Review Archive

Mark of the Ninja review: how you do that ninjutsu that you do

By
Wayne
– September 27, 2012
Icon for Post #24574 Genre: Action
Release Date: September 7, 2012
Platform: PC, XBLA
Price: 1200MSP ($15)

I am not a fan of the stealth genre of games. Not to say that they games are not enjoyable or without exceptions but often the mechanics are largely unwieldy and don’t lend well a playstyle that feels like I am actually sneaking around making a path or murdering people without notice. Fortunately developers whom brought you the beautifully animated action platformer Shank, Klei Entertainment have taken the task on their shoulders to change my mind with Mark of the Ninja.

Though let the comparisons to Shank stay at face value, the only things they truly share are the 2D nature and the beautifully animated art style that Klei Entertainment adorns them with. Mark of the Ninja then takes the concept of a stealth platformer and creates a unique experience with a plethora of mechanics that work together magnificently to put you in the tabi of a ninja. The base of this is a vision system that only allows you view of what your ninja’s radius of visibility would be with the surrounding area shrouded in a “fog-of-war” allowing only a limited display of the terrain. To add to this you are given small circles that radiate from the location of sounds giving you further information of movement locations of your foes. On the converse side your character is given a visual representation of being shrouded in the darkness so you are aware of what your enemies can see of you. This is all stitched together fluidly with some nice graphical flair that works in unison with the art style to always give you a visual representation of stealth at a glance without breaking you out of the immersion.
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They Bleed Pixels review: slices, screams, and triumph

By
Wayne
– August 30, 2012
Icon for Post #24436 Genre: Action, Platformer
Release Date: August 29, 2012
Platform: PC
Price: $9.99

I believe that most people enjoy feeling accomplished when they play through a game; whether it be simple achievements, completing the next boss, or retrieving a piece of sought after treasure. Spooky Squid’s They Bleed Pixels treated me to an accomplishment in becoming a better player through smart level design that goes hand-in-hand…erm…claw-in-claw with it’s brutal difficulty. And despite the latter it rarely feels overly frustrating creating an enjoyable experience that leaves you feeling good about what you’ve made it through.

They Bleed Pixels is a story of growth; in level pacing, for the protagonist and in yourself as you travel through the four chapters of the tale you will see the transformation from a simple girl to a calculated killing machine. Starting with the simple and quick tutorials the foundation on the mostly-easy-to use two button control scheme gives you all the tools you need to slice, dodge, and maim your way through the levels. From there you are left to explore as you will with each of the nightmarish dreams designed as perfect gears winding you up to the next challenge. Just when you have a section down something has already been added to it and you learned a new technical skill that you will be called upon for a later sections with the ingenious level design. By the end you’ll be traversing areas you never thought possible with ease without even realizing how much you’ve gained. This also interweaves with the story as each chapter adds more to the mystery of the dreams of the tome and how they are continuing to add to your character when you awake.
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Dust: An Elysian Tail review: Swordplay Remix

By
Anthony
– August 29, 2012
Icon for Post #24418 Genre: Action, Platformer
Release Date: August 15, 2012
Platform: XBLA, Xbox 360
Price: 1200 Microsoft points ($15)

There can never be enough good exploratory platformers in the world but great ones are harder to come by. Humble Hearts’ labor of love, Dust: An Elysian Tail, falls into the latter category without question. Dust was the winner of Microsoft’s Dream.Build.Play competition in 2009 back when it was simply a project, but three years later it proves it was the right choice all along. It plays well, the story is touching and it’s absolutely gorgeous.

If you’ve ever played a game in either the Metroid or Playstation-and-beyond era Castlevania series’ then you’re more than likely familiar with the basic formula Dust follows. You’ll explore the game world with a base set of powers. Some areas will remain out of reach until you can find the proper upgrades to open them up. The gridded-map approach works well here since each “room” has a good deal of variance when compared to those around them. There’s a good deal of variety when it comes to the visual style of each area as well, and while the usual tropes of forest, ice and lava show up, they’re handled uniquely. For example, you’ll have to avoid avalanches and dodge falling icicles instead of dealing with slippery floors.

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Craftman review: The cheese stands alone

By
Keith
– August 1, 2012
Icon for Post #24369 Genre: Platformer
Release Date: July 20, 2012
Platform: iOS, iPad, iPhone
Price: $1.99

Developer itSon5 starts its description of it new game with: “Craftman is a 2D/3D Platformer Never seen before on the AppStore.” Never a truer statement has been said in an AppStore description. Not only had the App Store never seen it, they still haven’t. Not only is Craftman not the name of the actual game you get but it looks nothing like it’s screenshots.

The description then goes to say: “Craftman is a 2D Platformer game. You play with that Craftman Character in world. Use double jump controls, jump of walls and defeat anything on your path.” It goes on to list the presence of Game Center support and Achievements, “amazing visuals”, new “interactive gameplay”, good controls and Minecraft-esque elements. Unfortunatly none of that is true. Read the rest of this entry »

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Dot Dash Episode 1 Review: blocks flying at your face

By
Wayne
– June 9, 2012
Icon for Post #24093 Genre: Arcade, Puzzle
Release Date: 5/3/2012
Platform: PC, XBLIG
Price: 80MSP($1), $1.99PC

Drop Dead Interactive has created a somewhat unique game in Dot Dash Episode 1 that plays a bit like a twin stick shooter minus the shooting while having the heart of a puzzler. The only thing that keeps it from being a top notch game is a small set of flaws in the execution and some polish.

