GamesRadar - Xbox 360 Reviews

The Last Remnant (Review)

2/12/2008

Ouch! This was supposed to be Square Enix’s attempt to make a truly global RPG. Not so much a Japanese RPG, more an Everywhere-RPG. So why is the opening hour so utterly confusing and unwelcoming? An unfamiliar battle system, all stats and weird terminology and with not much in the way of a helping hand. We can’t think of an RPG that starts this badly. ...

Left 4 Dead (Review)

17/11/2008

Rescue is here - after a long, bloody battle with countless zombies, you and three fellow survivors have made it to the rooftop of a ravaged hospital, where a helicopter lands to evacuate you to safety. In a blaze of gunfire and guts, you and two of your companions fight your way to the helipad and climb aboard the chopper, but the fourth member of your team is wounded and limping behind you. ...

Left 4 Dead 2 (Review)

17/11/2009

Unlike most other shooters, Left 4 Dead hinges on cooperative multiplayer. You and three friends must shoot, tear and slash through an unrelenting mass of raging zombies. From the moment you leave the safe house to the final rescue chopper, you are completely dependent on each other and constantly hunted by special boss zombies that behave with their own aggressive, strategizing intelligence ...

The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon (Review)

5/11/2008

Ever since Spyro the Dragon first glided onto the PlayStation 10 years ago, he’s been struggling to find solid footing in the platform gaming world. His games have been criticized in the past for being overly complicated for younger gamers yet too childish for older ones. Unfortunately, Dawn Of The Dragon is pretty much more of the same. ...

Legendary (Review)

4/11/2008

There’s a lot that’s cool about Legendary, in theory. The opening level is a tour-de-awesome that’s fifty percent “Oh hey, everything’s exploding!”, and fifty percent “I hope I get to shoot something soon”. The story is simple – you’re an art thief who was tricked into opening Pandora’s Box, and you’ve unleashed the creatures of myth into the modern world. ...

LEGO Batman: The Videogame (Review)

23/09/2008

Who is Batman to you? The violent lawman of the modern comics? The wink-wink star of the 60’s TV show? Tim Burton’s gothic icon, perhaps? The point is this: Travellers’ Tales have never had a subject so open to LEGO interpretation, and with it, playful experimentation. And boy, do they love it. Did you feel that Indy was a tad shackled to his tombs and dusty continents? ...

LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (Review)

18/11/2009

Steven Spielberg and Traveller’s Tales are in a similarly tough place, both fine purveyors of last-gen thrills struggling to find relevance in the modern day. Indy 4 showed the director selling out his brand of practical derring-do for a handful of CG monkeys. Tales too try something glitzier, and under the extra weight their creaky design shudders like Harrison Ford’s knees. ...

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (Review)

3/06/2008

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. ...

LEGO Rock Band (Review)

20/11/2009

When the disparate worlds of LEGOs and rock stars collide, strange and wonderful things can happen. Seeing LEGO versions of an emaciated Iggy Pop, a mustache-emblazoned Freddie Mercury, a pretty boy-era David Bowie, and even the guys from Blur bash out their hits amidst a visual rock-n-roll cacophony of plastic toy bricks and rampant silliness offers far more enjoyment then we might first care to admit. ...

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (Review)

22/12/2006

Wednesday 6 September 2006 Lego Star Wars II looks, feels and plays like it's been designed by a group of people who love games, understand gamers and know how important it is to have fun.For instance, you might think that the 'you never really die' system shouldn't work - avoiding dying's the most important part of games, right? Well, no - for younger fans and casual types it's perfect, letting them see the entire game without dying. For serious gamers, though, there's the challenge of ...

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (Review)

4/12/2006

Last year, LEGO Star Wars taught us what should have been apparent to everyone from the dawn of the universe - LEGO, Star Wars and video games go together like chocolate, peanut butter and creamy nougat. So it comes as no surprise that this new and improved version of last years kid-friendly darling captivated us from the introductory text crawl (you know... that part where the yellow letters march up the screen telling the harrowing tale of one of the most celebrated trilogies in the ...

LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Review)

6/11/2007

Nov 6, 2007 So you've caused a brick-showering gunfight in the Cantina. You've abused the Force to stack up some empty beer bottles - then rolled a bowling ball through the lot of them. You've built a little LEGO car and pootled happily around one of those flat plastic Lego roads with the bobbly grass on. You've created a new Star Wars hero with C-3PO's head and Princess Leia's legs. And all this in the first five ...

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust (Review)

27/04/2009

“I ’d f--- a cliff,” says Larry Lovage, in four words perfectly summarising everything about this abysmal third-person action adventure mess. Unsubtle, moronic, and making no sense, this second attempt to reprise the Leisure Suit Larry games of the ’80s is disastrous. ...

Lips (Review)

4/12/2008

Out of the box you’d be forgiven for thinking that there isn’t much to separate Lips from Sony’s SingStar series. But buying a karaoke game is a long-term investment, one that only comes to fruition once there’s a wealth of downloadable content available. For this reason it seems unfair to review Microsoft’s casual music game so soon, but there are at least two features that make it stand out. ...

LMA Manager 2007 (Review)

18/09/2006

Right, LMA Manager it is, then. We're in charge of those super-stylish magpies Notts County, we've picked ourselves a suitable beardy managerial avatar to scare/galvanise our players into action, we've just won our opening game at Wycombe 2-1 and we're feeling pretty good about things. All we need now is another goalkeeper and things will be 'supercool'. Okay, so where's the player search option? Is it the symbol of a man running? Oh, that's the training screen. Perhaps it's the little pic of ...

Lord of the Rings Battle For Middle-earth II (Review)

5/07/2006

Elven bows sing and dwarven hammers ring as your fellowship fights desperately against a swarming horde of orcs and goblins. Enormous eagles and shrieking dragons clash overhead while, outside your city's walls, cave trolls are exchanging crushing blows with giant talking trees. Although the outlook is dire, you can't help but smile as you summon your next attack - a happy band of rock-tossing hobbits. They're probably dead men walking, but still: hobbits. The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for ...

Lord of the Rings: Conquest (Review)

14/01/2009

Dear Pandemic,

We liked Mercenaries 2, but after some of our competitors unfairly kicked its face off you’d be forgiven for thinking we reviewers relish the opportunity to stomp a game’s head in. Nothing could be further from the truth. For one thing, bad games make for hard work. First, you have to play long enough to form an educated and authoritative critique. ...

Lost Odyssey (Review)

6/02/2008

The first thing everyone wants to know is: will Lost Odyssey unseat Final Fantasy as the definitive RPG experience?Our answer: No, it won’t. Lost Odyssey is almost everything classic Final Fantasy ever was, but not much else. Having FF creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and composer Nobuo Uematsu on the team gives the game more credit than your average “new” RPG, and the mature plot gets major points for NOT starring some plucky youth ...

Lost Planet Colonies (Review)

3/06/2008

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. ...

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (Review)

9/01/2007

Tuesday 9 January 2007 The skin-cracking January weather may be inhospitable to most humans but it makes for the perfect battleground scenario. Trapped on an isolated planet, it's you against an endless army of giant bugs and ruthless snow pirates. Your only memories are of loss and violence, something about betrayal and a towering knowledge of rocket-launching robotic suits. Basically, you're well-equipped to blast the living hell out of everything you see. And in Lost Planet, that's all you ...