It's not a thing you would hear people say now, but I really like the call of duty campaigns. Call of Duty 1 was one of my first forays into modern shooters. It got better with United Offensive and then Call of Duty 2 blowing me away with how well it ported over to consoles. It really gave you the feeling of being a nameless grunt in a horrible situation. Call of duty 3 is the third in the mainline series and I have to say it really misses the mark. Now keep in mind I'm focusing on campaign only, because even though some of these games are still populated in 2023, most of them don't deliver the complete original experience. The campaign seeminlgy changes very little from the previous games. It looks similar, the same weapons and enemies. It feels the same, the controls work as intended. But it's just not as good. It's difficult to put your figure on exactly what they messed up here, but I'll try my best. Firstly, the campaign feels a lot more linear and less open, feeling a bit more like a corridor shooter. Epic battles where you are working which big groups of AI teammates were one of my favorite aprts of 2, and it is really lacking in 3. Yes you have AI teammates, but you often end up ploughing through areas on your own. Small tweaks like the annoying mini games, the less interesting locations, the ammount of time spent in the car and the unskippable cutscenes just seem to detract from the immersive and epic hell that was call of duty 2, and give more of a sloppy feeling. The AI also feels like a step down, both in terms of friendlies and the enemy. I can't recall an instance of a teammate coming to my aid or feeling stuck in a certain corner as the enemies had my number. It just feels average. It's kind of difficult to explain nowadays as COD isn't what it used to be, but going from COD1 and COD2 to this, felt like going from Call of Duty to Medal of Honor or another lesser copy. Still a fine game, but nowhere near the feeling of 2. With the sheer number of COD games on the console, this is definitely one to avoid.

There are a lot of games on the console which have beautiful worlds, good stories, nice graphics, interesting mechanics but ultimately are not fun to play. WET is basically the opposite of all those games. It's a fairly dumb game, with dumb enemies. One of the most unlikeable protagonists in gaming history. Horrible stereotype characters. A very poor representation of Hong Kong in it's bland an uninspired gameworld. A story which feels like it was written by a 12 year old tarantino fan. Some weirldy repetative and aggressive music, which actually is kinda good in parts. Yet, with all these flaws, it is fun to play and remains so throughout its 10 ish hour campaign. The makers of WET have basically taken what made stranglehold and Max Payne fun, flesh it out a bit, added in some scoring and score multipliers and made a game out of it. The 3rd person shooter/ brawler/ almost tony hawk's esq gameplay is really a joy to play. Slide along the floor with time slowed down while shooting enemies in the head. Wall run into an enemy and slice his head off. It really never gets boring. The best part of the game are the artistic blood levels where everything turns red as you enter a rage mode. In these levels you have extra carnage, shooting and slicing enemies at an even quicker rate, building up combos as you dance from enemy to enemy. It's really hard to say this is a good game, but it most certainly is a fun game and that's what matters. A worth addition for any action fan, but doesn't quite reach the heights of the similar stranglehold.

I haven't got through all the Moto GP games yet, but I'm predicting this to be my favourite of the series. Moto GP 14 was great, it added some interesting features and just made racing fun. Moto GP 15 is very similar to its predecessor, but polishes things up where they really matter, in the racing. The bikes feel better than ever and handle very well. It's difficult to explain what changes have been made, but the racing just feels right. Different bikes handle differently. Different race strategy can really make or break a race. You'll find yourself remembering corners from previous races and whether the tactics that you used on that corner worked or not. While I'm maybe not being critical enough of milestone for how similar this is to 14, I had a lot of fun with it and that's what counts.

