Developer: Bungie (original game), Saber Interactive (Xbox 360 port), 343 Industries (Xbox 360 port), Certain Affinity (Anniversary Map Pack)

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Platforms: Xbox 360 (Reviewed)

It’s so common to see old games get remakes and ports on to newer consoles these days – like older Sonic games or old Megaman games. Halo: Combat Evolved is different though, because unlike these other games, for once Halo: Combat Evolved is a game that I actually grew up with – it’s weird having a game that you grew up with to be considered “old”, and even weirder to see all of those “old” levels get a complete visual revamp thanks to the increased capabilities of todays hardware.

Halo fans have been asking for this since Halo 3 was released, and people became a lot more interested in the idea of a HD re-release of Halo 1 closer to the release of Halo: Reach. Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary manages to make Halo look beautiful again, but retains the exact same gameplay that made the original game so fun in the first place. Yes, I said exactly.

Halo: CEA actually runs portions of two game engines at the same time – the gameplay is running on the same code that powered the original game, and the updated graphics are handled by much newer tech – though if you like you can hit the back button to revert the graphics back to how they were in the days of yesteryear – it’s staggering to see how much extra detail has been added in to the game, as you can see in the screenshot above.

But as I say – the game plays exactly the same as it did way back in 2001 – for both better and worse. Parts of the original Halo have aged well, others haven’t aged quite so gracefully. The core, on foot infantry combat feels as solid and as fun as ever – the original Halo pistol is way more fun to use than I remembered it to be, and the revamped sound effects help to bring the classic weapons up to par. Plasma Grenades in particular look and sound much more lethal than they used to – in fact, I would say that the sound design is stronger than what’s in Halo: Reach at the moment.

Yup, this still works.

The vehicles haven’t aged very well though – the lack of a brake on the Warthog makes it feel slippery to control, the Banshee feels clunky and stiff to fly, and the Scorpion tank can only drive forwards, it can’t “strafe” like its modern counterparts. Consequently the more vehicle focussed levels in the game suffer for it.

Running Halo 1 exactly the way it used to is certainly a double-edged sword – on the one hand the game plays exactly how it used to, but on the other hand, the game plays exactly as it used to. Wort Wort Worts and all. When I think about it, I think I would have preferred it if a few issues from the original game were fixed here, and it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity to spruce the game up a little.

I also found it jarring at how repetitive some of the environments still are – you’ll find yourself getting deja vu as you walk through what feels like the same corridor again and again – it would have been better if some visual variety was added in when remaking the campaign – and the samey hallways and rooms could cause some confusion for newer players who didn’t play the original.

The remastered Halo 1 goodness only applies to the campaign though – there’s no real multiplayer aspect to Anniversary other than the fact that co-operative campaign over Xbox Live has been added. Halo 1′s multiplayer hasn’t been remade here, but a selection of classic maps have been released for Halo: Reach – and a code for these maps is included with the game (which I shall review at a later date).

Ultimately this is just Halo 1 with a prettier paint job, online co-op and some new maps for Halo: Reach. It’s a great opportunity for newer fans of the series to see where everything kicked off – though I am somewhat disappointed that Halo 1′s multiplayer wasn’t properly remade. Nevertheless, I’d like to see Halo 2 get a similar update at some point in the future.

What the game looks like

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary in action

The verdict

Good: Faithful recreation of Halo 1′s campaign, bundled multiplayer maps for Reach, overhauled music and sound effects, addition of co-op over Xbox Live

Bad: Arguably too faithful to the original game, Halo 1′s multiplayer not remade, The Library still sucks

Another year, another opportunity to sum up our thoughts on the year in gaming. Rather than do a simple “Top 5″ like I did last year, I instead decided to split my best and worse in to different categories – this year has been a good one for gaming and it’s difficult to only post 5 of my favourite games! Nevertheless, here’s what stood out for me this year:

Best Shooter

Game: Bulletstorm

Overlooked by many, Bulletstorm ditched a lot of the modern design choices a lot of modern shooters abide by, favouring that you kill your enemies as stylishly as possible by using aspects of the level to your advantage… like man eating plants. If you haven’t played this yet then you absolutely need to give it a go. Now get to it dicktits.

Honourable mentions: Gears of War 3, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

Best Platformer

Game: Sonic Generations (Xbox 360, PS3, PC Version)

SEGA has been on a mission to bring the spiky blue Hedgehog back to his former glory as of late, and Sonic Generations was a mighty good effort. Though a touch on the short side, Sonic Generations does feature a lot of replay value with different missions to complete outside of the main game, and if you’re at all like me, then you’ll have fun trying to get the fastest possible time on the games levels. In all, I’ve put over 40 hours in to Sonic Generations just with this simple goal in mind (I get can quite competitive with myself over things like this). If you can forgive the extremely kid-friendly nature of the games main story, then you’ll have fun with Generations. You can read my full review of Sonic Generations here.

Honourable mentions: Super Mario 3D Land

Best Puzzle Game

Game: Portal 2

Quite often puzzle games will fail to grab me, but Portal is one of the rare exceptions to the rule. The core game is simple, but the puzzles that can be presented to you (especially in the games co-operative mode) can be tricky to get through for the first time. Combine this with a well written story and an intriguing cast of characters that keeps you wanting more, and you’ve got a recipe for a great puzzle game, and efforts made by Valve to try and merge console and PC gaming by letting gamers on PlayStation 3 and Steam play together should be praised too, though it’s a shame that Microsofts restrictive policies prevented such a feature from making its way to the Xbox  360 version of the game.

