PIXEL GRAVE

Being excited about the new revamp of Simcity having not played a Simcity game since ‘2000’, I preordered the game months before the release date and even bought the British city set (being the anglophile that I am), despite it costing £8, a ridiculous amount of money for just a few extra details. So that along with the digital version set me back ~£53 and am I happy with this bug purchase? No. Paying that much for a game with an awful launch which masks underneath what is a seriously damaged game I can’t help but feel bad for those who put down the huge sum of £65 for the Digital Deluxe version - ouch. It still baffles me how we aren’t allowed refunds for digital games as anyone could throw out any old rubbish, much like this, and just reap the rewards. I could make a long review about the troubled launch and the reason why I don’t like the ‘always online’ DRM but I’m going to assume that most people know about this (it was even covered on BBC News), and don’t want to badger o...

Death Tank on Xbox Live Arcade was released in February 2009 by Snowblind Studios and is a remake of one of my favourite games ever created. Despite the Sega Saturn being about as popular as a Tesco beef burger and selling a fraction compared to the Playstation - it’s rival at the time, it had some brilliant games exclusive to the system. One of these was so exclusive it was even hidden inside a game as an unlockable. Death Tank Zwei came hidden inside Duke Nukem 3D (wait, it gets stranger), and the only way to unlock it was to either have another save game from another Lobotomy game i.e. Quake or Exhumed (or PowerSlave as it was named outside Europe) or shoot every urinal in the game. Once you had achieved this might feat, you then could select Death Tank from the main menu. I have to add, PowerSlave (aka. Exhumed) also had the original Death Tank locked inside though I am unable to find any information or pictures of what this differs from Death Tank Zwei. For my friends and I, D...

Хорошие новости! (GOOD NEWS)! Relic, the makers of the fantastic Company of Heroes along with other great RTS series: Dawn of War (I & II) and Homeworld among other games (e.g. Outfit), have announced that Company of Heroes 2 will be released in 2013! For those unfamiliar with Company of Heroes. It's a World War 2 real-time strategy game in which you control a company of allied soldiers (and others in add-ons) through the invasion of Normandy. Company of Heroes also boasts completely destructible terrain so no battle is every played out the same way and some events can be totally unpredictable. A great example of this could be attacking an enemy vehicle which suddenly goes 'out of control' and explodes into a nearby building also nesting a squad of enemy troops. It's this immersive, interactive and unique gameplay that makes Company of Heroes of a real joy to play. Company of Heroes also doesn't have a frustrating resource economy during battle th...

I would have had this review finished a long time ago if it wasn't for something particular, but I'll get to that point later on. Wizorb is the name of the game and what it's about - that could be quite confusing when regarding just the name. Essentially it's block breaker in a retro 8 bit aesthetic but up to date by ... hmm, being released today? It's an innocent £2 on Steam for PC & Mac but has also been released on Xbox as an Indie game for, I dunno,  about the same amount of Xbox points as a sock for your avatar. The game takes place in a beautifully created nostalgic fantasy world in which you, the wizard, must turn into a ball and break blocks, monsters, chests, secret doors, bosses and more blocks, to rid the world of evil (probably). At the beginning of each level you see you, the wizard, but only for a split second before he's turned into an orb and his staff into some sort of bigger staff which is now horizontal. It's this panel / staff...

It took only a matter of days after ME3's release that I had heard or read through top news websites such as the BBC that Mass Effect's ending was so disappointing that one gamer had even taken it up with the federal trade commission. So before I'd even started I'd heard this news and had been blasted out of the air-lock of the high hopes ship I had happily been aboard. None the less I was determined to see out the ending of this epic trilogy though I didn't play from any save I had made before. I had played ME1&2 on the Xbox 360 though had somehow lost my save from the first game meaning I've only played each Mass Effect game without any of my previous choices or decisions brought across except for the gaps you fill in through a few questions at the start of the game. I wish I had experienced more of the cross-over between each game as just ticking boxes about which character died and which lived based on the decisions I'd made before made my first ...

