I truly believe that the Indie scene is the last remaining bastion of creativity in the games industry. Microsoft’s willingness to welcome bedroom developers onto the Xbox 360 dashboard provides one of the last unique selling points that the console has to offer… but there’s a catch. A vast selection of excellent games can be found on the Xbox Live Indie marketplace, but they’re usually difficult to find beneath a putrid heap of rushed, lazy and insultingly broken content. To this end, I’ll be diving headfirst into said heap every Wednesday in order to select three outstanding Indie titles that deserve your time and money.

Oh, and we’ll be picking a winner. There’s nothing wrong with a little friendly competition…

PLATFORMANCE: Castle Pain

Developer: Magiko Gaming

Demo/Buy (80MSP)

Back in the day, 8-16 bit platformers used to be all the rage. Punishingly difficult yet immensely addictive, these games pushed us to our limits while dragging us back for more… and I’m delighted to say that this week’s outstanding game will remind retro fans exactly why we fell in love with the medium in the first place. Sit back, relax, and watch out-because I’m about to get a little pretentious.

PLATFORMANCE: Castle Pain resembles a beautiful piece of digital pixel art… and in many ways, that’s exactly what it is. It distils the very essence of classic platformers into a single level housed within a lavish frame. The premise is beguilingly simple: as a knight tasked with rescuing the imprisoned princess, you’ll have to make your way through the eponymous castle in order to be united with the hapless blueblood. However, a huge number of platforming challenges stand in your way: from massive drilling machines, bloodthirsty octopi and some dangerously incontinent bluebirds.

The framed level first appears to be a linear set of disjointed obstacles, but a quick tap of the X button zooms out the perspective so that you can see the entire map at a glance. You’ll need to toggle between the view modes to work out how some of the puzzles interlink (since the game resembles a finely tuned clockwork mechanism once you get the hang of it). Castle Pain doesn’t do anything new, but it succeeds by feeling absolutely spot on. The selection of traps, puzzles and obstacles will remind you of your favourite parts of your favourite games of yesteryear- and the 8 bit graphics and catchy music bolster the authentic atmosphere. I’d strongly recommend using the D-Pad rather than analog stick for this one; partly for the sense of retro authenticity, but mainly because it makes several of the jumps a lot easier to pull off.

Saying that Castle Pain is hard is a both an understatement and a complete fallacy. It’s hardcore, not difficult. The gameplay harks back to an age where developers didn’t hold our hands and coddle us at every opportunity- rather, it challenges us to excel and overcome our shortcomings without feeling cheap in the process. Frequent checkpoints allow us to die as many times as we want (and believe me, it’ll kick your ass something fierce)… but a randomly-roving pixelated ghost will instantly end the game on contact (requiring you to continually check on its position by changing the zoom mode). Multiple difficulty levels increases both the amount and severity of the challenges- and medals dare us to try harder skill levels and strive for fewer deaths.

PLATFORMANCE: Castle Pain hits the perfect sweet spot between punishing difficulty and immense satisfaction at beating each obstacle. There may only be one level, but you’ll be surprised at how much they’ve managed to pack into it. Essentially, it’s an archetypal platformer that’ll make you dig out your NES all over again!

Runic 3D

Developer: Executive Iguana Studios

Demo/Buy (80MSP)

Match 3 mechanics always tend to make for a fun and accessible game- and Runic 3D sets out to deliver a Nordic twist on the concept. Rotating a 3 dimensional game board, you’ll shoot out coloured runes that stop on contact with other pieces. Matching a group of three runes next to an immovable God Rune removes it from the board, and the objective is to destroy them all within a tight time limit. It’s a simple concept, but soon gets taken to extremes with complex board design in the later levels. A large campaign mode, solid graphics, slick presentation and avatar support rounds out the package.

It was another close battle for first place this week, but unfortunately Runic lost the edge due to its dry presentation. Norse gods and mythology make for an epic canvas for a vibrant game, but there’s little variation and a slightly drab (if high-res) backdrop. The Gods themselves are squandered- and a little more character would have pushed it into pole position.

Runic 3D is a solid and entertaining puzzler that more than justifies its meagre 80MSP price tag. Whilst it doesn’t quite take us to Valhalla, it does provide a meaty and satisfying experience that’s perfect for short play sessions.

Avatar Pinball

Developer: NoStatic Software

Demo/Buy (80MSP)

Avatar Pinball does exactly what it says on the tin. Your avatar becomes the ball in an enormous beachfront pinball table, with the ability to move and rotate your hapless virtual self (in addition to manipulating the flippers) as he/she careers around the bumpers and targets. There’s only one table on offer, but there’s a surprising degree of complexity with many multiplier bonuses, multiball powerups and targets to hit. The excellent physics and ragdoll mechanics rival the likes of Pinball FX, and the graphics are shiny and vibrant enough to hold your attention. Plus, it’s always cathartic to watch your virtual self getting brained on the big screen. Or maybe that’s just me.

Avatar Pinball delivers a rollicking good time; providing cathartic thrills, excellent physics and a surprisingly detailed table that stacks up with the full-price pinball sims on XBLA. Whilst the single stage and handful of modes only lend themselves to quick and hectic blasts, it’s still worthy of your time and money.

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Xbox Live Indie Game of the Week: Runes, Ragdolls and a Platforming Masterclass

Platforms: DS (reviewed)

Developer: Level-5

Publisher: Nintendo

The hot summer months have rolled around once again- and it’s time for gamers everywhere to break out the handhelds and select a title to accompany us on the plane and by the pool. The choice of a suitable summer RPG is one of the most important annual decisions that many gamers have to make… but luckily, it’s a no-brainer this year. Dragon Quest IX is an expansive, beautiful and utterly charming experience that will keep players entertained long into the Autumn.

Before the freeform questing has a chance to take hold, you’ll have to push through a long and overbearing intro section that sets up the typically-complex premise (perfect for the plane journey or road trip if you’re lucky enough to be jetting off this year). Taking on the role of an angelic winged celestial, your character is tasked with the thankless chore of invisibly safeguarding of a small town. Harvesting thankful prayers of grateful villagers is the primary source of Benevolessence, which in turn will cause the heavenly tree Yggradsil to bear fruit and usher in a new golden age of… something or other. Before too long, however, a disaster forces your angel to plummet into the mortal realm, losing his/her wings in the process. Having to integrate into human society, the world suddenly opens up as you become a freelance adventurer for hire.

From this point on, Dragon Quest IX becomes a traditional but fantastically capable loot-centric RPG. You’ll take on a huge variety of missions from the local inn, upgrade your equipment from a range of over 1000 items and set out into overworld. Finicky collision detection and glitchy stylus movement can make for a little teething trouble, but you’ll soon fall into the addictive routine of adventuring, levelling up, dungeon crawling and maybe a little story progression if you’re feeling up to it. The missions are both numerous and varied; each boasting a perfect length that’s feels neither too quick or overly protracted. A smooth difficulty curve also cuts out much of the traditional grind.

Unlike Phantasy Star Zero and other similar DS RPGs, the class system allows you to dynamically change your vocation depending on your needs; building up a wide selection of abilities from several different aspects. Warriors, magi, martial artists and thieves all offer different skills and traits that allow you to experiment with different play styles without having to start over. Awesome.

Battle mechanics are as traditional and streamlined as you’d expect from the Dragon Quest series. It’s a turn-based affair, with the aforementioned bevy of skills, spells and abilities offering a wide variety of combat options. The frustration of random battles has been entirely removed by roving overworld enemies that you can engage or ignore at leisure; and optional customisable party AI for your three allies lets you sit back and concentrate the task at hand (and gives you a free hand to hold your brightly coloured beach cocktail).

