These err towards bashing a bigger troll (or orc) and so you rinse and repeat through ever more gloomy environments. The RPG elements are present in a skill tree but this is limited. If you’re used to more traditional RPG fodder they probably wouldn’t be enough to entice.

Pippa

What should be a reasonably simple premise of three main characters to alternate between is made painfully clumsy by this game. There’s no swapping between them on the fly and theoretically you only get the option to do so at the end of each stage. Thankfully you can wait for a save symbol and quit to the menu before loading one of the other characters to level them up but seriously, I shouldn’t have to.

Co-op wise… at least someone else is leveling up for you. Should you want to play with your friends you’ll need to make sure your characters are on a similar stage as there’s no balancing available. The host of the game has everyone pulled to their last save point.

This resulted in Lewis’ Ranger getting smeared indelicately across a parapet for several attempts before we gave up and changed over. We then ended up with my mage melting everything in sight with a single shitty look. It’s possible that there’s an ingenious menu option to solve this but I’m damned if I could find it. On the plus side there’s hopefully a bit of common sense being used by your team mates. This was in short supply at several points during the single player campaign and would be more than enough motivation for me to wheedle my friends into participating.

It’s not that the single player campaign is bad, it’s just really, really, really repetitive. At first the satisfying death blows and spinning about the place (mostly) elegantly is entertaining. As it slowly dawns that twirly limb chopping is all that’s on the menu for the rest of the game it can be hard to summon the motivation to keep trying the more difficult fights. The varied drops help a little but your companions appear to be massive loot whores; you pass kit to them and then when you switch characters at a later point it will generally have vanished. For those of us that enjoy a little retail therapy it can be quite frustrating to be constantly broke!

Lewis

War in the North was a very brave attempt, being a fantasy RPG releasing in roughly the same time frame as Skyrim. Sadly it doesn’t come across as being nearly as polished. I love Lord of The Rings but this game doesn’t do it justice at all.

Levels are just stand offs against waves of enemies, that is when you aren’t running around delivering necklaces for bored townsfolk. I’m supposed to be helping save the world. No, I won’t get your fucking necklace fixed and tell someone you love them because you don’t have the balls.

Co-op doesn’t really make this game any better. Where most co-op games tend to abandon levels altogether or at least have a decent balancing system, LotR: WitN leaves you behind to rot. Quickly jumping into someone else’s game who is further ahead repeatedly sees you turned into troll chow and popping into a game that is set at a lower level will see you bored senseless. My advice is to leave this for the bargain bin and save your money for the inevitable Lego: LotR now that they own the licence. Or better yet, go play Skyrim.

Rich

Coming from playing fantasy games almost exclusively on PC I wasn’t sure what to expect from War In The North on the Xbox 360. One of the things that did stand out was the sheer level of violence in some of the game’s finishing moves.

In single-player mode, the AI will play the other characters for you so you don’t have to worry about having friends. I found the initial story line pretty strong, and very well tied into the books. During the game, the computer’s AI wasn’t too bad yet still tended to charge into things without real strategy. I’m a sneaky ranged thief player and it frustrated me when the dwarf ran straight into a large group of enemies.

When I was level 4, my single player time was interrupted by an invite from Pippa to try out the multi-player facilities of the game. Pippa was already level 10. I’m not totally sure how the game scaled the instances but it was clear I was quite unprepared for what occurred. Having only played for a little, and being such a low level meant I became the favourite kill toy for the bad guys.

Thankfully you can resurrect people just by holding A for a little time while next to them. This lead to a few group wipes because we died close to one of the major bad guys and it was impossible for one person to resurrect without being hit on.

A tip here; if you are ranged, stay ranged! Now this was the one bit that almost made me quit. Having to redo the same battle again and again was very frustrating.

In Summary

War in the North is an average kind of game. Not dreadful, not awesome. Combat flows nicely in and of itself and the pace of each stage is good, although, at times overwhelming. There are a good few hours of entertainment here but it would have been vastly improved had they worked on certain game design elements, specifically the cumbersome character swaps which ruin any kind of Middle Earth immersion.

The novelty of being able to summon a chuffing huge eagle isn’t enough to convince us that the asking price of £40 is worth it. However, if you’re a fan of the LOTR franchise and it’s on sale somewhere you could do worse.

Dwarf tossing is optional.

Lord of The Rings: War in The North is available now on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

This, Arkham Lockdown, is nothing like either of those games however. It has Batman in it, obviously, and it has thugs what look like them in the other games too. It does not have a detective mode, or a 3D environment for you to move around freely nor any particular narrative device outside of the opening cinematic. It lacks glorious fights featuring multiple opponents, has a limited set of combos for you to pull off and strictly occurs on a level to level basis. At its core, it’s an attempt to do an Infinity Blade, but stripped back with a level selection screen and no sense of rhythmn.

Which, seeing as Infinity Blade 2 just came out and fixed loads of issues with its predecessor, is a case of incredible shortsightedness and bad timing.

This is what happens: you select a level from a screen which looks like the Arkham City map and you get told a threat level and the number of opponents you face. You barely glance at this as it’s pretty redundant and borderline impossible to lose. Batman appears in the level, and thug number one appears. You dodge or deflect their clearly signposted moves and then beat them back with the same combo you’ve used every time before.

Rinse and repeat for each thug, complete the level, get some cash and potentially level up. Then select the next level for that section and play through the exact same environment and animations again. Clear these levels and you get a crack at the boss, which introduces a solitary and never used again mechanic for you to be subjected to before you kill them.

