After the Prince’s cel-shaded and ridiculously easy adventures in 2008’s Prince of Persia, Ubisoft have seemingly abandoned their new direction for the series, opting to revert back to the original Sands of Time trilogy withPrince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. It may coincide with the release of Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney’s big-budget movie adaptation of The Sands of Time, but it has little to do with the movie (sorry, no sexy Jake); instead, filling in the gap between the first game and its sequel, Warrior Within. As a result, The Forgotten Sands feels more like a side story to the trilogy, rather than a fully-fledged sequel. However, the new additions to the platforming gameplay should please those looking for another Persian-themed acrobatic adventure, even if it’s a fairly by-the-numbers affair.

The Forgotten Sands‘ story sees the Prince return to his brother Malik’s kingdom to pay him a friendly visit. Though, unsurprisingly for the unfortunate Prince, the kingdom is under siege from a vast army hell-bent on its destruction. Malik’s plan to relinquish this new threat is to awaken a mystical army he has sealed in his palace, convinced the army will help him defeat his foes rather than oppose him. Needless to say, Malik is off the mark and the awakened army curses the land, turning everyone but Malik and the Prince into sand and unleashing a deadly swarm of sand monsters upon the kingdom. The rest of the game’s eight hours follows the two brothers as they attempt to stop this horrifying threat in the most predictable of manners. The narrative does a decent job propelling the adventure forward, but with only four characters the story is fairly slim and there’s also a big, missed opportunity to tie The Sands of Time and Warrior Withintogether. It feels disconnected from the trilogy, and without a constant female companion, the Prince loses some of his wit and charm, even if the original voice actor returns.m

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In contrast, the basic platforming fits snugly into the trilogy’s blanket with myriad wallrunning, shimmying, leaps of faith and pole swinging. Anyone who’s ever played a Prince of Persia game before will find immediate comfort in the familiarity. In fact, it sticks so closely to the series’ blueprint that the camera will pan around each new area you enter, revealing the course through each of the intricately designed levels. However, The Forgotten Sands is less about plotting your course through each acrobatic obstacle and more about performing the requisite moves. The platforming feels a lot faster as a result, though it does remove some of the complexities of working out each navigational puzzle. But there’s reasoning behind the change in the form of the Prince’s multitude of new abilities; from solidifying streams of water, to dashing in mid-air, and creating solid surfaces out of nothing. Each ability is effortlessly implemented into the platforming to give it a fresh new look as you juggle each ability to progress through the surplus of obstacles. The Forgotten Sands is at its best when you’re switching from one ability to the next, solidifying and wallrunning across a waterfall before dashing across a large gap and landing on a previously non-existent platform. It’s all very deliberate and linear, but there are definite thrills to be had and it can get fairly tricky later on – something 2008’s Prince of Persia never did.

Disappointingly, however, the changes aren’t always enough to shake that overwhelming sense of familiarity. After three Prince of Persia games you know what to expect here, so it feels like a step back for the series rather than the type of progression a sequel to 2008’s title may have offered. It’s still enjoyable, but those last few hours do get fairly monotonous, and the laboured combat certainly doesn’t help matters. The amount of enemies on screen at any one time is impressive – with fifty or so usually littering the battlefield – but with only a select few enemy designs they eventually outstay their welcome, especially when the primary means of defeating them is by hammering on one button over and over again. You can throw in a couple of dodges and kicks, but ultimately the combat boils down to a severe case of tedious button mashing. Elemental attacks shake things up a bit, but until you’ve upgraded them fully using the skill tree, they’re largely unspectacular, doing little to unsettle the Prince’s slow and samey attacks. Even the boss battles, that were so prominent and enjoyable in 2008’s effort, are ankle mashers here as you continually bash at your sizeable opponents gargantuan feet. When the same bosses appear over a dozen times, it only compounds the misery.

Visually, The Forgotten Sands doesn’t stand up to most modern releases. The environments could do with more detailed textures, and there’s not a ton of variety in the locations with most areas of the palace looking identical besides from a few minor palette changes. The Prince himself, has an odd character design that’s hard to adjust to, especially with his lion-esque face, and there are a few constant glitches that disrupt the game’s graphical fidelity and certain areas of the gameplay, such as boss characters becoming stuck behind invisible walls. These are possibly tell-tale signs of a game rushed through development to coincide with the movies release, and that’s probably the only reason The Forgotten Sands exists.

It may not be a movie tie-in but brand synergy is definitely the aim here. As a result,Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is a decent entry in the series but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. If you’re gagging for another dose of the Prince’s acrobat prowess then there’s an enjoyable, yet unspectacular, platforming aspect here with some cool ideas. It’s just disrupted by some tedious combat and shaky presentation that do little to alleviate the familiarity of a Sands of Time “side story”.

riginal voice actor returns.

