Battle Slots is a strategy RPG reminiscent of Puzzle Quest. If you’re familiar with that, stick with what you know, it plays much better.

The battle system in this game is incredibly simple and requires little to no learning curve what-so-ever. It’s just enough for you to enjoy though, and I promise you will if you’re a fan of these types of RPGs.
Once you enter combat, the screen literally opens up like a slot machine, pressing spin will randomize the 15 block slot into random images that all contribute to your XP, Gold, MP, & AP gain.
These are represented by colors, Green, Yellow, Blue, and Red respectively. You’ll gradually fill your MP & AP but can only perform one attack per turn. It doesn’t matter if you have enough to use a physical and magical attack, you can only use one so try to be a bit cautious about which you use.

HAVE AT THEE VILE BARRACUDA

In the main town, Hearthstone, you can shop around, pick up side quests at the tavern, add attacks to your list, equip runes to aid in battle, etc. etc. You can always view all your current items in your battle slot, or capture certain creatures throughout the game that will give you special abilities. To view those creatures, just visit the Zoo! How convenient.

You'll come back here a lot

As you progress through its easily forgettable story, you’ll gain more images for your battle slot which will contribute to more matches and more gains. Using the gold you can upgrade your attacks, buy weapon and armor to help you withstand and persevere combat which is the strongest point of this game. I often found myself just skipping dialogue just to get to the combat.
It’s not that the story sucks; it just didn’t grasp my attention enough to sit through every NPC dialogue wondering what will happen next. Who cares? Just let me kill some faeries.

This is your world.

The lack of first availability purchase options will leave you feeling weak and underpowered in the beginning of the game and the first items to buy are just a bit too expensive to start off with. Some enemies have incredibly strong attacks and make you feel like the battle is lost before you’ve even started. I’ve encountered a bear that would lock my slot and attack for at least 5 spins whilst he decimated me resulting in a rather embarrassing defeat.

Whilst the character art is..lacking..the visuals make up for it. Each action seems to have its own detailed animation that blends in well with the combat, which is where this games strongest point lies. Musically the game reminds me heavily of Fishdom 2 with a bit of Royal Envoy in the sense the music is great at first, but becomes very old very fast.

This thing wants to bite off your toes, seriously, that's one of it's combat dialogues.

I’d hate to slag on a game that people have put so much work into but there’s just nothing here that Puzzle Quest doesn’t do better but as always I do very much enjoy the indie titles and can appreciate the hard work involved. If you enjoyed Puzzle Quest but love supporting the lesser known developers, I’d say this game is right for you, otherwise just stick with what you already have.

In 2060, the Sun began emitting incredible volumes of energy from the coronal layer, pummeling Earth with solar flares and inundating the planet with radiation – Earth’s magnetic field was a miserly defense against such an onslaught.

Arable land quickly diminished; wastelands became more common and vast; major cities were either evacuated or received an unsustainable influx of refugees; quickly it became apparent that the only chance for human survival is the wholehearted concentration into space technologies, and an eventual colonization of extra-terrestrial lands.

So did we band together gallantly to save our common species?

Did we put aside our differences in search of a common resolve for this immediate threat of extinction?

No. We’re human beings and we did what comes naturally: we fought for resources and scrapped over the husks, and when we managed to create sustainable ecosystems in space, we began fighting for resources all over again…

 

The Mining Wars happened.

 

Miner Wars is in development by Keen Software House using the gorgeous VRage Engine. The game takes place in space around the year 2081 and is a 6DoF (six degrees of freedom) space shooter with destructible environments, a single player and co-op mode and a Miner Wars MMO in development. You can build bases, fully customize your ship, battle other players and loot their equipment, set up ambushes, undergo missions, explore asteroids for rare materials that can be sold or turned into ship upgrades; the universe is yours to do as you please.
The game boasts to having many different elements including:

 
• Unique mining ships: (from smallest to largest, fast and slow, large cargo, huge shields…)
• Weapons: 20 (volcano cannon, guided missiles, mines, gravity bombs, tunnel buster…)
• Ammo: 20 (armor piercing, explosive, high velocity…)
• Drilling devices: 5 (pressure drilling, thermal drilling, saw, nuclear drilling device…)
• Equipment types: 50 (various radars, jammer, X-ray, engines, enhancing drugs, armor, med kit, auto targeting…)
• Factions: About 10 main factions with 25+ playable factions in the MMO.
• Ore types: 50 (iron, uraninite , helium 3, gold, diamonds, …)
• Asteroids: Who has the time to count them?
• World size: Unlimited in every direction.

 

With the destructible environments, nothing stands in your way. It’s quite possible to blast a tunnel in an asteroid, using it as a hiding spot for your loot, or lay in wait for some unsuspecting poor bastard. Whilst playing this game, one thing came to mind; EVE Online without the skill structure, more fast paced, fully controlled and first person view. In this game there are no levels to grind out, no skills or talent trees to plan out; just you, your ships weapons, and your own luck.

Mining seems like it will play a heavy role in this game, I don’t know why it’s just a hunch.

With over 50 different types of ore, each with a value whether it’s economic based or valued as an important ship upgrade, mining will be essential and probably the blood flowing through the veins of this game. You can mine in the alpha now but it appears it’s just there for show and to get a feel of how it’ll work.

I am not raping this asteroid.. okay I am raping it ..of it's natural resources. BOOSH!

There’s a lot of focus on the customization aspect; heavy customization. You can open the menu to check out the different ship classes (Miner Ship 1-10, Talon, and RIGJ), weapons, tools, ammo, even engine. Now since this isn’t full release, none of this serves any use whatsoever as it isn’t available but it is a nice tickle to your sack at things to come.

Roll the die and choose one, it doesn't matter anyway.

 

As I’ve stated, this game is currently in pre-alpha so as far as the story mode goes; it doesn’t. Upon starting the story mode you’re left inside a rather large asteroid and maneuvering around will lead you into ambushes from drone NPCs. You can either navigate your way through or just blow the piss out of the whole damn thing and fly out.

Reminds me of prom night, which hole should I enter?