The boss levels are pretty much the only place where you will die and mainly because you have no way to prepare for the mechanic you need to use to beat them.

I was over half way through the game before I purchased my first upgrade (to health, mainly). I was three quarters of the way through before I bought my first gadget. By the end of my first play through (around 90 minutes or so) I had everything and it was just a case of turning me into a massive killing machine. Despite there being no real reason to go through it again, I’m half way through right now. It seems marginally more difficult, but the ability to stun opponents with gadgets makes it too easy. Even with the Waynetech points slowing to a dribble I would expect to be maxed out on everything by the third run through.

I doubt very much I’ll finish this play through though.

As a premium app it also offers you the nice opportunity to spend more money and buy alternative outfits. I don’t know why you would want to with such a limited camera and minimal interactivity with the game itself but, hey, knock yourself out. It’s your cash.

Right now it feels like a horrendously limited game – all flash graphics and licensing costs with little under the hood. It’s the epitome of riding on someone else’s coat tails, and it sullies the “main” franchise quite badly. At £3.99 it’s massively overpriced.

My recommendation? Get it if it comes up at less than a quid, otherwise go and see what Infinity Blade is doing. This was outclassed right out of the gate.

The game is dominated by a huge, 14th century version of the city of Constantinople which is teeming with people, assassins, traders and full of historic buildings. It’s a quite wonderful place to explore. At dawn and dusk the landscape becomes shrouded in mist giving the city a quite eerie atmosphere. If you wander through some of the graveyards at night it’s like stumbling into Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video, minus the zombies and Michael unfortunately.

The city is packed with giant, climbable towers. This is Assassin’s Creed after all where the staple diet of an assassin consists of killing people and climbing towers. Every time I was perched on top of one of these buildings minutes would simply ebb away as I gazed out across the city. I’ve always loved the Assassin’s Creed games for moments like this and in Revelations the views were never less than awe-inspiring.

Gameplay remains pretty much unchanged from previous games with a mixture of killing, tracking and beating up people accounting for the bulk of the missions. The rest of the time is spent out and about hunting for lost items, climbing up towers and synchronizing viewpoints to uncover the city in your virtual map. There are also some Altair memories to complete which feature his old stomping ground of Masyaf. I found playing as Altair quite nostalgic, bringing back many happy memories of the first game.

You continue Ezio’s story with the help of his weapons from previous games. Crossbow, pistol, knives, daggers and swords are all expertly hidden about his persona along with a brand new toy – a hookblade. This weapon gives Ezio a much greater reach when grasping for ledges or handholds and makes climbing much quicker (30% quicker according to Ubisoft Montreal). It also allows Ezio to use zip lines to travel quickly around the city. However, Ezio does sound like Captain Hook climbing a building when using the hookblade. Clang, clang, clang!

Thanks to the numerous brand new bomb crafting stations, you can now concoct all manner of dastardly explosive devices from ingredients abandoned in chests throughout the city. Theoretically there are 300 different types of bombs available. In practice I used four of them – splinter, smoke, gas and stun. I did experiment a bit but then settled on my favourite recipes which unsurprisingly featured the most powerful gunpowder available. BOOM! On more than one occasion these bombs saved my life so they are well worth the effort of crafting them.

Your assassin recruits now have a much wider variety of missions to practice their skills. Spread across twelve European cites these new missions will not only give your recruits experience points but allow you to wrestle control of each city from the Templars. You see, cities under assassin control generate income. More income equals more weapons and more killing for Ezio. Once I’d taken over a few cities the cash really started to roll in.

The mechanics of these missions haven’t changed since the last game, with a success percentage being the most important figure on the screen. The age-old tactic of pairing up an experienced assassin with a newbie and a predicted success rate of 100% will quickly train up your assassin army. This whole conquer-Europe mini-game was not challenging in any way, shape or form and was entirely superfluous to the main story. Even so it proved to be an entertaining enough distraction.

There are five missions set within Desmond’s troubled little mind which are exclusive to this game. Taking place within the Animus, they have to be unlocked by collecting data fragments which are hidden throughout the game. Whilst these missions provided a much deeper understanding of Desmond’s backstory these levels were very surreal. Imagine a world formed from the fusion of the Clockwork Orange and Tron: Legacy films. Played via a first-person viewpoint, you have to navigate through a series of rooms using Desmond’s ability to create virtual blocks – a triangle and rectangle – which can be used to build a pathway to the room exits. Overall I found these levels more annoying than entertaining as I would frequently slip off the blocks as I ran across them or watch as they were dissolved by a moving energy grid before falling to my ”virtual” death.

Just being an assassin in Revelations is much tougher than ever before thanks to the heavy, city-wide presence of Templar guards. Climb up a building, bump into a guard on its roof. Fall off a building, land on a group of guards. Assassinate a person, get spotted by a guard. After the glorious kill-fest of Brotherhood, I had to seriously change the way I played Revelations as I was getting an ass-kicking from all the guards. Once I became more considered, stealthier and less of a show-off (i.e. no reckless running around on rooftops) the game became a lot easier and more enjoyable to play.

The Borgia towers from Brotherhood have been rebranded as Templar dens and gained about 50 times more guards. This makes them a real bitch to sneak into and stealthily assassinate the den captain. You’ll find it’s hard enough trying to track down the captain, never mind avoid detection by the guards whilst killing him. These den missions were fun but were frequently annoying as one tiny slip resulted in detection and the den captain legging it to safety.

