Review: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

Art Attack

Castlevania’s back for its second outing on the DS, and once more nothing’s really changed: Vampires are being badly behaved, and there’s a castle full of ghastly beasties to trawl through. It’s 1942 and the vampire Brauner’s been trying his hand at a bit of oil painting, with rather evil results… and what’s all this? An automated sidekick? This is the most immediately unwelcome addition to the series, and frankly when you play PoR for the first time, you’re not going to like it as much as its predecessor Dawn of Sorrow. You’ll want Soma back. You’ll miss your souls.

I’ll stop myself here though, because this isn’t a criticism: Castlevania titles are usually held in such high esteem by gamers that any changes are often ill received at first by fans, as once again the series which has evolved a fixed Metroid styled exploration theme continues to innovate once more in its new outing.

Compared to it’s predecessor, early impressions of Portrait led me to believe the game was shallow, gimmicky, and rehashed: Having a sidekick back me up in combat made me feel dirty, there didn’t seem to be enough depth to customization, and many of the enemies had been ripped straight out of Symphony of the Night, much as with Dawn of Sorrow. But after continuing to play for a few more hours, suddenly it all clicked into place, and it became crystal clear in my mind that Portrait of Ruin is an absolute corker of a game.

First off, this game gives you options galore- most important of these regards your aforementioned sidekick, Charlotte. Personally, at first I hated the inclusion of a computer controlled ally- and throughout most of the game I didn’t use her at all, it took me a while to realise the true nature of Charlotte; She’s simply an optional feature which allows deeper customization alongside a huge amount of extra moves and strategies which you can use if you want to. You can either have her act as a summon who quickly pops in to provide support or you can have her backing you up full time and fighting enemies alongside you. You’ll have probably noticed by now that I keep describing the uncontrolled character as being the female half of the team, and surprisingly this isn’t just because of my hugely misogynistic nature… After delving deeper into the stat grinding aspect of PoR, it becomes quite clear that Jonathon is intended to be the main character for most of the game; His skills receive experience through repeated use, whilst her spells cannot improve, and he has a much wider variety of moves to perform than Charlotte- who whilst being fairly powerful doesn’t hold her own as a fully playable character, and I expect was never intended to.

The lack of souls as mentioned earlier is rather disconcerting at first, but by combining the weapons, armour, spells, subweapons, and trinkets that enemies drop it doesn’t feel like the customisation element has been lost at all; Jonathon’s subweapons in particular offer more variety than you can shake a stick at, as well as each having their own experience level to max out, which opens up a frankly silly amount of grind-time for even the most masochistic completionist. Adding to the already rather substantial beef of the package, not wanting to include spoilers I’ll just say that the game world itself is rather huge- and there’s even a decent bunch of optional quests to keep you entertained and well equipped along the way. Even though the entire game can be completed in about 10-12 hours, there’s an undeniably epic feel to the adventure- I usually found that one hour playing felt like 3; forget value for money, this game is incredible value for time.

The bosses vary in difficulty, but they’re all awesomely inventive- hitting that marvellous sweet-spot of game development where you can happily be killed by a boss two or three times simply because you’re so surprised at the inventiveness of their attacks and animations that you forget you’re supposed to be miffed.

The audio in PoR is fantastic, the typically sharp smashing and bashing sounds laid over the catchy score gives the sense of drama and adventure that’s expected, and the vocal soundbites used are too infrequent to ever really get annoying- which in my mind is a massive technical feat. Visually Portrait of Ruin is an absolute treat, continuing the DS tradition of alternating between beautifully detailed 2D backgrounds and slightly fuzzier but rather epic 3D backdrops; they add a very real sense of solidarity and style to the environments you whip your way through- some of the later backdrops interact with your character in a manner which is overwhelmingly creepy despite technically being quite basic. The entirety of the level ‘Nation of Fools’ is a good example of the sometimes disturbing nature of PoR; The mechanics give it an awkward, claustrophobic feel which combined with the gruesome boss gives the entire area a rather brilliantly crafted feeling of discomfort and dread. Animations throughout the game are consistently fantastic: Even when walking through recycled environments in the later parts of the game the new enemies that pop up will have you absolutely mesmerised at times, keeping the game feeling fresher than you might have expected at this stage. But it’s not just the monsters keeping you on your toes- unlike its predecessor PoR’s control system is built upon throughout the game, leaving you with controls that are almost of the complexity of a decent beat-em-up. But of course, you can also quite happily just play it like a standard Castlevania title and ignore most of the new stuff if you’d like to as well.

