Category Archives: Game Reviews
Fist Puncher Impressions: A Punch to the Face
Normally I review games but sometimes a game just beats me down so badly that I can’t get any further and just can’t compel myself to fight with the game any longer. So rather than call this look at indie brawler Fist Puncher a review, I’ll just call it impressions.
Fist Puncher is a game that likens itself to old-school 2D side-scrolling brawlers like River City Ransom. The similarities are clear in terms of the brawling gameplay and integration of RPG elements. However, Fist Puncher can be downright painful to play.
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Gunpoint Review: Spying Excellence
It’s not everyday that one single indie game, an indie game that’s the first effort of a former gaming journalist, causes the whole of the gaming press to pause and take notice. But that’s what we have with Gunpoint, the rookie effort of now-former PC Gamer writer Tom Francis. I say that he’s now a former PC Gamer writer because the commercial success of Gunpoint has given Francis the financial freedom to pursue game development full-time.
So could the debut effort of a man who hasn’t made a game before and put it together in off-the-shelf game making software be worthy of all the praise it received? Yes. Yes, it can.
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Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe Review: Jump and Gun
Before I got around to playing The Last of Us, I found a fun little sink published by one of new best friends of indie developers everywhere. Adult Swim Games’ move from the flash game market to publishing games on Steam was unexpected but their propensity for getting simple but fun games straight onto Steam without going through the hit-and-miss Greenlight system benefits both the developers and gamers.
Their second release on Steam is another upgrade of an Adult Swim flash game. Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe might be a bit of a misnomer but that doesn’t make Andrew Morrish’s creation any less delightful to play.
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Element4l Review: Slip Sliding Away
Sometimes, I need to play a game that’s on the calm side. As fun as driving cars at speeds approaching 200 MPH and shooting baddies with overpowered weapons is, I like to throw a quiet game into the rotation to mix things up. Lately, that’s been the oddly spelled but appropriately titled puzzle platformer Element4l.
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Star Trek: The Video Game (PS3) Review: He’s Dead, Jim
At this point, there is nothing I can say at add to the conversation about Star Trek: The Video Game. The consensus puts this games in with Aliens: Colonial Marines and The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct in a three-way race for the worst game of 2013. It’s a shame because I had high hopes for it considering that it was a Star Trek game developed by a pretty good Canadian developer.
Since nothing I can write will be a revelation when it comes to this game, I thought I’d take an in-depth look at everything good and bad in Star Trek and make it the most detailed review you can find of this game.
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Game Dev Tycoon Review: The Art of the Deal
Et Gamera Studios was in trouble. A number of recent sequels of previously popular IPs were struggling both with critics and on the shelves. Going from older platforms to new ones or from PC to console with their series just wasn’t working for them or their pocketbooks. Having gotten a high-interest loan and laid-off a third of their staff to keep the developer solvent, they went back to the well for another sequel to the franchise that had saved them twice before…
By now, you’ve probably heard of Game Dev Tycoon. Developer Greenheart Games made waves by releasing a “pirated” copy of the game that caused pirates’ businesses to fail due to piracy. Between the coverage from major gaming sites and personalities, their website was overloaded for most of Monday as a result. Their unorthodox strategy for dealing with pirates made their game a hit. But how is the game?
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Poker Night 2 Review: A Small Blind
I’ve never been very good at poker. I’m sure most of that is as a result of inconsistent betting patterns that made it hard to manipulate people and not being able to maintain a poker face but I’m going to blame the cards. Fortunately, I only had the cards to blame in Telltale Games’ Poker Night 2.
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Papo & Yo Review: A Game in a Metaphor
What make a video game a game? That’s a question that is being asked with increasing frequency. It’s also a question that one could ask about Papo & Yo. It’s a game with a story and a message hidden behind a metaphor but the actual “gameplay” is fairly thin. So does that mean it’s a game or a metaphor?
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Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves Review: Cold Blooded Action
For Canadian Gaming week, we’re looking at reviewing three games. Two will be indie efforts and one will be published by a major studio. We start our Canadian Gaming Week reviews, with the indies. It’s a recently released game from new Quebec-based developer that touches on early Canadian culture and throws it into a game that hits three different genres.
I’ve never been interested in tower defence games but I’m willing to give one a try if it’s from a Canadian developer so rookie dev Artiface Studio was able to take my $15 based on my Canadian pride. By the end, I’d say that Artiface’s Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves certainly earned it.
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The Organ Trail Review: Better than The Walking Dead Finale
I should have written this review before I saw the season finale of The Walking Dead. You spend the majority of the season building up this inevitable confrontation between Rick and the Governor, the prison and Woodbury. What we end up getting is just an awful pay-off that doesn’t make sense. Presumably, this was Glen Mazzara’s revenge for getting fired.
And that brings me to the Organ Trail. No, not The Oregon Trail. The Organ Trail is an homage to the classic Oregon Trail and the zombie survival genre of movies that sees you try to traverse from Washington, D.C., to a safe zone on the west coast while fighting zombies, eluding bandits and just trying to make it in one piece.
et geekera 