Today's Review: The New Operation

 

Operation is a classic game. As soon as you see the iconic patient laid out on the bed, random objects placed in gaping orificies, you just know that you want to avoid setting off the buzzer on his nose. Since it's such a classic, we decided to buy it for someone at Christmas. All was well, until we decided to play it this evening, and found out that this game is a shadow of its former self.

You see, the original Operation, which I have, contains cards and money. I'm not exactly sure of the rules, but the cards help change up the game and make it so anyone can win. The pieces are pretty difficult to extract too, making for an overall challenging board game.

This version of Operation takes a dump all over it. There are no cards, no money, just the board and the pieces. You take it in turns, starting with the youngest player, to remove a piece of your choice. The person at the end with the most pieces wins. That's all. We played with a 3 and 6 year old, and the game was over in less than 10 minutes. The pieces are ridiculously easy to take out, and there's nothing to stop the turns going in a complete circle until the game sputters to a halt in a tiny amount of time.

I get what they're doing with this version. The box says 4+, and it's certainly simple enough for my kids to understand. But this is so ridiculously dumbed down I'm sure even a monkey could do it. But hey, maybe that's the new target demographic.

My rating: 1/5

Today's Review: Cookie Clicker

I seem to have exhausted my snack supplies, which is probably a good thing for my diet, and perhaps a good opportunity to put a bit of variety back into my reviews. So instead of reviewing cookies, I thought I'd review a game about cookies. It's Cooke Clicker, a browser game by Orteil.

The premise of the game is explained in the little dialogue box up top. You feel like making cookies. Conveniently, you are also provided with a cookie to click on, and doing so makes a cookie. You are now on your way. Your cookie clicker experience has begun.

At the beginning of the game, one click on the cookie produces one cookie. Simple enough, but it's not exactly the most efficient way to make cookies. You'll probably need some help. Thankfully, after you've made a few cookies, you can use said cookies as currency to buy some automated cursors that will click on the cookie for you every few seconds. It doesn't sound particularly efficient, but at least you're getting more cookies than before. Also, you start to get little updates on how your fledgling cookie business is going. Here, my family has tried some of my cookies. Yay, things are going well. But more help would be appreciated.

Once you reach the 100 cookie mark, you can hire a little old grandma. Grandmas make good cookies, obviously, and this one will bake one every two seconds for you. What a nice old lady. If you like, you can purchase more grandmas, or more cursors, or you can even use your cookies to purchase upgrades to make your grandmas and cursors more efficient at making cookies, thus increasing you CpS (Cookies per Second). So there we have it, the basics behind Cookie Clicker, a fun little game that gives you a little taste of the cookie making business. At least, that's how it started... I'm not sure how I got here:

You see, there comes a point where a few grandmas aren't quite providing you with enough cookies. At this point you can buy a cookie farm, that grows cookies for you at a much greater rate than grandma can bake them. Still not enough? Why not a cookie factory? Or a mine? Or even an antimatter condenser that condenses the fabric of the universe into precious cookies? As you can probably tell, things escalate quite quickly with this game. As you buy more cookie producing equipment, and upgrade said equipment, the amount of cookies it costs to upgrade more goes up. 

Enough upgrades? There are never enough upgrades

After a while, you don't even have to click on the cookie anymore, you have hundreds of cursors doing it for you, producing about a million cookies per second, not to mention all your grandmas, factories, mines and whatnot producing even more. But even with millions of cookies, you still won't have enough for the top level upgrades, and therein lies the horrible, addictive element of Cookie Clicker. It employs evil game design to keep you clicking. There are upgrades to buy, achievements to unlock, all which help you make more cookies per second, but which require the fruits of many seconds worth of cookie making. You can leave the counter running, accruing millions or billions of cookies while you're out or asleep, but it's always tempting to just click on that cookie yourself as many times as you can, so you can earn more cookies, so you can buy buildings to earn more cookies, so you can buy upgrades to earn more cookies. 

It's a vicious circle, but the situation quickly becomes out of control. The ticker at the top goes from informing you how your home town has started liking your cookies, to highlighting the working conditions of your cookie mines and factories, to eventually warning you that the entire known universe is now full of cookies. I've had my Cookie Clicker game running for a day now, and I have gone from my humble one cookie per click beginnings to some kind of tyrannical galactic cookie emperor earning 385m cookies per second. I'm not even anywhere near finishing. 

Every question mark is like a hole in my soul

Cookie Clicker is a game that highlights the utter ridiculousness of all these addictive internet games. Whether it be Farmville or Candy Crush, there are a bunch of gamers sitting around doing repetitive things, and then waiting for increased periods of time in order to do more expensive or difficult repetitive things. Cookie Clicker knows how to keep you hooked, and it's shameless in doing so. I know how ridiculous it is that I've been playing it for so long, but I really can't stop. Not when that next upgrade is so close. Only several hundred billion more cookies to go...

I may sound like a babbling idiot, spouting nonsense about cookies per second, antimatter and grandmas, but this truly is a well designed game, that whilst infuriating at times, is completely addictive. It has a great interface filled with weird and wonderful objects and features, and it's being updated all the time. Reading this review probably doesn't do it justice, the only way to truly experience Cookie Clicker is to play it yourself. Just don't blame me when it takes over your life...

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: The Weetos Moustache Combat Game

While pouring my kids their cereal, and lamenting the unexplained disappearance of Professor Weeto, I noticed that instead the cereal wants me to play this fancy new "Moustache Combat" game on their website. I say noticed, but the box tells you to play on every single side but the bottom. But hell, I figured I'd give it a go, what's the worst that could happen, apart from losing an undetermined amount of time on a shitty flash game?

So here it is, Weetos Moustache Combat. The very premise of this game was somewhat baffling to me.
I have no idea what Weetos have to do with moustaches, now was there any explanation as to why these moustaches need to be dealt with in combat. I tried viewing the attached TV ad, but all that seems to tell me is I should be carrying around surplus portions of Weetos in random containers, so that I can eat them, without milk, at regular intervals, to give me the strength to fend off attacks from rogue disembodied moustaches. Man, school has gotten a lot tougher since I was a kid.

