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.