When you think of a Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay production, you think of big-budget, high gloss, action sequences with fast cars, multiple explosions and plenty of hair-raising moments. Vehicles are engulfed in flames left, right and centre, flipping into the air and careening out of control; buildings collapse upon the streets, shop windows are blown out, helicopters swoop down across the road and city centres are completely and utterly demolished amidst the chaos and destruction of this grandiose action sequence. Now, gather all of these jaw dropping elements, roll them into one package, and make them the defining feature of an intense arcade racer. That’s Split/Second in a nutshell, and it’s as crazy, exhilarating and fun as it sounds, even if that initial excitement may not hold up in the long run.

To provide a basis and rationalise this over-the-top action, Split/Second is set up like a season of a reality TV show. The city, and location of all of this destruction, is actually a gigantic set created by the minds of the show, providing the structure for the myriad carnage that appears in every race. There’s no sort of outlandish Running Mansituation here, each driver is competing for the season championship with the show consisting of twelve episodes with six races in each. It’s a simple but effective setup, spreading out each race and event into bite sized chunks so you can easily go back and improve upon past results. The actual reality TV show portion doesn’t venture past its initial concept, acting as a backdrop for the action rather than any sort of narrative push. The “next time on…” videos before and after each episode are a nice touch, exemplifying the TV show premise. But they’re minimal in the grand scheme of things.

The majority of your time in Split/Second will be spent racing through this city, from the tall skyscrapers of the downtown district, to the bustling local airport, the docks and even a giant dam not too dissimilar from Hoover’s very own. There’s a nice variety to each track and most of them will intertwine within one another to create a sense of cohesion within the city. However, what makes each track memorable and fun to play are the power plays. These packages of volatile carnage are the fuel that keeps Split/Secondaccelerating. As you race you’ll fill up your power play meter by performing well, whether it be drafting behind an opponent, drifting around a tight corner or jumping over a conveniently placed ramp. Multiple actions will fill up this meter allowing you to use the environment as a lethal weapon. Split/Second will always be compared to theBurnout series because of their obvious similarities, but while Burnout is all about using your car as a weapon, Split/Second is all about the environment. As opponents move into range a target will appear and with the simple press of a button the track comes to life with explosive ferocity. Immobile cars and trucks will ignite at random, flying into the road as helicopters disperse of explosive payloads and entire buildings come crumbling down.

And they’re just the level one power plays. The meter consists of three separate bars, each one able to trigger one power play at a time. However, filling up all three will grant you the ability to unleash the grand scale devastation of the level two power plays and route changers. These will shape and deform the tracks themselves, opening up completely new paths as giant skyscrapers collapse to the ground, Boeing jets crash land right on top of you as you narrowly swoop under the wings and massive ships slide off the dock and into the water, crushing any cars unfortunate enough to be in the way. Words do not to justice to how spectacularly awesome each power play is. The sound muffles before bellowing to life as the phenomenal explosion and particle effects engulf the screen and the cacophony of the epic, techno-infused score is turned up to eleven. It’s an unadulterated attack on the senses, and the sublime framerate keeps up with the increasingly electrifying action. When you’re flying along at a hefty two-hundred miles per hour, the amount of expletive-laden amazement as you narrowly avoid an out-of-control train is unparalleled in any other genre, let alone other racers.

The problem is that the initial excitement doesn’t last forever, and the power plays eventually lose some of their edge. There’s no doubting the brilliance of seeing them for the first time and reacting to them on the fly; your first few hours with the game will be a phenomenal experience. But after you’ve seen them all, each power play becomes a strategic element rather than exhilarating eye candy. You learn to utilise specific power plays to produce the greatest effect, saving up for some of the bigger events and using them at the opportune time to wreck multiple opponents at once. It’s an evolution of play from the first few hours that goes someway to stunting the looming fear of repetition. It does eventually set in, especially later on in the career when the tracks begin to repeat themselves, but the racing mechanics are fun enough to keep things entertaining. The controls are intuitive and fairly weighty, focusing on quick movements, to avoid wrecking, and big drifting. There’s a real skill to amassing a perfect drift, and later on in the career hitting a perfect line becomes paramount to success.

Though, this is due to the rubber band AI more than anything else. Split/Second isn’t too difficult until some of the latter stages of the career, but unfair AI is a common problem throughout. It’s testament to the game’s focus on power plays that this unfair AI often occurs, since being in the lead isn’t a particularly fun experience when you can’t trigger the game’s main selling point. As a result, you’ll often find the following pack extremely close behind, often catching up six second gaps within two. Even when you know your car is much faster and you’re driving the race of your life, the AI finds a way to pass you with relative ease, performing impossibly good drifts and respawning from wrecks in the blink of an eye. Dropping from first place to fifth is such a common occurrence it would actually be quite comical if it weren’t for the frustration involved. That’s not to say Split/Second is a hard game – it’s usually pretty easy to wreck opponents with a decent power play, and you’ll normally be given ample opportunities to pass them – but the rubber band AI does cause some unwieldy races where the AI will pull ahead rather than keeping at a more realistic, surmountable distance.

