GamesRadar - PS2 Reviews

Pac-Man World Rally (Review)

Aug 30, 2006

You know a video game character has faded from relevance when its "intellectual property" spits out a rally racing game in frustration. For every Mario Kart there are piles of pitiful cash-in dreck that go from the development cradle directly to the bargain bin grave. Pac-Man World Rally, surprisingly enough, bucks this trend to a certain degree, by somehow managing to salvage archaic ideas like dot-munching and power pellets into elements that don't seem entirely out of place. Each character ...

Phantasy Star Universe (Review)

Nov 21, 2006

Monday 20 November 2006 The universe of Phantasy Star has always been a unique one. Its refreshing sci-fi style breaks the swords 'n' sorcery RPG mould. Phantasy Star Online's networked approach, which translated preset chat sentences into many languages allowing truly international gaming, was highly addictive and gave fans a reason to fall in love with the long-running series all over again. But, no matter how stunning Phantasy Star Online was, gamers love single-player, story-driven RPGs. ...

Phantasy Star Universe (Review)

Oct 31, 2006

The universe of Phantasy Star has always been a unique one. Its refreshing sci-fi style breaks the swords 'n' sorcery RPG mold. Phantasy Star Online's networked approach was highly addictive and gave fans a reason to fall in love with the series all over again. But, no matter how stunning Phantasy Star Online was, gamers love single-player, story-driven RPGs. The intended solution was Phantasy Star Universe, which promised to contain both fully-realized story and online modes, to give fans ...

Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus (Review)

Dec 5, 2007

Dec 5, 2007 Phantasy Star Universe is a game thats had its fair share of issues. It had to live up to the legacy of the Dreamcast original Phantasy Star Online while being different enough to be a new game in itself, for starters. Then server problems, level caps, and a truckload of locked items, missions, options, and locations embittered PSO vets and franchise newbies alike, sending them back to meatier (working) MMOs. There was a one-player offline story mode too, but the less said about ...

Pimp My Ride (Review)

Dec 20, 2006

There's a ton of potential with Pimp My Ride. Activision could really go full throttle and deliver something that is absurdly enjoyable as the television series. Instead we get a lousy, limited GTA-wannabe that almost has nothing related to the actual show. Think of Grand Theft Auto's Liberty City for a moment. Now, envision just a few blocks of it. Demote the visuals, scratch off the guns and hookers, and make every building a cardboard box. This is Pimp City - and trust us, it's not that ...

Pinball Hall of Fame - The Williams Collection (Review)

Mar 24, 2008

Pinball is like a dinosaur to most of today’s gamers, who’ve become used to parent-horrifyingly realistic graphics, epic storylines, and massively multiplayer online worlds. However, those few who still dig on this old-school action would have to look long and hard to find a better deal than this lovingly handled compilation. We’ll get the list out of the way first: You’ve got Black Knight, Pinbot, Gorgar, Space ...

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow (Review)

Jun 27, 2006

Time was, when game developers got hold of a movie license, they'd rewrite the plot with impunity (which is how we got Keanu fighting a 40-foot Tom Waits in Bram Stoker's Dracula). But todays game-buying audiences are a little more sophisticated. So how do you pad out a Pirates of the Caribbean hack-and-slasher with stuff like Chinese sorceresses and Vikings made of ice? Simple: you have a liar tell the story. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow begins with its title ...

The Plan (Review)

May 25, 2007

A great man once said, “The one thing men want more than anything else in the world is to be a part of a heist,” (OK so Dane Cook may not be a “great man” but he is a greatly funny man). Crave entertainments new game, Th3 Plan, wants to and give us all the high tech thievery and action of Heat, but it ends up decidedly lukewarm. The plot revolves around a group of seven thieves, employing thier own unique skills (sharpshooting, demolition, acrobatics...) to steal two ...

Playboy: The Mansion (Review)

Mar 16, 2005

Breasts are lovely. Women can healthily celebrate them, men can healthily appreciate them, and they also serve practical storage purposes. Certainly they are one of the most impressive parts of human anatomy. But can their abundance improve a poorly designed game? You only have to take one look at Playboy The Mansion to see that no, they can't.Based around the life of the eponymous mammary-oriented magazine and its founder Hugh Hefner, Playboy plays like an exceptionally limited version of The ...

