This is what your local GAME might look like soon enough.

It has been widely reported by the gaming press, including Eurogamer, that the UK’s largest independent video game retailer is in financial difficulties. The firm had a poor 2011, and whilst many had hoped the Christmas season might bring a last minute reprieve it was not to be and sales were down close to 15% compared to the year before. To put this into context, most major high street retailers in the UK experienced a rise in sales compared to twelve months earlier, as Christmas 2010 had been so poor due to excessive snow and ice keeping shoppers away from their town centres.

To be fair GAME have, for a while now, been issuing profit warnings and talking of reducing the number of shops they have over the next one to two years. This of course is taking place at the same time as HMV recently having to reorganise its debts with its lenders. However, HMV have a broader range of products, less stores but larger ones (and hence can sell more and try a greater variety of activities) and have earnestly started moving the business into new areas, albeit some more successfully than others. The firm has invested in live music and venues, and started to transfer space in stores (which was set aside to plastic boxes) to fan related merchandise and technology.

This is not to say that HMV has the answer, but I mention it as a way of demonstrating that specialist music, film and game retailers are having to find new ways and that this is hardly new. Over the last few years we have gone from having, perhaps, 3-5 retailers offering such products per high street to 1-3, with some towns having barely 2. Those two are often HMV and GAME. There is now a serious chance that over the next 2-3 years this will reduce further to one or in some cases none.

The all conquering Amazon. It's taking sales from bookstores, toy stores and of course videogame stores. It's also the perfect platform to migrate from physical product to digital download or stream. Something it is pushing more and more.

Let’s look at the reasons why and what this means for both the games industry as a whole and the consumer. Whilst it would be easy to say it’s down to the increase in downloaded content (legal or illegal), it would not be true for the overall market. For PC, clearly, it has had a huge impact but the average store dedicates very little floor space to PC titles. Meanwhile in console land, whilst you can get a small selection of titles as downloads, most are retail only, or are retail only for a long time before they go onto Xbox Live, for example. Sony has started doing near simultaneous releases for a few titles, but it does not release numbers for the PSN store; though it’s safe to say that if a game is on for significantly more money there than it is priced in shops that it can’t be picking up many sales at present.

So what does the trouble at GAME signify? It could just be that the business expanded too fast and inherited too many shops, with a range of leases and costs which are unsustainable. In other words the business has put itself into the situation it now finds itself and is not systematic of any type of global change. I suspect though that this is not the only reason the firm finds itself in trouble. It expanded rapidly, largely on being the only place which had a good selection of titles and in more recent times in supplying a strong second hand offering.

Both areas are now under attack, from both Supermarkets such as Tesco and due to the online side of the business such as Amazon, Play and many independent ‘warehouse’ only operators using the Amazon/Ebay marketplace. Whilst GAME also has a strong online presence, it’s not actually that easy to use, and doesn’t offer great prices. This is because the focus of the business has remained its stores.

So we have established that most consumers are buying boxed games still, but the market is being redefined by the online retailers and supermarkets. Yet that is not the only factor in play here. We are buying less games. Sure some games are selling in huge numbers, and for more money per purchase, but we are buying less overall.

When discussing market size, services such as PSN, STEAM and others are rarely included in such figures. However, it's clear that if you are a PC gamer, you download, you don't get the box.

The size of the UK market shrunk last year. The UK is not alone. Some people are hoping a new console generation will solve this. I doubt it will in the short term. In the medium to long term it will as people who currently play games continue to, whilst new younger generations join the ranks of hardcore gamers. However at present, there will be no sudden demographic shift where we immediately find new consumers to join our ranks. Such a culture change last took place during the Wii/DS generation and at least 30% of that has since found that smartphones suffice, as they were never hardcore gamers to begin with.

As I’m sure many of you will have noticed the games we buy take longer than ever to complete. Aha, I know what are thinking; Modern Warfare 3. This takes a bus ride to complete. That as we know is the single player experience only. The online is an ongoing all consuming social experience, with more special op operations being added, more multiplayer maps and modes. Even the Elite experience is designed to take up your gaming hours with stat analysis! Yet check out the games sale’s figures. It made more than Black Ops but sold less copies in 2011, as reported by Eurogamer.

So back to the idea of launching new consoles. The Vita is out pretty soon and as it offers an HD experience in your hand it, ironically, will split consumer spending even more. It won’t increase the size of the hardcore market but take purchases away from the PS3, Xbox and WiiU. In case you missed it we are now in the midst of a deep economic slow down, which for some people is starting to look like a depression, or at least a slow and ongoing contraction (which could last up to a decade). Whilst the entertainment sector as a whole is less effected during downturns (as reported by TIME, quoting the ever popular Michael Pachter), as people need escapism and spend less on holidays and other high price ticket items, it’s clear that new consoles and games costing £35 or above are now falling into the luxury area of disposable income for many, bar a few yearly purchases where value is eked out through replay and DLC offered throughout the year.

So less games are being bought, which means less games being traded, which results in less profits on second hand sells for the retailers such as GAME. The more money we spend on AAA titles and then investing in DLC to go with them also means we are more likely to play them to death and not trade them in (compounded by the ‘online pass’ feature meaning second hand copies lack online functionality).

So back to the present. In the short term this has been an awful week for GAME. Whilst they have managed to secure support from publishers and creditors it seems logical that consumers will slowly start to place pre-orders elsewhere in case the inevitable happens soon. Also will you be taking your games there to get reward points? What happens if the company goes down the pan and you haven’t spent those points? The time to redeem could be now, which could actually give the firm a short rebound, but if we don’t take in new games to part-ex against other new titles their business model will dry up. Publishers meanwhile will start to encourage the platform holders to push digital delivery, at decent prices (perhaps) and at the same time as the game launches on the high street. The days where they had to protect their retail distribution is perhaps starting to end.