Again, it’s this feeling of choice that makes Portrait of Ruin such an exceptional game; they’ve added a huge amount of complexity to the controls and customization that you can quite happily just ignore without being penalised by the game. The early impressions of innovation and change are a misinterpretation of what is simply an extension of what handheld Castlevania fans have grown to love- more customization, more to explore, more to collect. Many of the complaints about PoR have regarded the in-game recycling of environments, but considering this re-use adds a huge amount of extra content to the game I really can’t complain. The one criticism I must make about PoR is the inventory system, which is poorly organized and at times buckles under the weight of all the goodies you hoard throughout the game; it always seems particularly difficult to find stuff that you’ve just picked up even when you know exactly what the item was called.

Sure, this game doesn’t really do anything new. But what’s wrong with that? Portrait of Ruin gives fans of the series everything they could want to fiddle around with on the customisation front, and then gives you a large game world as your playground. And it does all this in a way that feels almost perfect. For your money there’s a lot of fun and thrills to be had here, backed up by some seriously beefy content. Get hunting.

It’s better than Dawn of Sorrow. What more could you want?


Graphics: 9
Gameplay: 10
Sound: 9
Lifespan: 9

Overall: 9

Review: Superman Returns

Why the world doesn’t need Superman Returns

Now before I begin to absolutely slate this half baked effort of a sandbox game, I’m going to give it a sprinkling of sympathy because the task of making a great superman game would arguably verge on being impossible; Whilst some game characters break a few of the ‘golden rules’ of games mechanics- Superman just takes the piss: He’s invincible, can fly through space, and lift up potentially anything if he’s needed to- and that’s just for starters… Superman as a character must be every game designers nightmare- the only game I’ve ever played which successfully had you playing as a protagonist who couldn’t die was the near-perfect Planescape: Torment, which only worked because the character design and narrative made this mechanic seem intrinsically linked to the game. But of course, this aint gonna work for old Superman…
Firstly, Superman is boring: he’s good for good’s sake, clean cut, trimmed, and well shaven. So if they’re not going to use an immaculate storyline to fix the mechanics issue of being invulnerable, how are they going to make it work? And the answer to this ladies and gentlemen is one you’ve probably already worked out for yourselves…
They’re not going to make it work! This game is a poorly executed mess of thrown together ideas that’s an unpleasant experience to play. Now although I could quite happily leave the review finished at that, I’ll take you deeper into the psyche of the man of steel- giving you a brief but enthralling taste of what EA have decided it’s really like to put those sexy red boots on for a day:

9:00am – Woke up on the streets of Metropolis, Would have been nice to pop over to Lois’s place but unfortunately all of the buildings appear to be cardboard boxes- but that’s ok because there’s LOADS of them. Decided to go for a fly to escape the painful framerate of downtown life.

10:36am – Cardboard buildings kept catching fire- Predictable. Robots caused mayhem around the city and I had to keep chasing them down. Despite my unsurpassable strength it seems I am unable to harm anyone who blocks their upper body with their arms: Depressing.

12:13pm – Started throwing vans around a bit. No one seemed to mind. No one seems terribly aware that I actually exist to be honest, unless I’m saving them or punching them. Typical.

12:36pm – Metropolis was destroyed while I was flying around a bit making zoom noises. Didn’t care. Tried to fly into space to negate responsibility. Couldn’t.