Anyway, onto the game. You play as that generic kid up there, and your goal is to kick and punch the shit out of moustaches, and somehow that will make you want to eat Weetos.

This picture just screams "nutritious breakfast"

It's basically Mortal Kombat for kids. Your standard fighting style game. A punches, S kicks, D blocks, and there are some rudimentary combos for you to pull off, but really you can just win by kicking all the time, because most of these moustaches are too small to be affected by your high punches. I say Mortal Kombat because during the final KO of each moustache the screen says "Finish Him", and prompts you to enter a string of arrows and letters. The result is a lacklustre flurry of punches and kicks, and you gain nothing from it, but I suppose it's a nice touch.

Here's the roster of hairy opponents. They start off pretty easy, even the Dhal Sim-esque Jean Pa'Pow didn't pose much of a threat. But by the time you get to the Chinese style Black Dragon 'tache things get a little tricky. The real challenge is the final opponent, Red. This moustache is a massive, lumbering bastard who will decimate you in seconds if you're not good at blocking and jumping around.

Even Nessie is impressed

It actually took me a good few tries to finally beat this guy, and it was mostly accomplished by jumping all the time and getting cheap kicks in where I could. Thankfully, if you land enough hits and survive for long enough, a Weeto materialises in the top left, and once it's complete you can press W to restore your health. A cheap mechanic, but at least they're being consistent with their nonsensical TV ad.

After spending a good quarter of an hour kicking the crap out of moustaches, I have to say it's not a bad little game. The visuals and music are quite nice, and it poses a little bit of a challenge. I just don't understand why this game exists. It does little to promote the tastiness of the cereal, which is a selling point in its own right. I guess I'm out of touch with the kids these days, and these marketing people know what they're doing. Or maybe I just long for Professor Weeto.

My rating: 3/5

Today's Review: Bioshock Infinite

I may be a little late to the party on this one, indeed I finished this game last week, but with so many reviews praising this game to such a great extent, I thought I'd throw in my two cents and say that yeah, they're right.

One of the first games I played on my XBox 360 (and one of the first in HD) was the original Bioshock. It's an incredibly immersive and spooky game, with some great gameplay mechanics and a story and soundtrack that blew anything else I'd played recently out of the water. It is widely regarded as one of the best games in recent years, and while the sequel was still good, it was pretty much more of the same game. Bioshock Infinite, in the years it was in development, had an awful lot to live up to.

Infinite sees you play as Booker DeWitt, a man who is down on his luck until he is approached with an offer to wipe away his large debt by visiting the city of Columbia and brining back a girl. Unfortunately, the Columbia is a floating city, above the clouds, run by a man proclaiming himself a prophet, who has locked the girl you are after in a well protected tower. But, not one to turn down a challenge, Booker presses on. While the city seems perfectly pleasant at first, it doesn't take long for Booker to be identified and exposed to the dark side of Columbia, and thrust on a violent and mind-bending adventure.

Bioshock Infinite follows the basic mechanics of its predecessors. You are transported to a fantastic city that incomprehensibly exists somewhere a city should not, given strange powers to fling from your left hand while shooting from your right, and guided through several areas to reach your endgame, only to be hindered somewhat along the way. So yes, this is clearly a Bioshock game, but it really is set apart from the previous instalments.

The most striking difference is in the setting. Yes, clearly Bioshock Infinite is set in the sky while the first was set under the ocean, but Bioshock revelled in its run down, abandoned atmosphere, thrusting crazed, drug addled lunatics at you to attack with wrenches, while making sure you never came into contact with a friendly human being throughout the whole adventure. But Infinite goes for a different approach, letting you wander throughout the beautiful city through several long gameplay segments, letting you eavesdrop on the residents' conversations, see people go about their daily business, even the combat is well populated and a lot more intense than before. These differences could well have been a downfall for Bioshock Infinite, but they are executed so well that it makes the whole experience a lot better than the original.

Of course, what would the setting be without a story to go with it? Infinite doesn't exactly lead you by the hand narrative wise. You start out knowing just as much as Booker, pretty much nothing, and while you figure out the main plot points by playing through the game, and becoming exposed to the more corrupt, racially pure aspects of the city, exploration really helps to uncover a lot of the points you may miss just blazing through. Conversations between white citizens and black menial workers really add layers to the racial inequality that keeps the city going. You visit the most affluent areas of the city, and the most run down, to really see how the two sides live. Propaganda lines the walls, and the audio logs from Bioshock make a return as well, which provide deep insights into certain aspects of the city, and explain a lot of the questions you may have while playing. This game simply immerses you in the story and atmosphere of Columbia, forcing you to really pay attention to everything, seek out every last bit of information you can to get an idea of what is happening in the city.

But that's just the stuff you can explore and find during regular play. The actual main plot is riveting as well. As you rescue and try to escape with the girl in the tower, Elizabeth, you become a target for Comstock, the prophet in charge of the city, forcing you to battle your way through his legions of men, becoming embroiled in a revolution that has been brewing long before you arrival. While the plot regularly allows you to explore for a little while, you're never far off from the next part of the story, and it's definitely interesting and varied enough to keep you going until the conclusion. While you may feel somewhat confused about what's going on towards the end of the game, I assure you that everything is explained in one of the best endings I've probably ever seen, one that kept me thinking for days afterwards and has rewarded me with my understanding of certain things on my second play through.

So yes, great story, great setting, what about the gameplay? In essence, Bioshock Infinite is a shooter, with a few RPG elements thrown in. You can upgrade your powers and weapons, equip gear you find to attain certain perks, but you must choose wisely as to which powers and weapons you'll use the most to clear the waves of enemies. These range from foot soldiers, to RPG wielding guys, to the "heavy hitter" enemies like the chain gun wielding motorised Patriot robots with faces of the founding father of America, or the terrifying Handyman, a man in a huge, clunking mechanical suit that will hunt you down and make short work of you. Regular combat with the smaller guys is normally intense enough as the flank you and wear you down, but when the heavy hitters come out things get a lot more intense and creepy, at time more so than the first Bioshock.

