Harry210

Devil May Cry is a superb hack and slash action game that kept me entertained throughout its campaign. The graphics are great with nicely detailed character models and textures. The atmosphere is very hellish; dark, cold and sometimes chilly and scary. DMC offers the player a chance to play as a half devil, half human devil hunter called Dante who is badass and transverse through a number of levels - or missions - mostly hacking and slashing his way through hoards of enemies using his trusty sword and ranged weapons which seems simple enough. I love the way that you play as this near invincible character blowing everyone to bits, shooting unlimited grenade launcher rounds and the fact that you're in control of a powerful character (although you can still die). The frame rate is pretty stable and that's a good achievement as there can be a lot happening at once on screen. Combat is fast paced and flows smoothly as you hack and slash with a good selection of combos to learn which keeps the gameplay fresh.These combos are very accessible as you mostly only use the circle button to slash your sword. This is a game in which the controls are great but I do find the fact that the jump button is the triangle button and the cross button is the action button; I would have thought that it would have been the other way round but you'll get used to it. There are a couple of diversions from the excellent over the top action in which Dante may need to grab an item and bring it to a specific place. There are a variety of enemies to fight and their design fits in the dark horrifying world. Some enemies do require a bit of strategy to defeat as you can't just simply demolish them by pressing circle. To mix into the gameplay, Dante has got a couple of items to help out. Holy Water will grant Dante the ability to destroy every enemy on screen at that time - or take a chunk of a bosses health bar off, and Vital Star restores Dante's health. To stay alive and deal more damage, it's recommended that you would use them in combat. An excellent action game should have some tough as nails boss battles and thankfully, this game has just that. Each has their own attack pattern and require patience to take down. Dante has access to the "devil trigger." When Dante has enough devil trigger (or what ever you call them) symbols, he can go into a devil like state for a brief moment and deal more damage and take little damage himself. I find this awesome when you gain access to this. They are really fun to fight and are the highlight of the game, especially the final boss fight which will go down as the most EPIC boss fight I have encountered. The music - OMG - is awesome with a mixture of techno and orchestra while your battling through; the bosses have their own unique music which are superb to listen to. DMC uses a life system where if you die, you lose a life. The game gives you a chance to save your progress if you complete a mission. Fair enough but if you lose all of your lives, you have to reload your previously saved game which is a pain as it takes a couple of seconds to reload your saved data. Another problem is the camera can be a pain in the arse as it can't be adjusted and it can point in a direction where you don't want it to point; sometimes it can get you killed as off screen as you maybe hit by a projectile or lunge attack that you didn't see coming. Finally, even though there are 5 main bosses in the game, you have to fight 4 of them 3 times on 3 separate confrontations and each confrontation only offers very minor alterations to how they attack so it can get quite repetitive having to fight just one boss 3 times. DMC is an excellent hack and slash action game which is easy to play but tough as nails. Buy it as it's very cheap pre-owned now on PlayStation 2.

For adrenaline, fast, tense car chases and thrills, you can't go wrong with Driver 2 which is in my own opinion, the best Driver game in the series. The first Driver game was one of the first 3D driving games, where you could drive around in a city and complete various tasks for people and Driver 2 expands on its predecessor. In the graphical department, nothing much has changed and it seems as if Reflections (now Ubisoft Reflections) has really eked every ounce of power out of the PlayStation with this game. The cities Chicago, Havana, Las Vegas and Rio are all rendered nicely, are bigger than the cities found in Driver, there are now smooth right and left hand corners on the city roads unlike in the first Driver game (wow!) and the textures of the buildings and the roads look great if a little bit flat, the car models have slightly improved - they don't look like square shaped cereal boxes, a bit more curvy in comparison to the car models in Driver - and the sound design is pretty well done. The car engines sound powerful and authentic just like the previous game, the police sirens sound like, well police sirens, the music sounds funky and is sweet to listen too if a little bit repetitive (one of the music tracks sounds like a duck has provided the tune) and the voice acting is a lot better in this game than in Driver. The cut scenes that help drive what is a nice crafted single player storyline which by the way I found more interesting than the storyline in Driver, are presented superbly and I like the fact that when you leave the single player and then next time you come back to it, the game gives you a quick recap of what's happened so far in the story through a montage of the cut scenes you have seen so far. The complexity of the 3D cities and the CGI cut scenes has meant that this game has had to be put on to two discs. The game play is similar to the first Driver and throughout the course of the game, you will be in high speed chases with the police, avoiding oncoming traffic, chasing criminals down and trying to wreck them and tailing a suspect to a destination without being spotted. Like in the first Driver, you will need quick reactions and vehicle control to manoeuvre through the traffic, road blocks and drift around tight corners quickly. It's still an intense feeling in this game when you have a police car or enemy vehicle pursuing you and trying to ram you off the road. Driving around, doing various types of driving missions make up a pretty fun game play experience and can prove a challenge to the gamer. It all sounds similar but that's not a bad thing really as the controls are fluent and there something that you can do in this game that you can't do in Driver. A huge difference is that you can now get out of your car and this allows you to free roam on foot around the city. This is a welcome addition to the game play and opens up new possibilities while driving around the huge cities because if your car get too damaged and is about to go up in smoke, just get out and steal another one instead of being tethered to driving one car per story mission or free roaming session. This game play mechanic adds to the somewhat limited game play. Tanner can't kill mow down people with a machine gun however. May not seem like a surprise that you can do that today considering every sandbox game like the Grand Theft Auto series and has you getting out your car, going on a killing spree and then driving off in someone else's wheels. You got to remember though, Driver 2 was released in 2000, one year before Grand Theft Auto 3 was released, the first 3D Grand Theft Auto game, so this game gave Grand Theft Auto some further inspiration and was the first game to offer this revolutionary game play mechanic. The driving modes from the first game return such as Survival and take a ride mode and once again the Survival mode is hilarious; the aggressive police are again out to ram you vigorously. Take a ride mode is a little pointless to play unless you have some time to waste as there are only secrets and secret cars to look for in each of the cities or get involved in a police chase. There's not much to do in take a ride mode. There are a few problems I have found with this game, as with most games I review. The draw distance is pretty poor but I guess it is a price to pay for having four 3D huge free roaming cities running on the PlayStation hardware. The police A.I seems to have taken a dive into stupidity since Driver. Instead of trying to avoid the traffic that is between you and them, they'll just smash into traffic that is directly behind you. The game maybe challenging but it can get frustrating at times. Sometimes, you'll keep messing up like crash into traffic or unbreakable objects and you'll find yourself just trying again and again to beat a mission; it's all about trial and error. Despite these criticisms, Driver 2 is definitely the best in the series

Far Cry 2 is an ok FPS which is technologically brilliant, but has the fun **** out of it due to a number of problems. This (from what I've heard) seems to have nothing in common with the original Far Cry, or even the Xbox/Xbox 360 game, Far Cry Instincts. It just shares the same name with the original game. Anyway, Far Cry 2 drops you in to an African-like sandbox landscape, which is huge by the way, to kill an arms dealer known as "the Jackal". Instead of playing as Jack Carver (from Far Cry and Instincts), you pick 12 different characters, each with their own back story but they all have one thing in common: they all have malaria! The graphics are lovely with beautiful landscapes to admire with lush grass (which blows with the wind depending if it's windy or not) and organic plant life. At its heart, Far Cry 2 is an open world FPS with a meaty single player campaign and you're not constrained into completing missions in a linear fashion; you have freedom to do what you want like complete side missions, scavenge for diamonds and upgrade your arsenal of weapons. The huge range of weapons is impressive from the traditional FPS assault rifles and pistols to a portable mortar that you can use to rain death on your enemies. As you rescue people around the landscape as part as normal progression, they will become your buddy to help you by helping you when your pinned down by enemy fire or offer you an alternative mission to the one that you're going on at the time. To help you transverse the huge African environment, you have a bunch of vehicles to choose from like boats, jeeps and buggies. They are nippy to drive although the engine noises of some of the vehicles are dull. When the action gets going, the game is a joy to play with frantic gun fights and encounters with the enemy. You can even use stealth tactics to eliminate your enemy although the branch whip and claymore mine tactics that you can use to silently kill the enemy from Far Cry Instincts are gone. The guys you fight can soak up a few bullets so to conserve ammo, you gotta nail those headshots. What is really good about this game is the physics. Far Cry 2 is built on Ubisoft's Dunia engine and this allows you to shoot individual branches off a tree. The animations that play when you're trying to fix yourself because you're nearly dead by pulling a bullet out of your flesh or twisting your leg back because of a huge fall is pleasing to watch. The way fire spreads is so realistic: A small fire can soon turn into a huge problem! The grass and the bushes blows (when it's windy) convincingly with the wind. It may seem a really good action packed FPS but there are a few problems that dampen the experience. The game can get incredibly boring while you travel across huge distances just to get to your destination/start of a mission and you'll just be begging for something to happen. There are a few ways to travel to your destination like using a bus stop to warp large distances or drive there but if you lose your vehicle when you're nowhere near a bus stop or your destination, you face walking for a long time. The save system is flawed. You can only save your game manually at any of the safe houses scattered around the gaming environment. There may be an abundance of them but you'll find yourself saving at everyone you'l come across on your way to a destination because if you die, you'll spawn at a safe house you've recently saved at. Dying is imminent while walking towards your destination because an enemy vehicle can suddenly run you over or trying to attack an enemy owned camp and then getting killed because you have run out of syringes and you face going back a long way from your destination if you don't save regularly. Why can't the game have an auto save feature? The jamming gun feature is a nice touch - basically the more you use a specific gun, the more worn out it will become and will be more prone to jamming - but can be tedious when you're in the middle **** fight and you'll have to constantly un-jam your gun. Basically to solve this problem, you have to continuously swap out your old weapons for new ones. Also, why do you have to play as a character that has malaria? What happened with the bad ass feral abilities from Far Cry Instincts which made you a powerful force? Now you are a weak character that can't run 50 yards without tiring out. You have to keep on top of your sickness by taking malaria tablets that have to be earned by going on side quests. It's just an unnecessarily distraction from the main game. Going on missions for the weapons vender to unlock new weapons proves pointless considering the weapons unlock through normal story progression. There isn't much mission variety: just kill this guy, collect this document and return it, turn this knob and that etc. Far Cry 2 is a good FPS in general but I feel it's a big step down in storyline and game play from Far Cry Instincts

Driver is a decent driving game which draws influences from classic 1960's and 70's car chase films and attempts to bring those movie car chase scenes and mimic them in this game. Reflections has done a good job with this concept with great looking 3D environments, a soundtrack that fits well in the game and sound effects that sound powerful. The games 3D environments that you can drive around in were somewhat of a new thing back then and still look great. Driver was a breakthrough in 3D driving games that even the mighty Grand Theft Auto series took this concept and the 3D view and built on it, and then Grand Theft Auto 3 was born, 2 years after this game. The environments are a little empty though and some of the cities roads are very strangely designed (I mean, Los Angeles has one of the longest straights I've ever seen!) The game play is simple: It involves you driving around in a car, around a big city, avoiding traffic and the cops, and either trying to get to a destination quickly or trying to get away from the cops as safely as possible in the single player campaign mode. The game play is quite limited and it does get quite repetitive after a while as you drive to this destination, then drive to another destination, avoid this, avoid that. The handling model feels responsive, polished and allows you to skid around corners and dodge traffic. The games main missions require a flamboyant driving style and good car control as you dodge traffic and avoid charging cop cars. The cut scenes that carry the story forward are nicely animated (seems that Driver games always have good cinematic cut scenes to advance its stories). As I said earlier, the sound effects are fantastic with some great sounding car crash noises and car engine sounds. The menu music is funky to listen to and is probably the best track in Driver's soundtrack. Chases with the police helps to liven things up and the police A.I is fair for most of the time and is able to dodge the traffic instead of mindlessly smashing into them unlike in Driver 2. Sometimes when the roar of the police engine and the sound of the police sirens is just behind you, you wonder if you're going to escape them or not. Along with the single player campaign, there are a few driving games to try out. My personal favourite is the Survival mode where you try to survive for as long as possible against a rampage of cop cars with supercharged V12 engines under their bonnets (well not literally, but they do seem to have a slight speed advantage) that try to damage your car. Now this game is good but there is one problem I have to address. Police car A.I is quite fair (unlike in Driv3r) most of the time but in one particular mission, they are far too aggressive; they slam in to your car consistently if you're not careful you could find yourself getting smashed around like a pinball in a pinball machine. This mission (I'm not telling you what mission it is) that I'm talking about is one of the hardest missions I've have ever come across in a Driver game because of the brutality of the A.I. It is a huge problem which may cause you to rip your hair out. Despite this "Minor" problem, Driver is a solid driving game and the fact that it was one of the first 3D driving games, it is one game that hugely influenced the 3D Grand Theft Auto games and the sandbox genre