Either way, the choice is yours and its unscripted things like this which make the game very promising. There is an ally bot you can pick up and I recommend in doing so because the enemies are rather relentless, if you can find them. Some of them are so holed up into an asteroid it took me tens of rockets and at least an hour of weaving in and out of the spider-holes before one would appear on my dick randomly like a herpes outbreak. Luckily my ointment..err..ally bot was there to help me out.

FRIEND BOT 2 COMIN' TO SAVE THE DAY! ROCK YOUR WORLD! KILL SOME BITCHES!

Maybe I’m just a moron and missing something important but I have yet to find the purpose in story mode. I’ve killed all the enemies in game, flown around until I’ve shoved my mouse up my ass just out of sheer boredom, even reset the solar-wind a few times just because; nothing. The real fun to be had in this alpha is the Sandbox mode.

Sandbox basically puts you into the middle of space with a horde of enemies in front of you. They don’t engage you until you fly closer to them so this will give you some time to plan out your slaughter. You do have some friendly bots to fly alongside and will help with the destruction but they’re not really needed, the enemies are pretty easy.

This mode is great to get a feel of the combat and hone your skills until the game comes out in late 2011 on the PC and XBOXLive Arcade. You can currently pre-order the game for PC now over at the Miner Wars website

Vorpal is a manga-styled “bullet hell” game by indie developer Red Wolf and has a logo very similar to Naughty Dog. Basically, you’re faced with an insane barrage of attacks from your enemy at once and you’re left to maneuver in and out of the attack whilst trying to stay alive and kill the boss.

The game has six playable characters, each with their own short little unexplained introduction to each boss. Each character and boss has their own attack and attack pattern, with eight shields to blast through to beat the boss, this game can be very difficult; difficult being a fucking understatement.

Good luck.

This game seems to draw heavy inspiration from the Touhou series; if you haven’t played one of that series, don’t; you’ll shit blood for a week from the ulcers it’ll give you. While Vorpal is definitely not as insane as Touhou, it is still quite difficult and not for the casual gamer at all.

Of course you won’t be heading into this crazy shitstorm of ship combat completely empty. While you start off with a basic attack, shuriken looking icons will appear on the screen and shooting them often drops items such as upgrades to your weapon, a boost in health or stress gauge. The stress gauge is your special attack which is measured by the red bar near your health. Whilst you can activate the gauge any time it’s in the red, often it’s best to wait until it has completely filled to knock out a full tier of shield. Other wise use this shit often when enemy health is low and firing a clusterfuck of a special attack against you.

The controls are quite simple, use the A button to shoot and for the love of your god do not let this button go. The B button activates your stress gauge and holding Left and Right Trigger simultaneously will slow your ship down making for an easier time moving through the enemy’s attack.

What I did like about this game was the black and white art style with some shades of red, it’s quite gorgeous honestly and I love when developers experiment with different shades of color for their game leaving for more of an art work than just an arcade game. Also, each of the six characters has their own beautiful sountrack. The songs are spectacular and all can be heard inside the games gallery which is where you can also get a more detailed background on each character and a closer view of the ship they use.

At only a mere 80 Microsoft points, there’s no reason to not own this game, unless of course you bought a 360 just for the fucking Kinect. The music is spectacular, the art work is gorgeous and the difficulty tickles my balls with enough intensity to keep coming back for more.

Donkey Kong Country Returns is a fantastic addition to the classic franchise; not steering away from the old school side scrolling we’re so used to at all but rather implementing new ideas to the series much like New Super Mario Bros Wii.

Example of the beautiful level designs

The story begins with a volcanic eruption which releases a massive tiki bitch that spews his minions all over the jungle like sperm on a towel. The Tiki Tak Tribe, as they’re known by, possesses all the jungle animals to steal the bananas from the Kong’s stash.  The Tiki’s pretty much replace the Kremlin’s in this game as the main enemies; you’ll see none of them, or Dixie, thank god. The only familiar faces are Diddy, Donkey Kong, and Cranky Kong who owns a shop. You’ll use golden coins collected throughout the level to buy items from him like balloons for continues, key’s to open locked off areas, an extra heart or banana juice which grants temporary invincibility.

Don't be fooled; this game is difficult.

The game is very 2D side-scrolling nostalgic feel with tons of 3D elements. You’ll move back and forth from horizon to the front of the screen on rail carts, shooting through barrels and falling totems. The visuals are quite spectacular. A new addition to the game is two player co-op instead of the traditional tag team the previous Donkey Kong games had. In addition, it takes some ideas from New Super Mario Bros. Wii with that of if you die a certain amount of times on one level you have the option of “Super Kong” which is the same concept of Luigi. The game will take over and finish the level for you but any items picked up won’t count.

The 3D effects are fantastic

The experience of the game overall is fantastic. Wonderful visuals, the music is always great and the difficulty is just challenging enough for you to keep coming back and not snap the disc in half.  The level designs can be frustrating at times but that’s to be expected of a platformer. There were many times I just kept dying at one particular spot until I memorized enemy movement and how they spawn, and it seems the further I go into the game the more I have to do this. While the actual levels are rather difficult, the bosses are more or less a push over. You’d expect to use some sort of tactic but it’s basically just keep jumping on them until they become knocked out and the Tiki’s leave the creature. It’s a bit of a relief but rather silly.

Another small gripe is while Diddy Kong is in the game; his only abilities are really to roll Donkey Kong further and a short boost in jump with his jetpack. It doesn’t feel like there’s much purpose for him here  other than being a simple support character. I just feel he played more of a role in previous titles but it doesn’t ruin the fun.

Despite its difficulty, the lack of the Kong family and Kremlins, Donkey Kong Country Returns is incredibly fun to play and the perfect challenge to a world filled with overly simplistic games that leave you feeling cheated out of your money. It’s a must own for everyone.

Radiant is a fantastic little arcade game for the iPhone and it’s FREE; awesome game; awesome price of FREE.

FRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEE

Right, so, this game is brought to you by the folks over at Hexage and it’s a revamped mash-up of Asteroids and Space Invaders. The story pretty much starts off with you flyin’ around being all bad-ass and like “Hey, remember those stupid Aliens that tried to kill us back in the 80’s?” queue impression of said Aliens, and then they arrive.