Speaking of party AI and allies, the theme of player choice and customisation carries over into your selection of companions. Party members can be recruited, created and customised just like the player character; with individual inventories and switchable vocations. This effectively allows you to groom your own stable of allies for every situation- as well as an effective fleet of loot mules.

Unfortunately, this new focus on player customisation also effectively crushes any hope of rich character interactions and story arcs… so fans of traditional exposition-driven JRPGs will be in for a fairly serious disappointment. The rich character creation and customisation comes at a steep price- though in my opinion it’s well worth paying.

Graphically, Dragon Quest IX is top-notch for a portable title. Attractive cell shading and smooth animation compensates for the DS’ hardware limitations and looks especially impressive in combat sequences. The series’ legendary art design also makes a welcome return and features some of the most adorable adversaries in videogame history. Armoured mynah birds, spear-wielding cucumbers and the beloved slimes will bring a smile to your face even as you beat them down with an deadly steel fan. In fact, you’ll probably want to keep most of them as pets.

Awww. Can I keep them?

Local multiplayer allows up to four heroes to explore a single game world simultaneously- and works extremely well. Players can cooperate on missions or gallivant around on their own, with the ability to summon help using the call to arms function. There’s even a mode that allows the DS to passively import other player characters into your game, turning them into fully-fledged AI party members! However, many gamers will doubtlessly be infuriated by the lack of online functionality, which effectively neuters the potential for cooperative shenanigans. The thing is, this isn’t a fault with the game. This is a fault with Western gaming society.

Let me explain. XBLA and PSN are great for anonymously throwing down on some faceless opponents, but our reliance on internet gaming is killing off the proud traditions of social local multiplayer. In this respect, I wish that we were more like our Japanese counterparts. Socially meeting up with friends (or even strangers) in an arcade or cafe to play ad-hoc multiplayer is commonplace in the East… and it makes me pine for the good old days of playground link cable battles and beer & screens nights. Games are better when played with friends. Let’s take it back.

Pros:

• Accessible, deep, addictive and expansive gameplay
• Versatile vocation and party system
• May be the only handheld title you need this summer

Cons:

• Dodgy movement controls and collision detection
• Characterisation stifled due to customisation and multiplayer focus
• Why don’t more of us get together for social gaming sessions?

The Short Version: Dragon Quest IX is the only handheld game you’ll need for the summer holidays. It’s deep and expansive without sacrificing accessibility or charm- and provides a lengthy experience that’s enjoyable in small doses or marathon sessions. With any luck, you’ll find some like-minded gamers by the pool for some cooperative shenanigans.

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Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels Of The Starry Skies Review… Summer, Sorted.

Platforms: X360 (XBLA)

Developer: Playdead

Publisher: Microsoft

I hate spiders. I hate the way they look, the way they move, the sinister array of eyes (I mean what kind of creature really needs all of those eyes?!) and I’m being chased by one. I, the 6ft 3 guy who visibly winced and hid behind popcorn when Sean Astin took on Shelob a few years back, am being followed by a giant shadowy arachnid that has thrice already impaled me with its leg and shaken me around until my limbs start falling off. All the while, in the background, the dull chill of strings and synth acknowledges my imminent doom. But no! I have learned from my past mistakes and this time I don’t fall, or drown or give myself over to gnashing teeth and eight-legged hunger, and I allow myself a sigh of relief.

Welcome to Limbo, probably one of the finest games to have graced the Xbox LIVE Marketplace since its inception and no, I’m not exaggerating. Too many games try to cram everything in, too many try to do too much; not this one, and it’s all the better because of it. There’s a purity to the experience of playing Limbo that comes across because there’s absolutely no fluff or fat.

Let’s start at the beginning, for example. There’s no HUD, no menu, no indication of anything statistical at all when you start, the shining, bright eyes of the young protagonist blinking as he rises and dusts himself off. A fall is inferred and you wake to find yourself in a monochrome landscape, sparsely populated but replete with danger. The first thing you’ll notice, apart from the sparsity of information, is that this game looks gorgeous. The art style is immediately striking in its detailed beauty, but also foreboding; there’s a cold feeling that the rich and layered greyscaling provokes. This mood is perfectly accompanied by a soft soundtrack, all low key strings and reverberating synths, that fades often to near-silence before rising dramatically at times as if the orchestra players have seen something lurking in the shadows and are suddenly scared.

That tension and fear, the feeling of some slight unreality, that things are not the way they’re supposed to be, is a theme that saturates every moment of this game. When you awaken there’s no explanation, there are no cutscenes, no tutorials and nothing to prod you onto the right path. This is a game all about one young boy’s journey, but there are no signposts along the way and plenty of perils to try and avoid.

Those perils come in numerous forms. You’ll have your traditional pits full of spikes, boulders from which Indiana Jones would have been proud to flee, bodies of water that will seem perfectly safe until you take one step too far and the controls seize up as your shadowy avatar briefly convulses, and the controller shudders softly, before going limp and the screen fades to black painfully, mockingly, slowly. The puzzles come thick and fast, and the game teaches you the solve them the hard way. None of them will force you to break things in frustration, but there are certainly a few that might see you scratching your head for a few moments.

You learn through trial and error in a similar fashion to another artsy puzzling platformer: LucasArts’ slightly more colourful effort, Lucidity. The difference, though, between the two is simple but striking – LucasArts never let you play as the protagonist, you were simply The Cursor, Sofi’s guardian angel. You never felt any real sense of responsibility for her, not really. With Limbo, however, if your young charge dies, it’s your fault. The first time those bright eyes flicker out it stirs something, even if it’s just a sense of urgency to escape to break free and leave this eerie place.

But Matt, I hear you cry, that’s true of so many games! Yes, you’re right. But Playdead have done such an excellent job of crafting a perpetually paranoid, atmospherically solitary experience that you’ll be startled at how much you feel the first time you die. It’s aided by swift and unexpected instances of vicious brutality that make you gasp the first time you witness them. I was skipping down a hill, for example, delighting as the long rushes bent slightly as I whisked past them when all of a sudden I triggered a super-sized bear trap I hadn’t seen for the long grass and was promptly decapitated as the jaws snapped up, severing my head from my body in a dull grey mist of blood. It actually made me jump and from then on you’re constantly looking over your shoulder, the quietly expectant moments actually proving to be the most tense, as you make your way onwards on your own.

The solitary experience, that quest and longing for companionship, becomes especially poignant when you run into others. You might spot a figure on the other side of small lake only for them to slump forward as you approach, revealing the rope about their neck, to float dead in the water. You’ll encounter a handful of live figures every once in a while, but you’ll be met with hostility, watching your back (and front) whilst trying to navigate the fiendish traps they’ve set for you, at once spurring you onwards with the promise of living humanity, but too distant and antagonistic to ever properly reach.

Limbo takes its cue from browser titles such as ImmorTall, I Can Hold My Breath Forever and, to a certain extent with its minimalist feel, Every Day The Same Dream, but the level of artistic creativity on show here is secondary to the experience that we, as gamers, get from playing the thing. Ignore tags like ‘art game’, they’re completely misleading and hopefully there’ll come a time when such things cease to have any meaning. This is an excellent game, that’s all you need to know. It’ll suck you in, it’ll make you think and feel and gasp and maybe even laugh at times, and it’ll stick around long after you’re done playing it. It’s a short game, and a pricey one too, at 4-5 hours long and 1200 Microsoft Points respectively, but it’s a sublime title and one that I cannot recommend enough.

