GamesRadar - PC Reviews

Pacific Storm: Allies (Review)

29/01/2008

Another epic RTS/simulation hybrid covering the fight between the Allies and the Japanese in the Pacific during WWII comes nipping at the heels of Battlestations: Midway. Unlike its fun-but-slightly-dumbed-down arcadey cousin, the emphasis in Pacific Storm: Allies is on the astounding scale of the conflict, and on fiddly real-time strategy rather than shooting things to pieces in person. The concept is great: a Total War-style strategic recreation of the war, with you controlling all building ...

Painkiller (Review)

27/05/2004

Cover me! Sweep room! Ruffle my hair! Tie my sodding shoelaces! The beasts from Painkiller - a staunchly straight-up FPS from Polish newbies People Can Fly - would delight in sucking your eyeballs slowly from their sockets if you even contemplated going all team-based on their asses.Such is the ferocity of the enemy assault, the whole concept of AI almost becomes irrelevant. And before anyone goes off blubbing to Tom Clancy, this is actually not a bad thing. As you're bum-rushed by a constant ...

Painkiller: Overdose (Review)

5/12/2007

Dec 5, 2007 This is a game that opens with concept art of a 68-year-old transvestite in purple makeup and horns, uses the word ‘hate nine times in the interminable intro movie, and begins with some of the worst FPS combat weve seen in our career. But eventually, bunnyhopping around the games ugly morons, firing its copycat weapons and enduring your characters cringingly unfunny and excruciatingly repetitious one-liners gets surprisingly compelling. Even after load times that the ...

Painkiller: Resurrection (Review)

4/11/2009

According to the official website, Painkiller: Resurrection had “a Catholic priest advising” it and offers “painstakingly researched details” of its purgatorial setting. You have absolutely no idea how much we want to see those notes. The official word on whether Satan could have his bottom handed to him with a shotgun? That’s edutainment! ...

Paradise (Review)

6/06/2006

When was the last time you found yourself stranded and confused in Africa? Paradise, the latest point-and-click adventure from the creator of the cult hit Syberia, gives you that chance. Having been shot down over the country of Maurania, a young woman awakens with amnesia in the harem of a local prince. Not knowing her own real name, she calls herself "Ann Smith" after the author of a book on Mauranian wildlife that was found with her at the crash. And this, really, is where the problems ...

ParaWorld (Review)

29/09/2006

The most obvious difference between ParaWorld and the rest of the stagnating real-time strategy genre is its bizarre setting: a world where dinosaurs remain. Its ham-fisted, borderline satirical storyline is a bit embarrassing, as is some of the accompanying voice-over work, but such complaints are small potatoes compared to everything this game gets wonderfully right. Everything about ParaWorld just screams low-brow fun, from the colorful dinosaurs and huge indigenous animals your troops can ...

The Path (Review)

8/04/2009

“A short horror game” is the tagline for this, one of the most peculiar commercial offerings of 2009.You take control of a series of girls of different ages, and wander a path and the surrounding woodlands. Patterns, images, and the thoughts of the girls write themselves onto the screen. Things happen. Often these are very bad things indeed. There’s not much more to it than that. ...

PeaceMaker (Review)

14/06/2007

A game about war is nothing new. A game about war where youre not shooting people - thats worth a look. Peacemaker is a simple set of choices where you play as either the Palestinian or Israeli President, and control everything from police and military forces to medical care. Your aim is to raise your political standing with your populace, and create a lasting political solution for the area. You get a simple map of Israel, and as events take place - a suicide bomber, a shooting - hotspots ...

Peggle (Review)

22/05/2007

The final shot bounces off the penultimate orange peg, missing the last one hopelessly, but hitting the life-saving Free Ball Bucket. But no - its hit the rim. Its not going in. Its bounced back out - toward the final peg. A drum roll starts, the camera zooms in on the critical moment, and everything plays out in slow-mo. It hits, it explodes, opera music blares. The ball ignites with a rainbow-colored vapor trail. The remaining pegs are wiped. The words “EXTREME FEVER” are ...

