Visitor Reviews
Reviews submitted by our visitors
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Evan June 20, 2018 PS2
Open Season (PS2)I love this game!
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elsa (snow queen) April 24, 2018 PC
Snow Queen/Cinderellathis is the best f***ing game ever and if you disagree you need to go get checked or get wrecked
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Craig Broddle February 20, 2015 PS4
inFAMOUS: Second Son (PS4)Infamous: Second Son, if you didn't get it already, is the third game in the Infamous series and I think many of us were surprised to see this game come along when the PS4 was launched. Too many people had speculated on whether or not there would be a third in the the series after the (SPOILER ALERT) death of Cole McGravel-Voice. But the developer, SuckerPunch, did something that we don't often get to see; they continued with a new story, new characters and new problems within the same universe. As as result, we were treated to a new, bigger experience than what we'd had before with a familiar feel to the whole thing.
Second Son is easily one of the best games on the PS4 and I won't put it down. It's fun, addictive and engrossing. There's still one or two issues with the franchise but SuckerPunch have shown that they know what they're doing.
The parkour system still requires some more finesse. I know no one has perfected this yet (I'm looking at you Unity!) but the climbing system was pushing forward and pressing the jump button... or... STANDING ON A LEDGE AND JUMPING INTO THAT WALL, GRINDING YOUR FACE UNTIL THE NEXT LEDGE!!
Ok, it's meaningless in the grand scheme of the game, eventually you'd run in a continuous stream of neon light, but this franchise has had three outings and should feel more polished than this.
Many of the controls have been revised to streamline what you press in relation to what happens on screen making for a smoother feel in both running around and combat, bringing hovering to the jump button and firing missiles to the triangle button helps to make moving feel easier. Likewise the new Dash function is a blessed welcome, either dashing through vents, running up buildings or gliding through the air brings a new feeling of grandeur to the game. I would dash from a rooftop and I felt as though I could simply run around Seattle forever.
The story is enjoyable as well, you are Delsin Rowe, a thin and gangly delinquent with a knack for graffiti; I love him. There are too many grizzled, generic protagonists within video games and Delsin makes for a refreshing change of pace. He encounters others along his way throughout the game - a junkie, a criminal and a spotty video game nerd (thanks SuckerPunch). Each character breaks the monotony we've endured before and makes the outing enjoyable.
The ending is a little weak and of course, this is Infamous, so there are 2 endings. The problem with that is that I haven't played the alternative ending and I'm not sure I get my money's worth if I don't. However, in doing so, I don't get to play the game I want to play it, because now I'm attempting to be a different person for the sake of a different cinematic.
If you think that Second Son is the Infamous 2 beater, let me tell you now, it's not. The story and characters from Cole's second outing where incredible and Second Son can't beat that simply due to how well established these characters already were.
Don't let that put you off though, I bought Infamous at full price upon it's release and I played it again recently with the same ending. I'm not put off because the story kept me hooked. It's an amazing game a definitely worth your time.
Maybe worth your time twice. -
bobby December 05, 2014 PS4
Just Dance 2014 (PS4)I love to dance to it all night long!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Kevin Stanley September 26, 2014 PS3
Pac-Man and The Ghostly Adventures 2 (PS3)The original Pac-Man arcade game was released in 1980. It was a cultural phenomenon. Along with Space Invaders, Frogger and Asteroids it is considered one of the most loved video games ever made. In its native Japan and America it was huge. Pac-Man became synonymous with video games.
To the casual observer Pac-Man was and still is a simple maze game with fairly crudely animated characters. The hero of the game Pac-Man has to navigate the maze, chomp through hundreds of dots, eat fruit and occasionally chow down on a power 'pellet' or power 'pill' in order to be invulnerable to the ghosts that chase him around the maze - known as Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde (in the English speaking version at least) and progress to the next level. What the casual Pac-Man player may not know is that there were 255 levels! All fiendishly difficult and increasingly faster and harder. Only six people in the world have achieved a perfect score and few have ever claimed to have completed the game as it was in fact a game that was intended to never end with a 'bug' in it's coding that lead to a 256th level that is impossible to complete. although some video game aficionados claim to have done so.
