Mario Kart 7 3DS leaves the random battling behind and delivers a real kart racing experience. Multiplayer modes lead a fleet of features to keep core fans just as happy as casual videogame renters.

We all know the basics of Mario Kart. In this seventh outing on the 3DS things begin as usual. You select a character from the Mushroom Kingdom favourites before racing round a variety of circuits in an effort to win enough points to unlock more tracks and characters. New characters are added to the initial selection of eight (Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi and the others) as are the different tracks in each of the difficulty levels (50cc, 100cc and 150cc). Rinse, repeat.

I thought this would be another rehash of the same old tricks, but as I played it I found that this 3DS Mario Kart actually had a lot more racing going on than the Wii or Gamecube Mario Kart games. Whereas they often descended into more of a battle than a race, Mario Kart 7 keeps the focus firmly on the driving.

This starts with the racing feel itself which is not as slippy as in recent versions. In fact it continues Mario Kart DS’s good work in returning us to the driving style of Mario Kart 64. This is then continued in a noticeable absence of rubber banding — that bad habit of casual racing games that like to help slow-coaches catch up with the leaders. It makes it worthwhile building up a lead corner by corner, because it won’t be immediately eradicated with a blue shell.

That’s not to say that there aren’t shells, banana skins and the like, it’s just that they don’t play such a critical part. In fact alongside the usual Mario Kart weapons are some new comers. A Fire Flower enables you to shoot fireballs at opponents while a Tanooki Suit lets you whip them with your tail.

The biggest departure from previous rental games is the ability to take flight when you hit a big jump. Wings sprout from your kart and let you glide your way along the course. You can also whip out a propeller when you go underwater (which is no longer fatal).

These may sound a little frivolous but again, it adds to the real sense of competitive racing. Being able to take to the air or sea opens up new tactics and routes around the course — a little like Motorstorm. This is underlined by a kart customisation feature that lets you equip yourself for mud, tarmac or grass. Some will disparage the Motorstorm comparison, but with Mario Kart 7’s new racing features and Motorstorm’s four player split screen mode the similarity is undeniable — although of course they look very different.

Where this competitive racing really comes together is in the eight player local and online multiplayer modes. Firstly this rental game does away with the computer drivers (although in actual fact they are much better than in previous Mario Kart outings). More than this though, it connects you instantly with other Mario Kart 7 players all around the world.

This really reminded me of the simplicity of Halo’s match making. Once you have exchanged your 3DS system code just spot a friend in your home screen, tap Join Game and Mario Kart 7 automatically starts up with you in an online match. You can also setup passworded groups which not only function as a quick way to play with friends but also do a nice job of tracking stats.

Locally you can use the 3DS download feature to play with other players in the same room - even if they don’t have the game themselves. There’s also a StreetPass feature that exchanges stats and ratings with other players while you are out and about. This will even download ghost data from them so you can compete against them when you get back home.

While some may complain at a lack of innovation, there is considerable value in this evolutionary approach. By tweaking what has gone before Mario Kart 7 creates a perfect multiplayer rental backed up with a solid single player campaign and visuals that easily look on par with the Wii.

Score: 9/10 A great step forward for the Mario Kart franchise.

Mario Kart 7 is available to rent or buy from Boomerang on the Nintendo 3DS!

If you’re looking to rent, our packages start from just £3.99 a month! And you can now become a Priority Member from as little as £10.99 a month! Why not try our 21 day free trial? Click here to join now!  

Want to reserve your own copy? Click here to order at a great price and free P&P! We also sell ex-rental copies in ‘as new’ condition complete with brand new box & manual!

Topics: Nintendo DS, Unlimited Game Rental

To celebrate the recent release of Assassin’s Creed Revelations we’ve got 8 Assassin’s Creed Rabbid toys to give away plus Assassin’s Creed posters for the runners-up!

