Review Archives (All Reviews)

You are currently looking through all reviews for games that are available on every platform the site currently covers. Below, you will find reviews written by Lewis and sorted according to date of submission, with the newest content displaying first. As many as 20 results will display per page. If you would like to try a search with different parameters, specify them below and submit a new search.

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	Hotel Giant 2 review (PC) Reviewed on February 06, 2009 If you can deal with the fact that every single one of your guests is going to be an utter ball-ache to deal with, Hotel Giant 2 becomes predictably addictive, and it's easy to lose hours on end fine-tuning all sorts of little details in order to watch your profit margin increase painfully slowly. But then, this is more praise of the genre as a whole than of this example of it. The length of time it takes to complete each of the campaign sections also totally destroys the sense of reward upon finishing one. You can skip weeks on end if you like, but it can still take hours upon hours of real time to make much progress - particularly early on, when the woefully inept tutorial fails to teach you even the basics of how the game actually works.	3/5
	Gears of War 2 review (X360) Reviewed on January 30, 2009 The gunplay is brutal. But it's also masterfully paced, broken up every so often by a spectacular set-piece or a superb on-rails vehicular section. Combat is as effortlessly brilliant as before, with the landmark cover-system playing a predictably huge role. Particularly on higher difficulty levels, failure to fully utilise the conveniently-positioned walls and boxes that litter Gears 2's battlegrounds results in bloody death, so a more strategic approach is often necessary. Nothing too strategic, mind. You wouldn't want to tax your brain too much, after all.	4/5
	Resident Evil review (GCN) Reviewed on January 21, 2009 In 1999, System Shock 2 showed the world that it's possible to craft an unspeakably brilliant and always-chilling tale, complete with horrifying characters and a relentlessly anxious and unfriendly atmosphere. It also proved that survival horror in its truest sense - a focus on the conservation of resources in a harrowing, otherworldly situation - doesn't have to be restricted by godawful movement and an errant camera, and certainly that tension doesn't have to be ramped up by not being able to see where you're going. Why, when we have a wonderful benchmark like that, are we still lapping up rubbish like this?	2/5
	S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl review (PC) Reviewed on December 31, 2008 Stalker is so far removed from the relentless fright-a-minute conventions of the genre that it somehow works on a much higher level than any of its competitors. A staggering majority of Stalker takes place in wide, open and relatively calm outdoor expanses. But the atmosphere never lets up; it only shifts from mood to mood. It's unsettling for different reasons, and on the occasions where it throws the real chills at you, the effect is mind-blowing.	4/5
	The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion review (PC) Reviewed on December 19, 2008 This is the thing with Oblivion. Just as you manage to suspend disbelief and let the high-fantasy tide wash over you, something completely moronic happens and you're thrown rather aggressively back to the dismal reality of sitting in front of a screen, playing an embarrassingly geeky computer game. I'm never usually one to moan about glitches all that much, but when they regularly remove you from the whole experience, it's difficult not to let it hamper your fun.	3.5/5
	March! Offworld Recon review (PC) Reviewed on December 16, 2008 If March-exclamation-mark-Offworld Recon had simply flashed up a load of static images of killer robots and huge chain-guns, layered on top of its preposterous midi-techno soundtrack, I'd have had a hell of a lot more fun. This is a first-person shooter with about as much personality and intrigue as a beige wall. There's far less context to it all than the original Doom. It manages to spectacularly predate a fifteen-year-old game in every conceivable way apart from when it was released.	0.5/5
	A Vampyre Story review (PC) Reviewed on December 10, 2008 A Vampyre Story has the overflowing charm of the Lucas Arts classics, it's voiced properly and it's completely stable. It's fabulously drawn and suitably silly, with puzzles that follow at least the classic adventure school of logic. It has some of the best cinematic sequences I've seen in a long time. It has characters I actually wanted to speak to, instead of just stabbing them repeatedly in the face with a spork. But sometimes, just sometimes... it's a bit boring.	3.5/5
	Pathologic review (PC) Reviewed on November 29, 2008 Pathologic is gloriously ambitious and intentionally abhorrent, but in pushing the boundaries of game design, it manages to cross them to often disastrous effect. It realises the best and worst of the medium's potential and, while I'm mightily impressed by its flair, I'd find it difficult to actually recommend to anyone. If you're prepared to overlook its problems - and there are a lot of them - you could well find yourself completely swept away.	3/5
