Pictionary is the first board game turned video game where I thought the virtual version was superior to the physical one. The most annoying thing about playing a game of Pictionary is the setup required, but by channeling the power of electronics, there's now no need to erase your crappy drawings by hand and no way to get high off Sharpie fumes (well, maybe that's not a good thing for some people). THQ did a nice job translating the popular party title into a video game that offers a little something for everyone.
Using THQ's uDraw tablet, Pictionary offers three different game modes: good old fashioned Pictionary, Free Draw (which is exactly what it sounds like) and Pictionary Mania, a brand new way to play the classic game. The uDraw tablet is easy to use and responsive, so all of the modes work the way they should.
Of the three, Free Draw is the least impressive mode, especially considering if you've purchased the uDraw tablet, you automatically receive uDraw Studio, which offers a much deeper drawing tool than Pictionary. Regardless, it's non-obtrusive and if your kid wants a simple way to muck around and scribble, it's a good alternative to having marker stains on your carpets.
Vanilla Pictionary plays just like the board game – you pick teams, how long of a game you want, roll the dice (in this case you "flick" the pen on the tablet) and away you go. A team member gets a card with an object, animal or phrase, and they attempt to draw it while the teammates guess what it is before time runs out. Most squares that you land on will be normal, but there are a few "All Play" areas that allow the opposing team to guess alongside yours and potentially steal the lead.
Worms is back, again. This time the candid series is in for its 18th taking, so really you could say it’s a little old, and you’d probably be correct – Worms isn’t the most recent addition to gaming IP but it’s hard to deny there isn’t a place in all of us for a bit of traditional turn-taking glory. The comical series hasn’t exactly gone all out in its past adaptations though, often showcasing its feeble colours with basic puzzles and nostalgic online. You have to accept however, that if any franchise deserves another addition to its already crowded collection then Worms is the primitive choice. Luckily for developers Team 17 the latest in the franchise; Worms: Battle Islands ditches the old restraints and introduces a fresh take with a host of creative extras showing us that any ageing series can make a come-back. And ultimately do it on top form.
Worms: Battle Islands doesn’t reinvent the traditional Worms formula (thank-goodness), that would be stupid, but it does a simple job, it takes what fans love and adds simple extras, vital additions that not only entice the fabulous gameplay but make it more enjoyable. Things like better AI, vaster environments and stronger online make Worms: Battle Islands a strong addition to the series. You can clearly see the difference between Worms 2: Armageddon and this, Worms: Battle Islands is perfect, it has everything you can wish for in a worms game, the single player campaign is superb. Worms: 2 Armageddon delivered for single player so chances are if you savoured that you’ll enjoy this. You’re now split into islands, and the game includes mini stories to go along with each sector and mission, offering a treat before you go to battle, then there are the weapons which sit along side the story, these are fundamental to achieving your goal of killing enemy worms. Battle Islands doesn’t have many new weapons but the currently existing Armageddon ones are present, although I found the weapon selection easier to use in this iteration, there may only be minimal differences in the user-interface, but you feel like using a bigger variety of weaponry as there displayed in front of you in a clearer way, split into 3 categories, ‘Weapons 1’, ‘Weapons 2’ and ‘Utilities’ making selection for specifics easier.
Previous Bomberman games have tried to force a single-player story down our throats, but Bomberman Live: Battlefest cuts the crap and just focuses what makes the franchise fun: competitive multiplayer. With a few new modes and avatar customization options, Battlefest brings nothing to the table that will shock longtime fans, but is fun and currently popular enough to warrant a purchase from anyone looking to blast away some online players. If you've played competitive multiplayer in a Bomberman title, then you'll understand the core mechanics of Battlefest. Up to eight players (or AI-controlled bots) are on a grid, planting explosives so that they can blast their way to their opponents and eventually kill them. Along the way, players gain power-ups by blasting away parts of the environment, and work with the unique conditions of the level – such as stages where bombs will slide around, or where the level layout changes on a whim -- to try and outsmart their opponents.
