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
	The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena review (X360) Reviewed on June 20, 2009 Riddick is the bogeyman, a silent assassin who can see in the dark, and Vin Diesel exudes the perfect mix of menace and emotional detachment. The outrageous Chronicles of Riddick film tried its best to ideologically kill the character, but Riddick's two videogames bring the devil-may-care badass back. The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena actually includes both games, making it a tremendous purchase for anyone who missed out on 2004's Xbox classic.
	Junior Classic Games review (DS) Reviewed on June 20, 2009 Split into six differing categories, each of the thirty mini games is bright, colourful and wrapped around a strong animal motif that’s not overly complicated nor tinged with the disappointing “you’re doing your homework for fun!” aftertaste so many of the more traditional brain-trainers feel obliged to wallow in.
	Hidden Objects: Mystery Stories review (DS) Reviewed on June 20, 2009 Mystery Stories’ biggest problem is how it seems to want you to believe it’s something more than a game that presents you with a cluttered room then asks you to point out semi-hidden items with your stylus because, as far as games of this ilk go, this title is a competent and sometimes enjoyable take.
	Class of Heroes review (PSP) Reviewed on June 16, 2009 Class of Heroes is huge. I remember when my Celestian Valkyrie — I pervishly call her my angel — hit level seven. To advance to the next level, she needed 10,500 additional experience. Over ten thousand experience to reach level eight. That's a lot, especially considering I was already 15 hours into the adventure, but the game promised to continue for many, many hours.
	Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Council 4 review (DS) Reviewed on June 16, 2009 Ninja Council 4 is a lean, focused story dressed in a new wardrobe. Unfortunately, the game has become too thin. Wi-fi multiplayer, prominent in the original Japanese version, has been dropped from the North American release. Fans forced to approach the game as a purely single-player experience will find some of its hottest new assets locked away.
	I Love Beauty: Hollywood Makeover review (DS) Reviewed on June 16, 2009 Beauty is really about style. I Love Beauty: Hollywood Makeover is about the drudgery of applying makeup.
	Osomatsu-kun: Hachamecha Gekijou review (GEN) Reviewed on June 13, 2009 Osomatsu-kun: Hachamecha Gekijou is a war of attrition; progression in the game is dependant on what simply breaks first. The game’s surreal presentation or your will to continue onward.
	Cross Edge review (PS3) Reviewed on June 13, 2009 Because of the haphazard manner in which information is presented, genre-standard processes such as item crafting, synthesis, skill point allotment, shopping, party formation and so forth all require that you dive through two or three screens. Even then, it can be difficult if you've accomplished what you meant to accomplish. Whether you're trying to guess at who can equip an item or merely trying to assign characters to your current rotation, prepare for frustration. There's no escaping the nightmare.
	Fuel review (PS3) Reviewed on June 12, 2009 Though on the surface the game appears to be just another tour of some established courses where your only goal is to finish ahead of all of your competition, that's not actually the best way to play. Instead, you're expected to chart your own routes while adhering to actual roads only to the extent that is required to pass through the checkpoints. Everything else is up to you. The freedom that this dynamic provides is cool at first. When you come to the first bend in the path and most of the other drivers ease gradually around it and toward the left, you'll probably love continuing straight ahead and launching over a ramp to shave a second off your time. Performing similar feats of daring on the next few bends is similarly great. Then you hit a tree and the cursing starts.
	Red Faction: Guerrilla review (X360) Reviewed on June 12, 2009 A vast game of utterly mad possibilities. There's not enough of a culture for Guerrilla to be proclaimed a true masterpiece, or even a revolution, but it's not a long way off. Rarely has open-world mayhem been so invigorating, so satisfying and hilarious. Far and away the best in the series so far, Guerrilla is the absolute statement of Volition's explosive plan - and Red Faction would struggle to return to its linear routes after this outstanding effort.
	Up review (X360) Reviewed on June 11, 2009 Fortunately, cooperative play alleviates some of that. Two people can pick up controllers and it's easy to join or leave a game with the press of a button. That allows a parent or elder sibling to save the day if kids are becoming too frustrated. It's a great way for a parent to connect with his or her game-loving offspring without having to spend forever figuring out how things work. It also means that the game could become the perfect choice for a few hours of fun when new visitors enter your humble abode.
	Amnesia review (APP2) Reviewed on June 11, 2009 If you create a public scene or break any laws (such as sleeping in public or leaving the early-game hotel room naked), odds are you'll wind up arrested. Humorously, you get to play through your final days in a jail cell, choosing what your final meal is, what denomination of priest speaks to you before death and whether you die by lethal injection or firing squad — just one more of the many things I loved about the writing in this game.
	Officers review (PC) Reviewed on June 08, 2009 Officers is a fun toy. Every map is like a sandbox in which you can rain destruction upon the Nazis. Its key feature, huge battles, is both the best part of gameplay and the worst.
	Steal Princess review (DS) Reviewed on June 07, 2009 Even though it's an interesting game, Steal Princess's overly complex, touchy controls tarnish the experience, and map creation is a spectacular failure. On the other hand, the game does feature excruciatingly dull story scenes mixed among its 150 stages!
	PDC World Championship Darts 2009 review (WII) Reviewed on June 06, 2009 2009 has made some big steps up from its previous version, but that everything about the game is so budget that it hardly looks any different from the initial outing made two years ago on the PS2 isn’t something that makes it an easy recommendation.
	UFC Undisputed 2009 review (PS3) Reviewed on June 06, 2009 UFC Undisputed has the makings of true MMA bliss, but its clunky, lifeless career mode and lackluster online play will only keep you occupied for so long.
	UFC Undisputed 2009 review (X360) Reviewed on June 05, 2009 In Undisputed, the tendency is toward striking battles, rather than toward what that particular fighter is actually most comfortable with or known for. Fortunately, this flaw won’t matter much for most gamers because the average MMA fan is still far more enamoured of fisticuffs and the sudden violence of knockouts than of rolling for submissions, which presents a decisively more subtle savagery. Besides, as with most one-on-one contests, the main draw is beating up on friends – not the computer.
	Bejeweled 2 review (PS3) Reviewed on June 04, 2009 PopCap Games first developed Bejeweled and released it in the Flash format back in 2001. Since then, the title has appeared on nearly every gaming platform known to man, ranging from the PC to mobile phones, the Xbox 360 and now the PlayStation Network store. Predictably, it plays the same on the PlayStation 3 as it did on Xbox Live Arcade, on the PC and—well, you get the idea.
	Stalin vs. Martians review (PC) Reviewed on June 04, 2009 But anyway, the game is an RTS in the same way that margarine is butter, which is to say it's not, but it looks similar! The overhead camera is old hat to the genre. The piles of units marching together toward their objective is familiar. The hud, with its point-and-click interface and minimap, leaves no doubt. Any given screenshot tells the RTS story, but it's only when you play the game that you realize that something has gone horribly wrong.
	Elite Forces: Unit 77 review (DS) Reviewed on June 03, 2009 Considering that the enemies pose no threat, basic ammunition is unlimited, and you virtually trip over medkits around every corner, you’d think Elite Forces is an easy game, right? But it isn’t, simply because things go wrong. Maybe Bill will die because he got caught in front of a gatling gun and the constant stream of bullets prevented him from using a medkit. Perhaps Kendra will decide on her own to move forward a couple of feet and detonate a mine that T.K. was disabling. Weird flukes in the design and AI contradict Deep Silver’s effort to keep the interface clean and intuitive, and above all else, Elite Forces strikes me as a very inconsistent game.

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