Pros

• Phenomenally atmospheric with fantastic presentation
• Thought provoking and challenging
• Genuinely moving and surprising

Cons

• I wish it was longer
• Not particularly sensitive to arachnophobes
• Not immediately available to all gamers everywhere

The Short Version: A masterclass in minimalism, Playdead have crafted a game that’s stands out as one of the finest games on the Xbox 360. Gorgeous to look at and challenging without ever over-staying it’s welcome, Limbo arrives as a creative masterpiece at a time when safe, sequel-centric, production line development is at a high. Thrilling, smart, affecting and, most importantly, fun, quite frankly if there’s one game you play this summer, it should be this one.

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Limbo Review: Raising the Bar

Formats: PSP (also PS3 compatible)

Developer: Rake in Grass

Publisher: Rake in Grass

£2.49 and 191 levels. BAM! That’s what we call a good deal.

This is a 2D puzzle/platforming game that starts off with easy puzzles before soon leaving you scratching your head wondering what the hell to do next. You control Archibald on his skateboard trying to find his way out of Professor Klumpfus’ creepy mansion/laboratory by hopping across gaps, avoiding mutants, flicking switches, moving boxes and teleporting, with the aim of reaching the exit door for each of the levels.

Archibald jumps automatically where needed just by pushing the controls left or right. He can jump ‘one block’ high or across. If he has roughly three blocks of open space he’ll be able to get a bit of speed going to clear bigger gaps.

Early on you get to use the bubble gun which can be used to fire large bubblegum-like spheres which can move crates around. You can float the bubble through gaps and upwards to reach otherwise inaccessible switches too. Things get more complicated as you go with some barriers blocking your bubbles, or you’ll have to use explosives to clear the way. You’ll even get a cool machine to replace your skateboard, a human metal hamster-ball which can grab onto metal surfaces and crush blocks.

Considering the large amount of levels, it’s surprising to see how often new elements are introduced to keep you interested. Puzzles constantly shift from working out how to create smooth surfaces for running jumps, creating staircases, or gently moving a crate through the air with a bubble being careful not to burst it on the spikey vines sticking out everywhere. Timing, logic, balance and brave jump-judging all come into play to create a gripping experience.

While some levels have checkpoint beacons to bring you back to life they’re annoying absent for some levels meaning one slip-up can mean a restart. There are also a few levels where you can trap yourself into a corner leaving you with the grim prospect of restarting the level. When you do trap yourself though you’ll be able to avoid making the same mistake as before as it’s often clear how you messed up.

The controls to move off one block onto one immediately below (laid out like steps) can be a bit over-sensitive as you have to gently tap the d-pad to get him to drop down and hopefully not leap off, missing the first block and landing in the green goo, onto spikes or into the path something crawling and oozing teeth that’s not meant for mass production.

Overall though, the approach of the game is friendly enough as it’s split into chapters with 16 levels each. The last two levels in each chapter only become available if you finish the rest of them, but you can afford to miss a few if you want to progress to later chapters.

The graphics are basic, but sharply drawn with the occasionally charming animation thrown in for your amusement. The lack of a time limit for the levels also adds to the easy-going nature of the game too. Well that is until you perfectly place some hard-earned crates as platforms to the exit only to accidentally smash one with your clumsy human rollcage.

Pros

• 191 levels for £2.49!
• New elements thrown at you keep things interesting throughout
• Harsh but fair later levels will test your skills

Cons

• Dropping down ledges often results in accidentally bigger jumps
• Some levels cruelly leave out checkpoints
• You’ll often want a Prince of Persia-style rewind

The Short Version: The huge number of levels should keep you going for ages. This initially simple puzzle game proves to be quite a challenge soon enough with lots of varied elements that will keep you occupied through any commute or even at home afterwards.

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Archibald’s Adventures Review (PSP Minis)

I truly believe that the Indie scene is the last remaining bastion of creativity in the games industry. Microsoft’s willingness to welcome bedroom developers onto the Xbox 360 dashboard provides one of the last unique selling points that the console has to offer… but there’s a catch. A vast selection of excellent games can be found on the Xbox Live Indie marketplace, but they’re usually difficult to find beneath a putrid heap of rushed, lazy and insultingly broken content. To this end, I’ll be diving headfirst into said heap every Wednesday in order to select three outstanding Indie titles that deserve your time and money.

Oh, and we’ll be picking a winner. There’s nothing wrong with a little friendly competition…

AvaGlide

Developer: Haiku Interactive

Demo/Buy (80MSP)

” Oh great, yet another avatar game.”

Usually my pre-emptive exasperation is entirely justified. The XBLIG marketplace is crammed full of nasty little avatar apps that drag the entire service’s reputation down into the mire right along with their ratings… but in this case, I’m delighted to have discovered one of the finest games on the service to date.

Using the shiny new Sunburn engine and a professional physics library, AvaGlide allows your virtual persona to take to the skies and participate in a selection of addictive minigames. Detailed textures, real-time shadows, water reflections and expansive levels make for a slick little title that genuinely looks a lot better than most Wii games! The physics engine provides your gliding with a accessible yet realistic feel, requiring clever use of updrafts and speed regulation to succeed.

The three minigames on offer includes flying through rings for points and time bonuses, a target-based delivery game that requires you to drop crates onto giant bullseyes and a freeform points-snatching challenge. Whilst there are only three levels (each of which has two selectable times of day), AvaGlide remains surprisingly addictive through a medal system and a dynamic Xbox Live scoreboard. The gamertag and highscore of the next best player sits tauntingly above yours- and it’s a real blast to continually own new rivals every few seconds. The three minigames are equally enjoyable in 2-4 player local hotswap multiplayer.

AvaGlide looks and plays a damn sight better than the majority of Xbox Live Indie titles… and in fact, it’s a lot more fun than most of the full-price Wii Sports and Wii Play minigames. It may only be a brief and frequent diversion, but considering that it retails at a pocket-friendly 80MSP, AvaGlide wholeheartedly gets my vote as Xbox Live Indie Game of the Week.

Ophidian Wars: Opac’s Journey

Developer: Small Cave Games

Demo/Buy (80MSP)

Ophidian Wars is an atmospheric platformer set in a bizarre and stylish subterranean labyrinth. Taking on the role of the ghoulish Opac, you’ll set out on a mysterious mission that gradually reveals itself over the course of a handful of hours. Starting with the bare minimum of skills, you’ll soon collect a variety of artefacts, bizarre fruit and equipment that lend Opac some nifty abilities. You’ll soon find yourself gliding and wall-grappling your way around the NES-style levels with joyous abandon, discovering secret areas hidden behind destructible panels with the aid of a highly explosive vegetable. The feeling of being truly alone save for some enigmatic ancient messages makes for a powerful and compelling experience.

It was a close call as to whether Ophidian Wars would hit our top spot this week… but unfortunately, a few elementary design flaws hold it back at a very basic level. Many of Opac’s abilities are seriously glitched and inappropriately mapped to the same button, which makes seemingly simple manoeuvres extremely frustrating to pull off. The lack of a save function also means that you’ve got to complete it in a single epic session- and the infuriatingly low ceilings ensure that the tall, gangly protagonist bumps his head every few seconds. It’s more annoying than it sounds.

Flaws aside, Opac’s journey is still a stylish and nuanced platformer that delivers serious value for your 80MSP.  I would recommend it heartily to retro fans and old-schoolers.

Air Forte

Developer: Blendo Games

Demo/Buy (400MSP)

Kids love computer games. According to my research, the average 21st century child spends around 23.5 hours per day [wait, what? - Ed] playing inappropriately violent and mature titles bought for them by their lazy inattentive parents [stop it. - Ed]… and if even a few minutes of this time could be leveraged into learning, we could usher in a new golden age of digital education. Enter Blendo Games (of Flotilla fame), with an attempt to deliver a half-decent edutainment title.

