Retro Reviews
Review Learning with the PooYoos: Episode 2 (PlayStation 3)
The edutainer
French developer Lexis Numérique has gradually been building up a strong portfolio in recent years, seeing some particularly strong success with its series of children’s educational entertainment games Learning with the PooYoos on WiiWare. The cute and colourful baby animals have ventured into the world of Sony with moderately...
Review Winter Stars (PlayStation 3)
Chilled out
After a year of motion control, Sports Champions is still Move's best sports package by far: MotionSports Adrenaline was a wash-out, and After Hours Athletes is a compilation of PSN games, so that doesn't really count. Winter Stars doesn't quite topple Zindagi's launch title, but it comes closer than we'd expected. Winter Stars leads...
Review Heavy Fire: Afghanistan (PlayStation 3)
A war that doesn’t break the budget
Heavy Fire: Afghanistan puts you in the shoes of an soldier sent to the frontlines of modern day Afghanistan to rescue hostages held deep behind enemy lines. Taking part in this arcade light gun shooter you’ll travel by any means necessary to complete your objective: by foot, helicopter and even behind a...
The one you might want
Grease Dance (or just Grease) has clearly been designed with parties in mind and, as the summer nights fade to make way for the festive season, it’s come at the right time. With a host of famous songs from the 1978 musical at its command, plus plenty of past experience developing music games of varying nature, developer...
Review Saints Row: The Third (PlayStation 3)
Third time's the charm
Saints Row: The Third distances itself from the seriousness of its competition, offering a sandbox that's as stupid as it is refined. There're so many things we wish we could say about Saints Row: The Third, but doing so would break the element of surprise. The latest entry in Volition's copycat sandbox series rips up the...
Review Tekken Hybrid (PlayStation 3)
Fighters megamix
Tekken Hybrid is a comprehensive slice of fan service. Comprising a remastered classic, a slight but stunning teaser and a watchable action flick, the compilation package is the perfect celebration of Namco's fighting classic. It's unlikely to appeal to everyone, but those that consider Heihachi and Kazuya household names will feel...
Review After Hours Athletes (PlayStation 3)
Of balls and bullseyes
Like Move Mind Benders before it, After Hours Athletes is a Blu-ray compilation of three previously PSN-only games, released in time for Christmas at a budget price. It sounds like a winning formula, but it's not quite up to the quality of its companion release. For one thing, unlike Move Mind Benders there is no new title...
Review Start the Party: Save the World (PlayStation 3)
Save the cheerleader
Start the Party was one of the original games announced for the PlayStation 3’s motion controller, launching alongside Move at the tail end of 2010. It was the first project from Supermassive Games, and while it wasn't particularly well-received it clearly sold well enough to warrant the team having another stab at a genre...
Review MotionSports Adrenaline (PlayStation 3)
Better with Kinect?
It was bound to happen sooner or later; games designed for Kinect would eventually be ported over to PlayStation Move. MotionSports Adrenaline is exactly this: an extreme sports compilation that’s obviously initially designed for Kinect and has received a port over to PS3 with Move support for multisystem release. But does a...
Review EyePet & Friends (PlayStation 3)
Glitter tray
EyePet’s first release in 2009 was an odd affair, a new approach to the virtual pet game that impressed in some areas but didn't quite come over as well as hoped in others, and 2010’s EyePet: Move Edition fixed many issues to become one of Move’s stronger first titles. A further year on and an all-new sequel reaches shelves, this...
Review Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest (PlayStation 3)
Dem bones
Zindagi Games’ Sports Champions was a highlight of PlayStation Move’s launch line-up last year, and it still remains one of the better demonstrations of the peripheral to date. Bringing together a variety of sports, including archery and — slightly less commonly seen these days — gladiatorial duels, the Californian developer...
Review Invizimals: The Lost Tribes (PlayStation Portable)
Invizimals: The Lost Tribes is a fantastic idea squandered
Frustrating technical issues, poor pacing and annoying difficulty spikes get in the way of what is ostensibly a great concept. Persevere and you will almost certainly find fun in the game's augmented reality technology, but it's hard to shake the feeling that The Lost Tribes could have been...
Review Family Game Night 4: The Game Show (PlayStation 3)
Mind Boggle-ing
For the fourth iteration of its Hasbro Family Game Night series, first popularised on Nintendo Wii, EA has become bored of board games. The latest entry instead focuses upon the real life game show, Family Game Night, which in itself is based on Hasbro’s best-selling games. Currently airing on American TV channel The Hub, Family...
Review Carnival Island (PlayStation 3)
Fun fare
Funfairs epitomise family fun, so it's no real surprise that carnival themed games have proved a huge hit on other motion controlled platforms. Carnival Island is Sony's attempt at capturing that audience for the PlayStation Move, and while it's not without its problems, it still offers a competent selection of enjoyable mini-games, fuelled...
Review inFAMOUS 2 (PlayStation 3)
Lightning strikes twice
Taking place immediately after inFAMOUS, Cole McGrath travels to New Marais in order to improve his skills to fight the Beast. As soon as Cole and Zeke arrive in town, disaster strikes throwing the player head on into the action to save the world from The Beast. The tale is full of highs and lows as Cole struggles to battle...
