Posted on 01 July 2007 by TheFluffyFist
Age rating: 3+ (PEGI)
What is it?
An asteroids clone (high-def update of the Amiga classic Super Stardust)
Is it fun?
Yes.
Is it worth the money? £4.99 (from the UK Playstation Store)
Yes.
Why?
Ok, so I was amazed to find something I actually wanted to buy from the UK Playstation Store a few days ago. That something was Super Stardust HD. I’ve actually played the original Super Stardust AGA* on my Amiga A1200 back in 1996. I can say that I’ve had just as much fun with this updated version 11 years later (oooh, I feel old now).
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Popularity: 17% [?]
Posted on 13 March 2007 by Weefz
I really enjoyed this game, even though it wasn’t long enough for me to bother with a full review. Seriously, in the time it would take me to write and format one, you could almost finish the game.
Assault Heroes a fun little single/co-op player top-down shooter. You have a couple of vehicles and nice assortment of weapons: a flamethrower for infantry, a flak cannon for armoured objects and the mini-gun for pretty much everything. There are weapon and shield power-ups but a notable lack of new lives. I found that very strange. Anyway, it’s a simple run-around-and-shoot-everything-that-moves kind of game. There are a couple of truly inspired levels. There’s also one really annoying design “feature”.
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Popularity: 18% [?]
Posted on 28 January 2007 by TheFluffyFist
The Place: Bloomsbury Bowling Alley, London.
The Gang: Tikipod, me and friends.
The Machine: A lonely Galaxian arcade machine looking for some action.
“Lets go bowling, as I know this interesting alley in Bloomsbury” says Tikipod. “Ok, sounds good” I replied. A few days later (Sunday) I go along expecting some top quality bowling entertainment and what did I get? Top quality free arcading that’s what, oh, and some fun bowling.
Quite what the Galaxian machine is doing sitting outside the girls toilet I don’t know, but since it was all alone it was time for a quick play to see if the old fella still works. After some extensive paytesting we found the joystick was a bit ropey making it very tricky to move left (just be forceful and whack it left instead, that works), otherwise the machine worked like a dream. And then there’s the cost…
FREE PLAY. Oh yes, those magic words that I’m only ever used to seeing on MAME sitting there, blinking at me on a arcade machine in London. Yay. Yes, this machine really does cost nothing to play. Nada, zip, zero.
Also Will (one of our friends) spent ages racking up the damn high score on the machine before I could take some pictures. Tisk, how inconsiderate.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Posted on 19 August 2006 by TheFluffyFist
Age rating:
What is it?
Multi-directional shoot-em-up (a 1990 arcade classic!).
Is it fun?
Yes.
Is it worth the money?
Yes - Only 500 Microsoft points or £3.40.
Why?
In two words - “Total carnage!”
The entire game involves running around killing everything that moves and collecting money and “fabulous” prizes. Your killing power can be enhanced, albeit temporarily, by collecting the various weapon power-ups that randomly appear in the game arena (a Running Man-like TV studio). These power-ups are essential to your survival in Smash TV as you fight off wave after wave of unrelenting men/robots/snakes/tanks and snakemen.
As you progress though each arena the difficulty level really gets jacked up, along with the body count. Oh yes, death on an unprecedented scale. Add a little soupçon of despair to all this carnage and eh voila, the perfect arcade game. Mmm, actually come to think of it, I was experiencing mostly despair towards the very end as the enemies just would not stop coming!
There are a total of 3 levels available, each one composed of a varying number of arenas with the whole game taking about 30-40 mins to complete and using about 5 squillion Continues!
The graphics and sound are basic at best, so don’t judge Smash TV on its looks. Simply try out the trial game on Xbox Live and you’ll soon find out how much fun this game is.
You can also get hold of Smash TV on Gamecube, Xbox, PSOne and PS2 by way of Midway’s Arcade Treasures 1 here.
Screenshots:
Links:
Smash TV page on Wikipedia
Update 19th Aug 06: Check out the upcoming PSP game Cash Money Chaos. Look familiar? It’s Smash TV in the 1970s!
Popularity: 16% [?]
Posted on 10 June 2006 by Tikipod
Do you remember the Alien Breed games on the Amiga? Yes? Well if those were fond memories then I would recommend you check out this game:
http://www.shadowgroundsgame.com/new/
It’s a top down shooter with a very derivative plot (people colonise planet, people go drilling, uh-oh killer aliens unleashed… etc) but that shouldn’t really be a concern as long as the game stands up.
