GamesRadar - PC Reviews

Half-Life 2 (Review)

18/12/2007

If Half-Life 2's nerdy protagonist Gordon Freeman is going to save the world, he's gonna need more than the crowbar he began the last game wielding. Thankfully, weapon upgrades in this first-person shooter come lightning quick. Gordon barely gets to take in any the sights and sounds of City 17 (a quarantined, run-down district ruled by gas-masked soldiers apparently called the "Combine") before he starts blasting, bashing, and exploding the living hell out of everything in sight. It's not his ...

Half-Life 2: Episode One (Review)

19/09/2006

Anyone who completed Half-Life 2 - one of the most accomplished first-person shooters ever made - was left with more than a few niggling questions after the final credits rolled. Did you actually save City 17? Will hero Gordon Freeman escape from the G-Man? And did Alyx Vance, the game's leading lady, end up on the wrong end of a thermonuclear explosion? We needed answers and, finally, we've got them. Half-Life 2: Episode One is the first in a trilogy of games that continue the story of ...

Half-Life 2: Episode Two (Review)

9/10/2007

Oct 9, 2007 It's surreal that Valve are still churning out more Half-Life 2, three years on. As beautifully crafted as Episode One was, it did tread on a lot of its parent's toes. Episode Two certainly doesn't do that. It turbos away from them at 90 miles an hour in a customised Dodge Charger, with Alyx riding shotgun. We won't spoil any details, but Ep2 is what happens after you and Alyx break free of City 17 once and for all. The setting for most of your previous adventures is nothing more ...

Halo 2 (Review)

22/05/2007

We got a raw deal from Halo. Where there should have been wonder there has been disappointment. Where there should have been one of the greatest PC games of all time, there has been a moderately entertaining shooter. You might recall that there was a time before the Xbox, a time when Halo seemed like the savior of FPS gaming on the PC: beautiful, vehicular space-war with burning energy weapons, roaring vehicles, proudly chromed aliens, all wrapped up within a mysterious ring-world sci-fi ...

Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm (Review)

13/08/2008

Do not buy this game. We’ll explain why, but it’s important that we get that out of the way to begin with. Put your credit card back in its plastic sheath, so we can talk with less urgency. Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm is about $20 (including various taxes). For that, you get 30 levels, each taking between one or two minutes. ...

Hard to be a God (Review)

18/04/2008

You know, we’re sure there must be a decent RPG buried in here somewhere. We think it’s at the bottom, underneath these socks, the incredibly ropey engine, some old school reports, and the amusingly broken dialogue. Hold this useless mini-map for us, and we’ll move the absolutely terrible horse riding to one side. There it is. Can you see it, poking out between the confused voice acting and needlessly fixed camera angle? ...

The Hardy Boys: The Hidden Theft (Review)

9/01/2009

You’re a tough police chief working the Bayport area. You’ve spent years on the force, honing your investigative skills and enforcing the law. Imagine your delight when a couple of motorbike riding, spoiled rich kids decide to ‘help out’ on your latest case. You’d probably wish they stuck to stuffing their noses with coke and running over hobos. ...

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Review)

1/07/2009

Seven months. That’s how much extra time EA Bright Light has had to tweak and polish Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince after its release date was pushed back thanks to the movie’s theatrical slippage. The time could have been spent perfecting one of the most valuable game licenses. ...

Hearts of Iron III (Review)

14/08/2009

Regularly described as “grand strategy,” Hearts of Iron III is certainly not “diet” strategy - It’s not even “super-size” strategy – it’s full on ‘ask the manager to see the 'special stuff' under the counter’ strategy. Taking control of virtually any nation on the planet, it’s your job to guide your people through the turbulent years of 1936-1948. ...

Hellgate London (Review)

31/10/2007

Oct 31, 2007 Theres a grand, almost royal disappointment lurking at the heart of Hellgate. Its a disappointment wrought from the strange collage of game styles its inspired by. Its both a fast-paced first-person shooter recalling Half-Life and Call of Duty, and a simple action-RPG like Diablo. On paper this could, and should, be one of the great addictive pleasures of our time - an engrossing treadmill of leveling up and upgrading your weapons, skills and items, mixed with the violence and ...

