This week I make up for lost time with coverage of two GTA games, Tekken 6, DJ Hero, Borderlands and a ton of other games as fall rush continues to dominate.
There are few things better than an indie game, and I delight in forays into the unexpected, yet here I am loving every inch of Ratchet and Clank which is, well, expected. Ratchet and Clank adheres to certain rules like a wacky universe, goofy monsters, and weapons that are equal parts doom harbinger and harlequin. A Crack in Time effectively does everything Ratchet fans demand from an action platformer, and more, with a dash of open world and whole lot of revolutionary notions of “sidekick”. That’s what A Crack in Time is about really, challenging your perceptions of Clank, and what that means for “Ratchet and Clank”. (more…)
Fare City: First Shift is a line drawing game for your iPhone at the low, low price of .99 making it unique, well, not at all. That’s not to say Fare City doesn’t have some great things going for it, it’s just that at this point in the genre, it’s going to need to be dancing elephants. It’s a good product, for which I offer my line-drawing stamp of approval. Whether this is the line drawer for you will be a matter of taste, and whether you’ve already spent .99 ten times over on the other games of its ilk. (more…)
This week I break down the latest reviews on ZTGD including Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias, A Witch’s Tale and so, so much more.
Swingaling, an elusive furball with feline traits and a very stretchy arm, takes center stage in this title from Pocket Monkey Games. Players must guide the swingaling as far through the forest as possible by latching onto branches and avoiding foes. The Swingaling is a little creepy in its bright-eyed naivete, leaping through the canopy like an agile lemming. That’s a-ok, so long as he haplessly flings himself onward in my quest for high scores. That’s really the only objective here, attaining brag-worthy distance and posting it to Open Feint. (more…)
The sixth episode of the Wrap-Up covers a handful of reviews including Brutal Legend, NBA Live 10, Osmos and a host of others.
Thanks for watching, guys!
May we ever hold up Among Thieves as an example of storytelling in gaming, a shining beacon for outsiders and insiders alike. Naughty Dog is not not only delivering a great game, they are self-assuredly moving the industry forward, raising the bar on our expectations. Chapter after chapter, you play the lead in a movie acting out all of the good stuff. What could easily be written off as action-packed fluff wisely injects a few of those uncomfortable moments that will have you wondering how good a guy our hero really is. Deep, not really, so forget that for now and unquestioningly accept Drake’s superhuman strength, free-running abilities and jeans that make the sisterhood’s traveling pants so last season – all the while enjoying the view from the peak of a very attractive love triangle. (more…)
Prope’s Wii collection of games are in your iPhone! The Let’s Tap series, famed for its vibration-based controls, now have you putting your iPhone on a tissue box so you can tap-tap-tap away. Lacking a tissue box on your morning commute, you can select the Touch mode that allows tapping on the screen or the Free mode that lets you tap any part of the phone. Having tried out all three methods, I’ll save you some time: you will want to keep a tissue box handy. With the Let’s Tap series broken into five small games for the Apple devices, we will serve up our analyses here in bite-sized reviews for each. (more…)
Gem Game is deceptively titled, as so far as I can tell it is not a game. At least, not a fun one. Better described as some kind of visualizer, you tap to make orbs bounce and get them to land in cylinders. Filling the onscreen cylinders may result in a gem orb and occasionally turns all the onscreen orbs into the same color. You get a ruby ball for three balls of the same color, a sapphire ball for three ruby ones, and finally a Rainbow ball for Sapphire. The “game” is won when all the orbs are Rainbow orbs. I would shoot my hands off long before that ever happens. I got tired of tapping trying this one out and had more fun holding my phone and jerking it upward, repeatedly. (more…)
Silent Blocks is, simply, Jenga. Feature two modes, the gist is the same in each: gently tap to remove blocks from a teetering tower. Removing blocks to combine blocks of like color cause them to fuse into jewel blocks. In Binary mode you have 100 moves to fuse as many blocks as you can, hopefully not bringing the tower down in the meantime. Alchemist mode is geared toward the puzzle-minded, with a handful of difficulties tasking you with creating specific jewel blocks in a limited number of moves. (more…)
Rhythm Tap offers up a selection of brief musical styling for you to tap your way through. By tapping in time to the music you hit music markers from the right side of the screen. Combos are triggered by successive correct taps, and net you higher scores. Otherwise, your score is derived from the number of taps out of a total possible you managed to land. At the completion of each song you are awarded a rank, and your top five scores are recorded. If you fall in love with any of the jams, there is also a little “Buy Truck” button in the lower left. Buy track perhaps? (more…)
Bubble Voyager offers up some survival style fun. Set over graph paper schematics and some sort of aquarium death trap, you guide the little voyager through hazardous obstacles, trying to best your high score. Tapping propels the Voyager upwards as he moves ceaselessly forward. Points are awarded for things like distance travelled, collecting stars and successfully landing to restore your energy. To achieve a perfect landing you have you control your descent by tapping gently. Successive perfect landings net you more and more points each time, in addition to refilling you energy meter – essentially your health. Run out of energy by traveling too far without refueling or from colliding with enemies and it’s game over. At the end of the game your high score can be featured in worldwide rankings, should you choose. (more…)
The fifth episode of the Wrap-Up covers a handful of reviews including Dead Space Extraction, Demon’s Souls, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and a host of others.
Trine opens on a kingdom under undead siege. An opportunistic thief, Zoya, uses the distraction to try and nab a famed artifact, an action that sends ripples of magic through the night air and draws the lascivious wizard, Amadeus, and singularly focused knight, Pontius, to the object. Ah, fate. The artifact, also know as the Trine, goes a little Plato in reverse and instead of breaking the soul into three the souls of each are bound into one so that only one individual can be manifested physically at a time. Thus, Trine kicks off its story, told across levels combining combat, platforming and puzzles in which each character plays a role. (more…)
The latest weekly review wrap-up is here. Games include: HYBRID: Eternal Whisper, MySims Agents, Toy Story Mania, Gran Turismo, Zombie Apocalypse, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, NHL 2K10 and Tales of Monkey Island: Lair of the Leviathan. (more…)
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