Wii Hidden Gems #7 - Sam & Max: Season One

This time I'm taking a look at the Wii version of Sam & Max Season One.  The titular duo are freelance police, with Sam being a dog and Max being a "hyperkinetic rabbity thing" as the game often describes him.  They were created by Steve Purcell and originated as a comic book form in 1986, where they developed a cult following.  After Purcell became employed at LucasArts and worked on the graphics for titles such as Monkey Island 1 and 2, he was given the chance to make his own Sam & Max graphic adventure, which was subtitled Hit the Road and was released in 1993.  The game became hugely popular and ranks up there with the true classics of the genre, securing Sam & Max a much bigger audience.  In 1997 there was a fairly short lived TV series starring the duo, but then things went silent for quite some time.

Fast forward to around 2002, and there was word that a new Sam & Max game was in development, a true sequel to Hit the Road.  Unfortunately LucasArts decided to pull the plug on the project in March of 2004, which was the impetus for Dan Connors, Kevin Bruner and Troy Molander to leave and start their own company, Telltale Games.  After moderate success with early titles like Telltale Texas Hold 'Em, Bone, and some licensed CSI games, they manage to secure the rights for new Sam & Max games directly from Steve Purcell.  The six episode first season was originally made available from October 2006 to April 2007 on the PC, with the Wii version appearing on the Wii Shop in 2008.  A physical version containing all six episodes and some fairly inconsequential bonus materials was published by The Adventure Company in 2008.  The game was hugely successful for Telltale, and led to two further seasons for Sam & Max, as well as future series like Tales of Monkey Island, Back to the Future: The Game and The Walking Dead.  Nowadays Telltale Games are a really big deal in the industry, securing the rights to huge properties like Game of Thrones, Minecraft and Batman.  I intend review each of their series eventually, but I am starting here with Sam & Max: Season One, aka Save the World. 

Plot and Character: 8 out of 10
As each episode of Sam & Max: Season One introduces new characters and develops old ones, I am going to break them down into their own mini segments with my thoughts on each. Overall though the characters are very strong and entertainingly written.  One or two of them are on the verge of being extremely irritating but that is deliberate.  While there is an overarching plot that connects each episode to the one after it, the thread is pretty thin in this season to be honest, and Telltale definitely get much better at this by the time we get to Season Three.

The season premiere sees our crime fighting duo investigating an outbreak of hypnotism.  This episode introduces us to The Soda Poppers, former child stars who used to appear on an old sitcom called "Soda Jerks".  Each of them have their own characteristics and catchphrase - we have Whizzer, whose overactive bladder can cause him to rush off to the bathroom every few minutes ("Time out for number one!"), Peepers, whose over sized eyeballs give him fantastic vision ("I can see you!", and Specs, a super obsessive control freak who absolutely hates it when others ruin his plans ("You made me mess up!").  We also meet recurring characters Jimmy Two Teeth, who is a shady rat who lives in a hole in Sam and Max's office.  In this first episode, the duo have to negotiate getting their phone back from Jimmy by supplying him with Swiss cheese.  Then we have Bosco, the owner of the local "inconvenience" store and paranoid conspiracy theorist.  He is constantly trying to convince you that the government is out to get him (which to be fair, sometimes they are.  There's also Sybil Pandemik, who is working as a Psychotherapist when we meet her here, and finally Brady Culture, the villain of the piece, who is trying to spread his "Eye-Bo Ocular Exercises" program throughout the neighbourhood with the help of the hypnotised Soda Poppers.  It is up to Sam & Max to return Whizzer, Specs and Peepers back to normal and then stop the nefarious plans of Culture Once and for all.   7 out of 10

The second episode sees Sam & Max tasked with freeing the audience of a chat show, who have been taken hostage by the host, Myra Stump.  Myra herself appears to be based on Oprah Winfrey, at least partly, because of her penchant for giving away gifts to the entire audience.  As the villain of this episode, I think she is the weakest of all of them, having only a brief appearance right at the end.  The bulk of this episode is spent helping the studio director produce various TV shows, from a sitcom called "Midtown Cowboys", a cooking show, a parody of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and Embarrassing Idol.  You will encounter the Soda Poppers again while attempting to win Embarrassing Idol, and you will also meet new characters like Philo Pennyworth, a highly trained chicken thespian who stars as the landlord in Midtown Cowboys, where every episode sees the main characters attempting to hide the fact that they are keeping a cow in their living room.  You'll also meet Hugh Bliss for the first time, the father of Prismatology (a parody of Scientology), standing in as a game show host.  Bosco and Sybil are also back, with Bosco putting on a hilarious British accent, and Sybil changing professions to tabloid journalist for the "Alien Love Triangle Times". 7 out of 10

This time Sam & Max are investigating Ted E. Bear's Mafia Free Playland and Casino and trying to track down a mole who is working for the cops in secret, by using the phrase "Does the carpet match the drapes".  This is definitely the funniest episode so far, as it was hugely entertaining going around trying out the code phrase on everyone you meet, and the musical number that the creepy animatronic bear heads on the wall sing was great as well.  New characters this time around include Leonard Steakcharmer, a shady gambler to attempt to cheat Sam out of his tokens while playing Indian Poker, Chuckles, the second in command at the casino, and Ted E. Bear himself.  This time Sybil is a professional witness, preparing to testify against the Toy Mafia, who put a hit out on her.  Bosco is once again attempting to disguise himself by wearing a beret and affecting a bad French accent.  This was the briefest episode so far for me but also the best written.  8 out of 10

 

This was another great episode with another entertaining musical number part way through. This time, apparently the president of the United States has become a victim of hypnotism, but after further investigation, it is discovered he was a robot all along that was actually the one doing the hypnotising.  After the heroic duo have dealt with him, the chief of staff activates the Lincoln memorial, who it turns out is a huge stone robot.  An emergency election is called where Max stands as presidential candidate in opposition of robo-Lincoln, and it's your job to ensure he gets elected.  New characters this time around include Agent Superball, a member of the secret service who is always trying to deny you access from where you need to go, and the animatronic Abe Lincoln himself.  The Soda Poppers return, with Whizzer trying to start a campaign for the victims of Soda Abuse, and Specs and Peepers on the opposing sides of a civil war between North and South Dakota.  This time Sybil is running a dating agency, and Bosco has turned Russian.  8 out of 10

For me this was the best episode out of all of the first season.  It sees Sam & ; Max taking a trip into Reality 2.0 after acquiring some high tech goggles, and then attempting to prevent The Internet from enslaving the entire human race.  In this episode you will meet the C.O.P.S (Computer Obsolescence Prevention Society) who are a bunch of ageing machines attempting to preserve their usefulness.  They include an telephone, an classic 80's arcade machine that strongly resembles Sinistar (especially when he says "I hunger!"), an old timey computer, an Atari VCS and a printer / scanner.  Hugh Bliss reappears in virtual form as the Internet Wizard, who gives Sam & Max an important item for their quest.  Sybil is now a beta tester (at least until you come along and break her goggles, which incidentally how you obtain them in the first place), and Bosco has decided to be a half elf - for the shire!  This is definitely Telltale at its best.  9 out of 10

 

The final episode of the first season sees you visiting the moon as the title would suggest, in an attempt to stop the big bad's plan once and for all.  In case you haven't played the game yet and would like to, I am not going to reveal too much information about this one or I would spoil for you.  Overall I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the previous three episodes, but I would say it's on par with episodes one and two.  Pretty much all of the characters you've met over the course of the previous episodes come back in one way or another, and it all leads to a fairly satisfying climax. 7 out of 10
 

You will revisit certain locations, such as the office, multiple times throughout the season.

