Reviews written by Nick Savage

I've always been a fan of cats. They know where it's at - what with the exploring, and killing things. But even I was surprised at the quality of these cats.

The story is very well realised - cats are born, 18 weeks ago; two brothers break it out on their own and make an incredible journey to the Sheffield cat shelter. Once there, we see their rise to the top, being pampered by staff all day. I almost cried with happiness at the bit where they went from soft food to crunchy biscuits.

But as always, the plot took a sinister twist. Just as our heroes were living the good life, they were struck down with a case of flu, making them all gungey in the eyes. The staff turned sinister. They began injecting them and slipping drugs into their food - before they knew it, they were unconcious a lot of the time.

*SPOILER*

Thankfully, this story has a brilliant twist. It turns out that the brothers were not the subject of cruel animal testing after all. Rather, the staff at the Shelter were nursing them back to health, and giving them their jabs to stop them getting ill from other things. So they were being looked after all along.

Then, they finally get their big break that sorts them out for life. After all their trouble, the brothers are introduced to two 'big people' who usher them into a mysterious box. The box starts moving and shaking - strange images appearing outside the grill of the door.

When they left the mysterious box, they found themselves in a warm house, made of reclaimed materials, with a warm Aga to sleep on and a Christmas Tree still standing to play with. All over the place there were toys to play with - it was a real tear-jerking ending. The two big people kept the food bowls full and the litter tray clean and they all lived happily ever after.

The performances were incredible. Samson's air of elegant grace was balanced well with Luca's sense of wonderment. They really are perfect for these roles.

Now all I need to do is watch 'Its a Wonderful Life' again and I'll have finished my transformation into a girl.

Ah, P K Dick. I have a soft spot for the guy. Something about him was so tragic; perhaps the crippling depression, or the nervous breakdown. He was something of a troubled genius, in the most classic sense.

His books had both a sort of innocence and a profoundly deep quality to them. He was an ideas man, but he could be terrible at setting the scene - in that sense he wrote almost like a child.

Ubik is no different. In fact, that innocence is more apparent in this one than any of the others I've read. It seems that everything must be described as wildly different, even clothing. He'll take time out to describe how someone's pyjamas were 'multicoloured, and the sci fi staple, 'meal in a pill'. Frankly, it prevents you from ever really believing his vision.

However, you don't read Dick for the elegence of his writing. You read him because of his plots, and the subtexts they inevitably contain. Ubik takes the idea of life, and what really defines it; it's a twisted tale that never really allows you to guess what will happen.

The novel follows a group of 'inertials' - people who are able to cancel out other people's psychic powers - through a strange journey, where the world is regressing through time... and here, in the synopsis, I hit a problem.

You cannot say anything of use about this book without revealing a critical part of the plot. Nothing is redundant, and so is valuable information that reader learns at the right time. Nothing can be said about it without reducing the readers enjoyment.

But it does take a long time to get going. He takes an age to try and set up the situation, without really rewarding you. All the while, he keeps throwing childish visions of the future into his descriptions that prevent you from really connecting.

It's worth sticking with it, though. This really isn't his best book, but as ever, it does make you think. Dick's books always show you something profound - but in this one you just have to wait a little longer, dig a little deeper, a forgive his style a little more.

It seems endlessly popular nowerdays to lean towards the socialist side of the economic debate. I have been, for quite some time. I still do. Not so much now, though, not after this book.

Ayn Rand, a laissez faire capitalism purist, is a damned fine writer. Let's start from there. Her style is refined and intelligent. For me, it strikes the perfect balance between economic and descriptive. You never feel like a word is wasted, but you also feel as if her world is meticulously described and as such becomes almost concrete in its reality. It's the type of writing that demands repect, because frankly it cannot be faked. It's the writing of a supremely intelligent person.

The premise behind Atlas Shrugged is just as well considered and constructed. The book follows a selection of powerful industrial leaders in North America; in particular a woman called Dagny Taggart in charge of the country's biggest railroad, and a man called Hank Rearden, of Rearden Steel and associated companies. It also follows the people who live off the efforts of these leaders - the "looters" as Rand puts it. These are the men from Washington, and the people who try and pull favours to run a business, rather than actually make anything themselves.