Pac-Man spawned imitators throughout the video game world for many years and even many officially licensed spin-offs, as well as merchandise and coverage the last 30 years.
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 is the latest in the line of spin-off games. Graphically, of course, it's much more advanced than it's 1980 predecessor. It's delightfully colourful, sharply animated and fun.
The gameplay is fast and furious, as Pac-Man runs and jumps his way through the levels collecting gold coins and chomping on ghosts. It's fun to play. It's simple and it's easy to get into. It requires no knowledge of the Ghostly Adventures 1 or any other previous games. In terms of gameplay it is much closer to the late 80s and early 90s Mario Brothers or Sonic the Hedgehog platform games, than the original 2D maze game, but it does involve maze-like elements and puzzles.
It's clearly aimed at children with it's likeable characters, funny voices and simple narrative. The ability to interact with other characters and to progress through a story will appeal to children. One thing that children might find irritating is that they will often fall from platforms and lose a life. OK, so maybe I fell from a lot of platforms and constantly lost lives. Perhaps children won't suffer from this as they will probably be better at playing games and have better reactions than someone approaching middle age.
Truth be known, I'd prefer to chomp through mazes of dots on a 2D screen with a plastic joystick and just two simple buttons to press, than playing it on a next generation console with a fancy controller. I'd prefer to be feeding a video game machine quarters in the noise of an arcade than sitting at home on the sofa playing with a PS4 or an X-Box One.
But times change. And Pac-Man evolves. And at least these Ghostly Adventures are keeping Pac-Man - a cultural icon - alive and in the mainstream. -
Kevin Stanley September 26, 2014 PS3
Tales of Xillia 2 Day 1 Edition (PS3)As someone uninitiated with the immense number of Japanese RPGs, Tales of Xillia 2 looks and feels like an updated version of Final Fantasy - a game that I played a few times in my youth but never really enjoyed. I'm not a button-mashing game fan if I'm honest. But that's not to say that this sort of game doesn't have it's place in the world of games, far from it, it's clearly the sort of game that has huge appeal for Japanese gamers and indeed gamers all over the world.
The chance to control the story is something that many gamers will find appealing. It's a chose your own adventure story in game form, with options arising regularly that let you control the action and the way in which the story progresses.
It has Anime characters and cutscene battles where you can experience all the simple button hammering fighting fun that you could imagine, encountering a variety of strange creatures and baddies. There are quests and missions, side games and puzzles to play as you progress and it's an immersive experience on a huge map. You can explore the map and find treasures, or people to talk to and find information from, or you can just go gung-ho as fast as you like smashing every foe that stands in your way in the battles.
In the battle section your character can chose from three different types of weapons from pistols, to hammers to swords and knives and switch quickly and easily between them making fighting more exciting and realistic allowing you to inflict the most damage with the most suitable weapon.
Tales of Xillia 2 is colourful with artistic and sumptuous graphics. It has a compelling and immersive story and interesting and enjoyable cut scenes that move the action along. It starts off fairly slowly and some players will certainly find that some of the battles are repetitive but as the game progresses so does the action, excitement and fun. The twists in the story and the mystery, as well as some nicely worked suspense are also impressive. -
Ravi Nijjar January 27, 2014 PS3
Battlefield 4 (PS3)- Limited EditionHow many games with a '4' in the title are actually going to be worth your time? Well, despite so many first-person-shooter franchises now churning out endless annual instalments that all feel pretty much the same as one another, Battlefield 4 proves the exception to the rule by actually being fairly original - and rather good.
This is largely because developers Electronic Arts have been reluctant to rest on their laurels, instead changing the formula of previous Battlefield games quite a bit for this fourth instalment. Notably, the game looks quite different, as EA has used its new "Frostbite 3" game engine that allows the programmers to create more realistic environments with higher-definition textures and particle effects.
