Stuff for Dads

  Sonic Chronicles - The Dark Brotherhood (DS)

Rated: 7+. Since players will probably need to be at least seven to read all the text anyway, this isn't much of an issue.

Story: Some mysterious assailants dressed in black have kidnapped Knuckles, stolen the chaos emeralds and put in action a plan to take over the world. Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends must search them out and defeat them. Along the way, they must also confront Eggman once again, collect plenty of gold rings and help Cream the Rabbit find her lost chao, Cheese.

Yeah, exactly... If you don't even know that Knuckles is an echidna, then you're going to be struggling a little here.

Gameplay: This isn't like any other Sonic game. It's not about running at warp speed or jumping on monsters' heads. Instead, it mixes sedate exploring with turn-based battles.

You can have up to four characters in your team but only the currently selected character is visible on screen. You get to guide them around with the stylus. Interesting people and objects can be interacted with by tapping on an icon. Characters can employ abilities such as flying, smashing crates or dashing to get past obstacles in the environment. Again, this is achieved by tapping on an icon rather than utilising arcade skills.

Bump into any enemies wandering the landscape and the game cuts to a battle screen where your team stand in a line, facing the enemy who also stand in a line. Each team member can be ordered to attack, defend, use an item or to attempt to use a special power, such as a healing spell or an armour-piercing blow. Once everyone has orders, the results play automatically (with the DS essentially rolling dice to see who hits and how much damage is done). It's worth staying awake, however, because pulling off powers and defending against them requires success at short, rhythm-based minigames. These involve keeping the stylus in a moving circle or tapping areas of the screen with the correct timing. (If you've played Elite Beat Agents, then the concept will seem very familiar.)

Winning battles and completing quests brings experience points and items. Accumulate enough of these and characters go up in level, making them stronger and unlocking new skills. Items and equipment can be bought in shops using rings. Eggs can be found lying around and hatched into little creatures called chao that give characters additional abilities.

Yep, Sonic Chronicles is a lot like Final Fantasy with hedgehogs...

Save System: It's possible to save at any time while not in a conversation or battle. Happily, loading the saved game returns you to exactly where you left off. There's no being sent back to base simply for having the temerity to stop for lunch and there's no need to play for an extra twenty minutes in order to reach the next save point.

The only problem is that it's slightly too easy to save over someone else's saved game...

Comments: This game is initially a little strange. Sonic the Hedgehog is renowned for speed, so making him plod around the countryside, solving switch puzzles and chatting to old woodcutters, is something of a change of pace. (Worse, in my case, Tails' annoying perkiness gave me flashbacks to the overdose of Sonic cartoons I was forced to endure in the Spring.)

As with many role-playing games, you start with a single, first-level character who has no equipment and few skills. This considerably limits options for fighting and exploring, and means Sonic Chronicles takes a while to get going. Persevere through the first hour of instructions, back story and restricted choices, though, and things pick up. Extra characters introduce more tactics and open up new paths.

Winning later fights is heavily dependent on using special powers at the correct moment and succeeding in the rhythm minigames. This brings a good mix of tactics and skill to the battles. Defeating opponents isn't necessarily hard but it's never a foregone conclusion, either. That said, the battles can get repetitive during extended play. There are only three or four possible sets of opponents in each area and fighting the same formation of helicopter robots for the twelfth time in half an hour can become irritating. Thankfully, unlike Final Fantasy, there are no random battles. Enemies can be seen approaching and evaded by running round them. This doesn't earn any experience points but it avoids exploring becoming too frustrating, particularly in locations where monsters reappear within a minute of being defeated.

Hunting out all the rings, chao eggs and hidden items in the levels breaks up the battling and is the most entertaining part of the game. The small areas and handy map on the top screen encourage obsessive collecting of loot.

Still, this isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. Much depends on being able to put up with Sonic and his pals. The dialogue is actually pretty good but having to play as a rabbit called Cream is just... well... unsettling... The save anywhere feature and the lack of random battles make Sonic Chronicles more accessible than many other examples of the genre, however. It uses the stylus well, can be played in short bursts and causes quiet moments to fly by. It's the kind of game that the DS was made for.

Sprog1 (age 8) is halfway through and really enjoying it.

I don't think even he knows what an echidna is, though...

Conclusion: This is a very competent role-playing game for children. It's reasonably forgiving, not too complex and packed full of Sonic the Hedgehog and friends.

Unfortunately, the same features may well put off adults. Nonetheless, if you can see beyond the anthropomorphic bunnies, Sonic Chronicles is an addictive alternative to the 'serious' role-playing games out there.

Graphics: The battles can be bland but everything else looks good.

Length: Medium.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), computer game review (vol.4), DS

 
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  Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (PS2)

Rated: 16+.

Story: You're a mercenary who has been double-crossed by Venezuela's new and devious president. Various factions are fighting for control of the country's oil reserves and you must sell your skills to whoever is paying in order to gain the information and resources you need to exact some payback.

These skills are shooting things, blowing things up, stealing things and being able to take three tank shells to the head before dying.

Gameplay: Imagine Grand Theft Auto in the jungle with tanks (well, more tanks than normal) and you're pretty much there.

You get to guide your mercenary round a large area of Venezuela using whatever cars, trucks, jeeps, tanks or helicopters you can lay your hands on. Contacts are dotted about the place, offering missions. Some of these missions are optional, rewarding you with cash and different kinds of supply drop, from health packs, guns and vehicles to air strikes and gunship support. Other missions advance the story.

Jobs mostly involve reaching a target of some kind through a mass of enemies, destroying/rescuing/stealing it and making a quick get away. On a good day, this involves blowing up something really big.

There are also plenty of bonus items hidden around the map, along with thirty rogue military officers to capture.

The one major difference between this and most open-world games is that your actions affect your reputation with the different factions competing for control of Venezuela's oil. Send some capitalists a message from the rebel guerrillas and the freedom fighters will offer you support but the oil company won't be happy; help the American 'peace-keepers' and they'll be grateful but the Chinese 'observers' will be upset. Annoy anyone too much and they won't work with you without a hefty bribe. On the plus side, it's possible to disguise yourself as a member of a particular faction by stealing an appropriate vehicle and keeping a low profile. Then you can travel through their territory without getting into trouble.

Save System: You can choose to save at any time while not on a mission but loading the save transports you back to home base. Since it can take a while to get to places and some missions are half an hour long, there's no point switching the game on if you don't have a decent chunk of time available.

Comments: The opening mission of Mercenaries 2 really doesn't paint the game in a good light. The linear trek through a horde of daft soldiers seems to highlight almost all the game's faults in one go: poor enemy AI, short draw-distance, repetitive dialogue snippets, your character's miraculous inability to be killed by normal gunfire and some occasionally drab graphics.

Then, just at the end of it, there's the option to blow up a huge building with a tank. Things pick up after that.

Generally, the missions provide plenty of opportunity for experimentation and there's lots of fun to be had working out a sneaky way of pulling off a precision strike without upsetting any potential allies. Sometimes flying in low below the radar pays off, other times taking a jet ski to the back entrance is the way and then, of course, if nothing else works, there's always blasting through the front door with a rocket launcher and air support.

Unfortunately, mixed with the fun, there's plenty of frustration thanks to some horrible difficulty spikes and a complete lack of checkpointing in the missions. For instance, one contact requires you to steal three different vehicles and buy some tires. This is easy but time-consuming. Bring them all to her, however, and she requires you to transport a monster truck to a distant destination past lots of angry people with guns. If anything happens to the truck, it means ten minutes of rounding up vehicles again before getting another crack at finding a way through the roadblocks.

There's no reason for this, other than to pad the game out to make it a bit longer. (There are only around fifteen story missions.) As with so many parts of Mercenaries 2, it feels like someone eventually went, 'Oh, this'll do...' It's the same with the almost superfluous story which is merely an excuse to cause explosions and with the artificial intelligence which makes enemy soldiers run out from behind cover. Even the final mission gives the impression of ending halfway through.