Best Indie Game

Game: Waves

It was a tough choice between this and Bastion, but I eventually decided to settle on Waves because of its simple pick up and play nature. You could just dismiss it as a clone of Geometry Wars – and to some extent you’d be correct, but Waves provides just enough new features that it can stand up on its own. Much like Sonic Generations the replay value comes in trying to beat the high score of yourself and your friends. The soundtrack could benefit from a few extra tracks, but overall Waves is a great little game.

Honourable mentions: Bastion, Solar 2

Best Graphics

Game: Bastion

And with that the Internet shouts out “What the eff bro? Why isn’t Crysis 2 here? Or The Witcher? Or Battlefield 3?” Well, I like to think that a games looks come from more than just how many polygons or how many individual grains of sand a game is rendering at a time – Bastion just looks so gorgeous that if you took away the user interface you could mistake the games locations as real works of art that someone drew as a hobby, or to sell at an art show, not for some “stupid” video game that you can pick up for a couple of quid . Bastion simply looks beautiful, and blurs the line between video games and art in ways that Crysis or Battlefield could only dream of (I also think that Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3 look a little bland). In Bastion you forget that you’re looking at a bunch of pixels and polygons, in Battlefield you do not – and that’s why Bastion wins this for me.

Honourable mentions: The Witcher 2, Gears of War 3

Best Soundtrack

Game: Sonic CD (XBLA, PSN, Steam, iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7)

Is this technically cheating? Sonic CD was originally released way back in 1993, though the recent port of the game was the first time I’ve ever played it. Every stage in Sonic CD is full of catchy tunes that, for me, are very reminiscent of the early 90′s and late 80′s – so to that extent the games soundtrack is somewhat nostalgic to me even though I’ve never heard it before. The game had a different soundtrack in the United States, though as far as I’m concerned the Japanese & European version of the games soundtrack (as you can hear in the video above) is far superior.

Honourable mentions: Bastion, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

Best Action/Adventure Game

Game: Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

I love Assassin’s Creed: Revelations because it gives us what so many games do not: closure. Games are all too happy to give you a cliffhanger at the end of the game in the hopes that you’ll buy the sequel. Of course Assassin’s Creed: Revelations does this – but as far as Ezio is concerned it’s nice to know that we’ve gotten the whole story. And as strange as it may sound, it’s also humbling to see a video game character age, and to see the changes in character that age brings along with it.

But Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is absolutely a fun game to play, bringing together all of the features that we’ve seen before and bringing them together with a bit more added to them. There’s now a little more to capturing and defending Assassin headquarters, recruiting and training Assassin’s has been expanded upon, and there’s a simple yet deep bomb crafting tool. I enjoyed Assassin’s Creed: Revelations so much that I’ve decided to go back and play through the previous two games that Ezio starred in – Assassin’s Creed 2 & Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. I do wish, however, that Ubisoft would hurry up and add a co-operative mode to the Assassin’s Creed series.

Honourable mentions: Saints Row The Third

Biggest disappointment of 2011

Game: Battlefield 3

Yes that’s right Internet, I just went there. Battlefield 3 is a game I have given hundreds of chances and fails to entertain me every time. I originally tried the beta on my Xbox 360, and I wasn’t impressed. I eventually moved on to trying the beta on my PC, and wasn’t impressed again, and I was close to cancelling my pre-order. However I eventually decided to give Battlefield 3 the benefit of the doubt because hey, it’s Battlefield – I’ve liked them all since the first Bad Company, so why would this be any different? I simply put it down to Operation Metro being a crappy map.

Launch day comes and I install Battlefield 3 to my PC, open the campaign and I’m bored out of my mind at the second level. I don’t think I have ever played a campaign that’s so… boring before – with the possible exception of Homefront (which I knew would probably be pretty bad before I spent a whole £2 on it, so to that extent Homefront wasn’t really a disappointment because I had low expectations). I do the logical thing and jump in to the multiplayer modes – and, in fairness, I enjoyed it at first.

My problem is that I work 12 hour shifts in my job – and when I get home I just want to chill – I’m not really in the mood for video games, so because of this I start falling behind the crowd – and it’s gotten to the point now that everyone has the best weapons, the best perks, the best upgrades for their vehicles and I feel like I’m still at square one. I’ve been left behind and playing catch-up is proving to be too frustrating. I simply don’t have the patience for shooters where you have to play 24/7 just to remain relevant. For these reasons I’ve already abandoned Battlefield 3 in favour of Halo: Reach, Gears of War 3 and Team Fortress 2.

Dishonourable mentions: LittleBigPlanet 2

Most anticipated for 2012

Game: Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 3 absolutely, categorically, without question is what I’m most excited for next year. Mass Effect 2 was a masterpiece and I loved every second of it, and I have no doubts that Mass Effect 3 will be the same. My only problem is that I’ve played through Mass Effect 2 so many times that I’ve lost count of what I’ve done through each play run of the game, so I’m going to have issues when it comes to importing my character. Or I could just play through Mass Effect 2 again! I’m sure that won’t be a problem.

Honourable mentions: Halo 4, Assassin’s Creed 3 (we all know it’s going to happen)

That’s the year in a wrap for me, though my back log of games has increased dramatically this year so I’m kind of annoyed I haven’t had the chance to play all of them before writing this up. Nonetheless, this is how I feel about the games that I’ve played this year. Here’s hoping that 2012 will be a good one!

• Developer: Infinity Ward (campaign), Sledgehammer Games (multiplayer)
• Publisher: Activision
• Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (reviewed), PC, Wii, DS

There’s not a single franchise in the entire gaming industry that invokes such intense Internet debate. Originally starting out as a World War 2 shooter, the Call of Duty series branched out in to the modern era with Call of Duty 4 - this is where the Call of Duty series really started to kick off, with each new entry in to the franchise breaking sales records each year.  Some think that over the years the Call of Duty series has gotten stale, and that Activision has simply gotten lazy and is just milking the franchise for all its worth. Does Modern Warfare 3 manage to make things fresh again?