Review Toki Tori (PlayStation 3)
Chick habit
Two Tribes’ Toki Tori was originally hatched on Nintendo’s Game Boy Color in 2001, and since then has been found nesting on WiiWare, PC and Apple devices. A full-on sequel, Toki Tori 2, has recently been announced for numerous platforms, but in the meantime a HD remake of the original has landed on PlayStation Network. Toki Tori’s...
Review House of the Dead: Overkill - Extended Cut (PlayStation 3)
All guns blazing
“As you well know Isaac, I enjoy pain,” lauds sinister antagonist, Papa Caesar, into a comically outdated mobile phone. “It’s like a good Chinese dinner you know, with the sweet and the sour.” Papa Caesar’s exceptionally idiotic analogy applies to House Of The Dead: Overkill – Extended Cut. This PlayStation Move...
Review Move Mind Benders (PlayStation 3)
Grey matters
In the year or so since PlayStation Move launched last year, some of the peripheral's best titles have hit PlayStation Store, and although the console's online connection rate is pretty high there's still a chance Move owners might have missed out on some cracking titles. That's why it's a good job Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has...
Review The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PlayStation 3)
This sky's the limit
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the most involving, engrossing and impressive games of the year, but unfortunate technical inconsistencies mean we can't guarantee whether your experience will be flawless or just plain flawed Skyrim's PS3 technical troubles are well documented, making this an extremely difficult game to...
Review Where Is My Heart? (PlayStation Minis)
Where Is My Heart? is a deceptively intelligent PlayStation Mini, and by extension, one of the best experiences currently available on the platform
As far as gameplay concepts go, Where Is My Heart? is agonisingly slight: a simple puzzle-platformer dressed in a pastel pixel art-style, accompanied by an ethereal chip-tune soundtrack. But once it...
Review Get Up and Dance (PlayStation 3)
Follow the leader
In the past 14 months we've had no fewer than 11 PlayStation Move dancing games, with Ubisoft's Just Dance 3 due to land in December. That swamped market — dancing games make up over 10% of Move's library — gives precious little room to breathe for each new arrival, so can Get Up and Dance make a name for itself? By now you're...
Review GoldenEye 007: Reloaded (PlayStation 3)
Premium Bond?
1998's GoldenEye 007 on Nintendo 64 was a watershed moment in first-person shooters, and is still held in the highest regard by thousands of gamers who hold every new Bond release up to that 64-bit benchmark. But just as the James Bond film series has moved on, so must its games, with Activision revisiting the original source material...
Review EyePet Adventures (PlayStation Portable)
A deeper emphasis on exploration makes EyePet Adventures a much bigger package than its predecessor, but its underlying longevity comes from the "make your own fun" potential that the game's technology provides
Last year when we reviewed EyePet PSP we explained how elated we'd be receiving the augmented reality experience for Christmas. Fast forward...
Review Hydrophobia Prophecy (PlayStation 3)
One wet and wild ride
Hydrophobia is defined as being an abnormal fear of water. What would a person’s worst nightmare be if they had this phobia? The thought of being on-board a massive boat as it slowly sinks into the ocean’s depths would likely be somewhere near the top of the list, which is exactly the reason why you’re thrown headfirst...
Review PixelJunk SideScroller (PlayStation 3)
Arguably the purest PixelJunk experience since the brilliant Monsters, PixelJunk SideScroller is an enjoyable old-school shooter that's enhanced by some stunning visual design and great audio
PixelJunk SideScroller is certainly a departure from recent entries in Q-Games' downloadable series. It drops a lot of the inventiveness from the free-flowing...
Review The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn (PlayStation 3)
Worth investigating
Hergé’s iconic investigator Tintin, his faithful pup Snowy and a slew of the Belgian series’ most important characters have just made the leap into a CG Hollywood extravaganza courtesy of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. As is the natural order of the entertainment world these days, the young journalist with a nose for a...
Review inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood (PlayStation 3)
But... does it sparkle?
The dark world Cole McGrath is trying to project just got a whole lot darker. inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood takes place during inFAMOUS 2 in the city of New Marais on a special night called Pyre Night, when the citizens celebrate the removal of the twisted and powerful vampire, Bloody Mary. With Bloody Mary reawakened with...
Review Everybody Dance (PlayStation 3)
The real party starter
The wait for a killer app PlayStation Move dancing game seems baffling at times: although Kinect launched with the excellent Dance Central from Harmonix, it took three years for the Wii to really ignite the trend with Ubisoft’s original Just Dance. Here we are, 14 months on since the peripheral first launched and ready to...
Review Dungeon Defenders (PlayStation 3)
Well-built
One of the castle’s gigantic wooden doors creaks open, revealing a swarm of primitively-armed goblins stomping together as part of one monstrous hive mind. On the other side of the hall march similarly stomping archers towards the same target, the Eternia crystals that form the lifeblood of the kingdom. A crash, and an over-sized ogre...
Review El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron (PlayStation 3)
God complex
A confident and creatively crafted action adventure, El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron boasts one of the most striking and varied visual styles we've ever encountered. Its gameplay never quite reaches the dizzying heights of its artistic endeavour, but does a good enough job of contextualising the game's bizarre and intriguing...