Thankfully there is a wide variety of weapons and powers, or vigors, to help you obliterate everyone. You can pick enemies off from afar with a sniper rifle or carbine, or go in for the kill with shotguns or chain guns. You can also use vigors to throw fiery grenades, send out a murder of crows to swarm groups of enemies, or throw them up in the air. Best of all, you can combine some of these vigors for a greater effect, like setting your crows on fire. One of the best weapons, though, is the skyhook. Introduced as a melee weapon  attached to your hand that will decimate anyone's face, you are soon introduced to rails that allow you to ride along like you're on a roller coaster, picking off enemies from above or leaping on top of them with a devastating attack. Taking too much damage? Just hop on a rail and escape, only to come back again at full force, launching rockets from above. The skyhook provides a lot of fun and variation in an already packed combat system.

You also have Elizabeth with you most of the time, and Elizabeth is probably the most helpful sidekick in gaming history. While most rescue mission result in you having to escort a frail woman out of an area riddled with bad guys, in which she keeps wandering into the line of fire, right off the bat this game tells you that you don't have to worry about Elizabeth, she can take care of herself. The relief I got from reading that was immense. But not only can Elizabeth take care of herself, she helps you out a hell of a lot too. If you die, she will revive you. If you're looking through trash cans and boxes for money to spend, she'll normally find some money and throw it to you. Even in the heat of battle she will manage to dig up ammo, health packs, even salts to replenish your vigors, when you need them the most. Without Elizabeth by my side, I wouldn't have made it through some of the tougher battles. But apart from being a great sidekick, she is also a fantastic character. She reacts to everything, be it major plot revelations to the smell of a bathroom, and her personality really develops over the course of the game, and by the end I really cared for her. In part because she wasn't dying every five minutes, but mostly because she is a wonderfully fleshed out character that lends herself to this amazing story.

I think it's pretty clear that I enjoyed this game a lot. The city of Columbia is a truly mesmerising place to explore. It's beautiful, dangerous, and totally immersive, populated with fantastically developed characters that take part in a fantastic narrative that in the end even wins out over Bioshock's. Once I was finished I just wanted to play through again to really understand every little aspect of the game, and while combat did get a little stale towards the end of my first play through, I have been switching up my techniques the second time around to keep things a lot more fresh. Bioshock Infinite has succeeded in its highly difficult task. It's a sequel that surpasses its predecessor in every way with its differences, similarities and all, and it's the best game I've played in a long while.

My rating: 5/5

Today's Review: Lego The Lord Of The Rings

When will these Lego games end? Never, apparently, but why would we want them to? The Lego games, despite being quite similar in execution, have been a constant force in casual block smashing, stud collecting, franchise cashing-in fun. There's not one I've played that I haven't enjoyed, and Lego The Lord Of The Rings is no exception.

The game, obviously, follows the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, with the fairly well established six story levels per film. The game does a pretty good job of covering most of the main events during the trilogy, covering both the epic battle scenes and the quieter sneaky bits, such as the hobbits escaping the black riders near the beginning, or creeping around with Gollum later on. There are even levels where you can switch between two sets of characters doing different things, which may eventually join up once progress is made and puzzles are solved. Each level is a fair length, and while some are more drawn out than others, it never feels boring. As with the other Lego games, everything you smash and build along the way unleashes a cascade of Lego studs that can be used as currency, and it never gets boring smashing up everything in sight.

Of course, in the true Lego game spirit, even once the story has been played through, you're not even half done. Each level has a Free Play mode, in which you can go back and uncover secrets that you couldn't get the first time round due to the limitations of the given characters. With over 80 characters that you can unlock, it's fair to say that there's a sizeable selection, and Lego The Lord Of The Rings has a new character selection mode that lets you choose from any character at any time in order to solve different puzzles or use different items. Perhaps one of the best new features is the introduction of an inventory. This lets you hold several items that you may be collecting for a puzzle at once, but also lets you access the treasure trove, a chest containing items you have forged that bestow the abilities once reserved for a single character onto anyone who holds it. This sometimes makes solving puzzles a lot simpler than having to change between rows of characters.

Exploration is the name of the game, especially with the expansive open world that you can explore even after the main levels are done. You can wander around the entirety of the journey you went through during the story, visiting places like The Shire, Isengard and Mount Doom. There are plenty of collectible objects hidden around the place, such as extra characters you can buy, blacksmith designs that let you build new inventory items, and mithril Lego bricks that provide the currency to build said items. Each item normally required solving an item based puzzle, using a character's special skill, or simply defeating a certain number of enemies in a time limit, and the challenges are varied enough to spur you on to collect everything. Red bricks make an appearance again, allowing you access to "cheat codes" that can pinpoint hidden objects, multiply your stud count or simply put some funny faces on your characters.

It's fair to say that Lego The Lord Of The Rings is the most expansive Lego game yet, with some great new features and a whole lot of stuff to unlock. But with these new features come a few problems. When sorting shapes with Gandalf's staff, for example, it's often difficult to accurately target the blocks you want to put them into position. The main problem I found, however, was with the new character selection system. In the previous games, you could change between the two on-screen characters with a press of the Y button, while the LB and RB buttons let you switch between any other character from the roster. With the implementation of the new character system, you must hold down Y and then select the character from the entirety of the board. But quite a few times my button press was registered as just a tap, instantly transporting me to the other character on screen, who was more often than not at the very bottom of the precarious path I had just climbed with my initial character. Rage ensued. In the same way, you can access your inventory by holding down B, but tapping B also drops the item you're holding, and you can also place items with the same button. This led to several occasions where I dropped items when I didn't want to, and at some points caused glitches where items disappeared and I could no longer complete the level. Having all these commands assigned to a single button seems a lot more trouble than it's worth, and is certainly something that should be worked on in later instalments.

Still, despite the control niggles, Lego The Lord Of The Rings is an excellent game. It follows the story of the trilogy pretty religiously, complete with the music and snippets of lines from the movies. It's an exercise in exploration, puzzle solving, and most of all smashing, with plenty of stuff to unlock. If you're a fan of the previous Lego games (why wouldn't you be?) this is definitely one of the best.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Not Pacman

Ah, it's just a normal game of Pacman...