I am unable (at the time of writing) to post this review of Far Cry Instincts for the Xbox on its own review page. So I am posting this review of Far Cry Instincts (Xbox) on this page considering the Xbox 360 version is pretty much the same. I do not review the sequel, Far Cry Instincts: Evolution. Wonder what it would be like to be like a predator, the violent creature from the 1987 film, Predator, but in human form? Far Cry Instincts certainly does that but with a little more enthuses on running around, killing mercenaries and not camouflaging yourself, waiting for hours until eventually you make the kill and then realising your dinner has gone cold. Far Cry Instincts is an action packed FPS that places you in the shoes of Jack Carver, a former service of the United States Navy and a team of mercenaries are trying to hunt you down. The graphics are beautiful with lovely looking tropical environments, dense jungles with authentic looking bushes and trees which keep the game from looking boring. The water effects of the tropical waters are astonishing and look almost as good as the actual seas in real life. I do wish there were more daytime levels as the game gets quite dark later on. The game maybe quite linear with only a few open areas to explore for ammo supplies and health pickups but as Jack Carver, you will trek through dense jungles and dark swamps as you hunt and kill mercenaries and later on in the game, mutants. The game play is exciting, enjoyable and sometimes intense as you shoot and drive your way through a variety of levels and obliterate anyone you see with a range of weapons from assault rifles to rocket launchers. Although it's not necessarily to use throughout the game, (unlike say, the Metal Gear Solid series) this game does incorporate stealth into the game. You can hide underneath a hut, behind a wall or in a dense bush and see your prey walking - and sometimes exchanging conversation with someone else - unaware of your presence. You can take them out silently by stabbing them in the back or shooting them and then hide again. This stealth mechanic is taken further with the inclusion of branch trap - a spiked branch trap that can only be set on a tree - and claymore mines. You can set these traps up (out of sight of the enemy of course) and lure your prey into the traps by throwing rocks on the ground near the trap and because of the sound of the rock hitting the ground, you can lure your prey into the traps you have set. This is really neat idea and it is so satisfying when the unexpected mercenary walks towards a tree and then gets smacked down by one of your spiked branch traps. The enemy A.I is quite intelligent. Mercenaries will try to take you down and not just charge at you. As what seems that you maybe outnumbered in the early stages of the campaign, you gain feral abilities from being injected by serum (beats being infected with malaria huh Far Cry 2?). This serum has given Jack Carver the abilities of a natural predator like increased running speed, night vision, a melee attack that can send someone flying over the moon and the ability to regenerate health and heal his wounds like Wolverine from X-Men. This is where Jack Carver becomes a predator, a force to be reckoned with and even though he's not invincible, Jack seems to have an advantage in terms of strength and agility over his enemies (for now). These feral abilities are amusing to use and can serve you well through the dark, hostile environments. I love that you can run fast and then leap across huge gaps in the landscape and the fact that you can charge at your enemies and send them flying 20 feet into the air with one swipe of your hand. The game does have some enemy variety so you won't just be shooting trained mercenaries. Like I said before, you will be encountering mutants who are basically mad, experiments that look like they are from a horror movie and a huge mutant which looks like a deformed ape with a giant arm. The music is great and intensifies the action especially at a couple parts of the game. It has a certain jungle feel to it. The sound effects are superb. The guns sound that they pack a mean punch and the loud roars of those huge, psycho mutants is so awesome to hear. Jack Carver is nicely voiced. Thank god that the main focus of this game is the single player instead of today's shooters, although this game does have multiplayer. The single player campaign is lengthy and is a thrill from start to finish with very few boring moments where you just walk for a long time waiting for something to happen. Far Cry Instincts is a game that really shows us what the original Xbox can do. I consider this to be a much better game than Far Cry 2 despite being more linear and less open. It's not as boring or annoying than the more technologically advanced game that is Far Cry 2. Far Cry Instincts definitely earns the title of being one of the best FPS games I've played, along with Black and Halo.

Ratchet Gladiator is a different kind of Ratchet and Clank game as it seems to be more action orientated, resembles a third person shooter action game than the previous Ratchet and Clank games. The game isn't as open as the previous Ratchet games and you still explore planets, complete objectives and blow the living daylights out of enemies with ridiculous and well designed weapons which just like the last 2 games, upgrade as you use them. Weapon customisation is taken further with the inclusion of mods which I think are fun to experiment with. You can add mods like a lava mod - which leaves hot lava spewing on the floor after the weapon has made impact with an enemy or the ground - an electric mod that shocks any enemy every time you hit them with the modified weapon and more. The graphics are sharp and vivid just like the original Ratchet games and the character models are smooth and look right for a Ratchet game. The environments that you battle through in this game are nicely rendered but maybe not as huge as the previous games environments. The structure of the game is like I said earlier is different from the previous games: Ratchet has been captured by the villainous Gleeman Vox and he forces Ratchet to compete in a violent sport known as Dreadzone. You travel around the galaxy and compete in challenges and using Ratchets arsenal, you shoot your way through levels and completing tasks like deactivating a shield generator by shutting down nodes, using a landstalker to demolish your foes and basically defeating other Dreadzone competitors (boss battles). There are still platform elements in this game: Ratchet can use his slingshot to swing over wide gaps and at some points you have to navigate through obstacles. Oh yes, Ratchet can still jump as well! The weapons are really fun to use and when fired, they fire out some vibrant effects like the explosions from the grenades fired from the B6-Obliterator. As with all Ratchet and Clank games, there is no stealth element integrated into the game play, so you can pretty much approach any situation with a gun-ho attitude. The sound effects are great (I and as with all Ratchet games, the voice acting is well done. The games structure (progression) deviates from the previous games which can either mean a good thing for people who want a different Ratchet game or a bad thing who wants a Ratchet game with the same game play structure. It's also quite sad that Clank - even though he makes an appearance - is not a playable character. It would have been nice to have a few Clank sections to mix up the game play. As I said before, the levels are linear and there's no reason to explore them. A good thing for people who are fans of the action/third person shooter element in Ratchet games is that the weapon customisation has been expanded. Alpha mods are automatically added to your weapons the more you use them like increased rate of fire and the omega mods are bought from weapon vendors. Omega Mods can make your weapons more devastating. You can modify them to spew out lava when they come into contact with an enemy or add an acid mod so any enemy shot at will take continuous damage for a few seconds while the acid eats away at their flesh (or mechanical parts!). The combat in general is frantic and it is a lot of fun experimenting with the weapons and mods at your disposal. I like the controls as well and instead of locking onto your enemies to shoot them, you can manually aim your crosshairs and strafe freely instead of holding down a button. Like the previous 3 games, there isn't much strategy in beating the bosses; you just go all gun-ho on them. I like the newly integrated difficulty system. Basically, you can choose from 4 difficulty settings, unlike the previous games where you just played the game on one difficulty setting. The higher the difficulty, the more damage Ratchet takes from enemy fire. This new addition to the series means that casual gamers can get into the game without getting too frustrated and hardcore gamers can present themselves with a challenge if they want. The character design is just as imaginative as in previous Ratchet games and the main antagonist, Gleeman Vox is a mad and cruel being but I prefer the previous games antagonist, Dr Nefarious. A familiar face makes a hilarious cameo at the end of the game and is definitely worth waiting until the credits end. Ratchet: Gladiator presents gamers with a darker tone Ratchet game and some Ratchet fans may not like the fact that it's primarily third person shooter. However, I love third person shooters and Ratchet: Gladiator is a fine example of an action game.

Tom Clancy's EndWar from UbiSoft Shanghai is a nice addition to the RTS (Real Time Strategy) genre which takes place in the future. The graphics are decent and some vast environments to battle in but the detail of these environments are a little to flat and dull. The game play is a typical RTS where you command a bunch of units and issue orders to them to attack the enemy on a battlefield. There are a few types of units that you can deploy and use like riflemen, gunners, tanks, artillery and choppers. All of these units have their strong points and weak points in combat. Despite having fewer buttons than a PC, the controls of this game while playing on a PS3 are not complex to get to grips with. It's pretty simple to command your units to go where you want them to go with a push of a button. The combat and encounters with the enemy plays out like a "rock, paper scissors" gimmick where one unit will defeat another but will be vulnerable to another. Basically, as I said before, the units that you can deploy all have their weak points and strengths like riflemen aren"t very good with dispatching heavily armoured tanks but are good for securing uplinks and shooting down gunners, tanks are vulnerable to artillery fire but are strong against transports and choppers are not good against transports but are great for dispatching tanks. Choose wisely on what type of unit you send to fight an enemy group of units. The combat is simple but the "rock, paper scissors" approach to the way battles between your group of units and the enemy's group of units works well in a game like this. The perspective of how you view the battlefield and command your units make it easy to see what you're doing and with one press of the square button, you can warp to any unit and issue new orders easily. The camera can be rotated 360 degrees helpfully but annoyingly, you aren't able to freely move the camera around the landscape. The single player is quite enjoyable to play and it will take you a while to beat. The sound effects are nothing special to shout about but they are decent with some nice radio chatter and weapon effects. There's a good selection of modes to play like conquest, assault, raid and siege. My personal favourite is conquest where you have to secure uplinks (it's like a domination type of game mode) and defend them from the enemy. There's a really cool way of commanding your troops using your voice instead of using the control. By saying commands through a microphone, you can issue orders to your units and tell them what to do. I say this is a really cool touch and it makes you feel like an actual commander giving orders to your army. It can get a little bit too much when you have to continuously switch between loads of units to issue new orders but I say that this RTS is a great game for the casual gamer. This is still an RTS you have to continuously change your plans and how you encounter the enemy but I'd say this is a fun, simple little RTS game that people who want to command an army should get!

Resident Evil 5 is a good third person shooter that is definitely a creepy and eerie experience. The graphics are sharp, dark and help capture the scary feel (without actually being too scary) of the game. The character models are nicely rendered with great facial animations. One thing I find really unsettling (in a good way) is the appearance of the Uroboros Virus that attacks people and infects them. It's icky to look at and I shiver when I see it slither across the ground. It's a horrifying sight when it bursts out of infected hosts skins and takes over their bodies but at least it's not too scary and it looks right for a Resident Evil game. The level design is a tad too linear but at least there's a good variety of environments like open streets and pathways instead of boring corridors. The game play is a typical third person shooter with some puzzle solving and item collecting to do along the way like gold, ammo and artefacts that can be sold for money to use to upgrade your weapons of buy weapons. This is not an action heavy title and the game is slower paced in comparison to other third person shooters like Uncharted: Drakes Fortune and Gears of War. To add to the tension, there is ammo supplement is limited so you'll have to make sure that every shot counts. The infected slowly come towards you ready to attack and eat you alive and this gives you plenty of time to aim your gun and try to get a headshot. There is variation in the enemy design which keeps things feeling fresh so you don't face the same enemy's over and over again. The thing that got me annoyed at first were the controls (why do you have to aim and press X to reload rather than one simple button to reload?) and the fact that you can't move while aiming and shooting. This maybe a survival game and there maybe things trying to kill you but they'll always be someone with you to keep yourself from wetting your pants. Sheva accompanies Chris (you) during game play and this turns Resident Evil 5 into a rather nice Co-op game. When you haven't got a friend to play with, the A.I takes over the role of controlling Sheva. The A.I maybe a little bit dumb but at least it gives you a helping hand if you're in trouble. You can even swap items with one another like ammo, first aid spray or herbs. Resident Evil 5 provides you with a range of arsenal to help you deal with the infestation like the usual assault rifles, grenade launchers and pistols. Resident Evil 5 isn't that scary but there seems to be a few "What the hell is that?!"Â

Driv3r is a good but glitchy sandbox-style game. You play as Tanner, an undercover cop who infiltrates into a gang trying to sell illegal cars or something like that. Basically you work for both sides: the cops and the gang. First thing you notice is how good the game looks. The cars you drive look good and based on real life cars, the 3 cities Miami, Nice and Istanbul are detailed and look identical to their real life counterparts: The Driv3r team actually went to these 3 cities and took over 70,000 photos and using the data, built the roads, landmarks and other things into the game. The games cut scenes are great as well and I like the way they used motion capture for these scenes and they look like your watching a movie and have a cinematic feel to them. The story is interesting, dark and full of twists. Some of the voice acting is great (especially Tanner's voice actor) and fits the characters well. Driv3r car damage model is probably the best I've seen in a video game: The cars that you drive can take realistic damage. These cars have been built with up to 20 detachable panels and things like doors, bumpers and bonnets can come off your car if your damage your car by smashing it into traffic or a wall. There are a good number of vehicles to drive like sports cars, sports bikes and go karts! There's a campaign to complete and a Take a ride mode which allows you to drive and have fun around the 3 cities and getting into trouble with the police which can throw some good chases at you. There's even a Film Director where you can take a replay that you saved from a mission or a take a ride moment and edit it with camera angles, slow motion and in car views which is awesome; you could make a movie out of a recorded chase! Driv3r sounds great doesn't it? Sounds like the best game in the world. A lot of problems really ruin the game. I encountered loads (and I mean loads) of glitches in the game ranging from cars driving constantly forward with a dead driver inside, pedestrians getting caught on walls and discovering a deserted unfinished Ghost Town in Miami. The glitches may seem funny but some are annoying. Another thing is the AI: The Police are so dumb. If you go into a building (say your safe house), and there's a wall separating you from a policeman, he won't follow you. He'll just either stand and look at the wall or just walk into it constantly and get stuck. Also the police cars that pursue you always seem to keep up with you regardless on how fast your vehicle is. Despite the graphics looking good, Tanner's walking animation is ridiculous: He walks like a crab! Tanner can't fall from a great height either, probably 4 or 5 feet and a chunk of health is gone from your life bar. I mentioned that the Film Director is great but sometimes the game corrupts your movies; sometimes something happens in your movie which actually didn't happen it when you were recording it and that can screw up your movie. Also the Film Director starts recording your game play the minute you start the game. It would have been nice to pick a time to start recording. At times, Driv3r is a poor version of Grand Theft Auto because there are shooting sections and walking sections in the campaign which are pretty poor. What? This is supposed to be a Driving game! Anyway, you have a selection of guns from the usual rifles, shotguns and handguns and in some sections you have to shoot your way through enemies. The shooting mechanics are poor but at least the driving sections are nice. As well as the Take a ride mode, there are some driving games but to be honest, I couldn't be bothered with any of them other than Survival which can be a laugh at times seeing supercharged mental Police cars flying around the place trying to damage your car. The voice acting maybe good but the audio isn't: Tanner sounds like cow when he gets hit or falls from a great height (HUUUUUMMMMM) and the Police chatter is very repetitive. They only say a few lines of dialog. Also the music in the game itself is repetitive and poorly composed. There isn't much to do in Take A Ride mode other than find hidden cars, kill 10 hidden men known as Timmy Vercetti's in the cities or just mess around with the **** wrap this review up then: Driv3r is a glitchy game that people like to play if you want a laugh but if you want a serious action game, just buy one of the Grand Theft Auto's instead. If this game was given a few months more to iron out the glitches and take out the on foot sections, maybe this game could have been special.

