Lips: Number One Hits

Overview

Title: Lips: Number One Hits

Release Date: October 23^rd 2009

Developer/Publisher: Microsoft

Genre: Music

Platform[s]: Xbox 360

Storyline

Lips: Number One Hits is a karaoke game which can be played on your own, with friends and family or over the net. Rack up as many points, medals and stars as you can by singing your heart out, the better you sing the higher you score. If you cant sing aim for stars or get medals by shaking your mic for percussion and putting on a great performance. The higher your score the higher you rank, the higher you rank the more trophies you get and the more achievements you unlock. Pretty simple but actually harder than it appears!

Gameplay

If you love singing and/or making a prat of yourself then Lips is the way to go! The original Lips was a good sturdy karaoke game but in my mind it was not as good as Sing Star for the Playstation. However this game was a lot better and much improved which I was not expecting, not only do you get 40 new songs but you also get a re-jigged version of the game. Suddenly everything is brighter, clearer, easier to understand and much better to play. You can see your rank changing as your score gets higher, you have more interesting things to do with your mic during the instrumental parts and now in the co-op mode you don’t have to fight over who gets to sing which part of the song as both people get equal chances. The menus are easier to scroll through as well although the marketplace does not seem to have improved too much and is still quite slow. Using your own music via ipod, PC etc is a lot quicker now though, and the videos they put with them are better and match the music in a stronger fashion. The music you have already downloaded for Lips 1 is still playable however if you want to sing a song from the Lips 1 disk you have to put that in to sing it then swap back to Lips Number 1 Hits to get your score and carry on which does get annoying after a while.

The game makes hours feel like minutes and is highly amusing to both sing yourself and to watch others having a go. It doesn’t seem to matter if you are a serious gamer or not, anyone can play this, although I am not sure I should have given my dad the mic as his rendition of Barbie Girl is currently giving me nightmares. Two pieces of advice though, you may think you are better after a few drinks but trust me you are not and secondly have a camera near by cause it often produces perfect footage for You Tube!

Graphics

The graphics are definitely better than the original game as everything is much clearer to understand. There are added incentives such as winning trophies for good performances and the different videos that are available in all of the modes are much more fun and interesting. I enjoy the fact that you can have the original video while you sing the song but it is also good to use the other modes as well.

Sound

The sound quality is excellent you have options available to adjust the volume of your voice as well as changing the songs so that a lot of the original background singing is cut out. The response from the mics is excellent as well as there is no obvious delays. The percussion is fun when you are doing it but when you get someone messing about in the background it can be annoying so just hide your controllers and/or spare mics!

Overall Score & Replayability

All in all I think this is excellent and a massive improvement on the first game which I was not expecting, the fact that the songs you have downloaded for the first work in this one and that you can download more which are available every weeks keep this game fresh. I find that often you don’t feel like playing it but once you start it is hard to stop. It is also quite fun if you want to play but your friends are not interested because if they are anything like mine you start playing on your own and then suddenly they do want to play after all.

Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space

Overview

Title: Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space

Release Date: 14^th October 2009

Developer/Publisher: Telltale Games

Genre: Action & Adventure, Puzzle & Trivia

Platform[s]: Xbox Live Arcade

Storyline

Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space is the follow up to Sam & Max Save The World, the undeniably well-received rehash of LucasArts’ classic point and click adventure series. Consisting of five brand new episodes centred around Alien abduction, Christmas and Easter, Beyond Time and Space carries on the classic Sam & Max tradition of zany humour and off the wall puzzles as everyone’s favourite Dog/Rabbit combination continue to carry out their esoteric brand of personalized criminal justice…

Gameplay

Fans of Save The World will be pleased to know that Telltale Games have left the control system well alone, meaning that the same sublime, easy to use interface is still all present and correct. This means moving your cursor (cleverly designed as Sam’s hand) over objects and NPC’ s and interacting with them via a push of the A button. Some objects are collectible (which then usually end up being combined with some other obscure item), while most are just there for Sam or Max to make some random (and regularly laugh out loud funny) comment on. When interacting with the other colourful characters in the S&M cast, a dialogue box containing a range of amusing and off the wall questions and statements will appear. Some are useless, while others must be selected in exactly the right sequence in order to progress, and it’s here that the game begins to slip up a little.

The meat and bones of any decent adventure game are its puzzles, and again, Sam & Max has them in spades – ranging from the obvious to the downright unbelievable, we guarantee you will spend many a frustrating hour trying every single combination of object; retracing your steps and scouring every room just in case you missed something beforehand. Anyone who played the first game will know the kind of off the wall humour and puzzles a Sam & Max adventure will bring, while new players may struggle getting to grips with the regularly too-big-for-it’s-boots dialogue and twisted reasoning behind a large portion of the brain teasers on offer. Obviously pre-empting this (and perhaps from listening to feedback from the first game), Telltale have dropped in a number of amusing min-games to keep you occupied and break up the clicking action while pondering your next move. From driving sections to Whack-A-Rat, these are a welcome and fun distraction when you’re totally stumped with the main game, but potentially risk conjuring up that tagged-on feeling in diehard Sam & Max aficionados.

Graphics

Bouncy and cartoony in style, Beyond Time and Space retains the stylized visuals running throughout the entire universe, capturing the comic book feel superbly. Lip-synching is a sore point, as not much effort has been put into making the cast “speak” their dialogue, but most of the time you won’t really mind as the whole thing just looks so damned beautiful.

Sound

As before, all the characters in Sam & Max are voiced wonderfully – and no expense has been spared in delivering another snappy set of scripts, which beggars belief as to how the writers manage to come up with this stuff in the first place, and just how much they’ve got stored in their locker for future releases. A minor complaint (if you must have one) is the quality of some of the speech is a bit “bitty” in places, sounding like a dodgy mp3 file played through a bad sound system.

Overall Score and Replayability

Fans of the series will love Beyond Time and Space, as it delivers the same insane puzzling action and characterization as before, and offers a good 20+ hours of gameplay across the five episodes. The fact that the overall package doesn’t bring anything new won’t make much of a difference to those fans, but in this age of accessible achievement points and all too easy gameplay, some people may just be put off by the 1600MSP price tag.

South Park: Let’s Go Tower Defense Play!

