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The game opens rather typically, Mario is invited to yet another festival held in the Mushroom Kingdom and you'll be surprised to learn that Bowser is messing everything up again. This time, however, Bowser has come in super-size form and takes Princess Peach with very little difficulty, shooting off into deep space. Mario is in hot pursuit thanks to a little help from some old Luma (little star-like creatures introduced in Super Mario Galaxy) friends who blast him into the skies. Here he meets a new Luma friend who restores his spinning-abilities and meets a Spaceship Luma Captain who has been attacked by Bowser and is willing to help Mario defeat him. With the means to track down Bowser and the Princess here begins another Mario adventure.

If you played Super Mario Galaxy, the sequel will have very few surprises in-store for you. Not that this is a bad thing, most of the gimmicks from the first game have carried over to the second instalment, from the temporary fire flower to the still-less-than-fun Spring Mario as well as new power ups like the Cloud Flower and the ultimate in awful gameplay mechanics; the Rock Mushroom. More about those later. But I can basically sum up what you're about to read below; if you liked Mario Galaxy 1, you'll love Mario Galaxy 2.

Galaxy 2 opens up to a shocking sense of deja vu, the first stage you play will remind you heavily of the opening of Galaxy 1, even the boss is similar; an egg which Mario lands on and wakes up some plant-like dinosaur creature which you spin-attack it's backside to hurt. Unfortunately, you'll get constant senses of deja vu through-out the game like a world which mixes lava and ice and yet another Bee Mario orientated stage. Thankfully, the game has a lot of cool new stages and levels, sadly none of which has a lot of charm to them but are ultimately enjoyable.

I'm not sure what it is about Mario Galaxy 2, but there's such a sense of disappointment about it. Don't get me wrong, as an extension of Super Mario Galaxy, Galaxy 2 is lots of fun. Everything is as you remember it from Galaxy 1 with added brilliance from a more diverse soundtrack of pretty contemporary orchestrated music and a helping hand of nostalgia with lots of Super Mario World references and the return of everyone's favourite adorable dinosaur; Yoshi. Which Mario can now jump on and ride around eating stuff like it's 1994 all over again.

You'll probably have noticed by now I'm not going too in-depth about the galaxies in Super Mario Galaxy. This is because half the fun of Mario Galaxy is opening up new galaxies like an excited child on Christmas morn, seeing what lies beyond the current present you just opened. And let me tell you, in this simile; Galaxy 2 is the best Christmas you'll ever have. Sure, there's the odd pair of socks or a scarf which is so horrible and ugly that you just don't want to touch but they're a tiny drop in the ocean of genius.

And now it comes to inform you about all the new gimmicks which Nintendo have decided we must endure. I mean, not all of the new power ups which Nintendo have added to the game are awful. Cloud Mario, a power up gained from touching a Cloud Flower enables you to make clouds by shaking the Wii remote. Easily the best power up in the game, because using you ingenuity, you can very easily make difficult challenges very trivial. You're limited to 3 clouds per flower and no, they do not re-spawn over time. The best tip I can give you? Do a backwards flip (Z button + A button when stationary) and spin.

Then you have frustrating gimmicks like Rock Mario, gained from touching a Rock Mushroom. Rock Mario's only usefulness is his ability to get you killed very quickly. Shake the Wii Remote and you become a near-unstoppable force of momentum as Mario rolls into a ball and goes flying in whatever direction you hold on the analogue stick. All is well until you realise that you will always misjudge the length of time Mario spends in his ball-form and find that there's no way to cancel the ball-form. A combination which will lead to many-a-embarrassing death as you fall off-stage.

Yoshi plays a much bigger roll in Super Mario Galaxy than any 3D Mario before it. Mario can ride Yoshi whenever he finds an egg in a stage. Much like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, you cannot just simply take a Yoshi and keep him with you until you lose him or leave him as-was the case in older Mario games and a lot of stages are set-up specifically for Yoshi, with the game becoming too easy or conflicting with other gimmicky-power ups if Yoshi were allowed to roam free. Alas, Yoshi is still quite a fun addition to the game. When you have a Yoshi, he can eat enemies on the field by hoving over an enemy with the pointer and hitting B. Yoshi can eat a lot of enemies or hazards that Mario would otherwise be unable to defeat, such as spiky plants. Everything Yoshi eats turns into Star Bits, a form of currency to unlock optional galaxies and a sort-of helpful form of ammunition which either the first or second player can shoot and daze enemies. Yoshi can also eat special fruits to obtain special powers. These come in 3 forms, a Red Chilli which makes Yoshi run around very quickly and able to scale vertical walls, a Blue Berry which makes Yoshi fill with water and shoot it towards the ground, propelling you in the air and a Light Fruit which uncovers and makes solid otherwise invisible flooring.

Also making a return are the mini-game-like motion control stages. The jump-on-ball-and-roll stages from Mario Galaxy 1 return, you know the ones, you hold the Wii remove vertically up and tilt it around to steer, yeah, those ones. The really unfun ones. A new Bird Gliding mini-game makes an appearance as well. These aren't too bad, the basic idea behind them and the control scheme used to control them are all a bit silly, really. You hold the controller flat and swivel the controller, a bit like the Manatee stages from Galaxy 1. Only instead of wilding going out of control with a fear of falling off the stage, here you have the constant threat of bashing into walls. See, I did say 'gliding', not 'flying'. Being an utterly useless bird, the thing you hold onto can only plummet downwards and you can help gravity along by tilting the nose of the Wii Remote downwards to speed up. This gives you a small (and I mean small) speed boost as well as lowering your altitude. This is necessary in all courses of the game. Trying to judge just how much you need to descend can be more than tricky, but you get the hang of it a lot faster than the aforementioned Manatee stages.

Where as Mario Galaxy had a more open-ended Galaxy system, where you could progress or skip any world you pleased so long you made-do with enough Stars to open up another world, much like in Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy 2 seems to think your freedom is unwelcome. And instead locks you into a more Super Mario Bros. 3-style 'World' system. Which one must complete one world to progress to another... Yet there's still points in the game which require you to have an arbitrary number of stars to advance. Hungry Luma still appear in the game, but on the World Map, which you have to call them back to the Star Ship you're travelling on to feed them Star Bits... Then return to the World Map to go to the newly opened Galaxy. Why can't I just feed it on the World Map again? Either way, Hungry Luma in the game are extortionists. I found myself farming Star Bits with Yoshi on several occasions to get enough Star Bits for some optional worlds. It's not exactly what I'd consider 'fun'.

I look upon Mario Galaxy 2 and while I feel a little disappointed with the game, I do constantly think "if I was the same age I was when playing Super Mario World for the first time, I'd love this game". And it's true. Everything's there. The game is awesome for me as a grumpy 20-something, I can only imagine how happy a much younger child would be playing this game. I think kids would have a lot harder time beating this game than I did beating Super Mario World back in the day though. See, Nintendo listened to all the teenagers and 20-somethings who played Galaxy 1 and felt the game was too easy. And I'll agree, I bested Galaxy 1, 120 stars there-and-back was pretty simple enough. Now the game has blown to 240-odd stars and the difficulty has increased ten-fold. With my star collection sitting pretty at 77 stars as of writing this review. I didn't think Galaxy needed a difficulty increase, but if kids can still beat the game and more of the audience is happy with this change, then so be it.

Oh and one more, minor thing you may want to know about. You remember in Galaxy, right? Where you had all those different comets, like the purple one or the green one on the galaxy select screens? Well they're gone. Too bad. All comets are now Prankster Comets, like it or not. You wont know what trial lies ahead of you until you blast off towards that galaxy. But at least they sorted out how comets work in Galaxy 2. Now instead of relying on luck and random encounters, you collect Comet Coins, which make comets appear when you collect so many. You're also alerted when comets appear AND the best bit is that they don't disappear after a time. So you can go back and complete the comet-induced task at your convenience. Isn't that nice?

Visually, the game isn't that much different from Mario Galaxy. I think it's easy to take that for granted though. One stage late into the game, which is really an optional world, really shows just how nice Galaxy's visuals are. Definitely cream of the Wii's crop. A consistent art style that screams 'Mario' from every aspect really makes the game a pleasure to look at.

In the audio department, things are amazing. The game's soundtrack is definitely one of the many highlights for players. While Galaxy 1 focused heavily on either heavily orchestrated or heavily sci-fi sounding tracks, Galaxy 2 takes a far more experimental route with remixes of older Mario tunes in the mix along with some fantastic new tracks which I really can't pin a genre on at all.

