GamesRadar - PSP Reviews

Gangs of London (Review)

Oct 2, 2006

Gangs of London is a great portable gangster game. The real success is the focus on fast, fun sequences that put you in the middle of the British underworld Guy Ritchie is so good at depicting. Rather than long expensive cut scenes, comic book-style panels convey the story before and after missions. Missions flash by as you murder, maim and kidnap on foot and on the road to seize control of London's crime subculture. Fail to kill a rival gang boss or kidnap a new round of prostitutes from ...

Generation of Chaos (Review)

Apr 7, 2006

Frogmen are no match for Knights. Dragon Warriors obliterate Magic Hunters. Demon Knights are decimated by Magicians, but those same mages are absolutely shredded by musket-wielding Buccaneers. Oh, and watch out. Wild armies of Wyverns, Skeletons or Forest Elementals could ambush you at any time. These are the kind of lessons one learns when playing Generation of Chaos. Fancy-pants armchair generals would describe it as a fantasy-based, tactical warfare simulation. Normal folks would say its ...

Ghost Rider (Review)

Feb 14, 2007

As if the back-catalog of shoddy comic book adaptations wasnt shameful enough, heres another uninspired and under-developed calamity for the pile. You play Johnny Blaze, a motorcycle stunt rider who sells his immortal soul to Mephisto (a sort of Marvel Universe version of the Devil) in order to save his terminally ill father from cancer. Bit of a short-sighted deal, really, especially when Mephisto turns round and offs his dad after hes cured him. As youd expect, Johnnys a tad peeved by this, ...

Gitaroo-Man Lives! (Review)

Oct 24, 2006

Back in the early days of the PlayStation 2, the popularity of rhythm games in the US was on the rise thanks to Konami's quick 'n dirty ports of their Dance Dance Revolution titles. This was before the likes of Karaoke Revolution or Guitar Hero; when everyone was dipping their toes in the musical waters. It was then that Koei released its charming and bizarre music game, Gitaroo-Man. Now those who missed this little gem a few years back (which is probably most of you) have another chance to ...

Go! Sudoku (Review)

Jun 8, 2006

If youve got an itch that a single, newspaper-bound Sudoku puzzle each day just cant satisfy, then Go! Sudoku is your cure. That or a good, sturdy back-scratcher. Go! Sudoku is a collection of approximately 1000 different Sudoku puzzles across an array of different difficulty levels, as a competitive or cooperative multiplayer game, or as a single-player time challenge. As a bonus, there are even more puzzles available for download, though the interface to get to them is pretty ...

God of War: Chains of Olympus (Review)

Feb 28, 2008

Long before he was the god of war, bald badass Kratos was just the Ghost of Sparta, a berserk agent of the ancient Greek gods. God of War: Chains of Olympus delves into those dark years, shedding light on Kratos' troubled past while delivering the same epic storytelling, beautiful scenery and vicious ass-stomping we've come to expect from the series. ...

The Godfather: Mob Wars (Review)

Oct 3, 2006

While Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories proved that free-roaming crime games can be done on the PSP, that doesn't mean the handheld can do everything. It can't, for example, do The Godfather, at least not in the same way it was done on consoles. Why else would the driving segments and open world be ripped out of The Godfather: Mob Wars and replaced with turn-based strategy? To be fair, Mob Wars does an impressive job of replicating the console Godfather 's action sequences. As a foot ...

The Golden Compass (Review)

Dec 19, 2007

Dec 19, 2007 The first levels blast you right into the action as mighty polar bear warrior Iorek, viciously slaughtering Inuits and wolves as you carry the heroine Lyra through dramatic icy wastes. Its messy, and unoriginal, and painfully linear (even stepping one inch out of line will reveal hidden walls), but it is at least fast and action-packed. Problem is, the game tells the story of The Golden Compass all out of sequence, and soon youre back at the start of Lyras journey, snooping around ...

Gradius Collection (Review)

Jun 6, 2006

Today, "shooter" refers to a first-person game that puts you directly into the action, usually with some kind of elaborate set of firearms. But many years ago, the term was synonymous with side-scrolling shoot 'em ups that plopped your lonely space ship into an endless armada of hostile alien craft - Gradius Collection compiles five of this genre's toughest, hardiest games onto one disc, ready to remind us all how unforgiving these games can be. Yes, there are five games in this compilation, ...

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (Review)

Feb 27, 2006

Four years ago, Grand Theft Auto III changed the way people think about video games, introducing gamers to free-form gameplay and a decidedly adult tone. And while Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories takes us back to the same old territory, it's just as revolutionary. Not because the things it does are new or innovative, but because it does them on a handheld. Unlike the last couple of portable attempts at GTA, Liberty City Stories uncompromisingly brings over everything that made the ...

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (Review)

Oct 30, 2006

Consoles might be overflowing with Grand Theft Auto clones, but on the PSP, the original is still king. And while imitators like The Godfather and Scarface have been reduced to lame exercises in turn-based strategy, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories reasserts the series' dominance with another sprawling, open-world crime spree. Set in 1984 (two years before GTA: Vice City), Vice City Stories stars Victor Vance, a career soldier who's set up for a fall by his commanding officer and kicked out ...

Guilty Gear Judgment (Review)

Sep 15, 2006

The latest chapter in the ever-expanding Guilty Gear fighting series, Guilty Gear Judgment is a stark reminder that the PSP needs more 2D games. Not because old-school fanboys need the love, necessarily, but because Judgment's fluid pixels look better than most of the handheld's 3D efforts. It's no surprise how good the game looks, given that beautiful graphics are a longtime hallmark of the series. So is balls-out-crazy fighting action, and Judgment delivers that as well as Guilty Gear ever ...

Gun: Showdown (Review)

Oct 24, 2006

Last fall, Activision released the western-themed shooter, Gun, one of the year's most under-appreciated titles. Overshadowed by high profile holiday releases - not to mention the spotlight-hogging launch of the Xbox 360 - it arrived on multiple consoles, mostly receiving attention for being a less-than-next-gen 360 launch title. Thankfully, this console cowboy is getting a second chance to prove its gaming grit with Gun: Showdown for the PSP, a near-perfect port of the original title that ...

Gunpey (Review)

Nov 13, 2006

Like most puzzle games, the basic gist of Gunpey is easy enough to grasp. Tiles rise up from the bottom of the screen on a timer or at your behest, each stamped with a straight or bent line, and you must vertically swap them to create lines that connect the left and right sides of a 5x10 grid. Lines may fork and zigzag, depending on how you arrange the pieces, but only paths that reach all the way from left to right will disappear. At first, it seems like play consists of little more than a ...

Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure (Review)

Feb 20, 2007

Gurumin is an action RPG so deliciously cute and energetic, and delivered with such spunky confidence, that playing it is like nibbling on a strawberry shortcake while chasing around an enthusiastic puppy. Sometimes youll be giggling at how much fun youre having, other times youll be delighted at how adorable everything is, and the entire time, youll be thinking how good it ...