Whenever you renovate a building or get spotted killing someone you are penalised through your Templar awareness meter filling up. The higher it is, the more hassle you’ll get from the guards around the city. This is clearly Ubisoft’s way of making the game harder and cracking down on reckless assassin behaviour. The only way to dump this awareness was through bribing a herald or killing a Templar Official. I shudder to think how much time I wasted going back and forth to the closest Herald, randomly picked by the Animus, to bribe him. I don’t mind making the game harder as Brotherhood was a little too easy but this method was far too harsh and boring. If I committed some act of villainy with a maxed out awareness meter Templars would attack one of my dens and I’d have to play a game of tower defence to protect it. Yeah, tower defence. What the hell is tower defence doing in Assassins Creed in the first place? It doesn’t fit in at all. So instead I came up with ways of managing my awareness meter to avoid this stupid tower defence game completely.

There are further problems with the game. The chariot racing levels which punctuate the main plot are extremely basic, dull and almost entirely pointless. And, as if ramming the city full of guards wasn’t bad enough you now have to contend with the threat of Templar stalkers. These guys appear out of nowhere to attack you at any point in the game. You have to listen out for a bit of music that signals their arrival and quickly perform a counter kill otherwise you get stabbed and lose a big chunk of health. On several occasions I missed the musical cue, got stabbed, noticed by the guards and attacked. Great.

Finally Ezio’s kick attack is still ridiculously over-powered. The fact that you can kill a heavily armed Templar soldier by repeatedly kneeing him in the nuts is laughable. It is handy though.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations has become a confusing mix of gameplay ideas. Whilst the bombs and hookblade work well the rest are terrible additions to the game. Ubisoft is trying far too hard to find ways to develop the Assassin’s Creed franchise and instead risks alienating its fans through unnecessary and poorly thought out changes and additions. I don’t play Assassin’s Creed for tower defence or to repeatedly bribe Heralds. I play it to be a kick-ass assassin who runs around cities killing anyone he likes. When the game allowed me to do this it was truly spectacular. Indeed, Revelations has many moments of pure magic and ties up some of the plot arcs from the previous games but in the end can’t quite match the brilliance of Brotherhood.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is out now for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

With the first game set entirely within the modest confines of Gotham’s craziest lunatic asylum, the sprawling metropolis of the Arkham City prison gives Batman and his cast of villains vast amounts of space to stretch their legs. From the endlessly entertaining Joker and his completely mental side-kick Harley Quinn planning to take over Gotham; the grotesque Two-Face dealing out his version of justice via a coin toss; the slinky feline Catwoman sexing up Arkham, whilst at the same time robbing it blind and Dr Hugo Strange… well, you’ll have to play the game to find out what evil-doing he’s been up to. Arkham City is teeming with screwed-up personalities and crime.

At the start of the game, whilst playing as Bruce Wayne, I must have spent about 10 minutes simply marvelling at the cityscape which stretched effortlessly into the distance all around me. Then, after my batsuit had appeared in a delivery pod freshly jettisoned from my über-stealthy batwing as Barney Stinson fan I did laugh when the on-screen text said “press X to suit up.” Legen — wait for it — dary. And then it hit me. I could go anywhere in the city I wanted. I was Batman! Right, time to clean up Arkham.

The Arkham Asylum gameplay has been tweaked to make it appeal to a wider audience. It’s the same formula of explore, analyse using detective mode, collect items and fight gangs of villains and super criminals but now detective mode can now be jammed by certain enemies, Batman has way more fighting moves available and the whole game is a lot easier to play. Kicking the hell out of massive groups of enemies is simple and spectacular thanks to the fantastic free-flow combat system but doing it in style takes serious amounts of practice.

Experience points act as the in-game currency. I earned points by fighting, collecting Riddler trophies and completing bits of the main plot. I then used these points to unlock Batman’s extensive catalogue of cool skills and weapons like the incredible remote-controlled batarang which is possibly my favourite Batman weapon of all. This game mechanic worked really well as it pushed me to improve my fighting style to rack up the big combo and deliver lots of experience points so I could play with new toys.

Rocksteady Studios have created a wonderful hell hole of a prison. Scum and villainy lurk around every corner waiting for their chance to beat the crap out of Batman. Listening in on their harsh and frequently derogatory comments about women brutally emphasises that these people are truly the dregs of society. Even so, I was surprised to hear the word “bitch” used quite so often in their dialogue.

Due to the sheer size of Arkham City some of Batman’s skills and equipment have been specifically tailored for commuting. After finishing the first round of the impressively tough virtual training (precision gliding through giant airborne rings) I was then able to propel myself from any structure using a freshly upgraded grapple weapon. This gave me the ability to glide around the city without touching the ground. Ever. The sense of freedom was intoxicating. I would just throw myself from the roofs of giant buildings without a care in the world, safe in the knowledge that my cape and grapple weapon would keep me airborne. This is the game’s greatest achievement in making you feel like you’re actually Batman.

I don’t think Rocksteady’s community manager, Sarah Wellock was far wrong in claiming that every building in Arkham City is unique. From the intricate design of the streets to the distinctive zones of the city, including Crime Alley, everything has been designed to fulfil a specific role. There is a main plot, written by five-time Emmy-Award-winning writer Paul Dini which gives the game some structure and makes good use of the whole city. The plot also let me dip in and out of it at any point to complete other parts of the game.

Trying to collect the 400+ Riddler trophies and complete 12 different side quests meant that I’d scoured almost every part of the city and tested both my mental and physical agility. Trust me, that didn’t take very long, especially the mental part. Even the classic time-trial game mechanic has been made infinitely more exciting within Zsaz’s missions. These had me scrambling all over the city to answer a series of ringing telephones within a time limit or he would murder his hostages. No pressure then!