In short, everything looks a bit more detailed than before, allowing for the creation of a variety of levels that feel very distinct and different, and more real-feeling than ever. And the "destructibility" factor - meaning the amount of environmental elements that you can interact with (and destroy) - seems to have been vastly ramped up here, allowing you to really go to work on the scenery for maximum mayhem (if that's your thing).
Gameplay is admittedly pretty much what you'd expect (there's only so much you can do within the confines of the FPS genre, after all), with a reasonably good single-player campaign, and an extensive roster of multiplayer modes. I'm someone who actually prefers the single-player experience, so I was glad to see that EA are still catering to solo players with a decent plot involving a US-China conflict (that obviously has to be resolved through a lot of running around and shooting, in various situations and locations).
There's quite a lot of freedom to choose strategy and tactics to achieve your goal (unlike some on-rails shooters I could name), and a new device that EA calls "levolution" that essentially involves you making big changes to your environment in-game (like blowing up buildings or other architecture), in a way that changes the look and feel of a level or allows you to defeat an enemy more easily. And on the multiplayer side, there's plenty to enjoy too, with new vehicles, weapons and customisation options making this well worth an upgrade, even for owners of the previous games in the series.
Yes, there are a few glitches that make the game feel a bit unfinished - as though it could have done with a bit more playtesting before release - but otherwise it's a pretty polished product (and EA have released lots of patches and updates to fix those bugs now anyway). Despite some heavy competition in its chosen genre, Battlefield 4 seems to be the best current shooter out at the moment, and I look forward to the inevitable fifth iteration.
(Disclaimer: I played the PS3 version, so my review is based on that, but I understand that the game is mostly the same on all platforms).
Ravi Nijjar -
Greg Butler January 23, 2014 PS3
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit (PS3)Rather than review a recent game this month, I thought I would turn the spotlight on a slightly older favourite, and a game that I think has been a little overlooked in favour of its flashier counterparts. That game is "Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit": a racing game from 2010 that might not have won the kind of plaudits that have been awarded to franchises like Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport, but which is - in my humble opinion - a lot more fun than both.
The game's greatest strength is its apparent simplicity. This is not a game that's built around in-depth career modes, in which countless variables can be tweaked and endless modifications applied to your vehicle. No, as ridiculous as it may sound in today's world of ultra-detailed racers, this is a game that you can pick up and start playing in less than five minutes - and which is so easy to get to grips with that you'll be winning illegal road-races, stopping criminals, and unlocking countless bonuses within your first hour.
I mentioned winning illegal road-races AND stopping criminals for a reason: because one of the most fun elements of "Hot Pursuit" is that you can alternate between playing as one of the road-racers and playing as a cop who's trying to shut them down. This gives you access to two completely different play modes - one in which you have to win races and avoid the police, and the other in which you have to try and ram illegal racers off the road or otherwise detain them - as well as two different rosters of vehicles (even if a lot of the differences between the racers' and the cops' cars only seem superficial).
Along with the wide variety of tracks (although you only start with a couple of options, you quickly unlock many different routes) and all manner of power-ups and bonuses (particularly the nitro boosts, but also police-radio jammers for the criminals, and spike traps and roadblocks for the cops), it makes for a game that has a surprising amount of depth to go along with its surface simplicity.
On top of the basic mechanics of the game being very satisfying and solid, there are lots of presentational touches that help to make the game look and feel great. The beautiful scenery is surprisingly detailed (even if you only catch glimpses of it as you whizz by) and there are some cool weather and lighting effects that make tracks feel very different depending on what conditions you're racing in. Also, the crashes look amazingly detailed and realistic - an important part of any racing game, especially ones with tracks as challenging as this one - and the soundtrack choices are perfect, with lots of high-energy punk-y rock tracks to keep your adrenaline up.
