So it’s finally happened. The MMO genre has gotten so godforsakenly large that every game developer/publisher and their mothers think they can produce a smash hit and rake the mounds of cash in. And its hard to argue with them. With World of Warcraft breaching the 11 million players mark just a couple weeks back and competitors such as Warhammer Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and Star Wars: The Old Republic on the horizon, its no surprise a lot of companies are trying their hand at competing with the best. However, as time has shown, the beast that is WoW will not go down easily, if it ever does. Yet, Namco Bandai (huh?) is taking their turn with hopes that a predominent anime series cultivates enough of a following to give them an edge over Blizzard. The series? Dragonball. Read More  »

Go! Go! Break Steady - a game produced by Little Boy Games and now available to download from the Xbox Live Market; curious name, curious game, but whats it all about I hear you ask? Well, essentially, the game at its root is a dance based one (but none of that bizarre foot stomping on mats thankfully...) No, here two very popular game play elements have been combined, and this rather strange fusion of types has resulted in a game with much unique charm and addictiveness by the barrel load. Read More  »

I’m sure that most of us can remember our various pivotal gaming experiences, from the first game we played to the first time we beat a particular boss. With every new generation that comes into gaming these experiences will of course differ, for example the first game I remember with any great clarity was named Jet Boot Jack on an ancient Atari.

I’m certain, in fact I have been told by my parents, that this wasn’t the first game I’ve played. But it is the first one I remember, and thus has a special place in my heart. Obviously by today’s standards it’s hardly a memorable title, and I’m sure that there were better games out then as well, but it means something to me and will always hold the distinction of being my first true gaming love.

For my young nephew of course things are better, at least graphically, and he is being weaned on Disney tie-in games and Leapster (a console apparently aimed at helping kids learn, and certainly a step up from the old BBC that my school had). Read More  »

A Classic Returns
With such an onslaught of games this holiday season, it was very easy to get lost within the Capital Wasteland that was Fallout 3, frightening corridors filled with the lurking undead that was Left 4 Dead, or the quirky build-it-yourself platformer that was Little Big Planet. However, Square Enix delivers the final blow; one neatly packaged to fit right in your pocket, so prepare for complete reversion to your ten year old self. As anyone who has played the game in its two previous incarnations can tell you, Chrono Trigger has very few equals on the Super Nintendo, and has provided hours upon hours of time traveling adventure over the past 14 years. With its re-release on the DS, many fans, including myself, became overflowed with excitement and skipped down to GameStop with our hair in pigtails, butterflies in our stomachs, and skirts blowing in the wind. The hankering for a true sequel to the best selling, top rated Chrono Cross has been the desire of any fan of the series, no matter how small or large. Yet, Square Enix does not satisfy this hunger, but does offer a substitute, one which does not garner many complaints. Read More  »

 
Over the years Luke Skywalker and the Jedi Knights protected the galaxy, but it seems not even the power of the Force could repel the threat of the Credit Crunch. Since Free-Radical went into administration last month, the future of Star Wars Battlefront 3 has been what Yoda might call “clouded”.
The recently leaked internet footage of the demo reel Free-Radical put together shortly before administration, has got fans wondering what could have been, or could indeed still be. Aside from the suspect animation for the characters when running and the unwelcome sight of Jar Jar Binks, it does look impressive, with sprawling landscapes in game and some very detailed cut-scenes.
I have always thought after the Episode 3 heavy Battlefront 2, that the franchise should have one last hurrah and the current generation of consoles seem a perfect playground to showcase over 30 years worth of a much loved franchise.
Here's hoping that rumours about Rebellion or Pandemic picking up the game come to fruition, as apart from giving gamers the Star Wars game we deserve, it could also help the franchise in general reclaim some of the dignity that the Clone Wars TV series has taken away from it.

A short time ago I had the good fortune to find myself in the EA offices in Centrepoint, Leicester Sq. I add that this was out of office hours and a social trip rather than a business one, and pretty much the only thing I did there was play a bit of Fifa 09 (a game which I’m at least vaguely competent), and Street Fighter, a game that I am deeply, deeply horrible at.

