Latest Articles (Page 2362)

When did it stop being OK for first-person shooters to be silly? Once upon a time you just rocked up, ran down some corridors with increasingly powerful weapons and shot guys. Most of those guys chose to defend themselves by dancing left and right, and they came from places like Stroggos.

Initially, I blamed the weather. The hottest week of the year, with the blazing sun promising lazy afternoons in London parks with cold beers to hand, is a pretty uncharitable time to start plugging hours into a massively multiplayer game. I was clock-watching, glancing at the time after every couple of missions, wondering if I'd played enough for today and could justify switching off the PC and marching out into daylight.

Alan Wake is best when it's ending. That's a compliment. The game hits an aesthetic high whenever one of its episodes draws to a close, with a stark title screen and a cut of music that's perfect for the moment. I savour those few seconds when the text ("End of Episode Five" or what have you) slinks on-screen in tendrils of smoke, and I love that the song makes everything you just played feel like a grand journey.

If you were in the Headstart week of Need for Speed World, in which early birds could tour the world a week early, you'll have experienced a discouraging sense of isolation. The first multiplayer race I tried to join was a matter of sitting in a lobby with a single, silent avatar chosen from the small and self-consciously macho collection available.

Scott Pilgrim is one of us. While Hollywood's zeitgeist-chasing writers and directors clutch at game references in an effort to appeal to those born into videogames, Scott Pilgrim out-nerds even the medium's firstborn by knowing the bass line to Final Fantasy II off by heart. Aged 16, he joined a three-piece indie band called Sonic and Knuckles in an effort to transcend his non-jock plebeian school status. He owns a Mithril Skateboard (+4 to Speed, +3 to Kick, +1 to Will), plays Tony Hawk to train, Bomberman to relax and saves tiny worlds on a daily basis.

Tower Defense is gaming's youngest genre and it shows: endless waves of clones clog up iTunes, many as irresistible as their inspiration but few displaying much innovation. That's natural. Evolution requires a large gene pool before baby-step iterations begin to generate true diversification.

Hey everybody! It's party time! But tonight we're not gonna party like it's 1999, oh no. That's because it's 2010! Today's parties aren't about drinking, dancing and standing around in the kitchen discussing the new Catatonia album! They're about standing around in the lounge, playing videogames! And drinking.

What does it take to be a sporting champion? Along with physical prowess you must show grit, dedication and determination. You must be willing to make sacrifices and stay focused. On top of all this you must be a stupidly hot woman or hilariously ugly man, and display at least three characteristics stereotypically ascribed to people of your race or nationality.

Microsoft has offloaded a monstrous eight million Kinect units in the motion-sensing peripheral's first 60 days on sale.

Like any well-planned operation, this article begins with a mission briefing. Here's the wording from one of R.U.S.E.'s one-off scenario missions:

"Just got in the zone with DoDonPachi Resurrection and scored 120 million. I'm gonna one-credit this bitch."

Sony's Move controller is undeniably an impressive piece of technology, but the software so far hasn't quite shown how impressive. Sports Champions is half of a brilliant game, Start the Party is a trumped-up EyeToy title whose main distinguishing feature is that it works properly - and the less said about the mess that is Kung Fu Rider the better. In the absence of a genuine killer app, it's been left to this PSN title to show the big boys how it's done. As a demonstration of Move's capabilities, Tumble is pretty hard to beat.

Last Window offers views onto several forgotten vistas. Immediately, it paints a vivid picture of an American city at the dawn of the 1980s. Gleaming skyscrapers stretch at the clouds, each a pointed testament to the unshakeable wisdom of modern capitalism. Keeping their distance, on the outskirts of the city centre, tower blocks stand, heads down, providing temporary accommodation to the workers who turn the cogs of the sun-baked metropolis and the deadbeats who clog them. Rendered in stylish watercolor and black ink, the city scenes that run throughout the game are drawn in an anachronistic style, a manga-ish take on late seventies Americana that reinforces the historical context through its aesthetic.

In 'Wily Travels' it's the PCs and LCD monitors used to book countless budget summer vacations. In 'Marriage Makers' it's the necklaces and bracelets, sparkling pellets on display under the glass counter. In 'Atlantica Casino', it's the tall chairs upon which patrons once sat and played the slots, or the discarded handbags around them, heavy with coins and make-up. In 'Bennie Jack's Barbecue Shack' it's the plastic serving trays, in 'Venus Touch', the bottles of shampoo and hair dye, in 'Knokonutz Sports Town' the dumbbells and basketballs. In 'Toy Manor', it's the RC stunt copter with its sharp, rhythmic blades that can slice the head clean off a man.

The first thing you should understand about the new Castlevania is that it's possibly not the Castlevania you were expecting. While Konami's latest offers plenty of Gothic crenulations and whip-centric combat as yet another Belmont faces off against a wave of Halloween nasties, it sidesteps, to a large extent, the architectural complexity and wily level design that has helped define the series.

I'm about to do the unthinkable. I never thought this time would come, but I guess I'm just not scared any more. I'm ready.

Editor's note: Reader beware! As a review of the second epilogue for a very narrative-led game, the following necessarily contains some spoilers for Alan Wake and previous episode The Signal. Proceed with caution.

The Rock And Roll War has rarely painted a successful backdrop for videogames – at least, not to the same level as World War II. And I know for a fact there are stalwarts out there still playing Vietcong who'll disagree with some fervour, but the problem has always been rooted in the ground. Namely, foliage.

Dead Rising 2’s playable prologue, Case Zero, was released at the end of August for 400 Microsoft Points, selling half a million copies by the end of September. Just four months later, its epilogue, Case West, arrives exclusively on 360 for double that cost. Austerity be damned: that’s the price of progress, folks.

First-person shooters have it easy. When it comes to DLC, a couple of new multiplayer maps every few months is enough to satisfy the fanbase. The poor old role-playing game, on the other hand, has a far tougher challenge when it comes to expansions.

Namco Bandai Partners will distribute Blitz Games' interactive movie game Yoostar 2 in Europe.

As rumoured earlier this week, Microsoft has shown off Avatar Kinect, a new party chat feature heading to the Xbox 360 dashboard.

Microsoft has announced Fable III: Coin Golf, a spin-off of Lionhead's adventure franchise for the Windows Phone 7.

Sony has taken the wraps off an ambitious new 3D display prototype called the Headman.

Contrary to warnings recently offered by Nintendo, the 3DS does not have the potential to damage the eyesight of children under six, so say medical experts.

BioWare has published a taster of the forthcoming Mass Effect Evolution comic series, which promises to flesh out the backstory of its RPG franchise.

Online mega-market Amazon has just announced plans to launch its own app store for Android phones.

PlayStation 3 owners who pick up Mass Effect 2 when it launches later this month will be privy to a batch of free DLC for BioWare's epic action RPG.

A new Dead Space game will be available on the App Store on 25th January, EA has announced.

The Kinect peripheral is causing a new rash of 'red ring of death' Xbox 360 system crashes, according to a report from the BBC.