Graphics: 7 out of 10
The visuals of Sam & Max on the Wii are OK but definitely not the best I've ever seen by quite some margin.  There's also some really bad performance issues which I believe could have been sorted out if a bit more time was spent optimising the code.  With the Wii proving itself more than capable of running impressive software like the Super Mario Galaxy games or Xenoblade Chronicles, it should be able to run something as simple as a graphic adventure game without any difficulty, yet there are times where I encountered chronic slowdown with an absolutely abysmal frame rate.  Most episodes feature a rather ill advised and poorly implemented chase sequence in the Desoto, which is where the poor performance is most noticeable, although there were also a few moments in regular game play where the action slowed to a crawl and looked as if the game was about to crash at any moment.  It actually did lock up completely on me once.  The ugly looking background textures were a side effect of the episodes starting life as downloadable content on the Wii Shop, where they had to come in under a certain size.  If you play game on PC, it will look and perform a lot better.

Sound and Music: 8 out of 10
The voice work is really strong with a relatively small group of actors playing a whole bunch of different characters.  Bosco was definitely the highlight for me, with his British and Half Elven voices being extremely funny.  Hugh Bliss and the Soda Poppers could get irritating, though this is intentional.  Jared Emerson-Johnson has composed some great music for this series as well, from the main theme, the various background tunes and the musical numbers like the ones from The Mole, the Mob and the Meatball and Abe Lincoln Must Die!

Game Mechanics: 8 out of 10
Setting the technical performance of the game aside, graphic adventures like this actually work really well on the Wii thanks to the simple point and click interface.  You navigate around the different areas of the world, converse with the different characters to try and glean what you're supposed to be doing, pick up any objects you find and use them to progress through the story.  The episodic nature of the game means that there are never too many options available to you at once and though some puzzles will require a certain degree of thought with a bit of effort it should be possible for even genre newcomers to make progress.  These episodes are definitely on the easier end of the graphic adventure scale, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  They are meant to entertaining and completable within a few hours, not super challenging. 

 

On the set of Midtown Cowboys during Episode Two - Situation: Comedy.

Innovation and Cleverness: 6 out of 10
Telltale Games were the pioneers of the episodic adventure game, which have since become hugely popular and have seen other companies bring their own take on the genre into the market (such as Life is Strange and Blues & Bullets).  The Wii controller is also a perfect fit for this type of game, and Telltale were fairly big supporters of the system in the early days.  It's a shame that the third season of Sam & Max never came out for the Wii, but that's another review for a later time.

Value & Replayability: 6 out of 10
Copies of Sam & Max: Season One can be fairly easily obtained for about a fiver, and the game should take you about 12 hours to complete if you spend 2 hours on average on each episode.  I would say that's pretty decent value for money.  Whether you will ever replay the game again after the first time is questionable though.  I could potentially see myself playing through the episodes again in a few years time, although the plot is not in the same league as classics like The Secret of Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle.

Overall: 7 out of 10
Sam & Max: Season One is definitely worth playing.  If you have access to a PC though, I would definitely play it on there rather than the Wii as it will look nicer and not suffer the same embarrassing technical issues that are present on the Wii.  Having said that, for me personally it's still a nice game to have in my physical Wii collection as it is part of the diverse range of games that are available for the system.  Many people cannot look past the shovelware and see the quality titles underneath - whilst Sam & Max is not as polished as it could have been it is most definitely not shovelware and is still very entertaining despite its problems.  Hopefully Season Two will have ironed out the flaws - we will find out when I get around to playing it in a month or two!

Hidden Gems 2012: The Horde

Title: The Horde
Format: PC, 3DO, Sega Saturn
Genre: Action/Strategy
Expect to pay: £5 - £15

It has been quite some time since my last Hidden Gems entry, but I wanted to highlight this game in particular because I spent many enjoyable hours playing it over and over on my PC circa 1994 when the game was released.  The game, developed by Toys For Bob, who have most recently had great success with Skylanders, is a kind of fusion of the strategy and action genres.  Your character is tasked with protecting his farm from the titular Horde, and you do so by first setting down barricades and traps, as well as planting trees and crops and expanding your land.  You only have a fixed amount of time to prepare for the inevitable onslaught of ugly purple monsters, at which point you have to race around and killing them all.  Should all your livestock, buildings and crops be decimated, it's game over.  Then the whole process repeats again, only the Horde gets tougher, with more varied enemy types and in higher numbers.

The game had great graphics and sound for its day, and sure it is showing its age today but the gameplay still holds up.  In many ways this is the precursor to the Horde mode featured in Gears of War 2 and adopted by pretty much every shooter that has come out since.  Unfortunately getting the game to run on a PC may take a bit of effort at the moment as you have to use DOS Box - it hasn't been released on Good Old Games or Steam as of yet.  If you happen to have a 3DO or Sega Saturn you may want to consider picking up this title for one of those systems - a quick glance on eBay reveals that the game is not that hard to come by and shouldn't set you back more than £15 at the very most.  If you do get the chance to try The Horde, make sure you don't pass it up - and if this post has piqued your interest you can watch a brief clip of the game running below.  I hope to have more Hidden Gems for you in the not too distant future.

Hidden Gems: The Return Volume 2

I arrived home last night and discovered that one of the two new Xbox Live Arcade titles for this week was none other than Rez HD - Sega's classic Dreamcast shooter all tarted up with full HD support and a 5.1 Surround Sound mix. If you've never played this game then there's never been a better time to try it, and even if you don't own an Xbox 360 you should be able to find a used copy of the Dreamcast or PS2 version for the same or less money it would cost you to download if you look hard enough. What makes the game such an overlooked classic? Yes, you guessed it - I'm going to tell you!

Title: Rez HD
Format: Xbox 360 (original available on Dreamcast and PS2)
Genre: On-rails shoot 'em up
Expect to pay: 800 points or about £8 for a boxed copy

If you've ever played an on-rails shooter such as Panzer Dragoon or one of the Star Fox games then you will already be familiar with the basic gameplay or Rez. Fly along on a predeterimed path, locking onto enemies and taking them down, before facing off against a boss in an epic encounter. What really makes Rez different from these titles though is the way it uses sound and music and the way they interact with each other. The game has a wire frame neon Tron style look to it, which makes sense because the plot involves you hacking a computer in order to save the CPU (personified by a woman) from a nasty virus that is attacking the system. Before you can get this far you have to get past the various security systems yourself however in the form of the games bosses.

