Street Fighter X Tekken

I enjoy fighting games, but of the mash-buttons-furiously school, which means the Tekken element of this game is far more appealing to me than Street Fighter. I seem to remember getting to maybe the third fight in SFIV & not being able to get any further.

SFXT seems much more user friendly and I had great fun with this game. It's all about the huge roster of characters, so my main criticism is that backdrops & character stories are thin on the ground, but the fighting more than makes up for it.

8.5/10

Sorcery

Sorcery is a title that was shown at E3 a few years back, disappeared off the radar and had a sudden, unexpected release, looking quite different and with a budget price tag. None of these signs bode well for the title.

I can't believe that I'm still talking about "waggle" in 2012, but I can't help but feel this would have been a more playable title with regular controls. But this might have shown it to be more generic too.

There's errors I wouldn't have expected from Sony's usually excellent Santa Monica studios- it starts repetitive, early bosses see an alarming difficulty spike and the controls feel sloppy.

It's frustrating to find you can upgrade your accuracy later in the game- trying to hit the right targets was the fault that was most likely to make me quit near the start.

Similarly, taking a health potion involves pressing square, shaking the controller till the potion is ready, and tipping it back to represent drinking the potion. You don't want to be doing all of that if you are being attacked and near death.

Once you've got used to its idiosyncrasies and you've powered up more, it can be quite enjoyable. It almost feels like it starts as a tech demo and only becomes a game part way through. I didn't find the game as short as some had suggested, although I probably only put around 6 hours into it and there's no multiplayer. It's hard to even recommend it at its budget price, although people who feel their Move has been neglected might find a weekend rental justifiable.

6.5/10

The Darkness II

The first Darkness game was released to OK reviews, but built up a word of mouth reputation after it's release for being emotionally involving. It was, but as the reviews pointed out, it was only really an OK game. In a way, the follow up fails to pick up on the strengths of the first game, and focuses firmly on the stuff that was kind-of cool (like the tentacle killings) rather than making something even more involving.

It's solid enough, with some better than average writing, but it could have been more.

Graphically the follow-up seems more inspired by Borderlands than the original game, and this debt can also be seen in Vendettas, a substantial bonus game included. Like Borderlands, you can pick one of four classes, you kill lots of stuff and you get the feeling it would be more fun playing co-op (which you can, I just tnd not to).

It's hard to really fault The Darkness II, it's just there was potential for it to be a truly memorable game, where all to often it can feel alarmingly derivative despite it's unique control twists.

7/10.

The Witcher 2: Assassin Of Kings

I won a ridiculous amount of Witcher 2 goodies, which I received in a steady flow. The Xbox version of the game was in the last parcel to arrive, and generally it lived up to the high expectations I'd built up.

If I had two criticisms - the graphics are very good, but from the reviews I'd expected them to be state of the art. They aren't, but do the job, especially if the game is installed to the hard drive.

Secondly the map is really dire. I can't help but feel a compass would be better during the game and pausing the game should give the same detailed map there is at the moment for a more general location.

But this is nitpicking really; it's a compelling game with good replay value (it genuinely needs to be played twice), a great story and interesting characters. It feels a little more linear than say Skyrim, but that's probably a price to pay for the fantastic storyline.

A great PC franchise makes a surprisingly successful journey to consoles. Lets hope for more.

9/10.