Moving away from the platform genre, Naughty Dog has attempted to bring the Crash universe to the Kart racing genre and they've pulled it off. First off, the graphics are vivid and showcase some great detail and the tracks that you race on are well designed and most of them are fun to zip around in your karts. What keeps these tracks from being boring (most of them) is that some are littered with obstacles which are for the most part, are inspired from previous Crash games like the Piranha plants which swallow your kart and spits out its tyres and the rolling toxic drum which squashes you if you're not careful. Speaking of the karts, Naughty Dog has provided some good characters to race with from the Crash Bandicoot Universe (good or evil) like Crash (of course), Coco, Neo Cortex and each have different kart statistics like some can corner more effectively and some are faster in a straight line. The kart roster may seem small (you have 8 karts to choose from at the start), it's still enough for you to dig in and get racing. The game play resembles Mario Kart (which isn't a bad thing. You race around some nicely designed tracks with 7 other kart racers and try to win the race while pelting them with an arsenal of weapons. There's a decent selection of weapons to use like the TNT crate and the homing missile. They are fun to use and it's so satisfying to obliterate your opponents with them. Naughty Dog definitely nailed the game play of this game. It's entertaining to race with A.I opponents or split-screen with your friends. The A.I is smart enough to cause you trouble with trying to keep you from winning by destroying you with (randomly generated weapons, they don't need to drive into weapon crates to get their weapons *sigh*) weapons. They can be a little too easy to beat, even on the hard difficulty setting. The karts handle great and I like the drift boost mechanic where you slide your kart around corners (or on a straight to gain a speed advantage) and press the R1 (or if you're using the R1 button to slide, L1) button at the right time to give your kart a boost (up to 3 boosts per slide) while you turn. This is essential to master this mechanic if you want to beat the best times in time trial mode or get the gold's/platinum's in adventure mode. The controls are perfect and are responsive. Crash Team Racing offers a nice variety of modes to choose from. There's Arcade mode where you can enter a single race for a laugh on a track of your choice with a friend or your own, or a cup where you race on multiple races and earn points on each track depending on where you finish in the race (a bit like a Grand Prix). There's also time-trial mode and versus modes to play. The main meat of the game though is the story mode (known as the adventure mode). What Naughty Dog has cleverly done here, is integrate the level progression from the 2 previous platform crash games (the level selection, the warp rooms) and carried it over to this game. You progress through 5 areas, enter races by driving into active warp vortex's and try to win all the trophies, relics and CTR tokens and gain access to the boss garage at the end of . There are no clear gems to win but coloured gems can be won by participating in a gem cup that can be won by collecting all 4 CTR tokens that are the same colour as the gem cup that you want to enter. Naughty Dog has brought back some memorable bosses from previous Crash games to serve as bosses for this game. Crazy Ripper Roo is back! I love the way that Naughty Dog has integrated how you earn gems, the relics and the crates (the ? boxes which provide weapons and the bouncy crates which in return, juice up your kart and make your weapons more powerful) into this game and it will take a while to beat this game 100% because of all the gems, relics and bonus rounds you have to complete. The music is very well composed just like the previous 3 Crash games but the taunts/ voice dialog coming out of your character and other racers are a little monotonous and just silly. Some of the tracks, although most of them are pleasant to race on, are boring and bland (Coco Park and Blizzard Bluff springs to mind). It's also next to impossible to beat Nitrous Oxides ghosts on all of the tracks in time-trial mode! All of these things though are minor and don't spoil an enjoyable kart racer which maybe an odd concept for a Crash game, but a developer like Naughty Dog has neatly integrated the Crash universe into a kart racing game. It's sad that this is Naughty Dog's last Crash game.

WipEout HD is an enjoyable futuristic racing game that launches the WipEout series on to the PlayStation 3. Anyone who's played a WipEout game will instantly be able to dive into this game. It's great to have something unique on the PlayStation 3 for once. You pick from a selection of lovely designed ships - which their designs match the futuristic look and feel of this game - and pilot them through tracks and try to claim 1st place in WipEout HD's race modes. As well as race modes, there are other satisfying modes such as time trials that race you against the clock and try to complete 3 laps around the track as fast as you can, speed lap which is similar to time trial but you just do a single lap trying to race around the track as fast as possible, tournament where you race through several races and have the most points at the end of the tournament and one interesting and fun mode, zone mode where your ship starts out at slow speed and you progress through the speed zones and passing each zone makes your ship go faster until your eye sockets bleed and your heart jumps out of your body (by the way, the throttle is disabled!) and the more you travel, the more points you earn. This mode in particular shows off some stunning, colourful visuals with beautiful patterns and the pattern changes when you advance to other speed zones. The modes maybe great and keeps things interesting in this game but the visuals are mind boggling. The futuristic tracks, environments and even the ships look gorgeous and the graphics are polished. The visual effects are also colourful and vibrant like from the charging of the plasma before it fires (the explosion it emits when it hits a target or barrier is just as good) to the wavy pattern of lines that the missile leaves as its chasing its target. Speaking of weapons, Sony Studio Liverpool has brought back some of the ace weapons from previous WipEout games like the plasma and rockets and they work just as well in this game than in previous WipEout games. They are fun to use and makes races more exciting and it's a good thing that the weapon selection covers all situations no matter if you're far behind or in front of the pack. Now the game play: The pace of the game is electrifying. WipEout HD provides you with fast and furious racing (and in some instances like the Phantom Class races and later Zones in Zone mode, insane) and the controls are just perfect for dealing with the quick pace of the game. A.I and event difficulty has 3 difficulty settings to choose from: Novice, Skilled or Elite. This makes the game accessible to more casual gamers where they can just enjoy themselves and not get too frustrated playing the game on Novice and more experienced gamers can be given a tough challenge on Elite. This is a game (especially in the higher speed classes) that demands quick reflexes and perfect use of the ships airbrakes to navigate through tight corners without hitting the boundaries of the track. It may seem hard at first to master cornering quickly and the boundaries on the tracks are quite small, practice makes perfect in this game. The track design is simple but well executed and couple with the excellent visuals that this game has, it makes them look striking. It is a shame that all of these tracks are taken from the 2 PSP WipEout instalments, WipEout Pure and WipEout Pulse but I haven't played them so I guess it doesn't matter for me anyways and anyone else who hasn't played the PSP instalments. As with most WipEout games, you need some awesome music to listen to while flying around the tracks and blasting your opponents off the track and WipEout HD has you covered. The soundtrack is excellent with a good selection of electronic/dance tunes which sound as though they belong in the WipEout world. Sony Studio Liverpool even composed original music for the menu screen (which by the way is one of the most well designed and eye catching menu screens ever) which kicks ass and if you've bought the WipEout HD fury pack, it's even more pleasing to watch. Anyway, WipEout HD may be quite a tough game to play but it's easy enough to be played by casual gamers. Costing 12 pounds, WipEout HD is remarkable value for money and considering that your getting a solid campaign and multiplayer modes, there is no reason not to own this addictive racer.

Vicarious Visions 2nd Handheld Crash Bandicoot game, Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced does what their previous Crash game, Crash Bandicoot XS did: Take the game play from previous Crash games and emulate it onto a less powerful console. Thankfully, this game does that pretty well. The story takes place right after where Crash XS finished off. N. Tropy has created a new adversary called N. Trance and uses him to hypnotise the Bandicoots Crunch, Coco and "Crash". It's actually one of few games that Cortex isn't the main antagonist and doesn't even make an appearance in this game, nor does his cronies. The game play is similar to the last game: side-scrolling platform stages are present with a few different "vehicle sections" such as the Atlasphere levels, the skiing levels and Coco's space levels which do mix up the game play a bit. As with the last game, the graphics are great with detailed character models in the way that Crash, N. Tropy, Crunch and other characters are represented perfectly, the level backgrounds and the levels themselves. The Atlasphere levels - where you roll a metal ball with Crunch or Crash inside it through a 2.5D arena avoiding Nitro crates and other hazards - and the Ski levels - where you play as Crash with the camera facing towards you while you try to avoid being eaten by a shark and jumping on ramps and avoiding Nitro crates - present you with some great 2.5D effects and some new game play design integrated into a handheld Crash Bandicoot game. The themes (or environments) of the levels in N-Tranced, like Crash XS, borrow from past Crash games. Most of the environments are taken from Crash Bandicoot 3 and the Ball sphere levels are ripped right out of Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. The backgrounds of the side scrolling levels display great detail and are appropriate according to the theme of the level. The background design is simple but they get the job done and I'd say they are less repetitive than those found in Crash XS. The sound is well executed and remixes some VGM's found in earlier Crash games and Vicarious Visions has even composed some original music for the bosses. The catchy bonus round music is still there and the music used for some of the cut scenes sounds awesome! The enemy and obstacle design will be extremely familiar to any Crash veterans. The retracting spikes (from Crash 3's Egyptian levels), deadly Scorpions (from Crash 3's Arabian levels) and more familiar enemies/obstacles make an appearance in this game. The powers that Crash obtains by defeating a boss make a return but now there are two new powers that Crash can gain. There's the Rocket Jump and Super Slide which in turn can be used to access areas in levels that could not have been accessed without these powers. The game play is traditional Crash Bandicoot side-scrolling action and I actually found this game a little more challenge than its predecessor, Crash XS. The relic time trials are still here where you race through a level as fast as you can to earn a Sapphire, Gold or Platinum relic and the gems that you can earn by smashing every box in the level. The coloured gems (Green, Red and Yellow) are obtained by finding 4 of the same coloured gem shards scattered across the levels. There are 3 new crates that Crash can smash alongside the other familiar ones like the TNT crate and the question mark crate. There's the freeze crate which freezes enemies in place for a few seconds, a helicopter crate which allows Crash to fly with a heli-pack on his pack, through the molten caves in the Prehistoric levels and a carpet crate that allows Crash to fly on a carpet (not freely though) and hit enemies with a projectile in the Arabian levels (kind of like a side-scrolling **** Atlasphere levels are great to play although Coco's space levels, despite being a bit entertaining, feel empty (probably because the levels are set in space). The water ski levels are a little bit annoying because Crash is skiing towards the camera, you have little time to react to what's coming up. If you want to aim for Platinum on those Atlasphere levels, prepare to have sore thumbs. At least the boss battles are a delight to fight, more original than Crash XS and challenging to fight. Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced is a good end to the Game Boy Advance Crash Bandicoot story arc (the other 2 Crash GBA games are spin-off titles). This game doesn't reinvent the Crash series but it does stick to what Crash Bandicoot should be like: Colourful, entertaining platform games.

Ridge Racer 7 is a perfect definition of a pure arcade style racing game with fast and furious races to dig into. The graphics (despite being a launch title for the PlayStation 3) are great. The car models are attractive and look futuristic if a bit blocky; the environments are quite nice and provide some lovely views to race around. The game play is different to any arcade style game I've played like the Burnout series. You race around tracks (in race modes) with a selected car and try to get first place while an annoying chick cheers you on and tells you what position you're in and if you're slipstreaming (damn I just want to chuck her out of my car). In terms of the selection of modes, there is a nice selection to take part in like races, championships, duels and time trials. There are events in the single player mode like races or time trials to compete in which are enjoyable. Some events earn you cars and these cars can be customised with performance parts, paint jobs, decals and body kits. This is no Need for Speed in terms of the depth of customisation but it's a very good addition to the Ridge Racer series and allows you to personalise your car (or machine as they are called in this game) and make it different to other competitor's cars. The game play is enjoyable with intense, fast races and with the inclusion of a nitrous system which can be earned by drifting around corners makes the game ridiculously fast and you need to pay attention to the road. When you lift off the accelerator and turn into a corner, your car starts to drift and gets sort of gets dragged around the corner and drifting doesn't make your car lose speed (it's hard to explain in words). People at first may find that the cornering mechanic of this game may look and feel weird but you'll get used to it. There's no need to use the brakes! Cars do handle heavy while turning without drifting. Despite the cars that you drive look like, well, cars, they don't have any realistic characteristics that a real car has other than the ability to turn, accelerate and brake but this is an arcade game so it's acceptable. The tracks that you race around are nicely designed and some have some huge jumps to jump over. Even at high speed and 13 other cars on the track, the game runs smoothly with hardly any slowdown. The nitrous system is great and a great welcome addition to the Ridge Racer franchise in its introduction in the Ridge Racer PSP instalment. The A.I opponents that you face are challenging enough to make races interesting. At least Namco didn't program the A.I using the rubber band formula that most arcade racers use (like Burnout) so regardless of how fast you go, the A.I will still keep up with you. Using nitrous while in 1st place gives you a bit of breathing space. I do like the presentation of the menu screens; presented in front of a white/blue futuristic background. They are smartly designed and easy to navigate through. RR7 does have some **** though but not huge ones. Sound design is pretty average: The cars sound like angry Bees and I can't really distinguish one car engine sound from the other as they seem to sound the same most of the time and as I mentioned earlier, the annoying chick that cheers you on and comments on how you're doing every 20 seconds can be really annoying (at least you can turn her off.) The music is heart pumping with suitable techno/dance tunes but they can get quite repetitive hearing them. However, at least all of these problems can be solved with a touch of a mute button. Ridge Racer 7 is a fantastic arcade racer and essential for any arcade racer enthusiast.