Overview

Title: South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play

Release Date: 7^th October 2009

Developer/Publisher: DoubleSix

Genre: Action & Adventure, Strategy & Simulation

Platform[s]: Xbox Live Arcade

Storyline

Gameplay

As the name suggests, Let’s Go Tower Defense Play is a Tower Defense game – but instead of being restricted to just building and upgrading towers (like Defense Grid, for instance), you also control one of the four main characters as well. This adds a slightly different dimension to the gameplay and opens up brand new strategy options, whereby you fight alongside your towers as well as racing between them to build more and upgrade the ones you already have. Coins are dropped when you kill certain enemies, and these are the resources you use to build and strengthen your defenses. Towers fire a range of different projectiles, from Baseballs to Lasers, and later on in the game a range of enemy specific towers become available, changing your strategies even more.

Each of the four main characters on offer fire a range of snowballs (Cartman’s snowballs are slower but more effective, while Stan sacrifices strength for a higher rate of fire, for instance), and each has their own special ability which can be triggered when enough enemies have been killed. Cartman can clear the screen, Smart Bomb like, while Kyle increases everyone’s rate of fire and strengthens their attacks.  Flicking between the characters is easy, with a simple tap of RB moving to the next character inline. This is a handy mechanic, as you can move your teammates around the screen and once placed, they will not move but attack any enemies that come near them – and with the sheer number of enemies on screen at any one time your allies position can be crucial. If an enemy slips past your defense, then they damage the town – and once the town’s health drops to zero (represented by a bar in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen) it’s Game Over.

Graphics

LGTDP is absolutely spot on and true to the series in look and feel, with clearly the same animation techniques used in the TV shows employed here – perhaps even harking back to the early (slightly better, in our opinion) days in places. The range of enemies on offer can be daunting, and with such a rich universe to draw on they are varied and many. Death animations are suitably gory, with heads and body parts flying all over the place in spectacularly bloody style, with not a hint of slow down to be seen at all. All your favourite South Park locations are here as well, from Stan’s front yard to the School playground and so on. It all adds up to a visual feast for the eyes that should get the fanboys and girls salivating, although those expecting animated cut scenes will be disappointed, as levels are introduced with a series of still, comic book-style panels with voiceovers instead.

Sound

Despite the lack of the full South Park theme tune, 99% of the time the action on screen is so hectic that it’s hard to notice the incidental music that skips along happily in the background to each level. As the game was developed in conjunction with South Park Studios all your favourite characters are voiced as they are in the series, and each has an amusing repertoire of comments depending on the situation they’re in. Although it doesn’t play a big part in the game, there are a few swears (usually from Cartman) which parents should be aware of before letting their kids get involved in the action. The little bits of waffle between levels is also pretty amusing, with Cartman providing most of the laughs as usual.

Overall Score and Replayability

To start with, Let’s Go Tower Defense Play is great fun as you build and upgrade your towers and pelt enemies with your team mates, all wrapped up with the trademark South Park humour and stylized animation. Things do get very boring very quickly, as games invariably degenerate into serious A button abuse as you hammer snowballs at your enemies, and unless your preparation is spot on before the match starts the amount of bad guys that slip past you and damage your town is frustrating, to say the least. There are 15 playable characters to unlock as you progress, as well as short video clips and other bits and bobs that become available when you earn medals and complete challenges, but even fans of the series will find working their way through the game to unlock them all hard going.

Halo 3: O.D.S.T

Overview

Title: Halo 3: O.D.S.T

Release Date: October 22^nd

Developer/Publisher: Bungie / Microsoft

Genre: First Person Shooter (FPS)

Platform[s]: Xbox 360

Storyline

In a break from the trend of Halo titles you play a Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST) and you specialise in situations too extreme for the average marine.  We begin the game on-board a star ship just outside of Earth’s atmosphere preparing to drop into action to battle with the Covenant as they invade the city of New Mombasa, located in Africa some years from now.  What’s different from other Halo titles is you are Human, no more dual wielding weapons, no more jumping into the sky and more importantly no more health regeneration.  Health is available throughout the game in the form of medical dispensers located throughout the city but they are few and far between so instead of the traditional run and gun method that you are used to with previous titles, you will find yourself taking on more of a stealthy approach.

Now its a pretty hard task summing up the storyline without giving too much away, basically you will have to find your way throughout the city finding clues which provoke flashbacks of your team mates as they were scattered throughout New Mombasa after the drop, these flashbacks however are controlled by you.

Gameplay

As mentioned before the game plays a little different because you are human and you can get hurt very easily, you will find yourself getting killed and returning to check points time after time again!  Other than that the games plays surprisingly well.  I am not a Halo fan and I probably will never be one, I am however impressed by the subtle changes to the system that make the game play fairly differently to any title I’ve touched before from the Halo universe.

From the start I found myself getting nervous before turning every corner or spending ages calculating my route through the city to find my objective, its not that I’m scared of being ambushed by the Covenant, its more to do with the fact that I’m probably going to get my arse kicked into oblivion by the weakest of enemies, this coupled with sparse ammo and health makes ODST different to most games I play, it’s very intense at the best of times and requires a fair amount of planning and a lot of dying.

Graphics

Only minor tweaks have been made to the engine since the release of Halo 3 but the saying goes “If it’s not broke then why fix it?” and I think Bungie have certainly proved this with both Halo 3 and ODST.  Although at times you sit there and think £40 is a lot for something that was originally planned as an expansion to Halo 3 you can see that it is indeed well worth the money when you first sit down and play this title.  One of the new features implemented is a special visor that on the ODST’s have, this highlight enemies as red, friendly’s as green and it also has a neat night vision ability.  The visor also highlights objects and areas of interest, whether this be a health dispenser, a flashback item or a collectible that unlocks audio clips from the initial invasion of New Mombasa which include clues to what actually happened.

Sound

Like typical Halo games the game includes an excellent classical score which reflects the mood and sombre of the game, the only irritating thing with the music is, unlike other games, the score doesn’t change in battle scenarios, the music will stay intense even after you have cleared an area of Covenant so it leaves you with the feeling there are more bad ass aliens lurking around every corner that you turn.  As a games reviewer I try to scrutinise every aspect of the game and previously I used to be a sound designer so obviously if there was a fault I would find it, that being said the only fault I could find is with the dramatisation of the classical backdrop of music.  The fire fights are intense and the whole surround sound is balanced perfectly!  I used both a Turtle Beach headset and my Gaming Chair to test the sound and I found both delivered excellent, high quality effects that your grandmother would even approve of, even if shes deaf.