The short answer to that question is a rather abrupt “no”. Modern Warfare 3 doesn’t re-invent the wheel, and it doesn’t really try to either. If you’ve liked the last 5 years of Call of Duty games then you’ll like Modern Warfare 3 - but if you think the series has been getting old then no, Modern Warfare 3 won’t change that.

The campaign is the shortest in the series – I beat it, according to the in-game timer, in 4 hours and 49 minutes (and 13 seconds!) to which I expect that most people reading this let out an audible sigh but to be completely honest with you I thought that Modern Warfare 3 has the funnest campaign in the series to date. Each level is short (as you’d expect), but they keep the action interesting, and you’re never stuck in one place fighting enemies for too long – which I thought was a problem with a lot of the older games. Modern Warfare 3 keeps things at a brisk pace, constantly moving forward and keeping gameplay interesting, moving from infantry combat to vehicle combat to break things up a bit.

As you may expect, Modern Warfare 3 is a heavily scripted game, going from one set piece to the next with little to no deviation from the main path, and it can hold the players hand a little too much times with a lot of “Yeah I get it” moments. There’s not a whole lot of player freedom in Modern Warfare 3, and some gamers may not like being confined to the small combat spaces and scripted vehicle sections. In short: Modern Warfare 3 is the complete opposite of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - it’s short, to the point, and very much a “do as you’re told” game. Oh, and there’s no Dragons in this either.

"Yeah I get it"

For what it’s worth I actually enjoyed the entirety of the games campaign – the brevity of it works in the games favour – Call of Duty is just a game that doesn’t work well with a long campaign, and shouldn’t be stretched out to try  and fill some kind of pre-determined quota. The clear focus of Call of Duty is with the games multiplayer any way.

Not that I’m dismissing that the games campaign is important, or should be tossed aside because it doesn’t matter, I’m simply saying that the campaign should only be as long as it is enjoyable, and for me Modern Warfare 3 got things just right.

As for the multiplayer, I didn’t care for it, and I didn’t care for the multiplayer in Battlefield 3 for the same reason: weapon and perk unlocks.

I’m tired of it.

It was a novel idea at first – a compelling way to get people to keep playing your game so they can unlock a certain weapon or a certain perk, but after five years of games copying this formula I’m getting a little tired of it, and in Modern Warfare 3 going through all the trouble to unlock even the most basic weapons and perks feels, well – boring.

As I was playing through the multiplayer I was wondering to myself “What’s the point in playing this?” when I could just put in my copy of Modern Warfare 2, or Black Ops and get the same gameplay experience, only I don’t have to worry about being at the bottom of the food chain. For these reasons I guess I can’t really offer a very insightful opinion in to the multiplayer here, and I dare say that those who aren’t tired of this formula are enjoying the game just fine, though I’m struggling to see the value for money here when you could just buy a map pack for Black Ops and be done with it.

Is Modern Warfare 3 worth your time? I’d have to answer that question with a no. The campaign is fun, yes, but absolutely not worth the £40 entry fee and it’s certainly not game of the year material. That is, unless you’re addicted to Call of Dutys multiplayer, in which you probably already own the game at this point any way.

What the game looks like:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in action:

The verdict:

Good: Engrossing campaign doesn’t outstay its welcome

Bad: Formula for Call of Duty (and other modern military FPS’) getting old now, multiplayer too similar to that of the other Call of Duty games

• Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
• Publisher: Ubisoft
• Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC (Reviewed)

The Assassin’s Creed series has to absolutely be one of my favourite new IP’s to be released this console generation (last years Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was second only to Mass Effect 2). Though I was admittedly somewhat late to the party – I only got the first Assassin’s Creed just a few months before the second instalment was released. When I first started Assassin’s Creed 2 I figured it’d be a similar deal to the first game – you play as a new Assassin, do some quests and then in a few years time Assassin’s Creed 3 will be released and we’ll be playing as someone else. Little did I know that I was about to spend the next three years playing as one of my favourite video game characters of all time.

You can argue all day about whether or not you think the plot in Assassin’s Creed is any good or not – I personally enjoy the stories of the Assassin’s themselves (Ezio and Altair) far more than the main, overarching plot of the series with Desmond and the modern-day Assassin’s and Templars, but as far as I’m concerned Ezio is a fantastic character, and it’s great that, as players, we get to live out the key events of this one man, from birth to well, I won’t spoil the ending of the game for you.

I’m very much fond of the idea of living out one characters life – and Assassin’s Creed is in a unique position where the end of one characters journey doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the series. Assassin’s Creed has almost unlimited potential to go on for as long as it likes – it basically has the entirety of human history to create stories out of. To that end, to see one character grow from an enthusiastic, womanising young man to a much older, wiser, and (in my opinion) somewhat jaded character makes Revelations one of the most humbling games I’ve played in recent years. It’s a real shame that I can’t really go in to more detail on my opinion on the matter without totally spoiling the game – but I nevertheless feel that people who have played though Ezios adventures will very much appreciate and enjoy his final instalment, and suffice it to say that “Revelations” is a perfectly apt title for this chapter of the series.

Revelations takes us away from Italy and takes us to Constantinople – the play space feels roughly the same as Rome in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood though the game isn’t entirely limited to this one location, thanks to some flashbacks that show you what happened to Altair after the end of the first game. Much like other cities in the game, Constantinople proves to be a great location for the series, with plenty of rooftops and walkways to free run and sneak around in. Getting around is very much similar to how it’s been in the previous games, though Ezios new Hookblade allows him to zip-line between certain buildings. Though the free running ability mostly works well, there are still some occasional issues with it – sometimes Ezio (or other characters) will exhibit some strange behaviour in certain places (for example in the video below, Ezio starts moving down a ladder when I’m pressing up), and there will be some situations where you can’t help but wonder to yourself “Ezio, what the hell are you doing?”