To be in with a chance to win one of the Rabbids all you need to do is enter our retweet and follow competition. Just follow @boomeranggames and retweet the following message…

“To win an Assassin’s Creed Rabbid follow @boomeranggames & RT this message including the code: RABBIDCOMP”

The Prizes

We’ve got 8 Assassin’s Creed Rabbids to give away plus 10 Assassin’s Creed Revelations Posters for the runners-up!

Competition Terms & Conditions.

1. Competition closes at 13:00 on Monday 5th December 2011.
2. Winners will be selected at random on Monday 5th December 2011 once the competition has closed.
3. The first eight winners will all receive an Assassin’s Creed Rabbid.
4. The next 10 entries to be selected will all receive an Assassin’s Creed Revelations poster.
5. Winners will be notified via a Direct Message and will be asked to supply their address.  If winners address is not supplied within 1 week, then another winner will be selected at random.
6. UK Residents only
7. Entrants must be 18 years & over.

Assassin’s Creed Revelations is available to rent or buy from Boomerang on the Xbox 360 and PS3!

If you’re looking to rent, our packages start from just £3.99 a month! And you can now become a Priority Member from as little as £10.99 a month! Why not try our 21 day free trial? Click here to join now!  

Want to reserve your own copy? Click here to order at a great price and free P&P! We also sell ex-rental copies in ‘as new’ condition complete with brand new box & manual!

Topics: Unlimited Game Rental

Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary (Xbox 360) is both old and new. It keeps the story, gameplay and controls perfectly intact from the original while shrouding the whole affair in the graphical goodness of Halo Reach.

I enjoyed revisiting Zelda Ocarina of Time and Starfox 64 on the 3DS a few months back and I’m looking forward to having what will be my third visit to GoldenEye (after the original and the Wii remake) on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

But nothing quite compares the majesty of the original Halo (Xbox 360) for me. It was renting this that I discovered a single player game that had computer controlled opponents every bit as convincing as my usual human adversaries in multiplayer matches.

My love affair with the series continued with Halo 2’s ground-breaking multiplayer and Halo 3’s further enhancement of AI, weapons and visuals. With Halo Reach completing Bungie’s excellent work, and Microsoft crafting a team for Halo 4 (Xbox 360), the re-release of Halo Combat Evolved is a chance to draw breath and see the old game in a new light.

While the levels, plot and enemies are the same, and controlled by the same artificial intelligence, the game has had a Halo Reach style makeover. It’s a little like renovating an old painting although here it looks better than the original ever did.

The increased draw distance, higher resolution and general all round tidy up not only make the game look better but give it a greater sense of grandeur. If you aren’t convinced how much better it looks you can tap the Back button to switch back to the original look and feel — and it’s shockingly different. Along with all this, if you have a 3D capable screen you can play the whole game in stereoscopic 3D.

If you haven’t rented the original Xbox game, for whatever reason, the story starts with Master Chief waking from cryogenic storage on the spaceship Pillar of Autumn, and finding himself under attack by the Covenant. After crash-landing on the surface Master Chief sets about finding survivors and rescuing Captain Keyes from the Covenant spaceship.

Although the narrative and cut scenes may creak a little from their age, this only goes to underline how ahead of its time the Halo gameplay was — it still controls wonderfully. The meatier single player also shows how much more focus these modes had on the original Xbox, what with broadband and XBox live not existing in common parlance.

Here we find the biggest revelation of the re-release — the ability to play Halo Combat Evolved via Xbox Live online. The developers have taken Halo Reach’s superb online multiplayer engine and backed it into the old game. It’s rather special to see all the new Jetpack, sprint and stealth features play out on these classic maps.

As a multiplayer fanatic this was an essential purchase for me. But even if this wasn’t my favourite aspect of gaming I think I would still have wanted to grab a copy of Combat Evolved (Xbox 360) so I could keep my Halo collection complete on the bookshelf.

Score: 8/10 A solid re-rendering of a classic and important game.

Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary is available to rent or buy from Boomerang on the Xbox 360!