The soundtrack includes a stunning contribution from Adam Freeland who has gone on to moderate fame and fortune in his own right since the game was originally released. As you progress from one section of a level to the next by shooting down and opening network points, the music builds up stage by stage until you have a thumping dance track by the end of the level. Shooting down enemies or items also produces various drum, cymbal or synth sounds, so in a way you are effecting the music as you play.

There are five levels in the standard game which will take you a little while to play through, but after you finish that there's a whole range of bonus modes which become available, including a boss rush and more difficult, reskinned versions of the regular levels. Unfortunately there's nothing new content wise in the 360 version, but there's already plenty to keep you busy and if you've never played Rez before you should be more than satisfied with what you get for your money.

I hope this trend of releasing hard to find classics continues on the 360. We've already had Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and now Rez HD, and Ikaruga is also on they way. Who knows, maybe we'll even get Radiant Silvergun one day (which sells for silly money on ebay). Whatever format you have, be it DC, PS2 or 360, you should give Rez a go, you won't regret it.

Facing off agains the first boss in the fantastic looking (and sounding) Rez.

Hidden Gems: The Return

I was checking out the list of Xbox games which are currently compatible with the Xbox 360 over the weekend, and I noticed that a number of excellent games can now be played. Seeing as most of these games can also be found at very low prices, I thought it was a great opportunity to highlight some of them and resurrect Hidden Gems at the same time. This time, it's the turn of Panzer Dragoon Orta.

Title: Panzer Dragoon Orta
Format: Xbox
Genre: On-rails Shoot 'em up
Expect to pay: £10 or less

The Panzer Dragoon series started life on the Sega Saturn and was highly regarded by fans but seldom heard of by people that didn't own the console. My first experience with the series was playing Panzer Dragoon Zwei on the Saturn that belonged to my flatmate at university, and I enjoyed it. If you have played on-rails shooters like Star Fox or Rez, you will have a rough idea of how the PD games play, but what sets them apart is the fantasy world that was created for the game. Acclaimed artist Moebius was brought in to create the art style that defines the entire series, and a whole language was created for the characters to speak. This is a level of detail that goes beyond what is expected for the average shooter and helps make the Panzer Dragoon series so special.

In the later days of the Saturns life, Sega released Panzer Dragoon Saga, an epic four disc RPG that is the holy grail for many game collectors to this day, and regularly fetches prices of well over £100. However, like the other games in the series, it didn't sell in vast quantities and chances of any further games in the series were pretty slim. Skip forward to 2003, and Sega decides to give the series one last try (to date anyway) with Panzer Dragoon Orta for the Xbox. The Xbox was a much more successful machine than the Saturn ever was which meant that there was a much bigger potential audience for it to begin with - however Sega didn't exactly sing its praises at every opportunity and it failed to make a big impact. Those that did notice its release and try it however were treated to one of the best shooters of the non first person variety for the machine.

The first thing that strikes you when you fire up the game are the sublime visuals. The FMV that sets up the story, with the young girl Orta imprisoned in a tower and about to be munched by nasty dragons, looks amazing. Needless to say, she doesn't actually get eaten, but instead is rescued by a mysterious and friendly dragon. She escapes on its back, and from that point on she is embroiled in the battle against the Empire and their genetically enhanced dragon army. She also has to piece together her past, and the player finds out why she was incarcerated in the first place over the course of the game.

Panzer Dragoon Orta still looks fantastic today.

The next thing that will probably grab you and get under your skin is the amazing musical score. I am especially fond of the boss tune, with it's memorable melody and deep bass line. The speech in the game is in a language that has been devised for the series as mentioned elsewhere, first by the original creators Team Andromeda, but continued here by the new developers Smilebit. It does a good job of sounding other worldly while still sounding like it could feasibly be a genuine language. You do of course get full subtitles so that you know what on earth everyone is blabbing on about.

As the game is an on-rails shooter you'd be forgiven for thinking that it doesn't have much depth, but in this cash you'd be wrong. There are multiple paths through the levels, and sub chapters and modes which open up as you progress through the game. The game itself can be quite tough at times but with some practice you should be able to get past the bosses, which include other dragons, and entire fleet of airships and a giant golem which hurls rocks at you. Your dragon has a standard attack, which can be locked on to multiple enemies, and a smart bomb move to kill everything on screen or give a boss a pummelling. The dragon also has three different forms - a standard form which is good for all around use, a speedy form which is handy for avoiding obstacles, and a defensive form which is very slow but can soak up much more damage.

Seeing as the game can now be picked up so cheaply, and the Xbox 360 is finally capable of running it, I recommend it to everyone. It looks better than many so called next generation titles, is full of imaginative worlds and characters, and has rock solid gameplay. Fans of the series may never get to play another game in the series, but at least it went out on a high. If this sounds like the sort of thing you'd enjoy, you really Orta get it! (groan)

Sometimes you have to have quick reactions in order to avoid all the enemy fire and the walls, which is where your speedy dragon form comes in handy.

Hidden Gems 2007 Volume 1

Time for another series of Hidden Gems! As before, each game featured here was overlooked in some way on its original release and is actually well worth checking out. They can often be found nice and cheap to, which makes them extremely good value for money. The more open-mined gamers out there could pick up quite a few bargains if they're willing to look past the crap that regularly appears in the sales charts.

This week I'm looking at a double pack of racing games for the PC which are available via the Steam online distribution service for the equivalent of £10. They are Xpand Rally and GTI Racing, and while not perfect by any means, both offer plenty of game to get your teeth into.

Despite being a few years old, the Chromed engine that powers both games is capable of producing some impressive graphics.

Of the two games on offer here, Xpand Rally is perhaps the more famous of the two, but that's not really saying much. It aims to offer PC rally fans an alernative to the big name Colin McRae franchise, and almost pulls it off. It's actually a very solidly made game, with crisp clean graphics (though not quite as detailed as Colin McRae), a sizeable career mode and a nice range of well designed tracks. However, the cars in the game are not officially licenced, but it's pretty obvious what they're supposed to be. Mini Coopers are renamed Tiny Hoopers, and Peugeots are replaced by Lions. It doesn't really matter that much that they're not the real deal, they still look good.

The game is not quite perfect however. It is let down slightly both by the controls and the game structure. When you first create your profile, you can choose between an Arcade or a Simulation style control model. While you'd expect it to be much easier to chuck the car around the bends in Arcade mode, I actually found Simulation easier as Arcade was too floaty and unpredictable. The cars still start of rather twitchy in Simulation mode as well, but it's much less pronounced and gets better once you replace the stock suspension and steering parts that come with your new car.

This brings up the next problem I have wit the game. Each race in the career mode gets a little harder to beat, but rather than using pure skill, victory is largely dependant on how much you've upgraded your car. This results in you having to basically replay the first four races until you've got enough money to buy a car in the next class up and start over again upgrading that car. This is the same problem I have with the Gran Turismo games - it feels like you're not really racing but merely repeating the same process over and over again until your car is good enough to move on. Despite this however, driving around the many environments, such as the Grand Canyon, Poland, and Sweden is good fun and the rather challenging handling makes victory all the sweeter. The replay function is well done too with many different cameras and visual effects such as saturation, blur and black & white filters.

