Review Category: Games

Review: Dishonored / Developer: Arkane Studios / Publisher: Bethesda / Platform: Xbox, PS3, PC / Release Date: Out Now

Developed by Arkane Studios, Dishonored puts you in control of the disgraced Corvo Atto, former bodyguard to Empress Jessamine Kaldwin of the industrial city of Dunwall (in which the game is set). Falsely accused of her assassination and the kidnap of her daughter, Atto finds himself on death row before being rescued by the Loyalists, which is where the fun begins…

Armed with a pistol, cutlass and a suite of supernatural powers (imbued upon you by the mysterious Outsider), Dishonored truly makes you feel like an efficient assassin. One of the more satisfying aspects of the game is the ability to approach any scenario in a myriad of ways. Whether you attack with force, silently silence your enemies or, like mist in the wind, glide through the levels without dispatching a single foe; it is your choice. Enticing as it is to avoid drawing blood, the urge to kill does prove to be irresistible at times. It’s also frighteningly easy to do with your many abilities; summon a swarm of rats to devour flesh and bone, lay a spike trap to amputate stray limbs from wandering enemies… or just stab them in the face. The most useful ability is blink, which allows Atto to teleport. This helps in numerous ways, particularly when up against foes with the same ability, and you’ll find yourself falling back on it regularly. There is a good variety of enemy types, each providing their own challenge with different strengths and weaknesses against certain attacks. Combat is a joy and it’s always fun when fighting one on one, racing to see who can fire the first round from their flintlock pistol, as if it were a duel over honour. It‘s these small moments that make the game extremely enjoyable.

The look of the game, from Dunwall through to its inhabitants (both good and bad), has its own style, strange yet familiar; It’s dystopian steampunk, with that extra twist. The buildings have strong edges and their narrowness is slightly exaggerated, giving the sensation of being oppressed by the architecture itself. The different classes of society are highlighted with every level in the game, from the sewers in which people have assembled make shift shelters, to the party filled mansions and the palatial symbols of power. Each new mission provides a contrasting visual aesthetic to the previous one. The narrative is one of the game’s strongest points, twisting and turning with many genuine moments of shock or surprise. This is neatly complimented by a compelling musical score and a strong voice cast that includes Susan Sarandon, Michael Madsen, Chloe Moretz and genre heavyweights Carrie Fisher and Lena Headey.

With Dishonored, Arkane Studios has achieved the seemingly impossible; Amid sequels and worn out franchises they’ve provided a new IP with fresh ideas. Make no mistake this is a true contender for game of the year.

Review: Vampire Boyfriends / Author: Miellyn Fitzwater Barrows / Publisher: Tin Man Games / Format: iOS / Price: £1.99 / Release Date: Out Now (via iTunes)

Adventure game books, though very popular in the eighties, never went away, and much like the rest of the publishing industry, have adapted with the times. One good example is Tin Man Games, who produce adventures games books that fit on your phone. Like most publishers, they’re interested in selling those books that the public wants, and so they’ve created Vampire Boyfriends, aimed squarely at the Twilight fandom.

Or so it may seem. Actually, this is a rather subversive little phone app. The basic story is one of a college student who gets immersed in the world of midnight monsters; so far so good, but because this is a choose-your-own adventure novel, you don’t have to be a simpering, passive object like many of the protagonists in supernatural  romance. If you wish, you can study mixed martial arts and be an all together different sort of heroine. No matter which you choose, it’s still a better story than Twilight.

Barrows has filled this novel with many references to the world of urban horror and it’s consciously geeky in places. There’s nothing exactly new here, but it avoids being pastiche of the genre through an ‘all you can eat’ approach; every single ‘Girl meets Vampire’ scenario that we’re familiar with through the media is explored here, and the writing style is easy flowing and fun. Though its clearly aimed at younger women, this grumpy thirty-something male found it witty, clever and fun.