There were also 180 challenge maps for me to contend with. These maps put all my Batman skills under the microscope again from brawling for points to clearing a room of enemies as quickly as possible using a selection of gameplay modifiers (e.g. slowly diminishing health). It’s going to take me ages to finish all of them. Couple that with collecting the Riddler trophies and I’m easily looking at 40+ hours total game time from Arkham City.

Unfortunately, Rocksteady Studios are guilty of restricting access of special challenge maps to certain retailers with the Robin character only available if you pre-ordered the game. However, I’m sure you will be able to buy everything in DLC packs in the near future.

The impossibly shapely and sultry Catwoman crops up at various points during the main story. Unless you’ve entered the Catwoman DLC code you won’t be able to complete her mini-missions/episodes. I’d advise unlocking her at the start as the bits where these episodes crossover into the main plot make a lot more sense. Whilst her 4 episodes don’t take very long to complete there are Catwoman-only Riddler trophies and other objectives throughout the city which provide a bit more fun. I found that I had to change the way I played the game to make best use of Catwoman’s far more nimble abilities. She can’t glide for a start; instead she uses her whip to grab onto structures which you can then climb up. This made me realise just how much I relied on Batman’s gliding ability.

I’m not impressed with the way the Catwoman content has also been hived off as DLC specifically to combat the second-hand market. As I pointed out in my Catwoman debacle post not unlocking Catwoman does interfere with the flow of the game. The first thing the game does after loading is check for DLC, even when I’d unlocked the Catwoman content. Downloadable content packs should not have been given this much prominence in the game.

Whilst the Riddler puzzles are far more numerous and indeed more taxing than ever before, the main story has been hugely dumbed down in terms of difficulty. You really get mollycoddled through it. If Batman doesn’t immediately tell you how to solve a puzzle, he definitely will after a few failed attempts. This happened even after I’d turned the hints off in the options menu and quickly became very annoying. At one point Batman kept telling me to go back to the loading bay whilst I was hunting for the Riddler trophies in the opposite direction. The only way to shut him up was to comply and continue the main story. So much for Batman’s sense of adventure.

Rocksteady Studios have created a game which seamlessly blends open-world gameplay with the brilliance of Arkham Asylum and the whole Batman universe. The main plot is packed full of twists and turns, shocks and several memorable moments. However, the focus on DLC, Batman’s constant spoiling of many of the puzzles and general dumbing down of difficulty level takes some of the shine off what is an otherwise amazing game. You should buy it anyway.

Batman: Arkham City is out now on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and on PC from 25th Nov 2011.

French developers Kylotonn thought so too and so they created medieval 3rd person RPG hack-and-slash-em-up The Cursed Crusade.

The action takes place in Jerusalem at the end of the 12th Century. You play Denz de Bayle, a young knight on a quest not only to find his father, but also on a journey to discover his true self. Joining you on this noble quest is the ridiculously-named Esteban Noviembre, a cocky Spanish pirate/soldier who’s in it for fame and glory. However, you both harbour a strange curse where you can summon the Fires of Hell at will to dispatch your enemies and guide you to salvation.

It all sounds solid but the way in which Cursed Crusade delivers this narrative is too complex and meandering to keep you interested for long. Towards the end you may even consider skipping the many cutscenes just to get back to the action, which is a shame as Kylotonn have obviously spent considerable time researching the history of the era.

De Bayle and Noviembre make interesting partners. The banter they exchange with each other is meant to add a light side to the killing. However, a weak script and bad delivery, coupled with the glitches of cutscenes ending suddenly at times leaves you with a sense of profound disappointment.

The Cursed Crusade blends the RPG elements of Warcraft with the hack and slash mentality of an action adventure title, with mixed levels of success. The X and Y buttons control the majority of your attacks and it’s only a matter of time until you’ll be mashing away at those buttons trying to strike the nearest enemy that has the unfortunate job of taking you on. When your opponent’s health gets low, you automatically perform a finishing move. Which move you do depends on what configuration of weapons you’re holding at the time.

The action starts well at first, however soon the repetition kicks in. Killing is pretty much the same time and time again, becoming somewhat of a chore very quickly. That said, the finishing moves are quite satisfying and reassuringly gruesome as you lop your opponent’s head off with one big cleave of your two-handed death sword.

The more enemies you kill, the more your Hell meter fills up, enabling you to activate it at will with a press of the Left Trigger. Once pressed the world around changes dramatically to resemble the fiery pits of Hell and De Bayle is turned into a demon himself, harnessing the fire around him to his advantage to burn enemies in the real world. This provides at least a little relief from the monotony as you move from enemy to enemy. Activating the Hell Power also reveals hidden objects such as chests and the souls of warriors that have come before, waiting for redemption.

As you slash away, your weapon becomes worn and loses its effectiveness before eventually breaking, rendering it useless. This can lead to many bouts of aimless running around the level searching for a weapon that – not only is difficult to make out in the muddy textured floor – you have no idea until you find it whether it’s less broken than the one you hold in your hand. Also, there are no statistics for the any of the weapons in Cursed Crusade as you would expect from an RPG. I found this to be a glaring omission from the game. Even though there are plenty of different swords, daggers, shields and maces to pick up, they are too similar to cause you to care which one you pick up, taking a lot of the tactics out of the gameplay. On the plus side, the mixing up the weapons types can lead to some cool-looking finishing kills.

