Thirteen1

The Cursed Crusade – Review

The Cursed Crusade launches you back to the time of the Fourth Crusade during the early 13^th Century.

It all revolves around co-operative combat, putting an Army of Two style focus on you and your partner battling your way through various stages together while using all manner of weapons, from swords and maces, to axes and spears. The combat is bloody, gory and the finishing moves can be extremely gruesome. Beheadings and impalings, anyone!? Read More

Review – Marvel Pinball

Simply Marvel-lous.

Zen Studio’s are known as the masters of the pinball gaming scene. Yeah, it’s a niche, but it’s also a fun one that they know like the back of their hand. Their latest offering is no exception. Four initial tables are included, Spiderman, Wolverine, Iron Man and Blade. Yeah. Blade. However, two additional tables, Fantastic Four and Captain America, are available as DLC.

Each table gives the player the chance to battle against the most notorious villains from each of the comics. These boss battles are unlocked in differing ways on each table, from hitting certain bumpers, shooting ramps in a certain order to many other more complex requirements. Read More

Tribes: Ascend Looks Eye-Poppingly Good!

The guys at Hi-Rez studios have just unveiled a new gameplay teaser trailer & a bunch of screenshots for upcoming MMOFPS, Tribes: Ascend.

We reckon it’s looking pretty awesome! What do you think?

Details are pretty scarce at the moment, but we do know that Tribes: Ascend is being developed using the Unreal 3 engine, is being positioned as the multi-player successor to the much lauded Tribes 2, and will act as a re-introduction of the franchise to the gaming world.

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Review – SteelSeries 5XB Spectrum Headset

Whether you’re listening out for the blood curdling shrieks of your enemies as you bludgeon them with a herring, or taking in the sights and sounds of the bustling virtual metropolis that surrounds you, audio is king.

Great sound production can create immersion the likes of which no amount of graphical polish could ever produce, and only a decent sound system can offer you the best experience.

SteelSeries have come to the rescue with their 5XB Spectrum, a headset offering on the fly balance adjustment between voice and game, a retractable mic, and a wonderfully lightweight design targeted solely at Xbox 360 gamers.

First impressions are positive; the headset is crafted beautifully in black gloss plastic with lime green trim, screaming X360 fanboi from the off. The fit and feel is that of a well designed product, but the weight of the headset will leave you in two minds. The light-weight construction makes for comfortable gaming sessions into the very early hours of the morning, but the gloss plastic combined with this incredibly light structure leaves a niggling doubt about the build quality.
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Review – The First Templar

Strategy developer Haemimont Games have made the brave move of switching to an action/adventure/RPG hack-fest with their latest release, The First Templar.

Reversing the role from similar-yet-not-quite-ripped-off franchise Assassin’s Creed, The First Templar has you playing, you guessed it: Garfield. Only kidding, you’re a crusader in the olden times when massacring for religion was a jolly pastime, putting you at the forefront as a Knight’s Templar on a quest for the Holy Grail.

Note now that I’m going to try my damnedest to refrain from Monty Python references for the rest of the review.

So it’s the late 13th century and you’re French; what else are you going to do than swan off to find some ancient doohicky? You play as Celian, a young knight who has undertaken this quest but soon finds he is on the cusp of a full-scale conspiracy within the Order of the Knight’s Templar itself. Celian teams up with foxy heretic Marie to unveil the conspiracy and avoid the Inquisition in the process.
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Review – Section 8: Prejudice

You can’t get much for $15 these days. A single ticket to a movie, but no popcorn; perhaps even a couple of pints at the pub (but let’s face it, you really just rent those).

No, $15 doesn’t go very far; that is unless you’ve just bought Section 8: Prejudice, a new FPS from TimeGate that packs a ton of value into a small digital package.

Prejudice is the sequel to TimeGate Studios’ 2009 offering, Section 8. While Section 8 was a full retail release, it’s sequel is a digital-only download, available on Xbox Live (XBLA) for the Xbox 360, on Steam (and other download sites) for the PC, and will be made available on the PlayStation Network later this summer.

The original Section 8 received mixed reviews, but Prejudice is turning heads for its intuitive arcade-style gameplay and creative twists on the FPS genre.
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Review – Torchlight

There’s probably some people reading this review who are new to Torchlight, which is fine, sometimes we miss games because we’re far too busy playing other games as well.

However, for most of our readers, Torchlight won’t be anything new, because if you’ve heard of it you probably loved it – we did. XBLA has been receiving a large number of ports recently, and Runic Game’s 2009 classic has joined the ranks. Now, presented in the wonder that is HD, Torchlight burns brightly in the crowd, seeking to quench your thirst for adventure.

Torchlight is an action RPG devised by some of the best minds in the fantasy-genre; the development team consisted of Fate designer Travis Baldree and his team that originally created Thirteen1 favourite Mythos, and Max and Erich Schaefer of Diablo fame – the first two.
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Review – Serious Sam HD

Too many first-person shooters nowadays are crusted in mud, their protagonists crossing bleak, brown environments to reach another environment that’s a different shade of brown.

Games such as Call of Duty, although good, are sometimes too damned serious. We play games because we want fun, not a skewed history lesson with characters who have a perpetual look of constipation in their faces. It’s a good job the silly has finally returned to serious with Serious Sam HD, a game that I’m sure will trigger fond memories in many an older gamer.

Now, it’s not fair to say that Serious Sam is Duke Nukem-lite, although at first glance the granite-jawed hero certainly looks like he’s ‘all out of gum’. While the white t-shirt wearing Sam draws parallels with everyone’s favourite pig-slaying misogynist, Serious Sam stands on its own merits in this two game boxed set, which contains magic high-definition versions of The First Encounter and the aptly named, Second Encounter.
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Review – Swarm

A lot of games were announced back at last years E3, and while a lot of people will have been distracted by the big shiny triple-A titles, there was one indie gem that really caught my eye – Swarm.

Created by Hothead Games and Published by UTV Ignition, this game puts you in charge of a swarm of 50 ‘Swarmites’. What makes this interesting is that you are in control of all 50 at once, there is no leader, you simply move them all around like a school of fish.

The basic concept of the game is a simple one; guide your 50 Swarmites from the start of each level to the end, scoring as many points as you can. The problem being that the levels aren’t friendly places to be. All of them are filled to the gills with things that want to burn, electrocute, slice, eat or otherwise mutilate your little blue friends.
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Review – Top Spin 4

Let it be known that this humble writer is no tennis aficionado.

Beyond recognising names like Federer, Nadal and Murray, and catching the occasional match while channel flicking between cartoons, my real world knowledge of tennis is little-to-none. But, without even really knowing much about the sport, Top Spin 4 just ‘feels’ right, and from the moment you play your first match, tennis fan or not, you’ll find it hard to disagree.

2K Czech’s latest tennis sim is one of those games that just seems to nail everything it needs too. It’s a tennis game that looks up to nobody, and why would it? Although it classes itself as a “simulator”, Top Spin 4 is actually an easily accessible, fantastically put together gameplay experience that expertly marries technical ability with pot luck chance.
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