In fact, most of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is similar to its predecessors – combat is still mostly blocking and counter blocking, you still need to renovate shops and landmarks to earn money, and you can still recruit, train and summon Assassin’s to help you. One of the new additions to Revelations is a base defence mini game that you can play. If you get too notorious the Templars will take notice of you and attack one of your Assassin bases, in which you have to command your army of Assassin’s to defend the base as waves of enemies approach. It’s a fun game to play, though if you play your cards right you may never even see it beyond the mandatory tutorial mission.

Which is perhaps the biggest problem with Assassin’s Creed – there’s a decent amount of content here, but you may never see or use all of it unless you’re trying to 100% the game. The main story is about in line with the length of the other games (maybe a bit shorter), and there are abilities and tools at your disposal that you might completely forget about when you’re just focussing on completing the story. To get the most out of Assassin’s Creed it’s absolutely worth taking your time to explore all of your options before you jump in to the next story mission. Bomb Crafting is an excellent new addition to the game, but I found that I very rarely used it. Is that the fault of me, as the player for forgetting to use it? Or the games fault for failing to really provide you with a compelling incentive to use these abilities? I’m not so sure.

Graphically the engine that Assassin’s Creed is running on is starting to show its age a little – the game doesn’t necessarily look ugly, there are some beautiful moments in the game, but I’m not at all a fan of the orange fog that’s often seen in the city during the day, and when you’re on top of a tall building you start to notice a lot of familiar patterns that can make Constantinople look a little bland from a distance, but what’s here is certainly serviceable, though strangely enough when I look back, I still think that Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is the best looking game in the series.

As always the games sound design is superb – a lot of the familiar sounds are there, the voice acting is as good as it’s always been, and the soundtrack (which according to iTunes, contains 80 different tracks) is incredible once again, a definite treat for those holes on the side of your head for sure.

Much like its predecessor, Revelations contains a multiplayer mode – though it’s mostly similar to Brotherhood. If you liked the multiplayer there, then you’ll like it here. If not, then you’re out of luck.

But as is the case with the Assassin’s Creed series – this instalment is similar to previous titles with some minor improvements. Fans to the series are sure to enjoy the epic conclusion to Ezios story arc, but if you never cared for Assassin’s Creed then Revelations is unlikely to change your mind. Lets just hope that the next Assassin that we get to play as is at least half as likeable as Ezio has been!

What the game looks like

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations in action

The verdict

Good: Satisfying conclusion to Ezios story, incredible soundtrack, minor but worthwhile additions made

Bad: Free running system is about due for some fixes and tweaks, graphics are starting to look a little dated

• Developer: Sonic Team (360, PS3, PC), Devil’s Details (PC)
• Publisher: SEGA
• Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC (Reviewed)

Sonic the Hedgehog has always been a strange franchise for me, simply because over the years the series has attracted two different types of fans: those who love classic Sonic, and those who love the more modern iterations of the blue blur that we’ve seen in the last ten years or so. It makes it difficult to judge a Sonic game this way, since quite often it seems that the one side hates the other side, and I can only imagine what it must be like to develop a game under these circumstances.

Though there are titles that the fanbase can almost universally agree were bad games, there are others where there was more of a grey area – but recently Sonic games have definitely been on the up – Sonic Unleashed, released in 2008 – was the series’ first step in the right direction, but was marred by boring “Werehog” levels and hub worlds.

Then last year DS and Wii owners got to try their hand at Sonic Colours – which was similar to Unleashed but without the Werehog and hub worlds – instead all of the levels had power ups called Wisps that allowed you to exploit the level in different ways. It was a fun game – this time peoples complaints were that it was too short, and that sometimes the controls were a little unresponsive.

And now SEGA has released Sonic Generations to mark the Hedgehogs 20th anniversary, in which Sonic Team has taken the opportunity to try and cater to both new and older fans of the series by letting players control modern and classic Sonic. Sonic Generations takes a trip down memory lane as we revisit levels from previous games like Green Hill Zone, Seaside Hill, and Rooftop Run.

First and foremost: as you can see from the screenshots and videos in this review, the game looks incredible on all platforms – but especially on a good PC where you can run the game at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second. Green Hill Zone looks prettier than I could have ever imagined it to, and the graphical updates to the more recent games are certainly most welcome. Ever wondered what Planet Wisp from Sonic Colours on the Wii would look like in HD? Generations gives you that chance.

Sonic Generations has nine stages in total and splits them equally in to three eras: Genesis, Dreamcast, and Modern. The Genesis era has stages from Sonic 1 to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the Dreamcast era has stages from Sonic Adventure to Sonic Heroes, and the Modern era has stages from Sonic 2006 to last years Sonic Colours – covering most of the main games of the spikey blue hog’s 20 year career – both the good and the bad.

The soundtrack is equally amazing – with each act featuring remixes of the original track that went with the original level – Sky Sanctuary and Seaside Hill are among my favourites – but the whole soundtrack as a whole is pretty solid. There’s some cool sound effect too – when you boost as modern Sonic the music will distort, and when you’re underwater the music will get muffled – the classic stages even include the old sound effects for springs and jumps – and if you don’t like the music then Generations gives you the opportunity to change the level music to any of the tracks that you’ve unlocked. Hate the new remix of Green Hill Zone? Play it with the original music instead.

As I touched on earlier – Generations lets you play as both classic and modern Sonic. Each stage has two acts – Act 1 is the classic stage, where you play as old school Sonic the way you used to back in th’ day. Sonic plays exactly like he did in his early days here – with the only difference being that you only need to hold down one button to perform a spin dash – though you can still do it the old fashioned way if you want to.

