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“Cruising on down to downtown” – The Sims 2: Nightlife

The high sales of boxed copies of expansion packs for The Sims 2 mark a particular transition period for the industry. The success of The Sims and its…

“We’ve got Tangos” – Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown

My third Ubisoft game has several things in common with the first two, some differences, and a lot that points towards both the future and how Ubisoft ended…

“You are the man” – Ridge Racer (PSP)

I remember the massive British advertising push for the PlayStation Portable in the year following its launch. I was taking the tube every day and the distinctive adverts…

“What is human life but a game of cricket?” – Brian Lara International Cricket 2005

Talk about picking your moment. The back of the box of Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 quotes the Official PlayStation 2 Magazine calling it “the best cricket game…

“Now I’ve seen it all” – Madagascar

When Shrek went from ‘the gulag’, in which Dreamworks staff were exiled, to a huge success, it proved the launchpad for a very successful run of Dreamworks computer…

“Slow in and fast out” – Juiced

I’ve been through many examples of games rushed out for financial reasons, with varying levels of disaster as a result. Juiced is a rarer case of the opposite:…

“Revive used” – Medal of Honor: European Assault

Medal of Honor: Rising Sun didn’t just manage to disgust the likes of me with its approach to telling history. It also got widely dismissed by fans of…

“Objective achieved” – Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

When I covered The Phantom Menace back in the seemingly Peak Star Wars time of 1999, I ended by commenting on how the game, or rather the film,…

“Free Play Unlocked” – Lego Star Wars: The Video Game

[For the latest guest post, I’m happy to hand over once again to Alexander Sigsworth, who you can find blogging at alexsigsworth.wordpress.com and who most recently wrote about…

“Prepare to race” – Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition

The racing games of the PS2 era make for a great illustration of convergence at work, even if 2005 was relatively early days in game genre homogenisation. Rockstar’s…