All Xbox 360 Previews

Saboteur (Saboteur)

May 22, 2007

Nazi-occupied France in the 1940s... What do you mean youve been there before? Many, many times? And you could walk down every rue and plaza blindfolded, the amount of times youve liberated the city from the Germans? Okay, we admit that our first reaction was exasperation on discovering that our pals at developer Pandemic were at work on yet another 360 WWII title - but luckily they also realize that theres a lot of competition out there, which is why Saboteur has been packed ...

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel - hands-on (Sacred 2: Fallen Angel)

Aug 19, 2008

Although well-received by critics, the first Sacred was much bigger in Europe than in the US and UK. It had a robust and entertaining combat system, which only rarely succumbed to the fatigue of repetition that the genre is known for. ...

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel (Sacred 2: Fallen Angel)

Feb 21, 2008

We're genuinely excited about Sacred 2: Fallen Angel for the PC. The promising title looks like the next natural step for those with any love for dungeon crawlers like Diablo or Titan Quest. Unfortunately, we doubt the 360 version will strike the same chord, as its audience may be unfamiliar with the mostly PC-centric genre.Visually, Sacred 2 has come far since its predecessor first released. Small details, like blades of grass swaying gently ...

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel - hands-on (Sacred 2: Fallen Angel)

Dec 12, 2007

Dec 12, 2007 Pack up your plasma rifle because its time for us to don the wizards cap and break out the dice. Sacred 2 doesnt have a lot of competition on the 360, but then thats because its closest rival is the average superhero romp Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Youd have to go back to Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance II on the original Xbox to find something vaguely similar. Newcomers to the series fear not: Sacred 2 takes place 2000 years before the first game, so no experience is ...

Saints Row - single/multiplayer hands-on (Saints Row)

Aug 3, 2006

Let's get one thing out of the way first: Saints Row is almost exactly like Grand Theft Auto in every way. However, lacking any other game like it on the platform, this seemingly cookie-cutter version lights up the 360 with combustible mayhem on an order not yet reached by other titles After mere seconds of play, the controls display a simple elegance that is instantly recognizable if not totally easy to get the hang of. Once you've scored a gat, you can shoot anything you like simply by ...

Saint's Row hands-on (Saints Row)

Jun 29, 2006

Are you sick and tired of Grand Theft Auto-derivative games? Wait, let's rephrase that: Are you sick of reading about GTA-derivative games? If so, we're wasting each other's time here. But you're urged to keep your mind open, because Saint's Row might just change your mind about the free-roaming drive-and-gun genre. The most striking aspect of the game, of course, is the graphics. Saint's Row wasn't just put on Xbox 360 so that its publisher, THQ, could charge an extra $10 at retail. While the ...

Saint's Row (Saints Row)

Mar 2, 2006

Every day, some gat-toting punk game blasts its way across your console, frontin' like it's the next Grand Theft Auto... unless you're an Xbox 360 owner, in which case you're still thugless. Veteran developer Volition aims to change this with Saint's Row. On one hand, as yet another would be heir to the Grand Theft Auto empire, this ambitious prince may discover too late that it'll take more than mimicry to dethrone the reigning king. On the other hand, this is indeed one ambitious prince ... ...

Saints Row (Saints Row)

Feb 15, 2006

We can just imagine the brainstorming sessions that went on deep in the bowels of Illinois-based Volition as it pondered the way ahead for the next generation of its games. And it would have boiled down to this: "Erm, how about we do a GTA, but, er, make it better? Stick it online or something?" "Yeah, that sounds good." And so Saint's Row on 360 was born, with its gats precisely targeted on Rockstar's jewel in the crown and anything else of its ilk out there on the game shelves. But is this ...

Saints Row 2 – hands-on preview (Saints Row 2)

Aug 5, 2008

When talking about Saints Row 2, it’s impossible not to immediately acknowledge the hulking beast that is GTA IV. The Saints Row series is forever doomed to live in the shadow of one of gaming’s hugest franchises, and has so far come up short in its attempts to overthrow the king. ...

Saints Row 2 - hands-on (Saints Row 2)

Apr 4, 2008

Saints Row 2 is not pretty, it is not refined, and it is not realistic. "We're going for a very over-the-top feel," commented James Tsai, the game's lead designer, as we chatted with him at THQ's yearly preview event.

The game is very over-the-top, both in gameplay and story, the latter of which has been criticized as an exercise in tired racial stereotypes and naive views of "street life." James disagrees. "It's about having fun. The ...