The software that runs Vampire Boyfriends is pretty clever as well; for the most part it works like a regular book, with special features that allow you to ‘bookmark’ pages, the same way you would with a normal game book. It also has an ‘achievements’ function, which lets you know when you’ve found all the possible endings for the game. Overall, this is a great game and a fun book. Recommended for those looking for a bit of Halloween fun.

Review: Resident Evil 6 / Developer: Capcom / Publisher: Capcom / Format; PS3, 360, PC / Release Date: Out Now 

With seven playable characters, four campaigns and a storyline set across three continents Resident Evil 6 is not just massive in scope, but also in ambition. With this current generation coming to a close it really does feel like Capcom wanted their flagship franchise to bow out in epic fashion.

It’s no secret by now that the release of Resident Evil 6 has divided critics and fans more so than any game in recent memory. On the one hand there are those that feel the full move into action territory is a sucker punch to the diehard fans of the series and that the marketing tagline for this newest instalment (‘No Hope Left’) reinforces how much of a chance there is that they’ll see a survival-horror title within the franchise ever again.

On the other there are those, this reviewer included, that don’t mind what Capcom decides to do with its property, so long as the games give us an opportunity to revel in the universe we know and love. The franchise, to be fair, has been shifting into a more action-orientated affair since Resident Evil 2 and this was further amplified when series creator, Shinji Mikami, threw the camera over Leon S. Kennedy’s shoulder and, amidst the intricately designed levels and cerebral puzzle solving, gave us hordes of infected to shoot and epic showdowns with some outrageously designed bosses in Resident Evil 4.

It’s also a natural progression from a narrative standpoint. The storyline has been concerned with Biological Warfare and dodgy pharmaceutical companies since the first game and has been building towards a global threat over the past sixteen years. It wouldn’t really make a hell of a lot of sense to be running around trying to find the other half of an amulet to activate the plate that will allow you to unlock a bathroom door whilst the world itself is collapsing around you.

The four six to eight hour long campaigns have been designed to appeal to the four different Resident Evil fans that reside within us. Leon and Helena’s entry harkens back to the slow, suspenseful element of the series we grew up with. Chris and Piers’ chapter scratches that itchy trigger finger of ours. Jake and Sherry’s is a fast paced take on the idea of constantly looking over your shoulder and Ada’s mission focuses more on the puzzle solving aspects. Resident Evil 6 is, in point of fact, a regular, old school Resident Evil title writ large and sliced evenly into four huge slabs of action. Each one is packed to the gills with stunning scenery, outrageous set-pieces and, in the case of Leon’s and Chris’ chapters, some of the very best moments in Resident Evil history which we really, really don’t want to spoil for you. Throw in a smoothly implemented drop-in/drop-out co-op system, vastly improved combat and melee mechanics, a host of unlockables and collectibles, the welcome return of Mercenaries mode and an intriguing new online element, Agent Hunt, that lets you invade other players main campaign as an infected and what you have is an embarrassment of riches on one disc. If you’re a completist then there’s a good few months worth of bang for your buck, especially if you have a friend in tow.

But, a game this huge with so many cylinders pumping away is bound to have a few misfires. A lot of the big vehicular sequences (snow mobiles hurtling down a mountain outrunning an avalanche aside) feel like filler, like you’re just pressing and holding one button to advance the ‘cutscene’. They’re fun to watch but ultimately feel tacked on and unnecessary. Another big no-no is the game’s needlessly complicated cover system. We don’t have a problem with cover systems, never have (thank you Cliff Blezsinski), but this game’s implementation of the useful mechanic is broken to the point of uselessness. There are QTEs galore, and not even the fun kind. There’s also the, now trademark, overly long boss battles that will test even the patience of a particularly zen saint.

Of the four campaigns, Jake’s could be called out as the weakest due to a few dodgy level design choices and the fact that it doesn’t really know what it wants to be. It wants to be Leon’s chapter, it wants to be Chris’. Yet, it’s neither one thing nor the other and this lack of proper identity puts a slight dampener on his story. It’s still a fun ride but never really gets a chance to shine the way the other three campaigns do.

