GamesRadar - Xbox Features

The Top 7... series run into the ground (Tenchu: Return From Darkness)

Jan 23, 2007

A game is made, and it turns out to be good. The game comes out, becomes popular... and then becomes a series. Usually, we have nothing bad to say about that. Until, inevitably, things start to slide. The creator that made the game what it was bails. Or it fizzles in the transition from one console to another. Maybe the staff just forgot what made it great. Whatever the problem, we've selected seven of the biggest offenders, for your ...

Terminator through time (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines)

May 19, 2009

If there’s a character ideal for multiple mediums of sci-fi, it’s the Terminator or at least the idea of Terminators. The concept of a cyborg (cybernetic organism, or rather a robotic endoskeleton with living tissue over it) going back in time to kill the leader of the human resistance once the world goes kablooie isn’t that hard to grasp. ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries (Thrillville)

Nov 17, 2006

Sim games certainly aren't anything new. Hell, games that let you make your own theme park, and then manage every tiny detail of said park have even been around for decades. If that's the case, then what's so special about the upcoming Thrillville? Weve got the inside word straight from the developers and producers on why you're going to plop down on the couch and become the next roller coaster tycoon. Every week until the game ships (that'd be November 21), we're delivering a ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week Seven (Thrillville)

Nov 17, 2006

David Braben, Chairman of Frontier Developments and Executive Producer on Thrillville My role as executive producer means that I have an overview of the game as it's being developed. It's up to me to ensure that it stays true to the original vision - to make sure it works well overall. The idea for Thrillville came from a general feeling we had something more to offer over and above the strategy/simulation games of the past. Why should the "computer people" get all the fun? Playing mini-golf, ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week Six (Thrillville)

Nov 9, 2006

So, you've been given the job of making the latest and greatest theme-park game. The objective: create an authentic theme-park experience in a box. Where do you start? Jonny Watts, Senior Producer at Frontier Developments Well, a good place might be to go to a few real theme parks and see how "the competition" does it! We've made quite a few games set in theme parks over the last few years now and although it really helps that we're nuts about roller coasters and theme parks in general, ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week Five (Thrillville)

Nov 2, 2006

Developer Frontier has had experience creating other theme park-based games for the PC, such as RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. But Thrillville is different - it's been designed from the ground up for consoles and handhelds, including PS2, Xbox and PSP. With that comes a bevy of challenges - the most significant of those ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week Four (Thrillville)

Oct 26, 2006

You know that saying about the customer always being right? Yeah, that's true only so long as the customer continues to spend lots of lots of money. And if the average tourist family wants to funnel half their annual salary into your custom-built theme park, who are you to tell them they're wrong? But Thrillville lets you do more than just overcharge your visitors for cheap t-shirts, styrofoam stuffed animals and grease-brick pizzas. As our fourth of six developer diaries explains, you can ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week Three (Thrillville)

Oct 19, 2006

It's rarely admitted, but people love throwing up. Think about it: why else would everyone on the planet have a throwing up story? You've got one. We've got several. It's one of life's gross little mysteries. In fact, the only thing people love more than throwing up is almost throwing up, but not quite. Which is where amusement park rides come in. This week, we'll hear from one of the minds in charge of bringing you to the edge without pushing you ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week Two (Thrillville)

Oct 12, 2006

Last week, we heard from Producer Shara Miller from LucasArts. This week, we'll be hearing the cotton candy-laced words of Senior Producer Jonny Watts, about how it feels to see someone play the game you've created - and how it makes you feel when they don't play it the way you intended. Jonny Watts, Senior Producer at Frontier Developments Weaving all of the elements of Thrillville together into one cohesive experience has at times been one of the most nerve-wracking processes in developing ...

Thrillville - Developer Diaries Week One (Thrillville)

Oct 12, 2006

Producer Shara Miller already has her hands in some of the biggest franchises you love - Mercenaries and Star Wars Battlefront II should get a million or so gamer's hearts pumping. Now she's handling Thrillville, a video theme park that enables you to build whatever attractions you like - and then ride the crap out of them. Miller chimes in for part one of our six-part series, which should shed a little more light on why this isn't another wannabe simulator. Shara Miller - Producer So far, ...

