GamesRadar - PC Reviews

Cabela's Trophy Bucks (Review)

11/07/2008

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 ...

Caesar IV (Review)

10/10/2006

Managing the Roman Empire is no easy task, but somebody's got to do it. And in Caesar IV that somebody is you. After an eight year hiatus, the classic city-building franchise is back, in all of its micro-managing glory. Limitations on city size and esthetic requirements are the two biggest obstacles (outside of the economy) that any budding governor is going to face. Just as in real life, real estate in Caesar IV is a limited resource and how well you plan out your city can easily make or ...

Call of Duty 2 (Review)

25/02/2006

You've been through the hell of World War II before in first-person shooters like Medal of Honor and Brothers in Arms. But beating back Hitler's blitzkrieg has never been as shell-shockingly chaotic and intense and indeed heavily scripted, as it is in Call of Duty 2. You'll alternately fight in the American, British and Russian armies, each experience complete with fanatically historic weaponry and badly accented English. You'll regularly attempt heroic assaults against impossible odds, ...

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Review)

5/11/2007

[Editor's Note, Nov 9, 2007: We've changed this game's score from the original 9 up to a 10. The reason is simple: the more we play the game, especially against real people online, the more we grow to love it and the less we mind its few faults. It's still not perfect or even particularly evolved from the first three CoD games, but it's nonetheless one of the most finely-tuned, expertly crafted games we've ever played, and we would be wrong not to give it our highest recommendation.] Nov 5, ...

Call Of Duty: World at War (Review)

13/11/2008

If there’s one word that sums up World At War for us, it’s ‘brutal’. The latest Call of Duty, developed over the last two years by Treyarch – not series creator Infinity Ward – is a brutal slog through a WWII setting unlike any other. You may think you’ve ‘been there’ and ‘done that’ when it comes to this particular global conflict, but after five minutes in either the blood-soaked single player campaign or the frenzied multiplayer you’ll realise that this is far from your average, tired WWII shooter. ...

Call of Juarez (Review)

13/09/2006

Wednesday 13 September 2006 This first-person shooter's unannounced surprise brilliance is actually a very Wild West thing. Picture the scene: the PC saloon at midday. Prey on the honky-tonk piano. Quake IV downing whiskey at the bar. Someone walks in. The place freezes: a stranger. Everyone considers him. "Hey," sneers Gun, "your wolves look mighty funny." The stranger turns... and blows the GTA-with-cowboys game away. "Who the hell's that?" someone whispers. It's Call of Juarez. It's the best ...

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (Review)

30/06/2009

After apocalyptic future worlds, there can be few settings less original than the Old West. Chuck in a desert, some dueling and a few authentic guns and you have yourselves a game, right? Well Techland don’t subscribe to that – Bound in Blood, like its predecessor, has ideas coming out the wazoo. ...

Cars (Review)

14/06/2006

Imagine a game like Need for Speed Underground 2, in which you can drive around in a freely explorable city, racing other drivers or just messing around as you see fit. Now, imagine it with talking cars, a tiny desert town and nearly every hint of crime or violence removed, and you'll have a good idea of what to expect from Cars. While it ties in with the Pixar movie, Cars actually picks up where the film left off, with cherry-red racetrack star Lightning McQueen settling into the town of ...

Caster (Review)

5/05/2009

It’s an all too common mistake made by developers of short games. New attacks and abilities are introduced as the levels progress, building toward a big climax. But the result is the entire game feeling like a tutorial, with only one proper level to play at the end. Predictably enough, Caster’s third-person action only gets going right as the game is coming to a close. ...

Catching Features (Review)

16/07/2008

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. ...

CellFactor: Revolution (Review)

15/06/2007

Crushing girls to death using only your mind, giant robot suits and a rocket launcher in each hand. This shooter is the stuff dreams are made of. Manly, manly dreams. So why is it so disappointing? Perhaps because the PhysX card this FPS was supposed to showcase hasnt exactly set the world on fire. It simply wasnt worth making the much-delayed CellFactor anything more than the glorified tech demo it still ...

Ceville (Review)

19/03/2009

A French adventure that’s aiming at the comedy end of the market. Things don’t bode well, do they? Ceville isn’t as annoying as you might imagine, but this isn’t a game for those with an ounce of cynicism in their bodies, despite that the main character should appeal to bitter types that like to complain. That’s us down to a T, but sadly Ceville didn’t strike a right chord. ...

Chains (Review)

23/07/2009

Chains has the most satisfyingly squishy physics since... well, since that other indie physics-based sphere-em-up – Land of Gunk, was it? In common with 2DBoy’s hit, Ivan and Philip Traykov’s game makes a virtue of the underlying mechanics behind the puzzles. ...

Champions Online (Review)

9/09/2009

A city under siege. Aliens stalk the streets, abducting and bewitching the terrified population. Demons rise from the pavements, burning everything they see. The people cry out, begging for a hero with the strength and courage to see them safely through this darkest of nights. And look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It’s... a bright pink clown with antlers and too much cleavage? ...

Championship Manager 2008 (Review)

7/11/2007

Nov 7, 2007 The Championship Manager healing process continues. However, while this years version once again shows improvement, the game still feels as though the series is suffering from some kind of split-personality disorder. On one hand, CM08 is an accessible and entertaining football management game, requiring minimal tactical tweaking and allowing you to enjoy an experience free from overbearing micromanagement. Its also a game thats trying to compete with Football Manager, featuring an ...

Championship Manager 2010 (Review)

9/10/2009

A flag adorns the top right corner of the screen in the game and it constantly billows, no matter how you do. We imagine it’s powered by the wind of change, for Championship Manager 2010 is back after a two year hiatus with a steely determination to reconquer past glories. After being given an extended period to develop the game, devs Beautiful Studios have delivered a much improved Champ Man bursting with sparkly new features. ...

Chaos Theory (Review)

28/07/2008

Chaos Theory is another of the smaller games to get boosted into the public eye by Steam. We’ve had Gumboy, Gish, Audiosurf and the slightly unjustifiable Ninja Reflex, and now it’s Chaos Theory’s turn to look slightly awkward rubbing sholders with Call of Duty 4 and Chuzzle Deluxe. ...

Chessmaster: The Art Of Learning (Review)

28/02/2008

Chessmaster: The Art of Learning. Everything you need to know is right there in the title: this is typical chess with focus on cultivating skill of players of every level. This game doesn’t really offer much to the hack ‘n’ slash gamer with an itchy trigger finger - you won’t find any crazy modes like Killer Queens or Hide and go Rook here. However, if you’re a fan of the cultured man’s black and white ...

The Chosen - Well of Souls (Review)

19/10/2007

Oct 19, 2007 It seems that game developers everywhere can't resist the allure of attempting to craft the next great action-RPG. We like to think that Rebelmind, developers of The Chosen: Well of Souls, pitched this game to their publishers (Meridian4) like this: "Well, see, it's basically a poor-man's "Action RPG" with modern special effects and 3D graphics - but now with twice the crates, barrels, and boxes to click on! Gamers just love those destructible barrels, you know!" While there's ...

Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual (Review)

30/07/2009

It’s been too long since our PC screens were graced by City Interactive games, but our prayers have been answered at last. Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual is a by-the-numbers point-and-click adventure game that is about as generic and average as you could possibly imagine. ...