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.

Available Reviews
	Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 1 - Launch of the Screaming Narwhal review (PC) Reviewed on July 08, 2009 Still, this rebirth is in the hands of the adept Telltale Games, who recently revived Sam & Max, brought Strong Bad to tremendous interactive life, and rendered the quaint British tales of Wallace & Gromit in a mostly pleasing fashion. Aside from the original team, if anyone could successfully revitalise the Monkey Island franchise, it's these guys.
	Trine review (PC) Reviewed on July 07, 2009 Intelligent but unpretentious, quaint yet brutal, Trine is regularly an absolute delight. Delve into the options menu and you can set it up for co-operative play - which allows all three players in the world at once - adding another level to the already wonderful puzzle-solving. But even alone, Trine offers five hours of invigorating, exciting, hybridised and enormously beautiful gaming. For a relatively low-key offering, it's brimming with confidence in its image and approach. That's what makes Trine so darling, even when that skeleton gets stuck on a rock while a hundred bats eat you to death.
	Robodemons review (NES) Reviewed on July 06, 2009 There are a couple of skulls in the bottom half constantly shooting at you while you're trying to deal with top-half enemies, including tiny non-firing skulls that roll right under your boomering's path because the programming doesn't allow you to duck. You have to have a high degree of tolerance for the mindnumbingly stupid to persevere through this — and if, like me, you're a fan of Homestar Runner, you also have to avoid bursting into uncontrollable laughter upon realizing that in the platforming levels, your hero bears an uncanny resemblance to Senor Cardgage.
	Steambot Chronicles: Battle Tournament review (PSP) Reviewed on July 06, 2009 Probably the best moment came after Venus had lost her precious pendant. When I offered to steal her a new one, she launched into a tearful backstory explaining that it was the last remaining memento of her dead mother. My response? I nodded sagely and asked Venus what her measurements were.
	FIFA Soccer 09 review (X360) Reviewed on July 06, 2009 For me, FIFA '09 is a multiplayer game. One so aggressively combative it's become a potential friendship breaker.
	Overlord II review (PS3) Reviewed on July 05, 2009 Pastoral scenes and even the menacing fairytale forest are gone, replaced by environs that seem to have been drawn with no discernible rhyme or reason from a hat labeled "whatever was left." The icy village that you once called your home is improbably bordered by a tiny cave that leads almost immediately to a lush forest populated by elves who preach peace and love for all creatures. In effeminate voices they protest your vile actions (which literally include sending your minions forth to club baby seals) as you break apart pots and vases and swing the camera around wildly in an effort to see through thick foliage presented as an assortment of paper-thin textures.
	Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood review (PS3) Reviewed on July 04, 2009 It can be a bit much to take in all at once, but Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood delights in telling its twisted tale in an unconventional and sometimes surprising fashion. The next likely event is seldom clear as the player careens wildly from one volatile shootout to another, never far from disaster and a few profanity-laced one-liners. You might not always understand what just happened, but that's okay; the only details you really have to keep in mind to stay on top of things is that you're one of two treasure-seeking brothers and that your job is to shoot the crap out of anything that moves.
	The Warriors review (PS2) Reviewed on July 03, 2009 As in the movie, they're a fictional gang, hoodlumming it up and down 1979 Coney Isle. The Warriors and a hundred other gangs are invited to a "no guns" meeting held by a very charismatic cat named Cyrus, whose noble dream is to unite the gangs and violently take over every aspect of the New York City underworld. Unfortunately, a psychotic misfit from the Rogues takes advantage of this opportunity to plug Cyrus in the chest, making the peaceful meeting decidedly less peaceful. For shame!
	Crazy Machines 2 Complete review (PC) Reviewed on July 01, 2009 It’s an interest thing, really. If the idea of gizmos and pulleys and gears has you grinning like a loon, or even if you want to tread a puzzle path not often explored, then this is a great package to pick up.
