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January 26, 2012

Review – Haunt

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 8:57 am

Review Haunt
Creating a haunted house game for the Kinect is a noble pursuit. A shaky hand naturally lends itself to acting as a flickering flashlight, and players are forced to open doors that could reveal unspeakable horrors with their own two hands, rather than the press of a button, enhancing the experience of being an active participant versus a passive observer – key to the evolution of the horror genre via the videogame medium.

Last year saw Sega attempt to strike first blood on the peripheral with Rise of Nightmares, a gritty game of bloody nurses and sharp weapons that asked players to use their body to punch and kick the cream-filling out of the undead. The violent workout met with mixed results in the attempt to stretch the narrative and physical experience into a retail release.

Enter NanaOn-Sha, otherwise known as the people who brought you the music rhythm genre with titles like Parappa the Rapper and Um Jammer Lammy, now teaming up with Zoë Mode to bring their own full-body spin on the concept on a smaller scale with the Xbox LIVE Arcade release of Haunt.

Although comparing the two games mechanically is helpful, separating them thematically is essential – where Sega sought a B movie slaughter-fest, Haunt is a more lighthearted horror affair. While the game offers jump-scares that get the blood pumping, the spirit of fascination and charm found within the experience is more apt to leave you smiling by the end instead of covering your eyes.

That said however, the game will ask you to cover your eyes at times, though only when set upon by goggle-wearing ghouls.

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January 24, 2012

Review – Mutant Mudds

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 1:32 pm

Review Mutant Mudds
In addition to exterminating dinosaurs and raising the undead, meteorites can also unleash irritable mud creatures on an unsuspecting world. Unlike other catastrophes however, this one can be dealt with by any child equipped with a super-soaker.

Such is the premise of Renegade Kid’s new addition to a growing eShop library of digital offerings for the 3DS, one which gives such a shout-out to the glory days of the Nintendo Entertainment System – from the visuals to the occasionally infuriating platforming – that you may just feel obliged to blow in the empty cartridge slot before playing.

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January 20, 2012

Review – VVVVVV

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 8:46 am

Review VVVVVV
There’s something very heartwarming about indie games on Nintendo hardware. Seeing Cave Story across several Nintendo platforms was like an endorsement from gaming royalty for instance – a nod from the company that built those first pixilated worlds out of thin air and inspired so many to follow in that pursuit.

As such, Terry Cavanagh’s PC indie title, VVVVVV, is a welcome sight on the 3DS’ eShop, but I wouldn’t want any idea of indie fan-service to undermine the move, given that the game’s level of polish and play earn placement on the list of eShop offerings worth the investment of player’s time and money regardless of how many people worked on the title.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with why, let’s fill in some blanks below.

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January 19, 2012

Review – Zen Pinball 3D

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 9:02 am

Review Zen Pinball 3D
Zen Studios has long been offering a digital distribution plan that even the most curmudgeonly anti-dlc advocate would have a hard time complaining about – still, I won’t say it’s impossible for such a person to exist. Available on both Xbox LIVE Arcade and the PlayStation Network for some time now, Zen Pinball offers a package that can be added to as players see fit. Anytime you find yourself board with the tables you own, you can browse, sample, and purchase additional tables at your leisure. I approve of a system by which there’s always the means to refresh the experience while only parting with a few dollars rather than buying an entirely new game.

Said tables vary in theme and license, ranging from generic space opera motifs to tables based on Marvel franchises, and the majority of these offer a wide range of point objectives and shiny neon Vegas styling to seduce the senses. The key ingredient in my continuing addiction is the way the game consistently ranks you against others, urging you to play just a little bit longer to defeat friends and strangers alike.

Zen Pinball 3D carries this exact experience over to Nintendo’s handheld, which would seem to leave little to discuss here. Still, I’m sure we can find something to talk about, so please do read on.

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January 16, 2012

Review – Choplifter HD

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 9:06 am

Review Choplifter HD
Given the number of vintage games that return year after year, I suppose Choplifter was overdue for a revisit in an era that loves adding HD to the end of game titles. The last time I laid eyes on that particular classic, the visuals crackled through a Commodore monitor and writing videogames as two separate words wasn’t yet something I considered a crime. My eyes were also crusted and red from spending hours flying to one end of the screen to pickup hostages and then flying back to the other end to drop them off – rinsing and repeating in an obsessive way that seemed normal during my childhood.

InXile Entertainment’s HD revival doesn’t detour from this core formula that made the most of technical limitations, offering a sidescroller that asks you to travel from one end of the screen and back again, again, and again. Despite what I consider a premium price point for the privilege, Choplifter HD is also a game of cheap and immediate thrills that doesn’t beg for more than a minimal time commitment, satisfied with whatever little bit of time you have to spare here and there. But aside from the explosions and burst play style, it’s not so easily written off either.

Plus, trying to squish people hoping to be saved is still a guilty bit of fun.

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January 12, 2012

Review – Mighty Switch Force

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 12:53 am

Review Mighty Switch Force
Largely owing to the poor driving skills of law enforcement officials, the streets of the future will be overrun by blonde criminal vixens. As a ludicrously dressed officer of the law, your mission is to search out and apprehend these escapees with your trusty pistol and the ability to phase platform aiding blocks in-and-out of existence.

So not quite RoboCop, but it’ll do.

WayForward’s latest 2D offering is scaled toward creating a smaller series of incidents that fit a quick speedrun flavored agenda, which doesn’t leave nearly so much meat on the discussion bone but does make for a good and proper portable diversion. The objective of tracking down a set number of convicts per stage with the aid of a singular ability is certainly the developer’s most straightforward effort in recent memory, and creates a space where a more narrowly focused title can simply add to the layers of difficulty without losing cohesion along the way.

There isn’t as much space for the vibrant animations of BloodRayne: Betrayal or the long corridors of Aliens: Infestation, but there’s something familiar and quaint here to while away a few hours near a fireplace stoked by digital nostalgia.

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January 6, 2012

Review – Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 3:51 pm

Oddworld Strangers Wrath HD
Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath is the tale of the eponymous Stranger, a bounty hunter afflicted by a mysterious illness and distaste for traditional firearms. Maybe the latter condition makes him sound like sort of a softy, until you realize that his alternative to traditional ammunition is strapping live animals to a crossbow and lobbing them toward enemies at high speeds (and presumably to their deaths).

The game involves claiming bounties on “them outlaws”, a task that can be accomplished A) by sucking their unconscious bodies into some kind of… thing… or, B) by murdering them horribly and sucking their corpses into the same kind of…thing…

To this end, Stranger employs an eclectic mix of tricks that, in a lesser game, might not fit together. Primarily, the bounty hunter is able to switch between the first and third person perspectives, granting him some different abilities tied to those modes.

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