Back again with another fine reader submitted review, reader Adam Morris has submitted, for your enjoyment, his thoughts on Double Fine's latest effort, Costume Quest. So read what Adam has to say on the game, and feel free to leave a comment. Alternatively, if you feel compelled to, you too can submit a review and we'll happily post it on the site.

Costume Quest is the kind of game that allows you to re-live your childhood, to extend your imagination past the plausible and into the playful, to remember what it was like to run around your back garden armed with nothing more than a stick, and be the defender of the universe.  With Costume Quest, Brutal Legend and Physchonauts developers Double Fine Studios have managed to blend fun and creativity in an amazing equilibrium of entertaining game play and storytelling, and though Costume Quest brings some baggage with it that was probably best left at the terminal, it's extremely hard to even notice the niggles beyond all of the charm and imagination that the game offers.
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This week's XBLA title marks the end of this year's Summer Of Arcade promotion, and bring us Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light.  Differentiating itself from the Tomb Raider series, Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light is an Isometric, top-down, action-oriented puzzle platform game, and while it can be played through solo, it's really designed to be played with a co-op partner.

The game is set to feature both online and local co-op, though it should be noted that the online co-op will not be available until September 28th, when the game ships on PC and PSN. Though the couch co-op will work fine from day one, you may want to wait a while if you planned on picking this up specifically for the online co-op.

Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light releases on XBLA on August 18th, and will retail for 1200MSP. You can also check out a trailer for this below.

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Information from Majornelson.com and Joystiq.com.

For Download this week, we have a different game on each platform -- namely Tecmo Bowl Throwback on XBLA, and NormalTanks on PSN.

Tecmo Bowl Throwback is an HD remake of SNES classic Tecmo Super Bowl and will be available on XBLA on April 28th, for the price of 800MSP. Tecmo Bowl Throwback is currently only available on XBLA, in North America and Canada at present. The game will be making its way to PSN, though no date has been released yet.

NormalTanks on the other hand, is a top-down, multi-directional shooter, which received an "honourable mention" in this years Independent Games Festival. It's set to release on PSN on April 29th, though again, no price has been announced yet.

If you're curious about either of these games, videos for them have been embedded after the break, so feel free to check them out.
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After playing Metro 2033 it becomes abundantly clear that it's going to be a very difficult game to review, and this is largely due to the fact that the game has the capacity to be brilliant – if it wasn't quite so broken.

Possibly the first thing you'll notice is that developer 4A Games – comprised of members of the team who worked on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl – have tried hard to create a game that's immersive, realistic, and atmospheric. In this respect, the developers have done an excellent job, and you're unlikely to play another FPS that has the same kind of atmosphere that Metro 2033 does.  Likewise, the game is filled with lots of original touches that help keep you immersed, such as the way you use your watch to see how much time you have left before you need to change the filter on your gas-mask, or the way the mask begins to fog up when said filter needs to be changed. The game is filled with inventive touches like this, and it really helps to reinforce the atmosphere that the game does such a great job of creating.

Given that much of your time is spent in underground tunnels, the game does a good job of varying the action, and introduces enough new elements and mechanics to keep the gameplay feeling fresh, for the most part at least. However, not all of these sections are well implemented, and some sections feel like they definitely could have used more development time and a little more polish.
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I'm sorry that I kept calling you "Go Shit, Man". But seriously, you gotta change your name. no comments