February US sales figures

The latest sales NPD sales figures for the US have been released and as usual it is great news for Nintendo all round.

Hardware

• Wii 753 000
• Nintendo DS 588 000
• Xbox 360 391 000
• PlayStation 3 276 000
• PSP 199 000
• PlayStation 2 131 000

What’s wrong with…Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars?

I just got Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and I am not happy.

While I am enjoying the game, I am a little frustrated that, in  such a high profile game, there are technical glitches which cause freezes and game issues.

Wii review – House of the Dead: OVERKILL

House of the Dead: OVERKILL manages to inject an abundance of new life into the on-rails shooter genre by investing heavily in a stylised grindhouse presentation. Rather than trying to reinvent the gameplay, developer Headstrong Games has taken the Quentin Tarrantino/Robert Rodriguez route and planted the House of the Dead story firmly into campy 70s horror territory. The result is one of the most refreshing, surprising and fun games to come out in a very long time.

Taking plenty of inspiration from Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, House of the Dead: OVERKILL serves up seven chapters of over the top zombie…sorry, mutant shooting action. Mixed into the plot are some of the most memorable supporting characters that have ever appeared in a video game, including a mad scientist, an incestuous prison warden, a hot stripper looking for revenge and a deranged crime lord. The lead characters are equally memorable. Agent G and Detective Isaac Washington play off against each other in true odd couple style during the many well made cut scenes. Their interplay can be quite entertaining and does a great job of endearing players to what could have been two quite anonymous lead characters. Washington in particular has some spectacularly funny lines, but he does often rely too much on swear words, which drags the quality of the script down.

Playing now…Dragon Quest: The Chapters of the Chosen

Status: Playing now

I recently started playing Dragon Quest: The Chapters of the Chosen. Having never played a Dragon Quest game before, I was eager to see why Japanese gamers go so crazy over the series.

Read on for my impressions of the game (spoilers too).

DS review – Crosswords DS

Crosswords DS epitomises Nintendo’s highly successful Touch Generations approach to making games. It features a highly accessible concept that is familiar to almost everyone, a clean and simple interface which is easy to navigate, and most importantly, it contains hours and hours of fun. These three themes are common to all successful casual games and Crosswords DS has them in spades.

The game features 1000 crosswords, as well as anagrams and word search puzzles, which should be enough to keep even the most avid crossword buff entertained for months. The gentle difficulty curve allows players of all ages to enjoy the game, with simple puzzles for the younger crowd and extremely difficult options for crossword veterans. The anagram and word search options provide a nice diversion and are fantastic fun in their own right.