Overall then, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a fantastic title. A little underwhelming in the end, but a vastly superior title over the first? I think so. Difficulty can be a bit iffy at times, but once you start going after all the secrets in the game, you'll be sure to encounter what I mean by increased difficulty. Changes to the game here-and-there are possibly for the worse, but with all the advances the game has made, these tiny inches backwards made are nothing to really worry about. Just sit back, relax and imagine you're a kid again. Everything will fit into place.]]> 4 Nintendo Wii http://www.50hzgamer.co.uk/index.php?gameid=NDS/ancd
Another Code is a top-down perspective adventure game. It's heavy on text, heavy on ambiance and heavy on your heart-strings. It's a very difficult game to judge, the game itself seems rather comical and light-hearted on it's exterior, but deep down inside, it's a dark, quite depressing story of events the main character seems to have very little control over. However, really, for every depressing moment in the game, there's a heart-warming piece to pick up the mood somewhere later down the road. I actually consider the game to be my favourite video game of all time, if that says anything. It is very, very good.

And so, once more into the review abyss; Another Code follows the story of Ashley Robins, a 14 year old girl. She is on a boat destined for a long-deserted piece of land called Blood Edward Island, rumours of strange deaths have surrounded the island for decades and no-one has visited in just as long. Ashley and her Aunt; Jessica are to meet Ashley's long-thought-dead father on the island. However, upon making land-fall, they realise something is amiss, Ashley's father; Richard, doesn't meet them as they arrive and soon after looking for him, Ashley's aunt Jessica vanishes. It's up to Ashley to find them and settle a disturbing memory which has haunted Ashley for 11 years...

That's probably the best I can summarise the story for you without blowing everything. For an adventure game; Another Code is cripplingly short. 5 hours is the typical 80% completion/first run time for the game. It's significantly less on subsequent play-thoughs. But don't stick your nose up at this, the game packs an awful lot of punch in those 5 hours. If you're the kind of gamer who likes to pick up and put down handheld games as-and-when, you'll find Another Code akin to your play style. It's short game time makes the story compact, you can save when and where-ever during the game and even within the course of a 10-15 minute play, you'll have at least one puzzle to solve or story to sink your teeth into. 'Very little down-time' is how I would describe it.

The game is shown to you from the top-down perspective. You control Ashley and move around the game world either by touching the screen with your stylus or using the D-Pad. You'll often encounter scenery which you can interact with by getting close enough to it and hitting the "Search" icon in the top-right-hand corner of the screen or press the A button near it. From here, you control a pointer around the screen like old-school point-and-click adventure games. Here you can find items or interact with objects and start puzzles. When you enter puzzles, you must use your wits and the capabilities of the DS to solve the puzzle at hand.

Puzzles are great gimmicks in the game. Remember that in 2005, all we really had for the DS was Super Mario 64 DS, Sprung (which still is horrible, by the way) and Ridge Racer DS. So suddenly having a game where all the DS' main features are utilised in such an ingenious way was really exciting. It may still be today for those who haven't played the game yet. The game used some pretty out-there puzzle ideas, including one where you had to close the DS completely to stamp paper, one where you had to close the DS' screens just enough to make the top screen reflect into the other screen and made full use of the DS' touch-screen and microphone capabilities. As well as some very clever software-orientated puzzles like taking photographs with the in-game DS (called the DAS. Oh yes, people. CiNG called the DSi back in 2005. Geniuses, I swear.) and super-imposing two images over one-another. Clever stuff.

Visually, the game probably isn't too much to look at. The game may remind veteran point-and-click gamers of Myst, somewhat. As you roam around a real-time 3D environment looking down upon the world, you're sometimes greeted with pre-rendered CGI stills of parts of the game being presented on the top-screen as you move about. This was done to overcome the DS' graphical limitations, especially for release titles. However, the game's art style is pretty inconsistent. Characters are drawn in a very simplistic, somewhat cartoon-ish manner, while the CGI scenes are more realistic. This often leads to confusing conflicts of art-styles, with CGI stills matching inconsistent portrayals of characters in the game. Fortunately, the game does offer up explanation whenever these occur.

Sound-wise, the game is very dramatic. The somewhat moving nature of the game accompanied its ambient sound, haunting melodies and simplistic (but not basic) approach to a game score makes it pull just that little harder on the ol' heart strings. And it works. The game gets to me every time I play it, what with its charming nature. There's no voices in the game, instead each character speaks in bips and bops as text scrolls on-screen, but hey, these are the limitations of the system, especially for first-generation DS titles.

So how can I explain Another Code? It's as much a game as it is a novel. It's as much a puzzle game as it is an exploration game. It's a fine balance. The game lays a lot of story on you in a short amount of time and it never gets dull. Puzzles in the game can be an utter breeze or something more notable depending on how good at problem solving you are. The game feels like it falls short in many regards, it's game time being one, the other being an unclear notion of goals in the game. There's two stories running side-by-side in the game, whether you realise it or not and an almost 'hidden' good-ending in the game if you are able to complete both stories, not just the required story-line. The game offers itself up to repeated play-throughs, but I fear many will simply put the game down after the first time. Seriously, if you're playing the game, play it twice, make sure you get everything. It's well worth the investment of your time.

Overall then, I feel my views on the game are skewed. I made that quite clear though when I proclaimed the game to be my favourite video game of all time, topping even greats such as Super Mario World and even this game's Wii sequel; Another Code R. This game, to me, defines the Nintendo DS. Using all but the game's WiFi, it brings together a truly unique game, even if it borrows heavily off an almost-dead genre. It's sad that CiNG has left us now, their talent made beautiful games like this and Hotel Dusk. And for that, I thank you, CiNG. Sure hope you guys are putting your talents to good use somewhere else now.]]> 5 Nintendo DS http://www.50hzgamer.co.uk/index.php?gameid=OTHER/smwr Retro Recall - Old games are magical to me. An odd sentiment to open with, I know. But whenever I think of an old game like Sonic 3 or Super Mario World, I get taken back to the age where the world was just what I could see, where I believed that whatever was in a Disney film could actually exist, maybe. It's that innocence which I believe I'll never be able to rekindle, let alone through playing new games disguised as old ones. (Looking at you, New Super Mario Bros. Wii)

Back around 1992-ish, video games weren't a big part of my life. I was pretty young and couldn't quite afford to shell out for big, expensive things like games consoles or PCs that could run any of the memorable titles at the time. I do have a Spectrum and Tape Deck from that time, but like hell I can remember playing on it. So my first real introduction to video games was through the SNES which came into my household. Great console, still have it hooked up to an old CRT TV right behind where I sit as I type this up.

I spent great chunks of my childhood on that console, Super Mario World being the biggest hour-cruncher. And after playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii at Christmas, I was somewhat disappointed. It felt to me that, despite all the fancy graphics and the new costumes, New Super Mario Bros. Wii was a huge step backwards. Hopefully by the end of this review, I'll have told you why. But just know this, this review will most likely be less about the game on it's merits and more on the game's nostalgia and heart-warming bond between cold-hearted-video-game-fan and his childhood pet video game.

So, Super Mario World. Successor of the highly successful Super Mario Bros. series on the NES. It was a flag-ship title for the SNES. It boasted pretty colours, a whole new sprawling map-system-come-overworld and a new in-level item hold/swap system. Many, myself included, see Super Mario World as being the definitive 2D Mario title. It was also the last 'true' 2D Mario title, as after the SNES came the Nintendo 64 and the third-dimension.

The game follows Mario and Luigi as they once again save the Mushroo--Dinosaur Land ('cause everything in the 90's was about Dinosaurs) from the evil Bowser who has once again captured the Princess. His snivelling kids, featured in Super Mario Bros. 3, are back as well and going by the fact you dunk most of them into lava, you can kind of see why they never returned until New Super Mario Bros. (spoilers: they were dead. But now they're not for some reason.)

One of the big changes to the Mario franchise was Yoshi. Yoshi was astronomically popular in his first iteration. Sure, he had no arms and if he got hit he'd run around like a headless chicken but he was adorable. He was so popular that he even got not one, but two games revolving around him... Or his ancestors or something. It's hard to tell, really. Is Yoshi an 'it' or is Yoshi a species of Dinosaur? Either way, these reptilian things were adorable, a dime a dozen and saved you from otherwise painful deaths. And herein lines point 1 (of why New Super Mario Bros. Wii feels hollow): In Mario World, Yoshi follows you around between stages. Every stage has been designed with Yoshi and his abilities in mind. Hell, leaving Yoshi behind leaves a stage's background music missing an audio track. Where as in NSMBW (New Super Mario Bros. Wii) you find Yoshi's in specific stages and once that stage is over, you say farewell to your scaly friend. Also, in Mario World, eating shells with Yoshi causes different effects, like Red shells make Yoshi breath fire and blue shells make Yoshi fly. In NSMBW... Well, Yoshi can hover for a bit. It's something, right?

