Review Archives (Staff Reviews)

You are currently looking through staff reviews for PC games. Below, you will find reviews written by all eligible authors and sorted according to date of submission, with the oldest 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.

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	Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines review (PC) Reviewed on July 18, 2008 The Vampire RPG mythology is applied flawlessly here, the politically charged 'vampire subculture' backdrop providing for one of the most fabulously realised videogame narratives we've had the pleasure of experiencing in years. It starts with a murder, as many good stories do, and it leads on a spectacular voyage of mystery, dark secrets, an enormous and seductively gritty underworld and a struggle for supremacy between a group of equally corrupt and equally power-hungry fiends. This is the first, and perhaps most interesting, way in which Bloodlines stands out from the crowd of interactive fiction. On the surface, it's a game about vampires. But it doesn't take long to realise that, really, this is a game about life, about people, and about the ways in which we behave based on our beliefs, our morals, our experiences and our social standings.
	Deus Ex: Invisible War review (PC) Reviewed on July 24, 2008 I've waited years for a videogame to truly treat me as an adult, and finally one has arrived. Ignore the silver science-fiction: beneath that is a truly poignant look at society, terror and corruption. The non-linearity is so all encompassing that you can choose your side right from the beginning. Much of the game will play out very similarly either way, but your approach to it, and the tale you uncover, will be very much different.
	Cyberdreams review (PC) Reviewed on July 24, 2008 It's a very challenging game that is probably the most cerebral Doom wad I've ever played. But, it also bored the crap out of me. While the levels are all designed differently and the Cybers are placed in many very tricky locations, I just couldn't shake the feeling I was doing the same thing over and over again. After only doing a handful of levels, the lack of variety had really sapped my enthusiasm.
	Avernum 5 review (PC) Reviewed on July 27, 2008 But maybe even more than that, the Avernum series sets itself apart from the legions of other fantasy CRPGs with its phenomenal milieu; an Empire soldier might not want to trudge through miles of winding underground caverns, with their unique ecosystems and civilizations and problems, but I sure do.
	Racing Team Manager review (PC) Reviewed on August 02, 2008 Racing Team Manager is probably the most counter-intuitive and frustratingly illogical game I've ever played. There are no tutorials or help buttons, which is a bad idea anyway, but when all of the option screens seem to rely on bizarre icons or abbreviations for everything, it's simply absurd. It took me about fifteen minutes to work out why it wouldn't enter my car for the first race. It turned out it didn't have an engine in it. I only worked this out by clicking, then double-clicking, then clicking and pressing 'automatic' (which seems to sometimes set up a bit of your car by itself) in a desperate attempt for something to happen. Management games should involve careful, strategic planning and fine-tuning. This felt like playing Myst.
	Pro Cycling Manager/Tour de France 2008 review (PC) Reviewed on August 04, 2008 The premise of being a cycling manager preparing for the Tour de France is a simple one: Find a team; Train them until they threaten to quit; Find a sponsor; Win.
	Portal review (PC) Reviewed on August 04, 2008 For a game that toys with such an inventive idea, it gets it miraculously spot-on in one attempt. The whole thing is strikingly intuitive, meaning that within ten minutes you've grasped the fundamental concepts of the whole thing, and your progression is simply down to your thinking power. Solutions are often abstract or lateral, but never illogical, meaning there's a sense of reward for every one completed. The difficulty and complexity curves are handled brilliantly, with the introduction of the portals themselves coming a while before you get your hands on the fantastic portal device, and the puzzles themselves always a logical progression from the previous one. It's always fast-paced, always interesting, and always stupendously entertaining.
	The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind review (PC) Reviewed on August 05, 2008 Morrowind's atmosphere is so all encompassing despite the derivative high-fantasy setting that it's an enormous challenge not to be blown away at regular intervals. This atmosphere stretches beyond the realms of the delicious visual design, or the eerily fantastic soundscapes, right up to those little moments of the game where you simply can't believe what's happening.
	Packaging Man review (PC) Reviewed on August 05, 2008 While Pac-Man is an endearing classic because of the constant challenge and addictive gameplay it provides, though, Dogwood Alliance's effort lacks the substance it needed to exist as more than a fleeting memory. It's over almost before it begins, it's ugly and there's not much value in the long term. Sort of like deforestation, I can almost imagine someone from the company quipping, and maybe he'd be right.
	Turok review (PC) Reviewed on August 21, 2008 In many ways, this 2008 incarnation of the classic franchise does a decent job of recreating those Turok memories. The dinosaurs are out in full force once again, the staple crossbow is back, and there are plenty of opportunities to combine these two features in a gloriously bloody way. Unfortunately, for the most part, Turok serves only as something of a wake-up call as to how much gaming has moved on since then, and how much this title is stuck in the past.
