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Bookworm Adventures 2 coming July 30th

Just about every game PopCap has released has proven to be highly addicting and Bookworm Adventures is no exception, if you’re into that kind of thing, that is.

Anyways, fans of the abovementioned title will be happy to hear that PopCap will be releasing Bookworm Adventures 2 on July 30th for $19.99.

This is one of those world puzzlers so those who like to use the smallest portion of their brain as possible while gaming need not apply.

Kororinpa Marble Mania Game Review–What Won’t They Make A Game Of?

It seems like most every time I pick up a Wii game these days I wind up getting slightly freaked out about the whole thing and trying desperately to pin down where the hell the logic is in these things any more.  I’ve seen them make some truly baffling games so far, and frankly, the weirdness only continues.

Today I venture into the depths of Kororinpa Marble Mania for the Nintendo Wii, a game that left me asking the question, is anything so simple and mundane that they WON’T translate it into a Wii game?  I’ve played Wii games around cooking and cleaning and washing things…it’s like there’s no activity so pedestrian that Nintendo or one of its many tentacles (Hudson, I’m looking RIGHT AT YOU) won’t convert it to a game.  I’m eagerly awaiting Super Mario Scratch Your Own Ass, or perhaps Donkey Kong’s Throw Your Feces At Passersby.

Kororinpa Marble Mania, for example, is a game that revolves around rolling a marble down a series of passageways until you manage to roll the ball into a hole marking the end of the course.  Along the way, you’ll be required to roll your marble over red crystals and challenged to roll your marble over green crystals, thus adding a bit of admittedly rather tedious and pointless challenge to your marble rolling agenda.  You’ll roll over a variety of different courses, including courses with walls, courses without walls, courses with slopes and steps and even some traps.  You don’t want to try rolling your marble through honey.  It’s just not pleasant.

I admit that, on certain levels, Kororinpa Marble Mania is actually a mildly fun sort of puzzle chill game that doesn’t require you to do a whole lot, nor does it ratchet your adrenaline levels through the roof.  The best word, for example, to describe the background music is “soothing”.  Indeed, when it’s just you and your marble and rails on the track, the game is downright relaxing.  Take off the rails, however, and things can get a little dicey.  This is really only a problem, of course, because the Wii controls are not well suited to this one.  See, rather than, for example, holding your Wiimote in the eight-bit-game format, or using the nunchuk’s joystick, you’re going to do your track manipulation by pointing your Wiimote straight at the screen, remote control style, and then twisting it from side to side.  Setting up the controls in this way requires you to twist your wrist left and right to twist the controls, and any kind of fine movement in that fashion is pretty much impossible.  This means that you’ll essentially be rolling your marble around by sheer brute force, which is all fine and well if rails are in place, otherwise, it’s an open invitation to repeated failure.

I admit that I liked the idea behind Kororinpa Marble Mania, and enjoyed the game to a certain extent.  However, some very serious flaws in execution kept this game from being all that it truly could have been.  A few minor tweaks would’ve served this one well, and hopefully, the next installment will learn from its mistakes.

Boom Blox Bash Party Game Review–Throw Stuff At Stuff Is More Fun Than It Sounds

Well, congratulate me, folks—I’ve finally managed to lay hands on a Wii, one of those devilishly hard to find little systems with the massive array of games.  And what do I manage to get for it first?  One of the newest games out for it, Boom Blox Bash Party.

I’m discovering right away that Wii games are significantly harder to discuss than, say, Xbox 360 games because Wii games don’t seem to like things like plot.  So I can’t really do a recap on that, and that’s the case with Boom Blox Bash Party.  In fact, for a game developed by Steven Spielberg, you’d think it’d have more of an actual plotline to it, but no.  Basically, in Boom Blox Bash Party, you throw things.  At other things.  And repeat until a whole bunch of things have been knocked down or blown up or you’ve run out of chances to throw things at other things.  Yeah, I know, simplistic doesn’t even begin to describe it.

But here’s where things get weird.  Inside this tiny little framework of a game (throw stuff at stuff, repeat until out of stuff one way or another), they’ve jam-packed it with things to do.  You’ll throw things to try and knock down a huge tower.  You’ll throw things to try and disassemble a fort made out of what looks like wood blocks.  You’ll throw things to destroy a robot or hunt sunken pirate treasure.  You’ll throw things to make certain kinds of blocks disappear or explode or spread a kind of virus to other blocks and make THEM disappear.  You’ll screw around with turning blocks colors and moving blocks and throwing stuff at blocks and even using a kind of slingshot to shoot other blocks at each other.  You’ll play with ramps and drops and chain reactions.  Gravity will be both your friend and your enemy.  At some points, you will get to work a cannon.