Overall Score & Replayability

Overall the game consists of a fairly short campaign mode that can be completed in around 4-6 hours but with higher difficulty settings and the use of co-op you could probably find yourself playing the campaign several times over.  Firefight mode (Think ‘Horde’ from Gears but with Covenant) will probably keep you playing this game for the foreseeable future with a wide range of levels and of course skulls!  If your a legendary Halo fan then your collection will not be complete without this title but for the average gamer you probably would play this a few times and trade it in, that being said the game should be on everyone’s want list even if your not a fan of the Halo IP.

Forza Motorsport 3

Overview

Title: Forza Motorsport 3

Release Date: October 22^nd – October 27^th 2009

Developer/Publisher: Turn 10/Microsoft Game Studios

Genre: Racing

Platform[s]: Xbox 360

Storyline

Forza Motorsport needs no introduction. Microsoft’s flagship racing simulation has been the Xbox answer to Gran Turismo since the first installment hit the original console back in 2005. Boasting a large number of licensed cars and realistic damage modeling, Turn 10 honed the experience in it’s first 360 outing with Forza 2, offering an increased number of vehicles, more impressive physics and the much loved customization section where petrol heads could tune their vehicles to within an inch of their lives, and artists could create amazing paint jobs and sell them to the Xbox Live community. Now, with Forza Motorsport 3 they have created perhaps the definitive current-gen driving experience, hoping to attract everyone from six year olds to seasoned petrol heads and realize their vision of “Car Lovers into Gamers, and Gamers into Car Lovers”.

Gameplay

At first glance, Forza Motorsport 3’s gameplay has most of the same features as most other racers out there, until you delve beneath the surface and dig up one of the deepest and most rewarding console racing experiences known to man. Starting with the assists, newcomers and seasoned pros alike can tailor the gameplay to suit their ability. From the standard Green Line that guides you around each track to the assisted braking system, you can tweak the experience to suit your driving style, turning options on and off as you see fit. Turn 10 actively encourage you to switch these assists off by rewarding you more points when you finish a race (which I bet you cannot get in video poker online). Completing a race earns you Experience Points, leveling you up and raising your rep, unlocking further races, discounts on bigger and better parts for your chosen beast(s) and more cars for you to buy, trade, paint and tune.

Spread over two discs, there are well over 400 cars for you to choose from – the 1984 Golf GTI nestles lovingly next to the Bugatti Veryon, alongside classics like the Ferrari Dino 246 GT and the 1961 R-Type Jaguar. Each and every one of them drives differently, affected by your upgrade options and how you wish to tune each vehicle. Tuning options range from tyre pressure to how much down force is applied to bumpers and tails – and again, you can either tweak them to within an inch of their life or leave them well alone, with neither decision costing you any ounce of enjoyment. Upgrades come in over 75 forms, from engine mods to cosmetic adjustments (such as bodykits and the like) and you can choose to install these manually or let the computer optimize your vehicle for you before you start a new race. Again, depending on your level of interest in how the car performs, you can bring metadata up on screen that shows you how each facet of your vehicle is holding up during a race – tyre temperature and telemetry is all there, should you wish to view it, and if a particular car feature isn’t doing it’s job you can go back and tune it until it does (or gets worse, depending on your level of understanding of these sorts of things).

Racing is a joy, as improved opponent AI now reacts completely differently to any other racer out there (read our Dan Greenawalt interview for a further insight) – meaning that the other drivers on the road don’t stick to the race line and jostle like bumper cars, the aggressive drivers now actively try and shut you down if you get all up in their grill (so to speak) while timid drivers will back right off and avoid you like the plague. Added to this is the rewind feature – something seen recently in DiRT2 – where, if you hit a corner too fast and stack it, you can rewind the action back and cruise smoothly around the corner without so much as an ounce of drift. However, should you wish to use the feature to ram your AI opponents more than once in the same place, they will only let you get away with it once or twice, before swerving out of your way on the 3^rd rewind/ramming attempt.

The game will also automatically configure depending on the vehicles you have in your garage, meaning that as you buy, sell and earn cars you will have new races offered up to you. So should you prefer your American muscle cars to your German five-door hatchbacks, the game will feel tailored to suit your needs, and it’s little features like this that show Turn 10 has not only paid attention to the Forza community’s feedback, but are looking to raise the bar on the racing games in general.

Online and the Forza community has always played a big part in the franchise (with particularly talented members now hired onto the Turn 10 staff), and Forza 3 is no different, with improved Multiplayer options where you can tailor a race to whatever petrol-based fetish you require and the all new storefront and auction house firmly in place for online trading when the game launches.

Graphics

Forza 3 is gorgeous. Each of the 200 tracks have been lovingly crafted and, in most cases, recreated to the exact specification of their real-life counterpart. With over 60 gigs of data collected on each (including road surface changes, camber imperfections etc), the pit lanes, trees, billboards and viewing areas are all exactly where they should be. The cars themselves have been lovingly recreated, with cockpit view available in all of them (where even your rev counter and speedometer look and react differently) – as well as realistic damage modeling, with scrapes and dents appearing as and when you nudge an opponent or tyre wall. Some of the vistas in the tracks are so beautiful that, on first play through, we ended up crashing on more than one occasion after being distracted by their beauty.

Tyre deformation is a big part of this new installment, as not only can you see your tyres bending in response to the different terrain you dive on (which, if you have a large screen television set, looks amazing) it also affects your driving.

The only graphical downside are the spectators, as seems to be the case with sports that attract hundreds of different people in real life, developers never really seem to be able to nail the diversity of a crowd of people watching a race, reacting differently, for most of them appear to look the same, and have the same “waving arms in the air at random points” animations. This is a very minor quibble however, and 99.9% of the time we guarantee you won’t notice.

Sound

According to Dan Greenawalt, Turn 10 tried to realistically sample as many of the cars as they could – giving the game an overall feel of authenticity and adding to the experience of actually driving these vehicles – and for those they couldn’t, they consulted with as many companies as possible to tweak sounds they already had to ensure they got as close as possible, and it shows. Each car sounds unique and as you’d expect it to, and skids and crashes all sound suitably chunky. There are a few in-game licensed tracks to help get the adrenaline pumping during a race, with Pendulum proving a particular favourite in the VGR/Xboxer360 clubhouse.

Overall Score and Replayability

Forza Motorsport 3 is a triumph. Turn 10 have taken one of the best racing sims out there and given it a fresh lick of paint and sheen that most gamers didn’t think would be possible, but not only that, they’ve managed to craft a game that can be as arcade or as simulation as you want it, without ever compromising on quality and enjoyment. The features we’ve spoken about in this review don’t even come close to scraping the surface of what’s available in game, and we guarantee you’ll have a hell of a lot fun finding them all out just like your journey for the ever sought best online casino bonus. We simply urge you to rush out and purchase it as soon as you can, because you will find not better racer on Microsoft’s grey box. Win.