Mercenaries 2 just doesn't have the same level of polish as the Grand Theft Auto games. That said, it does have lots of blowing stuff up and an easy to traverse world. The open, uncomplicated towns make a welcome change from the confusing bridges and overpasses of Los Santos and Liberty City. Mercenaries 2 is more accessible than either San Andreas or GTA IV. The simple map and varied vehicles make travelling around more fun. Since each hidden item is instantly useful and there's no need to find dozens of them to gain any benefit, there's also greater incentive to explore.

The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game have more features and better graphics but they also have more competition. There are any number of good games coming out in the next few weeks for those consoles. Choice is more limited on the PS2. As such, Mercenaries 2 is worth a look. It's flawed but has greater substance than Just Cause and is no more frustrating than GTA.

Besides, any game which asks you to steal a bus and go pick up some pirates, deserves to be given a chance...

Conclusion: Wanting an accessible open-world PS2 action game with plenty of explosions?

This'll do.

Graphics: The towns feel a little empty but the graphics are generally competent and atmospheric. The short draw-distance is an issue, though, since it can be hard seeing targets and going up to any height at all in a helicopter makes the entire world disappear. Using binoculars doesn't help - they merely bring the fog closer.

Length: Medium.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), PS2

 
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  Wario Land: The Shake Dimension (Wii)

Rated: 7+ thanks to some 'violent' content but it's much more suitable for viewing by small children than the lunch-time news or a typical episode of Tom & Jerry.

Story: The princess of The Shake Dimension has been kidnapped, along with a bottomless sack of coins. Wario must rescue some 'merfles' (pixies) in order to reach the culprit, defeat him and liberate the damsel in distress get his hands on the cash.

Not that the story really matters. The narrative is almost entirely restricted to cutscenes at the beginning and end of the game. Wario Land is all about platforming and exploration.

Gameplay: Guide Wario through 2-dimensional levels, jumping on platforms and enemies, in order to reach the pixie, then race back to the exit before a countdown runs out.

Control is simple and involves only the d-pad and a couple of buttons. Wario can jump, dash, ground pound and throw things. Shaking the wiimote makes him shake whatever he's holding and causes a small earthquake if his hands are empty.

Each of the thirty or so levels has three hidden treasures to discover and bonus missions to perform, such as to collect a set number of coins or to finish the level without taking damage.

Save System: Checkpoint halfway through each level and an automatic save between levels.

Comments: It's that time of year. After months of relatively few releases, every game under the sun is getting shoved into the shops in the space of six weeks in an attempt to grab some Christmas sales. In the chaos, several decent games are bound to get lost in the crush and condemned to retail obscurity.

Given this situation, releasing a 2D platformer just at the moment seems rather brave. Certainly, on the PS3 or Xbox 360 it would be a path straight to the bargain bin.

The Wii is short on headline games this Christmas, however. There's Wii Music and Animal Crossing, a selection of obscure stuff like de Blob that might be OK and a host of multi-format titles and mini-game collections that probably won't be. Wario Land is an important title for Nintendo almost by default.

As such, it's obviously been aimed at as wide an audience as possible. Getting to the final boss is as hard or easy as you want it to be. It's possible to blunder through the compulsory levels without much difficulty but there are plenty of extra challenges, hidden objects and secret levels to test the skills and patience of even the most obsessive eight-year-old.

The use of motion-sensing is generally successful. It doesn't add much to the gameplay but it's fun. Shaking a sack to make coins come out is always satisfying and controlling vehicles by tipping the wiimote works well. That said, having to shake the wiimote to make Wario spin round horizontal bars with enough momentum to launch himself upwards can get tiring after a while if there's a series of them - any pause to think causes Wario to slow down and results in the need for more shaking.

The game is enlivened by some devious design. Although jumping through the levels provides an amusing diversion, the main meat of the game is working out how to get hold of the hidden treasures. Wario's limited number of moves provide a surprising number of puzzle opportunities and there are plenty of branching paths in the levels (but not so many as to be confusing). Returning to the exit, meanwhile, is never a chore, since rescuing the pixie unlocks new routes. Also, the way is clearly signposted to avoid getting lost and there are frequent chances for Wario to launch himself along at high speed.

The boss battles aren't as interesting. They're very traditional. It's a case of learning an opponent's attack patterns, exposing their weak point, doing some damage and then doing it all again twice more with different attack patterns. Predictably, the end-of-game boss is a good deal tougher than anything that's gone before, simply to string the game out a little. (Sigh.)

The graphics and presentation are excellent, with lovely cartoon visuals and beautiful animation. The only negative is the lack of voice acting. Children without strong reading ability will need help for the first few minutes in order to follow what is going on and, even then, the dialogue text in the opening movie changes almost too quickly to be read out loud. Considering Wario Land is a game so desperate to attract children that it has stickers in the manual, this seems a rather basic oversight.

All in all, though, Wario Land is an enjoyable game suitable for both kids and adults.

True enough, it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. You're not going to get your gran playing it, for instance. Nor does it command attention by utilising a plastic guitar or a dance mat. It's not crammed full of EXCITING!! carnival games. It isn't a Star Wars game, doesn't involve shooting terrorists and has a lack of car theft... Still, isn't that a pleasant change? It's definitely worth a look if you have a Nintendo fan in the house. They'll be hunting out treasure long after Boxing Day.

Conclusion: Give it a go instead of Generic Mini-game Collection No 137 this Christmas.

Graphics: Sharp and clear and lovingly drawn.

Length: It's possible to zip through the game to the final boss in a few hours but unlocking everything will take commitment.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), wii, wii (vol.1)

 
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  Cranium Kabookii (Wii)

Rated: 3+.

Story: Kabookii is a quiz game, so there isn't really a story. Teams must score points to raise their mascot into the air, enabling it to reach a pull cord and, er... switch on a light...

Gameplay: The game is played in teams so REQUIRES AT LEAST FOUR PLAYERS but only one wiimote is used. Each turn, one member of the current team flicks the wiimote to spin a carousel and randomly select a mini-game. The team play the mini-game. If they win, they get some points. Win or lose, play moves to the next team.

There are 15 different mini-games. These include such things as answering multiple choice questions, solving anagrams, finding countries on a globe or repeating a sequence. Members of a team discuss the answer together and one of them enters the answer using the wiimote. Other games require playing a tune or drawing. In these, one member of the team looks at the screen through a special mask to see what they have to draw/play and gets cracking; the rest of the team must guess the answer within a time limit. A couple of the games involve miming actions using the wiimote.

The mini-games get harder as the game progresses but success brings more points. The first team to reach 24 points wins.

Save System: There isn't one. Yep, that's right, there's no way to save in the middle of a game. What were they thinking?

Comments: Playing mini-games on the Wii as a family is fun. Wii Sports and Wii Play have shown the potential. Countless other efforts have tried to build on it. It's difficult to think of a game that's really hit upon the ideal mix of accessibility, interaction, fun, depth and 'waggliness', though. There only ever seems to be flashes of brilliance amidst uninspired ideas and poorly thought out motion controls.

Kabookii is no exception.

When it works, it's great. When it doesn't, you have to wonder whether they actually got any families to play-test it.

For a start, it's tricky. Finding three countries that are permanent members of the UN security council on a globe in under a minute is probably beyond most primary school children. Finding three countries beginning with 'N' in the same fashion is probably beyond most adults. Finding Mauritania was certainly beyond me.

Other questions make references to American TV shows like The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. The pattern matching is hard and the sequence memorisation is nearly impossible if the other team starts talking. An adult on each team is pretty much essential for progress.

