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
	NBA 2K9 review (X360) Reviewed on November 05, 2008 Put simply: it doesn’t get better than this for videogame basketball. NBA 2K9 basically took a blueprint which was already established as genre-defining and leading, and made some tweaks in order to provide the best experience available. That being said, my score reflects the fact that they left room for improvement for subsequent releases -- this year's minor refinements are just that: minor.
	X-COM: Terror from the Deep review (PSX) Reviewed on November 04, 2008 You start the game with bloody harpoons guns! The only way to close the vast technologic gap between races is to slaughter in mass number, steal the weapons from their corpses, and have your boffins at home make you human-friendly versions.
	Wow review (PC) Reviewed on November 02, 2008 At first glace, it’s just an empty room. After moving around for a while, it remains an empty room. You will decide it is an empty room and is the epitome of awful .wad construction. You will be proved wrong. Against all odds, it manages to get worse. Worse than an empty room.
	Fallout 3 review (PC) Reviewed on November 02, 2008 Fallout 3 threw me completely off-balance. It took a while of playing to realise (not to mention a few "this is brilliant, right?" conversations), but the fact is inescapable: Bethesda's interpretation of this devastating nuclear wasteland is truly, monumentally astounding.
	SNK Arcade Classics: Vol. 1 review (PS2) Reviewed on November 01, 2008 SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 does a commendable job of bringing you more hits than misses in its library of sixteen titles, and carries along with it a few surprise packages in game you would have never played but far from regret spending time with.
	Doodle Hex review (DS) Reviewed on November 01, 2008 Rarely are the nuances of a game so succulently wrapped up in a game’s very title; Doodle Hex is all about slinging spells, curses and arcane incarnations through sketching runes on the touch screen in a frenzied attempt to out-wizard emo rock fairies, millennia-old, pre-teen Norse goddess, Valley-girl witches and flaming djinns hailing from Brooklyn.
	Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle review (DS) Reviewed on October 31, 2008 A well made adventure with mostly enjoyable puzzles and a distinct, goofy personality that deserves your attention. Don’t let the silly title or the cel-shaded look fool you.
	Blitz: The League II review (PS3) Reviewed on October 31, 2008 With an official license out of their reach, Midway has created an intricate world that celebrates the most unsavory aspects of the professional sports crime blotter. Gratuitous violence is king on this penalty-free, 8-on-8 gridiron, but off the field there's even more trouble: designer drugs, demanding sponsors, and fast women. If you think the NFL really has regulated out its essence and become a game for pansies, then Blitz: The League II is exactly for you.
	Spooky Spirits review (PC) Reviewed on October 31, 2008 I feel a little cheap not saying more about Spooky Spirits, but there isn't a whole lot more to say. And that's good; it adheres to the basics of its genre and provides challenging, logical puzzles and intuitive controls to solve them with, with nothing frilly or gimickey that tries to add depth.
	Tornado review (DS) Reviewed on October 31, 2008 Even when the game isn't tricking you with false level objectives, it can be a drag to play. Simply moving around the screen is frustrating. You have to start by scribbling in circles to build up your meter. Then you can just draw the general route you want to take, but as you heft the landscape into the air, you'll have to occasionally renew your energy lest you turn back into a harmless rodent. When you come up against enemies or large buildings, you actually need to navigate and recharge simultaneously. Furiously scribbling circles in an approximate direction of course means that accuracy is difficult, and you're likely to bounce off objects that are too large for you, making things even more frustrating.
	Unreal Tournament 3 review (X360) Reviewed on October 31, 2008 The Deathmatch (every-man-for-himself) and Team Deathmatch (every man on blue against everyman on red) modes still shine as UT’s greatest achievements. Space stations and other similarly futuristic locales dominate the bulk of the maps, but there are some cool departures, such as the Japanese temple-themed map, and my personal favourite: which situates the carnage in a courtyard at the foot of buildings that have seen better days. UT fans will also be pleased with the inclusion of at least one zero gravity map, where combatants can play as murderous astronauts, bouncing from rooftop-to-rooftop, raining rocket-fire like some fiery future-world precipitation.
	Baja: Edge of Control review (X360) Reviewed on October 30, 2008 But it's the Baja race that makes this game unique; this is where the game does its best to shine. In this mode, you take on the Baja 1000, a real-life test of racing endurance that takes place annually in Baja (Peninsula of Mexico) and can go on for a full three hours.
	Golden Axe: Beast Rider review (X360) Reviewed on October 29, 2008 Even though Golden Axe doesn't reign supreme over its action-adventure brethren, and even though the scenery can be a bit creepy, it's obvious that the designers truly respect the Golden Axe name. It's all too common these days for developers to design their own world and just slap a familiar name on it, but that's not what happened here.
	NBA Live 09 review (X360) Reviewed on October 29, 2008 One thing I especially like about NBA Live 09 is that even without half-court jams and cries of “He's on fire!”, play seldom feels monotonous. Past basketball games tended to make me thankful for the option to limit the length of each quarter just so that my interest wouldn't subside. Here, I actually like 12-minute quarters (though shorter ones are available too, if that's preferred). Not only does it feel more like I'm attending and participating in an actual broadcast event, but it allows me to really care about every second of the game's progression.
	Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Vol. 1 review (PS2) Reviewed on October 29, 2008 For a collection of titles that are approaching 17 years old, Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Volume 1 provides an experience that both newcomers and veterans to the series will enjoy. The franchise has inspired an anime and a full-length feature film, and its easy to see why: Loveable characters, believable settings and gameplay elements that changed the genre forever make this tidy, budget bundle a must-buy.
	BioShock review (PS3) Reviewed on October 28, 2008 What once seemed perfect now more closely resembles a haunted amusement park. Water sprays through fissures in the transparent barrier encasing the city. Hallways are filled with rubble. Signs advertising a perfect future hang crookedly and flash sporadically as sparks shower the cracked asphalt below. The laughter of men, women and children has faded away, replaced by cheery classical music that blends oddly with the screams of the dying and the barely living. Vitality once formed the heart of the city. Now it's all but gone.
	Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift review (DS) Reviewed on October 28, 2008 Fans of the genre should definitely give this game a try as it features hundreds of hours of content and should keep them busy for a very long time.
	Boing! Docomodake DS review (DS) Reviewed on October 27, 2008 Welcome to my new dilemma. It's called Boing! Docomdake, and it's clearly after my sanity.
	Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 2: Strong Badia the Free review (PC) Reviewed on October 26, 2008 In essence, this game makes the entire first game feel like a lengthy tutorial, familiarizing you with the characters and the locations and the flow of gameplay. It was as much a learning experience for the developers as it was for the player. The game is a step in the right direction, a big one. It's full of hope for the future, bright with the knowledge that Telltale can actually handle the task of creating a compelling episodic series.
	PDC World Championship Darts 2008 review (PSP) Reviewed on October 25, 2008 What we’re given overall is serviceable and commendable. Two words that perhaps don’t scream game of the year, but the reality of the situation is that, no matter how I dress it up in eccentric Britishness, the topic of today is still a dart’s sim. That sound you hear is the vast majority of the PSP consumer base stampeding towards the fire exits. We’ll throw in a metaphorical pause while they close the doors behind them before I slide in the dramatic twist -- PDC Darts 2008 is a fun little game nonetheless.

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