Gamesugar

November 22, 2012

Review – Crashmo

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 10:19 pm

Review Crashmo
Nintendo’s plush sumo returns to push and pull more blocks for your digital bucks, this time attempting to retrieve wayward birds instead of children. After an awkward attempt to greet a visiting girl frightens her birds away, players will need to help Mallo solve the puzzles of Papa Blox’s Crashmo course in order to rescue each and fix the situation.

Papa seems to have been busy since last year, with the most immediate change being the addition of gravity – meaning that pushing one block will cause the others above it to fall, and offering Intelligent Systems a fresh chance to cram the game’s stages full of puzzles that seem rather impossible, until I chill out and realize the solution is rather simple.

That’s usually the way it goes, except for the times it doesn’t. Those are the terrible times. The dark times. The times when I throw myself on the mercy of Papa Blox for advice and he tells me to try moving some blocks, and I want to cry just a little.

Then I remember I can just skip around it and try again later.

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November 15, 2012

Review – Magical Drop V

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Mister Raroo @ 12:52 pm

Review Magical Drop V
I find it particularly amusing that Ignition UTV saw fit to release a niche title like Magical Drop V the same week big-budget blockbuster Call of Duty: Black Ops II hit stores. But in some ways, it makes sense.

The Magical Drop series harkens back to an era when an adorable, saccharine puzzle game could happily coexist on a Neo Geo MVS cabinet alongside games with samurai warriors slashing swords in one-on-one duels, military grunts blasting everything in sight to smithereens, and brawny ballplayers swinging for the fences. And while it’s likely only a tiny slice of the total Black Ops-playing fanbase would ever consider playing Magical Drop V, I believe when it comes to the skill and dexterity needed to succeed, it is a game that is every bit as rigorous and demanding as a top-tier Black Ops session, if not more so!

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January 10, 2011

Ilo, Milo and Me

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , , , — Chris O'Neal @ 4:32 pm

ilomilo
I’ll be the first to admit my weakness for cute things.

If someone were to pick up a stuffed animal, have it ‘look’ at me and in a strange yet fitting voice for a small stuffed inanimate object say, “Hello, Chris!” I’d probably take it home then and there. I’m not ashamed, it’s who I am baby, which is why Ilomilo, from Swedish developer Southend Interactive has quickly found a special place in my heart.

Two friends meet daily for tea and maple cookies. Unfortunately, the path they take to each other is never constant, changing with the weather. Manipulating a cube-like world, we can control either Ilo or Milo on their quest to meet, chat and eat cookies and drink tea. It sounds simple, and in many ways is, but it’s also pure and irresistible sugar.

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October 4, 2010

Getting Lost in Shadows, How To

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 4:44 pm

Lost in Shadow
Detoxing delicious dependencies from my system has made for a melancholic week in Sugarland.

When not otherwise curled into a ball of whimpering insensibility, it seemed an ideal time to get on with the business of gaming. I was a bit desperate for something new on the shelf, a game to fire and order the synapses by nature of an inviting challenge to the still functioning bit of reason left to me.

For their part, Hudson sent out a demo disc for Lost in Shadow, quite a bit early given that the Wii game doesn’t arrive here until January.

The taste that demo disc offers is welcoming enough, with the shadow puppetry premise finding plenty of ways to twist and turn and most importantly, to build. There’s a progressive layering of ideas in the best tradition, continually inviting the player deeper into the shadows of the game’s looming tower.

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