The controls are incredibly basic, there’s no fire button your ship will do so automatically, all you do is tap the left or right side of your screen to move accordingly. At times you’ll have to maneuver through an asteroid field or in one case the remnants of your destroyed home planet, and this is where the semi-Asteroid’s feel comes in. Thankfully you don’t have free movement it’s still the same stuck-at-the-bottom controls just shoot the asteroids or move out of the way of the big fuckers.

Kinda reminds you of Alderaan

After a few waves of enemies you’ll blast off to upgrade your ship and/or weapons depending on how many credits you get. Credits and weapons will fall from certain enemies once you destroy them, just grab it before it’s gone. You can also just buy weapons but often you’ll acquire them through killing.

What are ya buyin'?!

The weapons are as followed:
Your standard Vulcan Cannon which through upgrading you’ll increase its fire rate and shoot two off at the same time from the sides of your ship instead of the front.
Bio Blaster is just a single green blast of shit from your ship. It’s slow but strong, nothing special here.
Plasma Gun fires from both sides of your ship, arcs upwards and sort of falls back down and to the left and right of the screen, if it didn’t hit the first time it’s sure to hit the second.
Disrupter Laser will destroy most enemies in one hit and travel until it reaches the other end of the screen making it a slow but incredibly useful weapon. This will go through many rows of enemies at once.
Seeking Missiles are self-explanatory. If you need a description I can only wonder how you are able to use the intarwebz.
Smart Gun acts in the same way as the Vulcan Cannon but has a slight homing feature to it, making it more accurate.

Aside from Credits and weapons, items occasionally drops from fallen foes as well. Rarely a Megablast will appear, picking this up destroys whatever enemy is left on the screen and other times a Shield will drop and it just projects a purple wave in front of your ship, protecting you from damage for a little while.

Upgrading your ship is just buying extra lives.
You can take a few hits but you will run out of lives so this isn’t a big deal unless you’re down to 1. Pressing onto your ship will pause the action and bring up a small inventory like screen and this is where you equip your weapons, press your ship again to pause the game entirely. Lose your last life and it’s game over. Start from scratch. Stock up on those lives if you suck.

The sound effects are very soothing, nothing is over done for the sake of theatrics or to try and make it appear high budget. The music is a very jazzy techno beat with enemy explosions and enemy explosions vary between two to four different sounds which is either a low pitch basic explosion sound or something along the lines of a techno or metallic chime.
The colors are very bright and neon against an ordinary black star splattered space background making it incredibly gorgeous and easy on the eyes.

With its pixilated graphics, wonderful sound, and classic style gameplay, this game would be well worth a price tag of 1, 2 or even 5 dollars but it’s free which makes it an incredible download and a must own.

Quicklik is a gorgeous little Korean puzzle game in which you match corresponding images to whatever you’re tasked with.

The game has two modes; Classic and Crazy Mode. The second comes with a warning that it is meant for experienced players only and starting this mode you’ll see why.

Classic Mode is slower paced than Crazy. Atop the screen will be a bar with a Kitten’s face or a picture of a Peach with “x X” where X is the number you have to reach to move on to the next level. “Kitten x5” obviously means tap 5 kittens, just thought I’d explain that for you slower folk.

The classic mode will try and throw you a curve ball occasionally and instead of showing a picture it will just give the word. When you tap an image, it’s removed from the board but always replaced with another, sometimes the same image.

Crazy Mode is a little more intense. It will do things such as show a color and you must tap everything with the requested color to move on. Sometimes the word will pop up but with a letter missing, it isn’t hard to figure out the word but if you’re going on a diminishing time limit, it can throw your concentration off. The more common ones are just a word like “Animal” or “Glasses” and well, you know what to do.

It IS a puzzle game, which means there will be items both good and bad.

Time will do just as it says, gives you more time.
Find will show you the images for the current mission.
Arainbow star will reduce the number of images, making that round easier.
A skull and cross bones with a red X will remove any bad item.

What are the bad items you ask?
A cloud will show up on the screen and you’ll have to drag it away in order to continue.
Blackened graffiti will cover areas and you’ll have to quickly rub it away.
Ice is probably more annoying as you’ll tap this item several times to finally break away.

As fun as this game is, its cutesy art style, music, and sound effects will make you feel like a prepubescent Japanese girl when playing. Besides the art direction which will throw your gender into question, the simplicity of the game is what makes it so addicting.
The images will shake and dance as you tap them out leaving a cloudy effect and a satisfying “Combo!” with each match and “Lucky!” when you complete a match. Continuing a chain will cause the overly cute voice to shout out “Nice!” or “Excellent!” It’s nice to play a game that’s actually boring without the sound.

At only $1, this is a great buy and is one of my favorite puzzle games on the app store. I’d highly recommend it if you’re looking for something fast paced with little learning curve to just pick up and stop whenever you’re on the go.

Watch with hilarity as this stocky moron painted up like an Undead attempts with great fail to recreate the characters in game dance.

What does he win instead? A fucked up leg and a lifetime of embarrassment as his fat ass is carried off the stage in front of millions of viewers world wide.

I’m sure most, if not all, of you have heard one of the big releases announced at PAX this weekend; but if not, it’s been announced at PAX that Duke Nukem Forever is back on, and under new development by the guys over at Gearbox Software. Yes, the same studio who brought us Brothers in Arms and the still ever popular Borderlands.

Gearbox president Randy Pitchford has confirmed that not only will we see Duke Nukem Forever finally hit shelves, a project that’s been in development for ten plus years, but we’ll also see other titles as well.

“Gearbox Software announced today that it has acquired the full intellectual property rights of the ‘Duke Nukem’ brand including Duke Nukem Forever and all future projects in a cooperative deal made with 3D Realms. The first product to be available under the Duke Nukem brand will be the long awaited Duke Nukem Forever.”

Personally, I’m super excited about this announcement. I loved playing this title as a youngin’ back in the PSX days.. ah good times.

You can read the full story here

Starcraft is arguably one of the most well-known, played, and best PC game of all time. Nearly twelve years later and the sequel has finally arrived.