This is all a round about way for Rand to make her point that the Government should never get involved in economics, at all. The story is grim, and epic (my copy runs to over 1100 pages of the smallest type I have ever seen). It covers every topic you can think of - art, business, sex, politics, cars, mining, engineering, how to run a good grocery store... it even has a pirate in it, if you can believe it. It's just that big a book. When pressed, though, I'll quote a line from the blurb on the back of the book. "Atlas Shrugged is a book about a man who said he would stop the motor of the world - and did."

The pace is perfect. It rarely gets slow, and often has you on the edge of your seat. Never before has a book made me misty eyed with joy, or outright angry about anything. Only very occasionally does a character go on a long monologue to detail the finer points of Objectivism, Rands personal philosophy.

It's a philosophy that contains a large number of flaws. In a very basic nutshell, she believes in the "virtue of selfishness", believing that if each person focuses entirely on getting what they want, then we will all be better off. There are a few conditions that make it work, though. You have to be a producer. That is to say, you shouldn't steal or loot from others. In this way, money becomes a regulatory system that ensures each mans effort is measured according to what it is really worth. When you earn money and then spend it, you are essentially saying, "I will trade my effort for yours". Nobody should ever have to support someone elses life.

And while that's all very nice, it's not realistic I know. Of all the topics in this book, it doesn't mention what happens to the elderly or disabled, for example. Even so, it's rare that such a pro capitalist view is put forward in such a compelling and thoughtful way. It makes me realise that to only be informed in one side of the argument is not really to be informed at all.

A long review for a long book. I could go on, but I won't. Give it a go, and see what you think. For me, it's in my top three.

My previous experience with hacker games consists entirely of my time playing Introversion's 'Uplink'. It was a superb indie game that became thoroughly addictive.

My second ever hacking game, exoSyphen's 'BS Hacker Unlimited' (which, I have to say, suffers from chronic bad naming syndrome) is not at all perfect. It is, however, compulsive - and once again generates the same feeling of satisfaction that Uplink did.

It feels altogether more mature than its earlier rival, forgoing the glitchy, but hollywood-stereotype-hacker interface for a slightly more 'real' feel. It's all worked through a console screen, where you type commands to solve the various problems you come across - there are really no 'graphics' to speak of. It's actually getting close to a text based adventure.

However, given the subject matter, this lack of graphical flare makes it feel authentic, like you're using some tools you downloaded off the internet to break into someone's computer somewhere. There is very little in the way of bleeping, pulsing buttons or lights to shatter the illusion that you are doing all this for real - whether it be breaking into school computers to delete your records, or re-building the internet after it fell to pieces.

However, it does feel limited. It may be because I'm not too far in, but it appears that every computer is broken into in the same way, and once there you can only download, upload, or delete files. You can't, for example, create your own programmes to retrieve information, or any of that other stuff you think about when you think of hackers.

Even so, they've got around this in a brilliant way. They're hoping to tap into the mod community that is just begging for games like these by making scenario and custom mission creation very, very easy. You can, quite literally, create your own story just by writing it out in wordpad and filling in some information that the programme will look for. I'm working on a story where you accidentally end up, through a long, complicated process, finding out God's email address. You can ask him the meaning of life, if you want. But I won't spoil it.

A really interesting game. Keep an eye out for this genre - it's fascinating.

Personally, I'm not really one for fan fiction. I feel this way for the same reason that I don't normally like games based on film licenses - they are normally lazy, amateurish affairs that require a knowledge and loyalty to the thing it's based on in order for you to like it.

So I started reading this with some trepidation. I was expecting it to be all plasma, explosions, and cheesy heroics. I was expecting impenetrable references to the EVE universe that only residents of the game would understand. As a fan of Phildickian Sci-Fi, where the escapism is based in the oddball minds of the characters and the alternate realities they inhabit, EVE belongs to a genre that wouldn't normally interest me (as a book, that is - I'm quite enjoying the game).

