GamesRadar - PS2 Reviews

Obscure II (Review)

2/04/2008

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 ...

Odin Sphere (Review)

1/06/2007

Sometimes a game comes along that's a little bit like a slap in the face. It's not that you couldn't imagine a game like it ever might exist, but you certainly didn't expect it. Odin Sphere defies conventions, defies the logic of the game industry, and delivers a compelling adventure not merely because of its novelty but because of its intrinsic quality - which is much more satisfying. Odin Sphere is a 2D, side-scrolling action RPG. But it's not a throwback to the ideas of the past. It only ...

Okami (Review)

18/09/2006

In our earlier preview of Okami, we boldly stated that the game would affect your life. After saving this hand-painted world from certain doom, we can safely say that claim holds up throughout the game's lengthy quest. Absolutely everything about this adventure is top of the line, blending the very best puzzle aspects of Zelda with a visual style that no other title can match. Graphics aren't everything, but in Okami 's case, they help define a universe. Whether you're searching for lost ...

One Piece: Grand Adventure (Review)

19/09/2006

The Official Games Radar Reviewer Handbook (Third Edition) cites two important criteria to look for when reviewing anime-based games. The first? They have to appeal to the fans of the anime. And the second? They also have to be fun enough to appeal to everyone else. Some games only manage the first point; a rare few manage both. Bandai's new One Piece: Grand Adventure is a textbook case of an anime game that is packed full of fan service but is lacking in areas of greater substance. Even so, it ...

One Piece: Pirates' Carnival (Review)

28/09/2006

Mario Party practically invented the party game, a sort of video board game where winning relied almost as much on luck as actual skill. Love it or hate it, the thing sold gangbusters, inspiring a legion of clones often based on kiddy anime licences. One Piece: Pirates' Carnival is the latest of these, featuring the lovable and wacky cast of Shonen Jump's famous "One Piece" manga / anime. But unlike most of its peers, Pirates' Carnival does enough stuff right to actually make it worth a play or ...

Onimusha 3: Demon Siege (Review)

10/06/2004

Here's the dilemma: do you chastise a sequel regardless of achievement because it fails to significantly push its series forward, or do you accept the few tweaks and additions typically displayed by follow-ups as sufficient evolution, given that the game's very nature discourages daring development? Fans yearn for more of the same, while the game enthusiast tends to favour innovation over franchise loyalty.The latest Onimusha mostly treads a path well travelled by its commercially successful ...

Onimusha: Blade Warriors (Review)

21/01/2004

First, a warning: this isn't Onimusha 3, despite the fact that the first thing it shows you when it loads up is a huge, incredibly exciting trailer full of Jean Reno. Instead, it's a sort of stopgap featuring all of the best characters so far in a series of duels against more-or-less static backdrops. Comparisons to Power Stone are inevitable, but they aren't exactly fair. Okay, so the Versus matches tend to be four-way tussles where finding Power-Up crates is just as important as hitting ...

Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams (Review)

13/03/2006

Japan just can't seem to catch a break when it comes to demons. Dawn of Dreams takes place fifteen years after the original Onimusha trilogy, but the action-packed essence remains fully intact. Emperor Hideyoshi is up to something unspeakable with the nation's cherry trees, and plans to turn every last citizen into a mindless drone under his command. Your only recourse is to stop this evil with lots and lots of bloodshed. You start out controlling only Soki - a blond samurai ogre with two ...

Open Season (Review)

26/09/2006

Forget Chinese zodiacs: 2006 is the year of the CG animal. This year it seems like more CG based talking animal movies have hit theaters than in every other year in history combined. With Barnyard, Over the Hedge, The Wild, and Ice Age 2, it's getting hard to keep them all straight (and we still have Happy Feet to look forward to). This craze hasn't gone unnoticed in the gaming world, as Ubisoft attempts to jump on the movie tie-in gravy train with Open Season. Open Season follows the basic ...

Outlaw Tennis (Review)

22/06/2007

Tennis fans have always loved bad boys - though they usually draw the line at actual beatings, wimps that they are. What weve got here is a pretty decent tennis game with added “street” or “extreme” bits. In the same way that Outlaw Golf could best be described as Tiger Woods after a night spent with Kid Rock in Vegas, ingesting suspicious substances and trying to choose your favorite lady of the night, Outlaw Tennis is Virtua Tennis if it arrived to the court on a ...

Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast (Review)

1/05/2006

Customization is the hottest thing happening in racing games right now. Buy new parts, slap on some 20s and proceed to tear ass through the city streets as the crowd gawks in awe. You won't find any of that in OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast. This is arcade racing at its finest, with no other emphasis besides roaring through course after branching, hairpin-littered course. In fact, the over-the-top nature of OutRun requires near-constant power-sliding and uncanny evasion skills, rather than grease ...

Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast (Review)

29/03/2006

Wednesday 29 March 2006 You know what we'd love? If more developers focused on making one feature of their game great instead of filling it with hundreds of half-finished ideas. Content isn't everything you know; one idea, providing it's sufficiently well-designed, can be stretched for miles. Think of how many hours you've spent playing Tetris. Loads, right? And all you've been doing is stacking odd-shaped blocks. Well the same applies to OutRun. We must've sunk at least 40 hours into the ...

Over the Hedge (Review)

22/05/2006

Just because a game gets developed specifically for kids doesn't automatically mean that it's going to suck. Similarly, games based on cartoon characters don't have to suck either... but sometimes they do. All of the trademark indications of lameness pervade Over the Hedge, a stamped-out, jog-around 3D platform-jumper. Lousy camera work that you can't control, horrifically repetitive character yelps and claustrophobic, nonsensical level design all work together to drain the pleasure out of what ...