The loss of GAME or HMV won’t mean the end of retail or a lack of competition for the consumer. We have 3-4 supermarkets in the UK of a decent size. In addition we have a plethora of online retailers all able to sell a product which is not required to be sold on the high street. After all it’s just a box with a disc in it.

The next generation of consoles will offer discs, but ultimately though, game retail will stop being physical and the next generation of consoles will offer all titles as near simultaneous digital copies, at competitive prices, as the publishers will learn a lesson from the (eventual) demise of GAME. Whilst it’s always been in their interests to protect and look after their retail channels, times are a changing and they now must look after themselves and their future distribution partners i.e. the platform holders themselves.

As predicited TVs are now shipping with game streaming software built in. This of course is a threat to everyone in the industry, but is much more of an immediate threat to one trick ponies such as GAME.

Assuming the next generation of consoles also offer a streamed game service in parallel to downloaded content for those with broadband fast enough (it’s safe to assume that a large enough market will exist 5-7 years from now with super fast broadband in many countries), it is clear that there is no hope for businesses such as GAME and HMV. In the UK it could be argued that the decline in the high street retailing of games really started with the demise of Woolworths and Zaavi (which is now online only), but the troubles at GAME have demonstrated that perhaps we have become perilously close to the tipping point which will lead to a fundamental change in the way in which the majority of gamers purchase and access future content.

• Format: PS3 (PlayStation Move required)
  
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
• Developer: XDev Studio Europe
• Players: 1-8 (online & offline)
• Site: http://uk.playstation.com/ps3/games/detail/item393163/After-Hours-Athletes/

Despite the eyebrow-raising title, After Hours Athletes has nothing to do with sex. It is instead a compilation of (the Move versions of) three PSN titles which emulate “sports” favoured by overweight drunkards; darts (Top Darts), bowling (High Velocity Bowling), and pool (Hustle Kings). The blurb gleefully declares “You count score, not calories”. Games which you can play whilst standing still are ideally suited to peripherals such as Move; let’s see how they got on, shall we?

We’ll start with Top Darts, mainly because it’s so terrible it’s best to get all thoughts of it out of the way as soon as possible. You would think, perhaps, that the theoretically simple task of using the Move wand to emulate throwing a dart would result in a game that’s mediocre at worst. Well, Top Darts isn’t the best game to prove or disprove this, as it complicates things more than necessary.

You position the Move controller to aim the on-screen dart at the dartboard, then mimic a throw which dictates your precision and power… right? Not exactly. First, you have to lock on to the area of the dartboard you’re aiming for. With this done, you can then take your throw. Oh no; they’ve ruined the game by making precise throws far too easy, haven’t they? Don’t worry, they haven’t. Quite the opposite, in fact. Only sheer luck or an act of God will result in the dart landing exactly where you want it to.

It takes blood, sweat and tears to be a darts champion. Mostly sweat, though.

Firstly, holding the Move controller as though you’re holding a dart becomes very uncomfortable very quickly (no fault of the game, here). It really doesn’t matter how you hold it though, as the game is absolutely determined to ignore how and where you want to throw your darts. Try to use the angle and power you’d use when throwing a real dart, and you’re almost certain to hit a completely different number – or, more often than not, veer right off into the black. Try to adapt to the unseen rules of Top Darts’ physics, however, and said rules will seem to differ from dart to dart. Worst of all is that, even at the easiest difficulty, AI opponents are infuriatingly accurate. You can practically hear them thinking their smug and electronic thoughts. Despite including a wide variety of games (Cricket, 501, Round The Clock et al), there’s no reason to subject yourself or your friends to this.

Hustle Kings, on the other hand, is very good indeed. Holding and using a pool/snooker cue (a code for all DLC is included) of course requires two hands, meaning you may be cynical about how well the games can be recreated using the stumpy, one-handed Move wand. It works very well however, primarily perhaps because you can easily play sitting down. In addition, the all-important lining up of a shot is handled superbly.

In the early stages of the offline career, you’re given a line of generous length which shows much of the predicted path of the cue ball – and whichever ball it’s expected to hit. This line changes appropriately according to the angle you hold the cue at, and what spin – if any – you apply. It’s a good way to quickly and naturally teach newbies the intricacies of baize warfare, but may be irritating for those who consider themselves masters of the cue. New initiates and old hands alike will appreciate the wealth of (appropriately tricky) trick shots and challenges however, which quickly demand you wield jumps and swerves like a pro.

If you wish to immediately ignore the prediction lines and play human opponents, you can – both offline and online. These lines can be shortened or forbidden when setting up a game.

Across all modes, both online and off, you earn the game’s ‘HKC’ currency by potting balls and winning games. HKC is used to enter tournaments or gamble against opponents, AI and human alike. It does mean that, depending on a game’s settings, you may find you’re too poor to compete; but it also encourages you to practice, and makes winning these games all the more satisfying (especially against a human opponent). Special mention must be made of the music – which is bloody awful. Thankfully, it can be switched off without sacrificing the satisfying bumps and clicks that accompany each shot.

It may be a very good game, but it doesn't lend itself to exciting screenshots.

Finally we have High Velocity Bowling, a game which seems to have been designed in a board meeting in which the words ‘wacky’ and ‘zany’ were used more than is surely healthy. Thus we have characters such as an undertaker, a mexican wrestler, female bowlers accompanied by painfully unfunny sexual innuendo, and so on. There are themed lanes, such as ‘Barry’s Lair’ (wacky!), one of which even has you knocking down bottles instead of pins (zany!).

