Is PGR 4 a sim or an arcade racer? Which is better PGR 3 or 4? These are pretty difficult questions to answer and you could argue either way for both questions. Does it hold up in 2024? That's a yes from me.

PGR4 is a sequel that doesn't try to change to much. It keeps the excellent city tracks from the first game and makes them more detailed. It keeps the nice balance of arcade and sim racing that makes it appeal to all racing fans. It keeps the fun kudos system and the excellent soundtrack. It is basically PGR 3 but slightly, really slightly, better. I mean honestly, one of the most hyped upgrades this game has over PGR3 is the dynamic weather, which while cool, doesn't really change the game.

The racing itself is also very similar to PGR 3. The track based format creates more interesting and competitive racing and the difficulty modes keep it fun for a long time. There are also 2 very nice and detailed single player modes to keep you entertained. The career mode is what you would expect. You race against other similarly ranked drivers as you gradually build up fame and move up the rankings. There are a nice selection of race types and the mini league format works well. The more interesting mode though is the medal challenge. This mode gives you a selection of events that you must tackle one by one. However, each event has 5 different sub events, each one slightly harder than the last. You can overtake 3 cars for a silver medal or overtake 5 faster cars for a gold medal. Instead of just repeating the same event to get a better rating, these events are split up based on the rating. It's a nice little system that I am surprised isn't used more and it's a nice challenge.

A great one for the 360 collection especially if you liked 3 as it's basically more of the same.

Probably showing my bias against fighting games here, but this is another fighting game that I couldn’t get in to. I was actually pretty surprised about that as SC2 is one of my favourite fighting games of all time. I really enjoy the use of weapons as it increases the variety of the characters move-sets and makes the game simpler tactically. For example, a character like Kilik is quick and has great range with his long staff. This makes it pretty clear how to play as or against him as soon as you pick up the game and thus easier to get into compared to a lot of fighting games.

Soul Calibur IV brings back some of these characters and introduces some new ones keeping the weapon based combat and large character variety mostly the same. It also introduces some new characters including some star wars characters and a character creation mode. These additions didn't really appeal to me, the new characters are fine but the star wars characters really don't fit into the game. Another aspect of the game which is a let down is the boring game modes. The game has a very short and bland story mode, with little story and a tower of souls mode which is not as exciting as it seems. The tower of souls is just another multi fight mode, with all the fights set in similar boring square arenas. Now, combat wise SC4 is decent. The fights have a nice ebb and flow and are quite tactical if perhaps a little slow for my liking. Yet, this doesn't really make up for the rest of it's flaws. A fine fighting game that probably should have been a great one. In the end, I would rather just play SC2.

It's interesting to see nostalgia bring back genres of games that were forgotten about. Boomer shooters, Roguelikes, 2d Metroidvanias, the list goes on. One genre that is yet to receive a revival is the 3d person lock on shooter genre. Perhaps it died with Resi 4 or with better aiming controls but even in the 360 generation we didn't see many games like Jet Force Gemini any more. So, when I booted up G.I.Joe and saw it was a coop 3rd person lock-on shooter, I was pleasantly surprised. The game has a fixed camera and when you encounter enemies you just lock on and fire, using the right stick to switch between enemies. This enjoyment lasted all of about 10 minutes until I remembered that these type of games kinda suck and are extremely repetitive. G.I.Joe is basically that, a crappy repetitive shooter than isn't even really much fun with a friend. There are collectables, there are different character classes, there's a half-baked story and voice acting lines but none of this can save the bad gameplay. The most frustrating part is that it is pretty easy to die and then you need to start the whole level all over again. I don't mind this difficulty, but there is not much you can do about getting killed. There is very little cover and any cover you do find explodes 3 seconds after you hide behind it leaving you feeling frustrated. Let's not bring back the lock-on shooters, they are not good. If you want proof of how much they suck, play this.

For the uninitiated, Painkiller was a pretty rad FPS that came out back in 2004. Not dissimilar to boomer shooters like Doom and Quake, the game was an action packed FPS with a focus on speed, explosions and gore. Its basically remembered for its enemies, setting and excellent weapons. Now according to wikipedia, this is both a remake of and a sequel to that game, which doesn't really make any sense to me, but oh well. It's more of the same fast paced secret filled FPS fun and is a nice addition to the library of COD clones that make up the majority of the console's FPS games.

