Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam
Verdict: Snow boarding without the snow.
For Nintendo DS.
Rating: 3½/5
Despite my apparently masochistic skills at various board based modes of transport I’ve always managed some satisfaction from pulling off ‘sick’ moves shortly before repeatedly kerb stomping my own virtual head through the doors of A&E.
Skateboarding games can often be a frustrating stop/start experience (skate, break an ankle, skate again), especially compared to the more fluid gameplay of snow boarding games like Amped (hurtle at great speeds, break an ankle, hurtle at great speeds again).
Tony Hawk’s Downhill Hill Jam takes skating onto the slopes in the biggest departure for the series yet with the added benefit of urban environments providing more trick friendly places than plain white, snowy vistas.
Starting off with the prerequisite character creation and Sk8r Rock, you’re introduced to the quirky, Jet Set Radio style graphics that opt for cartoon visuals instead of limited realism. Considering the hardware it’s a wise move and it lends itself to the speed and the over the top, vertigo inducing courses you race or fall down.
With a boost ability to help win races, the key gameplay hook centres around ‘more tricks = more boost’ which means to win you need to be pulling fingerlip airwalks and grind to manual combos at every opportunity. You’re trick repertoire isn’t as in-depth as usual but it provides an entry level approach to the subtleties of the 360’s Project 8 and ensures that the high speed high jinks aren’t over encumbered with fiddly controls although some trick styles are ill-suited to the new downhill ethos.
Online, Downhill Jam provides a surprisingly comprehensive experience with web support, voice chat between friends and a pick n’ mix of multiplayer modes that allow you to compete with strangers and find out how you truly suck at the game (hypothetically speaking).
Downhill Jam ultimately falls down (and breaks its ankle) with it’s limited amount of courses and frequent difficulty spikes that mean playing it in public could get you arrested for swearing.
Or at least in my case.

Gears of War (18)
Verdict: Beautiful, grizzly and innovative.
For Xbox 360.
Rating: 4/5
The chainsaw has always remained a satisfyingly grizzly favourite with its familiar ‘chug chug chug’ sound singing a kind of rhythmic elegy. Imagine the glee when I discovered the default gun in Gears of War came with a screen soaking chainsaw bayonet.
Falling somewhere between Ghost Recon’s blindfire filled, squad based gameplay and Halo’s balanced sci-fi combat and weaponry, Gears of War is a gorgeously grim looking game full of stunningly decayed gothic architecture, urban desolation and industrial cliché. Combined with handheld camera style work, GoW sets the graphical bench mark for future 360 titles and certainly keeps the PS3 on it’s toes.
Ignoring the Casual difficulty setting, GoW set to Hardcore is transformed from an easy run and gun game to a desperate battle for survival where life is fleeting and the enemy is unrelenting. Relying on AI buddies can at times be frustrating but help exists in the form of reviving co-op play in split screen or online and nothing since Halo has been so much fun and so well integrated into the experience.
Online features are surprisingly minimal with only three game types on offer and ten maps to choose from but what this lacks in numbers it makes up for in purity and balance as each game is an intense tactical shoot out and team based battle. The one-hit-kill of a sticky grenade and the unstoppable fury of the chainsaw can tip the balance at times but quick fire rounds keep revenge fresh in the mind.
As a flagship title showing what the 360 is capable of, GoW does it with great verve and confidence. Despite the arguably repetitive gameplay, weak close combat and a relatively short, anti-climatic story, the levels are varied enough to keep things going and the intense action, brevity of life and immense fun to be had in co-op and multiplayer will keep you coming back for more. Genius and innovative touches like the tense weapon reloading ensure it stays one step above the competition.
Shsh, do you hear that chugging sound? It’s drawing near...

Call of Duty 3 (15)
Verdict: Authentic but linear war.
For 360, also Xbox, PS2, Wii.
Rating: 3½/5
Historical shooters have always been strangely perverted in their attempt to create fun out of a truly horrific reality. Titles like Medal of Honour tend to paint a dubiously anaesthetised, blood free image of war that is little more than a cardboard shooting gallery. Thankfully the Call of Duty series treats history with a little more respect.
Traditionally CoD has been split up into separate chapters charting the experiences of different soldiers in different armies - from snow covered trenches to urban settings. This time round you play as different soldiers but they are all fighting for the same objective in France - preparing the way for D-day.
What this brings in narrative coherence to the game, it loses in variety, as each level is made up of similarly dull green palettes as you fight through the damp countryside of France.
What it lacks in variety though it makes up for with compelling and contrasting scenes of beauty in those rare moments between gun fights as smoke grenades fade into the chill moonlit night and luminescent moths flutter like cinders from a burning jeep.
Despite this though CoD suffers from weak AI and incredibly linear level design and although they detract from the reality of the war, the messy and chaotic online experience does well to rectify it. If it wasn’t for connection issues, the balanced soldier classes and 24 player matches could be reason alone to buy the game.
Call of Duty’s greatest strength lies in making you feel vulnerable - like every bullet counts and every corner turned could be your last. Bombs rain down, planes burn overhead and distant screams signal the arrival of ominous Panzer tanks.
Going through all this for ‘fun’ feels a little uncomfortable at times but CoD’s historical accuracy and compelling gameplay ensures that at least we don’t forget what our grandparents went through for our freedom.

Spongebob Squarepants: Creature from the Krusty Krab
Verdict: A cake that needs a little icing.
For PS2, also PC, GC, Wii.
Rating: 3½/5
Ah Spongebob, there’s nowt finer than the antics of Nickelodeon’s aquatic fanatic. A regular fixture of our household, he’s brightened many a morning yet when it comes to videogames he’s always been a bit of a damp Squidward.
To tackle Spongebob’s virtual plight, Blitz Games have attempted to capture the essence of the cartoon and worked closely with Nikelodeon to recreate the sense of humour, imagination and surrealness of Bikini Bottom.
Drawing inspiration from a number of episodes, the game takes place over a series of dreams and nightmares with an over-arching B-movie theme. While allowing the designers freedom to cook up crazier than normal situations like Plankton wreaking havoc Godzilla style, it also allows them to experiment visually as in the case of Spongebob’s disfigured Hotrod levels and Patrick’s 50’s comic book style adventures, replete with authentic print dots.
As the dreams create visual diversity they also create variety in the gameplay as each level attempts to try something new. Mixed in with the overly traditional ‘go here, press that’ platforming levels are racing, flying and side scrolling levels alongside a whole host of minigames and the inclusion of motion sensing controls on the Wii version will certainly spice things up.
Unfortunately, while each dream offers a change of pace it tends to over milk it with some repetitive gameplay, tired objectives and overlong levels marring what could be an altogether sweeter but shorter cake.
The ease at which progress is made helps lighten the repetition and the abundance of save points means all but the most aquaphobic of gamers will make it through to the multiple endings but on the other edge of the swordfish lies a game that presents little challenge - the promise of a new dream is always just enough to keep you going though.
The true litmus test is if the fans are happy and judging by the grin on my girlfriend’s face I’d say that was a yes.

Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Verdict: Familiarity breeds contentment.
For Xbox 360, also PC, PS2, Xbox, GC.
Rating: 4/5
The world that Sam Fisher exists in seems to be one of perpetual night, soaked in rain and framed by shadow stealing flashes of lightning. You’d think he might get tired of seeing everything in ‘Most Haunted’ hues of green and you’d be right - Double Agent not only sees Sam go undercover and tread a fine wire between what’s right for the mission and right for his humanity but also sees him sneak in altogether brighter places.
With the story kicking off with Sam in prison, attempting to infiltrate a terrorist group, he’s stripped of his usual gear and must escape using his bare muscle and wit. To knock out or kill the prison guards on his escape sums up the underlying morality at play throughout the game as you juggle with what are essentially good/bad meters represented by the government agency and the terrorists. Trying to please both is a difficult task but one which reaps the most rewarding and tense gameplay.
Alongside these significant changes, Double Agent further streamlines the Splinter Cell experience with intelligent doses of evolution within its controls, enhancing the context sensitive setup and subtle analogue and rumble mechanics.
Online play offers co-op missions and the biggest departure from the game’s single player - Spy Vs Mercenary matches. Playing as either a nimble super spy in the third person or a heavily armed mercenary in the first person, you must either retrieve or protect data utilising your unique strengths.
Spys are unarmed but can perform feats of acrobatics, stealth kills and use high-tech gadgets. Mercenaries have big guns, a torch and the growing rumble of a heartbeat to let them know when the enemy is near - how it’ll work on the PS3’s rumble-less controller will be interesting to see.
As a complete package it’s hard to fault Double Agent and it’s a great looking game with outstanding audio but at the end of the day it is just more of the same.
As gruel goes though, it’s mighty tasty.