The campaign comes equipped with four difficulties; Casual, Normal, Hard, and the ever so inviting sound of Brutal. The story takes place four years after the Brood Wars with Jim Raynor leading a revolutionary group, who call themselves Raynor’s Raiders, to overthrow the Dominion Emperor Arcturus Mengsk. The game opens up with Firefly themed western-scifi cutscene of a rather rugged Raynor in a slum pub drowning his memories with alcohol whilst a news broadcast of a rebellion is playing on the TV.

The first mission throws you right into the action with your rebellion by liberating a local population from the dictatorship of Dominion, propaganda is painted all over the town, feel free to destroy holoboards of Mengsk.

As you free the civilians, they’ll join the fight to free themselves by tossing firebombs at the Dominion troops; it’s a pretty awesome sight. The objective for this particular mission is to destroy the logistic headquarters, do that and you’ve completed your first victory towards the step of freedom and clearing your name! With each mission you complete, the news will show how heavily censored it is with each broadcast slanted towards the Dominion and further trying to prove you to be a terrorist by ignoring the reporters details. It’s pretty entertaining, I found myself wondering “How will the slant this one?” each time. If you destroy all the Mengsk holograms, and let Raynor acquire five kills you’ll get a couple achievements for that. It’s easier to send Raynor in first with each battle; he’s pretty powerful so you needn’t worry about his status too much.

Tychus Findlay joins the fray with a small introduction and catching up between Tychus and Raynor. Tychus informs Raynor that he has a job to do for some buyers, steal an artifact Dominion has been digging for for quite some time. They think it holds some sort of secretive power, and it’s worth a lot of money so Raynor agrees and this begins the second mission; you’re first taste of the strategy Starcraft is so well known for.

You must destroy the Dominion forces and bases to take over the crane and grab the artifact for yourself, so you’re placed with a few SCV’s to begin building your forces. Once you place down some barracks and supply depots, head off to your thieving and thus dealing another blow to Dominions grip over the people.

While this mission was exciting, the next one is even better.

Once you have the artifact in place, you’re waiting for it to be picked up but instantly attacked by the Zerg! Pick up is in twenty minutes so you must hold off for that long, with each ticking minute the attacks become more and more intense. If you’re great at defending, you won’t have any problems, you’ll only need to press an attack if you want to save some civilians when they call out for help.  After the twenty minutes are up, you’re treated to a sexy cut scene of the Hyperion flying into the fray and raping the shit out of the Zerg. It’s a beautiful site.

The game then takes you into the battleship Hyperion with a news briefing showing that Kerrigan was in fact behind the random Zerg attack. The story takes an epic turn from here which I’ll spare you the details for obvious reasons. It’s easily one of the best stories I’ve ever played in a video game and a fantastic ending to this chapter of the series.

The Hyperion is a pretty awesome setting for the game; you have several places you can visit after a few side missions. The side missions aren’t mandatory but incredibly helpful as you’ll gain new units, and earn extra credits for improving said units. They vary differently and aren’t the usual “HALP US OBI-RAYNOR UR OUR ONLY HOPE!” generic shit. One will involve you destroying buildings and civilians that are plagued with some sort of Zerg infestation, whilst another is rather crucial and gives you your first new unit, the Firebat.

The four places on the Hyperion you can visit include the Cantina which is just a bar if you don’t know what a cantina is, here you can talk to Tychus, buy Mercs from Hill or even play an arcade machine.

The game is called The Lost Viking which, if you know your gaming history, is an easteregg to Blizzard’s classing Lost Vikings. Instead of playing as a real Viking, you play as the ship Viking in a top-down scrolling shooter in glorious HD. It’s incredibly fun and a nice break from doing missions. If you’re familiar with games like 1942, Raiden, or Gradius, it plays very much the same.

The Bridge is basically where you’ll grab your missions. You can view the star map and get a detailed look into each planet, talk to Matt Horner or a little more with Tychus.

In the Armory, you can upgrade your troops and bases using credits. Each unit you acquire will be viewed standing in the base and clicking on them will bring up an animated detailed look into a short history and their stats.

The laboratory is where you’ll get to talk to the super nerdy Stetmann whose voice actor also did Kevin French for the cartoon Mission Hill, pretty much uses the same voice. He’s done many other characters as well.

Anyway, here you’ll use the Protoss and Zerg training you find throughout missions to gain extra features in the game. It opens up much like a talent tree in most MMO’s with a list of skills, what they do, and a clip demoing the skill in action, it’s fucking awesome. Some skills will include a turret atop bunkers, drop ships to move your troops more efficiently, and a tower that mind controls enemy units to your command.

Overall the games campaign focuses mainly on Raynor and his crew, reveals a secret mission Tychus has kept from everyone until the end, awesome twists and great cinematics. The game is broken up into a trilogy with the next title releasing being dubbed Heart of the Swarm which focuses more on the Zerg, and Kerrigan, with the third and still unnamed title being the focus of the Protoss. Both will naturally include new units, updated multiplayer changes and thankfully priced as a regular expansion pack.

The multiplayer is where I fall short. I don’t particularly play well in competitions with this sort of genre as I’m the type who takes their time gathering resources and forces and because of this I usually just play with my personal/online mates; playing a randomly matched player results in me getting my ass handed to me with my pride and confidence shoved up the colon like some sort of stuffing in a turkey.

For obvious reasons, many of the single player features with the units and base upgrades are not available in the multiplayer. It would leave the game incredibly broken since all the upgrades are for the Terran and would leave Blizzard to reveal what the Zerg and Protoss units have in store for the future additions to the game. But because of this, the multiplayer rather bores me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still as wonderful as ever but after getting a taste of pyromaniac marines and panther/wolf like units that decimate everything in its path with a fury not even a roid raged Chris Benoit could match up to left me a feeling of an understandable watered down Starcraft. Many would disagree as they purchase this game mainly for the multiplayer but that’s just my take on it. I’m hoping after the final expansion is released, the multiplayer will include all updates to units and buildings that the single player wonderfully tickles our naughty bits with. They really are spectacular.

Some of the multiplayer features an achievement system, which is always nice; stats to keep track of how you play, wins and losses, and the usual stuff like that. You can play versus an AI by yourself or cooperatively to hone your skills, do 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 with friends and ranked matches for their new Leagues & Ladders system. Everything is set up for the ideal multiplayer experience that you’ll be enjoying for years to come.