But this new entry gets more things right than it gets wrong. It’s beautiful to look at, a joy to play and has a desperate need to entertain you. It’s not the best in the series, but it’s also most definitely not the worst. Forget the naysayers and the purists. Sometimes all you need is a little triple A escapism, which Resident Evil 6 duly delivers. The horror may have taken a backseat to jaw-droppingly excessive action and co-operative hijinks, but it somehow manages to retain the spirit of the franchise and is, in a certain light, unmistakably Resident Evil.

Review: Resident Evil 6 / Developer: Capcom / Publisher: Capcom / Format; PS3, 360, PC / Release Date: Out Now 

With seven playable characters, four campaigns and a storyline set across three continents Resident Evil 6 is not just massive in scope, but also in ambition. With this current generation coming to a close it really does feel like Capcom wanted their flagship franchise to bow out in epic fashion.

It’s no secret by now that the release of Resident Evil 6 has divided critics and fans more so than any game in recent memory. On the one hand there are those that feel the full move into action territory is a sucker punch to the diehard fans of the series and that the marketing tagline for this newest instalment (‘No Hope Left’) reinforces how much of a chance there is that they’ll see a survival-horror title within the franchise ever again.

On the other there are those, this reviewer included, that don’t mind what Capcom decides to do with its property, so long as the games give us an opportunity to revel in the universe we know and love. The franchise, to be fair, has been shifting into a more action-orientated affair since Resident Evil 2 and this was further amplified when series creator, Shinji Mikami, threw the camera over Leon S. Kennedy’s shoulder and, amidst the intricately designed levels and cerebral puzzle solving, gave us hordes of infected to shoot and epic showdowns with some outrageously designed bosses in Resident Evil 4.

It’s also a natural progression from a narrative standpoint. The storyline has been concerned with Biological Warfare and dodgy pharmaceutical companies since the first game and has been building towards a global threat over the past sixteen years. It wouldn’t really make a hell of a lot of sense to be running around trying to find the other half of an amulet to activate the plate that will allow you to unlock a bathroom door whilst the world itself is collapsing around you.

The four six to eight hour long campaigns have been designed to appeal to the four different Resident Evil fans that reside within us. Leon and Helena’s entry harkens back to the slow, suspenseful element of the series we grew up with. Chris and Piers’ chapter scratches that itchy trigger finger of ours. Jake and Sherry’s is a fast paced take on the idea of constantly looking over your shoulder and Ada’s mission focuses more on the puzzle solving aspects. Resident Evil 6 is, in point of fact, a regular, old school Resident Evil title writ large and sliced evenly into four huge slabs of action. Each one is packed to the gills with stunning scenery, outrageous set-pieces and, in the case of Leon’s and Chris’ chapters, some of the very best moments in Resident Evil history which we really, really don’t want to spoil for you. Throw in a smoothly implemented drop-in/drop-out co-op system, vastly improved combat and melee mechanics, a host of unlockables and collectibles, the welcome return of Mercenaries mode and an intriguing new online element, Agent Hunt, that lets you invade other players main campaign as an infected and what you have is an embarrassment of riches on one disc. If you’re a completist then there’s a good few months worth of bang for your buck, especially if you have a friend in tow.

But, a game this huge with so many cylinders pumping away is bound to have a few misfires. A lot of the big vehicular sequences (snow mobiles hurtling down a mountain outrunning an avalanche aside) feel like filler, like you’re just pressing and holding one button to advance the ‘cutscene’. They’re fun to watch but ultimately feel tacked on and unnecessary. Another big no-no is the game’s needlessly complicated cover system. We don’t have a problem with cover systems, never have (thank you Cliff Blezsinski), but this game’s implementation of the useful mechanic is broken to the point of uselessness. There are QTEs galore, and not even the fun kind. There’s also the, now trademark, overly long boss battles that will test even the patience of a particularly zen saint.

Of the four campaigns, Jake’s could be called out as the weakest due to a few dodgy level design choices and the fact that it doesn’t really know what it wants to be. It wants to be Leon’s chapter, it wants to be Chris’. Yet, it’s neither one thing nor the other and this lack of proper identity puts a slight dampener on his story. It’s still a fun ride but never really gets a chance to shine the way the other three campaigns do.

