As the official headset of MLG, Astro gaming headsets have to be of high standard and quality. The A40 audio system comes boxed with the Astro Gaming headset, Mix Amp Pro, and all the cables needed to enjoy the headset. It also has a feature list as long as your arm, some of which being unparalleled quality of sound, noise canceling microphone, mixamp functionality, etc.

Sound is important to any video game, without it people have a less immersive experience. The quality of sound that the Astro headset provides is quite excellent, it works perfectly for almost any game, be it Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Battlefield 3, Final Fantasy XIII-2 or anything to give the player that edge, immersive, and quality experience. On top of that players who love playing multiplayer games like Call of Duty will find that the noise canceling microphone will have crystal clear voice communication and eliminates any background noise. The headset alone does more with the MixAmp pro.

The MixAmp pro has controls for volume and game or voice balancing. You’ll have to find the right sweet spot for each game and so experiment with both the volume and game/voice knob. As it is the controller for all volume levels, this device will have to be daisy-chained from the headset to the MixAmp to your choice hardware. Nicely this headset works on all devices, and so is packaged with every cable you need for the Playstation 3(USB and Optical), Xbox 360(USB, Optical and Xbox Chat Cable), PC (USB and Optical), and more for flexibility.

The construction of this headset also favors flexibility, comfort, and accessibility. It adjusts to any shaped head, along with being designed for long-term gameplay without any ear ache. Most headsets on the market are not even fully configurable, whereas the Astro Gaming Headset lets the user adjust the position of the mic so it can be on either side of the head, or be removed completely. Those who get the Saint’s Row 3 edition can even swap out the speaker tags with Saint’s Row 3 designed speaker tags. The cord of the headset shouldn’t even get in the way at all as it has been designed to be unobtrusive  and provides accessibility to the controls for mute and boom/incline mic volumes.

At the end of the day, the Astro Gaming A40 audio system is perfect in every way. The sound quality is top-notch by giving the players Dolby Digital and surround sound immersive experience. The MixAmp pro gives the user the controls they need to find the balance or sweet spot between game and voice, along with volume. The A40 audio system is even universal. The construction of the headset even tailors to everyone personal style, comfort, and accessibility. Overall, the Astro Gaming A40 audio system will tailor to the needs all. At the market price of $260, the complete universal set is well worth the money.

Final Score: 5/5

The result – Space Marine. Long standing players of the Warhammer series have spent their days controlling the forces of the Xenos, Chaos and the varied armies of the Space Marine corps for well over a decade. Pushing their model armies against each other day after day, they soon got the chance to digitalize their armies and watch their play decisions animate in the PC real-time strategy games of the last few years. Thrusting the immersion a step further, Warhammer 40k: Space Marine allows those long-time players and anyone else witness the grotesque Xenos orcs up close as a Space Marine of the Emperor and fight 1-on-1 with them to fulfil the mission of the combat experts.

Telling the story of Captain Titus and his group of space marines, your mission is to obey the orders of the Emperor you serve. Leading you to peruse the distress call of the Inquisitor and protect the Forge World against the ever spawning legions of the Xenos. Along the way you’ll smash, gut, pound and shoot the living daylights out of literally thousands of enemies in some of the bloodiest brawls we’ve seen in recent video game memory all the while trying to figure out why the Captain is invulnerable to the powers of the Warp.

From a quick look at the gameplay many would simply shrug the game off as a clone of Gears of War. While it does handle very similarly, Space Marine brings about its own little charms. Did you think the Lancer’s chainsaw/gun combo opened up for violence? Try the Chainsword. Did you think the executions were bloody fun? Space Marine has them in drones, and they’re a lot more satisfying. Space Marine offers up a fine mix of close range melee and long ranged run n’ gun glory to keep you happy. You could spend around 80% of the game simply tearing your opponents to pieces with your assortment of melee combos and ridiculously gory finishing moves while reserving a sniper for those hiding a bit to far from your reach. If shooting is more your thing, feel free to put that sword away and blow them all to bits in a sea of metal. The sheer amount of enemies you’ll face on regular intervals will undoubtedly result in some of the biggest virtual bloodbaths you’ve ever seen.

Space Marine offers the standard 8 hours of campaign play seen in most modern day shooters. Through those 8 hours you’ll be introduced to a plethora of exotic weaponry for you to mix and match often to get the job done any way you want. Head popping sniper rifles, bolt rifles, sticky bomb vengeance launchers, napalm induced shotguns, rapid fire twin barrel sub machine guns and a whole lot more. They’re all a blast to use and all come to their own in every brawl. You’ll never get tired of coming across a weapon stash. Fact. While the level design won’t have you aimlessly spinning your camera around to take in the scenery, the Forge World easy shows itself as a place ravaged by war. Outdoor areas are all rocky, desolate and dusty while indoor areas are cold and dark. Your time saving the Forge World won’t necessarily be a pretty one, but it will be a damn satisfying battle.