As you progress through dungeons and castle sieges, you’ll pick up artefacts and hidden objects which count towards your Victory Points. These points translate into levelling up combos and special moves for you to use in the next zone. They’re also used to increase your health and stamina, which refreshingly is more akin to the RPG that Cursed Crusade claims to be. However as I’ve mentioned before, you’re too busy button mashing to try and pull off the moves you’ve just unlocked. If only they’d looked at the way Batman: Arkham Asylum handled the combat, relying on timing rather than random button pressing to execute attacks. It’s much more rewarding. I imagine Kylotonn have put secret items into Cursed Crusade to increase it’s replayability factor, however you’ll find little motivation to go back to the game as you watch those final credits roll.

You can have someone else control Noviembre on Co-op or over Xbox Live but this adds little to the overall gameplay. Several sections in Cursed Crusade require both you and your AI or human companion to work together to accomplish certain tasks and missions. This is controlled by accurately-timed button presses as shown on the screen when appropriate. In practice your partner will lag behind fighting an enemy that seems invincible until you track back, find them both and kill his enemy with one blow. There were some cases that this didn’t even work, leaving you flailing your weapon wildly when all you want to do is open a door.

The AI of Cursed Crusade also leaves a lot to be desired. There are times where you will be fighting with some allied soldiers who freeze up and don’t move to help you, leaving you all exposed to the wave after wave of the same enemy and resulting in many annoying and pointless deaths. Enemies and friendlies alike get stuck in walls, or behind ramparts causing you to retrace your steps until you find and deal with the culprit only to start yet another cutscene. There are no checkpoints and the only autosaves happen at the end of the level. If you die at the end, you’re going all the way back to the start. Checkpoints have been with us for decades, folks, why have they been omitted here?

Graphically, Cursed Crusade is not without it’s issues too. Cutscenes suffer from some of the worst screen tearing I’ve ever seen and the clipping of scenery or a broken chair floating five feet in the air is simply unforgivable at times. The camera angles change almost at random, leaving you disorientated and vulnerable to attack.

Despite its best efforts, Cursed Crusade is rife with glitches and inconsistencies. It really worries me why Kylotonn would have released such a game with these errors still present. One such glitch is that when you get to title screen the game has completely muted itself, so you have to go into the options menu and manually turn the volume back up again. This is but a minor inconvenience when compared to the massive unresponsiveness of the controls. On paper, the control system works well. In practice there can be huge delays between button presses and action, sometimes not even responding at all. This results in you taking unnecessary damage and caused me a lot of frustration.

Cursed Crusade’s potential from the outset was evident however graphical inconsistencies, glitches and bland, repetitive gameplay tell an altogether different story. It does teach us the value of accurately testing a game before release and not to be complacent with developing even the most basic of gameplay and plotline mechanics before you release it to the public. It also shows us that just because a topic has been researched thoroughly to try and develop an interesting backstory, if you don’t make it varied and engaging to the player, that effort means absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, the creators of Cursed Crusade have banished this game to a bargain bin Hell from which it may never, ever return.

The Cursed Crusade is available now on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

It’s apparent that Uncharted 3 continues Naughty Dog’s incredible ability to produce games that look jaw-droppingly stunning. The quality of graphics and technical prowess on show is just amazing. My in-game stats showed that I spent over 1:30 hours standing still out of the 9:30 hours I took to complete the whole game. I’m surprised the figure is so low as I must have stopped at least 3-4 times per chapter simply to gaze at the beautiful graphics.

It’s not just the level of graphical detail and the lighting effects that are so impressive but also the variety of environments. You have hot, dusty, crowded Syrian levels with their bustling bazaars, a tropical and fiery (literally) French Château and dark and gloomy London amongst the places that you get to explore.

I don’t want to spoil bits of the game for you, so I will just say that the water effects are the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in a videogame. From a technical, graphical and gameplay point of view, Naughty Dog have modelled and harnessed the power of water in a way unrivalled by any other developer. You’re probably thinking what the hell is he talking about, but once you’ve played the game you’ll see what I mean. Trust me. You are in for quite a ride.

One of the many strengths of the Uncharted series is its ability to make you feel like you are taking part in an epic adventure, particularly through the use of cut scenes to develop the plot. In Uncharted 3 these are better than ever. The motion capture, facial detail and animation on show is utterly fantastic and it is complemented nicely by the acting.

You can clearly see the familiarity, companionship and rapport between all the characters. Moments of sadness, pain, tenderness and playfulness are apparent from the way they act. In the case of the main roles, these are actors that have been working together off and on for nearly 4 years and it shows on screen. Especially with Nathan and Sully. Here is a father-son relationship that has been developed over the previous two games and takes centre stage in this third adventure. In stark contrast to the abject tedium of Metal Gear Solid’s cut scenes, Uncharted’s sequences are always engaging and beautiful to watch.

The gameplay on offer is the same shoot, run, cover, avoid grenades, locate hidden switches/items from the previous games. The only major change is to the hand to hand combat system. Drake is now a lot more punchy. Right from the start Drake has to fight his way out of trouble. I would often kick the crap out of enemies if I was running low on ammo or running straight at them with fists flying just for the hell of it. It is incredibly satisfying to punch the lights out of a guy whilst at the same time stealing his gun.

One of the new enemies is called The Brawler. His name is a bit of a giveaway as he can only be defeated by punching and kicking him into unconsciousness. Even with all the fights and brazen gun battles – of which there are many – there is scope for the occasional stealth take down. It’s not quite Metal Gear Drake but it makes a welcome distraction.

Uncharted 3 is not a perfect game by any means. The overall pacing of the game is terribly inconsistent, ranging from fire-fights that made me want to throw my controller across the room in frustration to some seriously dull moments. I can think of one entire chapter that should have been a cut scene rather than some aimless walking from A to B with the occasional button press.

