GamesRadar - Previews

Backbreaker football wants to crush you (Backbreaker)

Aug 23, 2007

Aug 23, 2007 The comedian George Carlin has a now-classic routine comparing the differences between football - a game of conquest in which the goal is to invade the enemy's territory - and baseball, a decidedly non-contact sport in which the entire point is to go "home." It's not only hilarious, it drives home a very important point: football is a vicious, violent game played by mountain-sized men who think the best plays are those that teach lessons in basic anatomy. Such as, "What color is ...

American McGee's Bad Day L.A. hands-on (Bad Day L.A.)

Aug 8, 2006

True fact: one in 1,368 readers will be struck and killed by a falling meteor while reading this. That type of absurd humor jams the subversive, satirical action-title Bad Day LA way past chock-full. Rock star game designer American McGee pokes fun at our national pastimes of racism and classism during our Bush-Era culture war of fear. Our hands-on look at Bad Day LA's demo began with a bang - a jumbo-jet filled with a cache of bioterrorist weapons crashes into the Santa Monica freeway during ...

American McGee's Bad Day L.A. hands-on (Bad Day L.A.)

Aug 8, 2006

Fact: one in 1,368 readers will be struck and killed by a falling meteor while reading this. Okay, so that's not entirely true, but similarly absurd situations and scenarios jam the subversive, satirical action-title Bad Day LA way past chock-full. Rock star game designer American McGee pokes fun at our national pastimes of racism and classism during our Bush-Era culture war of fear - but does so using everything from a guy in a hamburger suit to toxic waste-spawned zombies. Our hands-on look ...

Bad Day L.A. (Bad Day L.A.)

Feb 24, 2006

The checkered history of Los Angeles suggests that on occasion it can help, ahem … redefine the concept of the human love/hate relationship. Even so, the city's seen nothing like this. In the third-person action game Bad Day L.A. you'll face missions involving plane crashes, zombie hordes, meteor showers, riots, a tsunami, an earthquake, and more. Crips vs. Bloods this is not. At the center is misanthrope and reluctant hero Anthony Williams. He's a former Hollywood agent so disenchanted ...

Bad Day LA (Bad Day L.A.)

Feb 15, 2006

We're used to gradual evolutions in gaming, be they in technical, graphical, even artistic fields. And you might have expected the same as gaming explores other new horizons, such as politics, current affairs, satire. But with Bad Day LA, American McGee has taken a tradition that had long since become dormant (in mainstream games at least), and has pushed it from a standing start to a racing finish. Taking on fistfuls of current taboos - terrorist attacks, immigration, obesity, tsunamis - it ...

The 6 best moments in Baja (BAJA: Edge of Control)

Jun 16, 2008

If you’ve no idea what Baja is, our first preview covers the basics: it’s deserty, it’s off-roady, and it involves racing. It’s brown, with cacti, and mesas, and cloudy skies. It looks a bit like Pure, MotorStorm, Colin McRae Dirt, MX vs. ATV, and the others.

But having been done before isn’t a reason to avoid a genre – at no point in the near future do we expect Epic and Bungie to call it quits on ...

Baja - hands-on (BAJA: Edge of Control)

Apr 4, 2008

The Baja 1000 hosts some of the most hardcore off-road racing imaginable. In the marquee race, million-dollar cars battle for over 1000 miles, and each year there are reports of booby traps and spectator-created jumps and obstacles - built for their amusement. There are no closed streets - no, these madmen race through civilian traffic.

Just as Baja racing is the ultimate in off-road racing, the MX vs. ATV team is building what they'd ...

Bang! Howdy (Bang! Howdy)

May 26, 2006

If you think that a massively multiplayer online game needs to be backed by a giant software company to be successful, millions of Puzzle Pirates players would tell you differently (and likely precede it with "yar!"). Now, the decidedly not giant group of puppet masters behind that innovative and instantly fun game have concocted a new strategy MMO: Bang! Howdy - this time set in the Wild West. Like its predecessor, Bang! Howdy is a breeze to run on nearly any PC and is as addictive as any ...

Bangai-O Spirits - updated hands-on (Bangai-O Spirits)

May 9, 2008

Do you have the reflexes of a champion? How about the dexterity of a missile-equipped death mech? If you answered yes to at least one of those questions, then Treasure’s Bangai-O Spirits is up your alley. Developed as a sequel to the Dreamcast favorite, you pilot an anime-like mech against a battalion of nukes, laser bullets and enough formidable opponents to turn your tears into ash. ...

Bangai-O Spirits - import review (Bangai-O Spirits)

Apr 21, 2008

Only ever released in Japan. A very limited edition. By legendary software house Treasure. Any one of those would make pixel-eyed shoot-’em-up fans reach for their credit cards, but Bangai-O ticked all three boxes on N64. Being a brilliant game didn’t do it any harm either. Of course they ruined some of that cred by rehashing it for a global release on Dreamcast, but the N64 one remained the best and is still prized by collectors ...

