Archive for August, 2008

One of the upcoming releases I’m most excited about at the moment is LittleBigPlanet, which manages to look better every time I see it (which is impressive given how good it was looking from the off). However, there was a brief scare in the last couple of days when an announcement at Leipzig Games Convention [...]

I’ve long been a fan of RPGs and am partial to a spot of tactics and strategy in my games, so, as you might assume, Strategy RPGs have always held an element of appeal to me. And any talk of SRPGs will inevitably lead to mention of titles such as Fire Emblem, Tactics Ogre, Disgaea [...]

Gambling.  To some, it’s a brainless yet entertaining waste of time, to others it’s bafflingly simple, woefully dependent on luck with little to no skill.  If you’re part of the latter camp, you might as well stop reading.  While there are things that add to the featureset of Fable II Pub Games, the fact of [...]

Just recently Sony launched their ‘Platinum’ range of games for the PlayStation 3. The idea has been around since the days of the first PlayStation and is quite simple: offer popular, but older, games at a cheaper price under a unified branding scheme to entice those who might have missed out first time round. It [...]

It’d be easy to think of bedroom coders as just a part of gaming history, those that helped get us going back in the old days but no longer relevant. However, in today’s age of shovel-ware, sequels and desire for mass-market appeal I’d argue that bedroom coders and independent developers are more important than ever. [...]

When I was younger I used to play the trumpet. I wasn’t amazing, but I was reasonably competent and had a great time playing in the school band and, for a while, a brass quartet. I certainly remember the satisfaction to be had from successfully performing a song, especially a tricky tune, and how much [...]

British summertimes are quite something: the weather can swing between roasting hot and torrential downpour at the drop of a hat; strawberries are consumed on mass; we place ridiculous expections on the current British hope for Wimbledon (only to be disappointed with crushing inevitability); and, in the tradition of all good Brits through the ages, [...]

Let’s get this out of the way up front: I am a big fan of the Lost TV series. I even enjoyed season two with all its hatch-based nonsense-mongering. I like a good bit of adventure and mystery, and the show’s use of flashbacks really appeals to me. However, my interest hits its limits with [...]

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a copy of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue for my PlayStation 3 (yes, a release we got in Europe before the US, it does happen once in a blue moon). I’ve always enjoyed the Gran Turismo series and Prologue seemed like a good sampler for the future GT5, [...]

The success of the Brain Training games, and all pretenders to the throne that have followed, have shown that we quite like putting our noggins to the test. So a game that is essentially a collection of 130-ish puzzles and brainteasers is no bad idea, but how do you make an assortment of puzzles feel [...]