	FIFA Soccer 09 review (PC) Reviewed on November 23, 2008 Annually updated for pretty much as long as I can remember, it's always sat a little behind the Pro Evolution series in capturing what makes this most godlike of sports so magical. This year's – or, if you go by the date, next year's - update inches ever closer to realising its dream, but once again falls just short of the mark in a few areas.	3.5/5
	Left 4 Dead review (PC) Reviewed on November 19, 2008 I can't quite believe that I find myself, just a few weeks on from Fallout 3, playing yet another game of such ferociously high quality. Left 4 Dead is astoundingly good fun, polished in all the right places, tense, atmospheric and relentlessly gruesome. As a single-player affair, it would have satisfied my old-school bloodlust just fine. In co-operative mode, the game's main selling point, it's to die for.	4.5/5
	Half-Life 2 review (PC) Reviewed on November 13, 2008 Imagine the future. Not shiny metal and fluorescent lighting; not lightsabers and foreign planets. This is a disturbingly grounded future: today's world and today's ideals, painted black by the harsh brush of technological surrealism. A future where, day by day, life becomes a little more synonymous with survival.	5/5
	Sacred 2: Fallen Angel review (PC) Reviewed on November 06, 2008 This prequel to 2004 Diablo-clone Sacred seems to be suffering from an identity crisis. In attempting to combine in-depth role-playing with hack-and-slash action and odd, self-depreciating humour, Sacred 2 manages to miss the mark in all the key areas, emerging as a horrendously dull and needlessly fiddly release.	2.5/5
	Fallout 3 review (PC) Reviewed on November 02, 2008 Fallout 3 threw me completely off-balance. It took a while of playing to realise (not to mention a few "this is brilliant, right?" conversations), but the fact is inescapable: Bethesda's interpretation of this devastating nuclear wasteland is truly, monumentally astounding.	5/5
	World of Goo review (PC) Reviewed on October 24, 2008 If World of Goo were developed and published by Nintendo -- which it absolutely could be, given the phenomenal fusion of style and substance on display here -- not one person would have a problem with its being released as a full-price title. At this super-budget rate, it's simply incredible.	4.5/5
	The Witcher review (PC) Reviewed on October 16, 2008 There's a lovely quality to The Witcher's atmosphere, stemming from a combination of lush art design and the gripping plot on offer. It suffers from occasional pacing issues -- chapter one in particular requires a horrific amount of to-ing and fro-ing before it gets to the point -- but it's delivered in a generally satisfying, urgent and compelling way, driving the player to press on with the journey through Temeria. It certainly feels a lot more focused than some of its next-gen peers, which will relieve those who found themselves wandering around Oblivion's vastness with little clue of what was unfolding around them.	4/5
	Thief: Deadly Shadows review (PC) Reviewed on October 05, 2008 Does a game lose worth for providing too much of a challenge? Forcing the player into a routine of patience in order to beat its difficulty is the very crux of the Thief franchise, so it seems a little unfair to berate an admittedly well-crafted videogame for this reason.	3.5/5
	Mass Effect review (PC) Reviewed on September 29, 2008 I don't think I've played a game with this much all-round polish since Half-Life 2. Mass Effect simply sparkles, overflowing with cinematic sci-fi design, brimming with utter, undebatable confidence in its approach. It's about as close to an interactive movie as the medium has come, but it's absolutely a videogame, and makes no bones about it. It’s full of cut-scenes, boss battles and, at heart, complete linearity, but it's so much more than that. Mass Effect, despite on the surface being an impressive rehash of Star Wars, is one of the most atmospheric and involving games I've ever played...	4.5/5
	Two Worlds: Epic Edition review (PC) Reviewed on September 22, 2008 If Two Worlds is modelled as closely on Oblivion as it looks to be, then Reality Pump have missed the point entirely. The open world remains in full force and the art design is plagiaristically similar, but Two Worlds' judgement of what makes a high-quality digital RPG is way off. Bethesda mustn't know whether to laugh or cry.	2.5/5
	S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky review (PC) Reviewed on September 20, 2008 There was a point about halfway through the new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. when I realised I was playing a radically different game to the one I started a couple of days previously. The change is a gradual one, but by the time the phenomenal ambition of the early levels has become a mere memory, it's certainly noticeable. There's a conflict of interest at the heart of Clear Sky between radically open warfare and traditional first-person shooting. Neither of these facets achieves its aims perfectly, but there remains a lot to love about GSC Game World's latest creation...	3.5/5
	Birth of America II: Wars in America 1750-1815 review (PC) Reviewed on September 01, 2008 BoA2 is incredibly detailed. I'll admit I've not checked the historical accuracy of all the in the game's events - that would take days if not weeks - but from my knowledge at least it's pretty thorough. The native tribes are all accurate, the armies and regiments are accurate, the map's accurate... Someone, presumably in a dark room at the home of French developer AGEON, has clearly become something of a recluse, buried deep under piles of tome-sized history books.	3.5/5

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