Review: Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge Special Edition

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge — Special Edition
Developer: LucasArts
Price: 800 MSP/$9.99
Platform: Xbox Live Arcade/PlayStation Network

When I was a young boy, my mother made me watch Forest Gump. That day, I remember Gump’s mother telling him never to tell a lie (or was that Pinocchio?). Well today, I am going to open this review by following Momma Gump’s advice by being completely honest. I have never played a Monkey Island game for more than an hour, nor have I ever liked, cared for, or thought about any adventure game other than Shenmue. What’s worse? The only time I did play an entry of the Monkey Island franchise, it was Escape From Monkey Island (the only one not made by my hero, Tim Schafer) on a bet with our (former?) review editor Andy Jackson. Short story: I lost. Will this rebirth be the one to sway me into the adventure game crowd? … Continue Reading

PixelJunk Shooter Review

PixelJunk Shooter
Developer: Q-Games
Price: $9.99
Platform: PS3

Q-Games is known for making surprisingly simple yet addictive games on the PSN and their latest entry in their PixelJunk series is their grandest adventure so far. The game takes influence from old shoot’em ups and there’s not much to the story except you’re a ship onboard the ERS Pina Colada and a distress beacon has gone off in the planet your colony is mining for resources. Your job is to get down there and straighten things out the only way you know: With lots of missiles. … Continue Reading

Microtastic Reviews: Zombie Edition

Plants vs Zombies
Developer: Popcap Games
Price: $3 Dollars
Platform: iPhone
Genre: Tower Defense

There is something delightful about the charming simplicity of Popcap’s titles, and Plants vs Zombies continues this legacy. Much like Peggle and any of its past franchises, Plants vs Zombies takes a single round to comprehend all of its basic rules. Though it never becomes difficult to progress, there is always a continued sense of mystery due to the constant experimentation that it asks of the user. It differentiates itself from most tower defense games, by relying on the constant variation of enemy (ie Zombies) and weapon (ie Plants) types. The player is rewarded with a new armament after each round but the structure of the game never forces the player to adapt to a certain play style. Include this with an attractive art style and practical iphone controls, making the 3 dollar price tag much too easy to swallow. … Continue Reading

Matt Hazard: Blood Bath & Beyond Review

The original Matt Hazard had the potential to be a great game, good voice work with the likes of Neil Patrick Harris and Will Arnett. A brilliant backstory and marketing campaign which broke the fourth wall entirely, and the story while thin was entertaining and amusing. The sole problem came in the gameplay department which ultimately almost ruined the game, frustrating controls made the game annoying hard on a normal difficultly even with frighteningly dumb AI. Now comes another in the series titled Blood Bath & Beyond a 2.5D based shooter. Is it Hazard’s Time? … Continue Reading

.detuned Review (Can I Call it That?)

So the PlayStation Network has had a demoscene before, it was called Linger in Shadows. Aforementioned demo, was actually entertaining, and had some real potential for future demoscenes.

That potential, a year later has hit bottom with .detuned‘s release. At least the way I see it. At first I thought, “Hey, this’ll be cool if it’s like Linger in Shadows.” So I buy it, upon playing it, I notice that you are in “Demo” mode. Just some random animation of a guy sitting in a chair getting distorted to the beat, maybe getting up, just to sit back down.

You can of course skip it by pressing Square and entering interactive mode. Or watch it out, if you do, you can get a feel for what to expect in the interactive mode. It’s kinda cool, makes you think what you can do to the guy, and then watch it.

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Namco Museum Essentials Review

Games like Pacman, Galaga, Xevious, Dig Dug and Dragon Spirit have been with us since the 1980′s, why would one want to forget the good ol’ days spending quarters in the arcade cabinets? Rushing to beat the final stage before having to leave. … Continue Reading

Burn, Zombie, Burn! Review

You play Bruce, an Ash from Evil Dead lookalike and you have one goal: To protect your girlfriend Daisy and kick some zombie ass. In BZB! you play with a set amount of lives with an endless wave of zombies that come shuffling to feast on your delicious brain. As you can conclude from the name of the game the idea is to burn them all. This has an interesting mechanic since the zombies will drop different things when killed if they are burned or not. You also have to be extremely careful since burning zombies are stronger, faster, but they also add to the score multiplier so it’s necessary to set them on fire if you want that high score. Burning zombies will also spread the fire to any of zombies they come in contact with. The game also includes 2-player local co-op, but for some reason no online which would have been perfect for this game.
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Noby Noby Boy Review

From the creator of Katamari Damacy comes Noby Noby Boy. For once I can’t think of a witty thing to say about this game since it just speaks for itself, so I’d recommend reading the review itself.

Noby Noby Boy is a game without any goals or missions. You play as BOY and are thrown into the world to stretch. That’s it. Don’t try to find any deep meaning behind this game because there isn’t one. If there is a goal to this it would be to stretch as far as you can, but more on that later.
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