Sure, Battlefest doesn't do anything to change the basic gameplay – it's still all about strategic bomb placement and awesome timing – but the new modes actually keep it from becoming stale as fast as it used to. Team modes like VIP (each side has a specific player they have to kill to win), and Capture the Flag are good distractions from the basic deathmatch mode. I also really enjoyed Bankroll (use cash obtained by killing opponents or found during each round to buy power ups for the next), and Capture the Crown (players battle for who can hold onto a crown the longest, with points ticking up every few seconds that someone holds onto it). None of the new modes are better than classic deathmatch, though. The array of powers and customization allowed when creating a match makes this a game type that you can play for hours. You can choose which special powers you want to be unlocked, how many rounds have to be won to complete the match, whether or not you want players to have a chance to get revenge (read: firing bombs from the sidelines after an initial defeat). Most online matches also take only a few moments to play, and allow up to four local players to jump online if you're playing an unranked match, making Battlefest a great way to entertain a group of people for a few minutes when you're looking to kill some time.
As far as The Sims 3 expansion packs go, I never really know what to expect. I didn’t care much for the World Adventures concept and ended up loving that EP when I finally got to play it. I thought Ambitions was going to be really great and found myself losing interest in some of the bigger features in that EP not long after I’d discovered and mastered them. So I didn’t want to get my hopes up that Late Night would be amazing. Having spent hours following my Sim through the packed downtown area of Bridgeport, I feel my interest in the game renewed and am excited to explore the expansion pack further.
Just to be clear, before we get into the details of the game, the expansion pack requires that you have The Sims 3 base game installed on your computer. Like the base game, Late Night is PC and Mac compatible.
I took more screenshots than I needed to illustrate the main points of the EP, however I thought you might appreciate a better look. You’ll find additional screenshots in the gallery below the review. Late Night comes with a new neighborhood. Bridgeport features a few clusters of suburban areas, which surround the bustling downtown city. Downtown includes the job locations, night clubs and bars, parks, restaurants and high-rise apartment buildings. Public transportation is a welcome addition as Sims now have the option to take the subway. Stations are set up around the city. The actual train ride isn’t shown, however it is an extremely fast way to commute (about as quick as teleporting if you don’t count the time it takes for your Sim to get to the actual station.)
In addition to plenty of new outfits (to suit all occasions, including some sexy new lingerie among the sleepwear), Create-A-Sim now features two new sliders. For those who wish they could control the chest-size of their females or the muscle-tone of their Sims, you’re all set! You now have more control over your Sim’s bodies, though it should be said that while the maximum level of muscle tone gives your Sim a sort of chiseled look, the maximum level of bust-size delves into ridiculously unnatural territory.
Evolution attempts to bridge the gap between the upcoming Tron: Legacy and the nearly 30-year-old original by putting you in the neon-striped shoes of a System Monitor program called Anon. You're initially sent by Kevin Flynn to investigate the suspicious derezzing of an ISO on the Game Grid, but that plot thread quickly evaporates when a violent coup and a viral outbreak strike Tron City almost simultaneously. Now, if that previous paragraph sounded like the ravings of a former Silicon Valley magnate turned blathering hobo, it's probably because I provided about as much context for the plot as the game does. Anyone who hasn't at least watched the first Tron won't have much luck deciphering Evolution's story, but it's also fairly easy for longtime fans like myself to wind up confused. The plot moves so quickly and the connections to the original film are so tenuous that I actually stopped playing to pop in the DVD -- just to make sure I hadn't simply forgotten a bunch of characters and concepts that appear in Evolution with little-to-no background or introduction. Poor storytelling aside, Tron: Evolution captures the iconic look and sound of the films. Though the game's set much closer to the original movie than its upcoming sequel, all of the environments, outfits, and vehicles in Evolution resemble the sleeker, darker aesthetics featured in Legacy. Also on loan from the second film are a pair of Daft Punk songs off the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, which, great as they sound, turn up a bit too often to remain interesting for long. 
Of all the campy sci-fi flicks from the '80s, few have more built-in potential for a videogame adaptation than Tron. With its (at-the-time) groundbreaking CG animation and game-developer-trapped-in-a-computer storyline, Disney's cult classic has plenty of hooks in place for a decent gaming crossover. Unfortunately, Tron: Evolution wastes most of that potential on sloppy, unimaginative third-person action and some seriously reprehensible vehicular segments.