	Sam & Max Save the World review (X360) Reviewed on July 01, 2009
	We Cheer review (WII) Reviewed on June 30, 2009 At the moment the mechanics finally clicked, We Cheer transformed into an invigorating challenge. I started hustling out a succession of complex, varied swirls. I had to exaggerate my direction, reaching all the way to the ceiling and down to the floor. It even felt better to add a little wrist snap to the end of my poses, just for some extra flair. The perpetual motion is a reminder that cheering takes 110%.
	PDC World Championship Darts review (DS) Reviewed on June 29, 2009 You're not going to like PDC World Championship Darts 2009 unless you like darts. It's not like FIFA, where even if you don't watch or play football you can still enjoy the game. With PDC 09, you need to have a passing interest in the real thing before you even think about enjoying yourself. Even then, though, you're not likely to get much enjoyment from it.
	Up review (WII) Reviewed on June 29, 2009 By the time the credits roll, you will start to question whether or not the first half of the game was as good as it first appeared – or if you were simply blinded by how well it mirrored some elements of the film.
	Shooting Love, 200X review (X360) Reviewed on June 28, 2009 I love shooting, and I'm glad that the income Triangle Service earned by groveling and pleading with bleeding-heart gamers led to something so entertaining. Their online blog says their goal is to provide SERVICE to shooter fans. (They cheesily explain that's why they're called Triangle SERVICE.) Based on the company's progressively inventive releases throughout the new century's first decade, I'd say they've held true to their mission.
	Prototype review (PS3) Reviewed on June 28, 2009 Rarely has a game been so awful in so many ways, yet still proven so awesome at the same time.
	The Legendary Starfy review (DS) Reviewed on June 27, 2009 In case you're not satisfied with a diet of constant platforming and a steady trickle of new abilities, there are a variety of diversions along the way. For example, one stage finds Starfy rolled into a snowball. He'll barrel downhill and you have to move and jump—in the limited fashion available—to avoid falling into fatal gaps. Another break from the norm comes in the form of a series of mine cart rides where you can flip switches to raise the water level (good if you want to leap the widest chasms) while avoiding destructive bits of the landscape. Thanks to solid level design and a variety of neat puzzles, such moments aren't strictly necessary to keep the game engaging.
	Mad Dog McCree Gunslinger Pack review (WII) Reviewed on June 26, 2009 You'll quickly come to learn that timing is everything, which isn't so bad, but there's an unwelcome complication: the exact timing required is never quite clear. You have to aim and shoot before a certain point in any video footage. If you shoot too soon, though, nothing can happen except wasted bullets because the available video isn't ready to produce video of an enemy dying at that point in time. If you shoot too late, you might fire five or six rounds and then be shot anyway because you passed some arbitrary point where the directors weren't ready for you to succeed.
	Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Stardust Accelerator: World Championship 2009 review (DS) Reviewed on June 25, 2009 If you’re a Yu-Gi-Oh fan and know the ins and outs of the rules, you’ll most likely find a decent title in World Championship 2009. But, if your experience with the trading card franchise is non-existent, you’re going to have a much tougher time playing through and enjoying the game.
	Mr. Nutz review (SNES) Reviewed on June 24, 2009 It's clear that the adventure — which begins in "Woody Land" — was heavily influenced by Sonic the Hedgehog, as Mr. Nutz collects coins from nooks and crannies across numerous expansive levels. Unlike Sonic, there's no time limit; the squirrel with attitude can ride slow-floating sponges across acidic waters, swing around on vines, and clumsily bounce off of pinball blocks at his own leisurely pace without fear of Time Over. He definitely does dawdle; even holding the "run" button barely picks up the pace.
	Bionic Commando Rearmed review (X360) Reviewed on June 24, 2009 A couple zones in both versions end with a fight against a hovering machine emitting a battle cry of "Pi Pi Pi". My strategy in the NES game was simple: run up and blast it until it explodes. Here, it only can be damaged when Nathan uses his arm to pick up a barrel (a new ability for this game) and throws it at the robot, knocking it out of the air and exposing its lone weak spot. Doesn't sound quite as easy, does it?

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