That’s right- being superman is boring as hell. It’s a sandbox game with responsibility- whoever thought it was going to be fun should be fired before they inevitably start work on a GTA-style milkman simulator which requires you to get up at the crack of dawn every day and fire up the batteries in your float. Superman’s invincible, so to combat that they’ve given the city itself a health bar- which in effect makes your sole purpose in the game to uphold and defend one of the most soulless game worlds you’ll ever see. Not only that, but for a city of its size it tends to become apparently irreparably damaged in no time at all- so how can you stop it? UPPERCUTS! Lots and lots of uppercuts; Superman’s never really been all that into flying really, but by god he loves a good fist fight. Well he better, otherwise in the next 5 minutes Metropolis is going to be deemed beyond help and Superman’s gonna cry into his hands like a schoolgirl with a grazed knee. Of course, Superman isn’t just limited to uppercuts- throughout the game you constantly unlock a veritable plethora of excitingly named combos which you’ll never, ever use. Why? Because like me you’ll most likely be confused and scattered, frantically hitting buttons in the hope that somehow you’ll do something that the game will like; hand to hand combat is disjointed and rough in terms of both mechanics and presentation, or in other words: I couldn’t for the life of me work out what the hell was going on most of the time, one of the main buttons used in combos is also the button which launches you into the sky and more often than not you get the latter. To add insult to injury the camera seemed to quite literally have a life of its own sometimes, occasionally zooming out hugely and maintaining inexplicably odd angles. Considering so much of the game revolves around fisticuffs it’s unforgivable just how awful the fighting system is, it gives me an overwhelming sense of being grounded and useless rather than empowered- which is rather strange considering the character you’re playing is essentially omnipotent and pretty much invincible. It’s even more depressing that the enemies described as ‘robots’ which you repeatedly get beaten up by seem to have been created using a texture and polygon variation of the timeless art of ‘lucky dip’- I’m pretty damn sure that last time I played superman took a beating from a guy who had 2D legs… equally hilarious is the ability to freeze helicopters mid air and watch them remain perfectly stationary; it seems that the development team made the logically sound decision that if Superman doesn’t obey the laws of physics, then to include physics in the game would really just have been a waste of their time.

Graphically this game is a mess, looking like a shoddy PS2 release game at best; explosions are dire and environment damage is almost entirely sprite based, animations are sluggish and Superman’s got the face of a serial killer. It’s difficult to comment on the actual world environment; although EA do often tend to specialize in generic they’ve really excelled themselves with metropolis. Oddly however, the musical score is rather lovely- having been presumably ripped from the film, and some of the sound effects used for zooming around are rather magnificent, it’s a shame that this high note is crushed by an incessant flow of cringe-worthy quips from the man of steel himself.

I think the icing on the cake for me with Superman Returns is the fact that I seem to repeatedly find myself wanting to destroy the buildings and fry innocent people with my laser eyes; I’ve never enjoyed the chaotic destructive nature of sandbox games like GTA, but being forced to work as a constant caretaker for this lifeless city just leaves me wanting to raze it to the ground. Quite simply this game is cheap and nasty, avoid at all costs.

Being an invincible demi-god has never been less fun.


Graphics 3
Gameplay 4
Sound 5
Lifespan 3
Overall 3

Article: Are Nintendo turning it all around?