Each character has (wacky and zany) quips they’ll come out with after a notable success or failure, which become repetitive within minutes. Despite the tedious costume of wacky zaniness, this is actually a game which takes bowling quite seriously. There are ball bags (oh come on, how old are you?) which you can fill with a small selection of your favourite balls (steady), and there are even subtle differences between certain lane setups which affect how the ball rolls. Most importantly, the basic bowling mechanic works very well.

There are trick shots, which may or may not be wacky and/or zany depending on your world view. You can play online; but there seem to be very few people doing so and ultimately, due to the game trying too hard to impress with zany wackiness, you’ll likely grow tired of the whole experience within a day or two unless you love bowling.

Once this makes the inevitable dive into the bargain bins with a price of a tenner (the RRP is only mid-price), it’ll represent good value for money. If you can’t wait however, we recommend simply downloading Hustle Kings from PSN instead. There’s even a version that doesn’t require Move.

• Format: PS3
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
• Developer: Supermassive Games Ltd
• Players: 1-4
• Site: http://uk.playstation.com/startthepartystw/

Start the Party! Save the World! is a new game from Supermassive Games, and is the follow up to last year’s Start the Party!, which was launched alongside the Move controller. The original was a Move-enabled mini game collection much like Wii Play with small, snack-sized games that were over before you could shout ‘Warioware’. So have Supermassive Games tweaked the formula enough to warrant this year’s sequel?

Rescuing the divers from the jellyfish is one of the better mini games.

We have to say after playing Move Mind Benders, this game pales in comparison. The game gives you a very simple main menu with two options of play, Group Play or Solo Play. The Solo Play mode gives you 20 levels to play through, and you get the option to play Survivor or Free Play. Free Play lets you attempt any of the levels at your own leisure and gives you a bit more time on the levels to help you hone your minion smacking skills, while in Survivor you need to rack up enough points in the same 20 levels to stay in the game. Survivor is manic, and it flits between levels rapidly with barely any time to think about what you are meant to be doing, but it can be quite good fun for a short while.

As the title of the game states, you have to Save the World from the appropriately named Dr Terrible. The game uses the flimsy plot that the evil Dr Terrible and his minions are attempting to take over planet Earth. It’s up to you and your trusty Move controller and PlayStation Eye to save the day with mini games that range from whacking enemies from a moving train with a mallet to saving divers from a giant octopus. The graphics are all beautifully drawn in a cartoon style with the player appearing in the background, or in say a helicopter, thanks to the PlayStation Eye camera, and it can be quite humorous seeing the Move controller turned into a mallet in your hand as you frantically wave it around whacking enemies like a demented joiner.

In this game you need to draw a circle around the invading aliens to destroy them.

The games themselves are very simplistic, with arm waving and a couple of button presses here and there, and nothing to keep you coming back to play them again. There is a high score system, but there isn’t an online leaderboard or any way to compare scores with friends, which seems like a major omission. In Move Mind Benders you at least got rewarded by unlocking extra levels, but all you get here are the 20 levels available, and that is it. Obviously the game is aimed at youngsters, with the cartoony graphics and quirky little games, but we think even the very young would get bored very quickly with what’s on offer here. Some games like Caveman Bounce, where you have to draw clouds to bounce falling cavemen to the exit, work well, but others fall flat, like the Overboard level where you need to rescue pirates who are walking the plank by catching them with a pan that you thrust through the hatches of a ship. Some of these close as you go to use them, which makes finding the right hatch a nightmare, and it feels clunky in its execution. We found this level was almost as painful to play as watching the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film, which is no mean feat.

Start the Party! Save the World! also supports multiplayer, and another person can jump into the single player game and disrupt your progress at any time. For instance, in Manic Medic as you balance a patient on your hand while the ambulance rushes to the hospital, a friend can control pedestrians at the side of the road to jump up and upset your balance. The game also has a couple of four player modes, with Quick Fire or Group Play being your choices. Quick Fire gives you a random selection of three mini games that are played in quick succession while a timer counts down. Players take it in turns to play, with the Move controller being passed around the group and the winner being the player with the highest score at the end of the round. Group play is not much different, with a selection of mini games lined up to play, and again players passing the controller around like a bong at a stoners party to see who can achieve the highest score. This lack of variety means the game gets boring very quickly, even for a group of drunk mates looking for a game to play after a visit to the local boozer.

The augmented reality works well, and can be quite comical.

The lack of levels and unlockables, along with the really short and simplistic games, means Start the Party! Save the World! has a serious lack of depth and longevity. Young children will have fun for perhaps an afternoon before becoming bored, and there is nothing here to keep groups of adults entertained for any length of time either. It really shows that the concept hasn’t moved forward from the original EyeToy, and for £15-£20 you would expect a lot more. As it stands the game should have been released as downloadable title and at a lower price point. This is one party that ran out of drink long before the guests arrived.

• Format: PS3
  
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Sega
• Developer: Headstrong Games
• Players: 1-2 (1-4 minigames)
• Site: http://www.sega.com/games/the-house-of-the-dead-overkill-extended-cut/

The House of the Dead: Overkill began life as a fairly well received Wii game, with the system being perfect for the precise aiming an on-rails arcade style shooter requires. Now the game has been remixed into an ‘extended cut’ and repackaged for the PS3 with full Move support.