It’s been a great pleasure to review this huge and highly anticipated release of the year and I very much enjoyed every minute of it. I look forward to bringing you reviews of the remaining releases in the future. Purchase this game immediately if you had not done so already, you won’t regret it.

Fishdom 2 comes to you from the lovely people of Playrix who have also put out Royal Envoy which you may recall me doing a review and James doing the preview for awhile back. Playrix is kind of known for their basic yet entertaining titles with vibrant colors and music. They have a sort of friendly feel to their games which is a nice change of pace for when I get bored of sniping heads off and destroying dragons with enchanted swords.

Unfortunately this title is not among the great games Playrix is known to put out. Fishdom 2 is, for all intents and purposes, FishVille meets Bejeweled. If you don’t know, FishVille is a game on Facebook where you literally just decorate a fish tank. The Bejeweled part of the game is how you earn money to afford such luxuries, and in my opinion the only enjoyable part of the game.

You have two modes to chose from when starting off your first match; Relaxed and Against the Clock. These are pretty straight forward and for review purposes, I chose relaxed.

So basically as I’ve said, you’ll need money to improve your fish tank and continue on with the game. This is where the Bejeweled clone kicks off.
You’re presented with a board, each board will differ with every level to keep things from becoming mundane. Different tile themes are also recycled but there’s not enough to feel like there’s much randomness to the whole thing.

Each board has yellow blocks which you’ll need to remove to complete that particular level. In order to gain any sort of points, including removing the yellow blocks, you need to make a match. Matches can be made with three or more of the same tile either vertically or horizontally. Match three or more over a yellow block and it will clear it from the board and adding $1 to your funds. There are, however, explosives you’ll acquire during these levels to make things a bit more fun.

The explosive I saw the most was the Depth Bomb.

You’ll gain this baby after making a match of five or more tiles and packs a punch of destroying within a two block radius.

The next explosive, and the most useless, is aptly named Firecracker.

This little bitch comes when you achieve a cascade match of five or more falling tiles. They’re annoying and weak, only a one block radius.

One of the better explosives is a Dynamite Charge.

They’re a bit harder to get since they require a match of six or more tiles at once but pack quite a punch destroying within a three block radius.

The final, and easily the best explosive, is simply named Lightning.

Once you’ve used seven explosives in a single match, this baby will appear. Simply switch it with one of the surrounding tiles and it will destroy every single of that one on the board. This is incredibly useful if you’re having trouble with a match and it just so happens to be next to a Lightning.

To keep the game from becoming too easy, different types of tiles will make it onto the board adding a pebble in your shoe. Some times yellow blocks will be chained, the way around this is to make a match and the chain will snap, make another match as you normally would and this will remove the yellow block. When there’s two chains, simply make a match twice to bring the block to normal.

As you can also see, stones will come into play. Any tile inside the stone cannot be moved, you must make a match of whichever tile is stuck inside to break the stone, then it will turn into a yellow tile and just repeat the process you’ve been doing. Why? To decorate your fish tank of course!

Your fish will want stupid crap like a lawnmower, frogs chillin’ in lounge chairs, lights, other fish and purple hippos.. all of which cost money. Each item has a level to it, the higher the level, the more it will fill up the corresponding bar on the type right corner. Once you’ve filled all three bars to 100%, you’ll gain a bronze cup for that tank, the bar resets and you start all over. Basically this works past the Silver Cup right up to Gold and that’s when you realize you’re wasting your time with this game. What can you do once you get a Gold Cup? BUY ANOTHER TANK AND DO THE WHOLE DAMN THING ALL OVER AGAIN! FUCK YEAH!

There’s no sense of satisfaction to the game, once you get a Gold Cup on a tank you kind of feel like you just wasted a lot of time doing nothing but playing an overly exaggerated Facebook game that you PAID FOR. Yes, it looks pretty but that’s not enough to sell it. There’s only a short amount of songs, I think I heard like four different tracks and only one of them was tolerable enough for me not to rip my ears off and shove nails into my eardrums.

Even the beautiful colors couldn’t save this incredibly repetitive game. I lost interest once I finished my first fish tank, horrible replay value. 2/5

Matt Fitzgerald
US Correspondent

Royal Envoy is a gorgeous looking game brought to you by the folks over at Playrix. It’s filled with flamboyant sounding characters and a king whose tights would make even Sir Elton John envious and resembles the King of Cosmos from the Katamari Damacy series. The story goes as a place called Islandshire has had a natural disaster before the rainy season starts, and the rainy season is apparently important because that’s when the inhabitants do their best craftsmanship which this king loves so much.

The task is not to gather up resources to help rebuild or anything of that sort but basically just to watch over them, give direction to the rebuild and apparently, despite the cinematic angles during the introduction, you’re in the room and given the task of foreman though I don’t know how they tell you that the islanders will do all the work if you’re the one directing them where to go, what to build, when to improve, etc. etc. Sure they do the physical aspect but you’re still bossing them around.. when they say..you know what? It doesn’t matter, this game is great.

The game will take you between 90 puzzles across 9 islands that vary in appearance and tasks. You’ll travel to a swampy island and have to install siding on every house you build because the foundation isn’t suitable to hold a house and they’ll break over time leaving you to sacrifice manpower and wood to fix it. How siding helps I haven’t the slightest clue, I used to do home improvements and siding isn’t the most durable thing you could use, it would make more sense to use concrete and even when you get off the swampy island and move around to islands more like the first two, you still have to install siding. Why not the buildings? Why are the houses the only one vulnerable to the horrific living conditions of nine islands closely clumped together? With that rainy season coming I’m sure they’ll thank me for their new siding, they’ll now be invincible to any force of an angry god or whatever, if anything, they worship but anyway…

Each island is in its own scenery, there are lush forests, Egyptian style deserts, even a massive volcano. You’ll visit towns at the base of mountains carved with rivers; the game is just so colorful. You spend time on each island through a series of levels, puzzles really, the first one being to build 5 houses and to collect 1,500 gold via rent. Each island has a set number of levels for completion and trophies are earned when completing all missions with a gold star, not trophies like Sony’s version of achievements, legit trophies. You’ll also earn new ranks via the points awarded at the end of a puzzle which also turn into portraits to collect. This game mixes very slight humor, and wonderful puzzle solving in an RTS format. The problem solving will be simple to the point where it’s fun, to challenging and planning your route out before the timer starts, it strains the brain at times but once you get that golden star for finishing within the allotted time, it’s worth the extra points and trophies you can earn.