But this new entry gets more things right than it gets wrong. It’s beautiful to look at, a joy to play and has a desperate need to entertain you. It’s not the best in the series, but it’s also most definitely not the worst. Forget the naysayers and the purists. Sometimes all you need is a little triple A escapism, which Resident Evil 6 duly delivers. The horror may have taken a backseat to jaw-droppingly excessive action and co-operative hijinks, but it somehow manages to retain the spirit of the franchise and is, in a certain light, unmistakably Resident Evil.

Review: Borderlands 2 / Cert: 18 / Developer: Gearbox Software / Publisher: 2K Games / Platform: PS3 (Reviewed), Xbox 360, PC / Release Date: Out Now

It’s time to buckle up, Vault Hunters for the gun-crazed, blood-hazed badass brawl you’ve been waiting for now the madness that is Borderlands 2 is here.

Since rumours started circulating back in late November of 2009 through to its official confirmation in August of last year, the many ardent fans of the original first-person shooter and role-playing hybrid have been twitching their trigger-fingers in anticipation of another chance to cause havoc on the endlessly entertaining and unforgiving planet of Pandora. The wait, it seems, has not been in vain as developers, Gearbox Software have come up trumps with a vastly improved and innovative sequel that still manages to honour its predecessor faithfully.

Playing Borderlands 2 for the first time evokes a powerful sense of familiarity and nostalgia by maintaining the strong visual cartoon style of the first game which used cel shading to such fabulous effect, and sticking to the overall format that players are accustomed to right down to the controls which are almost indiscernible from the original. The four choices of playable character types are also similar to before with an archetypal hero represented by a commando called Axton (my favourite), the double gun-wielding nut-job that is Salvador, the sexy, sinuous siren, Maya and the mysterious stealth assassin Zer0; all the characters have their very own set of attributes –abilities, strengths and weaknesses that can be finely tuned by the player using skill points to create any number of possible combinations. A new, fifth, downloadable character has been created for this release called Gaige – a female cyborg or ‘Mechromancer’ whose special ability is to be able to summon a sodding-big floating gun made of scrap metal parts and which promises to be a whole lot of fun. The developers and writers of Borderlands have shown their conviction in the original story by including elements of the game that garnered a little criticism in the  original release – for example the weird floating out-of-place head of the chavvy, cyber-goth looking Guardian Angel who, in the first game, popped up now and then for no apparent reason but has now be developed into a valuable and integral part of the plot; also the annoying robot, clap-trap returns and while he is, admittedly, no less annoying he is now, at least, quite funny. The plot follows on smoothly from the original, such as it was, and has been developed into a much fuller and cognitive experience rather than just a vehicle for the action and blood-letting. None of this is to say that playing the original game is, by any means, a prerequisite – newbies will pick up the story quickly and can become accustomed to the unique shooter/rpg gameplay that Gearbox have made all their own thanks to an intuitive tutorial that is incorporated nicely into the narrative.

The planet Pandora is a far bigger and more varied place than was previously thought. Beyond the scorched desert that became a little too samey in the first game we now find towns and cities, coastline and, yes, more desert; The whole, vast map has been rendered with real dedication to detail so that going from one place to another – be it on foot or in the many vehicles, feels as free as the best 3^rd person adventure despite actually being quite linear in nature. The population of Pandora has evolved somewhat also; the villains, who are legion, seem much more cohesive and full-bodied than in the previous game while the Planet’s fauna, comprising mainly of nasty quadrupeds called Bullymongs and odd pterodactyl type birds, provide ample target practise and allow you to gain all important experience points. As with the first game the whole landscape in littered with loot – guns, money, health bars, guns, shields and more guns. It is no exaggeration to say that there are literally millions of guns in Borderlands 2; thanks to the application of randomly generated statistics affecting a number of attributes like accuracy, range and magazine capacity the game’s creators believe that there are in excess of 17 million possible different weapons and, thankfully, a nice little feature allows you to compare one against the other quickly so that you can always keep your arsenal up to scratch.