House of the Dead games can never really be judged based on plot since it’s far more about the gameplay akin to what you would be looking for in a busy arcade; that said, Overkill does feature one of the worst. Playing as either Agent G on his first mission to track down Papa Caesar and put an end to his mutant experiments or Detective Issac Washington who wants to kill Caesar for revenge, you play through levels with a linked plot but with each pitched as an individual ‘movie’.

As we said: the plot in the game is beyond bad. The thing is though – it’s on purpose. The game is presented in a terrible old B-movie-come-horror-flick style complete with an over the top narrator, stupendously bad acting, writing, plot and music. It will no doubt be a polarising choice as while others might find it amusing, we were in the camp that found the lack of polish and ludicrously bad plot irritating, along with Issac’s constant swearing being a pointless distraction. The game does also border on bad taste at times with jokes about cripples, rednecks, carnival folk and more, all being fair game.

Still, plot is never the main thing here. It’s about the gun gameplay, which does translate as well to Move as it did to the Wii. In this extended cut you can resort to using a normal pad; however even with the sensitivity bumped right up, it will still feel slow in comparison and becomes obvious when at times you have literally only a second or two to fire at one of the many collectables littered around each level.

Besides two levels exclusive to this extended cut bringing the total to nine (Naked Terror and Creeping Flesh which let players take control of Varla Gunns and a new character imaginatively called Candi Stryper), the game is also 3DTV compatible. This adds another little gimmick to help warrant a purchase even for those that had the Wii version, and that applies to those without the necessary 3D compatible television too. Included with the game are two classic red and blue tint 3D glasses. This can then be switched on in-game to give you the 3D effect we put up with as kids, though to be honest it will just hurt your eyes far more than conventional, modern 3D.

Rounding off the new additions are the Director’s Cut mode which opens slightly new routes through levels as well as tougher enemies and limited continues, new weapons, and the four player minigames (which you’d play once or twice at most and like the main campaign is local only).

Graphically the game is far below the standards expected of a PS3 game, though naturally this is because of where it began life. The 3D makes up for this slightly but it is worth remembering going in that this will not be a visual feast for the eyes. There are about four or five basic enemy types excluding the bosses, stages are bland, and enemies don’t react well enough to being shot except randomly losing a limb sometimes.

Getting through all the levels won’t take long either regardless of whether you play alone or with a friend, but the game does try to include ways to encourage replays. Among the various modes you can earn and activate are: a hardcore mode (headshots only), more mutants mode (increased enemy amounts), and a mode where you duel wield two independent weapons. The most unique additional mode is definitely ‘Shoot the sh-t’ in which every cutscene is given subtitles and if a player hits the bad word before it is said then it gets bleeped.

It’s hard to say much more about House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut. The bad taste B-movie style will appeal to certain people but irritate others. There isn’t exactly a huge array of Movecentric titles to choose from as of yet so perhaps now is the best time for something like this to be released. That said, you would need to be really desperate for an on the rails shooter to get any kind of extreme enjoyment out of a game as crass as this, in which characters have sex with their mothers and more often than not the weak point of the boss is the breast.

• Format: 360 (Kinect required, version reviewed), PS3 (PlayStation Move required)
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: 505 Games
• Developer: Zoe Mode
• Players: 1-8
• Site: http://www.greasethegame.com/

In the beginning was the word, and the word was Grease. That’s right, boys and girls; this is not, as you may have thought if overhearing others talk about it, a game about the Eurozone debt crisis. It is in fact the quite literally all-singing, all-dancing Grease videogame that became more and more inevitable as microphones and motion controls became more and more popular within the games industry. The question now is: is this a dumb jock, or slick greaser?

As you navigate up and down the main menu, you’ll notice that a sound effect plays each time the cursor touches an option. Within a few seconds, you realise that these tones are playing ‘Summer Nights’ at the irregular beat of your menu browsing. It’s a nice touch, and an immediate promise/warning of the cheesiness within.

Head in to Dance, and you’ll find just a few songs available. This isn’t a problem; songs are unlocked, basically, by performing each available one once. The tracklist is presented in a linear fashion by collecting the first batch of songs in an Easy set, another in Medium, then the final few (including a more demanding version of Grease) in Hard. There is, unfortunately, no way of setting your own difficulty for each song. Once you’ve made your choice, pick your game mode and the number of players, and off you go.

The groove of the word 'grease' may be debatable, but it certainly has meaning (both as a noun and as a transitive verb).

We all know the drill by now: copy the actions of the on-screen dancers. Here, it’s computer generated characters from Grease in suitably movie flavoured surroundings. The dance moves you’ll be copying are, by and large, ones that will be familiar to fans. Considering the fact that some of the original moves involve jumping up onto cars and interacting with crowds of perfectly synchronised dancers, a few changes have been made here and there where necessary, but familiarity with the best known Grease dance routines will certainly put you at an advantage.

Most of the Grease songs are in here; certainly the most famous ones, and many that you’ve probably forgotten. However, most – if not all – seem to be cover versions. Good cover versions though and, considering how many times the production has been done and redone on stage, it won’t even be an issue for many. Look At Me I’m Sandra Dee is a bloody terrible song no matter who’s singing it, though. In place of the few songs that are missing from the original list are other, frankly better songs from the era, such as Tutti Frutti.

No matter what difficulty the song you happen to be bopping along to has been placed in, it’s not hard to build up a score of hundreds of thousands of points. The game will often err on the side of generosity but, make no mistake, a good dancer will still crush the score of a poor one. Not that we have first-hand experience of this of course (ahem). The more demanding songs such as Hound Dog are the most enjoyable, especially with a dance partner (who you’ll have to be careful not to punch in the face if you don’t have a wide playing space).

