All Xbox 360 Reviews

Roogoo - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Jul 3, 2008

You can’t feel cool playing with one of those ‘push the block through the right-shaped hole’ games they give babies, so it’s tough to feel it while playing Roogoo. True, it’s more demanding: expecting you to spin the discs to the right holes at increasingly fast speeds, it mixes it up a bit with monsters to smash, butterflies, and more holes than a Swiss cheese in a gunfight. The challenge comes from fast ...

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (Review)

Jul 2, 2008

Somewhere between Rock Band and the distant promise of Guitar Hero World Tour, ‘classic’ Guitar Hero became very ordinary, very quickly. This, now the fifth game, bears all the hallmarks of a series paddling to stay afloat. World Tour’s change of direction is looking even more necessary now. It all started so well too. Aerosmith has been involved with track selections, story elements and even mockumentary videos, and are ...

Kung Fu Panda (Review)

Jul 2, 2008

With Brutal Legend’s fate still undecided, you might think us mad for recommending Kung Fu Panda as an alternative adventure starring Jack Black (not least because all the voices in this tie-in game are sadly provided by so-so stand-ins), but bear with us. First of all, we’re not so addled with bonhomie thanks to our experience with this silly game to deny that the action is the definition of ‘par for the course’. The ...

Wall-E (Review)

Jul 2, 2008

Damn you Wall-E, and damn whoever decided to come up with that way our trash-compacting, lonely-hearts-surfing robo-friend constantly repeats his own name in gurgling, quasi-’endearing’ fashion. It’s not cute, it’s not appealing, it’s... oh, the movie’s set to rake in $250 million? Ah. Shows how much we know. Still, at least the blatantly nicked premise shows promise. Take sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf and ...

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Review)

Jul 2, 2008

It’s such a familiar quandary – there you are in your local games store, crisp note in hand, looking for a new addition to your collection. There are a few caveats, though: one, you want it to be a linear adventure mainly based around flicking switches and collecting shiny things; two, you’re also very keen for it to have a Christian subtext; oh, and three, there simply has to be a homicidal dwarf involved. Well, at last, ...

Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath (Review)

Jul 1, 2008

Port ho! Or, more in keeping with the military chatter of your units, “We haff PC port in our sights!” It’s EA’s second shot at squeezing the PC title onto the 360, this time an expansion pack that focuses on everyone’s favourite baldy megalomaniac as he claws his way back to power. ...

Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 (Review)

Jun 30, 2008

Remember coin-op classics such as Smash TV, Mercs and of course Commando? Well, Wolf of the Battlefield runs along the same lines. Charge across top-down battlefields rescuing prisoners and laying waste to an army of insurgents using those tried and tested dual analog stick controls.

In co-operative three-player this is a nostalgic blast, but single-players will grow bored quickly despite a wealth of weapons, vehicles and ...

Hail to the Chimp (Review)

Jun 25, 2008

Did you ever order lobster bisque in a fancy restaurant and then have bubble gum-flavored ice cream with gummi bears on top for dessert? Of course not; it's a mismatch. Hail to the Chimp seems to be making the same attempt to merge two worlds, combining kiddie-style, action-packed minigames with a plot and setting that spoofs the electoral process in a way only adults have a chance of appreciating.

In an election to select the ...

Alone in the Dark (Review)

Jun 24, 2008

... they lied. There comes a point in Alone in the Dark, about 80% in, where Eden Studios pulls a very cheap trick. It artificially boosts the longevity of a game perilously close to the wrong side of the six hour mark by featuring a root-killing collect-a-thon, similar to Zelda: Wind Waker's Triforce shard hunt. For one brief moment we caught sight of the game we were promised. Then, after a quick spell, it was all over.

Normally we'd ...

Battlefield: Bad Company (Review)

Jun 23, 2008

It’s finally arrived – and while the silly story, drab voice acting, contrived dialogue and limp characterisation made us wince more than once, the world that it takes place in is more than enough to compensate for said errors. For the uninitiated out there, the story of Bad Company is this: you play Preston Marlow, a new recruit in B Company (hence the title) working with a ragtag threesome of war vets in the midst of a ...

