Before I go on to that part of the game however lets focus on the other more familiar points of the game. Starting with controls it’s nice to see the game has gone back to using the four strong grapple routine which hasn’t been seen since Smackdown Vs Raw 2007. No more annoying ultimate control moves that don’t work … although there are a couple still there – but it’s nice to have a few included. I find that the controls are altogether more fluent and there are some new ones as well such as a strong strike for superstars with that ability.

Another thing that has dramatically changed for the first time in the series (including the Smackdown! series before that) is the HUD. Instead of the familiar display in the top left hand corner (if your player 1) you instead get a ring around your superstars feet. There is I feel advantages and disadvantages to this. The disadvantage is you lose the image of your opponent’s body saying if his head if red, orange, yellow etc however I suppose this makes the game more life like. The great advantage comes with the Royal Rumble. Before you could only have six superstars at a time because only six could fit on the screen. However now because the HUD is on the floor you can have more than six making the Royal Rumble seem more real. You can also unfortunately no longer store finishers (except in the Royal Rumble) but this is only a minor fault.

Onto the game modes the popular ‘Road to Wrestlemania’ mode is back with 6 new superstars. You can play as Shawn Michaels, Edge, Randy Orton, Mickie James or even your created superstar! There’s also a special co-op one (which can be done singularly) with John Cena and Triple H. Each of the 6 options offer the final 13 weeks before Wrestlemania. In the co-op mode you even get to play more than 13 matches, sometimes having to do a match at Raw and one at Smackdown in the same week.

Another thing that has grown since Smackdown Vs Raw 2009 is the abilities. There are now more than ever and nearly all of them have been revamped. There are a total of 21 abilities including some familiar ones such as: Kip-Up, Referee Shield and Possum Pin. There are also some new ones such as: Ring Escape, Fired Up and Exploder TB Attack.

The most impressive thing in the game which will give it a lifetime of playing has to be the WWE Story Designer. Well there is a slight lie. The main part of the infinite lifetime is being able to upload it online and then download other peoples and play them. Unfortunately this is only available on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. Anyway as you can imagine you design stories. Think of it as creating a show for Raw, Smackdown or ECW. There are set moments in which you can change the superstars involved, add music, change the camera and even input the text. Unfortunately the superstars don’t read aloud the text but that would be impossible anyway. Maybe in a couple of year’s time it will be possible, but not yet. Regardless of that the story designer is still brilliant. You could re-enact the ‘Monday Night Wars’ between WCW and WWF, you could re-enact DX ruining Mr.McMahon’s life. You could even create something completely different such as … DX taking over WWE – well that wouldn’t be new but it would be funny.

With the set moments you can also add matches. When you play the story you play the matches as well. As designer of the story though you get to choose who the player will play as. Who will win, how one superstar will lose etc. Basically you control everything. There is a slight downside to the owners of the PS3 and Xbox 360 as there always is on brilliant ideas. If you were thinking of making a story with your created wrestler I would advise strongly against because it’s just not possible. There is a limit to how many scenes your CAW can be in and the answer is a pathetic 10. You can’t even make a decent rivalry with that many scenes. If you thinking why not make 10 identical CAWS don’t think you can have them in 100 scenes. It’s not 10 scenes per CAW it’s 10 scenes overall which means you could only have a maximum of 10 different CAWS in 1 scene each.

Another new create mode is that you can create up to 3 different attires for your wrestlers. Even for the normal wrestlers. On top of this there are more moves in the create a finisher mode and of course the popular highlight reel is back. You can even use it create a entrance movie for your superstar (you even get a trophy/achievement for doing it).

One last thing that should be said is the new matches available. The Royal Rumble although not a new match has been upgraded. Instead of only having the annoying button mashing mini game there are now two extra ones. It all depends on where you have the superstar you want to chuck out. If they are lying on the apron you have to press any button to try and stop the moving gauge in the ever shrinking blue area twice before the blue area vanishes. If they are groggy against the ropes you must rapidly press buttons but there is a skill involved. You press certain buttons at certain times. Lastly if there in the corner then you mist press three buttons that appear on the screen quicker than your opponent in a row to eliminate them. The other new match in the game is the Championship Scramble match which has the same concept as the elimination chamber (except without the chamber and the elimination), basically whoever pinned a superstar last at the end of the time limit wins the championship.