You play as a dude named Daniel who makes a pact with the devil to go and collect souls in order to save your wife. You are then thrown into various levels with the soul aim of killing all demons in sight. The simplistic gameplay style is really nice. Your character moves quickly and has an excellent array of weapons to take down the demons. There is the famous stake gun, which fires giant wooden stakes that pin enemies to walls. There is a spinning blade weapon, which cuts off limbs and there's some more standard guns like shotguns and miniguns. What makes this even more enjoyable is the alternative fire. The shotgun is a great example. While the standard fire mode is pretty boring, the alternate fire mode freezes enemies so that you can take them down in one quick standard shot.

The enemies themselves remind me a lot of the enemies in Quake. Medieval knights, Lovecraft style beasts and even evil children, delightful. You also have a boss fight at the end of each chapter. They aren't anything revolutionary, but fighting against giant beasts 30 times your size is pretty epic. The levels themselves are fun and varied, ranging from train stations, swamps to abandoned orphanages. Another nice feature is the inclusion of the unlockable tarot cards which give you upgrades that can be used with the press of a button. These cards are found by achieving special level based conditions, such as killing 50 enemies with a certain weapon or finishing a level particularly quickly. It is an old school style of unlockable which tells you everything you need to know about this game, it's really quite retro feeling.

Now it's not without it's flaws. The campaign is incredibly short and really left me wanting more. I do appreciate that it is replayable, especially with the challenges, unlockables and different difficulty levels. I would have liked a few more chapters though. The other issue is that certain levels can be a bit confusing. Now the enemy AI isn't great, and I'm kind of OK with that for this style of game. The issue is more down to how the levels are set up. A lot of levels require you to kill all enemies before moving on. With the shitty AI, I frequently found myself searching for the final enemy to kill and this really ruined the flow of the fast paced shooter. It's a game that I really like, but one that I wish there was more of. With the multiplayer now long gone, it feels a little lacking in terms of content and I have a feeling its going to shoot up in price. With that in mind, If this sounds like your type of game, pick it up ASAP.

After dredging through the swamp of Dragon Ball games on the system, I have finally got to the final release on the console, Xenoverse. While this has not been a fun adventure, to my surprise, they saved the best till last. Xenoverse is, like the rest of the series, predominantly a fighting game. The majority of the game is spend in one-one-one or team battles, flying around an arena smashing each other. What makes Xeno stand out from the others though, is the overall polish and feel of the game. For a start, and perhaps for the first time, the combat, button layout, and combo style make sense from the get go. I didn't need to battle through an awkward tutorial to get to grips with it and it doesn't have any weird rock paper scissors mechanics mid fight or repetitive cutscenes. The combat is a lot more action based and as such the game is much more fun in that regard. Secondly the story seems well thought out too. You are tasked to revisit various important parts of the DB universe story and alter them to change the fate of the future. Now, I don't really know the DB story, but I found this method of story telling a lot more compelling than the long conversations with little background information I found in previous games. The game also sets you up in a nice 3d hub world which I think was set up for online play and interaction with other players. Now this is obviously dead nowadays, but the hub world gives the game a bit more of a modern feel and is nicer than a simple level select menu. Character creation also makes a return and the RPG style levelling is a welcome addition. Xenoverse manages to still offer the same style of gameplay as previous DB games, but in a much nicer package and it feels like a lot more effort was put into it. I'm sure there will be raging blast purists or Budokai fans that will disagree, but if you want to play a DB game, this would be the one I suggest you pick up.