You will search for weak points and the best shot and any of a dozen other things that make me wish I’d taken better notes in my high school physics classes, and I got an A in high school physics!

I found myself absolutely baffled.  How is this simplistic little game managing to serve up this much variety and be this downright entertaining besides?   It’s utterly beyond my capacity to explain, but one thing was clear—I had a LOT of fun playing this game.  In fact, it was hard to stop playing this game long enough to write a review about it.  My elbow is still just a bit sore from all the throwing.

There’s a lot to like about this game, whether you want to explore everything it has to offer (completionists be forewarned—this game WILL consume your life if you let it) or you just want some quiet time spent throwing stuff at stuff without a lot of cleanup time or losing your damage deposit afterward.  Boom Blox Bash Party is great and unfettered fun, the kind of fun that gaming used to be.  It’s definitely not the kind of game you’re used to, and in this market, that’s a HUGE plus.

Mothballz Game Review–Don’t Try This At Home, Kids

Have you ever considered the difficulties involved with trying to kill moths…with a cannon?

I know, that got me too the first time I heard about recent addition to the Xbox Live community MothBallz–a game that requires you to do as I just said–kill moths with a cannon.  You’ll set the angle and the power level, then fire into the open room trying to kill the moths swarming around the light bulbs in the room…and do so without breaking the light bulbs.

This sounds a lot easier than it actually is, especially when you start getting multiple light bulbs involved, but sometimes you’ll actually be required to kill the light bulbs along with the moths.  This isn’t the kind of thing you see very often–I haven’t played a good round of bug killing since Stephen King’s F13.  And even better, you can enjoy all this bug killing frenzy for a measly two hundred Microsoft points.  You can almost hit the dollar menu for that kind of value.

It’s a fun little game, really, and at that kind of price, there’s almost no reason to NOT get it.

Puzzle Arcade Game Review–The Strangest Game You’ll Ever Love

You’d never think that jigsaw puzzles could make for good console gaming, but the sheer fact that Puzzle Arcade exists on Xbox Live Arcade is all the proof anyone could need.  And you too can experience this proof for eight hundred Microsoft points.

Basically, I’ve already given you the plot–you’ll have a series of jigsaw puzzles to assemble all on your TV screen using your Xbox 360 controller, a concept that I had thought would be boring but turns out to be at least somewhat entertaining.  Between that and the music, it’s one of those excellent kind of “chill games” that you can sit down to with a hot cup of tea after a long day and just unwind with, slapping puzzles together, and without having to keep a whole bunch of cardboard boxes in your hall closet and find some decent smooth jazz.

It’s a very niche title, and definitely not for everybody, but if you can appreciate a game that’ll calm you down just as much as it’ll pick you up, then you’ll definitely enjoy a round of Puzzle Arcade.

Peggle Game Review–Happy To See You Win!

I’ve talked about a lot of Xbox Live Arcade titles, and I have to admit, out of all the titles I’ve tried so far, I’ve never met one that was so enthusiastic about you winning as Peggle.

A strange sort of action / puzzle hybrid, which, frankly, I love playing, Peggle features you shooting balls at pegs in an attempt to clear a board of orange-colored pegs.  You’ll be able to hit green colored pegs for powerups like guide lines and the ability to light up surrounding pegs, and purple pegs will give you a score bonus.

Completing a level will allow your ball to continue moving, and any other pegs it hits will add to a score multiplier before your ball falls into one of five holes with different value scores.  When your ball finally DOES come to a stop, a cascade of fireworks will burst into life.  All of this is done to the tune of “Ode to Joy”.

See what I mean?  It’s a really over the top victory celebration.  Not that I’m not glad for it, mind you–I had a lot of fun solving this action packed puzzler–but still, if you like your games understated and subtle you won’t like this at all.  Meanwhile, I loved it, and I’ll recommend it freely to anyone else who wants to try.

Puzzle Quest Galactrix Game Review–An Awesome Genre-Bender

One of the best puzzle games I’ve had the pleasure of playing recently is Puzzle Quest: Galactrix.  A beautiful three-way hybrid of RPG, action and puzzle, it’s got a great storyline and the kind of gameplay that keeps me coming back.

