GamePro Family

Need for Speed has been in denial for years. Finally, it admits its split personality and creates three separate racing games. Shift is the game focused purely on simulation racing - in addition to Nitro's more casual gaming approach on Wii and DS and browser based World Online.

The previous Jekyll and Hyde nature of the series meant that you never quite knew what to expect when you opened the box. Carbon returned to the open world and illegal street races of earlier iterations, then Pro Street cleaned up its act in preference of high performance track races before Undercover headed back to police chases and leggy detectives.
 

Halo 3: ODST continues the epic Xbox 360 franchise and tells the story of the infamous Orbital Drop Shock Troopers as they defend New Mombasa from Covenant attack. Leading up to the events in Halo 3, players leave Master Chief for a while as they assume the role of a new character - the Rookie. With a new open-world structure and a story told via flashback, Halo 3: ODST on the XBox 360 console takes the Halo franchise into darker territory as the Master Chief is nowhere in sight and the Covenant are more dangerous than ever. Expert family gamers, prepare to drop.
 

Fifi and the Flowertots for the Nintendo DS is a collection of mini games and puzzles for children a little older than when they first watched the realted TV show. There are fifteen different games to play including wordsearch, sudoku, spot the difference and jigsaw. Each game has three different difficulties and medals for kids to win, which promotes a sense of pride and motivation. Although Fifi and her garden companions are aimed at preschool children, this DS game raises the bar for those a little older.
 

1 vs 100 creates a new experience that feels real because of the genuine human host and the bona fide prizes. The package as a whole is simply a lot of fun. Bring on Season One proper.

This summer Microsoft trialed their version of the trivia game show 1 vs 100. Thousands of family gamers were logging in weekly to the 1 vs 100 'Live' shows 'broadcast' on Friday and Saturday evenings. These are an intriguing combination of a preset video game with live players and a proper host talking through the action in real time.

Hot off the presses, here is a sneak peak of what will soon be our weekly iPhone review from Nathan Morgan.

Real Racing is the best racing game on the iPhone/iPod Touch and one of the best games full stop. That might sound like a fairly flat and uninspiring summary, but I'm hoping, with the brevity, straightforwardness and yet breadth of my opening remarks, to convey effectively the sheer quality of this app.

With all the positivity that's been flying around, it feels like The The Family iPhone has become a bit of a love-in over the last couple of weeks. It seems my Touch and I are still well and truly in our honeymoon period; sure, we occasionally argue about the odd poor or pointless app and how often the screen needs wiping, but we always make up with a spot of Peggle or Toy Bot action.

Hot off the presses, here is a sneak peak of what will soon be our weekly iPhone review from Nathan Morgan.

Following on from Peggle and completing our PopCap double-header, this week I have been mostly playing Bejeweled 2. Like Peggle, the Bejeweled series are epically popular and if you own almost any form of computing hardware or spend any time online then it's likely that you've played it.

However, for the benefit of the boy in the bubble... Bejeweled 2 is a simple puzzle game which involves an 8x8 grid of different coloured jewels. You can swap any two adjacent jewels if, in so doing, you create a line of at least three matching jewels. When you match a line, the jewels concerned disappear and replacements fall from the top.

Big scores and rapid level completion is best achieved through trying to set off chains of multiple matches resulting from jewels moving down into a match. Sometimes these 'cascades' happen naturally as the random replacement jewels fall into matches. Making a line of four leaves behind a shining jewel which, when involved in a match, explodes to remove a certain amount of the surrounding jewels. Making a line of five creates a Hyper Cube which, when swapped with any adjacent jewel (regardless of whether it makes a line or not), will remove all jewels of that type on the screen.

Professor Layton and Pandora's Box (provided by Games Basement) keeps the format the same and quality high. I enjoyed the feel and fun of the first game and was pleasantly surprised to find a more streamlined experience. A coffee a flapjack and the Professor make an excellent combination.

Having the new Professor Layton game to review feels like quite a coup as I'm aware that the last one was really popular and sold out. Being a bit behind the times I only discovered the previous game, Professor Leyton and the Curious Village, a few months ago, so with that fresh in my mind I was excited to see what the new game would be like. All in all it looks like they have improved the game by giving it a more integrated feel and building on what everyone enjoyed about it, the great animation and story line.

Swords and Soldiers by Romino Games presents itself as a real time strategy game, but adds a level of utter goofiness that can excite and interest gamers who've never played this type of Wii Ware game before. Yes, I'm talking about me.

The Metroid series has successfully grown from its intricate two dimensional platforming roots to this Wii-mote controlled Wii incarnation. It retains that Metroid feel whilst expanding the play styles considerably. With the Gamecube re-worked games being prepped for release on the Wii, what better time to revisit the first Wii outing for Samus.