With the second series of The Walking Dead coming to a close, videos have emerged for the video game adaptation of Robert Kirkman's popular comic and TV series. Created by Telltale games, it seems to take on a similar art style to the studio's recently created Back To The Future game as well as also being released as episodic titles. The art style also resembles that of comic books, illustrated by Charlie Adlard. Although the TV series and comics are similar they aren't completely parrallel, though this game will NOT follow Rick Grimes, the protagonist and main focus of the latter. If I may add, I feel the fact that the TV series and comics being slightly different a good point as although the comics are way ahead, you aren't watching exactly what you've read and can't predict that events that may happen. Telltale Games have stated that the first episode will be set before Rick Grimes has even woken from his coma (that's not a spoiler, tha...

BEST GAME: Portal 2 Bloody 'ell!  PERFORMER: Mark Hamill, Joker Well deserved FAMILY: Little Big Planet 2 I like Adam Buxton DEBUT GAME: Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet I dislike Alex Zane ONLINE MULTIPLAYER: Battlefield 3 Again SPORTS / FITNESS: Kinect Sports 2 Back up a bit Oh it's just a big thing about Minecraft, good time for a toilet break... Christ he talks a load of bollocks, no wonder I gave up after page 1 of his books... Wow, Ian Livingstone is presenting the next award, let's turn to page ## to find out who wins... ARTIST ACHIEVEMENT: Rayman Origins Erm, the demo is great fun ONLINE BROWSER: Monstermind Okay? ONE TO WATCH: Tick Tock Toys Tick Tock, what?  ACTION: Batman Arkham City About time they won something... GAME AWARD FOR 2011: Battlefield 3 Perhaps we'll get a new one every year? MOBILE & HANDHELD: Peggle HD Every train journey I took during my years in Japan was spent playing this game STRATEGY: Total...

If there's anyone that really loves retro gaming it's PuppyGames. Though taking a retro aesthetic to all their games this one in particular also burlesques a retro arcade classic that everyone knows and loves and from this, they elevate and improve upon it. The premise is simple - Space Invaders. But these invaders are from Titan, are they're invading Earth, which you need to defend and then take the fight back to them, planet by planet (including the moon). You control your tank using the mouse (or keyboard if you're insane, as it's much slower), to weave among the enemy projectiles and hammer the ctrl or mouse buttons to shoot back and space to launch a smart-bomb. Though there's nothing smart about it, you just hit space and most of the enemies on the screen explode after a flash. As you shoot more enemies down you'll gain money which can be spent on upgrades such as shields, gun-power and even weapon attachments, giving you more projectiles to hurl ...

I just recently watched the Resident Evil: Raccoon City Operations, Brutality Trailer. Yes it was brutal, brutal in sticking a grenade to a Zombie's face like a tissue and booting them back to watch the fireworks. Brutal as picking up a body off the floor by their head and then choosing where to  insert holes in to them like they were some sort of wooden object. Brutal as being on fire and then slicing a zombie's head off who is also on fire and clearly just trying to seek some mutual pity from you! This got me thinking - what the flippin' Zombie brains has happened to survival horror? The masterpiece that is Richard Matheson's, I Am Legend (NOT the terrible film adaption), truly resembles what has happened to the genre. No longer are you fearing the undead but now they fear the player, I almost feel sorry for those Zombies getting barged aside like a flag on a downhill ski slope as the player blazes their way down the slope that is Raccoon City. At the beginning...

Trine is a charming fantasy platform with fantastic 3D visuals despite only being navigational in two dimensions. The canvas of the game is vibrant and glowing with true fantasy which draws in you in and keeps you continuing this pleasant and humorous tale. The puzzle elements aren't overly taxing and never angered or had me stumped for too long to discourage me from the game. The developers have cleverly combined three unique and individual characters into the players hands that can be switched between to fulfil specific challenges and tasks though the player is never given a concrete solution to each obstacle and can complete each encounter in their own way. The game is not too short nor too long and has replay value via Steam achievements and finding all the secrets within the game. One annoyance I did find was that if I had to quit the game mid mission then I would have to start from the beginning of that level when I returned; despite having passed numerous checkpoints I sti...