Articles of Section 'Video Game Reviews'.

Video Game Reviews

Conflict: Denied Ops

To play Conflict: Denied Ops, which comes from Eidos, you’ll need to play with a friend, or get used to switching back and forth between the two protagonists, a pair of CIA ops. While playing on your own as Graves, the sniper, you can direct Lang, the heavy, to specific locations to take out the enemy with his assault rifle. Or you can play as Lang and do the frontline work yourself, while the computer’s artificial intelligence takes over as Graves snipes from a distance.
Video Game Reviews

Lost: Via Domus

Creating a video game based on a movie or a TV show is a tricky thing—telling a story in this interactive medium just isn’t the same. Too often, fans who are excited by the prospect of taking on the role of their heroines and heroes are simply disappointed. The task is even more daunting when the original in question is Lost, a show built on secrets in which plot points are painstakingly resolved over time.
Video Game Reviews

Turok

Turok is the first title from Vancouver’s Propaganda Games. A rambunctious re-creation of a character that first appeared more than 50 years ago, the new game is a science-fiction-themed first-person shooter for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
Video Game Reviews

The Orange Box

Talk about value—this box is five games in one. Not short, useless games either, but topnotch titles that are varied and fun. The Orange Box comes from Valve and is available for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, and in it you’ll get Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One—both of which were previously available—as well as Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and Portal.
Video Game Reviews

Super Mario Galaxy

The latest adventure for the Italian plumber with a soft spot for Princess Peach takes place in outer space. Using both the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, you’ll guide Mario from planet to planet in a search for star bits, power stars, and grand stars.
Video Game Reviews

Reviews of Warhawk and Sonic Rush Adventure

Warhawk: You’ll want to spend most of your time flying the skies, where you’ll have the most fun, and you’ll realize that the Sony Computer Entertainment developers came up with a great scheme for flying the birds, which can hover and move up and down...
Video Game Reviews

Reviews of Bioshock, Legend of Zelda, NHL 08, Heavenly Sword

We’re still a number of weeks away from the frenzy of the holiday gift-giving season, and already we’ve had a number of stellar games rise to the top, begging for your attention. Today: BioShock, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, NHL 08, and Heavenly Sword
Video Game Reviews

Vampire Rain

In this game, for the Xbox 360 from AQ Interactive and Microsoft Game Studios, it's always raining. This is because you are a special-forces operative who hunts vampires, and the extraordinary sensory perception of the howling creatures is dampened by the rain.
Video Game Reviews

Jeanne D'Arc

I honestly didn't think I'd like this game, from Sony Computer Entertainment for the PSP, but after spending some time with it, I came to appreciate it. Based loosely on the story of Joan of Arc–very loosely, given that demons feature in it–this is a turn-based role-playing game in which you control a group of French fighters defending their homeland against the English.
Video Game Reviews

Lair

It's too bad about Lair, because on paper it's a great game: you fly around on the backs of dragons, wreaking havoc on your enemy. You get the sense that there's a great back story to this game, but you'll never learn it because you'll never get past the first frustrating hour. The problem is that Sony Computer Entertainment's Factor 5 developers wanted to use the PS3's Sixaxis gyroscopic motion sensor to control the flight of the dragon, and it just doesn't work.
Video Game Reviews

The Darkness

In The Darkness, left, adapted from the comics of the same name, you play as Jackie Estacado, plucked from an orphanage to become a hit man for a mobster family. As Estacado, you wreak vengeance on evil and help the needy of your city. When you start the game on your PS3 or Xbox 360, you're trying to survive a contract placed on your life. Soon, though, you are possessed by the Darkness, a creature that bestows strange powers but also controls you.
Video Game Reviews

Project Sylpheed: Arc of Deception

I like to fly spaceships and take down enemy fighters as much as the next guy. For a while, Arc of Deception gave me exactly that. The space shooter–from Square Enix and Microsoft Game Studios in an exclusive for the Xbox 360–is based on anumber of earlier video games called Silpheed, and you play as Katana, a fighter jockey in zero G. The visuals in Arc of Deception are outstanding and the controls reasonably simple, but hours in, things will start to feel a bit repetitive.
Video Game Reviews

Calling All Cars!