Of course, these problems don’t persist once you enter the multiplayer, though this does present some of its own problems if you jump in too early. There’s no cap on the type of cars players can use, so most online races will result in a few players using the best cars in the game while the rest are in mediocre-mobiles. It’s not impossible to win, or at least finish in the top four, using a poorer vehicle, but the odds are definitely stacked against you. Most races will wind up with two or three pulling ahead while the rest of the pack are left in the dust, so it can seem very unfair and supremely frustrating. It’s probably not worth entering the multiplayer until completion of the majority of the career, so at least then you’ll have a decent arsenal of cars to choose from. Once you do, the multiplayer is an enjoyable experience that should extend the lifespan for anyone wanting to stick with Split/Second. It has the same problems as the single-player in regards to repetition, but with friends it’s suitably fun blowing each other to smithereens and progressing through the linear levelling system, even if there aren’t any rewards to gain from it.

There are also a few more game modes to try your hand at as well. Besides from a basic time-trial – which is extremely enjoyable with the addition of scripted power plays – and elimination modes, Split/Second also features three modes that feel right at home with the absurdity of the rest of the game. Air Strike and Air Revenge revolve around an evil helicopter hell bent on destroying you. You’ll need to drive fast and avoid its missile strikes to survive before Revenge lets you fire back as avoiding and drifting fills up your power play meter. Survival is just as crazy, as massive trucks unload explosive barrels into your path with points earned for overtaking. It may not have a vast amount of game modes, but the ones on offer provide a decent distraction and change of pace from the regular racing.

Though, it’s that regular racing and its penchant for power plays that will putSplit/Second on the map. It may have its problems with repetition and unfair AI, but there’s no doubting the joy to be had engaging in its phenomenal action. The power plays are an inspired concept for a racing game and they’re executed to perfection with all the Hollywood gloss you would expect from a big-budget summer popcorn movie. Forget the latest first-person shooter or action-adventure, Split/Second is the biggest action game of 2010 and it’s all witnessed at two-hundred miles per hour. It doesn’t get much more thrilling.

Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and co. may have satisfied our Wild West thirst on the big screen, but the world of gun-slinging outlaws has never really materialised in any meaningful way on the videogame circuit. Red Dead Redemption could go some way to filling that void this May, but until then, if you’re looking for some rootin’ tootin’ shootouts at dawn, Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West could be a good way to pass the time.

Lead and Gold is a third-person, team-based online multiplayer shooter, so it has a fair amount of depth for a downloadable game. There are four character classes to choose from, each utilising different weapons and special abilities. The character designs are instantly recognisable from any Western, while still veering away from being too stereotypical. They’re a lot of fun with a stylish, cartoony look, and knocking their hats off is an entertaining effect no matter how minuscule.

However, you’ll be choosing your class based on their skills rather than their appearance and choice of disposable headwear. The gunslinger is the easiest to use, touting a heavy revolver and the ability to use the fanning technique to shoot off multiple rounds in quick succession. The trapper is the sniper of the group who can also set down traps to ward off anyone sneaking in behind, or to protect an objective. The deputy uses a carbine rifle so he’s best at medium to long range, while his ability to tag enemies will help himself and his teammates. While last but not least we have the blaster, a big old brute who likes nothing more than getting up close and personal with a shotgun and a pouch of dynamite.

Finding which one works best for you is a good way to start, but you’ll want to vary your time between multiple classes to get the most enjoyment, and more importantly, help your team. Besides from certain classes working well on particular maps or in specific game modes, they also let off synergies that will affect the player and any teammates in their vicinity. Each class has its own synergy effect, so you’ll want a team with multiple classes to get a dose of each buffer. The gunslinger radiates the accuracy effect, so any teammates nearby will receive improved accuracy, while the deputy radiates the damage effect and so on. It encourages teamwork as you’ll want to stick together to best exploit these different effects. And if you’re playing well, they will eventually become more powerful, sometimes turning the battle in your teams favour.

Rather than use a persistent ranking system, Lead and Gold’s player progression only works on a match-by-match basis. It’s disappointing that you don’t feel like you’re progressing and moving up after each successive match, but within the context of the game it works fairly well. You’ll still gain ranks by playing well, but besides from bragging rights come the end of the round, ranking up will also strengthen your synergy effect. As you gain ranks your synergy will eventually become more effective, so playing well as an individual will also benefit the team.

And the maps and game modes do a good job maintaining this emphasis on team work. With names like Prospector’s Peak and Bad Blood Valley, the game’s six maps are similar to the characters with their recognisable Western traits. From a mining town, an Indian campsite, a farm, a bank and even the mines themselves, there’s a nice variety to the maps and they all look fantastic. The level design is very well balanced for each game mode the maps are used in, with multiple paths, vertical levels and buildings to occupy. The game modes are staples of any modern day shooter, starting with your typical team deathmatch through to zone control and objective destruction. There’s a game mode for everyone and the Western twists are fairly enjoyable with gold replacing flags and huge powder kegs rather than bombs. It’s often quite frantic, but the shooting mechanics are satisfying, if a little inaccurate at times.