One of the great things about Super Mario World, however, is that when you die... And you will. Countless times, unless you've played this game every week since you first laid hands on it, you will fall down holes needlessly, hit lava pits because you get cocky and think you can fly around underground levels and be clever. But never at one point do you believe it's the game's fault. Okay, there are a few problems with the Virtual Console/Wii version of the game not recognising button presses a few times, but if you're playing on a real SNES, those problems aren't there. Mario's movement is spot-on, it's accurate and weighted. You know when you jump where you will land. It's subtle physics (if you can call it that) aren't screaming at you saying "Look how much work we've put into this!" by doing a million complex and interesting things... All of which are detrimental to gameplay. No. It's simple platforming at it's best. Which is point 2: In Mario World, you know where your character is going and where you'll end up. In NSMBW... Can you trust Mario since he floats around like a leaf caught in a draft? No. You can't. For all his wall-jumping-get-you-out-of-tight-spots, you always land about a relative-foot away from where you expect Mario to end up. And that irks me in a big way.

Super Mario World has a lot of detail put into it. A lot. There's countless stages to be found in the game. Most of the interesting stages are locked up waiting to be found. Secret Stages is what any true Mario World player lives for. Finding your first as a kid blows your mind, knowing little of the treasures which await you when you hit Star Road and Special world. That succinctly brings me to point 3: In Super Mario World, there's loads of levels, most of them off the beat and track, finding the secret exit to levels becomes an obsession. In NSMBW... You have your normal levels, a few Toad Houses and a few Cannons to find. I mean, this is a step-backwards made so obvious. In New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS, you have lettered levels (i.e. 1-A) which constituted optional levels which could be completed or not. They were also more difficult to complete, much like Mario World's 'Secret' stages.

An outright comparison to Super Mario World to New Super Mario Bros. Wii can also be found in level design and gimmick use. Mario World uses quite a lot of gimmicks which we consider common place in platform or action games now. Rotating platforms, moving scenery... These were pretty radical and new design concepts for platformers, brought about by the technological advances made with the SNES. And while it could have still been possible for the SNES to incorporate a lighting system where you can only see somewhat around you in a lightened circle, they didn't. I'd like to believe that they didn't because the idea was horrible, however it's actually more likely that they didn't have the time to implement the idea or they simply didn't have the idea at all. The use of the aforementioned gimmick in NSMBW frustrated many-a-gamer, especially when faced with water and falling obstacles which will hurt on-contact. So point 4: Mario World has much better level design. NSMBW has the occasional piece of scenery which rotates.

Bosses are another prime candidate for comparison, point 5: in Super Mario World, you have a variety of different boss styles. And although some of them are the same boss with unique quirks and one is just a boss shooting fireballs at you, at least they're somewhat mixed up. In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, you have a Super Mario Bros. 3 'plus' sort-of-thing going on. You get to the end of a Mario World-like castle level and then face a boring boss which involves jumping on it's head 3 times. That's quite like Mario World in that regard, however, more like Super Mario Bros. 3; you'll have the odd gimmick like ice or the boss ground-pounding to make you pause, but other than that, it's all flat surfaces and the simple task of jumping over their attacks. In Super Mario World, however, you have a boss where it's in a series of pipes and sends up two decoys along with it's head. Another boss walks up the wall to ground-pound you when it drops from the ceiling. Basic concepts are there, NSMBW does it lazily.

Other aspects like music and visuals are subjective to today's design aesthetics and fashion. Either way, they're passable in both Mario World and NSMBW. They aren't important aspects of the game either way, Mario World presented the best style it could for it's content and console capabilities. Personally I find a good platformer one which you could play with the sound off and still enjoy, avoiding having to go to bed for school in the morning. It must be said, it would have worked better when I was a child, what with the SNES not making a sound whenever it read from cartridge. However, NSMBW breaks that rule, having enemy movement momentarily affected by the music. This can screw up simple jumps, mix that together with some annoying stage gimmicks like wind and you have a recipe for disaster, making you more aware of the music and memorising when such sounds occur. It was cute in the DS iteration, not cool on the Wii version.

And there we have it. Give me a choice of Super Mario World or New Super Mario Bros. Wii to play, I'd pick Super Mario World every time. Not because I'm hung up on the past, but because it's by far a superior game. With a proper control system on a gamepad which has enough face buttons but forces you to use motion controls because every Nintendo game on the Wii has to have some form of motion control somewhere, no matter how unwelcome it is. I'd say they're about as difficult to one-another, I'd say that a no-special stage run Vs. full New Super Mario Bros. Wii run (minus Star World) are about equal in length. I'd say I enjoy both games, but I enjoy Mario World far more.]]> 5 SNES, Virtual Console http://www.50hzgamer.co.uk/index.php?gameid=OTHER/grn2 Retro Recall - With Final Fantasy XIII baring down on the west in the coming months, I find my enthusiasm for JRPG games soaring. And with that; I felt compelled to revisit one of my favourite RPG titles of all time. Grandia II was originally released in 2000 for the Dreamcast, since then it's been ported to Playstation 2 and, rather unfortunately; PC, which is the version I've been re-playing the game with. Grandia II was released to very little fanfare and very little reception greeted it, yet it is a highly rated RPG and everyone who has ever played it will attest to it's greatness.

Grandia II takes place in a fictional world where the world is recovering from a cataclysmic event that took place hundreds of years ago; The Battle of Good and Evil, as it's called. The 'God of Light'; Granas and the 'Devil of Darkness'; Valmar fought for dominance. It's from there we follow the adventures of a bounty-hunter named Ryudo, a Church choir-girl named Elena who, after a strange ritual fails is possessed by a piece of Valmar, many of which have been sealed away all over the world in an attempt to prevent Valmar from awakening and destroying life as they know it. Cutting a long (22 hours on a semi-knowledgeable re-play) story short; they go around, meet a load of people and monsters until they try and banish that what possesses Elena.

The story of the game is what you'd probably call; 'cliché'. But considering I liken Grandia II's story to that of Final Fantasy X's, I'd say that's probably not an awful thing. Characters are endearing, but seem to jump all over the place emotionally, story seems to move at a fairly consistent pace, with the game being split up between fields, dungeons and towns. You'll never find yourself tiring of your surroundings as you'll never be forced to really re-trace your steps. If you don't know towns very well, however, you can easily spend a good 10 minutes trying to find out where the hell you're supposed to go, or not be silly like me and find out the Compass, which is always on-screen during fields and dungeons, can direct you to any key location you need it to.

Progression is an entirely linear affair, the game sticks heavily to the 'Gain experience', 'grow levels', 'have raised stats' method which JRPGs have been accustomed to for some time. You have very little sway of how your characters grow their statistics, a pre-defined level-curve will do that for you. You can often find Seeds which increase these stats and you have a wealth of equipment ranging from Swords to Mana Eggs that can help you mould your character to your liking. You can even help out your character by investing in Skills from Skill Books, helping a range of stats including Movement speed, Attack Power or even adjusting your MP or SP.

[Just so we're clear: Mana Eggs give characters magic that they can cast, but only magic which the Egg 'knows'. These eggs can be powered up and given new magic abilities using MC, Magical Coins. These coins, along with SC or Special Coins are dropped when defeating enemies in battle. Special Coins power up Special Moves, moves which characters know and can perform regardless of Mana Eggs or equipment and consume a character's SP, much like magic consumes a character's MP. Skill Books can take either SC or MC depending on the abilities you can learn from the Book. These can be equipped to any character.]

The game's linearity doesn't end there, dungeons and fields are very one-way orientated. If you take the time and explore the map, choosing to take a route off the beat-and-track (which way the compass is pointing), you'll often find goodies for your trouble. However, most attack-based items are useless to you. The game can also, for the very most part, be completely over-powered by simply engaging every enemy you see in battle and putting SC directly into each character's first moves to get them to their maximum level is also a great strategy for powering through the game. So I suppose what I'm telling you is that the game's difficulty is left wanting, until the second-but-last boss, which will completely annihilate you regardless of skill, level or any other variable. That boss is pure luck.