Overall this game rates well above its predecessor. I would give it 94%.

Now the fourth Harry Potter game was completely rubbish. It was a totally different gameplay to the other games and the age rating (7+) probably should have been more like 7, because it seemed like the game was made for seven year olds. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the other hand is a lot better. It’s a 7+ again but in this game it doesn’t matter what age you are, you will still enjoy … unless of course you utterly despise Harry Potter but why would you be reading this if you did?

The style of the game is what people call a “sandbox”. Just like games such as GTA it basically means you can go pretty much anyone and do things in your own order, within a certain boundary. An example of this in the game is when you have to collect all of the members of Dumbledore’s Army. The game doesn’t tell you what order you must collect them, so you can go in any order you wish. Another brilliant thing in this game which we have just seen recently in the Sims 3 is that there are no loading screens. The whole of the Hogwarts School and grounds are loaded all the time. You don’t even get a slight pause as you go from one area to the next, it runs very smoothly.

One of the main features of this game is the spells. Owners of a Wii will have more fun casting spells in the game as they simply swish the wii remote in a certain direction to cast that spell. However don’t think if you own a Playstation 3 you are missing out on much, because you also do it on the PS3. You have two options … you can either cast spells by using the right analog stick or you can enable the motion sensitivity function and move the whole Playstation 3 controller to cast the spell. So really with the Playstation 3 version you are getting better graphics than the Wii and also the same motion control. If you’re lucky enough to own both the Wii and Playstation 3 you’ll probably better buying on the PS3.

As you walk around the grounds you will notice that there are quite a few things not quite right: such as paintings on the floor and statues covered up by curtains. You can use your spells on these objects and earn discovery points which in turn make your spells stronger. Another thing in the game is the portraits. As with the film and book versions all portraits need passwords and you need to find out what they are. It’s no use searching for them on the internet because you can’t type them in. The portraits give you clues as to what they are … some even just tell you the password straight away.

One of the unfortunate disadvantages of this game is that is quite short. Although saying that if you don’t rush through it you will find it will take quite a while to get 100% on the game. Many people say they complete this game within an hour. I can tell you that it is completely impossible to do that even if you’re on the easiest difficulty. If you’re on normal difficulty and play it at a steady pace this game should last you at least for over 10 hours … and that for a game is actually quite reasonable.

I think overall this game is very good … although non Harry Potter fans wouldn’t think it was as good as I’m saying. In conclusion buy this game only if you’re either a Harry Potter fan or you like a good RPG game because it is very good. I would rate it 88%

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This game has more matches, more special features and more … moves than any of the previous wrestling games and I’m talking about that on all consoles not just the Wii. 24/7 mode in the previous game is replaced by the “Road to Wrestlemania” mode which is outstanding. The only downside is that there are only 7 superstars you can choose from: Triple H; John Cena; CM Punk; The Undertaker, Batista, Rey Mysterio and Chris Jericho. However each superstar has a unique story mode which has cut scenes and storylines made especially for the superstar. For the first time ever there is a co-op story mode with Mysterio and Batista so you can play two players.

Another new mode which replaces the highly criticised GM mode is the Career Mode. In this mode you selected your chosen superstar (even created ones) and play matches to get to the championships. It is very strategy based because you have to try to get a good rating from each of your matches. To achieve a high rating you have to complete little mini-missions such as “use your finisher 4 times” or “taunt 8 times” etc.

One of the best features about this game has to be the “Create-A-Finisher” mode where you go really in-depth into the making of a move. However unfortunately this is not available on the Wii or DS versions of the game.

But the Wii version makes up for that a lot! New to any wrestling game made and exclusive to the Wii version is the entrance. As your superstar is waking in you can get him to raise his arm, taunt the crowd etc while walking in to the ring. A good point for this is that it’s not just a part of the game that means nothing, the more taunts you do the higher momentum you start off with when the match begins. The best part though is the ending of the match. You can pick the person up and go to shake his hand and then knock him out. You can get the referee to lift your arm up and then hit him as well!