Captain Titus and his squad will endlessly announce their loyalty to the emperor throughout the script. Cutscenes are short and do well to push the plot forward and together in a simple way that can be easily followed but the characters never really develop into those you would remember further down the line. The British voice over work is an odd but refreshing change of pace yet not particularly strong. Something we’re putting down to the fault of the self dubbed “nobleman script”. The sheer amount of combat seen throughout the game doesn’t change to much as time goes by. Slowly, you’ll be introduced to tougher enemies intertwined with the weaker ones useful to execute to regain some health should your shield be shot down in the heat, though the feat will eventually become a risk in itself as enemies can quickly smash you down during the dozens of execution animation sequences. So be sure to pick your targets beforehand remember the fact they must to whittled down and stunned for it to work.

In the closing chapters of the game, the brawls become evidently harder. Most of the easier melee-centric enemies get replaced by ranged counterparts while the tougher baddies get even beefier and more dangerous. The sheer lack of cover play here is the key difference between Space Marine and the game is so closely resembles. Boss fights are almost non-existent until late into the story and while the first is probably a harsh endeavour without the right gun, the final is essentially a battle of waves leading to a battle of button mashing. While the final fight seemed a tad lazy and unimaginative. It had a surprisingly satisfying end. Again, not short of blood.

As much as Space Marine isn’t short of blood and violence, it isn’t short of replay ability either. Aside from the achievements needed you to log much more than the 8 hours it takes to finish the story, the multiplayer aspects keep those blood brawls coming. While the is sadly a lack of co-op campaign both split-screen and online, 20 waves of Xenos invasions in the Exterminatus mode should keep anyone happy and offer a challenge even for 4-man Skype squads. Meanwhile the Versus mode and Challenge maps all give the chance to level up your online marine unlocking more weapons and armour customizations as you progress – something Space Marine really isn’t lacking.

Sure, Space Marine may not share the personality of Epic Games’ blockbuster series but ramping up the blood and fury of combat is something Space Marine does incredibly well. The story or the voice over work won’t win any the developers any awards but the sheer amount of satisfaction and adrenaline that comes from activating your fury power and slamming a chainsaw down the throat of an orc is something you don’t get to witness in many titles, And for that, Space Marine’s delicious gore filled gameplay, huge range of weapons and replay value make it a more than worthwhile entry into your shelf of less satisfying shooters.

Final Score:  4.5/5

Taking control of an exiled ruler of a Kingdom you set out to work your way back up to regain the trust of your former home by working with your allied towns and your troops to run errands during the 13th century. Thrown into the playing field with very little in the way of gameplay tutorial, you can quickly see that the  “State-of-the-art graphics” proposed by the titles product listing was a huge overstatement unless 1C Company meant unique. The visuals of anything from the grass, trees, water and towns are something you could expect on older smartphones. Everything looks flat and lifeless and often times blurry, a look that can only be explained as if 3D vision was turned on without you wearing the glasses. 1C promised to “depict the 13th century in great detail” and if this is their best attempt, they should probably move onto a different time period.

The flare may be pretty but everything else is as bland as it comes

Developer, Unicorn Games Studio, used a Dual Core, nVidia 8800GT setup as their recommended specs while our own 4gb Quad Core Radeon 6870 setup had difficulty keeping the game running above 30 frames per second no matter what scenario we found ourselves in. Even with the bland visuals and lack of heavy overworld activity.

The playing field simply consists of little characters going about their lives with 1 model usually represents a boat load more; single buildings depicting towns and equally more boring, yet slightly bigger model structures representing cities. Hovering over each of these displays their relationship towards you along with their army’s difficulty, allowing you to pick your battles a little easier and not go strolling into towns that would like nothing better than to feed your head to their plague-ridden mice – for reasons we don’t know. Real Warfare 2 is as much of an RPG as it is RTS. You stand as the leader of an army that is awarded experience points after each successful battle. Army EXP then acts as currency used to upgrade the troops various stats. Your commanding general figure works in a slightly different manor as his own own experience accumulates to increase his level and allowing you to add a point to a choice of perks like permanent EXP bonuses to increased tax money from your allied towns along with increasing the amount of troops you can bring into battle. While the system certainly offers depth to the possible play styles available, it didn’t really serve as an incentive to continue like other experience based character progression systems do, the fact that most, if not all of the in-game enemies over power you with easy means grinding them for experience and troop money isn’t a viable option leaving the game extremely linear as you just click a town, accept a quest, click the quest enemy and fight them one after another.

