Staff reviews, page 170

Pacific Storm: Allies review

There’s a magical moment in each game of Pacific Storm: Allies where all the tiny nit-picking in the planning stages and the tweaking to your forces manoeuvres in-battle all come together to form one huge, working scene of battle, or…

Gary Hartley · June 18, 2007

Staff PSP HG exclusive

Valhalla Knights review

Valhalla Knights is a game designed to sell X copies to X gamers for (X*Y) dollars. You could say that about anything, but most games have something more. Something catchy. Unfortunately, there's nothing catchy about Valhalla Knights —…

Zigfried · June 17, 2007

Staff PlayStation 2 HG exclusive

Dawn of Mana review

A boulder is as likely to bounce as not. A pumpkin could very well float like a balloon. Worse, anything you try to toss could inexplicably head to a nearby wall, bounce off it and into Keldy, then send him plummeting to a ledge below and…

Jason Venter · June 12, 2007

Staff Xbox 360 HG exclusive

Mad Tracks review

One odd mechanic that definitely will affect how you play is the acceleration feature. You press the right trigger to accelerate, but as you do there’s a gauge on the bottom of the screen that reflects a dwindling supply of energy. Thus…

Jason Venter · June 12, 2007

Staff Xbox 360

Pac-Man: Championship Edition review

The more pellets you eat, the stranger things become. You’ll grab a piece of fruit and instead of simply causing some pellets to appear, it’ll shift half the board. The arena glows and morphs until you have a new environment to explore…

Jason Venter · June 11, 2007

Staff Wii HG exclusive

Tamagotchi Party On! review

The mini-games in Tamagotchi: Party On! are entertaining at first, but quickly grow tiresome because of the frequency with which they are repeated. You might play the same one three or four times in a single round of default length, which…

Jason Venter · June 10, 2007

Staff PSP HG exclusive

Marvel Trading Card Game review

I watched Spider-Man being ever paranoid about being late to meet M.J. and I even got chastised by Xavier when I opted to follow the villain path the second time around.

Greg Knoll · June 10, 2007

Staff Wii HG exclusive

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon review

One woman with bright purple spandex starts to feel pretty much like the next, with only the moves defining the two. Switching between fighting styles doesn’t feel as remarkable as it did when it debuted in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance…

Jason Venter · June 8, 2007

Staff PlayStation 2

The Suffering: Ties that Bind review

Hand-to-hand weapons like lead pipes never need reloaded and can cause a good chunk of damage, but, come on! Do you really want to go head-to-head with a gigantic spider-like demon wielding a slew of guns with nothing more than a lead…

Rob Hamilton · June 8, 2007

Staff PC HG exclusive

Defcon review

In this game, there is only one winner. Cooperation disintegrates, and the game devolves into a savage contest of every man for himself. LAUNCH DETECTED flashes across the map again and again as enemies open fire and allies backstab each…

Julia Stein · June 6, 2007

Staff PC HG exclusive

Secrets of the Ark: A Broken Sword Game review

If it were a movie, Secrets of the Ark would be an “Indiana Jones” picture. It would be a huge success and earn a lot of money at the box office because it wouldn’t interrupt itself with inane puzzles the viewer had to solve. Secrets of…

Jason Venter · June 6, 2007

Staff PlayStation 2 HG exclusive

World Championship Poker 2: Featuring Howard Lederer review

You start the game by constructing a likeness of yourself, have him don any number of silly hats or glasses as you wish and start him off in a seedy basement where his poker career will begin. After a few false starts spearheaded by my…

Gary Hartley · June 5, 2007

Staff PC HG exclusive

Dawnspire: Prelude review

Then the amount of people on the server dropped and the bots came. Playing Dawnspire with the bots is an exercise in tedium.

Gary Hartley · June 4, 2007

Staff PlayStation 2 HG exclusive

The Red Star review

One part shoot-'em-up, one part beat-'em-up, and all parts "old school," this adrenaline-fueled hybrid is a blitzkrieg embroiled in frenetic gunplay and hard-hitting melee combat.

Nicholas Tan · May 31, 2007

Staff Sega CD HG exclusive

Time Gal review

Time Gal is a frenetic romp that’s full of action rather than frustration as you hop back and forth along its chaotic sequence of time periods with our title character likewise bounding to and fro in her skimpy outfit – not that I have any…

Sho · May 30, 2007

Staff PC HG exclusive

Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened review

Remember playing Grim Fandango or The Longest Journey and getting stuck? Remember trying to find that needle in the haystack by moving your mouse and covering every inch of your screen, hoping to come across a hotspot and finding a key…

Freelance Contributor · May 30, 2007

Staff NES HG exclusive

Silver Surfer review

I’m not sure who Emperor is or what his powers are, but if the best he can do is stand in back of a wall of guns and immediately give up the ghost after they are destroyed....well, he’s a pretty sorry excuse for a villain. Usually, boss…

Rob Hamilton · May 30, 2007

Staff Xbox 360 HG exclusive

LMA Manager 2007 review

That’s not how I want a team under my charge to play, and it’s a shame that you can’t train you team out of such habits; it’s not their fault, it’s LMA 2007’s match engine that spits these problems out.

Gary Hartley · May 29, 2007

Staff DS HG exclusive

Master Jin Jin's IQ Challenge review

The worth of your brain levels are easy to call into question, too. They never decrease with incorrect answers and, if one set of puzzles prove too hard for you, you can dodge the harder incarnations of them and instead do several of the…

Gary Hartley · May 28, 2007

Staff PC HG exclusive

Virtual Skipper 5: 32nd America's Cup - The Game review

32nd America's Cup is a sailboat racing simulation, and a sailboat racing simulation by its very nature is pretty much the exact opposite of the white knuckle speed-thrill games (for comparison, the top speed I've seen in this game is…

Josh Higley · May 26, 2007