GamesRadar - PC Reviews

Napoleon's Campaigns (Review)

21/03/2008

Anally accurate historical games have given the turn-based strategy genre a bad rep amongst non-hardcore gamers, because they're inaccessible to the majority of humanity.Napoleon's Campaigns is clearly a labour of love, with historically accurate maps recreated to the very last shrub, and a wealth of stats and variables based on historical records beneath the surface. This is hardcore stuff: no frills, no pretty animations, just good old ...

Nation Red (Review)

13/10/2009

The great zombie game outbreak of the 21st century began with a single byte. It spread quickly, digitally infecting games with unprecedented numbers of undead. Before long, you couldn’t click an executable without launching an outbreak. And then the fightback came. Nation Red is a Diablo-ish take on the battle against the undead. Top-down battles against relentless hordes of pick-up dropping zombies. ...

NBA 2K10 (Review)

12/11/2009

While no sports game will ever properly recreate what it’s like to participate in the activity, they can at least make it look like you’re watching the sport on the TV. NBA 2K10 does this almost perfectly, with superb commentary and broadcast presentation making every game a big occasion. ...

NBA 2K9 (Review)

17/12/2008

Basketball-obsessed PC gamers (all four of them) haven’t gotten a lot of respect lately. But unlike EA’s recent crappy NBA Live PS2 ports, 2K Games’ NBA 2K9 is a full-blooded port from the current generation of consoles, with the kind of broadcast-quality presentational polish that EA used to be renowned for. ...

NBA Live 06 (Review)

22/06/2007

LeBron. Iverson. Shaq. T-Mac. Unlike the college game, the superstars of the NBA unquestionably dominate the action. NBA Live 06 replicates this with its new freestyle superstar moves, further cementing Live as an undeniably fun hoops franchise. The freestyle superstar moves enable the league's best players to perform risky but incredible feats that can turn the tide of a game, just as they do in real life. For instance, playmakers like Steve Nash can zip no-look passes to get teammates an ...

NBA Live 07 (Review)

17/10/2006

PC hoop fanatics don't have nearly as much going for them in 2007 as their archrivals on the console side. With no NBA 2K7 (or any other competitor, for that matter) vying for the attention of the mouse-and-keyboard set; this season, it's NBA Live 07 or bubkus. Unfortunately, this go-round EA bounced one off their collective foot, sending this year's Live right out of bounds. A lamentable host of gameplay bugs and annoying quirks has sent the early purchasers of the title into an uproar, ...

NecroVisioN (Review)

26/05/2009

Zombies, vampires, huge spidery things with rocket launchers attached on various places of their anatomy and one long stream of enemies to mow down with your machine guns. NecroVisioN is a dinosaur, clinging to a lot of the gaming conventions we so viciously decried in our last issue – exploding barrels, switches, big boss monsters with inordinate amounts of health, etc. ...

Need for Speed Carbon (Review)

8/11/2006

You can be forgiven for cynically thinking "Another year, another Need for Speed." Frankly, that's what we thought when the latest title in the series was announced. After all, the damn good Most Wanted just came out a year ago, so what could Carbon possibly offer so soon afterwards that would get our motors runnin'? It turns out that the answer comes in two parts. First off is the Wingman - not the buddy who'll sit with your hot date's ugly girlfriend at the bar - but a crazy fool who for ...

Need for Speed ProStreet (Review)

5/12/2007

Dec 5, 2007 Were told EA are ahead of the game on this one. Ask anyone driving a bright pink Toyota with plastic bits glued to it and theyll tell you: street racing is so last year. As the street racing scene has grown in popularity, its identity as an illegal, marginalised activity has slipped in favour of big money track days and corporate sponsorship. It has the faint whiff of selling out to it, really. Fittingly, ProStreet is the legitimisation of Need For Speed - retaining all the ...

Need for Speed SHIFT (Review)

15/09/2009

No doubt about it, drafting in British developers Slightly Mad Studios has revitalised the series and turned it into a serious contender. Of course, it helps that Need for Speed SHIFT has clearly used last year’s king of the road, Codemaster’s brilliant GRID, as its benchmark.