On top of that, the mini-games that involve acting things out don't work. A picture appears on the screen and the player must hold down A on the wiimote and mime the action. The game nearly always ignores them, however. The problem is, when presented with a picture of a shovel standing in some dirt, it's unclear what to do. There's no clue as to which way to hold the wiimote or what motion to replicate and the result is usually frantic, random motion in a desperate effort to hit upon the correct form of waggle. Expecting six successes in a minute is a joke.

Enthusiasm is further drained by the weird scoring. Answering a true/false question correctly near the end of the game can bring 6 points, while completing five rounds of sequence memorisation near the start only brings 3. Worse, if time runs outs during a challenge, the team gets nothing, no matter how much they managed to accomplish. This is demoralising. Oh, and since it's a straight race to 24 points, the team that goes first has an advantage.

Realistically, winning is a lottery.

And yet...

There are still those flashes of brilliance. Drawing and spray-painting with the wiimote is fun and a few of the mini-games do things that wouldn't work in a non-electronic format. There's one drawing game where the lines vanish after a few seconds and another which uses stickers. The tune and sequence challenges are also fresh.

If only they'd thought it all through a little more. Ho well, maybe the next mini-game collection will be the one...

Conclusion: It's mildly entertaining in its own way but it's a little too broken to really recommend. You'd be as well to switch off the Wii and play Cadoo or Pictionary or Charades instead.

Graphics: The presentation is cute but the graphics in the mini-games are functional more than anything else.

Length: A game with two teams takes around an hour.

Rating: 2/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), wii (vol.1)

 
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  Civilization Revolution (Xbox 360)

Rated: 12+. Quite why this should be the case is a mystery once again - there really isn't anything you'd be worried about a passing toddler watching. Still, actually playing the game is going to be beyond most eleven-year-olds anyway.

Story: You are the leader of a small tribe of nomads. You must found a city, spread your culture, advance your civilisation and take your people from the stone age to interstellar colonisation, all while competing with opposing tribes.

Gameplay: This is a turn-based strategy game...

Hey! Come back! It's not what you think! It's fast-paced, works great without a mouse and keyboard, doesn't take months to get through and favours tactical thought over micro-management. It...

Oh, darn... Now all the geeky guys with beards have left.

That just leaves you and me.

Ho well, guess I'd better finish the review anyway. No sneaking off, though. You had your chance.

So... Civilization Revolution is a turn-based strategy game where you must explore a planet and utilise resources to become the dominant civilisation. You start off with a single city and direct its citizens to concentrate on trade, science, harvesting or industry. In time, the city produces military units and/or settlers to found other cities. Put some effort into science and your civilisation develops new technologies, allowing useful buildings to be built and (eventually) very big tanks. Each turn, your units can move a space or two.

Of course, the planet is full of other civilizations vying for the same territory. You can win by conquering them all but victory can also be achieved by scientific, economic or cultural means (essentially by concentrating on research, trade or building large cathedrals).

Save System: Save at any time.

Comments: I played Civilization 2 a decade ago and enjoyed it. Each game seemed to take weeks, however. By the time I'd spent 5000 years leading the Vikings to world domination and I'd finally seen off the expansionist greed of the Aztecs, I couldn't face starting again on a higher difficulty level. There was too much detail involved in organising cities, and the units moved too slowly compared with the distances they had to travel. I decided to go play Tomb Raider and get some instant entertainment.

I didn't dare touch the later Civ sequels in case I ended up spending months of my life arranging train timetables or managing the budget of public service broadcasts.

Civilization Revolution is for people like me - people who enjoy a good strategy board game but start to get nervous when the rulebook is more than four pages long. Sure, there are plenty of details to be picked up about the merits of the different technologies and units but the basic gameplay can be grasped in minutes. Everything has been redesigned to make the experience speed along. The worlds are small, the controls are well-designed and there aren't stacks of menus.

The end result is a game that takes around five hours to play. This is long enough to require plenty of strategy but not long enough for starting again to feel like a chore. Variety is maintained through varying difficulty levels and the large number of different tribes available - each has their own special abilities which genuinely affect how the game needs to be played. Trying to achieve the different winning conditions adds to the longevity, and there are also special scenarios which change things even further (by, for instance, unlocking all technologies from the start).

The short turns make the game very addictive. It feels like something is always going on and there's always time for 'just one more turn...' I keep sitting down at ten with a drink and my controller and looking up a few minutes later to discover it's midnight and my beer's untouched.

I can't remember the last game which did that.

Civilization Revolution will be too slow and complicated for many and too fast and simplistic for others. I, however, think it strikes just the right balance, requiring a satisfying amount of brainpower but not too much effort. Superb.

Conclusion: If you want a fast-paced, turn-based strategy game which involves plenty of planning and thought but little micro-management, then this is for you. (Yes, you! You over there! In between the irate, bearded guys muttering about 'dumbing-down' and the teenagers sloping off to play Halo...)

Graphics: Clear, bright and attractive. Text is large enough to read on an old-fashioned telly. You'll be staring at it intently for hours, though, so I'd recommend some form of high definition display.

Length: A single-player game is a few hours long but you can play many times over.

Rating: 5/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), Xbox 360

 
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  Tomb Raider: Anniversary (Xbox 360)

Rated: 12.

Story: Lara Croft shoots to fame in Tomb Raider, a haunting, atmospheric adventure that finally allows people to live out their Indiana Jones fantasies (and, let's face it, gives teenage boys certain other fantasies). Big budget sequels follow but they never quite recapture the magic - too much shooting, daft difficulty levels, often forgettable locations and little evolution in terms of controls or gameplay. The wheels start to come off. Hollywood churns out a couple of exhilarating but nonsensical movies. Then Angel of Darkness is released.

It's awful. Ms Croft's career hits the rocks (with a trademark scream and splat).

Years pass. After a stint in rehab, Lara returns under new management, looking better than ever. Legend still has too much shooting and some generic locations but at least the controls aren't too bad. Maybe the Tomb Raider franchise isn't dead after all.

Someone has the bright idea of remaking the original.

Gameplay: Watch Lara's backside as you make her leap, climb, swing, run and swim around ancient tombs in search of artifacts. There's some shooting when creatures leap out at you and a handful of boss battles but the main emphasis is on finding routes round the vast environments, often climbing to dizzying heights.

There are health packs and ammo clips littered about but many are in hard to reach places. Each level also has a few treasures to recover. Collecting them is optional but unlocks bonus material. Most are well hidden and hard to get to. The rest are incredibly well hidden and surrounded by instant death.

Save System: Regular checkpoints. The last checkpoint reached can be saved manually at any time. Annoyingly, it's sometimes possible to fall off a high ledge, make a miraculous landing and find yourself back at a previous checkpoint.

Comments: Finally, seven sequels later, they've managed to come up with a Tomb Raider that's as good as the first one. Oh, hang on, it is the first one...

Fortunately, it's more than just the original with tarted up graphics. Many environments have been opened out to be bigger, better and more imposing, while remaining eerily familiar. Others have been re-imagined to take advantage of all the extra skills Lara has learnt over the last decade, from climbing to swinging from a grappling hook. Everything feels less confined than in the last game, Legend.

Meanwhile, some of the more frustrating aspects of the original have been removed. The tedious block moving puzzles are gone, along with the worst of the time-limited tasks and the stupidly difficult sections near the end.

Even better, the control system allows for both precision and fluid motion which always seemed like an impossibility in the Tomb Raider of old. Jumping straight after a wall run often goes badly - 'No, Lara! The other way. The other way!' - but, apart from that, a long downward plummet is usually the result of player error rather than poor design.

Now they've got the mechanics and graphics nailed down, let's hope the developers can learn from this remake and create a new adventure with the same atmosphere and sense of scale.

Conclusion: It's the best Tomb Raider since, well, the first one... Worth playing even if you finished the original.

