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?