcade, Simulation and Multiplayer) right from the start menu to try and please arcade and sim fans alike. But have they spread things out too much? I’ll split the review into the same three parts to cover all bases.
‘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. Continue reading Alpha Protocol (Review)→
After the platforming success of Little Big Planet, it’s good to see someone taking a similar approach to racing games. ‘Race Create Share’ is the new tagline for this arcade kart racer with user generated content at its core.
Players can create their own racer characters -or Mods as they’re known here- then create a vehicle for them too. The most exciting part of the game though is the track creator that has a huge amount of depth, but not at the cost of ease-of-use. And as a feature, it’s a great success. But what about the rest of the game? Continue reading ModNation Racers (PS3 Review)→
If you’re the type of gamer that squealed with delight seeing the huge list of retro RPG game included on last years Mega-Drive compilation, this game is most definitely for you. In-jokes to the genre are the norm here along with a long list of frustrations and an almost inevitable argument between fans (and probably lawyers) about it being a homage or rip-off of some Nintendo game with a green midget.
The games unique twist is the updated retro graphical style. The story explains it in an amusing way, as the old 2D Kingdom of Dotnia is rarely visited anymore so they revamp their world into ‘3D’ to get with the times, hoping everyone will love them again. It’s not ‘put on glasses’ 3D, everything is made from cubes instead of squares. The whole story would probably fit on a beermat (evil guy stealing orbs, kingdom threatened, you hero). Continue reading 3D Dot Game Heroes (Review)→
Within the first minute of playing Rocket Knight I knew this was going to be a killer title. Right from the off you’ll know how to play this game just on instinct, everything just flows so naturally.
Rocket Knight acts as a sequel to the Mega-Drive game, taking place 15 years later. While the visuals have moved with the times, the core gameplay respects the classic side-scrolling 2D platformer model. Continue reading Rocket Knight (Review)→
Anarchy: Rush Hour is a plucky little PSN game that has quite simply waltzed up to Burnout in a bar, spilt its drink, snogged its girlfriend then ran outside jumped into a car and sped off. After backing into Burnout’s ride first for good measure.
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. Continue reading Iron Man 2 (PS3 Review)→
Expectations were low for this PSN shooter that’s old news for 360 and PC gamers. Oh look another space marine shooter on a distant planet. Wake up at the back though because Section 8 is actually pretty good.
The short single player campaign is pretty much an introduction to the controls and the game modes, which involve running to an enemy base, taking control of a module by pressing X, waiting around for a meter to fill then running off to another one, all while your AI teammates prance around doing sod all. Continue reading Section 8 (Review)→
Approaching a new beat ‘em up name for the first time can be a tricky affair, with no familiar character to go for at the character select screen, your first impressions of the game are severely at risk. Do you pick the huge mass of muscle, the one with a sword, the one made up of a Studio Ghibli oil slick nightmare or simply the one with the biggest boobs?
Choose carefully my friends because you won’t pick up a brawler this year with such a diverse set of fighters. There might only be twelve to choose from, but any similarities are minor. There aren’t any Ken, Ryu and Akuma-style remixes of characters here. Pick the wrong one and you might get a rough start. However, things start to look up once you find a character that suits your own individual style. Continue reading BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (Review)→
These are the final three episodes of the murder mystery / puzzle game. Solving random puzzles involving maths, logic and common sense helps bring you one step closer to finding the perpetrator of that episodes crime, with the episodes linking together for the grand finale.
For those of you not familiar with the series you can pick up a bundle with all six episodes for £19.99 on the PSN. You play as one of four detectives (another three people can play along too) from the Blue Toad Agency. As you interview villagers and suspects you have to complete a puzzle before they’ll talk. Most of them have very little to do with your investigation. Continue reading Blue Toad Murder Files: Episodes 4-6 (Review)→
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. Continue reading After Burner: Climax (Preview)→
It’s all about the Spring Sale this week as Matt explained in the first part of this week’s Roundup. The obvious PSP deals to go for there would be the excellent God of War: Chains of Olympus which is a prequel to the first PS2 game. Go on; go through all four games in a long, blood-soaked weekend. The three GTA reductions are pretty good looking too. The rest of them can be found cheaper on UMD though to be honest, not necessarily second hand either.
There are some permanent reductions too. There’s only one PSN game in there, Inferno Pool which might be worth a gamble at the price. The PSP title reductions are typically a waste of time for anyone happy to buy UMDs still. Continue reading PSN Roundup Part II→
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. Continue reading Resonance of Fate (PS3 Review)→
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. Continue reading God of War III (Review)→
Gaming reviews, previews and features by Brendan Griffiths
For many, Demon’s Souls will be like Marmite, with its love it or hate it appeal. That’d be fine except many gamers will be struggling to get the lid of the damn thing. This RPG game’s tutorial gives you a few weak enemies while going over the controls and just as you start to think ‘this isn’t so bad,’ a boss appears and kills you in one hit. Welcome to Demon’s Souls, meatbag.
The No Sleep Gamer 