However, this surprised me. Yes, there are battles, and yes, there are numerous mentions of the word 'plasma', along with other staples of the space opera novel; but these instances fit into a well balanced and thoughtfully considered political context. Make no mistake, this is a book about war - but it's more about the build up, the negotiation, the diplomacy, and the history. It builds quite nicely to a rolling, realistically dramatic peak and then concludes quite satisfyingly in the same way you might expect from a real diplomatic situation. It's like Vietnam in space.

This has been done before, of course - my favourite example being The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1974) - but while The Forever War was making a very strong political statement, EVE is an altogether more sedate, more thoughtful book on a grand scale. The story of Tibus Heth, a miner turned revolutionary turned leader, is an excellent example of how to develop what could have been a very one dimensional character. Essentially an evil man, you can find yourself sympathising and occasionally even rooting for him. Nothing is simple here, and everything feels like it has realistic roots.

And this all makes perfect sense, when you play the game. As an MMO, EVE is not so much a game as a mirror of our own society - with the focus firmly on economy, cooperation, business, and the conflict that emerges as a result. So for me, this book represents a far more desirable way of continuing a universe created by another medium - to capture the feel of the game, rather that make a thousand obscure references. It also did something rather surprising too, by taking a game mechanic designed as a throwaway explanation for how people who get blown up can come back to life and looking in depth at how this would affect us in reality.

Cloning - the issue in question - is explored in depth, asking questions about whether an exact copy of yourself is really you, or if a change of body is a change of person. In the case of this book, this is illustrated beautifully with the death of a tyrant, waking up in a new body with no memory - and how he gradually comes to hate who he previously was. There are hypothetical issues too, such as the class gap between those that have become immortal through cloning, and those who haven't.

It has its share of problems, of course. The writing can be a little rough around the edges, and it can take a while to really get going. Certain characters (such as The Broker) are so improbably powerful that you wonder just why they don't run the whole universe. But when you place qualms like these up against the thoughtful exploration of several completely different and far more realistic characters, it can be forgiven.

So I suppose was wrong to assume it would be some hokey sci-fi rubbish. It's a solid book in its own right, and Tony Gonzales does a good job of keeping the EVE brand alive as a more mature MMO alternative. Well worth a read.

[Review originally by Doopus]

I'm currently eagerly waiting the release of Lego Batman for the Wii, and as I'm waiting I find myself going back to Lego Indiana Jones.

The game itself is brilliant in its sheer simplicity. At its core its a platform game, but then you have all the little twists added to give it the uniqueness that will have you wanting to play it more and more.

The main aim of the game is to play through each of the first 3 Indiana Jones films, each level will see you using a pair of different characters, normally Indy will be one of them, but at times you'll also control some of the other main characters including Short Round, Dr Jones Senior and Willie.

Each different character also have their own special abilities, Dr Jones Senior can translate hieroglyphics, Short round can get into small spaces and can repair things, all the female characters can scream to break glass objects and can jump higher than male ones, and with Indy you get the whip.

Each of these abilities means that for the different puzzles you come across you have to use a combination of the characters to get to certain objectives.

Throw into this that some characters then have their own fears, taken from the films, so Indy is scared of snakes, Willie doesn't like bugs and Dr Jones isn't too fond of rats. If your running along with one your characters and you come across one of their fears they will just stop and cower and you have to swap to your other character.

The main game itself takes you through the film storylines stage by stage, linking up the levels with quite funny cut scenes from the films redone in Lego.

Once you've completed a film you can then watch back all the clips together to see a cut down version of the film itself, and some of these clips are superbly done with a good twist of humour added (afterall it is in Lego).

