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
	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.
	Thunder Force VI review (PS2) Reviewed on December 31, 2008 It's obvious that Sega and the former Technosoft employees who worked on this project still love the same scenes that I loved ten, fifteen, seventeen years ago. That reassures me; my fascination with such details was clearly no accident. For children who have grown up, for people who stopped embellishing in their minds and only accept what's "real"... Thunder Force 6 makes those moments real — no imagination required!
	Rogue Galaxy review (PS2) Reviewed on December 30, 2008 It also doesn't help that the two companions you can have at your side at any time are idiots. I didn't notice those guys going for charge attacks when necessary, leaving me to do that myself while they ineffectively flailed at the monsters. They also didn't seem all that keen on blocking attacks or any sort of evasive action. Instead, they'd occasionally request to use a healing item or ability when they felt that'd be a good change of pace from blindly running at monsters and attacking with all the grace and style of a drunken berserker.
	LittleBigPlanet review (PS3) Reviewed on December 30, 2008 Suddenly I felt hope. Hope for myself. Hope for humanity. Sony might’ve intended HOME to be their global glue for PS3 players, but the true community is right here, in Little Big Planet.
	Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 4: Dangeresque 3 - The Criminal Projective review (PC) Reviewed on December 26, 2008
	Zoom! review (GEN) Reviewed on December 25, 2008
	Guardians/Denjin Makai II review (ARC) Reviewed on December 24, 2008 Picture yourself as a buxom beauty, your long blonde hair flowing in a ponytail as you sprint across the scorched desert sands of an oil field, your thigh-high white heeled boots kicking up puffs of silt and debris. Generic, gray uniformed enforcers decorated in visors and body armors of red and blue confront with fists drawn. You’re Kurokishi, trusted guardian of peace and love. They’re up to no good. In this genre, those circumstances suffice.
	Daikatana review (GBC) Reviewed on December 24, 2008 Due to fancy time/space manipulation, Hiro has his own Daikatana, but his version of the sword has no magic power. Fortunately, for a villain, Kage is remarkably helpful and repeatedly decides to assert his power over your group by teleporting them to various time periods — where Hiro can get his sword powered up by helping the right folk. Why doesn't Kage just use his power to kill Hiro and end his pitiful rebellion? Well, due to the laws of physics or some other hogwash, if two versions of the Daikatana collide, everything goes boom due to creating a paradox or whatever.
	Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories review (PS2) Reviewed on December 24, 2008 A departure from the hit-the-x-button gameplay of the rest of the series, this system is lauded as either brilliantly strategic or pathetically broken. I myself call it strategically pathetic, but I like it nonetheless.
	Indigo Prophecy review (PS2) Reviewed on December 23, 2008 It’s around here that Marcus stops worrying about his mental health and starts trying to be middle America’s answer to Chow Yun Fat on a tabletop-sized slab of LSD. It’s about here you may want to start thinking about employing your console’s off switch.
	Dynowarz: The Destruction of Spondylus review (NES) Reviewed on December 23, 2008 And after seven sequences of this, it all abruptly ends. No more muted, garish colors. No more laughable showdowns. No more trying to hit a miniature velociraptor with a stupid arcing bomb because the power-up literally blocked your path on the opposite side of a gorge, forcing you to die or collect it.
	Lot Lot review (NES) Reviewed on December 23, 2008 If this sounds a bit more like a drawn-out chore than an actual puzzle, it is. You’re merely switching contents around and waiting for membranes to give way as you keep one square completely cleared to avoid losing. Keep swinging contents further from the bottom left toward the top right, or toward gaps that lead to scoring channels and rid the problem with immediacy. Worse, this is all done at an agonizingly slow pace. Like most any puzzle game, lather-rinse-repeat applies.
	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.
	Everyday Shooter review (PS3) Reviewed on December 17, 2008 I don’t care what you’re doing, it’s instantly way cooler when things are exploding and someone’s riffing on a guitar behind it. That you’re the cause of these explosions and riffs makes Everyday Shooter not only amazingly cool, but also extremely addictive.
	Europa Universalis III Complete review (PC) Reviewed on December 17, 2008 Approximately a year ago, Jason Venter reviewed the vanilla version of Europa Universalis III for this very site. Jason articulately chronicled his rise to power as Calais in the fifteenth century, writing of how rebels would easily seize territory and he would hastily be defeated. Mr.Venter discovered, very quickly, the importance of being a competent leader. The people do not respond well to being constantly drafted into the forces, nor do they appreciate needlessly high taxes. If you are a fair ruler and concentrate on appeasing the masses (along with your neighbours) then the game makes for a very pleasant experience.
	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.
	Chrono Trigger review (DS) Reviewed on December 15, 2008 The best addition to the game proves to be the use of the DS to redesign the menus and controls, and the dual screen functionality which makes viewing the menus a breeze. It might not be much more than a fresh look at the classic, but then fans weren’t really looking for a reinvention.
	Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses! review (PC) Reviewed on December 15, 2008 Despite my worst fears, Nancy Drew has not undergone a lobotomy. Lights, Camera, Curses! is the premier of the Nancy Drew Dossier series, designed specifically for detectives crunched for time. But even though it requires less brain power to solve, Curses still shows the super sleuth at her resourceful best.
	Hot Pinball review (ARC) Reviewed on December 15, 2008 The theme of each board? Health class diagrams of the female reproductive system!
	Football Director DS review (DS) Reviewed on December 15, 2008 Football Director DS is a promising youth team player. The foundations for a worthwhile asset are there for all to see; it simply needs to be carefully cultivated in the future to reach full potential.

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