King of Fighters XII

Overview

Title: The King OF Fighters XII

Release Date: 25^th of September 2009

Developer/Publisher: SNK/Ignition

Genre: Beat’em Up

Platform[s]: Xbox 360 / PS3

Storyline

Anyone who has played a The King of Fighters game (KoF) will know that  a story mode included in the game and for a beat’em up is a great achievement. Unfortunately this time round there is no story mode at all. However there is something that does come close and that is the arcade mode which consists of 5 time trial fights of 3 v 3 with very short cut scenes – One with a women behind a desk explaining the rules and another of a news report talking about the excitement of the final rounds.

There’s no ending for any characters at all so many fans will find themselves very disappointed by this factor. I myself assumed there would be a lot more and in today’s standard a game with no story will always make you feel like you’ve been short changed.

Gameplay

With the lack of any story mode, KoF XII needed to add extra depth to the combat while still being balanced, to be able to redeem itself in my eyes. Though many games have struggled to do this, the KoF series has mastered the 3v3 battles, rather then 1v1 like standard beat’em ups. This means individuals have to master all three of their characters, which certainly adds more to the gameplay.

I felt as though the fighters themselves needed a little bit more fine tuning with their available attacks and even in attack damage. There does, however, seem to be a very good balance of differing styles, so not everyone will have the same teams online.

Players have 22 characters, which a lot of people would think is a big roster, however true KoF fans will know the series tends to have well over 40+ characters, so this is a big cut from what normally is seen in KoF games. Some of the bigger names  missing include,  Rugal, Geese, Orochi and even Mai (which is a massive fan favourite). They seem to have cut the character list to focus more on the feel of the game. With this being the first High Definition version of a KoF game the combats great and the gameplay really is one of the best for a beat’em ups.

One the down sides is the fact that there are only 6 levels in total, one of (which is used twice). This again is not what fans are use to or expect and will leave a lot of people wondering what they are getting for their money.

KoF XII has no real single-player aspects at all, so you’ll find yourself finishing arcade mode in less then 10 minutes. The achievements are quite easy to beat, some are achievable in less then 8 minutes, 6 minutes and even 3mins 30 seconds – It goes without saying that the arcade mode is very short the only reason you’ll replay it is just for the achievements.

There are no boss battles in KoFXII, and the fans of the series will feel this should have been including into the game as it has always been a big aspect of the series. There aren’t any unlockables or any secret characters either, which kills any replayability for the offline aspects of the game.

Though there’s a lot of reasons why this game lets down to the fans of the series, KoFXII certainly isn’t a bad beat’em up! In fact it’s very enjoyable when you are playing with friends or even just online. While playing offline you can pick  a “Simple” command mode once characters have been chosen, this mode means all you have to do is press a direction and then a button to pull off a special move, rather than a combination of various different button moves. This is great for beginners and helps to pull your mate up to your standard even if they haven’t played a KoF game before. Be warned though, you can’t use this online so if you’re going online.

Two new combat  mechanics in KoFXII “are guard attack” and “critical counter”. Guard attacks are attacks which act like parry moves and counters with an attack knocking your enemy to the floor. Whereas critical counters are a gauge under your life bar that fills as you take damage and deal damage. Once full it will automatically activate and start to lower and in this time you have to counter your opponent with a hard punch or kick to activate critical counter, once pulled off this will temporarily immobilise your opponent, activating a close up and a green like circle surrounds you, now you’ll be able to deal normal attacks, special moves and even super moves as a barrage of attacks  acting like a powerful  combo and dealing massive damage.

The critical counter mechanic is great  and the advantage of dealing massive damage means experts are going to try pull these off but the one good thing is that a beginner may also turn the table around on them.

Though critical counter is a great feature I feel that the guard attack feature is a little bit of a waste and brings a bit of a problem to the combat, as guard attack is very easy to pull off and yet players gain such an advantage it always feels as there’s a low risk to pulling them off while gaining a massive advantage as your enemy is knocked down, so I can see them being used a lot by experienced players.

The online fighting in KoFXII is quite a mixed bag, in my experience the game runs smoothly sometimes while others will lag so bad it’s unplayable. Online game mode consists of:

• Arcade Mode -  Gain battle points rankings, through fighting other individuals.
• Ranked Mode -   Pairs you against someone who has the same TrueSkill ranking.
• Player Mode – Where you can take on anyone without the fear of losing ranking points.

Arcade mode and player mode matches consist of rooms were up to 8 individuals can wait to take on the winner or loser (depending on room settings) with the winner staying on, this mode is great for a large group of friends online but otherwise it can feel like a big wait for a match that could  lag out and become unplayable. Room settings can be changed so that players can complete in either 1 v 1 or 3 v 3. In 3 v 3 players can either set them to control every player or have another individual control the other guys so therefore making it 3 v 3 players, but you’ll have to wait for your team mate to be defeated before you join the match. It’s a good feature and once the online lag is sorted it could be the games saving grace, lets just hope it’s patched soon. Ranked matches can only be played 3 v 3 but the player has to control all three of there characters, the grade system is a letter system and defeating more players online will improve your ranking from F all the way to A, then you continue till you reach the top rank of SSS.

Though there is a lot of things that should have been included, the combat is still very good and once you play online  the matches become very technical and very quick as well, so individuals wont feel as though it a complete let down to the series as the core factors in a beat’em up is the combat and are pulled off very well.

Graphics

KoF XII is the first KoF game in the series to be put into full HD and with it still being a 2D fighter instead of a 3d fighter (like most have done) the graphics were always going to be an aspect the game had to excel in. The choice of manga-like art style is very fitting to the game and players wont be disappointed. The backgrounds too are amazing and have fantastic detail!

It’s great that they have reworked some of the character model, the shades and shadowing on the characters  is very impressive and wont disappoint fans. The fact that they’ve reworked the look as well as characters adds an extra quality to the graphics. Though the graphics are really good there are two big factors that really annoy me – The first being the outline of the characters, they look good when the camera doesn’t zoom in but once it does the characters outline becomes very blurred and pixelated. The second is the explosions during attacks, they look very outdated and even “last gen” games had better explosion graphics.

