GamesRadar - Xbox 360 Reviews

Tales of Vesperia (Review)

Aug 26, 2008

Tales of Vesperia is everything you’d expect from a Japanese role-playing game: sprawling dungeons, monster encounters and stuff about saving the world. It’s also everything you’d expect from a Tales game: epic story, angsty anime characters and drop-in, drop-out co-op. But this isn’t your granddaddy’s Tales of Symphonia with its namby-pamby plotlines and romantic relationship system; this is the Tales series all grown up and in living color. ...

Team Fortress 2 (Review)

Oct 9, 2007

Oct 9, 2007 Let's not dwell too much on the original mod for Quake and Half-Life - that was ten years ago, not everyone played it, and TF2 is very obviously aimed at new players as much as old. Worth mentioning, quickly, is that it's got the same nine classes but fewer weapons for each, grenades have been removed entirely (thank God) and, well... look at it. Look what they did to it. The changes might sound like simplification, but like the art style it's more about exaggeration. The Spy used ...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Mar 23, 2007

There's a hit country song (written by an '80s hair rocker, much to the chagrin of some fans) that asks the question, "Who says you can't go home?" That's the spirit GamesRadar had when we logged on to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a beloved four-player beat 'em-up that originally cowabunga-ed its way into arcades in 1989. As it turns out, you totally can go home - it's just that the neighborhoods that haven't changed in 20 years might look pretty run down. Oh, online support was good, with ...

Tempest - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Dec 20, 2007

Tempest is the latest in a line of classic Atari coin-ops that suffer from the restrictions of the contemporary console controller. On the original arcade machine, this pseudo-3D shooter was controlled using two fire buttons and a rotating dial - a "spinner" to arcade fans - to move around the rim of the more-or-less tubular play field. It's a setup that a regular d-pad or analog stick just doesn't emulate well, and that basically makes what was already a difficult game a punishing experience ...

Tenchu Z (Review)

Jun 15, 2007

Its been nearly ten years since Tenchu crept up behind our consoles, silently doling out death while Splinter Cells Sam Fischer was still in Osh Kosh Kevlar. But thanks to the Snakes and Fischers of this world artfully sneaking about and delivering the big sleep, Tenchus soft-footed warriors of quiet have looked a little meager by comparison. Tenchu Z hopes to right the slow but steady decline the series has been in since its inception by focusing on what ninjas do best: Ultra-stealthy ...

Test Drive Unlimited (Review)

Sep 11, 2006

Don't let the fast cars and flashy effects fool you - Test Drive Unlimited is more of a leisurely, luxury cruising game than a piston-pounding racing title. Rather than tossing you into a regimented series of racing circuits, TDU sets you free to roam through the island of Oahu unlocking new roads, accepting challenges (such as delivering passengers to destinations around the island) and entering competitions at your whim. Think of the open-ended driving as a sort of tropical Grand Theft Auto, ...

Test Drive Unlimited (Review)

Sep 11, 2006

Monday 11 September 2006 In all the excitement over Test Drive Unlimited, it's been easy to forget that the free-roaming racing game has been attempted before. Indeed, the genre's top-selling franchise Need for Speed has already tried it, with some success, in last year's Most Wanted. But the landscape of EA's games is as unreal as a model set next to Test Drive Unlimited's Hawaiian setting. Based very closely on the island of Oahu, this is a believable real-world space on a scale seldom ...

Tetris Evolution (Review)

Apr 3, 2007

If you've made the mistake of looking for Tetris Evolution on Xbox Live Arcade, we wouldn't blame you. In fact, we would even go so far as to say it isn't a mistake, because that's undoubtedly where it should be. Instead, if you want a piece of this classic (read: stale) Tetris action you'll have to pick up a retail copy at the budget price of $30. Of course, for a $30 retail edition, we expect a little more than just the same old Tetris. To supplement the classic Marathon mode, various other ...

Tetris Splash - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Oct 8, 2007

Somebody at THQ must be pissed. Considering their own, full-featured Tetris Evolution for the Xbox 360 has just been undercut by a $10, downloadable version of Alexey Pajitnov's seminal puzzler by the very company that owns the rights. Drama! But those folks at THQ can sleep soundly knowing that the downloadable version of Tetris on Xbox Live is barely worth half of the asking price. Tetris Splash is the most basic version of the game to be released in years, featuring just two different ...