Go to town - Get Quest - Defeat Quest Enemy - Restock Army - Repeat

Starting off with a merry band of men, we simply watched all of the other mounted characters run about the map as we seriously didn’t have much of an idea of what to do. The game does nothing to explain its inner workings leaving you to just experiment and hope you don’t get ambushed by the dozens of robber gangs riding around. Though even that doesn’t mean anything as you can simply close a bandit’s chat window after they bad mouth your medieval mother and be on your way without any consequence. The 13th century wasn’t nearly this forgiving.

Yes, Real Warfare 2 may be more suited to a medieval combat strategy game than it is an RPG. The character progression is boring and the story is no better, but in all honesty the combat isn’t anything special. Battles are initiated through the playing field by clicking on an enemy figure where you then choose from two lines of abuse to yell at them and organising your men before you reach a ridiculously lengthy loading screen just to be thrown into an up-scaled version of the playing field minus any of the knick-knacks that made it even remotely interesting to look at. A simple large patch of grass and trees is all you’ll see between you and your enemy. Their forces may look a little daunting at first, but rest assured, in the end you’ll just feel bored. From here the battles play out in a standard RTS fashion, albeit slower. You select your troops an issue movement, formation and attack commands while though the game does little in a way to explain the interface and procedure, leaving you to figure it out while the enemy walks toward you.

Real Warfare’s fighting mechanics seem to focus on the general rule of formation. Most of the UI and mouse commands are used to shift your troops into long lines, balls or wedges to counter your opponent. This is where a major issue arose. While troop selection worked as well as you would expect, commands had a noticeable lag between being issued and actually being carried out. Using the mouse to send troops toward a target worked fine but gesturing it to set the troops up in a certain formation was erratic and less than precise. Issues which make a whole lot of different when an army of thousands are heading your way. Camera movement fell victim to the same issues and just didn’t feel fluid making the switch between army control and actually enjoying the battle near impossible.

Zooming into the action would usually spell doom but was fun while it lasted

In the end we found the game to be more comical than fun. Losing a battle simply meant reloading a previous save, meaning you had to put up with the more annoying loading times after each botched attempt as you attempt to come to grips with the games controls. In the early battles we simply sped up the combat and ran our troops to their death and laughing hysterically as the last remaining few decided to throw in the towel and sprint over the mountains faster than the camera could pan across. Even attacking peasants who would surprise us with bigger armies than our own provided more fun than the game itself.

Real Warfare 2 suffers from a host of issues ranging from a large learning curve, disappointing visuals and typically boring gameplay. Surprising is the fact the game is a sequel, if this game has taken it’s predecessor and improved it’s formula like any sequel is meant to do, we shudder at the quality of the last. Real Warfare 2 is probably just as painful to play as the 13th century was for Soldiers to live in.

Final Score:  2/5

Developed by DigitalArrow – a new development studio, InMomentum slaps players into a completely story-less world reminiscent of virtual reality scenes of old sci-fi movies. Based around 12 stages, all varying in design and colour, players are simply tasked with racing against each another to the end of a map by utilizing – you guessed it – Momentum.

Each map employs countless walls and platforms to propel yourself ahead of your rivals

Each stage is comprised of hundreds of walls and platform blocks. Charging ahead, you use the standard WASD keys to move while using your mouse buttons to jump across platforms and bounce along walls. The idea of the game is to keep a steady stream of jumps and bounces enough to build your speed up to the maximum of 299Kmph, which if sustainable, will usually allow you to leap across huge sections of the stage at a time.

The beauty of InMomentum is easily the amount of paths available to complete a course. Players can generally opt to ride the stage on it’s lower levels across the platforms or they can decide to be adventurous, bouncing from one wall to another to eventually scale their way up to the top of the map to use the lack of walls as their advantage to gain more speed with less risk of collision along with the obvious birds-eye view. Currently two game-play modes are open to players – “Time Trial” and “Sphere Hunt” – one involves collecting orbs scattered around the stage – limiting players to a specific path, while the second gives runners more freedom with a small number of checkpoint gates to pass through before reaching the end of the level.

Players can either brave the platforms solo or race with players online. Solo play allows for uninterrupted attempts to gain a spot on the high-score board as you try to beat the times of other players while multi-player races allow you to give chase against your very rivals with the added chance to shoot them off the side of the map. The space-bar shoot button is something every player will sadly need to learn in order to have any chance of bragging rights. By launching a projectile, you can hope the force of the blast will be enough to push the rival at the receiving end of your laser will be enough to send them hurtling to their death, else you run the risk of your blast giving them a huge boost in speed and seeing your chances of winning disappear in the distance. Still, you can use a well timed laser shot-jump combo to propel yourself a little further and reap the benefits of a steady speed increase. The combo shot isn’t really hard to learn, yet I dislike the idea of such a heavy advantage meaning people who can’t quite get to grips with it have very little chance of success with the game, much like when you learn how to snake on Mario Kart while your friends watch as they are lapped in each race.