Holy crap, no it's not! Yes, indeed, it's Not Pacman. From the people who brought you Portal/Super Mario Bros. mashup Mari0 and the awkward physics based Not Tetris, comes an awkward physics based Pacman. It's like a normal game of Pacman really, the aim is to eat all the pelletsand avoid the ghosts. But the way it's controlled is completely new. You rotate the maze with your mouse and Pacman and co. tumble around falling down every possible avenue.

It really changes the way you play the game, in that the ghosts don't come after you, you are the one who is sending them rolling to your possible demise. The big power pellets still let you eat the bad guys up, but it's now a choice of whether you'll be able to manoeuvre yourself into them in time. The whole physics element really brings a brand new challenge, and while your preconceptions about how to play Pacman are in place you're probably not going to do too well. Still, the music, visuals and sound effects remain intact, so it really feels like you're transcending to a new Paclevel. Not Pacman is an interesting take on a classic that has produced a simple, effective, fun to play game.

Download it for free right now!

My rating: 5/5

Today's Review: 4 Pics 1 Word

Forget your Songpops and Draw Somethings, this appears to be the new game spreading its way round Facebook. The quite aptly titles 4 Pics 1 Word is an app that does just that, gives you four pictures and requires the one word answer that links them all.

Most are quite straightforward, others are somewhat cryptic or not particularly well done. Seeing as all the images seem to be taken from stock photo websites they seem to have done quite a good job of putting them together, but some of the links between the images are tenuous at best. But to help you along the way you can choose your answer from a variety of provided letters.

The letter choices are presented along the bottom, much like Draw Something. You also have the opportunity to get rid of some of your choices, much like Draw Something, or to place one of the correct letters in the answer for you. Either option costs coins, which are accumulated by guessing questions correctly, or by emptying your wallet like an impatient idiot.

Yes, like most smartphone apps nowadays, the aim is to coerce you into spending real life money in order to progress farther into the game. But before you start paying, there's the option to share the picture on Facebook and get some hints from your friends, although the real reason this button exists is to promote the game among your friends and potentially draw in a less than frugal sucker who will sink their wages into some fake alphabet explosions.

But despite all that, it's not a bad little game. Like most of its type it can be somewhat addictive, but it is very limited at the moment. When the game starts up there's a "Play" button which takes you to your latest unsolved puzzle. There's no way to look back at ones you've done, or any kind of tiered level system where you can try something new if you're stuck. I guess this just promotes the idea of spending money to get further in the game, but even that notion is a bit messed up here. Most of these types of games will have friends battling it out to get ahead, but from what I've seen the level placements are completely random between different people. So if I tell someone I'm on level 56, they might only be on level 35, but with a fair few cryptic and difficult levels under their belt that I'll surely get stuck on later. The sense of competition should be a major factor in driving up the sales of coins for letter bombing purposes, but it just seems like it's gone a bit wrong here.

4 Pics 1 Word is a nice little picture game that can inspire a fair bit of thought from the player. In its current incarnation though, it's quite bland. The linear pathway through the levels with no backtracking option, the skewed competitive element and the underdeveloped rewards system just make the overall experience not very exciting. Still, it's obviously becoming popular, so I imagine updates will be made at some point. Probably not for the best, but still, it's something.

My rating: 2/5

Today's Review: Candy Crush Saga

As a gamer, I have lamented the fall of modern gaming in the form of the "social" freemium games that now litter Facebook and the App Store. I have generally stayed away from such things. I've never farmed a ville, or declared war with the Mafia, although I did draw some things for a while. But yesterday I decided to give Candy Crush Saga a try, a game that I had heard about but not really researched effectively. This was my downfall.

Candy Crush Saga is, at its heart, a match 3 game. Get three of the same shape together, they disappear. Four or more, you get a neat little power up in its place, very Bejeweled like in essence (although the first tile swapping and matching game was Panel de Pon, yeah, now I'm doing my research). But there are several types of levels to keep the gameplay fresh. Some levels have pieces encased in "jelly" that you must clear to pass the level, others demand you reach a certain score within a time limit, and some ask you to coax special ingredients to the bottom of the screen by destroying pieces underneath them. Nothing too unique, but the themes swap around enough that you're not doing the same thing over and over.

Sorry, did I say you won't be doing the same thing over and over? Because you will. A lot. While Candy Crush Saga may start off quite easy while it shows you the ropes, it quite quickly becomes very much an unforgiving game of chance. I have played certain levels tens of times before I've managed to just barely pass. Not that I mind too much, it makes it challenging, and makes me determined to beat it. But my problem lies with the fact that this game is clearly designed to be stupidly difficult. While I casually mentioned "freemium" in the first paragraph, this game is just overly obnoxious about it. You see, what makes some of these levels so difficult is that you have to clear the items in a certain number of moves, which get increasingly smaller. If you run out of moves, guess what? You can get some more, but it will cost you 69p. If you don't want to pay for that though, you can forfeit one of your five lives instead (this will happen a lot). If you lose a life it takes 30 minutes to get it back, or you can pay for some more, with your real money. Five lives not enough? Guess what, you can increase your limit to eight, for a cool £11.99. Don't crack open your wallet too soon though, because you can earn power ups that will help you in the tougher levels. Well, you can earn the right to buy them, that is. About £1.50 a time will get you a few helping items that may not even help you anyway. But if you want to go for the special power up that lets you make one special tile per game forever, there's that option too. Only £27.99!

So yes, it's pretty ridiculous the amount of stuff that pops up during casual play to remind you how much better you could be doing if you pay the company a lot of money. I'm sure it works for some, but I am vehemently against the whole system. I have never paid for "freemium" content and I never intend to. I've downloaded a couple of iPhone games that have hindered me to a large extent for not parting with my cash, and they have been swiftly deleted. Thankfully Candy Crush Saga is somewhat bearable. If I run out of lives I can just do something else for a couple of hours, and then try again. The reason I want to try again is because it's a pretty addictive game.

It's very pretty too. The levels are laid out like a Candyland style board game, the candy pieces you need to blow up are bright and colourful, combos explode satisfyingly all over the screen, and some of the power ups are pretty cool too, especially when you can combine two special combo pieces to really wreak havoc on the board. So yes, these people know what they are doing, and have created a challenging, addictive game that looks good and plays well. But the whole freemium aspect has somewhat soured the experience for me. If they just released it at a flat rate like most iPhone games, I might be inclined to give it a bigger score. But at most this is a good game that has sold itself out for a quick buck from impatient social media gamers.