GTI Racing takes the same sort of structure, but this time the handling is pure arcade style through and through and feels spot on. Progress is also much easier as well, because you can make your first car last for a good 8-10 racers before you need to start thinking about changing up to the next class. The cost of repairs is also much less than in Xpand Rally, so you won't have to spend out so much off your valuable prize fund on fixing up your car after every race.

GTI Racing also has a full Volkswagen licence, which means you'll be driving Beetles, Baha Bugs and Golfs to name but a few. The game has a very European flavour which is represented by the track selection. You will be racing around areas in Bavaria, Sicily, and the UK, and not just in straight circuit races. There are also drift challenges and off road events where you race your rivals to be the first to a selection of checkpoints.

Both games also feature online player, and you can choose to either switch collisions on or have everyone as ghosts. If you do decide to switch the collisions on, you may notice a bit of lag unless everyone has a powerful PC and a fast internet connection.

So while the games have their little quirks, they're still well worth a look at the price that they're on offer for. Personally I thought GTI Racing was the better game of the two due to being more accessible and forgiving.

If you don't own a joypad for the PC (which helps immensely with driving games) but you do own a PlayStation 2, there are a variety of PS2 to PC adaptors on the market. I own a Joytech one which only cost me £7 and has worked with every game I've tested it with (it even supports rumble if the game in question also supports it, which Xpand Rally and GTI Racing do).

Whereas Xpand Rally is quite a solitary affair, GTI Racing features pack racing with a fair amount of jostling for position.

Hidden Gems - Pikmin 2

Although Pikmin 2 has managed to earn itself an average rating of 89% on www.gamerankings.com, I'm willing to bet that it has been overlooked by many gamers out there, myself included until just recently. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that the new look Official Nintendo Magazine was giving it away free with a subscription, I still wouldn't be aware just what a finely crafted sequel it really is.

The first game was one of the very early games on the Gamecube, and it was packed with originality and clever ideas, but ultimately it was very limited. You only had 30 gaming days to try and find 30 items, so if you didn't bring back at least one a day you would have trouble. Nintendo have really worked hard to remedy this though, and the result is one of the most captivating games I have played in some time. It really has that special "Nintendo touch" that many of their best games have.

If you're not familiar with the way the game works, basically you control a little spaceman from the planet Hocotate in a mission to scavenge as many valuable items as you can, in this case to try and prevent his company from going bankrupt. You can't interact with anything in the word directly however - instead you have to enlist the help of the Pikmin - little plant/ant dudes. Soon after starting the game you will discover a few red ones, and then you can propagate and harvest more by cutting down flowers and killing enemies, and then taking them back to the "onion" to be used as fertiliser to grow more. There are many environmental hazards that you will have to find a way around, including water, fire, electricity and giant Pikmin munching insects to name just a few. This is where the different Pikmin types come in to play - red ones are impervious to fire, blue ones can swim, yellow ones are safe from electric shocks, purple ones are as strong as 10 normal guys, and the little sick looking albino white Pikmin are both immune to poison and poisonous to anything that eats them.

The Pikmin crew score a very valuable rubber ducky!

You will be required on many occasions to sacrifice some of your Pikmin to serve the greater good - either in battle with a ferocious bed bug, or offering one of your white ones up as a sacrifice in order to poison your enemy. In this way Pikmin is rather brutal, but then nature so often is in real life too. However brutal the single player mode can get though, it's nothing compared to the multiplayer mode. Some of the epic 50 on 50 Pikmin fights that can take place here rival the battle of Helm's Deep in the Lord of the Rings! The multiplayer mode really helps elevate this game to classic status. There are around 10 different maps each with their own quirks that you can do battle in, with the aim being to either bring back 4 yellow marbles, or the enemies main marble which can be found in their base. You can also lose by having all your Pikmin slaughtered by bugs, or if your spaceman dies. Once both players have a good grasp of how the game plays (which can take a while due to the unique controls and the way the game is set up) things really hot up and some really close tactical battles ensue. I can see myself coming back to this mode for a long time to come and it will most likely rival Mario Kart DS, Super Monkey Ball or Mashed as one of my multiplayer favourites. When you reach a certain stage in the single player mode you also open up a Challenge mode which can be played cooperatively with another player, adding even more depth to the game.

Something else that really enhanced the game is the use of real life objects for the artifacts that you have to find. These include a Nintendo Game & Watch, a Duracell battery, and a 7UP bottle cap. I know many people find the idea of advertising in games abhorrent and usually I would agree with them, but it really works in this context, and the funny alternative names that the sentient ship comes up with for the items really adds character. For example, the bottle cap becomes a "quenching emblem" and the Game & Watch becomes a "Dream Sculptor".

The game has been out for a fair while now so you can probably expect to find it for around £20 new and less than that used. While the Gamecube only came third in the sales battle, it is home to many brilliant games and in my opinion it was the machine with the most consistent level of high quality titles of its generation. Pikmin 2 is yet another example of this, so if you have a Gamecube, check it out!

An army of reds get ready to enter one of the many dungeons.

Hidden Gems 2005 Volume 5

First up is another entry to my Hidden Gems series - Drakengard for the PS2. You may recall that I posted some time ago that I had bought Drakengard along with several other games at bargain prices. I paid £5 at the time, took it home, had a quick go, and then it got consigned to the "must play some day" pile that so many games never come out of.

Last weekend, World of Warcraft was beginning to drag a bit and to quote Dr Evi I was surrounded by frickin' idiots, so I decided to have a break. As it turns out, Drakengard was the perfect choice for de-stressing myself and just generally having fun, which is surely what gaming is all about. Basically you can describe the game as a cross between the flying sections of Panzer Dragoon and the epic battles of Dynasty Warriors, wrapped up in a fantasy RPG setting. Each gameplay style isn't quite as good as the game that inspired it, but together they create a unique, enjoyable game. The variety in the levels is quite important, as I could see myself getting bored of level after level of hacking or shooting. Instead, they alternate, and during some ground missions you can even press Select to jump on to the back of your dragon and continue the battle from the sky.

Being a Square-Enix title, Drakengard's presentation is generally top notch. The music can be described as epic and stirring, and the FMV's are as good as anything from the Final Fantasy series. The actual in game graphics let the side down a bit, however. In an effort to keep the framerate up, the same enemy types are repeated many many times during the battles, and there is quite a short draw distance. To make matters worse, the levels are often quite bland and monochromatic, for example entirely grey or green. This is a bit disappointing, but on the other hand slaying and burning hundreds of enemies is such good fun you're not likely to mind too much.

The game is also quite short, rolling in at about 6 hours on your first playthrough, but it makes up for this with it's immense replayability. There's 50 different weapons to find, each with their own unique magical attack, and each is capable of being leveled up multiple times. The central character, Caim, and the Dragon also level up, and you can take part in a Free Expedition in between story levels to make yourself stronger and find new items if you wish. Then there's the fact that there are 5 different endings, and different paths that unlock on subsequent journeys through the game.