The new matches available in the game are great. Inferno matches, gauntlet matches and for the Wii … well normal matches! The wii has over 4 times as many matches as it did last year which seems a lot but remember it only had like 7 matches. Some matches have been readjusted, especially the tag team ones. The main focus for the game is on tag-teams and so the matches have been re-done. New things such as “hot-tags” and even new strategies for the computer players have made the tag team matches brilliant.

Online play is also available for the PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii version as well as voice chat being enabled on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. The best thing about this is that there will be plenty of downloadable content available which will keep the game from being out-dated.

Overall I think that this game has thoroughly improved on the last version, especially for the Wii console. Which is why I’m giving it a 91% overall rating.

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The concept of the game is based around the World War II period and you will be fighting a lot of Japanese fighters. The main story is split in to two parts. The first part is focusing on the Marine Raiders which are the Americans in which you face the Japanese at the end of the Second World War The second part of the story is you playing as the Red Army which are the Russians. In this story you face against Nazi Germany set in the same time period as the previous story.

That however is what is in the single player mode. Another mode which I will mention first is that of co-op mode which is offline. The difference between multiplayer mode and co-op mode is that you play multiplayer mode with people on different consoles, while on co-op mode you play with people on the same console. So in co-op mode you and your friends can play through missions or other types of games which are really fun. There’s capture the flag, free for all and team death match just to name a few. However one bad thing about this game which I was really let down with is the same thing that I was disappointed with on Call of Duty 4. The fact that there is no online co-op mode. So if you want to play online with your friends its one player only which is too bad, if this was an option then this game could score maximum points.

The multiplayer mode is also really good in the game but like I pointed out earlier is a let down because there is no co-op online mode. In multiplayer mode you can do pretty much all the stuff you can do in co-op mode except that it’s online with other people instead of people on your console. My experience of multiplayer mode is okay but in my opinion it’s not brilliant. To be honest in some cases I found co-op mode being better. It’s good to get a microphone so you can talk to other people online which is cool … if it worked brilliantly. Unfortunately for me it did not, not because I can’t install anything or it was faulty because it wasn’t. The problem is Call of Duty is quite a noisy game and so when you’re concentrating hard on the game and you can faintly hear the other players talking … even when your headphones are turned right up. A brilliant game that uses online speaking greatly has to be Halo 3. The words other people speak are so clear you can hear them fine. I wish I could say the same for this game.

I’d like to point out that although many places point out there is online co-op mode it is not that which I am talking about. They are talking about 4 players on different consoles playing online which is what I have said about as multiplayer. The 4 player co-op mode I am talking about is actually 4 people on the same console playing online together with other people on different consoles in a match.

I would also like to say that the Playstation 2 version is slightly different from the other versions in the fact that it also features an additional story line which involves you taking control of the British.

Overall I think that this is still a brilliant game it’s just a shame about the co-op. 9.4 rating!

This game features all of the previous 3 Indiana Jones films, and of course like the previous 3 lego games this game adds a sense of comedy to the 3 films. You can control a number of characters which are all made out of lego! The main character of course being Indiana Jones himself.

With the 3 films in the game all of them are split into 6 chapters. In each chapter you have to progress the end while along the way finding Lego Studs, Artifact Pieces, Parcels and various other equipment ranging from guns to spades. The Lego Studs are just the same as in the other games where silver studs are worth 10 studs, gold studs are worth 100 studs, blue studs are worth 1,000 studs and purple studs are worth 10,000 studs. You must find a certain number of studs to get “True Adventurer” in each level. Artifact Pieces are just like Lego Canisters/Minikits in the previous games. There are 10 in each level which you have to find and some will be in hard-to-reach places where only certain characters can get to. Parcels on the other hand and much rarer than artifact pieces and are similar to the red power bricks in other games. There is only 1 in each level, once found you then have to find a post-box to mail it back to Barnett College.

There are over 80 characters in Lego Indiana Jones and most of them have some type of special ability, of course some have none. There are a total of 9 types of special abilities, which I will go into in another review. However I will tell you all 9 of them. They are: The Academic Ability, The Enemy Disguise Ability, The Excavate Ability, The Explosion Ability, The Glass-Shattering Ability, The Repair Ability, The Super Jump Ability, The Tiny Size Ability and the Thuggee Chant Ability.