After spending a few weeks with Nintendo’s new system I’m starting to get a feel for the Wiimote and I have to admit that I’m liking it a lot. Having heard much about Wii Sports I had full faith in the controller in terms of motion sensing capabilities, but I remained rather sceptical about how well the controllers would handle a title like Zelda, particularly considering the regularity of last minute indecisiveness regarding how motion sensitivity would be implemented into the game. Regardless of the potential the Wiimote had for a title such as Zelda, I think they made a good call- and interestingly the title is a great show of how easily the innovative controllers double up as a traditional style ‘pad’ so to speak. This is a great thing for Nintendo, as whilst motion sensitive games are a fantastic step forward in terms of playing style, it’s good to see that they don’t have to overly rely on this mode of control; sadly you can also expect a variety of cheap cash-in games that will sneakily infer motion sensing capabilities whilst in reality being tarted up gamecube style titles.
Wii Sports in particular is really making waves in the worldwide press at the moment, with Nintendo receiving huge accolade across the board and an unexpected sudden rise in demand for Wii consoles seemingly overtaking the insatiable desire for the PS3, you can’t help but feel that Nintendo are laughing right now… After years of speculation that the company would be soon going the way of Sega they seem to be in a very comfortable position right now. Particularly of note here is their infamously ‘bad on paper’ idea of the revolutionary handheld console that would have TWO SCREENS! The impact of the DS has been astounding, Dragon Quest IX being a hallmark sign of its domination of Japan not only as a handheld, but as a standalone console. So when did Nintendo start hitting the right buttons all of a sudden? They’ve had the same ‘games for everyone’ mantra for years; sadly one which has been misunderstood by many as being ‘games for kids’. But is this so unreasonable? Admittedly Nintendo have been making fantastic games throughout the whole of their time in the industry, but for a while their focus on reaching out to the mainstream has been taking the wrong path- creating quirky, aesthetically pleasing and colourful consoles that inferred a user friendly approach that in reality wasn’t hugely different from the other consoles on offer. Wii however is looking to change Nintendo’s philosophy into reality- Ipod chic minimalist styling is sure to raise the eyebrows of many a non-gaming consumer, and the ability to simply pick up and play games such as Wii sports shows an incredible step forward in trying to introduce gaming into a mainstream audience; not even to mention the potential impact that Wii’s exercise benefits could have on the gamer stereotype. But it’s the simple things that make Wii so accessible to non gamers, the classic frantic tilting of controllers when taking a hard corner in a racing game; cue to many a sly chuckle from ‘hardcore’ gamers is now not only totally acceptable, but in many future games will most likely be expected of the player!

Despite having put countless hours into Wii tennis, it seems that every time I play against someone who’s never touched a Wiimote before within minutes they’re on the verge of beating me. Nintendo have truly broken a new barrier between the player and the game, putting our instinctual reactions one step closer to an onscreen reality; Instinct is why Wii works so well- Unwrapping the box I was ready to come to grips with a brand new control system, but I didn’t have to. Within 5 minutes, I couldn’t even remember playing games another way- it just felt so natural. Nintendo look to have a bright future ahead of them in the next few years, and how they fare compared to Microsoft and Sony seems irrelevant now; regardless of the longterm figures of the next-gen war, gaming is going to change, and with their iron grip of the handheld market with the DS, and the inevitable link between this and their Wunderkind console: Nintendo look to be the ones to change it.

Review: Phantasy Star Universe

Confused franchise seeks genre for fun and games, maybe more.

Online gaming these days is big business; chances are if you’re reading this then you’ve either dabbled with a MMORPG, shared asphalt with a handful of strangers for a few laps, or perhaps you’re a veteran of Xbox Live who’s about to graduate from the legendary ‘School of American Smack-talk’. Or maybe like me you’re one of the few who remembers the golden era of 56k console gaming, and the swansong of the Dreamcast: Phantasy Star Online. Now ok, chances are if you’re reading this then you’ve played PSO religiously at some point; finding yourself lost in the hypnotic rhythm of the game, succumbing to its hugely repetitive but intensely gratifying cycles of grinding. If you HAVEN’T played PSO, then first of all you’ll think I’m freakishly obsessive, and secondly I think it’s about time you stop reading this review right now, and go and download Blue Burst from Sega’s website. Now this’ll be the point at which any Phantasy Star Online fans reading will feel their heart collapse like a wet paper bag full of soggy biscuits:

