One-on-one basketball is ritual humiliation. Bounce the ball off your opponent’s head, wave it in front of his face, snatch it away, fake him out and leave him crumpled on the floor, but don’t slam it into the basket until you’ve told him at least five juicy facts about his mom. We’ve played GTA, Manhunt and that naughty Mass Effect, but no videogame has filled us with such murderous rage as NBA Ballers did. ...
» Read More
Xbox Live Arcade has become home to a number of decent series of games, mostly having to do with one publisher repackaging all of their classic titles. Sega’s done it, Capcom’s readying to do it, and Atari has been trying desperately to reach deep into their back catalogue and make some of their groundbreaking games feel relevant again. So far, they haven’t been very successful. And now we have Battlezone, the classic tank battle game that used vector graphics to create a 3D playing field. ...
» Read More
Has the Live Arcade service finally jumped the shark? Outside of a few shining moments (namely: Ikaruga), the past couple months have been more than a little disappointing, with one misguided attempt at snagging the casual market after another. And the trend continues with Rocky & Bullwinkle - not only a weak attempt at the microgame genre, but one sporting a license that ceased to be relevant about 25 years ago.
The setup ...
» Read More
Treasure’s got a reputation for making great shooters. And rightfully so. The company's 1998 Saturn release, Radiant Silvergun, is considered by many to be one of – if not the – greatest shooters ever made. Of course, a sizeable amount of western gamers have never actually played that one because it only came out in Japan. However, the spiritual follow-up, Ikaruga, is arguably just as good, if not better than its ...
» Read More
It’s been a fairly long time coming, but Mr. Driller has finally arrived at the next generation, burrowing his way through your Ethernet cable and finally landing on your Xbox 360 hard drive. Mr. Driller is one of the most popular puzzle games you’ve probably never played. And while it looks rather complicated at first, its complexity really resides just a bit above something like Tetris. All you really need are quick reflexes and a good understanding of how different geometrical shapes will interact with each other when one of them is removed. ...
» Read More
We're not alone in the universe... in fact, it's getting kind of crowded here. In Universe at War: Earth Assault, the latest in a long run of PC real-time strategy titles ported to the Xbox 360, our planet is invaded by not one, not two, but three alien races intent on settling their ancient interstellar war once and for all. This diversity of factions and strategy is the game's greatest strength, but in the end, may overwhelm console players relatively new to the genre. ...
Tetris clones are nothing new. And we all knew it would only be a matter of time before more contemporary puzzle hits were emulated, much like Lumines has been in TiQal. Well, scratch that. It hasn’t been emulated so much as mated with the aforementioned Tetris. And the results are…well, they’re not that bad.TiQal’s game board features an ever-rising collection of multicolored blocks. Naturally, if said blocks reach the ...
You don’t judge your progress in Viking by high scores, percentage complete or rankings. You measure it in blisters - that old school badge of honour. The more pus you have swilling round beneath your swollen fingertips, the more pallid thick white skin that’s built up on your digits, the harder you’ve fought. Because in this game if you can still feel your thumbs midway through the first level, you aren’t ...
Dark Sector has so many similarities to Resident Evil 4 that it could be seen as an expansion pack for Capcom’s classic. Firstly, the plot - it focuses around a city infected by a disease. The infection, like RE4’s Las Plagas, turns regular folk into murderous zombies. There’s a shadowy figure attempting to create an army with these creatures. Then there’s the female double agent - she’s like Ada Wong, minus the ...
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty could've been great. Its promising premise supposes that without Winston Churchill around to rally the Allied forces, the Nazis quickly rolled over Europe before setting their sites on the shores of America. You find yourself in the middle of a German invasion on New York City and now the United States and your will to defend it are the only things left standing between Hitler and the universal popularity of the ...