My rating: 3/5

Today's Review: Zombies!!!

There's nothing like a good board game at Christmas, especially one that involves a zombie apocalypse. Zombies!!! Is a board game in which the players build the board. You all start out on a town square, and each player gets a new piece of the map, complete with any zombies or provisions that go with it. As all the streets become interconnected and full of the undead, players have to make their way to the later-revealed helipad, or kill 25 zombies to win the game.

You get 2 dice, one which determines how many spaces you can move, and one that gives you your zombie killing power. Roll a 4 or above to kill a zombie ad add it to your collection, but if you roll less you'll have to sacrifice your scarce bullets to make up the number, or lose one of your three lives. If you lose all your lives, it's back to the start, so be sure to stock up on provisions to safely clear the helipad and win the game.

So yes, it's quite competitive, but the real spirit of the game lies in the event cards you pick up. These can either provide weapons or bonuses, paralyse other players, or give you the ability to surround them with or move them into groups of zombies. These cards can be played at anytime, so just as someone looks like they're going to win, the tables can be turned quite easily.

There's a lot of fresh stuff here to lake this a novel and entertaining board game. Sure, the rules are quite complex, and it can take a while to get into the swing of things, but I'm coming to the end of a 2 hour session and the time has flown by. Zombies!!! Is a very refreshing experience compared to your regular Christmas board games.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Assassin's Creed III

Wait a minute, 3? This is the fifth game in the series, what's going on? Oh yes, of course, we have to be bombarded with a new iteration of the same franchise every year, or else we'll forget it. You know, like what happened with GTA, or Half Life. So yes, we've been treated with an elongated three game arc following Ezio Auditore's adventures in the renaissance, but now Ubisoft have finally delivered something fresh, somewhat.

Yes, it's the same old Assassin's Creed, but this time it's in Colonial North America. This time around you play as Connor, whose real name is long and Indian like. His peaceful village has been threatened by a member of the Templar movement, and soon he finds himself joining the ranks of the Assassins, to save his village, and maybe even the world, from destruction. Along the way he gets tangled up in the Revolutionary War, brushing shoulders with the likes of George Washington and Ben Franklin. Yes, Assassin's Creed continues to be like the Forrest Gump of games, our assassins get everywhere and seem to meet everyone of historical importance. But, the level of detail provided here is as great as always, setting the scene with several real life historic battles and providing encyclopaedic entries as you go along.

That's not the only place that's received great attention to detail. While we're used to sprawling Italian cities in this franchise, this game provides significantly different scenery. Now we are treated to the young but flourishing cities of Boston and New York, but also the wild Frontier, a sprawling wilderness full of trees, streams and wild animals to hunt. You can spend many hours running around here, jumping from tree to tree, setting snares for rabbits to kill themselves in, and it all looks gorgeous. Throw in the new addition of weather effects and this game simply looks stunning.

As far as gameplay goes, it's pretty much the same as always. The story is divided into several sequences, each one putting you on the trail of one of the people in the chain of command of the Templar group. As you work your way to the point where you can stab these people in the face, you'll find yourself trailing suspects, stealthily assassinating guards and taking part in thrilling foot chases. There's a good narrative in place, and Connor is a strong leading character, but if you just play through the story missions then the game is over quite quickly, and you miss out on a lot. There are optional objective for each mission that add an extra layer of difficulty, and while most are quite simple, some can be really fiendish. There are also, as before, some segments scattered throughout the story where you can play as Desmond for a while in various locations. It's a nice idea, but these segments are a bit short and lacking in anything particularly engaging. I just found myself wanting to get back to Connor.

The real differences in this game are in the side missions. Most notable are the naval missions. At some points in the game you get to commandeer an impressive ship, and when you sail out to sea you are given control of the ship's wheel, as well as the cannons. While a few story missions place you on the ship, there are a multitude of side missions that have you sailing out to sea. This sailing sim is actually mightily impressive. The waves are realistic, cannonballs fly and fires burn beautifully, and there are multiple methods and tactics to use to sink enemy vessels. If Ubisoft took this mechanic and developed it into a fully fledged pirate game, it would be amazing.

There are also several side missions that take the place of the typical "upgrade your mansion" side quests of previous Creeds. About a third of the way into the game you find shelter in a Homestead just off the Frontier. It turns out there are people being oppressed by the English in the cities and surrounding wilderness, and once you save their hides they agree to come and live on the property and craft items for you. As you recruit more people these missions overlap and create a nice little story of the community you have built. As you help the citizens out even more they can craft better items for you, which you can send off in convoys to earn some decent money.

So yes, these new side missions are a really nice addition, but the problem with them was they felt very separate from the actual story. In previous games it felt like liberating parts of the city and buying up different stores really helped to make your journey through the cities a bit safer. In this game, the Homestead and naval missions are provided on an entirely different part of the map. There appears to be no benefit at all for completing the naval missions, other than a couple of achievements and a new outfit, and while the Homestead side missions give you better materials for selling via convoy, I never found myself using it, as I didn't really need any money at all to get through the story missions. Still, for the completionist, these missions are a nice breath of fresh air, with the Homestead missions giving a nice injection of a friendly atmosphere, and the naval missions being completely badass.

So yes, Assassin's Creed III is not perfect. I haven't mentioned the abundance of glitches that I encountered during my playthrough, mostly in the form of mission start points and other symbols failing to appear on the map. It is quite frustrating when it happens, but I'm sure it will be resolved whenever a patch comes out. This game may not be as perfect as I'd hoped for, but it's a refreshing change from jumping around as Ezio, and the addition of extra modes and missions make this a well rounded package. I look forward to what comes next in the franchise, even if it's another Connor based Creed, I think there's still a lot more to be done in this time period.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Dishonored

In amongst the FIFA 12s, Assassin's Creed 3s, Halo 4s, and various other sequels coming out this season, it might be easy to overlook an original title. But Dishonored got a good deal of attention at E3, and now it's out for the masses to feast upon.