Finally, this is a very well-designed and user-friendly game in which all of the interfaces (menus, options etc.) are very straightforward and easy to use. It all contributes to the impression that this is a title that has been streamlined to make it as simple as possible, while still serving up maximum enjoyment - which, in my mind, is exactly what a good racer should be.
For anyone who remembers the glory days of games like Sega Rally or Ridge Racer, "Hot Pursuit" feels like a real blast from the past in terms of its arcade style and easy-to-pick-up-and-play nature - but with all sorts of subtle extra trappings that help to enhance, rather than detract from, the core gameplay. Given that this game is a few years old now, you can probably pick it up fairly cheap, so if you see it at a decent price then I'd definitely urge you to pick it up. You'll be pleasantly surprised. -
Craig Broddle January 09, 2014 PS3
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (PS3)The thing that's started bugging me recently is the level of imagination that goes into the Lego video game franchises. In my first ever review of a game, Lego Harry Potter, I found that the use of spells, pets, goblins and Hagrid's meaty mitts kept everything very fresh. Since then we've seen the release of several Lego games and voice acting has finally reared its ugly head.
Straight off the bat I find that I'm given Marvel's go-to money maker; Iron Man. It's fun to play the Armoured Avenger and he's paired up with none other than the Hulk. The level indicates the level of depth that these games are known for, subtlety introducing new game mechanics like Hulk's ability to pick up and throw pieces of ground. But once again we're treated to a lot of the same and it's not much of anything we haven't seen before, namely in Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes. That aside, the level works quite nicely, but disappoints by likening the Hulk to a Rock 'em Sock 'em Robot. Spider-Man is introduced half way through and by then our terrific trio are in deep against the level's boss. Whilst the story is fun to play through, despite feeling very flimsy, there's nothing that feels truly coherent. For a while it feels like there are lots of different thing happening but they don't feel very well connected. Going up against Sandman sat the end of the opening level is all well and good but moving straight to a different level doesn't feel fluent.
Boss fights are once again a standard experience; mainly quick puzzle leading to the bad guys weak spot. Once again there's the feeling of nothing terribly new here and after a while the boss fights become the part that I least look forward to. Not that it's not an engaging game though, the level's are rich with colour and variation, environments ranging wildly. It's taken a lot of imagination to Lego levels with such depth, a sad truth as it feels like it lets down the free-roam aspect of the game.
Combat still feels very familiar as well, I'm not saying it needed fixing, but one can't help but wonder that an opportunity may have been missed to truly play with these fantastic characters. Speaking of fantastic, Reed Richards himself (if you don't know who this is, the game isn't for you by the way) makes a wonderful example of my point; pressing either the circle button or B button turns him into a tea pot when not prompted by a grate for him to squeeze between. Go to certain platforms and he'll turn into great and imaginative construct like a crane to help lift the team from peril. But though this shows him as a great example of what can be done, I found it also shone a bad light on the development of the other characters. The Thing is an orange version of the Hulk, Captain America's shield holds little purpose aside from deflecting energy beams and for all intents and purposes Iron Man is on par with so many characters that it's heart breaking rather than fun.
At the end of the day, the voice acting makes the game feel cheesy, the combat's another case of "been there, punched that", the story is interesting but scrambles to the end too quickly with a disappointing boss and I just feel like this is nothing truly new or interesting.
I'm a huge Marvel fan and most Marvel fans will get their money's worth. It's certainly not Marvel's down falling here but the Lego games just feel like their not evolving into anything new. Maybe a sequel will hit after Avengers 2 is released and it might even stir the gameplay up, but I felt let down after playing this Abomination... pun intended. -
Dave Wallace December 16, 2013 PS4
Sony PlayStation 4 500GB Console (Black)The great thing about being an adult is that you don't have to wait until Christmas.
Sony's PS4 is the third Playstation console that I've owned (I never had a PS One, but have been a happy owner of both a PS2 and PS3 over the past ten years). And upon buying it - as a Christmas present to myself - I found that I just couldn't wait until the big day to get it out of its box and start playing.