If you’re looking to rent, our packages start from just £3.99 a month! And you can now become a Priority Member from as little as £10.99 a month! Why not try our 21 day free trial? Click here to join now!  

Want to reserve your own copy? Click here to order at a great price and free P&P! We also sell ex-rental copies in ‘as new’ condition complete with brand new box & manual!

Topics: Xbox 360, Unlimited Game Rental

Assassin’s Creed Revelations (Xbox 360/PS3) packs in the kitchen sink, but somehow this rental game gets away with it. The campaign may struggle to maintain attention with so much else to do, but in terms of variety this is the series’ Piece de Resistance.

Assassin’s Creed has always been beautiful to look at and enjoyable to play, but with each iteration it is also becoming as rich in content as it is in animation.

This time we join Ezio Auditore to (hopefully) wrap up the spiralling trilogy, and this time take to streets and rooftops of Constantinople. As always it is the side quests that provide longevity while the main story, the usual Templar assassination plot foiling, offers more dramatic moments.

What started as an action platformer here finds its stride with tactics and resource management worthy of a real time strategy. You soon find yourself recruiting soldiers, buying property, browsing bookshops, acquiring artifacts and engaging in acts of philanthropy like renovating rundown parts of town. There is even a Tower Defence element this time round, where you must guard your Strongholds from invading armies.

All this diversity makes me a little uneasy. I slightly miss the simplicity and focus of the good old days when all I had to do was turn up, assassinate the bad guys before heading back to the roof tops. Like Battlefield 3, by trying to be all things to all people Assassin’s Creed (Xbox 360/PS3) is in danger of losing what made it special and unusual in the first place.

Being something of an online multiplayer fanatic I was excited to see that this has had a lot of attention since Brotherhood saw its introduction last time. Sensibly, this leaves behind the more stealthy elements of the main campaign and instead crafts a game of “Cowboys and Indians” that works exquisitely well.

Each player is assigned a target and a pursuer and then tasked with taking them down before they are hit themselves. It reminded me of Minority Report’s pre-crime police striking to stop an Assassination before it happens — not quite the moral high ground, but an interesting play mechanic none the less.

The other online multiplayer mode I warmed to was Artefact Assault where, in well worn fashion, you have to use line-of-sight and surrounding architecture to capture a flag. It’s in the detail that this becomes an excellent addition. You break into two teams of four and take turns to try and sneak into the enemy’s camp, grab their flag and get it back home. This more restrained approach (limiting both numbers of players and duration of each round) eliminate the randomness and chaos usually present in capture the flag modes.

Back in the main campaign, when I wasn’t too distracted building my small empire of properties and allies, I found the controls and display had been sensibly improved. To find your target you now simply identify them (in game) from a reference photo, rather than with the big flashing arrow over their head of previous rentals. It’s a small change, but one that makes a big difference to how Revelations feels to play.

Some may complain that with so much to distract you from the main story, Assassin’s Creed Revelations (Xbox 360/PS3) loses its focus. Those that have played through the series so far and are looking for a satisfying narrative conclusion may come away wondering what just happened.

But, if you are after value for money, or like me have a particular type of sub-game you love to play, Revelations is the best of the blood-guilt drenched bunch. The multiplayer kept me entertained for much longer than the single player campaign ever has in an Assassin’s Creed rental game.

Beyond all these quibbles, it’s simply great to see a developer going the extra mile and putting considerable hands to the pump to create this sort of experience on a yearly basis.

I have forgotten the majority of my multiplayer sensibilities and am enjoying the ride.

Score: 9/10 Loads of content and some great multiplayer moments make this the best version of Assassin’s Creed.

Assassin’s Creed Revelations is available to rent or buy from Boomerang on the Xbox 360 and PS3!

If you’re looking to rent, our packages start from just £3.99 a month! And you can now become a Priority Member from as little as £10.99 a month! Why not try our 21 day free trial? Click here to join now!  

Want to reserve your own copy? Click here to order at a great price and free P&P! We also sell ex-rental copies in ‘as new’ condition complete with brand new box & manual!