PSU isn’t as good as PSO. I hate to say it, part of me is surprised as hell that I have to say it; but it’s the sad truth. Now we all know that sometimes it’s hard to come to terms with the loss of a good franchise, especially those that clearly had so much potential. Devil May Cry 2 broke my heart, and left me bruised and battered in a ditch; but then Devil May Cry 3 came out, and I began to find myself having hope once again: I was one of the lucky ones. Others haven’t been so lucky, and I’d like to tell you about poor little Peter; The innocent boy who spent his whole life collecting Sonic games, only to find himself in a web of his own denial trying to convince himself that the 360 iteration was “a good game” which was “worth forty pounds”. I laughed at poor little Peter; we all did. But that was before I almost fell into the trap of Sega nostalgia myself…

I desperately wanted it to be the game I’ve waited years for, and I honestly did my very best to lie to myself that I was having fun, and that it was a great game. Then I found myself two hours into the single player game, and wanting to kill something. Now, whilst I mean this in the sense of wanting the characters to all shut the hell up with their inanely pointless chitchat and let me kill some monsters, I’m sad to say that by this point in the game I’d lost interest, and simply wanted to throw something out of the window and beat a stranger to death with my keyboard. My choice of keyboard was fairly premeditated here, as the PC version of PSU doesn’t support a mouse. You heard me right, it doesn’t support MOUSE. So, unless you’re fond of pain I’d dust off a USB controller right about now, or pick it up on the Xbox 360 instead. ‘Story Mode’ absolutely astounds me, because it manages to be infinitely more awful than the single player of PSO, which was arguably one of the most flawed and empty single player RPG experiences that I’ve ever seen, and being that I’m not actually a homicidal maniac most of the time I can’t help but think that it’s the fact that they’ve somehow taken the most broken aspect of PSO and made it MUCH worse leaves me in such a state of disbelief that my brain decides it’s about time to go a bit mental. Now am I being unreasonable here? You tell me, as I take you through the whirlwind adventure that the first few hours of PSU’s Story mode… Right, first of all you’ve got the main character- he’s an annoying prototypical American D00D who’s a bit feisty, instantly unlikable, and pretty much resembles every other generic computer game protagonist that you’ve seen in the last 10 years- He’s even got the whole: “My father died and I’m angry” vibe going on and hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the end of game boss turned out to be the bloke who killed daddy. In fact, the only thing which differentiates the main character from [INSERT UNMEMORABLE MAIN CHARACTER HERE] is the fact that the voice actor sounds like he’s constantly tanked up on special brew; whilst he’s mumbling and slurring like a tramp, it’s actually fairly funny watching the cutscenes, although sadly it does nothing for the fact that I want all of the main characters to die horribly so I can kill some monsters in peace. But no ladies and gentleman! There’s no time for killing monsters in Story Mode, because these masters of yarn spinning have got some cracking tales lined up for you! Sit back and watch as the protagonist chases what appears to be a sexually confused tramp! Gasp as your sister predictably gets stuck behind some rocks or something! Cry as you once again lunge towards the keyboard to fight a boss, only to find that there’s no need, they’ve put in a CUTSCENE THAT DOES THAT FOR YOU. Sections where you’re actually playing can be equally painful, often having to flick through a small set of menus just to use a Metroid Prime style visor to detect weakpoints in piles of rocks. (It seems that even when swinging about a sword the size of a small country I was completely unable to break through debris without first having a gander through my magic goggles…)

But that’s enough about the story; this is all you really need to know: They’ve taken the main criticism of PSO not having a story, and they’ve obviously tried pretty hard to fix that- but after 20 minutes of playing it you’ll just be wanting to get back to the old PSO single player- mindlessly ploughing through dungeons over and over again with no so much as a whiff of characterization or plot. Aside from the awful characters and story the game world isn’t too bad- the music is pretty patchy, some of it frankly sounds like someone sat infront of an electric piano having a fit, whilst other tunes are more in the same vein of the original: Pretty bad, but I’ll let it slide. Graphically the game’s nothing mind blowing, but it’s fairly pretty aside from a few graphical glitches that pop up here and there- although it does suffer from some of the worst horizon popups I’ve seen in years, and the strange inclusion of generic NPCs in cities who actually fade and disappear when you get close to them rather than when they’re far away which just screams: “Don’t try to talk to him! We haven’t scripted stuff for them to say!” Walking around these soulless lobbies full of ghostly characters gives me a strange feeling that the PSU servers will before long be mimicking the emptiness of the universe they’ve created.