Sound

The sounds of KoF XII are great and really add intensity to the fighting. It is a shame that the characters don’t talk, just grunt, but it is forgiveable in a fighting game. The background music and sounds are also very impressive everything just seems to fits so well together, it is one aspect of the game they’ve really done justice with.

Overall Score & Replayability

I have played other games in the KoF series, so when I was asked to review Kingdom of Fighters XII, I was really looking forward to it. However I hold a real mix of feelings towards the latest in the series -  The combat is great and the simple command feature will help keep competition alive, with friends that are new to the series, but on the other hand the fact there’s no story mode or any real single player aspect makes you feel like if doesn’t deserve the full price tag its given. I can’t help but feel that anyone without the internet is really going to miss out on the good aspects of the game, and just feel resentment for buying KoF XII, as the arcade mode can be done in around 10 minutes the first time round, it is such a waste they’ve took out story mode.

The online modes are what’s going to keep the game from a really bad set of reviews but as things stand at the minute with my experience the game needs patching as the lag issues make the game unplayable and you never know when its going to happen as lag affected about 3 in every 10 games I played, but when it works it works great I cant deny that.

My recommendations is that wait until it drops in price as there is no way the game deserves the full retail prices it given and if you don’t have the internet stay away all together unless your a big fan of the series and play with friends very regularly you’ll never play the game enough to get value for your money and with many great beat’em up’s already I can see this being a big hit like some of the games in the series have been its a a shame it just feels a little rushed.

Wolfenstein

Overview

 

Title: Wolfenstein

Release Date:18th August 2009 (NA), 19th August 2009 (AU), 20th August 2009 (EU)

Developer/Publisher: Raven Software, id Software, Pi Studios & Endrant Studios / Activision

Genre: First Person Shooter

Platform[s]: Microsoft Windows (PC), Xbox 360, Playstation 3

Storyline

 

The SS Paranormal Division (based loosely on the Ahnenerbe) are back in full swing and so are you Agent Blazkowicz (aka B.J). You’ve conquered Return to Castle Wolfenstein, so now it is time to take control of your sequel, Wolfenstein, and stop those damned Nazis and their supernatural ways….again.

The tale begins when you come to hold a special medallion of great unusual power. You are sent deep undercover to the town of Isenstadt to learn more about what you discovered. Your cover is quickly blown and you soon release that the town has been overrun by your German foe who are intent on obtaining powerful crystals that are needed to access the “Black Sun”. Thankfully you have allies in many shapes and forms in Wolfenstein; the Kreisau Circle, a group of resistance fighters who want the Nazis out of Isenstadt; the Golden Dawn, a collection of scholars who study the occult and hand their knowledge of the “Black Sun” and the “Veil” over to you; the Black Market, a self-explanatory band who are useful when you need to purchase upgrades and ammo.

It is up to you, Agent B.J, to help free fictional German town of Isenstadt from the clutches of the Nazis, their inhuman creations, and to put an end the madness, once and for all.

Gameplay

 

Single-player

Wolfenstein is a very smooth first-person shooter. At lot of FPS games can feel quite stunted in movement and feel very “sluggish”, but like the top games of out shooting generation (name Call of Duty), Wolfenstein is very much up there. You can freely explore the town of Isenstadt through scaling walls, jumping across rooftops, exploring the sewers, sneaking through houses or just walking the streets with your gun at the ready.

Isenstadt is very much the main area of the game. As you progress through the story you are loaded onto vehicles and cast off (through the powers of a loading screen) to a variety of locations such as a dig site, a church, a hospital, a farm, the SS Headquarters, a Paranormal base, a General’s home, an airfield and a large Zeppelin. All of which are very linear-based and generally “Get from Point A to Point B to achieve Objective X”.

Wolfenstein offers up an arsenal of eight weapons, five of which you will find in the history books, three of which are supernatural and, unfortunately, non-existent in the real world. The history-book weapons include an MP40, an MP43, the Kar98k (my personal fave), a Panzershreck and the Flammenwerfer. The fictional weapons include a Particle Cannon, a kick-arse Tesla Gun and the Leichenfaust 44 – the ultimate weapon of destruction and mayhem.

Aside from your array of weaponry, you also hold the Thule Medallion. Through this you can enter the Veil, a barrier between our dimension and the elusive “Black Sun” dimension that your Nazi adversaries want to master so badly. With this you are given four new abilities, which unlock as you progress throughout the game and that can be upgraded through collecting material that I will explain later and heading to the Black Market to part with your hard-earned gold.

Veil Sight – The ability to see hidden pathways, doorways and secret treasures. Once upgraded you can also see through walls.

Mire - A very useful skill that allowed you to slow down time.

Shield - Very handy to have when up against a wave of bullets. Once upgraded those bullets will bounce back.

Empower - This talent gives you a significant increase in the damage caused by your weapons.

All of the above will become very important to you once you realise just the type of enemy you are up against as you move through Wolfenstein. Gone are the days of taken on just human soldiers, you are now facing a powerful army of specialised foe. There are assassins, who are invisible; scribes. who can shield themselves and non-supernatural soldiers, and large brutes wielding powerful weapons (which you can pick up upon killing them).

The pack-rats of the gaming world will love the collecting aspect of Wolfenstein. Throughout Isenstadt and the various other locations you must conquer, there will be Intel, Gold and Tomes of Power for you to find. Gold is an obvious collectable and without it you would not be able to upgrade your weapons/powers and purchase ammo when needed. Intel provides you an interesting background to the story, plus weapon unlocks. Tomes of Power unlock Veil upgrades.

Multiplayer

Eight multiplayer maps are offered up with three modes for you to choose from.

Objective - You have an attacking team and a defending team. The one on the offensive has to achieve certain objectives to win.

Stopwatch - Both sides take turns in trying to complete the listed objectives, the team that does it in the least amount of time wins.

Team Deathmatch -  You should all know this one by now. Team A versus Team B – Have at it!

There are three classes available, the Soldier, the Medic and the Engineer. Each class has a specific role to fill, such as the Engineer who can rig/disarms bombs. Each class also have their own Veil Powers, for example the Medic has the “Healing Aura”, which would replace “Mire” which is found in the single-player. Your weapons and Veil Powers can be upgraded the more you play the MP side of Wolfenstein and the more experience you earn (which is converted into money).

As for playing as a Nazi or a Resistance Fighter? It does not really matter as there are no noticeable differences between the two sides, which is very disappointing to say the least. Each side has the same weapons and the same classes. I would be a lot more excited if the developers decided to mix things up a little and give each side something unique.