The golden compass is one of two games on the console that features a mission asking you to sweep up shit. Just like Risen (the other of the two games), I actually quite enjoyed this one, and consider it quite underrated. Based on a movie, which I haven't seen, which is in turn based on a kids book that I haven't read, this game really stands out for both good and bad reasons. Starting with bad, the story makes absolutely no sense. The levels are cut with various clips from the movie which seem to have tenuous links at best to whats happening in the mission. It's a shame because it does seem like quite a nice idea for a story, particularly for younger players. The game also isn't great at explaining at what you have to do and I had to use a guide a some points, which isn't great for a kids game. To be honest I'm probably just an idiot. On the positive side, its really quite different from a lot of other movie tie in games. For a start the levels look really nice, the graphics aren't anything special, but many of the levels are very colourful and the variety of levels really stands out. You go from a frozen tundra to a stately home in oxford to a pirate ship. It's a nice change from the dull gray levels we see in a lot of similar budget games. The gameplay also is quite unique. There's a mix of some platforming, fetch quests, puzzles and simple combat and dialogue challenges in the form of mini games. None of them are anything special, but all fairly enjoyable. My favourite aspect is the alethiometer. There are hidden symbols that you can find throughout levels. These are used to solve riddles using the aethalometer. If you find them great, but if you don't you can still make educated guesses. Its a nice incentive to explore levels without forcing you to replay them, and a unique gameplay feature I haven't really seen in other games. If you are looking for something a little different, I would recommend giving this one a try. A worthy addition to any collection.

Having played a couple of the earlier Moto GP games (07/08), I wanted to try something a bit more recent, so I gave 14 a spin. I wasn't expecting much, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike some yearly racing franchises, which are dedicated to releasing basically the same game each year (WRC I'm thinking of you), Moto GP 14 is really quite a big step up. First and foremost, the game looks and feels great. The bikes handle well but are still challenging and require skill to master. You won't be able to win races when you first start playing, but after a little bit of practice, you start to feel out the controls and the game becomes quite enjoyable. It doesn't feel like the impossible mountain of a challenge that previous entries presented. One aspect I particularly enjoyed was the challenges they have added which are based off real life events, very cool. Additionally the career mode feels more fleshed out, starting as a rookie driver in moto3, you really have to work your way to the top. Overall, it's still a pretty niche title, but one that I would argue most players will be able to enjoy.

As a mid 30s dude, WWE (we all know it's WWF really) games hold some form of nostalgia for me. I was a kid at the height of its popularity and loved wwf warzone and attitude. If you go back now, these games are almost unplayable. The controls are mental and you need to remember a bunch of random button combinations. The later WWE games on the system realised this and have simplified things a great deal. You now just need to grapple and use the right thumbstick to pull off a variety of moves, which personally I think is a good thing. One nice thing I will mention about 2K16 is it has a stone cold story mode, where you play out scenarios from stone cold's career. As a fan of this era, that was a nice touch and it has been done well, feeling like a quality package. Aside from that, there are not a great deal of differences from the other WWE releases around this time, and unless you are a big stone cold fan, you can probably also look at 2k15 or 2k17. I quite enjoyed this one, but I'm not a huge WWE fan so take it with a pinch of salt.

If you are nostalgic for some oldschool sega fun, these are the games for you. There is something so unique about these very arcadey and very japanese sega titles. The upbeat music, the calm and cool menus, the warp sound as you move through the menus and best of all the way the announcer shouts virtua tennis as the game starts. Super Monkey ball fans and Dreamcast owners will know what I am talking about. Virtua Tennis, or Power Smash as it's called in Japan, is an arcade style tennis series, which doesn't take itself too seriously. It has the standard tennis modes and a bunch of fun mini games to play. If you are looking for some fun with friends and the occasionally non commital round on the courts this one is for you. However, if you are looking for depth, this is probably not for you. The controls are very simple, there are not to many different tactics or shot types, the main campaign is very similar to top spin, but again simplified without the in-depth stat building mechanics. On top of this, there is not a great deal of progession between games. Virtua Tennis 3 holds up pretty well against Top spin 2, but there is a pretty big gulf between Virtua Tennis 4 and Top Spin 4. All these factors make it a worse series, but they are still fairly fun to play and really saved but the top notch audio. If you are looking at picking up a game from this series, you can't really go wrong with any of them, but I would probably pick 3 as my favourite and likely the cheapest of the bunch nowadays.

