Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter
What's Serious Sam like in HD? Well, it's like Serious Sam. It plays exactly, and unapologetically, like the 2001 original. Croatian developers Croteam are confident that this, along with the engine's new jinglier bells and noisier whistles, is enough to tempt you to spend the best part of twenty quid. They also wouldn't mind if you forgot that the alternative is rooting around a second-hand bargain bin and picking up a dusty old copy of the eight-year-old original for fifty pence.
Left 4 Dead 2
You only need to peek at EA's immense marketing spend for Left 4 Dead 2 to see what all the fuss is about. Last year's affair was comparatively muted, spurred along by word of mouth, adulation from the gaming press and a communal respect for Valve's pedigree as a developer. Left 4 Dead 2 begins with the success of the original, creating a sequel born out of dedication, a shrewd understanding of the online market and the realisation that the first one of these was pretty dang good.
Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age is big. Really big. Over fifty hours big, and that's if you skip tons of side quests. Then your eye creeps over to the suffix: Origins. BioWare's latest unashamed fantasy epic, which once again pits you against impossible odds to decide the fate of the entire world, is - sales and reception permitting, I imagine - the equivalent of dipping your foot in the pool to test the waters.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
The Zone is a hostile place. If it's not the mutants, bandits or aggressive weather conditions putting an end to the player's expedition around Chernobyl nuclear power plant, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s unoptimised, uncompromising engine will routinely throw its own spanner in the works and spectacularly crash to desktop.
Zombie Shooter 2
Collate the headshots clicked out in a decade of Counter-Strike alongside the number of Diablo’s minions felled by frenzied depressions, and you’ll end up with a number to put dual-stick controllers to shame. Sigma Team’s Zombie Shooter 2 is determined to exist as the most extravagant example of the venerable work-and-play input device’s clicky-clicky gore-dealing abilities. So hyperbolic is the game’s penchant for guts, limbs and blood spatters that the terrain of most levels is quickly obfuscated by the entrails of popped zombies. Well, some zombies, as the title is both entirely apt and a misnomer: the game is hardly discriminatory in what constitutes its eponymous monsters, instead opting to present all sorts of grimy nasties to disembowel, including dogs, giant fat women and hulking, steely beasts toting enormous rocket launchers, with spikes protruding from their back end.
Blood Bowl
Consider Cyanide's previous title Chaos Legion, a 2004 strategy title that was pretty much Blood Bowl - a turn-based, hyper-violent ode to American football in a fantasy setting - in everything but name. Games Workshop were a bit miffed with their efforts and filed a lawsuit, one that culminated in an undisclosed out-of-court settlement and a license with Cyanide to develop a proper Blood Bowl game. Flash forward five years and it's finally being released.
Fallout: A Retrospective
"Up yours and have a bullet breakfast, asshole!" barks a kidnapper with irate gusto. Fallout's inhabitants rarely converse in ways considered reasonable, but that's probably because they're living in a world where nuclear war has devastated the entire planet and the remaining guns are of such impossibly high calibre a few shots can reduce a torso to mush. While Fallout 1 and 2 are two of the few games in the world where it's possible to be diplomatic without a weapon, the NPC's you'll encounter along the way are all too ready to reach for their arsenal.
Duke Nukem 3D
For a brief moment, forget Duke Nukem Forever and the trials, tribulations and false starts of 3D Realms' presumed-doomed twelve year project. Cast aside the ever-populist morbid fascination with Duke's disappointments and hark back to 1996, the year Take That went their separate ways and Michael Bay's action opus The Rock was released. It was a glorious age, one where it was excessively cool to suffix games with '3D'; a little trick the movie industry has recently rediscovered over a decade later. And whilst Quake would arrive six months down the line and revolutionise the aesthetics of my childhood, Duke Nukem 3D's brash antics, flamboyant design and overtly gratuitous destruction would capture my heart.
The Sims 3
On starting up The Sims 3, I did what any self-respecting, narcissistic twenty-something would do and set about creating a near-perfect rendition of myself and my housemates. It's all been a bit hectic since then, and right now we're all suffering from a low mood after spending the last few days working to some nasty deadlines. If I don't get to play some video games soon I'm probably going to be irrevocably scarred. Plus my housemate kept me up last night by playing the guitar. Oh, and we also live next door to a Mafia den.
Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures: The Last Resort
Someone at Telltale clearly understands British weather: The Last Resort opens with the ever-affable Wallace and his faithful companion Gromit having their holiday to Blackpool fatally ruined by torrential downpour. We’ve all been there. After the frosty reception to the first episode, the gloomy forecast was likely felt by some when news that the second in Wallace and Gromit’s series of Grand Adventures had recently found its way onto the internet: a typical response to Telltale’s seemingly divisive nature. We quite liked Fright of the Bumblebees, though, so it was certainly exciting to launch up another romp through our eponymous heroes’ ambiguous northern town.
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- Watching a couple opposite me celebrate an anniversary. Am both disgusted at their public affection - this is ENGLAND - and horribly jealous
- A Guardian caption typo is currently claiming that Northern Rock is to pay 16 billion in bonuses. That's a big wad of cash.
- Holy moly Jagged Alliance 3.
- Hank Chien's life sounds awesome. Plastic surgeon by day, King of Kong by night!
- @JCRgate That and whatever hefty update the PS3 needs every time I get around to switching it on.