Air Forte lets kids fly around a cute cartoon world in a cute cartoon biplane; solving maths, geography and vocabulary problems by bumping into bubbles and avoiding traps. The story (such as it is) is presented in lavish and frequently hilarious comic panels which are as fun to watch as the game is to play. Four player co-op is included in the package, which delivers a considerable saving at 400MSP compared to the $15 PC price point.

As an edutainment title, most gamers should steer well clear of this one- but parents ought to seriously consider letting their kids have a go. They’ll enjoy the bright colours… and hey, they might even learn something.

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Xbox Live Indie Game of the Week: Hang Gliders, Strange Fruit and Airborne Maths!

Formats: PSP (also PS3 compatible)

Developer: Tag Games

Publisher: Tag Games

It’s been a while since I’ve dusted of my old PS1 GTA games, so will this be a nostalgic experience or a grim reminder of why some titles are best left in the past?

The top-down view in the crime-sim raises obvious comparisons with the old GTA games, but for a £3.49 PSP Minis title it definitely has my attention.

Missions will be familiar to any fan of the genre. Drive here, pick up this or shoot that being fairly consistent themes. The in-game clock matches that of the real-world PSP clock. Some missions may only be available at a certain time so you may have to dither around for a while. This makes it even more annoying when you fail.

Failing missions in most games would give you another shot at it, but in a tribute to the old GTA games, you’ve had it. Or you’ll at least have to wait till tomorrow (literally) before it appears again. The money you earn from missions is used to pay off your epic mob debts in stages, which is the means of progression in the game. The main missions pay the big money, but if you exhaust them all for the day, you can deliver pizza, make taxi runs, steal cars and so on for smaller sums of money.

There are hidden packages to find and random goals to activate such as blowing up 20 cars, that suddenly appear onscreen, but they aren’t listed anywhere so you never feel compelled to just run around exploring or going postal like you do in GTA.

Early missions are quite generous with the time limits, which is a plus point seeing as driving anywhere can be infuriating. The overhead camera is too close, making it difficult to see traffic ahead; it doesn’t even zoom out when you pick up speed. The steering is way too sensitive with both the analogue stick and the d-pad. Accelerating and braking seem to have been mapped to the wrong buttons and reversing is severely unresponsive. Every time you crash into the corner of a building or another vehicle you’ll have to press reverse several times before it works and just hope you don’t get busted or blown up. Hitting traffic is irritating as you can’t just barge them out of the way or even just nudge past them, it’s a case of constant time-consuming reversing. Even getting out of a car seems to take forever.

At least some effort has been put into making different car types handle differently. There are the zippy sports cars (the red with two white stripes car we knew as The Beast is back!) and the mundane family sedans that are actually slower than AI vehicles that line up behind you as you trundle along.

The action out of the car is much more enjoyable, with plenty of weapons available. Machine guns, rockets, shotguns, grenades and flamethrowers can be picked up on foot or in-car on most pavements and alleyways so even when you lose them all after dying or getting busted, it’s not hard to acquire more.

The more precise weapons like the machine gun have auto-targeting fire so the controls never get in the way. The shotguns have a wickedly wide range of fire and the flamethrower is perfect for taking out vehicles. It’s just such a shame that most of the game is spent driving instead of going on rampages.

In-fact, if the game had just been based on GTA-style rampages, something akin to Smash TV or State of Emergency, it might have been more fun. Instead we have a slightly over-ambitious take on the full GTA beast.

It just can’t compete with GTA on any level though to be honest. The music is repetitive and cheap for the in-car sections and the humour in the script is non-existent. It can become unclear as to what your current objective is too with a wayward GPS that changes its mind as to what mission you’re doing when interrupted by a new handler, sending the arrow indicator all over the place as you follow it and shoot someone, not realising the mission has changed and you were just meant to meet them. Despite the flaws, it might be worth a look for fans of the old games, but other gamers should pick up the original GTAs first.

Pros

• Brings up some fond memories of the original GTA titles
• On foot sections are fun
• For £3.49 you’re getting a decent sized game

Cons

• Car handling is terrible
• Lack of a ‘retry’ option will test your patience
• Objectives and next destination often unclear thanks to dodgy GPS menu

The Short Version: Ardent fans of the original GTA titles may enjoy the retro style of Car Jack Streets, just be prepared for shonky car handling and an absence of style. On foot shootouts are much more fun, but take up so little time compared to the driving.

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Car Jack Streets Review (PSP Minis)

Here at Dealspwn we’re all about getting the best games for the least amount of financial effort, and we often tend to forget that some of the most addictive offerings out there are completely free. With that in mind, welcome to Click To Play, a weekly feature where we’ll be hunting down the best browser-based games each week so you don’t have to.  Check in with us every Monday to spice up your coffee breaks for the week!

This week: pOnd

I delight in the smalle things,
the shape of a leafe,
the curl of sunlight on the grasses.

I set out before dawne, one foot afore the other,
to see what wonders the day might holde.

pOnd kicks things off with this little pensive lyric, immediately sending the warning bells of pretension ringing in my ears. In all honesty, I have no idea what the hell pOnd is. Is it art? Is it a pisstake? Is it just an example of the wandering mind in game form? Who knows.

There’s not much I can say about this game without ruining the entire experience, short that it is, but one thing I will say is this: keep an open mind. It’s another one of those visually interesting mood pieces that has a firm concept at the beginning before shaking things up in extreme fashion towards the conclusion. Just as I was beginning to find myself sucked in by the presentation and the atmospheric piano tinkling, the game made me laugh so hard that the water I’d been drinking came out of my nose.

Give it a playthrough and I’m pretty sure you’ll see what I mean.

Click To Play

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Click To Play: pOnd

Platform: PS3 | X360 (reviewed)

Developer: Hothead Games

Publisher: EA

There aren’t many games out there that have a villain hell-bent on stealing your purple thong. There are few titles that will press a special hammer into your hands and have you go round beating up demons thereby forcing them to crap themselves so you can collect up the fiery faeces for a special kind of manure. On top of that, you’ll be hard pressed to find a game whose eponymous protagonist shares a name with what one could feasibly imagine might be a kinky finishing move in the next Mortal Kombat.

But then again, most games aren’t made by Ron Gilbert.

Gilbert, along with partner in crime Tim Schafer, is largely responsible for proving that games don’t just have to be deadly serious, they can be funny. As you might expect from the man behind Monkey Island, this latest venture is certainly not your average game, every line of dialogue punctuated by a witticism or offbeat one liner. The puns range from the sublime to the cringeworthy, the voice acting straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon. The presentation fits into all of this perfectly too, a wonderful combination of MediEvil’s animated japery and all of the squishy fart noises and gross-out giggling of Rik Mayall reading the assorted works of The Brothers Grimm.

The plot itself is hardly your standard affair either. You won’t find any simpering maidens. kidnapped princesses or surprisingly punctual evil hordes led by dragons here…not in the main plot anyway. Our eponymous hero, defender of weak, most heroic of champions and general dogsbody for Lady Justice, is after a super-important artefact aptly named…The Artefact. He finds this about three hours or so into the game at which point you’re promptly mugged and have to run around preparing the ultimate taco before you can get all of your stuff back. It’s around this time that you discover the disturbing news that infamous tyrant Lord Von Prong didn’t even really want the Artefact in the first place but has set his sights firmly on eliminating DeathSpank and stealing his fashionable purple thong.