The only real problems Lead and Gold faces are because of its net code. You’ll often be kicked back to the menu, the game may even crash on occasion and there are some issues finding enough players at times, particularly if you’re searching for specific game modes. A patch can fix all of this, but it remains to be seen whether the player count will increase or not. Though, for its budget price the gamble could be worth taking. It’s a stylish, good looking game; the shooting mechanics work well and the emphasis on teamwork, plus the variety in the maps and game modes, is very impressive. If you’re a fan of Westerns or team-based multiplayer, Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West ticks all the right boxes. It just remains to be seen how long the online community will last, especially if the network problems aren’t fixed.

The first Army of Two had some issues trying to find its tone. On the one hand all it wanted to do was bro-out, offering fist bumps, air guitar and “pimped” out golden weapons to fire. While on the other side of the spectrum it dealt with seedy private military corporations in real-world conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some oddly-placed conspiracy theories about 9/11 and America’s reasons for going to war in the Middle East. The two sides never really gelled, and the co-op gameplay got repetitive far too quickly for Army of Two to ever really sustain any interest. Army of Two: The 40th Day, has toned down on its frat boy protagonists and kooky conspiracies for a much more focused campaign, but it remains to be seen whether the gameplay has seen the required improvements to elevate the franchise to a higher tier.

This time around events are moved to Shanghai as Rios and Salem quickly find themselves caught in a large scale terrorist attack that decimates half of the breathtaking city. It’s an interesting premise, and the destruction of the city is spectacular, with explosives and aircraft knocking down some of the tallest and most impressive skyscrapers in the world. However, the story quickly takes a backseat to the action as you’re shunned into the unknown. Your antagonist doesn’t reveal himself until the very end of the game, and the only way to gauge what’s happening is to collect radio logs spread throughout each level and listen to them in the pause menu. It’s a poor way of storytelling, but the narrative is easy enough to ignore if you just want to focus on the action-heavy combat.

Though there are still some issues with the tone of the game as it once again struggles to find any sort of consistent identity. The story is fine – taking a simple, linear path with its typical action fare – but on each mission you’ll come across a few moral decisions. They seem out of place with the rest of the game, but offer certain rewards depending on your choices. For example, towards the beginning of the game you can choose to execute an ally you’ve just worked with for some extra cash from your employers, or you can let him go for free – since you’re supposed to have formed some kind of bond in the 10 minutes spent with him. If you choose the “good guy” option your reward will come later on, but for some instant gratification you’ll have to kill him then and there. It never really works as intended since you normally have more than enough cash and weapons to never need to go down the dark path, though if you choose the right path the outcome always has a negative conclusion so there’s little incentive to swing that way either. The message is clear, but it’s a flawed system, and when it brings up controversial issues like rape and child murder, it doesn’t work when the rest of the game deals with playing rock, paper, scissors and discussing how Rios has sex with endangered pandas.

Luckily this moral compass doesn’t have an effect on the gameplay since the shooting isThe 40th Day’s strongest aspect. There’s a nice range of weaponry available with pistols, assault rifles, sub-machine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles and so on. And, once again, you can customise each weapon you buy or find with a range of attachments and improvements, whether it’s swapping out new barrels and grips or adding a laser sight and silencer. There’s a hefty rate of gear in each category so customisation is high on the agenda, and in the end it all factors into the returning Aggro system. Like before, one player can attract the attention of all enemies by firing a large, loud weapon, allowing the other person to flank around the sides for some easy kills. It works well, built on teamwork between two players, or one player and the AI, though it’s not always required since you can down most enemies in one or two shots. The only exceptions are the heavies, who you’ll need to flank in order to hit the weak spot on their backsides.

It’s a competent shooter, best played with a friend. The AI does its job, earning a decent amount of kills and generally staying out of your line of sight, but it does have its flaws. Oftentimes when you’ve gone down he’ll drag you into the open before trying to heal you so there are some unnecessary deaths. And I found that sometimes he’d wonder into the open himself and get killed even when ordered to hold his position. You see, you can give him three specific orders, to regroup, advance and hold position. For each of these you can also render him passive or aggressive, tying into the Aggro meter. It’s easy enough to make him advance or hold his position on aggressive, allowing you to flank the enemy positions with a silenced weapon, virtually unseen, while he gets all the attention. It works well and is probably the best way to play with the AI.

The downside is you’ll be performing this manoeuvre over and over again throughout the campaign’s short five hour runtime. There’s no real variation to any of The 40th Day’s seven missions; each one funnels you down a linear path as you engage in one shooting gallery after another. It looks good, particularly in the character models, but past the opening destruction of Shanghai the rest of the missions look like any old war-torn environment with the zoo being the only exception. When there’s no variety to the gameplay, and relatively little inspiration in the environments, it begins to get repetitive way before the miniscule five hours are up.

It’s just a shame that the solid fundamentals laid out by the original Army of Twocouldn’t be built on in this sequel. The story is an improvement only in its “less is more” execution, but the gameplay has remained mostly the same with no improvements to the systems already put in place or the design of its missions. It gets far too repetitive far too quickly so Army of Two: The 40th Day should be viewed as a rental at best. With a friend it can be fun for a while, but anything else and it outstays its welcome.