Act 2 is the modern stage – which you play as Sonic using the gameplay mechanics that have been established since Sonic Unleashed in 2008 – albeit much more refined. Modern Sonic has a boost ability, and he can home in on enemies, as well as perform an air stomp to attack enemies from above. Though unlike in Sonic Unleashed modern Sonics levels have more emphasis on platforming rather than boosting your way through a stage for a few minutes, so modern Sonic definitely has more engaging and challenging gameplay than he used to.

Which style of play you prefer will probably depend on the year you were born. Older gamers will most likely get more out enjoyment out of the classic levels and the opposite will probably be true for younger gamers. Sonic Generations starts off easy – the first two thirds of the game have a steady difficulty curve – but I found that the last third of the game suddenly got much harder – especially the final act.

This especially applies to classic Sonic where enemies will often be waiting for you on the edge of platforms where you’re about to land. You might not necessarily lose a life because of it, but it can be damaging to the flow of the game when you’re constantly bumping in to enemies just because you didn’t perfectly land a jump on your first ever try – though this becomes less of an issue when you go back and replay levels, should you feel inclined to do so.

Speaking of replay value, there’s a lot of it here. Once you finish the main story there’s a wealth of additional challenges to try out – even if you don’t care about the concept art or music that you can unlock by playing them, they’re still fun enough to warrant going through by yourself – and once you finish the game you can unlock the ability to transform in to Super Sonic upon acquiring 50 rings in a level.

Unfortunately finishing the main story won’t take you long – I finished it in a little over four hours – I think this game could have benefitted from a few more acts or stages. Handheld games like Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush didn’t get any representation in this game – I think that some zones from those titles would have been welcomed by fans – even a few more acts in existing zones would have been nice to make the game last a little longer, I just hope that SEGA does a good job at releasing some more levels as DLC.

Nevertheless, Sonic Generations is the best Sonic game in years – even the most jaded of Sonic fans should at least give this a rental. Sonic is clearly starting to make a real comeback in the quality of his games – if Sega can keep this up then I can only see good things to come.

What the game looks like

Sonic Generations in action

The verdict

Good: Reimagined levels of yore will give you a nostalgia overload, lots of replay value, easily the best Sonic game in the last ten years, high production values

Bad: Main story is a bit on the short side, cheap traps on later classic levels, voice acting is a little ropey

The end of October marks a while year of me owning my MacBook Pro – which I ordered not too long after Steve Jobs gave his keynote on the Mac – where he introduced iLife 11, OS X Lion, and some new MacBook Airs. I decided to order the 13 inch MacBook Pro (specs here) that was available at the time. I’ve changed a few things in that year though – I changed the standard hard drive that came with the laptop – doubling its storage capacity with a 500GB drive, and I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion.

So first of all – why did I make the jump from Windows? To put it simply, my PC running Vista was starting to irritate me – coming up with random problems almost every day for reasons that I couldn’t figure out. I wanted to change Operating Systems – and my experience with Linux (more specifically – Ubuntu) had always left me feeling frustrated because of hardware incompatibilities.

I wanted something I could surf the web with and do some light PC gaming with but with a minimum of headaches. Luckily being 19 at the time and still living with my parents left me with enough disposable income to justify spending the money on a MacBook Pro – and the fact that Valve had bought Steam to the Mac was comforting – knowing that I could play favourites like Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 on my Mac was comforting and besides, I do most of my gaming on my Xbox 360 anyway.

So what were my first impressions of my shiny new Mac? Mostly positive. Everything seemed to work together well – and I was a big fan of using gestures on the big trackpad. One thing that irks me about laptop trackpads is how cumbersome they can feel to use – but even to this day, I couldn’t possibly think of going back to using a regular old trackpad. I do wish that it was a bit wider though – as sometimes I find I run out of trackpad space when I’m trying to drag something to the other end of the screen.

The keyboard is equally comfortable to use – though suffers from a few Americanisms – but it’s something that I got used to in time – but in the future I would like to see a proper British keyboard layout, as it can be a bit jarring when you go back to a standard keyboard for a while.

I was a little irritated when new MacBook Pro’s got released with i-series processors in them (as opposed to my Core2Duo) – but the technology world is such that your hardware is never more than a few months away from being surpassed – but in hindsight I definitely wish I had the patience to wait until Apple released the newer models before parting with my money.

So on the hardware side I’m happy with what I’ve got – though the built-in webcam could benefit from being better, it serves its purpose well enough – it’s just a question of if “well enough” is justifiable when you’re spending £999 on a laptop.

My feelings on the software are a bit more mixed though – I certainly don’t hate OS X, but I don’t think that it’s the holy grail of operating systems as some people would have you believe. There are things about the user interface that make me wonder what Apple was thinking. First of all – there’s no maximise button. Well, that’s not entirely true – it’s complicated.

There’s a maximise button in the sense that it’ll make the window bigger – but it won’t fill the whole desktop as you’d expect it to – to show you an example, here’s Google Chrome “maximised”:

Instead if you want the window to occupy the whole screen you have to click and drag the edges so that it fits – or hit the “full screen” button if you’re using an application in Lion that supports it. Of course there’s a plethora of keyboard shortcuts that you can use – but whether or not you want to go through the trouble of remembering them all is another case all together.

Another source of bother is that over time it feels as though my Mac has become slower – especially as far as startup times are concerned – which is strange considering I upgraded from a 5400RPM drive to a 7200RPM one. Upgrading to OS X Lion doesn’t seem to have helped things out either, and deleting everything and starting on a completely clean install of Lion (as opposed to my initial upgrade) didn’t appear to be of much use.