Is it just me or are the naming conventions of fighting games pretty weird? There are some cool ass names like Mortal Kombat, Soul Calibur and Power Stone. Some names which sound quite erotic like Tech Romancer and Smash Bros. Then others are just boring like Street Fighter and Virtua Fighter. Virtua Fighter 5 is the fifth in the long standing Sega fighting series which we rarely hear about nowadays. The problem is that this game series doesn't really stand out from the crowd of flashier counterparts. Street Fighter has the big market appeal, MK the gore, Dead or Alive has the boobs. What does VF5 do differently? Now there is nothing inherently wrong with VF5. It is a competent 3d fighter. The combat is based on the ebb and flow of the timing of your blocks and attacks, with the additional use of the 3rd plane to avoid strikes and counter attack. I find it a little tricky but it does definitely play in a different way than 2D fighting games and is pretty smooth. The game offers a nice roster of characters and the graphics are clean and colourful. That being said, it doesn't really stand out as a particularly interesting or unique game for people who are not already fans of the series. One issue that I often have with fighting games is that they seem a little threadbare in terms of content and game modes. This is also partially true from VF5. You don't really have a story mode and the tutorial is pretty lackluster. That being said I did really enjoy the arcade battle mode which was quite unique. This isn't to say that VF5 is a complete disaster. I think the beauty of it lies in its simplicity with its solid but not flashy mechanics that work just as intended. A highly refined and simple pure fighting game which probably appeals more to fighting purists, which I am most definitely not.

I don't have much to add about this entry in the series. It is definitely better than 2k6 and feels more polished. What I enjoyed about the game most was how customisable the game mechanics are. There are in-game options menus that let you fiddle with all the different mechanics of the game from the chance of 3 point shots going in or how successful steals will be. This is super helpful as it gives you opportunities to hone aspects of your gameplay that you need to work on. It definitely helped me improve as a player, I still suck though. It's NBA 2k7, there are so many of these games on the console so I don't really see the point of owning this one. It's a decent game though and I'm sure people are pretty nostalgic about it.

Looking back at this game in 2024, we will probably see it in a different light. Nowadays, the name Resident Evil has a different meaning. We have first person games in the mainline series, we have lame spin offs like raccoon city, even the remakes have changed the way the games play. I think people were perhaps too harsh on the game when it came out. The criticisms of it being too action orientated and not a real Resi game were never really thrown at Resi 4, so I was kinda surprised how angry people were about the action oriented approach of Resi 5. Plus the coop play and AI character was really not that bad. Yes Sheva was a greedy bitch and would use all the ammo and eat any egg as soon as she saw it, but she was pretty effective in combat. Don't get me started on the boulder scene. Cheesy dialogue and lame cute scenes are peak Resi, so the more the better for me, Jill Sandwich anyone? Resi 5 does have a different feel when we compare it to the original resident evil, but so do 3 and 4 and I have enjoyed them all. Now, I'm not going to run through what Resi 5 is, as most people probably know by now. I really would encourage you to play it. The issues with the game have been overblown and most importantly it's fun to play. Popping zombies with headshots. Hacking snakes with your dagger. Sheva going ape-shit on a group of enemies with her shotgun. I had so many memorable moments playing through this. A great game, particularly if you have a friend to play through it with. Stupid fun and one that should not be taken too seriously.

A FPS game which involves time travelling between the civil war, WW2 and the future. The story winds through time zones and involves attempts to correct the mistakes of the past. You can mow through enemy soldiers in the civil war with modern assault weapons and you even get an achievement for punching a horse. On paper, this game sounds fucking awesome. It's not. Now this game is a failure, but not for the usual reasons. As mentioned earlier the game has an interesting concept and the story is quite engaging. The game itself actually plays fairly well too. The controls work, it is easy to aim and hit the target. The weapons are pretty fun to use and it's nice jumping between different times keeping the gameplay fresh. The sections where you use automatic weapons in the civil war were so much fun. The issues mostly arise from the maps themselves. Now most levels are quite open often forested area. This is quite a change from the more linear sections we see in FPS campaigns like Call of Duty. The problem is, these open maps mean you are never forced into areas which are set up for fun battles. Most of the time you have no cover and enemies are coming from all sides leaving you running around in circles trying to shoot them. You do have some teammates to help you but it's pretty hard to distinguish them from the enemy, especially in low light areas. It feels more like a hunting game than an FPS and it really removes a lot of the fun and tactical elements of great shooters. They also really messed up some of the most basic elements of the game. The sound is really poor. I was unable to hear most voices and had to resort to subtitles. However, these subtitles were pretty useless as they were difficult to read on the light backgrounds. This is an issue with all the texts in the game and even the game map. It's basic errors like this that are really hard to accept. Now, I'm normally a fan of these games but I really could not get into this. Cool concept done very poorly.

