As gamers, we love blowing stuff up. And jets, especially top-of-the-line ones, are made for only one purpose - turning things into flaming piles of ruin. So why is there only one major flight combat series up to this point? Maybe it's because Ace Combat does everything so damn well there's just no reason for anyone else to step up.
With Skies of Deception, you're getting everything that's made the series rock on the consoles - rich sound effects, hardcore dogfights and science-fictiony
As much as we loved 2007’s Ace Combat 6, with its crowded skies and multi-tiered missions, it was severely lacking in one key area – online co-op. Yes, there were a handful of short excursions you could play through with friends, but the thrilling campaign was still a single-player affair. Joint Assault on the other hand allows four players to tackle the entire game in either local or online setups, which is a hugely welcome addition to the franchise. Imagine our disappointment when said campaign almost turned out to be more trouble than it’s worth.
On a certain level, it's vaguely amusing to see the latest, greatest consoles running software from 25 years ago... all that massive power brought to bear on a game that won't use a thousandth of it. It's wonderful, though, that so many old games, classics and otherwise, are thus preserved through remakes and emulation. Activision Hits Remixed is packed full of the oldest games you could possibly play on your PSP, with 40 or so virtual cartridges from Activision's high-flying Atari 2600 days.
Despite middle of the road review scores across the board, the originalGeneration of Chaos carved out a nice little audience for itself. Combining board game-style, turn-based wandering along various paths with real-time battles between small armies full of all sorts of fantasy creatures, GoC wasnt perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But anybody who enjoyed the time invested in the first should be plenty happy with the improvements present in Aedis Eclipse. Agonizing load times have
Its very tough to update old-school arcade games gracefully. Change too much, and people accuse you of ignoring the franchises heritage. Change too little, and people will say the series is stuck in a rut. This second situation is unfortunately how we feel about After Burner: Black Falcon, an update to publisher Segas beloved arcade flight shooter series After Burner. Its not as bad a collision with the past as would be, say, taking Mick Jagger shopping for Speedos, but it isnt exactly plugging
You'll have to forgive us old timers for getting our bloomers in a twist over a new Alien Syndrome game. We who spent the mid '80's pumping arcade machines full of shiny currency called "quarters" or praying to an ancient relic called the Sega Master System carry very fond memories of the top-down sci-fi shooter. So it's comforting that the PSP's Alien Syndrome update plays a lot like the game we know and love, with a few RPG-style elements thrown in to reward our fifteen or so years of
Developer Rebellion's Miami Vice was excellent. It was one of PSP's best games of last year. So what exactly went wrong with this new shooter? Where Miami Vice was a simple cover-fire game that worked a treat with the PSP's nubbin, Aliens vs Predator is overly complex and awkward to play - especially on the train.
Combat is easy enough; just hammer the square button and tap X if an Alien pounces on your Predator, but navigating is a pain. The shoulder buttons spin the camera and gameplay soon
The original Ape Academy was one of the best received titles at PSP's launch and rightly so. Its blend of monkey minigames and charming humour were a welcome diversion from the onslaught of lazy PS2 ports that choked the shop shelves.
For those of you who've never played it, it's a spin-off from the popular Ape Escape games, with the titular apes starring in an array of tiny minigames, most of which span between 10 to 30 seconds. It's a bit like Wario Ware on Game Boy and DS, but with
When the Ape Escape series first came out, it was to show off Sony's then-fancy new controller - which had not one, but two analog sticks. This little bit of history is important because when Ape Escape Academy hit our PSP, we were reminded of how long it's been since this series made us feel like a monkey with a banana. Instead, we're more in a throwing poop state of mind.
Essentially, Ape Escape Academy is a collection of around 40 mini-games, in which you train to become part of series
Armored Core is one of those franchises with an abnormally high concentration of hardcore devotees. That means that if you scour the internet, you're bound to come across reviews praising the series for its allegedly compelling combat and seemingly endless garage of mech-building parts.
This is not one of those reviews.
