Stephane Petit-Clerc
Less than a year ago, Microsoft and Phantagram gave us Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders, a game that took many gamers by surprise and built a strong and loyal following almost immediately. While not the over-the-top success of a Halo or a Jade Empire, Kingdom Under Fire's success came from the simple fact that it filled a void in many gamers' libraries. Read More.
I'm a 30 year old male. I rip through Mature-rated games like candy, completely unfazed in the least. I watch Unrated movies from France and Europe. Late night TV has nothing on me. And I confess; I became a giant freaky mess of goofiness when I found out that there would be a sequel to Katamari Damacy. Read More.
As a reviewer, it is hard (and mostly unheard of) to give a sequel a higher score than its predecessor. In this case, factor in that the predecessor in question is a landmark title like Burnout 3: Takedown and that this iteration simply builds upon greatness and you'd have a good case against scoring it higher. Read More.
I still remember quite vividly the day my friends and I picked up the original Ape Escape game for the Playstation. I remember coming home and hoping that all the previews I'd read were right. To me Ape Escape looked like a children's game. I was hoping the articles that had previewed the title using words like "innovative and "defining" hadn't led me astray. Read More.
As a reviewer, it is hard (and mostly unheard of) to give a sequel a higher score than its predecessor. In this case, factor in that the predecessor in question is a landmark title like Burnout 3: Takedown and that this iteration simply builds upon greatness and you'd have a good case against scoring it higher. Read More.
I love discovering a good game. You know, the ones that have been out for a while and that you've never really payed a lot of mind to only to chance upon them as a fluke and wonder how you could of lived without them? Well, Champions of Norrath is exactly that kind of game. Read More.
In a perfect world, you'd simply take your PS2 disk, pop it into your PSP and be on your merry way. Your 8 MB memory card saves would be completely transferable and you'd never miss a beat. Unfortunately, things aren't always that perfect. And when it comes to sports games, handhelds have usually featured watered-down skeletons of console versions with minimal modes, unintuitive gameplay, backward mechanics and lackluster polish. Read More.
Well made games generally spawn good, solid sequels. And, as a rule, every well-made sequel should add one or two gameplay elements or feature to a series to further it along. But, in the process, previous iterations are rendered dull and obsolete. Case in point; While many believe that the yearly outing of the Madden series only updates rosters and adds more polygons to each character, I challenge you to play a previous version after spending time with the latest and greatest version. Read More.
Have you ever been on that perfect first date where everything seems new and wonderful and the future seems filled with dreamy possibilities? The date ends at just the right moment and leaves you invigorated and thinking of that person long after the fact. That night you have the best sleep of your life and the next day the birds are out in full force chirping away and everything in the world seems right and fine and good… And then you have a second date and you wonder what new bread of creature spawned this thing and how you can send it back to its maker pronto? Read More.
Have you ever been on that perfect first date where everything seems new and wonderful and the future seems filled with dreamy possibilities? The date ends at just the right moment and leaves you invigorated and thinking of that person long after the fact. That night you have the best sleep of your life and the next day the birds are out in full force chirping away and everything in the world seems right and fine and good… And then you have a second date and you wonder what new bread of creature spawned this thing and how you can send it back to its maker pronto? Read More.
No matter how you look at it, video games, much like the big screen, were invented for superheroes. Where else are you expected to jump, shoot, punch and kick your way to victory time and time again. Even World War 2 shooters have a little superhero in them; one man against the world, saving the day with an inhuman show of courage and athletic feats. Read More.
Much like Namco's Ridge Racer series, it seems that the Twisted Metal series has always gone hand-in-hand with Sony's various console outings, always there to pave the way and set the trend for things to come. The original Twisted Metal, released in the mid-90s helped usher in the PS1 and along with its sequel sold tons of copies. Read More.
There are 3 types of people in this world: The ones who like their golf cuddly with realistic physics (a la Hot Shots Golf), those who like their golf realistic with arcade physics (a la Tiger Woods) and then there are those who simply don't care about golf at all. Read More.
It can be argued to no end what the most popular video game of all time is. The Sims, Myst, Solitaire, Mario, Pong? Think even simpler. Little blocks falling down, being rotated and forming lines that are magically removed. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Tetris wins hands down for the simple fact that everyone I know has played it, has then played it some more and will, in one form or another (and without exception) play it again at some point in their lives. Read More.
I'll be honest about it; Midnight Club 3 on the Xbox is quite possibly my favorite arcade racer of all-time. It looks good, its got tons of replay value, excellent multiplayer modes and it made you want to keep playing it even after some particularly frustrating races later on. Read More.
