GamesRadar - Features

10 Steps to a Rhythm Heaven (Odama)

25/07/2007

To posses an inner metronome is a glorious thing; the dance floor becomes your domain; the lead role in the trash-wanging musical sensation Stomp is yours for the taking; you find that people will like you better as you bop on your merry way. Alas, were not all so blessed. But the musically challenged need fear no longer - were here to help. Welcome to our ten-step program, turning the rhythmically bare into Fred Astaire, all with the power of ...

12 games you might never play (Oddworld)

24/04/2009

Remember how great StarCraft: Ghost was going to be? Sorry, it’s dead. It’s not uncommon for games to be cancelled. It usually happens like this: A game is announced, we hear nothing about it for years, then buried somewhere in a press release about another game we find a note that mentions that it has been “indefinitely delayed,” which actually means “permanently delayed.” And that’s it, we never hear about it again. ...

The Top 7... Deadliest shark attacks (Okami)

3/08/2009

In real life, everyone knows sharks are perfectly lovely creatures that hold down good jobs, drive responsibly in hybrid cars, and almost never prey on humans. In popular media, however, they’re vicious aquatic bastards who like nothing better than to sneak up on unsuspecting swimmers and devour them as gruesomely as possible, preferably in front of an audience. ...

Five reasons you suck if you don't play Okami (Okami)

26/03/2008

If you didn't go out and buy Okami, you suck. Period. Okami is one of the best games that hardly anyone played. Despite having received rave reviews and numerous awards - including our very own “Too Beautiful to Live” accolade - sales for the title were lackluster. What the hell, gamers? Do you want to play crap like Deer Hunter 17 and Bratz: Inappropriately Sexed-Up Pre-Teens all your life?Luckily, the Wii version of Okami is just ...

Top 7... Death Rattle Games (Okami)

10/03/2008

We'd like to think that every developer sets out to make the perfect game. But as budgets swell, stockholders throw tantrums, and release dates draw near, there's a whole myriad of snafus can explode in the face of well meaning folks. Plenty of games spit in the eye of gamers’ expectations and miscarry at retailers every year - that’s not special. These games are the great white whales that tanked so hard they dragged entire companies down with them. ...

10 reasons why Okami is a mad masterpiece (Okami)

22/02/2007

1) It lets you control time One of the most visually-appealing and useful abilities is being able to control the time of day by drawing either a sun or a moon in the sky. Draw a moon and the bright sky will be slowly consumed by bleeding black ink, bringing with it nightfall. Draw a sun and a gorgeous spinning orb of heavenly glory makes it sparkle and scares off tougher enemies. This becomes more and more useful later in the game when certain missions only become available at a certain time ...

The Legend of Okami (Okami)

22/09/2006

They say flattery will get you everywhere, and that imitation is the sincerest form of such behavior. But is there a limit to how much you can ape something before it crosses the line of "homage" into "ripoff?" Well, when the result is a game as life-changing as Okami, we're content to let it take everything that makes The Legend of Zelda a masterpiece and copy it any day of the week. Spending no more than a few hours with Okami will reveal how much it plays like a new Zelda game. You've got a ...

Meet the crew of One Piece (One Piece: Unlimited Adventure)

12/12/2007

Dec 12, 2007 When theyre not swabbing the poop deck, battening down any un-battened hatches or doing any other cliché-ridden activity; the Straw Hat crew sails for adventure and most importantly, the One Piece treasure. However, every now and then Luffy and co. get sidetracked and duke it out with nautical nasties. Because good always defeats evil, we thought wed give ya a sneak peek at the winning team under your control in the Wiis upcoming One Piece: Unlimited Adventure. Anime, ...

New Onechanbara babes revealed (Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad)

5/11/2008

We know we’re supposed to be morally outraged at the incredibly sexist idea of a game in which bikini-clad ladies hack away at swarms of zombies. We get that. But you know what? Most of us here really LIKE girls in bikinis (and schoolgirl outfits). And we love zombies. So, you put those two together and add in some samurai swords, and we’re there, outraged or not. ...

The Top 7… villains that never stay dead (Operation Darkness )

13/04/2009

Death happens a lot in videogames, but for some reason it never seems to stick. From heroes who get infinite do-overs to supporting characters who “die” only to resurface at the nick of time down the road, videogames might be the only medium in which the audience feels surprised, and perhaps even cheated, if a dead character isn’t magically brought back to life. ...

