PS2 Reviews

The visuals alone are enough to lull even the most seasoned gamer into a false sense of security. Vibrant colors abound, preposterous characters gambol and cavort with giddy abandon, and vivacious animation breathes life into the already-fecund levels. But don’t be fooled by Rayman Origins. This intensely beautiful 2D platformer can easily crack open and scramble even the most hardened of hardcore gamers.

And that’s a very good thing...

Welcome back Jak and Daxter. After four years of throwing darts at pictures of Ratchet & Clank, PlayStation’s original dynamic duo are back. As comebacks go, it’s a return to form: an inventive platformer that charms and challenges in equal measure.

The Secret Saturdays stars 11-year-old Zak Saturday and his super scientist parents Solomon “Doc” Saturday and Drew Saturday. The three of them together study supernatural animals called Cryptids – which are kind of like Pokemon only less cute. The PlayStation 2 game puts players in the shoes of the Saturdays at different points throughout the game.

MotorStorm: Arctic Edge marks the first time the series goes backward from the PlayStation 3 to the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 2. Like you’d expect from any backwards conversion, some of the game’s slickness is lost in the downgrading. But as ports go, Arctic Edge holds up well enough on PS2 for diehard racing fans to consider it.

It seems Astro Boy returns every decade or so, and now American film makers have retooled the iconic character for another reboot. Albeit low budget looking and feeling, High Voltage Software put more life into Astro Boy: The Video Game than we’d expect from a movie tie-in. Bright, sleek and silver, Metro City sets the stage for Astro Boy’s adventure against an evil robot-wielding president.

The Guitar Hero series has usually had a stellar track list – seriously, how many people would be willing to shred out to a ridiculous looking plastic guitar if the tunes were lame? So on one hand, it makes sense for publisher Activision to release this compilation, which collects 48 songs from five previous Guitar Hero titles (Guitar Heroes 1 through 3 as well as Rocks the ‘80s and Aerosmith).

“Move Forward” is a common phrase in the sports world. Your best player gets injured? Someone else needs to step up so you can Move Forward. Your coach has an indiscretion with someone else’s wife? It’s in the past and you have to Move Forward. Teams have conditioned themselves to forget about whatever’s just happened, almost from the instant it occurs. They just keep Moving Forward.

Tiger Woods (the man) has had quite a run in the past year – he won the U.S. Open on a broken leg, had a baby boy, and roared back to the top of the golf heap in record time. Tiger Woods (the PS2 game) can hardly claim that wild of a ride. In fact, this carbon copy of last year’s bare-bones title continues the desultory trajectory of the series on PS2 in recent seasons.

Seven months. That’s how much extra time EA Bright Light has had to tweak and polish Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince after its release date was pushed back thanks to the movie’s theatrical slippage. The time could have been spent perfecting one of the most valuable game licenses.

The dreams of thousands, nay, millions of twentysomethings came true recently. Despite delays, a publisher change and a few holdout actors, the Ghostbusters are back, two decades after their last film.