Speaking of which – I’m not a fan of OS X Lion being discless. Waiting for Lion to download from Apples servers can take a considerable amount of time – and even then afterwards my system was exactly the same – as though nothing had happened at all. It felt like I had to wrestle with the system in order for it to wipe everything so I could start anew again. A most frustrating experience indeed, and I hope this isn’t something that catches on with Windows and other operating systems. Never underestimate the usefulness of physical media.

Of course OS X has its upsides – I’ve grown rather fond of the dock, and it’s nice not having to worry about malware as much as you do with Windows (but of course, you still have to keep an eye out). The App Store is a nice idea, though it seems to be full of the same useless tat that you find on your typical mobile app store. It sells games as well – but with most of these being available on Steam (and with support for multiple platforms) I’m not sure why you’d bother getting them on the app store – how many platforms do you really need Angry Birds on anyway?

Do I regret my Mac purchase? No – I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve got. But would I buy another one when the time comes? I’m not so sure. Considering I recently built myself a dedicated gaming rig all I really need is a device for browsing the web with – and really, I could just do my research on some laptops, find out which ones have the best hardware compatibility with Ubuntu and save myself £999 – in fact, I may well install Ubuntu on this Mac long before I consider new hardware all together, as I recently tried 10.11 on a USB Stick and things appear to have been greatly improved upon.

• Developer: Splash Damage
• Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
• Platforms: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PlayStation 3, PC

Brink was one of the few FPS games that had my attention for this year – recently I’ve found myself getting fatigued with the genre – especially after last years Christmas releases with Medal of Honor (urgh), Halo: Reach and after having played Battlefield: Bad Company 2 throughout most of 2010. I was so bored of shooters in general that I couldn’t even muster up the motivation to finish playing Uncharted: Drakes Fortune which I rented last month.

So I was interested in Brink because at face value it offered something different from the crowd – team based play, an interesting mix of competitive and co-operative modes, and parkour running which I thought could make an FPS more interesting than simply running through rooms and corridors.

Brink is a team based shooter that plays similarly to Team Fortress 2 – there are four different classes – Soldier, Medic, Engineer and Operative, all with distinct roles to play in a match. Soldiers can plant demolition charges and can replenish ammunition for team mates, Medics can heal and revive injured team mates as well as being able to give them other buffs like increasing their sprint speed or raising the speed that their health regenerates. Engineers can boost the power of weapons and they can deploy turrets and mines. Operatives can disguise themselves as the enemy and can hack in to enemy communications.

It’s unfortunate that with all of this that Brink feels like a rushed mess – it doesn’t take a genius to realise that Brink is a game that could have spent much more time in development. As much as I really want to like Brink, and as much as I really want to tell everyone to go out and buy it I just can’t. Not in its current state.

First things first there’s a campaign mode that you can play with up to seven of your friends. 8 player co-operative play is impressive given that most games only allow for about 2 or 4 players – but it’s not so impressive when you realise that co-operative games are basically player vs bot matches that you’d otherwise play in multiplayer. The campaign is similar to offerings that you’d find in a game like Unreal Tournament 3.

If you find that you can’t get a group of 8 people together then the rest of your team will be buffed out with bots to play for you – but with my experience you’ll almost wish that they weren’t there. Bots consistently walk in front of your line of fire – and although there’s no friendly fire it still stops your bullets from reaching the target. The AI often doesn’t go for objectives – and in some cases I found that the AI would just sit around at unimportant areas of the map rather than trying to help out with the objective.

Enemy AI is a different story though – it’s not the smartest in the world but your foes will stick together and use their numbers as a way of trying to beat you – they can be lethal if they catch you off guard but at times I found that the enemy AI was just staring at me without making an effort to start attacking me. At times I even had enough time to deploy a turret right in front of an enemy that was staring straight at me.

Playing with more than four human players at the moment seems almost impossible due to some of the unbearable lag that the game suffers from – a patch is on the way to fix this, but I’d still hold out on buying Brink until the public can confirm that everything is running smoothly. Regardless – I can’t help but wonder how a multiplayer game got released when you can’t even play it online.

Another baffling design decision are the Command Posts – which are computer terminals placed on the map where you can change your class and your weapons – while this sounds like a good idea at first it never really works out well. The AI will constantly whinge about them, and it doesn’t allow for much flexibility when choosing your class.

There are three body types in Brink – light, medium and heavy. As you might expect the light class is quick on his feet, the heavy is slow but can take more damage, and the medium class tries to give you a mix of the two – favouring neither speed or health. The medium class is the only class you’ll really bother with but there’s no way to change your body type in game – not even when you’re waiting to respawn after you’ve died. If you want to change your body class then you have to quit all the way out to the main menu.

Another odd design decision are the challenges that you can take – which are aimed to teach you how to play the game. However you also need to play these if you want to unlock attachments for your weapons (like red dot sights, silencers and so on). These modes can be played co-operatively but you won’t unlock anything unless you play the game solo – and neither the game or the game manuel inform you of this.

Brink is a perfect example of a good idea executed poorly – the campaign and multiplayer showed promise, but through a lack of maps, modes, and general polish it proves to be a huge letdown – a real shame since this was one of my most anticipated shooters of this year. The performance issues that have plagued the game since release day will no doubt have a negative impact on the numbers of people that play it. Releasing a multiplayer game that you can’t even play with other people is unacceptable – and Brink will suffer as a result. Even when (if) the lag issues are fixed I’m not sure that I could recommend this game to people – I certainly couldn’t recommend paying over £15 for it at the least.

What the game looks like

Brink in action

The verdict

Good: Visual style that’s not commonly seen in shooters, team based gameplay

Bad: Terrible lag when playing with 4+ players, all the weapons are basically the same, small number of levels, parkour system never really comes in to play.