Bangai-O Spirits - first look (Bangai-O Spirits)

Feb 28, 2008

It’s likely you’ve never heard of the original Bangai-O, unless you’re a multi-directional shooter buff. Developed by Treasure, Bangai-O came out first on the Nintendo 64 in Japan, but if you have seen it, it was probably the enhanced version released on the Dreamcast everywhere else.The soon to be released DS sequel, Bangai-O Spirits, continues the tradition of ridiculously challenging 2D shooting madness. We got a chance to ...

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts)

Sep 9, 2008

The new Banjo-Kazooie is not a racing game. It is, despite appearances, very much a platformer. Even for a Rare title, the blend of concept and gameplay is a bizarre one, and, we’re not going to lie to you, it doesn’t feel much like the comparatively simple Banjo games of the N64 era. Nuts & Bolts is a brand new start for the franchise, and based on what we’ve seen, we reckon its quirky approach might just work... ...

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts - hands-on (Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts)

May 13, 2008

Back in April Microsoft invited a handful of press to spend a day inside the barns of Rare's HQ for the world's first look and play of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. They made us sit through Viva Pinata 2 first, but it was still worth it. Because when Willy Wonka opens the doors to his factory, you drop everything and make travel arrangements. This was the moment we'd been waiting for since the game was announced in September ...

Baroque (Baroque)

Feb 13, 2008

Purged by flames, the world’s remaining population is mutated by distorted fantasies, created to help stomach the inhospitable remains. Heartless meshes of flab, cogs and metalwork - enough to give even Silent Hill’s freaks the willies - these ‘meta-beings’ crawl the world, devouring humanity’s leftovers. Distorted fantasy being the very definition of ‘baroque’ itself. Animal Crossing it ain’t. It ...

Baten Kaitos II (Baten Kaitos Origins)

Apr 10, 2006

The original Baten Kaitos was something of a surprise. Hardcore, Final Fantasy-style RPGs like this are the bread and butter of the PS2, but the Nintendo audience typically goes in for Zelda style action. But here we are with a sequel - a shocker in and of itself, as support for the GameCube is drying up fast. It's not a slap-dash quickie, either; it's a gorgeous, playable and refined role playing game that will provide you with dozens of bizarre hours of questing. Can't argue with that. For ...

Baten Kaitos II (Baten Kaitos Origins)

Mar 9, 2006

Baten Kaitos wasn't exactly wheeled out with much of a fanfare, which, frankly is a something of a shame considering it's easily one of GameCube's better RPGs. Even if it was a little, well, odd. Soon, the oddness will continue in Baten Kaitos II. On the surface it's a fairly traditional RPG. A vast, sweeping epic played out on pre-rendered backdrops. You have the obligatory towns in which to purchase items, meet characters and further plot development, and between these you have the game's ...

Batman: Arkham Asylum – first-look (Batman: Arkham Asylum)

Sep 26, 2008

The Caped Crusader has had something of a dodgy past both on the silver screen and in games. From the ace 1989 Tim Burton gothic epic that grossed over a quarter of a billion dollars domestically to the franchise-murdering Joel Schumacher colour-saturated camp-fest Batman & Robin that barely limped past the $100 million marker, Bruce Wayne and his crime-fighting alter-ego haven’t had it easy. ...

Batman Begins (Batman Begins)

May 3, 2005

Based on Frank Miller's superb Batman Year One comics, if its Xbox mirror image is anything to go by, Batman Begins promises to be darker than a black hole and edgier than a dodecahedron. No more tights. No more comedy sidekicks. No more remote controlled Batmobiles with optional bulletproof shields either. Batman Begins - the movie - will be a Batman with its roots in the real world. He'll hunt criminals, he'll scare them shitless, but he'll feel pain, anger and lose control too.Of course, as ...

Batman Begins (Batman Begins)

Mar 22, 2005

Games based on Batman, one of the most famous comic book caped crusaders, have a reputation for being stinkier than a pile of freshly laid bat mess, which is absolutely criminal considering the wealth of creative potential that's loaded into the source material.Hoping to buck this depressing trend is Derby-based developer Eurocom and publishing powerhouse Electronic Arts, who have been charged with the task of producing the eponymous game of the upcoming Batman Begins movie.Focusing intensely ...

Battalion Wars (Battalion Wars)

Aug 11, 2005

Erasers out, then - all references to Advance Wars Under Fire are out in favour of Battalion Wars. And quite rightly so, because this isn't much like our turn-based GBA friend at all. Forget just shunting icons around; you're right in the thick of a war that would get George W salivating.You kick off each mission with a handful of troops, and recruit others you find. Bump into a tank and it's yours, rescue POWs who've inexplicably got flamethrowers on them (as we did) and you can have yourself ...