When I first picked up a Nintendo DS, I knew I had to get Pac-Pix, a game that involved drawing Pac-Men and then drawing lines to corral them into the direction they needed to go, all in an effort to gobble up the several ghosts terrorizing you in each level. And I was completely engrossed. Fast-forward to 2001, and a friend of mine is appalled that I’ve never seen or heard of Chillingo’s mobile slide-fest Cut the Rope. So, like Angry Birds and the rest, I was initially hesitant to buy into whatever fad surrounded the popular title, until I dove right in and soon realized I couldn’t get enough of Save Yammi, a more recent release from BULKYPIX.
Archive for August, 2011
Review: HungryMaster
What do you get when you combine lovable retro-styled arcade graphics with absolutely abominable English localization and translation? HungryMaster, of course! In this innocently adorable, quirky little mobile title, you’re tasked with turning all the monsters you can eat into delicious foods for the diminutive Delica’s tummy. A sequel to developer xionchannel’s popular app ElectroMaster, this embarrassingly cute quickfire arcade-style game is packed with personality and easy-to-learn controls. But, like its patchy English, it still has quite a few kinks to work out before I can call it a must-have.
Review: Fruit Ninja Kinect
On August 30, 2011
In Kinect, Review, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade
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Like Angry Birds, I had never heard of Fruit Ninja until it rose to incredible heights of popularity. As a consistently top-ranking mobile app, it’s finally making the leap to plenty of other platforms (including Facebook), and most recently Xbox Live Arcade. And where its life as an iPhone/iPad app relied heavily upon usage of the touch screen, Fruit Ninja Kinect now has the power of the Xbox 360’s pricey peripheral to back it up. While core Xbox 360 users such as myself still have yet to find a meaty title to sink our teeth into, Fruit Ninja Kinect is as satisfying as it is bizarre, as long as you break up your gameplay sessions into short, juicy chunks.
Preview: Hard Reset
There are a few things I look for in shooters: visceral, riotous violence, superb visuals, and excellent storytelling. This trifecta is unbeatable by my standards, and something few shooters fail to possess. However, there’s a good mix of all three in most of my favorite FPS titles, so I can deal. When I can’t have all three, I’ll allow one or the other when selecting a new run-and-gun fest to add to my library. I hoped to find my Holy Trinity of Shooters in Hard Reset, a suspiciously low-key release with preview builds floating around the email accounts of video game writers everywhere. Hard Reset, with its tongue-in-cheek moniker, comic-book inspired narrative panels, and gorgeous neon hues, came out of nowhere. One day, I hadn’t even heard of Flying Wild Hog or anything about an upcoming shooter with such a memorable name, and the next I’m jetting through preview code.
Review: Toy Soldiers: Cold War
On August 18, 2011
In Review, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade
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Travel back to childhood with me as you revisit those little green army men you used to play with. Didn’t have any? Maybe your brother, sister, or one of your friends had some. And they would probably play all sorts of convoluted “army games” with them, wouldn’t they? Anywhere could become a battlefield as long as they had some of the quintessential plastic soldiers. The idea has spawned many a movie, cartoon, and video game. And not too long ago, the concept arrived on the Xbox Live Arcade in the form of Toy Soldiers. Fast forward to summer 2011, and we’ve been graced with Toy Soldiers: Cold War, the sequel to the brilliantly intuitive Toy Soldiers. Best described as an RTS meets FPS meets childhood, it’s a battle royale between toy soldiers, Howitzers, tanks, and…bug spray?