GamesRadar - PC Reviews

Larva Mortus (Review)

5/05/2009

Can a top-down shooter ever truly be scary? People have certainly tried to light us up with frights over the years; Larva Mortus is a solid recent attempt from independent developers Rake in Grass. Demonic faces come screaming out of the screen, while your sword and shotgun make short work of zombies. ...

The Last Remnant (Review)

6/04/2009

The first things that’ll strike you about The Last Remnant, after its perplexingly long install process on Steam has completed, is that the menu system is a confusing mess. All the information is there, but navigating is a pain in the posterior. We even resorted to plugging in an Xbox 360 pad, which promptly failed to work. ...

League of Legends (Review)

5/11/2009

The last few years have seen Defense of the Ancients devour millions of man hours, both in its original incarnation as a WarCraft III mod, and in its refined DotA Allstars evolution. League of Legends, by the original team, is here to provide the definitive version. It’s a multiplayer-only RTS battle between two teams. ...

Left 4 Dead (Review)

18/11/2008

Rescue is here - after a long, bloody battle with countless zombies, you and three fellow survivors have made it to the rooftop of a ravaged hospital, where a helicopter lands to evacuate you to safety. In a blaze of gunfire and guts, you and two of your companions fight your way to the helipad and climb aboard the chopper, but the fourth member of your team is wounded and limping behind you. ...

Left 4 Dead 2 (Review)

17/11/2009

Unlike most other shooters, Left 4 Dead hinges on cooperative multiplayer. You and three friends must shoot, tear and slash through an unrelenting mass of raging zombies. From the moment you leave the safe house to the final rescue chopper, you are completely dependent on each other and constantly hunted by special boss zombies that behave with their own aggressive, strategizing intelligence ...

Left Behind: Eternal Forces (Review)

28/11/2006

Based upon the best-selling religious fiction novels about the aftermath of The Rapture (the End Times event when God takes the Christians to Heaven and leaves everyone else to their fates on Earth), Left Behind: Eternal Forces is not the real time strategy game that most people expected it to be. It is not about gunning down non-Christians in a burst of theocratic wish fulfillment - so really, few folks other than that dude who sued the government over the "In God We Trust" on US money are ...

Legend: Hand of God (Review)

27/08/2008

On the surface, Legend: Hand of God seems like a shamelessly derivative, punishingly unimaginative isometric action/RPG...

Oh, were you expecting a second, more positive part of that sentence? Sorry, no dice - this game is pure surface. ...

Legendary (Review)

4/12/2008

Were we a sniffy historical type, we might point out that it wasn’t Pandora’s Box at all, but rather a jar. Are jars more or less dramatic than boxes? Either way the mislabeled box in Legendary is one that contains not all the evils of the world, but generic monsters and one awesome rubble-golem the size of a block of apartments. ...

LEGO Batman: The Videogame (Review)

23/09/2008

Who is Batman to you? The violent lawman of the modern comics? The wink-wink star of the 60’s TV show? Tim Burton’s gothic icon, perhaps? The point is this: Travellers’ Tales have never had a subject so open to LEGO interpretation, and with it, playful experimentation. And boy, do they love it. Did you feel that Indy was a tad shackled to his tombs and dusty continents? ...

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (Review)

3/06/2008

How can a game that’s identical to the brilliant LEGO Star Wars in almost every respect not be as good? Simple - the setting. The Star Wars universe is vibrant, colourful and fantastical, while Indy’s real-world ’40s setting is more subdued. This works in the context of the films, but recreated in LEGO it has none of the outlandish flair of Lucas’ galaxy far, far away. ...

LEGO Star Wars (Review)

22/06/2007

You should have seen the new Star Wars films by now, if not to be entertained, then at least for the sense of closure you get from seeing Anakin have that helmet slapped that dried apple head of his. Of course, listening to his woeful cry of “noooooooooo” as he sees what hes become, were suddenly reminded that Lucasfilm should have called it a day right before the Ewok Caravan of ‘Hate and quit while they were ahead. The cutscenes from Lego Star Wars, similarly, give the ...

