Hardware > Earlier Games
Review: Lego Lord of the Rings game
Being half Scottish, many of my summers were spent camping in the glens. After the daily grind of hitting each other with sticks, getting bitten by midges and eating fried spam, my sister would fill our evenings by reciting The Lord of the Rings – from memory! Being a more committed geek than me, by the age of 14 she had somehow …
Nintendo Wii U Review
Six years ago Nintendo brought gaming to the masses with the Wii, now it’s hoping to repeat the trick. The Wii U signals not only Nintendo’s first foray into HD, but the arrival of a new peripheral for us to get to grips with in the shape of the Wii U GamePad and its ‘asymmetric’ gameplay.
Wii U Playing the field: Nintendo's …
Far Cry 3 game review
In a few simple beats Far Cry 3's accidental hero, Jason Brody, goes from being nervy, spoilt rich kid to John Rambo, as his extreme sports holiday takes a turn for the worse. It’s a forgivably quick process for plot development purposes, if an abrupt one, but made palatable by the use of subtle tricks skilfully employed to pull …
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 game review
The knives have been sharpened, the vitriol pumped, the maps cleared of bodies and the zombies starved. It can only mean one thing: Call of Duty: Black Op 2 is upon us.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Flagging the issue
It's the series where reviewers can never win, and Activision's coffers never fail to be filled. Where one wrong …
Assassin's Creed 3 game review
"His name is Desmond Miles and he has brought us to the end." So begins Assassin's Creed 3. Frankly, if you believe this really is the end then you'll believe anything. No, rather than an end, AC3 is a fresh beginning, a place for new hero Connor Kenway to "rise" as the game's tagline puts it – form an orderly queue behind …
Angry Birds Star Wars game review
Rovio expanded its most popular franchise yet again today, transforming Angry Birds for sci-fi fans with a Star Wars theme.
While the game is essentially Angry Birds Space with a dollop of Jedi and a mix of the previous games in the series, those yet to find themselves bored of flinging feathers will love it. Fans of George …
Halo 4 game review
If you’re a Halo fan, it’s a no-brainer of course. You’ll buy Halo 4 whatever I or anyone else says. You’ll enjoy it too, no question, especially if you’re after its upgraded multiplayer experience. But if you’re hoping the game's solo campaign will let you relive the magic of the original Combat Evolved, you may be a little …
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria review
Review A couple of years ago I was addicted to Farmville and I've always had a soft spot for Pokémon. As much as I hate to say, it the Mists of Pandaria is coming over all Pokéville 2. Everyone is battling minipets or farming, which all feels a bit twee but I can’t deny it’s also extremely enjoyable... except when I see my baby polar …
Fifa 13 game review
Review Nearly a month has passed since EA kicked off sales for its latest Fifa release and, despite an influx of other impressive titles including PES 2013, the king of footie games remains firmly at the top of the UK charts. That's hardly a surprise in a population so grossly obsessed with the 'beautiful game'.
Fifa 13 Kept alive …
Resident Evil 6 game review
Review What a dumbfounding series Resident Evil is. First, we have the innovations – popularising the survival horror genre for one. Then later, perfecting the third-person shooter camera, before taking environmental interaction to new heights. The game even led the way in cooperative campaign mechanics. But then there's the series' …
Dishonored game review
Review Remember those Fighting Fantasy "choose your own adventure" books penned by the likes of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone - now whatever happened to them... - in the mid-1980s? Well, Dishonored plays like the ultimate version of one of those, offering choice in terms of strategy and approach at every turn.
Dishonored Dolly …
Borderlands 2 review
Loot and shoot, shoot and loot: Borderlands 2 in a proverbial nutshell. Thank goodness then that it’s looting and shooting of the highest order, as another intrepid gang of vault hunters get tooled up and head into the wastelands, with the lure of untold wealth at the forefront of their minds.
Borderlands 2 Crash and carry …
Guild Wars 2 game review
Review I’ve just been reigning supreme on Tekken Tag Tournament 2 playing Panda and knocking out the advanced bear fighting moves while I wait to play a Panadrian Monk in the mother of all MMOs World of Warcraft. I wasn’t planning on playing Guild Wars 2, as I was worried it might become a distraction in couple of weeks when I need to …
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Review Take a good close look at your favourite multiplayer first-person shooter and chances are it owes much of its weapon balancing, map structure and pacing to Counter-Strike. A tactical, team-based Half-Life mod which first saw light of day in 1999 – having itself been influenced by the brilliant but glitchier Action Quake 2 – …
Darksiders II
Review Typically, the only death I have any time for in my life is Terry Prachett's characterisation of Death and his constant fascination with humanity's foibles. Unsurprisingly, the Death of Darksiders II is a different incarnation altogether, a less bleak and more blood thirsty kinda guy.