However unfortunately some characters also have fears. These fears will stop the character from advancing any further. Indiana Jones for example has a fear of snakes. So when ever he comes across a snake (which you will) he stops dead and won’t get any closer. You have to get another character to hit the snake before you can advance any further, unless you want to leave Indiana Jones there on his own. Other characters have fears of spiders etc.

The game play in Indiana Jones is very fulfilling and very enjoyable. This is the type of game where it is quite difficult to get bored (unless you have a small attention span). Each area is unique to each other so you will never find yourself in the same area twice (unless you play in the same area for free play).

Just like the previous lego games you first have to do story mode for each chapter. Then after you have done story mode for that chapter you can advance to free play, In free play you will be able to go back and get things you missed as you can also play as any character you wish. There are no more limitations and there is likely to be many artifact pieces that you have missed along your journey, you must collect them to get 100% in the game.

I think that overall this is a well balanced game and that a score of 8.9 should be awarded to it.

For more reviews on Lego Indiana Jones visit Test Freaks

PS2 & PC: 01/06/07
PSP & Xbox 360: 26/10/07
Wii: 07/12/07

This tomb raider game has to be the best one yet, I mean the graphics are great and it is so much a improvement of the first tomb raider game in 1996. Yea, for all you who didn’t know this game is a remake of the original tom raider game in 1996, and what a remake it is. The storyline for the first game in my opinion was good but unfortunately due to the time it was made the graphics are rubbish. Well they were good when it was made but it’s rubbish now. However this game has now put great graphics into a great storyline which has to be great news.

Even better good news is the fact that it is on 5 platforms: PSP, PS2, Xbox 360, PC and the Wii and nearly everyone has one of these platforms so nearly anyone can get the game. Although this game is a remake of the first game it is not a exact one. There are changes in the game (obviously) most of which are for better. There are also changes from the last tomb raider game (Legend). Unfortunately some changes such as lara no longer having a headset and no binoculars etc are some disappointing points. However there are plenty of comebacks such as the grappling hook and weapons such as the shotgun. There are also some improved features such as more graphics etc. Also you should expect a minimum of 15 hours of gameplay unlike tomb raider: legend which was lower.

At the start of the game you can see it takes place in New Mexico in 1945 on what looks to be a radioactive dump. You can see a explosion and then a weird winged creature flies out. You can see the opening just below here:

Basically the storyline CONTAINS SPOILERS is about lara racing against Natla where both of them and trying to capture the scion. Natla is trying to rule the world while lara is trying to save it. The game ends with lara confronting Natla in the final boss battle and Natla being killed by the collapsing of the island they are on. Lara manages to flee and sails off into the horizon. Maybe for the first time in the tomb raider series lara has actually killed a human enemy. She shoots her enemy Larson in the chest three times.

There are 4 different locations in this new game which include Peru, Greece, Egypt and the Lost Island, on them you will meet a lot of new enemies as well including mutants, crocodiles and centaurs. You will also meet just like in the first game a lot of dinosaurs such as Velociraptors and you even get a big boss battle with the legendary Tyrannosaurus Rex quite early in the game.

As I wrote earlier this game is still quite a bit different from the first tomb raider game. In the main aspect that the fact it is a lot harder. For example there are a lot of cliffs in this game as there were in the first game, however in the first game you could not fall off cliffs. It just wouldn’t let you, it was like there was a invisible forcefield along the cliff edge. Unluckily for you this is not the case in this new game. So yes you can die by falling off the cliff, there are many positive points for this, one of the most obvious being that it makes the game a lot more challenging, another being it is easy to kill lara and watch her splat on the floor.

There are many references in this game to other tomb raider previous games. Such as many references to the second tomb raider game: Dagger of Xian. For example lara reads about the dagger of xian which she tracks down in the second tomb raider game. She also reads about other artifacts such as the Isis Stone which she finds in the third tomb raider game.

Keeley Hawes makes a comeback appearance as the voice of lara croft as does alan shearman as Winston the butler. There are also many newcomers such as Dave Wittenberg who plays Larson who has been in a few tomb raider games before. The game has been given a average of 8/10 on al consoles scoring highest on the PC with a score of 9.8/10. You can see the trailer of the game just below here:

I myself would give this game a score of 8.9/10 for the PS2 version.