Created by James and Will Ribaux – the duo behind Miner Dig Deep – Wizard’s Keep is a Legend of Zelda meets dungeon crawler RPG, blending very simple spatial puzzle solving with top down traversal of environments, as well as leveling and a stat based, but action oriented, combat system.
It’s here, the moment that almost every Xbox gamer has been waiting for; the Gears of War 3 beta has finally begun. The beta comes packed with four new maps, a selection of new weaponry, characters and game modes. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s break it down.
They don’t come much more hotly anticipated than this, and as such Portal 2 has a lot to live up to. The original had the benefit of being unique and surprising but with those commodities compromised by the sheer existence of a sequel, can Portal 2 possible live up to its predecessor?
Well it valiantly tries and in many ways succeeds, although the spark of brilliant is less bright. Portal 2 is absolutely a good game but true greatness is slightly too much to ask.
Once again you are the soul human play-thing to GlaDOS, the psychotic A.I from the original game, reanimated and now scarily unpredictable. With your prior deeds fresh in GlaDOS’ data core, she taunts and jabs at you in her trademark passive-aggressive way but with a much more dangerous undertone. You’re just not sure how she’s going to punish you, and that thought along with GlaDOS’ constant reminders of you killing her, keeps you on edge. She’s downright funny too, continually insulting you as you solve puzzles and perform more tests with the portal gun.
Last time I looked at anything in the Shift series I was talking about how next year would be interesting for the franchise, and hoped to God that there would be an improvement in the handling. VideogameUK gave the first hardcore Need for Speed a less than wonderful 6.5/10, commenting on that almost ice skating movement of the cars, which had such horrendous oversteer and back ends like a drunken hen night.
We move on to 2011 and finally get to see Unleashed hit the shelves, but has the feeling of the original put people off enough not to brave it? In a weird way EA have taken a little page out of the Codemasters book and drafted in some folks who do their fair share of motorsport to front the game, but they aren’t huge enough for people to know exactly who they are or what they do unless told. Put it this way, if you recognise them straight away then you are a bigger petrol head than me.
If bustin’ makes you feel good, then there will be no doubt you’ve been wondering about the latest Ghostbusters game released on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Ghostbsuters is one of those franchises that, if you’re old enough to remember watching the cartoons on a Saturday morning and have fond memories of both movies, brings warm and fuzzy memories of childhood flooding back like a fast moving river of slime.
Like the previous Ghostbusters game, you will not have the choice to play as any of the original Ghostbusters. Gasp! When will the developers that handle the franchise, that still has quite a fan-base to this day, learn that we want to play as the Ghostbusters themselves? In Sanctum of Slime the player is forced to pick one of the young “rookie” Ghostbusters, that to some degree have a tenuous link to the movies and some of the originals character traits, but it never feels as though there is enough of a connection to make it feel like a true licenced game.