It’s a question that I’ve long pondered to myself: What does it mean when a reviewer hands out a ten out of ten score? For one thing it’s obvious that they enjoyed using whatever they reviewed (for the sake of the argument I’ll use video games as examples), but are they saying that what they reviewed is perfect? To say that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a game – that’s a bold statement to make.

The saying may be age old and yet it still rings true: Nothing is perfect. Game developers know this, consumers know this, and I would hope that journalists know this too – and yet ten out of ten game ratings often feel like they’re being handed out left right and centre.

Grand Theft Auto IV is a game that received a lot of praise from critics – indeed the MetaCritic page for the PS3 version contains 37 10/10 scores – so lets take a look at one of the reviews for the game. Everyone’s heard of IGN, so we’ll take a look at that.

I’m not going to get in to the semantics of whether or not GTA IV was a good game or a bad one in this post – but what does a reader take away from these numbers? It’s obvious that the game is good but in what respect? Is it just excellent value for money? Is it pushing the boundaries of typical game design and bringing in some great innovation? Is it gaming perfection?

It makes me wonder if numerical rating systems are really the way to go for reviews – not only for games either, but for TVs, phones and various other things that you could find a review for out there.

I’ve never liked assigning a numerical value to how good or bad I feel a game is in the reviews that I write because I feel like I’m tying myself in to a system where a reader can (and they will) point out inconsistencies in the ways that I judge games. If that happens then surely the reader loses confidence in what the writer has to say?

I’ve always thought that if the reader doesn’t want to read a full review then a few quick points about what’s good and what’s bad is far more informative than a number ever could be. Everyone who I ask has a different interpretation of what a 10/10 score represents -some think it means the game is perfect, others that it simply offers good value for money, and others that it’s far better than anything else that’s out there at the moment.

And that’s the flaw – a review should inform the reader, and with that information the reader can then decide whether or not it’s right for them. So why not end a review in such a way? A couple of simple, bite-sized infochunks for the reader to digest on. It’s quick, straight to the point, and much more informative than some arbitrary number could ever be.

• Developer: Valve
• Publisher: Valve (Steam), EA (Boxed versions)
• Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (reviewed), Windows, Mac OS X

Note: Due to the PSN outages I have been unable to play the co-operative mode that comes with the game. As a result this is a review of the single player portion of the game only.

The original Portal started off as a small addition to The Orange Box in 2007 – released along side Valves much bigger titles like Half-Life and Team Fortress 2. Perhaps as a surprise to Valve the game proved to be immensely popular. The Internet became ablaze with comments about Cake and appreciation for the dark humour in the game.

In that respect Portal 2 offers more of the same – more puzzles, humour, and gags that are sure to become popular Internet memes. There’s still a small cast of characters – with GLaDOS and Chell from the first instalment making a return, as well as a new character called Wheatley, who wakes the player up at the start of the game to try and escape the ruined Aperture Science facility.

Of course Chell remains as silent as ever – and it’s mostly GLaDOS or Wheatley who do the talking. GLaDOS retains her trademark passive agressive attitude and witty and sinister personality. Wheatley on the other hand could be considered the polar opposite of GLaDOS – coming across as much more friendly, but also somewhat clumsy.

It’s surprising how much of a bond you get with the two characters – especially considering that the two of them are basically just robots. Valve has done an excellent job at humanising the two and you can feel a real connection to them – it’s difficult to dislike either of them, including GLaDOS – who seems to be perfectly willing to put your life on the line in the name of science.

Beyond this the gameplay is much the same – you’ve got a Portal gun that can fire two Portals at once that you can walk through to complete test chambers and puzzles – but this time around there are more resources to take advantage of like bridges, lasers, and “aerial faith plates” that fling you in to the air.

Portal 2 took me about 9 hours to complete – with the later test chambers really testing my ability to think with portals. It’s just a shame that as soon as the game got challenging that the game was over – I would have really liked to have seen some more test chambers that make more use out of the new obstacles that are present in the game. Though luckily there’s some free DLC coming out to fix this later in the year.

About midway through the game you’ll find yourself mostly wandering the more forgotten parts of the facility and it provides a nice change of scenery – but often you’ll find that you’re not really trying to solve a puzzle – you’re just searching for a wall that you can put a Portal on. It can ruin the flow of the game when it isn’t immediately obvious where you’ve got to go.

Now where do you put the Portal to?

Overall though Portal 2 provides a satisfying and fulfilling experience. Fans of the original Portal will no doubt enjoy what’s on offer here and Portal 2 certainly introduces its own unique challenges that you won’t find elsewhere.

The only real problem is the lack of replay value – once you’ve solved all of the puzzles there’s little that you can do with it since you already know how to solve everything. Of course I have no doubt that Valve will continue to support the game – but for how long remains to be seen.

On the topic of replay value I would have liked to have seen an in game level editor – something similar to Forge in Halo: Reach could have worked really well in a Portal game – instead it seems that only PC players with access to modding tools will be able to create their own levels – a shame since console players have always shown an interest in creating and sharing their own custom content.

Right about now Portal 2 makes for a solid rental – at least until some more content becomes available – but keep in mind that this is a verdict that I’m making without having played the co-operative mode (thanks to the PSN outages).

What the game looks like

Portal 2 in action

Note: This video may spoil the enjoyment of the game, since this gameplay video demonstrates how to complete a test chamber.

The verdict

Good: Challenging puzzles, decent length, notable improvements over its predecessor, PS3 and PC players can play together

Bad: Feels like there should be more, no map editor for console gamers, fantastic voice acting

Halo: Reach launched last September to much controversy among Halo players. Some people loved Armour Abilities, others not so much – some liked the smaller tweaks like bloom and the removal of the Battle Rifle – others thought it was the worst thing to happen to the series (talk about hyperbole, right?).

