Latest Reviews
Review: Kinect Star Wars (Xbox 360)
Your powers are weak, old man
It isn’t hard to picture the glee that must have filled the offices of Microsoft Studios when the deal to produce Kinect Star Wars was inked. Kinect has always been about removing barriers thrown up by physical controllers and letting players filful their fantasties, and what better advert for the tech than the.. Continue Reading »
Review: Diabolical Pitch (Xbox Live Arcade)
Warning: baseball puns
Leave it to developer Grasshopper Manufacture to take a perfectly innocuous activity like throwing a baseball and find the perfect way to twist it into a weird sci-fi horror show. As a former major league pitcher down on his luck with a bum arm, an anthropomorphic bovine in a suit grants you a souped-up bionic arm — to earn.. Continue Reading »
Review: Country Dance All Stars (Xbox 360)
Saddle up
If you’ve always wanted to play Dance Central but prefer twangy guitars and cowboy hats over Lady Gaga, you'd better strap on your cowboy boots and bolo tie because Country Dance All-Stars is your game. Eschewing the top 40 pop assortment of modern hits, Country Dance All-Stars serves up a Texas-sized helping of country songs from such.. Continue Reading »
Review: Kinect Rush: A Disney Pixar Adventure (Xbox 360)
Fools rush in?
Kinect is proving to be the ideal platform for younger gamers right now; we’ve already had the reasonably enjoyable Disneyland Adventures, and it’s highly likely that the forthcoming Kinect Star Wars will find more favour with pre-teens than thirty-something geeks. Kinect Rush: A Disney Pixar Adventure is another controller-free.. Continue Reading »
Review: Puss in Boots (Xbox 360)
Nearly purrrfect
Any Kinect game that lets you play a swashbuckling cat should have your attention, and Puss in Boots manages to overcome its obvious handicap of being a movie tie-in to result in one of the more enjoyable action games available on Kinect. With several styles of gameplay to sample, from sword fighting and bar room brawling to... Continue Reading »
Review: Mass Effect 3 (Xbox 360)
Don't fear the Reapers
It’s been a long time coming, but Commander Shepard’s battle with the Reapers is at a boiling point. The entire galaxy prepares for a war that could quite easily mean the extinction of all sentient life. Do you have what it takes to take back Earth? Mass Effect 3, the final instalment in BioWare’s sci-fi trilogy, takes.. Continue Reading »
Review: The Price is Right Decades (Xbox 360)
Come on down!
The Price is Right Decades celebrates over 40 years of one of the most beloved game shows of all time. As a tribute to the source material it’s a resounding success; as an actual piece of entertainment software it has a few problems that unfortunately hinder the rest of the experience. The one-player mode of Decades breaks the.. Continue Reading »
Review: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (Xbox 360)
C, Decent, Final Answer
It’s very hard to capture the tension and drama of a game show in a video game when said game show focuses on one contestant rather than a competition. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’s single-player mode captures very little essence of what made the show such a runaway hit, and the shoehorned multiplayer would make Regis.. Continue Reading »
Review: Cabela's Adventure Camp (Xbox 360)
If you go down to the woods today
Set in a kids' summer camp with a sergeant keeping on things, the heat is on in Cabela's Adventure Camp as you compete for gold medals against three other happy campers. With six customisable characters to choose from — no Avatar support, sadly — you and three friends can take part in summer camp-themed... Continue Reading »
Review: My Self Defence Coach (Xbox 360)
Poor in defence
Why dance yourself fit when you can fight yourself fit instead? Ubisoft's My Self Defence Coach offers just that, with a workout regime that's also designed to teach you how to fend off any would-be assailants, too. After creating a profile to help chart your productivity and progress in cardio, reflex, defence process and balance,... Continue Reading »
Review: SpongeBob's Surf & Skate Roadtrip (Xbox 360)
SpongeBob Surfpants