The reliance on trial and error to progress through certain areas was another annoyance. The nature of these particular sequences pressure you into making split-second decisions which most of the time will result in you falling off a ledge, missing a hand hold or jumping into an abyss. It was almost as bad as playing the Amiga game Another World in parts.

The game also suffers from being too over the top – much more so than in previous games. Whilst spectacular, the various environmental effects interfere badly with the game. At times Uncharted 3 was like trying to play a Michael Bay movie. The massive explosions and shaky camera played havoc with my aiming and after a while got quite annoying. Fortunately, these moments were short lived as the relentless fast-paced nature of the game meant I didn’t have time to dwell for long in any particular location.

Uncharted 3 is a without doubt a technical and cinematic masterpiece. I never ceased to be amazed by the graphics, the amount of action on screen and movie-quality cut scenes. This is the best looking PlayStation 3 game ever. The major set pieces – cruise liner, cargo plane – are truly spectacular but even with all this action, at its core Uncharted 3 can’t match the quality of gameplay found in Uncharted 2. The game feels unbalanced as you are hustled through an array of stunning locations and set pieces. I simply wanted more time to explore and enjoy the world that Naughty Dog have expertly brought to life rather than being yelled at my companions to get a move on.

The single-player campaign is a breathless adventure full of action that never lets up until the end credits are rolling. It is great fun to play and even with its flaws, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is a game that should be in every PlayStation 3 owners collection.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is released on the 2nd Nov 2011 on PlayStation 3.

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon has a lot in common with your average Hollywood summer blockbuster; it’s big and loud, it’s brash and silly, it’s epic and explodey, and it’s awesome. It’s Michael Bay: The Video Game, or it’s Call of Duty: Aerial Warfare. Somehow, whatever you call it, it’s all of your favourite action games rolled into one… IN JETS.

Now, this is not Ace Combat 7, you guys. Gone are the anime segues and batty storylines and in swoop brutal dogfights at breakneck speed across a backdrop of international terrorism. It’s a full-on rebirth for the franchise, with the tag-line for the game imploring us to ‘Make Metal Bleed’ – a far cry from the early days of the vibrant and colourful Japanese flight-em-up.

The first phrase to terminate from your vocabulary when considering Assault Horizon would have to be ‘flight-sim’. This game is all about action, or “Machine Gore”, as Namco Bandai so delicately put it. Helicopters, fighter jets, bombers and gunships are all present in the game, and for the first time in an Ace Combat you can now also participate as a gunner upon an aircraft, as opposed to pilot.

Multi-player options are scant, to be honest, but totally bad-ass, with modes like 8 v 8 Team Battle, which consists of 4 pairs of wing-men duelling in the skies, allowing you to act out all of your favourite Top Gun fantasies (apart from the volley-ball scene); and Capital Conquest, in which teams of pilots are tasked with attacking or protecting a city. There’s also the opportunity to take on 8 of the single player missions in co-op with a couple of friends, so you still get to argue over who ends up as Goose.

But what about the promise of this epic game-play and bombastic, Michael Bay-hem magnitude of fighter jet fragging? Sure, online jet-killing is all well and good, but the real test of this new Ace Combat has to be its well documented foray into storytelling that doesn’t involve 112 missions or a character called Scarface One.

Well, I’ve always enjoyed a bit of the old Ace Combat, so needless to say I was pretty excited to see this new direction Assault Horizon was going to take me in. The story, penned by New York Times bestseller (and ‘military author’) Jim DeFelice, lays down a heavily Western yarn about a bunch of terrorists that have managed to bag themselves a superweapon. Spanning a ton of real-world locations such as Dubai, Russia, Washington DC and Paris, Assault Horizon takes the franchise on an express elevator to Hell and back, complete with enough volume to peel the flesh from your bones.

Controversial. That’s probably what you’re thinking, if you’ve ever played any of the ‘classic’ Ace Combat games. However, this is a different time, and I can’t say I blame Namco for having the stones to not only mess with one of their most beloved franchises, but also to take one look at what the kids love these days – that’s Call of Duty, for those asleep at the back – and just go right on ahead and stick the thing in F-15′s.

So, we step tentatively into the shoes of one Lieutenant Colonel William Bishop, leader of Warwolf Squadron (yeah, you heard that right, WARWOLF) and all-round jet fightin’ cowboy. Not knowing exactly what to expect, I dived straight in, like any man hungry for carnage and let me tell you something, you guys; I murdered me some planes.

The game wastes no time dropping you into the thick of it in the middle of a huge dogfight over the city of Miami. The first thing to note – when you’re not blinking at the frankly insane amount of carnage exploding all around you – is the level of detail poured over this game. From the huge, satellite-mapped locations, right down to the nuts and bolts of each airborne killing machine, Namco have got this right on the money.

Each location is instantly recognisable and swooping low through buildings in the cities reveals no expense has been spared in ensuring every inch is authentic; the highways even have cars careering along them. It really is pretty breathtaking stuff. Well, it would be if it weren’t for the fighter planes trying to blow your face off.

The controls are largely carried over from previous Ace Combat games (well, Ace Combat 6 on Xbox), but then there’s the awesome introduction of one of the new mechanics – namely pressing the left bumper when a circle is visible around an enemy jet.

This flicks the combat into ‘dogfight mode’, and the game essentially becomes a widly intense over-the-shoulder shooter, as you frantically strive to keep the bad guy in your sights. This is where the rollercoaster part of Assault Horizon jumps in and takes over. You find yourself whirling through scripted chases through canyons, buildings, or whichever environment you’re currently blowing up.

