I bought a bunch of pre-owned games and was testing them out to make sure some selfish cretin hadn't returned a dodgy disc as I had had bad luck before. Of the lot, this caught my attention from the jump and was the first one I played. The colour scheme/almost black and white style of the first level caught my attention, as did the atmosphere the game created. It does have elements of originality, which is what most gamers are looking for, particularly in a first or third person shooter that are generally all near identical. This offers difference in the weapon system, where after the opening, the protagonist is turned into a part cyborg of sorts. He has a glaive (a bladed, boomerang like weapon) that is used a variety of different ways including to solve some puzzles. Weapons left by deceased enemies can only be used for a short period of time as they react with his infection and self-destruct. This offers some tense moments, particularly if you're low on your stock guns. The glaive is useless against longer range enemies, so you'll need to use both. The few negative things are that you need to be in the perfect place to pick up items. Another is trying to use the motion controller to move the glaive. Thank God that can be turned off and the analogue stick can be used in its place! It didn't seem to work very well at all. There was another part where I used a mounted machine gun. I would've almost been better off using my standard weapons. Speaking of weapons, the upgrade system is too restrictive. Once a weapon is upgraded, the upgrade can't be removed, so if something better comes along, as there are limited slots, you're out of luck. Some of the waves of enemies last a little too long and aren't very challenging. There is no difficulty level selection until you complete the game and unlock 'brutal' mode. Finally, it may take you a while to get used to the controls as shoot is R1, not the usual R2 that we've become accustomed to, with R2 being used for the glaive. I was constantly doing the wrong thing at the start of the game which was annoying. Overall, it's an enjoyable third person shooter from the seventh generation that feels a little fresh even playing 12 years after its release. Gameplay 3.5/5 Graphics 3.5/5 Sound 3.5/5 Difficulty 4/5 Originality 4/5

The first thing I liked about this was the nostalgia it brought. It made me reminisce back to the days of MOH/COD2. Whether it be fictional tales like the Wolfentein series or games more grounded in reality, I've always enjoyed the WWII theme in media. The theme aside, I think I also felt that nostalgia because it does feel similar. The FPS genre hasn't changed dramatically. I only played this on regular difficulty but it does seem more challenging than other COD titles of late, which makes sense I guess given the theme of the game. As with many FPS games these days stealth is a feature here as well that becomes a larger option towards the middle stages of the story. The multiplayer is decent with interesting enough maps to complete against fellow players in. With many FPS games going down the modern warfare, zombie, or sci-fi path it was nice to go back to the 1940s with this. As mentioned though, much of my early enjoyable was due to nostalgia and there isn't much here new to the genre, but with this maybe that was a positive. Gameplay 3.5/5 Graphics 4.5/5 Sound 4/5 Difficulty 4.5/5 Originality 2.5/5

Thirteen years of persistence paid off, and DMX finally got a record deal, and rap would never be the same. This album helped return hip hop to the streets from a lot of the pop rap that was popular at the time, with this album eventually going on to sell over 5 million units. When you consider there ain't really a radio-friendly track here, and DMX was pretty much a new commodity, I think it shows what DMX added to the genre. While like every DMX album this has some truly great songs such as 'Stop Being Greedy'-which is one of my favourite rap songs ever-the production (while suiting the lyrics well) is slightly dull on enough of the tracks for this not to reach a higher status for me. It's very solid and any violent lyrics D spits are as believable as any rapper due to his past and present, but a touch more variety on the boards, largely handled by Dame Grease would have made this excel further. A bit inconsistent but there is enough great stuff on offer. Best Tracks: Intro, Let Me Fly, X-Is Coming, Damien, How's It Goin' Down, Stop Being Greedy, ATF, The Convo.

I've played parts of every game in this franchise, more so the most recent, FH3, and I just don't feel there is enough new here and some of the annoying aspects haven't been omitted. The environment itself, in a way, doesn't feel that much different in parts to the modified Australia we were given in the previous game. There were rumours of the open-world being based on Hong Kong, (apparently based on screens of an unreleased and unrelated game), but something like that would've offered more difference, even if perhaps lacking the possible variety the UK can offer. Once I'd had a few races, and checked out some sights, the feeling of familiarity was too strong for a craving to want to return to this for too long. This franchise still makes you sit through some boring BS about the story that I generally never care about in racing games, plus the crap before and after races. Call me impatient, but it does my head in. The lack of fast travel from the get-go still irks me. It's a nice way to increase the HLTB time but does little else and is one of the reasons why I haven't spent more time with this. Because a lot of this world is open plains, you can often just go cross country and drive like a maniac through the plains to reach your destination but then you miss out on the some of the things to do along the way. I do feel that games like The Crew made A-B driving more interesting with better challenges to complete along the way and the world in something like The Crew 2 feels more authentic than this too. I drive through Edinburgh in this and it was dead. Very little traffic. By itself, it's great, and the racing is great, but having played the series, not so much. The modern NFS games get flack, and I'm not saying they don't often deserve it for some aspects, but the difference between the two most recent games in that series is more pronounced that it is here. Gameplay 3.5/5 Graphics 4.5/5 Sound 4/5 Difficulty 4.5/5 Originality 1/5

As the title suggests this is a game where you drive buses. Your role is to drive the passengers to their destination and the closer you are to the timetable and the more you follow the road rules the greater your score will be. Gameplay 3/5 Graphics 2.5/5 Sound 2.5/5 Difficulty 3.5/5 Originality 3/5