The only way to get this game from Sony Computer Entertainment is by downloading it to your PS3 from the PlayStation Store. It's got a Keystone Kops, cartoonlike feel to it, as you scurry around in your vehicle while trying to capture escaped convicts and return them to jail. There are four maps to play in, and you'll be manoeuvring against up to three opponents. Crashing into your competition causes them to lose the jailbird so that you can capture him.
Video Game Reviews

Mad Tracks

In D3 Publisher's Mad Tracks, described as a "party racing game", you race in competing mini cars on tracks that have been dropped into real-world environments. Available for the X360 through Xbox Live, the game takes you on a Hot Wheels–like track through a kitchen, avoiding glassware and other obstacles while dodging weapon attacks by fellow racers. You can also compete in racing or mini games like foosball, in which you use your car to knock the ball into your opponent's net.
Video Game Reviews

Def Jam Icon

While the Def Jam games from Electronic Arts are, ultimately, fighting games, Icon stands out for its unique stylized look and feel. Created for the PS3 and X360, Icon is set in the world of Def Jam's hip-hop artists: you take on the persona of a tough rumbler who ends up in the employ of a renowned producer. As you move up the ranks, you do things like chase paparazzi away from Ludacris and protect the Game from dangerous rivals.
Video Game Reviews

Spectrobes

The developers at Disney Interactive know what kids like; Spectrobes, for the DS, was made for kids. Spectrobes are rare and ancient creatures that have the power to save the galaxy from the evil Krawl. As Rallen and Jeena, players must find and excavate the fossilized Spectrobes, then awaken and evolve them so that they can aid in the quest. The DS touch screen is used to great effect as you expose–with care–the fossils and minerals. A deft touch is required, lest you destroy the sample.
Music | Video Game Reviews

Rayman Raving Rabbids

On a nice summer's day, while picnicking with some froglike friends, Rayman is kidnapped by a massive mechanical "rabbid". Thrown into an arena, he competes in a host of mini games, trying to win toilet plungers, which are trophies in this bizarre world. These mini games vary from the simple (move the Wii Remote and Nunchuk in time with music) to the more complicated (aiming and firing plungers at the "raving rabbids"), and while you'll master some quickly, others will infuriate you.
Video Game Reviews

Red Steel

Ubisoft's Red Steel is the first first-person-shooter game for the Wii platform. The script is terrible and the characterizations border on racist. You play as Scott, a personality-free character who must learn the ways of the samurai in order to save his fiancée from her yakuza captors.
Video Game Reviews

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz

It's too bad Sega tried to make Banana Blitz do two jobs, because it ends up doing neither very well. The single-player game requires players to tilt the Wii Remote and roll their monkey, inside its transparent ball, through obstacle courses. There's a basic story behind this, about your tribe of monkeys trying to recover its prized banana bunch from the pirate monkey who stole them.
Video Game Reviews

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

One of the best games of last year, Oblivion is a great addition to the PS3 platform. The game is largely the same as the version that Bethesda Softworks brought to the PC and X360 last year, with a bit of added content. The PS3 brings two things to the Oblivion experience, however. The first is even better graphics, so the dungeons and vistas look stunning. The second is faster loading, so you won't have to wait as long to get into the action.
Video Game Reviews

Spider-Man 3

There's something to be said for having a run of fun sequels like the video-game accompaniments to the Sam Raimi films. If nothing else, the developers at Activision have been able to freshen up their New York City so that Spider-Man 3 made me feel like I was in the Big Apple in real time. The only thing lacking is the utter congestion of vehicles and people; the last time I was in Times Square I had to walk on the street because the sidewalks were so crammed.
Video Game Reviews

Fight Night: Round 3

Translating the sweet science isn’t the easiest job because boxing is a sport of subtlety, and unless game creators can find a way to make a series of buttons and thumb sticks emulate shuffle steps, jabs, and guards, it just won’t satisfy. The third edition of the Fight Night franchise—for the PS2, PS3, PSP, Xbox, and X360—is a great boxing sim because of the clever system of mechanics.
Video Game Reviews

Rocky Balboa

This game by Ubisoft for the PSP is based on the life of Rocky Balboa, the fictional boxer immortalized by Sylvester Stallone. The presentation here is slick, with snippets from all the Rocky films interspersed with the boxing action, and voice-overs taken from the films.

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