Each stage offers dozens of routes that can drastically alter your final times

Each map has 4 different difficulty settings to choose from, altering the selected map to less real estate to make traversing the stage that little bit more puzzling while certain levels employ barricades to stop you in your tracks. Most of these walls can be turned off by shooting nearby switches or can be avoided altogether by bouncing around them with the help of the surrounding obstacles. The switches can effectively allow you to close the walls in the faces of other racers should you become that confident in your skills.

While the slow-motion button of the single-player can help you to fine-tune a jump and perfect a time, such an option only comes into the multiplayer in the form of a pick-up. One of numerous pick-ups to be exact. Throughout a multiplayer race, obtainable pick-ups can be collected with a maximum of two at a time. These can range from an immediate speed boost, heightened acceleration, fixed distance teleport, single super jump, time freeze and again, periodic slow motion. All of these will affect just the user with the exception being the slow motion which generally helps the lead runner to maintain that speed more easily whilst leaving everyone else in no better or worse position.       

In terms of bugs or glitches, it is hard for such a simple game to really have a serious issue. It has been confirmed by the developers that certain AMD cards do have some trouble with the lighting effects used to create the game world, with my own card falling victim to the bug. A fix was promised but the blocky light reflections hardly deter away from the experience.  The game’s visuals are simple enough to allow most modern, store-bought laptops or desktops to run it with ease, with the system requirements reflecting my words. Because of the simplicity of this game’s style, don’t expect many graphical options aside from screen-resolution and Post Processed Anti Aliasing.  

Players can alter certain visuals of their on-screen runner (no hats here folks)

While InMomentum does share a few similarities to Mirror’s Edge – such as the relatively solid colour pallet to the fine-tuned task of time trial speed runs, it really isn’t going to make that wait for a Mirror’s Edge 2 any easier. The ability to scale a tower without having to jump to another doesn’t leave much room to think about how to approach certain map sections, and, due to the game not having any sort of story whatsoever, you will be hard pressed to get more than a few hours out of it, but for the asking price it is a solid purchase for speed freaks and leader board junkies with 40 Steam achievements offering replay value to some.  Just be prepared for that vertigo feeling from classic platformers to return and make your hoping that much more of a challenge. InMomentum is available now on Steam (PC)

Final Score:  3/5

MX Offroad is the next entry into the MX series of racers for iOS and Android devices. From 2XL Games, MX Offroad gives you the chance to not strap yourself into a classic dirt or quad bike and charge your way through the competitive gran prix events as you bounce around the narrow corners of dirt track courses. The game’s main menu has a knack for being decisive. On first look, it doesn’t seem like a whole lot content is there for the picking until you figure out it’s all-slide control scheme. Then you’ll find a surprisingly wealthy set of contests to win over and then perhaps some more. Just be sure to put your device’s music feature to go use. Unless you like the slow rock played during the opening and closing credits of American documentaries.

Running over your opponents isn't possible. Or is it? Sometimes it works, most times it doesn't

Jumping into the 3 difficulty choice career mode, you’ll cycle through multi-race grand prix competitions and Tony Hawk-esque trick challenges – Albeit those are watered down. For the most part you’ll be hoping to get back to the grand-prix events as soon they force you into the laborious trick contests. The untrustworthy accelerometer controls and simple “tap” stunts suck out all of the fun and creative skill chaining from the system. The only noteworthy joy from this mode comes from firing your driver over a cliff to see how much distance he can clear in the fetal position. Ragdoll is always a plus but not an option.

Racing in the other hand is, while not perfect, pretty enjoyable. The huge range in track lengths and curvy designs from FMX, MX and SX make eventually getting used to a track layout almost impossible leaving you to nail the suspension button timings on the bumps and hills to give you an edge over your opponents, it’s a strategy that effectively keeps you on the edge too. It’s a simple system, one that will really show a big difference between the pros and the novices in competitive play, something the social networking features of MX Offroad really seems to hint at. After each race you’ll be shown your results along with the recent achievements of other players connected to the OpenFeint network with the chance to challenge their accomplishments. But with the ease of exploiting the many corners of the tracks, it seems like a whole lot of foul play will eventually make it’s way onto the score boards.