Darksiders II Purple blaze
Life's not …
Nintendo 3DS XL review
Review Nintendo has supersized its 3DS with a 4.9in screen that's almost twice the size area of its predecessor. The handheld goes on sale this week, but if you're unsure whether its worth the upgrade, here's what we thought after a weekend of gaming on it.
Nintendo 3DS XL
With the enlarged display more or less the only improvement …
Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
Review The only Batman I have ever cared about is the cynical desperate anti-hero of Frank Miller's The Dark Night Returns but Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes may have just changed my mind.
Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes The fall of Superman
Like the Batman franchise the Lego game series is prolific. Since 2005 we have Star Wars, …
Lollipop Chainsaw
Review Its name alone could be enough to suggest the origins of Lollipop Chainsaw. It's a title that somehow immediately resonates with Suda51’s Grasshopper Manufacture Inc, whether you knew it was one of its titles or not.
Lollipop Chainsaw Bright squeeze
With his studio already responsible for the "out there" experiences that are …
Score! Classic Goals
iGamer Saturday, 6 October 2001 at Old Trafford. It's the nintey-third minute and England are staring into the abyss. Following a typically nervy performance, we're 2-1 down to Greece, facing the ignominy of gifting automatic qualification to Germany and the prospect of a tricky two-leg play-off against Ukraine to reach the 2002 World …
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
Review As with any dominant genre, the question keeps arising: is the military-shooter nearing the end of its hegemony? Well, on the evidence of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier this question appears to have an answer.
Ghost Recon Future Soldier Wading for war
It has everything you'd expect from a modern Triple-A shooter. There's the …
Max Payne 3
Review With a tip of the hat to director John Woo and The Matrix, Remedy Entertainment's Max Payne wowed the gaming world in 2001 with its unique slow-mo shooting action. And since Max Payne 2 appeared in 2003, I've been holding my breath in anticipation of the third in the series.
Max Payne 3 Squintessential character
Although with …
Diablo III
Review Back in 1997, I worked in a youth centre and some fool gave me the keys to the place. So I would sneak in every night to continue a degrading tryst with Diablo I, cutting down waves of monsters in anticipation of a loot splurge. It was a while before I worked out the portal system – I used to moan about the amount of walking – …
Lost Winds 2: Winter of the Melodias
iGamer With his Chibi proportions and boyish looks, Toku cuts an extremely familiar figure, as do most of the things around him: talking animals, impish sprites and elemental deities. So pervasive is Nintendo's influence throughout Winter of the Melodias, in fact, that neither the land of Mistralis nor its diminutive hero would seem …
Prototype 2
Review In my mind’s eye I see the original Prototype in murky black and white, not because the game was without colour per se, but more because everything about it, from the repetitive use of textures through to the monotonous mission structure was somehow muddied and just, well, uninspired.
Prototype 2 High blood pressure
In a way …
Total War Battles: Shogun
iGamer For fans of the PC series, the first hour of Total War Battles: Shogun - on iOS but coming soon to Android - will be defined purely by what's missing.
The RTS gameplay was never going to squeeze onto fondleslabs without hefty distillation, of course. But in early forays The Creative Assembly's first handheld stab at its popular …
Hunters 2
iGamer Turn-based tactical role-playing games seem ideally suited to touchscreens. Their top-down or isometric graphics go easy on mobile processors, their measured, methodical gameplay never asks too much of limited control inputs and, perhaps most importantly, their short challenge and reward cycles provide instant dopamine …
Angry Birds Space
iGamer Such was the original's stellar success it's no wonder resisting the pull of Angry Birds Space is proving more difficult than escaping an event horizon. Ask the ten million or so folk who've apparently downloaded it since last Friday, and they'll tell you. You simply can't mess with universal laws - you're going to get sucked in …
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
Review At the core of zombie fiction lies a deep-seated sense of hopelessness and inevitability. That no matter how hard you fight, no matter how many lucky escapes you pull off, and no matter where you flee to, your eventual, grisly demise is assured by the indomitable Pepé Le Pews of horror.