Kingdom Hearts 2
Verdict: Buoyant but bloated cartoon fun.
Platform: PS2
Rating: 3½/5
Featuring a cast drawn from Final Fantasy games and Disney, Kingdom Hearts 2 brings them together again in a gloriously animated and gorgeous looking adventure.
Continuing from where the original’s story left off, Sora awakens to find that the ‘heartless’ haven’t actually been defeated and that a new army is on the rise, led by Sleeping Beauty’s nemesis, Maleficent. It’s up to the spikey haired lad to defeat them once and for all with the help of Goofy, Donald and a vast array of other familiar, family friendly characters.
With Square Enix’s high production values combined with Disney’s voice acting and iconic design it’s easy to see why the series is so popular with young and old as each scenario bursts forth with colour and character.
Combining Final Fantasy’s familiar and intuitive menu systems with an accessible real-time combat engine, Kingdom Hearts 2 is easy to pick up, easy to play and a joy to behold.
Fighting is made up of the basic attack/defend/cast repertoire and ‘Quick Time Event’ style button presses for context sensitive moves, particularly utilised during the impressively huge boss battles.
For all its charm, Kingdom Hearts 2 is ultimately bogged down by a ham-fisted script and a bloated, nonsensical plot in desperate need of some trimming. Square Enix’s love of cut-scenes remains strong with an excessive amount of FMV to sit through but at least they’re full of Disney’s comedic characters and not just whining spikey haired emo kids.
Thankfully the cut-scenes are actually skippable and it’s design elements like this that are the game’s saving graces along with the obvious draw of Disney’s IP. The scrappy, button bashing nature of the combat and linearity of the game don’t do much to help either but it’s all held together by the over arching joy of fighting alongside Donald and Goofy and progressing to the next branded Disney land.
Kind of like touring Disney World with a dysfunctional family.

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (18)
Verdict: More is less.
Platform: PS2, Xbox.
Rating: 2½/5
Those that salivate at the thought of poorly animated gore, rejoice! Mortal Kombat returns in one (hopefully) final blow out with a bumper package that squeezes in every single character from the series and a whole host of extras
Outclassed in the 2D realm, Mortal Kombat has been trying to karve itself a niche in 3D. Once again offering over the top gore and uniquely, allowing players to switch between hand-to-hand and weapon based combat, it single handedly takes on the likes of Virtua Fighter and Soul Calibur in one decapitating stroke. Or at least it wishes.
If a 60 strong list of characters isn’t enough to entice you, Armageddon has been spread wide and thinly to include a single player story mode and bizarrely, Kart racing.
The story mode is pure stilton with twitchy kontrols and a kombat engine at odds with the traditional 1 Vs 1 style. The Kart racing is out of place and a far cry from the joys of Mario Kart.
Still lacking that ‘queer eye’, the kreators of Armageddon have decided to give gamers the key to the spandex wardrobe. Soon to be featured on ‘What not to Wear’ as a virtual wardrobe for single mums looking for zing in their evening wear, the selection of ridiculous costume parts on offer will mean your kombatant really stands out at the disco. Scotchgard is optional but advisable considering the blood on the dance floor.
With online play, an overwhelming amount of unlockables (why they have to be locked in the first place is a mystery of modern gaming) and a bumper pack size of kontent it looks like a good deal but John Doe will be buying the game for the kombat so he can disembowel his friends and that unfortunately is a tawdry, stilted affair lacking the fluidity, joy and true depth of its peers.
Next weeks review - Mortal Kombat: Kross Stitch Konunrdrums.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red/Blue Rescue team
Verdict: Dungeon crawling for dummies.
Platform: GBA, DS. Out 10th November.
Rating: 3½/5
Fans of Sex in the city often ask ‘which character are you most like?’. Alongside ‘which A-Team character do you smell of?’ and ‘which Cenobite would you holiday with?’, we now have a new question and a readily available answer - ‘what type of Pokémon are you?’.
At the start of the mysterious red or blue adventure you’re asked a series of entertaining and random questions which inexplicably determine what type of Pokémon you’re transformed into. My stubbornness and quiet courage meant I became a Charmander when I woke from the amnesia inducing dream into the world of talking creatures.
Taking a diversion from the traditional Pokémon format, Nintendo have created a particularly old-school dungeon crawler. Featuring randomly generated ‘dungeons’ in the form of forests and cave networks, the traditional turn-based combat has been replaced with accessible, pseudo real-time mechanics which allow the novice to jump straight in while the simple controls belay a more hardcore structure for the stat crunchers out there.
This time round you actually play as a Pokémon instead of a trainer collecting them. Set in a human-less world you can communicate beyond the original two word style vocabulary (Pika? Chu!) but the queen’s English lamentably removes some of the nonsensical charm that Pokémon normally exude.
With the core hook of the classic Pokémon RPGs gone, the ‘gotta catch em all’ nature has been replaced with ‘gotta befriend em all’ which, while ecologically and sociologically sound, replaces the satisfaction of hunting out rare Pokémon, nurturing and training them with an altogether less immediate prospect.
While the hub world and story is full of character and kawai charm, the majority of the game is spent dungeon crawling through bland, featureless environments. Their random nature replaces the prospect of clever level design with endlessly meandering corridors and rooms and coupled with the repetitive and simplified combat, speedily working your way through each mission quickly becomes a priority over curious exploration which was such an enjoyable part of the originals.
With link-up between versions and the expected DS enhancements bettering the GBA, it’s a game best played in conjunction with friends with trading and collecting enhancing the unique but slightly flat experience.
Now if I could just wake up from this dream...

The King Of Fighters: Neowave
Verdict: A purists pinata.
Platform: PS2
Rating: 3½/5
If you’re into 2D beat-em-ups you’re either a fan of Street Fighter or The King of Fighters. Mortal Kombat doesn’t even come close and shame on you for even suggesting it. From a once glorious and crowded past these two heavy weights are the only ones loved enough to truly survive the de-pixelisation of 3D’s dominance.
Born from a fusion of SNK’s Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury games, the modestly titled KoF features a recognisable play style to anyone familiar with the more popular Street Fighter series. With two buttons for punch and two for kick it initially appears simpler than its peer but what it lacks in buttons it more than makes up for in complex special moves.
KoF: Neowave is SNK Playmore’s flagship title for new arcade hardware - the Atomiswave board. Utilising the increased power of the system it introduces hi-res backgrounds and improved music to the series. Beyond that though it seems to do little more and on a console, adds even less.
Featuring re-drawn sprites, KoF still looks dated in this age of cell-shading, with it’s rough, pixelated edges paling in comparison to the modern, smooth lines of Guilty Gear and the high frame rates of Street Fighter 3. What it lacks in aesthetic sophistication it makes up in style and character, featuring a cast of individuals full of charm, attitude and a particularly Japanese fashion sense.
Bringing back the old three-a-side team battles last seen in KoF: 2002, the large character roster is mainly composed of teams taken from each iteration of the series and it’s this that is most likely to please the fans as Neowave acts as more of a greatest hits compilation than a true sequel.
Without offering anything new beyond improved background visuals the same action can be found elsewhere in past iterations. For the purist who knows the character roster of the entire series there may be something to glean but for those of us with a passing interest there is the far superior Capcom Vs SNK 2, combining characters from Street Fighter and KoF into one almighty package.
So, are you a Kyo or a Ryu?

Shinobido: Way Of The Ninja
Verdict: A ninja dog of a game.
Platform: PS2
Rating: 3/5
There’s nothing meaner than being bestowed with super powers that are rendered impotent by a crushing weakness. Achilles has been there - practically invincible yet held back by a gammy ankle that could be attacked for massive damage. Shinobido has a similar weak spot, if games had ankles that is, which proudly holds its head high in the shape of one of the most unwieldy cameras thrust upon mankind’s furtive steps into 3D gaming.
Beyond the crippling, glitchy, wayward camera that hearkens back to 3D’s dark age, there lies a game with much ambition. Made by the original team that created the PS1’s flawed classic Tenchu, Way of the ninja is its spiritual PS2 successor. Retaining all that made the original great - the free form missions, the fusion of feudal history and fantasy, the ninja styled stealth and grappling hook action, Shinobido attempts to blend the deeper aspects of the Way of the samurai series (their previous PS2 titles) via the game’s evolving story and mission structure.
As a lone assassin with amnesia you find work with warring clans as you attempt to literally piece together your mind from glowing stones (happens to the best of us). Allowing you to pick and choose which missions you do affects the success of each clan and their attitude towards you. It also allows you to play them off against each other, utilising their weaknesses to further your own gains.
Adding to the game a sense of interaction normally lacking from action titles, Shinobido allows you to see immediate results varying on the success of your mission. Unfortunately it does little to bolster the rest of the in-game experience.
Combat is made up of a restrictive lock on system and dated moves that are supported by usable items like poisoned rice and the obligatory stealth abilities and silent assassinations. The grappling hook has lost its immediacy, buried behind a slow menu and while Tenchu’s stealth action was lauded at the time, compared to Sam Fisher and Agent 47’s antics it’s rather quaint.
Ancient chinese warrior say ‘ninja with bad camera suffer many restarts and gnashing of teeth’.