If you could ride like that, the first-person camera would be a must

If track memorisation isn’t the game plan here, then you’d think choosing the right vehicle would be key, right? Well that isn’t the case either. Colour chances aside, even with the paid version we couldn’t find any additional vehicles or even any noticeable differences into the two given- a quad bike and a dirt bike (150cc or 300cc); two different types of vehicles. How the cornering on a machine with 2 extra wheels can feel the same as a bike, we’ll never know. And that’s another thing worth pointing out. If you came into MX expecting a realistic offroad racer, you’ll leave within the first 5 minutes. You won’t have to master the tight cornering mechanics or even any use of the brakes. You can effectively turn a sharp 180 degree U-bend with ease if you are willing to sharply twist your arms around to do it – and you should, it’s a race saver.

The crisp graphics are a highlight of the game, but questions were raised over the ability to distinguish corners as you turn out of another.

While if you were considering MX Offroad as your out-of-house racer you may be disappointed with the near non-existent handling and the mess of a score attack feature being nothing like what you’d expect at a real event. The core racing side of MX Offroad isn’t all that bad, however. Mistakes will see you fighting for a decent finish and mastering the suspension timings is the only sure-fire way to improve your lap times later on, but it’s potential exploits and unrealistic controls will raise some serious issues with scoreboards online play – If it had any. If you are looking for a burst of offroad fun on the go, then this is it, but those looking for a more full realistic racer should probably hold off on this one.

Final Score 2.5/5

The story puts players in the role of Lana, who is responsible for an eight year old autistic girl named Amy. Whilst on a train, it’s revealed that Amy was in a hospital for quite a long time to treat her autism, and after drawing some disturbing pictures, the train takes a turn for the worst.  A nearby explosion causes a derailment, and soon Lana and Amy are fighting for their lives as they encounter monsters and the military to escape the town.

During the course of the game, you’ll uncover secrets that Amy holds. Sadly, these secrets, or even the story for that matter, are told rather dismally. No matter whom you are, AMY is poorly told from both the cut scenes and dialogue; from beginning to the very end, you’ll find it painful to finish this terrible story.

The gameplay itself mimics the abysmal story with its numerous terrifying woes. AMY is a third-person survival horror title consisting of your more traditional survival horror elements of combat, puzzles, and stealth. The combat sees you facing off against both humans and monsters alike, and your only means of defense is an iron pipe and Amy’s psychic abilities. Puzzles on the other hand have you finding DNA to unlock doors, poorly explained trigger puzzles, or just sending Amy through dangerous territory to push button. Finally the stealth sections are nothing but hiding in the shadows and waiting for the enemies to just pass by, pretty dull really. Other gameplay elements include an infection indictor and the protection of Amy;  the infection indictor tracks the progress of Lana’s infection by changing colours. Lana’s infection increases depending on various factors like running, using Amy’s powers, getting hit by enemies, etc.  On top of that, Amy is a defenceless girl, whereby Lana is the only protector, meaning that if a monster captures Amy, that monster will start to drain her vitality and kill her.

These gameplay elements could have worked, but ultimately fail in the end. Combat is simple, but has poor detection and repetitive, puzzles are quite boring and not as creative as other survival horror titles.  The stealth sections failed to see the meaning of stealth; by giving the enemies super human sight and hearing. The infection indictor even fails at its sole purpose  to indicate the infection and do not work at all. Finally, Amy can get stuck quite easily, and becomes quite a hassle babysit. The overall gameplay is quite frustrating and poorly executed. Those who are looking for a survival horror experience will just find more frustration then horror.

Presentation wise AMY is surprisingly actually ok for a downloadable title. That being said, it does suffer from frame rate drops and some screen tearing. The voicing acting is decent, but has no emotion to connect the player and Amy together. Even the soundtrack suffers from a poor score and the ambient noise fails to put the player in an immersive experience.

To put it bluntly, AMY is a terrible train wreck. The story is deplorable, and poorly explained from beginning to end. The gameplay is frustrating with its poor combat, uninspiring puzzles, and unnecessary stealth sections as well as other lacklustre gameplay mechanics. Its graphics suffer from frame rate drops and screen tearing, and the voice acting conveys no emotion and the sounds of AMY are the opposite of an immersive experience. Overall, AMY fails at being a survival horror game. This is probably the worst downloadable game of 2012 so far.

Final Score: 1/5

The R.A.T 7 Albino is basically an improved version over the original R.A.T 7; The first and only improvement would be the DPI sensor. Unlike the first R.A.T. 7 which had 5600 DPI, the Albino has 6400 DPI which is a huge improvement over the original. Playing any first person shooter the movement will be precise, smooth, and fast without delay, even other games like RTSs, MMORPGs, also benefit from this increased accuracy. Sadly the DPI improvement is the only improvement that the Albino edition has to offer.

