VideogameUK

Review: Battle Beat (Xbox 360)

Steven Wright

Published: March 2, 2010

Using your plastic peripheral to destroy legions of zombie aliens is a new experience to me. Well, I’ve used a guitar to bash zombies heads in before, but to control a squad of soldiers is definitely new. It’s just a shame that it’s so hard.

You have been tasked with defending the planet against the alien hordes. All advice and orders are given from zee Russian sounding female commander, who is actually really funny. She takes you through the basics, showing you how to control the beat and issuing you your first squad member, the laser grunt.

The first few levels are very easy giving you time to learn the beat and get used to dealing with the enemies. The way the game works is simple yet complex, with your troops lining up at the left hand side of the screen, allowing you to choose their order to match the frets on your guitar (or pad buttons and drums). The enemy marches in from the right hand side of the screen and you have to stop them before they reach your squads. You can’t just hammer the frets though, you have to watch the white dots at the bottom of the screen and hold the fret of your choice while strumming as the white dots hit the center.

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Review: Frogger Returns (PS3)

Billy Withers

Published: March 1, 2010

Frogger is one of the more well known arcade classics from our childhood, so was really a no-brainer for Konami to revamp and spruce up for a 3D release. This one is not to be confused with the Playstation One games which went so far off the original’s beaten track that you couldn’t really see where the origins came from. As it stands this time round, we have an homage to the old school hit.

As before, the objective is painfully simple. Get your amphibian friend from one side of the level to the other, avoiding cars, wildlife, domesticated animals, transport and so on. The good thing is that Returns manages to retain the gameplay we’re used to, but there was not enough resistance to avoid putting new things in. Some of these do work, while others don’t.

One of the positives is the inclusion of 3 extra levels. Subway, Sewers and Swamp. They do, for the most part, keep the idea the same, but try and add the odd piece of variety to the normal A-to-B mission. As an example, the sewers have some dodgy pipes, chucking out steam in a fairly repetitive and learnable manner, but at least it keeps things slightly more interesting than they could have been.

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Review: Heavy Rain (PS3)

Jennifer Allen

Published: February 25, 2010

Heavy Rain is an extremely important game; it’s also a very divisive one that will spark arguments akin to the days of playground fights over whether Mario or Sonic was best. You see, calling Heavy Rain a game is a difficult one. Nor is it quite a film considering its interactive element, although it certainly tries the hardest I’ve ever seen a game try in its effort to be cinematic. It’s best to consider Heavy Rain as an interactive experience. One that will reside in your consciousness for a long time to come, assuming you allow it to that is.

Set in an unnamed American city, Heavy Rain focuses on the lives of four characters whose lives are intertwined through their search for a serial killer named the Origami Killer. Notably, unlike many other games, all the characters are rather flawed. There’s Ethan Mars, a man wracked by guilt and grief after the death of his son in a car accident, Madison Paige an insomniac journalist, Norman Jayden a drug addicted FBI agent and Scott Shelby an asthmatic private detective. Crucially it makes each of the characters more human and simpler to relate to. These aren’t gung ho action heroes like we’ve seen so many times before; they’re all vulnerable souls and much more indicative of ‘real’ people.

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