PSU single player grabs you by the reins, holds your hand and doesn’t let you go out of your depth. And I HATE that. For me, the reason I kept going back to PSO over and over was because I liked to push myself to the limit; the game gave you a set of very simple controls and let you choose your own pace- you could go through forest over and over until the dragon didn’t stand a chance, or you could whip up a HuCAST and go through Forest, Caves, and Mines in one afternoon and beat Vol. Opt at level 6. That was what made PSO special, the simple but rhythmic combat and the predictable enemies combined with the lure of better items just being in the next tier up meant that you were constantly pushing yourself to the limit, the simplicity of gameplay giving you an immense sense of control over everything; allowing you to survive in areas which the game deemed you to be not even nearly ready to handle at your level. PSU’s online mode still allows you to do this, but the system which made PSO such a beautifully simple game seems to have had its fingers broken. The rhythm based tapping to attack is inexplicably missing: The weapons still strike in their trademark PSO pace but the timing requirement is gone, the game encouraging you to just hammer the button. Nice new additions to the combat system include the ability to strafe in a basic manner, allowing you to spread machinegun fire across enemies- a luxury that PSO did not permit, and the ability to customize weapons with elemental power- essentially providing more effective versions of the ‘special’ functions on many of the rare weapons in PSO, but are constantly in effect rather than being triggered by an alternate button. These 2 changes are very welcome in the fact that they make playing as a ranger much more fun than it ever was in PSO, allowing you to John Woo it about holding back a small horde of enemies with icy greasegun bullets. In fact, despite the story mode being utterly dire the online mode of PSU is actually quite good; despite having lost many of the aspects which made PSO such a great game it still brings out those familiar addictive qualities, and whilst I enjoyed seeing some of the scenic new levels I was more than happy just repeatedly playing through the same areas over and over again just to get a little bit more cash for that upgrade. In this respect PSU feels like the younger brother of PSO, it’s tried so hard to be something better; to stand up tall and proud alongside the big players in the online market, and for this it’ll inevitably be kicked in the teeth. I sympathise with the guys who were making PSU, times have changed since the days of Dreamcast online gaming and PSU doesn’t even nearly make the standard as a decent MMORPG and in many ways it would have been better if they hadn’t tried to keep up with a plethora of pointless and badly implemented extra features such as the first person camera, which allows shooting but no movement…

But even though this younger brother aimed so high and fell so far, if you put in a few hundred hours into PSO like I did then you’ll still find yourself hooked to it just like you were on its predecessor, and if you can dig up a few old Ragol comrades it’ll be almost as much fun as the good old days, because you have to remember: PSO was horribly flawed too, we just learnt to forget about that. It’s nothing special, and compared to WoW or Guild Wars it’s dire- but if you’re prepared to switch your brain off, sit back with a joypad and grind with a few friends then it’ll give you hours of entertainment.

Same flavour, different recipe. Just stay the hell away from Story Mode

Graphics: 7
Gameplay: 6
Sound: 5
Lifespan: 8

Overall: 7

Review: Curious George

More fun than a barrel?

Having finished art college over three years ago I don’t tend to spend a lot of time these days watching children’s TV, so Curious George is a character I wasn’t too familiar with,
some minutes later on Google however and I’ve managed to ascertain that George is a charming little chimp who scamps about in a generally mischievous manner.
After watching a trailer for the movie this game ties into it seems that George’s curious nature relates rather strongly to finding tins of paint and then going on colourful graffiti benders like a maniac: Think Banksy but well less political agenda and more bananas.
Based on this, I was rather excited- imagining bounding around like the lovechild of the Prince of Persia tagging walls Jet Set Radio style…

Of course you don’t get to do all that- It’s sadly just a rather average platform game.