Graphics: Lovely apart from the squint-inducing haze effect in the limited number of locations featuring bright sunlight. The game also slows down in large open areas.

Length: Medium (but unlocking everything could take a very long time indeed).

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), Xbox 360

 
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  Alone in the Dark (Xbox 360)

Rated: 15.

Story: You wake up with amnesia and in close proximity to an elderly gentleman who believes that only you can save the world. Then you have to fight your way out of a zombie-infested, burning building via a poorly lit underground parking lot. Somebody's after the philosopher's stone, Lucifer is preparing to make an appearance and pesky spider things keep jumping at your head.

Fortunately, this pretty much uses up every gaming cliché in existence and things finally begin to pick up. You find yourself roaming Central Park in the dark.

You aren't alone...

Gameplay: This is an adventure game with plenty of combat. You can swap between a third-person view and a first-person view at the touch of a button. First-person is good for shooting; third-person is compulsory for hand-to-hand fighting and for solving some puzzles.

There's a huge mixture of gameplay styles. Sometimes you're creeping round dingy buildings searching for clues like in Resident Evil, other times you have to drive around at high speed, then there are shooter sections and occasionally there's lots of jumping and climbing as it all goes Tomb Raider. Although this means plenty of variety, it also seems to mean the developers didn't have enough time to make any of the different styles work properly.

Save System: Regular checkpoints that can be saved manually at any time. Quite where you'll end up and what you'll be carrying when you load a saved game isn't quite as predictable as you might like, however.

Comments: Few games in recent memory have made me want to throw my controller through a window quite as often as Alone in the Dark. The control scheme generally varies between awkward and broken. Even selecting an item from the inventory screen is a pain. Since much of the game is spent selecting items from the inventory screen while being rushed by hungry zombies, this is something of an issue... I came close to giving up on numerous occasions because I simply couldn't get the main character to do what was required of him without blowing himself up, falling from a great height or getting his brain munched. Grr.

Nonetheless, I persevered. For every stretch of pain, Alone in the Dark throws up a superb edge-of-the-seat sequence, an atmospheric location or a great puzzle. Exploring the spooky, totally open environment of Central Park is a revelation for survival horror games. Having to actually think to find a way forward makes a change. Throwing a bottle of petrol and then shooting it in mid air never gets old.

There are definitely many great gaming moments to be had.

If only the bits in between weren't so daft and annoying...

Conclusion: A game to love and hate in equal measure. Then hate a bit more. Then love. Then to have very mixed feelings about as, just at the point you think you're almost finished, you discover it's twice as long as you were expecting. And then...

Oh, just rent it and see what you think...

Graphics: Fantastic. Great fire effects and lighting. Plenty of nice animation touches and some excellently designed locations. Only the monsters are a little generic.

Length: Well, that depends... You could bury your controller in the front of your TV before the first hour is up. That would make it a very short game. Then again, if you're persistent but ham-fisted it might stretch out to medium length.

Rating: 4/5.

(The Wii and PS2 versions are supposedly very different. Be warned.)

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), Xbox 360

 
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  Etrian Odyssey (DS)

Rated: 12+ because it contains violence but, to be honest, it's not as graphic as a typical episode of Pokémon, let alone the scrum that breaks out if all my children try to get their shoes from the shoe rack at the same time.

Story: An enormous forest labyrinth has sprung up next to a fantasy town full of cute people. You must guide a group of five adventurers through the traps and monsters in search of bigger traps and monsters.

Gameplay: The top screen shows the maze in 3D but you can't move around freely - it's laid out on a grid and you can move forwards or backwards one square at a time or turn 90 degrees. The bottom screen is used to map your progress. You draw in the walls of the maze and position icons to mark places of interest.

A few of the monsters can be seen approaching (although they only appear as glowing orbs). These are very tough creatures (FOEs) that are liable to kill you without raising a sweat. They move in a set pattern so you can avoid them.

Other fights start randomly. A group of monsters suddenly appear on the top screen. Combat takes place in turns. You choose actions (attack, cast a spell, defend, etc) for all your team members for a turn and then sit back and watch what happens. The actions of your adventurers and the monsters are played out in order according to luck, their level of agility and goodness knows what. Once everyone's had a shot, the turn is over and you get to choose actions for the next turn.

Killing monsters brings experience points. Get enough of these and your adventurers become stronger and can choose new spells and abilities.

Every so often you have to return to town to heal up and buy new equipment.

Save System: Saving is only possible in the town or at incredibly widely spaced save points. It can be hours in between saves. To play Etrian Odyssey, you need to be able to leave the DS in sleep mode for days without danger of a child coming along and swapping the cartridge to Mario Party.

Annoying.

Worse, if your adventurers die on an expedition, all progress is lost apart from any maps you've drawn.

Comments: Some games try to pull you in with amazing graphics, impressive stunts and new ideas. With only the press of a couple of buttons, you're a ninja space-assassin cartwheeling through an earthquake while lobbing exploding monkeys at tanks, marines and giant lizards. These games are brash and gaudy and shout, 'Buy me!'

Other games are much rougher. Enthralling gameplay is hidden beneath a stupid level of difficulty or awkward controls or a colour palette which consists of nothing but different shades of brown. These games quietly beg, 'Get to know me better...'

Some games are just cheap and rubbish, pumping out explosions and promises and heavy metal music, hoping to distract you with an hour or two of mild diversion before their lack of substance shows through. 'What are you complaining about?' they scream. 'Could be worse!'

All games vie for affection somehow.

Er, almost all...

Etrian Odyssey sits on the shelf and mutters, 'Yeah, I'm a barely tarted up version of a twenty-year-old game. I'm slow, ugly, obtuse and difficult. Want to make something of it? Come on if you think you're hard enough.'

Essentially it's The Bard's Tale all over again. I don't mean the relatively recent Xbox outing; I mean the original 8-bit offering from 1985. The main difference is that it provides its own graph paper. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you might want to move along now. This game is from before your time. Go play Phantom Hourglass or something.

Maybe that's going a little far but if you don't have some history of fairly hard-core role-playing games then Etrian Odyssey will eat you for breakfast. There's little explanation of what's going on, almost no story and a frightening difficulty curve. The game goes out of its way to make the player's life awkward. The prohibitive cost of resting and healing, for instance, frequently means trips into the dungeon don't turn a profit, so buying new equipment is impossible. This leads to a greater need for healing and so on. The first few encounters with FOEs are bound to end in disaster. Working out which skills to upgrade is highly confusing.

After a few hours, things become clearer, however. There's a sneaky way to make some cash, the need to avoid FOEs until later becomes obvious and the game develops a rhythm. Each descent into the maze reveals a little more territory before it's time to teleport out, heal up and work your way down again. Meanwhile, your characters develop and grow. Just getting that little bit further becomes addictive. Even the random battles cease to grate eventually - they're mercifully widely spaced and you have an indication of when they're imminent.

Without some nostalgia for The Bard's Tale or a similar game, it's hard to imagine anyone persevering with this, though. Games have moved on. Even a portable version of Dungeon Master would be vastly more attractive.

At least there isn't four minutes of loading from tape between each level of the maze these days, I suppose...

Conclusion: If you're a fan of random turn-based battles and cartography, you'll love this. If you have fond memories of The Bard's Tale, you might get sucked in. If you don't know your ATK from your VIT, then run away.

Graphics: Drab and almost static. If it weren't for the touchscreen use, you'd think it was a GBA game.

Length: Very long.

Rating: 3/5. (As usual, this translates as 'all right, if you like this kind of thing' but 'this kind of thing' has a much narrower definition than normal.)

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), DS

 
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  Family Ski (Wii)

Rated: 3+

Story: You're on a skiing holiday in a resort full of slightly strange people. You must explore, compete and relax.

Not smacking into trees at high speed is also good.

