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July 8, 2012

Review – Quantum Conundrum

Review Quantum Conundrum
Conundrums exist all around us. Just this morning, I puzzled over a way to make coffee without getting out of bed – though maybe that’s more of a daily annoyance than a true conundrum.

The conundrums offered up by Kim Swift and Airtight Games tend to challenge players to navigate rooms of perilous lasers and other hazards in order to activate pressure switches to open the way forward. And the ludicrous scientific adventure that unfolds draws quick comparisons through the gameplay and Swift to Portal, which makes it rather easy to suggest that if you loved Portal, you’re in fine hands here.

There are plenty of similarities to discover whilst visiting the eccentric Professor Fitz Quadwrangle, voiced by Star Trek The Next Generation’s John De Lancie, who offers companionship with a disembodied voice that continually comments on situations and regales players with the history of the Quadwrangle family, as well as his own scientific accomplishments.

Key among the similarities are the aforementioned pressure switches that require the constant manipulation of recurring objects. Conundrums often involve finding the means to cross dangerous environments as well, continually mixing these two challenges to create rooms that do something familiar – find me wandering off to do something else until suddenly realizing the solution and running back to the computer to test my hypothesis.

Whenever a game gets under my skin that much, I figure it must be doing something right.

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July 6, 2012

Review – Gravity Rush

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 2:20 am

Review Gravity Rush
Sony Japan’s effort to leave an early and definitive mark on the Vita begins rather simply, asking players to poke the touchscreen of the hardware in order to nudge an apple. It isn’t long for breaking from the stem and falling to the ground, only to roll off the floating island where the tree has grown, falling to the unseen depths below.

If you enjoy reading into such things, there’s room to suggest that letting that forbidden fruit fall away without taking a bite invites the idea that the player should abandon knowledge, that they should forget everything they know before stepping into this gravity shifting playground – that this experience is unlike any other to come before it.

And I rather like this idea.

It’s certainly the type of bold statement one expects from Sony, and Gravity Rush does indeed fight to turn the familiar upside-down, creating a play space where the often wasted space above one’s head becomes as important as the ground beneath their feet.

But Gravity Rush is also a prisoner of gravity and circumstance, struggling with the structure of that space and occasionally bumping against the ever present walls that contain it, and further burdened by a need to justify the Vita release by making the most of hardware features makes for some hard landings here.

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July 3, 2012

Review – PixelJunk 4am

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 7:03 pm

Review PixelJunk 4am
Though very nearly missing the boat on the latest release from Q-Games, I’ve finally stolen time with the title in recent days, which has proved a curious and intimidating affair.

Setting aside the presence of a very helpful tutorial for a moment, there’s a point at which the player begins their first performance, where music tracks begin to play and the trippy visualizer takes over the television screen, and the terrifying realization that one must find a way to create can feel a bit paralyzing and confusing.

Not unlike a frightened animal, I began flailing my limbs, which armed with a PlayStation Move controller exposed the interactive potential to manipulate the audio. Initially, the experience is similar to prehistoric man striking at objects with a leftover dinner bone to find a marvelous world of sounds all around. As a modern man, armed with said Move controller, I was no less perplexed and fascinated by the possibilities – the great discovery of the potential to create coupled with the terrible burden of making some sense of the opportunity, emerging from the cave with fresh experience for the trouble.

While I’m fashionably late to the party, PixelJunk 4am has picked up a bit of a reputation for being a terribly difficult game to review – fair enough given that there is no scoring system or end goal in the traditional sense. But the actual playing of 4am isn’t nearly so hard to nail down, so maybe that’s a good place to start.

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July 1, 2012

Review – Adventure Time – Legends of Ooo: Big Hollow Princess

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — TJ "Kyatt" Cordes @ 11:02 pm

Review Adventure Time Legends of Ooo Big Hollow Princess
Adventure Time is a series that is simply begging to have a videogame based on it. While we’re all hoping that the upcoming Adventure Time game for the DS and 3DS is going to be the hyperactive maelstrom of colourful action that allows you to use your shape shifting dog as a veritable arsenal of weapons and gadgets, in the meantime, we have… an iOS point and click adventure game based on Finn, Jake, and the other residents of Ooo.

Adventure Time – Legends of Ooo: Big Hollow Princess has Finn and Jake putting away their golden swords and magic powers respectively, in order to run around the Land of Ooo, constructing the titular Big Hollow Princess, a Trojan Horse of sorts used to sneak into the Ice King’s fortress in order to save some real princesses.

While I’m not entirely excited about the game’s choice of genre, the plot still manages to capture the spirit of the show, as well as its appearance; Finn and Jake’s noodle limbs may be flailing around running on a series of simple item retrieval quests, but they’re still flailing around, and as I’ve stated before, an hilarious walking animation can redeem almost any adventure game.

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June 15, 2012

Review – Lollipop Chainsaw

Review Lollipop Chainsaw
Following in the Shakespearean tradition, Lollipop Chainsaw tells the tale of young love versus young angst, with a coming of age story featuring classic themes of satanic rock, zombie hordes, and one very peppy chainsaw wielding cheerleader.

Our heroine, Juliet Starling, refuses to let any of the unfolding chaos of the zombie apocalypse ruin her eighteenth birthday – from the decapitation of her high school sweetheart to the death of her perverted sensei, and certainly not the hordes of undead classmates tearing up the halls of San Romero High School.

Confident and true, Juliet isn’t interested in hearing from the villains responsible, because they suck.

Instead, she fires up her chainsaw and slices her way through six stages of the undead, with all roads leading to the bosses at the heart of the turmoil. That very little seems capable of darkening Juliet’s day could perhaps be read as commentary on the youth of today, except that there are easy parallels to the self-absorbed Buffy Summers from 1992’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a film that certainly provides plenty of foundation for Juliet’s adventure here.

With that in mind, it seems more apt to say that the kids are still alright, insofar as being partly crazed and entirely ready for zombies at the drop of a hat makes them right as rain in the pop culture stew Grasshopper Manufacture stirs and serves a heaping bowl of here.

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May 22, 2012

Review – Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Jason Westhaver @ 9:04 am

Review Sonic 4 Episode 2
Let’s not beat around the bush; Sonic 4: Episode I was a major disappointment. Despite its build up as Sonic’s triumphant return to form, the game lacked just about everything that made the original Genesis titles fun. The art style was uninspired and had a glossy sheen, the levels and bosses were rehashes of earlier works, and the physics system made the speedy hedgehog handle like a drunk duck.

Fortunately Sega has FINALLY listened to the complaints, and for the first time in more than a decade delivered a Sonic game that fans of all ages should actually enjoy.

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April 11, 2012

Review – The Splatters

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , — TJ "Kyatt" Cordes @ 1:06 pm

Review The Splatters
Gathering fragments from the storyline offered, Splatters are some hybrid race that is half booger and half Angry Bird (alternate title for game: Angry Boogs), and they’re filled with a liquid that can detonate like-colored bombs.

Knowing they are not long for this world, and that the sight of said bombs bursting in air will bring much enjoyment to others, they decide to record themselves while confined in a framework made of random household objects tied together, and stylishly fling their bodies at these bombs in one last mutually destructive hurrah.

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