Saints Row (18)
Verdict: Bling with no zing.
Platform: Xbox 360
Rating: 3½/5
When you first enter the ghetto of Saints Row you know exactly where you are as a kind of self perpetuating deja-vu pervades throughout the city of Stilwater - every bit of car jacking, gunning, pimping, driving action blurs into one old memory you’re sure came from somewhere else. Welcome to GTA: San Andreas part deux.
As the new kid on the block in Saints Row, you find yourself at the end of a barrel in the middle of a present day gang war. Enlisted by your saviours you whole heartedly join in the fight and embark on a city wide trail of destruction.
As well as scrapping with rival gangs there’s a predictably big sandbox city full of stuff to see and steel. Ensuring you don’t skip it all, a certain level of respect must be achieved before tackling the main gang related missions and to gain respect you must seek out a variety of law breaking jobs.
With a whole host of entertaining careers like insurance fraud, escort duties, assassinations and heavily armed vandalism, you’re sure to be busily distracted as you burn round the city in a freshly stolen, pimped out car, modelling your latest bling.
Attempting to iron out GTA’s flaws, Saints Row smooths out the experience by making navigation easy, fixing combat controls and introducing quick saves. While it does this commendably it falls short by merely limiting itself to this - there’s no progression from the formula, no innovation beyond slight tweaks and online play.
Lamentably, features have been sacrificed like the RPG style character building and the lack of vehicles other than cars and trucks is criminal, further serving to paint Saints Row as a more limited package, despite it’s confident and ballsy sheen.
It also misses that vital satiric spark that elevated GTA’s wit beyond its superficial crudeness and lacking an engaging story, iconic music and the artistic direction that defined so much of Rockstar’s controversial series, Saints Row delivers below its potential.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then this is some of the best knock-off jewellery money can buy.

Metal Slug 5
Format: PS2.
Disappointingly sluggish.
In this age of 3D, polygon filled, bump mapped, shadered and bloomed graphical technology, it’s always refreshing to settle down with an old-school 2D pixel pushing game. There’s something about the art direction - the fact that the designers have to squeeze so much character out of what basically amounts to a collection of different coloured squares is testament to why the pixel art scene is still flourishing. Paul Smith has jumped on the bandwagon and with Malcolm Mclaren doing the same with chip music (electronica made using old gaming technology) these retro stylings are thankfully here to stay.
The Metal Slug series is one of the last champions of 2D on home consoles although even it has succumbed to 3D with a new, soon to be released title. Starting out on the legendary NeoGeo it has carved out its identity as an over-the-top, run and gun two player shooter with distinct cartoon stylings, wildly imaginative design and of course its trademark humour and the titular Metal Slugs - super deformed tanks and various other combat ready vehicles and animals.
Metal Slug 4 was developed by a different company to the rest of the series and was a disappointment to many fans. With Metal Slug 5 the game was back in its creator’s hands so did it reclaim the series’ throne? Unfortunately not.
From the outset the game runs at a noticeably slower speed to usual and as soon as the action really gets going (there’s little time when it isn’t) the game hits criminal slow-down. For a series that has speed and mayhem as its trademark it’s game destroying and unforgivable. The PS2 should be able to handle it so it seems to be victim to sloppy porting (from the arcade version) and lazy programming.
Elsewhere the game treads the same old ground but seems to have lost some of the spark that made the series great. Environments are more detailed and there’s a more convincing depth of field but overall the game just lacks the imagination and humour of old - it’s as if they made it on auto pilot.
A lot of the humour still resides in the sprite animation - the stupid expressions and the way characters move but it lacks the insane comic situations, the B-movie parodies and the over the top boss battles. Riding a freshly thawed woolly mammoth with a side mounted vulcan cannon shooting zombies, panicking soldiers and snow throwing yetis whilst avoiding becoming one of the undead or a snowman is what you’d expect from Metal Slug (specifically MS 3) but this kind of action is lamentably missing and replaced with something far more generic.
There are some entertaining moments like the car chase level with its exaggerated jumps but they are fleeting and prone to the ever prevalent slow down. Lacking the branching pathways of Metal Slug 3 and much of the imagination and humour it’s only made worse by the shortness of the game and the unwise decision to include infinite credits which means it’s a brief, disappointing affair.
5/10

Just Cause (16+)
Verdict: Too much smoke, not enough mirrors.
Platform: 360, PC, PS2, Xbox
Rating: 3½/5
Thrusting you into an over-saturated world of acid pastels, panoramic vistas and enough over-the-top action to make James Bond jealous, Just Cause chucks you out of a plane into free falling, car jacking, island liberating fun.
As Rico Rodriguez you’re the CIA’s secret weapon, a latino warhead with a mullet and a one man regime change working to overthrow the unsavoury government of San Esperito.
With the lush equatorial island providing a massive playground, you can go where you want in predictable GTA style as the graphic engine does stunning work at rendering vast draw distances, populated roads, detailed foliage and gorgeous skies.
Separating Rico from every other action hero is his handy ability to open a parachute at any opportunity. Base jumping and paragliding are also par the course and used in conjunction with a grappling hook, the opportunity for ridiculously impossible and unlikely stunts becomes the norm as every vehicle becomes a ticket to the skies.
With obvious potential for imbalance, the relative ease of some missions caused by paragliding appears to be offset by the crazed homing missile A.I. of the self replicating cops and robbers, tipping the scales the other way.
Despite some thoughtful design like the vehicle drops, extractions and forgiving checkpoints that ensure you’re never stuck in the middle of nowhere for long, Just Cause rests a little too much on it’s flashy showmanship and overwhelming size to cover up its flaws and thin veneer.
With stiff controls, twitchy vehicle handling, a dumbed down auto-aim, intrusive way points and enough blur and bloom to make me never want to drink absinthe again, it lacks the final tweaks and that certain something that turns a game from average into awesome.
Where it works well it does it with great panache and even as a tech demo it certainly demonstrates what the graphic engine is capable of with great verve but it’s depth of experience fails to convince of more than that.
San Esperito - its a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there.

Ninety Nine Nights
Verdict: Repetitive, derivative button basher.
Platform: Xbox 360
Rating: 2½/5
Like a pavement trader selling knock off perfume, Ninety Nine Nights has definite whiffs of Otogi, Kingdom Under Fire and Dynasty Warriors about it as it attempts to abuse the power of the 360 to raise the carnage bar in the hack n’ slash genre.
With awful voice acting in check you lead your army into battle against roguish goblins and assorted fantasy cliches and plough your way through their ranks with fantastic looking neon imbued attacks and magical nukes.
The armies can number in the thousands and things are at their most intense when the screen is impressively awash with generic, hard to distinguish soldiers as both sides collide in a confusing brawl.
Thankfully you can’t hit your own neutered soldiers (who act more as a shield than a sword for you), so mindless button bashing works wonders. In fact it works too well as swathes of monsters fall before your mighty weapon with ease and when you’ve pulled off super-mega-hyper-doom combo number 3 for the 100th time, things quickly begin to lose their shock and awe.
You’d think wading into vast battles with your magically charged sword and cutting down groups of foes with Sauron like ease would be endless fun but without challenging enemies beyond the ‘i’m bigger, therefore I hurt you more’ mentality the challenge becomes one of making sure your thumbs are well oiled and your mind switched off.
It’s not all plain sailing though because difficulty spikes rear their ugly head and cause you to curse the lack of a checkpoint system where death means playing from the start of the long, muddled battle again and your thumbs cry murder. Judicious use of health refill chests and careful timing of genocidal magic attacks will eventually see you through to the next laborious level.
While the story treads familiar ground there is a moral subtext beneath the ‘good vs evil’ conceit which shows a darker side to the day-glo warfare. It’s just a shame there isn’t more depth or polish to the gameplay too.
Think toilet water rather than eau de toilet.

DeadRising (18)
Verdict: You've got a bit of red on you.
Platform: Xbox 360
Rating: 4 stars
Ever wondered what it'd be like to be trapped in the Victoria Centre on the last shopping day before Christmas and all the irate shoppers have turned into a hungry horde with a blood lust for human flesh? No? Oh, maybe that'll explain why i'm writing this from the comfort of a padded cell...
Anyway, wonder no more because DeadRising allows you to live out that fear/fantasy for a rabid, tongue-in-cheek 72 hours as you seek to gain the inside scoop on the zombification of a middle American town.
As Frank West, Photo journalist, you can either chase the story and find out why the town's folk have developed a lumbering gait or spend your time helping survivors. With a punishing time limit, save structure and a mall full of zombies it's hard to tackle both so which do you choose? That moral dilemma is yours.
Initially armed with just a camera, Frank has to make do with some DIY tactics and the shopping mall is a veritable cornucopia of makeshift weapons - handbags, skateboards, boomerangs, plant pots, frying pans, chainsaws, toy swords, lawnmowers...the list goes on and on, not to mention the inevitable arsenal of guns at your disposal.
Controls are satisfying, if a little clunky and the game uses the weapons to create diversity in combat while an RPG style levelling up system gives you new moves and upgrades as you progress. With obvious nods to GTA and Resident Evil 4, it's a sandbox style game that exudes B-movie charm and is full of hidden minutiae that only hours ofexploring, slaying and experimenting will unearth.
The multiple endings, crazy bosses, freeform missions, improvisational gameplay and a unique save system that keeps your upgraded character for each restart, means you'll be taking photos and bashing zombies right though the dawn of the dead.
With such blood red confidence it's a shame that it's held back by some annoying problems - the poor inventory system, weak AI, illegible on-screen text (for the majority of us without HD TVs) and an awkward save system mean it's a flawed but immensely fun game that'll make you see shopping in a whole new light.

