REVIEW: Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (1996)

Those from North America will recognise this classic point-and-click puzzle/adventure game as Circle of Blood. It follows young Californian Lawyer George Stobbart with enormous pockets around Europe and Asia searching for the lost secrets of the Templars after he witnesses a terrorist bombing in Paris by a man in a clown costume.

The story is fantastic and really does play out like a movie - actually I do remember going to see the Da Vinci Code on release and had several Broken Sword double-takes. A young American fascinated by the history of the Templars teams up with a hot French girl and they go to uncover its secrets... Inspiration or not, Broken Sword worked well as a game story-wise and was engaging and interesting throughout.

There is one horrible plague on this game though, several fatal errors you can make if you don't play it right. There are HUGE glitches present throughout that can literally make your save useless if you do it incorrectly. According to the credits, some of the game testing was done by family members of Charles Cecil, the creator of the game, and that may explain it. For example, if you go to Spain before completing the objectives to go to Syria, a character won't be present when you return to do an important task and you get stuck in Parisian limbo unless you restart or reload a save before you go to Spain. It's a really glaring fatal flaw and I fell into it the first time I played.

So if you know your way around the game or know where the traps are and how to avoid them, this game offers many hours of play, brilliant humour, polished voice talent and rich environments. George Stobbart remains one of my favourite protagonists of a video game: he's sarcastic, intelligent and his humour is delightfully droll. It's available on many different formats so if you like adventure games or puzzle games, give it a shot.

REVIEW: Killing Floor (2009)

Let me get one thing straight: People from England don't all sound like Michael Caine! Don't trust Worgans, Fable or this game! For the uninitiated, this game a first person multiplayer shooter: it's essentially Left for Dead in London. It's fast, fun and highly addictive.

As a nameless protagonist, your task is to survive the onslaught of zombies released by the military thanks to overambitious experiments involving genetic mutations and cloning, and of course it all went tits-up and now you gotta spray and pray with your bullets. There are some familiar settings, and they're pretty accurate, give or take the number of rampant violent raging aggressors...

One of the great perks of this game is the ability to customise your character. You get to choose a soldier with different abilities, and from that you get a class to level up, leading to better perks. I personally chose a Support Specialist because of my affinity to boomsticks and flooring many enemies with one round (thank you very much, Resident Evil). Every class adds something slightly different to the team and a well-rounded team will go a lot farther than a bunch of snipers camping around the map.

If I were to describe this game in a phrase, it would be "dumb fun". I enjoy it with friends and it's exciting and tense to play through when you're surrounded by running zombies, fattie bloaty ones, the dreaded Fleshpounds and ones with chainsaws grafted to their arms Bruce Campbell style. It's worth a trial at least and I can go back to it now and again.

REVIEW: Fahrenheit (2005)

Since the release of Quantic Dream's tech demo KARA (found here, go check it out, it's incredible), I decided to go back and play the first game I played by them, Fahrenheit - better known as Indigo Prophecy in North America - and relive their first attempt at making a video game.

Instantly, the menu of Fahrenheit doesn't say "continue game", rather it says "continue movie" or "select chapter". It reminds me of a DVD menu instead of a game one, and the entire game is an interesting blend of a film and game. This concept was adapted for Fahrenheit's spiritual sequal - the better know Heavy Rain - but it still plays competently in Fahrenheit. Our hero, Lucas Kane, awakes over a bloodied corpse with the murder weapon in his hand. With the knife Lucas has carved weird symbols into his own arm and has absolutely no memory of the last five minutes. Frightened and confused, he frantically tries to cover his tracks and hurries home, where he enlists his brother to help him work out what happened in the diner and who was behind it all.

Simultaneously, the two detectives assigned to solve the murder are also playable characters, Carla and Tyler, and the scenarios are played one after the other in various situations or scenes. One of the interesting gimmicks of the game is you can hear what characters are thinking as you play them with a button prompt, so it's not mandatory to listen to the characters' thoughts, but it's a nice bonus. It really does feel like an interactive movie rather than a clunky representation of one like some other games have attempted. The one thing that really slows it down are the controls which are sluggish and unreponsive, and you can end up grinding your face against a wall if you're not careful.