Now obviously it’s aimed at very young children, and our protagonist is a lovely little character- cheeky and happy and full of spunk, and the character model and animations for the most part tend to do an admirable job of translating the cartoon monkey into a playable character. Graphically however the environment design is very hit and miss, basic textures and chunky object models not reflecting the beautifully drawn world seen in the film very well.
This is particularly evident in the first level of the game which is based in the jungle, which reminded me rather a lot of the Tarzan level in Kingdom Hearts…
Now, for anyone who hasn’t played Kingdom Hearts- this isn’t a good thing.
The control system is rather clunky, jumping around is uncomfortable and the double jump function seems very odd- if you don’t execute the second jump almost immediately after the first then you simply can’t use it. Because of this I found myself falling to my death repeatedly during very early sections of the game, and an early frogger style platforming section involving jumping along the heads of people moving through a village I found incredibly frustrating. Thankfully the loading times aren’t too bad at all, and they seem to have decided to take lives out of the equation as many other popular kids games have, arguably though this may have been a necessity- Having died 9 times on the first level I probably would’ve had difficulty keeping myself sane should the game have been punishing me with GAME OVER screens.
The difficulty of some parts of this game seem very out of place and inexcusably linked to a pretty broken physics engine, especially considering the fact that a narrative voice holds your hand very firmly right from the start of the game telling you exactly what to do next. At the same time however the dodgy engine often makes some parts of the game easier than they’re supposed to be, letting you stand on ledges that clearly weren’t meant to be platforms.

Once you get used to the slightly sloppy controls though, it’s not TOO bad- my only really major complaint being that they’ve taken a lot of really fun stuff and somehow made it seem like the game’s on autopilot, actions like swinging on vines and ropes are completely uncontrolled; the direction, and amount of swing being constantly controlled by the game, and even sections where you slide down slippery slopes are completely on rails.
It’s an odd mix of gameplay, taking away aspects which perhaps were deemed to be too challenging for the younger player but keeping the rather tricky platforming sections; many platforms for reasons inexplicable to me don’t show George’s shadow when above them, which naturally makes trying to land in the right place a bit hit and miss at times.

Whilst much of the level design is rather cute in a simplistic kind of way, it still looks too much like an N64 game for my liking; I’m no graphics whore but much of the design just seems incredibly lazy- particularly of note is another frogger style section involving jumping along cars, on the first run through it’s not notably too bad… But it’s in sections such as this where you’ll be dying and playing the section again and again that the graphics much like the gameplay really start to become noticeably bad.

Simple versions of various rhythm based minigames pop up occasionally, doing a fair job of filling up time between the platforming sections. They’re very easy indeed of course, but that can hardly be faulted too much- it IS a game for kids after all… Although it has to be said that the minigames are overstretched and take far too long to complete, some of the minigames are so bad all round that they verge on being fairly surreal; the balloon bursting game in particular having such a strange combination of graphics and sound that it reminded me rather a lot of something out of Warioware.
Focussing on the sound it’s a mixed bag, some of the background tunes reminding me rather of Monkey Island and Banjo Kazooie, other tracks being some of the strangest game music I’ve ever heard…

Now from what I’ve said so far you’ll have got the impression that it’s an utterly awful game, and by all accounts it really IS a terribly made platform game…

But the fact is, it’s rather a lot of fun.

Sure, it’s oversimplistic, slow, the difficulty spikes are hugely noticeable, the voice acting is awful, the graphics and level design are mostly dire- but I still found myself playing it till half four in the morning.
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what it is about the game that makes it entertaining- perhaps it’s simply the fact that running about being a monkey is a lot of fun all by itself, regardless of how poorly the game itself is put together: Jumping about collecting bananas, crawling through airvents like the monkey counterpart of solid snake, it’s not a blast to play, but it’s certainly good fun.
It’s not worth picking up full price as a standalone children’s game, the fun quickly wearing thin after a while, but it’s definitely worth a rental.
Chances are, if you’ve got children who love Curious George then they’re probably going to want this game regardless of how good it is, and I think a fan of the character could squeeze a lot of enjoyment out of this game.
Just bear in mind that to buy this game for a five year old and leave them to get on with it would be sadistic, to put it bluntly. It’s a game that you’ll want to be on standby to help out with, because they might find some parts of the game very frustrating indeed.