The closest thing I can relate Dot Dash Episode 1 to is the Geometry Wars 2 Pacifism mode, you play each of the score based game modes dodging a series of colored blocks as they fly at your spinning gear looking avatar from every direction with each mode being a slight variation of the formula. Marathon mode has you picking up colored dots that correspond with the block colors giving you the power to destroy the color that you recently touched to increase your score, Time Extension puts you against the clock collecting dots to keep you alive, and Zones scores you by the amount of time you spend in specified zones. Each of the modes are enjoyable but I found the Marathon mode drawing my play more than the other two.
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All Your Creeps review: are belong to bad

By
Dave
– May 29, 2012
Icon for Post #22745 Genre: Strategy, Tower Defense
Release Date:
Platform: XBLIG, Xbox 360
Price: 80 MSP ($1)

All Your Creeps is a tower defense style strategy game that plays differently from most other titles in the genre, but unfortunately different doesn’t always mean better.  You have the option of playing as either the attacking or defending forces, but a limited number of units and options makes the game feel old very quick.

The game is described as being a cold war-era standoff on Russia’s soil.  The Russians are about to launch into space, and it’s up to the USA to try and stop them.  You can play as either the attacking USA forces, or take on the role of the USSR defending the rocket.  Both sides have four different units/turrets that they can deploy, and a timer limits the amount of units you can deploy at a time.   The turrets are a pretty standard variety including rocket and laser towers, while attacking units are a mix of small fast creatures, or larger slow creatures that can absorb more damage.  Each turret has units it is strong or weak against, and the same goes for the attacking units.

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Septipus: Tentacle Apocalypse is ridiculous, refined, reviewed

By
Wayne
– April 23, 2012
Icon for Post #23790 Genre: Adventure, Shooter
Release Date: April 10, 2012
Platform: XBLIG
Price: 80MSP ($1)

In Septipus: Tentacle Apocalypse you play as Smiley, an emoticon from the town of Follicles known for their beautiful flowing locks, which has been recently invaded by The Septipus who has taken all hair of Follicles to create his mustache; you have driven Septipus back to his cave and now track him to return everyone’s hair. So needless to say Soulfire Software‘s Septipus is set up to be a bit out there, but in doing so it has some of the highest production values on the Xbox Live Indie service. From the looks of the interface, to the detailed portraits and cutscenes, and the orchestral style music it’s clear that a lot of care and attention was put into it.
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Review: Fez is an epic story of happy!

By
Wayne
– April 13, 2012
Icon for Post #23566 Genre: Adventure, Platformer, Puzzle
Release Date: April 13, 2012
Platform: XBLA
Price: 800MSP ($10)

Given the time we’ve been anticipating Polytron’s Fez, one could assume the shoes of hype would be quite a feat to fill. Fortunately Fez not only delivers magnificently on the world bending perception puzzles, but also creates a fully fleshed out world filled with fiendishly unique puzzles. Being so deep in the puzzle realm Fez has a large opportunity to be spoiled by explanation of the puzzles so I’m going to try to keep this review as spoiler free as possible.

For those who are not familiar with our coverage of Fez, it is a 2D puzzle platformer that follows Gomez, a little white creature with a huge and odd shaped head in his quest to find cubes to fix a disturbance in his plane of existence. The world is based on the idea that the world is not actually a square as your little village seems to believe, but instead cubed thus allowing you to turn the world’s z-axis giving you visibility of new areas and creating a completely new perception and possibilities of your 2D plane. The platforming itself isn’t of extreme difficulty for there’s no penalty for death, it simply places you back on the last solid mass you were on; this is not to say that there isn’t difficult jumps but most of the platforming is more about finding a path through turning the world.
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Review: Sine Mora

By
Wayne
– April 4, 2012
Icon for Post #23423 Genre: Shooter
Release Date: 3/21/2012
Platform: XBLA, Xbox 360
Price: 1200MS points ($15)

Grasshopper Manufacture and Digital Reality‘s Sine Mora managed to escape my shoot ‘em up loving radar till right before release where it suddenly decided sucker punch me in the face with it’s smooth systems, gorgeous visuals, and intriguing themes. Sine Mora nears perfection in a genre rarely seen with such high production values, but falls slightly short due to a very sharp difficulty curve aimed at the most hardcore of shoot ‘em up fans that may drive away some people looking for more past the main story at normal difficulty.
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Journey review: Sandy sojourn

By
Anthony
– March 13, 2012
Icon for Post #23160 Genre: Adventure
Release Date: March 13, 2012
Platform: Playstation 3, PSN
Price: $14.99

Following up one of the greatest downloadable games of the generation must feel like quite the challenge during development, but thatgamecompany does so with style and grace. Journey is a uniquely beautiful game, both visually and conceptually, and the emotions it leaves you with will resonate after long after completion.

There isn’t an element in Journey that wasn’t extensively planned, despite the simple nature of what’s presented. Something thatgamecompany does well (maybe better than any other developer currently) is convey gameplay concepts and objectives without extensively spelling out the details — even the game’s title implies a grand adventure with seven little letters. Of course, it helps when the gameplay is as focused as it is here.
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