On the field you'll usually encounter enemies. Enemies are an unusual entity, many of them will act differently to you as you approach them. Most will only get 'enraged' and approach you (changing colour to red in the process) if you're in their direct eye-line. So it is possible to sneak up on enemies by ploughing into enemies by from behind or just touching them without them turning red usually does the trick, this gives you a tactical advantage against the enemy by clumping them together and having to wait longer for their turn. Conversely, if enemies touch any of your following players (each character in your party follows you in a 'snake' like fashion on the map, making your ability to avoid enemies more difficult, however is a mandatory evil, as you cannot drop characters once they're in your party. Also, your party is strictly story-driven) you will be snook-up on and have a disadvantage against the enemy.

Of course, you'll spend equal time in battles. Battles are really where the game pushes away from JRPG standard-ness and becomes an awesome experience. The battle follows a sort of 'timeline'. You have a move-bar in the bottom corner which is split up into two sections "Wait" and "Act", separated by a "Com" phase. All characters start off in the Wait bar, randomly assigned a position they must take (throwing any kind of definite strategy out the window). When they reach the "Com" phase, you can issue commands to these characters. They can use items, magic or special moves as well as basic attacks which come in two varieties; "combo" which hits twice with 'normal' power and "critical" which gives one, powerful attack which also has a "cancel" effect.

When in the "Act" section of the bar, there is a wait time between the character tacking action. This varies depending on what action you've ordered, what skills are helping a certain action (items and magic can have their "ACT" boosted), what level the magic or special move is for the action you've taken and how high the character's "ACT" status is. Enemies and player-side characters share the bar and the restrictions which go with it. The game's all about strategy and forward-thinking. When anybody/anything is in the "Act" phase, they can have their action Cancelled by a critical hit or a special move with a Cancel effect. This becomes most useful against bosses who can have their most annoying attacks stopped so long as one character has enough time to cancel it through a Critical hit or a special move. Most the time, however, the best laid plans go south and you end up with all your characters clumped one-end of the Wait bar while enemies are the other side with your players too late to stop any devastating attacks.

Regardless of the system's flaws, it feels much more involving. You actually feel you have control over your fate in the battle, where as in traditional Turn-based RPGs, you simply do not. The boss will spam the most powerful attack at you and you can do nothing but try and heal yourself out of difficulty, here you can prevent the damage in the first place. It adds a whole layer of tension to the game's cartoon-y appearance and somewhat laughable 'seriousness' the game tries to pass off through the story.

Visually, Grandia II is very, very dated. But for a game nearly 10 years old; it's not half bad. If you attempt to compare the game to say; Final Fantasy X which was released but a year later, then the game looks extremely dated. However, if your imagination can look past the Lego-like character models, rough character animation and get used to multi-tasking between reading text, looking at character face icons and the 3D models on-screen, then everything kind-of works. The game then relies heavily on very-90's-like CGI for strong magic moves and significant story events. Altogether, it's not a bad looking game, as it does portray a very vibrant and colourful world.

Audibly, Grandia II is spectacular. From the nearly-flawless voice work for a game during game voice acting infancy, something which Square Enix has difficulty with 10 years later; Ubisoft (the translators/localisation-ires of the game for the English language) did a very, very good job casting. The score for the game contains some of my favourite video game music of all time, a mix between orchestrated and alternative music styles gives the game a unique 'voice' per se. You'll need to work in order to listen to such music, however. As it gets progressively better the more you progress through the game. As I said before, linear. One off-putting thing about the game however is an abuse of sound effects; Footsteps, for instance. Why did they have to be so loud and why do you have to always hear footsteps? It becomes tiresome listening to the same odd-sounding 'mushing' sound in parts of the game, let alone out of place in serious story scenes. Also, the noise when browsing menus, that sound finds a noise which will hurt your ears after just a few repetitions.

Overall, Grandia II is a wonderful title. The game's length and pacing is perfect. The game will throw some pretty big plot-twists at you, some which I don't quite get the full impact of having knowledge of the game from a while ago. And sure, the game doesn't look that great against today's RPG games and field design isn't exactly challenging, but you know what. None of that impacts on the fun of the game. It's a solid title with solid story and gameplay and that's all you really need.

So, if you're looking for a great RPG game to tide you over until a certain RPG game with XIII at the end of it, why not go and find Grandia II. Preferably for Dreamcast, but if you do not have one; there's a version on Playstation 2 but not as good... Or as a last ditch-attempt there's a PC port, which is quite frankly; horrible. But it's better than nothing, even if it has horribly compressed CGI videos, non-looping music and strange glitches with the audio and model transparency. However, should play well on any modern PC, even with Integrated Graphics.]]> 5 Other http://www.50hzgamer.co.uk/index.php?gameid=PSP/echo
Echochrome takes place in a monochrome world of floating blocks, the idea behind the game is to collect 'echoes', semi-transparent static objects which resemble the characters you control or pair up different coloured player characters, these stages end when all four players become one. I say control, but in-fact, the most control you'll ever have over a character on screen is making him stop walking or speed up. Your player will walk non-stop around the section of land it is on moving back and forth when it cannot go any further, leaving you in complete control of the game's geometry. And this is where Echochrome gets very interesting. There's so many ways for you to progress through any puzzle-world.

Along the way, your player character will come across various world objects such as jump pads or fall pads, white and black circles on the floor. Using these, you can progress through the world as anything above the player at the time it is in the air, regardless of distance between him and the platform in the Z-Axis (3D space). Same applies to falling. In the world of Echochrome, anything that you can't see doesn't exist. This can be achieved by obscuring your vision of a gap in the floor, jump pad or fall pad with other geometry. You can also align two different-height platforms against one-another and create one solid platform to help your player progress. This, however, doesn't apply to 'rivals', different coloured players whom when touched, send your player back to when they first landed on the current platform, if your player and another player collide while not visible on-screen, it still sends your player back.

It's an easy concept to grasp, but mindbogglingly in execution. You really need time to think through a lot of the stages before you're able to find the right solution. This is bad, because some stages actually have an invisible timer. And worst still, you can't go back and replay any old stage you wish, you have to enter a random selection of stages and just hope you get the stage you wanted, or just skip all randomly selected stages until you come across the one you want.

And this is my major concern with Echochrome. It's a lot of style over substance. There are quite a lot of stages in the game, but no easy way to get through them. You can make your own levels, but good luck with that. The editor is so hard and cumbersome to use, you'll spend hours making a level which you already know the solution to because you've had to play the stage at least three dozen times to make sure a jump pad works like you hope it does. Even setting stage difficulty may not be abundantly apparent to you when you start the game, with it being controlled by the directional buttons with what can only be described as a volume control when a stage is about to start.

Controls are another major disappointment in the game. Whether you use the D-Pad or the Thumb-Nub, controls in the game are frustrating. You just want that little nudge to perfectly align these two platforms and... You keep missing. By this time, your player has wondered off or got caught by something. Thinking time only really helps when there are no rivals anywhere near you. Thankfully there is an 'auto-complete' button which does help you align those platforms, but it's hit-or-miss if it actually works half the time. You're best not to rely on the feature, as at the moment you desperately require it to work; it will not.

Visually the game is very stylish. It's monochrome world of black, white and grey all mix together and create a very vivid and visually striking game. The mannequin appearance of player characters and rivals add to the game's appeal somehow. The visual style of the game never makes you second-guess what something is on-screen. The simplistic approach to visuals means that less screen clutter gets in your way. However, it's also a hindrance when there's no visual representation of that invisible timer and lots of menu-screen elements are less than well explained or described. The simplistic nature of the game also makes loading times next to non-existent, great for a quick game.

Sound, well, there's one track in the game that runs through the entirety of your game-time. This is punctuated with synthetic chimes, all of which have very little meaning even after hours of game time other than the obvious 'player got hit' and 'player collected echo' noises. The only other type of audio you'll find in the game are title screen sounds and the tutorial, which is the only voice you'll hear through-out the game.

Overall then, Echochrome is something completely different. If you were expecting something brash and beautiful from the cover art for the game, you'll be in for one hell of a surprise. But for what it is, Echochrome is a fun little game. It probably wont hold your attention for hours on end, but it will surely engage that grey matter of yours. Puzzle fans, this is a must-have for the PSP. And better yet, at this point in the PSP's life span (November 2009) it's dirt cheap. Go find it, you wont be disappointed.]]> 4 PSP http://www.50hzgamer.co.uk/index.php?gameid=360/ODST
Halo 3: ODST was announced way back at E3 2008 and it seems like an age has gone by since. Originally slated as a small-scale campaign addon for Halo 3, the game soon took on a life of it's own, becoming a game many times the size that was initially meant. However, sitting pretty at £34.99 (Average store price, 28/09/2009), does the game really stack-up? If you felt Halo 3 was short, you probably wont be too impressed with ODST's offerings either, but perhaps what comes in the box would incite you.