There are a few different spins on the basic dance setup, including ‘Challenge’. This is a fun idea which works quite well, involving the dance routine being interrupted throughout the song by demands for you to strike a certain pose or perform a certain move. Lyrics are displayed at the bottom of the screen for each song, meaning you can warble along if the urge takes you (though it’s very difficult to keep track of the lyrics and the dance moves at the same time). There’s even a whole separate karaoke mode to try if you wish your singing to be judged by a ruthless machine. You can also go for the more reasonable option of dancer/s performing alongside singer/s, who can use either a USB microphone or the camera’s in-built mic.

Plenty of authentic rock 'n' roll moves in this game.

Sadly, the game slips up in pretty much every area where it tries to offer further value for money. Including dance moves where a pair of dancers swap positions then dance back again is a neat idea… until you realise the game makes no attempt to recognise you’ve moved. It includes the obligatory in-dance photo-taking… but there’s no way of sharing or even saving any of the results. There are minigames… but they’re all dull, or exhausting, or both (panel beating and spray painting is about as exciting as it sounds, for example). There are clips from the movie… but incredibly, no sound. Why bother including them at all?

A small point, but one we feel is worth mentioning, is that the Kinect version (tested for this review) recognises the presence of new players quickly and easily. Fellow Kinect users, how many times have you had to wave desperately at your TV, as though you’re trying to get the attention of somebody doing their very best to ignore you? Exactly.

Though there are missed opportunities and baffling decisions here, there’s also a lot of fun to be had for Grease fans. In fact, the soundtrack (also including songs such as Long Tall Sally and Yakety Yak) and dance moves mean this would make a great gift for anybody who loves their fifties music. Well, anybody who loves dancing and/or singing along to their fifties music, anyway.

• Format: PS3 (PlayStation Move required)
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
• Developer: XDev Studio Europe
• Players: 1-2
• Site: http://uk.playstation.com/movemindbenders/

Playstation Move has never really taken off as well as Sony had hoped after the mainstream success of the Nintendo Wii, partly due to the lack of games supporting it. Move Mind Benders brings three PSN titles together on one disc, with puzzlers Tumble, echochrome ii, and a newly Move-enabled version of the classic Lemmings sparking some life into the glowing embers of the Move controller.

Lemmings is a title that most gamers will recognise immediately, and this new version of the classic series is just as enjoyable as it always was. It hasn’t changed a great deal from the original, but then why change a winning formula? You are tasked with steering your hapless green haired characters through trap filled stages by using the Move controller to choose a skill from the selection on offer, such as climbing, digging or the iconic umbrella parachute. There is a tutorial stage to ease new players in, which does help you get to grips with the different skills and also gets you used to the Move controls, which are easy to perform on earlier stages. Graphics are nicely drawn, but aren’t majorly different to the original. A few stages feel reminiscent of a Mario game, as our little suicidal friends light torches to see upcoming traps in a darkened level; even the music evokes Mario when he enters the haunted house levels. Some of the stages can take a bit of trial and error to complete, and finally completing that tricky level you’ve spent hours on can feel quite rewarding. It has to be said some of the later stages can get quite manic, and the Move controller can feel quite sluggish when you need to change skills. There were a few instances where we chose the wrong attribute, and had to start the level from scratch which was quite annoying. On the whole though Lemmings is a decent game, and we’re pleased to see it get a new lease of life with motion controls.

This level in Lemmings evokes memories of Mario's Haunted House levels.

The second game in the collection is Tumble, and this is probably the weakest game in the collection. It’s basically a cross between Jenga and Tetris, with players tasked to build towers with a selection of different shaped blocks, which vary in size and texture, or destroy towers of blocks by placing some bombs at carefully selected points on the structure. The Move controls work particularly well here, with the manipulation of the blocks feeling very intuitive and realistic. The physics are quite realistic too, and you have to be very careful with your block manipulation, or you will end up with your structure collapsing in front of you like a house of cards. There are three different height markers that you need to stack your blocks to. The lowest height gains you a bronze medal, and if you manage to reach the higher markers you gain silver and gold. These unlock new challenges for the level, like having to finish it in a set time, or stacking blocks to reach a distant target. If you earn enough medals on one zone you unlock the next zone with fresh levels and challenges. The first couple of zones are relatively simple, but things get progressively harder, and introduce things like mirrors to reflect light beams through coloured blocks; and some levels add limbo bars which sweep towards your teetering structure, that you need to stay beneath. There are plenty of fresh ideas here, and for the most part they work well, and it has that one-more-go factor. A couple of gripes are that it can take a long time for a challenge to restart if you fail it, and the camera takes an age to swing around to your ideal angle. But there are plenty of challenges in here to keep everyone happy for a good few hours at least.

Tumble has several game modes to keep things fresh.

The last game in the collection is echochrome ii, which is probably the best game of the collection. This sequel only bears a slight resemblance to the original. The goal is still to get your little marrionette character to the exit of each level, but this time your little character is now a shadow, and instead of moving the 3D levels around your character, you need to use the Move remote as a torch to cast shadows that reveal new paths that you need your character to follow to reach the exit. It’s an inspired idea and opens up all sorts of possibilities as you bend and stretch the shadows to create trampolines, doorways, and holes, as well as creating the exits by combining the shadows of an rectangular block and a circle. Some levels seem impossible to complete at first, but then the answer appears right in front of your nose, and you’re left cursing yourself for being so stupid that you didn’t see it before. The game gives you a generous time limit to complete each stage, but your man can die by falling off the level, or by being caught between moving shadows. There are two other modes available to play called Echo and Paint. Echo has you guiding your man to pick up copies of himself, which are strewn around the level, while Paint sees you guiding several marrionettes who are all coloured differently. These men paint the levels that cast the shadows. You basically have to cover a certain percentage of the level to progress to the next stage. All the game modes are played on the same stages, though there is an editor that allows you to create your own puzzle layout; but we found it just as mind melting as the main game, and it goes to show how much effort must have gone into creating the puzzles in the first place. Echochrome ii isn’t for everyone, the minimalist style and laid back gameplay could put a lot of folk off, but if you give it a go you’ll find a creatively rich experience that is quite brilliant.