I tried the demo version that you can download for free (via Steam) that offers two of the early levels and one of the later ones. There is a nice progression where you start with just a torch light (that scares the smaller aliens - very neat feature), and slowly progress to pistol, shotgun etc. Weapons are upgraded via the currency of green blobs that some of the aliens drop after death, where you can add secondary fire functions or improve firepower. Levels are big and pretty varied in layout, it will be interesting to see if the final ones go more organic (alien hive) as the ones in the demo are all human facility buildings.
All in all this game is good old fashioned fun, and via the demo you get a great chance to try before you buy!
How much is it? - via Steam US$20 + tax or via play.com £18 and you get it in a box.
ps - I haven’t yet tried the coop mode, but really want to as it sounds like lots of fun (sadly it’s not over LAN, you all need to play on the same PC). And the only negative was that sometimes the graphic for my torchlight corrupted dramatically, which I’m hoping was caused by my drivers being a bit out of date.
Popularity: 15% [?]
Posted on 11 May 2006 by Weefz
Age Rating: 12+ (PEGI)
What is it?
A bunch of mini-games based around the touch-screen and microphone inputs. Old for a DS game.
Is it fun?
Very briefly.
Is it worth the money? Around £8-£10 preowned.
Noooooooo. Not at all. Not even the £7.97 I paid for it.
Maybe if you can find it for £2 at a garage sale.
Why not?
There’s no thinking involved. Every mini-game really is just a case of poke the dots on the screen, trace the line or blow/shout down the microphone but with none of that pesky stuff like tactics. Continue Reading
Popularity: 21% [?]
Posted on 03 January 2006 by Weefz
Damn, this game sucks. 
Played it this afternoon with TheFluffyFist in an arcade coz it looked really great. It’s your standard wander-through-the-building-shooting-zombies arcade shooter. This time around you get uzi-style machine guns with grenade launchers and you get attacked by absolutely fricking LOADS of zombies at once! Fantastic stuff! And then during every other intense battle a zombie clings to the screen (apparently it’s supposed to be clinging to your gun) and you have to spend the next 5 seconds shaking it off by literally shaking your machine gun to fill a progress bar while other zombies attack you.
WTF?? Continue Reading
Popularity: 6% [?]
Posted on 01 January 2006 by Tikipod
Age rating: 12+
What is it?
An unconventional fantasy-based BOSS-ATTACK game, with a huge sombre and barren landscape to traverse by horse. Set in the same game universe as ICO (also PS2 only) you have to climb big hairy monsters and stab ‘em where it hurts!
Is it fun?
Yes but not in the instant-adrenaline-hit way of GTA, the world may be a comparable size, but this isn’t Vice City by horse. The Colossus look fantastic and battling them are fun puzzles in themselves, yet a deeper enjoyment requires the player to let the whole game experience slowly wash over them.
Is it worth the money? £29.99
Yes but £25 would be preferable. Most of the pleasure of fighting the Colossi resides in trying to work out how to kill them and after that, replaying the normal game has little point. However once the game is completed there is a HARD mode to tackle and two timed boss-attack modes which are a tough challenge.
Why?
Well, my first impression of the Shadow of the Colossus is that it isn’t really all that pretty. Watching the game intro, each shot is well composed but many textures shimmer and seem to have no more than 4 colours in some of them. Both the bridge crossing scene and the initial entering of the temple are clear examples of very nasty looking textures.
“Hands are used for climbing big hairy Colossi.”
This is a shame because the game has a subtle underlying beauty (which takes time to fully appreciate), and the majority of the game art is fantastic, especially the Colossi themselves, their design and animation is excellent. I’ll talk more about the art later, first a simple explanation about the game itself. Continue Reading
Popularity: 21% [?]
Posted on 01 January 2006 by Tikipod
Age rating: 3+
What is it?
It’s a car racing game where you get speed boost in exchange for driving into oncoming traffic.
Is it fun?
Yes but not as much as Burnout 3, you spend more time skipping though the reward movies/menus sometimes than actually driving. At least that’s how it feels at times.
Is it worth the money? £34.99
No, unless the online mode has something fantastic going for it, save yourself a wad of cash and get Burnout 3 instead. Continue Reading
Popularity: 19% [?]
Posted on 05 December 2005 by Tikipod
Age Rating: 7+
What is it?
An old-fashioned shooter with explosions-a-plenty from cult Japanese developers Treasure.
Is it fun?
You bet.
Is it worth the money? £24.99
Not for 25 quid, but for £17.99 from play.com, yes indeedy. Continue Reading
Popularity: 17% [?]