Red Dead Redemption is a solid Wild West Themed Sandbox game. The games structure is very similar to Rockstars other Sandbox game series, the Grand Theft Auto series in which RDR places John Marston (the person you play as) into a huge Wild West Sandbox environment and complete missions, earn cash and shoot your foes. The landscape and views look authentic and has a certain naturalness feel to it with loads of plants and live animals. The story is good, deep, fascinating and provides a good, meaty single player experience. The game (for the most part) plays like a first person shooter. Many missions see you fighting against the bad guys in engaging fire fights and RDR has a neat cover system along with a great slow-mo precision targeting system feature known as Dead-Eye which allows you to slow down time and target multiple targets then unleash hell on them with fire power. The gunplay and the game play itself is polished and uncomplicated to play due to clear instructions on where to go and an auto targeting system which allows you to quickly dispatch a group of outlaws. There are some decent variety in the missions that you'll undertake like escorting someone to safety by defending them against outlaws, tame horses, herd cattle from one place to another and more. There is a hint of RPG style game play in this game. I like the fact that you can earn money by scavenging for materials from plants or organs from dead animals and sell them to someone. The single player campaign is defiantly action heavy and bloody. The weapons at your disposal are plentiful and fun to use with bolt action rifles, pistols and a really cool lasso which can be used to take down criminals or targets without killing them. The most ideal mode of transport across the vast environment is the horse. Horse controls maybe a little bit fiddly at first but you'll get use to them. However, galloping sections where you are just riding with a NPC and discussing about various topics can get repetitious at times and I hate the fact that you have to hold down the X button to keep galloping at a consistent speed or else you'll slow down. What I like about this game is how Rockstar San Diego has captured the perception of the Wild West beautifully with the landscape, music, building design, sound design, and the character models and how they move and talk. Speaking of the sound design, the characters in this game are well voiced and the gun noises sound wonderful. What is always a strong point in Rockstar's sandbox games such as their Grand Theft Auto games is that there is an abundance of stuff to do. This game is no exception. There's loads to do even after completing the expansive single player campaign such as side jobs like being a Night Watchmen or helping civilians, scavenge for plant material and play mini games such as Horseshoes and Poker which are fun if a little annoying (especially Horse Shoes, can't say the same thing about Poker: I don't know how to play it!). The physics look convincing and realistic like falling off a cliff or dragging someone behind you (attached to the lasso) and watching them tumble and twirl while you gallop along with your horse. The game does get a little bit slow at the end and I don't like hunting helpless, innocent animals and skinning them but I guess it's just a game. When you skin animals, blood splatters across the screen which is an unnecessarily effect considering the perspective that you play the game. It would be acceptable in a first person shooter where you look through the eyes of your character but not in a third person shooter. RDR is accessible to anyone due to a generous checkpoint system and clear instructions on what to do but in turn it does make the game a little too easy. As a whole, RDR is a great Third Person Shooter with RPG elements that do not overcomplicate things. This Wild West game deserves to be in any action gamer's collection.

Medal of Honor (2010) is a good shooter despite a few problems. This game offers a more realistic take on the First Person Shooter. The game play is just your average First Person Shooter but provides an enjoyable experience with a few vehicle sections to break up the on foot sections like riding on an ATV or piloting a helicopter. The on foot sections pretty much play as a shooting gallery where you just move through a linear path, shoot a bunch of enemies and move on. You'll always have some team mates fighting along. There are some neat sniping sections in the game and times where you need to use the laser designator to paint targets in the distance. The mission where you are in a helicopter and rain death on enemy villages and mortar teams provides some thrills but the game play is quite limited because it plays like an arcade on-rails shoot-em up. There's no freedom on where you can manoeuvre the helicopter other than controlling where you shoot. The weapons are nicely designed and fit with the afghan setting but provide little recoil making it a little easier to use Assault Rifles for long range encounters with the enemy. The game incorporates a little bit of stealth where you infiltrate enemy lines and try to take out the enemy quietly. The dark environments in these sections enhance the stealthy atmosphere. Speaking about the environments, the graphics are crisp and detailed although the character models look like they've been ripped off from Battlefield: Bad Company. The scope of the environments maybe huge but the game design is linear and doesn't really provide enough freedom but it's not a huge problem. One thing that this game does extremely well is that Danger Close has nailed the sound design. The radio chatter, the sound design for the guns and the explosions all help to capture the realistic atmosphere of being in the battlefield. The campaign may not be long but at least there's multiplayer. Developed by EA DICE and using the Frostbite Engine rather than Epic Games Unreal Engine 3 used for the single player campaign, multiplayer is quite fun even if it is a little bit unoriginal. I like the fact that that you can choose between 3 classes (Rifleman, Special Ops and Sniper) and customise their weapons and weapon attachments but I wish there could have been more customisation options. There aren't a lot of weapons to unlock but at least there's enough to suit anyone's play style or situation like being defensive with a sniper rifle and being aggressive with a LMG. There are a few things to unlock in this game including medals and weapon attachments which extend the lifespan of the multiplayer. As with the single player, the sound is fantastic even if it feels familiar to any gamer who's played Battlefield. The sound design makes the maps in multiplayer feel like a real battlefield with the sounds of mortar strikes splashing down and deafening you and the sound of weapon fire echoing around you. Medal of Honor plays like most FPS online games with some nice modes to play like Team Assault, Objective Raid, Combat Mission and Sector Control. None of these modes feel fresh but I guess EA DICE played it safe and just imported some of the multiplayer modes from the Battlefield series. I have nothing wrong with that though due to the fact I don't have a Battlefield game. The maps are varied in size ranging from the dense urban streets of Kandahar Market Place to the open airfield of Mazar-I-Airfield. The maps are not too big and not too small. The Support Actions are a nice addition to the multiplayer and mostly not too overpowered. I like the fact there are defensive support actions and offensive support action and gives you an interesting choice when you obtain one. Do you either activate a defensive support action so you (and your team mates) can enemy on the radar for a limited time or do you go for the offensive support action and try to get a few more kills? This game requires you to adapt to a more defensive strategy because it's a bit harder to get a kill in this game than an online FPS like Call of Duty: Black Ops; it takes a few more bullets to kill an opponent. At times, the multiplayer runs smooth and can be quite fun but I did wish the spawning system wasn't so flawed. Sometimes you can easily be spawn trapped sometimes and you continuously rank up death after death because you find yourself spawning where there's opponents or just a few seconds before a mortar strike hits the ground and kills you. Good luck trying to spawn in clear air. One funny thing I noticed is that when you get blown to smithereens by a rocket strike or Mortar Strike you just drop dead instead of blasting 50 feet into the air! One good thing about this game is that it includes Medal of Honor: Frontline to download to your hard drive but I just wished it could run the game from the actual disc itself. Medal of Honor is a nice, realistic shooter that will appeal to some shooter fans.

Crash Bandicoot XS is a great, well executed platformer for the Game Boy Advance. If you could imagine Crash Bandicoot 2 and 3 style game play, minus the 3D graphics (opting for a 2.5D style platformer) and the vehicle levels, this is what Crash Bandicoot XS offers to players. It doesn't do anything entirely new but at least it offers a new storyline where Cortex shrinks the Earth to a size of a Wumpa fruit (I don't know why he just doesn't crush the Earth immediately after he shrinks it but I guess everything would be over too quickly) and Crash sets out to collect 20 crystals from levels in 4 warp rooms and try to return the Earth to it's original size. The game play from previous Crash games returns with Crash going through levels avoiding enemies and pits to reach to the end of the level safely. Just like the previous Crash games, there are optional Gems (Coloured and Clear) and Relics to collect which can be used to unlock an alternative ending (just like in Crash Bandicoot 3). The powers that Crash can gain and give him new abilities like in previous Crash games are back and once again can be obtained by defeating bosses which are pretty standard and not that epic to fight and are a bit too easy and feel too familiar to past games (**** is once again in one of his Mech's and Tiny bounces around the place trying to stab you with a pitch fork similar to the boss fight in Crash Bandicoot 3). The games enemy designs are mostly taken from Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped with the likes of Frogs (from Crash 3's medieval levels) and spinning Penguins (from Crash 2's Snow Levels). It would have been nice if Vicarious Visions make an effort to design new enemies and new villains rather than importing them from previous Crash games, simplifying the sprites and then putting them into this game. Even most of the music is from past Crash games but they are recreated really well using the sound capabilities of the Game Boy Advance. The sound effects aren't bad either. At least they've kept Crash's "Whoa!" sound effect whenever he dies. One thing they nailed with this game is the graphics. Despite the Game Boy Advances limitations, Vicarious Visions have created some great levels with great level design, each having a distinctive theme like the Sewer levels or the Jungle levels. The games sprites on the enemies, bosses and even Crash himself are done well, colourful and even represent the character designs from past Crash games pretty well. Crash's running animation is quite funny with his nose bobbling up and down and if you stand still for a while, Crash will whip out his Game Boy (Probably an Advance), fiddles with it for a while and then puts it away! The Jetpack levels do show off some pretty cool effects like the nicely rendered clouds and provide some decent action with Crash trying to take down Cortex's Blimps. Overall in the graphic department, Vicarious Visions has done a really good job emulating some of the levels environments found in Crash Bandicoot 2 and Crash Bandicoot 3, although the backgrounds of the levels within a specific theme (say the Space levels) all look too similar and it's hard to tell them apart except for the placement of platforms and walls to jump over. Crash Bandicoot XS doesn't really do anything new but sticks to the classic formula we have grown accustomed to in the Crash series. Vicarious Visions has basically brought the slick Crash Bandicoot platform experience to a handheld audience and crafted a great platformer for Game Boy Advance owners to enjoy.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 is the best Need for Speed game I've ever played. Better than the current ones? I think so. The game is a great racer and definitely a game for people who love exotic cars because there is a great selection of them from Lamborghini Murcielago to the Ferrari 360. The tracks are nicely designed and are fun to race on although they are long in length. The police pursuits are intense and the police will stop at nothing to bust you. Typical police equipment like helicopters and road blocks are at the polices disposal to take you down. The graphics are fantastic and the cars handle nicely. There is a meaty single player campaign which consists of racing in events in a championship to escaping the police in hot pursuit events. You can even be on the cops side and try to apprehend your opponents in some events. Also the soundtrack is pumping and really good when your racing along at high speeds. As I said before, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 is the best NFS I've played and a lovely addition to the racing genre.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (3) is a really well put together racer. This game brings the Need for Speed franchise back to its roots with wild police chases and driving exotic super cars. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous with detailed car models and lovely scenic environments. The game play feels like a cross between a Need for Speed game and Electronic Arts other racing series, the Burnout Series. Cars handle not too realistically but not too light. Unlike past Need for Speed games like Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Need for Speed Underground 2, events in the Single player campaign are selected from a map in the campaign menu (sort of similar to the layout of the event select screen in Criterion's Burnout 3: Takedown) rather than going into a sandbox style map and driving to events located on the map. You can free-roam in this game but doesn't really offer anything other than just cruising and taking in the sights in the fictional district, Seacreast County. A good thing in this game is that it gives you the choice to play as a cop or a racer (like Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2) and this takes you down 2 different career paths. When playing as a racer, the Hot Pursuit events feel exciting (especially later on when you have access to faster cars) and adrenaline pumping. There are other events like the traditional race events, time trial events and gauntlet events which are cool but I do find the Hot Pursuit events gives me more thrills. The cop events are also enjoyable with you working as a cop to take down the racers in any means necessarily. The introduction of weapons that both the cops and the racers (in Hot Pursuit events only) which add an element of car combat style game play to the experience. Weapons include EMP, Spike strip and more and can help either side take down the opposition if used correctly. They don't require too much skill to use but at least it adds a bit more variety to the game play and to keep Hot Pursuits exciting. None of the weapons feel overpowered and most of them can be evaded easily. Overall, the game play in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is smooth and the sense of speed is certainly there and thankfully not as realistic than previous Need for Speed game, Need for Speed: Shift. It does feel like a mixture between Need for Speed and Burnout like the look of the crashes when you smash into something at high speed and the cutaway camera when you "Takedown" another racer or cop. Oh another good thing is that the soundtrack is great to listen to (beats Burnout Paradise's soundtrack any day). There are a few problems with this game though. As with all of Criterion's racing games, the rubber band AI is annoying and will always keep up with you regardless of how fast you go and one slip up (or one crash) can prove fatal later in the race. I know they did this to make the races feel more challenging but I just hate it when the AI can easily keep up with you but makes things harder for you to catch up to them. I know this is a game that's not trying to be realistic but I don't get how ramming a racers car (when your a cop) and then sending them flipping 20 feet in the air or crashing into a barrier busts them. Judging by the look of the crash, I would think they would be dead rather than busted. These are only minor criticisms and they do not spoil on what is a brilliant game that returns Need for Speed to its original roots. This is a game that is captures the spirit of the old Need for Speed games and updates it with a few neat ideas. This Need for Speed game is probably the second or third best Need for Speed game I've played. A must buy!

Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection in the US) is a great treat for gamers craving for some nostalgia gaming. I didn't own a Mega Drive due to the fact I was too young back then when the Mega Drive was released but this collection does a good job at showing me what I would have experienced if I owned one. 40+ games in this collection is brilliant value for money considering that this game has been out for a while and these games included cover loads of genres like platformer, shooter and RPG's which means there's something for everyone. At least you're not forced to play every game that you don't fancy. Some of these games (like Decap Attack and Bonanza Bros) I've played are unique in their own way with interesting and innotive game play. Some games like Dynamite Headdy and Altered Beast and probably some others will require a lot of patience to get through because they are quite hard in terms of difficulty. At least these provide a good (if sometimes frustrating) challenge that these newer games don't seem to give us. Things are made easier through a "state save" feature (which is commonly found in Emulated games played on a PC) which can be used to save anywhere during game play. This takes some of the frustration away considering most Mega Drive games send you back to the beginning of the game when you lose all your continues or lives, you can just continue from your last save state. The games in this collection are presented and run well on the PlayStation 3 and can either be played in their original screen ratio or be stretched to fill a wide screen TV. This does reveal individual pixels more clearly when the games are viewed like this but at least Backbone have had the courtesy to add a "Smoothing" option. Another good thing with this collection is that you can rate the games (out of 5). All of the games may not appeal to you depending on what kind of video game genre your into but Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection is a well put together collection of Mega Drive games and is a must have title for anyone who wants a break from all of the high technological games we're playing today.

