Review Archives (Staff Reviews)
You are currently looking through staff reviews for games that are available on every platform the site currently covers. Below, you will find reviews written by all eligible authors 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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Shining Wisdom review (SAT)Reviewed on July 19, 2010“Continuity?”, asked a puzzled Working Designs translator. “Not on my watch!” |
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Aphelion Episode One: Graves of Earth review (X360)Reviewed on July 19, 2010The episodic nature of the title goes some way to explaining the inconclusive ending to the game, but my exhaustive relationship with Sam & Max means I know it’s not really excuse. I suppose it claws creditability back by being a fantastic game suffering a “not quite there yet” by-line. |
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Naval Assault: The Killing Tide review (X360)Reviewed on July 17, 2010While cruising 40 or 50 feet below the surface, the game’s idea of acceleration mirrors that of a snail. It doesn’t matter if the submarine is traveling at top speed because the player will always feel like he’s riding a Rascal Scooter. |
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Tournament of Legends review (WII)Reviewed on July 15, 2010I don’t know what you imagine when you picture a snake woman fighting a robot, but I bet it isn’t the two of them standing next to each other, occasionally slapping one another with their arms. Yet that's about as legendary as things get at this tournament. |
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Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 review (PS3)Reviewed on July 12, 2010While any one of these new features could be the reason players come to Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, most will stay because of the impressive balance between fun and realism. |
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The Silver Lining: Episode 1 - What is Decreed Must Be review (PC)Reviewed on July 11, 2010The Silver Lining: What Is Decreed Must Be is aimed squarely at hardcore King's Quest lovers who want to see the series given a proper send-off. As a loving fan service, there's quite a bit to like, but as a game, it stumbles rather badly. |
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Armada 2526 review (PC)Reviewed on July 11, 2010Armada 2526 is a hard game. It doesn’t have a plot, but it does have a big, wide open galaxy to explore and twelve distinct races to base your own story on. |
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Doom review (SNES)Reviewed on July 08, 2010After mere moments of playing through the first level of the first (of three) episodes, I was wondering if my killing machine of a space marine had been replaced by Stephen Hawking. You will move really slowly and choppily through levels AND the controls aren't responsive. There's a brief delay between you using the control pad and your character actually moving, which isn't a very desirable thing in an action game. |
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Diddy Kong Racing review (N64)Reviewed on July 08, 2010Diddy Kong Racing smartly mimics SMK’s well-founded principles while expanding in different directions. To call it just a go-cart racer gives too little credit. As if it were no big thing, DKR boldly introduces the physics of plane and hovercraft travel to the genre while replicating the slide-turn techniques that separated the wheat from the chaff in SNES carting, casually switching between all three vehicles throughout. You’ll be tearing around the rocky orange cliffs of prehistoric Fossil Canyon, skidding past waterfalls and between the stomping feet of a ponderous Brontosaurus, and in the very next race take to the skies, navigating around snow-capped firs and splitting icy gorges at the Snowfrost Peak circuit. |
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System Shock review (PC)Reviewed on July 08, 2010It's true that the interface is clumsy, with far too much dragging and dropping going on. But away from the peripherals, here remains a game of survival horror resource management, careful RPG stat-planning, and basic but tactical first-person action. It weaves these threads together into something so wholly representative of developer Looking Glass' style that, even above Ultima Underworld and Thief, you'd point to System Shock as the prime example of what this wonderful studio created. |
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Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable review (PSP)Reviewed on July 08, 2010Persona 3 and Persona 3 FES both arrived much too late in the PlayStation 2's life cycle. The current console generation was already well under way and new releases on that platform were regularly being overlooked in favor of the titles on newer systems. That’s definitely a shame. Persona 3 is one of the last generation’s greatest RPGs. Hopefully this latest version, Persona 3 Portable for the PSP, will get the attention it deserves. |
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The Godfather II review (PS3)Reviewed on July 07, 2010Battles are won before a single shot is fired, business taken without so much as a pride-obliterating pimp slap and the game completed without effort or, ultimately, interest. |
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Naughty Bear review (X360)Reviewed on July 07, 2010Each new weapon has a kill animation to go with it, but none of those animations are all that amusing after the first three or four times that you see them. I enjoy pouncing on an over-sized bear and hacking apart his face with an ax as much as the next guy, but the game's cover artwork looks substantially more depraved than the final product actually feels. Where's the crimson, or at least a cloud of puff? These are the blandest ax murders you'll ever see, hands down. Unless you're switching weapons constantly (and perhaps even then), you could easily tire of the animations before you even finish the first of the game's many repetitive stages. |
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Sam & Max: They Stole Max's Brain! review (PC)Reviewed on July 03, 2010Here, he needs to disturb an alliance between previous chapter’s villains using chicanery and random vandalism, while disembodied Max, his brain kept snug in a sealed jar, complete with electronic voice box and L.E.D mouth, antagonizes all around him out of sheer boredom. |
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Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo review (WII)Reviewed on July 02, 2010Dragonball: Revenge of King Piccolo has some potential as a side-scrolling adventure, but some unfortunate stumbles prevent it from serving as the enjoyable introduction to the game franchise that it so easily could have been. |
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Gang Wars review (ARC)Reviewed on July 01, 2010What's harder to explain are the numerous other problems. Gang Wars is characterized by slack issues that have grown increasingly noticeable since the Prisoners of War codebase it probably leveraged. Animation is stilted and choppy with not enough frames per attack, and the frames loop through at incongruent rates, one player throwing a punch and back to normal stance while the other still has his head careened back after a blow to the jaw. GW excels relative to its peers at providing a variety of different attackers, but negates that success by stacking them anyway – the same sprite may only be used once, but when it is you’ll fight three of the same guy at the same time anyway. |
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TwinBee 3: Poko Poko Dai Maou review (NES)Reviewed on July 01, 2010In Detana!! TwinBee (aka: Bells & Whistles), the entire game exhibited the same sort of imagination these bosses did. There were floating cities, waterfalls in outer space and other enchanting sights to fly over. Here...there's a quintet of generic-looking backgrounds ranging from the mundane beach-and-water combo of the second stage to the atrocious checkerboard design of the final level. |
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RISK: Factions review (X360)Reviewed on June 29, 2010The "Factions" mode adds a few wrinkles to that classic formula. The maps that you'll explore are different, with special new attractions that give particular territories new value. For example, it's possible to lay siege to an island temple. Doing so means that during each turn that you hold that fortified position, you can choose a single one of your opponent's territories to convert to your own (along with any troops who happen to be stationed there). Just imagine the possibilities. Whoever has that temple has tremendous power, but the temple grounds are obviously going to be under constant attack. |
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8-bit Girlfriend review (X360)Reviewed on June 29, 20108-bit Girlfriend is a paper thin joke that doesn’t even stay around long enough to wear out its welcome. |
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Resident Evil 5: Untold Stories review (X360)Reviewed on June 27, 2010Untold Stories, as a whole, is a fantastic package that allows you to experience both sides of Resident Evil 5‘s extremes in their very best light. |
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