I can just about cope with beat ‘em ups that reward the heavy duty button-masher, such as being Eddie Gordo in Tekken 2, but anything that requires having a genuine knack for the game leaves my pixelatted self laying in a pool of blood with the words ‘flawless victory’ serenading my opponent far more often than I’d like.

That digression aside on this day I came up against a very competent Street Fighter player, who roundly whipped my sorry ass on several occasions. Obviously I am not the yardstick by which I measured his competence, but he was beating everyone else as well.

Two things occurred to me at one point, as his Zangief clamped my Ryu’s head between his meaty thighs and prepared to drill his head through the floor, and they were; Read More  »

 
Just when it looked as though every subject under the Sun had been turned into a video game at some stage during its relatively short lifetime, when along come the Really Useful Group. A multimedia company set up by the composer and Leyton Orient's most famous fan Andrew Lloyd-Webber.
 
They have recently announced plans to produce a number of games based on Mr Lloyd Webber's most famous works including Cats, the Phantom of the Opera and Jesus Christ Superstar. Early indications suggest that the titles will begin initially with sing-a-long affairs (so an FPS based around Evita doesn't look to be happening anytime soon) , to be released on consoles, PC and mobile devices.
 
Does the Really Useful Group's decision mean that gaming is becoming high-brow? The theatre is becoming mainstream? Or that they just fancy a piece of the pie that Singstar and co have enjoyed huge sales from.

Recently Microsoft have been making classic games from various formats available for download via the Xbox Live Market Place; these include such prestigious classics as Golden Axe, Double Dragon and Sonic the Hedgehog. It was while browsing these games that I came across something from my past, something that still manages to instill fear into me........Doom. The original Doom. Now, Doom is sixteen years old this year and it hasn't aged well, the graphics are blocky, the enemies simply pixelated, the sound effects are basic, but you know what? Its still fantastic. It still has that unsettling air about it, the array of truly bizarre enemies from shotgun toting dudes with crew cuts to free floating giant red...things. The gore and messiness as you cleave a fireball breathing beastie in twain with a chainsaw reminds you that controversy regarding video game violence is not a recent phenomena. It is without doubt the most important video game ever conceived – without it there would probably be no Counter Strike, no Call of Duty, no Quake, No Unreal Tournament; it championed and paved the way, it is the iconic first person shooter, it lay the foundations for network multiplayer gaming and from this spawned the term 'deathmatch' forever synonymous with the first person shooter genre. Read More  »

 
After enjoying a renaissance in the last gen, Ubisoft have decided that the Prince of Persia won't have to wait as long for another reinvention, which means that he must be almost rivalling Madonna in the most reinventions leader board. This latest iteration like many of Madonna's over the years isn't .
 
First impressions from the opening screens are pretty positive and the level of detail that Ubisoft Montreal have to put into the presentation is on display for all to see. By opting for a Cel-shaded approach the game manages to distance it from its older brother and also is a refreshing change from the gritty realism and space marines that this generation has offered us in abundance. The opening sequence begins with the Prince caught up in a sandstorm looking for his donkey, when a mysterious girl called Elika bumps into him whilst on the run from some evil looking guys.
 
After following Elika to an ancient temple, it transpires that her father ,of all people, has destroyed the Tree of Life, which had kept the evil god Ahriman a prisoner ( ‘Dad you unleashed an evil god’ is surely an episode of Jeremy Kyle just waiting to happen). Now that Ahriman is on the verge of being freed, his evil has begun to blight the once 'Fertile' land, with what is known as 'Corruption'. It is the Prince and Elika’s job to travel ancient Persia and make the land 'Fertile' again. The areas are broken into four separate sections - City Gate, the Cavern, the Cauldron and King’s Gate - each area encompasses five sections sections, which need to be made fertile once more. Read More  »

As I blew the umpteenth Super-Mutant’s head into a gory paste, I found myself pausing slightly. Pausing to wonder if perhaps there wasn’t actually something to this whole ‘desensitized by console violence’ argument.
 
During the course of my most recent run-through of Bethesda’s masterwork of post-apocalyptic survival, I have killed hundreds of Super-Mutants, Raiders, Mercenaries and God knows what else. Virtually nothing I’ve come across hasn’t eventually felt the searing kiss of shotgun delivered hot lead straight to the face, and I’ve barely even blinked.
 