Halo 3: ODST follows the story of a squad of ODSTs; Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. In the Halo universe, the guys are tougher than nails and built studier than a Japanese pickup truck. When you want something done, these guys drop in and do it. Unfortunately, the mission; to board a enemy vessel hovering over Earth's New Mombasa, doesn't go too well. The ship jumps out of Mombasa leaving the poor ODSTs that were dropping onto the ship: scattered or dead. The story then picks up several hours later when The Rookie awakes from a catatonic state to find he's alone in the deserted streets of New Mombasa, the same streets are also filled with enemy units.

The game is split into two distinct parts. One part where you play as the ever-silent The Rookie, the other part you play as other ODST squad-mates at various times of the day. There's a clear distinction between the two segments and these become very clear the moment you start playing. Halo 3's story was a linear affair, with one route to your objective. In ODST, the New Mombasa streets act as a 'hub', one which The Rookie can move around freely looking for clues as to the fate of his ODST squad, battles are optional so long you can move quietly enough or don't run into snipers or turrets. Meanwhile, in the missions triggered by said clues, you have the classic Halo format: linear levels designed to be all about fierce firefights and explosions.

If you've played any Halo games before, you should be already acquainted with the gameplay setup. If not, here's Halo in a nutshell: You're given a rebounding health mechanism, which is very simple: the more red-tinted your screen gets, the less 'shield' or Stamina you have left. If your stamina runs out, you start losing health. Now, unlike the Master Chief (protagonist of Halo series up-till-now), ODSTs do not regenerate this health. Instead, when health gets scarce, you'll find yourself desperately looking for health packs, which aren't in short supply around missions or the hub world. If you're playing on Easy, your ODST is basically a walking tank. On legendary, your ODST is essentially a paper bag. If you're looking for a challenge in the Halo series, this is the one which will most likely test you.

More Halo in a nutshell: Shoot stuff, throw grenades. You only get to carry two weapons at once, three on the rare occasion you find a turret or flamethrower. Guns range from new Silenced Pistols and Sub-machine guns to Halo classics like the Assault Rifle and the Laser Pistol. The two different types of weapons you'll find in the game are; ballistic projectile weapons which, if you haven't figured it out by now, are normal Earth weapons. Then you have the Covenant (the bad guys) energy weapons. They both have their strengths and weaknesses and is what makes multiplayer so much fun, energy weapons don't need to be reloaded but can overheat and have a limited battery life while projectile weapons have to be reloaded but you can retrieve ammunition for the same weapon you have by running over a weapon on the ground. Same applies to different grenade types, incendiary grenades are great for taking down enemies but can also kill you with ease, sticky grenades don't have great splash damage (damage which affects players the closer they are to the epicentre of the explosion) but instantly kill whatever it's stuck to (except hunters and vehicles) while fragmentation grenades can't stick to enemies, but do have a large splash damage radius.

The game comes together quite nicely. Gameplay may not be anything challenging to master but it is incredibly fun. ODST does take a few steps backwards in terms of gameplay as well, though. In Halo 3 you could dual-wield smaller weapons, however in ODST you cannot. Same goes for items such as deployable Bubble Shields, Flares, Radar Jammers (Oh, the radar's gone too, if you care) and Grav Lifts. It's not a game breaker, for in return you're given an extra slot for each type of grenade. Fan favourite weapons such as the Battle Rifle are missing, as well as ordinary SMG and pistol types, but are replaced by silenced variations of them. The other big change that ODST presents for players is the VISR, which is basically a glorified map and information/objectives screen. But it also has one cool feature, which is to turn on a sweet night vision mode, which outlines objects of interest, friendly players and enemies. It's basically essential to have this mode on during the hub world, however completely useless in normal missions.

A completely new mode for the Halo series is the inclusion of Firefight. A game mode which was plucked straight from Gears of War 2 and it's Hoard mode. You fight wave-upon-wave of enemies as they drop in. Each round gets harder and harder in an attempt to finish you off. This is done by increasing enemy 'strength' either in numbers or types of enemies/weapons that spawn or the addition of 'skulls' which affect gameplay in various ways. You're given a certain number of lives, certain number of health packs and weapons will become an issue of improvisation not before too long. The mode seems to work quite well for friendly matches, but with no matchmaking mode to go along with Firefight, don't expect to be having too many matches as people get bored of ODST. Hopefully, the faithful will be rewarded with a matchmaking mode patched-in at a later date, but don't hold out hopes for it.

Visually, the game is a very vibrant and colourful affair. Oh sure, the night-time stages are near unplayable without the VISR, but normal missions will take you away from the brown and the 'grit' that most recent games present to you. Subtle and less-than-subtle motion blurring helps everything flow together, but at the end of the day, the game isn't a great improvement over Halo 3, which is now 3 years old and showing it's age. Where the game really excels is attention to detail, the world around you seems like it has been methodically thought-through. Natural surroundings seem believable and man-made structures aren't atheistically challenged, but not exactly works of art either. Everything about the Halo world is fairly believable. And that's a hard feat to pull off successfully.

The sounds of ODST are another major plus for the game. Halo 3 already had a set of very authentic sound effects and ODST is no different. There's very few 'new' sound effects thrown into the mix, but plenty of new voice clips. Characters you actually play as are now vocal, and a semi-famous set of voice actors produce the aforementioned and AI team mates will now alert you to dangers around you more efficiently. There's also a sub-story to ODST called 'Sadie's Story', it's presented in audio and still-image format through your VISR and these clips are found all over New Mombasa's streets, found through the guiding-hand of the game's less-than-helpful 'Superintendent' character, but I'll moan about him later. There's perks to finding these voice clips, but once you've found them all... Replay value of the game's campaign severely plummets. And just to add to this, the story isn't that good either. Voice work is comical at the worst of times and the serious nature of the story is overshadowed by ridiculous characters and plot-points. However, a nice touch to the game is that the two stories seem to converge at the end of it all.

Now onto the bad things. First of all, the Superintendent. During trailers and build-up to ODST, the Superintendent was shown to be a guiding hand through the streets of New Mombasa for The Rookie, dynamically warning the player of dangers ahead and giving you an advantage over the enemy which severely outnumber you. Instead, what you get is an AI which just wants you to look for audio files scattered around the city, raising barriers to make you stop and search around. That's even if you're currently in a firefight. So you could be running for cover down the road when suddenly this big barrier blockades your route. It's annoying as anything. And even worse is that even when you've found all the voice clips, the AI is just no longer present. Barriers which you started to use for shelter when you predict the AI's patterns no longer raise, leaving you even more exposed. Hardly a guiding/helping hand. And for the money you lay down on ODST, you could easily be buying items twice. The Halo 3 multiplayer disc which comes with ODST is just a trimmed-down Halo 3 multiplayer with all the downloadable maps (plus 3 all-new maps), it feels more like Microsoft or Bungie, or whoever decided to do this was just looking for ways to justify the near-full price-tag of ODST even though the game isn't as long nor as complicated as Halo 3.

Overall then, you're putting down £30-35 for a game about 5 hours in length (or one sitting if you're very good) depending on difficulty and obsession to find voice clips it could make that time rise, a Firefight mode which is awkward to setup with friends and a multiplayer mode copy-and-pasted from a previous iteration of the same game which you may or may not have paid for all before. As a Halo fan, I personally enjoyed the game and it's story. An FPS fan will probably like the simplicity of the game and any other type of person will most likely be somewhat indifferent about the game. ODST is a good game, but doesn't really feel it's worth it's initial price, perhaps waiting for a price drop would favour those willing to wait (you know who you are, if you're reading this now 1-week-late review and still haven't bought ODST, you'll probably wait a month or so for it to fall in price).]]> 5 Xbox 360 http://www.50hzgamer.co.uk/index.php?gameid=360/shco
Although it's a comparison used an awful lot for this game, including a comparison which the developers themselves used; Shadow Complex for the Xbox Live Arcade is a re-envisioning of the classic formula used by games such as Metroid and Castlevania. Admittedly, Castlevania still uses it's formula to great effect with it's Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS games, however, you'll be mistaken for thinking Shadow Complex is a mere clone of these games. Shadow Complex is an expansive, open world game in which the only limitation to enter various parts of the world are abilities and weapons you hold or the level your character has obtained.

