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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	Secret Wives' Club review (PC) Reviewed on March 05, 2009 Now instead of simply clicking through a bunch of text and making the occasional decision, you're asked to make choices from a menu. The three women you hope to "educate" are each assigned columns. Your goal is to please all three of the horny vixens. Each has numerous scenes from which to choose, all divided into categories for your convenience. Mostly, these relate to the state of the relationship and predict how things are about to go so that you can decide where to budget your time.
	Ceville review (PC) Reviewed on March 05, 2009 Despite its good intentions, Ceville is so mediocre that I'm struggling to know what to say about it. It's easy to enthuse about brilliance in games, or relentlessly rant about awful bits. Ceville has no significant examples of either. Despite its good intentions, it's unremarkable; despite its problems, it's rather playable. It sits firmly in the middle of the gaming spectrum, a title that's likely to annoy few but resonate with fewer.
	Water Closet: The Forbidden Chamber review (PC) Reviewed on March 05, 2009 The moral of Water Closet must be: even if it seems repulsive at first, pissing and pooping in public is fun. Personally, I prefer to be regarded with reverence and admiration instead of shame and repulsion. That probably means I'm not in the game's target audience. Would you care to play?
	Mount & Blade review (PC) Reviewed on March 06, 2009 Really, it's just a matter of what you want. Anyone with the right mindset and a pinch of imagination can get swept away in the world of Mount and Blade, and create something that is unique and epic to them. That one aspect, in spite of any of its faults, kept me playing for hours. If you like having your hand held, and being given direction and taken through a story, then the game's not for you.
	Penumbra: Black Plague review (PC) Reviewed on March 11, 2009 Everything's received an overhaul. Black Plague looks better, sounds better, plays better and reads better than its predecessor. It's still slightly rough around the edges, as is inevitible for a game built on such a tight budget by such a small team of developers. But it's less clumsy, more restrained, and more effective than before.
	Penumbra: Requiem review (PC) Reviewed on March 11, 2009 After Black Plague so masterfully refined the Penumbra format, it seems like such a waste to throw it all away in favour of a poorly contextualised and badly designed puzzle game. Requiem resolutely fails in every aspect that made its predecessors so remarkable. The game that was never meant to be made should have stayed that way.
	Supreme Ruler 2020 review (PC) Reviewed on March 12, 2009 Supreme Ruler: 2020 is exactly what I adore: a strat title nearly unapproachable due to its level of depth, but promising months upon months of diverse enjoyment. I do so love a challenge.
	The Path review (PC) Reviewed on March 12, 2009 As a concept, The Path is a brave attempt at something more poignant within the medium. As a game, it's a collection of excellent yet slightly incomplete ideas. As a talking point, it provides more ground for intelligent game-related discussion than anything else is likely to encourage this year. So let's talk about it. And let's keep making more games like this.
	Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 5: 8 Bit is Enough review (PC) Reviewed on March 14, 2009 All in all, it's a pretty great ride, but it's somewhat telling that even Strong Bad seems bored when you go to pick up the metal detector and shovel for the fifth time. There's plenty of more standard and less inventive ambling about which I admit has gotten a little old by the fifth game. The game is still short, and only flirting with the fringes of frustration by the end. Episode 5 is easily the best game in the series, but it's probably a good thing that they're taking a break after this one, at least for a little while.
	Fenimore Fillmore's Revenge review (PC) Reviewed on March 16, 2009 Missing the mark in everything it tries to achieve, Fenimore Fillmore's Revenge is a catastrophe of an adventure game. Thoughtlessly designed and amateurishly crafted, it quickly descends into a pile of pointless gibberish and unfinished ideas. Fortunately, it's so insignificant that it's not worth getting upset about. If you're stupid enough to play it, make sure you disconnect your speakers first.
	Grand Ages: Rome review (PC) Reviewed on March 16, 2009 Grand Ages: Rome is made by the same developers and initially could be mistaken to be the same game as IR. The strict attention to detail is still prevalent, as is the fluid economy and employment system. The one big thing that GA introduces is more variation. With its predecessor, it was easy to apply the same strategy to every map – maps which were all too similar to one another. The obvious aim of its spiritual sequel is to mix things up a little. This is something that's prominent from first play-through.