With this game I found myself actually not looking forward to completing it as I wanted to keep playing, and thats where the beauty of the game comes in. The re-playability of this game is immense. A key part of the main game is collecting Lego Studs, with these studs you can then buy bonus items that can be used in the game such as treasure detectors or x2 modifiers to the amount of studs you collect. With each level completed you then also open up all the characters from that level, including the baddy characters and with your studs you can then buy these characters and play with them when you go back into a level. Each level then also can be played in a free play mode where you can choose which characters you want to take in, which by combining abilities from different characters which you didn't have first time round, can open up hidden areas and new levels. On top of this, each level also has 10 artifact pieces hidden throughout it and a power brick which you have to find, so although you may complete the storyline mode, the game itself will have you coming back time and again to complete fresh challenges.

The format of the Nintendo Wii doesn't make too much of a difference. The game is the same on the XBox 360 as well, the main difference being on the Wii you can 'crack' the Wii-Mote to use Indy's whip which at first is quite fun, but you soon realise its just a gimmick and get back to actually getting through the levels.

Overall I loved this game. If you like platformers its a certifed winner. If your an Indy fan you'll love it too, if just for the Lego cut-scenes. Even if your not a big fan of platformers you'll probably still end up coming back to it, its just that type of game, so i'm giving it a resounding 10 out of 10.

Now lets just hope the Lego Dark Knight is just as good...

I never really thought I was a particular fan of the racing genre. I never get overly excited about the next big release, although I do like to keep an eye on them from time to time. But then again, looking through my games collection it appears as though I enjoy them more than I think. MotoGP, Forza, DIRT, Project Gotham - all are present when many other games would have been traded away.

And when I sit down to play them, I have a great time. So why my ambivalence? Why aren't I foaming at the mouth with anticipation? I think it's because it's hard to imagine how each new one could be significantly different from the last. A racing game is a racing game.

This is important. It's why GRID scores so highly in my opinion. Here is a game with a good, solid racing sim at its heart - up there with the best of them - but it's the simulation of the atmosphere of racing that really sets it apart. I mean, how many of us watch motor sport on TV, but would never take part? Something draws you in that gaming would do well to imitate. It's got a feeling of danger - no re-starting the race here, or loading up a previous save. You can throw away a championship with a lapse of concentration. Then there is the rivalry between the teams, and the drivers. It all combines to create a think feeling of tension and excitement.

Starting off in GRID, you have to race for other teams until you've earned enough to fix up an old banger and start your own team. From that point on, everything matters. You hire your drivers - and rely on them to do just as well as you do. And if you choose to put 'Pro' mode on, then you cannot restart a race - and so all of a sudden, you're driving like a real driver, and not someone who will constantly ram into people to try and get ahead.

For the more inexperienced, though, it takes great care of you. The 'flashback' feature is excellent - on the lower difficulty levels, if you crash you can simply view the replay, and take over control at any point, thus turning back time. It's a great way of avoiding the repetitive nature of the dreaded restart.

The main flaw, however, is the way in which it forces you to split your focus between events. Some of them are excellent - the open wheel class is scary and exhilerating, for example - but some of them are a little less entertaining depending on your tastes. I'm not a big fan of the drifting events and I don't particularly appreciate being forced to do them.

Which is a shame. I would much prefer to be allowed to specialise, much as a real driver would. To become better known in your specific field, and then branch out as you desire. It seems a strange contradiction to generate such a realistic atmosphere in most areas, and then apply these almost random restrictions to how you want to progress that career.

GRID can grip you. It's got so many things right that other racing games seem to gloss over. It's fun to drive, and it puts that driving into a great career context that doesn't just revolve around buying new cars. It rewards you for driving well, rather than just fast. And I think in the long run, this may be the shape of things to come.

[Review originally written by Doopus]

Where to start, well really with this game it can be summed up in short as follows; If your an old school gamer who liked classics such as Secret of Monkey Island or Treasure Island Dizzy, you will love Zack & Wiki.

Zack & Wiki in its simplest form is a puzzle-adventure game. It starts off with deceptively easy, and you may be fooled into thinking this is a kids game, but trust me, if you play through the first couple of levels the puzzles start to become a lot more taxing and the game really comes into its element.

You play Zack, a young pirate who is followed by his little flying golden monkey called wiki, who is in more than one way very reminiscent of Pikachu, but don't let this put you off.

