Articles by Brian Ashford || Square-Go.com

Astro Ranch by Brian Ashford | 15-03-10

iPhone

Review

Now home to an entire farming life simulator, the iPhone and iPod Touch are becoming ever more confident gaming platforms. In Astro Ranch you take control of a spacefarer who was looking for the perfect patch to set up a farm. That is until the starship Agricultural Enterprise crash lands into a crater which just happens to have 90% vacant farm land for rent! It is off-the-cuff humour like this which guides you through every aspect of the game.

Xbox 360 | PS3 | PC

Review

Hands On: Blur by Brian & Phil | 11-03-10

Last week those nice folks over at Bizarre Creations decided that they would hand out a pile of codes for their upcoming combat racing game Blur. These codes were distributed through the internet to anyone willing to partake in a bit of unpaid game testing. The codes were necessarily limited but, unfortunately, it seems that interested gamers were not. So for those of you who didn't manage to grab a code we (your diligent Bargain/Bin team) have again sacrificed ourselves to journalism playing a game which we may have been dying to play anyway.

PS2

Review

Bargain/Bin by Brian & Phil | 10-03-10

Our regular readers will know that we try to bring our games together in loose sets, driving games, First Person Shooters etc... Every so often we come across games which are difficult to pack together with others. Either because the other games of the type are mainstream and beyond our remit or because there's just not enough games of that type to find. We'll therefore call this our third person view games set. Yeah it's weak but at least two games here knocked us on our arses.

iPhone

Review

Dizzy Drops by Brian Ashford | 08-03-10

Dizzy Drops is actually a very simple game: Drops of paint fall from the sky which you have to catch in buckets at the bottom of the screen. The paint comes in four colours and you have to match the paint to the correctly coloured bucket by swapping the buckets around. Easy enough at first this soon becomes harder as the paint starts falling faster, or from lower clouds or when multiple drops fall together.

PS3

Review

Heavy Rain by Brian Ashford | 02-03-10

Designed as an 'interactive drama,' Heavy Rain aims to give the player control of the actions, voice and decisions of the protagonists driving the story. It is certainly an ambitious concept. This story draws heavily on cinema; psychological thriller, pulp, noir and mystery, focusing on a father's attempt to save his son from a serial killer. Three other protagonists under the player's control are each investigating this 'Origami Killer' in their own way. These multiple perspectives and the game's slow trickle of plot combine well to grab and hold your attention.