Author: james
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Tales of Vesperia Review
The back of the box reads like a laundry list of PR cliches: evolved battle system. Immersive look and feel (whatever that means). Dramatic story. The fact is, Tales of Vesperia for the 360 needs none of these to add anything. The gameplay will speak for itself. RPG fans will go looking for it because…
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Bejeweled 3 Review
There’s something enormously satisfying about lining up and knocking things down in the name of entertainment: dominoes, tenpins, pedestrians… Well, maybe not the pedestrians [i beg to differ – Ed.], but you get the idea. Nearly a decade ago, PopCap must have realised they were onto a winner with Bejeweled. It wasn’t the first Match…
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Bionic Commando Review
Bionic Commando is the long awaited follow up to NES title of the same name. Once again players jump into the bionic boots of Nathan “Rad” Spencer to swing around via his bionic arm, play with guns and throw cars at a giant mechanical worm… The story wrapping up the action goes that following the…
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CellFactor: Psychokinetic Wars (XBLA) Review
Cellfactor: Psychokinetic Wars is the sequel to freeware PC title Cellfactor: Revolution. If you have played any other death match-oriented titles, such as Quake Live or Unreal Tournament 3, you’re in familiar territory; there’s no story to speak of and it plays out like a sports title. The only goal is to score the most…
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Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus Review
The Wolfenstein franchise has a long and bloody history or killing Nazis. The later games have also been rife with social commentary, moral dilemmas, and much more heartstring tugging than a game about killing Nazis should have. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is no exception. The game follows five months after the New Order, after…
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Left 4 Dead 2 (PC) Review
It seems that as every year goes by, the console market encroaches even further into the sacred realm of the Personal Computer. However, there is one area where the console infection will never reign as king, and that’s first person shooters. Especially if they involve killing lots, and lots of Zombies. Unsurprisingly, both versions have…
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Review
The Call of Duty franchise has continued to be enormously popular, and for good reason – it has always delivered a good solo experience (albeit a short one), and a very well crafted and thought out multiplayer option. It is a tried and true formula that has been refined over its numerous releases. Call of…
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UFC 2009 Undisputed Review
Ninjas. Pirates. Lumberjacks. Up until a couple of days ago I was pretty sure that these were the three most manliness professionals around (in ascending order of manliness). Up until I played Ultimate Fighting Champion 2009 and realised that lumberjack pirates with swords just look like sissy little school-girls. The ever-increasing popularity of this new…
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New Super Mario Bros. Wii Review
Right here is the platformer as it’s meant to be played, by the first rulers of the side scroller, and starring their very own golden boy. New Super Mario Bros for the Wii is a game that takes all the elements of the true classics, adds a few mandatory bells and whistles (it’s 2009, y’all),…
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Halo 3 Review
Halo is popular: ridiculously popular. With the exception of iconoclastic naysayers who accuse anyone who likes fun of being a Ritalin-popping simpleton, people like Halo. And with the series racking up sales of 14.8 million units and with Halo 2 shattering the entertainment industry record at the time for sales in 24 hours, Halo 3…
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Virtua Tennis 2009 Review
If you’re going to make a Tennis game for consoles, now is as good a time as ever to release it, squeezed in between the two mid-year grand slams. Sega have certainly realised this by producing another iteration of their ever popular tennis franchise, Virtua Tennis 2009. One of the great things about the franchise…
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Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 Review
Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 is an open-world, first-person tactical shooter. It’s the third entry in the Sniper: Ghost Warrior series (the “3” is the clue) and the first I’ve played. It’s the first I’ve played because I don’t snipe. Slow-motion bullet cams and exploding heads are not really my cup of tea, which you will…
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Nuclear Dawn Review
Nuclear dawn does something other games have tried before; blend a first-person-shooter (FPS) with a real-time Strategy (RTS) game. Unfortunately, like many of them, it has failed to form a successful merger of the genres. Nuclear Dawn is an online multiplayer game, available on Steam, where most players are soldiers on the ground fighting it…
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Review
Riding a tidal wave of controversy, Modern Warfare 2 has been tipped to be the fastest selling video game in history. It has already claimed higher pre-order sales than Grand Theft Auto 4 and it is predicted to sell over ten million copies before this Christmas worldwide. Small wonder considering its predecessor, Call of Duty…
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Call of Duty: WW2 Review
Advanced Warfare dropped in 2014, it took Call of Duty in a new direction. Snappy lateral dashes, and an emphasis on verticality remapped the series’ DNA for years to come. But – as with anything – fatigue set in. Players longed for simpler gameplay, and a return to more traditional movement. The popularity of last…
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Assassin’s Creed III Review
Arguably only the imminent release of Halo 4 has had more attention and anticipation than AC3 has. So there was pretty much a Hunger Games-esque death match at the Gameskeys.net highrise offices to win the right to review this game. It wasn’t pretty, but I won. I’m not proud of what I had to do…
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EA SPORTS Active Review
So I’ve decided to join a new gym…my living room! And while this may come off as being a bit slack, let me assure you that after playing EA SPORTS Wii Active this week – my muscles painfully disagree. As a former regular gym attendee, I was thoroughly impressed by the quality and intensity of…
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Garou, Mark of the Wolves (XBLA) Review
Garou, Mark of the Wolves, for the uninitiated, is the ninth game in the Fatal Fury fighting game series. Originally for the Neo*Geo arcade / home console system, Garou was ported to Sega’s Dreamcast system in 2001 where it was critically acclaimed – some lauding it as the finest fighting game on the platform, which…
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Toy Story 3 Review
Toy Story 3 (the movie) looks promising, as all Pixar movies tend to. But Toy Story 3 (the game) was cursed from its outset with being two things: a game for kids, and an adaptation. And we all know how both of those things turn out, don’t we? But wait! For while this is indeed…
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Death Tank Review
Back in the day I used to love a little game called Scorched Earth. Now a lot of people won’t know this title, so I’ll explain it as being a lot like worms (but older). Only you have one Worm each. Playing this game with your mates was fairly simple, but enormously entertaining. When I…