Even if that is the only improvement, the R.A.T 7 Albino edition is still fully customizable and programmable, it offers a perfect grip for any hand with 3 types of palm rest and pinkie grips. The R.A.T 7 Albino is even programmable with four custom DPI settings, five programmable buttons, and 3 cyborg modes that give access to 15 additional commands. These programmable settings can be accessed from the free download software that Cyborg Gaming has to offer. This software will update the mouse to the latest version and give players the ability to customizable the mouse’s buttons to their liking. This is the ultimate FPS gaming mouse for those who want full control of the battlefield on the fly.

The presentation of this mouse is quite appealing to the eye, even if it’s the same design that the original R.A.T 7 has with the only expectation being the colour. While the colour of the original R.A.T 7 was black, the Albino edition is, of course, white. The materials used are lightweight and the design has a nice, smooth futurist look.  Sadly, the only complaint about the mouse design is that the USB wire that connects to the computer is in front of the mouse which is quite a hassle to mess with. The presentation of this product is great, but the wire can be problematic.

Overall, the R.A.T 7 Albino edition is basically the same mouse with an improved DPI sensor and different color. This mouse houses the same customizable features and designs of the original, those who wish to upgrade their R.A.T 7 to the Albino will find little improvement. However if you want a better DPI, or a white colored mouse, then this is for you. If you’re not looking for these upgrades on your original R.A.T 7 we suggest you wait a little longer for a wireless R.A.T mouse.

Final Score: 3.5/5

Fling the little bouncy guy around!

From the guys behind the popular aging social game that is Habbo Hotel, Niko tells the story of a small mysterious monkey like creature on his quest through a mysterious world to rescue his friends. To do that he travels around the dozens of stages throughout his mystical world to jump, fling, climb and cling his way to find his friends. You’ll even be scoring yourself some exclusive Habbo Hotel in-game items for your efforts.

A lot of complains about mobile gaming originate from the lack of physical buttons on modern smartphones. Sure, we’ve probably all fell victim to dodgy control methods by now, but those issues come from overly complicated controls, something easily solved with a simple game premise like Niko. Three small buttons occupy the screen retail space of Niko’s world – Forward, Backward and Jump. One thumb will control Niko’s movements whereas your right his jump. Replacing enemies with obstacles voids the need for attack commands that could take up more space. The camera stays centred on the little guy too, so there is even less chance of your fat pointers getting in the way of the action. But should find some way to complain about them, you can sacrifice those precise movements to control them with a quick tilt of your device, freeing up even more semi-precious screen.

Niko’s 2.5 world may look simplistic in terms of art design, but it’s core platforming aspect will leave you to venture around each stage a little before deciding exactly which approach to take. Being able to scale the walls and ceiling means there may be some secrets still lying around the place; like the elusive golden keys needed to unlock the game’s bonus stage. We only have access to a lonely and aging iPhone 3GS here, meaning Niko wasn’t showing it’s true colours to our eyes. The enhanced pixel-count and brighter screen of the 4th-gen handsets and the considerably larger screen of an iPad would show exactly the kind of world the developers had in mind, and we expect the majority of users by now to see Niko in it’s promised form.

You'll have to be precise and time your jumps well here

The core gameplay of Niko comes from using the critters springy legs and grippy limbs to navigate him around the dangers of his world. By holding the screen (or the jump button) you drag Niko’s proposed trajectory arc to fling him across around the course through and over crushers, onto turning platforms, up long shafts and into springs to catapult him to the goal. Of course, it wouldn’t really feel like a simple mobile game if it didn’t include the chance to beat your friends at something. That’s why even after you whiz through Niko’s 31 stages at around 1-2 minutes a pop, you’ll be left with the job of perfecting your timing, flings and route to absorb all the gems in a way that sees your score multiplier stay up for the longest possible time. All without hurting your little guy, of course.

Flinging your way through Niko’s home world will evidently test your reflexes and judgement. You’ll need to time your jumps well to fly through the series of crushers, throw yourself across crumbling bridges and flipping platforms then stringing them together to really feel the speed of the game. Strolling onto a spring is likely to see you shoot across many others leaving you in a state of “What the hell just happened”; but it’s a good feeling at that.

3 boss fights consist of the same tactic only altered by a slight risk of hitting your head on a spike

In the end, Niko’s simple premise and excellent mix between speedy platforming and twitch reflexes forms a fantastically fun little platformer. Some stages do feel considerably shorter than others but the replay value offered to 3-star each level along with scouring around to find the 3 keys on each means you get a lot for that coffee money you saved this morning. Completing all of the stages may only take a good 45 minutes, but it’s defiantly time well spent and given a few- level expansions and maybe a tweaked boss encounters, Niko is easily capable of generating the same buzz Angry Birds and Cut the Rope did in the past and altering the opinions people have on the quality and appeal of mobile games.

You can grab the 6 stage lite version of Niko right now on the App Store and upgrade to the full 31-stage version for £1.49 in-game.