Shadow Complex's story ties into the Peter David "Empire" novel, in which the main character; Jason Flemming and his new-found love interest; Claire have just embarked on a spelunking trip when Claire is kidnapped by a mysterious group of soldiers known as The Restoration who believe she is a spy. Jason, who just happens to be a natural-born soldier-come-pacifist now brings it upon himself to save Claire and stop The Restoration from it's ultimate goal; conquering the United States. The story itself is littered with a helping hand of cutscenes and wonderful voice acting, cheesy dialogue was expectedly unavoidable, however it's at least a refreshing look upon a stereotypical action movie/game script.

Being an almost entirely 2D game, Shadow Complex is a deceptively complex game, the controls however, are far from it. You move around using the left analogue stick, jump, reload and run are on the face buttons, grenades/foam/missiles and the flash light are on the shoulder buttons, crouch and fire are on the triggers. You can swap between shoulder items using the D-pad. The map is on the Back button. A pretty standard control scheme. As you progress through the game, more actions become available to the player, such as the foam gun, a sweet weapon which can be used to forge terrain which the player can walk and climb on, creating new paths to locations and creating shortcuts.

Although the game is played through the 2D plane, the game does introduce you to the third dimension fairly frequently. Enemies will often be lingering adjacent to your location to attempt to shoot you. There's no real difference about shooting these enemies as the game's auto-aim will guide your lasersight towards them. That's including when aiming using the right analogue stick. The only slight difference here, is that you cannot melee enemies that are in a different plane. You'll also have the occasional turret battle which allows you a good 180 degrees of shooting wildly into the third dimension.

Your main mode of transportation around the game world is by foot, however this isn't always a laborious jaunt as one may expect. It seems every square on the game world has been placed to pace your progression through the game world and keep you entertained when you're forced to re-trace your steps in order to open a passageway once unavailable to your underpowered player at the time. Once again, powerups and skill will help any player overcome the many obstacles in Shadow Complex, quite a few of which will instantly kill players. Such as over-powered grill-heaters and obligatory crushing devices. One thing you can't say about Shadow Complex in almost anyway is that it's dull.

The game is also littered with several huge bosses, which are nothing more than huge bullet sponges. Sure, there's the odd boss or two which will kick your sorry behind on the first play. Mostly because you grow to underestimate bosses and when one actually poses somewhat of a challenge, you're literally caught off-guard. That being said, a few bosses are very entertaining in their appearance or mannerisms, like a boss late into the game which pummels you with missiles. It is a bit disappointing though, that the main strategy for all bosses is to use all your grenades and missiles and find a good spot to shoot him/it without him/it shooting you.

The great thing about Shadow Complex is that, really, the only thing that stops a player from getting anywhere or finding the copious amounts of power ups in the game, which stem from increases in grenade/missile/foam stocks, health upgrades and gold bars which are just collectables is their skill, experience level (which in RPG-fashion go up the more you kill stuff or complete objectives) and how much foam they can carry at any one time. The game even has a counter to enter into an online global leaderboard, the best time being around 20 minutes. Let it be known, the game will take you a lot, lot longer than that. On several play throughs.

Visually Shadow Complex is a wonderful treat as well, especially for an Xbox Live Arcade game. Character models are highly detailed, as is the world itself. The game has a screen filter which tints to different colours depending where in the game world you are, making in-doors look very crisp and washed out, while out-doors has an appealing soft-orange tint. Together, Shadow Complex could easily rival a title worth four times it's price tag. And that's very impressive.

As far as ear-candy goes, the game wont disappoint there either. The game is filled with orchestrated goodness, more than enough realistic sound effects and voice acting to die for. There are a few jerky music transitions here and there, but all-in-all you'll hardly notice them or simply wont care too much at all about them. Everything fits together quite nicely and presents itself in an impressive way.

Overall, Shadow Complex is a very competent side-scrolling action adventure game. It's world is expansive, it's map system is easy to follow, gameplay is fun and varied and has not a dull moment. That coupled with a somewhat interesting plot makes the game well worth it's 1200 MS Points, which as of writing, is about £10. The only slight draw-back to Shadow Complex is it's size. You'll require a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) of some sort attached to your console in order to download the game, as it's 835MB size will cause problems for those with only a standard memory unit. Consider the game highly recommended.]]> 5 LIVE Arcade http://www.50hzgamer.co.uk/index.php?gameid=WII/ashc
I should take a moment to explain a crushingly disappointing note about the game; if you're tempted to buy the game on the idea that it will play something similar to that of Wii Sports' Baseball, you're heading into a world of hurt and heart-break. The swinging motion of the controller merely equates to what could very easily be pushed onto a button press. However, at least it's more fun to pretend, right? ... Right? Either way, timing is your main ally or foe, depending on how rhythmically challenged you are.

I'm no real sports buff, as older views will instantly tell you, however, even I found fun out of this game. It doesn't take long to work out how the game (of Cricket and the Ashes game itself) operates and you'll find yourself climbing the difficulty scale fairly quickly. However, if you ever wanted to let off steam and utterly humiliate the CPU, the easiest difficulty option; "Village" is right up your street. Roping in a second player is marginally more fun than playing against CPU controlled foes, however has other areas which will soon annoy and frustrate.

Fielders for instance, it's nice that Codemasters included the option to shift around your fielders if the computer doesn't just automatically adjust your fielders for maximum potential itself. However, it's a feature which really gets dull. And really, what's the point? In real life, if a fielder sees the ball coming his way, he may, I don't know... Move? Move towards the ball? I'm just guessing. No, instead only one fielder will chase the ball. One fielder, all the way. No switching priority to a fielder much closer or just another fielder moving at all. Then the AI takes an eternity just to work out who it wants to throw the ball to. In the mean time, the second human player is racking up runs like no tomorrow. Sure, both players are bound by the same useless fielding, but it is highly frustrating.

Then there's the problem of moving those fielders around. To do so, you click the radar present when you're bowling and manually selecting fielders and placing them where you need them to be. To see more of the field you have to aim at the sides of the screen. The screen moves far too slowly and the area to aim at to move the screen is so small you're more often than not just aiming off-screen. Some pre-set fielding positions would have helped a lot and aided the simulation actually feel more like a proper game of cricket.

But, now the down-ers are out of the way, let's talk about all the good points of the game. First of all, it's a lot of fun. Get two players together who know something about cricket and you've got a pretty good face-off on your hands. It's a very easy game to pick up as well. All you'll really need to know about the game is this; when batting, hold the B trigger on the Wii remote when swinging to hit 'em for 6 (get the ball to the boundary without it bouncing), press A for a defensive block. When bowling; hold B for a fast run up, hold A for a slower run up. The rest you can pretty much make up as you go along. Those who know about cricket will be heavily rewarded though, with much care and attention put into each bowling style and length of the ball when played.

Gameplay is all based upon timing and skill. Batsmen have a aiming bar, which shows how early/late a swing was for the played ball. Different bowlers mean different timing techniques have to be learnt, however the timing bar usually negates the advantage the bowler has by introducing you to a new bowling style. Hitting the ball for 6 isn't always as easy as it seems, with timing often required to be perfect to pull them off (as in real life). There's also advanced options of aiming the ball when swinging to find blind spots in the field and the ability to move the batsmen in front of the wicket. Going for runs couldn't be simplier either, just hit the ball wide and tap the B trigger to run, press A to cancel the run or dive for the crease after the run has been half completed (just be careful they are half-way). When bowling, you have time to select the range of your shot and have a timing gauge to enable you to bowl that perfect shot. You can twist the Wii Remote mid-bowl to give the ball swing and shine the ball before delivery to help that swing on its way.

Being Ashes cricket, the game doesn't include English county teams, only national teams. But even then you have a wide range of countries to chose from. Teams often include players no longer actually playing for that team, but are considered modern legends of the sport (another nice touch). You can take each team out for a friendly match, try a hand at different scenarios in which you have no control over what teams play and the Ashes mode itself. There's a fair bit of content for one to get through and much like all sports games, replay value is the primary factor within the game. The controls are so easy and intuitive that you can easily pick up the game after long periods of inactivity and still play to a fairly decent standard.

Visually the game is par for the course, the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of the game are obviously better looking, but you won't be disappointed too much with the loss of visual awe in the game. You can clearly make out what needs to be seen, the user interface is nice and clear. The only minor down point about the visuals that could be said is the uncanny valley-look of the umpire, who looks like he was moulded out of playdough. Other players do hold a candle next to their real-life counterparts, with great detail put into each model.

