All PS2 Reviews

The Dog Island (Review)

Jul 16, 2008

For something that looks like a Nintendogs rip-off, there’s a lot more on offer here than you’d think. Choose your four-legged bobble headed puppy from a whopping 48 breeds and you’ll begin a surprisingly entertaining adventure. It’s not GTA or anything, obviously, but it’s still quite diverting. ...

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (Review)

Jul 2, 2008

Somewhere between Rock Band and the distant promise of Guitar Hero World Tour, ‘classic’ Guitar Hero became very ordinary, very quickly. This, now the fifth game, bears all the hallmarks of a series paddling to stay afloat. World Tour’s change of direction is looking even more necessary now. It all started so well too. Aerosmith has been involved with track selections, story elements and even mockumentary videos, and are ...

Alone in the Dark (Review)

Jul 2, 2008

Alone in the Dark loves a good cliff-hanger – quite literally in the case of one helicopter crash sequence – but there’s no scenario more hair-raising than that of publishers Atari themselves. Teetering on the brink of financial disaster, they’ve put all their eggs in this gothic basket, expecting a company-rejuvenating three million sales across multiple platforms. Here’s hoping the next-gen version shifts a ...

Kung Fu Panda (Review)

Jul 2, 2008

With Brutal Legend’s fate still undecided, you might think us mad for recommending Kung Fu Panda as an alternative adventure starring Jack Black (not least because all the voices in this tie-in game are sadly provided by so-so stand-ins), but bear with us. First of all, we’re not so addled with bonhomie thanks to our experience with this silly game to deny that the action is the definition of ‘par for the course’. The ...

Wall-E (Review)

Jul 2, 2008

Damn you Wall-E, and damn whoever decided to come up with that way our trash-compacting, lonely-hearts-surfing robo-friend constantly repeats his own name in gurgling, quasi-’endearing’ fashion. It’s not cute, it’s not appealing, it’s... oh, the movie’s set to rake in $250 million? Ah. Shows how much we know. Still, at least the blatantly nicked premise shows promise. Take sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf and ...

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Review)

Jul 2, 2008

It’s such a familiar quandary – there you are in your local games store, crisp note in hand, looking for a new addition to your collection. There are a few caveats, though: one, you want it to be a linear adventure mainly based around flicking switches and collecting shiny things; two, you’re also very keen for it to have a Christian subtext; oh, and three, there simply has to be a homicidal dwarf involved
...

The Incredible Hulk (Review)

Jun 10, 2008

The people that made the 2008 rendition of The Incredible Hulk must have really liked 2005's The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. They've employed the same free-roaming design and have given the Hulk many of the same abilities that he had in that earlier game. But that's totally A-OK, since they've also jazzed up the graphics and given players many more ways to destroy the people and buildings populating the expansive 3D replica of ...

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (Review)

Jun 3, 2008

How can a game that’s identical to the brilliant LEGO Star Wars in almost every respect not be as good? Simple - the setting. The Star Wars universe is vibrant, colourful and fantastical, while Indy’s real-world ’40s setting is more subdued. This works in the context of the films, but recreated in LEGO it has none of the outlandish flair of Lucas’ galaxy far, far away. ...

SNK Arcade Classics: Volume 1 (Review)

May 13, 2008

Digital distribution via the Virtual Console and Xbox Live Arcade has thankfully helped stifle the previously intense flow of classics compilations to retail, but this is one greatest hits package we can get behind. SNK Arcade Classics: Volume 1, as indicated by the title, compiles 16 of the most prominent NeoGeo hits from the early 1990s – Metal Slug, Samurai Shodown, and The King of Fighters '94 included – without the need for dusty, overpriced cartridges. ...

NiGHTS: Into Dreams [import] (Review)

May 6, 2008

Never heard of Nights? It’s the game that came out on Sega Saturn in 1996, in which you, as a purple jester - the titular Nights - played through two children’s vivid dreams of flight and aerial acrobatics. In tow, you had the kids themselves - Elliot and Claris - and you had to fly through all manner of dreamscapes. The game concept and style of play set Nights apart as something different 12 years ago, but it’s a testament to the strength of the original recipe. ...