Topics: PS3, Xbox 360

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PS3/Xbox 360) may not be as demanding a videogame as Dark Souls but don’t be fooled, it will take up just as much time and sink you just as deep into a heroic role. But more than just being long, it’s the breadth and depth of Skyrim’s scale that makes it so grand.

This is, perhaps, the biggest role play game I’ve ever played on a console. In fact if I knew just how big it was before starting I may have thought twice about playing it. Sure, Oblivion was a big game and gobbled up plenty of my life and Fallout 3 kept on going long after cheaper adventures have finished, but Skyrim (PS3/Xbox 360) is of a different scale altogether.

What really impressed me about this game rental though was its attention to detail, in spite of how much ground it has to paint, populate and generally bring to life. As you travel through its world there is as much to stop the heart about the landscape (blending from woodlands to snow covered mountains to grand cities and vast lakes) as the various inhabitants out to impress by more aggressive means.

Along with a varied horizon, you can also play your role here in many different ways. I started off by focusing on weapon craft - manufacturing weapons at a forge - and made good progress. After a while though I turned my hand to some alchemy which then let me enchant my creations. At times I was also distracted by wood chopping and cave exploration that although less exciting were just as thought through and engaging.

It really feels like you can progress in Skyrim (PS3/Xbox 360) any way you want to, and the game will not only let you do it but reward you appropriately. Whether you are simply building a house for your family to live in, joining one of the many guilds or spending time learning in a library, Skyrim (PS3/Xbox 360) keeps you going with a constant string of incentives.

Threading through the world is a central story that ensures you don’t become too distracted with the minutiae of life, or settle down with the family for too long. The scene is set with your initial escape from execution which sends you barrelling into the bright Skyrim sunlight.

As the story progresses you are soon caught between civil wars and dragon sieges. But beyond these day to day concerns is the pressing knowledge that the remains of the Dragonborn are all that is keeping Skyrim (PS3/Xbox 360) from being destroyed forever. It sounds grandiose I know, but as it inches along one mission at a time there is a genuine sense of intrigue and tension alongside the more obvious elements.

As you work through the videogame story you gain Experience. Each use of a weapon or spell or particular skill contributes to this and edges you closer to the all important next level. When you do upgrade you can assign talent points to a skill you want to improve and by so doing steadily create a more customised adventurer.

Alongside the skills and weapons you can use Dragonborn magic (obtained by reading runes that are carved about the place). These require magic points and must be used sparingly, but the right bit of magic at the right moment can really make all the difference.

As was true with Oblivion though, Skyrim (PS3/Xbox 360) is not without its bugs. It feels like the sheer weight of all that is going on is simply too much at times. Happily these are all minor (characters embedding themselves in the environment and strange animations). While the odd crash means I saved more often, it seems a small price to pay for such an ambitious game — and I’m sure patches will solve the majority of these issues before too long.

It’s not until you have rented and played it though (and devoted a good portion of a few weeks to the game) that you start to realise how important an achievement this is for role play games.

Skyrim (PS3/Xbox 360) builds on Bethesda’s foundations, sure, but more than that it stretches out towards the horizon and makes real what I hadn’t thought possible in these sorts of games previously.

I genuinely lost myself in Skyrim, like reading a book or watching a film, but in so many ways not like that — its scale, ambition and delivery dwarf even the grandest of narratives from those other disciplines. For a game, this is no small achievement.

Score: 9/10 A hugely ambitious and very successful adventure game.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is available to rent or buy from Boomerang on the Xbox 360 and PS3!

If you’re looking to rent, our packages start from just £3.99 a month! And you can now become a Priority Member from as little as £10.99 a month! Why not try our 21 day free trial? Click here to join now!  

Want to reserve your own copy? Click here to order at a great price and free P&P! We also sell ex-rental copies in ‘as new’ condition complete with brand new box & manual!