It doesn't look like much fun, but echochrome ii is a great game.

Move Mind Benders could be called a cynical way of putting Move games on shelves in time for Christmas, but there’s no denying that all three of these games are very good puzzle games that will give the family plenty of reason to ditch that dusty old game of Kerplunk, and charge the Move controllers that have had their glow dimmed by lack of use.

• Format: PS3 (PlayStation Move required)
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
• Developer: Santa Monica Studio/Magic Pixel
• Players: 1-4
• Site: http://uk.playstation.com/carnivalisland/

As the name suggests, Carnival Island is a minigame collection. Don’t pull that face. To be more specific, it’s a PlayStation Move minigame collection. No, wait, come back! It was with a healthy dose of cynicism and a proverbial heavy heart that we approached this game, putting the disc into our PS3 with great reluctance. Long story short: We were pleasantly surprised.

Despite being little more than a carnival simulator, this game has a story mode. Yes, a story mode. Wander therein and, after choosing your avatar from an intimidatingly wide choice of two (Generic White Boy or Generic White Girl) and your animal companion from a choice of several (we went for Curtis the giant Panda, of course), you’ll find yourself watching the intro. Said intro is a fully animated cartoon, which came as a surprise considering the current trend amongst developers to tell stories via a cheap and nasty sequence of static comic strip-style shots.

The island (oh yes, no lies in the title of this game) is split into four areas, all immediately accessible via the map. Each area contains two carnival stalls, a balloon stall, and a gift stall. At the balloon stall you can buy… a balloon… which you can’t choose… and serves no purpose other than to give your boy/girl something to hold. Um, yeah, okay. The gift stalls are also crammed full of things for your character to hold, as well as a few mildly diverting surprises. Now, onto the games themselves.

There are a total of seven game types,each with five varieties (which, via the power of advanced mathematics, we say amounts to a total of 35 games). While it’s hard to avoid thinking some of the game names sound dirty when you first hear them (“Ringers”? Really?), they’ve all been done extremely well – which includes making the game types sufficiently different. For example, the basketball games include one mode where you’re simply throwing balls to score baskets, and one where the baskets are constantly moving on three different levels but each stops temporarily when you score, encouraging you to line them up to score multiple baskets with one ball. One shooting game requires you to shoot as many targets of your colour as possible within a time limit, and another requires you to knock down as many bottles as possible with only limited ammo. One minibowl game is a simple case of aiming for the holes worth the most points, while another combines the idea with coloured targets in columns that control a fruit machine, with bonus points for a ‘jackpot’; and so on.

Just like the hoop-throwing games at the fair, only with more rocket launches and (much) less expense.

As for the controls… they’ve been done pretty much perfectly, taking full advantage of Move’s accuracy. The intricacies of something as deceptively simple as tossing a coin have been reproduced wonderfully, and it’s as embarrassingly easy to just miss your target when throwing a hoop as it is in real life. The realistic physics applied to everything is the icing on the accuracy cake. Shooting games utilise a reticule, rendering them a little too easy; but that does at least stop frustration setting in.

In terms of the story, the basic idea is that you restore the travelling island (yes) to its former glory by reinvigorating each area, which basically means unlocking all the minigames. This is achieved by meeting the requirements for at least two challenges in each game in turn. Many of these challenges actually require a decent level of skill to beat; but hitting the minimum to unlock all the games is fairly simple. Go on; there’s more of those cartoon story sequences in it for ya.

Special mention must go to the writing. Yes, really. Mostly, it’s exactly the kind of light hearted and forgettable filler you’d expect. Now and again however, it seems that somebody with an… interesting sense of humour – or possibly a secret stash of alcohol at work – got bored and threw in some unexpected surrealist humour. This is usually seen when a new animal (animals are also unlocked through challenges, but serve no obvious purpose) is introduced, and we only wish that we’d written down the exact words for posterity. This animal once got a cork stuck in her ear – what? He loves bacon – eh? This triceratops insists that he existed?!

Um, okay, you had to be there.

Use the hammer to launch the frog into the air. We know what you're thinking and no, you can't. That would be cruel.

Wander over to multiplayer mode, and you’ll find that you can play with one Move per person simultaneously – or do it the old fashioned way, by taking turns and passing the controller. We applaud Carnival Island for this, which makes it one of the very few Move games which allows friends and family to play together without shelling out for extra motion controllers. The games themselves, with their wonderful controls and simple premises, are perfect for pick-up-and-play sessions even for people unfamiliar with videogames, and are actually fun to play.

Presentation in the multiplayer menus is dull and uninspired, particularly when compared to the effort put into story mode; and the Magic Mirror – where you can manipulate your on-screen image with three different effects and save photos to the hard drive – is bafflingly absent. In fact, the Magic Mirror highlights Carnival Island’s biggest failing; its lack of ambition.

