VideoGamer.com Plays

What we've been playing this week.

Tom Orry, Editor - Sonic Classic Collection, DS

This collection of Mega Drive Sonic games brought back some great memories, but also highlighted just how bad I've become at 2D platformers. I can remember whizzing through the original Sonic the Hedgehog over and over again as a kid, yet now I see the Game Over screen far too often. Games were clearly more punishing back then, but the four games are still an excellent package. It's a shame that games such as Sonic CD and Sonic Spinball aren't also included, but if you want some classic retro platforming on your DS, you can't really go far wrong with Sonic.

Wesley Yin-Poole, Deputy Editor - Dragon Age: Origins, Xbox 360

Our Dragon Age: Origins review was based on the PC version of the game. For some reason, nearly four months after its release, I thought it would be interesting to check out the Xbox 360 version, which I'd read wasn't very good at all. While it's true that it's not as good as the PC version, it's not like you play it thinking, 'god, this is sooooo crap'. Sure, the 360 pad limits the number of spells and abilities you have available at the push of a button, the graphics aren't as pretty (pretty isn't really the right word to use when describing Dragon Age's dour visual style), and you can't zoom way out for a god-like view of the carnage, but it works well enough. And all the important stuff, like desperately trying to shag sultry mage Morrigan, works just the same. So yeah, not bad at all.

Sebastian Ford, Video Producer - Lips: I Love The 80s, Xbox 360

I am the kind of guy who loves to get up for a bit of karaoke when it's around. Thing is, I only lived through three years of the 80s, and back then my collection of popular smash hits didn't extend much beyond the likes of Thomas the Tank Engine and Winnie the Pooh. Still, Soft Cell's Tainted Love was an easy pick, and in front of a crowd that vastly overpowered the sound of my own voice I couldn't fail. In games like guitar hero and rock band, I always find myself paying strict attention to how my score is shaping up. With Lips, however, I barely noticed this because my co-singer and I were having such a laugh getting the words wrong all on our own. I have mocked singing games in the past, one might even say I was brutal about them, but deep below this gruff, hardened exterior lies a budding young superstar, dying to bloom.

James Orry, News Editor – Super Street Fighter IV, Xbox 360, PS3

Newly purchased Street Fighter IV Tournament Fightstick in hand I trotted off to Wez's place on Tuesday night for some top notch pizza and several bouts of Super Street Fighter IV. Truth be told my fighting skills come from my time with Street Fighter II on the SEGA Mega Drive and have become ring rusty over the 15 years since those golden days of six-button controllers and instant loading game carts. I've never - bar a few games in the arcades - used a fightstick, so the transition from pad to stick wasn't pretty to see. I still proved more than capable of dispatching lesser opponents - my brother included - but Flowchart Ken wasn't enough to defeat the evening's more versed combatants.