Topics: Unlimited Game Rental

Modern Warfare 3 (360/PS3) stands tall amongst its video game peers. But rather than its story, visuals or energy, this is an online game that stands out for a finely tuned interactive experience that even Apple would be proud of.

If you rented the previous game, and can remember the story, Modern Warfare picks up where that left off. America is winning ground against the invaders, while the Russian president tries to depose the usurper, Makarov. To this end Delta Force and SAS squads are knee deep in the major land offensives. MacTavish and Price of the, now infamous, Task Force 141 are hunting Makarov too in something of a personal vendetta and are helped by a Russian spec-ops soldier, Yuri.

While the ins and outs of all this don’t change the game itself a huge deal — regardless of the story we know what will be happening scene to scene — Modern Warfare 3 (360/PS3) works harder than ever to connect emotional resonance with its military Ops. At times this lands its punches well. I found myself something of a gibbering wreck as John Price’s shaky road to redemption finds some genuinely human ups and downs.

But it’s the big, rather than small, moments that really impress. From the jaw-dropping opening in Manhattan, to scenes in Paris with paratroopers raining down, to boarding a doomed jumbo jet, this is a blockbuster of blockbuster movies. To get the most out of this online rental you really need to turn your sensitivities off and enjoy the ride — worry about the violence later.

I soon headed to the multiplayer mode and happily wasn’t disappointed. New weapon upgrades, customisable guns alongside other Role Play elements lend Modern Warfare a greater sense of progression than previous games. I really enjoyed being able to tweak my favourite weapons (increasing range, adding stability and diminishing recoil) not least because it made a tangible difference to my online performance.

This brings me to something of a secret. I was never keen on the (admittedly popular) perks system in Modern Warfare 2 — or other cheaper derivatives. Happily (for me at least) this has now been replaced with Strike Package system. Rather than just stringing together kills without dying for the upgrades and special attacks, you are now rewarded for more tactical play too — completing objectives and assisting other players for instance.

Also, these are no longer curtailed when you die so you can work tactically through a game safe in the knowledge that you will be rewarded for inching towards your goal. It’s one of a number of ways that Modern Warfare 3 (360/PS3) lets you play the online multiplayer the way you want to play it — and this will be different for each person.

What is more familiar are the maps themselves: 16 tightly packed arenas littered with choke-points and hard to spot sight lines. One of my favourites so far (more time will tell if this holds) is Arkaden, a map set in a German shopping mall. It offers a very different space to play in with its crisscrossing complex of shops and alleys. I found myself having to really adjust my play style to take advantage of this unfamiliar territory.

Other maps challenged me in different ways. Downtown for instance, drops you in a war torn Manhattan, and calls for less running and gunning and more long distance play. Dome is another much tighter map with cargo containers offering plenty of spots for campers. Throughout, this plays to Modern Warfare’s strengths — of fast frantic action — as opposed to Battlefields more strategic gameplay.

The icing on the cake is Call of Duty: Elite, Modern Warfare 3’s online social networking addition. This not only means you can track your progress in minute detail, but it also offers all sorts of new ways to interact with other players — and potential players with its Facebook integration.

Alongside the main campaign there are 16 co-op missions that inject a slightly slower and more tactical pace to proceedings. Although I would have preferred to be able to play through the single player campaign itself in full co-operative fashion, the stand alone co-op modes are a welcome addition.

While some will try and defend Modern Warfare (360/PS3) as a guilty pleasure that they keep secret from their more grownup life, worrying about the relenting cacophony of violence and lurid death, I’m quite happy to turn that part of my brain off and enjoy what is a finely tuned team experience.

I don’t feel the need to justify this by pointing to Modern Warfare 3’s grand narrative, or tackling of difficult themes. It does all that, with varying success, for sure. But the game itself is a testament to the moments of joyous victory and agonising defeat that only video games can create.

Score: 10/10 Impressively fully feature campaign, online co-op and multiplayer. The best just got better.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is available to rent or buy from Boomerang on the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and Nintendo DS!