I'm weirdly nostalgic for movie tie in games. At the time, everyone hated them. Yet, I can't help but feel a bit of happiness when I see a random movie tie in game from previous consoles. Pirates of the Caribbean, only one on the console thankfully, is a quite decent action adventure game. You play as Amber heard's ex husband on an adventure through parts of the movie? To be honest, I haven't seen the movie, BUT the game does look nice. The areas are all detailed, colourful and varied, and I really enjoyed exploring them. Gameplay is a mix between hack and slash, platforming and some elements of puzzle solving, with a few collectables thrown in there. The gameplay is simple but varied and the levels do feel realistic. The game also has quite a nice plot with some great cutscenes. Did they get Legolas to do the voice lines? No idea. But the story was interesting and didn't feel tacked on. There is a quite unique duel system to the game, in which you sword fight one on one which was enjoyable and worked well. I also like the variety with different weapons and enemy types. Overall it's a game which appeals to both adults and children and will keep you entertained through it's short campaign. It's nothing incredible, but we rarely see games like this nowadays and I do miss them.

I'm weirdly nostalgic for movie tie in games. At the time, everyone hated them. Yet, I can't help but feel a bit of happiness when I see a random movie tie in game from previous consoles. Pirates of the Carribean, only one on the console thankfully, is a quite decent action adventure game. You play as Amber heard's ex husband on an adventure through parts of the movie? To be honest, I haven't seen the movie, BUT the game does look nice. The areas are all detailed, colourful and varied, and I really enjoyed exploring them. Gameplay is a mix between hack and slash, platforming and some elements of puzzle soliving, with a few collectables thrown in there. The gameplay is simple but varied and the levels do feel realistic. The game also has quite a nice plot with some great cutscenes. Did they get Legolas to do the voice lines? No idea. But the story was interesting and didn't feel tacked on. There is a quite unique duel system to the game, in which you sword fight one on one which was enjoyable and worked well. I also like the variety with different weapons and enemy types. Overall it's a game which appeals to both adults and chilren and will keep you entertained through it's short campaign. It's nothing incredible, but we rarely see games like this nowadays and I do miss them.

I probably wrote this one off before I had even started. Sega went on a spree of making crappy superhero video games in the mid to late 2000s and this is one of them. If you have played one before, you probably have an idea of what they entail. 3rd person action featuring mostly hand to hand combat with a mix of your favourite characters from the hulk series. Hell does the hulk series even have characters? I could name one except Hulk. What's interesting about this one is how much it feels like the Spiderman games. Flying between skyscrapers in a 3D open world New York while completing a series of missions and looking for collectables is basically exactly what you do in Spiderman 3. On the positive side it is fun smashing everything to bits. The best part is the buildings, all of which are destructible. Chucking cars around and watching them smashing into skyscrapers is awesome for a couple of hours. The negative side is that it is pretty repetative. Missions end up being very similar to each other, kill enemies, smash building, the end. Probably a good one for young marvel fans as it is so easy to pick up and play, but not for everyone.

Gen 7 seems to be the generation in which the trend of making a video game about every movie that was released died. I'm sure most gamers will have found memories of playing some form of movie tie in game when they were younger. I was particularly partial to the Toy story game on the snes and of course goldeneye. But over time these games seemed to get worse and worse, rushed out in time for a movie, hoping that parents will buy the game for their kids based on the title alone. For every knights of the old republic there is a chicken little, for every aladdin there is an ET. The early generation 360 game catalouge is full of horrible movie tie in games, and in some ways spiderman 3 is the worst offender of the bunch. After the excellent spiderman 2 on the ps2, we have the not so excellent spiderman 3, the first spidey release on the 360. It has everything you expect and know from spiderman games. Webslinging across Manhattan, all the characters you know and love and dumb one liners from spidey himself. The game is quite famous from its horrible cutscenes which almost rival the memes from the movie itself, and this is one of the highlights of the game. Its fun messing up button presses just to watch the frog eyed NPC look in horror as they get blown up. This is maybe only rivalled by Prison Break. Another fun aspect of the game is the boss fights. They are varied, often in 2 or 3 parts, and sometimes frustratingly hard, which I dig. Unfortunately, this is where the fun ends. Web-slinging through the city is fun for the first hour, until you realise there is nothing really going on in the game world. This is the most boring manhatten we have seen yet. Its all just gray, and there is nothing memorable about it. The combat system is another huge issue, its finicky and normally descends into button mashing or holding down the time slow button. Missions themselves give the impression of variety at the expense of fun. It's not the worst game in the world, but there are much better spidey games on the console.