The gameplay, whether in the air or on the ground, mainly consists of taking out certain targets on your map, then being given new targets and starting again. On foot you have on standard attack button and a magical attack which you can use when you're meter is filled, and in the air your dragon has a standard fireball attack, the ability to lock on to multiple targets (which is very similar to Panzer Dragoon), and a burst attack which kills everything on screen). You can also do a speed boost, a 180 degree turn, and press R2 to centre the screen your nearest enemy. The controls are generally pretty good, but the camera can make life a little difficult at times.

Drakengard is best taken in short bursts between stodgier games. If you play too long you're likely to tire of all the killing, but when you just want to destroy something at the end of a bad day, it's the perfect way to spend an hour or so. Don't let the relatively low average score on Gamerankings put you off - the most trustworthy sites gave it around the 75% mark, which I think is about right. Also, you have to consider just how cheaply you can pick up a brand new copy of the game.

Square-Enix will probably improve upon every aspect of Drakengard for the forthcoming sequel, but whether it will be released here remains to be seen. The original didn't sell very well, hence the low price, so maybe they'll decide it's not worth it. That would be a shame, because I'm quite looking forward to seeing how Drakengard 2 (or Drag-On Dragoon 2 as it's called in Japan) turns out.

Shall we dance?


Behold the mighty Red Dragon

Hidden Gems 2005 Volume 4

For this edition of Hidden Gems I will once again turn my attention to the PC, and little game called Mutant Storm. Recently re-released on the Sold Out budget label, it can be snapped up for £5 on it's own or as part of their 3 games for £10 offer. What's it all about? Well, Mutant Storm successfully combines all that was good about arcade games and shoot 'em ups in the 80's and 90's, and brings the visuals up to date.

Those of you who are familiar with Midway's Robotron or Smash TV (either you're old enough to have been their the first time, or you may have played them or the Midway's Greatest Hits disc) will know roughly what to expect from this game. Basically you control one ship in the middle of an arena, and a constant stream of enemies warp in and try and destroy you. If you survive, you warp on to the next arena, and so on. What made Midway's games unique was the control scheme - the arcade machines had two joysticks, one for movement and one which fired your weapon in whatever direction you pointed it. PomPom, the developers of Mutant Storm, have successfully replicated this if you have a twin stick pad for your PC, and the game is also perfectly serviceable on an 8-button pad. If all you have is a keyboard however, I would suggest you treat yourself to a pad of some sort if you're serious about those high scores.

PomPom have thrown a few more ideas into the classic mixture. These include the complex high score system and scaling level of difficulty. Basically, the longer you can go without dying, the higher your score multiplier will get, and therefore your score at the end of the game will be higher. As you rack up points, you will a kind of experience bar, and once it is completely full, you go up a belt. These belts are similar to martial arts belts, and range from white through to black. The higher you get the more the odds are stacked against you, and only the true masters will live to see the end of the black belt levels.

Once a belt is unlocked, you can play the game from the beginning on that difficulty setting. These means you can customise the game to your abilities. While you're still getting used to the game and honing your reflexes, you will probably want to stick to the white or yellow belts, but as your confidence increases you can step up the challenge a notch and challenge the best.

Once you achieve a high score you can connect to the internet and upload it onto the official Mutant Storm scoreboard, but you will have to put some serious practice in if you want to challenge the best.

Graphically, Mutant Storm is extremely smooth, fast and is crammed with bright colors. In the more hectic levels the entire screen can be covered in mutants, bullets and explosions, yet you don't need a powerful PC to run the game at a decent framerate. The sound is a bit more functional, but it suits the style of the game and is reminiscent of the sounds of the classic arcade machines.

If you hunger for simple but challenging gameplay, and you have a love of retro shoot 'em ups, then Mutant Storm is the ideal game for you. If you've never tried a game like this, and you think you might like it, then it's well worth the risk finding out for the paltry £5 asking price. I look forward to PomPom's next game with great interest.

Eat laser death, alien scum!

Hidden Gems 2005 Volume 3

I went shopping for some pre-owned games on Friday afternoon, and one of the games I ended up buying was Sky Odyssey for the PlayStation 2. I used to own this game back when the PS2 was still fairly new on the scene, and I absolutely loved it.

Playing it evokes memories of games of old such as both of Nintendo's Pilotwings games, and an arcade machine that Namco made called PropCycle. This machine head a set of bicycle peddals and you would have to careful judge how fast you had to peddle in order to control the speed of your gyrocopter as you fly around trying to burst all of the baloons in the level.

Sky Odyssey is a the closest thing to a proper flight sim you're likely to find on a console. Although I hasten to add that if you're looking for shooting and destruction you've come to the wrong place (the Ace Combat series is perfect for that sort of thing). This game is all about the pleasure of flying and enjoying the landscape laid out below you. It's an exciting adventure that will take you through rocky ravines, ancient temples, underground caverns, snow-capped mountains, through the eye of a thunderstorm and much more.

The handling of your plane feels very authentic, and although this takes some getting used to it is a big part of the reason why the game is such good fun to play. It's immensely satisfying when you come in for a smooth landing having just spent the last 15 or so minutes dodging landslides and falling stalagtites or whatever else the game throws at you. In one memorable mission your engine fails about two thirds of the way through the level, and you have to touch down on the river and use the air brakes to steer you away of the rocks as you hurtle down the rapids.

As well as the main Adventure mode which features about 15 missions and multiple routes, there are a couple of other modes which are well worth your time as well. These include Sky Canvas, where you have to draw certain shapes with coloured smoke trails (ala the Red Devils), Target (where you have to go through 6 targets of the same colour, red or blue, and then land on the runway of the same colour for maximum points), and finally Free Flight, where you can just explore the environments at your own pace.

Graphically, the game is a bit of a mixed bag. While the weather effects, such as wind, rain, snow, the spray of the ocean and other such environmental effects are very well done, the textures are a bit uninspired at times and the levels are a bit blocky. This was a first generation PS2 title though as I said earlier, so you can't really expect too much. Besides, the game has got it where it counts, in the gameplay. You will be eager to see what challenges the game throws at you next, and the rousing adventure soundtrack only serves to increase the level of excitement and spur you on. Plus, each time you complete a mission you are given a grade based on certain criteria, such as the amount of time taken and whether you managed to go through all of the checkpoint rings in the stage. This spurs you on to retry the stages until you get an A grade, which allows you to choose an upgraded part for your plane.

If you do manage to find a copy of the game you shouldn't have to pay too much, about £10 at the most, but good luck finding it as it's fairly rare (sadly, it never sold that well to begin with). I regretted selling my copy for a long time and I'm very glad I stumbled accross another copy years later. I definitely won't be parting with this one any time soon!

Hidden Gems 2005 Volume 2

Creatures - Commodore 64

First and foremost, this game has absolutely nothing to do with the Creatures games on the PC - they are all about Artficial Life, taking care or little fuzzy critters and making sure no harm comes to them. Creatures on the C64 is almost the complete opposite of that game, and try as you might, some Fuzzy Wuzzy's (as the good guys are known) will get squished, sawed in half, burnt and just generally tortured to death by the baddies.

