GamesRadar - PS2 Features

The Top 7... Rockin' intros (Tales of the Abyss)

11/06/2007

If there's one thing that can get you pumped to play a game, it's a rockin' intro. Even in this age of overblown cinematics and increasingly elaborate plots spiraling into gaming oblivion, there's something about a few guitar licks and a hint of action that get the gamer juices flowing. Ever since consoles started kicking out high quality music and graphics in the early 90s, we've been addicted to the art of the intro. 7. Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (PlayStation 2, 2005) When this game hit the ...

The Top 7... series run into the ground (Tenchu 3: Wrath of Heaven)

23/01/2007

A game is made, and it turns out to be good. The game comes out, becomes popular... and then becomes a series. Usually, we have nothing bad to say about that. Until, inevitably, things start to slide. The creator that made the game what it was bails. Or it fizzles in the transition from one console to another. Maybe the staff just forgot what made it great. Whatever the problem, we've selected seven of the biggest offenders, for your ...

The Top 7... series run into the ground (Tenchu: Fatal Shadows)

23/01/2007

Terminator through time (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines)

19/05/2009

If there’s a character ideal for multiple mediums of sci-fi, it’s the Terminator or at least the idea of Terminators. The concept of a cyborg (cybernetic organism, or rather a robotic endoskeleton with living tissue over it) going back in time to kill the leader of the human resistance once the world goes kablooie isn’t that hard to grasp. ...

2007 Heaven - PS2 (Test Drive Unlimited)

31/01/2007

Okay, so you're still saving your pennies in the hope that someday you'll be able to get a shiny, new PlayStation 3. Don't feel like there's nothing at all to play on your PS2. It may not be the new hotness, but it's got plenty to keep you from going into the irradiated wasteland some call "outside". Tomb Raider Anniversary - Crystal Dynamics - PS2 - ETA: June 2007 Why is a remake of a ten-year-old game so important? Because Laras original adventure is one of PlayStations all-time greats, and ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries (Thrillville)

17/11/2006

Sim games certainly aren't anything new. Hell, games that let you make your own theme park, and then manage every tiny detail of said park have even been around for decades. If that's the case, then what's so special about the upcoming Thrillville? Weve got the inside word straight from the developers and producers on why you're going to plop down on the couch and become the next roller coaster tycoon. Every week until the game ships (that'd be November 21), we're delivering a ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week Seven (Thrillville)

17/11/2006

David Braben, Chairman of Frontier Developments and Executive Producer on Thrillville My role as executive producer means that I have an overview of the game as it's being developed. It's up to me to ensure that it stays true to the original vision - to make sure it works well overall. The idea for Thrillville came from a general feeling we had something more to offer over and above the strategy/simulation games of the past. Why should the "computer people" get all the fun? Playing mini-golf, ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week Six (Thrillville)

9/11/2006

So, you've been given the job of making the latest and greatest theme-park game. The objective: create an authentic theme-park experience in a box. Where do you start? Jonny Watts, Senior Producer at Frontier Developments Well, a good place might be to go to a few real theme parks and see how "the competition" does it! We've made quite a few games set in theme parks over the last few years now and although it really helps that we're nuts about roller coasters and theme parks in general, ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week Five (Thrillville)

2/11/2006

Developer Frontier has had experience creating other theme park-based games for the PC, such as RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. But Thrillville is different - it's been designed from the ground up for consoles and handhelds, including PS2, Xbox and PSP. With that comes a bevy of challenges - the most significant of those ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week Four (Thrillville)

26/10/2006

You know that saying about the customer always being right? Yeah, that's true only so long as the customer continues to spend lots of lots of money. And if the average tourist family wants to funnel half their annual salary into your custom-built theme park, who are you to tell them they're wrong? But Thrillville lets you do more than just overcharge your visitors for cheap t-shirts, styrofoam stuffed animals and grease-brick pizzas. As our fourth of six developer diaries explains, you can ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week Three (Thrillville)

19/10/2006

It's rarely admitted, but people love throwing up. Think about it: why else would everyone on the planet have a throwing up story? You've got one. We've got several. It's one of life's gross little mysteries. In fact, the only thing people love more than throwing up is almost throwing up, but not quite. Which is where amusement park rides come in. This week, we'll hear from one of the minds in charge of bringing you to the edge without pushing you ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week Two (Thrillville)

12/10/2006

Last week, we heard from Producer Shara Miller from LucasArts. This week, we'll be hearing the cotton candy-laced words of Senior Producer Jonny Watts, about how it feels to see someone play the game you've created - and how it makes you feel when they don't play it the way you intended. Jonny Watts, Senior Producer at Frontier Developments Weaving all of the elements of Thrillville together into one cohesive experience has at times been one of the most nerve-wracking processes in developing ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week One (Thrillville)

12/10/2006

Producer Shara Miller already has her hands in some of the biggest franchises you love - Mercenaries and Star Wars Battlefront II should get a million or so gamer's hearts pumping. Now she's handling Thrillville, a video theme park that enables you to build whatever attractions you like - and then ride the crap out of them. Miller chimes in for part one of our six-part series, which should shed a little more light on why this isn't another wannabe simulator. Shara Miller - Producer So far, ...

The Pikmin Suicides (Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08)

14/07/2009

You may be familiar with Andy Riley's superb book The Bunny Suicides. We liked it so much, we thought we'd create an homage to it, using everyone's favourite flower-headed people.

These Pikmin burned too bright for this world. Rest in pieces ...

An incomplete history of time-travel games (Time Splitters 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. ...

The best and worst game promo T-shirts (Time Splitters 2)

20/03/2009

Amongst the games, press releases and bulging envelopes of cash curiously marked '9/10, yeah?' that we receive from publishers each day we also get clothing. Mainly T-shirts of random ill-fitting sizes. And they fall into three categories: Outdoors, Indoors, and Bin. ...

The Most Gratuitous Headshots Video Ever (Time Splitters 2)

3/07/2008

Two minutes. One video. Fifty-five perforated skulls. ...

59 levels to play before you die: S - Z (Time Splitters 2)

21/03/2008

The second-to-last mission in the original StarCraft's Terran campaign gives you a strange directive: while you're supposed to wipe out every trace of the hyper-advanced Protoss aliens, you're specifically ordered not to bother the swarming, bestial Zerg situated right near your base. What happens once you carry out those orders affected us in a way we never knew a real-time strategy game could. ...

Gaming's biggest movie rip-offs (Time Splitters 2)

7/01/2008

The relationship between games and movies has always been a tense one. There's something almost violently alchemical about the way the two media usually react to each other. It's like getting hit by a yellow, piss-soaked snowball. Either element can be unpleasant enough on its own, but put them both together and something far more horrible happens. Games of movies, movies of games, they're both usually about as much fun as the death of a clown at a ten year-old's birthday party. But still we ...

The worst games that made it to number one (TMNT)

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 ...