Preview: Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z (PS3)

Preview by Matt S. 

A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to play an early build of Tecmo Koei and Comcept's collaboration project, Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z. I was more than a little impressed by that early build, as Keiji Inafune's new zombie slasher seemed to be channeling the Goichi Suda philosophy towards game design, and I'm always up for more of that kind of action. With this new build I got a chance to delve deeper into the first couple of levels of the game, and I'm impressed to see where the game is going.

The first preview offered a simple highlights package, and as such there was always the danger that as wildly oddball that experience was that it would be like the trailer of a bad comedy film; all the good stuff is in that two minutes and the rest of the experience would prove to be quite pedestrian.

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Review: Toki Tori (PS3)

Review by Nick H. 

Toki Tori has been around for quite a few years now, but the plucky little fellow has been showing up on more and more platforms of late. He has made his appearance on Game Boy, PC, Wii - even the 3DS, which we reviewed here. It is somewhat curious that Two Tribes is still pushing the original, especially with the well-received sequel having been out on PC for a time now, but Toki Tori has finally made his way over to the PlayStation Network.

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Review: Farming Simulator (PS3)

Review by Matt S.

If I was to say to you "hey, I'm going to skip this awesome party that you've invited me to to go and play Farming Simulator," and you hadn't played a Farming Simulator game before, you would possibly think I've gone insane.

Or I was just boring. And in fairness I probably am boring, but Farming Simulator is legitimately good fun. This isn't a new franchise now, and every year I see people buying this game for kicks and giggles, and finding themselves sinking dozens of hours into it.

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Review: NBA 2K14 (PS4)

Review by Nick H. 

Without a doubt in my mind, NBA 2K14 is the best sports game I have played this year. Of course, everyone's mileage with sports titles generally boils down to what they think of the sport in question, and while 2K has a great engine in place here, they did miss a handful of marks when advancing its series to the next generation consoles as well.

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Review: Need for Speed Rivals (PS3)

Review by Matt S. 

It's built right into the title: Need for Speed Rivals is all about competitive racing with other, real, people. Some of these people will be street racers. Others will be police cars. It doesn't matter which at any point in time though because the entire game is all about going really fast face-to-face against other people.

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Review: Soulcalibur 2 HD Online (PS3)

Review by Matt S. 

Of the many HD remakes we've seen this generation this one I don't quite get, though I'm certainly not complaining of its existence. While Soulcalibur 2 is arguably the finest game in the franchise, it's impossible to argue that the current generation's Soulcalibur 5 is a lesser game; it has more characters, more gameplay options, and more a more complex art direction.

Soulcalibur 2 in HD looks great thanks to its timeless art direction, but like most HD remakes there's small details that are missing here - environments look and feel more basic, for instance, and character models might be HD, but they are low on the detail that would mark them out as next gen character designs. They look like mannequin models, in other words. Other than the online combat there isn't anything that has been added to the package either. By modern fighting game standards it's quite the minimalist package.

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Review: Contrast (PS3)

Review by Matt S. 

Until I played Contrast I wasn't interested in it. That changed about three minutes after I started playing. This is a deeply intelligent game, and yet another example of a wonderfully emerging class of games that maintain artistic credibility while also offering genuine production values. Rain, Shelter, Papo & Yo and now Contrast; it has been a good year for serious gamers indeed.

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Review: Skydive: Proximity Flight (PS3)

Review by Chris I. 

Do you remember that your PlayStation 3 controller features Sixaxis motion controls? I thought about as much; thoughts of Lair still send shivers down my spine to this very day and I'm glad that most developers ignored the Sixaxis controls thereafter.

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Video review: Stick It To The Man (PS3)

Review by Matt S. 

You would expect a game that has been written by the guy that did Adventure Time to be a little crazy, and Stick It To The Man is indeed a little crazy.

It's a game that really revels in being self aware and providing quite juvenile humour to an adult audience. Somehow within that context it also manages to offer a mature (but sadly forgettable), adventure/ puzzle game with some real mind twisters.

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So, that Contrast game is a bit of a killer, innit?

Preview by Matt S. 

At a PlayStation 4 launch event today I kept being drawn back to the same game. I played it on a nice big TV, with the slick new PS4 controller in my hand. I walked away and played something else for a bit. But then I was back to play the demo again. Someone else wanted a go so I needed to walk away. Then I came back to play it again on the Vita through the PS4's remote play feature.

It's being released for PlayStation 3 and PC as well, but Contrast is the PS4 game I want the most.

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Review: Final Exam (PS3)

Review by Rexly P. 

Imagine Left 4 Dead as a 3D side-scrolling game and give it a more comical polish and you get Final Exam, which follows the adventures of four characters as they return to their hometown for a high school reunion only to be welcomed by a horde of monsters. They must fight their way through various parts of town and find the source of the monster outbreak.