Rogue Trooper
Verdict: Faithful comic book action.
Platform: Xbox, PS2, PC.
Rating: 3½/5
Set far in the future on the war ravaged world of Nu-Earth, the Rogue Trooper is a cloned, blue skinned super soldier bred to withstand the planet’s toxic atmosphere. Gone AWOL, he’s on a mission of revenge against a traitor general responsible for the Quartz Zone Massacre.
Based on the classic 2000AD comic strip, Rogue Trooper is a 3rd person shooter with similarities to the recent Ghost Recon games. With high aspirations and a determination to better the mediocre Judge Dredd game it has the Asura graphic engine to meet the requirements - with a satisfying chunkiness it recreates the comic strip in fine three dimensional glory and wisely eschews realism for graphic novel style looks.
Alongside Rogue is his Bio-chip buddies, the recorded personalities of fallen comrades that reside digitally within his gun, back pack and helmet. Once they’re all onboard via some impromptu surgery the game gets into full swing, giving Rogue the support of a team without the inherent problems of physical buddy A.I.
As well as offering comedic banter and vocal help (‘grenade!’), they offer advanced technological support via their respective placements. Gunnar provides extra reticule information and can be placed as an auto-turret allowing you to cover your back. Helm can hack computers, lure the enemy with noises and create Total Recall style holograms to confuse and distract. Bagman releases mines, feeds ammo to Gunnar (with a tiny robotic arm), heals Rogue and creates new ammo and medi-packs out of salvage alongside new weapons and upgrades.
With all these abilities Rogue Trooper eclipses the Ghost Recon games by offering multiple solutions to problems beyond hide or shoot. The salvage system works well too although looting every corpse can become a little tedious on a busy battle field.
While the gunplay is solid and satisfying the game suffers from an occasionally awkward control scheme and cut scene style stealth kills intrude upon the fluidity of the action that exists elsewhere.
Despite the slick presentation and nice touches like the map loading screen and Bio-chip nulling effects of EMP weapons, it’s a pretty faithful reproduction of a cherished franchise that just lacks that wow factor to make it a classic.
Thankfully, as a 2000AD fan, it’s left me feeling far from blue.

Pirates of The Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow
Verdict: I’d prefer the bottle of rum thanks.
Platform: PS2.
Rating: 1/5
If you’re looking forward to September 19th’s ‘International Talk Like A Pirate Day’ but are finding the month long wait just a little too much to bear then perhaps Jack Sparrow and his legend can satisfy your piratical needs.
Are you the typical fan of film-to-game titles that laps up the poorest of games with remarkable enthusiasm? Do you like rushed production, shoddy animation, awful voice acting, laughable cut scenes and woolly, repetitive combat? Then this game is surely for you!
As with every film tie-in, the draw is that you get to play as the central character and live through all your favourite bits rendered in imitation polygons (don’t buy fakes kids). In Pirates of the Caribbean you can be Jack Sparrow and in a surprising and singular bid for quality he’s voiced by the talented Mr Depp.
In an ‘innovative twist’ you can also switch from his drunken swagger to the forgettable wooden sidekicks, Orlando and Kiera (coming to a Punch and Judy show near you soon!). Unfortunately the fact that another character is with you at all times means you have to put up with what passes as A.I. With emphasis on the ‘Artificial’ and none on the ‘Intelligence’ Orlando and Kiera will strive to irritate at all costs.
Jack and Co. have a plethora of loose and unsatisfying sword fighting skills that you can upgrade to slightly more powerful, loose and unsatisfying levels and with out of character ninja-like skills they’ll slice and dice and forward flip their way through an infinite horde of zombie pirates and general sea faring scum.
With awful collision detection that incites visions of multiple realities existing in the same quantum space, the game does itself no favours when it makes you fail missions due to it’s own personal issues with context sensitive points. Having to re-do any of the painfully boring and repetitive levels due to a glitch is no fun, even for a zombie pirate slaying pirate.
The Legend of jack Sparrow gets a star for successfully conjuring up the true essence of pirates - you’ll feel like you’ve been robbed if you part with your cash for it.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
Verdict: Stylish and slick tactical shooter.
Platform: 360.
Rating: 4/5
When you think of ghosts, images of floaty spectral beings probably come to mind or perhaps the Liverpudlian twang of Derek Acorah calling out ‘Is anybody there?’. What doesn’t come to mind is a group of Hi-tech American soldiers tearing up Mexico City with rocket launchers.
Highly regarded for its tense multiplayer games, the Ghost Recon series has always been let down by its single player campaigns. With Advanced Warfighter, Ubisoft have tried to amend the problems by radically overhauling the game while retaining all that made the series good.
Set in the near future, the 3rd person shooter introduces the Cross Com device - hooking your soldier up to a communication network, it provides help on the battle field. Displayed on screen with vivid cyan and red icons, satellite relays provide you with up to date information on enemy and allied locations, a CCTV style window provides you with a third eye so you can see what your team mates are viewing and a 3D map can be brought up to issue movement commands and root out enemies with the flying Spy Drone.
Besides all the Hi-tech additions and the obvious graphical improvements the 360 musters, there’s a subtler change to the game too. Introducing more natural movement and interaction with the environment, they’ve increased the immersion by replacing button presses for certain actions with more fluid, context sensitive commands with the sticks. Walking up to a wall and continuing to push into it results in the soldier sticking close to it in a more covert, cover friendly manner and there are many more instances in this logical, intuitive style.
Unfortunately Advanced Warfighter still falls short of its single player goals with massive difficulty spikes and A.I. problems forcing you to nanny your squad so they don’t get themselves killed. What stands out though is Mexico City - the sprawling, urban metropolis you’re trying to survive.
Online is still superior and they’ve even ditched the impenetrable menus of old. Playing against other people or working together in missions against A.I. allows you to really put the Cross Com through its paces as Spy Drones, Sat Nav and the third eye style camera prove crucial to success, especially when all it takes is one, silenced ghost of a bullet to end your game.

Street Fighter Alpha Anthology
Verdict: It’s still got that Shin-sho-ryu-ken magic.
Platform: PS2.
Rating: 4/5
I remember my street fighting years with a wistful look into the distance as treasured memories of a miss-spent youth hanging out in the local arcade flood back. Mastering the art of Street Fighter II was a skill to boast about and the first times I pulled off moves like Ryu’s ‘Dragon Punch’ or Dhalsim’s ‘Yoga Flame’ had me in awe of the game and at my gradual mastering of it.
Times have changed of course, I still thank Street Fighter II for allowing an angry teen to vent some fury but the arcade’s days have dwindled as the home console has become part of the mainstream.
The Alpha Anthology is a collection of the arcade versions of the Street Fighter II prequels and oddly, Super Gem Fighter. Notable for their Manga stylings, fast gameplay and deeper combat they’re regarded as some of the best 2D beat-em-ups and this time round were responsible for my miss-spent years at university.
Introducing Alpha Counters, Air Blocking, Guard Meters, Custom Combos, the three stage Super Combo Gauge and some great new and re-invented characters meant that the series really had moved on from Super Street Fighter II Turbo for the better. Despite Street Fighter III eclipsing the Alpha series with its higher quality animation, its slower speed and more clinical and strategic parry based game play meant that Alpha remained most fans favourite.
While the ports compiled here are accurate they do lack some of the features of the console versions and only the die hard fans will really appreciate the differences in the games beyond different character rosters.
The diamond in the collection for some though is Super Gem Fighter, the little known super deformed beat em up whose simplified controls and over the top cartoon animation makes it easy for any one to have a fun blast with. Its lack of depth may bore some quickly though.
With the arcade style absence of load times, multiple games, hidden features and lashings of nostalgia it’s certainly a bargain at £20. I just wish Capcom would hurry up and make that pipe dream that still lingers in the heart of every fan a reality - Street Fighter IV.