Creatures stands for Clyde Radcliffe Exterminates All The Ugly, Repulsive, Evil Slime, or something like that (I can't quite remember). You control the one free Fuzzy Wuzzy, Clyde Radcliffe, as he sets off to free his brothers and sisters. Each world in the game consists of two platform style levels, and then one single screen torture chamber. This is the real highlight of the game! Your poor, helpless fuzzy friends will find themselves strapped to all manner of torture devices, and it's up to you to solve the puzzle and off the baddies running the machine before they are slaughtered. It will usually take you at least one go before you get it right, and it's almost worth failing on purpose just to see the gory demise of a poor Fuzzy Wuzzy.

A few years later, a sequel followed, entitled C2: Torture Trouble, which dropped the rather frustrating platforming sections in favour of the torture chambers. This is just what the fans wanted. I also remember that Commodore Format followed the creation of both games in a diary, which was fascinating to read, and it was great to finally play the game that you'd been reading about for the past year.

Both games really pushed the power of the C64, with colourful, detailed graphics, great animation and some fantastic music. These days, they can be obtained for free from www.c64.com and played with an emulator on your PC.

So go on, join the cause and fight to free some Fuzzy Wuzzy's. Or, just watch them get sliced, diced, boiled, bashed and dunked in acid. It all adds up to a fun evening's entertainment either way!

Hidden Gems 2005 Volume 1

Yes! I'm back and Hiddens Gems is back, and for the first entry of the New Year I've chose a game that is more retro than usual (if you can actually call it a game).

It is Little Computer People on the Commodore 64 (I believe it may have been on the Spectrum and Amstrad as well, but this is the version I played so many years ago. Basically, when the game loaded up you were faced with the profile view of a house, with all the usual rooms and furniture that you'd expect. After a while, the front door would open and a little man would walk in, along with his pet dog.

From that point on, it was up to you, the "owner" of this LCP, to take care of his wellbeing and make sure he is happy. You don't have direct control over him, instead you type in commands and if he feels like it (or indeed understands you) he will carry them out. Sometimes he will just stand there and shake his fist indignantly at the screen if he doesn't approve of what you ask him to do.

Activities included feeding the dog, brushing his teeth (the man, not the dog), going to the toilet, playing the piano, playing some records (and dancing, badly), writing a letter (to the player of the game) and many more. Even though this little chap is merely a collection of code in a computer, you really start to care of him. Those with a mean streak could think up ways of separating him from his food though, and eventually he would become ill, turn blue and possibly even die.

So is it a game or not? Hard to say really, but one thing's for sure, it certainly is a whole lot of fun. Also, I'm not sure whether this game had a direct influence on EA's The Sims, but you can't help but notice the similarities.

The ROM of the game can be downloaded from www.c64.com along with a C64 emulator if you wish to experience the game for yourself. It's a charming little "game" that was way ahead of it's time.

Hidden Gems Volume 9

Firstly, apologies for not having posted for so long. It's not entirely my fault, honest! I came on twice on Friday to try and post the weekly release list, but the servers must have been down so I couldn't get access.

This week I plan to post up another part to my Tis The Season strand, as well as actually getting this weeks new release up in time! With that out of the way, let's get on with this weeks Hidden Gem...

I recently got a chance to play a little game on the PS2 by the name of Gitaroo Man, and boy am I glad I did. I've long been a fan of rhythm action games, from Parappa the Rapper, Space Channel 5, Rez and more besides. If I had to compare Gitaroo Man to any of these, it would have to be Parappa, but it's much better than that game. It has a similar off the wall Japanese sense of humour, and vaguely similar graphics and art style, but it's much more fun to play and it will take you longer to finish.

The idea of the plot is that you are the last in the line of beings that are able to wield the Gitaroo, a guitar shaped weapon. Aliens have obtained all the Gitaroos except yours, and you must protect it from them by beating 10 of their best warriors. By day, your character is a rather sad individual, unlucky in love, lacking in self confidence and bullied by his "friends". When his talking dog gives him the Gitaroo however, he's transformed into Gitaroo Man, the superhero charged with saving the universe!

Basically each song is made up of several parts - Charge, Battle and Final. In the Charge phase, you play along as best you can in order to build up energy in your electric guitar/weapon hybrid, and you can't actually be hurt here. In the Battle phase, you take turns attacking and defending whichever enemy you're battling against, and here mistakes will cost you energy. If you manage to survive this phase, you enter the Final, and a bit of good playing here is enough to see of your opposition.

The guitar playing itself is deceptively simple, but can get very tough indeed after the first few songs. In the Charge and the attacking part of the Battle phase, you will see a dot in the middle and a wavy line protruding from it. You have to move the left analogue stick in the same direction as the line and keep it on there. While doing this, you also have to press and hold the circle button as indicated. Later, when you're defending, a barrage of button symbols head towards your dot in the middle and you have to press them as they reach the dot. It can get very tough very quickly, which is one of the main drawbacks of the game as you will probably have to try some of the songs dozens of times before you succeed.

It's worth practicing until you get it right however as the completely bonkers story, settings and graphics will keep you entertained from start to finish. The music styles are suprisingly different from one track to the next considering they all involve guitar, and vary from Rock, J-Pop, Reggae and many others. There are about 10 different stages altogether, and two different difficulty levels.

Gitaroo Man should be fairly easy to find in the shops, both preowned and new. For a new copy, your likely to have to spend around £15, and a little bit less for a preowned copy. If you like this sort of game I heartily suggest you give it a try, it's up there with the best the genre has to offer.

Hidden Gems Volume 7

Oh dear, it's been exactly a week since the last post! I shall try and remedy that this week with a whole stack of content for you. The weekly release list will now be posted on a Thursday, mainly so that people can see what's coming out the next day, but also because I sometimes go out on a Friday and don't have time to write anything.

At least I've managed to post up a new Hidden Gems article for seven weeks running. Speaking of which...

Up until recently, my knowledge of the Sega Saturn almost nothing. A friend of mine at University had one (hello, Simon) and I played a few of his games, but I never owned one myself. I have intended to pick one up on ebay for almost a year though, and a few weeks back I finally bought one, along with a copy of Nights Into Dreams, which is the subject of this weeks article.

"In the nights, sweet delight..."

Like many classic games throughout the years, Nights Into Dreams suffered because it came out late on in the lifetime of the Sega Saturn, when things were winding down for the console. As such, not as many people played the game as it deserved, and so it became a bit of a sleeper hit. It was developed by Sonic Team, and in my opinion it was their last truly great game (Sonic Adventure and Billy Hatcher have their moments, but there's still something missing). The idea of the game is that two children, a girl named Claris and a boy named Elliott, are having nightmares about certain events in their real life, and they have to explore their dreams and conquer the nasty Mares with the help of the mysterious Nights.

