GamesRadar - Xbox 360 Reviews

Scene It? Box Office Smash (Review)

Dec 4, 2008

Another Christmas, another quiz game. Scene It?’s 2007 leap from board game to virtual toy wasn’t quite up to Buzz’s often lofty standards, but marked a promising foray into the genre for Microsoft nonetheless. Now that it’s backed up by casual titles Lips and You’re in the Movies the movie quiz’s second outing is a much stronger prospect than before. ...

Lips (Review)

Dec 4, 2008

Out of the box you’d be forgiven for thinking that there isn’t much to separate Lips from Sony’s SingStar series. But buying a karaoke game is a long-term investment, one that only comes to fruition once there’s a wealth of downloadable content available. For this reason it seems unfair to review Microsoft’s casual music game so soon, but there are at least two features that make it stand out. ...

Sonic Unleashed (Review)

Dec 3, 2008

There was a time, perhaps a year ago, when we were seriously excited about Sonic Unleashed’s retro-platform action. The sense of sheer velocity was breathtaking as Sonic blasted through admirably detailed levels so quickly that the soles of his shoes should have melted off. ...

Prince of Persia (next-gen) (Review)

Dec 3, 2008

The first time publisher Ubisoft spoke to us about the new Prince of Persia game, we’ll admit we feared it was going to stink so badly we’d staple week-old roadkill to our faces to try to mask its smell. The super-macho Prince, always the center of this platform adventure series, is being hobbled with a new sidekick character whose help you require for basically everything? ...

The Last Remnant (Review)

Dec 2, 2008

Ouch! This was supposed to be Square Enix’s attempt to make a truly global RPG. Not so much a Japanese RPG, more an Everywhere-RPG. So why is the opening hour so utterly confusing and unwelcoming? An unfamiliar battle system, all stats and weird terminology and with not much in the way of a helping hand. We can’t think of an RPG that starts this badly. ...

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Nov 25, 2008

There was a time when Street Fighter II machines lined the halls of dimly lit smoke-filled arcades. It was there that crowds gathered to watch titans clash. Remember the sneaky Guile player? Always crouching and constantly cornering, he was ready to throw up a Flash Kick every time you tried to break free from his never-ending barrage of sweeps and Sonic Booms. ...

NCAA Basketball 09 (Review)

Nov 24, 2008

College basketball season has arrived, and with it comes NCAA “Don’t Call Me March Madness” Basketball 09, EA’s newly-branded and suddenly solo hoops offering. Thanks to 2K Sports’ surprising (and, it turns out, painful) decision to bow out of the collegiate basketball arena, it stands alone this fall as the lone choice for Dick Vitale wannabes.

Unfortunately, the wrong developer chose to exit stage left. ...

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode Two (Review)

Nov 19, 2008

Picking up where the first episode concluded, the second episode of the Penny Arcade Adventures begins with your still-homeless character (you can either import your old character or start a new one at the same advanced level) brandishing a new gardening implement and teaming up once again with 1922-era Gabe and Tycho to track down the giant robot that crushed your house. ...

Tomb Raider: Underworld (Review)

Nov 19, 2008

Crystal Dynamics deserve acclaim, not just for having created their best Tomb Raider game so far, but for something even more remarkable: listening to criticism. They’ve taken on board the fact that their strength lies in epic puzzles and astonishing level architecture, and that their great weakness has been boss fights. Of the latter, Underworld contains an admirable none. The former constitutes the whole of the game. ...

Naruto: The Broken Bond (Review)

Nov 18, 2008

Kiddie game? Think again. Last year’s Naruto: Rise of a Ninja was startlingly strong. Buoyed by the positive response, Ubisoft’s Montreal brigade have gone back to the drawing board and crafted a sequel that builds a little sandcastle on top of the original and decorates it with Christmas lights before plonking a fairy on top. ...

Portal: Still Alive - Xbox Live Arcade (Review)

Nov 18, 2008

Portal: Still Alive breaks every rule. It’s the first Live Arcade game to clock in at a weighty 629Mb - well over Microsoft’s miserly 250Mb limit. It’s also the first Live Arcade game to be a re-release of an existing retail game. Most importantly, even one year after its initial release, Portal is a game unlike any other, and once again one of the games of the year. ...

Armored Core for Answer (Review)

Nov 18, 2008

Confusing title, but not as baffling a game. This feels very familiar to what’s gone before it. In fact, if you’ve got last year’s Armored Core 4 you’d be mistaken for thinking you’d put the wrong disc in your system. The only differences are the new missions, improved customization and the inclusion of online co-op play. ...

Shaun White Snowboarding (Review)

Nov 18, 2008

EA’s SKATE succeeds by focusing on ultra-realistic, simple thrills – so even a kickflip feels like an achievement. By contrast, SSX thrives on reality-bending absurdity, layering impossible tricks with riotous color and complex trick lines. Shaun White Snowboarding, meanwhile, aims somewhere in between – with typically middle-of-the-road results. ...

Need for Speed Undercover (Review)

Nov 17, 2008

It’s easy to forget how long the Need for Speed series has been around. The original – our first taste of driving licensed exotica from the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Dodge – existed in a world before Gran Turismo, at least five years before Midnight Club and when we were still playing the very first Ridge Racer. ...

Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe (Review)

Nov 17, 2008

When you consider Scorpion’s penchant for peeling the skin off his victims’ faces and Superman’s long history of do-gooding, Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe isn’t such an obvious pairing – less a deadly alliance than it is a marriage of unlikely convenience – but the contrived set-up does create some undeniably daft, grin-making matchups. Jax vs Superman, anyone? ...

Left 4 Dead (Review)

Nov 17, 2008

Rescue is here - after a long, bloody battle with countless zombies, you and three fellow survivors have made it to the rooftop of a ravaged hospital, where a helicopter lands to evacuate you to safety. In a blaze of gunfire and guts, you and two of your companions fight your way to the helipad and climb aboard the chopper, but the fourth member of your team is wounded and limping behind you. ...

Monopoly (2008) (Review)

Nov 13, 2008

EA claimed recently that videogames could never replace board games, and they’ve successfully proven this point by releasing Monopoly: so inferior to its cardboardy cousin it could well be a practical joke. The game consists largely of pressing a single button, once every five minutes, and then making a cup of tea while you wait for your turn. ...

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (Review)

Nov 11, 2008

High above a laser-crossed battlefield, a 700 kilo Brown Bear wearing a metal hat floats gently toward Earth, four paws dangling limply from his parachute harness. It’s hard not to like this game. Red Alert’s always been a hardcore strategy series, but a deeply silly one. ...

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (Review)

Nov 11, 2008

Nuts & Bolts truly is the return of Rare. Enough with the papery menagerie, let’s get back to N64 basics: the wordplay, the self-deprecating humor (pops are taken at their own distastr-o-game Grabbed by the Ghoulies), the design philosophy that states ‘object + googly eyes = endearing thing’. And in a winter of bleak, dreary games, the lightness of touch is very, very welcome indeed. ...

Call of Duty: World at War (Review)

Nov 11, 2008

If there’s one word that sums up World at War for us, it’s ‘brutal’. The latest Call of Duty, developed over the last two years by Treyarch – not series creator Infinity Ward – is a brutal slog through a WWII setting unlike any other. You may think you’ve ‘been there’ and ‘done that’ when it comes to this particular global conflict, but after five minutes in either the blood-soaked single player campaign or the frenzied multiplayer you’ll realise that this is far from your average, tired WWII shooter. ...