Unfortunately, the story could be a lot stronger as it only serves to move the player from one location to another. Despite a weak storyline, the gameplay is really fun, especially when players don't go through it alone.

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Review: Ethan: Meteor Hunter (PS3)

Review by Matt S. 

As much as the traditionalists would hate me for saying this, there are times where I would prefer to play a game using a nice, big touch screen. There are certain times where a human's ability to directly interact with an object will provide superior precision when compared to working through an intermediary (i.e controller).

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Review: Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag (PS3)

Review by Matt S. 

I loved Assassin's Creed 3. I realise that's a controversial statement to make for the fans of the earlier AC games, especially considering that I wasn't a fan of the series until AC3 (at all), but the trip through early-era America was for me a revelation.

Assassin's Creed 3 nailed something that as far as I'm concerned the previous titles didn't; the history. As someone who didn't know much about American history, Assassin's Creed 3 had me clicking through Wikipedia on more than one occasion, filling out my knowledge on the people, places and events that was occurring within the game. Of course Ubisoft took liberties with history in order to make a game worth playing, but just as Tecmo Koei adds an atmosphere of authenticity to it Warriors games by basing them off history, so too did Assassin's Creed 3, where the history was so central to the experience in a way that felt far more rich and detailed that the previous European assassin adventures.

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Looking back at the the last generation; the highs and lows

Opinion by Lucy I.

The seventh gaming console generation began nearly eight years ago in 2005, but it’s finally come to the end of an era. It’s time for us to look back over the last generation of home consoles.

PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii. Over the last eight years, thousands of these branded console heroes have made their way to households, with this generation being the busiest and most undeniably talked about generation in the history of video gaming.

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Review: Batman: Arkham Origins (PS3)

Review by Matt S. 

It's time for one of those dirty little admissions that no game critic should be making; I haven't played either of Rocksteady's Batman games. I know them by reputation to be some of the finest examples of games this generation, however, and that's especially impressive considering they are licensed titles.

So Arkham Origins was meant to be the opportunity to remedy this gap in my gaming experience and become one of the legions of fans for this franchise. 

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Review: The Guided Fate Paradox (PS3)

Review by Matt S.

I love a good paradox. They're the brain twisters for the intelligent, and also philosophy that everyone can think about. Integrate a good paradox into a narrative and you'll effortlessly engage your reader or viewer as they ponder over the ideas and theories that you're throwing at them.

With that said I had no idea that Nippon Ichi would execute on the potential of the paradox so perfectly. The Guided Fate Paradox is surprising on so many levels. It's a relatively mature and restrained production from the folks best known for the insanity of Disgaea. It's the first roguelike RPG where I've cared more about the narrative than the actual dungeon hacking. It's the simplest looking but most attractive PlayStation 3 game ever made. Perhaps that's the great point that The Guided Fate Paradox makes; it itself is a development paradox. 

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Review: Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut Ultimate Edition (PS3)

Review by Shaan J.

On paper, Deadly Premonition might seem like an awful game, and a majority of gamers and critics would have agreed with that sentiment back in 2010, when the game launched on the Xbox 360. Unfortunately, that’s the inherent issue with arthouse games; while there are certainly exceptions that buck the trend, a majority of ‘art’ games put an emphasis on leaving a lasting emotional mark on the player, rather than providing an "entertaining" experience.

As is the same for the art in general. Arthouse cinema bores people whose idea of film starts and stops at The Avengers. Many people would rather read Harry Potter than the kinds of books that float around literature circles. This is all fine, but it's unfortunate that in the games industry there is the expectation that art games also appeal to the blockbuster fans. Else those games get slaughtered on Metacritic. Enter Deadly Premonition.

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Review: Rain (PS3)

Review by Matt S.

Melancholia can make for an oddly beautiful theme when done right. We've seen it work for poets such as T.S Eliot ("By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown/ Till human voices wake us, and we drown" - The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is truly a masterpiece), we've seen it work to great effect in paintings, in music, in film. For instance, if you haven't yet seen Mirrormask then I urge you to do so. It's spectacular.

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Review: Atomic Ninjas (PS3)

Review by Shaan J.

If there’s one thing I lament about owning a PS3, it’s the lack of party games that the system has to offer. Sure, there’s the long-running Buzz! games, and the upcoming Sportsfriends is sure to be a blast, but there aren’t many options if you want to round up a group of friends and enjoy a night of beating each other into a bloody (virtual) pulp (you did forget PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale, dude - ed).

That’s where Atomic Ninjas comes in.

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A familiar darkness? Hands on with Dark Souls 2

Preview by Matt S.

I've always been a bit concerned about Dark Souls 2, after I heard it was announced. My concern was always tied in to the budget of the game - Dark Souls 2 clearly has a bigger budget, and that means it needs to sell more copies to justify the investment on the management side of the business. The only way to achieve that is to make the game reach out to a broader audience, and this tends to bring up that scary "a" word... accessibility.

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