If you’re looking to rent, our packages start from just £3.99 a month! And you can now become a Priority Member from as little as £10.99 a month! Why not try our 21 day free trial? Click here to join now!  

Want to reserve your own copy? Click here to order at a great price and free P&P! We also sell ex-rental copies in ‘as new’ condition complete with brand new box & manual!

Topics: Unlimited Game Rental

To celebrate the release of Modern Warfare 3 we’ll be giving away a copies of the game on the Xbox 360 and PS3 plus some Xbox 360 Avatar / PS3 Theme download codes for the runners-up!

For your chance to win a copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 all you need to do is enter our retweet and follow competition. Just follow @boomeranggames on twitter and retweet one of the following messages

“For a chance to win a copy of #MW3 on the PS3 follow @boomeranggames and RT this message and include the code MW3COMPPS3”

“For a chance to win a copy of #MW3 on the 360 follow @boomeranggames and RT this message and include the code MW3COMP360”

The Prizes

We’ll be giving away one copy of Modern Warfare 3 on the 360 and one copy on the PS3 plus 20 download codes for the runners-up!

Competition Terms & Conditions.

1. Competition closes at 13:00 on Thursday 17th November 2011
2. Winners will be selected at random on Thursday 17th November 2011 once the competition has closed.
3. The first winner selected in each draw will win a copy of Modern Warfare 3 on the relevant format.
4. The next 10 entries to be selected in each draw will all receive a download code for a 360 avatar or a PS3 theme.
5. Winners will be notified via a Direct Message and will be asked to supply their address.  If winners address is not supplied within 1 week, then another winner will be selected at random.
6. UK Residents only
7. Entrants must be 18 years & over.

If you’re not a lucky winner this time, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is available to rent or buy from Boomerang on the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and Nintendo DS!

If you’re looking to rent, our packages start from just £3.99 a month! And you can now become a Priority Member from as little as £10.99 a month! Why not try our 21 day free trial? Click here to join now!  

Want to reserve your own copy? Click here to order at a great price and free P&P! We also sell ex-rental copies in ‘as new’ condition complete with brand new box & manual!

Topics: Unlimited Game Rental

Battlefield has always been a game to enjoy with other people — as in humans rather than artificial opponents. This year more than ever though, it has made a concerted effort to chip into Modern Warfare’s single player experience — and the sales figures that go with it.

Battlefield 3 PS3/360 easily mirrors Modern Warfare’s single player antics with a campaign that is as bombastic, knife edge, globetrotting and generally implausible as anything that Infinity Ward have come up with to date.

You flip-flop between roles as the story is told in retrospective flashbacks. By turns you find yourself, Sam Beckett like, as a tank driver, aircraft gunner, disgraced marine and even a Spetsnaz agent. What unfolds is a tale of politically fuelled insurgency that takes you to Paris, Tehran and New York. It’s jaw dropping stuff, and as impressive as any other first person shooter campaign.

As we are edging towards the thin end of the current crop of consoles I thought I had seen everything that could be squeezed out of them. Battlefield 3 PS3/360 however managed to find more than a few more drops of horsepower. This is hugely impressive stuff. Both the scale and the detail combine to create an experience that had the hairs on my neck stand to attention.

Most of the time this all holds together well but, for gamers like me with a multiplayer bent, the super-strict scripting that enables these visual pyrotechnics can be a heavy price to pay. Unlike the free flowing gameplay that Battlefield’s multiplayer has made its name for, here in the campaign you can only take one step at a time as the show reel slowly works through its predetermined stages.

This can mean that you have to wait for a particular scene to play out before you can open a door or proceed down a corridor. Of course this is all part of directing the drama, but still it feels costly in terms of the gameplay. I’m still not convinced that I’m happy for my games to ape Hollywood so closely, certainly not if gameplay is the loser.

Having said all this, by the time I’m a few hours in I have forgotten the majority of my multiplayer sensibilities and am enjoying the ride. The energy and sheer variety on offer carry Battlefield 3’s campaign past any awkward interactive moments.