Much can't be said for audio in the game, there's a large soundbank of cometary and different commentators to keep you amused during sessions, however there are a lot of voice samples which will just keep popping up over and over again. The same goes for player voices. Each team has one set of voice clips for just about every player. None of them really sound anything like the countrymen they're trying to represent, however. Pressing the face buttons or performing good throws or catching/bowling a player out will trigger a voice sample which will be played out of the Wii Remote speaker for the corresponding player.

In the end, Ashes Cricket 2009 is just a sports game. If you don't like the sport, you probably wont like this game. However, for those somewhat interested in cricket, Ashes Cricket 2009 will give you many hours of fun with friends or family. A great little game to pull out at a party or just when you're bored on another rainy summers day. But overall, the game has a great quantity of content, almost all of it is of great quality as well. Well worth a purchase and a definite rent for any cricket fan this summer.]]> 4 Nintendo Wii http://www.50hzgamer.co.uk/index.php?gameid=NDS/khtf Please note: This review was conducted under the current Japanese release of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, this review may be edited at a later date to portray the European version of the game.

Kingdom Hearts was first released on the Playstation 2 in 2002 and was quite possibly the most bizarre RPG game ever envisioned. Not only was it a daring Action RPG which mixed heavy bouts of what we would have once called: "Hack 'N Slash" into an RPG game, but it also added a mix of Disney characters, in-fact, the whole game revolved around them. Over the years the series has grown and diversified with the release of Kingdom Hearts II (also PS2) which I loved and the Gameboy Advance title; Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, which, I'll be totally honest with you all: I didn't like much at all.

So here comes Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days another portable Kingdom Hearts adventure on a Nintendo console. My expectations of this game were very low, after seeing just the first handful of screens to be released for this game, I had already assumed that this game would be another Chain of Memories; a gimmicky title which resembled nothing of the game I had enjoyed so much on the Playstation 2. However, upon popping this bad boy into the DS, my expectations were shattered... But for once, in a good way. Shattered so much, that this game could actually be my favourite Kingdom Hearts game of the bunch.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days follows the story of new-born Roxas, who was introduced at the end of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and playable in Kingdom Hearts II. Playing as essentially the villains of the Kingdom Hearts series, Roxas seeks to learn about life and his place in it. Following the leadership of the Organisation XIII in the promise of better understanding of what he is and who he is. Roxas also forms friendship with returning character Axel (the red spiky-haired one) and a new character/14th member of the Organisation XIII: Xion. The story also intertwines with Disney-themed 'worlds' which sees familiar characters from popular Disney movies such as Hercules, Nightmare Before Christmas and Alice in Wonderland. The game's story is very nice and doesn't quite drag as much as previous Kingdom Hearts games with world stories and the main story of the game being paced to perfection. There are still some quite boring parts of the game, however your fascination with what will come of characters in the game will keep anyone who enjoyed the other Kingdom Hearts titles going especially since this bridges the gap between the first and second Kingdom Hearts titles (also interjecting with Chain of Memories' story) and expands on characters you once thought very little of.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days' gameplay is very reminiscent of the Playstation 2 titles, the game's entirely 3D with worlds Kingdom Hearts fans will instantly recognise and know how to navigate. Basic controls feature movement on the D-Pad and a standard 4-button layout as found in the Playstation 2 titles, B button to jump, A button to interact with the command menu which is used to attack/investigate, use magic and use items. The X button scrolls through items on the command menu. This does mean that the Kingdom Hearts II "context button" has been removed, however it's no big loss. The left shoulder button brings up the Shortcut Menu which basically holds items or magic so you can easily use healing items and powerful magic in two buttons and able to immediately return to fighting as normal straight after. The right shoulder button controls the camera and a quick double tap on the R button will lock-on to enemies. You can also hit the Select button to rotate the camera freely.

Progression through the story mode pans out in a linear fashion with Missions being the centre of the game. Some missions in the game are 'Key' missions and must be completed in order to progress through the game with other missions 'expendable', basically meaning that once you've completed the say, 2 Key missions and you have an extra 1 non-Key mission, you can just hit the "Next Day" button and skip that mission. When in a mission, you'll be given a constant objective which is usually mixed up between "Defeat heartless", "Defeat the big heartless (boss)", "Collect tokens" or "Defeat this certain heartless". For the most part, some missions could be considered filler content, however the way they're mixed up makes the game seem at least a bit varied. Unlike previous Kingdom Hearts titles, EXP, which is used to Level Up in the game is not given to you instantly when you defeat enemies and is instead handed out at the end of a Mission with certain multipliers added onto the total EXP sum of the Mission along with Munny and Heart Point (used in item synthesis and buying slots respectfully) multipliers which are also gained by defeating enemies.

The change in Levelling Up is attributed to the fact that everything but Roxas' basic move-set, clothing and 1st Level are all equip-able items in the 'Slot Panel', which is basically a grid in which item 'panels' are placed inside. These slots can hold anything; abilities such as the tried-and-true "Dodge Roll" technique, Magic such as Fire, Fira, etc, equipment like Rings, "Gears" which form new weapons, Items such as Potions, Ethers, Elixers, etc and Level Up panels which, does as it says on the tin. At any one time, Level Up Panels will take up about 1/5th of your overall slots. When you start the game, you are limited to a very small number of slots, however as you progress through the game you'll be given new Slots as you progress through Missions and you'll even find extra slot openings in chests dotted around in Missions.

Much like older games, the Keyblade, the only weapon the player will be using in the game can be upgraded by using "Gears" which act as 'link panels', an extended slot panel item which takes up more than one panel in strange shapes and no, they cannot be rotated. Inside these gears you can add 'units' which come in a few forms, most commonly "Power" and "Ability" units which increase primary attack power and add new abilities, mostly to do with ground/air attacks or combos. There's also abilities which span multiple slots along with magic/level/etc multipliers which can power up or double/triple the value of each slot. As there is no MP bar in the game, it's best to remember that every Magic panel is one-use-only unless you have a multiplier, however on the up-side Magic is very strong in this game and well worth the hassle.

Gameplay itself is smooth and very reminiscent of the Playstation games, don't be mislead by the toned-down graphics, you'll find multiple enemies on-screen along with their AI and perhaps one or more team AI working together with you with absolutely no frame drop. There's lots of depth in the game, despite it's silly Levelling system and utterly frustrating bosses. Boss battles are a venture into monotony and bring the whole experience down, they usually have one or two set attacks and a lot of bosses have some of the cheapest attacks with very little or no warning. The final few bosses in the game have the power in them to more-or-less completely deplete your HP with just one move. And you'll just love the 6 bosses you'll be forced to revisit near the end of the game as well. Special mention on the 'crap bosses' list goes to "Parasite Grave" who was by-far the winner of the "cheapest, most difficult to attack, boring-as-hell boss award 2009" with it's ability to wipe out 3/4 of your HP bar with two hits (in succession, very difficult to dodge both) when you get in close... Which is how you'll primarily attack this enemy. Most bosses you'll just find the routine which the boss moves, wait for an opening and unleash a full combo (usually aerial attacks because they're stronger in a shorter time-span) and then dodge-roll or air-glide around the arena waiting for that opportunity to crop up again, cleanse and repeat.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days isn't all about the solo-Story Mode however, there's also a multiplayer Mission Mode which enables you and four friends to play through Missions cleared in the Story Mode. Here is the only time in the game where you're able to play as the various different characters in the game including some unlockable characters, most of which you'll unlock during the Story Mode. It's unfortunate that Story Mode has no co-op attribute, however this may be the next best thing. I can't help but think that this was quite a tacked-on feature of the game as well. From what I can tell, there is only one Mission Mode-exclusive Mission and that's just a Mission Mode tutorial. Unfortunately, I've only been able to play a two-player co-op match because the game doesn't support Download Play, meaning each player has to have a physical cartridge of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days to play. This probably wont be a problem for many after European release as it game is one of the most definitive Action RPG games on the platform.

Visually, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days stands heads-and-shoulders above anything else on the console. Awash with soundly-encoded Full Motion Video (FMV), a compelling and somewhat surprising set of chip-tune music and an absolutely amazing looking 3D world with character models, enemies and even the world around you looking just wonderful. Okay, you can't expect PSP-like graphics from the DS, but this is a very, very impressive showing for the DS. Japanese voice-work is very nice, however English voice-work from Square Enix has been somewhat hit-and-miss in the past. There have been few which are anywhere near as graphically impressive as Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days on the Nintendo DS.

