Gamesugar

April 29, 2011

Review – Nin2-Jump

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 2:17 pm

Nin2 Jump
Between the release of bullethell shooters that keep the name Cave warm in the hearts of the gaming faithful, the niche developer’s latest offering tackles the platforming genre and gives players a chance to perform puppet theater for an audience.

NIN-JA finds himself caught up in a classic quest to save a Princess, his striking red scarf always caught on the fixed wind in a world of painted backdrops and paper characters. Animation is largely reserved for the audience occupying the bottom of the screen, ever anxious and vocal while watching the player navigate Cave’s obstacle course.

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April 27, 2011

Review – Hector: Badge of Carnage
Episode 1: We Negotiate With Terrorists

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — TJ "Kyatt" Cordes @ 12:04 pm

Review Hector Badge of Carnage Episode 1 We Negotiate with Terrorists
I spent a good part of my Easter Sunday playing Hector: Episode 1, a game that I would definitely not want to get caught playing if Jesus were coming back.

Why? This is easily one of the bluer point-and-click adventure games on the market – a hypothesis supported by the fact that you can’t escape the first room in the game without solving a puzzle that involves a condom and a severed foot.

Did that get your attention? Great, I’ll continue then.

Hector: Episode 1, originally released for the iPhone by Straandlooper Animation, has now been brought to the Mac, PC, and iPad by Telltale Games, a company already known for police-based adventure games, although Hector is neither a dog nor a rabbit. You play as Detective Inspector Hector, a (human) constable working in Clapper’s Wreake, an English town that, as they say, “took the ‘Great’ out of Britain.”

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April 21, 2011

Review – Patapon 3

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 2:01 pm

Patapon 3
I’m never long for thinking of Sony’s palette-perfect cave-art-in-motion Patapon without also thinking of that other treasure on the PlayStation Portable, LocoRoco – and vice-versa. Both titles livened up Sony’s handheld offering with a breath of fresh air, largely composed of daring dabs of color as vibrant as the twist of controls that presented both as prime reasons for early PSP ownership. But, both titles also offered an experience that seemed to leave little room for growth, largely saying all there was to say the first time around – though that didn’t stop either from broadening the brush strokes with sequels that struck a few new sparks for the trouble.

A third swing at the bat saw LocoRoco take a strange move off a cliff however, seeking to serve as some form of “lost levels” for that franchise, and directly creating a game with enough sadistic spirit to do the dark lord proud whilst also chasing many gamers away.

Where Patapon 3 could have taken a similar dive from the heights of previous critical praise – changing the beat for the sake of change – this newest march to war strays from the depth of previous entries to create a more ideally portable extension to the rhythm.

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April 14, 2011

Review – Crysis 2

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 5:40 pm

Crysis 2It’s not difficult to imagine EA sitting down with Crytek, somewhere in the indeterminate space between Crysis and Crysis 2, fingers tented carefully and asking “Can you make it more like Call of Duty?” I don’t mean “It’s a funny joke to think about,” I mean I believe this happened. I believe it occurred in our discrete reality.

Indeed, I believe EA has this conversation with every developer to offer them product.

It’s easy to peer into the product and see the result of this conversation (which I will now portray as a factual historic event); fibers of Call of Duty have been infused in the deep tissue of Crysis, coloring its fundamental layers, its skeleton.

Amazing, then, that it remains, unquestionably, its own game.

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Review – Jikandia: The Timeless Land

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nathan White @ 5:07 pm

Jikandia The Timeless Land
The concept of time travel has been used as a plot device in videogames time and time again, often with sterling results. From Square’s masterpiece, Chrono Trigger, and its follow up, Chrono Cross, to more recent fair such as Atlus’ DS release, Radiant Historia, time travel is nothing new for the medium. And yet as memorable as those titles are, no videogame that I’ve played to date uses the concept of time quite as effectively as Jikandia: The Timeless Land.

On the surface, the story is simple enough. You play a typical high school student who, along with eight of your friends, is magically transported to another world during your daily commute to school. You come to learn that you have been summoned to the world of Jikandia to help save it from destruction. Jikandia, until very recently, was devoid of time – that is until a crop of monstrous baddies began popping up, bringing with them the concept of time, which threatens to unravel the world of Jikandia with the resulting chaos.

In order to get back to your own world, players must uncover the origins of these vile monsters, eliminating them and restoring Jikandia the timeless land to its former state.

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April 10, 2011

Review – Mass Effect 2: Arrival

Filed under: News Feed — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 8:58 am

Mass Effect 2 Arrival
Last week saw the release of Arrival, the final DLC package for Mass Effect 2, leading into the release of Mass Effect 3 (still intolerably far away, I might add). Arrival sees Commander Shepard infiltrating Batarian space to rescue an Alliance operative with evidence on the imminent Reaper invasion.

As has been the standard for Mass Effect 2 DLC, Arrival attempts to put something of a different spin on the gameplay and add something unique to the package. In this instance, it’s a rudimentary stealth mechanic, where players—if they are careful about choosing their route—can avoid enemy positions and complete the first mission without being detected.

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April 5, 2011

Review – Moon Diver

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 9:19 pm

Moon Diver
Moon Diver is an elevator ride that jolts as if the cable might snap at any moment while making quick stops at the bizarre, the surreal, and yes even something wanting for today’s secret word; esoteric.

The title was developed by feelplus with special guest, Strider creator Kouichi Yotsui, which is meant to mean something significant to those that played Strider so many years ago and perhaps were ever able to put a finger to the reasons they might have played it to death.

It’s not an easy point to nail down. Strider is a title often referenced by those creating 2D action titles in the here and now, those hoping to summon a connection to that release as a symbol of something eternal and pure and constant to the fundamental design of any old-school blade-swinging game worth your time and money.

It has to be a sense of control that such shout-outs hope to convince threads of commonality with – that your fingers will feel free for flinging a ninja across the screen, slicing through countless enemies in a sea of chaos while still discovering harmony and zen in the act.

But perhaps Moon Diver is about what the 2D action genre can offer when the man himself comes around, which at the very least is an easier matter to pick apart.

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