Once you've chosen which of the two you want to play as, the stage begins. Each stage follows a certain structure - firstly, you must collect 20 blue chips as quickly as possible and take them to the "Ideya capture". Then bonus time begins, and you can zoom around the level flying through rings, defeating enemies, collecting starts and doing paraloops to build up your score as high as possible. You must enter the "Ideya palace" as soon as possible though, or you will lose everything. One you do, you're rated for that part of the stage and the next part begins. Each stage is divided into four smaller sections, and then you face the boss. The bosses in Nights are extremely imaginative - especially Puffy, who looks like a cross between an opera singer and a space hopper. You have to grab hold of her and through her through the scenery behind her until you trap her at the end.

The theme for each stage varies slightly - from a green and pleasant countryside environment, to a snowy stage, a museum, and more. There's ony 7 stages in total, which won't take you much time at all to beat. In fact, you're likely to feel short changed the first time you finish the game, but it's actually much deeper than you first realise. There's the whole grading system to begin with, so you can constantly try and beat your best score, and there's also the A-Life system. This keeps track of how the "Nightopians" feel toward you. Nightopians are little harmless creatures that live in each stage, and their feelings can be effected by how many you accidentally fly into during a stage, or how many you hatch out their eggs. This has a really clever effect on the game - depending on how these little creatures feel about you, the music changes, so each time you play the results will be a little different.

Speaking of the music, this is fantastic - really funky, happy, stuff in true Sega style. The ending theme, while a little corny, is great too. I was also really impressed by the visuals - considering that is on a console that's almost a decade old, and that the Saturn was supposed to be crap at doing 3D graphics, they're amazing. They'll remind you a bit of the Sonic games, but they also have character of their own, and match the best graphics that I've seen on the PS1.

If you do decide to track down this game, I also recommend you find a copy of Christmas Nights too. This was a demo disc with a difference - rather than just a quick level, you had all sorts of bonus presents to play with, like sound galleries, a menu to keep track of the Nightopians and their feelings, videos, and more. They also made the masterstroke of making the game keep track of the internal clock, with the game changing on certain days. These included Christmas itself, and also Halloween, New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, April 1st and a day in the year 2099! Christmas Nights can be used in conjunction with original game too, so you'll be finding hidden stuff for absolutely ages!

Finally, let's talk about price, and where to find it. My copy cost me about £15, and I got the 3D controller with the game, so that's not at all bad. Copies of Nights crop up on ebay on a regular basis, so you shouldn't have too much trouble finding it. As for Christmas Nights, that was a bit rarer, but is still fairly easy to find. I wouldn't spend more than £5 on it though, considering it was originally given away free with certain magazines.

Tomorrow I plan to do the Mag Watch article on the latest Nintendo Official Magazine, so hopefully, I'll see you there!

Hidden Gems Volume 6

Right, here we are again. Before I get started, I just thought I'd mention that my copy of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door has arrived from the States and it's every bit as fantastic as I had hoped. I shall report back once I have finished it, which could take a while because I play to savour every last drop of gameplay that this beauty has to offer. So, on to this weeks Hidden Gem!

This time my attentions shifts over to the PlayStation 2, which is a pretty good place to find a bargain as so many games are released that a lot of good stuff gets lost amongst all the crap. This happened to an RPG called Shadow Hearts not so long ago, which is a great shame as there is much to enjoy here. It's another game that takes it's influence from the works of H P Lovecraft (see also Eternal Darkness), and it really does make for a compelling setting for a game.

The player takes the role of the protagonist, Yuri, who rescues a girl named Alice from grisly torture and death from the evil Roger Bacon, all during the opening FMV. Your journey proper begins after you jump from the speeding train you were on and begin to explore the area of Japan that you're in. Eventually you find yourself at the gates of a sinister looking village, where the residents hide a nasty secret.

The gameplay itself is somewhat traditional, but the story is unique enough to keep you interested. There are a few innovations to the standard Final Fantasy style battle system, including the judgment ring (a ring appears when you attack, and you have to stop a moving line within a green wedge to score a hit), the Fusion system and the fact that you have Sanity Points. If these should run out during a battle, your character will go beserk and you will lose control of them.

Graphically, the game can look a little rough around the edges at times, but some of the prerendered backgrounds are very nice to look at. The music is almost faultess, one of the best game soundtracks I have heard thus far. Voice acting is a bit hit and miss, sometimes it's bad enough to make you wince, at other times it's perfectly serviceable.

Shadow Hearts shouldn't cost you too much of your hard-earned, maybe around £12.99, which is pretty good value for money for a game that is lilkely to keep you entertained for around 30 hours. A sequel, Shadow Hearts: Covenant was recently released in the USA and is pencilled in for a European release early next year. I'm looking forward to it.

For more in-depth information about Shadow Hearts, check out the link in the article heading. It will take you to a review I submitted to RPGamer.com a while back.

Hidden Gems Volume 5

Back once again it's the renegade master, d for damage-a, power to the people...

Er, sorry, got a bit carried away there. Are you sitting comfortably? Then let's begin these weeks Hidden Gems, boys and girls.

Divine Divinity is our focus this week, and it's a quality little PC action RPG by a group of Belgians collectively known as Larian Studios. Imagine Diablo, but with a much deeper range of conversation and more thoughtful puzzles, and you're almost there. Throw in better graphics, an utterly amazing musical score and a mind boggling attention to detail and you will begin to see just what a steal this game is.

You are one of the three Marked Ones, chosen to be the mortal embodiment of the Divine one's powers. You must travel through Rivellon, helping people and slowly putting together the bigger plot. Several times during the game I was strongly reminded of The Lord of the Rings, such as when you have to meet up with your wizard friend at a seedy pub, only to find he didn't make it, and having to gather a Fellowship of all the different races. This is no bad thing however, as the story is well told and the voice acting is quite adequate. No one is in any danger of winning an oscar for their performance, but you won't be cringing either.

The music most certainly is oscar worthy though (or BAFTA, or whatever the gaming equivalent is). Beautifully orchestrated, at times rather sad, and at others upbeat or foreboding, the score will keep you playing just so you can hear it. You will be playing for quite a time too, as there are plenty of quests and acres of land to explore.

The best bit is that Divine Divinity can be found for £4.99. I would recommend going for the original box with the paper manual rather than the Xplosiv rerelease though, as it's a lot less hassle than printing .pdf they stick on the disc. If RPG's are your thing, and this one slipped you by, now is the ideal time to dust off a copy and get stuck in.

Hidden Gems Volume 4

Although it gained almost universal high praise on its release, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requeim was overlooked by a lot of people. This is because either they'd never heard of it, or they didn't have a Gamecube and they were of the (incorrect) opinion that it's a kids console.

I bought this game back when it was released and completed it three times in quick sucession. There are three different routes through the game depending of which dark god you align yourself with, and when you finally complete all three you are treated to an extended ending sequence.