Gameplay: It's possible to do one-off races and trick runs but the main part of the game involves roaming the slopes looking for challenges. These can involve anything from burger delivery to finding a particular teenager on a ski run full of foreign students.

You use the wiimote and nunchuck controller as ski poles, shoving off and then moving them side-to-side to steer. Rotating them and tucking them into your side causes your on-screen character to crouch. Pressing various buttons results in snowplough and wedeln. (Nope, I'm not really sure what they are either.) Pulling back on the control stick brakes. All manner of presses and shakes perform tricks after a jump.

Most of the events can be attempted by four players simultaneously but the structure of the game seems more geared towards single-player.

Save System: Frequent automatic saves.

Comments: In some ways Family Ski is easy to describe. (It's a skiing game!) In other ways it's very hard to pin down. It's too complex to be described as pick-up-and-play and yet too full of cute bizarreness to be a simulation. It involves wandering round talking to people like a role-playing game but it doesn't have statistics for you to build up. It wants to get the whole family involved without being a collection of mini-games while at the same time dividing itself up into a series of short challenges... which is really just another way of describing mini-games.

So, er, maybe it's best pigeon-holed as a slightly confused skiing game...

Probably the easiest thing to say about Family Ski is that it's the first game other than Wii Fit to take advantage of the balance board controller. Unfortunately, it isn't implemented as well as in the skiing game in Wii Fit itself. Shifting balance only affects left and right movement and not speed. This leaves plenty of work still to be done with button presses and wiimote movement. It was too much for my uncoordinated brain to handle and I gave up on the board pretty quickly because I kept swerving all over the place (while shrieking in an embarrassing fashion - it wasn't worth it).

The controls in general take some getting used to and the tutorial mode isn't much help. It's very dull and full of loading screens, long-winded explanations and repetitive tasks. Watching me slog through it made the whole game seem so complicated that Sprog1 was scared off entirely and has refused to play, despite the fact that initially it's a case of waggling the controllers to start off and then just pointing where you want to go.

Others tasks are less intuitive, however. Side-stepping involves holding down a button and moving the wiimote and nunchuck up and down in a stepping motion. Genius! Except it turns out that one shake of either makes your on-screen character side-step four or five times. This is irritating when you're working to a time limit and you've only over-shot a target by inches. Worse still, sometimes it's possible to begin side-stepping automatically when trying to ski up a small incline.

Control ends up feeling complicated yet imprecise.

The free-roaming structure of the events, meanwhile, leaves the game strangely paced. Many of the challenges are completely trivial, such as performing a single, specific trick during a jump. This requires skiing up to a guy, chatting for a bit, being shown how to do the trick, a loading screen, skiing down a short slope, pulling the trick, skipping the replay, skipping a victory cut-scene, a results screen, some more chat and then being plonked back away from the guy who's now wanting you to do the next trick. Considering there are getting on for a dozen tricks, doing them all becomes decidedly tedious.

The mogul runs, meanwhile, are very tough. These involve short slopes with patches of little hillocks to ski through, along with ramps to jump off and do tricks. You are graded on top speed, overall time, turning, tricks and balance. Your final mark is the lowest grade you receive in any of these categories. This is annoying when you need an overall B and get four As and a C.

Receive the required mark and you merely get to repeat the same course, shooting for a slightly higher mark. It doesn't matter if you just got that mark while aiming for a lower score, you still have to do it again. Since the marking feels quite arbitrary, this is teeth-grindingly frustrating.

Then again, maybe I'm simply rubbish at the game. Skiing down an open slope is immersive and entertaining. When Family Ski works, it works well. It's certainly worth renting to experience the unique controls and relaxed ambiance. Whether these will hold your attention through some of the more laborious moments is another question. Still, it's got to be better than another mini-game collection, hasn't it? (Or actually travelling hundreds of miles to fall face-first down a mountain in the snow...)

Conclusion: A nice try that seems to have had something of an identity crisis during development. There's fun to be had but finding it requires quite a bit of patience.

Graphics: They do their job but they're hardly spectacular. This is probably to ensure everything keeps moving at a fair pace in four-player split-screen mode, however.

Length: Medium.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), wii (vol.1)

 
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  Monster Jam (Xbox 360)

Rated: U.

Gameplay: Drive a monster truck over and through obstacles in a series of events. These include:

• Normal races around such places as a shipyard and an airplane graveyard.
• Eliminator races where the last placed racer is knocked out after every lap.
• Stadium races round obstacle courses.
• Stadium freestyle stunt performances. (Crush, smash and jump for points.)

There's a small element of strategy from the use of boost. Boost lets you go faster but heats your engine. Smashing scenery items and pulling stunts allows the use of boost for longer without danger of overheating your truck's engine and disabling boost.

Save System: Automatic save after every event.

Comments: The three main selling points on the back of the box do not inspire confidence: CATCH MASSIVE AIR! DESTROY EVERYTHING! and, er... RACE OUTDOORS!

Race outdoors? I can't think of a racing game I've ever played where I didn't get to race outdoors. It's like a first-person shooter promising to let you 'RUN AROUND WITH A BIG GUN!' or a platformer advertising the ability to 'JUMP ABOUT COLLECTING THINGS!'. I mean, what's next? 'TURN LEFT AND RIGHT!'?

I suppose real monster trucks are confined to stadia and so being able to RACE OUTDOORS! might be novel to actual fans but still... it does suggest that someone somewhere wasn't trying too hard. This is backed up by the opening video of monster truck action which appears to have been shot on a mobile phone. It made me wonder what horror would result when I actually began the game proper. I braced myself and pressed START.

And then something surprising happened.

Monster Jam turned out to be quite good fun.

It's not a serious racing game like Project Gotham or Forza. Sprog1 wanted me to explain how to play the game and I said, "Hang on a minute, I'm concentrating on not crashing into things." Then I realised that that wasn't entirely true. I was mainly concentrating on crashing into as many things as possible.

There's no engine tuning or sticking to the racing line or even much use of the brake most of the time. Monster Jam is about destroying things by driving into them very fast in a stupidly large 4x4. It's a racing game for people who like to hold down accelerate, have a tendency to smack into the opposition at any given opportunity, need a very, very wide track and enjoy leaving a trail of devastation in their wake.

Yep, that'll be me and most children.

Monster Jam is uncomplicated and grin-inducing. The need to constantly crash into stuff takes a little getting used to, though. So does the physics - the trucks and obstacles bounce all over the place like gravity doesn't apply. It's also hard to tell at first what can be driven through and what can't. An eighteen-wheeler or a space shuttle are apparently no match for a truck with a name like Grave Digger but a small pile of ordinary cars won't budge. Luckily (and somewhat unbelievably), the trucks turn virtually on the spot like radio-controlled vehicles, allowing quick reverses out of trouble.

Once you're adjusted to the lack of realism, however, the game becomes a decent romp, even if the low budget feel remains. There aren't many tracks, the AI is ropey and the commentary is dire. That said, there is a 4-player split-screen mode which is pretty unusual these days.

All things considered, Monster Jam isn't big or clever but Sprog1 (age 8) has been playing it and reckons it's almost as fun as the new Mario Kart. I have to disagree. I think it's actually a little more fun.

Conclusion: Launching several tonnes of thundering truck off a ramp and through a luxury yacht is more enjoyable than lobbing shells at Princess Peach.

Graphics: Adequate. They're not going to win any awards for detail but this is only an issue in the stadium events where you're moving more slowly. In races, there's too much going on to notice.

Length: Short.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), Xbox 360

 
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  BOOM BLOX (Wii)

Rated: U.

Story: Tribes of domino-shaped animals battle for supremacy by playing a version of Jenga featuring bombs, lasers and, er, precariously balanced cows...

