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Archive for March, 2010

Heavy Rain (Review)

Saturday, March 13th, 2010
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Written by Jon Clapham

Format: Ps3

Genre: Err…Quick Time Interactive Game..thingy

Sitting down to review Heavy Rain is no easy task – there are times when it barely feels like a game at all, and though it has become clichéd to call this game an ‘interactive movie’, that is what it is.

Quantic Dream’s previous game, Fahrenheit, was their first attempt at bridging the gap between the world of film and games, and while Heavy Rain is leagues ahead of it’s predecessor, it still suffers from some of the same problems in the storytelling department.

Analysing the storytelling is what will take most of the review (spoiler-free, I hasten to add), and yes the graphics and sound are very important, but from this project’s inception director David Cage has frequently commented on the game’s emotional impact and original storytelling, hyping them as something never-before-seen in the realm of videogames.
So has he and the team at Quantic Dream been successful? For the most part, yes.

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Issue 24

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

Chime (Review)

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

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Written by DrunkenGamer

Format: Xbox Live

Genre: Indie, Puzzler


With all the different puzzle games out there, I was genuinely starting to believe we had exhausted all possibilities. I mean, how many kinds of puzzle can there be?
Enter Zoë Mode, with their XBLA game Chime, to give me a digital bitch-slap for harbouring such a stupid thought.

The gameplay in Chime is very simple at its core. You have a gridded play area and your task is to use the Tetris-like blocks that you are given to cover the whole area. On some of the levels the area has obstacles and one is split into two sections.

In order to score points you have to get your shapes to form “Quads”. These quads have to be a minimum of 3×3 squares big, but the bigger the quad you make the more points it scores. When a quad is first activated, you are able to extend and increase it for a short while. Once that time for extending the quad is over it is stamped down, and any part blocks that are left on its edges become remnant. These remnants will slowly decay over time unless they are used in new quads, and if you let them decay that will remove any multiplier you have.

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Aliens Vs. Predator (Review)

Saturday, March 13th, 2010
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Written by Jon Clapham

Format: Ps3, Xbox 360, PC

Genre: Action, Horror, FPS

Going back-to-basics is not an advisable idea for a first-person shooter. Of all the genres of videogames, the FPS is the one that has to move forward with new ideas to avoid stagnation, and it is the lack of a fresh take that is the major problem with Aliens Vs Predator.

The entire experience feels like a step back to the shooters of the mid-to-late nineties and while the game doesn’t do anything majorly wrong, it doesn’t have anything that makes it stand out. A lack of new ideas is not always a hindrance as long as what the game does is done well. But even in this, AVP rarely rises above average.

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Squeeballs Party (Review)

Saturday, March 13th, 2010
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Written by TurkeySaladBoy

Format: PC

Genre: Party Game

3.. 2.. 1.. Every day is play-time in the Squeeballs factory of fun

Like the annual camping trip, Squeeballs Party will keep the whole family occupied for hours, in what is by far one of the best value-priced party games on the Wii.

The premise is simple: Squeeballs are a new range of toys being prepared in a secret factory on an island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Your role is effectively a Quality Assurance product tester, testing the toys before they can be cuddled and petted by appreciative children. You have to test the Squeeballs through a series of mini-games using just the Wii-mote, performing a range of sweat inducing motions to push the toys to their limit. The Squeeballs all have individual personalities, which tug on the heart-strings and make you feel remorse for inflicting so much harm and punishment (they love it really, those kinky Squeeballs).

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Video of the Week

Mass Effect 3 – Better With Kinect

New Trailer confirms Feb 14th Release date! Past Weeks …