Switching to the co-op campaign I was back in more familiar territory. Or at least I thought so until I realised just how hard this was. You will need all your co-operative wits about you if you are to proceed in what must be some of the most testing videogame moments I’ve played in a long time.

The real meat for me was of course in the proper multiplayer modes though, and here Battlefield 3 is the same enjoyable friend it has been to gamers young and old. In stark contrast to the single player, the multiplayer game encourages diverse strategies and play styles. You really can develop your own play style as you encounter each of the maps.

While the consoles can’t quite keep pace with the PC here, offering just 24 rather than 64 player maps, this is still more than enough action for me. Each battle feels genuinely epic and involves more than simply pinning down enemies or finding the best choke points. Jeeps, tanks and helicopters and jets all join the fray as the various conflicts swell in their impressive ambition of recreating a real world sense of scale and chaos.

Spending time with this really underlines how successful Battlefield has been in the multiplayer world, and how unmatched this is by other titles like Modern Warfare, Call of Duty or Medal of Honour. It’s a shame that retail success of singleplayer campaigns has distracted DICE away from really innovating here. Sure, they’ve delivered a very impressive single player game this time around — and matched what we’ve seen so far from Modern Warfare - but just think how much better the multiplayer could have been that investment sent its way.

Don’t get me wrong Battlefield 3 PS3/360 is a very special game; it’s just one that now feels a little more derivative than it has in the past. I’m really enjoying this year’s incarnation, but in the back of my mind is the knowledge that it’s lost a bit of what made it so distinctive.

Score: 9/10 Hugely impressive singleplayer and classic Battlefield multiplayer.

Battlefield 3 is available to rent or buy from Boomerang on the Xbox 360 and the PS3!

If you’re looking to rent, our packages start from just £3.99 a month! And you can now become a Priority Member from as little as £10.99 a month! Why not try our 21 day free trial? Click here to join now!  

Want to reserve your own copy? Click here to order at a great price and free P&P! We also sell ex-rental copies in ‘as new’ condition complete with brand new box & manual!

Topics: Unlimited Game Rental

Batman Arkham City 360/PS3 is a carefully written love letter that stayed with me long after I’d finished it. But what was less expected is how appealing and accessible this is to casual gamers and those uninitiated in the charms of the comic.

Rocksteady have paid the piper, not just in their devotion to creating an immensely playable videogame, but by taking time to get to grips with their subject matter. This handling of Bob Kane’s comic creation, Batman, deftly steps through this hallowed ground without putting a foot wrong.

Batman Arkham City 360/PS3 continues where Arkham Asylum left off — re-creating in meticulous detail each and every aspect that makes Batman, well, Batman. The result is a hero who moves swiftly from questionable vigilante to puzzle-solving Sherlock to agile martial artist and back again.

While it could have rolled out the same mechanics in a new world, Arkham City moves both gameplay and story forward in intelligent, and intelligible, ways. Things start in familiar territory with fisticuffs and clue detection from the first game. Detective Vision again enables you to spot antagonists through architecture and plan your attack before stepping out of the shadows.

Unlike many fighting games, here you start with a full complement of gadgets. They are then powered up as you progress through the game. But it is in the less familiar additions that the real fun is found. A grappling hook means you can fly from roof to roof before gliding down to attack. Unlike the first game this gliding time is much longer and nicely offsets the larger maps Batman needs to navigate.

There are other new gadgets to play with too. My favourites were the remote Batarangs that could be directed round corners and smoke pellets are also useful and underline Arkham City’s dedication to stealth as well as brawling.

The story starts several months after Arkham Asylum, and in a very different Arkham. Free from the Asylum we now have to deal with an open (if walled) city run by the whimsical Hugo Strange and his turn-a-blind-eye approach to crime management.