Saints Row 2: The best character customisation ever? (Saints Row 2)

Mar 4, 2008

Saints Row 2 looks set to have the best character creation option we've ever seen. Find out just how deep it goes and get a fresh eyeful of GTA-alike screens here

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Saints Row 2 (Saints Row 2)

Jan 25, 2008

The original Saints Row was perhaps the most successful Grand Theft Auto copycat to date, and its sequel is promising to up the ante with a series of tweaks to the winning crime sim formula. Unsurprisingly, gang warfare is still the order of the day as you guide your chosen gangbanger through an expanded version of Stillwater City. But while the games themes remain unchanged there is talk of a darker storyline that picks up some years on from the explosive final act of the first game - ...

Sam Suede: Undercover Exposure (Sam Suede: Undercover Exposure)

Jun 1, 2006

You may not know Al Lowe's name, but longtime PC gamers will definitely know his work. His true claim to fame is the creation of the Leisure Suit Larry series, old-fashioned adventure games that starred a hapless but lovable lounge lizard usually concerned with little more than finding a slot B for his tab A. Now, Lowe has come out of retirement to give action gaming a hot-beef injection of suggestive humor. Billed as an "action comedy," Sam Suede casts a regular guy in the role of an ersatz ...

Samurai Warriors 2 hands-on (Samurai Warriors 2)

Jul 6, 2006

Sooner or later, developer Omega Force is going to have to make a new game. In the past six years, they've pumped out no fewer than 13 Dynasty Warriors sequels and spinoffs, all of which have been essentially identical. New battlefields and other improvements keep emerging, but each one still revolves around wading into a battlefield and slashing through hordes of witless enemy soldiers. Samurai Warriors 2 is no different. Like the first Samurai Warriors, it's set in feudal Japan, with players ...

Samurai Warriors 2: Empires - hands-on preview (Samurai Warriors 2: Empires)

Jan 29, 2007

Hacking away at your enemies like so much tuna sashimi is great, but any shogun worth his katana can tell you that most battles are won before they begin - with careful planning. Though, an army of bloodthirsty samurai doesnt hurt either. Enter Samurai Warriors 2: Empires, which mixes the original game's steel-swinging action with board game-like tactical strategy. This forms a game, not shockingly, much like the nearly identical Dynasty Warriors 5: ...

SBK-08 - first look (SBK-08)

Apr 23, 2008

Regardless of whether you had any affinity for motorbike games, there was no denying SBK-07 was a bit on the hard side. There were options aplenty to mess about with so that there were umpteen degrees of slavish simulation, but there were a couple of notable problems which prevented the game from surging to the front of the two-wheeled racer pack.

Firstly, there wasn’t a whole lot of eye candy on offer - aside from the umbrella ...

Section 8 (Section 8)

Mar 13, 2008

Section 8 may be almost two years out, but our recent look at the game was no less captivating. Without all that much to show Timegate Studios, the indie developers of the popular F.E.A.R. expansions, still managed to make our trigger fingers tremble. To start with, the map in our demo was huge. We didn't get to see it populated, but it looked like it could easily handle a 64+ server count. The goal appeared to be to capture points on the map, ...

Sega Rally Revo - hands on (Sega Rally Revo)

Jun 21, 2007

For fans of Segas flagship racing series, the following sentence will come as a big relief. The new Sega Rally game feels like a Sega Rally game. We know because weve played it for hours, racing on four different tracks at Sega Racing Studio in Birmingham on both PS3 and Xbox 360. If we sound surprised, or at least relieved, its because up until now we had only been shown what was basically a tech demo of six cars racing around a pretty, but featureless track. It looked alright, but not ...

Sega Rally Revo (Sega Rally Revo)

May 11, 2007

Dont get us wrong; we love MotorStorm. But underneath its glossy canyons and impressive mud physics lies a one-track mind (har har). Those looking for a little more depth in their racer need wait until September when Sega Rally Revo will be unleashed to the masses. How does it stack up? Read on, gearheads. Attack deformation The first lap through a course is the easiest. You're presented with flawless, untouched mud and slide across it with relative ease. But then it's time for the second lap. ...

Sega Rally Revo (Sega Rally Revo)

May 10, 2007

Not everything gets better with age. Take, for example, that one friend who still somehow thinks its hilarious to drop Napoleon Dynamite quotes in everyday conversation. That fondness for mindless repetition means he's probably going to suck at Sega Rally Revo, a racing game where a path through a particular turn that works great at the beginning of a race could easily spell your undoing by the final lap. This is all thanks to the games most interesting feature: Fully deformable tracks. As ...