The mirror is just for fun, with no points to be scored or challenges to be met. Why not have more distractions like this; isn’t that in keeping with the idea of a carnival atmosphere? Why not, in fact, allow the mirror’s three effects to be combined? What this game does it does very well; but despite dressing up prosaic activities in imaginative clothing, it rarely offers the player anything above and beyond what it has to. As a result, despite being ideal for family play, it isn’t the fascinating tour of fun it could have been.

• Format: PS3 (PlayStation Move required)
• Unleashed: November 18th (EU), Out Now (US)
• Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
• Developer: London Studio
• Players: 1-2
• Site: http://uk.playstation.com/eyepetfriends/

Despite – or perhaps because of – 3DS and Kinect’s suitability to augmented reality console gaming, Sony has taken steps this year to muscle back into the AR arena. EyePet & Friends is the first ‘proper’ sequel to the first game and, thankfully, it ditches the Magic Card in favour of PlayStation Move. That in itself automatically fixes many problems; but have other issues been addressed?

The reason the Magic Card was such a problem was essentially because it was a 2D image (the pawprint the Eye needed to see at all times) in a 3D environment (e.g. your living room). Turning the image of the card into, say, a shower head to wash the EyePet isn’t quite so magical as intended when players of all ages keep accidentally twisting the card in their hands a few degrees too far to the left or right, and the item disappears. The glowing bulb of Move is easily tracked at all times, meaning that whatever the virtual item in your hand on the TV, it won’t disappear unless you remove the controller from the camera’s field of vision.

But let’s start at the beginning, where EyePet & Friends gets off to a bad start. Yup, the tedious egg hatching sequence returns; the only positive of which is that if you get fed up trying to have the camera recognise your hand tapping the egg, it will (eventually) hatch itself regardless. Why you can’t simply use Move to play the tedious (best word, so we’re using it twice) shell-tapping minigame is beyond us.

Even with the best possible light, the picture isn't quite THIS good and seamlessly integrated.

The on-screen EyePet scientist with more than a whiff of Doc Brown about him has been replaced (in the UK version at least) by an off-screen, British narrator. He gets overexcited about everything, and babbles on deliriously every time you discover a new option, feature or button. His almost constant, overly enthusiastic introductions to everything at the start of the game led Luke’s six year old daughter to cry things such as “Shut up, I want to play!”, “He’s not funny!” (although five minutes later she was laughing at him) and, amusingly, “He’s using too many connectives!”. We eventually discovered that hitting the triangle button will cut his speeches short.

Narrator aside, two things hit you very quickly once you get past the (tedious) egg hatching sequence – one very good, one not so much. First of all, lessons have clearly been learnt from the first game’s insistence on locking virtually all of the content away from new EyePet owners for many hours, or even days. Players were required to jump through proverbial hoops thanks to the questionable decision to include the all-but-compulsory ‘Pet Program’ and set tasks. Within minutes of starting this title however, players will be able to not only take photos and video of themselves with their new furry friend, but also play with a small selection of toys and access pretty much everything in the main menu.

Plenty of content (such as new games and clothes) is locked; but rather than being forced to run a gauntlet of specific tasks in order to access them, players can buy it with the in-game currency. Most things you do – feeding your EyePet, washing your EyePet, playing the games, etc. – earn you tokens, meaning that you slowly unlock everything by doing things you actually want to do.

Make your own digger with wonky wheels, and it will hobble along appropriately. Nice touch.

Even the loading screens are likely to amuse younger gamers, with EyePet floating across the screen on a balloon, being hit on the head with a football, and similarly adorable situations. This is good, because you’ll be watching these loading screens a lot. Jump to a game? Loading screen. Jump to an activity? Loading screen. Call your EyePet by laying Move on the floor? Loading screen. And so on and so forth.

There’s a lot for kids to enjoy between loading screens, which is the important thing. The all-purpose toy from EyePet Move returns with new items, such as a water pistol and remote control trampoline. They can build and save mini play areas for their fluffy friend, by arranging pre-set shapes (or ones they have designed themselves) on a grid. Basics such as feeding, washing and scanning (to see if food, attention etc. are needed) are still present; and ‘papercraft’ allows them to design their own cards and stickers in-game. They’re even able to create their own vehicles for the (surprisingly good) minigames, with the option to start right from scratch – which works extremely well.

It’s not all good news. While EyePet can now perform a wide variety of tricks (dancing, playing dead, star jumps, and much more), the commands for these tricks are various shapes drawn in mid-air with Move. Memorising all the shapes is a problem in itself, but the game can be frustratingly picky in the accuracy needed for what you draw. Attempting most of these shapes is likely to be a source of frustration for a great many young EyePet fans (and, indeed, their older relatives). Similarly, something as simple as stroking or pouring shampoo onto your EyePet is complicated by utilising depth. Holding the bottle above your pet isn’t any good if your hand is a little too far into the foreground or background, a concept not immediately obvious to many young children. Also, without a large room with a lot of free space, aiming the laser pointer (which your EyePet chases) and moving the trampoline can be fiddlier than necessary.

Players on the younger end of the scale will need help from an adult to fully enjoy this; although it’s a game and not a babysitter, children enjoy independence when playing. Nonetheless it’s got a lot to offer the younger player and, while we can’t comment on how well the game works when two EyePets are on-screen (you need one Move controller per fluffball), if you have kids who enjoyed EyePet, they’ll love this.

• Format: PS3 (PlayStation Move required)
• Unleashed: November 18th (EU), Out Now (US)
• Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
• Developer: San Diego Studio/Zindagi Games
• Players: 1 (Story), 2 (Online/offline multiplayer modes)
• Site: Not found

Remember the part of the PlayStation Move tech demo that actually looked kind of interesting? Where the skeletons were fought off with a sword, shield, bow and arrow? Looks like somebody at Sony was rather impressed too; it seems that the idea was made a touch more family friendly, and eventually grew into Medieval Moves.