It’s rare for video games to look to the literary world for direct inspiration, and you can guarantee there were plenty of eyebrows raised with the announcement of Visceral Games’ brutal action title, Dante’s Inferno. One man’s journey through the Nine Circles of Hell, as depicted in Dante Alighieri’s epic literary masterpiece The Divine Comedy, doesn’t exactly lend itself to the hack and slash genre. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. The Divine Comedy’s vivid imagery of Hell and all the horrific creatures within is the quintessential depiction of the Inferno, and a fantastic starting point for any game venturing into Lucifer’s playground. It might not be faithful to the source material but seeing Dante Alighieri’s terrifying vision come to life gives Dante’s Inferno a unique visual style. Now it’s just a case of whether substance can overcome style.

The story certainly strays wide of any substance, though it’s admirable enough to keep you interested throughout. Told via three distinct methods – CGI, in-game and animated cutscenes – Dante’s Inferno tells the story of Dante and his journey through Hell to rescue Beatrice, the love of his life. She made a dumbfounded wager with the Devil that if Dante remained faithful to her he would return home from the Third Crusade unharmed. Of course, it’s never a good idea to deal with the Devil and Dante eventually succumbs to temptation, unknowingly condemning Beatrice to the underworld for all eternity. It’s certainly an interesting premise, and while the small cast of characters are fairly bland, the use of CGI and animation to tell the story is impressive and serviceable enough to complement the gameplay and provide a good enough reason for venturing through the Nine Circles of Hell.

Of course it’s within those Circles that the bulk of the action takes place. Dante’s Inferno is, to put it lightly, a God of War copycat. From the use of light and heavy attacks, the fixed camera angles; the way you open doors, health and magic viles; the crate and lever puzzles and the QTEs to finish off enemies. The list could go on and on but I think you get the point. Sure, it’s derivative, but that doesn’t stop it being fun. Armed with Death’s own scythe and a Holy Cross, Dante’s certainly equipped to deal with any of Hell’s deadly minions. Combat starts out fairly basic with the scythe used for light and heavy combo attacks, and the Holy Cross as a useful ranged weapon, but eventually you’ll kill enough enemies to earn souls and upgrade both pieces of equipment to add an element of depth and variety to proceedings.

It’s here that Dante’s Inferno adopts some originality with holy and unholy upgrade trees. Whenever you grab an enemy for a brutal finishing move you can decide to either punish or absolve them, earning unholy or holy souls. These souls will open up more and more powerful abilities for you to buy for the scythe (unholy) and Holy Cross (holy) so choosing whether to punish or absolve an enemy carries a degree of strategy depending on what area you want to improve upon. As you reach the higher levels you’ll be able to purchase and utilise a variety of devastating moves for your two weapons and magic attacks, so there’s a lot of freedom to the combat allowing you to pick and choose which moves suit you. Combine this with different augmentations that give bonuses to particular areas and Dante’s Inferno has a case for stating its own identity.

It’s still very much derived from the God of War franchise with familiar and unoriginal combat; however, combining all of the light and heavy attacks with the Holy Cross and magic is wholly satisfying and stops combat from ever seeping into repetition. Plus, Dante’s Inferno has a unique setting and character designs going for it as well. Your descent into Hell will be a frightening one as you pass through each of the Nine Circles: limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery. It’d be easy to fill each Circle with rivers of lava and molten rock, but Dante’s Inferno goes for a much more gruesome look, spectacularly earning its mature rating. Death is all around, whether it’s the terrified screams of lost souls falling from above, or even the architecture itself; often moulded from the limbs and vital organs of the deceased. Everything about it signifies our worst nightmares, and as you venture deeper and deeper the environments will begin to represent each stage of the Nine Circles. Lust is full of phallic shaped towers and other such imagery, while gluttony sees you travel through the fleshy innards of a giant creature, eventually appearing out of its mouth. Even the enemy designs follow a similar pattern, with the controversial unbaptised babies waiting in limbo and bulbous, vile creatures eating anything that moves in gluttony. They’re fantastically grotesque and a joy to rip apart with your scythe.

Sadly these brilliant designs don’t far outstretch the first three Circles. While everything at the beginning of the game is new and exciting, enemies are eventually rehashed in each subsequent Circle. The only new enemy types you have to look forward to are mages and a couple of the other enemies re-branded, and it doesn’t make much sense that creatures seemingly specific to gluttony will appear in violence later on. It’s a shame because the few enemies you are introduced to are great, but you end up fighting them throughout the majority of Dante’s Inferno’s seven hour playtime. Even the level design carries a similar fate. There are a few standout moments past the first three Circles, but that initial grandiose scale is lost as you’re shuffled from room to room, forced to fight respawning enemies till the exit door opens. The only thing in-between these rooms are simple crate and lever puzzles and some light platforming. The sense of exploration and awe from your first few hours in Hell eventually fade away as the level design turns to tedium, culminating in fraud (the 8th Circle) where you’re forced into ten identical challenge rooms before you can face off against the last boss. They’re monotonous, frustrating and disrupt any excitement that could have been built before the grand finale; ultimately reeking of lazy level design.