Baroque (Review)

May 5, 2008

If you’re hardcore enough to derive happiness instead of pain from the Roguelike convention of starting from scratch when you die, but not quite hardcore enough to have imported this dungeon crawler ten years ago for your Sega Saturn, we recommend this terrific remake of Baroque.

Baroque’s death mechanic dovetails neatly with the narrative - it’s by dying and revisiting that you start to piece together the intriguing ...

Iron Man (Review)

May 5, 2008

Question: if Iron Man can fly, why has he stumbled into every pitfall of the superhero genre? His game is messy, confusing and, at best, about as good as Catwoman or Batman Begins. Which is not good at all.

In this game of the film of the comic, you are the titular Iron Man - disabled billionaire inventor Tony Stark - in his rocket-booted iron suit, out to thwart evildoers. At heart it’s a shoot-’em-up with a great deal of ...

Silent Hill Origins (Review)

Apr 23, 2008

In reality Silent Hill is probably the last place on Earth we’d want to visit - we’d sooner spend a bank holiday in Baghdad. But atmosphere-wise it trumps even Resident Evil’s Raccoon City on the scare-o-meter. This latest game in the series (a port of the recent PSP title) reveals how it all began in a plot involving a troubled trucker, a mysterious fire and loopy locals with a terrible secret.

As ever, ...

Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Vol. 2 (Review)

Apr 23, 2008

Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Vol. 2 picks up where the [previous volume] left off and gives us the fifth, sixth, and seventh installments in the franchise. For roughly fifteen dollars, you can bring home Real Bout Fatal Fury, Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, and Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers - three immensely ...

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES (Review)

Apr 21, 2008

If you played Persona 3, is it worth your $30 to buy Persona 3 FES all over again? Yes. For everyone else, congratulations on not buying the first game, it's all included with FES - you are a winner. There are two Episodes in the game: The Answer, a new thirty-hour campaign taking place directly after the events of the original Persona 3, and The Journey, which is the original episode spiffed up with new features. FES has added enough new ...

Arcana Heart (Review)

Apr 14, 2008

If you've got a low tolerance for syrupy-cute anime nonsense, Arcana Heart probably isn't for you. A 2D fighter with an all-girl cast, it piles on the saccharine with high-pitched voices, exaggerated posing and lots of overcute everything everywhere. What's more, its 11 fighters have all been tailored to fit some weird Japanese fetish archetype; there's the athletic schoolgirl, the mopey schoolgirl, the bumbling witch with big glasses, the ...

World Heroes Anthology (Review)

Apr 4, 2008

There was a time, around 15 years ago, when the slightly deranged fighting game fanatic had the option of leaving the arcade, and saving his quarters for a gigantic Neo Geo cartridge, and practicing one of SNK's many "homages" to Street Fighter II; all for the wallet-tightening price of around $200 a game.

A decade and a half later, and our PlayStation 2 (and 3) can display arcade-identical ports of the entire World Heroes series; from ...

Obscure: The Aftermath (Review)

Apr 2, 2008

Obscure: The Aftermath is a survival-horror game aimed at people that love Hollywood screamers. The story involves a rowdy fraternity party that unleashes mutants on a college campus, and the to-do list calls for hacking up those creatures with hockey sticks, chainsaws, and other fun killing implements. Sounds sweet, right? NOT! The action is weak and the graphics are butt-ugly.

Atmospherically, the game does what it need ...

Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis (Review)

Apr 1, 2008

If you've even bothered to read this review, we're going to go ahead and recommend Mana Khemia. Your interest is probably due to past run-ins with Gust/NIS collaborations (Atelier Iris, Ar tonelico) and if it's more of the same you're after, here's another heaping portion to tide you over until the next super-cute, anime-soaked, cliche-ridden JPRG lands on PS2.It all starts with the same stock characters we've seen countless times. ...

Buzz! Junior: Robo Jam (Review)

Apr 1, 2008

Like its predecessor Buzz Junior: Jungle Party, Publisher Sony's Buzz! Junior: RoboJam is a kiddie-focused collection of two dozen minigames, tied together with a loose story - in this case, some sort of "basic training meets a juvenile detention center"-style competition. Like its predecessor, it's played by one-to-four players using the Buzz! controllers - meaty pads with four rectangular buttons and one gigantic red "buzzer" which lights up ...