While careening through these sequences in dogfight mode, you have two options: pepper your rival with machine gun fire, or hold out for a lock-on to blast him with your missiles. The overall run may be clinging to rails, but the wild dodging of your enemy Ace ensures you have to keep the sticks twiddling all the way to the bitter end. Add to this the fact that he can try to counter you – effectively making the hunter the hunted – and you’ve got yourself a thrill-ride.

All the while you attack, you’re treated to so-called “metal carnage”, in which shattered and shredded scraps of metal effluence whirl around, and oil spatters the screen like viscous, black blood. It’s totally badass, and when Zack Snyder’s Patented 300 Slow-Down Effect takes control of the camera to crawl through mid-air slo-mo take-downs (a bit like Burnout), you know it’s time to punch the wall and put ‘Back in Black’ on full blast.

It’s pretty sweet, you guys, especially as you slowly get to grips with counter manoeuvres which enable you to flip back over an enemy that’s up your ass and cram your missiles right up his tail-flaps. Another unique feature is the option to turn the in-flight HUD off entirely (apart from your sights), which instantly makes everything seem far more cinematic, and in my opinion, way better.

The different game modes scattered throughout the game go a long way to making sure it gets far from boring, with LOUD helicopter gunship missions being a highlight, along with bombing runs on strategic locations and – especially for all of those CoD fans – the now classic AC-130, or “did you see that how well that dude exploded?” Okay, none of them are perfect, and there is a tendancy for the jet missions to teeter perilously on the edge of that whole ‘fend off another wave of MiGs’ format, but luckily Namco have been savvy enough to keep switching it up before it ever gets too monotonous. Plus it’s jets, you guys, you’re fighting Jets WITH JETS!

It’s been a long time coming for a full-on, big budget makeover for flight games and Assault Horizon has absolutely nailed everything that people love about games not based in planes and put it into a game with goddamn planes in it anyway.

It ain’t perfect. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon is like a rock show that you scored free tickets for but the beers are £40 a glass. Then again it doesn’t matter because the band is so killer that the volume blows your pre-conceived notion of what an overpriced bar is into outer space. It’s not the best time you’ll ever have listening to shredding guitars and explosions, but it’s close, and screaming around in fighter jets is badass, you guys. That never gets boring. Ever.

Dungeon Siege III is once again set in the kingdom of Ehb, some 150 years after the events of Dungeon Siege II. The 10^th Legion is almost totally wiped out, thanks to the game’s main antagonist, Jeyne Kassynder, and has driven the current Queen Roslyn underground, into hiding. Only a few legionnaires remain, hidden and lead by a former Legion spy, known as the Venerable Odo.

You can choose from one of four characters in your effort to rebuild what is left of the Legion, regain the people’s trust in them and stop Jeyne Kassynder, who is hell bent on revenge against the Legion. Each of the four characters represent which approach of attack you wish to take. Lucas is the youngest son of the former king and of the first Dungeon Siege’s protagonist, Lady Montbarron. He fights using a single or two-handed sword, depending which stance is chosen in combat. Anjali, a mythical being, uses fire magic to attack and can morph from human form with a spear to elemental fire form. Reinhart is a descendant of another original Dungeon Siege character, Merik, and uses magic as his base of attack. Katarina is the long range attack option, wielding either a pair of shotguns, or a rifle, again depending on the stance chosen. She also has deep ties to the murdered king.

Finishing the game as Lucas, I discovered that each of the aforementioned characters actually join your party at different junctures of the story, to become an available NPC partner, to assist in the quest. Only one of the other characters is available at any one time, but as you level up, so do all your characters, even if not active. Very un-Final-Fantasy-like but rather handy if need a quick swap around of styles on the battlefield. The NPC’s AI is okay; they just attack, attack, and attack some more and pretty much look after themselves. Anjali can look rather silly trying to fry enemies with a fence in the way, that fence will not burn lady, no matter how hard you try!

If your NPC team mate falls in battle, a quick hold of RB over their body will revive them, with 50% health. They will also return the favour should you fall in battle also. Many boss fights (and there are MANY) can be very distracting, as all the other enemies focus on you, the player, so a lot of the damage is in fact dealt by your partner. Working through the quest was a constant heal-a-thon. Enemies deal a lot of damage, so constant dodging and blocking (where possible) is paramount to completing the game.

There is also a wealth of collectible armour and weapons available to enhance your characters along your quest, obtainable via chests, scattered around Ehb. Those you don’t need, you can sell at stores located in most areas along the quest. I did find that was the only use for the stores though; there are so many accessories available in chests (for free), I never had to use a shop to buy anything, ever.

Dungeon Siege’s graphics, although not awful by any means, look at least a couple of years out of date, if not more. Included is the ‘golden trail’ line to direct to the location of the current quest (as seen in the Fable series) with a click press of ‘Up’ on the D-Pad. This is a nice touch, as the Kingdom of Ehb is vast, if linear. The plot is also fairly thin, also; anything that would be regarded as a twist you can see coming from a mile away, but the voice acting is well done, if vastly overwrought.

The main camera view is above the character more than Fable but combat is almost identical – in other words, boring and repetitive. I actually fell asleep for a few minutes during a battle, whilst repeatedly hitting the ‘A’ button, and had received very little damage. Who’s a clever AI, eh? Have an apple. Or not. Overall I felt that, in Dungeon Siege III that combat is all the game has to offer from each quest.