Final Score 4/5

We had a little helper choose the use of the provided cash shop budget (and the gender)

Typical of MMOGs you choose from a range of classes to base your character upon with War of the Immortals delving deep into the fantasy genre to bring classes such as the bard amongst the standard warrior, range, mage, healer jobs. In total 8 classes are available between any of the featured races, letting you choose from any play style and not have your choice affected by which body image suits strikes your fancy. War of the Immortals features a static progression system for whatever your final choice in character may be. Whereas more recent online games have turned multiple starting points for players to keep a nice mix of content for those starting their 4th character, here you’ll be forced to repeat the same scenario over and over detailing the unveiling and start of the war you are about to become entwined in.

Carrying on from the exaggerated fantasy setting, Atlantis doesn’t actually look to farfetched in terms of architectural style and overall grand scale. Though the graphics range from average resolution textures, questionable terrain clutter and subpar lighting, the overall design of Atlantis and the games major hubs are actually rather impressive, but the limited camera control will do its best to hinder the amount of sightseeing you can do.

In gameplay terms, there isn’t anything here to stop those who have dabbled in virtually any MMORPG from easily picking it up. Action bars full of skills are well embedded into the minds of veteran MMO gamers and War of the Immortals uses the exact same system bar a few little niggling issues – actual skills. While most games have you filling up and activating additional skill bars after just a few hours of play, here you’ll be hard pressed to reach that until deep into the levelling process. You’ll start off with only one or two skills to fight with, and while this is generally all you’ll need to beat up the mythical monsters of Atlantis, you’ll defiantly yearn for a more varied rotation to keep things interesting. Sadly that doesn’t really happen, you’ll get one or two skills per 10 levels, one of these uses a charge meter generated through fights that will usually blow away every enemy in close proximity, and while it is satisfying to use, you can’t help but think everything is a little to much of a cakewalk with mobs falling to your feet after only a couple of strikes and no thought being needed to determine your next move.

19 levels into the game we still only had 2 buttons to press during a fight. One was useless against standard monsters.

MMOs are typically free roaming adventures from the get-go should you be willing to risk your life in the higher leveled areas, but that isn’t the case here. As we mentioned earlier, the whole quest system consists of a hugely long quest chain relating to the game’s story. Pairing this with the admittedly impressive auto-route feature means questing and leveling is an extremely linear affair. While you may be tempted to try out the game’s other classes further down the road, you’d be unlikely to find the motivation to repeat the same series of tasks a second, or perhaps third time.

War of the Immortals struck us as a very story centric game, something usually only seen in bigger name titles building upon an already established lore. While most other games usually have their quest dialogue skimmed at best by its players,  paired with the visuals of the mythical Atlantis and Motenia, the huge NPC characters and the actual game title itself, we found it hard to continue without reading into the basis of the story – the returning forces of Loki from an age-old war on the land. While the tale takes its roots from Norse mythology, it helps to convey the scale of the war and the impending threat players will face. Rarely suffering from a grind or request from a random farmer to pick his crops for some coin, the questing experience will always stay close to the story and help to progress it further. Separating the story scenario into chapters, you will undoubtedly hit the required level for the next chapter right after you are through with the last. While we were impressed by the developer’s courage to crank up the storytelling value of an MMO, its content doesn’t do much to compel you to care about what it is you are trying to achieve but it’s smooth leveling system does manage to fix some of the smaller issues plaguing most online Role playing games. Sadly it’s all let down by the severely out-dated stat system as opposed to the more modern talent trees and specialization formula and linear questing.

Throughout your journey in Motenia you’ll be able to tame some of the zone’s wildlife to fight along side you, while your pet will add a little something to the laborious combat, the feature isn’t revolutionary but it may help to encourage thorough exploration to find some more exotic beasts to compliment your character’s combat style.

Level 20 gave us the ability to wipe out small armies with ease making the game that much more easy (and boring)

Score-wise, Perfect World have done a good job with the soundtrack. The atmospheric musical pieces suit the game really well and are defiantly the sort to keep ringing in your ears when you close the game. Its a shame that in-game sound effects didn’t mimic the quality of the music. Whether it be repetitive attack noises or foot steps, that’s about all you’ll hear from the world around you. Monsters make little to no noise – something evidently clear right when the first boss smashes through a portal in complete silence. It’s a damn shame, the quality animations were really let down by the lackluster audio.

