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A classic example of style over content, Blue Stinger draws you in to its bizarre world with one of the finest intro movies yet seen, coupled with a stirring orchestral score. The presentation throughout is of a similar high standard and serves as testament to the power of Sega's beast. Unfortunately, the game itself fails to live up to this early promise. Blue Stinger is one of those 'survival/horror' games, heavy on storyline and character development, but sadly it fails where others, such as Resident Evil and Dino Crisis, succeeded. The puzzles are competent and occasionally quite fiendish, but the dodgy control system serves only to remove you from what should be an immersive experience. Those willing to put up with this annoyance will no doubt eventually succumb to the woeful camera angles that are, quite frankly, inexcusable. Have we put you off buying it yet? No? We implore you to try before you buy. Don't just buy it on the strength of the intro - The Matrix is available to buy for 10 quid and it looks even better.
The War of the Worlds on PC was a stunningly under-whelming game, a sort of second-rate C&C with Martians in tripods. On PlayStation, strategy is out and shooting is in. You drive around, sometimes transporting troops or doing reconnaissance missions, but mainly just blasting the hell out of the evil alien critters. And initially, it's surprisingly fun; your vehicles handle well, and changing from the direction of travel to where you're firing is simple and fluid. True, it's not an original or revolutionary game, but we can forgive that. Unfortunately, we can't forgive the shoddy graphics. There's no fade out: tripods and other objects either just appear or disappear; the explosions are pretty unrealistic and the whole thing looks very poor indeed. Moving your gun can be frustratingly slow too, and this, coupled with the messy visuals, makes The War of the Worlds pretty annoying. If this game was a song on the great War of the Worlds soundtrack, it'd be the crap David Essex one.
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