Mini-Review Blast: And I’m back

Over the last few months or so I’ve been intending to write reviews for a number of games that I’ve played and beaten, though the distraction of playing the games themselves or lack of inspiration when it came to writing that never quite happened. However, so as not to leave them forgotten before I move on, here is a little review blast for each of the titles that received my attention in recent times:

Peggle

I’d heard many things about how addictive Peggle was, but I’ll admit I never quite understood why. Then the XBLA version arrived and once again rave reviews were popping up left, right and centre and so I figured it was about time I saw what the fuss was about and downloaded the trial.

It really is devilishly addictive and it wasn’t long before I was hooked, the game was bought and I was off clearing story mode and then trying to finish each stage clearing all pegs. Until you play the game you won’t quite understand the sense of elation as Ode to Joy blares out and the final orange peg is struck.

Resident Evil 5

This game is brilliant. This was the game that I ploughed hours and hours into, and I believe I’ve completed the game, well, some number in the double digits I’m sure. It’s not the best game in the world, it is very much a game in the Resident Evil 4 mould, but it hasn’t exactly evolved a whole lot beyond that and some of the game mechanics could be accused of being a bit old-fashioned now. The story is also very much in-keeping with Resident Evil, in as much as it doesn’t make a lick of sense and it so obscenely over the top you can’t help but have fun with it (though one of these days they will hire voice actors who aren’t so heavily related to planks of wood).

So on the face of things this shouldn’t have captured my interest so highly, but what really makes RE5 special is the addition of co-op, which really transforms the experience. Even the fairly unassuming Mercenaries mode, a complete throw away addition, is turned into something a lot of fun by the addition of a second play to work alongside. I anticipated this being good, but it proved to be a bucket load of fun that I was more than happy to have spent my hard earned cash on.

Killzone 2

Sod being a developer of a PS3 exclusive. Every single title fitting that description has to run the gauntlet of being the centre of a fanboy war as people question whether this is the game to prove what the PS3 can do, or the Xbox beater, or whatever other crap they come out with. And sod being the developer of a PS3 exclusive FPS as you end up also having to contend with the most ridiculous of questions “is this the Halo killer?”.

Killzone 2 was very much one of those game, and if you ignore all that hype/fanboy bollocks what you end up with is a very competent FPS with absolutely stunning graphics and a fantastic multiplayer mode on offer. The game loses points for relying on far too many FPS clichés during the single player, but that doesn’t stop it being fun. The real winner is the multiplayer and the excellent Warzone mode which sees the game dynamically shift between game styles. Despite having no mates to play it with I still put a good number of hours into this and it was probably the best online experience I’ve had since Call of Duty 4.

Tomb Raider: Underworld

Oh Lara, no-one can accuse you of failing to deliver on what was expected, as all anyone need do is play one of the previous games and you know exactly what Underworld has to deliver. Though Underworld does deliver in style, with some impressive looks, and the gameplay is thankfully much more in the Anniversary vein than the far too shooty Legend.

Lara’s gain a few new moves on the acrobatics front, but nothing that’s going to threaten the way the game plays. In fact the most notable addition is the slow-mo adrenaline mode you can enter to help execute kills and a jumps at a few key points in the game (which is actually quite neat as it does mean no QTEs). Sadly, despite all the improvements, Lara still hasn’t lost her ability to completely ignore the ledge/pole/thing you were clearly aiming to grab onto and subsequently fall to her death (not helped by the camera moving on its own and screwing with your jumps). Any which way, it’s all a very solid and perfectly entertaining Tomb Raider game.

OutRun Online Arcade

Right out of the gate I’m going to confess that I didn’t think I was going to buy this, I didn’t think there was going to be much value in OutRun Online Arcade. I was wrong. As with Peggle I downloaded the trial and before I knew what had hit me I was wanting just one more go. And then another. And another.

The classic Sega-blue sky, the Ferrari (complete with blonde passenger), Magical Sound Shower blasting out of my telly’s speakers, power-sliding round corners: it was like revisiting and old friend, and then having a fucking blast with them. I didn’t think I’d have this much fun shaving seconds off of runs and beating friends’ times online. Oh, and the online multiple is a lot of fun too. If you’ve ever played and enjoyed an OutRun game then this should be in your collection.

Lego Batman

Much like Ms. Croft and the Tomb Raider titles, you know exactly what you’re getting when you stick in one of the Lego games. As with all the other Lego games it’s a fairly straight-forward puzzle-adventure game that includes a nice bit of humour throughout. So starting up Lego Batman didn’t wield much in the way of surprises, but it also didn’t disappoint.

Dark Sector

I paid the grand sum of £5 for Dark Sector and would say I received at least £5 of entertainment from it. It’s a fairly derivative title with heavy influence taken from titles like Gears of War felt throughout. However, this game’s USP — the glaive (the triple bladed circular boomerang type thing you have) — is a lot of fun to mess around with, and lopping off a guy’s head as he runs at you remains fun no matter how many times you do it.

The game contains a small dose of ‘puzzling’, though it’s never anything that will challenge the brain cells of anyone awake. But it’s reasonably well put together game that moves along at a good pace and with some decent set-pieces to mix things up. Thankfully the ‘daft as a bag of hammers’ story-line is entirely ignorable, and probably for the best as they seem to go out of their way to not explain anything, so I was left utterly perplexed as to what the hell was going on. If you see this for dirt cheap, you could certainly do worse, but then you could probably also do better.

Hopefully now I’ve got that out the way I can return to writing a bit more frequently (and I’ll be kicking my fellow contributors up the backsides when I next speak to them), though before I start a new review I need to play a new game. So, inFamous or Prototype? Or perhaps something altogether different?