At first every kill felt different and unique, as the fantastic V.A.T.S system meant that skull after skull exploded, and after each time I was sat there thinking;
 
“Damn that was cool”. Read More  »

With the news that the Wii has now infiltrated one in four British households, the press is getting itself in a lather about our little island turning into a nation of gamers. But let's just all hang on a minute. If we're talking about using an interactive electronic device to simulate a sport or scenario then yes, we are all becoming gamers. But doesn't being a gamer mean more than that?
 
I don't want to get all precious about it, like a film fan who doubts the movie-loving credentials of a person who claims Titanic as their favourite cinematic experience, or a music lover who won't have a discussion with you if you don't know the lyrics to Pink Floyd's The Wall. But I grew up in an era when to be a gamer meant spending a large amount of time getting intimately acquainted with the latest pixel adventure. It meant getting in from school, bolting your tea and then missing out on day turning to night turning back to day, just so you could go to school the next day and tell your mates you'd unlocked the Nismo GT-R LM after finishing one of Gran Turismo's endurance races.
 
That technology has reached a point where we can get electronic devices to simulate just about whatever we want is awesome. So too is the fact that Nintendo has finally cracked what it seems to have wanted for years; that is a system which is based for the most part around good, clean family fun, rather than a fist fight with the young pretenders Sony and Microsoft over who can shift the most polygons.
  Read More  »

Both FIFA09 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 have been around for about three months now so is a good time to see who has the taken the golden boot in the fiercely contested EA vs Konami debate. In truth, having played both games for a prolonged amount of time, I feel that EA's FIFA has now overtaken Konami's PES as the champion of the football sim. Why? For me, its a weird sense of role reversal; for years FIFA was always seen as the more arcade driven game, very pretty, finely polished, fully licensed yet missing that extra something whereas the PES series was viewed as a game built around the most important aspect – game play regardless of the masses of unlicensed teams, stadiums and players. Yet in this seasons releases, the roles have been switched; EA have tweaked away at the game play over the years until they've reached a point with FIFA09 where they have attained what appears to be the most realistic footballing game play I have experienced.
Konami on the other hand have rested on their laurels as it were, content with the game play they've had for close on three years with very little improvement or innovation. Ahh but if it isn't broke, why fix it? I hear you say; and to some degree this is true but the play now feels stagnated and, when compared to the gameplay of FIFA09, PES can now be seen as the more arcade feeling release. FIFA rewards patient approach play, pass and move, a tactical approach. PES seems to reward you with Lionel Messi fleet footing through your defence a la Diego Maradonna at the 1986 Mexico World Cup before slotting a stoater past a floundering goalkeeper. Also, as is mandatory for both games, FIFA is fully licensed with official stadiums, hundreds of licensed teams and leagues from around the globe and literally thousands of players. Throw in fully licensed league and cup competitions and PES simply cannot compete despite the coup of gaining the rights to the UEFA Champions League option. Read More  »

Prince of Persia (360)

The Prince is revamped and returns for more acrobatic action, but does he compare to his royal lineage?

Have you ever wondered if an interactive movie experience would be possible to accomplish; more than just a “choose your own adventure” interaction that you may remember from Goosebumps when you were a kid? Well, with Prince of Persia, an answer to this question may not be far down the road.

As you first pop in the game, you’re greeted with a wonderfully and beautifully designed opening, introducing you to both the Prince and he’s new lovely leading lady, Elika. She proves to be a very unique companion, providing similar help to the Prince as Farah from the other Prince games, but to a much more, dare I say it, EXTREME (sorry, I couldn’t resist) level. She simply proves to your “guardian angel.” Missed that jump and you’re plummeting to your death? No you’re not, because Elika magically pulls you to safety. An enemy is about to deliver the final blow? Nope. Elika steps in and again saves your life, and this continues throughout the entire game. Why is this a bad thing, you ask? The game has omitted a sense of dying and has replaced it with your companion. Although Ubisoft Montreal attempted to recreate The Sands of Time’s time control feature, the absence of a “death screen” takes away from the overall experience of the game. It removes any strategic thought needed for jumps or combat, allowing the player to do whatever he or she may want without any real consequences, barring a 30 second backtrack.