Reviews by bloomer

Rule of Rose review

While coming on strongly like a survival horror title, Rule of Rose nods to some of the genre's mechanical demands in an almost obligatory fashion, being basic at the basics and downright bad at combat. The game's power and meaning are…

bloomer · February 27, 2012

Reader Commodore 64 Review of the Week

Dracula review

Dracula is an exciting, garish and highly confounding 95% text adventure which was released for the Commodore 64 by CRL in 1986. It was the first of a series of similarly themed horror adventures by Rod Pike (and later, other authors)…

bloomer · December 10, 2010

Reader Apple II

The Lurking Horror review

Infocom released more than thirty Interactive Fiction titles in their time, setting the standard for sophisticated text adventure game parsers in the process, but only one of these games declared itself as belonging to the horror genre…

bloomer · September 27, 2010

Reader GameCube

BloodRayne review

... "Half human. Half vampire. All woman." So says the opening spiel on the back of the box of BloodRayne, Majesco's crazy vampiric gorefest from 2002. Rayne is the shapely, leather-wearing redheaded bloodsucker who attaches giant blades…

bloomer · May 15, 2010

Reader GameCube

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem review

Eternal Darkness (ED) arrived for the GameCube with a fearsome aura about it. In common with Resident Evil Zero, this horror opus was originally slated for release on the Nintendo 64, before that console's premature exit prompted ED's…

bloomer · January 13, 2010

Reader Apple II

Kukulcan review

Kukulcan (1984) is an educational graphic adventure game set in 1519. The player takes the role of an Aztec scribe summoned by Montezuma to seek knowledge of the Feathered Serpent, in hopes that this knowledge may stave off the arrival of…

bloomer · June 14, 2009

Reader GameCube

Resident Evil review

Conventional wisdom says that Survival Horror diverged into two broad schools in the decade following its widespread inception via Capcom's Resident Evil (RE). There was the Resident Evil school, which presented the player with a reality…

bloomer · May 2, 2009

Reader Apple II

Aztec review

Aztec, the classic Apple II platform adventure game of tomb plundering excitement and bizarre glitchiness, was released in 1982. 'Nothing like it before. Nothing else like it now!' screamed the hectic looking ads in Creative Computing…

bloomer · April 28, 2009

Reader PlayStation 2

Silent Hill 4: The Room review

The Silent Hill series moved from episode two to episode three on the back of new imaginative content alone. The technicalities of gameplay barely changed. Silent Hill 4: The Room (SH4) comes on not unlike the prison guard who, caught…

bloomer · November 12, 2008

Reader PlayStation 2 Review of the Week

Resident Evil: Outbreak File #2 review

The Resident Evil series' supposedly exclusive move from the Playstation to the GameCube kicked off in 2002 with the arrival of the cripplingly good Resident Evil Remake and Resident Evil Zero. Resident Evil 4 was still three years away…

bloomer · October 8, 2008

Reader PC

Doom 3 review

When a group of artists labour for months or years on some magnificently coded and presented piece of gaming software, I can't help but feel uncomfortable about kicking their hard work – but Doom 3 is unfortunately boring and there's not…

bloomer · September 18, 2008

Reader Wii

Alone in the Dark review

The new Alone in the Dark (AITD) is the most original videogame I have played for years. This makes it exciting to talk about, even if the title is not an unqualified success. It bears very little relation to the survival horror games it…

bloomer · September 5, 2008

Reader PlayStation 2 Review of the Week

Silent Hill 3 review

The astonishing quality of the original Silent Hill was of a nature so weird that it seemed unlikely to be replicable in sequel form. Silent Hill's logic was that of an abstract nightmare, its methods of sensory, emotional and intellectual…

bloomer · September 2, 2008

Reader PlayStation 2

Fatal Frame review

The Project Zero series (Fatal Frame to Americans) takes survival horror into Ju-on / Ringu territory, pitting the player against vengeful Japanese ghosts and dark familial curses from the past. The films which inspired the series depict a…

bloomer · July 30, 2008

Reader Wii Review of the Week

Alien Syndrome review

My Arcade Action Extra magazine from 1988 features an Alien Syndrome spread packed with gameplay tips and outrageously exciting screenshots for what was the then new coin-op from Sega. Two decades later I find myself playing a makeover of…

bloomer · July 23, 2008

Reader Wii

Endless Ocean review

Endless Ocean is indeed potentially endless as an experience, though the oceans contained within the game are only endless if we say that they don't 'end' relative to some starting point. In literal terms, they end everywhere they touch a…

bloomer · July 1, 2008

Reader Wii

MySims review

If you found Animal Crossing to be a hugely addictive work of genius and cuteness – or even if you just thought it was pretty good – and you’d like to have a similar experience on the Wii, MySims will supply that experience. It’s not as…

bloomer · June 27, 2008

Reader PlayStation 2 HG exclusive

Cold Fear review

The phrase 'Resident Evil on a boat' has cropped up more than once over time to describe particular survival horror games. Whether you find the phrase cute, pithy or dispassionately accurate when applied, the trouble is that the handful of…

bloomer · February 26, 2008

Reader PlayStation 2

Aeon Flux review

I have studied the histories, and the moral of the Aeon Flux videogame saga is apparently this: There's nothing like the advent of a spin-off film starring Charlize Theron for getting things done when it comes to turning a super-crazy…

bloomer · December 17, 2007

Reader PlayStation 2

Echo Night: Beyond review

Outside the mainstream there's a tradition of slow, simply made horror-adventure games whose gameplay has barely developed for a decade or more. These are the D's, the Notes, the Hellnights, the Echo Nights, etc. The raw stuff of Echo…

bloomer · December 5, 2007