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City Is …
Twisted Metal
Review David Jaffe's vision for car-based deathmatching has always split gamers down the middle. Its love-it-or-hate-it mix of crass humour, barely there vehicle handling and everything but the kitchen sink approach to weaponry won't appeal to everyone. Nevertheless, Twisted Metal still garnered a sizeable following in its heyday. …
Waking Mars
iGamer An exquisitely mature and thought-provoking iOS adventure, Waking Mars is a love letter to late-1970s and early-1980s sci-fi films such as Silent Running, Solaris and Alien.
Just as those movies contrasted the space opera of Star Trek and Star Wars with more believable, melancholic depictions of man's cosmological insignificance …
Mass Effect 3
Review I had my doubts whether any game could live up to the amount of hype seen surrounding Mass Effect 3’s release. I shouldn't have been concerned though, I love it. The twisting compelling narrative; the authentic character interaction; the seamless integration of cut scenes and action and, last but definitely not least, the awe- …
Beat Sneak Bandit
iGamer Tap your finger to the beat. On the face of it, Beat Sneak Bandit's mechanic doesn't promise compulsive gaming. But developer Simogo squeezes more innovation from this single-finger iOS puzzler than many console and computer games manage by tying your hands in knots.
Beat Sneak Bandit iPhone game screenshot
Drawn in a …
Sony PlayStation Vita
Review Reg Hardware Mobile Week
The PlaySation Vita is Sony's latest attempt to take portable gaming to new heights, and it finally hit UK shelves last week. With quad-core smartphones waiting in the wings and gaming apps aplenty, the company's refreshed PSP has its work cut out.
Sony PSP Vita Tap to play
Fortunately, the PS Vita …
Syndicate
Review Cyberpunk's lasting appeal is often attributed to its familiar tropes: dystopian near-future settings, rapid technological advancements, massive societal upheaval and, of course, alienated loners living off-the-grid. But it's not the conventions that sustain the genre, but its allegories.
Syndicate Rooftop rampage
They warn …
Steelseries SRW-S1 PC gaming steering wheel
Review Admittedly, until recently my idea of a racing game was Super Mario Kart as I don't play too many driving games. However, the Steelseries SRW-S1 steering wheel certainly had me intrigued enough to want to take it for a spin.
Steelseries SRW-S1 gaming steering wheel Custom job: Steelseries' SRW-S1 gaming steering wheel …
The Darkness II
Review On paper, there's very little to like about The Darkness II. Take your character Jackie Estacado, for starters. Even before taking into account the unspeakable evil to which he is host, few gaming protagonists are as monstrously unsympathetic as the contract killer turned mob boss.
The Darkness II Hit the fairground
Then …
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Review Like a mage's potion, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is based on a tried and tested formula: the essence of Fable II, a dash of Oblivion, the gizzards of God of War. And let's not forget the vital binding agent, of course: a liberal dose of Tolkien's legendarium.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Circle of strife
That's not to say …
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Review Is it just me who remembers Final Fantasy III – actually, that’s FF VI if you’re Japanese – the mercurial tale of the evil Kefka and heroes Sabin, Edgar, Terra, et al? I recall the brilliant use of magical espers, its line-up of amazingly distinct fighters – Sabin even channelling Street Fighter-style special moves in a clever …
Soul Calibur V
Review Ah, Soul Calibur, a game where over-muscled beefcakes and scantily clad teen girls clash in violent, weaponised mortal combat. Then, having ripped each other a new one, said combatants dust themselves off ready to battle the next day. Maybe it's just me, but I'm having a little trouble with the believability factor here; mind …
Infinity Blade II
iGamer I liked the original Infinity Blade when it arrived just over a year ago, but it seemed to fall short of classic status due to the repetitive nature of the combat, the rigidly linear exploration and threadbare fantasy storyline.
This sequel does try to add a bit more variety to the formula, although I still found the continuous …
OnLive
iGamer CES 2012 Week
Sometimes technology just blows your mind. When I reviewed the OnLive Game System, I was impressed by the simple fact that this "cloud gaming" kit worked at all – let alone that it worked so well.
Then the company invited me along to see its new iPad app and my jaw landed with a thud on the ground as they fired …
X-Dream Rocker wireless gaming chair
Review CES 2012 Week
With a design lifted straight from Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds school of home furnishings, the X-Dream rocker is not your average game-playing bench. It’s a lads-mag throne with integrated stereo sound system, subwoofer, pseudo-Shiatsu vibrator and wireless audio system.
X-Dream Rocker gaming chair While away …