Graphics

 

The single-player graphics are very much on par with what we picky gamers demand from our games these days. I have to admit I was not expecting this, but from the moment I had control of Agent B.J, I was very impressed. Nothing is jagged or pixelated, running water looks very realistic and even affects your vision if you stand underneath a stream of it. The physics are top-notch in the SP side of the game and really add to how impressive this game is.

Wolfenstein’s environment has great attention to detail and you really feel as though you are in a war torn German town. From the multitude of propaganda posters through the town to destroyed tanks scattered throughout, you can tell that the developers really put effort into creating a believable world.

There is a downside to the pretty eye-candy. I found that the game could be a tad laggy at times, even the loading screen would lag ever so slightly on occasion. This is easily overcome however by downloading the game to your hard drive. I had no lag issues with the single-player of Wolfenstein, and it’s purdy graphics, once I’d it was on my 360’s hard drive. I cannot comment on the PC/PS3 versions of the game.

Having read the above praise, you may be saddened to hear that the amazing graphics of Wolfenstein do not carry over to the multiplayer. The quality drops significantly and your world suddenly becomes very blurred and quite choppy. Unfortunately we are not going to see an improvement in the look and feel of the multi-player as the team behind it was quickly laid off soon after it’s release.

Audio

 

I am always very nervous when it comes to voice acting in games as it can be the make or break for a title. Thankfully the voice actors hired did good and Wolfenstein has successfully jumped a difficult hurdle. You have a mixture of accents throughout the game – American, German (speaking German & speaking English) and Russian. All NPCs will talk back to you, when you are in a group there will be commands shouted out to you and even the Intel you pick up has a voice over, which was a nice surprise and adds a nice element to the game.

As for the musical score? There is nothing noteworthy about the music of Wolfenstein, which is a shame. I really enjoy games which have a soundtrack that will create anger, instil fear into you and get your heart racing. Although I love the work of Bill Brown, of Rainbow Six and CSI: New York fame, there is a lack of atmosphere from the music. It can really get lost in the background and is very unnoticeable.

Overall & Replayability

 

I have to admit, I did not get my hopes up with Wolfenstein, but I was pleasantly surprised and will be the first to say that it is a very enjoyable game. The single-player is sexy, smooth and perfect for any FPS fan looking for a solid game to get their teeth into.

Wolfenstein was severely let down by it’s lack of attention to the multi-player aspect, but all it needed to do was look at any Call of Duty review to realise that multi-player is extremely important nowadays.

 

As for the achievements/trophies? They are pretty typical of the latest FPS games – Kill W amount of people using X weapon or in Y fashion, complete campaign in Z mode, and so on and so forth. The achievements seem split 50/50 between the single player campaign mode and the online multiplayer.

In conclusion, a very solid single-player FPS game which I would recommend to any FPS fan (or lover of the Wolfenstein series), but do not purchase if you are looking for a game to jump online with.

Wet

Overview

Title: Wet
Release Date: 15^th September 2009 (NA) / 18^th September 2009 (EU)
Developer/Publisher: Artificial Mind + Movement/Bethesda Softworks
Genre: Action & Adventure, Shooter
Platform[s]: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

Storyline

Tarantino meets Tomb Raider in this highly stylized third person action adventure title, with the player taking on the mantle of vicious gun for hire Rubi Malone. Sent on a globe-trotting mission to retrieve crime boss Mr Ackers’ son, Rubi gets inevitably double crossed and sets about exacting revenge in spectacularly bloody fashion…

Gameplay

Wet’s gameplay is fun, fast, frantic and varied – based around gun and sword attacks which can be chained together with devastating effect, QTE’s, on-rails sections and the super-stylish “Rage” mode (which we like lots). Harking back to the days of Max Payne, bullet time is triggered automatically when Rubi fires off a shot during a jump or some kind of Tomb Raider-esque acrobatic lunacy (of which there is a fair bit), giving you more time to take out your enemies, but also granting you the ability to target two enemies at once. One is automatically locked onto for you, while you’re free to move the left stick around at will to take out any of your other nearby enemies. It takes a while to get used to, but with Rubi’s full 360 target capabilities it’s a hell of a lot of fun once you master it, and you’ll soon be swinging on poles, sliding down ladders and wall-running whilst cracking off head shots with the best of them.

The majority of your play time will be spent moving around each level, disposing of your enemies before entering a main “arena” style section which sees you shutting off enemy entry points and collecting score multipliers. These parts offer up more acrobatic combo opportunities than usual, and we’re sure some gamers will have great fun learning the quickest and most stylish route around as you leap from wall to ledge to pole and back again. At the end of each level you’re offered a score based on your performance (how quickly and stylishly you completed the level, and how many kills you successfully chained together), which is then translated into RPG style experience points that you can spend on upgrading Rubi’s skills, abilities and weapons strength.

Despite the main levels being largely linear and rather samey, Artificial Mind + Movement have done a great job of breaking up the monotony by throwing in some cracking on-rails levels, one of which sees Rubi leaping from car to car whilst capping bad guys in a Matrix style freeway chase, as you would have seen if you’ve downloaded the demo currently available on Xbox Live. One level in particular is especially inspired (we won’t spoil it by telling you why), completely ruined by the most frustrating collision detection and trial and error gameplay we’ve seen for quite some time.

Finally, Rubi’s “Rage” mode: only available during pre-set parts of the game (with seemingly no attachment to the main story), it echoes the Crazy 88 fight in Kill Bill, with the screen taking on a cartoon-esque black and red hue. Using Rubi’s heightened senses you have to clear the area as quickly as possible, with points accrued for large amounts of kills chained together. It’s a wonderfully stylish idea executed marvelously – although we’re deducting points for the fact that you can’t earn the right to trigger the mode once a set amount of kills are achieved during the main game, for instance.

Graphics

Drawing on Tarantino and Rodriguez’s Grindhouse movies as inspiration, Wet mimics the grainy, scratchy camera style they made famous brilliantly – coupled with the over the top action, constant blood spatter and stylized characters it gives the whole game a cult 70’s action flick feel which really makes the game stand out from the pack. The camera imperfections can be switched off however, which does make some of the poorer graphics stand out – for instance, some of the incidental characters are badly detailed and look china-dollish next to Rubi, Ackers and crew. The environments are varied and interesting to look at and (despite the mediocrity of the opening levels) fit in well with the rest of Rubi’s universe.