Dante’s Inferno starts off big, consistently introducing new enemy types and grand environments, but by the end of the game that initial excitement turns to repetition as you fight through wave after wave of the same enemy type in increasingly familiar territory. The core gameplay is enjoyable enough to keep it interesting and fun throughout, with myriad upgrades and a unique punish and absorb mechanic to sink your teeth into, so it’s a shame the rest of the game couldn’t keep the momentum going. It might not be original but if you’ve never owned a Sony system before, Dante’s Inferno is an enjoyable alternative to Kratos’ Greek adventures, though the rest of us may want to wait until March.

Late last year when downloadable content was announced for Assassin’s Creed II I was definitely excited. The second game in the franchise was a vast improvement on the original in nearly every way, and earned its place as one of my games of the year for 2009. Both pieces of DLC, Battle of Forliand Bonfire of the Vanities, will slot into the vacant spaces for memory sequences 12 and 13, filling out blanks in Ezio’s story rather than expanding upon the events at the end of the game.

As a result, the story in Battle of Forli is difficult to understand if you haven’t played Assassin’s Creed II since its release back in November. Picking up straight after the close of memory sequence 12 it carries on as though nothing has happened, so if you don’t remember the specifics it’s going to be hard to follow. Your main task boils down to helping Caterina Sforza, who you helped on your way to Venice during the main game. Her castle is under attack due to some late story implications, so you’re tasked with helping her and her children, as well as fulfilling some of your own needs. Battle of Forli also fills in some late story blanks, such as how Ezio got a hold of the codec map, or why Leonardo da Vinci ended up at the villa. Only small details, but they at least pad out the story a little more.

The gameplay is essentially part of the main game so there’s nothing new to see here. The majority ofBattle of Forli consists of large scale battles with a miniscule degree of sneaking and climbing towards the end. Anyone who’s ever played ACII before knows that crowded battles were never the game’s strong point so it’s disappointing that it’s basically all Battle of Forli consists of. Even Niccolò Machiavelli, one of the most well-known and influential men in history, is reduced to a combat-hardened sidekick. It would have been nice to give him a bigger and more respectful role, much like da Vinci, but at the moment he’s a killer just like you.

At around 40 minutes Battle of Forli is also an extremely short piece of DLC. The cheap price of 320 Microsoft Points can justify it, but for such a small amount of content and the same gameplay we’ve already spent 15 hours playing, it isn’t really worth it. Newcomers will get the most out of it since it fits in with the rest of the game as though it was always there to begin with – arguably like it should have been – and those wanting to pick up the flying machine Achievement without going back to play the rest of the game will be pleased with its involvement. But as a stand-alone piece of DLC Battle of Forli is significantly lacking in all areas. Hopefully sequence 13 can remedy things, but I have my doubts after this underwhelming effort.

It might be hard to grasp but back in the ’90s LucasArts were at the forefront of the adventure game genre. They may not have always received the commercial success they deserved, but critically, and amongst fans, LucasArts created some of the greatest games to ever grace the genre. The puzzles were inventive, challenging and quirky, and the writing was of another level; hilarious, witty and with plenty of heart and honesty. There was rarely a negative aspect leveled at the classic point and click adventure games LucasArts developed during that golden era, and the Monkey Island series was always the spearhead of their popularity and quality. Now, after almost a decade lost at sea, the classic series has finally returned to port – much to the tremendous jubilation of aspiring swashbucklers everywhere.

While Tales of Monkey Island progresses the story of mighty pirate Guybrush Threepwood, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition takes the classic franchise back to its roots with some added polish for the HD generation. Essentially this is the 1990 classic all over again, so if you still have fond memories of that game then there’s plenty to love here. Back then it was one of the most hilarious games you could ever play and the majority of the humour remains just as relevant and funny today. Of course now there’s also another dimension to the humour never seen or heard before that makes this entry one you‘ll want to spend your 800 pieces of eight on. This is a special edition after all and that means updated visuals, sound and functionality to give The Secret of Monkey Island a refreshing new facelift with it’s improved production values and streamlining.

Right off the bat the most obvious change is the new visual style. Updated for next-gen systems, the new art is stylish, smooth and highly detailed. It fits in with the look we’ve seen from the more recent entries in the series and it works well. Some characters look a bit odd, but overall this is an impressive update that adds plenty of grandeur to this classic adventure tale. Although, if you’re not a fan of the new look you can always switch back and forth between new and old on the fly. With a simple press of the back button you can travel back to the early 90s and play through the original game with all the same pixelated goodness you remember. Entering a new area for the first time and being able to see what it originally looked like is always a welcome site to behold, and it just shows how big the new changes are in adding to the whole experience. They aren’t large enough to stray away from what made the game so brilliant in the first place, just subtle nuances like the light of a full moon glistening off the water at the pier, or the new high detail revealing things that were a little too difficult to notice first time through. The updated visuals should be good enough to impress and please everyone, but for those not too fond it’s excellent that you can just switch back to the original at any time and carry on from there.