However, the story, although some people say it loses itself halfway through, I thought was interesting and fun to play through, if a little cliché at times. It flows better than some movies I've sat through, and they didn't even have quick time events to deal with!

REVIEW: Overblood (1997)

I played the demo of this on release, and then spent years searching for it, and finally on a visit to Canada twelve years later, there it was, sitting on the shelf all smug. It was one of the few times where I've instantly scooped up a game without even considering the price.

Overblood is a fully 3D survival horror game featuring a fully grown man in an ever so slightly tight one-sie called Raz Karcy, a man awaking from a cryogenic freeze with no memory. He befriends a little robot along the way called Pipo and the two work together to try and escape from the abandoned facility and also recover Raz's memories.

The game plays well, but the movement of the models is laughable at times; watching Raz run kept me entertained for ages, not to mention his hilarious falling death animation, and sometimes I saved it right before a crevice just so I could watch and hear Raz plummet screaming "BAAW!" several times. The voice acting is beyond bad and incredibly funny, but forgivable considering how old this game actually is.

The story is pretty bland, but it's not a major issue. I enjoyed playing the game a lot, and even though the script and the animations of the characters just topped off the experience as one of the so-bad-it's-good games ever, it's a challenging, interesting game and I'd definitely play it again.

REVIEW: Tomb Raider II (1997)

If you were feeling devilish, you could break someone's entire save on this game by jumping off a high place and saving it as poor Lara plummeted to her death. This was thanks to the new "save anywhere at any time" system that was introduced after the frustrating save crystals from the first game.

The second of the Tomb Raider games, this time Lara Croft is after the mythical dagger of Xian, a blade that promises immense power to whomever sacrifices themselves to it. Lara goes all around the world looking for it, including China, Italy, Tibet and even to the bottom of the ocean. Major graphical improvements were made to the original engine of the first game, such as dynamic lighting, Lara's hair and more fluid character movement. The game was continually tested literally hours prior to the final submit to Sony, and it really shows.

Lara now has much more freedom, and can use flares and climb ladders in this outing, The improved lighting was also used to light up the immediate area when Lara fired a gun, and minor tweaks led to a major improvement. The story for me was also great, because it involved shooting a massive fire-breathing dragon, and I can't argue with that. This and its predecessor really paved the way for modern adventure games, and I doubt Nathan Drake would be the man he is without our English rose Lara.

I'll never, ever forget the panic at the beginning the level "40 fathoms", when your air's running out, there's a shark chasing you and there's no sign of an air pocket. It was like Sonic drowning all over again.

REVIEW: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (1996)

I remember one of my elder brothers traded in the original Prince of Persia on the SNES for this shiny new Playstation game, and neither me or my siblings had no idea what we were getting tangled up in.

One of the very first games I ever played with a deep complex narrative, complete with a very likeable anti-hero and glorifying vampires as complete badasses in armour with fire swords and a treasure trove of spells to literally tear your enemies limb from limb; it blew apart my pre-conceived ideas that modern vampires were all whiny chuffs who hung around in the dark feeling sorry for themselves. Our vampire hero Kain didn't give a toss about anyone other than himself and certainly didn't dole out mercy to those he encountered on his journey to cure his vampirism.

The story goes much deeper than a simple quest however, and we discover a whole complex narrative delicately woven with time travel, free will, destiny and balance all as major themes. Kain as a character truly shines as the main attraction though, thanks to the great Simon Templeman bringing him to life. Kain is considered by many video game fans as one of the exemplary anti-heroes, and has developed over the series of Legacy of Kain games, remaining consistent and likable yet undergoing a conceivable change as his world changes around him. The Legacy of Kain games have often been praised for their polished voice talent and intricate, fascinating storyline, and the first game set the benchmark for the entire series.

As a game, it plays competently, and the top-down view makes up for the limited technology available at the time. The animations are good and fluid, and the combat, although restrained, makes for a challenging experience. I can always return to this game.