Borderlands 2 is not without its faults, all be they few and forgivable. The save point set-up is slightly skewed, in my opinion, in so far as the missions have a number of objectives and if you happen to abort a mission early or, indeed, get killed – you end up having to do a lot of the same stuff again – particularly if you are a drop-in, drop-out kind of player with more pressing commitments. Also a lot has been said about how the menus now appear in an augmented-reality type perspective – I personally find this counter-productive and a bit annoying, and would welcome the return of the more conventional fully facing menu screen.

As for the on-line, co-operative aspect of the game – it is refreshing and encouraging to find a release that rewards co-operation and team-work, rather than the more aggressive ‘versus’ type of play so often seen in other titles.

All in all Gearbox Software have outdone expectation with Borderlands 2 – they have played to their strengths and kept true to their unique vision – with the action and carnage of a great First Person Shooter married to the endless variety of a Role-Playing-Game Borderlands 2 could herald a whole new genre in gaming.

Review: Darksiders 2 / Developer: Vigil Games / Publisher: THQ / Platform: Xbox, PS3, PC, Wii U / Release Date: Out Now (Wii U TBC)

Ask a member of the general gaming public about 2010’s Darksiders and you probably won’t get much of a response. As a brand new title coming out in early January it was already going to struggle, seeing as we’re living in an era where Triple-A billion-dollar franchises rule the gaming universe and everyone was still playing the copy of Modern Warfare 2 they’d got for Christmas a couple of weeks ago. Despite being released to much critical acclaim it managed to miss out on all of the year-end awards and ended up being pretty much forgotten about. Seriously, how many people have ever told you Darksiders is amazing? One, at the most. And that was probably me just now. Because it is.

Surprise of all surprises in June 2011 then, when THQ’s announcement of a sequel confirmed their decision that Darksiders was going to become a new mega-franchise. Three or four people wet themselves with joy, and the rest of the world went about their business as usual. Fast forward to August 2012, and Darksiders 2 has arrived. It’s dark alright, but not in the way you might have wanted.

It’s still a good old fashioned hack n’ slash open-world action/adventure game with all the puzzles and collectables and stuff you’d expect from something like this, only now they’ve tried to add a bit of depth by also giving us one of the lightest and most flimsy RPG elements ever created. Do you want to use this weapon or wear this armour? Here look, these numbers are green so it means it’s better than what you’ve already got. Oh no, these numbers are red so that means it’s worse. Honestly, that’s as much thinking as you’re going to need to do on the role-playing side of things.

What else might you have wanted from Darksiders 2? Wonderfully awesome powers, perhaps? They’re here, but they’re just so uninspired that it almost beggars belief. Summon a ghoulish helper to fight alongside you for a bit? Spent 150-odd hours doing that in Skyrim a few months ago. Do you want to mash “X” to do some fancy moves and splatter some blood all over the place? God Of War‘s got nicer combos that look like they hurt more. Maybe you wanted to run up some walls, jump onto some poles, shuffle slowly around them and then jump off again? Prince Of Persia that, mate. Enjoy missing jumps and falling off something really high and having to spend ages doing it all over again because your character didn’t quite respond to the buttons you definitely totally absolutely pressed? You’ve already got an Assassin’s Creed game or two on your shelf, surely?

Even just trying to play the game can be a bit of a mystery. Once you get inside a dungeon, you’ll spend a fair bit of time without a quest marker on your map, instead relying on “hints” from Dust, your little bird helper who flies around supposedly hovering around the general area you need to be heading for. Get to the nearest door and ask for another hint though, and quite often he’ll tell you to go back where you’ve just come from. Your guess is as good as ours on that one, really. And once you get about eight hours into the game, the freezing starts. Just solved that puzzle you’ve spent half an hour trying to get your head around? Hopefully you’ve remembered what you’ve just done, because you may well have to go back and start again. Right from the beginning of the dungeon.

