Mike Plant grew up on a diet of Final Fantasy, Monkey Island, TIE Fighter and Super Mario Bros. He now takes advantage of this idle youth by dividing his time between his The Console column for newspaper The Independent and editing his own blog GamesCatalyst.com. His quest to dispel the myth held by mainstream media, that games are the work devil, continuesâ¦
Child of Eden
"Save Eden. Save Lumi." The precluding order of an introduction which summarises Child of Eden’s essentially superfluous plot. I could tell you that the general gist is that we’re hundreds of years into the future, Lumi – the fist human born in space – is long dead, and the internet has evolved into something approaching The …
Dirt 3
The fact that rally is a niche market, even among petrolheads, perhaps goes someway to explaining why Codemaster’s Dirt franchise strives to rein in the time challenge aspects of the sport – instead favouring racing, albeit in a way which retains the drifting and suicidal cornering of the motorsport. Codemasters: good decision …
Outland
A quick check of the map confirms the hero’s next objective – a mere two levels above him. What the map doesn’t reveal are the obstacles standing between him and that adventure-progressing goal.
Outland How Inca-pacitiating
Skilfully evading not one, but two spike traps with graceful fleetness of foot, the hero finds himself …
Brink
“Save the Ark, or escape it?” The choice initially offered to players upon loading up Brink, Splash Damage’s latest first-person shooter. What’s the Ark you ask? A last bastion of humanity, following worldwide flooding caused by the rising of the oceans – darned global warming!
Brink Hit and miss
After a period of peace the …
Mortal Kombat
Like Frankenstein’s Monster, Mortal Kombat has ever been the lumbering chimera, an amalgamation of individual parts thrown together, somehow brought to life much to the despondency of nature’s will.
Mortal Kombat Two girls, one mug
Take the series’ visuals, for example: ever shifting from one trend to another, as the …
Dynasty Warriors 7
Parkouring across the backs of galloping horses; fighting while cascading down a majestic waterfall; evading a ball-and-chain attack before using the weapon’s momentum to swing to safety. What do these things have in common? Simply that they’re all shown in Dynasty Warrior 7’s rather epic FMV intro and they’re all acts you’ll …
Yakuza 4
Yakuza 4 manages to pack so many disparate gaming elements into the one package that it’s hard to know where to start. Part soap opera, part noire, undoubtedly a kung-fu fighter, but with fleeting resource management and a reasonable-sized city to explore, this is the JRPG, at its most offbeat.
Yakuza 4 Too cool for an umbrella …
Homefront
THQ has made it abundantly clear that it intends to step it up as a publisher, marquee titles – the likes of De Blob 2, Red Faction: Armageddon and indeed Homefront are all part of that plan – as the publishing house looks to take on Activision and EA, specialists in the art of the cross-platform blockbuster.
Homefront Cop a …
Dragon Age II
Dragon Age 2, sequel to 2009’s Dragon Age: Origins, plunges us once more into the realm of swords and sorcery – even adapting its history based on your Origins' saved game (if you have one). However, in terms of style and gameplay, there is perhaps more here that fans of Mass Effect will find familiar than series veterans. …
Bulletstorm
To say that Bulletstorm draws parallels with Duke Nukem 3D is to put it mildly. There’s that same cocksure attitude, same over-the-top one liners, the same penchant for violence, even a similar range of physics-defying weaponry on offer.
Bulletstorm No joke, splitting your insides
In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that Duke …
Dead Space 2
If you’re of a nervous, sensitive disposition I advise you to look away now. For, you see, Dead Space 2 – Visceral’s space-based survival horror – is instantly, and without question, one of gaming’s most gruesome penny dreadfuls to date; eclipsing even its predecessor in the nausea-inducing stakes. Bodies will be mutilated, …
Mass Effect 2 for PS3
Saren, Reapers, Blue Suns, Geth. If these names mean nothing to you then consider yourself in the position of the majority of PS3 owners: that of never having experienced Mass Effect. That’s because Mass Effect, BioWare’s seminal action-RPG, never made its way onto Sony’s console, instead finding a home on only Xbox 360 and PC …
