GamesRadar - PS2 Features

Thanks for the music? (Dancing Stage Supernova)

21/07/2009

John Lennon once said that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Take a look at the current gaming charts and you could draw the conclusion that music games are now more popular than The Beatles. Obviously, music games themselves aren’t a new phenomenon, but their current popularity, and specifically that of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, certainly is. ...

An incomplete history of time-travel games (Dark Cloud 2)

21/10/2009

“We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is? When will we get to the cowboy level?”

– Professor Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

Time travel and videogames are a perfect fit. ...

Game launch sites that inexplicably still exist (Dark Cloud 2)

23/09/2009

The internet is often thought of as a well of information, but that’s a flawed metaphor. It’s much more like a worldwide network of networks, if you follow my logic. And as the internet ages, it’s becoming littered with servers, and those servers are becoming littered with old data. ...

The Top 7… Native American stereotypes (Darkwatch)

24/11/2008

People get pissy when stuff they consider holy is depicted profanely in videogames. Take Manchester Cathedral’s depiction in Resistance or lyrics cribbed from the Quran in LittleBigPlanet. Gamers react with their usual jaded cynicism, belittling others for daring to hold something sacred in this fast-forward age of materialistic gluttony. ...

Chinatown: Videogames versus reality (Dead to Rights)

17/03/2009

Thanks to two films - Chinatown and Blade Runner - every action game is practically required to have a Chinatown level. It’s not the Chinatown you see in real-life - a thriving community and marketplace established over a unique hybrid of Western and Chinese culture – no, it’s all neon signs and gangsters, dragon statues and tile roofs. A lot of tile roofs. And it's usually in the future or ...

The baddest bosses of Def Jam: FFNY (Def Jam: Fight for NY)

23/02/2007

It may be pushing three years old, but Def Jam: Fight for New York still stands out as one of the most brutal beat-'em-ups on PS2. Go and pick it up second-hand, then fight your way through the top 25 bosses - with our help. Fight... Trejo This South American gringo loves a grapple, so keep your distance and try some running attacks to wear him down. Once he's a little groggy, twist his sweet 'tache into submission. Fight... Ice-T He's stronger than he looks, favoring a selection of ...

The Top 7... alien invasions (Destroy All Humans)

7/11/2006

Gears of War got us thinking: Massive explosions. Guts strewn everywhere. People running in terror. Few things ignite the minds of gamers like a good alien invasion. It may be bizarre or terrifying (and in the case of Gears of War, it may come from underground instead of outer space) but in video games, aliens always bring massive destruction in their wake. This week, we take a look back at the seven games with the most memorable, exciting or disturbing alien invasions... ever. 7. Halo 2 ...

The evolution of Japanese game commercials (Devil May Cry)

3/09/2009

Japan has a well-earned reputation for daft, brilliant and disturbingly odd TV game commercials, but it took a long (sometimes painful) evolution along a course signposted by geeky TV celebs in bad jumpers during the 1980s and PlayStation-sophistication in the 1990s, for that rep to be won and maintained.

Back at the end of the 1970s, Japanese gamecorps started trying to convince their public that games were not something to be afraid ...

Before and after: the games that changed during development (Devil May Cry)

15/06/2009

Splinter Cell Conviction

Sam Fisher’s gone through some midlife crisis-sized changes over the past couple of years. One minute he’s a tortured emo agent on the run, with as little respect for the law as he does for kept facial hair. The next he’s a malicious murderer, who makes Jack Bauer look like Jack Osborne.

Above: From badly groomed to just plain bad

The Conviction of 2007 has heavy influences from ...

Why Japanese game ads are the best in the world (Devil May Cry)

3/04/2009

Our eyeballs have been sullied by hateful Western game ads for too long now. Our retinas simply can’t stand anymore of this…

Want us to buy your titles giant corporations? Show us middle-aged businessman fighting for survival in the wilderness, wronged women attacking men with bouquets or a couple in gold body paint hugging on public transport. It sounds like madness, but it’s clearly a sound business strategy. ...

Crazy-ass Devil May Cry bosses (Devil May Cry)

24/04/2007

If a man defines himself by his enemies, then Devil May Crys Dante must be borderline schizophrenic. One minute hes fighting hells lava-spewing minions - the next hes shooting a giant canary on a pirate ship. Before lunch hes murdering hordes of marionettes - afterwards hes slicing up an orangutan in an abandoned train station. In a world of increasingly humanoid bosses, Devil May Cry takes the grand old tradition of packing some of the most misshapen, misguided and mental bosses possible into ...

Crazy-ass Devil May Cry bosses (Devil May Cry 2)

24/04/2007

Crazy-ass Devil May Cry bosses (Devil May Cry 3)

24/04/2007

The worst games that made it to number one (Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII)

28/01/2009

Number one. By it's very definition it should characterize top drawer excellence. But when it comes to the game charts we know that's not always the case. Here we present the very worst games - the absolute crud of the crop - that have made it to the heady heights of number one in the US and UK since 2005.

Hit number one: 10 February 2007Platform: DSGame Rankings average: 67%

Port of a decent 10 year-old N64 Mario ...

Timeline: Final Fantasy VII (Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII)

5/03/2008

So who is this dark-haired hero, star of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII? Recognize him from the original Final Fantasy VII? Remember him from that shiny movie, Advent Children? No? Well then, you’ve been missing out on Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII Compilation, a series of games and movies that serve as a sort of official fanfiction for the beloved Final Fantasy VII. The Final Fantasy VII Compilation was first conceived by Square ...

TalkRadar 39 (Disgaea 2)

20/02/2009

Topics discussed:

The Top 7… worst games in great gamesAhhhh Blitzball…

Street Fighter IVPlayStation: The Official Magazine’s Scott Butterworth is here to talk about his glowing Street Fighter review.

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned
PENIS! Or a discussion of the most significant DLC ever released.

Prinny: Can I Really be the Hero?
D00d! ...

The Top 7... impractical characters (Disgaea 2)

21/01/2008

What do Solid Snake, Lara Croft and Samus Aran all have in common? They dress for success. Their own costume, be it custom-built spacesuit or bottomless backpack, is directly related to their adventuresome profession. No matter the situation, these heroes are loaded with gadgets, training and expertise that'll see them through to the end. But not all game characters are created equal. A great many appear to have no practical application other than "the boss says this guy stays in the game." ...

A Year of Hotness (Disgaea 2)

28/02/2006

With Xbox 360 out (if you can find one) and PlayStation 3 just around the corner, you might think the only place left for your old PS2 is in a box in the attic. But hold that thought, and cast your eye over our deluxe selection of upcoming titles: this generation isn't shuffling off quietly. Valkryie Profile: Silmeria The original Valkryie Profile, for PSone, slipped under the radar of all but a few dedicated RPG fans. Shame, because it was one of the most exciting games to hit the genre, with ...

Ruined endings - part two (Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2)

2/03/2007

God of War Kratos is totally bad ass - when have you ever killed a god? And the fact that Aries ate an H-bomb for breakfast that morning really added to the effect. Except, now that Kratos is the new God of War, shouldnt we have to kill him in God of War 2? Whatever, just let us rip the eyeballs out of something and dont make us ...

What might have been (Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2)

20/10/2006

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 is shaping up to be the definitive Dragon Ball game, thanks in part to the fact that it enables players to re-enact no fewer than 24 different storylines from the show's lengthy, screaming, spiky-haired run. As a cool extra for fans, that number includes a few "what if" scenarios that explore what it would have been like if some of those stories had gone differently. The game doesn't hit stores until next month (Nov. 7 for PS2, Nov. 21 for Wii), but if you ...