Fair enough if Darksiders 2 isn’t afraid to wear its “influences” on its sleeve, but the point is that the whole thing comes off as a poor imitation. It doesn’t even manage to improve on any of the slightly rubbish and already overused stuff that it’s trying to emulate, but then there’s a possible question over whether that thought even crossed the developer’s minds in the first place.

If ever a game was much much much much less than the sum of its parts, Darksiders 2 is it. It feels a bit like they had a meeting where they put together a list of all the biggest-selling action/fantasy button-mashers of the last ten years, then wrote another list of the main gameplay features of all those games, then tried to squeeze every last one of them into something all their own. But instead of creating what should have been the ultimate hybrid of a bucketload of amazing games, all they’ve succeeded in doing is watering everything down into a weak and shallow puddle. And not even a puddle of blood or anything cool like that. Just a regular puddle. It might be in with a chance of winning the “best puddle of the year” award though.

 (not one, because at least it isn’t MorphX)

Review: Transformers – Fall Of Cybertron / Developer: High Moon Studios / Publisher: Activision / Platform: Xbox, PS3, PC / Release Date: Out Now

The need to fight has never been so urgent in High Moon’s Cybertronian sequel. The homeworld of the warring factions has been torn asunder, there are casualties on both sides and all hope seems lost…

Scale has been upped in every aspect of this game, with the ever-present feeling that an entire planet is at war. Almost every chapter of the story takes place in, around or above a battlefield with danger lurking around every corner. Compared to the previous game, the threat level has been increased tenfold and if you don’t keep your wits about you, death is inevitable. This will happen many times, but the checkpoints in the game have been handled very well. The player is faced with plenty of challenges throughout, but the game will always pick you up, brush away the dirt and throw you back in the fray to finish the fight. However, the fight never does truly finish as there is an extensive multiplayer option which allows for many hours of extra gameplay. You are able to craft, customise and prepare your robot for some great team-based mayhem. As your level increases so does your ability to stare death in the face and overcome it.

The developers have achieved a good balance between the difficulty and how enjoyable the game is. The controls of the game help with this. The standout moments are the ability to transform at will and the pulling of levers. The terminal literally transforms out of the floor. The size of what the lever is activating determines the speed with which the lever is pulled. There is nothing more satisfying than taking 20 seconds to pull a lever by holding down the thumb stick and watching the mechanisms shift into a weapon or change the layout of a structure. The world changes before your eyes and it is a sight to behold.

The visuals of this game are also very impressive, adopting their own unique style which lies between photorealism and cell shaded animation. This look allows for some truly spectacular set pieces, gripping battles and high speed aircraft chases. When these visuals are combined with the soundtrack this game becomes truly epic.

Very rarely does a game meet, exceed then blow expectations into an inter-dimensional rift in time and space! Transformers: Fall of Cybertron has achieved this with its fantastic story, top notch voice acting and addictive gameplay. This is a game not to be missed.

Review: Transformers – Fall Of Cybertron / Developer: High Moon Studios / Publisher: Activision / Platform: Xbox, PS3, PC / Release Date: Out Now

The need to fight has never been so urgent in High Moon’s Cybertronian sequel. The homeworld of the warring factions has been torn asunder, there are casualties on both sides and all hope seems lost…

Scale has been upped in every aspect of this game, with the ever-present feeling that an entire planet is at war. Almost every chapter of the story takes place in, around or above a battlefield with danger lurking around every corner. Compared to the previous game, the threat level has been increased tenfold and if you don’t keep your wits about you, death is inevitable. This will happen many times, but the checkpoints in the game have been handled very well. The player is faced with plenty of challenges throughout, but the game will always pick you up, brush away the dirt and throw you back in the fray to finish the fight. However, the fight never does truly finish as there is an extensive multiplayer option which allows for many hours of extra gameplay. You are able to craft, customise and prepare your robot for some great team-based mayhem. As your level increases so does your ability to stare death in the face and overcome it.