	F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon review (PC) Reviewed on August 29, 2008 F.E.A.R. is essentially a one-trick pony, but is salvaged by the fact that it's an exceptionally clever one. F.E.A.R. does 'Bullet Time' better than any title has managed yet. It somehow functions a whole load better from the first-person perspective than it ever did in its third-person origins, and it forms the backbone of F.E.A.R.'s trick. This is Monolith's take on FPS set-pieces. The twist? Create your own.
	Far Cry review (PC) Reviewed on August 31, 2008 On this tropical paradise of a Caribbean island, the jungle is both your greatest weapon and your biggest liability. With only a handful of markers on your radar to guide you in the right direction, you’ll have to carve your own path through the nearly limitless foliage, and it’s a sure bet you’ll run into more than a few enemy soldiers on your way. How you go about dispatching them is a question of your gamer instincts, but the cold reality is that it only takes a few bullets to bring Jack Carver down. Going balls-to-the-walls is, as you might imagine, not always the most effective tactic.
	Birth of America II: Wars in America 1750-1815 review (PC) Reviewed on September 01, 2008 BoA2 is incredibly detailed. I'll admit I've not checked the historical accuracy of all the in the game's events - that would take days if not weeks - but from my knowledge at least it's pretty thorough. The native tribes are all accurate, the armies and regiments are accurate, the map's accurate... Someone, presumably in a dark room at the home of French developer AGEON, has clearly become something of a recluse, buried deep under piles of tome-sized history books.
	Amorous Professor Cherry review (PC) Reviewed on September 01, 2008 As Kouta, the overanalyzing, virginal lead character, you’ve got to choose between these three ‘ladies’ (lucky guy). There are several decisions you have to make along the way that will impact which stream the game takes you on, and which ending you earn. The decisions you make will lead to sex in any case, so you needn’t worry too much if your head isn’t in the game. Random clicking will still enable your seeing not only Kouta banging multiple ladies, but the ladies pleasuring each other. Good times.
	Doom 3 review (PC) Reviewed on September 03, 2008 How scary is Doom 3? Scary enough to place you in a pitch-black room with five demons who want to maul your brains out, and scary enough to keep you from holding your gun and flashlight at the same time. Given the abundance of exploding air vents in Mars City, is there seriously no duct tape one can use to attach his flashlight to his assault rifle? Or, if nothing else, is there no way to hold the flashlight and your damn pistol at the same time? The pistol is a one-handed weapon, and I can see that my character’s left arm functions just fine, so what’s the problem? You know, the old Resident Evil games employed tank-like controls to increase the tension of enemy encounters; it was a survival horror trick. But then Capcom matured and made Resident Evil 4, which proved it’s possible to scare players without physically handicapping the main character. Doom 3 doesn’t even technically qualify as a survival horror game and it’s preoccupied with pulling rubbish like this.
	Bazooka Cafe review (PC) Reviewed on September 05, 2008 An adequate presentation and more than adequate bust size can't save the otherwise completely inadequate Bazooka Cafe
	Silverfall: Earth Awakening review (PC) Reviewed on September 05, 2008 In all, Earth Awakening is something every RPG fan who has not liked anything since Morrowind should give a crack at; it is a depthy, creative and exciting universe that highlights the great things about non-linear gameplay and AI companions, only to be let down by a pointless multiplayer.
	1701 A.D. Gold Edition review (PC) Reviewed on September 09, 2008 Chances are you know the game's titular century well enough; the late 1600's and early 1700's serve as the backdrop for just about every pirate movie, game, and comic book known to man. Do pirates factor into 1701? A little, but the game's focus is more on the other, less popularized aspects of the era.
	Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner review (PC) Reviewed on September 10, 2008 For those who didn't know, Homestar Runner is a long running internet comedy website revolving largely about a guy answering his e-mail. It's most well known for having oddly drawn and animated cartoony characters getting into all kinds of odd misadventures together in a surprisingly mundane world. I didn't know exactly what to expect in a game about this place, but in retrospect this has point-and-click adventure written all over it. And it is pretty fitting, I suppose. The game lends itself well to the genre, what with all the quirk and the word play. Everything's too goofy to make a convincing action game or, well, much of anything else.
	S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky review (PC) Reviewed on September 20, 2008 There was a point about halfway through the new S.T.A.L.K.E.R. when I realised I was playing a radically different game to the one I started a couple of days previously. The change is a gradual one, but by the time the phenomenal ambition of the early levels has become a mere memory, it's certainly noticeable. There's a conflict of interest at the heart of Clear Sky between radically open warfare and traditional first-person shooting. Neither of these facets achieves its aims perfectly, but there remains a lot to love about GSC Game World's latest creation...

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