GamesRadar - Previews

Dementium II – hands-on (Dementium II)

Dec 2, 2009

You have to hand it to the guys at Renegade Kid - they’ve managed to elevate disturbing to an art form. Exhibit A: the box art for the developer’s upcoming horror-drenched follow up to its first-person survival horror experiment Dementium: The Ward. ...

Metro 2033: The return of 'proper' survival horror? (Metro 2033)

Dec 1, 2009

How nuclear armageddon could resuscitate a flatlining genre. ...

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing – Hands-on (Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing)

Nov 27, 2009

It's been a few months since we last spent some quality time with Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing – and it's surprising to see how far it's come in that time.

Sega fans will be pleased to hear that Sumo Digital (who handled the console conversion of OutRun 2 and also developed Sega Superstars Tennis) have created something more than just a by-numbers Mario Kart rip-off. How? Like this:

Drifting

OutRun 2's ...

3D Dot Game Heroes revealed - can it survive? (3D Dot Game Heroes)

Nov 25, 2009

Every player old enough to remember a previous console will have favorite old-school games that – to them – still stand up to the very best games of today. Gears of War? It rocks, but it’s no Contra on NES. Batman: Arkham Asylum? Give us Duck Tales. ...

DeathSpank (DeathSpank)

Nov 23, 2009

“Clayton Kauzlaric and I created the character of DeathSpank for the Flash comics on my website,” Ron Gilbert explains. “He came to embody all the little things we hated about the games business. At one point, we looked at each other and said, ‘He needs his own game!'” Alarm bells ring. Games that try to poke fun at the medium’s cliches only end up rehashing them. ...

The Saboteur (The Saboteur)

Nov 21, 2009

Sin City. Grand Theft Auto. Inglorious Basterds. Moulin Rouge. Indiana Jones. Daniel O’Donnell. All these things seem to inform Pandemic’s World War II-set open world kill-’em-up.

It’s German-occupied Paris as a big-budget action movie: explosions, preening Nazi race drivers, base-jumping off the Eiffel Tower and sexy secret agents. By which we mean it’s trashier than a gossip magazine. ...

Super Meat Boy - first look (Super Meat Boy)

Nov 20, 2009

Titles that absolutely describe their game are a dying breed. What is there that ‘Super Meat Boy’ doesn’t tell you? He’s made of meat, he’s super, and he’s a he. What else do you want?

It’s a retro-esque platform game that proudly describes itself as incredibly hard, and comes from two of the more ingenious but twisted minds of the current indie development scene. ...

APB – hands-on (APB)

Nov 20, 2009

Dave Jones’ initials are tattooed across our nipples. We have a mullet, a moustache, aviator shades and a belly that arrives in a room a few seconds before we do. “Players are going to have to think very carefully about who they want to be,” Jones tells us. “You can be a psycho, quiet, on-the-streets kind of killer." ...

Divinity II: Ego Draconis - first look (Divinity II: Ego Draconis)

Nov 19, 2009

The Divinity series, like its classmate at High Fantasy High School, Gothic, is a big deal in mainland Europe. Until now, neither RPG has made much of a dent in either the UK or US. With its impressive translation, convincing animation, inventive quests, and combat and reward systems reminiscent of Diablo, Divinity II has the best shot yet.

Cast in the role of a Dragon Slayer, your role is, oddly enough, to slay dragons. ...

Love – hands-on (Love)

Nov 19, 2009

The painterly multiplayer world of Love is, for now at least, a place as much as a game. It’s the passion of one improbably talented, audaciously unconventional programmer named Eskil Steenberg; a man who seems to have found a new way of doing just about everything. The result is an incredible experience to explore, like nothing else you’ve played. ...

The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood (Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar)

Nov 19, 2009

We haven’t covered LotRO much recently. There’s no dark reason for this, no sinister conspiracy – it’s just that this is an MMO that’s remarkably adept at keeping its head down and getting on with things. On the quiet, it’s accrued a massive and very happy audience. On the eve of its new expansion, it seems a good time to peer at what the game as a whole is like these days. ...

Bayonetta (Bayonetta)

Nov 19, 2009

Bayonetta’s bravest trick is to throw out the usual rules on what you can do with on-screen action and third-person cameras in a videogame and just presume that you can handle everything going completely and utterly mental. And, as it turns out, you can. ...

Dante’s Inferno (Dante's Inferno)

Nov 19, 2009

God of War meets Dead Space in Hell. That’s how we first described Dante’s Inferno and it wouldn’t be risking the wrath of Hell to suggest that’s how EA’s infernal epic looks now.

However, reducing the game to comparisons no longer does it justice. ...

Super Street Fighter IV (Super Street Fighter IV)

Nov 17, 2009

When we first heard about Super Street Fighter IV a few months ago, we felt like Capcom was getting ready to milk its fans. A few new characters just didn’t seem to justify a completely new stand-alone title when they could’ve been distributed via DLC. ...

The Secret World (The Secret World)

Nov 16, 2009

Unlike their last effort, Age of Conan, Funcom is using an original setting for this online game: the real world. But don’t worry: this isn’t a game that has you washing +1 dishes before travelling to the supermarket to purchase increasingly nutritious vegetables. Like the classic shooter/RPG Deus Ex, The Secret World is grounded in our most intriguing urban legends, myths and secret societies. ...

RAGE (RAGE)

Nov 16, 2009

The world is a post-apocalyptic dustbowl populated by mutants and proud retro-fitted scavengers with fast, growling cars, deadly makeshift crossbows and upturned woks for hats. You, the unwitting outsider, emerging prematurely from your Armageddon-proof panic room, find you’re somehow better at surviving in this hostile environment than those who’ve been living in it their whole lives. ...

RUSE (RUSE)

Nov 16, 2009

Generals are shifty buggers. Hitler, for example, would often call up Churchill and claim to have sent 4,000 Maus tanks to Newcastle. Winston would hop on the train to go up and have a look, leaving Number 10 undefended. Such deception is a key element of war, as established by Sun Tzu in The Art of War – a book now read exclusively by advertising bumholes. ...

Joe Danger: First great download game of 2010 (Joe Danger)

Nov 16, 2009

What do LittleBigPlanet, bikes and Sonic and have in common? ...

Just Cause 2 - hands-on (Just Cause 2)

Nov 13, 2009

The first order of business in Just Cause 2 isn’t to steal a car, or motorcycle, or ATV, or fighter jet, or attack chopper. It isn’t to go exploring the miles and miles of jungles, mountains, and cities. No, first you must wrap your head around the grappling hook and parachute. ...

Napoleon: Total War – updated impressions (Napoleon: Total War)

Nov 13, 2009

Who’d have thought that, just 200 years ago, it was fashionable to hate the French? It’s one of the great burdens of having an empire. Poor Napoleon: before declaring himself the Emperor of France, he probably thought back to the time when he was the plucky revolutionary underdog, and all the blokes said “way to go, Naps.” ...