The developers have achieved a good balance between the difficulty and how enjoyable the game is. The controls of the game help with this. The standout moments are the ability to transform at will and the pulling of levers. The terminal literally transforms out of the floor. The size of what the lever is activating determines the speed with which the lever is pulled. There is nothing more satisfying than taking 20 seconds to pull a lever by holding down the thumb stick and watching the mechanisms shift into a weapon or change the layout of a structure. The world changes before your eyes and it is a sight to behold.

The visuals of this game are also very impressive, adopting their own unique style which lies between photorealism and cell shaded animation. This look allows for some truly spectacular set pieces, gripping battles and high speed aircraft chases. When these visuals are combined with the soundtrack this game becomes truly epic.

Very rarely does a game meet, exceed then blow expectations into an inter-dimensional rift in time and space! Transformers: Fall of Cybertron has achieved this with its fantastic story, top notch voice acting and addictive gameplay. This is a game not to be missed.

Game Review: Judge Dredd – Countdown Sector 106 / Format: iOS / Version: 1.0 / Size 101MB / Price: £2.99 / Developer: Tin Man Games / Release Date: Out Now

An odd by-product of smart-phones and tablets: the resurgence of the humble gamebook. Before I was allowed my first videogaming console, I would eat up Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s Fighting Fantasy books; transported into a fantasy world where anything was possible, with only a pair of dice and a pencil to guide me on my journey. As the digital revolution caught me in its grip, I left the Fighting Fantasy books behind. Yet a fondness remained, only to be rekindled by the books’ reappearance via iPhone. Countdown Sector 106 follows the new Fighting Fantasy template while adding a few nifty tricks of its own.

Sector 106 puts the reader in the boots of future lawman Judge Dredd (two sizes too small, keeping him permanently ticked off), tasked with patrolling the eponymous crime-ridden area. Rather than delivering a tight, plot-driven story, Sector 106 is like the literary equivalent of a free-roaming videogame. As Dredd, you’ll patrol the streets of Mega City One, bringing perps to justice by any means necessary. Dredd has a lot of tools at his disposal, and the reader has the option to use all of these in any one fight: do you ride in blasting away on your bike cannon? Fire off a warning shot with your lawgiver? Or wade in with your daystick for a more hands-on approach? The game will have you living by the mantra ‘WWJDD’. If in doubt: the most violent option.

It’s a more authentic Mega City experience than Judge Dredd vs Zombies, which is highly enjoyable but doesn’t much feel like a Judge Dredd game. In fact, Countdown Sector 106 is a lot like Dredd vs Death for the Playstation 2, except with words. As you explore Sector 106, you’ll have the chance to meet all manner of Mega City’s denizens, from Fatties to Juves. Its living, breathing Mega City One is like Ian Livingstone’s City Of Thieves. It looks fantastic, with a stylish, responsive design making the story an easy read. It’s well illustrated too, with the art looking as though it’s been shorn straight from the pages of 2000AD. The whole experience is reminiscent of the ‘choose your own adventure’ style comics the magazine used to occasionally do with Dredd and Slaine back in their black and white days. As with the new Fighting Fantasy books for iPhone, its dice rolls are represented in a set of digital dice, tumbling about with a satisfying clatter.

Where it differs from the Fighting Fantasy books is in an adjustable difficulty setting (still bloody hard, even playing on ‘medium’), the option to save your progress with a bookmarking system and in a number of achievements collected along the way. It rewards re-playability in a way that most gamebooks don’t. It’s also possible to read the book with your own music still playing in the background – a nice touch, allowing me to listen to Drokk: Music Inspired By Mega-City One as I  apprehended (clubbed into submission) a gang of Juves with my trusty daystick.

While the format may have been updated, the gamebook experience remains intact. There are few things more frustrating in life than a gamebook’s Game Over page. The lack of focus means that the story is less gripping than it could have been (there’s a ‘bigger picture’ building in the background, but is ultimately disposable) and the Dredd of Sector 106 doesn’t feel like quite the same man as the Dredd of the comics. There’s always that sneaking feeling that you’re going a bit soft on your perps – the real Dredd would waste little time in arresting the lot, evidence or not. There’s disappointingly little opportunity for fascism.