It’s all very refreshing at first, a welcome respite from the chronic wave of over-seriousness that seems to be saturating the industry in these trying times with dialogue trees that you’ll want to explore to the fullest extent just to see what else comes out. There are a vast number of weird and wonderful NPCs, nearly all of them with names designed to tickle the funny bone and backstories to make you chuckle and it’s a good thing too…because the missions they’ll send you on can get crushingly repetitive.

The hack and slash RPG stylings at the core of DeathSpank are pretty solid at first glance and there are some really nice touches. You can map four different weapons to the right hand cluster of buttons, four different items to the D-pad and you can rack up hit multipliers by mixing and matching your weapons in combat. As well as a health bar you’ll have a Justice Meter, a little purple demon’s head that will gradually fill up with each hit, filling faster the more you mix up your attacks. Once primed, you’ll be able to unleash a particularly powerful attack, and you’ll be able to collect runes over the course of the game that allow you to enhance this Justice Attack with the power of a second weapon.

There’s an enormous amount of loot to be pilfered as well, as you’d expect of any game styling itself on Diablo and much of the game’s addiction comes from trying to pillage as much as you possibly can and, if you find yourself with a full satchel, you can grind down superfluous paraphernalia into glittering gold. Occasionally the game will hearken back to the heady days of 2D adventuring and you’ll be required to combine a few items to solve puzzles, a mechanic that makes a welcome return (leading to a handful of ‘I haven’t done that in years’ moments) and one that could have been pushed a little further I feel.

You see herein the problem with DeathSpank: it’s all mouth and no trousers. Everything looks utterly grand for the first hour or so but then the misty eyed gratitude that an original game like this even exists at the moment begins to fade. The voices begin to grate a little, the humour becomes somewhat predictable and the laughs begin to subside. Worse still, the enemies begin attacking you in hordes and a number of little niggling issues with the inventory system and the combat mechanics suddenly become less of a mild irritation and more of a noticeable impediment. Examples of this include the ability to only carry five of any one type of potion and the alarming ease with which it is possible to accidentally activate your Justice Attack in the heat of battle and waste it on a retarded chicken rather than the demon boss standing two feet away. Moreover, as the numbers of your adversaries increase you find yourself more often than not slipping into hit and run cycles with all but individual enemies.

The missions tend to fall into one of two categories – fetch quests and area cleansing – with the handful of head scratching puzzles clearly inspired by Monkey Island found few and far between. There is a co-operative mode, and there’s much to be said for the addition of a friend in games such as these (just look at Castle Crashers), but the co-op here is lacklustre to say the least. The second member of the party plays as Sparkles the Wizard who’s less of an equal partner and much more of a sidekick. He has four magical abilities, one of which is a healing effort, none of which are swappable or upgradeable, he doesn’t really level up and he can’t pick up items either.

This is a game that I desperately wanted to love and, if played in short bursts that lessen the stacking of cumulative disappointment, it does have a lot to offer. It’s a shame really, in splicing the halves of two different games together, Hothead have created a mashup that’s only half as good as either of them.  That said, it will put a smile on your face, it does try to do something different and for that it should be roundly applauded, but there are flaws. Much like a bucket of candy floss, it’s colourful and fun and exciting and kind of odd, but have too much of it and you find that there’s not a huge amount of you have to put it to one side for a little while.

Pros:

• Lovely visual style
• A wealth of content for an arcade title
• Classic Gilbert-esque humour

Cons:

• Iffy combat
• Gets repetitive fairly quickly
• Uninspired quests

The Short Version: DeathSpank manages a sublime feat in mashing up the defining features of both Diablo and Gilbert’s excellent Monkey Island, but in the end it can only really lay claim to being a ‘lite’ version of either and never quite delivers on the potential it so eagerly promises. There’s a huge amount of stuff to do for an arcade title but as the humour begins to wear a little thin after an hour of continuous play so too does the game’s freshness.

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DeathSpank Review

Platforms: Xbox 360

Developer: Ruffian Games

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Most people discovered Crackdown by accident, when they went out in search of Halo 3’s multiplayer beta and found it attached to a relatively unknown game that turned out to be great fun to play, forming a loyal group of fans who waited patiently for a sequel to sink their teeth into. I myself discovered the original game on a random visit to a friends house and on looking through the multitude of Xbox cases that dominated one of his draws, I found Crackdown. When I asked what it was he stared at me in disbelief, threw a 360 pad into my hands, whacked the disc into the hungry tray, and I began to throw myself over buildings into enemy compounds obliterating anything that dared to stand in my way. The experience was great fun, so the announcement of the second instalment of the series grabbed my interest enough to mark down the release date, when I happily parted with my money in anticipation of the improvements that I thought would probably have been made to the gameplay.

The game’s set 10 years after the original, most of the original agents have been killed, whilst a new terrorist organisation, Cell, have dug themselves into strongholds throughout Pacific City, and if that wasn’t enough the inhabitants of the city are turning into rampaging mutants, labelled freaks, at night causing utter pandemonium. You take the role of a brand new genetically engineered agent, who starts off within a claustrophobic agency training ground. Once you’ve got through this tutorial section of the game you hop into a car, which is picked up by a helicopter to be carried to safety after Cell decide to send a welcoming committee to stop you before you can start your work. The sudden contrast in the environment when you’re picked up by the helicopter is a great touch and really shows you just how big a playground Pacific City is.

Before you enter the game you’ll have the opportunity to customise your agent by selecting one of four rather unfortunate looking faces, which is something that Felix noted in his preview, and taking your pick from a range of coloured suits (you’ll have more options to choose from if you pre-ordered the game).

As you take your first steps in the familiar urban jungle, your tasked with several objectives, the first is to claw back the strongholds that are dominated by Cell troops, the second is to overcome the freak virus using the technology the agency has been developing known as Operation Sunburst, and finally you can choose to close any freak rifts that you come across.

These might seem like slightly ambitious goals for a single man, but luckily our agent has a bag of tricks built into his sleeves. Thanks to the wonderful genetic gifts that he’s been given he’s stronger, more agile, better with weapons and explosives, and a superior driver to the rest of his unaltered species and he knows how to exploit his gifts to the maximum. As you progress through the game your abilities evolve, which improves your skills and allows you to reach otherwise inaccessible areas or survive a battle, which would have been suicidal to attempt at the beginning of the game. Whilst you earn experience in some of your abilities, such as strength, firearms, and explosives, through interacting with enemies and the environment, others, for example driving and agility, can be upgraded by collecting the various orbs, which are scattered around the environment and in some cases are a real challenge to get hold and it’s incredibly rewarding once you do. Also, if you’re still finding clearing out an area of the city particularly hard despite evolving, then you can always invite up to three friends to help you out over the internet in co-op mode.

Sadly, whilst your objectives drive you to stay on target knowing that your riding the city of its undesirable elements, they’re far too repetitive and you find yourself quickly becoming bored and frequently experiencing deja vu, although it’s worth noting that the layout of the environments does change but its hardly noticeable because once you’ve started clearing out a freak layer or a cell stronghold you enter into somewhat of a daze.

Initially I thought the targeting system was pretty good as it allowed you to focus in an different areas of your enemies body, head shots are good for quick take downs, hammering bullets into your enemies torso is effective at close range, a shot in the arm’ll cause them to stop firing, and leg shot’ll make them drop to their knees, but then it fell flat on its face. In a situation when more than three or four foes are bearing down on you, the last thing you want is to worry about is whether or not you’ll be able to effectively target them. Unfortunately, it can be a bit of guessing game as to who’ll be selected when you hit the target lock button and even if you manually move the targeting reticule over a target and then push auto target, the computer’ll develop a mind of its own and decide there’s an enemy that’s more worthy of your attention, which in most situations simply isn’t the case.