Rockstar’s Table Tennis
Format: 360.
Return of the Pong.
When Rockstar announced its Table Tennis game many people thought it was a joke - the creators of controversial titles like Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt had made a sports game? What’s the catch? Can you attack the opponent? Are the players going to be naked? Will it feature a rap heavy soundtrack full of explicit language? None of the above, not even a vending machine selling hot coffee. After the initial double take I wasn’t that surprised - when you look at games like GTA: San Andreas you can see they are riddled with mini games and features that traditionally could make up one game alone. For Rockstar to make what could have been a mini game a full title is no surprise.
Not that Rockstar’s Table Tennis is a mini game made big. It’s more a big game made mini. Confused? What they’ve done is take the traditional sports game and strip it down to its bare essentials - gone is the custom player creation, gone is the lengthy rags to riches single player campaign, gone is the stat management and gone is the complex controls. They’ve opted for something far simpler and purer and it comes as quite a refreshing change.
As a modern day Pong (arguably the first video game) it certainly works - online play, a tournament mode and some unlockable characters is pretty much all it has over the original in terms of content and this minimalism means that you can just get straight down to playing.
Given the simplicity of the game and its relatively static virtual environments, Rockstar have been able to channel the 360’s power into some truly stunning graphics. Clothes ripple and flow with life like subtlety, sweat shines and builds as the game goes on and the players themselves are beautifully rendered and animated although they do reside a little in the ‘uncanny valley’ - that place where almost-real avatars can be unsettling to the eye.
Aside from the visuals the first thing you’ll notice is how the game plays - It doesn’t matter when you press or release the button to return the serve, just as long as you do it in time because the game automates the hit. This initially makes the game easy to pick up but also allows for a focus on its hidden depths.
With four types of colour coded spin, identified by the ball’s motion trail, the game rewards you with a better hit if you return it with the same spin as your opponent. Pressing the button as soon as possible for a stronger hit isn’t necessarily the best thing to do as the emphasis is on placement of the ball and clever use of the spin to out play the opponent. The fact that holding the spin button down for longer to charge your Focus Meter for super shots adds another part to the strategy of play.
Innovative use of vibration (soon to be conspicuous in its absence from the PS3), varied characters, a refreshing electronic soundtrack, polished design and tense multiplayer mean it’s certainly a great package for the price (£25). Whether it has longevity probably depends on the size of your friends list.
7/10

Monster Hunter
Format: PS2.
Can you stomach it?
There’s an old Estonian saying that ‘Earth is dearer than gold’, in the case of Monster Hunter this could be the game’s subtitle. Prepare to spend your time foraging for herbs and mushrooms, fishing, bug catching, digging for ore and harvesting the freshly slain corpses of the local wildlife. Nothing is wasted and everything is valued, be it for selling to tradesmen or for practical use in alchemy and weapons craft - in the true spirit of recycling, bones, hide, teeth and claws can be reconstituted into new weapons and armour, creating slayers out of the slain.
Placing you in the role of a rookie hunter of your design, the game offers you quests of varying complexity and content. You’ll find yourself dealing with unruly dinosaurs, searching for rare plants and tracking, trapping and slaying giant monsters. Stealing a giant egg from beneath a Wyvern’s sleepy gaze and then trying to creep past three large angry boar with it certainly introduces a new meaning to ‘stealth’.
Monster Hunter can be a daunting experience at first as the wealth of strange items, their uses and value is overwhelming. Lengthy missions that would be better tackled at the same time drag out the game’s tutorials and combine with the slightly impenetrable Japanese design to make Monster Hunter a difficult beast to get into. Like a fine wine given time though, you’ll soon be breathing the game’s heady aromas with ease.
Away from the safety of the village you are not only vulnerable to the wildlife but also to your body’s and tool’s needs - weapons become blunt, ammo runs out and your hunter’s stamina and health needs replenishing. Without stamina you can’t run and without running you can’t escape the clutches of an angry dragon. If you ignore the warning signs of your hunter clutching his gurgling stomach then do so at your peril.
Thankfully the tools of the trade solve these problems with sword sharpening stones and a spit for cooking freshly rendered meat (some may be put out by the lack of a vegetarian option). Ammo can be created from found and harvested parts and various other bombs and traps can be built whilst out in the wild, turning nature against itself with man’s ingenuity.
If the thought of hunting alone doesn’t sound tempting then the prospect of online play certainly will as Monster Hunter is primarily geared towards it. If you’re lamenting the delay until March of the PS3 then perhaps this will give you a taste of the online future. Opening the game up into a Phantasy Star Online style adventure, you can hook up with three other intrepid hunters and chase down your monstrous quarry together. With four hunters working together the possibilities are endless and endlessly amusing and the ability to trade items means those rare weapons become a step closer to reality.
It’s just a shame that the infuriating camera control, the frequent load screens and accidental zone hopping mire what is essentially a great game made even greater online.
8/10

Prey (18)
Format: 360 (version played), PC.
Sick bag required.
Opening with the central protagonist Tommy cursing himself in a dirty mirror, Prey shows that it’s trying to do things differently to the average First Person Shooter by immediately giving the character soul and history - he’s a disillusioned Native American Indian who’s desperate to leave his home and culture behind him.
Hanging out in a dirty bar at the start gives you the chance to familiarise yourself with the controls, meet the other central characters (his traditionalist girlfriend and grandfather), play a Pacman clone and club people to death with a wrench before everything goes a bit Independence Day.
After being freed by some sabotage on the giant spaceship you find yourself kidnapped by it’s up to you to save your family, saving Earth can wait. The ship itself is an amalgamation of Doom 3 rendered cliches - dark metallic corridors and squishy fleshy bits. Admittedly the squishy fleshy bits are taken to a whole new level that Freud would have a field day with and the size of the ship is brought home when you see a freshly abducted Airliner about to crash on the inside of it.
With obvious nods to Half Life and Doom, Prey’s main twist on the FPS is the introduction of gravity flipping rooms, sticky walkways and portals - holes that can appear and lead you to entirely different locations. Although nothing more than glorified doors the portals are a visual treat whereas the gravity flipping adds a whole new dimension to the gameplay and potential for some unique puzzles while spicing up the frequently laggy multiplayer with Lionel Richie style shooting on the ceiling.
With all the room flipping and Descent inspired 360 degree flying it’s certainly a game that requires great spatial awareness or, like Tommy, will have you reaching for the sick bag. If the designers wanted to communicate the feeling of having your notions of up and down turned inside-out then they’ve done so quite well.
In contrast to all the slimey, metallic, bio-mechanical Sci-Fi there’s also plenty of Indian spiritualist hokum which imbues you with special powers like the out-of-body Spirit Walking for further puzzle potential. Things also take a disturbingly ghostly twist aboard the ship showing that all is not as it seems. Just pray Derek Acorah hasn’t been abducted too.
The ever important gunplay is satisfying, if slightly clunky and there are some interesting looking weapons - seemingly alive the alien guns pulse, ripple and sweat in your hands. It’s a shame that they just boil down to the same old Sci-fi FPS stuff.
Like the fleshy walls the game oozes potential but that promise of innovation never seems to be fully met, delivering a solid but fairly standard, linear shootathon with some overly corny plotting and dialogue with a central character who seems more like a grumpy teen than the unwitting saviour of Earth.
8/10

Electroplankton
Verdict: Just imagine the whale song.
Platform: Nintendo DS.
Rating: 4/5
Opening with the sound of an orchestra tuning up that fades into the tranquil sound of bubbles in flowing water, Electroplankton perfectly communicates its essence in one brief moment. From that pure introduction and throughout the game, joy flows easily.
Game probably isn’t the correct description here though as it’s more like a musical toy or collection of sonic art pieces - there are no real goals (bar the flower blooming of Hanenbow) other than making sweet music by prodding, moving, drawing, firing, sliding and spinning cutely named creatures.
Created by renowned artist Toshio Iwai, Electroplankton falls under Nintendo’s Touch Generations banner and is another title from them that defies traditional video game categorisation. Like Nintendogs and Brain Training it’s accessible to anyone who can hold a stylus, eschewing complex interfaces and controls for something simple and elegant.
Numbering ten in total, each deliver their own pool of playful sound. There’s the ambient, doughnut shaped Lumiloop who sing long sustained notes when you spin them, the meditative Hanenbow who bounce and chime off movable leaves, Rec-Rec that works as a looping four track recorder with prepackaged beats, Sun-Amicule who grow like eggs in the digital heat, Nanocarp that respond to sound, Luminaria who flow along a grid of rotatable arrows, Tracy who follow your freshly drawn paths, Marine-Snow who sing and dance as you slide through them, Volvoice who mutates your own sounds and Beatnes that let you jam with 8 bit sounds to the tune of old-school Nintendo beats.
Seemingly influenced by musicians like Steve Reich, Oval and Brian Eno, the Electroplankton wouldn’t be out of place in a gallery or sound installation (in fact Luminaria and Lumiloop originally were) but instead they can reside in your pocket as sonic art on the go, ready to brighten any bus journey or queue at the bank.
At £30 the price may put off some people that expect a little more for their moolah which is a shame because its bioluminescence out-shines the population of bland, recycled ‘me too’ games out there.
One for the musician in us all.