The buildings are quite varied and each will be needed to complete some sort of task, you won’t be using every single one all the time but you’ll definitely need a couple more often than not. The one staple building that is imperative to place is a house. You need a house; they create rent which your tax collectors gather, thus increasing your income. Also, upgrading the houses will increase rent deliciously, it requires quite a bit of wood depending on the house as well as manpower but it’s well worth it.
There are five different types of housing, from a basic cabin costing a mere 75 wood to build, second house comes a cottage with 150 wood required to build. The third house is a chalet, with 300 wood and two workers required for the building process. Villas are the fourth type you get with a heavy 600 wood requirement and the last is of course a mansion, this bad boy brings in the most rent (4,000 gold at 3 stars), requires 1,200 wood and three workers to build.

Another way to increase income is by building a market; Markets will place offers from time to time and give you 3 randomized choices either 10 wood for 500, 800, or 1,000 gold. Often you’ll have mixed offers, 10 wood for 500 gold, 20 for 800 gold or 40 for 1000 gold. Keep an eye out for the best deals and make sure you’re well stocked in wood, markets become VERY useful.

A good way to make sure you’re always stocked on wood is to build a saw mill, preferably away from homes as it will decrease happiness levels. For gold, you’ll send a worker to gather some wood which is, obviously, for building and repairing and the more gold you spend, the more wood you’ll gather.

Other buildings include a bank which will store money from rent and you can send a tax collector to withdraw the gold and bring it into your kingdom, this is very useful, especially when you have multiple houses to manage. The last building you get is probably the most useful in terms of resources, the workshop can transform smaller quantities into larger portions, 20 wood now becomes 200, 40 for 400. Also, when you demolish a building whilst a workshop is in the town, you’ll gain one half back of what the building cost was.

As the game progresses, your buildings automatically upgrade, requiring more resources/gold to build but putting out more wood than before. Banks will hold and withdraw more, workshops require more wood but put out greater quantities, sawmills will offer new bundle packs and markets will have greater prices to do business with. The best I’ve seen was 8,000 gold for 200 wood.

At a point in the game, when you finish the second island, you’ll get attacked by incredibly friendly pirates who ask that you rebuild their island as well and thus off you go. These pirates like a comfortable life so their introduction brings on a new feature, Happiness. You want to keep them happy for objection reasons, build markets and mills away from homes for peace and quiet, and give them gardens to increase happiness.

There are times, however, when gardens aren’t enough happiness, sometimes you’ll be tasked with gaining 80, 100, 300+ happiness and that’s when the small building plots come into play. These are designed to specifically add to your happiness level, they’re small decorations that require wood and include a flowerbed which for 50 wood increases happiness by 5, a lantern for 150 wood will increase happiness by 10. Flowers will increase happiness by 20 but will cost you 450 wood, a fountain for 1,500 wood increases happiness by 50 and the very costly statue coming in at a heavy 4,500 wood and increasing happiness by 100.

Introduced in the pirate level is one other little puzzle to add to your increasingly difficult job at fixing the island, bandits. These guys will stand in the path, preventing anything from getting done, until they are paid whatever amount they demand. Some just stand there, others will create big plumes of smoke to cover half the map and paying them off will reveal either buried treasure to dig up or more building plots. Other obstacles will include a broken bridge or a pile of branches that will need to be cleared. Many times when you’re resource dry at the beginning of a mission, they’ll be what appear to be almost gravestones lying about; this is actually buried treasure and could include random numbers of gold or wood.

This game is just beautiful; the colors are deep, rich and vast. The music is lively and perfect for the setting; the sounds are detailed from the sawing of the wood to hammering an anvil. Detail was taken into consideration when developing this game, birds fly about casting a shadow, and fishes jump from ponds, tools will shake in the workshop when a worker is banging on the anvil, the guards outside the bank will cross their halberds when your cursor hovers over. It’s a fantastically rich game; I was very surprised with the way it turned out.

The free trial is available now with the full game running at $19.99 which is well worth the money.

Matt Fitzgerald
US Correspondent

We’re all very excited for this years E3, many big titles are expected to be announced, footage of games we’ve been waiting since last E3 for, Playstation’s motion controller, Microsoft’s Natal, hopefully some news on the new Metal Gear game featuring Raiden.. anyway

Ubisoft has released a few titles they’ll be showing off this year, some of which includes the new Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, a new addition to the Driver series, we’ll be seeing more of the latest Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon title Future Soldier which looks promising. They’ll also be showing their introduction to the small skateboarding genre with Shaun White’s Skateboarding series. Because Shaun White’s Snowboarding sold so well…

They promised a few surprises were in store with new titles yet to be announced so stay tuned.  E3 begins June 15th through the 17th, What are you guys hoping to see this year?

sourced from G4

Matt Fitzgerald
US Correspondent

Dynamo Kid is brought to you by the folks over at OrangePixel and this game is a wholelottanuthin which is surprising because this is the same company that put out MiniPlane which wasn’t all that bad. There’s no story, no introduction of any sort, you just hit play and BAM—you’re off.  Off to what? Who knows, there’s no direction, just a straight forward—as basic as can be—platformer.

Your character runs automatically so there’s no slowing him down or stopping, what kept me playing was the world generates randomly so it’s kinda nice to play something slightly new each time you turn the game on.

A big star, two gaps, and a boulder. WHAT DO YOU DO?!

As you progress through the levels and earn more points, the black and white background will begin to fill in with color, that was a neat feature, probably the only appealing thing about the game. Essentially it’s a craptastic platformer where you’re playing just to color shit in. That’s what I gathered at least.