Gameplay: BOOM BLOX is probably best described as a puzzle game. The majority of levels consist of an arrangement of blocks that has to be demolished in a certain way. For instance, it might be a case of removing all the point blocks from a tower without knocking off the penalty blocks or of destroying a castle to make the gem blocks inside hit the ground. The means provided for achieving goals varies from level to level. Balls and bombs can be thrown, chemical blocks explode when combined and a floating hand allows blocks to be grabbed and pulled.

Throwing is done by aiming with the wiimote, locking the cursor by holding a button and then flicking the wiimote to launch. Grabbing is accomplished by locking the cursor and moving the wiimote as if pulling the block about. Some levels also involve light-gun style shooting of flying blocks.

Save System: Automatic save after every level. This is a game that can be played in ten minute bursts.

Comments: Plenty of games tout realistic physics as a selling point. This usually translates to bodies falling down stairs in a slightly unlikely fashion in first-person shooters and cardboard boxes flying off in all directions in racing games (normally behind you, where you can't see them anyway). Few games other than Portal have made the physics integral to the gameplay.

BOOM BLOX is different. It's entirely about bouncing balls, flying bricks and explosions interacting together. Pull a block out from the base of a tower and it teeters and then falls, its components toppling into each other convincingly. At its best, the game is an absorbing test of forward-planning, as you attempt to set up chain reactions of tumbling blocks. Great satisfaction can be had from knocking a large timber onto a see-saw, launching a bomb from the other end and then detonating it in mid-air to blast a whole load of point blocks everywhere.

There's also plenty of variety thanks to a wide selection of tools, objectives and block types.

There's maybe a little too much variety, in fact. The puzzle levels (where structures have to be knocked down with as few balls as possible) are easily the best part of the game. The grab levels are frustrating in comparison. Using the wiimote to move an object into and out of the screen is as clumsy as ever. It feels like playing Jenga with thick gloves on after drinking a couple of beers. The shooting levels, meanwhile, are too hard. Even getting a bronze award to unlock the next level is difficult - distant targets are often very small and travelling very fast but your projectiles take time to reach them. These bits are never as much fun as the shooting section in Wii Play.

By including so many different aspects in the game, the developers haven't utilised the full potential of the puzzling. On top of that, many of the puzzle levels explain what needs to be done on their introduction screen, taking away much of the mental challenge. Getting through the game is more to do with a steady hand for grabbing and quick reflexes for shooting.

This contributes to the general feeling that the whole game hasn't been polished. Everything from the difficulty curve to the progression structure could do with some tweaking. The issue is maybe best exemplified by the text box that pops up telling you to look around timed levels before you start - it's very large, prevents you getting a good view of the level and doesn't go away until you start the timer. D'oh!

A little more focus and BOOM BLOX could have been brilliant. As it stands, though, it's still very good and makes better use of the Wii than any number of the minigame collections which are clogging the shelves. It's easy to pick up, addictive and full of grin-inducing moments. A desire to see what's coming next will keep you persevering through the parts that don't quite work as well as they should.

My eight-year-old has been enjoying playing BOOM BLOX but struggles to hold the wiimote steady enough on occasion, since the controls are very sensitive. (Bear in mind that this is a kid who's collected 119 stars in Super Mario Galaxy). My six-year-old has even more problems with aiming and can't seem to fling the balls hard either, despite being no gaming slouch himself. (He's just started a second saved game of LEGO Indiana Jones, having completed the first one 100%.) This isn't necessarily a fault with the game as such - in my experience, the Wii remote is simply harder for a small child to use than a normal controller, whatever Nintendo might want you to believe. It does make the game frustrating for younger children, however.

There's a wide selection of multiplayer levels. Some of these are competitive with objectives such as obtaining the highest shooting score, knocking over the most point blocks or destroying an opponent's castle. These could easily get vicious... Cooperative levels play very like the single-player game with players taking turns to make each pull or throw.

It's also possible to edit levels and create new ones. These can be shared with friends over the internet but making decent levels is pretty fiddly and time-consuming. You probably can't be bothered to manage it and your kids won't be able to. Still, it's a nice idea and maybe something to distract a teenager with over the summer... The real longevity comes from the multiplayer.

Conclusion: One of the best attempts around to do something interesting with the unique Wii controls.

Graphics: Basic but, then again, the Wii is probably kept pretty busy by calculating the tumbling and colliding of scores of falling blocks.

Length: Short.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), wii (vol.1)

 
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  LEGO Indiana Jones
The Original Adventures (Xbox 360)

Rated: U

Story: You are Indiana Jones, famous archaeologist, explorer and teacher (part-time). You must travel the world in search of lost artifacts, defeating Nazis and getting told off by your dad along the way.

The game closely follows the events of the first three movies, re-creating everything from motorbikes to elephants in LEGO.

Gameplay: This is an adventure with a heavy emphasis on platform jumping and combat. Two players (or one player and the computer) must work together, guiding LEGO versions of characters from the movies through the levels, clobbering enemies and solving puzzles. Different characters have different special abilities - Indy has his whip to swing across gaps, ladies can jump higher, small characters can get through hatches, that kind of thing. There are also tools like spanners and shovels that any character can pick up.

Although there's plenty of fighting, this is little LEGO figures having a scrap that we're talking about. Hit someone with a shovel or blow them up with a bazooka and they simply fall apart into a forlorn pile of plastic pieces.

Every level has hidden objects to discover that can be used to unlock bonus levels and secret options. Uncovering all of these requires replaying the levels at least once with different characters. There's also treasure littered everywhere that can pay for extra bits and bobs.

Save System: The game only saves in between levels but, on a first attempt, some levels can take three-quarters of an hour to play through. This is hugely inconvenient. It means there's no option of a quick game before school or anything similar. My 360 has had to be left on over a number of meal-times, simply because the food was ready but my boys were stuck near the end of a level.



Comments: This game comes into its own when played with two players. Alone, it was fun but felt a little basic. My computer-controlled buddy tended to stand around while I got pulverised by the bad guys; puzzles required some tedious swapping backwards and forwards between the two on-screen characters. All this disappears with a second player and LEGO Indiana Jones turns into an entertaining lesson in co-operation.

I started my two boys (aged 6 and 8) playing it and they almost instantly began shouting conflicting instructions at each other. I told them off. Then, later, when I teamed up with one of them, I couldn't help doing it myself. 'No, the other way!... Shoot them!... Not me! Them!... Hey! Where are you going? Look out for the... Oops...' It really was a case of learning to work together.

The second player can drop in and out of the game at any time. This is a fantastic feature and allows a busy adult to just join in for the tricky bits or to slip away quietly if the phone rings.

Completing the game 100% involves some skill but the game is designed so that even novice gamers can muddle through. There's no way to die. If a character gets hit too many times, then they fall apart for a few seconds and drop some of their treasure. Often, most of the treasure can be picked up again. The main hold up is figuring out the puzzles. It's possible to not notice missile targets and smashable objects while being swamped by waves of enemy soldiers, leading to occasional frustration over what to do to open the next door or to defeat a boss. The solution is never far away, however, and the secret is almost always to hunt around carefully for something useful.

Children who can't read fluently will need extra supervision early on since hints and clues are given in fairly small text at the bottom of the screen.

The story is presented using scenes from the movie re-done with the LEGO characters from the game and without dialogue. These are excellent and somehow manage to pay homage to the films while poking fun at them. Unfortunately, there's little chance of anyone who hasn't seen the films being able to follow what's going on. This is an issue for children who are too young to watch the movies. (They're a bit scary in places!) It's not a major problem, though, since they'd probably only spend the whole film going, 'Who's that?', 'What's going on?' and 'Where are they now?' anyway.

There are a few minor niggles with the game: The perspective makes some jumps difficult to gauge, certain areas are a little too dark compared to the rest and most of the 60 playable characters are totally forgettable. That said, compared with most other movie tie-ins aimed at children, these are laughably inconsequential points. On the 360, LEGO Indiana Jones stands beside LEGO Star Wars, head and shoulders above the competition. On the Wii, there are more options for kids but the full co-operative play is still close to unique.

