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Today, 31st December 2008, is the seventh day
of Christmas; which means Electronic Theatre now presents to
you the seventh instalment of The Twelve Games of Christmas!
A new feature series aiming to highlight some of the greatest
achievers of 2008, The Twelve Games of Christmas takes one
month worth of disc-based releases each day, from the corresponding
month of the year, and delivers the best titles for you to snap-up
in those January sales!
As mentioned above, today is the seventh day of
Christmas, which means this edition of The Twelve Games of
Christmas will be concentrating on disc-based releases from July
2008. As the expected summer lull crept in, 2008’s release schedule
didn’t actually seem particularly troubled. July 2008 once again saw
a string of big names released, including the first handheld
iteration of the Guitar Hero franchise, Guitar Hero On
Tour, Devil May Cry 4’s arrival on PC, Unreal
Tournament III on PLAYSTATION3 and Xbox360 and, of course, the
highly anticipated Soul Calibur IV.
Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli made it’s well
received debut in July this year, no doubt to the satisfaction of
System3, and SBK-08 Superbike World Championship finally made
its way onto the Xbox360.
Honourable Mention:
Devil May Cry 4 (PC)
Guitar Hero: On Tour (NintendoDS)
SBK-08 Superbike World Championship (Xbox360)
Runners-Up:
Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli (PLAYSTATION3)
System3’s Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli
attracted a lot of attention before release, an unusual situation
for the little known – and certainly underappreciated - publisher
System3, but one which they would undoubtedly be glad of. Working
hard with developer Eutechnyx to offer an attractive Racing title
that differs from the pack – while being under the obviously
stringent Ferrari licence guidelines - Ferrari Challenge Trofeo
Pirelli was worthy of the attention, and the final product
created enough of a storm in the UK to be noticed as a PLAYSTATION3
exclusive.
Unreal Tournament III (Xbox360, PLAYSTATION3)
Some may argue that the Unreal Tournament series
is struggling to break out of its mould. The shadow cast upon Epic
Games’ one-time
golden child by a certain Xbox360 grunts-n’-guns shooter may be
obvious to most ‘90s gamers, but to suggest that Unreal
Tournament III hasn’t refined the Arena-based First-Person
Shooter genre to a crisp sparkling diamond could only be the result
of looking at past titles with rose-tinted glasses.
Indeed, the Gears of War effect has readily been
noticed in everything from weapon balance to character design, and
the community support is of course similarly juvenile and manic;
just the way the fans like it. While it’s fair to say that Unreal
was the starting point of Gears of War, it would be
impossible to say that Unreal in-turn hasn’t learnt from it’s
apprentice.
Wall*E (Xbox360, PLAYSTATION3, Wii, PlayStation2,
NintendoDS, PlayStation Portable, PC)
Wall*E is a difficult title to discuss at any
length without definin g
which release is up for debate. While the Current-Generation
releases provide enjoyably traditional Platform adventures, the
PlayStation2 release is an altogether different prospect. At once
being one of the finest looking titles on the system – with
fantastic distances drawn to surpass many average Current-Generation
releases and Character Models full of charm – and also an inventive
Platform title, Wall*E throws-up challenges based on weight
and speed, with little or no combat for the best part of the game.
Inventive physics puzzles often thought beyond the capabilities of
the PlayStation2 are thrown-up around every corner, and although
simple in nature – most likely due the target audience as opposed to
the developers abilities – are creative while being entirely
coherent with the Wall*E story.
Best of July 2008
Soul Calibur IV (Xbox360, PLAYSTATION3)
Soul Calibur IV leads the debate to as to the
worth of Downloadable Content to the industry. With the developer
having already come under fire for the Beautiful Katamari
Downloadable Content widely believed to actually exist on the
retail disc prior to release and simply “unlocked” by paying for a
small download, the additional Star Wars characters themed to
each console in Soul Calibur IV were quite inevitably set to
be made available for download after launch. Whether or not this is
considered a viable business proposition or simply pulling-the-wool
over consumers’ eyes is still very much open for debate.
Balanced enough to make a beginner feel like a
professional, Soul Calibur IV maintains its learning curve in
its extraordinarily deep combo system. Allowing players to be
creative with characters in the same way that Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts
& Bolts encourages vehicle modification, and offering the Tower
of Lost Souls and online play as their testing grounds, Soul
Calibur IV presents more incentive for the player than its
closet rival, Virtua Fighter 5. With Tekken 6 entering
the chicken coop next year, and undoubtedly bringing more
questionable Downloadable Content with it, Soul Calibur IV’s
time-in-the-sun may not be too long lived, but for now it most
certainly rules the roost. |