The characters are well animated, and although the hack and slash action isn’t quite up to Afro Samurai’s limb-removing standards, the blood spatter is satisfying and some of the cutscenes are particularly wince-inducing.

Sound

Boasting the vocal talents of Eliza Dushku (Buffy The Vampire Slayer), Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) and Alan Cumming (X-Men 2), a sleazy rockabilly soundtrack to rival Dusk ‘til Dawn and some of the snappiest in-game dialogue we’ve ever heard (penned by Duppy “24” Demetrius), Wet sounds amazing – and we guarantee you’ll be humming “Insane” by The Arkhams for days to come.

Overall Score and Replayability

Wet is a rare game, one that dares to be different and despite the odd graphical glitch here and there and linear and repetitive levels it manages to pull off enough quick fire, enjoyable gameplay a lot of titles seem to be lacking these days to warrant a spot in your “to play” pile indefinitely. With a couple of unlockable challenge modes once the main game is completed, a heap of toy monkeys to find in game and the chance to better your previous scores on the arenas Wet has definitely got a lot to offer.

DiRT 2

Overview

Title: Colin McRae DiRT 2

Release Date: 8th-11th September 2009 (Consoles Wordwide) / December 2009 (PC version)

Developer/Publisher: Codemasters / Codemasters

Genre: Racing

Platform[s]: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC, Nintendo DS & PSP

Storyline

Colin McRae is arguably the best Rally driver to ever grace the world of racing and that is still true today, even after the tragic events that took place 2 years ago in which Colin McRae and his son died in a helicopter crash, which left a huge hole in everyone’s hearts. Since then there has been a lot of drama online about whether or not Codemasters should be sanctioned to create another Colin McRae title, a series that has been going strong for over 10 years and is seen as the definitive rally driving game. Codemasters were granted permission from the McRae estate to go and create a new title based on the DiRT IP and here we are today with a fantastic title that Colin would surely be proud of if he was still with us.

DiRT 2 introduces Rally X Games, a sport in which Colin McRae was heavily involved with after leaving the WRC (World Rally Championship) and it brings a fresh, definitive look at rallying and introduces part off-road and part on-road rally driving. You see yourself travelling the world taking on Rally X Games, Rallying, Baja and many more.

Gameplay

A lot of improvement has gone into DiRT 2 after the feedback from the masses after DiRT, and playing this game reminds myself a lot of playing GRID. Whether your a seasoned racing game fanatic or a casual Sunday driver you are going to fail when you start, (unless of course your name is often featured on the WRC leaderboards) and you will probably find it slightly daunting, but after a few failed races you will learn the in’s and out’s of each car you get to drive in the tournaments and races. Each car does drive differently from the next so you may find yourself changing cars after failed races, in fact I probably kept swapping my cars for the first 2 hours of playing the game just to get accustomed to the style of each vehicle and learning the drive styles that match races and tracks.

As mentioned before you get to visit tracks and race types all over the world, for instance London specialises in Rally X Games where as Croatia will see race in Rally’s. At first I felt a little overwhelmed by the different types of races but that quickly settled down as I learnt the tracks and felt comfortable with the cars.

Overall the game feels a lot like GRID and the original DiRT and it certainly accommodates new drivers with a difficulty system, there is a disadvantage to playing the game on easier levels and this is the amount of XP that you earn after completing races, but the difficulty can be adjusted before each race so as you get better at the game you can slide the difficulty up slightly to reflect your skill level. The XP that you earn levels you up unlocking a wide range of items such as liveries, cars and dashboard toys. Earning XP also unlocks new regions and new races to visit and special events such as Rally X Games, World Tours and a special Colin McRae challenge which upon completion unlocks a special tribute video of Colin McRae which will turn the hardest most daring people into a big pile of tears.

Graphics

“Does it really get any better than this?” a question I asked myself numerous times while playing DiRT 2, the scenery, the tracks even the advertising is extremely vivid and certainly leaves an imprint on your mind that will last for quite sometime. The whole design of the menu system is very unique and sees yourself looking around a trailer to enter races, configure options and play online amongst other options that we won’t bore you with. Your trailer also comes complete with a TV playing music video’s from the games soundtrack which we will talk about in the next section.

Sound

I haven’t wired up my gaming chair directly to my Xbox since I first got it, I just simply plugged it into my TV with loads of adapters and cables all over the place but this title made me want to get the most out of my system and I’m so glad I did. The roar of the engines at the starting line is quite phenomenal and I’m pretty sure you could find someone gullible and tell them that your not actually playing a game, your watching a race on TV. The unique sound of a Mitsibishi Evo X is unmistakable when your here it Rev up on TV or at a race but when your hear it from your own sound system it would almost be impossible to tell the difference between the two.

Not only has the game got unreal sound that’s identical to real life races, it has a killer sound track made up of artists such as Queens of the Stone Age, Prodigy, Bloc Party, Ladyhawk and Rage Against. In fact I could probably sit here all day and rave about the sound track but the only way your going to see is going out and buying the game for yourself.

Overall Score and Replayability

Overall this game is suitable for racing pro’s and newcomers alike with a fantastic engine thats made for everyone. Even if you only love racing sims you really need to give this game a go and see how fantastic it is for yourself, infact I don’t know how not to live without this game and it would certainly be a crime not to drop down to your local video game retailer and pick up a copy!

Need For Speed: Undercover

Overview

Title: Need for Speed: Undercover

Release Date: Nov 18th 2008 (NA) Nov 20th 200 (AU) Nov 21st 200 (EU)

Developer/Publisher: EA Black Box & Firebrand Games (DS) / EA

Genre: Racing

Platform[s]: PC, Playstation 2/3, Playstation Portable, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS

Storyline

You star as a expert police driver, trying to infiltrate a gang of car smugglers, so your task is a simple one, go deep undercover using your skills on the road to convince them that you’re a street racer and gain their trust so you can gain information and stop the gang in their tracks. The action takes place in the 80 miles of road, highway and alley ways of the Tri-City Bay Area – a fictional city made for the game based on several American cities.

Your main tool to gain the gangs trust, is to take place in various street race events, wheel jobs and to avoid the police at all costs, since your fellow police officers will hunt you down as a common criminal, since you’re in so deep undercover.. Your only contact in the police is Chase Linh played by Maggie Q and she is one tough cookie.

So hit the open world and hit the highway at speeds close to and over 180 miles an hour, and bring that gang to its knees… featuring over 55 licensed cars, a brand new Heroic Driving engine, which for the first time puts your car under a new cutting edge physics driven control method, perform amazing driving actions at high speed, and battle improved AI and push yourself to the limit..