Fifa Street 2
Verdict: You can’t polish a turd.
Platform: Nintendo DS.
Rating: 1½/5
With the World Cup over and England’s predictable demise through penalty shoot-outs becoming something of a cliche, reviewing Fifa Street 2 seems a little ill timed. The ill timing is all mine of course because the game has been out for a couple of months, sat on the shelf at the bottom of the pile - it’s just that now we enter into gaming’s annual Summer drought I had nowt else to play.
As a reviewer I should pick up each game with a Jedi like cleansing of the mind, brushing aside preconceptions, pet hates and prequels but it certainly took me a while to finally plug Fifa Street 2 into my cherished, finger print covered (curse you gloss finish!) Black DS Lite.
I’d like to say my expectations were quashed and that it presented itself as football’s portable gaming opus - a magical combination of sublime play mechanics and innovative game design...but I can’t.
What I got was the gaming equivalent of someone spraying too much air freshener in the bathroom after a night on the tiles - EA’s trademark polish attempting to mask a broken, bug ridden mess of a game.
Which is a shame really because the basic concept and even some of the game itself has a lot going for it - 4 minute matches that are perfect for portable gaming, trick controls that use the touch screen in a way that’s actually usable, WiFi multiplayer, an impressive soundtrack, EA’s usual player creation and customisation and even a logo creator for your team.
Unfortunately it’s all wasted on the fact that it’s riddled with game breaking bugs, the collision detection is atrocious (in a game where accuracy should be utmost) and for all the supposed beauty of the sport and Fifa Street’s emphasis on skill and tricks it’s a particularly ungraceful, jerky affair.
Feeling like you’re running through treacle while chasing a ball covered in oil is not the kind of gameplay you want from a fast and immediate sport like four-a-side football. Perhaps if they’d spent less time making the menus look nice and designing unnoticeable sock types for your players to wear they might have spent some time on the bit that matters - the game. As a company of their size they have no excuses - shame on you EA.

Chrome Hounds
Verdict: Robot Wars.
360
Rating: 3/5
Like lumbering tortoises and headless chickens zapped with an enlarging ray, giant battle mechs stumble across the war ravaged land. Shining brightly in the morning sun, the custom decals show their squad allegiance with amateurish pride as the piloted robots leave freshly compressed tracks in the ground. The ragtag group of mercenaries spread out in formation as the communications network comes online and the appointed squad commander issues new orders - ‘23 go to point E and provide covering fire, 69 reclaim COMBAS tower F, all remaining units move on base 3!’
Enemy mechs attempt to cross a nearby bridge to counter attack and they temporarily switch plans to concentrate all weapons on sending them to a watery grave. Mortars rain down, sniper cannons crack and heavy streams of artillery fire reduce the structure to rubble and smoke as the mechs go tumbling down.
All markers point to the enemy HQ as each mech closes in - a circle of death slowly tightening like a rusted screw. Suddenly the squad’s Scout comes tearing out from behind a nearby hill and into the communication grid screaming ‘Defender!’ as a wall of fire erupts behind him. A giant four legged mech appears in his wake, a smoking behemoth of cannons searching for its next target. A cough of rockets signals the squad’s immediate response - Soldiers, Snipers and Heavy Gunners empty their arsenal into the sky as the deadly fireworks make protracted work of the mighty mech. With the last obstacle gone the enemy’s HQ is defenceless and the battle is won.
The country of Terakia claims a small victory in the war while the mercenary squad ‘Battle Hounds’ reaps the reward of cash and reputation. Terakia expands it’s frontline and the soldiers for hire buy new parts for their infinitely customisable killing machines in a bid to become a stronger and tighter unit as the fight goes on...
Online, stories are written as the persistent war continues apace. Lacking a decent, narrative driven single player campaign, responsibility for engaging play rests here. The game’s many weaknesses like lack of physics or next-gen gameplay are generally forgotten as the player becomes absorbed by squad tactics, mech building and fighting alongside friends. The combat is slow and the juxtaposition of arcade controls denies its Sim roots but strategy is the over arching key - Rock, Paper, Scissors dressed in armour and covered in guns.

X-Men: The Official Game
Verdict: Not so super powered
PS2 also Xbox, GC, PC, 360
Rating: 2/5
Stereotypically, videogame adaptations of films suck. Film adaptations of games suck even more (no, Mortal Kombat wasn’t a good movie). Resting in the knowledge that they’ll sell no matter how bad they are, adaptations are thrown together and time after time they dominate the charts as amnesiacs buy them, forgetting how forgettable last month’s tie-in was. There is the odd exception like James Bond: Goldeneye or The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay but with this turgid history, Xmen: The Official Game has little to live up to and it does it with as much gusto as you might expect.
Broken up between three characters you get to find out what happened between the 2nd and 3rd film, taking control of Wolverine, Iceman and Night Crawler. Each character has a different play style - Wolverine is the straight up brawler with healing abilities, Iceman plays more like a shooter as he slides around on his ice (looking rather like a large blue, flappy tongue) firing, you guessed it - ice, while Night Crawler gets the obligatory stealth treatment whilst offering up some genuinely interesting moves in the form of teleports.
While it all seems competently built the game is let down by a lack of flair and good design. Missing basic features like the option to change camera control (with the default being counter-intuitive) and level design being as flat pack as flat pack gets (there must be an Ikea for game design) it all comes across as rushed.
The combat is standard fair with Wolverine being a tiresome button basher without any form of counter attack. Iceman’s move set is limited, and lacks punch (no pun intended) while Night Crawler on the other hand is quite fun to play. With his teleport ability you can mix up melee attacks and acrobatics all the while zipping in and out of existence. Unfortunately it quickly shows up its limitations, never offering up the depth of something like Ninja Gaiden or the fluidity of Prince of Persia.
Peppered with a list of ‘me too’ features it fails to really draw the player in despite the fact that some talented Marvel writers helped script the story. Then again, when the cut scenes are presented in an embarrassing amalgamation of film and comic that’s hardly surprising - comic book stills mixed with audio just come across as a lame cop out, which pretty much sums the game up.

Hitman: Blood Money (18)
Verdict: Accident prone assassin
PS2, Xbox, PC, 360.
3½/5
There’s a misguided, fame seeking attorney in America who brands violent games as ‘murder simulators’. While he’s off the mark, in the case of Hitman he’s very nearly right - as the clone assassin ‘Number 42’ your job is to murder people. The catch though and what said lawyer would probably miss is that you get rewarded for not killing. Confused? Simply put you lose points for killing anyone other than your villainous targets.
As a ‘murder simulator’ the emphasis would be on the killing and while there is plenty of that the real joy is not in the hit but in the faultless execution (pardon the pun) of the overall plan - a complex, methodical act that requires careful planning, precision, timing and a healthy dose of improvisation as it inevitably goes wrong.
Each level offers new targets in bustling locations and it’s your job to take them out as you see fit. Providing you with countless methods and a new emphasis on ‘accidents’ the game allows you to do as you please. The only problem with having so many options is actually trying to piece together which ones go with which. Thus repeated play of each level becomes the norm as you work out the routines of the targets, accident locations and of course whose clothes to steal.
After each successful job the mission synopsis takes the form of a newspaper article detailing the incident and providing photo-fits that vary in accuracy depending on your skill at staying in the shadows. It’s a nice touch and contributes to your notoriety in subsequent levels - having a higher level means it’s harder to blend in with crowds or escape unnoticed. Unfortunately cheaply bought bribes render it void and the game is just too ham-fisted to pull it off convincingly.
As a title that relies heavily on free-form play and character interaction it lacks the fluidity required for truly improvisational gameplay - close combat controls are buggy and unresponsive and the A.I. is unpredictable in a way that mars the games central conceit, which is usually what stands in the way of the perfect hit as opposed to your penchant for random violence.
With customisable weapons that reflect your play style you can be a mythical stealth assassin or an insane, homicidal maniac. It’s this moral playground that defines titles like this - the game doesn’t make me violent - I make that choice.

New Super Mario Brothers
Verdict: Magical Mushroom Mayhem.
Platform: Nintendo DS.
Rating: 4/5
Videogames have an occasional knack of mirroring my life - when I moved house Animal Crossing: Wild World invited me to move to a virtual town. The other week, just as I was about to embark on a holiday, Mario arrived offering me a trip to the Mushroom Kingdom. Taking a holiday from my daily visit to Animal Crossing was of course entirely fitting.
New Super Mario Brothers certainly proves to be a wonderful holiday location (as long as you don’t mind the aggressive locals) as it offers up a vibrant slice of retro gaming in the first 2D sequel to the classic platforming series since Super Mario World. And that’s a long time to wait.
Rather than a continuation from SMW it feels more like a true sequel to the original Super Mario Brothers game (hence its odd choice of title), stripping down the buttons to just jump and run whilst replacing the pixels with new 3D generated visuals. The addition of moves such as wall jumping, the bottom bash and triple jump give away its contemporary timeline post Mario 64 and remarkably they feel like they’ve always been there.
As expected, new power-ups litter the game like the giant Mario making Mega Mushroom and speedy Blue Shell alongside classics like the Fire Flower. Whilst Mega Mario’s rampage is fun it’s a fleeting blast and shallow at best while most levels don’t lend themselves to the high speed antics of the Blue Shell (it’s Mario, not Sonic). Micro Mario however is a great addition to the roster as his diminutive size allows for the access to tiny holes and introduces low gravity for floaty jumping. Lewis Carroll would be proud.
Arguably easy It won’t take many people long to reach the end of the game utilising the warp pipes and short cuts and with an abundance of extra lives and power ups it’s almost like being given infinite continues but for anyone like me that finds it impossible to remove their finger from the run button (and fall to many an untimely death) that’s a bonus. For the curious completists out there though there’s plenty of hidden areas, secrets and super coins to collect that will have you replaying for ages. Some excellent multiplayer also serves to extend its lifetime.
Replete with Nintendo’s trademark attention to detail and nostalgia inducing sounds it’s a successful continuation of one of the greatest gaming franchises in history.
What more could you want? A stick of rock?

