Borderlands £17.49
04 Mar
.jpg)
Borderlands is a role-playing first-person shooter that sends up to four co-op players to the planet Pandora in search of a mysterious Alien Vault – encountering all kinds of horrible little buggers that need to be exterminated as they go, unsurprisingly enough for a video game!
Like traditional RPG's, most of your time will be taken up by quests – 160 of varying complexity and length in total, 30 of which are part of the story with the remaining 130 being side quests. Downloadable content is also out now, with "The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned", "Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot" and "The Secret Armory of General Knoxx" all being worthwhile additions.
Sendit.com have this XBox 360 game available for £17.49 – for more information, click here.
For the first time in Super Smash Brothers history, Super Smash Brothers: Brawl lets you not only fight with Nintendo characters but with some third-party characters as well. I won't spoil it by telling you who's included – what I will say is that a certain bloke with a fascination for boxes and guns is one of them…
Like its predecessors the object of the game is to knock an opponent off the screen, and, in a departure from other fighting titles, has a simplified control scheme which makes it easy for anyone to play. The single-player mode has been expanded, and you can now also compete with other fighters across the globe via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.
Click here to get this Wii game for £9 from Tesco.
Let’s Tap £3.97
27 Feb
Let's Tap consists of a number of mini-games that require you to tap a flat surface with your hands to play. Setting the Wii Remote face-down on one of the two provided tap boxes, your vibrations are picked up and move a character in a race, inflate a balloon, create ripples in a pool of water, or paint swirls on a canvas.
Whilst many of these compilation things are generally a waste of time and money, Let's Tap is original and ambitious – the fact that the mini-games are very well designed also helps things too.
If you fancy this Wii title, click here to buy it for £3.97 from Tesco.
While it's fair to say that many third party Wii games are nothing more than shovelware (stuff thrown together in the hopes someone will buy it), there are also some very good titles hidden in amongst the crap – with Family Trainer being one such example.
Coming with a Twister-like mat, this provides a variety of different mini-games which gamers of any age can get into straight away. Think of it as a much more fun, and physically knackering, version of Wii Fit.
Amazon are selling Family Trainer, with a Family Trainer Mat Controller, for £14.99 – click here for more details.
Harvest Moon: Magical Melody is the very first Harvest Moon title to appear on the Wii. If you've never played any of the series before, the basic idea is that you run a farm in a place called Forget-Me-Not-Valley.
So far so boring, but really it's much more than just a game about farming – you can explore the sights around town, or you can even get married! It takes a little time to get into, although once you're hooked you'll never know how you managed without Harvest Moon in your life.
To get this game for £4.97 from Amazon, click here.
Rock Band: The Beatles is the latest entry in the Rock Band series and, like every other game in the series, it lets you simulate the playing of rock music by using controllers shaped like musical instruments. 45 songs from The Beatles career are available to play along to, with additional songs and albums appearing in the future as downloadable content.
Inside the Rock Band: The Beatles – Value Edition pack you'll find everything you need to get started. There's a copy of the game itself, plus the original drums, microphone and guitar from the "Rock Band: Band in a Box" bundle.
HMV have the Wii release available for £49.99 – for more information, click here. PlayStation 3 owners can click here to get their version for the same price from the same retailer, or XBox 360 gamers can click here to get theirs for £75 from Tesco.
Those new to the world of Metal Gear might like to know that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a stealth action game which is exclusive to the PlayStation 3. It's the seventh in the series, and also the first to appear on a fourth-generation console.
A third-person view with full camera manipulation is used, but you also have the freedom to switch to either a first-person mode or an over-the-shoulder view. Elements from previous entries in the saga return in modified forms, and Snake has a robotic drone which allows communication and can even incapacitate enemies with a weak electric shock.
Also included is Metal Gear Online which features 16 player online stealth battles that encourage you to engage heavily in teamwork.
Click here to get this title for £11.93 from Amazon.
The XBox 360 Elite is considered the package of choice for all of the hardcore gamers out there. To be honest, the only real difference between this and the old Premium model is the size of the hard drive – this has a massive 120GB one, which should be more than enough for anyone.
It's also the only XBox 360 console which comes in a different colour, with a completely black finish. Even the wireless controller and headset are black, so it's all co-ordinated. How lovely.
Play.com are selling the XBox 360 Elite, with four games, for £189.99 – click here for more details. Oh yeah, and the four free titles are Fable II, Forza Motorsport 3, Gears of War 2 and Halo 3: ODST.
With some very high quality games kicking about at the moment, with some equally tempting prices to boot, now more than ever would be the ideal time to get an XBox 360 Arcade console – which just so happens to be available at a fairly incredible price.
This is the smallest 360 model on the market, but it's also probably the cheapest as well. It's worth pointing out that there's no hard drive with this, but you can easily buy one if you feel the need to upgrade at some point in the future.
Click here to buy the system on its lonesome for £99.99 from Argos.
Additionally, the same retailer also has a deal on at the moment where you can get an extra game, Forza Motosport 3, for £10. Simply scroll down to the "Special offers" tab and it's under "Special offer 3".
Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a point and click adventure game that includes over 120 brain teasers for you to solve. Two sequels have already been released in Japan, one of which is now out over here. so it's inevitable that the other one will make its way across here in due course.
Although there's very little replay value, as once puzzles are completed there's no real need to do them again, this is great while it lasts. The combination of part adventure/part "brain training" works really well, so it's not surprising to see this selling like hot cakes.
Simply Games have this DS game available for £14.99 – for more information, click here.