Cluttered and clunky UIs are something we see a lot of in these types of games, and War of the Immortals doesn’t do much to fix this. While we stand neutral in the simple combat as something easily graspable for any player, the UI may become the wall between keeping new players or losing them from the start. The amount of menus, sub-menus and buttons within the game UI presents a learning curve in itself and will take a good deal of getting used to for any first time player.  Hidden within the various menus you’ll find little gems alerting you to the weekly bonus EXP boosts, quizzes and various other nice little features aimed to keep players coming back on a regular basis. We were given $50  (5000 ZEN) worth of in-game cash to spend in the War of the Immortals cash shop, the standard of F2P games and with cash in hand we did a good deal of searching through the wares of the store. Eventually settling on 2 pieces of vanity clothes to deck out our hero we still had 2400 ZEN to our name. The store struck us as surprisingly expensive with pets and mounts aksing for a similar, if not higher, chunk of your wallet. The clothes did give a healthy HP boost, but overall nothing likely to turn the tides in any player-vs-player fight for those worried about balance. The biggest use of the cash shop looks to be for players to shell out a couple of bucks to stock up on supplies for the game’s high-level content, for a big raid or to upgrade their shiny new weapons. Perfectly acceptable in that sense but otherwise lacking in interesting content and a bit too pricey for the quality it offers.

Crafting will only make an appearance late into your journey, should you manage to stick with the game long enough to see it. You are only allowed one profession at a time with an exhaustion bar further limiting your use of the mediocre upgrade feature.

Windows are cluttered with data and more detachable windows

Perfect World took a bold step with War of the Immortals. Focusing the entire leveling process on nothing but story was a bold move and while it no doubt keeps the process flowing at a steady pace, but its linear fashion will prove to be the biggest reason for players to not stick around for long. The auto-routing, auto-potion and simplistic combat may make the game easy to pick up for first time players but ultimately demeans and oversimplifies the game play. War of the Immortals isn’t doing anything different to pull itself ahead of the MMO herd and we can’t see any reason to choose this particular linear experience over the more varied games on the market. Spend your time elsewhere!

Score 2.5/5

The story begins with a group of students telling ghost stories of their school’s dark history. The old school, called Heavenly Host Elementary, was host to murders and disappearances of staff and students, so understandably the school was torn down. Upon its tainted plot a new school called Kisargai Academy was built. As the group of students finished up their ghost telling, they soon find out that one of their friends is moving away, they soon start a ritual to symbolize their friendship even if they are far apart. After completing the ritual, an earthquake starts and the floor breaks, engulfing the group of students. They soon find themselves separated within the hollow halls of Heavenly Host Elementary.

The main goal is to escape from this terrifying place, alive. As all hope feels lost for these students, this story offers a well told experience until the very end. Overall it’s quite a linear affair across the five main chapters, but it’s a well-paced and intense experience that people will not forget for quite some time. It will however take multiple play thoughs to fully experience this gripping story.

As terrifying and intense the story is, the gameplay also shares these horrors. Corpse Party is a top-down horror adventure title, primarily based on exploration, puzzle solving, and simple RPG elements. A good chunk of the game is spent on exploration so the school is a huge place with many mysteries, secrets, and traps to discover and overcome. The whole school itself feels like one gigantic puzzle with many different paths and decisions to take. Each one  of these decisions will either extended your life a little further or lead you to your demise a giving the player a “wrong end”, which is essentially the game over screen, where you’ll see/hear one of the many playable characters die in rather painful agony.  You’ll die a lot in this game, so be prepared.

Ultimately you’ll be spending your time searching the halls of Heavenly Host for clues to reunite everyone before they start losing their minds, or worst. Gameplay is simple, intense, and creative from beginning to end. Everything you do affects the outcome of each chapter, the only thing thats annoying is that the “wrong end” is un-skippable. So the player must watch/listen to their character die over and over again, if you fail at a certain objective. Overall, gameplay for Corpse Party has elements that have been missing from previous horror titles.

Without it’s slick presentation, the story and gameplay wouldn’t be anywhere near as chilling. Everything from the graphical retro style, audio, and voice actors; it’s presentation of retro styled graphics for gameplay, and anime visual novel graphics for character portraits and special scenes really make it pop. The audio is a pleasant mixture of disturbing ambient sounds, like screams, creaking floors, etc, whilst the soundtrack is great with tunes fitting for an horror adventure. The voice actors also up the horror ante by breathing life into each character, however the whole game is spoken in Japanese with English subtitles, just in case you were wondering.

Overall Corpse Party is a great horror adventure that people will love. The story is well-told, deep, and intense experience across five chapters that’ll hook everyone ’till the very end. Gameplay is simple to understand, with lots to explore and clues to find. Its only problem is that none of the cut scenes cannot be skipped especially that dastardly “wrong end” screen. Presentation wise, the game is great with a mixture of retro graphics and anime styled visuals with excellent ambient sounds, soundtrack, and voice actors. Those looking for a chilling and unique experience, Corpse Party will tick all the boxes.

Final Score: 4/5