If your offspring play computer games or you're thinking of getting them started, this is an essential purchase.

Conclusion: A good game that becomes a great game when played with your children.

Graphics: From a technical point of view, the graphics are crisp and clear but their true strength lies in the way they capture both the spirit of LEGO and the Indiana Jones films.

Length: Medium.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), Xbox 360

 
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  Wii Fit

Price: £70

Rated: 3+

Story: You've eaten all the biscuits. You mooch around. A set of bathroom scales makes snide comments about your podge and chides you for not exercising. You must embark on an epic quest to get your favourite trousers to fit again and you must do so without falling over...

Oh no, hang on, that's real life. The game doesn't have a story. It's a selection of exercises and minigames to improve your balance, muscle tone and basic fitness. It does feature a particularly patronising set of bathroom scales, though.

Gameplay: Wii Fit comes complete with a wireless balance board. The thing is about the size of two normal sets of bathroom scales put side by side and allows the game to measure your weight and monitor your balance. By detecting how your weight moves around the board, the game can tell which way you're leaning and how you're standing.



Each day you play, the game records your weight and gives you a fitness test. The test consists of a couple of short exercises which usually involve shifting your balance about at the game's command. Your 'Wii Fit Age' is calculated and compared with your actual age. Then an animated balance board shakes its head and laments how overweight and decrepit you are.

Fortunately, things pick up after this and you get to choose from a selection of yoga exercises, muscle workouts, aerobic exercises and balance games. Spend enough time playing and you unlock more.

• Yoga exercises: Hold a pose while maintaining your balance.
• Muscle workouts: Perform a set number of exercises (such as press-ups) in rhythm with the game.
• Aerobic exercises: Jog on the spot or hula for your life.
• Balance games: Head footballs, ski a slalom, guide balls through a maze or suchlike.

The balance board requires 4 AA batteries (included). If you're over 150kg, it will die. (Sorry.)

Save System: Frequent auto-saving of achievements and high scores.

Comments: This is an odd one. It's not really a game. It's an attempt to make exercise fun.

To a certain extent it succeeds - it's not great exercise and it's not great fun but it does provide some amusement and require a decent amount of physical activity. OAPs are advised not to have a go but children can take part under supervision and the whole family can compare progress and high scores. (Young children will need plenty of help. It's quite entertaining standing a toddler on the board and tilting them around like a giant joystick, though.)

There are a few niggling issues like body weight being measured in stones and pounds in the UK rather than kilograms unless you tell your Wii you've suddenly become German. Also, certain activities (notably the ski jump) are very short but it takes ages to start another shot.

More seriously, the game always seems to praise weight loss and chastise weight gain. It constantly has a go at Sprog1 for having put on a pound and makes him choose a likely cause for his failure. This is despite the game regularly informing him that a pound is within daily fluctuation levels. More than that, it knows both that he's eight and that he's a bit on the skinny side. We have to keep telling him the game is wrong. This is a major (and scary) flaw. It's worse when it lays into my light-as-a-feather three-year-old daughter. Be aware.

Even when it's not being plain evil, the sanctimonious animated balance board which gives you hints and tips is pretty irritating. It's as if that annoying paperclip from Microsoft Word knew your weight and wanted to make a big deal about it. Not good.

Bear in mind that the game requires plenty of room to step off the board in different directions while waving your arms about. Some of the activities also need space to lie down flat while still being able to see the screen. (That's more space than you may imagine. Go try watching your TV while doing press-ups - if it involves contortions, then you'll have to avoid some of the exercises.)

Despite these issues, Wii Fit is fun exercise. Just as a nicotine patch alone can't stop you smoking, however, Wii Fit won't make you thin on its own. You have to make it part of your life. Cunningly, the game encourages this by rewarding effort over achievement. Putting in time, rather than gaining high scores, unlocks new activities.

With a bit of willpower, Wii Fit a good way to get into the habit of regular exercise and it's certainly more interactive and enjoyable than a workout video. Playing it isn't as good as going to the gym but, since it doesn't involve leaving the house, it's much more likely to actually happen...

Conclusion: Wii Fit is to your body, what Brain Training is to your mind. It's not necessarily as scientific as it pretends but it's quite fun and it's got to be better for you than sitting slumped on the sofa watching trash.


She does this whenever we're in a shop and she sees Wii Fit for sale... Then she falls over.

Graphics: Pretty basic in places but they get the job done. The activities where your movements are mimicked on screen by your Mii (such as step aerobics and the balance game) are shown in a similar style to Wii Sports. The jogging course round a picturesque island is actually very pleasant.

Length: There are over 40 activities but some of them aren't much more than sitting very, very still. You could see everything in a few hours but that's not really the point. The idea is to get into a routine of a few minutes every day... forever.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), wii (vol.1)

 
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  Patapon (PSP)

Rated: 7+.

Story: You are the god of the Patapon - a two-dimensional race of stickmen vaguely resembling Mike from Monsters Inc. You must try to recapture the glory days of Patapon supremacy by using your divine powers of rhythm to lead them to a sacred relic at the edge of the world.

Gameplay: The Patapon move from left to right through the levels, taking on wildlife, monsters and opposing tribes. You must guide them towards the promised land by tapping out drumbeats on the shape buttons of the PSP in time with the beat. Different combinations of buttons issue different commands, such as advance, defend or attack. As the game progresses, you gain the ability to control various types of Patapon. Some have spears, some bows and some melee weapons. Different Patapon are more effective depending on which commands you give your army.

Between levels, it's possible to trade items acquired during combat for more troops and to select improved equipment and armour.

Save System: Manual save between levels only. The levels are pretty short, though.

Comments: Considering how many games I play, it's rather embarrassing how bad I am at them. I normally struggle through, though, quite often swapping perseverance and cunning for actual skill. By sheer force of will, I made it to the end of Tomb Raider III, which is probably a great deal better than most people managed, and, while ninja skills and twitch reflexes aren't my thing, if you want someone who's good at finding AI quirks or gameplay loopholes to exploit then I'm your man. Generally, I get by.

One genre that is pretty much beyond me, however, is rhythm action. I can't even clap along with a beat to save myself, so trying to press buttons in synch with music is harder than changing a nappy with one hand and feeding a toddler with the other. I just can't do it.

Despite this, I can usually have some fun with rhythm games by relying on the visual prompts. Which makes it a problem that Patapon doesn't really have any...

This is down to the game's relative complexity. It involves not only getting the timing right but choosing the bars of 'music' to command the Patapon in an appropriate fashion for their situation. Deciding what to do, remembering which sequence of buttons to tap and matching them to the beat is a lot of fast-paced multi-tasking. Other rhythm games give plenty of warning as a particular button press approaches but Patapon can't because it's up to the player which button to press. The only visual cue is that the border of the screen flashes with the beat. To the musically-challenged like myself, this is no help whatsoever.

I did OK to start with and, after a little practice, I even felt I was getting good at the game. Then, halfway through level five or so, the beat changed and I was totally unable to control my Patapon. At all. They just kept falling over and making sarcastic comments about how rubbish I was. The sad thing is, they were right. I had to give up.

This was a shame because the game has a refreshing visual style, decent sound and is quite fun. The length of time it takes to issue commands can be frustrating and there's a lot of replaying of levels required to build up resources but the idea of a rhythm-strategy game is unique. Whether the concept stretches for the whole game, I don't know... and I guess I never will.

Conclusion: A great and innovative game. Probably. If your percussion skills are limited, you might want to go with a rental rather than a purchase - there's almost certainly only so much being booed by stickmen that you can take.

Graphics Sharp, atmospheric and unusual. Like one of those silhouette puppet shows.