	Starflight review (PC) Reviewed on March 20, 2009 When Binary Systems' space exploration adventure Starflight hit store shelves in 1986, it boasted some impressive features. I could recruit and train my crew, selecting among five different species. I could explore planets and harvest minerals or capture wild beasts. I could communicate with alien races in friendly, hostile, or obsequious tones, or I could communicate with high-powered weaponry.
	The Nameless Mod review (PC) Reviewed on March 24, 2009 The Nameless Mod truly is an incredible achievement. Nearly 200,000 lines of fully voiced dialogue. A story that branches drastically around an hour in, resulting in two radically different fifteen-hour campaigns. An abundance of clever videogame commentary, woven seamlessly into the daft but surprisingly affecting narrative. A player-centric, opportunity-filled playground of gritty adventuring. Seven years of hard, voluntary work with a notoriously fiddly engine have resoundingly paid off. It's often ludicrously good -- which makes it even more disheartening when an essential door wedges half-open, or an important message doesn't appear, or the game crashes to the desktop for the umpteenth time that day.
	Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures: Episode 1 - Fright of the Bumblebees review (PC) Reviewed on March 25, 2009 It never quite gets going, surely a symptom of its short duration over anything else. At just a few hours long, nothing really kicks off until the finale, but it's one that sets the scene for what could be a delightful little adventure. Fright of the Bumblebees is an impressively promising start to this four-part release, and if it carries on in the same direction, later instalments could be just the ticket. This one's a fine introduction, but I'm almost certain it'll be the least memorable.
	Cross Fire review (PC) Reviewed on March 27, 2009 CrossFire is a grain of sand in a desert full of free, online first-person shooters. The majority of these are played and maintained by fanatic Koreans with glazed eyes and twitchy fingers, going to any lengths to improve their skill. At first glance, this particular title fails to stand out from its peers; sporting low-grade graphics, two factions that are constantly at war for no real reason and a promotion system that will be uncannily familiar to the fans of Battlefield or Call of Duty. The gameplay, whilst repetitive, is oddly addictive and never really gets frustrating, despite having to fight alongside some rather incompetent people.
	Mevo & The Grooveriders review (PC) Reviewed on March 31, 2009 Mevo & The Grooveriders is a gloriously silly, ridiculously charming little game, as accessible as it is beautiful, and for the ludicrously small admission fee of £5.99 (Steam still refuses to show international prices), it's hard to imagine anyone being disappointed. But the lack of precision is problematic, and does hold Mevo back from the highest accolades. With a bit more polish, and with the addition of a solid community hub, this promising debut from Red Rocket Games could deliver something very jazzy indeed.
	Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason review (PC) Reviewed on April 01, 2009
	The Legend of Kyrandia review (PC) Reviewed on April 04, 2009 With The Legend of Kyrandia RTS-kingpin Westwood Studios aptly demonstrate this principle in action – despite pretty graphics and outstanding music, it plays like a blueprint on how NOT to design an adventure game.
	Geneforge 5: Overthrow review (PC) Reviewed on April 06, 2009 Overthrow is the final instalment in the Geneforge saga, which has delivered an average of almost a game a year since its inception in 2002. While the gaming world has radically changed during this time, Geneforge's internal climate has remained consistent. It's still isometric and visually primitive - though the presentation in Overthrow is vastly improved - but such matters lay outside Spiderweb's focus. This is about interactive, non-linear storytelling of the finest quality. And while its approach may be somewhat familiar to those who obsessed for weeks over the likes of Planescape: Torment, it's hugely refreshing to play something with a similar feel all these years on.
	Crazy Machines: Complete review (PC) Reviewed on April 07, 2009 More than a year's passed since its sequel, meaning all that's really relevant now is the price. For £20, you get the original game, a training pack and an adequate yet uninspiring expansion. These days, you can get Crazy Machines 2 for a tenner in most places. Something does not compute.

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