Reviews

Final Fantasy XIII is an average entry in a widely acclaimed RPG franchise. The drop dead gorgeous visuals and fantastic battle system cannot hide a shallow story and uninteresting characters. If you are a fan of JRPGs, play this game, but don't start by thinking "I hope it's better than FF ". It's not.

If you don't game on the console and haven't played the game before, I strongly recommend picking up Assassin's Creed II for the PC. Yes, Ubisoft's new DRM is a pain, but it's a pain PC gamers will have to learn to get used to.

Overall, even though the Mercenaries Reunion mode comes off as tad disappointing, the inclusion of the three new modes adds a substantial amount of gameplay to the original game. If you have yet to pick up one of the finest action games of last year, this is the definitive edition to get.

Metro is a study in contrasts. A well crafted single-player experience highlighted by top notch visuals, some genuinely great levels and a tense, unyielding atmosphere, marred by broken stealth mechanics, a bad decision relating to one of the enemies, and weak weapon effects.

This is probably one of the best team-based multiplayer games to come along in a very long time. Divided across four classes - Assault, Medic, Engineer and Recon, everything has been balanced to absolute perfection.

In a jaded market ruled predominantly by guns, fast cars and extreme action, Heavy Rain ambitiously emerges as a refreshing change, encouraging both the gaming industry and its patrons to stop and smell the roses. Kudos to Quantic Dream for creating a well thought out, emotionally engaging experiment that is sure to pave the way for the future of gaming.

God of War III is redefinition. It redefines our understanding of scale in video games. God of War III is restoration. It restores the meaning to a word we reviewers often throw at the drop of a hat - epic. It is the most beautiful violence you have ever seen in a video game. In all its moments of brilliance, you will revel in delicious bloodlust while the blades of exile are on song, and your most primal instincts will scream with delight. Pull out your most wicked smile for this one.

BioShock 2 is a sufficiently good sequel to one of the most memorable games of recent times. It may lack the charm of the original due to the been-there-done-that feel that it cannot shake off, but it still manages to be an engaging game that gets better as you play thanks to a decent story and varied gameplay.

Mixing historical events and fiction with incredible finesse, the downloadable episode that serves as the thirteenth memory block of Assassin's Creed 2 picks up immediately after the Battle of Forli.

Bayonetta is a serious workout for your arm. It comes highly recommended to anyone wanting to relive the heyday of the Japanese videogame industry and also wants an accessible game with top-notch content for his or her trouble. This is nostalgia at its best; the kind you don't need those much-maligned rose tinted spectacles to enjoy.

On the surface, there's not much technically wrong with Dante's Inferno, but the things you earlier overlooked as slight niggles, slowly gnaw at you the longer you play, which eventually sucks the enjoyment out of it. To be honest, I know nothing about the Divine Comedy, so there's no way for me to tell how faithful to the original the game is. But in the game, you play as Dante, who must journey through the nine circles of hell to rescue his wife Beatrice, who is being held captive by Lucifer.

Mass Effect 2 is everything a sequel should be. Bioware has stripped the franchise off all that held it back and has taken some major risks with the design, but in the end, it all works.

Boring! There really isn't a better (or nicer) way to sum up Dark Void. It's a rare example in recent memory of a game which turned into a chore to finish. And when that happens, it pretty much defeats the whole idea behind gaming.

Fans of Assassins Creed 2 may be aware of the missing 12th and 13th sequences in the game. While leaving the game incomplete is bizarre and frustrating, Ubisoft’s official statement blamed shortage of time for the missing sequences, adding that they would be released as future DLC. Now, almost two months later, the first instalment or sequence 12, named The Battle of Forli, is out.

There are a lot of average games out there and when you play them, you know they were always going to be average. But Army of Two could have been better than that. The core of the gameplay is solid and enjoyable, but there are just too many bad ideas wrapped around it. If the story had been even a little bit better, if there had been more content in here with some variety, if the multiplayer had been worth playing and if the single player was a little more well thought out, it would have been a great game. But as it stands, war may be awesome; Army of Two: The 40th Day certainly isn't.

Darksiders is the perfect example of why there is nothing wrong with borrowing ideas as long as you make a great game to go along with it. This first effort from developer Vigil Games is surely a promising one and is guaranteed to leave an impression.

Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines felt like an obituary to the PSP. For all its flaws, the fundamental mistake lies in the core design model that many developers have attempted time and again on the PSP and failed at it more often than not. Bloodlines goes down as yet another futile attempt at delivering an experience similar to that of the home consoles.

PixelJunk games have spanned across genres and the reason they are held in such high regard is the one constant – originality. And PixelJunk Shooter is no different. Playing through this game is a refreshing experience and even though it’s only 5-6 hours long, it is well worth its asking price. In fact, it’s well worth twice that. And my detective skills suggest that expansions are on the way as well. If you’ve played and loved past PixelJunk games, you know what I’ve been going on about. But if you haven’t, don’t let the simplistic 2D visuals fool you; this is one of the best games to have come out in 2009.

The legendary Tekken franchise makes its latest home console appearance as Tekken 6, a port of the updated arcade machine variant - Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion. A solid four years after its last iteration Tekken 5 was released on the PlayStation 2 system (not counting the HD PSN remake for PS3), Tekken 6 unbelievably contains an even bigger roster.

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game may not be a total train-wreck as most other movie-licensed games, but it’s not great either. The visuals are very impressive and there is a fair amount of replay value thanks to the branching storylines. But it’s very difficult to recommend it over other big titles that have been out recently.

Many people may have been turned off by the fact that The Saboteur is a World War II game. And you can’t really blame them thanks to the steady stream of generic Nazi-killing first-person shooters that have been shoved down our throats over the years. But The Saboteur isn’t a World War II game, it simply happens to play out in a World War II backdrop. You don’t play a soldier fighting for his country on the frontlines, but rather a man on a quest for personal vengeance in Nazi-occupied Paris. [singlepic id=1701 w=450 float=center]

The biggest strength of Assassin’s Creed 2 comes from the capability of the development team behind it to take feedback and channel it constructively to weed out almost every issue that was counterproductive to every great idea that the original had. So lets dwell deeper into what makes Assassin’s Creed 2 a near-perfect realisation of the series. For starters, Altair is gone. Well, not exactly, but he’s gone nonetheless. Enter Ezio Auditore da Firenze, son of a nobleman by day and assassin by night. Ezio’s carefree life of running across rooftops, getting into fights with rivals and courting pretty ladies comes to a screeching halt when his family gets caught up in a diabolical plot to overthrow the ruling family of Florence.

I think my favourite bits of Left4Dead were its moments of tranquillity that came between the bouts of carnage. The brief periods of time where you were grabbing ammo, healing team mates, swapping weapons and preparing for the horde you knew was coming. Every one of those moments felt like the climax of a great zombie film and even the fact that it happened so often never seemed to make them feel repetitive. Problem was that despite these moments of brilliance, I always felt that the game was lacking in content, depth and variety. Left4Dead 2 brings all three to the table along with a mountain of dismembered bloodied zombie corpses. [singlepic id=1693 w=450 float=center]

Bioware first introduced Dragon Age: Origins as a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate 2. I was equal parts excited and apprehensive about the prospect – excited because this is Bioware. They have some of the best role playing games in their lineup, including Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic and the legendary Baldur’s Gate 2. Apprehensive because they weren’t using the Dungeons & Dragons licence. How can you have a fantasy-based traditional RPG touted as a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate without D&D? Also, how would the controls feel on the console? Read on to find out why my excitement should’ve been higher and how my fears were wiped out.