Indeed the Halo player base is so diverse it seems that the community can’t seem to agree on anything – so from what point of view am I reviewing this map pack from? I consider myself to be in between the casual and competitive crowd – I’m probably average in terms of player skill, and I generally don’t care if I win or lose a multiplayer game. If you’re the type of person who rages about Armour Lock and Bloom this review probably isn’t for you.

An interesting note to make is that these are the first maps for Reach that aren’t made by Bungie, the developer of the game. Instead this map pack was made by a division of Microsoft called 343 Industries (Or 343i as it’s often called) and Certain Affinity – a developer made up of a number of ex-Bungie employees, and it’s also played a hand in some previous Halo related content – such as the Blastacular Map Pack for Halo 2.

The Defiant Map Pack was released on the 15th March and comes with three new maps: two are traditional multiplayer maps, and the other is a new Firefight map. The Defiant Map Pack will set you back 800 Microsoft Points (approximately £6.85, or $10). So lets get this review underway by taking a look at each individual map:

Highlands

Highlands is the biggest map in the Defiant Map Pack – and it’s suited to 6 v 6 or higher games. Highlands feels like it could be a spiritual successor to Valhalla from Halo 3 – with two bases on either side of the map and key areas in the middle of the map that are worth defending.

On paper Highlands has all the right pieces to be a good map – there are key areas to hold, some vehicles to play with and different paths around the map so everyone doesn’t get congested in to one spot (an issue that Valhalla in Halo 3 used to suffer from). Instead of placing power weapons in the middle of the map, they’re placed on the sides, giving you some breathing room.

The trouble with Highlands is that there’s too many different places to go – the map is generally too big and there are too many places to go. In a 6v6 match (the only way you’re guaranteed to get a match on Highlands at the moment) the map feels empty and I found myself getting bored of wandering around with nothing to shoot. Objective games like Capture the Flag give the map a little more focus, but it’s not enough to save the map from becoming a complete snoozefest. If Highlands was a little narrower things could be better – what’s worse is that the Forge palette for Highlands is extremely limited, so if you want to change the layout of the map by adding in walls or doors then you’re out of luck, so what we’ve got is a map that’s too big for most game modes with no easy fix.

Condemned

Condemned is the second multiplayer map in the Defiant Map Pack and focuses more on infantry combat rather than the more large scale, vehicle focussed affairs provided on Highlands. The general layout of the map is simple: A large circular structure with a small, low gravity room in the middle.

Condemned works well for 6v6 games and is probably the best map in the map pack but it’s hard to imagine it working for less than twelve players unless you’re playing a free-for-all game. The middle, low gravity room is a fun gimmick, but you quickly realise that the entire room is a death trap since you can’t jump (or fall) as quickly as you can in regular gravity, opening you up to fire from all sides.

Condemned features a slightly better Forge palette than Highlands does but it’s still something that could be improved. You can spawn small scenery items and items that change the special effects on the map (Like changing everything to black and white, increased colour saturation, etc) but there aren’t any options for adding in doors or walls to block parts of the map off – so if you’ve got an idea for a cool map varient then you’re out of luck.

While playing I found that Condemned worked particularly well for Elite Slayer (as seen in the video above) and other objective game modes, but I found that the experience fell flat in standard Slayer modes.

Unearthed

Unearthed is the Firefight map that comes with the Defiant Map Pack – and promises to provide a more vehicle focussed take on the survival game mode. Similar to Beachhead (a Firefight map that shipped with the full game) you get a Rocket ‘Hog to ride around in.

Those of you who don’t feel like slaying hordes of xenophobic aliens in a four wheeled death machine with an unlimited supply of rockets (and if you don’t – what’s wrong with you?) can take advantage of the elevated walkways to get the jump on some unsuspecting squid heads. Bip Bap Bam!

Unearthed is a great map – and it’s nice to get some more Firefight maps that take advantage of the arsenal of vehicles within Reach – it’s just that I think that 343i are missing a trick with this one. So far all of the Firefight maps in Reach only have Rocket ‘Hogs, Ghosts, Wraiths and Mongooses – but what about the rest? No Falcons, no Banshees (none that you can use at least), no Revenants, and no Scorpions. I’d really like to see future Firefight maps that properly take advantage of the vehicles in the game, rather than just having Beachhead 2.0.

The biggest problem with Unearthed isn’t necessarily with the map itself, but rather the monumental effort it takes just to get Matchmaking to give you a game on it. It took twelve attempts over the course of about 30 minutes just to get one game on Unearthed – and after that I decided that I couldn’t be bothered any more. Perhaps this is a situation that’ll improve over time as more people get the Defiant Map Pack, but my initial thoughts weren’t positive – what’s the point in a new Firefight map if you never get to play it?

Overall thoughts

The Defiant Map Pack isn’t bad – but it’s not great either – we’ll file this one under “it’s okay”. More Firefight maps are a welcome addition but I feel that these should be bundled separately from the other competitive maps – so that way people who aren’t interested in Firefight don’t get forced in to buying a map that they don’t want.

Beyond that the two competitive maps are okay, but nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking, and at times lack the smooth flow and focus of other Halo maps, with Highlands in particular being devoid of any action in even the most populated game modes.

Only the hardcore Halo fans need apply here – more casual players will probably be content with what’s already on the map, or would be better off buying the Noble Map Pack that was released several months ago. I feel that there’s a serious issue with the value that these maps provide – since outside of the dedicated Defiant Map Pack playlist it’s unlikely that you’ll see these new maps appear in Matchmaking. Is it worth paying 800 points for three maps that you’ll rarely get to play? I’m not convinced that it is.