Nintendo makes such incredible, iconic games that they become the cornerstones of genres. Instead of searching for platformers, people will google "what is the best Mario game on the Xbox 360" or "what games are like Mario Kart on the xbox 360". Darksiders then would be considered the best Zelda clone on the console and perhaps the only one really. Darksiders is a hack and slash adventure game released in 2010 by Virgil games set in a fictional future earth which is in the middle of some kind of war between the factions of heaven and hell. You play as War, one of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, trying to figure out what actually went wrong. Now for a start, the game looks great. The abandoned modern earth setting, with it's destroyed cities, beautiful libraries and gloomy cemeteries is juxtaposed with the dark and menacing factions of hell all black and red and the bright forces of heaven with their white and orange glow. It's a really nice comic book style design which feels both unique and interesting as you play through it. The gameplay is a mix of Metrovania style adventure and puzzles, mixed with some hack and slash combat with combos and special moves. The combat is decent, its responsive and there are a nice variety of combos and upgrades to keep you happy, especially during some of the boss fights that the game throws at you. The puzzles and Zelda style adventuring is really the star of the show though. As you venture through the interconnected world, you enter different dungeons, complete puzzles and boss fights and find new tools and weapons, which in turn open new areas. It's a tried and tested gameplay style and it works great. These dungeons are the real highlight of the game and the puzzles and collectibles make it a lot of fun to explore. The caveat to this is that there really isn't enough of them. The combat and map exploring are nice, but I really would have liked more dungeons and more upgrades and perhaps more areas to revisit with the new tools that you unlock. The tools are another of the highlights of the game. A mixture of weapons and items used to explore, each one has it's own unique usage and most can be used in combat to varying effect depending on the enemy. You have a glove which helps you break ice and can stun enemies. A hookshot which helps you traverse big gaps and even an ability to slow down time. I do have a bit of an issue here though. While some of these upgrades are useful, others are basically pointless. In the mid game you unlock an item which lets you build shadow bridges. Ok cool, but you use this one during the game and it has no other use. Also, most of the best upgrades are at the end of the game so you don't have a lot of chances to use them. There's a cool portal gun and a shadow vision mode which are both great to use in the final dungeon but would have been nice earlier on. The biggest issue is really how boring the first hour is. You are basically in a poor man's god of war clone for the first hour and it's really off-putting. I tried this game about 3 times before it finally clicked and I managed to make it to a dungeon. I had a great time with Darksiders. It is basically a Zelda clone and I am ok with that. It's just a shame that with some slight tweaks it could have been even better.

Take everything you know and love about the highly underrated Conflict series of games and deflate it into a bland FPS game, that is really all there is to say about Conflict Denied Ops. A game so bad that even me, someone who loves crappy FPS games, hates it. You are put in control of one of two characters, a sniper or a heavy machine gunner, and run through levels blasting stuff. They seem to be aiming for the same character design as Kane and Lynch, but gameplay wise it doesn't really matter which you choose and you can switch between the two whenever you like. The coop mode is a nice inclusion in this fairly short and bland campaign, but playing alone with the AI is extremely frustrating. It has some fairly bog standard N64 Goldeneye style missions, like protecting the scientist while he hacks the mainframe or survive waves of enemies for 3 minutes, which are alright but not enough to make it worth playing. It really is a fairly bland game. If anything stands out, it is the horrible controls. While not unresponsive, the button layout is quite unique and perhaps counterintuitive. Even worse, you can't change the aim sensitivity. The other thing that stood out was how terrible the enemy AI was. Either they will pop out of nowhere right next to you and kill you in seconds or they will be running from place to place like a headless chicken. It makes the game difficult and frustrating, especially with the sparse checkpoints and missions which require protecting NPCs. The Conflict series died for the sins of this game, and there are many many sins in it. At least the Japanese market had the decency to call it Double Clutch, which is much cooler. If you see a copy for sale, hide it behind other games so no one buys it.