Although if you did that you’d also be missing out on the all new sound design. The original music remains intact but on a much larger scale. It’s easily recognisable and the added quality given to each track really helps give the music much more prominence within the game. However, the biggest change is the inclusion of voice actors. The original only featured text, so giving voices to these characters easily ups the comedy value and immersion in the experience. Most of the cast will be recognisable from other Monkey Island games, and the new additions are perfectly cast in most places. Hearing these characters come to life makes The Secret of Monkey Island that much more hilarious, and the quality of voice acting actually manages to add new jokes to the original script purely with subtle tones and changes in pace. The original was a complete riot to begin with, so now imagine that with a performance thrown on top. Fantastic.

However, the same cannot be said for the new interface. The various options took up half the screen in the original so you’ll be pleased to know that they’ve been hidden behind the shoulder buttons in the Special Edition. It’s probably the best way to use it with a controller but it can still feel too clumsy and clustered. There are so many options to chose from that navigating through them and your items is always a slow process, especially when attempting to combine different items to solve a particular puzzle. It’s not ideal but it’s one of the problems that comes when converting a game like this to a console and controller setup. The only other problems arise from the games old design. It’s to be expected from a game nearly 20 years old, but some objects are often quite hard to make out, particularly on the overhead maps. You’ll often find things by chance, just by hovering the cursor over an area and seeing the text pop up. As you can imagine it can be hard to find what you’re looking for at times. I know they wanted to maintain everything from the original game with updated sound and visuals thrown on top, but it would have been nice to see some objects highlighted to improve the games functionality.

Luckily the new hints system goes some way to pointing you in the right direction if you ever get lost. By holding down the X button you can reveal three stages of hints. The first will give you a general idea of what you may need to do; for instance, it may say “maybe you should talk to the prisoner”, or “look for a sword” and so on. The other subsequent stages give you bigger hints until eventually giving you giant arrows to follow. It’s a great system that eliminates some of the frustration that comes with the adventure game genre, and also stops you breaking the experience by searching online for FAQs. You may find yourself relying on it more heavily than you would imagine, but you just need to fight your own willpower in those instances.

It may have been a long time coming but Monkey Island is finally back and just as good as we remember it. It’s disappointing that LucasArts have taken this long to go back to their adventure roots but the quality of product on offer more than makes up for it. The Secret of Monkey Island is still one of the greatest games of all time and this new Special Edition presents it to a new audience with its fantastic production values and hilarious dialogue. There are some problems with the old game design and animation, but the subtle new additions like the hints system make it an easier experience for new players to enjoy. For the old fans that played it back in the day this is the game exactly as you remembered it. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from setting sail once again, so get your crew ready and remember to bring a helmet. Ahoy!

Flower opens up to a vast concrete jungle; giant, steel skyscrapers tower overhead, while massive cranes continue to build upon this ever expanding man-made metropolis. At ground level cars bustle by to the hasty speed of city life, and the only sound to be heard is that of thunderous construction work and the power of a V8 engine. For many it will evoke emotions of stress – a disrupter of peace and relaxation. A stark contrast to everything Flower is.

It may take place in this dark, gloomy, colourless world, but everything in Flowerhappens within the dreams of an actual flower. It sits there by the window of a high rise apartment, looking out at the city, thinking of a place much more beautiful and serene; a place of nature.

So you’re transported into this alluring world with no explanation at all. Luckily,Flower is a very easy game to get into; any button on the controller controls the wind, whilst using the Sixaxis allows you to guide a multitude of petals across the landscape. This may sound like bad news – the Sixaxis hasn’t exactly performed thus far – but it only takes a moment to get to grips with, and works flawlessly. You’ll be flowing across the elegant landscape within no time, controlling the wind to thrust yourself forwards, gathering more petals as you brush through each individual blade of grass.

You see, your objective in Flower is to guide your petals across the environment, collecting other flowers to inject some much needed colour into the world – in the same vein as Okami or Prince of Persia. It sounds effortless and it is, but you can tackle it any way you want. Ideally you want to take things slow, soak up everything the game has to offer and just relax. There’s a sense of spirituality here; it’s easy to get wrapped up in its charm and float off into another world, almost as if you’re daydreaming or even meditating. No other game I’ve played has given off this feeling. There are no punishments, no time limits, you’re free to just sit back, unwind and relieve yourself of all life’s problems.

And this majestic gameplay is reflected in the visuals. To put it simply, Flower is a stunning game to look at, both in terms of graphical power and art direction. You have these massive, sweeping fields and each blade of grass is it’s own entity. It will twist and turn in the wind, parting down the middle as the petals flow through it. If the message of Flower is the beauty of nature, then they got it spot on here; even managing to intersperse the grassy fields with man-made machinery to create something visually appealing, despite the fact it goes against everything you’ve witnessed in the game up to that point.

