When a company publicly declares that it is creating a new genre it is natural for the sceptical mind to wonder if just marketing spin or if there really is a new hot ticket that we should all be jumping on, or if perhaps the PR spin has just gone into overdrive trying to prove its worth. Sony’s release of LittleBigPlanet saw the first ambitious stab at Play Create Share, Mod Nation Racers was bookmarked to be the second, but is it a legitimate entry to this new genre, or is Sony jumping the Shark?
Archive for the ‘sidereview’ Category
ModNation Racers Review
Thursday, May 6th, 2010Yakuza 3 Review (PS3)
Saturday, April 10th, 2010
It’s always going to be a tough ask to review the fourth installment in a successful cult franchise when you’ve never been exposed to any of the previous games, but sometimes it is useful to get a fresh opinion anyway, untainted by any expectations based on prior knowledge of the series. Yakuza 3 continues the story of Kazuma Kiryu, a Japanese gangster (Yakuza) who gives up his former illustrious career in the hope of leading a purer life looking after children in an orphanage on the island of Okinawa. Of course there wouldn’t be a story to tell if he lived happily ever after, and it isn’t long before trouble starts to come to town. Kazuma soon learns of plans to seize the land that the orphanage is on in order to build a beach resort destined to bring wealth to the sleepy island. Being the bad-ass he is, you can imagine that Kazuma is hardly going to sit back and watch this happen.
Battlefield Bad Company 2 Review
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010Getting delayed can often times mean a death sentence for a game, the hype dies down, people look else where for their fix. Battlefield’s move back to releasing this week was either due to the developer needing more time or EA deciding that they might prefer to avoid going head to head against MW2. Either way, the time is here, so what is the final result?
Dark Void Review (360)
Monday, January 25th, 2010Dark Void is a game about jet packs, pure and simple. Now with that premise you would think it might be something rather special. But that kind of thinking is flawed, dreams of grandeur are usually dashed and obviously I’m just not jaded enough. Even with jetpacks, Dark Void is merely just another average shooter.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii Review (Wii)
Monday, November 23rd, 2009New Super Mario Bros. Wii is the follow-up to New Super Mario Bros. released 3 years ago for DS, and is the first game in the series to feature on Wii. The formula is the same as you would expect, with signature side-scrolling action that will test even expert gamers, but several key changes to the game make it accessible for all – and you can even all play together with the new 4 player co-op mode allowing additional players to drop in or out with ease.
New Super Mario Bros. is one of my favourite games for the DS, with excellent challenging gameplay, and a decent number of varied levels. If you have played New Super Mario Bros. then you will feel right at home playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The basic controls and world structure are similar, and it is easy to jump right in and play without reading any manuals. The cheery music welcomes you back into the Mario world as your onscreen enemies bounce in time to the tunes.
Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising Review (Xbox 360)
Thursday, October 29th, 2009War. War is hell! And nothing portrays this better in a video game like having to replay the 30 minutes you just played through because you weren’t quick enough to spot an enemy sniper 2km’s away. Now this may sound bad but it’s not all bad news in this modern warfare simulation. So let’s load up, jump on the helo and enter the conflict zone of Skira.
Halo 3 ODST Review
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
Halo 3 ODST will polarize gamers opinions due to the decisions made by Bungie and Microsoft to package it the way they did, and while the bulk of this review will talk about the single player experience and fire fight mode I will share some thoughts about the dual disc format and the single multiplayer split.
Motorstorm: Arctic Edge Review PSP
Sunday, September 13th, 2009I love both versions of Motorstorm on the PS3, and to be honest I was very sceptical about a PSP version. How could such a graphically impressive, fast paced action racer even be possible on the PSP hardware? Surely it’ll couldn’t compare to it’s big brothers.
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Hands On Preview (PC)
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009There have been some teaser trailers for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising floating around for a while now. They gave me the impression that the game would be almost groundbreaking. If that makes any sense.
I’ve since had a good play with a pre-release build, and my impressions seem to have been borne out.
Battlefield 1943 Review
Monday, July 13th, 2009![]()
Boasting the worst launch in recent memory, Battlefield 1943 was plagued by inadequate server space a chronic inability to join games, and frequent console freezes. Yet, all this followed by the quickest and most impressive post release support I’ve ever seen. Was it simply a case of the game being far too popular for its own good? Does it deserve the popularity? Was it worth the frustration? A thousand times yes!