We’d like to explain the presence of all the animated, dressed, talking skeletons that you’ll be killing; and also how and why your character turns from Edmund the boy prince into – wait for it – Deadmund the boy skeleton (fetch a needle and thread, for our proverbial sides have split). We’d like to explain all that, but that would require watching all the story scenes, which we quite simply could not do. For the first time ever, we even skipped most of a game’s ending. The static pictures look like hastily sketched concept art, the script is dull and peppered with jokes nobody but the writers could possibly find funny, and the acting is consistently half-arsed. The gist is: cursed villagers; “freeing” rather than killing skeletons; magical amulet broken into pieces; evil magician; and so on and so forth.

To be fair, the story isn’t meant to be the main attraction here (though it provides constant interruptions during gameplay). Arguably, the star of the show was always meant to be the controls. Dual wielding Moves is supported but, unwilling and unable to purchase another this time of year, we went for the single-Move control scheme. This works much better than you might expect. Obviously, swinging the controller swings your sword. Hold the Move button to use your shield; mimic the action of pulling an arrow from a quiver on your back to draw your bow (hold the trigger to draw, release to shoot); and, soon enough, use the hold/release mechanic to toss throwing stars from your hip.

The much trumpeted 1:1 motion tracking is in full force here, and is very impressive when it works properly (more on which later). The brief training level has you target the head, limbs and torso of a dummy individually with your sword, which hits home the level of control you have. This hints at a level of sophistication in the combat which, unfortunately, never appears. You’re never required to target certain body parts, and it is in fact extremely tempting to simply swing the controller around wildly in close combat situations. Sadly, this is without fail the most effective tactic against standard enemies.

It's not button bashing, so it's... waggle spamming?

You can’t do this with ranged enemies, which is where skill comes in. The shield does need to be ‘aimed’, in the direction projectiles are coming from. You’ll need to block the attack, then quickly draw your bow to take them out. Fun for the first few levels, but very tired long before the end of the game. Now and again a larger enemy will come along who realises what shields are for. You’ll need to block their attack – again, watching carefully for where the blow will come from – then counter. Again however this gets old very quickly.

The game is by necessity on rails, making it in a way an evolution of the lightgun game. Movement is automatic; you’ll stop in a certain area until things stop trying to kill you, then you move on. The story is surprisingly lengthy given the game’s similarity to the likes of (for example) Time Crisis, and could take several hours to complete. Those hours are, for a few reasons, likely to contain more than their fair share of frustration.

Firstly, the story – which really does grate, for us at least – keeps poking its nose in during gameplay, Regular (and unskippable) pauses for Deadmund to talk with his ancestor are minor annoyances at best; major annoyances at worst, namely if you repeatedly have to restart a checkpoint which begins with one of these chatty segments. Failure is unlikely on the easiest difficulty, which for most of the game is almost patronisingly easy. On the harder difficulties however, the cheap tactics introduced to slow you down (mainly combining multiple ranged enemies, usually using cover, with melee enemies and extending the gaps between checkpoints) in the final quarter of the game are particularly noticeable. From the penultimate boss onwards, the difficulty for those looking for a challenge is quite frankly perverse.

How can we forget the obligatory balancing sections? No, seriously, how can we forget them; any ideas?

The nature of the tech sometimes poses problems of its own. The last weapon we haven’t mentioned is dynamite, which we found tricky to aim when throwing simply because we didn’t seem to have enough space between us and the camera (we usually had 5-6 feet) for the Eye to track a quick and sweeping throwing gesture. Of more concern was what we still can’t decide is a bug, or another symptom of the camera demanding a huge playing space. In the second half of the game, we would regularly find that when drawing the bow, it appeared on-screen but the aiming reticule did not, meaning we couldn’t shoot. We’ve never experienced similar issues with Wii games.

This may be aimed primarily at younger gamers, but the co-ordination required for basic play – combined with the quick reactions and ability to rapidly swap between weapons demanded as you progress – means that the younger the player, the faster they’ll hit a wall of frustration long before the end comes. It’s a fair and unique experience in small chunks, but extended play is likely to lead to boredom.

There are a few multiplayer modes, but absolutely no combat games that might have injected an immediate dose of dumb fun into the disc. What you get instead are variations on surviving against waves of enemies, playing with or against other players for points. The best thing about multiplayer is that it doesn’t feature the miserable QTEs (which immediately kill the immersion) shoehorned into the story now and again. That’s Medieval Moves; you need to count your blessings to squeeze the most enjoyment out of it.

The one that you (might) want is finally taking advantage of the latest motion detection gadgetry, as Grease the game is now available on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The live action launch trailer above demonstrates all of the arm swinging, hip jigging gameplay that the Kinect and PlayStation Move systems have encouraged since their inception.

Developed by Zoe Mode and published by 505 Games, Grease features officially licensed song compositions and familiar choreography that fans (and probably friends of fans) will recognise from the movie.

“Grease is an all-time classic entertainment property and it is with great pleasure that 505 Games is able to bring this updated re-imagining of the brand into the homes of fans this holiday season,” said Ralph Pitt-Stanley, General Manager – UK and Export for 505 Games. “The cutting edge new motion control technology of today’s consoles has enabled us to bring all the excitement of classic choreography and 1950’s attitude to life in ways not possible before.”

Released at the end of last week, Grease promises an interactive social singing and dancing experience and invites players to ‘turn up their style and release their inner rock ‘n roller’.