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (Review)

Mar 1, 2006

While playing Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, youll likely keep asking yourself the same question: Just who the hell would build all this stuff, and why? But never mind that all the games structures are wildly impractical or that half the buildings in Babylon are filled with giant saw blades and retracting ledges. What matters is that it's fun. And after the dark, brooding Warrior Within, "fun" is something this series sorely needed. Picking up where the last game left off, Two Thrones ...

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (Review)

Feb 15, 2006

As the third Prince of Persia in as many years pulls you inexorably into its seductive sand trap, you might, excuse the pun, experience a sinking feeling. But that feeling's hard to place, and not quite what you imagined it might be. Is it frustration at the indignity of another rush to release, bugged and imbalanced, for this quintessentially graceful series? Hardly. The Two Thrones is the most polished Persia yet, a surefooted and confident performer, with the last few tics of its striking ...

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (Review)

Feb 15, 2006

Little over a year ago, the Prince was foppish, witty and charismatic. Now he's a witless cut-and-paste action hero with no discernible personality. Imagine remaking The Godfather, but having Steve Guttenburg play Michael Corleone. Or rewriting the Bible in jive talk. It cheapens the original in every respect. Typically, no one bought the first game. They saw the cover art, saw the pantaloons, and never even bothered to play it. To remedy this, Ubisoft dunked Warrior Within into the ...

Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (Review)

Mar 27, 2008

Really, it’s easy to feel sorry for the PS2 version of Pro Evolution Soccer. Its release used to be one of the most eagerly-awaited events of the year; now - with all eyes on the PS3 version - it looks a bit sad and neglected. This has to be expected, but it’s sad that, in terms of gameplay, PES 2008 is almost identical to last year’s game. None of the ‘improvements’ of the PS3 version - such as the diving or ...

Project: Snowblind (Review)

Apr 27, 2006

Playing as a biologically-altered super-soldier in a futuristic war hardly counts as a groundbreaking premise (see: Halo and Halo 2), but if you give Project: Snowblind a chance, you'll find it to be the very definition of a jack-of-all-trades first-person shooter: it does everything well but nothing brilliantly. Strapping on the boots of critically injured soldier Nathan Frost, whose name is unfortunately as generic as his character, you're thrown on the war veteran scrapheap, so to speak, ...

Project: Snowblind (Review)

Feb 23, 2005

Of course it shouldn't work. The Deus Ex games, in the eyes of many, are held in holy regard for being as much about intelligence and strategy as shooting people in the mouth with grenades. And along comes Project Snowblind, a cynical attempt to shoehorn the thinking man's FPS into the shoot first, ASK NO QUESTIONS LATER MOTHER F****R mentality of the modern-day console action game. But it does work. So finely, in fact, as to be one of the best FPS titles on the PS2.First up, it controls ...

ProStroke Golf: World Tour 2007 (Review)

Sep 29, 2006

The biggest problem with golf videogames right now is that the games at the top of the heap are filled with gimmicks: comically effective "spin" buttons, and super-powered shots that'll drive the golf ball farther and faster than humanly possible. Even the Tiger Woods series, for all its visual authenticity, is far from realistic. ProStroke Golf goes the other direction, concentrating more on the real-world dynamics of the golf swing and breaking it down to the basic level for the player. ...

The Punisher (Review)

Mar 21, 2005

What's a minor thug to do? You're on the bottom rung of your criminal gang, overlooked and underpaid. Consequently, while on some shady activity at the, erm, zoo, you don't feel bad about sneaking off for a look at the piranha fish.You're just admiring the flesh-eating beasts when, suddenly, a psycho in a big trenchcoat grabs you, mutters something about "information" and then, without waiting even a microsecond for a response, plunges your head into the water and stands impassively as the ...

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (Review)

Mar 7, 2008

Sometimes, explaining the mechanics of a puzzle game is nightmarishly difficult. It's usually some variation of "this colored widget goes there, and if you make a certain shape, more widgets blast in from some direction", but filling in the details is a pain. Not so with Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. If you've ever played Bejeweled - and several million people have - you know 90% of what this game is about.The remaining ten percent ...