All Xbox 360 Previews

Damnation (Damnation)

Apr 4, 2008

Maybe Brendan Fraser, Adam Sandler and Steve Buscemi had a point. The Lone Rangers might have been a terrible name for a band, but at least the three airheads realised that you’re guaranteed a longer lifespan as a unit. So while Captain Rouke apes the quintessential Eastwood-loner, he’s going to be a few bullet holes short of a brain if he decides to go it alone. ...

DDR Universe will make you tired (Dance Dance Revolution Universe)

Feb 6, 2007

Straight from Konami comes the umpteenth sequel to the public-embarrassment dancing sim, simply titled Dance Dance Revolution UNIVERSE for the Xbox 360, set for release on February 20th. Konami is wisely doing away with confusing sequel titles such as DDR2: 7th Mix, Extreme or Supernova, this time promising to universally appeal to everybody not afraid to hop around in their living room with its tutorial and Super Easy modes. Be prepared to put down your Wiimote, Grandma. In addition to over ...

Dark Sector - multiplayer hands-on (Dark Sector)

Feb 26, 2008

We recently gave a detailed hands-on look at Dark Sector’s single-player levels, including a rundown on the game’s signature weapon, the glaive. Last week at GDC we were able to try out the two multiplayer modes, known as Infection and Epidemic. In Infection, one player starts out as Hayden, the main character from the single-player story. All of the powers and upgrades normally earned through progress in the game are ...

Dark Sector - updated hands-on (Dark Sector)

Jan 29, 2008

For the last year or so, most of our glimpses at Dark Sector have been centered around a dreary, crumbling Eastern Bloc neighborhood in the fictional country of Lasria, populated by a bunch of gasmask-wearing soldiers and a few zombie freaks. Last week, however, we finally got a chance to play beyond that crummy locale - which, it turns out, is the game's fourth level - and got a much broader idea of what lies in store when Dark Sector arrives in late March. If you've been following the game ...

Dark Sector (Dark Sector)

Jan 3, 2008

Jan 3, 2008 The surprise isnt that developer Digital Extremes action thriller is a Resident Evil 4 rip-off - after all, theyve made a career of ‘borrowing from other games, most notably Pariah on Xbox, a blatant Halo clone - but that Dark Sector looks so polished, despite being wonky at best only six months earlier. Even the plot feels familiar: Lead man Hayden Tenno (a dead ringer for Leon) blasts and hacks his way through the fictional eastern European city of Lasria. Then theres the ...

Dark Sector (Dark Sector)

Dec 4, 2007

Dec 4, 2007 Hayden Tenno is having a bad day. A black ops member of the CIA sent into sensitive areas as a cleaner; someone charged with disposing of elements that the government deems unworthy of tasting oxygen - Tenno is what some would call "morally ambiguous," which makes him perfect for introducing a bit more lead into someone's diet. Problem is, he's been dispatched to post-Soviet Lasria in Eastern Europe to take care of a fellow CIA operative, and Lasria is crawling with... well, with ...

Dark Sector - hands-on (Dark Sector)

Oct 15, 2007

Oct. 15, 2007 Come to the former Soviet Union. It's Rubbish. Yep, the various fictional former Soviet states featured in games always look like the very worst place to spend a weekend. Bad news for preposterously-named Hayden Tenno, then; the poor fella's got himself dosed up with mutagenic goo and is stuck in the middle of an Eastern European wasteland between two warring factions - the hazmat-suited government soldiers and the massively freakish victims of a biological weapon. Dark Sector ...

Dark Sector - updated hands-on (Dark Sector)

Jun 26, 2007

Forget what the ESRB says - dismembering monsters and punk-ass soldiers with a living steel boomerang in Dark Sector is neither "excessive" nor "offensive." It is awesome. A little disturbing, maybe, but if you don't want to see some bad guy rolling around on the ground clutching at a bleeding stump instead of trying to kill you, then why are you hurling sharp hunks of metal around in the first place? OK, yes, Dark Sector is pretty gruesome, and its spurting gore - brought on mostly by tosses ...

Dark Sector - hands-on (Dark Sector)

Jun 13, 2007

Few things in life can match the pleasure of slicing someones legs off with a spinning blade. So Dark Sector, at the very least, has that going for it. Thankfully, it has plenty more besides. Taking elements of Gears of War and Resident Evil, this sits nicely in the middle ground - third-person action that mixes things up between ludicrous, head-exploding violence and careful blasting from behind cover. ...

The goriest Frisbee EVER (Dark Sector)

Mar 1, 2007

Dark Sector, the bloody and brooding third-person action-adventure headed for PS3 and Xbox 360 this autumn, features one of the coolest weapons you'll ever see. It's known as 'the glaive' - a dinner-plate-sized throwing star that can be used like a Frisbee/boomerang/shuriken hybrid. We had a chance to see first-hand what it was capable of. And boy, is it ever ...