Peggle Nights (Review)

8/10/2008

For puzzlers, it’s nepotism or bust. The genre incumbents are unyielding colossi, and you have to be the offspring of Zuma, the cousin of Iggle Pop or to have made out with BookWorm before a crowd of peers begins to consider parading you about on their shoulders. Peggle Nights has such rich blue blood coursing through its veins, being the sequel to 2007’s seminal Peggle. ...

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One (Review)

7/05/2008

Loosely based on the popular web comic Penny Arcade, this new episodic series kicks off with a six-hour game, cheekily subtitled On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. The action follows your custom-built avatar (and his disappointingly limited wardrobe selection) and early-20th-century versions of heroes Gabe and Tycho as they investigate paranormal goings-on in the city of New Arcadia. It’s a bizarre tale that’s completely ...

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode Two (Review)

19/11/2008

Picking up where the first episode concluded, the second episode of the Penny Arcade Adventures begins with your still-homeless character (you can either import your old character or start a new one at the same advanced level) brandishing a new gardening implement and teaming up once again with 1922-era Gabe and Tycho to track down the giant robot that crushed your house. ...

Penumbra: Black Plague (Review)

13/02/2008

Playing Penumbra, it’s hard not to think of Portal. They’re different games, different genres, and we’re pretty sure only one of them features naked grey men trying to kill you. But there’s a connection there, just as there is with several other big names, like Silent Hill, The Thing (the movie, not the game) and of course, System Shock, all of which feature the nerve-wracking isolation of being trapped in the ...

Penumbra: Overture (Review)

2/04/2007

Maybe it was all the coffee wed been drinking, but Penumbra: Overture (the first in this three-part series) is one of the few games that actually made us jump with fright. Entering the mysterious hatch and opening the mysterious door into all of that mysterious darkness, the protagonist nervously claims he thinks something might be down here in the darkness with him, and that if he happens to run into it, it would most likely kill him. So you crouch, and you hide in the dark from the thing ...

Penumbra: Requiem (Review)

7/11/2008

The game that was never going to be. Penumbra developers, Frictional, had a confusing time after releasing their remarkable indie project, Penumbra: Overture. The planned trilogy was quickly truncated into a two-parter, using a student-made engine comparable to those of professional, multi-million dollar companies. Both were great; the sequel Black Plague learned from errors in the first and created a strong, spooky horror. ...

Perimeter (Review)

26/05/2004

You're an RTS veteran. You've fought countless campaigns across innumerable battlefields, from the past, to the present, to way in the future. You've genuinely conquered worlds. You've sacrificed thousands of peons to your banner; forced a thousand tanks on doomed rushes. You're an uncaring, grizzled, ruthless commander. Tutorials? You don't need no stinking tutorials.So, you find the Skirmish option on Perimeter's main menu irresistible. New toys for killing! You have no hesitation in trying ...

Perimeter 2: New Earth (Review)

14/04/2009

The principle idea behind the Perimeter games is terraforming: transforming hostile terrain into something useful for RTS base-building. The original saw you smoothing over the surface of alien worlds so that you could fly a floating city across the map. Perimeter 2 uses the same idea, but with some significant changes. ...

PES 2009 (Review)

16/10/2008

After last year’s good, yet disappointing PES 2008, Konami have it all to do to win over the mass market and hardcore fans with their latest edition. EA’s stranglehold on team/player/stadium licenses immediately puts pressure on PES 2009 to placate those who refuse to play with Man Red at the St Bristol Mary stadium. Thankfully, the edit mode is back, which means you can create badges, kits and players from scratch. ...

Phantasy Star Universe (Review)

31/10/2006

The universe of Phantasy Star has always been a unique one. Its refreshing sci-fi style breaks the swords 'n' sorcery RPG mold. Phantasy Star Online's networked approach was highly addictive and gave fans a reason to fall in love with the series all over again. But, no matter how stunning Phantasy Star Online was, gamers love single-player, story-driven RPGs. The intended solution was Phantasy Star Universe, which promised to contain both fully-realized story and online modes, to give fans ...

Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus (Review)

3/03/2008

Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus proves there’s room for a faster paced, action-RPG approach to the MMO. After playing it... well, there’s still room.This Guild Wars-esque RPG game was going to receive the concept review to end all concept reviews. We were going to blather on for 450 words in a semi-kooky fashion, never getting to the point or being entertaining in any meaningful way. And then we were going to end ...