Grand Theft Auto 4 is a decent action-sandbox game which on a technological scale is one the best games out there. The graphics are really realistic: Character models are rendered beautifully as well as facial features and the lip-syncing is accurate most of the time. Liberty City looks awesome and the textures of the alleyways, the road and buildings really enhance the realistic feel of the city. The cut scenes have a cinematic feel to them and help you to get **** into the lengthy and interesting story. The game play is also great just like any Grand Theft Auto game I played and also improved with the introduction of a cover system which makes the combat a lot smoother and easier. The cars handle with a kind of weighty feel which is a good change from the more twitchier and floaty feel of the cars in Saints Row 2. A great feature of this game is that Niko can socialise with other characters. The various characters that you meet while you complete the story mode may - while in free roam - call you up and ask you whether you want to go on an activity with them. These can range from getting food at a diner to playing bowling. Some of these activities such as bowling and playing darts make up for some simple but somewhat enjoyable mini games. The amount of stuff that you can do is mind boggling. Even after you finish the story mode, there are still lots of side missions to do like vigilante missions, taxi missions and much more. The dialog is well written and due to the huge wealth of dialog in the game like general conversations, the dialog doesn't get tedious very quickly. What makes this game a little bit less frustrating than previous Grand Theft Auto games is that if you die or fail a mission, you receive a text message and you have a choice to restart the mission instead of driving (or walking/running) back to the start marker for that mission to try again like previous Grand Theft Auto games. The graphics maybe ultra realistic but at times it can be too dark. For value for money, this game is phenomenal. Even Rockstar North added a neat multiplayer mode to extend the lifespan even more although I wished you could play through the whole story in co-op mode with a friend. The realistic feel and attention to detail will appeal to some gamers but some of the fun has been **** out because of this. Don't get me wrong, this is a really good, solid sandbox game and probably one of the best games I've played and captures reality really well but this game does take it a bit too seriously like the fact you can have a relationship with a girlfriend and play bowling, darts and even watch TV! This may sound great but come on. It's a lot better to just play bowling, play darts or socialise with actual people in real life. I mean why we would want to do it in a video game I don't know. Doing these activities in real life gets you more involved. The lunacy and humorous atmosphere that Saints Row 2 has just makes it more fun and enjoyable despite its inferior graphics. Saints Row 2 is a game that like I mentioned in the game review for that game, is a game that doesn't take itself too seriously. Don't let this put you off Grand Theft Auto 4 though as it is a great sandbox game with great depth to its game play and deserves a place in any gamer's action collection.

Ratchet & Clank 3 is an awesome game. This game provides entertainment with more wacky weapons, lovely graphics and a hilarious but evil antagonist. The game is just like the other two games, a Platformer with Third Person Shooter elements with the focus on blowing the s*** out of everything you see with ridiculous weapons. The 2 lovable protagonists, Ratchet and Clank are back and ready to kick some butt. The game play has improved from the previous game with new gadgets to try out like the Refractor which in turn, can be used to solve some interesting puzzles. The hypershot gadget is a neat idea because it combines the Dynamo gadget and the Swingshot (from the previous game). A good thing improved with the Hypershot (Swingshot) is that you don't have to manually select the gadget before grabbing onto a Hypershot target and swinging across; you just need to press the fire button (even if you holding a selected weapon) and the Hypershot will automatically latch onto the target. The The combat is definitely fast and frantic and never seems to slow down. The weapons that you have at your disposal are very well designed and pack a punch and these weapons can be upgraded as you use them but unlike Locked and Loaded, these weapons can be upgraded to Level 5. Each weapon upgrade either adds a mod to the weapon or increases their damage and this system cleverly makes you use each gun and experiment with their purposes. The new gadgets called the Tyhrraguise and the Hacker can be used to unlock doors. The Tyhrraguise adds a bit of stealth to the Ratchet & Clank game play in which Ratchet activates the disguise and becomes a Tyhrranoid (one of the main enemies that are loyal to the games main antagonist, Dr Nefarious). You walk up to a Tyhrranoid with the disguise active and try to persuade him to disable a force field or lower a bridge so you can move on. You pursuade the tyhrranoid by completing a quick time event and pressing the right buttons at the right time which are shown on a reel at the bottom of the screen. The way the tyhrranoids communicate with each other is hilarious: They pop, they bobble and they burp at each other! The hacker introduces another minigame where you have to stop these red pieces from getting to the core by destroying them while capturing green pieces to override the lock mechanism to the door or what ever your trying to hack into. This minigame is simple but original. Another thing that is awesome in this game is the inclusion of Qwark Vid Comics which tell the story of Captain Qwarks long lasting battle against Dr Nefarious. The Qwark Vid Comics game play resemble a 2D side scrolling shooter which you play as Captain Qwark and have one simple goal. Get to the end of the level and shoot anything that's in your way. Game play is different to the platform/shooter bits found when playing as Ratchet which is a nice change. These Vid Comics are so fun to play and it's just awesome to see the conflict between Qwark and Nefarious presented by comic book style cutscenes with a funny narrative. The series trademark humor has not been lost in this game with some funny cutscenes to drive the story. In the parts you play as Clank are fun to play with more enthuses on avoiding hazards. Clank has to avoid lasers and enemy security with the the help of Clank's sidekick from the Secret Agent Clank TV series who is a monkey. Using the Banana gun, Clank can shoot banana's and lure the monkey (depending where the banana lands) into swinging across a pipe to step on a button to activate a bridge for Clank to cross or to activate the security alarm and draw the enemies fire away so you can sneak by. This game play mechanic at least gives us something fresh and innovative The main antagonist, Dr Nefarious may seem mischievous and serious at first but then he has a comical side to him and this is reflected by him sometimes overloading (he's a robot) and picking up funny radio waves then being slapped to snap him out of it and then having no memory of the overload! He's so funny and such a great villain. The boss battles are just as epic as ever although they are pretty simple to defeat: Just avoid their attacks and shoot the cr** out of them. The flying missions have been kept to a minimum (thank god) because they were just so boring in the previous game. The frantic game play that this game holds continues with arena based challenges which provide... well a challenge with various hazards to tackle while you fight waves of aggressive enemies which can helpfully, earn you bolts to buy ammo and weapons. Just to mention the graphics: There not a huge step up from the previous game but the environments are quite huge in scope and the character models are nicely rendered. I experienced very little slowdown too despite a lot of things going on at once. One more thing: The music rocks! Ratchet & Clank 3 is a brilliant and well designed platformer/shooter in my own opinion

Call of Duty: Black Ops is a fun Action packed First Person Shooter that is addicting to play. The single player campaign is as intense as ever as you battle through deadly scenarios set in the cold war. Because this installment is set in the Cold War, Treyarch is no longer limited to WW2 history and the guns they have to design. There is a massive selection of arsenal to use including AK-47's and Ballistic Knife's and the sound design of these guns is probably the best I've heard in the series. The graphics are fantastic to use in both Single player and Multiplayer and some levels in the single player campaign's environments are massive (although you are still restricted to a linear path sadly) and adds to the war intensity of the atmosphere. The character models and faces are so realistic and fluid and the motion capture is so well done. The story is told through flashbacks which can be annoying sometimes because the flashbacks interrupt the game play at times but it is a good way to present the story. I do prefer this campaign to Modern Warfare 2. Multiplayer is where this game is at: It seems to be (to me) more balanced than Modern Warfare 2. There's no stupid game ending killstreaks (Tactical Nuke) or stupid AC-130's raining death from above but the RC-XD killstreak can get on my nerves sometimes. The maps are nicely designed and Black Ops brings new equipment to Multiplayer like the Camera Spike and Nova Gas to the mix to make the multiplayer even more interesting. A nice touch is that now you purchase guns, equipment, Perks and weapon attachments with Black Ops currency system instead of unlocking things as you level up. Currency can be earned by regularly playing Multiplayer and getting kills, completing challenges or leveling up. Gambling is introduced into Black Op's in the form of Wager Matches in which you put forward some of your currency and take part in Wager Matches and try to win more currency and this provides some tense battles where you can either win and buy some more stuff or lose and have to build up your currency bank again. The currency system means you can purchase what you want and play the game how you want to play it which is great. This gives you more freedom of choice: What guns you want, what perks you want etc. Customisation is taken further by letting you apply face paints to your character, customise red dot/ reflex sights (colour, sights etc), add your clan tag to your gun, design symbols for your gun and your gun colour pattern which are awesome so you can let your artistic skills go wild and really make your classes your own and unique. There are a few problems though: Treyarch didn't add any new multiplayer modes which is a shame: Black Ops justs cuts and pastes multiplayer modes from MW and MW2 and adds pretty much nothing of it's own. The Zombie Mode from World at War is also present in this game but has received very few tweaks but it provides some co-op fun with your friends. The spawning needs sorting out: At times I seem to spawn and then shortly get killed again. The Chopper Gunner killstreak is really annoying as well: Really frustrating when you spawn and then get killed by a Chopper gunner and then spawn then suddenly get killed again. Some of the matches I've been in have been really laggy and it's such a pain at times. The single player was at times disappointing and doesn't really offer much more than previous Call of Duty games although it does offer some intense set pieces. Call of Duty: Black Ops slices some frustrations from Modern Warfare 2 but the series is starting to grow tired now.â

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped is a fun PlayStation game. Building on the previous game Crash 2: Cortex strikes Back, Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped bring a few additions like new vehicle missions and new environments like Ancient Egypt and Arabian Times, to run, spin and jump through. The villain of the game, Dr Cortex is now in big trouble and his booming and displeased boss, Uka Uka, is not happy with him because he keeps losing to the heroic marsupial and now he enlists the help of Dr Nefarious Tropy to help him retrieve the crystals and gems using Tropy's time Twister machine. Crash and Coco now have to recover these crystals from the different time periods and Dr Cortex's minions - who act as boss battles - try to stop them. The game play - for the platform parts - is similar to previous Crash games: You go around in a warp room, completing levels and gathering crystals and gems. This hasn't really evolved a lot but there are powers that Crash can obtain from beating Dr Cortex's minions which can help him with completing the levels. The vehicle sections are nice and definitely add more variety to the otherwise similar game play. These vehicle sections are actually fun like the Hog races where Crash races on a Motorcycle from point A to point B and try to come in first place to earn a crystal. The racing doesn't provide Crash Team Racing thrills and the racing is much simpler but they its nice that they have included them. The Plane levels (One you play as Coco) are fun and involve you destroying blimps or Red Barons and whats funny is when you shoot down one of the enemy planes trying to bring you down, the whistling sound emitted when they start to descend with black smoke pouring out of their destroyed plane is just plain awesome. A good standard plane shooter this is but it is over too quickly. The Jet Ski levels with Coco are a bit too tiresome and boring. A good, helpful addition to the Crash series is that now you can see how many boxes there are in a level (notified by the box counter at the top of the screen when you press Triangle) instead of (like Crash 2) showing how many boxes you've smashed and not showing how many there are in a level so its much easier to know how many boxes are left in a level instead of going towards the end of the level then looking at the boxes needed to smash. A good addition to this game is the inclusion of Time trial events which involve you running through a completed level as fast as you can and when completed in a fast enough time, you are rewarded with a sapphire, gold or platinum relic depending on how fast you got through the level. There are time crates to smash to freeze the time for the allocated number of seconds that it reads on the box (1, 2 or 3 seconds). This adds a little bit of replay value to the game because you can try and try again (you dont lose a life if you die while in Time trial mode) to perfect your run and shave milliseconds off your time. As I said before the platform game play in Crash 3 may be similar to Crash 2 but this is not necessarily a bad thing. The game play is smooth and the controls are perfect and the graphics are really nice and the environments are varied and full of detail. The art direction is inspired: Naughty Dog really captured the look of these different time zones. The water effects in Cocos Jet Ski levels are fluid and look so realistic. The enemy designs are just as imaginative as ever and the death sequences that youre treated to when Crash dies in various ways by touching an enemy or get squashed by repeatedly closing and opening doors only adds to the comedic factor that this game holds. All the platform goodness from the previous 2 Crash games are present in this game with the hilarious enemies you face, the sound of TNT crates ticking down ready to go boom and the music (composed by the same people who did the previous 2) is memorable and fits each of the environments in this game. The bosses are really fun to fight and present a good challenge and also a much more improved final boss battle with *Spoiler* than the last game also presents a tough but satisfying end to the Crash Trilogy. The voice acting is pretty neat especially the dark and gloomy voices of Dr Cortex and Uka Uka. Dr Cortex may be no be as threatening as he was in the last game but he can still packs a mean punch when it comes to personality. Uka Uka however, steals the show for being one of the best antagonist ever with his booming voice and gritty looks. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped is a fitting end to the Naughty Dog Crash Bandicoot Trilogy and its very sad we will probably never get another Crash game like this again. *Sob*

New Super Mario Bros. DS is a brilliant and enjoyable platformer. Although, the game play is similar to previous side-scrolling Mario games; you go through 8 worlds and try to get to the end of each level without dying, there's a few new additions like new power ups and new moves that Mario can perform like the stomp or wall kick. New powerups include the mega mushroom, the mini mushroom and shell suit which can be interestingly used to get to hidden areas to find hidden exits or help you clear a level easier. The bosses are great to fight but a tad too easy with some obvious attack patterns. There's a sense of nostalgia when playing this game because this plays similar to the original Super Mario Bros. and has some of the memorable enemies like the Koopa Troopa's and Goomba's which have been given a graphical make over thanks to the Nintendo's DS's more powerful hardware. Even the simple story is similar to Super Mario Bros. but now Bowser Jr has captured Princess Peach and taken her to his castle. The graphics are very nice and the backgrounds are nicely rendered and despite the game play being a bit too simple, there's a great deal of fun to be had and 8 worlds with different themes to complete. The music is brilliant and some of the composed music are remixes of previous Mario game themes such as the Underground theme in Super Mario Bros. What's annoying is that if you want to find a hidden exit in a level and you need a powerup like the shell suit to break blocks which are in your way or a mini mushroom to squeeze through a pipe, you need to get the power up from either normal game play or one from a toad house. Depending on what power up is added to your reserve inventory, depends if you can headbutt the block that contains a random generating item at the right time (basically its like a slot machine and you have to hit the block to stop it on a random item which then is added to your reserve inventory for use later). Hitting this block at the right time is a bummer so you get the item you need and can lead to you leaving the toads house, coming back in and trying again. Despite this little criticism, all the game play enhancements along with sharp graphics and catchy music, Super Mario Bros. DS is a lovely platformer and basically enhances the original Super Mario Bros., with a few tweaks and showcases it to a new platform and generation.

