Nicholas Bale
Back in the days of the original Playstation, a little platformer that could called Spyro the Dragon was released, featuring the titular purple dragon as he went galavanting (as dragons do) across the land to save it from some absurdly-named evil guy. I think his named was something like Gnort. Read More.
When the original Lumines was released for the PSP, it was a system seller. Its addictive puzzle mechanics combined with pulsing beats and visuals made it an enjoyable puzzle title that one could be lost in for hours. Since then it has been released on a number of systems, including the PS2 and the Xbox Live Arcade. Read More.
Since the release of Wii Sports, a number of developers have tried to follow suit and create their own sports-compilation title. Most of these follow the same general pattern as Wii Sports, but tend to introduce new quirks that set them apart from the trend. The most blatant of these copies is Deca Sports. Read More.
SPRay (aka Sprited Prince Ray) is something of a unique title for the Wii. In it, as the titular Prince Ray, you're tasked with saving the land from a malevolent being by collecting parts of a crystal sun, a crystal cluster that brings life to the world. It's been shattered and its pieces scattered across varying landscapes, so the Prince, along with two little helpers, must collect them to save the day. Read More.
Ah, Prince of Persia. I remember you, back in the day, avoiding pits filled with spikes, falls to the death, blades that chop you in two, and guards who really did not enjoy my pixellated sword stabbing them in their pixelated chests. It's been through multiple sequels and reinventions, some of which have been successful - such as the Sands of Time series - and some of which have not been quite as pleasant (we do not speak of Prince of Persia 3D. Read More.
It's a little tough to characterize Mount & Blade. It's an RPG with a bit of tactical warfare thrown in, emphasis on the tactical. It's like a real-time strategy game told from the point of view of one of the commanders. An evolution of a previously free title with more gameplay pushed in the package, it's going to be something that most people haven't played before, despite what its less-than-stellar appearance may impress upon you. Read More.
The first game on the Wii, Wii Sports, had a golf game that had you standing up and swinging your arms to knock the ball as far as you could. It was far from perfect. Since then, there've been a few attempts to bring good golf games to the system, and We Love Golf is Capcom's first try, and it takes an arcade-style approach in doing so. Read More.
The X series is one that will polarize a lot of gamers. On one hand, it's an incredibly intricate space simulator that'll eat up days of time. On the other hand, it's maddeningly obtuse and user-unfriendly, with a user interface that'll make you want to quit just by viewing it, and gameplay that fades into 'dull' category often, especially when you don't know what you're doing. Read More.
When the original Sacred came out, years ago, the term "Diablo Clone" was bandied around a lot. To be fair, back then any top-down hack-and-slash RPG was called a Diablo clone. Sacred did a lot of things differently though, adding a large world to explore at your leisure, a complete lack of a skill tree, and a large variety of classes. Read More.
Penumbra: Requiem, is said to be the final part of the trilogy that ties of the loose ends, completes storylines, and fully explains the mystery of the Tuurngait virus. It does none of these, and it does all of it poorly. Why is was even made is a mystery to me, as except for some references, it has almost nothing to do with the previous titles. Read More.
Red Bull BC One is large breakdancing championship in which sixteen b-boys match against each other to see who is the best. It is also a Nintendo DS game about breakdancing and connect-the-dots. Read More.
Sometimes, big fancy worlds and arcade-like games have their place. Sometimes you want to blaze through a slew of enemies as a Robocop-like unstoppable juggernaut that fears nothing but brings with him nothing but pain and carnage. Some times, however, you want to play a game where running forward blindly means getting killed. Read More.
Order Up! Is a cooking-game-restaurant-time-management simulator. Sort of. There are more than a couple facets to the game, and despite its deceptively simple facade, there's a decent amount of gameplay hidden beneath its chef's hat. Read More.
Tower defence has recently become its own genre as flash game development has picked up. The idea of defending a path against a near-unlimited number of random enemies using nothing but stationary defences appeals to a lot of people, and there have been quite a few games that have followed this formula. Read More.
Anyone who has played a Europa Universalis game knows that the name essentially equates to grand-scale, complex strategy. You're not just trying to win a battle, you're trying to win a world. Neither do you only have control of your military and a couple diplomatic options; you have an entire arsenal of choices at your disposal, each as effective as a full-scale conflict, many more preferable. Read More.
