Rampage: Total Destruction
Verdict: Distracting budget fun
Platform: PS2, GC.
Rating: 3/5
Putting you in the oft desired role as a giant monster on the rampage (or is that just me?) Total Destruction is an update of a classic franchise, moving it into the realms of 3D (soon to be 4D on the PS3) and offering a load more beasties than before.
When I were a wee lad I spent hours smashing skyscrapers with my sister on the Spectrum+3 (what a machine) and this faithfully recreates those rose tinted days although perhaps a little too faithfully. You (and up to 3 other friends) are charged with destroying buildings, eating people and challenges (eat 10 mime artists, smash 5 trams - the usual monstery stuff) have been introduced to spice up the gameplay and unlock special moves and new monsters.
The move to 3D is unfortunately limited and pretty pointless as you’re restricted to a single row of buildings at a time (just like the originals). In updating the series to 3D they could have made a free roaming, city smashing fest (i’ve yet to play a truly great game of this ilk - Godzilla, pull your socks up!). Instead they’ve plumped for what amounts to an unimaginative graphical update and introduces slower gameplay and unresponsive controls.
It’s fun for friends though and at £20 you can’t knock it as it comes with the original Rampage in its retro glory and the speedier claymation styled sequel Rampage: World tour which shows up Total Destruction’s inadequacies all too well.

The Godfather (18)
Verdict: Let it sleep with the fishes
Platform: PS2, Xbox, PSP, 360, PC.
Rating: 2/5
I had a vague hope that EA might actually turn the tide on the well earned reputation that games based on films are rubbish. Unfortunately The Godfather disappears into the annals of history as yet another generic, licensed cash in. Joy.
Admittedly they’ve made some effort, working the story of your character into the background of the film, allowing you to witness and be part of key events. It has their excellent character creation tool and an in-depth virtual tailor so your gangster can look, er...gangsterish and they’ve spent a lot of time accurately modelling characters from the film.
Seemingly taking their cues from GTA they’ve tried to create sandbox versions of Little Italy, Hell’s Kitchen etc, replete with ‘interactive’ people, cars to hijack and police to annoy. Whilst following the story of the film you can embark on side missions, gaining money for the family and treading on the toes of rival gangs by imposing your own enjoyably brutal ‘protection’ services upon local business’.
Featuring a once promising but ultimately two dimensional method of harassing people (attack them until a gauge fills to a certain level) its analogue controls give you some limited flexibility but it almost always leads to button mashing (or ‘stick mashing’ but lets not go there). The sandbox elements also prove to be pretty empty (and far from pretty) with little to do and very little depth. Look too closely and you’ll lose what vague suspension of disbelief you may have.
It’s this shallow level of immersion that is The Godfather’s biggest crime too (that and what happens to that poor horse) and what sets it so far apart from the original film. From the start it screams ‘game’ at you and doesn’t stop. Floating neon arrows, an out of context radar, icons that hover above people, an out of date HUD, unintentionally comic animations, a lackadaisical camera and cars that drive like supermarket trolleys.
Fair enough it’s a game so what’s the problem? It’s a game based on a classic piece of cinematography, not any old action movie. It’s been handled with little sensitivity or imagination and is full of so much unnecessarily intrusive game information that at no point do I feel like i’m in the film. And isn’t that the point of the game?

Driver: Parallel Lines (18)
Verdict: If at first you don’t succeed...
Platform: PS2, Xbox.
Rating: 3½/5
In the post Grand Theft Auto 3 landscape the Driver series was always going to have a rough time responding to Rockstar’s sandbox opus and Driv3r certainly wasn’t the correct response. Parallel Lines seeks to compete with GTA whilst carving out it’s own niche in the genre and repairing it’s tarnished name. Like a fumbled bank heist it almost pulls it off too.
Throwing you into the role of a young getaway driver, you’re thrust into a 1970’s New York full of cops and robbers car chases replete with cardboard box filled alleyways and iconic music. Flairs and Afros included. Later on the story twists and shifts to the contrasting present day making the 70’s seem altogether brown.
In sharp contrast to Driv3r, Parallel Lines features an impressively robust game engine. The draw distance is massive, everything is solid and bugs are at a minimum (apart from the odd physics glitch that can send your car disco dancing into the air in a fit of epilepsy).
The city is also vastly different to Driv3r’s - it’s heavily populated and teeming with life although it seems like they’ve over compensated for Driv3r’s barren wilderness - the roads can be so busy that high speed car chases become too staccato, forcing you to weave around the traffic at a stilted pace. Realistic it may be, fun it isn’t.
Car handling is finely tuned as expected from the series and is also an important feature of the game as you can repair, paint and upgrade any car you steal - if it gets destroyed it conveniently returns to the garage allowing you to continually experiment with the perfect getaway vehicle. Or best looking one.
Parallel Lines has a lot going for it. It’s authentically stylised, plays well, looks good, has worthwhile sandbox elements, uniquely introduces a stealth mechanic to car chases and improves upon it’s predecessor ten fold. As much as I wanted to like this game however it just kept falling short with poor design issues like cruel restart points, unskippable cut scenes and unclear objectives which ended up just driving me to distraction.