Call of Duty: Finest Hour is a pretty cool shooter. It does have it share of problems but you do get a good size of FPS action which is really intense (intense is a good way to describe the Call of Duty series as a whole). The game is set in World War 2 and you have to shoot your way through various war scenarios and stay alive. This isn't a typical arcade shooter like TimeSplitters where you can just run and let the autoaim assist you in shooting your enemies. You definitely need to play defensively in this game or you'll die. You have a selection of WW2 weapons like the MP40 and the M1 Garand which are good to use and sound good. Oh yes the sound: This game has a really well orchestrated music and really fits with the WW2 atmosphere you fight in. The atmosphere is good and it captures the feel of being in a real war with planes dropping bombs near your position, vast number of enemies to kill and the sound of battle cries shouting around you. The game play as I said isn't an arcade style FPS. This is a slower paced game than TimeSpitters in which you should advance through the levels slowly and use your iron-sights (to increase accuracy of the weapon your using) to pick off enemies from a distance. You go though levels and using guns or grenades, you mow down the enemy and accomplishing objectives along the way like protecting an M12 or planting explosives on enemy equipment. You have a health system in which you will find med kits if you are injured or can carry several med kits to either use on your self to heal or use on your allies. There are also some tank missions in addition to the on foot missions which are fun but can become tiring. The graphics are good but it can become hard to see in dark tunnels and find threats with the dull lighting. Also if an enemy throws a grenade near you, there's no grenade icon to tell you so, you would pretty much die without knowing where the grenade was at the time which can be frustrating. Most of the levels seem to be pretty dark and it can be hard to see where you are shooting. The checkpoints are also very spaced out from each other and considering the game seems to sometimes throw waves of enemies at you, this can lead to loads of deaths and trying again and again. Despite all this, Call of Duty: Finest Hour is a good shooter and this game should not be avoided.

Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 is... well, I'll put it simply, the best game I've ever played! You can stuff all the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 games I've played, this is such a lovely game with brilliant and challenging platform game play and superb 2D graphics. It's a typical 2D platformer which involves Mario or Luigi going through themed levels like the caverns, forest and ghost houses and getting from A to B in an allocated time limit. Memorable enemies from past Mario games make a come back like the Koopa Troopa's and Bullet Bills. Whats nice is that you can pick up Koopa Shells and throw them at your enemies! This 2D platformer is not entirely linear due to the fact that most levels include secret exits and some can take you to secret areas. There's always a satisfactory feeling when you find a secret area since it's not obvious where they are hidden in the level. You need your exploring skills to find them. The boss battles which include you fighting the Koopalings are fun to fight, if a little easy. The music is brilliant ranging from the happy cheerful overworld theme to the dark and creepy castle theme. What adds to the game play is that Yoshi now joins you in the adventure to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser. When you are riding Yoshi, you can eat enemies (except Koopa Shells) spit them out and see them roll into other enemies and different coloured Koopa Shells that Yoshi holds in his mouth, can grant him special abilities for a limited time. Anyway, Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 is a brilliant and enjoyable game and, despite not playing the original SNES version, is the best game I've ever played... ever!

This is the second best game I've ever played. Fantastic graphics with a lovely art style with pretty backgrounds, brilliant composed music which really fits the games various environments like the caves or the bosses castles, smooth and varied game play and imaginative and comically designed characters to battle make Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island an absolute must buy for any platformer fan!

It's pretty obvious when you fight simple bosses, the enemies barely move and the gameplay is simple, if smooth, that Spyro: A Hero's Tail is a game designed at the younger market of gamers. The graphics are nice and colourful but the voice acting is above average and character dialog is so basic. The game play will feel familiar to anyone who's played a Spyro game: You play as Spyro the dragon and have a selection of abilites like the Horn dash or Fire/Electric/Water/Ice breath to defeat your enemies who most of the time just stand in one spot waiting to die. Along the levels, you collect gems which can be used to buy things in Moneybags shop like lockpicks to open locked chests or a butterfly jar which restores your guardian, Sparx's health. To progress though the game, Spyro must collect light gems to power up the professor's gadgets so he can gain access to a new area or smash dark gems located throughout the non-linear landscape to bring down the dark barrier and fight a boss. Traditional platformer obstacles in this game apply which include switches to horn dive to activate machinery or open doors and jumping over deadly pitfalls to reach the end of the level. The game progresses in an non-linear way so your not limited to one path and you don't have to get all the light gems or dragon eggs to complete the game but you do need to smash all of the dark gems. Spyro can power the Professor's gadgets that give Spyro temporarily invicibility or a more stronger horn dash, with power gems to transverse through areas that arent reachable. In some sections, Spyro can even use the ball gadget to roll through the environment. Despite the voice acting sounding quite poor, the composed soundtrack is great especially the boss battles. Spyro can gain abilities along the way like the horn dive and pole spin. Spyro's breath abilites add a touch of puzzle solving to the game in which he has 4 breath elements to choose from. Fire which can be used normally to defeat unarmored and organic enemies or light up furnaces, Electric which can be used to power some machinery and defeat robotic enemies, Water which can stun enemies and use it to turn water wheels and operate platforms and Ice, which can freeze spouting water jets and then used as poles to swing over pits or freeze enemies. In certain parts of the game, you can control one of Spyro's friends in a specific challenge to compete for a light gem or dragon egg. These playable characters are Hunter, Blink the Mole, Sgt Byrd and Sparx and each character has a few levels to beat which have different game play styles like Blinks levels resemble a Third Person Shooter platformer while Sgt Byrd's and Sparx's levels resemble a flying game. What is annoying is that you have to do these levels twice to get the dragon egg first, then the light gem: The level only changes in difficulty. There are some annoying things in this game in which the games camera sometimes goes where you don't want it to go, restricting your view and sometimes even if you undershoot a jump just a little bit, Spyro doesn't grab on to the ledge and just falls to his death. Also, the bosses are quite easy to beat. However, Spyro: A Hero's Tail is a decent platformer that will definatly appeal to young gamers but not hardcore platfomer gamers.

If your inserted a blank Blu-Ray disc into a PlayStation 3 and your PlayStation 3 started to tell jokes and start rampaging around the room putting on random clothes and then spits the Blu-Ray disc out again, Saints Row 2 is probably what you would end up with. This game is a silly version of Grand Theft Auto and because of this, the game is so much fun to play. The game is set in the fictional city of Stillwater and the game basically plays like any sandbox game you've played with a huge city to explore and find hidden areas. There's the main campaign in which the story centers around your character and your gang known as the Saints, try to bring down 5 rival gangs and reclaim Stillwater through a variety of missions which include shooting, driving and the odd protecting and destroy mission. The game play is your standard Third Person Shooter and at times it really works well: Take out enemies using a selection of weapons or take them on with hand to hand combat. The driving stages feel great and instead of being limited to firing your gun out the side of the car while your driving (Like in the PlayStation 2 stages) you can now aim and shoot through 360 degrees and with a handy cruise control feature in each vehicle you drive, you don't have to keep the car moving and concentrate on shooting your enemies. The graphics are great but lack detail and it can be glitchy sometimes. The story mode is fast-paced and full of comical cutscenes and great voice acting. An addition to the story mode, there are activities to take part in which add to the crazy factor of the game. There's Fuzz, where you play as an undercover cop and try to capture footage for the TV Show known as Fuzz by apprehending your suspects with different weapons. Then there's Trail Blazer where your on a quad bike covered in flames and have to race through checkpoints smashing into cars and barrels and setting pedestrians on fire to gain time and money. There's even more ridiculous activities to try and you earn respect from them so you can move on to the next mission in the story mode. The brilliant thing about this game is the customisation options. Unlike Grand Theft Auto 4, you aren't limited to playing one pre designed character. Before you start the campaign, you can choose what your character looks like. You can choose if the character is male or female, their build their facial features, their voice (a selection of 3 voices for male or female), hair style and colour, their taunt and normal facial expression. The wealth of customisation options is staggering and you can really put your creation skills to the test with this game. Create the most sensible character or create the most outrageous character ever. You can even customise your vehicles though not to the degree of Need for Speed: Underground. The shops throughout Stillwater provide even more ways to customise your character with clothes shops and Jewelery shops. There are a healthy amount of vehicles to choose from and unlike Grand Theft Auto 4, you can pilot a jet! Feel bored and want someone to play with? Get connected to PlayStation Network and double the amount of fun you'll be having by playing with a friend on online co-op which allows you to complete the campaign or activities together. Or you could just mess around a bit, causing destruction or telling people to f*** off with your taunt (or what ever your taunt is). The online multiplayer is basic team-deathmatch and can provide you with some entertainment or a mode called "strong arm" in which two teams fight for control over a neighbourhood. Saints Row 2 is a lighter, more hilarious game than Grand Theft Auto 4 which doesn't take itself too seriously and is a game that nails the definition of a video game due to guaranteed entertainment and limitless customisation.

Burnout 3: Takedown is one of the best if not best driving game I've played. This Burnout game is significantly different from the old ones. This is the first Burnout game published by Electronic Arts and they have added an official soundtrack to the game which is nice but there is too much skate rock in the soundtrack to my liking. The game play is similar to the previous Burnout games: Race around circuits trying to come in first play while avoiding traffic at high speeds. However now the game rewards you doing aggressive driving maneuvers like taking your opponents down (called a Takedown) where you barge or ram your opponents off the road and send them crashing into a wall or traffic. This earns you a boost top up which unlike the first two games, you can use the boost whenever you like (if you have any boost) instead of waiting to fully fill the boost bar and then try to use it in all in one go and can be increased from a small boost bar (which you start with) to a boost bar 4 times bigger but crash or get taken out by an opponent, you'll lose a segment of your boost bar (there are 3 segments of the boost bar). The annoying checkpoint system from the last two games has gone thank god and the racing itself feels more fluid and faster. You can still crash in this game but after you crash, you can preform an aftertouch takedown where you steer your wreckage into (hopefully) opponents. The graphics have taken a huge step up from Burnout 2. The cars are lovely to look at and their designs are inspired by real life car models like Ferraris and Porches, the environments are nicely detailed and varies from tropic roads to urban cities and the crashes have improved. The car deforms a lot more in which the car can become crumpled or bonnets and doors can come off. Crashes themselves look fantastic and sometimes can send your car flying 50 feet into the air. Like I said before the soundtrack may not be as good as the previous Burnouts but the audio is fantastic. Crashes sound great with the smashing glass sounding awesome and the cars engines sound simple but great. Besides the races you can participate in, you can also participate in Crash events. Improved from Burnout 2, your goal is to cause as much damage as possible and cause pileups in various road junctions. An addition to the Crash mode is the pickups dotted around the Crash junction. These can range from 2X multipliers that multiply your score at the end of the Crash by 2, Crashbreakers that explodes your car and causes even more damage and Heartbreaker that halves your final score which is not good! There's the regular Face off event to race in which you can win the car you face against. Throughout the main game, you can collect Signature takedowns in which you take down an opponent on a specific track in a specific place, part or vehicle which is a good addition but there's an element of luck needed to get all of them because you may be at the specific place you need to take someone down and an opponent maybe too far or too behind you which can be annoying. You can also get Crash newspapers which are rewarded when you cause lots of damage in a specific Crash junction and Postcards which are rewarded from getting a gold medal in a Time trial event. There is a great range of cars to drive like the Hot Rod or World US Racer (A formula style Car!). There is loads to unlock in this game which will provide you with loads of replay value and it should take some time to get all the Golds in each event of the game. While your racing, there's a great sense of speed and I never experienced any slowdown in the game despite whizzing along at 200 MPH and if you want to win in Burnout 3, you need to take risks by being aggressive towards your opponents and driving through heavy traffic as fast as possible. I do have one complaint though. Cheating AI. Your AI controlled opponents always seem to keep up with you regardless of how fast your going and one Crash can send you back down the field. This is a common criticism of the Burnout games though. Burnout 3: Takedown is a fantastic example on how a arcade racing game should be done and in my opinion, the best Burnout game in the series.â

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is an OK first person shooter but doesn't live up to the hype and is in my own opinion, an over rated shooter. I've played more enjoyable shooters on the PlayStation 2 for crying out loud. I didn't care for the story in the single player campaign and the campaign its self is short which is disapointing. In fact, I prefered Call of Duty 4's campaign mode to this one. There isn't really a lot new in terms of content and considering that when sold as new, the game costs 45 pounds which sounds like a rip off to me; the game feels like an expansion pack rather than a full sequel. However, the single player does throw some great set pieces at you and some of the vehicle sections are great like the Snowmobile chase. The graphics may not be a huge step from Call of Duty 4 but there are some great lighting effects and the environments (especially the snow environments) are nicely detailed. The games does throw you into some intense battles with the enemy and provides a decent challenge. The games audio is also good for the composed music, the dialog and the weapons. It makes you feel like your in an intense battlefield. The weapons that you use in the campaign are good with a nice selection of SMG's, Assault Rifles, Shotguns and Sniper Rifles which all look **** multiplayer is ok and there is deep; there are perks, callsigns and loads of weapon upgrades to unlock like ACOG sights, Heartbeat sensors and FMJ bullets but the Killstreak rewards ruin the experience. Basically, its a reward system that rewards camping and punishes people who just want to play the game. The killstreak reward "AC-130" is just freaking hair tearing annoying and even more annoying is the 25 Killstreak reward "Tactical Nuke" which just ends the match; I just quit the game if it happens. It's so frustrating when you just want to shoot people and then get owned by a Pave-Low time and time again. The maps are ok to play on but I really can't see the point people leveling up to Level 70 because its boring and I got bored of the game when I reached level 50; all you do is unlock different call signs and perks. All you do is the same thing over and over again. The shotguns are over powering as well and I really don't care for the Killcam every time you die; I don't want to be shown how I died, I just want to respawn and get back into the match without having to repeatedly press Square to respawn. Oh yes, the spawning system is broken: Couldn't the game offer some temporally invincibility for you when you resprawn (The deathstreak Painkiller doesn't help at all) because it's so annoying having to respawn in an open space and then get owned by a Harrier shortly after! (On the map Rust, It's pretty much impossible to respawn and not have someones gun butt right up your backside). Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is an OK shooter but you can do a lot better than this game. The single player may provide a few thrills with some intense battles to shoot through with some mindblowing set pieces but Multiplayer is this games main strength which sadly is too flawed to enjoy that much with Killstreaks and campers.