Heroes of Annihilated Empires (Review)

2/01/2007

We were excited by Heroes of Annihilated Empires E3 trailer - which teased us with a brief shot of screaming fighter jets after showing waves of elves and undead crashing against each other - suggesting a refreshing mix of science fiction and high fantasy where modern planes and rifle toting marines might do battle with dragons and elven archers. Unfortunately, it looks like youll have to wait for the sequels to see these sorts of scenarios as HoAE (the first entry in developer, GSC Game ...

Heroes of Might and Magic V (Review)

25/05/2006

Standing on top of a creaking stack of Might and Magic games, Heroes of Might and Magic V hoists the entire strategy franchise straight overhead. Previously a simple 2D isometric game, this lavishly produced sequel drenches the series in three-dimensional splendor, while remaining faithful to the turn-based gameplay that spawned it. The lion's share of the game consists of six intertwined single-player campaigns that highlight the six factions - each lasting scores of hours. As the title would ...

Heroes of Might and Magic V: Hammers of Fate (Review)

3/01/2007

Somewhere along the way it seems Russian development team Nival Interactive got its signals crossed. What we wanted after the promising mess that was Heroes of Might and Magic V were fixes, and after the fixes, an expansion with a campaign worth playing. Not just a hodgepodge of features that frankly should have been in the original or dished up alongside the ...

Heroes of Might and Magic V - Tribes of the East (Review)

24/10/2007

Oct 24, 2007 They say you dont know a man until youve walked a mile in his shoes, and the same holds true for an Orcish horde. No matter how well you think you know combat in the world of Heroes of Might and Magic V, a quick run through the first mission in Tribes of the East makes it obvious that you still have much to ...

Heroes of the Pacific (Review)

22/06/2007

Its odd that so many choose to concentrate on the European Theatre of Operations. Storming Normandy and the grim struggle for Stalingrad provide meaty scenarios, but theyre only part of the story. On the other side of the world a different type of war was being waged. A war fought in the endless blue of sea and sky. Heroes flings you into this frightening azure void with an alarming lack of ceremony. Much like the young pilots of the day youre thrown into the thick of things before youre ...

Heroes Over Europe (Review)

22/09/2009

Heroes Over Europe takes an almost Michael Bay approach to World War II. While some of the missions, locations and aircraft manage an educated nod to the events of history, accuracies take a back seat for the benefit of gameplay. ...

Hinterland (Review)

7/11/2008

Buy Hinterland and it’s just as likely you’ll walk away complaining that the score should have been doubled or halved. For a game with such a simple premise – Diablo, but you build the town as well as saving it – it’s surprisingly tough to grasp exactly what it is. ...

Hired Guns: The Jagged Edge (Review)

29/06/2009

There’s something bizarre about this game where mercenaries battle the forces of an evil dictator in central Africa. No, it’s got nothing to do with the setting at all - it’s that all the female mercenaries we recruited emitted orgasmic noises whenever we clicked on them. ...

The History Channel: Great Battles of Rome (Review)

24/07/2007

December, 218 BC, northern Italy. A javelins throw from the ice-fringed Trebia river, Sempronius Longus explains a last minute change of plans to his generals. “Gentlemen, I dont like it any more than you do, but the fact is the Senate have decided that if we take more than [checks telegram] six minutes to beat Hannibal tomorrow, or suffer more than [checks telegram again] 140 casualties the battle will go down in history as a Carthaginian win.” Welcome to the pedantic but fun ...

Hitman: Blood Money (Review)

7/06/2006

Creeping quietly down the hall, the harsh fluorescent lighting gleams off your bald head. Your target walks a few paces ahead, unknowingly striding into certain doom. As you round the corner, you carefully unwind the fiber wire and prepare to throttle your quarry to death. You raise the deadly garrote, but before you can strike you accidentally bump the back of your target's knee with your own, alerting him to your presence. He turns around and lets out a scream that alerts everyone within a ...