Gaming
Helen K Parker
As the sun sets on the age of the Xbox 360, its swansong is an entertaining game that shows promising potential, but doesn’t really knock your socks off. A prequel to the previous Gears of War games, Judgement opens in the days immediately following the "Emergence Day" on the planet Sera, when the original inhabitants of the planet decided to crawl out of the woodwork and wreak havoc on mankind.Being dragged in front of a court marshal and charged with treason against the COG is one Lieutenant Damon Baird (pictured below right) and his Kilo squad. It’s clear they’ve done something seriously Read more ...
Helen K Parker
You have just walked into a large white room. The only thing in the room is a sign on the ceiling. You look up. The sign says, "Don’t look down." You immediately look down. Before you have time to run, the floor has melted away beneath your feet and you are tumbling into an abyss as punishment for obeying your reflexes.A motivational chalkboard sign, one of many you will encounter, awaits you at the bottom. It says, "Too much curiosity can get the best of us." And as you stare at its coyly mocking diagram of a cat about to paw a broken electrical wire, you begin to suspect that if you ever Read more ...
Simon Munk
Like a faded star, wearing the moth eaten dresses of her past, still stalking a shuttered Hollywood set, Lara Croft has seen better days. Ah, the old days – she made or broke consoles, appeared on fashion magazine covers, had Angelina Jolie play her in the movies.Lara Croft was the originator and undisputed queen of action-adventure. That was the old days. Her star has long faded, her crown snatched by the cheeky new tomb raider on the old block – Nathan Drake of the Uncharted series. But wait, what's this? A new, younger Lara? Could it possibly work? Thankfully, this audacious reboot doesn't Read more ...
Simon Munk
Crysis 3 arrives as the current generation of console hardware is being shuffled over to make way for the next – normally a very fertile time for games. Usually, the best games come out late in a home console's lifespan – when developers have learnt how to make the most of the hardware and tools they have, when creators can concentrate on just making good games and good art.Apparently not this time. This year will see the launch of the next wave of home consoles, but the current PS3 and Xbox 360 generation seem content to go out with a whimper rather than a bang. Independently-developed Read more ...
Helen K Parker
There has been some serious philosophising going on in the Konami offices, about whether it is morally acceptable to graphically slice up human beings into bite-sized chunks with katana swords in slow motion. Their answer to this question was impressive: you can if you turn them all into half-human cyborgs. Blood, guts and electrical wiring makes all the difference. It’s a pity then that they didn’t spend a bit more time putting some meat on this new addition to the Metal Gear canon’s bones.Without going too much into the plot (incidentally neither does the game), this story is all about Read more ...
Simon Munk
The gnashing teeth emerging from a slathering black mouth ‑ HR Giger and Ridley Scott's Alien design remains one of the most horrific creations of cinema: an iconic image of vagina dentata body horror and a genetically modified unstoppable bogeyman for a modern age. The film was no one-off, however.James Cameron's Aliens sequel successfully replaced the horror tropes with incredibly tense and visceral action, while more recently Prometheus added epic scale. Even in games, Aliens Vs. Predator (in 2000) delivered a brilliant sense of enclosed fear. Given the series' heritage and mixture of Read more ...
Helen K Parker
Poor, poor Isaac Clarke. Life has been tough for the unluckiest space engineer in the history of space engineering; not only has his girlfriend dumped him and got herself lost trying to track down the origin of the markers, but the insane cult of Unitology is attempting to blow him to smithereens. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the last of the Earthgov forces has dragged him at gunpoint to follow in his ex’s footsteps to a mysterious snowball planet called Tau Voltanis.It’s just another day at the office for our greying protagonist in this brilliant, but nevertheless flawed third instalment of Read more ...
Simon Munk
They were there at the beginning of video games, now it seems adventure games are back. After all, with so many mainstream releases reducible to running down a corridor shooting, it's hardly surprising there's an audience for a more interactive alternative.The Cave is a side-scrolling adventure game from two maestros of the point-and-click Lucas classics of the Nineties. Ron "Monkey Island" Gilbert and Tim "Grim Fandango" Schafer. Their names together on a bill mean so much to fans of the genre that their next title, codenamed Double Fine Adventure, has been Kickstarted to the record-breaking Read more ...
Helen K Parker
The news that Studio Ghibli were making a computer game was met with resounding excitement when it was announced way back in 2010. Right from the off the possibility of being able to adventure through the dark and mystical worlds of Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke was tempered with the fear that we might end up skipping through the candyfloss Disney/Ghibli worlds of Ponyo or Arrietty instead. Unfortunately with Ni No Kuni, it’s clear to see which school of Ghibli has won out.Oliver lives in the idyllically bland town of Motorville, a 1950s Americana vision of new cars, ice cream parlours Read more ...
Simon Munk
Once upon a time (in the Nineties), Japanese game developers ruled the world. Now, with the notable exception of Nintendo, gamers seem to look more to the west for the most exciting and innovative interactive entertainment.Happily, the setting sun hasn't stopped Platinum Games, a collective of Japanese superstar developers, mounting a last-ditch effort to create new twists on traditional game styles. Platinum people have been responsible for Viewtiful Joe (side-scrolling platforming), Vanquish (shoot-'em-up speed meets over-the-shoulder Gears of War-style combat) and Bayonetta (Devil May Cry Read more ...
Helen K Parker
It’s been a rough couple of years for Capcom and their fandom. After the slating they received for rebooting their Resident Evil franchise, the storm has continued with their attempts to do the same with their much-loved Devil May Cry series. The fanboys were up in arms as usual, mostly concerning main character Dante’s hair, but Capcom were always prepared for a backlash, and Kudos to them for sticking to their guns, because they’ve rebooted DMC with a vengeance.Taking the story right back to its origins, the mantle has now been handed down to British developers Ninja Theory (of Enslaved: Read more ...
Helen K Parker
There’s nothing more off-putting in a game than a screen filled with awful and waffling text that just keeps on awfully waffling. It’s one of the reasons Final Fantasy and I don’t get along. It’s refreshing then to discover a game that is predominantly text-based, but which is absolutely gripping.Described by its creators as a piece of magical realism, the game is intentionally character-based, focusing on atmosphere and storytelling over puzzles and tests of skill. In fact Kentucky Route Zero is more of a visual novel than a typical adventure game, but it is these visuals which push the game Read more ...