Just Cause 2

Every year the collective hive mind of GamesRadar picks its Game of the Year as the ultimate accolade of the Officially Annual Platinum Chalice Awards. It's very exciting. And while that's still totally happening (the Platinum Chalice Awards will be posted next Friday), this year we thought we'd take a minute to unplug from the Master Brain and give some love to each of our own personal games of the year. Long live individualism.

PODCAST: A tropical paradise of classic gaming, EVO 2010 recapped, cheap used games, dinosaurs and The Man...

After thinking about it for all of five minutes, I decided that – as of yet – there hasn’t really been a brilliant game set inside a prison. I’m not talking about the sci-fi efforts of The Suffering or the brilliant Chronicles of Riddick. I mean a gritty take on the reality of being banged up and fearing for your safety in the communal showers every morning.

Imagine the possibilities? So that’s what I did and here, for your viewing pleasure, are a load of reasons why a prison environment for a game would be bloody brilliant…

Lost is no longer just a show. Lost is a multimedia mythology. So while the television series finally ends this weekend, its impact on popular culture – the island's hold on our collective imagination – will live on for much longer.

Just look to videogames for proof. Hidden references (the numbers, the hatch, polar bears) and clever cameos (Jack, Desmond, Locke) pop up in nearly every genre and on nearly every system.

Here are the 16 we've discovered so far. Know of any Others?

Last night I finished Just Cause 2. My lasting memories of the game will be its incredibly beautiful world, the massive array of brilliant vehicles to drive/pilot and the amount of stuff you can mindlessly blow the shit out of. But there'll be a sadness there too. Despite these thrills the boss battles kicked me hard in the balls due to their unbelievably mundane, by-the-numbers exploits. So what is it with game’s frequently missing the target with boss fights?

This week's episode features the team weighing into the 'games as art debate', a brief - and somewhat made-up - history of Atari and the semi-triumphant return of GamesRadar's travelling Cornish, Matt Cundy.

We also have your answers to this week's Question of the Week and your messages to the red-hot GamesRadar Hotline. 


Direct download 

Writing up our talk with Lead Game Designer at Avalanche Studios, Peter Johansson, was difficult, because we now spend every waking second parachute-climbing mountains and battering hanging enemies to death with our grappling hooks in Just Cause 2.

This week's audiological delight features even MORE
news about the fallout from Zampella and West's Infinity Ward booting, possibly the most misinterpreted Question of the Week answer from drunken Dave M and your mixed bag of messages to the GamesRadar Hotline

Direct download

or listen now...

TalkRadar UK Episode 34 (1:12:15) 

Square Enix’s gloriously silly tropical sandbox adventure really came out of left field. As brilliantly daft as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, but with a stunning, vast world built on cutting-edge technology; it’s the most fun we’ve had in the genre in ages. While Niko’s American nightmare might still be the daddy when it comes to open-world games, there are definitely things Rockstar could adapt from Just Cause 2 to make the next GTA better. Like…

Ah, Easter time. When rabbits run around leaving little chocolate presents for us to find and we get two of our bank holidays all at once (don't worry about spreading them out or anything... grumble).

But wait! Easter eggs are not only of the lovely chocolate variety - the term also applies to cool secrets found in videogames. So here are some of our more recent favourites along with links to more Easter Egg articles - just remember to brush your teeth afterwards!