The multiplayer is a chaotic, whirlwind of gunfire, as agent’s leap through the sky whilst reigning down a hail of bullets on one another. There are three modes, rocket tag, deathmatch, and team deathmatch. Rocket tag has got to be one of the craziest online experiences I’ve taken part in, essentially you have to grab an orb which you earn points for holding and marks tags you for the other players to see, they then have to take it from you by ending your life, oh yeah and I forgot to mention that you’re only allowed to use rocket launchers! As a result all you’ll see is the yellow marker showing the orb or the player who currently has it, and the majority of the time it’ll be surrounded by an explosion with a ridiculous blast radius, as multiple rockets descend upon its location. Deathmatch is pretty simple, you earn points for each kill that you make, and the only difference in team death match is that you’ll be assisted by a number of other players as you battle it out against a rival company of agents.

The final thing that I couldn’t believe, which started off with the demo and has stuck with me throughout the game, is just how similar Pacific city is to what we saw in the original. This is the big problem present in Crackdown 2, because in my opinion it feels like how I’d imagine the original to handle if it received a quick update and you grabbed a bit of DLC to increase its longevity, which has led to me conclude that it probably isn’t different enough to justify forking out full price for. However, despite the fact that I felt disappointed by the lack of change from the first game, what you’re given is so much fun that you’ll quickly forget about the repetitiveness of the objective and get to work, clearing up the city using your fantastic super powers.

Pros:

• Still a barrel of laughs
• The gameplay is thoroughly enjoyable despite its flaws
• Beating people with anything you can get your hands on is always fun

Cons:

• Far too similar to the original
• Way too repetitive
• The targeting system is very annoying in difficult situations

The Short Version: Despite its flaws, wasted potential, and repetitive missions, you’ll be hard pushed to find a game that’s anywhere near as much fun in the short term.

Dealspwn UK Games Deals:

Crackdown 2 Review: Skills For Kills…Again

Platform: XBLA (and retro PC) [Buy/Get Demo]

Developer: 3D Realms

Publisher: Xbox Live Arcade

When most people think of Duke Nukem, their minds drift back to the wildly successful and highly influential Duke Nukem 3D or the humiliatingly intangible Duke Nukem Forever. However, the DOS veterans amongst us will righly remember that our misogynistic hero started his career in the dimensional platforming business… and Manhattan Project brings him back to his roots. The evil Mech Morphix has changed Manhattan’s inhabitants into terrifying mutants and kidnapped all the babes, so it’s time to kick ass and chew bubblegum. And would you believe it? He still hasn’t got any.

Rest in pieces!

As a direct port of the 2002 PC title, Manhattan Project is a 2.5D platformer that’s heavy on shooting, big on buxom babes and very light on graphics. Let’s get this out of the way right now: this is a sinfully ugly little game. It’s received a bare minimum of polish to get things running on HD widescreens, but low-res textures and frequent screen tearing continually make us realise how far we’ve come over these last eight years. I’m usually the biggest advocate of gameplay over graphics, but a full makeover would’ve gone a long way to improving the overall experience.

The textures... what a mess!

Duke hasn’t just been sitting around smoking cigars while 3D Realms ran his franchise into the ground. To pass the time he’s clearly been working out and limbering up- as he now has an impressive range of moves at his disposal. Double-jumps, kicks. grabs, sliding tackles and jetpacks all propel you naturally around the Manhattan skyline (for starters)- and Duke’s signature pipe bombs can be used to find a whole mess of secrets. Platforming is smooth, varied and capable… and the nostalgia value is priceless.

An arsenal of familiar weapons such as the shrink ray, pipe bombs and the familiar golden pistol and a plethora of familiar enemies provide an ample canvas for some hectic gunplay. Pig Cops make a welcome reappearance alongside some new beasties (including, naturally, a scantily-clad whip-wielding dominatrix who can deflect bullets with her armoured stilettos) and, as always, Duke is on hand to trot out some classy one liners.

Shake it, baby!

Unfortunately, the fact that it’s a direct port causes a few major problems. Beside the graphical issues mentioned earlier, the tedious multi-stage boss battles aren’t checkpointed whatsoever; resulting in intense frustration after losing several minutes of miserable grind. More vexingly, Duke can still only aim in four directions… come on, even Earthworm Jim could aim diagonally. Running and aiming upwards is also an ordeal that requires use of the D-pad and some serious patience.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that Manhattan Project offers fairly good value for money. 800 Microsoft Points buys 24 fairly lengthy levels, a nifty jetpack avatar award some easy achievements (bar one 10G time trial that’ll separate the achievement whores from the hunters). However, the later levels settle into a rinse and repeat format that would’ve benefited from a little variation in pacing.

Pros:

• Smooth, distinctive platforming action
• 24 stages make for a decent value package
• It’s Duke Nukem. Babes and boomsticks akimbo!

Cons:

• It’s ugly as sin
• Boss battles are either boring, frustrating or both
  
• Why can’t we aim diagonally?

The Short Version: Duke returns to his platforming roots in a lengthy but slightly inconsistent title. Good value, fun times, wicked one-liners, easy achievements, bosomy babes and manic gunslinging shenanigans will be had by fanboys and platforming afficionados… but the lousy graphics and aggravating boss battles should deter younger next-gen gamers from taking the plunge until the price comes down. Hardcore fans should definitely consider an immediate purchase, but your money will go a lot further if you stick to the Deals of the Week for the time being. As always, try the demo!

Dealspwn UK Games Deals:

Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project (XBLA Review): Makin’ Bacon!

Here at Dealspwn we’re all about getting the best games for the least amount of financial effort, and we often tend to forget that some of the most addictive offerings out there are completely free. With that in mind, welcome to Click To Play, a weekly feature where we’ll be hunting down the best browser-based games each week so you don’t have to.  Check in with us every Monday to spice up your coffee breaks for the week!

This week: Mardek RPG – Chapter 3

Some of us have been waiting a long time for this…and, if you’re an old school RPG fan, you’re in for an absolute treat. Three years back a little developer under the name of Pseudolonewolf created an episodic browser-based RPG that harked back to simpler times, to a time when pixels were pleasantly blocky, conversations between characters appeared in static text windows and combat was the very epitome of good manners…you waited your damn turn. Mardek’s first couple of chapters stood as a web classics in the same vein as early Final Fantasy games and, extraordinarily for a browser-based game, theyclocked in at around 8-10 hours.

3 years on…we finally get to take a peek at the third chapter, and boy has it been worth waiting for.

The controls are basic – you don’t really need a complex interface for this sort of thing – move around with the arrows, select things with ‘X’ and cancel with ‘Z’. Your menu is mapped to the ‘Enter’ key. As previously mentioned, combat is turn-based, punch in a command – melee attacks, magical spells, the usual – and select your target. In addition to this there are a whole bunch of battle reactions to learn and master, so grinding fans will find a lot to persevere for.

To be honest, I could regale you with the narrative tweaks and detailed breakdowns of the various gameplay mechanics, but to be honest the best way to do all that is just to play the thing. As the game itself warns, you may want to go back and play the first two chapters to get a feel for the characters and the game world and the story before you launch into the third chapter – and it’s something I highly recommend you do – but if you’re a fan of this sort of thing I really don’t need to tell you that. Bottom line? This marks the third entry in an utterly fantastic RPG series that will give retro fans a heartwarming dose of nostalgia.

It’s totally free. What the hell are you waiting for?!

Click To Play

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Click To Play: Mardek RPG – Chapter 3

Platforms: XBLA (reviewed), PC, PSN (delayed)

Developer: Zombie Studios

Publisher: Ignition Entertainment

These days, it’s not really enough to be just another First Person Shooter. FPS games need to have a genuine spark of quality, originality or just a fun gimmick to flourish in the glutted marketplace. Enter Blacklight: Tango Down… which is just another online shooter with a single unique selling point.

