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.

E3 Roundup
In case you’ve been under a Geodude these last two weeks there’s been a little videogame convention in America called E3. The Nintendo Wii (pronounced Whee!) seems to have caused the biggest stir with its innovative motion sensitive controllers, Virtual Console and always-on functionality, eschewing Hi-Def graphics for an affordable new way to play games. Sony on the other hand had an uninspiring show with their bulky Waffle Iron/Blue-Ray player (sorry I mean PS3), a plagiarising controller and some hefty prices. Microsoft announced their HD-DVD drive add-on, the interesting Live Anywhere which syncs up your 360 with your PC and mobile phone for some cross platform gaming experiences, are massively expanding Live Arcade and dropped the small bombshell that GTA4 would be available on the 360. They also showed off a tantalising teaser for some game called Halo 3 - heard of it?

SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs (16+)
Verdict: AI without the I
Platform: PS2.
Rating: 3/5
How many games these days don’t require complex controls and memory requirements that are no longer just referring to your computer’s RAM? Very few, which brings me to SOCOM 3, a game that at every opportunity trys to squeeze as much information into your brain and on the screen at one time.
There is a reason for this though - it’s a strategic, squad based military shooter. Third in the line for refinement and tweaking it offers vehicles as its reason for existence as you have plenty of opportunities to tear it up in jeeps and boats with your balaclava wearing posse.
As leader of an elite squad of Navy SEALs you are sent on varied missions throughout the world, issuing commands to your team mates on the fly and leading the fight with your customised tool set of weapons. The game is solid, if uninspired and the ability to hand pick your weapons allows for your own play style to shine through (that’ll be the semi-automatic rifle with added x4 scope and frag grenade launcher please!).
Unfortunately whenever I think i’m just about to really start enjoying it one of my elite squad members will start running into a wall or fail to notice the combatants shooting him in the back. Thankfully the enemy are of equal intelligence so they get on quite well. Seeing as i’m (debatably) sentient however I can’t help but get frustrated as I run down countless soldiers with my jeep because they don’t know i’m there (perhaps SOCOM 4 can introduce a horn so I can give them a quick beep before running over their surprised expressions). It’s as if the squad commands aren’t there for strategic control but to make up for the lack of AI, not that they actually help. I play games for fun and to test myself, SOCOM 3 only tests my patience and subconcious knowledge of guns.
Online and LAN play however are its saving graces, offering countless hours of tactical multiplayer fragging - just hope your team mates are a tad more intelligent than the artificial ones.

Metroid Prime: Hunters
Verdict: Metroid goes portable FPS, oh yes.
Platform: DS.
Rating: 4/5
When I bought my DS over a year ago it came with a demo that to me, superseded any of the launch titles by showing off the real potential of the touch screen. The fact that no one has yet released a first person shooter for the DS confounds me but I think things may be about to change as that demo has come of age and sits in my claw shaped hands in the form of Metroid Prime: Hunters.
Leading the way in a blazing, technologically ground breaking trail with stunning graphics and audio design, Hunters is in stark contrast with last week’s subject of review - Splinter Cell: Essentials as it’s a game that has been built from the ground up centred around the machine and its controls.
Playing like a traditional, dual stick or keyboard and mouse FPS, you use the d-pad to move and the touch screen to look around while the left shoulder button is on fire duty. The touch screen also serves as a panel for other buttons controlling weapon selections, morph ball and visor select.
As far as the game is concerned it’s a streamlined, portable friendly version of the standard Metroid fare. You’ll be exploring alien worlds, shooting, platforming, solving puzzles, and rolling around pinball-esque areas using Samus’ physics defying Morph Ball ability.
The most notable addition, aside from true FPS controls is the multiplayer. Originally scheduled for launch around Christmas without online functionality Nintendo thankfully backtracked and the difference it has made is immense. They’ve created a seamless, easy to use online death match system where you can battle it out (or in my case lose) against 3 others from the comfort of a WiFi hotspot. If you play with friends over WiFi you even get to voice chat before and after matches and there’s a rival system for making online enemies out of strangers. The games are frenetic and fun, the maps are well designed, and each Hunter offers different weapons and abilities, some of which however can be a little unbalanced. Be on the receiving end of Trace’s alt-form melee attack and you’ll know what I mean.
In the Metroid canon it may not stand up to be the best, lacking some of the depth and length of previous versions and encumbered with the DS’ slightly unforgiving ergonomics but as a replayable FPS it’s gonna have me firing plasma for months to come, wherever I go.

Splinter Cell: Essentials
Verdict: Essential? I don’t think so.
Platform: PSP.
Rating: 2/5
Hmm, here’s a lesson in how to take a great game and make it suck -1. Port it to a console that doesn’t have enough buttons/sticks for the original control scheme to work.
2. Use the original control scheme.
Welcome to Splinter Cell: Essentials, contender for the most ironically named game this year.
Essentials is a rehash of levels taken from the excellent Splinter Cell games residing on the home consoles. While this isn’t a bad thing, the fact that they’ve been shoe horned onto the PSP with little thought or sense and left reeling with inexcusable bugs is.
From the outset it’s apparent that the game has been rushed through development. From the initial and continual awkwardness of the controls to the constant audio glitches, shoddy AI and lifeless camera. While the core of the game is reasonably solid and built with some already proven level design it fails miserably in the area where it matters most - playability.
Replacing the PS2’s right stick camera control with the combination of a button press and the analogue nub (normally used for movement) means you are restricted from moving whilst altering the camera. Every few paces you take, every small corner you turn, you have to stop, just to see where you are going. In tense close combat situations it can often be the cause of your death - it’s hard to fight someone if you can’t see them. Lets not even talk about the levels where one false step means death and a level restart. Please, lets not.
Another example of design genius is that movement controls flip to the face buttons when you equip your gun (so you can aim with the analogue nub). Could they make the game any more counter intuitive to play?
it’s a game that doesn’t really sit well with portable gaming either. It doesn’t have that ‘pick up an play’ ethos and the dimly lit levels don’t suit anywhere other than a darkened room to play it in.
For it to work it needed to be redesigned with the limited controls in mind - automating the camera, remapping the controls in a radically different way. Instead, as the bugs show, it was just rushed out with little sensitivity towards its intended host.
If you were worried that the PSP would become a resting ground for lame PS2 ports, Essentials unfortunately does little to allay that fear.