Gone are the police. ...

Need for Speed Undercover (Review)

4/12/2008

This latest in EA’s undying street racing series teaches us that there’s nothing that can’t be solved by high-speed racing. This is a crass game – which would be fine if it would admit it. It shares much with EA’s other recent star-studded sequel, Red Alert 3, in that it stuffs HD FMV between missions in order to add a story to its formulaic challenges. ...

Neopets Puzzle Adventure (Review)

21/01/2009

You might not have heard of Neopets. A website featuring virtual animals, virtual gambling and a heap of very real advertising, it remains inexplicably popular among gullible net-surfing children. But that’s irrelevant: this title is Neopets in name only. You may be controlling an ugly chirpy thing in a pseudo-mythological setting, but you’re basically playing Puzzle Quest 2. ...

Neverwinter Nights 2 (Review)

1/11/2006

The original Neverwinter Nights is held aloft as the best translation of the beloved Dungeons and Dragons tabletop role-playing experience of all time. And not necessarily for the core game, either - but for the dungeon-building tools that came alongside the original adventure. In true D&D fashion, would-be Dungeon Masters everywhere used that opportunity to modify the existing content or create all-new "modules" of their own. This continual stream of fresh content has kept Neverwinter alive to ...

Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (Review)

18/10/2007

Oct 18, 2007 Expansion pack Mask of the Betrayer picks up from the moment D&D-loyal RPG NWN2 finished, with the King of Shadows defeated, and your character squished beneath a collapsed building. You're alive, but there's something wrong. You're now at the bottom of a dangerous dungeon, with only a suspicious Red Wizard for company. Fear not if you haven't completed NWN2: you can fire right in with a brand-new level 18 character, which gives you the chance to try out the six new sub-races ...

Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate (Review)

26/06/2009

There’s a nasty, DRM-shaped Illithid in the room that must first be slain in any review of Neverwinter Nights 2’s new ‘Adventure Pack.’ Ossian Studios acknowledged work on Westgate finished as early as 2007, but note that Atari were unable to decide how the pack should be copy-protected. So, perfectly reasonably, launch was held back for a year and a half. Wait, not perfectly reasonably, the other one. Ridiculously. ...

Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (Review)

22/12/2008

Love it or hate it, you’ve got to give Storm of Zehir points for effort. Developers Obsidian could easily have banged out a generic adventure for this expansion pack. Instead, they’ve produced a radical overhaul, one that’s not afraid to take a few risks. ...

NFL Head Coach (Review)

3/07/2006

The history of the NFL is peppered with tales of hyperactive head coaches sleeping overnight in their offices, drawing up crazy plays, and building championship clubs from the ashes of decrepit teams. NFL Head Coach from EA Sports allows you to experience this rather unique lifestyle; whether or not the activities that make up the job are more interesting than, say, your current employment situation is another question. Head Coach is a freakishly in-depth sports simulator. The emphasis is on ...

NHL 07 (Review)

22/09/2006

If the 360 version of NHL 07 is the privileged older child, the current-gen version is somewhat of a latchkey kid, stuck trying to fit into oversized hand-me-downs and feasting on cold leftovers. Its all part of an unfortunate but inevitable trend - current-gen games are becoming budget titles. That isnt to say that this is a budget quality game - with NHL 06 as a solid foundation, the current-gen version of NHL 07 is still a great experience, but it didnt get half the attention that its older ...

NHL 2006 (Review)

15/02/2006

Kicking their heels during the real-life players' strike last season, the NHL 2006 developers clearly entertained themselves by playing their back catalogue. What they seem to have realised is that - somewhere in the recent years of motion-captured great leaps forward - a lot of the fun had gone out of their ice hockey title. They must have picked up FIFA, too, because by co-opting that game's right analogue stick trickery, NHL 2006 delivers the most fun sports sim in the whole of the EA ...

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Review)

4/06/2009

Hey! It’s the tie-in game to the sequel to that film with Ben Stiller in that you vaguely thought you might watch if it was on TV or something, but never got around to! Unless you have kids that need to know more about American history, or are a mentally unstable Achievements whore, you might want to turn away now. ...