Dead Or Alive 4 (16+)
Format: Xbox 360.
Essential online fighter.
One thing’s a common in every beat-em-up - the single player game is almost always weak, unimaginative and unrewarding. Programming realistic A.I. is a challenge that has yet to be met fully and on the hardest difficulty settings it can react unnervingly fast to your actions. Utterly inhuman like and totally unfair it can still present a challenge to the hardcore and downright persistent out there. To beat the machine is a matter of working out patterns, rhythms and routines. To beat a human on the other hand can be a complex, psychological battle and all the more rewarding. Which brings me to Dead or Alive 4.
As a sequel it ticks all the right boxes - better graphics, more moves, more characters, a plethora of new features and various tweaks to the combat system (like tightening the counter attack timing and speeding up gameplay). Once you’ve plowed through the frustrating single player story mode with every character (essential to unlock all the fighters) you should head straight online as this is where the game truly reveals its colours with a wide range of match options and game types. Lengthy sessions of ‘Winner stays on’ could certainly be humbling but your skill level is matched with other players of a similar level meaning fights should always be equal and more importantly, challenging and satisfying. You can of course convince your friends to take you on at home but their button bashing should fall foul of your mastery of the ‘Free’ button.
Differentiating DOA from other 3D fighters (that and its penchant for scantily clad, top heavy, female characters) the ‘Free’ button sits alongside Punch and Kick and works as a standard block move. With the right timing however it turns into an opponent destroying counter attack. The gamble is that if your timing is off you’re left open to attack and against a skilled player that small window is all they need to destroy you. Get it right though and every punch they throw can be turned against them making every fight a tense game of poker faced bluffing.
As well as the ‘Free’ button and ample portioned graphics the DOA series is known for its expansive arenas and interactive environments. Most of the fights take place in large, multi-tiered areas - opera houses, Chinese gardens, mountain top shrines and even a Las Vegas high street. Throughout the fights you’ll find yourself being smashed through windows, thrown down stairs and kicked into the paths of moving cars. You can of course do all this to the opponent - slamming someone into an electric fence is particularly satisfying (especially when they curse you). Perhaps colourful vocabulary is what really separates the A and the I.
7/10

The Da Vinci Code (16+)
Format: PS2, Xbox, PC.
Not exactly a page turner...
Remember those Where’s Wally? books? Well welcome to the modern day equivalent. No i’m not referring to Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code (or Where’s the Holy Grail?) but the videogame of it, otherwise known as Where’s the letter X? It could also be called Where’s the fun?, Where’s the drama? or Where’s the escape from this painful, dreary mess? All suitable titles and definitely not books i’d recommend to kids (or anyone for that matter).
Now, as one of those rare people that seems to have completely missed the Da Vinci Code phenomenon this is my first foray into Brown’s world (as exciting as it sounds) and the alleged mystery of the Grail, Jesus and his lover.
Taking recent point n’ click evolutionary titles such as Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon as its starting point the Da Vinci Code attempts to recreate the experiences of the book by making you sit through endless, non-interactive cut scenes and endless ‘interactive’ chunks of generic 3rd person gameplay.
Taking control of the lead characters you get to wander around searching for clues (represented by the letter X that pops up at context sensitive spots), solve puzzles that are either blatantly obvious and lifted from the book or irritatingly vague and poorly made with hints so obtuse they’ll have you looking like Munch’s The Scream.
Alongside the exciting puzzles you’ll get the chance to duke it out with your fists as police and mad monks take a dislike to you. Providing some brief comedic relief to the dull brown gameplay, the combat engine is as contrived as the animation is laughable - you can look forward to drawn out fights that seem to be modelled on a fighting style more akin to Captain Kirk’s playground scraps (just without the retro kitschness).
Combine that with the A.I. that’s as intelligent as rubber and can lose sight of you if you run to the other side of the room (‘They’ve disappeared!’) and you’ve got a very sub standard game, although the word ‘game’ normally constitutes something fun which this isn’t.
Any aspiring painters out there into theological symbology, please leave your works with detailed, written explanations, just so no one can get in such a kerfuffle again.
3/10

Nintendo DS Lite + games roundup
On June 23rd Nintendo released the DS Lite throughout Europe. The Lite is an upgrade of the original DS, giving it a much needed redesign by making it smaller, lighter and brighter. Essentially transforming the DS from its ugly duckling beginnings into a sexy, must have gadget that Apple would be proud of, Nintendo have radically redefined their product image.
While many will argue it’s a cynical move releasing a new version of hardware barely 1½ years old, it’s obvious that the original design was rushed in order to meet the competition from Sony’s PSP. The DS’ success speaks for itself and the Lite is a welcome refinement and an embodiment of their continual push to make gaming accessible to everyone (and the fashion conscious).
Where it obviously improves on the size and looks of the original, the hidden changes are just as important - the screens have a brightness control (with the brightest even eclipsing the PSP’s), the microphone is centred, the Power button has moved to a better location and the stylus is now bigger (goodbye hand cramps!).
Disappointingly though there hasn’t been a firmware update - WiFi Pictochat, VOIP and some Organiser software would have been very very nice. With the imminent release of Opera, the internet browser for the DS, such things can only be round the corner.
To coincide with the launch of the DS Lite I thought i’d do a roundup of the its top titles for those about to invest in some touch screen action for the first time.
New Super Mario Brothers
The return of the greatest plumbers that lived, this is Mario and Luigi’s first 2D platformer since the legendary Super Mario World on the SNES. Retaining all that made them great and introducing two player gaming over WiFi, this is mushroom induced madness for a new generation.
Brain Training
The phenomenon that swept Japan is finally here. This is a curious title that isn’t strictly a game - as the name suggests it’s a piece of software that allows you to test and train your brain’s thinking bits by playing it for ten minutes a day. Comes with Sudoku for all the Vordermans out there.
Mario Kart: DS
The sequel to one of the most fun multiplayer games ever made introduces online races over WiFi and a collection of new tracks and old favourites to drop bananas on. Possibly the best in the series (and that’s saying something).
Tetris DS
The worlds most famous/addictive puzzle game comes to the DS replete with stylish new colours, touch screen control and online multiplayer gaming. Say goodbye to your life, say hello to Tetris.
Metroid Prime: Hunters
One of Nintendo’s greatest series arrives on the DS, reinvented around the touch screen/dual screen controls it delivers a PC style First Person Shooter integrated with the traditional Metroid single player game and a fast paced online deathmatch service over WiFi.
Animal Crossing: Wild World
When is a game not a game? When it’s Animal Crossing. More a way of life, AC:WW transports you to a randomly generated town of your naming and allows you to live there, decorate, design, garden, fish and socialise with its surreal inhabitants and your friends online. Synced to the DS’ internal clock it acts out enchantingly in realtime and with the seasons meaning you’re likely to still be playing it next year.
Nintendogs
The first part in Nintendo’s master plan to widen the DS’ appeal, Nintendogs lets you pet and play with virtual dogs. Hitting the right chord with a predominantly female demographic, it was the Christmas present sensation that showcased the DS’ touch screen in its most tangible form.
Wario Ware Touched!
One of the funniest and most surreal games ever made sneezes onto to the DS. Essentially a massive collection of endlessly creative mini games, the crux is that each game lasts about three seconds and you don’t get told what to do! With games like ‘Pat the dog’, ‘Pluck the hair’ and ‘Wipe the snot’ it uses the touch screen and microphone in every possible way. And then some.
Trauma Center: Under the Knife
If you’ve ever watched ER and thought ‘I can do that!’ then now’s your chance as Trauma Center allows you to slice and dice people’s insides in a bid to fix them. Using the touch screen you cut, inject and sow to your hearts content to progress through this truly bizarre Japanese game.
Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Like Chess? You’ll love this! Incredibly addictive, Advance Wars is a turn-based war game where you move cute manga style tanks and planes across a map, attempting to out-strategise your opponent. The game is endless fun with its engaging single player story and in-depth multiplayer and map editor.
Meteos
An addictive puzzle game from the maker of Rez that has you matching sequences of falling shapes and blasting them into space. Meteos is one of the fastest, most intense puzzlers out there and unique features like varying gravity and power-ups will keep it fresh for quite a while. Four player games between DS’ are an essential part of the experience.
Electroplankton
Another one of the DS’ curious titles that escapes definition. More art toy than game it allows you to create music by playing with virtual fish and plankton in a variety of different ways. It doesn’t require any musical skills and can be wonderfully absorbing, especially in those post club hours.