The Punisher: No Mercy is an average First Person Shooter. On paper, this is a cheap knock off of Unreal Tournament (it also runs on a varient of the Unreal Engine as well) and cheap is definitely the right word. Its only £6 on the PlayStation Network but you don't really get a lot of game for your money. You get an incredibly short campaign mode (about 30 mins to 1 hour) and has an average story line which gets told by comic book style scenes and doesn't hold my interest. The single player campaign is just a couple of Unreal Tournament style matches against AI Bots which are dumb by the way and just mindlessly charge at you and never take cover or retreat when being shot at and the game play gets repetitive after a while. There are however a nice selection of guns ranging from SMG's, Rocket launchers and Crossbows. The graphics are nice for a cheap downloadable title but the character models lack detail. The sound design of the guns is good but the music gets so repetitive and boring, you'd probably mute the music. The multiplayer proportion of the game plays just like Unreal Tournament: You fight in a variety of modes such as Team deathmatch, Elimination and Vigilante (which is basically free for all) on battle arenas and some arenas have environmental hazards like explosive barrels, electric wires and pits to avoid or use to your advantage and like Unreal Tournament, there are pickups like Health pickups, Armor pickups, Weapon upgrade pickups and points pickups dotted around the arenas. One neat thing about this game is that you can upgrade your weapons by shooting your opponents or picking up weapon upgrade pickups (while in a match) which make them more powerful or increases their accuracy which is a neat idea but can unbalance the game a bit. The game allows you to choose an Active mod to take into battle and a Passive mod which can give you an edge in a match. An active mod is something that you activate by pressing Triangle (default button) and this active mod can be anything from giving your gun a free weapon upgrade to recovering health and armor. A passive mod doesn't need to be manually activated and can be anything from a motion sensor or Rhino (which allows you to deal more damage with any weapon the closer you are to death). These mods do add a little bit of strategy to the game play. The multiplayer is just standard FPS action with very little strategy: Just shoot with your weapon which by the way, never runs out of ammo so you can just spray your target not worrying about running out of ammo. Now on to the really bad points about this game: The game can be really laggy at times, you are never sure if your hitting your target; theres no hitmarker like the Call of Duty games to tell you if you are hitting the target. It is also very difficult to unlock anything in this game: Loads of stuff like guns and Passive and Active mods require a ridiculous amount of kills with a particular character and require you to be online rather than offline and this point can play havoc with the balancing of the game because you may enter a match with very little unlocked (in terms of guns or mods) and get thrashed for the first couple of matches by people who have unlocked the best mods and guns before you get enough kills in order to unlock the good stuff. There's not even a lot of players online so good luck trying to find a match. This game is not the worst game I've played but, do your self a favour, just by a very cheap FPS PlayStation 2 or PlayStation 3 game.

Burnout 2: Point of Impact is a very slick arcade racing game. This installment of the Burnout series is bigger and better than the previous Burnout game. There are more cars to race and crash with like the Custom Sports Coupe and the Supercar. The game play is similar to the last one: Race against 4 cars through a variety of events, race through checkpoints in a set time limit and try to come first. The game gives you a generous amount of time to race from checkpoint to checkpoint so basically, you don't have to worry about reaching the next checkpoint in time and getting a "Time up" screen and then ending your race (if you crashed too much in the first game, you would find it difficult make it to the next checkpoint). You have a boost bar and you fill it by dangerous driving like near missing traffic or catching some air. When you fill the boost bar and use it in one go (you can only use it in one go anyway), you'll get a "Burnout" in which either you'll continue boosting (depends if you ranked up enough dangerous driving maneuvers while your boosting) or gain a boost bonus towards filling up the boost bar again. The graphics have slightly improved with new environments to race around like an Airport terminal or the snowy mountains. A new mode added in Burnout 2 called "Crash" has you choosing from a selection of Crash Junctions then crashing your selected car into another vehicle and trying to cause a big pile up. The more cars at the junction crash, the more points (or Dollars) you earn. The crashes like the first one are very meaty but unlike the first game, you can't save your crashes which is a shame. The game also features a pursuit mode in which you pursue someone and try to ram them off the road within a set road distance. To win cars, you either have to win them in some tournaments or "Face off" events in the game. There is a good championship mode with races to win and tournaments to compete in and returning from the previous game, there are also "Face Offs" in which you race against one car and if you win, you'll unlock the car you have just beaten. The music is kick-ass like the last game and while your boosting, the music becomes more intense which is nice and because this is the last Burnout game published by Acclaim and the next ones are published by EA, this is the last Burnout game with no licenced soundtracks. The game has a fantastic sense of speed when your boosting along at such speed and with that pumping soundtrack blasting out of your speakers, Burnout 2 is an ideal arcade racer which should appeal to people seeking some arcade racing action.â

Crash Nitro Kart is a decent follow up to the 1999 PlayStation game, Crash Team Racing. The graphics are nice and colourful and the Kart tracks are slightly bigger in scope than Crash Team Racing. The CGI that move the story along are also good and nice to watch. There are a nice amount of racers to choose from Crash Bandicoot to Nitrus Oxide. Most of these racers are great to race with and have different performance statistics like Crash is a good all rounder in terms of speed, acceleration and turning and Tiny is great for Speed and acceleration but not good for turning. The story is simple: This Alien called Emperor Velo the 27th has kidnapped Team Bandicoot (Crash, Coco and Crunch) and Team Cortex (Cortex, N. Gin and Tiny) and force them to compete in his galatic colleseum for their freedom. You have to choose a character and race in 4 hubs (containing 3 races and 1 bonus round) and beat a boss at the end of each hub. The game play is similar to Crash Team Racing: Race around the tracks trying to win and obtain weapons from ? mark crates and shoot at your enemies to slow them down. You can powerslide around corners to take them faster and make your kart hop to get over deep chasms or to get an annoying TNT crate off your head. These weapons range from homing missiles to Tornados that lock onto the racer in first place. Some tracks have environmental traps like pitfalls that activate by running over ! crates. Some of the tracks in CNK also have banked sections and where you drive up upside down instead of the track being on the ground level which is a nice touch. In the campaign mode, theres the usual trophies to collect, Time Trials to beat to unlock either Sapphire, Gold or Platinum relics and CNK tokens which requires the player to collect the letters C, N and K dotted around each track and come in first place (if you have 4 CNK of the same colour, you get to participate in that same coloured gem cup). The new boss characters are ok to race and beat but not likable in terms of personality. The story for CNK isn't as interesting as CTR and there are fewer tracks in this game than there are in CTR which is strange because this is a PlayStation 2 game and CTR is a PlayStation game. I guess, Vicarious Visions got lazy. The overall game play feels slower as well and the music isn't as memorable than in CTR. The audio is below par and can get quite repetitive hearing the same taunts coming out of your kart racer but the voice acting for the nicely CGI cutscenes is good. Crash Nitro Kart suffers from originality like Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex but CNK is an enjoyable kart racer but may not appeal to CTR fans.â

Crash TwinSanity is a great platformer game. It may not be in the same league as the PlayStation Naughty Dog Crash titles but Traveller's Tales Oxford has a good stab at making a different Crash game. The game follows on from Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex where 2 new antagonists known as the Evil Twins want to destroy the world along with Crash and Cortex. Cortex? Unlike the last game, Cortex is now an allie to Crash and the two become comedic pals and swore to stop the Evil Twin's plan. The game play is similar to previous Crash titles but instead of selecting levels from a warp room, Crash TwinSanity features a 3D free roaming environment where you progress through a series of 4 world hubs and complete levels. The platforming element is similar to previous Crash games but now coloured gems (which are found dotted around each level) unlock Artwork in the Extra's menu and Crystals are used to power Cortex's teleporting machine later in the game. Obstacles such as the TNT and Nitro crates return and the usual smashable crates such as ? mark and arrow bouncy crates return. You will also encounter flying penguins (!), Tribesmen and other enemy types. TT Oxford also do a good job of implanting some of Crash's enemies from previous games into the game like Dingodile and N. Tropy and even some make a hilarious cameo at the start of the game. Some of Crash's past enemies and new enemies even make up for some great boss battles. The tone of this game is different from previous Crash games in which TT Oxford have created a funny Crash adventure. There are some funny pieces of dialog and the plot is good as well although it does lose it later on in the game. Cortex plays second fiddle to Crash as his right hand helper and this is implanted into the game play for some of the levels. Crash can use Cortex to double spin, use him as a mallet to break unbreakable crates and throw him over gaps so that he can use his gun to activate switches for bridges to help you across a gap. Crash and Cortex also at one point have a bit of a fight and you control them (while their fighting!) through a cave and avoid obstacles (similar to the ball stages in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex). Some levels require Crash to clear a path, free of hazards for Cortex who gets chased by something. There are also a few levels where you get to play as Cortex and use his blaster to shoot your way through his sections which are nice and theres a level where you play as Cortex's Niece, Nina Cortex where she can latch onto rings, Spider-man style to climb rooftops with her bionic hands. The graphics are quite nice and colourful despite a few graphical issues and glitches and the music is awesome. The games cutscenes which despite pointless at times can pop up a few comical moments and this game does do something different for the Crash series. However, I don't like the personality changes of the two main characters Crash and Cortex: Crash just looks and acts dumb and Cortex acts like a coward rather than the dark antagonist he used to be in the PlayStation games. Also, at some points of the game, there are few checkpoints and this can become annoying, particularly at one point of the game (which I won't spoil). Crash TwinSanity is a interesting Crash game which every Crash fan should like.

The game Total Overdose is what you get if you put Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne and some hot sauce and chilli's into a blender! This game is so much fun with its fast paced game play and humour. The graphics are nice and bright and the combat system works well. Most of the missions have you shooting at enemies with Max Payne style slow-mo dives and using a great aresnal of weapons like grenades, hunting shotguns and rifles. Ram (who you play as) can pull of dives and combos to dodge and kill enemies and the moves are hillariously named like Spicy Move and he can even dive out of a moving car and shoot while the car explodes in the foreground! The game features an auto targeting system which is great and these so called Loco Moves that Ram can use to defeat his foes add to the humor of the game. Loco moves are special moves that can help Ram in a heavy situation and include Golden Gun in which Ram can pull off an easy one shot kill, El Mariachi which has Ram holding 2 guitar cases which are actually miniguns and more! One good feature in the game is the Rewind feature. Simply find the many Rewind features dotted around the city and if you die or make a mistake on something, you can use a Rewind to rewind a few seconds back and try again. There is also an arcade style scoring system in the game. Basically to score, you keep killing enemies and rank up muliplyers to score big and at the end of each missions, you can unlock goodies to help you through the game. The sandbox style world is good to explore because there are various items to find like Rewinds, health upgrades, gun upgrades and extra points. The games soundtrack is awesome and really fits in with the Mexican feel of the game. The game does have some weak points though: Despite being a sandbox game, the city is divided into seperate parts which when you journey from one part to another, requires the game to load and are quite long unlike the Grand Theft Auto Games (On PlayStation 2) which only have few load screens when travelling from Island to Island and are not as long. Also the driving mechanics are sloppy and nowhere near as good as the shootouts. Despite this, Total Overdose is just a fantastic little sandbox game and so addicting (and cheap to buy) that everyone craving for some action should pick this up!

Driver: Parallel Lines is a great driving game and defiantly an improvement over the last Driver game, Driv3r. The game play is better; most of the missions involve driving rather than on foot section shootouts, the driving physics are slightly better, you can now shoot while driving in a vehicle and theres more to do in terms of side jobs. Unlike past Driver games where you take control of Officer Tanner, you take control of someone called TK which possibly means that Driver: Parallel Lines doesn't follow after Driv3r and is more of a spin off. One great thing in this game is that you can now customise your vehicles that you bring to Ray's garage and put body kits, bullet proof tyres and performance parts on them. The vehicle damage that was awesome in Driv3r is back and the vehicles are more controllable now. There are a variety of missions to do in the main single player campaign and include more driving and chasing criminals missions than Driv3r which is more like it (it is a Driving game after all). There are also side missions which were lacking in Driv3r, like bringing cars to a garage via a tow truck, hitman missions and races to participate in. The city that Driver: Parallel lines is New York which is nicely detailed and is huge. DPL is more polished than Driv3r as well; there are fewer glitches, the graphics look a little bit better as well and the police AI is much better in which they won't get stuck behind a wall or go into super speed just to try to keep up with you. The great selling point of this game is the dual era in which this game is set in. About half of the game (in NYC) is set in 1978 and the second half is set in 2006 which is great because then you can drive old cars and newer cars and experience New York city in different era's. At times though, Driver: Parallel Lines does feel like your playing a Grand Theft Auto at times and there is no multiplayer mode either. However, Driver: Parallel Lines is a great driving game that definatly puts the Driver series back on track.