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (Review)

19/09/2006

Last year, LEGO Star Wars taught us what should have been apparent to everyone from the dawn of the universe - LEGO, Star Wars and video games go together like chocolate, peanut butter and creamy nougat. So it comes as no surprise that this new and improved version of last years kid-friendly darling captivated us from the introductory text crawl (you know... that part where the yellow letters march up the screen telling the harrowing tale of one of the most celebrated trilogies in the ...

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust (Review)

27/04/2009

“I ’d f--- a cliff,” says Larry Lovage, in four words perfectly summarising everything about this abysmal third-person action adventure mess. Unsubtle, moronic, and making no sense, this second attempt to reprise the Leisure Suit Larry games of the ’80s is disastrous. ...

Light of Altair (Review)

30/06/2009

It was always going to be a tall order for an unknown indie developer to steal the solid dilithium crown from Sins of a Solar Empire and developer SaintXi has failed to do so. It’s easy to forget that this is an indie release, as there’s a lot of depth to it and clearly thought has been put into trying to create a believable backdrop to the planet-twirling strategy. ...

Line Rider 2: Unbound (Review)

7/11/2008

The original Line Rider was one of those perfect, free PC games that you could understand in seconds and play it for hours. You just drew a line - including bumps, jumps, and even loops - and watched as your little sledder launched himself down it, hopefully safely. Line Rider 2: Unbound takes that same premise and adds in better graphics, a story, and a price tag. Is it worth it?The answer to that question is: Probably. ...

Lineage II: The Chaotic Throne - The 1st Throne: The Kamael (Review)

8/02/2008

Wandering in the lands of massively-multiplayer online worlds as often as we have, we always knew this day would come eventually. Nevertheless, Lineage II: The Chaotic Throne takes the prize for making us actually do it. In the course of playing, we actually sat down and worked out exactly how many of a certain opponent we needed to kill to get to the next level. Why? Because we knew that would be all we would be doing until we reached that ...

Loki (Review)

23/08/2007

Aug 23, 2007 For a long while after Diablo II, the action-RPG genre was remarkably quiet, save for the Dungeon Siege series. Then Titan Quest was released, and since then it's seen a bit of a revival, with titles of varying quality being announced. Loki's jump into the arena is noticeable thanks to its mythological settings. Of course, Titan Quest beat it to the post on that score, but Loki does at least provide some refreshing alternatives. Your setting is dictated by your choice of ...

Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth (Review)

25/11/2004

Rarely does a game feel this frustrating. Here's an example: my Rohirrim archer cavalry are piling arrow after arrow into Mordor's dark towers. They sit out of range, laughing to themselves at impotent orcs cut down as the fortifications crumble. Right click, move on to attack the next. Without warning my men rush in to the fray, disobeying my direct orders. They're cut down instantly. Their corpses left to rot in Middle-Earth's mud. Or try this, an early level: the Rohirrim are on the attack ...

Lord of the Rings Battle For Middle-earth II (Review)

10/03/2006

There are two kinds of Lord of the Rings fans: film buffs and bookworms. When the popcorn-eaters boot up the real-time strategy contest Battle for Middle-earth II, they'll be delighted to find that the movie's clashes weren't the only ones fought in the war for the One Ring. Meanwhile, the folks who liked the saga before Peter Jackson made it cool will finally get to see some of the conflicts that Tolkien only mentioned in passing. Everybody's in for a treat, since Battle for Middle-earth II ...

Lord of the Rings: Conquest (Review)

15/01/2009

Dear Pandemic,

We liked Mercenaries 2, but after some of our competitors unfairly kicked its face off you’d be forgiven for thinking we reviewers relish the opportunity to stomp a game’s head in. Nothing could be further from the truth. For one thing, bad games make for hard work. First, you have to play long enough to form an educated and authoritative critique. ...