You start out escaping from your ship thats just been attacked by some rival pirates and end up freeing the ghost of the legendary pirate Barbaros.

When I say 'free' though you only free his skull, and the game then sets you off travelling to free the rest of his skeletal anatomy over a range of different puzzle filled levels in different area's of the world.

To help in solving your puzzles you will come across different objects that can be manipulated in a variety of ways. The first one being your little golden monkey friend who you can shake and turn into a bell to change other monsters usable objects, crazy I know.

The reason I found this game so entertaining though is that it was made for the Wii, and what this means is that all of the different objects you get from keys, to saw's, to grabbers you have to mimic the action with the Wii-Mote to actually perform the action required.

This in itself adds an all new dimension to the game and to the puzzle solving as some items can be used in different ways depending on how you move the Wii-Mote.

All in all, this is a really fun game, the puzzles are interesting and will have you coming back, the only downsides I found were on a few occassions the character would get stuck in the background and couldn't be moved, meaning you had to restart the level. Also the option to get a clue on hard puzzles is way too easy which makes it very tempting to just get a clue and pass through the puzzle, rather than stretch your mental muscles and work it out.

I'd definately say its worth playing, but its not got any real re-playability as once youve completed it theres no real hook to go back and do the puzzles again. Overall I would say a 7 out of 10.

What do you say about the game that’s been reviewed a thousand times? Especially when 90% of those reviews give it a perfect ten? There’s a pressure – to see in this game what all these other people are seeing, to play the same game they are playing. If, somehow, it doesn’t live up to it in your eyes, you begin to wonder if you’re missing something.
GTA IV is a complex, and important game. Almost every game in this series so far has felt like a technological leap further than we thought possible. Rockstar, for me, has acquired an identity as a development studio that is always reaching just a tiny bit beyond its grasp, always wanting more, and always almost getting it. This is by no means a bad thing; it’s the gaming equivalent of NASA going to the moon in the sixties - there are things that were achieved which, by all logical reasoning, shouldn’t have happened with the current technology. It wasn’t perfect, but they bloody well managed it anyway.

And that’s the feeling with GTA IV for me, more than ever. Here is a game that in so many ways surpasses all I’ve come to expect – but at the same time feels rushed in places, cobbled together in others. The result feels, as I said earlier, like this is a frontier; as if, in carving new territory, Rockstar have had to set up a shanty or two.
So let’s get down to business. Let’s start with the good points. Obviously, as has been said many a time before, the city really is an absolute marvel. The detail is insane, from the banana skins that fall out of toppled dustbins to the way each street feels unique. One thing that struck me was just how flat all the other open world environments now feel after playing this. The Liberty City of today feels as if it has real depth – looming overpasses, cobbled streets weaving over each other in a web of bridges and walls. It’s a simple thing, but it gives the whole place character and scale – as well as helping to differentiate the various boroughs. Just walking the streets is a pleasure that feels new to gaming in general – because for the first time, I feel like this could be a real place.

This attention to detail is ubiquitous. No matter how long and hard you search, you simply won’t find an area that feels out of place, or dull. And this applies to more than just the city. The story is also crafted with the same amount of care and skill.

When I put the controller down after finishing GTA IV’s story, I was genuinely speechless. It’s rare that a game can imitate the feel of a good movie, because the time spans involved are so different that usually by the end of a game, you’re less connected than you would be with a film which you have watched from beginning to end in one sitting. Here, though, is a master class in characterization and narrative in a video game. Niko is loveable, shocking, and tragic in equal measure. The people he meets range from downright hideous to similarly misunderstood and unfortunate – but all of them are extremely well realized and written.

And when it comes to the crunch times, you are handed the narrative reigns. Instead of just killing everyone, you occasionally have the option to walk away. Whilst at the beginning this feels a little like a novelty, it soon becomes an integral part of the experience. This is because whilst it does relate to the story – in a very significant manner – these decisions are more closely associated with Niko’s character development. In other words, by the end of the game, you feel significantly differently about him if you make certain decisions than if you had taken a different route. I, for example, felt as if he’d walked the road to redemption; others will have felt as if he’s a man who has lost his soul. I’ll not say any more, but needless to say it’s a refreshing and surprising change to see a game that has a bit of meat on the bone when it comes to narrative.