Dragon Quest: The Journey of the Cursed King
Verdict: Surreal, epic and very funny
Platform: PS2.
Rating: 4½/5
It’s a rare honour to play a Dragon Quest game - The Cursed King is the first released in the UK and typically, the eighth in Japan. As revered as the Final Fantasy series abroad and at home amongst UK importers it’s a series that has similarly been honed and refined over the years.
As I settled in for an evening of Japanese role playing with Noel (no, it’s not what you think) in an attempt to recreate our Final Fantasy glory days the first thing that struck me was the game’s distinctive aesthetics. With a glorious mix of stylised 3D graphics and cell shading you are immediately thrust into a vibrant cartoon world full of subtle confidence and primary colours.
With character design by the Dragon Ball Z creator it’s populated by wild and wacky creatures. From the King Kelp (an Elvis made of sea weed) to the schizophrenic calamari with arguing tentacles and Jessica’s well endowed Buff Puff ability it’s brimming with visual humour and ranks as one of the funniest games i’ve played without it even telling any jokes.
Special mention has to be made of the games localisation too, re-recorded with British voice actors it’s one of the few Japanese games with such a sensitive and well judged translation. Admittedly some of the squeekier voices grate but when it comes to portraying emotion it’s expressive and thankfully lacks the adolescent awkwardness of some of Final Fantasy’s heavier scenes.
Dragon Quest is a game created in the classic mould of the Japanese RPG. In fact it could be argued that it’s the series that set the mould. With turn based, random battles and the obligatory barrel smashing and levelling up of characters you’ll know exactly what to expect and while it could be argued the game is unoriginal and stuck in the past, what it has done is refine the formula with enough streamlining, thought and panache to make it a welcome and special sequel.
If it weren’t for the frequent and repetitive random battles and minor menu gripes it would be perfect - a rare example of how a sequel can improve a series, not degrade it.

Animal Crossing: Wild World
Verdict: A wide world of wonder
Platform: DS.
Rating: 5/5
Last week I moved house twice. Thankfully only one meant lifting heavy boxes up two flights of stairs, the other involved being driven by a sea faring turtle in a taxi through the pouring rain. I found it kind of fitting to name the latter town Sherwood too.
In the globe like world of Animal Crossing you are presented with an open ended paintbox game full of humour, mortgage repayments, socialising, creativity and lots of laid back fun. It’s a game with no finite goal other than earning money to pay off your mortgage (at your own leisurely rate), become an expert in interior decorating and make your town appealing to visitors - how you do this is up to you.
Provided with the tools to create you can do what you want - plant orchards and flowers, compose music, create constellations, paint and design clothes and furnishings in glorious pixel vision.
If all that creativity is tiring then go fishing or head down to the museum’s cafe for the sounds of the free spirited K.K. Slider, the singer/songwriter dog.
Presented in a colourful and stylised way your town exists in real time - day, night, weather and the seasons enchantingly matching reality by the DS’ internal clock and populated by cute animals full of character, bad jokes and a penchant for asking favours.
Play quickly picks up a rhythm of its own, short bursts everyday becoming routine to check the shops and mail, water the flowers and chat to the animals. If you leave it for a while they’ll wonder where you’ve gone and weeds will start to grow. It’s infectious and consuming, albeit in healthy bite size pieces and it’s even invading my dreams.
If you’ve played the Game Cube version then this is all very familiar because Wild World isn’t really a sequel, it’s more like a remix. Apart from the necessary and welcome streamlining for it’s portable home and intuitive touch screen controls the main difference is the addition of multiplayer between DS’ and over WiFi internet.
This allows up to four friends to play and chat together in one of their towns, a stop watch item allowing for the creation of fishing and bug catching competitions and games of hide and seek. Nintendo’s robust friend code system means no strangers can enter your town allowing people of any age to play in a safe and fun environment.
It also allows for information to travel between towns in a random viral like exchange of residents, constellations and clothing designs - if you ever find a Pacman t-shirt in your shop designed by Jammy, that was me.
Come to Sherwood, I have pears and oranges and a nice line in pixel design.