I didn’t buy Heavy Rain when it came out, largely because it was described by many as, essentially, being one huge eight-hour long quicktime event. Me and quicktime events have never gotten on since I first played Dragon’s Lair, on one of those huge, laserdisc arcade machines and died, horribly, many times. I have serious issues with authority and when there’s ‘one right way’ to do something, whether it be in a game or in real life, I rail against it and get bloody annoyed. Heavy Rain, then, seemed to me to be a nightmarish game which would be the total opposite of anything I might ever want to play, however innovative, however artistic and hower stylishly French it might be.

I was wrong.

Not completely wrong, but I was wrong.

Demon’s Souls is a western-looking but Japanese made ‘RPG’ – in the loosest sense of the word – which has become somewhat notorious, even legendary, for its ‘challenging’ difficulty and it’s old-school ‘hardcore’ sensibilities. Something which has made it a bit of a hit with ‘hardcore’ gamers.

This view of the game is horseshit, based on false nostalgia and a failure to recognize that things are a damn sight better these days and that technology has taken us beyond the conditions that made old-school games, necessarily, difficult.

A mysterious fog has enveloped a kingdom and all word from within has been cut off. The greatest heroes and adventurers from beyond this land have ventured into this fog and none have returned. Being a masochistic dipshit who can’t take a hint like any reasonable person, you’ve followed them into the fog only to be annihilated in turn by a giant demon and waking up, a lost soul, in a weird cathedral like space called The Nexus where, it turns out, you have to venture forth as a sort of ghost in order to collect enough demon souls to reincarnate and take on the forces of evil lurking in the fog.

Red Dead Redemption could easily also be called ‘Grand Theft Horse’, it’s a freeroaming sandbox game in the style of the GTA series and by the same company with much of the same humour, cynicism and cinematic eye that those games have. The game is set at the very end of the ‘Old West’ in one of the last remaining frontiers, just as the government and other forces are making a concerted effort to finally civilise the area and bring it under the heel of proper governance. Meanwhile, in the south, Mexico is thrown into the chaos of a revolution…

You are John Marston, a former outlaw who has been trying to make a new life for himself as a chicken-scratch farmer, though he has no talent for it. With a wife and son to be used as leverage against him, Marston is manipulated into tracking down his old gang, members of which can still be found in the area that the government is trying to control.

Enslaved is a post-apocalyptic re-telling of the classic Chinese tale ‘Journey to the West’. It spins off from the original tale significantly but still retains a great deal of the character and themes of the original, even though the main theme – redeeming a chaotic land by finding missing enlightenment – is one of the casualties (or at least ends up transmuted into something else). It’s a gorgeous game, with very few niggles, which seems to have – unfortunately – gone relatively unnoticed around a lot of higher profile releases.

The game opens with you, Monkey, trapped inside a prison cell by slavers. Your prison is an egg-shaped metal orb – a nod to the origins of monkey – and as you languish helplessly in your prison, things start to go wrong all around you. The slaver prison – which turns out to be a flying ship – starts to explode and fall apart and its a race against time to get to the rapidly depleting number of escape pods.

Valkyria Chronicles is a squad oriented, turn-based strategy game with a big narrative emphasis and a strong anime style. It’s daring in some ways in its narrative, but not quite daring enough. Regardless, it’s an engaging game and well worth sitting through the cut-scenes for.

Valkyria takes place in an alternative Europe and an alternative World War II. In this world your small nation, which seems to be an analogue for Holland or Belgium, is independent of the two opposed forces which are beginning their clash across this world’s Europe. Your nation, Gallia, is invaded by the Imperial Alliance in a blitzkreig and Gallia’s citizen soldiers – including your team – are rapidly deployed to try and blunt the advance and secure Gallian independence from both the Imperials and the overtures of their enemies, the Atlantic Federation, a force that isn’t above being manipulative and underhanded in their prosecution of war either.

Fallout 3 was a giant, radioactive monster of a game, an awesome game that was SO awesome that we could forgive it many of its flaws and drawbacks simply because the awesomeness factor was so strong that they didn’t matter. We didn’t CARE if the game crashed the console every so often or if you couldn’t get to the boat to Point Lookout because the level wouldn’t load properly, because we wanted to play so very much it gave us boners that could double as battering rams. We forgave it its sins.

Second time around we, or at least I, are not as liable to be so forgiving. Especially if many of the flaws and errors of the game are the same ones that dogged our experience with Fallout 3. We sort of expect them to be fixed or, at least, for the same flaws, errors and bugs not to show up this time around, given that they were patched in Fallout 3 and that this is a ‘whole new game’ which has had more time to finesse the engine and iron out the issues.

Unlucky for some, Final Fantasy XIII is the first proper third-gen installment in the Final Fantasy series and it’s a divisive one that’s been the cause of some controvery. It’s a big departure from the previous games in the series and from many of the gameplay conventions of JRPGs and RPGs in general. It’s also virtually incomprehensible and requires a big investment of time to get to the full ‘whack’ of the game.

