All Reviews

NCAA Football 09 (Review)

Jul 22, 2008

Like that slacker college roommate of yours who took a few semesters off to “find himself”, NCAA football has taken a bit of a break the last two years on the PSP. It returns this season none the worse for wear, sporting a slightly different attitude but a remarkably similar look and feel to the collegiate gridiron games you’ve been playing for years now. ...

Protothea - WiiWare (Review)

Jul 22, 2008

Have you ever seen the episode of The Simpsons in which the old folks’ home screens a special censored version of Gone with the Wind? “Frankly my dear, I love you,” says a dubbed Rhett Butler. Protothea is exactly the same thing: Geometry Wars re-edited to be of absolutely no threat to anyone. ...

Pirates: The Key of Dreams - WiiWare (Review)

Jul 22, 2008

Pirates in general are awesome, unlike this initially promising but ultimately drab and one-dimensional watery shoot ’em up. Shame, because we like pirates (couldn’t you tell?). ...

LOL (Review)

Jul 21, 2008

LOL is only as funny as the acquaintances you play it with and if, as in our case, your acquaintances have a predilection for cartoon anatomy and a seemingly never-ending supply of meanness about whoever’s mother, it’s very funny indeed. To put none too fine a point on it, this is Pictochat dressed up as a quiz show. Four DSes link to one cart. One player decides the theme of the round and dictates the time given to complete it. ...

Super Dodgeball Brawlers (Review)

Jul 21, 2008

One of the less remembered joys of the lovely old SNES was a dinky pearl called Super Dodgeball. Small chaps in sportswear toddled about, chucking a ball at each other and trying to knock the other side out – a bit like your sadistic gym teacher used to do, only without quite so much violence. Well now it’s back, kinda sorta, only this time the violence is there and in full effect. Not only do you have to chuck that ball at ‘em, super hard, but there’s all manner of weapons – metal bars, piles of bricks, bombs, fridges – not to mention an elaborate array of special moves to smash them little critters into angels. ...

Cocoto Fishing Master - WiiWare (Review)

Jul 21, 2008

In ye olde Wii launch days, one of the few things that really showed off how well the remote and Nunchuk could work together was Twilight Princess’ fishing minigame. It was awesome – a great display of control finesse. Cocoto Fishing Master, a port of an old PS2 title, takes similar-ish controls and aims to strap them on to a more fully featured game. That should be a recipe for success, right? Unfortunately not. ...

Block Breaker Deluxe - WiiWare (Review)

Jul 18, 2008

Full marks to whoever came up with the title. “We’re ripping off Arkanoid, guys. What shall we call it?” There’s a bit more to Block Breakers Deluxe than just borrowing a concept from a decades-old game, though, and it’s a decent effort at revitalising one of the old favourites. At heart, this is about the age-old struggle of ball versus brick: you bounce your ball off various bricks and a level ends when the ...

The Dog Island (Review)

Jul 16, 2008

For something that looks like a Nintendogs rip-off, there’s a lot more on offer here than you’d think. Choose your four-legged bobble headed puppy from a whopping 48 breeds and you’ll begin a surprisingly entertaining adventure. It’s not GTA or anything, obviously, but it’s still quite diverting. ...

Catching Features (Review)

Jul 16, 2008

Been hiking recently? If you have you may have noticed that OS maps don’t come printed with handy ‘You Are Here’ arrows. Unlike GPS screens and game maps, they don’t actually tell you where you are. Apparently (there are no instructions so we’ve deduced the following), you’re meant to compare the squiggly lines on the map with the hills, roads and woods in the landscape, and figure out your location. ...

The Dog Island (Review)

Jul 15, 2008

Warlords - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Jul 15, 2008

Warlords is four-way Breakout at high speed against three other players, and is yet another piece of Atari Live Arcade graveware. Atari dug this one up, pumped it full of HD-o-juice, and it’s one of the few which almost holds up these days. ...

Sea Life Safari - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Jul 15, 2008

It’s an underwater fish-photographing on-rails romp. A submariner’s Pokemon Snap, then. While it’s not fun, nor much of a game, it’s something to be enjoyed while kicking back after an evening’s mindless blammo action. ...

NCAA Football 09 (Review)

Jul 15, 2008

Consistently successful college football coaches win for a reason. Coming off championship seasons, they don’t mess too much with winning formulas. A few tweaks to the playbook here, some new paint on the weight room walls there, and voila! It’s time for another year demanding blood, sweat, and tears from skinny freshman, grizzled seniors, and everyone else in between.

So it is with NCAA Football 09, this ...

We Love Golf! (Review)

Jul 15, 2008

You know you’re in safe hands when you load up We Love Golf. It’s that Camelot logo – it instantly speaks of heritage and gravitas. It’s also the final nail in the coffin of the dream that someday the Wii might play home to a golf game that actually feels like real golf. After all, if they can’t do it, no one can. ...

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon (Review)

Jul 15, 2008

We wouldn't blame you for writing off Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon at a glance - previous Chocobo games have suffered from overly-simplistic kid-friendly gameplay, which sounds like a recipe for disaster when mixed with the dungeon crawler genre. But with its variety of dungeon types and robust job system, Chocobo's Dungeon kept our interest for far longer than we expected. And with famed composer Nobuo Uematsu supervising the ...

Wacky Races: Crash & Dash (Review)

Jul 14, 2008

Wacky Races Crash & Dash is an odd duck. It’s been almost 40 years since a new episode of the cartoon, but it’s still apparently viable to be made into a video game. It’s also strange that while the game is obviously designed for young children, the show it’s based on is likely older than their parents. Much like the show, Wacky Races Crash & Dash is about racing, but just barely. A strange hybrid of party ...

Stronghold Crusader Extreme (Review)

Jul 11, 2008

Hold on a minute, haven’t we been here before? Yes, it’s slowly coming back to us. In 2002 Firefly’s Stronghold Crusader was heralded as one of the finest RTS castle-building games in the business. Now we have Stronghold Crusader Extreme, the same game again, only with an ultra-hardcore campaign and some extreme skirmish levels thrown in for good measure. Who said innovation was dead?

Let’s start with the ...

Cabela's Trophy Bucks (Review)

Jul 11, 2008

Three confessions: we enjoy hunting sims, we’re rather partial to venison, and we once killed a real deer (accidentally. With a Ford Escort). In theory we’re the best chance Cabela’s Trophy Bucks has of getting a decent score around here. In theory.

The trouble is we’re also not a complete idiot happy to spend hard-earned moolah on a game with all the depth and allure of a cow-pie. Truly, this is the worst ...

Golf: Tee It Up! - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Jul 11, 2008

Multi-format golfing fans will already know a thing or two about Hot Shots Golf – named Everybody’s Golf in the west – on PSP and PS3. Tee It Up is a competent clone, and a demonstration of how slim the good/bad game divide is. Played with the classic three-click golf controls, this is a classic cartoony golf game which slips up on the essential details. ...

Hellboy: The Science of Evil (Review)

Jul 11, 2008

The Hellboy comics, with their cast of classic movie monsters and folkloric freaks, wear their influences proudly on their sleeves. Likewise, Hellboy: The Science of Evil doesn’t make any show at pretending it’s not a thoroughgoing God of War clone. ...