The game's length is fairly long for a handheld RPG as well, with my completion time clocking in at 6 hours, 57 Minutes and 45 seconds, that's not including a lot of unlockable difficulty increases on standard Missions by collecting hidden emblems scattered in Missions and "Proud Mode", the hardest setting in the game. The mission-based game progression does seem an ideal solution for quick handheld gaming sessions... With a few exceptions where missions can drag on for far too long with no mid-Mission save option leaving you to just put your DS to sleep when you want to stop playing mid-Mission and hope the battery doesn't run dry until you can find a save point. I also can't be sure -- thanks to the age of my original (1st-run Japanese) Nintendo DS -- but battery consumption while playing this game was very bad. Oh and your AI team mates are slightly annoying, when you move away from them so far, they teleport closer to you... This is mostly when you're doing some tricky jumping... And they just teleport in-front of you which pushes you backward and could sometimes mess up jumps.

Overall then, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is a pretty sweet package. Overlooking the abysmal last half-an-hour the game has, no support for Download Play and utterly frustrating boss battles, the game's story, gameplay and visual awe makes up for this and much more. The game is quite a long handheld RPG game which is paced that you'll hardly ever feel bored and then there's the multiplayer aspects of the game which seal the deal. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is well worth your time, effort and money. Look out for it on European launch hopefully late 2009/early 2010.]]> 5 Nintendo DS http://www.50hzgamer.co.uk/index.php?gameid=NDS/pkmp brick.

11 years ago, there was but 151 Pokémon for you to collect, trade and battle. Your reward for catching all 151 was being proudly named "Pokémon Master" and by such time your Level 100 Pokémon would be like walking tanks. Now, there are 493 monsters, many of which can't actually be captured in the wild anymore, potentially lost to time as the Nintendo DSi removes the Gameboy Advance port, making transferral of Pokémon from Gameboy Advance games to the DS games nearly impossible [without borrowing an older DS]. But enough history: Pokémon Platinum.

You've heard what a rich history Pokémon has, so let's see if it stands the test of time. In a nutshell: Yes, just about. Pokémon Platinum is by no means a perfect game or RPG for that matter. It's archaic approach to an RPG game, probably in an attempt to cling on to the things which made the game special to millions back in the 90's, seem to hold the game back from being special to millions in the naughties (00's). All of which will be outlined below;

Pokémon Platinum, like any Pokémon game preceding it sees our male or female protagonist, depending on which gender you choose to be, embarking on their own adventure of self-discovery, selflessness and the pursuit of trapping adorable creatures in little red and white balls. Set a task by Professor Rowan, our protagonist boldly steps into the wider world of Sinnoh unaware of the fiendish plot set by an evil organisation hell-bent on nefarious deeds; Team Galactic. On the protagonist's way, they will attempt to become the best Pokémon Trainer in the land, competing in the illustrious Pokémon League, but before they can they must defeat 8 battle-hardened Pokémon Gym Leaders and acquire badges as a symbol of their victory.

Pokémon Platinum follows a formula very much similar to Pokémon games before it, but in-case you've never experienced a Pokémon adventure before, I'll quickly run through how the game works. The game is split into two halves like standard RPG games. One half you'll be roaming around towns in the 'overworld', bumping into trainers who want to battle you or traipsing through tall grass in search of wild Pokémon to battle or catch. The other half is the battle itself, triggered by random encounters in wild grass or by initiating a battle with another trainer, here you command your squad of up-to-6 Pokémon to beat the hell out of other Pokémon.

In battle, each Pokémon you carry has the ability to learn up to 4 moves at any one time, Pokémon learn moves either by levelling up (you get EXPeriance points by defeating other Pokémon) or being taught moves by the trainer, however the types of moves Pokémon can learn are predetermined by the Type the Pokémon is, moves are limited to how many times they can be performed as determined by each move's PP (like HP only it depletes every time a move is used). Different Types of Pokémon have strengths or weaknesses over other types of Pokémon, so for instance, a Fire Type Pokémon would be weak against a Water Type Pokémon, but strong against a Grass/Leaf Type Pokémon. Your ideal strategy is to carefully balance your Pokémon so that you maximise the range of Pokémon Types you carry around with you at any one time. However, it's not as simple as that. You must also have Pokémon who can use special types of moves outside of battles that can break rocks, push large boulders, surf on water and clear fog, just to name a few.

For experienced players of RPGs, there's rather unnecessary items found in the game which can boost stats (things like attack power, defence, special attack, special defence, agility, etc) of the Pokémon for the duration of the battle, healing items and Pokéballs to catch wild Pokémon in. And even Pokéballs have different levels, ranging from Pokéballs, the bog standard may-catch, may-not-catch ball of choice to the Master Ball a one-per-game type of ball to catch anything it's thrown at, being only one of them, the decision of when to use the ball is made ever-so-excruciating when there's so many difficult-to-catch Pokémon roaming Sinnoh.

In the overworld, players will be spoilt for choice in what they can be getting up to. The world is littered with people to talk to or trade Pokémon with in-game. There's Pokémon Beauty Contests to be had and WiFi multiplayer matches/trading to engage in on a global scale via the Nintendo WiFi Connection. The main problem that still lingers over the game is that progression through the game can seem to linger on, with story-specific quests that have to be completed before a player can advance to a new location. For the most part, this could probably be put down to out-dated design of the games, which perhaps should be starting to cater towards a more open-world experience. Strange and sometimes obscure paths around Sinnoh can also leave players wandering around a specific location wondering how to get to the next town, with little help to guide the players if they so need it.

Pokémon Platinum, being the bigger, meaner version of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, has quite a few new additions and amendments to be had over it's predecessors. For one, the Pal Pad, which keeps track of all your friends' Nintendo WiFi Connection Friend Codes has had a face lift, making them slightly easier to use, the game's HUD has been tweaked slightly, a new Police Officer character has been introduced and other odd bits and bobs have been tightened up or changed to make the game a much better experience. There's also fun little time wasting Minigames (remember when everyone was raggin' on those when the DS initially came out?) to play, little in-game apps which come around with you on your Pokétech-watch-thingy. However, here comes the inevitable...

So, downfalls. The game has quite a few. A lot of which are remnants of previous Pokémon games and are the aforementioned design flaws which keep the game back from being even more awesome than it could be. First of all, the game takes forever to do just about anything. There's so much pomp and circumstance around little things in the game, for instance, healing Pokémon, it's a fundamental mechanic in the game. You travel to a Pokémon Centre, press A at the counter and watch your Pokémon slowly get added to the heal tray one by one... Then a little jingle later... All healed. This was a nice little gimmick that wore thin on the Gameboy versions of Pokémon, let alone the modern Pokémon games where you should just be able to skip such animations. Then there's other un-skippable and equally annoying little animations such as doing any special Pokémon move outside of battle, these little banners don't do anything but display a picture of the Pokémon you're using. Was telling me what Pokémon I was using not enough? Platinum really exposes this problem in the new Distortion World where you're asked to use Strength to push boulders all over the place to complete a puzzle, but you have to keep activating Strength every time you change a floor or jump over a ledge, it's very frustrating. Why isn't there an option to turn these things off?

Also, menus. They take forever to scroll through, especially when you have to scroll through tens of items to find the right one, the touch screen iPod-like scroll wheel thing is utterly useless as well often getting left behind as a user rapidly circles the wheel, making the menu select the same two items over and over again. On the matter of touch screens, the game has touch screen controls dotted randomly all over the place, but you wont be able to play the game solely by using the touch screen, a bit strange that you have touch screen controls at all, especially when you're given the impression they're the 'default' method of input during battles.

Overall then, Pokémon Platinum is a pretty good RPG-lite, it's not quite as sophisticated as say a Final Fantasy game, but it doesn't need to be. Things like strategy can help any player defeat the game proficiently, however, loading up your Pokémon with strong attacks in all four move slots is still a very viable option for players to complete the game with (which is what most kids will do anyway, I sure did as a child). As an RPG game in general though, Pokémon lags behind the current trend. It's fun, but not ground breaking and quite frankly, the game isn't as good as previous Pokémon titles such as Pokémon Crystal. Strip away all the modern animations and 3D visuals and you have a pretty weak main story and mediocre dungeon designs. Buy it? If you want hours of childish fun and a somewhat bias battle system? Sure. If you're looking for a proper RPG, look else-where.]]> 4 Nintendo DS