Operation Flashpoint: The sequel (Operation Flashpoint)

26/07/2005

Bohemia's battle plans aren't simple. They're positively complicated. It's working on two Flashpoint sequels, for a start. The first pressing on the boundaries of the original, critically-acclaimed Operation Flashpoint. The second game pressing on boundaries full stop. Operation Flashpoint was a tactical shooter like no other. Set during a hypothetical Soviet invasion of the West, its vast scale made you feel like a small cog caught in the wheel of a very large war. The lulls between ...

The Citizen Kanes of videogames (The Orange Box)

23/07/2009

When talking about the idea of videogames as art, it’s become increasingly popular to lament that the medium doesn’t yet have its “Citizen Kane.” Seemingly everyone, from industry luminary Ian Bogost to film director Guillermo del Toro, has sounded off about how games either need, don’t need, or will soon receive the masterpiece that will force the medium to “grow up” and be accepted as an art form by the mainstream. ...

The fantastic origins of your favorite games (The Orange Box)

12/02/2009

We are all guilty of taking game development for granted. Yes, even you, the guy who plays Call of Duty 4 and wonders why co-op wasn’t implemented. As most of us know, development is less magical and more rigorous – terrible deadlines, limited resources and limited manpower – all factor in to creating what we play for the holiday season. ...

The Top 7... Best ports on inferior systems (The Orange Box)

12/01/2009

Perhaps no other entertainment industry contains venomous fans arguing over the content of multiple versions of a solitary product. And for good reason - games are made to be ported over to multiple consoles in order to recoup staggering losses of cash. Each console has its own strengths and its own failings. That’s why we see a frame rate glitch here or a severely neutered feature there. ...

Seinfeld recreated in Garry's Mod (The Orange Box)

15/08/2008

We’re big fans of dicking around, so when someone suggested that we attempt to reproduce a classic sitcom in Half-Life 2’s Garry’s Mod, we cited the “why the hell not” clause of our operating procedures and immediately began violating ragdolls. While our interpretation of the greatest nihilist sitcom ever may not win us any awards at machinima festivals, it can at least inspire some ironic ...

Gaming PaperCraft (The Orange Box)

10/06/2008

Our origami gurus have designed some pretty sweet papercraft figures for you to decorate your office or gaming lounge. Read more to create your own Companion Cube, Big Daddy, Gordon Freeman and Vault-Boy with our printable cutouts. ...

The Top 7... inanimate objects (The Orange Box)

7/04/2008

Inanimate objects. Wow, we must really be out of ideas, huh? It's true, at first pass this sounds absurd, open to all kinds of interpretation with an infinite number of potential entries, but after careful contemplation (i.e. shouting at one another for hours) we've come up with a list of in-game objects so desirable that every gamer should love 'em - even if all they do is sit there.

For our consideration, the items have to be ...

Opening The Orange Box: Portal (The Orange Box)

29/02/2008

The games world has gone bat shit over Portal. By the time you read this, there will be around 23,456 more blogs about the Weighted Companion Cube and over 1.2 million references on forums about “cake,” beating the previous record set by “the knights who say ‘Ni’” by 67 percent. Despite Valve’s sci-fi spatial puzzler clocking in at less than three hours, Portal has become a phenomenon, built on a ...

Opening The Orange Box: Team Fortress 2 (The Orange Box)

28/02/2008

Valve’s devotion to its customers, their unheard of desire to ensure that at every turn we are inescapably pleased with their product, is no more noticeable than with Team Fortress 2. Like doting mothers, they’ve been keeping tabs on how we play. Vast mountains of data stored in underground bunkers keep records of our every action - that time you were sniped on top of the bridge in 2fort? It’s in there. And all in the name of ...

Opening The Orange Box: Half-Life 2: Episode Two (The Orange Box)

25/02/2008

In a winter packed with big-name shooter releases there was never really any doubt who’d win out. In value, pedigree and sheer gameplay magic The Orange Box delivered on every count: TF2 is the funniest multiplayer experience many have ever experienced, Portal is so self-consciously kooky that it has now infected every corner of the internet, and Episode Two continued the Half-Life saga with remarkable aplomb.While the long delay of the ...