So those are the big winners in GTA IV. The environment, the story, and the characterization. Backing these real selling points up are the other details, which help to make the experience truly unique. But in discussing those, you will begin to see the game’s issues cropping up.

Firstly, there is the combat system. Gone are the days of previous GTA outings where you would stand at the end of a long road with the longest range weapon and just try to take people out, hoping they don’t hit you. Now there is depth to the system. Diving behind cover, blind firing, popping out for accurate shots – Niko is a decidedly more agile and intelligent creature to the CJs and Tommy Vercettis of the virtual world. There are moments of pure cinematic bliss in the fighting within this game – storming abandoned buildings, going on difficult assassination missions – these are the moments that stand out head and shoulders above the previous games in the series.

However, there are still issues. The lock on still feels as if it has no sense of priority sometimes, aiming at a distant guy with a machine gun rather than a closer nutcase with a rocket launcher. And the cover system, whilst a great addition, can feel clunky and inhibitive sometimes, making it difficult to run out when there is an opening, or clipping to the wrong side of a pillar – leaving you completely exposed. And so we find the first of our “shanties” on the frontier. In the end, the combat system is a wonderful thing; but the fact that this environment means that there are no perfectly organized set-piece corridors to fight down, that in fact anywhere and anything in the world can be used as a battle ground, means that there are a few glitches.

And this double sided approach applies to a great deal of the much promoted details of GTA IV. These things, designed to create a greater sense of immersion, do just that – and yet also serve to point out that this isn’t a real, living world at the same time. For example, the “internet” incorporated into the game is a great touch. Funny, well observed and pretty extensive, it’s an entertaining diversion. On the other hand, most of the sites are not really interactive – you can’t post pictures from your camera phone onto the GTA equivalents of myspace, for example (and, in fact, you can’t even create a profile). And so you end up feeling as if a lot of potential has been wasted, rather than acknowledging how great this thing is, that normally wouldn’t have even been there in the first place.

The same goes for the clothes shops – which are, individually, excellent. Browsing the racks of jackets and trousers feels natural and enjoyable; but there are only four of them in the whole of Liberty City, and two are identical. Then there are the fast food diners and restaurants – detailed and with the right atmosphere, but drive along almost any street and you’ll see an array of other food chains that you are never allowed to enter.

There’s the police computer, found in any cop car, which gives you a great many interesting things to do – ‘solve’ current crimes (kill the criminal is apparently the be all and end all of the American justice system), or track down each of the ten most wanted, for example. But jump in a taxi or ambulance, and all mini missions and side missions have been removed completely. No radio telling you to get to a fare, no medical emergencies. Nothing.

There are a lot of these double edged swords in GTA. Areas where they have gone the extra mile, but also serve to point out what could have been. The fact is, if these were never included, we would never have asked for them – but now that they have, we are. It all feels a little suspicious, really. As if we’ll suddenly see a load of shops open up in a convenient premium download.

So how do you score something like this? A game that gives you a taste of so many good things that you want more – so that your request is almost impossible to satisfy? Well, I’m going to remember that NASA analogy (stretched though it is). This is a game that has done so much more than it needed to. The core elements – the environment and story – are so well done that they warrant enormous praise on their own. But the fact that Rockstar have moved things forward in so many other areas, sometimes with ambition over-reaching reality, makes this a truly special experience.

For me, it all feels like a nine, purely because of so much unfulfilled potential. But that would be hideously unfair. The fact is, the bar has been raised so high that they only just scraped over it themselves; and even though it wobbles and looks as though it could tumble, well, it never really does. In the end, it’s easy to forget that they put it all the way up there in the first place, while everyone else was making the easy jump. So for that, Rockstar, you deserve a little extra.