kimahri said:
I remeber good ol' GT3. It was the first game I owned since my amiga days. It was really boring, except the rally tracks.
QFT! Gran Turismo now is essentially a rhythm action game.
Follow the line, press brake when the lines turn a different colour, move in time to the line, press accelerator. It's just missing music... and fun...
Thanks to an anonymous benefactor, I've recently acquired a whole bunch of PSN games to download. I've had a chance to play them all enough to post reviews now I think.
Smash Cars
This interested me as I had the original version on the PC about 10 years ago. It was also great fun, but irritating and shallow. It had a customisable .ini file though and you could play with all kinds of physics and effects. That made it good.
The idea is a good one, you race remote control cars around "life like" circuits, overcoming obstacles such as real sized cars, beach bathers, tables, chairs, etc.
It's like the original, fun, but shallow. It's also mildly irritating in that it handles just a little funnily. You have to seriously watch yourself all the time, but if you get behind, you need to rush and push, but the game doesn't really let you do that. If you rush, you will fail even more. So it's quite a punishing game at times. Still, 7/10.
Wipeout HD
I've been playing Wipeout on various Sony machines since the original. I don't know why, I don't really like them. I want to like them, I really do. They're fast, exciting, require skill and fantastically presented. I just find them lacking something to hook me in though. I don't know what it is.
I played through about 10 races, replaying to get gold medals. I can't say I really enjoyed it, but it must be a good game somewhere to get me to keep on playing that much. I will probably play it a few more times, then it will gather dust as all the other versions have. Gorgeous game though. 10/10 if you like Wipeout, 7/10 if you don't.
Shatter
Essentially an Arkanoid/Breakout clone, but done in the style of
Rez. Everything about the game reminded me of Rez in fact, apart from the gameplay which is pure block breaker. Style wise it's lush, with some brilliantly realised obscure levels and music. End of level bosses are also well designed. I hated it though, I just couldn't get a game over. I had to keep playing it, but after an hour of doing it and accidentally picking up more and more 1up's, I just put the controller down. I'd been playing for over an hour and made it more than halfway through the game without losing a credit. I just wanted to die. I wanted the game to die - which is a shame because it's so lovely. 4/10 for being uber easy.
Toy Home
I love the idea of this game. It's like everything Micro Machines should be. You play a toy car (clockwork) racing around a real life environment (bedroom, kitchen table, etc) collecting coins and checkpoints against the clock. There are rewards for smashing things, jumping, etc. Brilliant idea, and pretty well executed... Except...
1. You have to steer using the motion control function. This is a PS3, not a Wii - let me have th eoption of using the sticks please.
2. You only get a tiny amount of the game for your (or other person's

) £7. To get a decent number of cars, tracks and multi-player options, you have to pay another £3.50. It's not unlock through skill, but unlock through pocket. I wouldn't mind, but the stuff to unlock is a much larger part of the game than what you get in the initial purchase. So you get a small amount for £7, and a huge amount for £3.50. Either make the whole game a tenner, or make more stuff unlockable initially. Game itself is fun, but unless I pay £3.50, I won't see enough to really make a decision overall. So 6/10 for the basic game.
Sky Diving
Use the motion controller to make patterns in the sky with your fellow sky divers. Or don't because the controls don't work properly. 4/10 because the landing game is good fun actually
Trials of Topaq
PSEye game where you have to move your body to raise tiles in a castle floor, which then shunts around a ball to a goal. A bit like marble madness using a feather duster to move the track ball. I never bought it at first because it looked exceptionally irritating. I was right. 1/10
Wolfenstein 3d
Hated this on the PC when it was released. I hate it slightly less now, but still hate it. It's good to have my hatred of the game confirmed

(I won't review this as I can in no way do this objectively).
.detuned
Fun little tech demo. I agree with paying for these things to support future talent, but not because they're good though.
Elefunk
Didn't really like the demo, but the full game is okay. It's addictive in that it hooks into the part of your brain that says "if you can do this, then you're clever". So better than I thought it would be, but stil not quite the game I wanted from it. I prefer the original bridge it games it's based on.
High Velocity Bowling
Nintendo did it better and I don't want to play theirs either.
Magic Ball
Shatter put me off playing this. I didn't want to play another Arkanoid/Breakout clone ever again. I did however... It's great! What a brilliant little title. Instead of blocks, you have "proper" objects to smash apart like pirate ships, skeletons on rafts and sharks. Just really entertaining actually! Nice! 8/10
Savage Moon Not played it yet, but thought the demo was okay - it's just NOT Pixel Junk Monsters.
And finally!
Soldner-X
I love side scrolling shooters (or even better
Astro Tripper which is very awesome). However, I love one shot kils as it keeps you on your toes. Soldner was really complex in the power up system and it means you spend so much time concerned about that stuff that they have to give you an energy bar. Don't like, too modern for me
So, lots of complaints there then. Well, a lot of these games really do depend on your own tastes. The reason I had not bought them before was simply because I didn't know enough about the final product to determine if it was worthwhile buying or not. While the games are cheap (under a tenner in most cases), you can often get an old, second hand full retail game for the same cost. One you know has had millions spent on it (not that it always makes them a good game).
This has been great for me to satisfy my curiosity. I've had my fingers burnt a couple of times on PSN games, so am very cautious now. I just wish more would come with demos to let me decide if they're worth the money or not. I'd certainly pay for Magic Ball now; and Toy Home (plus expansion) if it was reduced in price a little. Some games I had thought about seriously, but now I know not to bother (Sky Diving, Smash Cars, etc).
Big thanks to my benefactor though, it was really appreciated letting me jon in the games with you.