When I look at Flower I see a game encouraging people to embrace nature. Not in a way to discourage items we use in every day life, but to show there are two sides to the world and we should respect both equally. It shows a bustling city as a dark and unpleasant place, yet still manages to embrace certain objects such as artificial light or wind turbines as important and useful tools. We need things like this but we also need nature to show us how to relax and cling onto the joys of life.

If you don’t want to seek out Flower’s unspoken meaning and interpret it for yourself, then there’s still plenty here to enjoy. I’ve reached the point where I now own more PlayStation Network titles than retail PlayStation 3 games, and Floweris definitely one of the best. The objective based gameplay can get in the way of exploration at times – sometimes blocking certain paths – but on the whole you’re free to do whatever you want. It’s short at around two hours, so traditionalists will want to spend time trying to find every hidden flower to add some much needed replay value, while others will just want to play through it again for the experience.

Flower may not be for everyone but if you go into it with the right mind-set then you’re guaranteed to witness something exceptional. Whether it’s the subtle notes you play as you brush past each flower or the firework effect of bringing a field to life at night; each of Flower’s levels are unique and offer something for everyone. As a cheap download it’s a game everyone needs to at least try, some way or another. If you’re reincarnated after you die I want to come back as a flower and play out these daydreams all over again.

Another World War II game? Most people grudgingly sigh when they hear “World War II first-person-shooter”.  For all of the great experiences had in games like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, there have been a slew of horrendous games just trying to cash in on the lucrative formula.  One of the more successful franchises in the shooter genre are the Battlefield games, which have a robust online community that keeps the games strong years after they’re released. Battlefield 1943, the latest installment in the franchise is a game that deserves your attention. As the true-sequel and a homage to the classic PC shooter Battlefield 1942, this game is fast-paced, addicting, and a superb value at $15.

Battlefield 1943 got off to a rough start. The Xbox 360 version in particular had server outages which did not allow many people to play through the first weekend after the game’s release. In addition, the game’s voice chat features and squad systems seemed glitch ridden. Yet DICE worked diligently to add more servers and correct some other problems joining matches with friends. Upon sitting down to play the game it seemed as though it finally gained some momentum.

Battlefield 1943 keeps the formula pretty simple—three classes and maps all built around one gameplay variant.  Players will play conquest matches as members of the Japanese Imperial Navy or US Marines on three of the most iconic battlefields from the Pacific theater of World War II. Wake Island, Guadalcanal, and Iwo Jima were sites of intense fighting during the war and are all compromised of vastly different topographies.  What Battlefield 1943 is missing in numbers, it makes up for in diversity and substance. Wake Island’s unique boomerang shape, Guadalcanal’s hills and valleys, and Iwo Jima’s fortified Mount Suribachi (the site of the iconic flag raising) all play differently enough that player’s strategies will have to be significantly amended from map to map.

Strategy comes through choice of classes and vehicles. Players can choose from infantry, scout, and rifleman classes. All of the different classes have their strengths and weaknesses but certain classes seem to be a bit stronger than others. Unbalanced classes are not overwhelmingly apparent but I found that the sniper rifles and machine guns were weaker than the rifles. Players take a lot of damage before they are killed regardless of which weapons are utilized, something that leads me to believe that lower powered weapons were a design choice. This design mechanic creates a game that plays differently from other more realistic shooters but doesn’t dilute the enjoyable aspects of the game.

Where the game has a more arcade feeling among the shooting elements, the vehicles often time feel like a complicated simulator. During a loading screen, the game warned me that the planes were incredibly hard to use, something you discover immediately after takeoff. The game uses a very complicated control scheme for flying planes which will result in many unintentional suicides.  Practice makes perfect but after the flying has been mastered the underpowered explosives replace the controls as the most frustrating element. Planes and tanks have explosives as one would expect, however, they are enormously underpowered when facing soldiers. The explosives small damage radius is the problem. In order to kill an enemy with explosives you have to hit them almost directly, an almost impossible proposition when facing a fast moving target.

It is important to realize that these problems do not ruin the fun. This is because there’s an entertaining experience to be had regardless of what role you take on your team. One quickly realizes that not everyone is going to be an ace pilot or sharpshooter but that every player will find a position that’s fun even if it’s derived from defending a flag. Although reviews tend to highlight the negative sides of games, I want to stress that Battlefield 1943 is one of the most enjoyable and addicting online games I have played of late. Of course, some of my enjoyment of the game is because I was a fan of Battlefield 1942 (I have to admit that I got goosebumps after I heard the theme music again) but the beauty of downloadable games is that everyone can try the trial. There are some bugs within the games, particularly in the Xbox360 version’s graphics and leaderboards, but the underlying entertainment value is not diminished.  For a $15 downloadable title, Battlefield 1943 is an amazing value which will definitely provide hours of entertainment and hopefully be supported by additional downloadable content.