Available now on PSN: Wheels of Destruction, an arcade car combat game that features fast play, deadly cars and interesting layered environments. But is that enough to get your engine revving?
Rather than tell a story or delve into why exactly this post-apocalyptic world is the way it is, WoD goes right for the action by getting you into matches. READ MORE
10. Dead Island
Dead Island combined enough zombie game elements to become one of the best action games of the year. Constantly hunted and looking for loot, Dead Island created an awesome atmosphere from beach to jungle to prison the game delivers its fair share of great scare moments. With a great item enhancement system and leveling tree this game needs to be experienced by any zombie aficionado. READ MORE
To die-hard FPS fanatics, id software is a name everyone can agree upon helped revolutionize the genre through such games as Doom and Quake. Now, after a short hiatus, they are back with Rage, a game that attempts to up the ante again in an extremely competitive arena. With all the media surrounding the company and the game itself, only one question remains: does it live up to all the hype? READ MORE
One of the defining factors of the Call of Juarez series has been its placement in the Old West, as you blast bad guys and root for the McCall clan. Can the series benefit by updating the game to modern day California and Mexico? It all comes down to cooperative play. READ MORE
Atlus games don’t offer your average experience. Whether they are challenging morality in the Shin Megami Tensei series, challenging your sanity in Demon’s Souls or going for plain quirky in 3D Dot Game Heroes, Atlus games never fail to push boundaries for games and gamers alike. With Catherine, Atlus ups the ante and risk by creating an adult themed horror/puzzle game that relies heavily on story and challenging puzzles. READ MORE
Using spatial relations to literally twist a simple puzzle game upside-down, Puzzle Dimension is the newest head-scratcher available for download on PSN. Playing as a golden ball, you are required to navigate floating platforms to collect flowers needed to open an exit portal. Limited to only rolling or jumping one square at a time, you learn quickly that a single misstep will mean a dive into the void, necessitating starting over from the beginning. READ MORE
Cole McGrath can’t catch a break. After finishing off Kessler at the end of inFamous, he found out that this villain was just the beginning, and a greater threat called The Beast would be coming to destroy the world. Little did he think The Beast would strike so soon. READ MORE
Just in time for the reboot of Tomb Raider later this year, Crystal Dynamics has re-issued its recent back catalog of titles in high definition. With this PS3 exclusive, players have access to the last three games produced: Legend (2006), Anniversary (2007) and Underworld (2008). Including a story thread that links all three titles, these games are natural to appear on one disc and provide some minor extras to make this a value at $39.99.
Lara Croft travels the world hunting artifacts, but none are as personal as the sword Excalibur that is somehow linked with her Mother’s disappearance years ago. Told across all three titles, Lara battles enemies old and new to finally close this chapter in her life. Never before has the Tomb Raider series looked so good. All three games look beautiful with Underworld still looking just as good as any current title.
Included with the games, players will have access to development diaries for all three titles, as well as trailers for the downloadable Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. In addition to the videos, the disc includes PlayStation Home avatar clothing, trophy support and a PS3 theme to tempt fanboys even more. While these are nice to have, they don’t add significantly to the overall value of the title and will only appeal to die-hards.
The platforming and puzzle solving of Tomb Raider set the bar in the late ’90s, and if you haven’t had a chance to play these titles, then you should consider picking it up for your collection to see the final chapters.
Pros: Great game value for one disc, beautiful updating of graphics
Cons: Extras don’t add much value
Editor’s note: writer Paul Bishop took a look at the beta for Zipper Interactive’s SOCOM 4, out April 19th. Here are his impressions.