Full Auto (16+)
Verdict: Poor man’s Burnout with guns.
Platform: 360
3/5
A few years ago Criterion gave the racing genre a much needed kick up the exhaust by infusing it with a devil may care attitude and an obsessive fascination with crashing at high speed. The game in question was Burnout and although the first in the series was lacking, the subsequent sequels have gone from strength to strength, each time upping the ante for explosive, turbo charged destruction. Full Auto attempts to build upon this heritage by simply adding guns to the mix but by doing so has lost some of Burnout’s more immediate and visceral touches.
While i’m all for strapping guns to vehicles it seems that Sega hasn’t got the balance right. As a racing game first and foremost it just hasn’t got the physics and car handling of a heavy hitter - controlling more like the twitchy Crazy Taxi than a Mad Max killing machine, with cars lacking any real weight, dynamics or even speed.
As well as adding guns (and mines, rockets, smoke screens etc.) there is the unique Unwreck meter along with the usual but under powered Nitro meter. The Unwreck meter borrows from the modern Prince of Persia games by introducing limited time control. What this boils down to is a kind of ‘Get out of jail free’ card by allowing you to rewind time when you crash your car/get nuked by an opponent. It’s an interesting addition but feels tacked on and if the cars didn’t handle like ice cream vans there would be a whole lot less crashes to rewind.
Graphically it’s solid and has that 360 shine but when compared to it’s contemporaries it’s average at best with Burnout’s visual flair eclipsing it, even from its last-gen offering.
In fact ‘average’ is what best describes the game because although everything is there - multiple play modes, unlockables, online play, it never really excels, feeling lacklustre and rushed.
Despite this though it’s entertaining to play and the online races are messy but fun - just don’t expect too much of it and you’ll get along fine. Just like my work as an ice cream man - I thought it’d be bad (and it was) but I was king of the park and ate 99’s all day long.

Perfect Dark Zero (15)
Verdict: Shiny plastic people
Platform: 360
3/5
Perfect Dark Zero is one of the worst looking games I have ever played. It’s an odd thing to say about a game released on the most cutting edge console on the market but i’m sticking to my guns. Sure it’s crisp, Hi Def and the draw distance is magnificent but everything is horribly bland, plastic and SHINY! Every texture seems to be sweating - wood, sand, metal - you name it. It sweats. It shines. It’s horrible.
Graphical grumbles aside, Perfect Dark is a fairly decent first person shooter and the long awaited sequel to the N64 classic. Made by the Goldeneye wonder boys Rare it had been in production for years before its release (originally penned for the Game Cube) and to its detriment this shows. It feels like an old game in next gen clothing (posssibly a mirror ball suit) and is only held up by the thankfully strong offerings online (a definite theme with the 360’s first wave of games).
Since PD’s first offering, the world of the FPS has undergone many changes - titles like Deus Ex, Half Life and Halo have shown how the genre can move forward and in most cases PDZ seems to have ignored them, choosing to chase that outdated Goldeneye magic.
Saying that though it has brought with it some subtle advances - introducing an intuitive analogue zoom for scoped guns, a riot shield that changes the pace of play and some nice alternative firing modes. Blindfire is handy, allowing you to aim whilst in cover but it’s ‘me too’ and isn’t implemented very well - trying to find the small context sensitive spots amidst a gunfight is fiddly and the switches between first person to third person are jarring.
Considering the amount of time taken to make the game, you’d wonder what they spent their time doing - it should have been on level design - any game that leads you through its levels with glowing arows on the floor needs some serious rethinking.
As I said earlier, the online stuff is great, with a ton of game types to play with like the Counterstrike styled Dark Ops and a chance to experiment with all the high tech weaponry without dodgy A.I. or mission structures bogging you down.
The future‘s bright, the future’s shiny.

Dead Or Alive 4 (16+)
Verdict: Don’t play it alone.
Platform: 360.
Rating: 3/5
If there’s one thing Dead Or Alive is famous for it’s its graphics. The kind of graphics popular with teenage males - big, bouncy and scantily clad. Which is a shame because beyond that shallow reputation is an excellent and solid 3D beat-em-up which is typically simple to pick up but difficult to master.
For those not familiar with the series it’s a fairly traditional fighter with a meaningless story, cheesy FMV and a host of play modes, unlockables and online scrapping. What differs it from the Tekkens and Virtua Fighters is the ‘Free’ button - a multifunctional command that works as a standard block and more importantly, with precise timing - counter attacks. These can turn the game round at any moment - button bashers be warned, a skilled player can win without even throwing a punch.
As an evolution from DOA3 and Ultimate it works well but pulls no surprises. Gameplay is quicker (punishingly so), environments feature obstacles that can be used to your advantage and there’s a decent roster of new characters (including a secret cameo from the Halo universe) as well as the welcome return of some old favourites like Brad Wong, the Drunken Fist Kung-Fu master.
Counter attack timing has been tightened too which while making them more satisfying to pull off in multiplayer can become frustrating in single player when the A.I. uses them at the drop of a hat and strings together painfull, unblockable combos that leave you close to death in one attack. Having a sixth sense will definitely help, especially against my new nemesis - the teleporting end boss.
Like any fighter though, repeated play is required to truly master the game and after a while the counters start to flow. At this point multiplayer really comes into its own and its where DOA4 excels with its excellent online service making up for the weaker solo play.
Introducing a bizarre new lobby system and customisable avatars, the game allows you to socialise with others while waiting for your turn to fight in matches like ‘Winner stays on’. It’s oh so satisfying to be that winner and as a loser you can watch and learn. Or just watch if you’re so inclined.
Touted as a graphical showcase for the 360 the environments are truly stunning but I can’t help but be disappointed by the bland, doll like nature of the characters. For fans of the dolls though that old ‘age’ cheat is still there for added bounce.

Xbox 360 Live roundup
Taking the 360 shaped baton from Paul last week i’ve spent most of my time checking out its online features and delving into a selection of arcade titles. Its certainly moved on a whole lot since its embryonic days on the original Xbox with a system that has you online from the moment the console is turned on. This ‘always online’ functionality means you can access Live (the 360’s online monicker) at any time to check which friends are online, send them messages, use voice chat and compare automatically uploaded high scores. It even updates you mid game when friends come online, creating a real sense of community not experienced on any other gaming platform.
Whilst the original Xbox’s Live was pioneering it suffered the well founded reputation that online gaming was a kind of no man’s land where anything went. If you didn’t like petulant teens calling you a ‘n00b’ at every opportunity it wasn’t the place for you. This time round however its been cleaned up by offering different gaming zones with Family and Underground at each end of the spectrum. Swearing in the Family zone will get your account banned. While the zones help to weed out the undesirables some will inevitably slip through the net which is where my favourite feature comes in - feedback. If you play with someone who is particularly irritating, say perhaps they sing an R Kelly song throughout the entire match, you can choose to never, ever play with them again. Genius.
They’ve also introduced Live Arcade - an online collection of retro classics (online 4 player Gauntlet anyone?) and modern arcade games available to download for a small fee. Here’s a quick round up of the most notable arcade games -
Geometry Wars Evolved - Asteroids meets Robotron in a vector based hallucination employing some lovely use of Newton’s laws.
Mutant Storm - another child of Robotron, it’s a shooter with an emphasis on speed, score multipliers and a unique difficulty system.
Marble Blast Ultra - Monkeyball, without the monkeys.
Outpost Kaloki X - entertaining sim game that allows you to build and manage your own space station.
Zuma - amidst the bland looking puzzle games this stands out with it’s nice characterisation and gameplay as you shoot marbles from the mouth of an Aztec Frog.
Wik and the Fable of souls - unique platformer that involves swinging from the trees by your tongue.
Hexic HD - deceptively complex but relaxing puzzle game.
Live is now an integral part of the console as opposed to a niche area for the hardcore gamer. Without it you’re only getting half the experience.

The Da Vinci Code (16+)
Verdict: Oh lame game
Platform: PS2, Xbox, PC.
Rating: 1½/5
As one of the few people on Earth that has neither read the book or seen the film I stand in the unique position to have the supposedly controversial airport novel thrust upon me anew in its interactive form. Now I too can solve the riddle of whether Jesus had a girlfriend or if Leonardo Da Vinci just liked painting effeminate men.
The game is played out in a modern day take on the point and click genre, nicking its ideas from recent titles like Broken Sword and even Shenmue. Playing alternately as the two main characters Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu you unravel the hammy plot of murder, mystery and theological intrigue. It’s a 3rd person adventure of the most basic kind (minus the adventure) as you wander between puzzles in an embarrassingly animated manner searching for context sensitive objects (otherwise known as the letter ‘X’) and occasionally getting into comedic QTE scraps - it’s an exciting life as a symbologist on the run!
On first impressions The Da Vinci Code is a polished film tie-in. Once you’re past the menu screen however it quickly loses that shine - It’s a buggy, boring mess with a wavering difficulty level that due to poor implementation moves from obtuse to confounding in one easy step.
The AI plumbs new depths of ineptitude (I love running from a fight to the other side of the room to hear my visible assailer proclaim ‘they’ve disappeared!’) and it’s yet another game with ill advised stealth sections that bookmark the painfully drawn out fights.
The greatest puzzle for me was working out who the game was aimed at - the film fans will be put out by the fact that the actor’s voices and likeness’ haven’t been used and the book fans have got half the puzzle answers written in paper. Must be for lucky old me then.
To quote one of Sophie Neveu’s helpful puzzle hints - ‘I’m sure we’re missing something’. Yes Sophie it’s called fun.