Sector 106 is a fun addition to the growing legion of ‘choose your own adventure’ books now available for smartphones and tablets. By Grud, its good.

Judge Dredd: Countdown Sector 106 is available from itunes – HERE

Review: The Dark Knight Rises (iPad/iPhone/Android) / Version: 1.0.0 / Size: 819MB / Developer: Gameloft / Price: £4.99 / Release Date: Out Now

Perhaps wanting to avoid comparison with the phenomenally popular (and good) Arkham Asylum/City games, there has so far been no Dark Knight Rises tie-in for Xbox or PS3. The last Nolan-verse videogame adaptation to reach major consoles was Batman Begins for the PS2 – and that verged on unplayable. So having skipped the previous instalment altogether, The Dark Knight Returns in this adaptation of the film for the mobile and tablet market.

The Dark Knight Rises follows the plot of the film in the same way as most tie-in games do: loosely and occasionally taking huge liberties. Because there’s a necessity to have Batman costumed in every scene, the film’s “there’s a storm coming, Mister Wayne” exchange is truncated to an encounter with Miss Kyle in an alleyway. The demands of a videogame mean that there are gangs of armed enemies everywhere the film had none. Wayne’s underground prison, for example, is populated by wardens trying to kill Wayne.

There’ll be a lot of fighting then, in this surprisingly ambitious adaptation. All of Gotham is yours to explore, provided you can get to grips with the virtual controller. The direction is controlled by a virtual joystick on the left hand side of the screen, while buttons on the right manage gadgetry and combat. The gliding mechanics of Arkham City are simplified, with it being possible to effectively fly around the city without once touching the ground. The combat is surprisingly intuitive, with the game even employing its own version of Arkham City’s countering system. There are even vehicles too, with the Bat Pod and the Bat making the journey from one end of Gotham to the other seem like less of a slog. Stealth sections, levelling and upgrades also add variety to the gameplay.

However, despite all the Arkham City riffs, The Dark Knight Rises is never as fun to play. Quickly, combat becomes a chore; in free-roaming, it’s difficult to move and the camera often finds itself stuck at odd angles. The grapnel gun is inaccurate, often firing off accidentally as the player attempts movement – sending Batman hurtling off across the city in entirely the wrong direction. The fighting is unsophisticated and boring. As mentioned earlier, there is a countering system, but too often you’ll just be whacking the ‘punch’ button, waiting for your opponent to fall over. Not even past Chapter One, I got bored of the repetitive fighting and ran away, running in a decidedly un-Batman like manner for the exit. There’s certainly no chance of anyone wanting to scour the city looking for random fights, as so many of us spent hours doing in Arkham City.

Worse, given the relatively hefty price tag, there’s a cheeky reliance upon in-game purchases. If you really want to feel like Bruce Wayne, you can spend up to £70 at a time on in-game credits. Not only will you feel like a millionaire (your £70 will get you 150,000 credits) but it’ll probably bankrupt you too, like the real Wayne. It’s hard to imagine anyone being passionate enough to spend real money on this game, beyond the initial purchase.

Elsewhere, the story is enlivened by familiar faces from the film. Bane, Selina Kyle, Gordon and Alfred all appear, as does new boy John Blake. The actors’ likenesses are borrowed for the purposes of the game, but not their voices. In some cases this is fine – you can actually understand what Bane and Batman are saying – but the Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine impressions are awful. Freeman looks horrible too, his face contorted into a strange smirk that makes it look as though he’s suffered a recent stroke. Elsewhere, the animation is fine. For all my criticisms of the game, it’s mindblowing that the developers managed to fit all of Gotham City and its inhabitants onto a mobile phone. Mobile gaming has come a long way since Snake.

The Dark Knight Rises is deeply flawed but good, in small doses. It’s more playable than the rubbish Arkham City: Lockdown and a lot more fun than the PS2’s Batman Begins. Like the film on which it is based, The Dark Knight rises is crushed by the weight of expectation thanks to what has come before. And like the film, it’s very ambitious and technically adept – but there’s always that sneaking feeling that it could have been better.

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