TimeSplitters is a great arcade shooter. The game feels and plays like Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64 but there are differences. TimeSplitters story isn't really important but you go to different time era's (ancient Egypt, the future etc) and bring back certain objects like a relic or a briefcase to a certain spot while shooting at enemies who try to stop you. On the way, you use a variety of weapons to shoot anyone who gets in your way. The so called TimeSpliters try to stop you bringing back the object to the end of the level. The game play is fast and furious and moves at a great pace. The level designs are great: Each level has a distinctive look to it depending on the era like Egypt or Futuristic and this is reflected in the weapons you can choose from in the level which are great to use. Free Radical Design (Now Crytek UK) have created some interesting characters to choose from for each level. The game however can be hard (even on Medium difficulty) and you may find your self just replaying a level over and over again until you know where the enemies spawn. The music is fantastic and well composed; it fits each level (era) like a glove. I haven't tried the multiplayer but I've heard its great. After the campaign, there are some challenges to do which will keep you going for a while. TimeSplitters is a really good PlayStation 2 game and needs to be in each persons shooter collection!

Jak II: Renegade is a fine sequel to Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. This game is darker and more action packed than it's predecessor and packs a few swear words into the dialog as well. The game starts off with Jak, Daxter, Kiera and Samos going through the Precursor rift gate and then being scattered across Haven City which serves as the main Hub for the game. Jak is then captured by guards who are known as Krimson Guards and imprisoned for 2 years during which that time, the guards leader, Baron Praxis has exposed Jak to dark eco. Instead of finding power cells to progress through the game, you complete a variety of tasks for contacts. The city is huge and the story campaign is meaty too; It took me about 15 hours to complete this game. The game play is significantly different compared with the last game: Jak still has his attacks from the first game but now along the way, he is rewarded with 4 weapons like the Scattergun and the Blaster to help him fight the Metal Heads which along with the Krimson Guards, serve as the main enemies of the game. Jak and Daxter tranverse through a sandbox environment (similar to the Grand Theft Auto Series) and find contacts to help them seek revenge on Baron Praxis. Jak can also hijack civilian vehicles and help him explore the environment. Because Jak has now been exposed to dark eco, Jak can now turn into dark Jak and preform some new attacks like the Dark bomb attack and being invincible to enemy attacks. The game play bears a slight resemblance to the 2002 game Ratchet and Clank but there are plenty of things that distinguishes this game apart from Ratchet and Clank; you shoot your way through levels. You can participate in races, use Metal head gems (which are given to you when you defeat Metal heads) and trade them for other dark power abilities who the Oracle gives them to you, some quick time event games like the Whack-a-Metal head game (which can be frustrating) and shooting galleries to test your weapon skills on. Jak now talks and has a more mature appearance in this game compared to the last game and the plot of this game throws a couple of twists towards the end. The cutscenes are beautifully animated and the game play is smooth. This game is definitely harder than the first one and it can become annoying towards the end of the game but thats pretty much my only gripe with the game. The boss battle are better than the first one and some of the level designs are nice. Jak II: Renegade is a worthy successor to an already great game.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex is a great platform game; the first Crash game on PlayStation 2. The game does have it's problems with being unoriginal; the game play is identical to the previous Crash games: Go around, collecting crystals from 5 world Hubs inside a warp room and fight an end boss to that hub. However there are a few things that are new like the fact you can play as Coco (Crash's sister) in some levels and in some levels require Crash to roll around in a ball avoiding hazards. Cortex remains the antagonist and he's created another Bandicoot called Crunch to destroy Crash. As I said, this game is identical in game play when compared to the previous 2 (Excluding Crash Bash) games in the series. Crash collects crystals, Relic's (from time trials), Gems (breaking every box in one level) and Coloured Gems from levels and some levels have vehicle sections like Crash riding in a Jeep or Coco riding on a Snow board. Returning power ups (you earn these power ups when you defeat a boss) from Crash 3 include the Fruit Bazooka and the Death Tornado. The environments are nicely detailed and the levels provide a good challenge. The game as a whole is a decent platformer with jumps and obstacles like TNT'S and Nitro's to overcome; everything you'd expect from a Crash game. The music (especially the last boss theme) is well done and fits each level but the voice acting for some characters (N. Gin and N. Tropy especially) is cheesy; just doesn't suit their characters. The load time for each level is very long which is really annoying. Despite some ****, Crash Bandicoot: The wrath of Cortex is a great game and possibly the best Crash game on the PlayStation 2.

Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec is a nice racing simulator game. The games graphics showcase what the PlayStation 2 can do, from the design of the cars (which are identical to their real life counterparts) to the lovely track design. The racing is smooth and the cars handle great. You can also tune them up with turbo's, better suspension and tyres. There are a selection of events to try out in the Simulation (Career) mode like endurance races, Formula 1 races (Fictional Polyphony designed F1 racers)and Rally stages. Also there is an arcade mode to try out if you want to have some fun or play some multiplayer. There are a nice selection of courses ranging from real life to fictional circuits like Laguna Seca and Deep Forest Raceway. A couple of complains though drag this game down: The endurance events are an eyesore and boring (some endurance events have you racing for 2.5 hours), the Test Course is a boring race track to race around (basically its just a big Oval) and no skill needed to drive round it, there are 150 cars or so to buy (or win) and race, which is considerably lower than the previous installment's 600 cars (Gran Turismo 2) and because there is no damage in the game, you can pretty much smash into other racers or walls and survive. However Gran Turismo 3 is a great racing game and should appeal to fans of car simulator games.

Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time is the best PlayStation 3 game I've played. Although it feels distinctly similar to the other Ratchet and Clank games, there are a few new things to keep it fresh. The main antagonist from the 3rd Ratchet and Clank game, Dr Nefarious, returns (Yay!) and plans to use a device called the Great Clock created by the mysterious beings, the Zoni and create a Future in which the Heroes always lose. The game play is similar to anyone who's played a Ratchet and Clank game: You have a selection of weapons and have to fight through enemies to reach the end of the level. The weapon designs are great like the Buzz Blades and the Tesla **** spiritual moons return from past RaC games and are fun to explore. The graphics are lovely: It feels like your watching and playing a Pixar movie. A new game play element to the series is the introduction of Time Puzzles which Clank has to solve which are fun to solve and the later puzzles in the game give your brain a workout. The plot is interesting and the characters are well designed and nicely voiced. The boss battles are epic and quite challenging and the soundtrack is superb. Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time is a really enjoyable game and a great conclusion to the Future Trilogy.

Burnout is a great arcade racer. The game a nice but small selection of cars which are nicely detailed. The race tracks are also nice to race around from the heavy streets of Gridlock USA to the nice seaside views of Harbor Town. The music is especially great (beats the official licenced music in the later Burnout Games) and really gets the adrenaline pumping. The racing is standard stuff: you race with up to 3 other opponents and race through the checkpoints within the time limit otherwise you lose. Also you have to watch out not to crash into traffic which if you don't avoid them, can make for some satisfying crash effects. Additional cars are won by winning them in Face off events. It is pointless trying to race with the tow truck or Bus as they are too slow. Also you only have a limited time to get across from checkpoint to checkpoint so you can't afford to crash a lot. The other opponents also cheat so they always stay with you regardless how fast your going and it is frustrating when your moments away from the finishing line and crash into a barrier or car and have the lead snatched away from you on the last corner. Burnout is a nice arcade racer and has started one of the finest arcade racing series of all time.

Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc is a neat platformer. Despite being a sequel to Rayman 2, most of the characters from that game don't return like Razorbeard or Ly. The game play is also different to Rayman 2: Rayman attacks with his fists rather than shooting at his enemies, he can gain some really cool abilities from Laser washing powder (!) containers which can help him overcome obstacles throughout the levels and he can also ride on a skateboard which make for some very eye pleasing and heart pumping stages in the game. The visuals (especially in the Skateboard stages) are nice and colourful and once again in a Rayman game, the music is just awesome. The main baddie in the game is Andre, a black lum which transforms the other red lums into black lums as well. The black lums then use animal clothing to create costumes for themselves which turn them into Hoodlums, the main enemies in the game. The dialog in the game is great although Globox's personality can be annoying sometimes but the teensies are funny. The laser washing powder grants you powers (for a limited time) like turning your fist into a guided rocket launcher or allowing you to fly. I do wish the game was more open like the PlayStation 2 remake of Rayman 2, Rayman Revolution; the game is quite linear. Unlike Rayman 2, the game has a scoring system and at the end of the level, you have a total points score. You get points by smashing piggy banks, defeating enemies and finding objects dotted around the level. This element adds a bit of replay value and like Rayman 2, there are teensie cages hidden in the levels which when you free 5, 10 etc, your heath bar will increase. The boss battles are also interesting to fight. Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc is a worthy successor to Rayman 2. Different but great!

Jak and Daxter: The Percursor Legacy is a good game. First off, the game is lovely to look at and the 3D design of the levels was definitely revolutionary at the time. The game is huge (considering it is an early PlayStation 2 game) with multiple areas to explore. You need to collect a certain amount of Power Cells which can be obtained by doing tasks (like doing jobs for the locals) or finding them dotted around the area which then can be used to advance to the next area. The 2 main characters, Jak and Daxter are likable although Daxter can get on my nerves sometimes (although his voice actor is awesome) and Jak doesn't talk. This game is a nice, traditional platformer with obstacles like Dark Eco crates, nicely designed enemies and pitfalls. Jak (the main character you play as) has a variety of moves to help him fight like a punch, dive and spin attack (Like Crash Bandicoot, another game made by Naughty Dog) to help him fight his enemies. He also can charge himself with a variety of powers vented from Eco Vents like Red Eco will make Jak stronger, Orange Eco can make him shoot fireballs and Blue Eco can make him operate special platforms. The bosses are simple but cool to fight. You can also ride in a zoomer which serves as some vehicle sections over lava pits which are interesting. The script can also pop out some comedy moments especially from Daxter and the voice acting for each character is spot on. The end boss is also epic. The game does become difficult due to the fact that checkpoints are spaced out and quite rare but Jak and Daxter is an enjoyable game that fans of platformers can't miss!

Worms Forts: Under Siege is an OK game. Good points first: Instead of using your worms to decimate your opponents, you build various buildings like castles, citadels and Science Labs and use mounted weapons like the Cluster bombs and Rhino and then fling them at your enemies. The weapons are really imaginative; the Giant Lazer and the Rocket Launcher are my favourites. You can kit your Worms with various hats to make them unique. Bad Points: Matches feel slow and I never seem to finish a game against the computer because the matches just drag on. This game fairs best (like all Worms games do) if you play with human players. I prefer the other Worms games in terms of game play.

Ratchet and Clank: Locked and Loaded is an enjoyable game. The graphics are sharp and the game play is an improvement from the original; better firefights and game play elements like exploring moons, collecting crystals to trade in for bolts, battle arena's and using the Tractor Beam Gadget to solve puzzles. There are meatier weapons like the Lava Gun and the Bouncer to play with and fun to use. New gadgets like the Electrolyzer and the Infiltrator make up for some interesting mini-games to get through a locked door or raising a bridge. I also like the plot although the first one's plot is better. I also didn't like the final boss although altogether, this game has better boss battles than the first game. There is also added RPG elements to the game where with daily usage of a weapon, you can upgrade it to a more powerful version of that weapon which is a nice touch. The game can get hard towards the end of the game that can become annoying. However, Ratchet and Clank: Locked and Loaded is a fantastic game that everyone who loved Ratchet and Clank will enjoy.

Road Trip Adventure (PAL) is a very nice game to play. The world in Road Trip Adventure is only inhabited by cars which is cool. The main goal is to become the next president of the car world by racing in various races across different areas of the world. Road Trip Adventure is huge and I mean huge: There are towns to visit and you can talk to some of the locals and they may give you a job to do like collect objects scattered across the huge landscape, participate in races and even play some interesting mini games like Football, Golf or Roulette! (Football is the best!) There are a variety of skins to unlock to use which are basically models of real life cars like the Porsche 911 and a Ford GT40 which are nice but these skins don't boost performance. There are some shops that you can visit that enable you to tune your car with, like engines and tyres. The music is OK but it can be annoying sometimes and no matter what car skin you have on or engine installed, the car engine sounds are the same and it can get on your nerves. This review doesn't cover most of the things you can do in the Road Trip Adventure world so go buy it!

Worms on the PlayStation 3 is a good little game. Its basically a HD remake of the original Worms on the PlayStation with a few new touches like new terrain's to battle in, new speech banks for worms and added online with up to 4 players. The graphics are sweet and cartoony, the sound is good and the arsenal you are given to play with is ok but I wish they'd have the weapons from Worms Armageddon in here (Carpet Bomb; homing pigeon etc). The game has a good challenge mode for 1 player but this game is really meant for playing with your mates. Worms on the PSN is a nice cheap way to get online with your mates and have fun. Buy!

Worms 3D is a fun and challenging game. The game play is similar to anyone who's played a Worms game before but now the game is played within a 3D rendered world rather than a 2D platform. This is a neat addiction to the series but it can be tricky to aim your weapons and judge where your shots are going to land. However, this element does add a lot of strategy to the game; you need to be really good and learn to judge where the shots of your weapons are roughly going to land. The weapons from past Worms games make a return like the Bazooka and Sheep which are fun to use and Worms 3D introduces a new utility; Red Bull! Guess what this does to your worm! The graphics are nice and like past Worms games, terrain is fully destructible which are formed from explosions and usage of your weapons. Worms 3D is a neat idea, bringing 3D to the Worms series and every Worms fan should like this.