Ultimately the game’s core is just Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 all over again, with the only difference being the Fable-esque setting. Starts out promisingly, but you will be grateful once it has ended. Very, very mediocre game.

Chibi-Sausage

Probably sounds like I’m making this up, right? I’m not.

The narrative doesn’t really get any clearer and its incongruity isn’t a selling point. It’s not the right kind of nonsensical where you can enjoy the ride regardless – and almost because – of the poor storytelling and weirdness. It doesn’t make a lick of sense and makes no effort to engage the player on an emotional or even mental note. Things often happen that aren’t explained: some boss fights immediately end after you’re hit once and the story will continue on regardless; you’ll have a cutscene dedicated to one character’s appreciation of an umbrella; the previously-mentioned sausages will hang out in a 2D level and play with some balloons.

I’m still not joking, by the way.

Suffice to say, the story isn’t enough of a draw. When you play character action the combat should be the most important part, except El Shaddai doesn’t excel there either. It has some novel ideas but they don’t end up working out. The control system is incredibly minimal, so much so that I’m left wondering if the game was initially developed for the PSP. The developers have neglected both trigger buttons and the right control stick. Not only this, jump and attack are both mapped to an extra button rather than being used for an alternative move. This means that attacking is limited to hammering at one button and occasionally holding it down to charge.

El Shaddai tries an interesting approach to carrying weapons where you’ll steal them from enemies depending on which would be better suited to the current situation, except that’s hampered by two things: First, finding out what to use is incredibly reliant on trial and error with no clear on-screen indication that your attacks are more effective; second, the weapon you’re holding is directly related to how easily you can traverse through later platforming stages.

I actually had to reload a save because I needed to jump onto moving ground and I wasn’t holding the weapon that makes your character able to fall at a smoother rate. This made me reluctant to change gear from then on as it could mean I might have to waste time again.

It’s unfortunate that the development was so clearly focused on the art style. El Shaddai is genuinely gorgeous and every level is an incredible vista, but because of everything else I was uninterested in paying that much attention. There’s a lot of wasted potential here and it’s sad that this is the result.

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is available now on PS3 and Xbox 360

Screenshots

Each stage is composed of multiple levels of varying objectives: destroy the enemy base, defend your base, or collect a certain amount of resources from the environment. In order to achieve these goals, your aim is to optimise your expense of resources between gold collectors and attack units, and moderate your use of the steadily-acquired mana resource for the purpose of casting spells.

Level layout consists of a wide, scrollable map. Your characters are generated at your base on the left hand edge, and move across the map to the right which is gradually revealed until you reach the enemy base on the far right. You can scroll backwards and forwards, and one of the key aspects of the game is balancing your attention between collecting resources near your base, and managing your attacking units by replenishing them with healing spells and helping with occasional attack spells too.

The game provides an excellent getting started level at the first stage. The walkthrough is simple to understand, and provides lots of guidance on how to get going with the game. However, the game quickly ramps up in complexity and difficulty, so four or five levels in you will really have to start paying attention rather than the idle play that would have got you through the first few stages.

The game employs an upgrades system whereby you start with a single unit type available and gradually progress through available items, which increase in price. With the start of each level you are required to re-purchase and wait for available upgrades before they can be used, adding another dynamic to what is in essence a basic 2-resource strategy system with a few twists.

If you’re into strategy and like your games with a fun twist, this will probably suit you very well. However, the occasionally over-the-top approach will mean this isn’t for the hard-core strategists. Unfortunately its levels are somewhat repetitive after a while; despite small variances as levels pass – such as a new, larger enemy or an enemy mass-effect weapon – the game core remains similar and I found myself repeating the same actions over and over, level by level.

Some balancing is required, though, as throughout the game some magic spells felt that they could be more effective or provide better value for their associated costs. The conversational cutscreens could have required fewer interactions to operate, requiring a tap on the screen for every interaction that is exchanged to proceed, however they did a reasonably good job of establishing characters and getting me immersed in the game.

However, if this game does tickle your penchant for fun and strategy, it is deadly serious at locking you in for marathons of taking down monster after monster and boss tower after boss tower. The sheer number of variations possible when playing is excellent, as is the Skirmish mode. Complete game customisability makes it an absolute dream for anyone who wants to keep coming back for some more.

On more than one occasion, I experienced the “hooked” effect of this game and suddenly an entire train journey and half my battery had disappeared in a ninja monkey-fuelled strategy binge (they really are in the game). The sheer number of options for combining attacks and magic is mind-blowing and difficult to master to get the results you need every time. While initially I felt the game to be a bit similar from level to level, eventually the tactical nature and time-critical nature of some item purchases really got me thinking about how to play it.

Once I got through an initial crash which required a restart of the iPad before the game would load properly, the overall quality of the production is excellent. Animations are well done, detailed and add a layer of visual depth that is well appreciated. Sounds are equally well produced and are key to making the game work from an engagement perspective – sometimes it is so difficult to keep track of everything happening on and off screen that the audio clues are welcome.

So, the verdict? This is an engaging and fun game, due in part to the complexities of the animation and interaction but also because the gameplay can range from casually simple to fiendishly difficult, requiring a lot of concentration to make sure that all of your resources come together to bring down the enemy and deliver the ultimate BBQ sauce.

Swords and Soldiers is available now on iOS, as well as PC, Wii Ware and PSN. More details on the official Swords and Soldiers site.

This is a guest review from Chris Alexander, robotics engineer. Check out his Kinect-controlled robot arm. Sure, they’re not self-aware YET but with SkyNet just around the corner I’d keep my eye on this one.