If you lived in a pineapple under the sea, you'd probably enjoy skateboarding, right? That's the basic premise of SpongeBob's Surf & Skate Roadtrip, and that's all right with us. Choosing from either SpongeBob or pink pal Patrick, you pick your pants and surf or skate the night away. As you'd expect from a game based on the.. Continue Reading »
Review: Double Fine Happy Action Theatre (Xbox 360)
The name says it all
It’s incredibly difficult to review Double Fine Happy Action Theater with a traditional review system. It’s hardly a game at all; there’s no challenge, no goal, no direction. Calling it a “game” is, honestly, hardly appropriate - it’s more of a toy than anything. Toys and games are both designed to be fun, though, and Double Fine Happy Action Theater gives you a lot.. Continue Reading »
Review: Haunt (Xbox Live Arcade)
You want Haunt
While Kinect has had a handful of really great games over the past year, the stinkers have all had the same problems: poor controls and general lack of charm. Developer NanaOn-Sha comes along to save the day with Haunt, which controls wonderfully and drips with so much charisma it forms a very likeable puddle on the floor. Haunt, with its first-person perspective, has you exploring.. Continue Reading »
Review: Deepak Chopra's Leela (Xbox 360)
Take a deep breath
Kinect's incessant insistence that you get up and thrash about isn't to everyone's liking, but is a fact of motion control all the same: many developers prefer to paint with broad brush strokes, getting the general idea right rather than attempt finer detail and end up going outside the lines. Deepak Chopra's Leela uses more.. Continue Reading »
Review: Wipeout 2 (Xbox 360)
The worst spill in human history
There are bad games, and then there are bad games. Even worse is Wipeout 2. Wipeout 2 is the second game for Kinect — Wipeout: In the Zone came first — based on the ABC television show that features competitors navigating wild obstacle courses designed to fling, smash and bounce them about in various painful ways. Sure, it’s fun to see a contestant you like.. Continue Reading »
Review: Rapala for Kinect (Xbox 360)
Lacks a-lure
This'll surprise you: Rapala for Kinect isn't a fishing simulation in any way. Sure, you can select your lure in the hope of attracting a particular fish, but that's about as deep as it gets. This is fishing arcade-style: score as many points as you can in the time limit. Your fish is scored on size and rarity, with bonuses for grabbing.. Continue Reading »
Review: Let's Cheer! (Xbox 360)
Let's not
2K Play's Let's Cheer! isn't the first cheerleading game in the world — there was We Cheer on Wii a few years back, for instance — but it is the first that doesn't need anything in your hand to get you into the game. Is that enough to make it worth a purchase, though? As you'd expect from a game based on pep, everything is bright and bubbly but the graphics fall down; animation is.. Continue Reading »
Review: Nickelodeon Dance (Xbox 360)
Excellenté?
There's no end of dancing games on Kinect, but each occupies a small subsection of the genre. Nickelodeon Dance joins Just Dance Kids at the very youngest end of the spectrum, and if you've got little ones who like to get jiggy it might be worth a look. As you'd expect, Nickelodeon Dance is a collection of catchy kids' pop tunes from the likes of Dora the Explorer, Go, Diego, Go!, The.. Continue Reading »
Review: Yoostar on MTV (Xbox 360)
Warning: this game contains Jersey Shore
Yoostar on MTV isn’t a video game so much as it’s a toy that relies on the Kinect technology. Sure, there’s a score element, but that will never be the reason you play. The very definition of a party game, Yoostar on MTV will be a game that you bring out when you have lots of people over and the alcohol flows like Snoop Dogg's paying the bill. The.. Continue Reading »
Review: Kung Fu High Impact (Xbox 360)
The fight of your life
Okay everyone, you can stop saying that there are no hardcore games for Kinect, because Kung-Fu High Impact is as hardcore as they come. Kung-Fu High Impact, the awesomely-named video game from the equally awesomely-named developer Virtual Air Guitar Company, casts you as the hero of a comic book, pitting you against hordes of dastardly henchmen and otherworldly monsters. Oh.. Continue Reading »