You’ll play a pilot in the service of a megacorporation that helped redeem earth from catastrophe and expanded outward into the stars.  Along the way you’ll battle pirates, mine asteroids, redeem bases from the grips of their automated defense systems and plenty more besides.  The galaxy is a pretty big place, and so, there’s plenty to do.

I love how they combined so many elements that probably shouldn’t have anything to do with each other and brought them together into a massive, beautiful whole.  This game is hours of fun, and all for sixteen hundred Microsoft points.  Try this sucker out–you won’t be disappointed!

Dungeon Raiders Bringing Team Puzzling To DS

The formula behind this game isn’t exactly new; you have a trio of characters all with different abilities that you must use in conjunction to overcome puzzles, defeat enemies and achieve your ultimate goal. Fortunately, it’s an extremely FUN formula that hearkens back to cult classics like The Lost Vikings and Gobliiins. Cyanide and Focus Home Interactive are announcing Dungeon Raiders, a DS title that promises to use all the functions of the DS on your wacky journey.

You’ll play a trio of adventurers, Glandalf (that’s right folks, he’s a wizard), bumbling thief Luigi and Extermino, the beefy executioner. You’ll have to outwit puzzles using the team’s abilities including a plethora of spells. The game has a definitely humorous twist, though the nature of some of the spells (Toilet Plunger and Speed Far) suggest a slightly more juvenile tone to the humor to match the cartoonish style.

The game will be primarily touch screen controlled with the top screen being used to display a map. Unfortunately the press release says that using the microphone will be essential in activating certain mechanisms, which can be an awkward prospect depending on how you use it. Blowing into the microphone on a crowded train or bus is fine, but having to talk to it is quite embarrassing. The game is currently set for release this summer.

Meteos Wars Game Review–Action Packed Puzzle Fun

So I found a new game on Xbox Live Arcade and discovered that puzzle games can have action too.  What kind of game could yield such a combination, you wonder?  It’s called Meteos Wars, and it’s avaiable on Live Arcade for the relatively low price of eight hundred Microsoft points.

You play one of several different alien races, engaging in a war to end the world-destroying Meteos.  If they stack up too high, you see, they’ll destroy your planet.  But, if you arrange them in groups of three, vertically or horizontally, you’ll launch them directly upward and, hopefully, off your planet.  You’ll also pass the danger on to your neighboring planet, who will thusly become more likely to be destroyed by the meteos.

The result is a surprisingly fun and fast-paced puzzle game with plenty of action.  The gameplay is smooth and almost completely intuitive–I managed to play the game for one round without even reading the instruction manual.  We need more interesting, original games like this, and I’m glad they can even be found in the first place.

Electric Box Game Review–Drunken Engineers’ Dares

A devious little puzzler comes to us by way of Kongregate Games today, and you can take a run at it yourself right here–it’s called Electric Box,and if you ever wanted a good electrical engineering sim, well, you’ve got it right here, man.  Boy, do you ever.

You’re given a variety of parts–water wheels, light bulbs, solar panels, batteries, laser generators, and so on–to move power from one device to another.  Now, you might think–all I really need is some wires and that’ll let me run power no problem.  Oh no…it’s never that simple.  For some reason, everyone’s detached wires, leaving piles of them everywhere that you can’t move.  I’m guessing this is like some drunken engineer challenge or something, leaving you to try and route power around corners and past blockages and everywhere in between.

Two things become clear right away. This game is hard, and this game is pretty fun.  If you do any tinkering with machines in your spare time, or you’ve always wanted to but seem to have thumbs implanted where your fingers should be, then you might well get a kick out of transferring power from one point to another.  But if you’re not into engineering, then this isn’t one for you.

Solve Puzzle Games with Pencil and Paper… and Webcam

Mightier from Ratloop on Vimeo.
The concept game in the picture here is simply mind boggling! It doesn’t need fancy hardware components and it’s not very complicated to solve either. Mightier is a puzzle game. You print the gridded-out sheets with objectives on it and then you start drawing the solution. When you’re done your webcam will scan the image and insert it int o the game. Then you will fly around with your jetpack to complete the puzzle. If the solution fails to work, simply draw another one.

The game is free for now but it’s available only to Windows users. Is this the future of gaming? Ready to give it a try?

via tigsource