If Eidos had their way there’d be a sixth Beijing mascot: a disturbing clothed monkey who appears every few seconds to cartwheel in front of the athletes during the world’s most important sporting event.
Ten minutes in, we had to eject the disc to confirm this was Summer Athletics 2009 and not last year’s inaugural iteration. Same controls, lack of online play, charmless monkey gyrating around on the loading screen, and – barring two skeet shooting events – the same disciplines. Hell, half the Achievements are identical. Summer Athletics 2008: now with added skeet shooting. There’s a shining endorsement.
Super Meat Boy will make you angry. It will make you yell and curse. At times it will even make you feel hopeless, like you can do nothing right. That’s because it’s such a challenging 2D platformer, filled with some of the most devilish levels ever designed, that it will push all but the best gamers in the world to their limit. But it will also be one of the best time you ever had, for when you finally clear a seemingly impossible stage you feel truly thankful for Super Meat Boy making you really work for that win. And then it’s on to the next “impossible” stage...
There was a time when Street Fighter II machines lined the halls of dimly lit smoke-filled arcades. It was there that crowds gathered to watch titans clash. Remember the sneaky Guile player? Always crouching and constantly cornering, he was ready to throw up a Flash Kick every time you tried to break free from his never-ending barrage of sweeps and Sonic Booms.
Just over a year ago our own Dave Houghton gave Street Fighter IV a glowing 10/10, an entirely deserved score for a game that breathed new life not just into the franchise, but an entire dormant genre. This perfect reinvention of Capcom’s most beloved property was a huge hit with critics, casual players and the all-important tournament tweakers that keep the fighting engine churning.
It was such a success that Capcom’s even fallen back into its revisionist ways and prepared a heavily remixed version with 10 new characters, brilliant new online modes and rebalanced gameplay, all for the bargain price of $40. With more content at a lesser price, there’s nothing for us to do but give Super SFIV another stellar recommendation and urge you, whether you have the original or not, to dive in and get addicted all over again...
Let’s get it out of the way, unless you already enjoy Super Street Fighter IV, there’s nothing in Arcade Edition that’s likely to change your mind. Unless you’ve got a fetish for Dragonball Z and X-treme skating twins in Kung-Fu shirts. Then you’re in business. So what does AE bring to the table? First off, four new characters: the previously mentioned twins from Street Fighter 3, Yun and Yang, sporadic “What If?” character Evil Ryu, and the brand new Oni...
Imagine if you were asked to describe the presentation and content of Race Driver: GRID to a chap who possessed only a fingertip’s worth of grip on the English language. Then imagine that this awkwardly translated summary was passed on to a horde of developers to use as the basis for their own racing title. The end result might well look something like Superstars V8 Racing.
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