Some games are unintentionally goofy, and some, like Kung-Fu Live, intentionally cultivate the goof. There's more in the way of geek-ified, off-the-wall humor in this game than you'd see in five years of going to PAX. From its 1970's chop-socky comic-book theme to its hilarious way of putting you, boxer shorts and all, directly into the game world, Kung-Fu Live is not for the serious of temperament.
Nor is it for the out of shape, or the small of living room. The game, which does not require any controllers and solely uses the PlayStation Eye (part of the PlayStation Move motion-controller kit) to track your movements, mandates a ton of space to move around in. It asks for players to stand at least seven to nine feet back from the TV to get good tracking, but that's nothing compared to the lateral space you'll need -- make sure you clear out furniture anywhere near the vicinity of your TV.
Gameplay consists primarily of one-against-many fights on a 2D plane a la Final Fight, with just about any motion you make counting as a "strike." Problem is, while the PS Eye is fine at tracking your striking motions, it's not so fine at tracking where you are in relation to the enemies. Closing the distance with a foe is often a matter of sidling two yards or more in one direction, even though the enemy is just a couple of pixels away on the screen. The designers built in a "power punch" move that allows you to quickly slide across the screen at enemies, but it's inelegant and hard to control. And, while it's not super strenuous, keep in mind that this game will get your blood pumping, as you jump, run from side to side, and flail your arms and legs wildly in an attempt to land shots on bad guys. Special moves can be very frustrating to pull off as well, as they require quick and accurate switching of poses on the fly -- by the time you finish, bad guys may no longer be where you were aiming.The game is premised on a tongue-in-cheek, throwback story: you've been sucked into a world of evil ninjas, and you're now forced to fight your way through an enemy fortress... and stuff. Not gonna win the Pulitzer here, but the story serves the theme well, especially in that the game guides you through a series of poses so it can properly insert pictures of you into its cutscenes.
Time travel is always an interesting point of discussion. Special relativity, wormholes, parallel universes, Hawking's chronology protection conjecture, flux capacitors – it's the kind of thing that fuels heated debates late at night, usually after watching something like Lost or Donnie Darko. It's accepted that the laws of physics permit time travel to the future - theoretically speaking, of course - but travel to the past is both technically and theoretically impossible (discounting the theory of travelling to the past of a parallel universe). The Raving Rabbids aren't concerned with such limitations, however – they have a time travelling washing machine and aren't bothered in the slightest about changing the course of history. They frequently do, in fact.
This is the basic set up for Ubisoft's latest Rabbids game, which sees the strange little creatures flitting through time and disrupting key moments from Earth's history along the way. Travel in Time is a return to the party game formula that defined earlier games in the series, an excuse to rally some chums together and merrily flail your limbs about in front of the TV. Yes, it's a mini-game collection, but it compiles its activities with such a refined mixture of absurdity and charm that even core players are likely to have a good time. Once gimmicky and annoying, the Rabbids have now come into their own as established video game characters –a symbol for silliness in otherwise serious times.A museum in 2012 acts as the game's anchor in time, or to use more gamer-friendly lingo, its hub world. At the start you'll choose a profile by walking into one of four toilets, of all things. After entering your name and preferences, your Rabid will emerge in the main hall of the museum, a roll of loo paper trailing behind him as he waddles about. As well as being quite humorous, this serves as a rather ingenious game mechanic: When playing multiplayer (which is of course how the game was designed to be played), each player will find themselves entangled with the roll of toilet paper. It ensures that everybody is kept on the same screen at the same time; you can only wander off as far as the bog roll will allow. It might be very silly, but it's also rather clever.