If you’re a fan of the pulps then the prospect of a decent rocket-pack game set in the 1930s will have you squeeing with glee. Indeed I can’t remember a rocket pack game since the Atari ST and so, despite all the reviews warning about Darkvoid I caved in and purchased it – albeit preowned for only a tenner. Unfortunately, this isn’t the game pulp fans have been waiting for though there are the seeds of a potential, good pulp or rocket-pack game contained within this disappointing effort.

While Darkvoid does have a story it’s something of a confused mix of David Icke lizard-conspiracy, fascism, Bermuda Triangle disappearances and vague mysticism.

I’m a sucker for pulp and I’m a sucker for steampunk. These are factors which often lead me to buy things, read things and play things that I’m otherwise not so sure about. Sometimes that leads me to find hidden gems, sometimes it means I play awful games because I’ve been suckered in by a love of genre. Damnation falls somewhere in the middle, in no way is it as much of a disappointment as Dark Void was but it’s still a little confused and doesn’t shine like it could.

In this world the American Civil War went on for much longer than in real history and ended up smashing the USA into numerous different, smaller states.

As a sequel to Bioshock, one of the best story-shooters to have come out in recent years, Bioshock 2 had a lot to live up to. A good combination of biting political satire, excellent gameplay and superb atmosphere the original Bioshock set a standard almost impossibly high to meet and, while Bioshock 2 makes an heroic effort to equal its predecessor, it falls somewhat short of equaling that goal.

Eight years after the events of Bioshock where Andrew Ryan, the founder of Rapture (the undersea city where Bioshock is set) a psychologist, Doctor Sofia Lamb, has taken over the city, winning the civil war that has taken place between the factions in the fractured city. In contrast to Andrew Ryan’s ‘Objectivist’ outlook, modeled on Ayn Rand’s adolescent philosophy of selfishness, Sofia Lamb presents a sort of biological/psychological Communism as an alternative for the dispossessed and lost of Ryan’s utopia.

The story is a bit of a casualty to the mission structure and game play to start with, though threads emerge and little plot arcs with the various ‘quest givers’ do emerge. The information about Pandora is there to understand its background but you really have to pay attention as you whisk through the missions to really get an idea of what happened.

Pandora was a mining world run by one of the big interstellar corporations until they decided to pull out. In so doing they left behind a bunch of convict workers and everyone who couldn’t afford to get off world. The injured, the perverse and those who simply enjoyed exploiting a frontier planet. Stories about the vault have brought other mercenaries here, along with members of larger mercenary forces, ostensibly there to keep the peace. A job they fail at.

This review is unlikely to be of a great deal of use to most people who will have seen the word ‘Bioware’ associated with it, ignored the EA also associated with it, had a happy accident in their pants and bought it anyway. For those of you who’ve been a little bit slower off the mark or have hung back unsure whether to buy it, without having the money spare or who are curious without being curious enough to spend money, hopefully this will offer something useful.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Dragon Age: Origins is the kick off of a new CRPG franchise for Bioware, divorced from their D&D associations (Baldur’s Gate) and that of their old game engine. Dragon’s Age has been sold as a glorious, sexy, blood-spattered romp that tears down preconceptions about fantasy games and worlds, plays about with them and offers a more mature and visceral entertainment ‘sausage’ at the end of it all.

Rule of Rose tells the eerie and disturbing story of Jennifer, an apprehensive protagonist who must face the fantastic evil of a child’s imagination. Set in an English orphanage of the 1930’s, the game is a story of social outcasts, cruel violence, strained relationships and prepubescent sexuality. Since the cast of the game are almost entirely children, Sony was hesitant to release the game in America. Atlus, a company with a history of importing niche titles, stepped up and took the risk of bringing a game of challenging issues to the market.

Bloodrayne the movie is an offshoot of the original console game. Upon seeing some of the trailers and hearing of the actors that were cast in this movie, it was a decision of mine and several friends to spend the $6.50 to see an afternoon showing of this movie. This was the worst $6.50 I spent this entire year.

The plot of this game revolves around a pretty little English schoolgirl named Alyssa. During a stay at boarding school she receives an unsettling message from her mother, which prompts her to run home only to discover a creepy old man and a challenging destiny. Alyssa soon finds herself traveling through different decades in time to solve various mysteries, confront deranged serial killers, and eventually discover the truth behind her family’s unique history.

What do ten strangers sitting in a bar have in common? They’d all make delicious entrees for a few hungry zombies about to attack the bar. That’s right, in this newest installation of Resident Evil Raccoon City is being rampaged by a plague of zombies. It’s up to you to pick one of ten characters and fight for survival.

The game is set up in different sections called scenarios, each with their own theme and unique location. After you complete a scenario, a new one is unlocked and you are given points for your game play. The better you are the more points you get allowing you to trade them in to unlock bonuses such as CG art and cut scenes.