33 iPhone games for REAL gamers (Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005)

May 12, 2009

If you’re fortunate enough to own an iPhone or iPod Touch, you’re also unfortunate enough to have tried browsing the gadgets’ application store. With over 35,000 downloads currently available, finding the quality in all that quantity is growing increasingly difficult, frustrating and costly. ...

An incomplete history of time-travel games (Time Splitters: Future Perfect)

Oct 21, 2009

“We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is? When will we get to the cowboy level?”

– Professor Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

Time travel and videogames are a perfect fit. ...

Gaming's biggest movie rip-offs (Time Splitters: Future Perfect)

Jan 7, 2008

The relationship between games and movies has always been a tense one. There's something almost violently alchemical about the way the two media usually react to each other. It's like getting hit by a yellow, piss-soaked snowball. Either element can be unpleasant enough on its own, but put them both together and something far more horrible happens. Games of movies, movies of games, they're both usually about as much fun as the death of a clown at a ten year-old's birthday party. But still we ...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - developer interview (TMNT)

Jan 2, 2007

After the first shots and details of the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie tie-in were released earlier this week, we shelled out some questions to Ubisoft's acclaimed Montreal Studio (the people behind such top titles as Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell ) to get some more details about what we can expect from its spin on the crime-repelling reptiles. Nick Harper, TMNT 's creative director, steps up from the sewers to give us some answers... Will players be able to choose which ...

Game music podcast goes live (Tokyo Elevator)

Apr 11, 2007

Some of us love it. Most everyone else on the planet can't stand or ignores it. But the fact remains that video game music draws a huge audience wherever it goes, and now GamesRadar has its own take to share. Brett Elston (Nintendo Editor), Joe McNeily (Senior Editor) and Stephen Pierce (Editorial Director) sit down with a smattering of classic video game tunes and weigh in on each song. We'll cover everything from the NES to the DS to the Xbox 360 - won't you join us? Is video game music ...

The games that shaped a generation: Xbox (Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3)

Mar 30, 2007

25. Dead or Alive 3 Team Ninja | Tecmo | 2001 Buxom beauties (and, we're pretty sure, some male characters too) meet to fight in cosplay heaven in this sassy one-on-one beat 'em-up What made it so great? Didn't you hear us? Girls fighting one-on-one? Dubious teenage fantasy scenario aside, the game is still a furious and explosive take on the previously staid genre. With electrified fences around some stages, massive windows to smash your opponent through and multi-tiered fighting arenas, ...

Ugly polygon "babes" of yesteryear (Tomb Raider: Anniversary)

Jul 9, 2009

3D games, as a rule, don’t age well. The games of the last couple console generations might have been awesome for their time, but take a look at them now and it’s hard to see them as anything other than jaggy abortions in which cardboard rectangles masquerade as limbs. And as if that weren’t embarrassing enough, most of those games contain female characters who, in their day, were genuinely considered sexy. ...

If game characters were old (Tomb Raider: Anniversary)

Jun 20, 2008

What happened to Snake? With those layered and textured wisps of oh-so-touchable hair, that Rambo-ninja headband, and a perfectly landscaped maze of lovable facial scruff, MGS 2 Snake was downright dreamy. Several years and one blond douchebag later and Snake is back with crow’s feet and the beginnings of a Geraldo Rivera 'stache. If anything is suited for sneaking, it’s the varicose veins crawling up the skin stuffs stretched over his legs. ...

Lara Croft - NUDE! (Tomb Raider: Anniversary)

Aug 22, 2007

Aug 22, 2007 One of the best in-gags in gaming history is the "Lara Nude Cheat." For all the old Tomb Raider games, Core would leak a cheat that claimed to turn Lara naked. In reality, once you'd managed to pull off the complex moves, your only reward was to watch your heroine violently explode with a scream, her arms, legs and head flying off in different directions. Gone are such innocent times, thanks to the mod scene. Now you can have Lara look any way you wish in TR: Anniversary (sorry ...

Ten greatest moments in Tomb Raider: Anniversary (Tomb Raider: Anniversary)

Aug 20, 2007

Aug 20, 2007 1) Wrecking the T-Rex During the first few hours of play, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Tomb Raider's bestiary of enemies is nothing other than the stuff of National Geographic - bears, wolves, crocodiles and the like. Push on to The Lost World area though, and Anniversary gets Jurassic on your ass, dropping you into the path of an enraged, prehistoric Goliath with teeth like kitchen knives. And Lara takes it down with just her ...