It’s cheap.

Blacklight provides a fairly serious amount of content. Twelve maps, seven gametypes (running the gamut from deathmatches, team skirmishes and a capture the flag variant), seventy experience levels and an enormous variety of customisable wargear make for some serious value at 1200 Microsoft Points.

On the face of things, Blacklight is solid enough. It’s an FPS, after all.You know the drill by now: kill some guys with some guns, get experience and level up, unlock some new weapons/slick near-future armour… and use them to kill some more guys. Whilst movement speed and controls feel slightly clunky, FPS fans will instantly fall into line and start fragging away thanks to the reliance on the tried-and-tested Modern Warfare button layout. Weapon balance is fairly decent (though sniper rifles seem a little underpowered), and the deep customisation provides a little something for every taste. It’s also an incredible graphical achievement for a downloadable title and deserves to be praised accordingly. Another great showing from the Unreal engine.

Bravo, Unreal engine. Bravo.

Unfortunately, this is where my praise for Blacklight comes to a screeching halt.

It’s difficult to shake the feeling that I’ve played this game many times before… and in fact, it’s probably the most generic FPS I’ve played in some time. Everything from the weapon selection to the overfamiliar wartorn European cityscape setting has been done to death dozens of times before. But better. In fact, you almost certainly have several superior multiplayer experiences sitting on your shelf! Blacklight simply feels made to order, providing a cheap replica of other game experiences without improving or adding anything of note. Put simply, it feels soulless and almost completely devoid of character.

Another near-future wartorn city. Yawn...

What’s more, a fair few design flaws hamper the fun- and whilst I hate to rag on a smaller developer, it’s my job to bring them to your attention. The aforementioned weapon customisation is poorly implemented into the menus with a meagre three attributes to help you compare builds- and it’s both vexing and perplexing to be informed of unlocking a mysterious item without a clue as to what it actually is. A host of smaller niggles such as a lack of decent quitting penalties, oddly weak grenade splash damage and a couple of badly designed levels (bottlenecks and spawn camping, anyone?) also rear their ugly head on a regular basis. There’s nothing truly gamebreaking here, but there’s a profound lack of mechanical polish lying beneath the impressive graphical sheen. Everything just feels a little…off.

Err... not quite. If anything, it's a couple of years behind the times.

There’s also a cursory nod to the singleplayer and cooperative crowd- but it’s fairly miserable. Idiot bots and uninteresting levels make for a minor diversion rather than a fully fledged experience, but at least you can still earn experience to take online.

Pros:

• It’s a functional online FPS for around £12. Mission accomplished!
• Fantastic graphics for a downloadable title
• Weapon customisation and unlocks are extremely addictive

Cons:

• There’s just no soul. No spark. No reason for it to exist… beyond the price tag
• Weapon customisation/ unlocks are poorly explained and handled
• Spec Ops missions are miserable

The Short Version: Blacklight is a functional online FPS… and that’s pretty much all you can say about it. Without a single spark of real originality or anything particularly exciting to bring to the table, Blacklight fails to justify its existence in any genuine way. Fans of shiny levelling-up rewards may find it to be a forgettable if solid little package, but I strongly urge you to get stuck into the multiplayer mode of a game you own but haven’t tried yet instead. Otherwise, you’re just paying good money for old rope.

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Blacklight: Tango Down Review… Just another FPS

Platforms: PC & Mac

Developer: Sumo Digital

Publisher: BBC Wales Interactive

The latest instalment of the Adventure Games series sees The Doctor and Amy travelling to the Arctic, where they stumble across the survivors of a geological survey team, who have found something preserved in the ice that’s now slowly coming back to life and attacking anything that gets in their way. Naturally, this grabs The Doctor’s attention and he characteristically promises to solve the mystery and save as many people as he can whilst doing so, but little does he know that what’s sitting frozen beneath his feet is an entire army belonging to one of his oldest enemies.

I vastly preferred the story behind Blood of the Cybermen compared to that of City of the Daleks, despite the fact that it seemed like the writer had just smashed the plots of The Thing and Tomb of the Cybermen together and hoped for the best. Luckily, the merging works incredibly well and has all the elements of a great Dr. Who story. Once again there are numerous pop culture references and my favourite was the nod to the third Doctor’s demise, which you’ll only really pick up on if you’re a massive Dr. Who fan. Unfortunately, Amy and The Doctor’s personalities aren’t even close to what we’ve seen on TV, which is incredibly odd and just doesn’t seem right now that we’ve started to get accustomed to them acting in a certain way.

Initially the puzzles in this episode appear to be a tiny bit disappointing, especially the first one you face involving the quick reprogramming of a Sat Nav, as it appears to be exactly the same as those seen in the first episode. Luckily after the first puzzle, the others take on a completely different format, which at least goes a little way into making you think that The Doctor’s enemies don’t all use the same technology. The platforming aspects to the game are much better in this episode and you’ll come across numerous obstacles, which you’ll have to work your way around. Also, the layout of the levels is far more varied this time around and personally I thought they were a little more interesting.

What’s especially nice to see in this episode is the dynamic between The Doctor and his companion. You frequently get to switch between the eccentric time lord and Amy, in order to overcome tricky situations that for whatever reason, the other can’t overcome. Also, it definitely helps to emphasise the reasons why The Doctor travels around with his ever changing ensemble and drops in a welcome bit of variety. Unfortunately, when the AI takes control of the other character their intelligence takes a turn for the worse and you’ll be shouting at them to get out of a hazardous situation as quickly as possible, to no avail.

Whilst sticking to the task in hand is great fun, I’ve started to take a bit of guilty pleasure in clawing over the environments for the collectibles that have been strewn around, some of which are fairly well hidden and the information they provide gives you a good summary of the previous incarnation of The Doctor, his former companions, and his enemies.

Sadly, whilst I felt that the Cybermen where a bit more of a challenge than the Daleks, which should never be the case in any situation, you can’t help but feel that they’re a little bit simple minded. Also, whilst I could believe that a Daleks field of view could be narrowed down due to its eyestalk, I can’t help but feel that a Cyberman or a Cyberslave would certainly be able to spot you if you were a few feet away, instead you’ll be safe wandering into, for example, a corridor they’re guarding provided that you don’t walk into close proximity to them.

Another big problem with the game is how utterly helpless The Doctor seems to be in a direct confrontation and the only conclusion that I can come to is that the BBC are trying to hammer across the point that he doesn’t use weapons to fight his battles. However, as we’ve seen on countless occasions, he is capable of defending himself, and it would have been nice if there was some way he could do this in the game, for example distracting his foes through the use of some clever speech options or using one of the sonic screwdrivers multiple function.

Finally, one of the most irritating things about both episodes is the fact you can’t go into the TARDIS, I’m not saying that you should be able to use it to travel around the levels at your hearts content or take advantage of its superior technology to solve puzzles at every given opportunity, although that wouldn’t exactly be a bad thing, but you should at least be able to walk inside and have a proper look around.

They’re still a few creases to iron out, but improvements to the gameplay and also the story definitely increase the enjoyment of the experience and fingers crossed the next episode’ll be even better.

Pros:

• It’s still free!
• Improvements have been made to the gameplay
• The story’s much better

Con:

• The Doctor seems to be helpless against his enemies once again
• Most of the collectables can be spotted with ease
• You can’t go into the TARDIS

Short Version: Whilst the gameplay’s certainly better and the story is far more enjoyable than the first episode, there’s still room for improvement.

