EDGE MAGAZINE

Time Extend: Metal Arms - Glitch In The System

Edge Staff — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:39:16 +0000

Computers don’t do chaos particularly well. They don’t like randomness, or clutter, or anything that can’t be reduced down into a logical pattern. It’s part of the reason why games that attempt hyper-realism can end up collapsing under the weight of their own pretension – because chaos is a fundamental part of real life.

Time Extend: Nights

Edge Staff — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:25:18 +0000

Whether to open a menu or equip an item, to survey surroundings or simply change the way your character is facing, most videogames require you to stop moving at some point or other. Though the choice of stopping and starting can be a hallmark of the freedoms a videogame lends its players, it’s often also the case that momentum is more associated with danger than it is pure, exhilarating carefree movement.

Review: Final Fantasy XIII

Edge Staff — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:27:17 +0000

Format: 360, PS3 (version tested)
Release: March 9 (US/Eur), out now (JP)
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: In-house
Screenshot gallery

Time Extend: Einhander

Edge Staff — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:22:00 +0000

The wail of an air-raid siren breaks the pitch-black silence of Einhänder’s opening moments. Before the lights fade up to reveal a futuristic spacecraft streaking sideways across another Blade Runner cityscape, a German voice speaks with robotic non-emotion: “Achtung!” At this point the reason for the alert is unclear but, to any gamer aware of the game’s curious backstory, it’s the last in a great many warning signs to precede this most unlikely of shoot ’em ups.

One Big Man

Edge Staff — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:32:59 +0000

July 2005, and as Pink Floyd’s guitar sounds weave around London’s Live 8 concert in Hyde Park, over in Amsterdam several strands of thinking are also coming together in the mind of Martin De Ronde. The studio he co-founded, Guerrilla Games, is changing hands, and a non-compete clause with purchaser SCEE has left him wondering: what’s next?

Time Extend: Made In Wario

Edge Staff — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:24:32 +0000

If you ever want to convince yourself that the entertainment industry is doomed, why not grab a sheet of paper and spend the afternoon trying to define exactly what ‘fun’ is. This, after all, is what game companies in particular are meant to make their money selling to us. But what is it? What are its characteristics and components? Why do some find it in manipulating every heavily researched lever and dial of a submarine simulator, while others seek it in the pure abstraction of Rez or Tetris?

The Making Of: Outcast

Edge Staff — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:10:49 +0000

Format: PC
Release: 1999
Publisher: Infogrames
Developer: Appeal

Silly words are one of the hazards of science fiction, and Outcast is chock full of multi-syllabic names, places and giant alien ostriches. Ask a veteran of the game the first thing that they remember about it and these contrived concatenations of vowels will often come up. That Outcast’s characters had to pronounce quite so many awkward names has become a joke among PC gamers, making you feel like a Klingon dictionary was just around the corner.

Time Extend: Gregory Horror Show

Edge Staff — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:30:39 +0000

A door slams, floorboards creak, and through the darkened hallway roams that familiar plodding figure. Gregory, candle in hand, is making his rounds, checking the rooms to ensure that his charges are sleeping soundly. Welcome to Gregory House, an example of sinister videogame real estate that fits in somewhere between Luigi’s mansion and Jet Set Willy’s rambling home. But isn’t this just one more haunted house to add to the list? An empty shell painted with nothing but shadows and cobwebbing?

Review: BioShock 2

Edge Staff — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:41:15 +0000

Format: 360 (version tested), PC, PS3
Release: Out now
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: 2K Marin/Digital Extremes
Screenshot gallery

Review: Darwinia+

Edge Staff — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:58:29 +0000

Format: 360
Release: Out now
Publisher: Introversion Software
Developer: In-house
Screenshot gallery

Time Extend: Space Channel 5: Part 2

Edge Staff — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:18:33 +0000

Games are often condemned for being cases of style over substance. But as a criticism of an artistic endeavour, could this have any validity? Can style, sometimes, create substance? Such accusations are usually levelled at those games that feature a relatively basic form of player interaction plus a vivid and unique aesthetic treatment. And that’s why it’s a meaningless statement: among other things, videogames are a visual art, so the way they look is critically important in defining how their players derive interaction and meaning from them.

The Making Of: Colin McRae Rally

Edge Staff — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:13:10 +0000

Format: PlayStation
Release: 1998
Publisher: Codemasters
Developer: In-house

Review: Dante's Inferno

Edge Staff — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:32:28 +0000

Format: 360, PS3 (version tested), PSP
Release: Out now
Publisher: EA
Developer: Visceral Games
Screenshot gallery

What Economic Crisis?

Edge Staff — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:00:37 +0000

Despite a sluggish start to the year, 2009 bucked both the ongoing economic slump and the concerns of uneasy British retailers to deliver unexpectedly positive results. Total software sales for the year generated £1.621bn, compared to 2008’s record total of £1.905bn. The £284m drop may seem like a significant one, but it’s against the backdrop of a rapidly growing second-hand market, and increasingly aggressive price-cutting policies among supermarket chains.

Time Extend: Robotron 2084

Edge Staff — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:53:43 +0000

The history of gaming is a history of ingratiation. It’s a trend that plays out on a number of fronts. Over three decades, consoles have wheedled their way into our lives and our living rooms, but the real change has taken place in the growing desire of games to win you over.

The Making Of: Gauntlet

Edge Staff — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:23:02 +0000

Format: Arcade
Release: 1985
Publisher: Atari
Developer: In-house

Review: Mass Effect 2

Edge Staff — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:16:55 +0000

Format: 360
Release: Out now (US), January 29 (Euro)
Publisher: EA
Developer: BioWare
Screenshot gallery

Time Extend: Jet Set Radio Future

Edge Staff — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:54:50 +0000

The Skyscraper District is perhaps the highlight of all of Jet Set Radio Future’s reimagined Tokyo; the pinnacle of a game so dazzlingly vertiginous it can make your ears pop. It’s a five-minute climb to the top of its highest peak – an aeon in gaming terms, a period in which you could comfortably save the world in most other titles. But Jet Set Radio Future is not most other titles, and the lengthy climb is more than worth the time it takes.

The Making Of: Wipeout

Edge Staff — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:21:50 +0000

Format: PlayStation
Release: 1995
Publisher: Psygnosis
Developer: In-house
read more

Time Extend: Speedball 2 - Brutal Deluxe

Edge Staff — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:29:49 +0000

For Amiga gamers in 1990 the world was oval, its core a rectangle. Time existed as 90-second intervals, each announced and punctuated by an electric buzz, a pneumatic hiss and the sound of 36 fists and feet converging on a steel sphere. Zig-zagging sprints and hurdles were burned on to the eyes, the ears filled by a raucous metallic churn. Bodies were folded, flung, and sacrificed to hungry scoreboards and an insatiable crowd. ‘One day,’ promised Speedball 2, ‘all sports will be played like this.’ But somehow, come the day, none of them were.
read more