2010’s gaming predictions: checkpoint reality

Way back in December 2009 I made a few predictions for this year. How did I do? Considering I’m not Mystic Meg, not too badly. Prediction: Natal launch games include Killer Instinct 3, Fable 3 and a mini-game package featuring Avatars. I was kind of right here. Fable 3 was going to have Kinect elements …

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It’s on like Tron

UK Charts In the Christmas chart every game in the top 10 was a sequel or part of a franchise. Had this week’s chart been the Christmas chart though then that wouldn’t have been the case thanks to Kinect Sports sliding up #15 to #8 and Michael Jackson: The Experience jiving from #12 to #10. …

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Metacritic’s Worst of 2010

Metacritic’s worst 10 games of 2010 has worked out pretty evenly between formats – there are a couple of Kinect titles, a few multi-format jobbies and one each on the list for PlayStation Move, WiiWare and PSN. As you may have predicted, a few of these are movie tie-ins. Some things never change. Did you …

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Gran Turismo 5

“I like driving in my car, it’s not quite a jaguar… beep beep!”. Unfortunately that’s not how Gran Turismo 5 introduces itself. Instead, after more than five years of development and numerous delays, GT5 opens with a torturously long CGI sequence of a car being made and eventually driven, set to somber tones. This is …

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Hot Wheels: Track Attack

Hot Wheels: Track Attack teaches children a valuable lesson: that having fun gets you nowhere; it’s a methodical, cautious, mundane approach that yields results. That’s especially true of about two-fifths of the game: the Checkpoint and Token Grab events, which tend to be unreasonably difficult to complete in any manner involving fun. In the former, …

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It’s Christmas! Let’s shoot people!

UK Charts Between them, Activision, EA and Ubisoft rule the top 5 this week – Call of Duty: Black Ops is rather predictably Christmas #1 and is followed by FIFA 11 at #2, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit at #3, Just Dance 2 at #4 and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood at #5. Nintendo takes command of …

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Marvel Super Hero Squad: The Infinity Gauntlet

An early cut-scene in this Lego Star Wars-inspired romp sees Thor playing with a rubber duck in the bath before complaining that one of his fellow superheroes has spilled his lavender scented fluid of cleansing. This doesn’t do much for Thor’s manly image, but it does set the tone of the game rather nicely. The …

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That’ll leave a mark

There’s pleasure to be had by ripping open one of those bags that magazines come in nowadays. I think it’s from knowing that you’re the first one to flick though its pages. Have you ever taken a good look at the amount of exclamation marks the writers use on their bags in order to drum …

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Wheel of Fortune

The mind boggles at the opportunities a Wheel of Fortune video game might present: imagine Carole Smilie turning the letters for John Leslie. Their tenures on the show never overlapped, but in the virtual world, anything could have been possible. But no: here you can play Wheel of Fortune, or you can not play Wheel …

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Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

It’s fair to say that 2010 has been a vintage year for racing games. We’ve had Split/Second and Blur with their manic destruction while Codemasters showed us what they could do with the Formula 1 franchise. Gran Turismo 5 turned out to be worth the wait (well, almost) and both ModNation Racers and Sonic & …

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Donkey Kong climbs

UK Charts There’s no joy for Golden Sun: Dark Dawn in this week’s top 40 chart but Epic Mickey has finally made an appearance at a rather lowly #37. Call of Duty: Black Ops holds onto #1 and is followed by FIFA 11 at #2 and new entry World of Warcraft: Cataclysm at #3. Donkey …

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Doritos Crash Course / Harms Way

Mini Reviews As a lazy videogame journalist might say: “Christmas has come early for Xbox 360 owners as there’s two free arcade games currently available”. I’m not lazy though, so I’d never say anything like that. Nope. The two in question are Doritos Crash Course and Harms Way, both of which are finalists of the …

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Truth or Lies

Before I even put Truth or Lies inside my 360 I knew that there was going to be a problem. I’m not talking about the fact that it requires a microphone and won’t work with the Xbox 360’s headset (you know, the one that nearly all Xbox owners have access to) but rather the fact …

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Golden brown, texture like sun…

This Week’s Games Even though Christmas is a couple of weeks away today sees the last big release of the year – DS RPG Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. NGamer gave it 92% and some of our followers on Twitter who imported the US version say it’s very good indeed. You may remember the Golden Sun …

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Barbie: Groom and Glam Pups

Matt thought it would be a good idea to review Barbie: Groom and Glam Pups in the style of a pre-teen magazine writer. For research he purchased every magazine available from his local newsagents. He now loves Justin Bieber, owns all the Jacqueline Wilson books and has the second largest collection of lip gloss in …

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