Dealspwn UK Games Deals:

Dr. Who: The Adventure Games: Blood of the Cybermen Review

Formats: PSP (PS3 compatible)

Developer: G5 Entertainment

Publisher: G5 Entertainment

Hidden object games are a nice match for the PSP Minis range, with their relaxed nature passing the time on a commute or ad break with ease. Route 66 scored well with a 7 a few months ago, so let’s see what G5 Entertainment can come up with.

There’s an actual story here, as a young archaeologist (that absolutely does not look like Lara Croft) is searching for her father who went missing while searching for the Crystal Portal. It’s not exactly Fallout 3, but the effort is appreciated.

The levels take place around the world in America, Japan, the Swiss Alps, Guatemala, Africa and Russia; usually in a temple or villager’s hut/cave. Rather than have a list of items at the bottom of the screen to find you have to drag your cursor around the screen until it becomes a hand. Clicking on the item will then open up a sub-window with some black and white pictures of the items you need to find. Once you have found them, the original item you clicked may move to reveal something. There are typically five items with their own sub-collections in each screen.

It’s a bit annoying being forced to click around till something works and opens up a list. Finding the required items afterwards isn’t too difficult and some welcome variety is thrown in by them sometimes being drawn from a different angle than the list window. Unlike Route 66, the items are lying around naturally in very cluttered environments. You won’t find anything coloured blue in the sky for example.

There are no time limits so you never feel rushed and there’s a rechargeable hint that will activate a sparkly blue trail leading to an item. It’s pretty useful when the game decides to hide something behind the useless item bar at the bottom of the screen.

End of stage puzzles act like a boss fight of sorts, which are a welcome distraction. These consist of refracting light with prisms, balancing weights, gear cog arrangement, deciphering a Mayan calendar, or arranging puzzle pieces to make a single image. Again, there’s no time limit and some of them even lock pieces in place as soon as they’re in the correct slot so it’s impossible to mess it up.

The music is pretty quiet throughout, but there is some ambient noise relevant to the location that fits in well. For the most part the well-drawn images are static, but there are occasional flourishes of movement such as cherry blossom petals in the wind in Japan.

I encountered some pretty bad glitches towards the end of the game, with huge white squares blocking out sections of the image, fortunately they were usually centred on a clickable object. Repetition is a negative factor too as by the end of the game you’ll be sick of looking for the same water jugs, axes and necklaces over and over again. A few different items would have done the game a world of good.

The Mystery of the Crystal Portal is nothing new, but will provide a few hours entertainment. Ideal for a quick five minute blast, but you’ll probably get sucked in for a lot longer.

Pros

• Easy-going entertainment
• Ambient sounds create a soothing atmosphere
• Lasts for a good few hours

Cons

• Too much random clicking till you activate the next list
• Doesn’t really make sense why you have to find certain items to find others
• Glitchy towards the end

The Short Version: The initial ‘click everything’ approach required to get the ball rolling in each level holds the game back, and the glitches towards the end are disappointing. However, as a quick bit of fun for plugging life’s little gaps the game can be quite enjoyable.

Dealspwn UK Games Deals:

The Mystery of the Crystal Portal (PSP Minis Review)

Format: PSN

Developer: Hello Games

Publisher: Hello Games

If Demon’s Souls was like getting your head kicked in and asking for more, Joe Danger is like waking up in hospital the day after with Katy Perry sat by your side telling you she’s murdered Russell Brand and everything’s going to be just fine.

360 owners have been enjoying Trials HD, but Joe Danger has leapt over the competition – and a few school buses and shark tanks for good measure to top the podium. Boost, jump and trick your way to the finish line racking up gloriously brave combo multipliers on the way. The game works on multiple 2D planes like Little Big Planet, but with set points for ‘changing lanes’.

By the end of the first event you’ll feel like you and the game are old friends. When you land your first boost assisted quadruple backflip Superman-grab you’ll be head over heels. It’s so easy to fall for the game’s charms as it’s really forgiving. Most motocross games would crucify you for landing a jump doing a wheelie; Joe doesn’t mind if you land on your front wheel and stoppie all the way to the next ramp. Hell, I’m pretty sure I bounced off my back and was allowed to carry on a few times. There’s even a bit of platforming involving using accelerate and brake mid-air to adjust your position.

Combos are maintained with mid-air stunts, flips and wheelies to link them in-between. Balancing a wheelie is as simple as gently pushing backwards on the left stick, there’s no balance metre; just don’t yank back on the stick.

There is a limit though, try and do too many tricks in the air (with taps and holds of L1/R1) and you’ll bail if you land before he’s done rocking out. Holding Square will let you duck under barriers that’ll close-line you into next week if you’re not careful. Releasing Square will make Joe do a hop, useful for avoiding spikes and mud patches. Apart from a few incidents where he didn’t duck despite the button being held I never felt cheated when things went south. Rarely will a game demand you to try, try and try again for perfection and obscenely highscores without you losing confidence in yourself, but Hello Games have nailed the balance here. If any of your online friends have the game, their scores for an event are shown at the finish line. There’s no way you’ll be able to let it go.

Events in the career mode are bought with gold stars earned throughout. Simple objectives could be getting a gold score, collecting coins or winning a race. There are usually a wealth of extra tasks though too that reward you a star for successful completion. These could include beating a time limit, landing on all targets, collecting all ministars, collecting letters Tony Hawk-style to spell out DANGER, finding hidden objects or maintaining a combo throughout the whole level. Things get more interesting when you have to combine some of these tasks into one for a star, such as landing on all targets inside of a time limit.

Events can be restarted instantly with a push of ‘Select’ which as you try and perfect runs will become essential. You’ll never be short on stars to unlock events as an obsession is born trying to perfect every level. Occasionally you may meet your match, but you’ll always be able to finish a level even if you can’t master it.

The graphics are bright and cartoony, which fits in well with the carnival atmosphere of the game. The announcer announcing ‘D-D-D-Danger!’ always raises a smile as does the grin plastered all over Joe’s face while spinning through the air. We’re loving his epic Bruce Campbell chin too.

When you smash every objective, or make your peace with the meaner ones you may be tempted with the level editor. It’s simple to use as the 2D planes make it hard to mess up. You can upload your creations or just download someone else’s to keep the gamer going and going. Later career stages even incorporate it into events by asking you to place ramps to help you over a jump.

I couldn’t wait to try out the (offline only) multiplayer options, but I was a little disappointed. Despite the single player game occasionally involving racing with 4 players, there is only split-screen for two players. Although I imagine the horizontal split needed the extra length to spot the layout of the track ahead. A four-way split would have made this difficult.

More disappointingly, this is the only mode for multiplayer, there isn’t any score attack option to nail the big numbers either in a race, or taking turns. Even the races make light of scoring. Points are awarded during the race, but seemingly only for the purpose of earning boost. Races become comparatively dull events where you try and find the flattest track and avoid the big jumps to focus on speed.

There’s nothing to stop you going into the single player events and taking turns to outscore each other, but it feels like a missed opportunity and it costs the game a vital point off the score. Just shy of top marks then, but it might just be the most fun game on PSN.

Pros

• Immediately awesomely accessible fun
• Replay value added by obsession with mastering each event
• Editor mode will make it last even longer

Cons

• Racing-only multiplayer is disappointing
• I’ll never earn every star…
• But I’ll cripple my hands trying

The Short Version: You’ll struggle to find a game as fun as this on PSN. Trying to perfect every event is a task you’ll become obsessed with as is trouncing the scores of your online friends. The multiplayer is a bit weak, but when the rest of the game is so accommodating, with its forgiving nature masking the absorbing challenge, you can’t deny its brilliance.

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Joe Danger Review