Anyone who has fond memories of wrestling with one of the three steering wheels on the arcade classic Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s Super Off Road will have a fair idea of what Scrap Metal is about, namely hurling loud cars around small isometric tracks while jostling for pole position. Anyone who’s played Twisted Metal on the Playstation will also be familiar with Scrap Metal’s penchant for strapping guns to its rogues gallery of buggies, hot rods and monster trucks. Between these two thematic goalposts, it’s fair to say then that Scrap Metal isn’t a subtle game and that anyone with a dislike of cars, guns or heavy rock music should move along right now; there’s nothing for you here. Read the full story »

Occasionally a game will come around that makes you angry. Whether it’s due to a troublesome camera leading to a few cheap and unavoidable deaths or a simple case of falling short of the hype, anyone with even a moderate background in gaming will likely have flown into a rage, cursed at the screen and sworn off a game only to go back to it a few moments later. Way of the Samurai 3 is not such a game, instead serving to frustrate with some truly awful design choices that go much further than either of the aforementioned issues. Read the full story »

In this humble reviewer’s opinion, Mario Kart DS is the finest title the Nintendo DS has to offer. Why it has taken three years since its release for any developer to come anywhere close to its frenetic brilliance is indeed a shocker. That this competitor jostling for position features a certain Sonic the Hedgehog in its box-art is another near-miraculous feat. Read the full story »

Alice in Wonderland on the Nintendo DS is rather lovely; we thought we’d get that in early before you see ‘Inspired by the Tim Burton Film’ and walk away shrugging your shoulders in indifference. It’s not that we’ve got anything against Mr Burton, but movie spin-offs are on the whole very easy to ignore, mainly because they’re usually not very good. In this instance however, developer Étranges Libellules have crafted a game of rare quality, movie spin-off or not. Read the full story »

Over the years Mario Kart has had to endure a seemingly endless succession of imitations. It has stoically observed the gimmicky (Street Racer with eight player split-screen, anyone?), the soulless (Rare’s blandly efficient Diddy Kong Racing) and -looking ahead – the potentially innovative (that’ll be ModNation Racers and its real-time track creator), whilst itself undergoing revision after revision with each new iteration. However in amongst the controversy that surrounds each of these updates – a blue shell here, a sidecar there – is the consistency of the gameplay. This legion of imitators may often be technically superior, but nothing has really been able to match the controlled anarchy, pure joy and – important bit this – the strong sense of identification that lies at the core of Nintendo’s most important franchise. Nothing that is – cut for dramatic pause – until now. Read the full story »