There we go; someone has gone and surrounded Earth yet again. That means, as is inevitable, it's up to one plucky pilot — you — to (this time) steal a prototype alien spaceship and blast your way through hordes and hordes of enemies and save the day. Somehow, though, it keeps staying fun.
Did you ever see National Lampoon's Vacation with Chevy Chase? The Griswold family goes through a number of hilarious misadventures driving from Chicago to "Wally World." Well, The Tuttles Madcap Misadventures will remind you of that movie as the Tuttle family makes its cross-country drive to the Alamo in this animated, comic-book style graphic vacation.
I've always enjoyed doing a leisurely crossword puzzle, so I was looking forward to seeing what Merv Griffin's Crosswords had to offer. I've found crossword puzzles all right, but leisurely, not so much.
The Sudden Strike series has been a fixture on strategy fans' desktops since the first incarnation of the popular 2D RTT title appeared in 2000. The game clearly resonated with gamers jaded by too many titles concentrating on WW2. Sudden Strike offered a huge amount of depth thanks to plenty of factions, units and theatres. It also had a certain retro appeal thanks to detailed, isometric graphics and plenty of exhaustive research.
I love superheroes. The mountains of comic books I owned when I was younger are a testament to that my passion. One of my all time favorite Pen and Paper games ia a superhero RPG entitles Champions. As technology changed and my ability to sit around a table with my friends diminished, I've turned to electronic sources of entertainment. What do I get to play? None other than the strongest superhero ever as he romps through New York City literally stomping the bad guy into the dirt. The video game is far more visually stimulating than looking at your geek friends over a table top.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the classic Final Fantasy series, Square have re-released some of the classic titles from the earlier years on PSP. Final Fantasy II is one of the games to receive such treatment, and it's a reminder of why the series became so popular.
My husband and I are fans of the Olympic games. We watch our favorite sports in both the Summer and Winter games. We have even been known to record events that we particularly want to see if we aren't going to be home. I thought the idea of Olympic games for the Wii sounded good. I did not realize it was going to be tied to these summer games.
Finding myself of two minds when reviewing a game usually means I don't get to the review. Funny thing about not reviewing the game though - the people who asked you to aren't really fond of that. (Something about expense of sending out product, yadda, yadda, whine, complain...) LOL is one of those titles that has me schizophrenic. I love it, some days. Others... I dunno.
>You know the song, "Old MacDonald has a farm"? Well, you are Old MacDonald, and there's a farm that needs tending. Farm Frenzy is a sim game of management, reflexes and making money. The premise is deceptively simple: You own a farm and have goals to meet. Meeting those goals inside the time limits is much trickier than you might think. I love working under pressure, and this game will give you that in spades. Attention to detail, resource management and forward thinking all are tested.
The R-Type franchise has had a long, and mostly successful, history. After bursting onto the gaming scene in the early gestation of the industry in 1987, its fast and furious type of arcade shooting action has mesmerised millions of gamers.
Paradise Pet Salon is a part simulation, part puzzle, part strategy casual PC title. It's a fairly simple, nonviolent game suitable for the entire family. And, of course, it centers on pets.
Ignore the negative press regarding Konami's nervous insistence that reviewers hush up about the length of certain cut-scenes in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. What's wrong with long cut-scenes, anyway? Sure, some are monumentally long, but it doesn't matter. They're fantastic, just like the rest of the game. It's the end of an era, so sit back and enjoy.
Some of the scariest moments in my video-game history have been within the Resident Evil series. It's credited with defining the survival horror genre and taking it to new heights in popularity. From the monsters, locations and camera angles all the way down to the surprisingly entertaining character narrative, the series has made good on providing gamers with excellently memorable moments. In fact, some of the only black marks on the series' long-standing record are when the franchise was trying to root the same kind of atmosphere in the first-person shooter arena and fall flat on its face to deliver.
When reviewing games, some games are harder than others to review. For instance, very bad games are easy to review as there's so much to talk about with them. Very good games are probably the hardest to review. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is a very good game, and thus, very hard to review short of "you'll like it; go buy it."
Amateur developed games can be hit or miss. While it can be immensely enjoyable to discover gems that are hidden on the Internet that only a few others know of, it can also be a painful experience and just a waste of time too. Sometimes attempting to struggle through a poor design or interface of the many games out there; looking for that special gem just isn't worth it. After reading a review that Charlie Foxtrot and the Galaxy of Tomorrow was one of those gems, I just had to try it for myself.
For those who have a definition of the genre 'RPG' there are certain immutable attributes: loot, elves (or some pointy-eared, kick-ass, pseudo-human race), a back story of betrayal and intrigue, loot, fantastic magic, mythical creatures, more loot, and the ability to customize a character just to your liking. Oh, and loot! Having spent time with Sacred 2: Fallen Angel in the past, I've been confident it would fill the need of the RPG-junkie pretty well. My recent experience assures me that it is just the right mixture swords, sorcery, breast-enhancing armor and high fantasy to be a serious contender for a very long term addiction.