Dark Dawn does a great job of clearing up several of these issues from the outset. The original Golden Sun's pokey pacing is nowhere to be seen -- the story begins by throwing you immediately into the thick of action with a rescue mission. It's a softball mission to be sure; the heroes of the older games accompany their young protégés, alleviating any chance of failure. As mandatory tutorials go, though, it's excellent: not only does it make perfect sense for the old guard to walk the new generation through the rigors of adventuring, it also serves as a seamless passing of the torch for fans. It sets up the dynamics of the new cast, explains the basics of the backstory, fills in the 30-year gap between the end of the last game and this sequel, and explains the mechanics of both the combat system and the in-dungeon puzzle-solving. Also unlike the GBA games, Dark Dawn looks fantastic. In fact, it boasts some of the highest production values ever seen on DS. Its world is colorful and vibrant, crammed with detail throughout both towns and dungeons. Motoi Sakuraba's soundtrack is spot-on: Action themes are energetic but never shrill, while more sedate tracks manage to create an interesting atmosphere without being dull. The game particularly shines during combat, with vivid graphical effects that never grow tedious or overblown. The summon animations do run fairly long, but they work much better in Dark Dawn than they did in something like Final Fantasy VIII; the convoluted process of calling a summon makes them rare and valuable assets, so their over-the-top animations simply lend to their impact. Where Dark Dawn stumbles is...well, everywhere else. There's no single element of the game that's genuinely bad, but despite all the advances on display this is very much a Golden Sun game, for better or worse. Camelot clearly loves this series, and they've invested it with an elaborate mythos.
Nail'd is an arcade-style off-road racer with a focus on speed and chaos over realistic physics. Straight away, Nail'd seems a little dated. From the name to its style, it screams "X-Games circa 2003," when dudes were screaming about sick air while "DOING THE DEW BRO." But in reality, Nail'd actually goes further back from a design perspective, calling on memories of games like Off-road Thunder and other arcade rally racers in the late '80s and '90s. Those games eschewed complication in favor of immediate, in-your-face gratification because they had to; they were competing for your quarters 90 seconds at a time. However, it's 2010. Arcades are dead, consoles are king, depth is expected, and Nail'd just can't keep up with the pack. The setup is simple enough. The meat of the game is in its career mode, where you can race an ATV or MX bike through several leagues and courses in a quest to win the Nail'd championship. Most races require you to finish three laps around a course, though occasionally, Nail'd mixes things up, whether it's by adding "mutators" to races (which add quirks such as infinite boost or no collision with other drivers), or through stunt challenges, where you're judged on your completion time and the "tricks" you pull off. I put tricks in quotes because there isn't much in the way of finesse here. Something as simple as landing successfully from a jump can be a trick, as is passing through flaming gates or running other racers off the track. There's also multiplayer racing for up to 12 players online. Nail'd isn't about tight turn ratios or drifting or any other piece of racer jargon you've heard this year. The challenge in Nail'd is intended to come from finding the most insane, fastest route possible by boosting through busy courses while avoiding getting, well, nailed by other racers on ATVs or dirtbikes. There are times when it almost comes together too -- running off a ramp in the air at about a thousand miles an hour and weaving in between hot air balloons, or threading through giant wind turbines is admittedly cool.
Splatterhouse is a full-on reboot of the original series, taking us right back to the moment in which protagonist Rick Taylor meets his mysterious and deadly ally, the Terror Mask. Bleeding from a massive hole in his gut on the floor of a mansion, Rick's girlfriend Jennifer has been kidnapped by the nefarious Dr. West. He is rescued from certain death when he puts on the Mask, which just so happens to be alive and capable of turning him into a gigantic, musclebound freak. Gore ensues.
If you've played the original Splatterhouse, you'll most likely be surprised by just how faithful this game attempts to be. Rather than try to do anything too special and new, Namco has instead created a game that feels inherently retro despite its predominantly 3D graphics. This is a classic minded brawler at heart, and a damn hard one too.
Enemies are not only aggressive, they are more than capable of dealing huge amounts of damage. There are regular opponents in this game that can slice Rick to ribbons in three slashes. It's actually pretty damn fun once you get used to it, even if it causes much swearing at the television. Enemies don't rely on cheap shots, but when they hit, they hit hard. Despite being a mindless beat 'em up, there's a little strategy to be found under all the blood once you start meeting tougher enemies, as simply hammering the punch button just won't do.
Rick has access to various fast and heavy attacks that can be extended by collecting blood and spending it on unlockable abilities. Extra health, new attacks, and a crucial invincible dodge move are all on offer, and the blood flows so freely that you won't have any trouble stocking up on what you need.