While the name SOCOM stands for something for a lot of die-hard fans, SOCOM 4 takes the core gameplay and updates it with some Call of Duty mechanics, and throws in a good measure of MAG multiplayer awesomeness. Almost a reimagining of the series, this title hopes to lure in the fanboys and the newbies with a revamped scheme. 16-on-16 battles make for great action, as the PS3 shows its true colors maintaining these complex confrontations without missing a beat. The game is beautifully rendered, and character models are some of the most detailed available for a multiplayer title. Unfortunately, the two beta maps only show a washed-out color scheme. The Port Authority map has a reason to be drab and gray due to the shipyard location, but the Assault and Battery semi-jungle map could be more lush. READ MORE
Bulletstorm is the type of game that makes no excuses for itself. It is brash, ballsy and unflinchingly crass, but will its over-the-top action and humor allure an audience or drive it away like a poorly-executed joke?
Not for the faint of heart, Bulletstorm strives to be a “mature” title by throwing all sorts of adult-themed potty-language at the player. This barrage of obscenity never ceases from the cut-scenes to the gameplay, as you constantly aim to get bigger points with ever more ridiculously-named skill shots that can easily offend the most amiable player. If you can get past this one quirk though, you are in for one of the most fun and fresh shooters to come along in a long time.
Seeing an opportunity to get revenge, Grayson Hunt drunkenly rams his spaceship through the flagship of the Confederate Navy, hoping to kill the commander who betrayed him and his squad years ago. As both ships crash on the former pleasure planet Stygia, Hunt is left with knowing his impudence killed his remaining squadmates and left his best-friend Ishi a cyborg. Swearing to make things right to Ishi, they leave the wreckage to face a hostile planet filled with gangs, murderous vegetation and building-sized monstrosities to find a way off of the rock, even if it means making friends with the enemy.
As trite as the story sounds, it is well-executed to the point that you actually care about the characters by the end of the story. Minor plot twists to introduce the villain into the party worked extremely well if just to hear the brilliantly-sarcastic General Sarrano coddle his former lackeys. Voice acting is superbly done as well, as it walks the fine line between cheesy one-liners and deeper moments when characters show their conflicted nature. All of this is done while maintaining a brisk pace.
This game is all about action. Not content to be a standard shooter, Bulletstorm tries to pull out all the stops for over-the-top kills, giving them names and point values in the way of the Skill Point system. The harder it is to execute a kill, the more Skill Points you receive. Straight shooting an enemy nets no SP, scoring a headshot scores a little SP and shooting an enemy in the crotch then kicking him in the head scores more. With the combinations of leashing and kicking, there are numerous individual unlockable SPs to discover with more and more ridiculous themes.
Skill Points are vitally necessary within Bulletstorm, as they can be used at pods scattered around the game to upgrade weapons or more importantly buy additional ammunition not found elsewhere. It is this reliance on SP that drives you to try bigger and badder combinations of mayhem to feed your minimum existence so that you ultimately crave larger crowds of enemies to get multiplier bonuses. In addition, the environment is extremely versatile, allowing you to kick enemies off cliffs, leashing them into prickly plants or allowing for the random hot-dog cart to be used as an explosive device with awesome results. The game begs you to come up with interesting ways to kill your opponents. Add to that the over-the-top variety of guns and you have a smorgasbord of ridiculous annihilations possible.
Stygia itself is a marvel to behold, from lush green environments to decayed city-scapes to underground tunnels, the fast-paced nature of the game requires you to stop occasionally and look out over the beautifully-rendered landscape. It’s a double sword for the game, because you feel a sense of urgency to get to the next objective, and although the game isn’t short, it makes it feel like the end comes too quickly. To supplement that, developer People Can Fly added “Echo Mode,” which allows you to play certain levels over for time and skill trials. While this was a welcome addition, it feels like a diversion rather than a legitimate timesink. In the same vein, the multiplayer challenges you to get great SP kills against other team members, but lacks map variety.
Despite the shortcomings in additional content, Bulletstorm is a blast to play. The witty humor and solid gameplay make it a breath of fresh air in the first person shooter genre.
Pros: Quirky story, character and mechanics; beautifully executed and fast-paced
Cons: Short campaign, lackluster multiplayer