This is the type of game that probably divides people into 2 groups. People who played the game or enjoyed Bakugan as a kid and people who have no idea what it is. I was in the latter group, but having played around half the game, I'm pleasantly surprised. Let's get the obvious out the way, Bakugan is a dated childrens game, which is very simple to play, a little repetative and has horrible graphics. Yet hiding under all of that is a fairly fun animated game. Bakugan is a pokemon style creature brawler. You have different Bakugans, think pokeball and pokemon combined, with different elements (water fire etc) and their own attacks and abilities. The game tells a, as far as i can tell, original story of a boy who is dropped into the bakugan universe. You have to help all the "famous" Bakugan characters to save their world. The story is cheesy as hell, but fun for kids and surprisingly well fleshed out with nice simple cutscenes. The gameplay is split into two different sections, which adds a bit of variety. A simple 3d roaming collection and sneaking section, where you need to get to the end zone without being spotted. This is followed by a battle section where your Bakugan of choice will fight against of bakugans to defend your base and destroy the enemies base. There's a little more to the gameplay, but its fairly simple and easy to pick up. It's not mind-blowing, but It's a pretty interesting game, and I would say a worthy addition to a collection, especially if you have kids.

Each need for speed game I play I get more and more confused. What is this series trying to do? After the arcade street racing of most wanted and the poorly controlling but similar carbon, we have the more simulation focused pro street. It makes it quite difficult to know what to expect when we are jumping between arcade and simulation racing. Pro street goes down the sim route with a side helping of boy racer style illegal street racing and racing meetups. Fans of tuning and playing around with the car should enjoy the customisation options of this released and the atmosphere of the street racing is fun if a bit cringeworthy like previous NFS titles. Racing takes part on race meet weekends, letting you attempt racing and drag racing events against AI opponents. The racing feels fine. It is more sim based, so there is less room for mistakes and offers a bit more challenge. The drag races are not much fun to be honest, and basically boil down to some awkward button presses. I just found myself not massively enjoying the game. The racetracks were boring and I didn't feel a lot of excitement from head to head racing with the AI. The format of the campaign is very repetative, with each race weekend having too many very similar style races or drag races. It's not a bad package and I can see it would be appealing for some groups, it's just not really for me.

So here we have Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. An interesting title for a variety of reasons. For one, it's one of two series I can think of that use the strange acronym name hybrid title, along with the FEAR series. Also, its , along with End War, one of the forgotten about, and quite random entry in the Tom Clancy's series. Finally, it's one of the few flight games on the console set in modern times. This is another one of those titles that I find hard to review, as I'm not really a big flight sim fan. That being said, this seems like a fairly serviceable one, if a little repetitive. The missions are your standard fair of dog fights against a bunch of enemies, and bombing an area. If you are into this time of game, you will know what I'm talking about an probably enjoy it. One cool feature is that the game will give you flight paths to avoid missiles or follow enemies in the form of gates, and missing one will mean you need to start again. It's a simple but cool little mechanic. One major issue I have with this game is it is ugly. It's very green/brown/gray, and i really think it could have been improved by having some cool cities or landscapes to fly over. That being said, I had a bit of fun with it and its still pretty playable in 2023.

I might be in the minority here, but I actually preferred Challenge 2 to live 2. I guess for big rugby league fans the choice is obvious. Yet as a non rugby fan, the gameplay just seemed a bit simpler and more enjoyable. It was easier to pass, easier to run and score tries. The computer players were predictable in the movements meaning I was able to pull off more interesting plays. The controls just seemed to click quicker too. Take this with a pinch of salt as a rugby fan, but as a casual, while both are good, I'd go for challenge.