In the mid to late 2000s there was a bunch of 3rd person, over the top action games which I would call dumb fun. Games like Saints Row 1, Just Cause and Crackdown were not particularly graceful games, but they were fun to play. They often had dumb enemy AI, ugly graphics, horrible dialogue and a style of gameplay that focused on action but wasn't very refined. Mercenaries 2 is another one of those game. It gives me a certain style of nostalgia going back to play these games because they are really a window to video games at the time, when having a cool concept and a trailer with some nice explosions would sell a game. Looking back, these games kinda suck but they are fun which is the most important factor.

Mercs 2 puts you in the middle of a fairly insensitive for the time fictional Venezuelan civil war. You and your group of mercenaries start off trying to kill the president, but you end up in a big free-for-all with a bunch of different factions trying to blow everything up. The gameplay is peak PS2 style GTA loving open world 3rd person shooting. The enemy AI is horrible and the gameplay is pretty glitchy, plus it has some very tough missions that can be very frustrating.

Aside from the main story, you also have the constant battle for resources and turf with the rival gangs throughout the map. You can attack these bases on foot or by vehicle, with a huge number of weapons and some nice destructible buildings. They throw in a lot of random mechanics also. You can call in air strikers and air support from your home base. These require you to spend certain resources such as oil and money, which also need to be collected (via helicopter pick up which you call in) and are normally guarded by a bunch of enemies. It's a very time consuming ebb and flow, with enemies and bases respawning and various groups controlling different areas.

It reminds me of a mix of different mechanics from games of a similar era such as Far Cry 2, The Godfather and Just Cause. It's a classic case of dumb fun, these extra elements of open world gameplay are a nice distraction when you get stuck on some difficult campaign mission, yet you could find yourself totally engrossed in them. A dated buggy and ugly mess, Mercs 2 is a classic mid 2000s copycat game with its dated humour and gameplay design. Still enjoyable though.

The Forza Horizon games get a lot of love, and I can see why. It's a game series that really combined all of the racing game trends of the time into a well polished and fun package. You have a big detailed open world map, beautiful graphics, lots of cars and upgrade options and interesting online modes. It's really like an updated version of the Test Drive games for the mass market. There is so much to do in this game. Now this may be great for some people, but it felt a bit bloated for me. There are the collectables, finding new vehicles and smashing through boards. You have skill tasks and jumps. There are the speed traps that you need to drive through as quickly as you can. These all add to the bulk of the game and can make free-roaming around the beautiful map fun if you are into that type of thing. The races themselves are fine, they do their job, but one major issue I have is that the game wants you to complete each race multiple times with different car types. Of course, these are optional, it is just one of the ways that game goes down the "more is better" route. Now, I'm not a huge fan of open world racing, as I think specifically designed tracks and more fun to race on. This issue persists in this game a little, but the decent controls and other racers AI did keep it enjoyable. In this regard it is one of the better open world racing games in terms of the actual racing. It's probably a case of a good game, which is just not for me. I don't care about a clustered map full with collectables, we get enough of that from Ubisoft games. I also am not a fan of the Mid 2010s edgy banter and festival design. I don't love a lot of the features of modern racers with its open world races, rewinds and style points. However, if you do like these things, this is a great game and a pretty decent sequel to the first one on the console, without really changing much. In terms of pure racing, it's pretty fun and better than a lot of racers on the console, and I can recommend it based on that. I do still think its a bit vapid though.

A fairly crappy dance game with very few features. Hip Hop Dance Experience is saved by being full of bangers. There's a real lack of game modes, a seriously terrible training section and the body detection is basically broken. I mean you can stand still and the game still seems to think you are dancing. I also felt like the game did a pretty poor job at telling you if you are doing a well or not. You feel like you have done great in a level, every move you do is getting positive feedback but then at the end of the level you end up with a 58% rating. Really not sure what I am doing playing this. It's saved by the track list though. Bangers. Love me some 00s hip hop. Just get the song list and stick it on Spotify.