In Dishonored you play the role of Corvo, the chief bodyguard of the Empress of Dunwall, a fictional city going through an industrial revolution after discovering the many technological uses of whale oil. Returning from a trip to neighbouring cities, seeking help with the dreaded plague that is crippling Dunwall, Corvo is betrayed and imprisoned, and starts out on a journey of revenge.

There are many weapons at your disposal as you work your way through the ranks of the conspiracy, such as knives, crossbows and grenades. But Corvo is also bestowed with a mysterious power by an equally mysterious entity, which gives you the ability to teleport short distances, possess animals and humans, and even summon hordes of plague rats to deal with enemies. Although, even with all that firepower, it is often wise to avoid direct conflict. Once outnumbered by guards you can easily be killed, and the various vantage points and secret tunnels you can teleport to will often give you the opportunity to pick off guards silently, one by one.

Of course, there's always the very clean approach of not killing anyone at all. Several of the missions offer alternative methods to take down your targets without bloodshed, and sneaking around enough can ensure that you never have to fight anyone throughout the whole game, simply knocking a few guards unconscious. This is where Dishonored shines. Whether you want to get through the game with clean hands, or kill everyone in sight, there are various methods to do so. The achievements are also steadily balanced between these two extremes, and I was certainly compelled to do another playthrough straight after the credits rolled.

While finding the easiest route through the missions may be tempting, Dishonored rewards your exploration, giving you more money to spend on weapon upgrades, or hidden runes you can use to upgrade your supernatural powers. There are also countless books, notes and sound files to stumble upon that flesh out the story. That being said, I didn't actually feel all that drawn in by the extra information these files give. The game is quite short and methodical, just having you skip from target to target, and it didn't do much to make me care about the state of the city, just where my next mark was going to be.

While many will compare Dishonored to Assassin's Creed, I found it to be a cross between Hitman and Bioshock. The branching paths and multiple methods of taking out targets are very Hitman-esque, although a bit simpler in execution. The first person view, the use of the left trigger to use various mystical powers, and even the music and "crumbling society" feel of the whole game, conjured up memories of Bioshock at many points throughout. Perhaps that's why I wasn't so drawn into the story. I was longing for the atmosphere and depth that Bioshock's Rapture exuded, but instead Dunwall just feels a little empty and robotic. Guards are pretty much all the same, wandering in the same patterns, and while there is some variety towards the end, it all seems over a bit too soon.

Still, Dishonored is well worth a play. The variety of methods for completing your missions is very well employed, giving changing environments and different endings depending on your actions. If you're getting impatient while waiting for the new Assassin's Creed or Hitman, this will probably sate your appetite for stealthy stabbing.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Borderlands 2

Yes, I know this game came out a good few weeks ago, but I like to finish my games before reviewing them, and dammit, this is a huge game.

The story continues some time after the first Borderlands, and yes, we're still on the planet Pandora. This time there are four new Vault Hunters, lured to Pandora with the promise of a brand new vault, only to be quickly betrayed by Handsome Jack, the enigmatic and sadistic madman who has taken charge of the Hyperion corporation and forced the remaining good citizens of Pandora into hiding. It's up to you to join the resistance and stop Jack's nefarious plans.

If you've played the first Borderlands, you should know what to expect here. The gameplay mechanics, the graphics, the weapon system, all pretty much the same, though that's by no means a bad thing. What this game does is build upon those core elements with some new innovations that make it a much more enjoyable experience. Now you can pick up ammo and money on the floor just by walking over it, fall damage is eliminated completely, so you can jump off cliffs like a maniac. You can even move around while downed, increasing your chances of killing an enemy and coming back to life. The whole game is just a more streamlined experience.

Of course, the emphasis is still on looting various objects and finding different guns. There are countless chests, lockers, cardboard boxes and dumpsters to open to find various amounts of money and weaponry, and the amount of guns that fly out of enemies and toilets is immense. Thanks to the gun generation system, each one has different properties and elements, meaning you'll constantly be checking which ones stack up better against your current equipment. A lot of people don't really like this concept, but there's nothing more satisfying than coming across a pistol that will take down your foes with one shot as opposed to the several you were using before. As well as the shields and grenade and class mods, you can also equip relics that give extra bonuses, so the right combination of equipment can really make you a force to be reckoned with.

The story of Borderlands 2 seems a lote more involved than the first. There is a very clear and menacing protagonist in Handsome Jack, who is constantly contacting you to let you know how much he hates you and wants to kill you. A neat touch is the fact that you can see his base orbiting Pandora's moon no matter which are you're in, and the robots that are sent down to kill you later are beamed directly from Jack's unreachable lair. Jack's presence is always felt, and while it's quite intimidating at first, you begin to sense the desperation in his voice as you press on through the story. Couple this with some great new quest giving characters, such as Sir Hammerlock and Tiny Tina, as well as some old favourites, and the game just feels a lot more fleshed out and well rounded than the original.

There's still a massive focus on exploration though. Some of the areas are vast, with all kinds of hidden nooks and crannies just waiting to be found. In fact, there's a whole new system put into the game to encourage players to explore and revisit certain areas in the form of Badass ranks. Similar to the challenges in Borderlands, these reward the players for killing a certain number of enemies, with a certain type of gun, but instead of experience you earn Badass tokens, which can increase various stats for every character you play as across your profile. Technically this means you can keep making more and more characters, finish the challenges for each one and become even more unstoppable than usual. The exploration factor comes in with the area specific challenges, urging you to find hidden areas and Vault symbols, or defeat bosses in a certain way. So even after the copious amounts of sidequests are done, and all the achievements are unlocked, there's still a whole lot more that can be done.

Borderlands 2 is a fantastic game. It has a well written, involving plot, the locations are varied, vast and beautiful, and the amount of firepower available is mind boggling. It took me a good 50 hours to finish, and while I completed the vast majority of the sidequests, there were still a few more to do, and several challenges to polish off, and I only managed to reach level 32 out of the possible 50. If I had the time I would gladly do it all again, facing the tougher enemies and better guns available on the second playthrough. And with four DLC packs coming out over the coming months, it seems like the fun has just begun.