Dark Sector - first look (Dark Sector)

Dec 11, 2006

After a couple years of almost nothing following its announcement in 2004, a few bits and pieces of Dark Sector have been bubbling up in the last couple of months. This time, we've got more than just a few screenshots or a teaser trailer to show you, as we've finally seen a finished demo of the sharp-looking sci-fi/horror shooter in action. Following the adventures of a CIA "cleaner" named Hayden, Dark Sector looks suspiciously similar to Resident Evil 4. The action unfolds from a ...

Dark Void - first impressions (Dark Void)

Jun 3, 2008

If you don't have any fond memories of Crimson Skies, we have two things to say. First, shame on you for not playing one of Xbox's best games. Second, go download it now - it's part of 360's "Xbox Originals" lineup. Once you have, you'll find yourself immersed in a beautifully crafted alternate world where planes ruled instead of cars and a storyline that brought the gee-whiz sense of adventure so prominent in old westerns to a gaming ...

Dark Void (Dark Void)

May 29, 2008

Dark Void isn’t the kind of game you should bring round for tea with the vicar, and that’s not just because it stars a hero who smashes human skulls for larks. According to Dark Void’s storyline, the true nature of the gods is quite removed from the sugar-coated version used to keep church donation boxes rattling. The gods we’ve worshipped for millennia, Dark Void tells us, were in fact an evil Alien Race who, in ...

Dark Void (Dark Void)

Dec 13, 2007

Dec 13, 2007 Right, were gonna get two words off our chests straight off the bat: Crimson. Skies. See, you wont read many previews of Dark Void without the inevitable mention of that all-but-forgotten stylised airplane shooter, which sadly joined such luminaries as Beyond Good and Evil and the ace Psychonauts in the ‘good but nobody bought them category of videogames. Which was a real shame, since it was very good indeed. Still, it looks as if somebody senior at Capcom still believes in ...

Dark Void: First look (Dark Void)

Oct 23, 2007

Oct 23, 2007 It's difficult to extrapolate the story, feel and impact of a game you've only seen running in trailer form. But we'll give it a go. Fortunately, Dark Void appears to be the sort of experience you can amusingly call 'WYSIWYG'. Because 'what you see is what you get' doesn't sound funny enough. Capcom's actioner blends together survival horror overtones (just look at that ghoulish logo), Ratchet & Clank high-octane gameplay and a near-Scientologist story arc. Aliens "create" us, we ...

The Darkness - hands-on (The Darkness)

Jun 20, 2007

We've hinted at some pretty serious concerns with The Darkness before. There seemed to be a limit in level size, it was easy to get lost and it had twitchy controls. We've spent hours with an almost-done code, and we're delighted to report some of our worries have been soothed. The Darkness might not eclipse the unexpected magnificence of Chronicles of Riddick, but it's packed with imagination, blood, guns and kick-ass environments. And after establishing themselves as king of the videogame ...

The Darkness - hands-on (The Darkness)

Feb 28, 2007

Your captor walks over to the wall, casually plugging a handheld drill into an electrical outlet while he curses your name and tells you exactly why you deserve this. Before you know it, the drill is being thrust into your head, bits of blood and flesh splattering outwards as the screen shakes violently. This is the world of The Darkness – gritty, degenerate and malevolent. Its a strikingly beautiful, disturbingly intense game, a first person shooter descent into the world of mob violence ...

The Darkness (The Darkness)

Jul 27, 2006

The folks over at publisher 2K Games decided to show off the best of both the comic and video game worlds at Comic-Con this year with a new demo of its upcoming shooter, The Darkness. In case you're - ahem - in the dark about the game's plot, here's a quick primer to bring you into the light. Based on the popular comic book, The Darkness tells the story of mafia hitman Jackie Estacado, whose already complicated life gets an extra little twist. On his 21st birthday, Jackie inherits control of a ...

The Darkness calls (The Darkness)

May 15, 2006

We've just emerged, blinking into the light, from a special showing of The Darkness, the comic-book inspired shooter with a seriously evil bent. Our demo began with hitman Jackie Estacado - the hero - lugging a corpse-filled body bag into the trunk of a van, and it only got better. To cut a paranormal story short, on the night Jackie turned 21 he was possessed by an ancient demonic force called The Darkness, giving him some impressive powers. Shooting out the lights in a deserted restaurant ...

Darksiders: Wrath of War - hands-on (Darksiders: Wrath of War)

Sep 2, 2008

And there was given unto him a great sword – so says chapter six, verse four of The Book of Revelations while describing the arrival of War – one of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This is the inspiration behind THQ and Vigil Games’ Darksiders: Wrath of War – the slash-‘em up that aims to steal thunder from that other god of war, Kratos. ...