The game itself finds itself rather awkwardly inserted into the Survival Horror genre alongside Resident Evil and Silent Hill, but it is quite a different beastie to those two. It's much easier to control for one thing, and the story is much better. It tells the tale of Alex Roivas, as she travels to her grandfather's mansion only to find that he has been brutally murdered. She decides to stay at the mansion and explore to try and piece together what might of happened to him, and you are taken through a series of playable flashbacks from throughout the ages covering her family tree.

Each chapter is like a self contained mini game, and you will be in Rome, France, Greece, England and many other places. The monsters your encounter, and the storyline in general, were heavily influenced by the works of Gothic short story writer H P Lovecraft, so expect words such as "chittering" and "gibbous" to be used a lot.

A lot of the frustrations that plague the genre were neatly circumvented by Eternal Darkness, such as the usually cheap difficulty level. Through the course of the game you learn various runes, which can be used to cast spells. As soon as you figure out how to cast the heal spell, and the one to increase you attack power, you should have no difficulty in getting through the game. This mean the game doesn't offer much of a challege, but the atmopshere and the puzzles mean it remains entertaining all the way through.

One other unique gameplay element of note are the Sanity Effects. If you sanit meter should run out (by seeing nasty monsters or getting hit by them), then various strange effects will occur. These include blood dripping down the screen, the game telling you that the console has had a fatal error, and many other unnerving events. Running out of sanity can be quite easily avoided if you stand around and wait for the bar to refill after each enemy encounter, but it's good fun finding all the different effects.

Eternal Darkness crops up fairly regularly in places like Gamestation, and I have seen second hand copies for as low as £7.99. If you don't usually get on with Survival Horror games, it's worth a look because of the slightly different approach it has to genre. If you are a fan, then this may be one of the best games you play this year.

Hidden Gems Volume 3

This weeks entry into the Hidden Gems hall of fame is a little game by the name of Startopia. Many moons ago, there was a little game company called Bullfrog. Over the years, they produced many classic games, including Magic Carpet, Populous, Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, Theme Park, Theme Hospital and more. Eventually, they were bought out by EA (which happens a lot), and several smaller groups of employees left their parent company to go it alone.

One of these groups was of course Lionhead, fronted by Peter Molyneux. But there was another company who didn't share as much of the limelight by the name of Mucky Foot. Their first game was the rather uninspiring third person adventure/fighter, Urban Chaos. However, after that, and unbeknownst to me at the time, they made a truly fantastic game called Startopia. It shares many similarities with some of the Bullfrog games of old (mainly Theme Park & Theme Hospital).

Basically, you are put in charge of a space station, and it is your job to keep your residents & workers happy, your equipment ticking over, and invaders at bay. You can do this over the course of many missions, or you can just play the Sandbox mode and play however you wish indefinitely. The range of different play styles on offer is staggering, as the missions to a very good job of showing you. Your station could be a leisure resort, a trade station, a maximum security prison, a research station, a hospital, and much more. It can even have elements of some or all of these functions at the same time - but managing everything could get a little difficult.

The whole game is put together with flair and wit, and the guy who does the voiceover of the computer that helps you out during the game reminds me of the voice of the book, from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The graphics are fantastic, and I can quite happily just sit there and watch my residents going about their business - it's fascinating to watch. If you've played and enjoyed games like the afore-mentioned Theme Park & Theme Hospital, or Transport Tycoon, Rollercoaster Tycoon or any of the other games of this genre - then you will be in heaven playing this game.

Now for the really good news. This amazing game is part of the Sold Out range - which means it's only £4.99. What's more, if you buy it directly from their web site (www.sold-out.co.uk), you can buy two games at get one free, and they have loads of worthwhile titles. You can expect more games in the Sold Out range to be featured as Hidden Gems in the future, as I have bought and enjoyed many of them which were sadly under rated when they first appeared. Startopia delivers months of high quality gameplay at the same price as a copy of your average games magazine, and as such, is utterly essential.

Hidden Gems Volume 2

Hi everybody, it's Tuesday again so that means it's time for another Hidden Gem!

Last year, LucasArts released a game that was played and adored by thousands of people. That game was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. However, in the same year they also released another RPG by the name of Gladius, and this time I'm here to talk about that.

If you are a fan of the film Gladiator, Tactical RPG's or indeed both, then you absolutely, positively have to check out Gladius. At the start of the game you choose one of two heroes - either Valen's from the Imperia region, or Ursula from the Nordagh region. You begin the game in training to open your own gladiatorial school, either to maintain the respect of your family name or to build it, respectively. During the course of the game, dark tidings are afoot and your skills will be called upon to put down a malevolent dark god once and for all.

Gameplay is rather similar to other games in the genre (such as Final Fantasy Tactics, Arc the Lad, Disgaea or many others). You take turns between your group of gladiators and the enemies, and move around on a grid system. The distance you can travel depends on the movement statistic of your character, which is naturally higher for certain classes, and also increases as your character levels up. You can use a wide variety of weapons, magic spells and other abilities to crush your foe, as well as taking advantage of terrain that is above the enemy, or position (by stabbing the enemy is the back or side for example). The game can be quite challenging because quite often you will be outnumbered and you will therefore have to use tactics to win the day rather than brute force.

The game has a fantastic musical score, and the graphics, while not the best I've ever seen, do a good job of setting the scene and keeping you immersed in the fantasy world which is heavily inspired by ancient Rome. Replay value is high, because the challenges and route you take through the game depends on the character types you choose to employ and train up. Plus of course there are two main characters to choose from at the beginning of the game. Ursula's story is supposedly for beginners, although having played a little of both they don't seem to differ much as far as difficulty is concerned.

Gladius is available on all three of the major consoles, and can be found at a very reasonable price if you look in the right place. For around £10 - £15, you can have yourself a game that will keep you entertained for at least 30-40 hours (even more if you replay as the other character or are determined to finish every last challenge in the game).

Note: Do not confuse this game with Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance, they are quite different games (this is an RPG, and that is an action hack 'n' slash game).

Hidden Gems Volume 1

This series of posts is designed to make gamers aware of some excellent games that they may have missed. More often than not, these games didn't get much hype at the time of release and can now be found for a bargain price at the bottom of a bargain bin. Let's take a look at the first entry.

Rumble Racing - PlayStation 2
In the early days of the PS2, someone at EA made the rather uncharacteristic decision of turning the latest update to their NASCAR series into this arcade racer. The game features a generous number of tracks, each with multiple routes to seek out. It plays a bit like a kart game such as Mario Kart or Diddy Kong Racing with its range of collectible power-ups, but it also has shades of SSX with the stunt system. Holding the R1 button down in mid-air allows you to twist and turn your car, and as long as you land on your wheels you earn a speed boost. The afore mentioned power-ups included a twister, that travels ahead of you and wreaks havoc on the opposition.

The game also features and excellent multiplayer mode, with both competitive and cooperative options available. The graphics, while a bit basic by today's standard, at least maintain a fast and stable frame rate which means the game is playable at all times.

On the whole, Rumble Racing is well worth tracking down. It may have been overshadowed by the likes of the Burnout series, but for around £10 you can get yourself a fast, fun racer that will keep you entertained for quite sometime. That concludes this weeks Hidden Gems!