My rating: 5/5

Today's Review: Airport Scanner

I decided to peruse the Top 25 apps the other day (the free ones of course), and actually found one that might be worth a look. It is Airport Scanner, in which you, average citizen, can assume the role of that guy who sits watching X-rays of bags all day. In the airport from hell.

You see, this game couldn't reflect the average day in the life of a real airport scanner, because that would be boring and probably racist. So instead the aim of the game is to pick out one of a plethora of deadly weapons that are hidden in about half of the passengers' bags. Things like this axe:

Looks easy, right? Well, it may be at first. But soon enough the illegal items get smaller and more well hidden, plus there's another aspect in which you have to change the queuing system in order to fast track flight crew and first class passengers, and yes, even the flight crew can be carrying illegal items. 

The eeriest thing about this game is the random insertion of TSA all over the description on the App Store. "Join the TSA" it cries, boasting about the inclusion of "Real TSA prohibited items", as if axes, morning stars and bombs are perfectly acceptable on flights outside of America. It seems like there's some kind of propoganda/sponsorship deal going on here, perhaps reassuring Americans that clearly half of the passengers on domestic flights are trying to kill us all, and the TSA is the only thing stopping them. Still, they certainly missed a trick with the bonus games. I don't see the ones where you pat down toddlers or try and differentiate between a knife and a penis while looking at full body scanner pictures. It does accurately represent how they treat suspected terrorists though: 

Sorry, that was too good to pass up. Let's talk about the game. It's an nice little time waster. The levels are short, but require good observation skills and multitasking. Thankfully the money you earn from discovering drugs and fining passengers can be used to buy upgrades for your scanner that make items more visible, or slows down the conveyer so you have more time to search. This adds nicely to the replay value, and takes the heat off when things get more difficult. 

Unfortunately there's not too much variety. You get taken to different airports, but the layout is the same. There are new classes of passenger with potentially more items in their bags, but I couldn't see myself playing for too long without getting a bit bored. Still, it's fun, and for free it's certainly worth a try.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Microsofts' E3 Press Conference

Yeah... Usher...

I don't normally watch the live streams of the E3 conferences, but I thought this year I would give it a go. I quickly learned that this was a bad decision.

Sure, it wasn't awful, it was just very mediocre. Hey, Microsoft, what new games have you got? Halo 4? That's cool I guess. A new Tomb Raider, called Tomb Raider, they gave up numbering them a while ago. Ubisoft have a new Splinter Cell too, they never bothered numbering those, so they can reboot and skip around as much as they want. This one even has a cool "Execute" feature, which is basically a "kill everything in a cool cinematic way" button. Well, with all those awesome original games out of the way, it's time to talk about what's really important.

Yes, being able to shout at your TV while playing FIFA and Madden, it's what I've always dreamed of. Also a whole buncha channels being added to the TV section. I'm sure they don't make this much fuss when they announce new Freeview channels. But wait, there's one more surprise up Microsoft's sleeve. After a bunch more Kinect stuff, that is.

"Hey guys, the Wii U has some awesome innovative features stuck right into the new controller. How can we match that without bringing out a whole new console?"

"Eh, there's an app for that. Oh, there isn't? Well, make one."

Yes, now you can use your smart phone or tablet as a "second screen", with the ability to swipe movies and other content up to your TV screen, or access information about what you're watching or playing. Sound familiar? Probably, because it's what the Wii-U does without requiring you to hold both a controller and an iPad. But hey, I guess there's room for some good stuff here, hopefully not just showing a map for those geographically challenged while watching Game Of Thrones.

Well, with all that "lifestyle" stuff out of the way, it was time to talk about some real games. Original games. How excitin- oh, it's a few trailers and no information. Cool. Thankfully Matt Stone and Trey Parker came out to totally own Microsoft within a sentence, say their South Park game is pretty cool, and then make their excuses and leave. Best part of the show.

"You mean even better than Usher saying how he put some of his dance moves into Dance Central 3, but then deciding to show you them on stage anyway?" Yes, of course, what's wrong with you? His dance sucked anyway. I can't slide all the way across the floor like that in a Kinect game.

So yeah, that was pretty much it. Apart from the 10+ minutes of generic Call Of Duty gameplay stuck at the end. I tried to watch it, but apparently the internet exploded at that point and everyone logged into the stream, so I encountered much lag.

Sure, it was okay, I guess. But it's really just a sign of where the gaming industry is headed. Lacklustre sequels, a lack of focus on new and original content, and stupid gimmicks that no one really asked for. Microsoft, I am disappoint.

My rating: 2/5

Today's Review: Prototype 2

Prototype was a fun game. While many have compared it negatively to Infamous (perhaps for good reason), there's no denying that the ability to leap across New York buildings in a single bound and slice and pulverise hundreds of enemies was just plain gory fun.

Well, now Prototype has returned, with players taking the role of James Heller, a soldier whose wife and child have been murdered now that the mysterious infection has returned to New York. With the blame placed on Alex Mercer, Heller hunts him down, but after a particularly one sided fight finds himself infected in the best way possible, that being the way that lets you grow massive blades out of your hands and jump tens of feet into the sky.

The first thing you'll notice about Prototype 2 is that it's a lot more simplistic than the first. Mechanics are introduced slowly, and there are a lot less upgrades to be gained. I was ready to call it an inferior sequel, but as I worked my way through the game and more mechanics were slowly unlocked, I began to see it more as a streamlining process. Instead of the hundreds of thousands of points needed to unlock a certain upgrade, you only need one point, which can be earned through doing side missions or finding collectibles, much like the first. The only difference is that you don't pick up experience from just plain killing enemies, so I guess it's gone the way of Mass Effect in that sense. Still, despite making the process a lot more manageable, the lack of upgrades is pretty noticeable, and there don't seem to be anywhere near the number of special moves that were in the first game, although I only got about halfway through, so there could be more to come.

Another noticeable aspect is that the movement is a lot more refined. Often when playing the side missions in Prototype I'd find myself jerking all over the place at the slightest touch of a button while trying to reach markers, but Prototype 2 allows for much more precise movements while airborne, which you'll need to be quite a lot to escape soldiers or pick up collectibles. Speaking of which, the collectibles are also few and far between compared to the first game, but I see that as a good thing seeing as Prototype had 250 orbs lying around with no hint at where to find them. I don't normally like many collectibles in games, but Prototype 2 turns them into nice little side missions, expanding the story and giving specific upgrade points for finding everything. It also helps out by giving you a general area to search on the map.