Having had a couple of weeks to play around with it (I bought it on release day), I think I've got the measure of how the console feels and what it can offer at this point. And while I do think it's an excellent bit of kit - as evidenced by my four-star rating - I also feel that there's still a certain amount of room for improvement.
Let's start with the positives: games on the PS4 look amazing. 'Killzone: Shadow Fall' (which came in the bundle I ordered) was the first thing I tried, and while it still has a similar look and feel to the Killzone games on PS3, there are all sorts of little graphical touches - like lighting effects, or softer and more realistic facial features - that help make it seem just that little bit more real. This, combined with the sheer amount of extra detail that the PS4 can provide (there are some especially astounding city-scapes that look almost photo-real), immediately mark out the console as a cut above its predecessor.
But really, better visuals are the least you'd expect from a new-generation console - and certainly from something that costs the best part of £400. So is that all the PS4 has to offer? Thankfully not. The Dualshock controller has also been completely redesigned for the PS4, with smoother, more rounded grips and a rubberised finish to some of the buttons and toggles that helps to prevent slipping (if you're one of those people who gets sweaty hands when playing something particularly nerve-wracking, this is a real bonus). Some users have apparently reported the rubber cracking or splitting on the control sticks, but thankfully this hasn't happened to me yet.
The 'start' and 'select' buttons on the controller have also been moved and combined into a single 'options' button, which seems sensible given that the 'select' button always felt slightly redundant to me. There are also some colour-coded light displays on the front of the controller which help you to identify between players. But the biggest innovation is the flat black rectangle at the top of the controller, which acts as a miniature finger-touchpad that enables you to pull off more delicate in-game controls.
Another big change for the PS4 are the added social-media functions that allow you more options to share gameplay videos or stream live video of your playing. I'm not a big online player or social-media user myself, but I can see how these would be attractive for younger players or those who are more into multiplayer gaming.
Finally, the console itself looks great: an understated angular black slab that's surprisingly small and compact, and will nestle under your TV quietly and unobtrusively.
So why the reserved tone and the slight sense of disappointment in this review? Well, there are a couple of things that I think could have elevated the PS4 from merely a very good console to a great one.
Firstly, there's the lack of backwards-compatibility with any previous Playstation games. I think this is a big mistake. The PS2 was able to play PS One games at launch, and the early models of the PS3 were able to play not only PS2 games but also PS One games too. By not including this kind of feature for the PS4, Sony are potentially alienating a lot of players - like me - who have a long history with their consoles and who might not want to have to keep their old console around to be able to play their old library of games. With new PS4 games still costing £40-50 at the moment, I still want some way to play my old PS3 games (which I'll likely keep on buying for a while), and having to keep two consoles to do that feels awkward.
Secondly, there's the slight sense that the PS4 doesn't represent quite as great a leap up from the PS3 as that console did from the PS2. The PS3 had all sorts of added benefits over the PS2 (a Blu-Ray player, advanced multi-media functionality, wireless controllers, and lots more), but the PS4 feels like more of a steady step along the path of technology than a similar quantum leap forward.
What's more, quite a few features that I enjoy on the PS3 have been removed from the PS4 (like the ability to play CDs and MP3s, and streaming media from other devices like your laptop). Sony have apparently promised that some of these will be restored in updates, but it seems like a massive oversight to not include them from the start.
So in conclusion, my feelings on the PS4 are mixed. While it looks slick, feels great to play, and boasts some amazing graphics (along with Killzone I also got the new Battlefield and Assassin's Creed 4, both of which look demonstrably better than their PS3 counterparts), I feel that there are a lot of areas where it isn't as good as it could have been. But if Sony can address these, and work on making the PS4 as multi-functional as the PS3 was (and is), then I think this could still be a great follow-up, and a worthy contender in the next-generation console war.