But don’t despair, it’s unintentionally a gem of a game to watch as an adult- some of the quotes the game comes out with being absolute corkers; my particular favourite so far coming from the calm female voice which guides you through the game: “Good Job! Now Perform For The Next Group Of Children.”
I’m sure it’s not supposed to be, but it’s pretty damn funny.
Curious George is one of those games that completely confuses the hell out of me.
By all accounts it’s a very poor game, but one with enough charm and fun to draw me in so much that I really enjoyed playing it despite all its faults.

Not worth full retail by any means, but I’m sure it’ll happily entertain young children through a rainy weekend, and for very young fans of the cheeky chimp it’ll probably be much loved.

Outro: Flawed and repetitive, but charming.

Graphics: 7
Gameplay: 5
Sound: 6
Lifespan: 4

Overall: 6

Fanboyism?

The next generation of games consoles has just begun to rear its head around the world, and with it comes shiny new graphics, exciting possibilities, and some truly revolutionary steps forward in how games are both played and distributed in the mainstream market.

But with these new consoles comes another war, old scars resurface and new tensions arise- not only between the companies themselves, but also between gamers; With each new generation of console comes a new generation of fanboys.

To put the question frankly: What the hell is fanboyism all about? In terms of this generation it’s understandable to an extent, with the Wii playing an entirely different hand of cards in terms of their overall plan and style of play. (The PS3’s supposed different battleplan to 360 arguably being neglible, as I remain sceptical of their claim that they are marketing a home entertainment system until I see the Blu-ray figures rise significantly.) But fanboyism is something that continues to boggle me, as it’s not something so salient in any other form of media; anyone ever met someone who refuses to watch any television other than the BBC, or won’t go to see a film in a cinema unless it’s financed by 20th Century Fox?

This avid and blind support for a company when put in perspective is an incredible phenomenon, these companies have such financial power that the lifelong allegiance of a horde of teenagers isn’t really requested, and it’s not as if they try and instill a sense of aggression towards other consoles into their press releases- it just seems to happen!

But why? Admittedly, when I was much younger I was a Nintendo fanboy- I didn’t like the Playstation and I loved my N64 to bits… Now perhaps it was just my natural desire to support the underdog- but I don’t think so… I think I was afraid.
When you get a new console it’s an investment, and it begins just being financial- but as you get more and more great games for it and begin to see its potential you slowly grow to cherish it, and something I realised during my N64 years that had never hit me when I had a Megadrive is that CONSOLES DIE. Back then I wanted a Snes too, because maybe I was just too young back then to realise that one console could potentially kill off another. And this realisation was awful.

Now with two of the big contenders releasing a seemingly very similar console to a growing market that seems to crave innovation, things are going to get very messy;
Sony and Microsoft look to be clashing horns once again for what could be a console war for the history books, fanboys flaming till the bitter end- until sooner or later one console will most likely kill the other.

Now bear with me guys and gals, because I’m going to go all psychological on you here…

Perhaps fanboyism is an example of us realising the mortality of our much loved gaming systems, and trying desperately to deny the fact that this might ever happen through blindly declaring that all the other options are awful.
The Wii, PS3 and 360 all have great potential, just choose carefully and try not to pick the console that dies first, as it’s an experience that most of us have had at some point; for those who haven’t it can be painful, believe me.

On the other hand you can embrace death: I bought a Dreamcast when it was on its deathbed and it brought me huge amounts of joy, although having tasted forbidden fruits the lack of Shenmue 3 may come back to haunt me later in my life…

Enjoy the new consoles, but just remember that being a fanboy won’t change the outcome of the war. So pipe down, and enjoy what you’ve got. Then when the other consoles die, point and laugh.