Texas Hold 'em - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Aug 24, 2006

Poker fans have been waiting for Texas Hold 'em on Xbox Live Arcade for months... and this is what we get? As long as you're chatting and betting with other human beings, Texas Hold 'em works, at least until someone loses. If you play a tournament, there's no "railbird" option - once you're out of chips, you're kicked out of the room, so you can't watch to see who wins. So much for social conversation. Even when playing with other people, the computer takes its time moving the action around the ...

Thrillville: Off the Rails (Review)

Oct 19, 2007

Oct 18, 2007 The sandbox (genre) is no place for kids. Between GTA, Saint's Row, and True Crime, lil' Ginny Gamer has smartly stayed the hell out, lest she shovel up murder weapon Uzis or carry home a pail full of sticky condoms. Enter concerned citizen Lucasarts, who with their new theme park grab-bag Thrillville: Off the Rails, has picked out all the used syringes and, sack o' toys in hand, reclaimed the sandbox for ...

Ticket To Ride - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Aug 20, 2008

Another boardgame brought to Live Arcade, this one is based around forging railroads across the United States. Like Carcassonne, it’s a speedy play, can be learned in fifteen minutes, and hides more depth than it immediately lets on.One of the smartest board ports yet, with a cracking interface to go with it. ...

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 (Review)

Jun 15, 2006

It would appear that Tigers highly publicized swing changes have pervaded EAs golf sim as well. Tiger 06 for 360 is a hurried, stripped-down cut-and-paste between current-gen and next-gen consoles. The courses look cleaner and more detailed than the current gen editions - trees embrace gentle winds, single blades of grass glimmer in the sunlight, characters stand knee high in heavy rough and sparse handfuls of spectators stare off at one another (you can peg them with the ball too). And the ...

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (Review)

Oct 18, 2006

For a series that's been around as long as Tiger Woods PGA Tour has, it's pretty odd how much variation there is between platforms. The Xbox and PS2 get 21 courses and difficulty that can be tweaked to hell and back. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 gets only 12 courses, but changes out the targeting flag you've grown to distrust with a circular swathe of grass. On the one hand, at least we're not seeing the same thing ported all over creation, even if you'd have to buy half a dozen copies of the same ...

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 (Review)

Sep 4, 2007

Tiger Woods has been running roughshod over hapless golfers for more than a decade now. Much like his legendary bank account, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 sports an embarrassment of riches. Packed to the gills with features and modes, EA's annual golf outing is a rousing success - provided you're willing to put in some work. After all, beating The Man doesn't come easy. The focus this year is the virtual you - literally. Producing a digitized version of yourself by scanning your face into the game ...

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 (Review)

Sep 2, 2008

While EA are busy making sports games like Fight Night, NBA Street Homecourt, FIFA and NBA Live among the best looking titles ever crafted by the hands of man, Tiger missed the makeover bus. It’s a sad state that Links 2004 on the original Xbox STILL looks better than the latest Tiger title. Sure, Tiger has the animations and the resolution, but Links is prettier, less synthetic, and somehow richer. ...

Time Pilot - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Aug 30, 2006

With the unstoppable success of Xbox Live Arcade, you'd expect them to start stumbling a little after awhile, but with the release of the unbelievably addictive shooter Time Pilot, it looks like we'll have to wait at least another week for the runaway triumph train to derail. A pure, adrenaline-fueled button-masher, Time Pilot hits the sweet spot of simplicity and challenge that requires repeated attempts to beat your previous personal best. You get a little time travelin' space ship that ...

TimeShift (Review)

Oct 31, 2007

Oct 30, 2007 It's been a tough year to be a first-person shooter. With the bar being set ludicrously high by games like Halo 3, BioShock, The Orange Box, and Call of Duty 4, we are in a golden age of action titles. It's a bit hard, then, to recommend the fourth-dimensional shooter TimeShift amongst such a crowded field. Don't be mistaken - this is a solid offering - but its paint-by-numbers design and undercooked story will have a tough time holding your attention, though its multiplayer mode ...

TiQal - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Mar 28, 2008

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 ...

TMNT (Review)

Mar 30, 2007

When we first heard that the same studio that makes the fluidly acrobatic, lushly visualized Prince of Persia series was going to make a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, we were thrilled. In our minds, no other team on Earth was better suited to blend the four things that define the turtles: a dark personality (in the original comics at least), incredibly acrobatic ability to treat an entire city like a jungle gym, teamwork, and high-flying martial arts shell-kickery complete with different ...