The controls are simple, drag your finger across the empty rocks to fill in for a base and keep running, you tap to jump and tap the enemies to knock them off the screen. There are small stars you’ll tap so they drop in front of you thus collecting them, also throughout the levels they’ll be a big star which you’ll do the same.

Slide your finger over the stars to drop them and collect.

Though the controls overall aren’t really responsive. Many times I would drag and tap my finger over the platforms just for them not to appear, or my character would run off the edge when I know I tapped to jump. It seems the same with enemies sometimes. You also can’t control your jump, in some instances there will be a floating platform waving back and forth and I have literally jumped over the platform because it moved behind me.

The sound, however, is horrible. The effects of everything just sound cheap and quickly thrown together.

There are achievements and leaderboards which you can have updated to your email address but I’d recommend not even buying this game so don’t worry about that, it’s nothing crazy anyways just your typical “yaay you beat your old highscore, HERE’S AN ACHIEVEMENT!” I swear, since XBOX360 made this whole achievement thing, everyone has been jumping on the bandwagon and making it really lame, yes achievements are cool I want to do crazy things and get rewarded for it but god damn stop making it because I defeated my old high score. I’M LOOKING AT YOU POCKET GOD! Anyway..

This game is easily passable, for them to charge $1.99 is a big ridiculous considering how you can purchase so much better for cheaper, Angry Birds anyone?

It’s recently been announced that Battlefield Bad Company 2 will be getting an update soon which brings in a four player co-op mode known as Onslaught.

“Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Onslaught mode can be played with up to four players across four multiplayer maps – Valparaiso, Atacama Desert, Isla Inocentes, and Nelson Bay – redesigned with new lighting, time of day, added vehicles and other effects. Each map has a dedicated gameplay focus, requiring different levels of teamwork in order to complete the objectives against an onslaught of enemy AI. Vehicle warfare comes to the forefront in Atacama Desert while Nelson Bay focuses squarely on infantry assault. Players can compete in squads and check individual progress via the dedicated Onslaught leaderboards.”

Onslaught Teaser Trailer

No release date has been announced yet, and it still remains unconfirmed if this update will be coming to the PC or not.  Full story here http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=468937

Matt Fitzgerald
US Correspondent

Yes! That’s right, Capcom recently announced a confirmation that a third title in this epic of crossover fighters is in the works.

The last iteration was released 10 years ago and is still praised today as being one of the greatest 2D fighters, and definitely the greatest crossover fighter, ever released. You can imagine how excited everyone must have been with this announcement.

Not much is really known at this point though rumors are starting to fly which characters will be starring in this one. As of now, we know Wolverine, Iron Man, & Incredible Hulk will be making a comeback for the Marvel side with Ryu (Street Fighter), Chris Redfield (Resident Evil), and Morrigan (Darkstalkers) will be returning for the Capcom side. Though these are confirmed, expect at least 30 characters coming to the game with some hinted being Captain America, Super Skrull, Chun-Li, Deadpool, Felicia, Dante or Nero, Spencer or Wesker, Mephisto, Rad Spencer and Doctor Doom.

It’s also been noted that over 100 songs will be in this game, which includes remixes from the first two MvC games. Being the first 3D title in this series, one would expect it’s safe to assume it will look the same as Street Fighter IV, but Capcom has stated that it will run on the same graphics engine as Resident Evil 5 and Lost Planet 2. In short, this game will kick ass and look beautiful. Capcom has also promised a deep and engaging storyline for the game.

You can check out the gorgeous trailer here

No DLC has been planned yet but we can hope to see this game by spring of 2011 on the XBOX360 and PS3 with no plans being made for an arcade or Wii release as of yet.

Matt Fitzgerald
US Correspondent

Hey guys, it’s Matt again. I know you haven’t seen anything from me in awhile so I decided to make a triumphant return by playing a god awful game.

What game? BLOOD BOWL! And holy shit is it terrible.

So what’s this game about? Well, it’s based off an old turn-based table top RPG involving Warhammer and American football.  Sounds exciting, yes?

Well no, it’s not.

So basically Blood Bowl is a fantasy football game taking place within its own Warhammer-related universe and created by Jervis Johnson for Games Workshop back in 1987. This is the second iteration of video games with the first being released for the MS-DOS computers back in 1995  and is filled with automatic dice rolling, lame commentary, and looping crowd cheers more annoying than Justin Bieber’s whiney little bitch voice.

It sucked in 1995, and it still sucks today. Just play the table top if you’re interested, but here we go…

There are two modes involved; “Classic Mode” which is replicated from the table top and uses all the rules and style of play from the 5th edition of the rulebook. Then there’s “Blitz Mode” which strays from the original and here you can buy equipment whilst in the middle of a campaign game or championship, and new tactics for use on the field.

I’d talk about the 0nline mode but I honestly preferred NOT to play with people who actually enjoy this game but you can rest assure there is localized multiplayer and leader boards.

The controls are wacky as hell. I have no idea what’s going on half the time. Mind you, I’m going into this with absolutely no knowledge of the table top game at all, as many will if you ever hate yourself enough to play this. I quite literally was attracted by its awful cover art and thought, “oh yeah, this game is going to be AWESOME!”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Your turn ends when one of your team mates is knocked down by the opposing team, or if you fumble the ball, or fail to pick it up.. or randomly trip whilst moving your character. Just like any table top RPG, you’ll be careful to move around an enemy for they’ll automatically attack you.

"This game SUUUUUCKS!"

The camera angles during the enemies turn switch between a far ground level views from the sideline which results in you not being able to see WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON to a decent, somewhat coherent view.

What the fuck is going on?!

The sound is horrific. Two characters talking as if they were actual commentators, I guess to try and add humor into the game like, “lulz, they’re just Orcs and shit and yet it’s feeling like this is a real game this is ingenious, the retards will love this.” or something. It’s terrible. The constant sound of dice rolling is enough to drive any sane man insane, and any insane man into a blind rage of fury with a thunderous thirst for blood resulting in mass killings at packed shopping malls. I honestly can’t play anymore of this game, but I must continue.

Maybe if I were as drunk as this Dwarf, the game would be more enjoyable.