Length: A quick poll of people on the internet who have rhythm suggests Medium to Long.

Rating: 4/5 if you can clap to a beat and walk in a straight line at the same time. If this combination of activities is liable to cause you injury or misfortune, however, you might want to give the whole thing a miss.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), PSP

 
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  Dead Head Fred (PSP)

Rated: 15.

Story: You're Fred, a private investigator on a mission to bring down the mob boss (Pitt) who's ruining your home town. Except he kills you before the game even starts. You wake up to find that a mad scientist has brought you back to life with a brain in a jar for a head. Normally, this would make you a bit of a freak, but Pitt's nuclear power plant has turned much of the local populace into zombies, mutants, monsters and psychos. You set off to crack some heads and, er... borrow them...

Gameplay: Dead Head Fred is a third-person adventure with a heavy emphasis on hand-to-hand combat. You get to wander the town, fighting monsters, receiving missions from the inhabitants, unlocking new areas and locating extra heads with useful powers such as water-breathing and immunity to fire. You can swap between any of your accumulated heads quickly. Each is effective against different types of monster.

There's a linear main quest to defeat Pitt but doing other missions brings money, items, head upgrades, worms and fish. (Really.) You occasionally need a big wadge of cash to continue the main quest but most stuff just leads, one way or another, to obtaining extra healing potions.

Save System: The game can be saved at any time but progress is only recorded up until the last checkpoint. Checkpoints are usually extremely frequent, however.

Comments: This is one of those games.

One of those games that's always OK, sometimes good and frequently promises to be great... but never actually is. It's fun enough but somehow lacking. It should be an excellent cross between Ratchet & Clank, Zelda and Resident Evil. In reality, it's a weird mish-mash of beat-'em-up, platformer and adventure that never completely succeeds at anything.

At heart, there are some great ideas here. The head swapping should have produced clever puzzles. The role-playing elements should have added depth to the combat and jumping. Unfortunately, the level design is basic and much of the gameplay is merely walking from area to area, putting on the appropriate head and then hammering the attack buttons. The developers seem to have attempted to cover over this by adding in any number of superfluous features like working pinball machines and fishing mini-games but the game is too long and it's all just spread too thin.

This 'throw everything at it and hope it gets better' approach is exemplified by the vast numbers of side quests. Nearly all of them involve going somewhere, killing some monsters, collecting an item and then returning to the place you started. Since going through any doorway results in a pause, a short cut-scene and then a lengthy loading screen, traipsing all over the shop for the sake of a few dollars hardly seems worth it. There's really little need anyway. Once you've got the hang of the combat, there's seldom much call to use potions, so money is only required to buy essential disguises. It's possible to pick up sufficient for this without too much effort.

Still, there's just enough variation to maintain interest and the story is intriguing. The Film-Noir-with-zombies setting sometimes becomes a little too bizarre but the script contains a number of good jokes and keeps you persevering.

Even taking all its failings into account, Dead Head Fred is a decent game if you like third-person adventures and you've already worked your way through both PSP Grand Theft Autos, Daxter and Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters. Be prepared to be patient with it, though, and don't expect it to suddenly flower as time goes on - the first couple of hours are pretty representative of the whole game.

Conclusion: A great concept let down by lack-lustre level design.

Graphics: Competent. The game runs smoothly but many of the locations are quite bland and angular. It looks like an early PS2 game.

The loading screen will be burned into your brain by the end.

Length: Long.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.3), PSP

 
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  The Orange Box (Xbox 360)

Rated: 15.

Contents:

• Half-Life 2.
• Half-Life 2: Episode One.
• Half-Life 2: Episode Two.
• Portal.
• Team Fortress 2.

Story: In Half-Life 2, you are Gordon Freeman, a scientist turned hero, who must lead the resistance against an alien take-over of the Earth. You do this by shooting aliens, zombies, collaborators and giant robot things. There are various factions and there's plenty of backstory but nothing is ever explained, so essentially you end up shooting lots of things because your girlfriend tells you to.

In Portal, you play an unnamed test subject and must solve puzzles using an experimental gun capable of creating a wormhole between any two suitable flat surfaces. Fire it at a wall and then a ceiling, and you can step through a portal in the wall and fall out of one up high. Much fun ensues.

Gameplay: Half-Life 2 and its Episodes are pretty old-fashioned shooters. You wander about with a selection of weapons, viewing things from Gordon's perspective, walking over health packs and shooting almost anything which moves. There are vehicle sections and you frequently have companions but that's about it, apart from a few physics-based puzzles and some creepy sections involving darkness and zombies.

Portal isn't about shooting. It's about working out how to use the portals and momentum to reach seemingly inaccessible places. It's part puzzle-game, part adventure.

Team Fortress 2 is online multiplayer only. I suspect some shooting is involved...

Save System: Manual save at any time and auto-save at check points. Excellent.

Comments: I'm not a great fan of first-person shooters but I've still managed to play Halo 3, BioShock, Condemned, the 360 version of Far Cry and this compilation in the last year, along with various demos and doubtless something else I've forgotten. (Oh, yeah, The Darkness.) Every second game on the 360 seems to be a FPS. Each has something going for it: Halo has epic cinematics, BioShock has role-playing and adventure elements, Condemned has big sticks, Far Cry has open levels and sunshine and The Darkness has, er... evil minions with chainguns. Half-Life 2, though, is perhaps the most traditional of the recent releases. It's fundamentally Doom with better graphics and AI.

The way you're able to pick up objects and throw them using a gravity gun is entertaining but it's nowhere near as exciting as it was when the game originally came out on the PC. We've had plenty of games with telekinesis and realistic physics since then. More than that, the story and graphics aren't anything to write home about anymore, either.

The story-telling, in particular, is a mess. The world has gone to Hell in the years between the original Half-Life and this sequel but the intervening events are only ever obliquely alluded to. Characters aren't properly introduced and it's never entirely made clear exactly who you're fighting. Revelations almost always raise twice as many questions as they answer. Maybe Episode Three will explain everything but, having been kept in the dark for so long, I've ceased to care.

Half-Life 2 does have many great moments, however, from creeping round a zombie-filled town in the dark, to speeding along a river while being chased by a helicopter. The problem is that it just goes on too long. Many sections feel over-extended and the extra Episodes add to the problem - they're more of the same but not quite as good. Without a compelling story or jaw-dropping graphics, it's a struggle to keep going at times.

I prefer BioShock. And Far Cry. (And maybe Halo 3 as well.)

The real fun and innovation in the collection is reserved for Portal. It's a game that involves both thought and skill, is funny and tells an affecting story. It's a game that will make you grin for any number of reasons. It's a game that you should play. The only downside is that it's over in three hours. (Sure, there's a stack of challenges and bonus bits on top of that, but they're nowhere near as much fun as the main story.)

Conclusion: Half-Life 2 is a very competent shooter with some exceptional sections and plenty of variety. Unfortunately, it's very linear and has rather a lot of padding. Unless you really like running around shooting things, this will start wearing thin before the thirty hours are up.

However, even if you don't like shooters much, The Orange Box is an unmissable rental, simply because of Portal.

Graphics: Good but not amazing. In my head, Half-Life 2 looks just the same as it did when I played it on the original Xbox. Obviously, if I was able to see the two versions running side by side, the 360 effort would look smoother and have higher detail but I've just grown to expect that. Many of the locations are quite bland, so the greater resolution doesn't reveal much. There's no slow-down this time round, though.

The Episodes up the visual stakes somewhat but this is counteracted by the familiarity of the locations and enemies.

The graphics in Portal are purposefully functional and add to the atmosphere.

Length: Half-Life 2 is medium to long. The two Episodes are both short. Portal is very short.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: computer game review (vol.2), computer game review (vol.3), Xbox 360

 
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