This is more Escape from New York than The Wire’s legalisation of drugs in Hamsterdam, but the pressures behind it are not dissimilar. Batman soon finds that he can’t let things carry on as they and adds his own brand of vigilante law enforcement into the already bloody streets.

Rocksteady have created an Arkham City of any Batman fan’s dreams. The place is massive and sprawling and I soon found myself lost in the back alleys with nefarious riffraff. There is a Gormenghast comical horror about the place with eyes on every corner and gargoyles jutting out from almost every building.

Having such a large City to fill with criminal activity means that more of Batman’s enemies make an appearance than last time. The Penguin, Two Face, The Joker and a busty Harley Quinn all throw their hat in the ring. But it’s not until the story really takes hold that Arkham City really cranks things up and draws in characters old and new from Gotham’s underbelly — and a return appearance for The Riddler and his riddling side-quests.

Seeing the game open up into Gotham’s streets was a real penny-dropping moment for me. Although I had enjoyed the first game the scale of Gotham City suddenly reminded me of Assassin’s Creed - but here the combat and gameplay around the environments is so much stronger.

The result of all this is a game that you will want to take your time with, rather than rush through to the conclusion. Although that may not sound all that unusual I know I’m as guilty as the next man of playing games simply to say I’ve finished them. Batman Arkham City stands alongside experiences like Uncharted and Alan Wake that need to be savoured.

Once you have got through the main story (not too quickly I trust) you can also play through as Catwoman (and Robin with some retailer exclusive deals). This isn’t just another excuse for more high definition décolletage and cleavage (I’m talking Cat rather than Robin here) but they also handle differently and add some longevity for diehard fans.

There are many voices heaping praise on Arkham City 360/PS3, but unusually I’m happy to join their midst. This is a love letter of a game, written not just to comics or even core games, but to anyone who wants to escape their day to day life once in a while and step into the shoes of the most human of Superheroes. Some games stay with you between sessions, this one stayed with me long after I’d finished it. Perpetual perfection.

Score: 10/10 Superhero perfection whichever way you look at it.

Batman Arkham City is available to rent or buy from Boomerang on the Xbox 360!

If you’re looking to rent, our packages start from just £3.99 a month! And you can now become a Priority Member from as little as £10.99 a month! Why not try our 21 day free trial? Click here to join now!  

Want to reserve your own copy? Click here to order at a great price and free P&P! We also sell ex-rental copies in ‘as new’ condition complete with brand new box & manual!

Topics: Unlimited Game Rental

To celebrate the release of Uncharted 3 on the PS3 we’ll be giving away a copy of the game to one lucky follower plus posters to the runners- up!

For your chance to win a copy of Uncharted 3 all you need to do is enter our retweet and follow competition. Just follow @boomeranggames on twitter and retweet the following message

“For a chance to win a copy of #Uncharted3 on the PS3 follow @boomeranggames and RT this message and include the code U3DDCOMP”

The Prizes

We’ll be giving away one copy of Uncharted 3 on the PS3 plus Uncharted 3 posters to 10 runners-up!

Competition Terms & Conditions.

1. Competition closes at 13:00 on Wednesday 9th November 2011.
2. Winners will be selected at random on Wednesday 9th November 2011 once the competition has closed.
3. The first winner selected will win a copy of Uncharted 3.
4. The next 10 entries to be selected will all receive an Uncharted 3 poster
5. Winners will be notified via a Direct Message and will be asked to supply their address.  If winners address is not supplied within 1 week, then another winner will be selected at random.
6. UK Residents only
7. Entrants must be 18 years & over.

If you’re not a lucky winner this time, Uncharted 3 is available to rent or buy from Boomerang on the PS3!

If you’re looking to rent, our packages start from just £3.99 a month! And you can now become a Priority Member from as little as £10.99 a month! Why not try our 21 day free trial? Click here to join now!  

Want to reserve your own copy? Click here to pre-order at a great price and free P&P! We also sell ex-rental copies in ‘as new’ condition complete with brand new box & manual!

Topics: Unlimited Game Rental