Category: Xbox 360 Features

A new adventure for Lady Croft that feels like a fitting tribute

Poor old Lara’s had a rocky old trip through gaming history. She’s gone from being the iconic face of a console generation, to just one of many gun-wielding heroines gracing our disk drives. And while Tomb Raider Underworld almost took the original tomb raider to new fabled heights, its first DLC, Beneath the Ashes, does just that – and makes Lara Croft as relevant as anything this generation has to offer.

Serving as an epilogue to the main games’ supernatural shenanigans, Lady Croft discovers a whole labyrinth of medieval dungeons beneath her ancestral home. And despite its ties to the main story, BTA manages to hark back to the principles of old that made the franchise so influential.

The usually pointless cut-scenes are thankfully kept to a minimum, and there’s not an over-powered shadow-sword in sight. Ladies and gentlemen, this is old school Tomb Raider (with a modern …

A brutal bike ride built for you

C’mon, give us a little smile, Mr Klebitz. We know Niko is a tad miserable, but GTA IV’s amoral immigrant might as well have been sprouting candy and rainbows from his face when you compare him to The Lost & Damned’s lead biker. Johnny’s overall demeanour is fitting for this slice of DLC as it’s relentlessly bleak. Thankfully, it‘s also ferociously fun in patches.

The leader of Liberty City’s infamous The Lost crew, Klebitz and the rest of his posse of burnt-out bikers spend most of their time bombing about on choppers, arm wrestling and taking nefarious missions from the city’s cast of criminal players. An expansion that focuses on a motorcycle gang wouldn’t be much crack if The Lost’s rides didn’t handle convincingly. So it’s a relief then that the array of hogs will make you squeal with two-wheeled delight.

Compared to the puny bikes seen in the main game, The Lost …

A great new area to blast zombies, but is it worth nearly £40? Erm…

Treyarch’s Zombie mode has evolved from a simple, addictive add-on into a core part of the Call of Duty experience. As the series has progressed the settings have diversified, the gameplay has deepened, and the brains have never stopped spilling. The question of the day, though, is “what happens when you combine one of the most popular modes in the series with one of the most popular maps?” The answer – sheer joy.

Nuketown Zombies takes the player back to the Nevada desert’s familiar mannequin village from the original Black Ops multiplayer, but this time throws in the undead. Nuketown earned its reputation for being a tight, symmetrical multiplayer map designed to create some of the series’ most exciting carnage. This design lends itself to zombie gameplay superbly and the claustrophobic feel hasn’t been felt since the original Nazi zombie house-based map from World at War.…

Another set of multiplayer maps are set to arrive for Halo 4 in February, rumoured to be the 25th. The Majestic map pack includes Landfall, Monolith and Skyline for players to blast around and follows on from the Crimson map pack we’ve already reviewed.

According to Microsoft this is what you can expect <Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V> Landfall’s emphasis is on infantry battles against a glittering ocean on a distant world, while Monolith exposes you to the naked vacuum of space – and the firepower of opposing teams, and Skyline’s distinctly industrial feel provides new challenges in somewhat familiar, but occasionally confined spaces. So umm, yeah.

We’ll have a wart(hog)s an’ all review up on the site as soon as possible. Follow us on Twitter and we’ll let you know when it goes live.…

GTA IV sits atop Metacritic with a stonking 98% average rating, but curiously Niko Bellic’s immoral adventure proved surprisingly polarising amongst gamers in 2008. Too serious! Too miserable! Too many fat cousins obsessed with picking up 7-10 splits! Rockstar’s return to the Rotten Apple was too downbeat for some, especially those who have fond memories of blasting their way out of Area 69 in San Andreas with a Grove Street gangbanger wearing a jetpack. The good news is that The Ballad of Gay Tony recaptures this fun with ease.

The DLC add-on follows exasperated Latino bodyguard, Luis Lopez and the titular (and refreshingly stereotype-lite) ‘Gay’ Tony Prince. The homicidal odd couple, are an anti-hero heavy tough guy and a pill-popping, club boss trying to stave off loan sharks and mobsters so the pair can run the “the hottest gay and straight club in Liberty City”.

After GTA IV’s serious plot line, Gay Tony’s balls to the wall madness is refreshing …

A vampire expansion pack to sink your teeth in

“The problem with Skyrim, is that there’s just not enough to do” is a quote that has never been said and never will be. This is due to the almost endless amount of missions spread across a huge map – you’re unlikely to ever run out of things to do in this epic RPG. So a hefty chunk of DLC with even more things to do and places to explore may seem a little daunting, even to seasoned Skyrim folk. Thankfully, Dawnguard is worth the inital panic.

It can be activated like many other Skyrim missions – listening in on guard conversations, a note from a courier or speaking to the local innkeeper.  The main plot here is thus: Vampires are attacking cities in Skyrim under the command of Lord Harkon who’s aim is to fulfil an ancient prophecy told in an Elder Scroll to destroy the sun. This in turn …