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.
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Review: Fruit Ninja Kinect
On August 30, 2011
In Kinect, Review, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade
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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?
Review: Trauma
When it comes to anything “different,” I’m always at the ready. Show me something unique and indecipherable, and I’m on it right away. So when I got my hands on independent point-and-click art school project turned adventure game Trauma, I was pleased as punch. While its interface resembled something closer to educational software or some sort of strange student project meant to explore the depths of the human psyche, what waited inside was even more cryptic. In the end, after having gone into the game completely uninitiated, I enjoyed my time with this strange one, and I suspect you will too.
Review: Catherine
I’m an avid supporter of choice, especially in video games. Tell me I can choose my own destiny, and you’ll have me hooked. Atlus’ latest darling, Catherine, presented an interesting dilemma: stay with your current, possibly pregnant girlfriend, or cavort with a sprightly blonde tart who mysteriously drops into your life? It’s a tale of two Catherines, one “good” and one “bad,” or so the game would have you believe. The temptation to cheat is great, but for some players, so is the desire to play it “safe” and ensure Katherine, Vincent’s current girlfriend, isn’t betrayed.