Start your engine, turn up the music, and hit the road..

Gameplay

The game as a whole seems to be aimed at the more casual player, right from the get go, just after the title sequence starts to roll, your dumped behind the wheel of the starting car [you have no choice in the car or colour ] and let loose in the Tri-City Bay Area, a huge and expansive open world. Being the 12th game in the need for speed series, undercover really needed to deliver something fresh to the series, which is the new physics based driving, which sounds great on paper, but can be a little tricky to handle at excess speed, but the driving aspects are never less than fun.  The first chase in the game really gets the blood pumping, and is a great taster for the game to come.

Anyone who has played Most Wanted will be at home with the Police chases, however this time, they have supposedly better AI and also some more daring tactics to hunt you down, such as pike strips so your job of losing the police, who can start chasing you at any point, is made slightly harder – however the ‘Pursuit Breakers’ are also back, which are items on the map that if you collided with them in just the right way will force any pursuing police to stop and deal with the  problem, however other units will engage you until you can hide and wait out the alert status. Adding to the cars, are also helicopter units that also seem to have been upgraded, these now dart under bridges and are much harder to loose, so watch the skies as well as the road!.

The many races and events are littered across the large open world, but can only be accessed via the in game map or handy downward push on the d-pad, which instantly launches the next rate so unlike other open world racers, such as Burnout Paradise, you can’t drive around finding them – so this does seem a bit of a backwards step, and ultimately limit’s the amount of fun had exploring the world considering the whole open map approach.

Races and events range from simple point to point races, with plenty of time to show off to other gang members to full on highway battles with not only other cars to race, but road traffic and police – so there’s a nice mix of different events and styles of driving, some will require you to have pixel perfect driving so you will be happy to know that the ‘speed breaker’ – a quick button press will slow time down to a crawl for a limited period- returns and is as helpful as ever, for both making tricky turns and avoiding police road blocks and spike strips.

As you progress through the game, towards the ultimate goal of bring the gang down, you also ‘rank up’ and gain driver points which are tallied to your cars specs, at seemly random points, however as the game can be incredibly easy to handle, depending on the car used, you’re never in any real need of them. You will also be able to unlock upgrades and new cars, which will need to be brought, to use, but the performance tuning in the game, is very in depth – from simple paint jobs – to full body kits and transfers there’s enough to keep all but the hard core car tuners happy – with some really great looking cars being able to be made.

Another handy show off feature, is photo mode – your able to take a ‘photo’ of the car in action at any point in the game, simply hit pause, select ‘photo mode’ and line you your shot – the simple controls can produce some interesting shots, which are in turn uploaded to the NFS website, for viewing and sharing with your friends – a small addition to the game, but one that will be well used by car fans, since the game contains over 55 unlock able fully licensed cars, ranging from the Mercedes CL55 to the Audi R8 – there’s sure to be something to suit both your style of driving and also your look.

Up to 8 players can complete online, in either Sprint – simple point to point races, circuit races or the much more exciting new Cops N’ Robbers mode, where two teams of four take turns being either the Cops or the Robbers. During this new mode, the Robbers have to collect money and drop it off at a certain point on the map, while the Cops pursuit and try to take them down at any cost. This game mode can be very heated with the teams fighting it down to the last, and is a great bonus and building on the single player campaign by giving you a chance to play the ‘good guys’

Graphics

As soon as the games starts your treated to full screen video that sets the scene nicely, with some great acting as well as some really bad acting later in the game, but as a whole – it provides just the right feel.

When you hit the roads however, you may be slightly disappointed by the lack of detail on the streets of the Tri-City Bay Area, there is a total lack of people and any sense of ‘life’ in this sprawling city, and traffic even on the highways is a little thin on the ground, and lacking detail close up. You may also notice on coming cars fade into view, which can be a little off putting at 180 miles an hour.

The sense of speed is good, with blur effects and wind streams when you hit the 100’s – however there are some problems with the frame rate at times, more often than not with a strange stutter that happens every so often, much like in Most Wanted – where you could be tearing down a road at a rate of noughts only to seem a split second pause in the action. There’s also some nasty pop up on buildings etc and installing the game to the Hard drive did not seem to make this issue disappear – but did help slightly in the loading times of events – and being about 4.8gb it’s a fairly small amount of space to loose.

The cars are all nicely detailed and deformable, which you will notice after a few minutes of driving on the highway – with trucks that seemingly like to pull into your lane at the last second, but unlike Burnout, the crashes seem a little tied to the ground, so no exploding cars to be seen here.

Sound

Over all the sound is well mixed and very realistic, from the growls of the higher performance cars to the clunk of the gear changers – if you like your racing games loud and proud – this game is for you.

Music in the game is also very fitting, ranging from some quite slow tracks to pumping techno tracks that add to the sense of speed on the road – one thing you may miss is the ability to choose the EA Trax, since in this game – you have no choice over it.

Police CB chatter is also very clear and also well voice acted along with being extremely handy – since not only do you know when they are looking for you, but you can also hear just where and when they want to set up a road block or a spike strip, so keep a ear out for important messages coming over the air waves.

The whole sound track mixes in to an exciting experience one which should be played LOUD.

Overall Score & Replayability

Even if the game seems to be aimed at the more casual racer – from the handling of the cars down to the easy race starts, the game is still a worthwhile play. The only downsides to it are the few graphical issues, such as the frame rate, pop up and lack of street detail which if your not that fussy is not a major factor, since some the police chases are some of the best seen.

I say ‘some’ since some of the police chases especially later in the game, are very, very basic with the Police fully intent on ramming you off the road, and that’s what they will try and do, some of the later missions are really a test of your stamina to put up with the crashing and bashing, and looking out for the pursuit breakers – which sometimes are very fair and few between.

It’s a shame that there is not more to do in the open map, with races just appearing on the map and selectable by clicking on them, or pressing down on the d-pad, there’s no real need to explore the city, unlike Burnout paradise – which expected you to find events. Not to say you cannot have fun just driving around, since many a time the police will lock on to you, and a great five or six minute pursuit can ensue.

Another slight letdown is the Heroic Driving – when you are racing or being pursued there’s not really enough time to pull any fancy moves – so even though the game will reward you if you’re able, many people with just forget about it, and put their foot down.

If you can handle that lack of a real need to explore, and are looking for a fun racer, then Undercover is a good choice, however with the likes of Burnout paradise and Midnight Club  LA already released, it has some strong competition.

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