Top Spin 3 (Review)

Jun 23, 2008

First, you have to unlearn everything you know about tennis games. Not since Pro Evolution hit the PS2 and redefined videogame footy has a title so radically changed how we look at in-game sport. Top Spin 3’s arrival makes Virtua Tennis look like Pong. Where Sega’s title asks that you be in the right place and aim in the right direction in a timely manner, Top Spin 3 stresses technique and the most delicate touch. Holding a face ...

NASCAR 09 (Review)

Jun 20, 2008

Thundering down a Daytona straightaway, trading paint with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Kyle Busch, and frantically trying to hold your beat-up bucket of bolts together, you realize there’s a decision to be made. Half a lap to go until the finish – do you nudge Junior out of the way and risk a black flag, cut Busch off on the inside, or just maintain your line and hope there are enough fumes in the tank and rubber on the tires to make it to the winner’s circle? ...

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One (Review)

Jun 18, 2008

Loosely based on the popular web comic Penny Arcade, this new episodic series kicks off with a six-hour game, cheekily subtitled On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. The action follows your custom-built avatar (and his disappointingly limited wardrobe selection) and early-20th-century versions of heroes Gabe and Tycho as they investigate paranormal goings-on in the city of New Arcadia. It’s a bizarre tale that’s completely ...

Don King Presents: Prizefighter (Review)

Jun 16, 2008

Legendary boxing promoter Don King has a long history of using invented words and flashy outfits to sell his products, so it's really no surprise that we had a strong first impression of his debut video game. But the more we played Don King Presents Prizefighter, the more that opinion was worn down by gameplay aspects that weren't quite as solid (or fresh) as expected.

Indeed, our first take on the game was very positive, as the ...

Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit (Review)

Jun 10, 2008

Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is completely out of control. To anyone who knows the animated series, that’s no bad thing. What starts out looking like a standard 3D fighting game soon gets turned on its head when the big-eyed brawlers start flying and shooting insanely damaging energy beams from their fingertips.

It’s still a one-on-one beat ‘-em-up, that somehow carves a new niche into the well trodden way of ...

The Incredible Hulk (Review)

Jun 10, 2008

The people that made the 2008 rendition of The Incredible Hulk must have really liked 2005's The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. They've employed the same free-roaming design and have given the Hulk many of the same abilities that he had in that earlier game. But that's totally A-OK, since they've also jazzed up the graphics and given players many more ways to destroy the people and buildings populating the expansive 3D replica of ...

Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy (Review)

Jun 4, 2008

Looking back on preview coverage from this and other sites, there seems to have been a lot of excitement from critics leading up to the release of Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy. After playing through it from start to finish, though, it's hard to understand why. ...

Lost Planet Colonies (Review)

Jun 3, 2008

Rumored for months thanks to foreign trademark filings and general Internet speculation, Lost Planet Colonies is not a true sequel nor the strategy-focused offshoot that some claimed to be in the works - rather it's an expanded re-release of the original 2007 shooter, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. Call it a Gold Edition, or perhaps just a super-sized Platinum Hit. ...

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (Review)

Jun 3, 2008

How can a game that’s identical to the brilliant LEGO Star Wars in almost every respect not be as good? Simple - the setting. The Star Wars universe is vibrant, colourful and fantastical, while Indy’s real-world ’40s setting is more subdued. This works in the context of the films, but recreated in LEGO it has none of the outlandish flair of Lucas’ galaxy far, far away. ...

GRID (Review)

May 30, 2008

“Hello, Bozo.” It’s charming enough when a game greets you every time you load it. It’s even more endearing when you can choose to be called, instead of your first name, a gently satirical nickname like Bossman, or Chief or, indeed, Bozo. The announcer sounds like she’s almost laughing whenever she says it, like it’s our little shared joke. So we’re proud to be a Bozo, and we feel welcomed. ...