It seems that most of the casual games I play today are simple designs quickly fabricated into a rather generic game. Unfortunately, this appears to define what it means to be a casual game. It is the lack of depth of many casual games that makes them so unattractive to me. It really isn't enough to create a themed game, slap on a one minute story and some graphics along with it. The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes is one of the few that attempts to be more than just another generic themed puzzle game.
Thanks to a varied and exciting selection of games the PSP has acquired a reputation of being a somewhat oddball and intriguing handheld option — just look at LocoRoco and Lumines for evidence of the brilliant and original games that are being released for Sony’s handheld.
The development of first-person shooters as a storytelling medium is really starting to intrigue me. Of course, I was a huge fan of Bioshock, so when I first heard about Cryostasis, I got a little tingly. 1C Company, the Russian Developer/Publisher/Distributor/Retailer, gave an impressive showing at their press event in San Francisco last weekend, bringing out their line of games set to spearhead their invasion of the North American market.
TrackMania Nations Forever is the latest incarnation in Nadeo's tremendously popular series that combines arcade racing and fiendish puzzling. It's also free which, given the brilliance of the game, leaves you with no excuse to not download it right now.
At the 1C event on Thursday, I saw IL-2: Sturmovik: Birds of Prey and spoke with one of the developers. I have to say that this is one of the most promising combat flight sims I've seen in a long time. It's also the first actual combat flight simulation on the 360.
I've seen a lot of reviews of this game which basically say "If you like Penny Arcade, you'll like this game." I'm going to disagree with that statement. If you like Penny Arcade, and you like certain aspects of Japanese-style role-playing games, you'll like this game.
Sometimes all you're looking for is mindless shoot 'em up fun. Loads of bullets flying across the screen, stuff blowing up all around you, swarms of bad guys threatening to overwhelm you, that kind of thing. If that's what you're looking for, Assault Heroes 2 is right up your alley.
Since its debut in 1982, the Worldwide Soccer Manager series - and its predecessor, Championship Manager - has been the last word in football management simulations. It's a proper British success story, too, begun by the Collier brothers in their respective bedrooms and growing to a hulking global franchise.
Professor Layton, renowned archaeologist and master of logic, along with his able, young, assistant Luke, is summoned to the village of St. Mystere by Lady Dahlia. We know that her husband, Baron Reinhold, has recently passed away and that his fabled wealth is to be left in its entirety to the person that can solve the mystery of the Golden Apple.
I think stating that I'm not a big pinball enthusiast is as easy as saying that I grew up in the 90s. I don't know if I would call the game of pinball a fad, but it was definitely a tool of entertainment at the time that it was popular. Video games we're on there rise to fame as I was born, so my loyalties lie with them. My fondest memories of pinball are limited to killing time in pizza parlors or as little distractions on vacations when I would leave my GameBoy in a hotel room. So, when I received Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection it was weird to have that feeling of, "Oh, Pinball, How you doin'?" My only other thought was, "Well, at least this game has an excuse not to innovate with the Wii-mote." And this time it didn't turn out to be a bad thing.
This will date me quite a bit, but And Then There Were None really brings back memories of the original Zork. You know, the Zork that had no graphics. It was a text adventure. I had it for my Apple ][e. I was horrible at Zork. I was forever getting eaten by a Grue. There were so many dark places and I never seemed to have a good light source. Anyway, if the culprit in this game were a Grue, I would have been eaten the first night of the game.
Platforming will remain as one of the genres with greatest longevity in my gaming life. I started with nothing less, and I like nothing more to this day than just jumping around. They've evolved over the years, sure, but a spot-on formula for this type of game is always in the quirks that lie within each individual title's framework ... though pixel-perfect accuracy seems to remain one of the simplest ways to ensure a smile on a gamer's face. N+ is a follow-up to its popular predecessor on the PC, N, and is now available as another respectable choice on Xbox Live Arcade. With just a lonely little ninja and a strong pair of legs, does this game have enough to offer for even the more demanding Xbox 360 owner?
The God of War series only really emerged during the PS2’s twilight years, but its impact was still astounding. The two titles blurred the line between the aging console and the superb graphical abilities of Sony’s next-gen PS3, all while offering some brilliant action-orientated gameplay wrapped around an original storyline that recalled the classic characters from Greek mythology.
I just got the chance to take a look at Battlefield: Bad Company on the Xbox 360 and my first impression is a fairly good one. I played the previous installments of Battlefield so after the demo finished downloading (1.5 gigs) I was pretty surprised at what was waiting for me.