The left and right triggers will shift through different set pieces before the kick-off, which none really seems to hold any use. Select button will ready your turn whether you’re done setting up manually or you’re done moving your players around. Its setup is like a grid typically from any other strategy game, move certain amount of spaces, but attacking seems to be a bit of a pain in the ass. I may not be the smartest of gamers, hell I did willingly play this, but I couldn’t figure out if you could deliberately attack or just had to wait until the computer was dumb enough to wander passed one of your players.

Graphically, the game doesn’t look as clean as it does in the screen shots which have obviously been polished up. The arenas are pretty cool though, I’ll give it that much. There’s some where it’s an open field, or in the courtyard of a giant kingdom.

I may look badass, but trust me, I'm not.

Let’s see what the competition mode holds, maybe a little run for the cup will be fun…

First match, Bieber Haters vs. Bugmans Best.

Bieber Haters lost the coin toss so Bugmans Best will be receiving the kick-off.

Ball is off!

Some shit is happening, players moving about with no sense of strategy or thought. Okay, Bugmans Best player ran up to one of my guys and punched him in the face, why, I don’t know.  My turn, let’s send some players up field shall we?

Well that was quick; my guy tripped over nothing resulting in him falling and me losing the rest of my turn. What the fuck is going on? I’m done. This is shit, as I’ve said so many times.

I can’t even think of anything funny to say about this game, it’s just that awful. If this was more like NFL Blitz with Warhammer characters, it would be ever so slightly more exciting but it’s a turn based game, based off a turn based table top.

Here’s an idea, PLAY THE TABLE TOP! Why on this god-forsaken planet would you make a game based off a table top RPG and have it play exactly the same? There’s no reason for it. This falls into what I’m constantly saying every time a new game is announced with a stupid fucking idea, “Just because you can does not mean you should.” SO STOP WITH THE IMAGINE SERIES, UBISOFT! But I digress.

This is shit; it’s a game of shit. I wouldn’t wish this game on my enemies as torture. I’d rather be water boarded than play five more minutes. I’d rather wash your Queen’s knickers in my mouth. If you’re into strategy, turn based, Warhammer or American football, stay far away from this game.  Do not waste your money on this shit.

Unless you’re a masochist, or retarded.

Horrible sound, control, design, it’s all crap. Plus, I think it gave me an ulcer.

1/5

(Please excuse my random ranting towards the end.)

This is pretty much your basic strategy game, you build, you destroy, you dominate.

There’s a nice, extensive campaign you can do, run a game against a computer or hop online to test your skills out against other players.

Resources aren’t like what you’re used to really, there aren’t trees you’ll be hacking up or mine deposits you’ll have little men slave over, and instead you’re presented with a hexagonal grid-based field which seems to be towering hundreds of feet above the clouds.

The controls are pretty simple, left analog controls the camera, and right analog or D-Pad will navigate your menu. Right trigger ends your turn and the left trigger changes the camera from either the default angle view or an overhead view which I find to be annoying and useless.

Each unit’s appearance will differ depending on which faction you use, even the tiles you take over will look different.  There are a total of four factions, Freeman, Empire, Cartel & Pirates.

At the beginning of each turn you’ll receive credits usually from your own Harvesters, and supporting funds. Supporting funds will increase as more lands disappear. You’ll use these credits to build Harvesters, Walkers, Carriers, Armories, and Cannons.

I’ll explain what each one of those do.

Your basic attacking troops are known as walkers, they vary in appearance depending on which faction you’re playing. Moving only three tiles within your controlled territory, you’ll be using these guys to further your control and to take over enemy tiles. You can move as many as sixteen Walkers onto one tile. If the enemy has four or five walkers and you want to take it over you’ll need that many plus some extra for reinforcements. Basically for every walker you have, it will destroy one of theirs—of course yours will be destroyed in the process. It just cancels itself out but leaving you the victor if you succeed with the correct amount.  Also, taking over an enemy tile gives you control of whatever emplacement they may have there, be it Harvesters, Armories or Cannons. It’s always fun to self destruct the Harvester for massive damage to the surrounding tiles.

Harvesters are your main source of income. They do exactly as they’re named; they harvest the resources which appear to be coins that you in turn use to buy things like more Harvesters! But with each turn the Harvester bleeds from the ground, the tile will crack and eventually diminish taking whatever is on it down plummeting. So, be wary of this. There’s a height meter you want to pay attention to, it’s basically a circle with up to six smaller circles around it. Once you move the cursor over a tile it will project a basic height meter, in other words tell you how many turns you can harvest before the tile is destroyed. To get the most out of each tile, you’ll naturally want to build your Harvester on a higher rated land.

Armories produce Walkers and Carriers. They can produce about eight walkers per turn and can’t be used until your next turn naturally. Carriers are used to transport Walkers from one tile to another further away; this is best for when you want to invade the enemy’s territories quickly or when the map is broken up. They can only be used once so plan carefully. Blitzkrieg!

Cannons are useful when you want to hack away at the enemies tiles, causing more destruction each turn as their Harvester does the same. You have to buy artillery rounds and they can’t be fired until your next turn, each cannon holds up to 9 rounds.

The music doesn’t constantly loop; you’ll have a few moments of silence before a nice little tune kicks in. Sort of sounds like some 1940s lounge music playing on a record. I feel like I’m sitting in a bar full of cigar smoke drinking some whiskey whilst a whore dances slowly to the tune on stage because her husband died in the war and she needs to make money and lost all self respect. Then I buy her a drink and she confines in me and I get her back to my place and—woah way off topic. Sorry.

The graphics have a nice comic, cartoon feel to everything and the units look gorgeous, I just wish there were more of a variety to them. That’s where this lost a point. I understand it’s just a small arcade game but I feel it would’ve been a better game strategy wise if they’ve given more than just five units to mess around with.

There’s a day/night system which is pretty freakin’ awesome, you’ll hear wild life and see birds flying over the map. They’ve done a wonderful job adding a sense of a world and depth into this game. I almost feel bad depleting the map of its land just for the sake of building up my own army but that’s the whole point of the game, resources are running dry and it’s a fight for survival. Seems sort of redundant, why can’t they just make peace and live together?! GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!

The game is now available on both the Playstation Network and XBOXLive Arcade.

4/5 Carry on.