The graphics are pretty good. Blood, guts and limbs fly off all over the place, bodies fly apart at the slightest provocation from your blade, and there's no slowdown at all when the screen is full of infected citizens, soldiers, tanks and monsters. The character models nicely detailed, although it can be hard to tell when they're being dismembered in a mist of blood.

Prototype 2 is a fun game. While it's not as in depth in its collectible or upgrade system as its predecessor, in most ways this can be seen as a good thing. It's a more streamlined experience that doesn't require you to fill your head with combo buttons in order to progress. But that also hurts it a little in my opinion. For those gamers more serious about pulling off some awesome acrobatic combat movies, there are just less options available. Still, it's a fun game.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Mass Effect 3

Yay, it's a game I have fully completed before it became too old. But of course it is, it's Mass Effect. Since I bought the first one many years ago I have been hooked on the story, characters and morality and decision choices.

Mass Effect 3 bring the conclusion to quite an epic end, with the invasion of the Reapers that was foretold throughout the first two entries happening within a few minutes of starting the game. While watching the massive aliens descend to Earth and begin to obliterate everything in sight, you once again play Commander Shepard as he escapes on board the Normandy. With Earth falling, it is up to you to travel to the far reaches of the galaxy to bring together the different species and war assets needed to bring the fight back to Earth and finally stop the reapers. But with the same thing happening all over the galaxy, how easy will it be to win allegiances and get everyone to get along nicely?

The answer is not very. There are a couple of really big decisions to make that affect the narrative a hell of a lot more than they have in the other games. Sometimes it comes down to offending an entire species to have your way, and it's up to you to weigh the consequences and how they can affect your readiness for the impending final battle. Missions are a lot more detailed than in the previous instalments, although there are fewer than before, and a lot of old faces will be popping up to assist you in your fight against the reapers, and also Cerberus agents with a shady agenda.

As always, Mass Effect 3 rewards exploration, mostly through the planet scanning minigame. While it certainly isn't as involved as in the first game, it significantly improves upon the resource hunting seen in Mass Effect 2. There's a progress bar for each galaxy you enter, so you know when you've found everything that will help you. Everything you find, and every allegiance you form will contribute to your overall readiness for the final battle, which in turn will affect the ending you get.

But therein the trouble lies. In order to obtain the "perfect" ending your readiness score needs to be very high, which involves either making perfect decisions throughout all three games and finding pretty much every hidden resource in this one, or by playing the online mode to raise the multiplier on your existing score. I'm not normally one to play multiplayer, but I found myself having to play for a few hours in order to get the score I needed to continue with the final mission, which really put a big stopper in my gameplay experience. Even so, the ending does leave something to be desired. There's plenty of anger flying around the internet regarding the endings, enough to provoke a response from Bioware themselves. While I do agree with some amount of what is being said, I didn't find the ending too bad, although perhaps more of a variation would have made things a lot better, and put some weight behind the decision making that is seen throughout the rest of the series.

But it's still the same Mass Effect. Combat is immersive and fluid, with the ability to chuck powers all over the place to dispatch foes. While at times you can get rushed by many strong enemies, there are certain methods that you'll learn to make their defeat easier. Still, there does seem to be an awful lot more combat than anything else, with most side missions being fetch quests for people on the Citadel. It can get a bit tedious at times, but the main missions and primary side quests are much improved over the previous titles, and that's where the meat of the gameplay lies, so it's not too bad.

Despite my unwillingness to play multiplayer on most occasions, I have to admit it isn't too bad. It plays much like Horde mode from Gear Of War, with several waves of enemies converging on you in several locations. You choose your class, complete with their own powers, and as a team of four you can work together to kill everything that moves, with three difficulty levels to mix things up. While it does get quite repetitive, I can't say I was overly bored while playing it, although I only did for a few hours.

Overall Mass Effect 3 is a strong finale to the series. The characters, gameplay and decision making all carry over very well, and I found myself very drawn in during the story, and quite shocked at the consequences of some of the decisions presented to me. Sure, it's not perfect, as many angry nerds around the internet will confirm, but I sure enjoyed the journey before the ending soured thing a bit for me. Hopefully Bioware can go some way to fixing it with their upcoming DLC, and being the series the ending(s) that it deserves.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Angry Birds: Knock On Wood

I think it's fair to say I didn't take this picture. Sorry internet, but it's so much easier to take photos from Google than to make my own. Anyways, this is another awesome Christmas present I got. It's the board game equivalent of Angry Birds!

You're basically supplied with three squishy bird toys, four plastic pigs, a series of wooden beams and a catapult. There are some cards in there too, each with a certain points amount and a diagram showing you how to lay out the beams and pigs, and which birds you're allowed to use in a certain sequence. The player has to choose cards based on how many points they feel like winning, 100 points being the easiest to knock down, 300 being the hardest.

If you manage to knock every pig to the ground with your allotted birds, you get the points. If even one remains, you get nothing. So it's worth getting used to the aiming and trajectory skills needed to make your shots count. The first player to get to 1000 points wins the game. It doesn't sound like a large winning amount, but knocking down these constructs is harder than it looks.

Knock On Wood is a pretty damn awesome way to bring Angry Birds off the screen (think of the children!) and into a multiplayer family friendly game. My only gripe is that it feels a little unpolished, especially with the doling out of points. Perhaps there could be a staggered system rather than an all or nothing scenario, but the whole thing seems a bit unplanned and rushed. There are even golden egg and star trophies that are included in some of the building cards, but the only thing they seem to be there for is to look pretty. They're not even mentioned in the instructions, which lends to that slightly unfinished feel. Still, it's pretty cool to launch your own little rubber birdies at those smarmy pigs. If only they had sound effects too...

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Where's My Water?

This app was free from Apple's Facebook page a couple of weeks back, so of course I got it. It's pretty much the only iPhone game I've been playing since then, so that tells you something.

Where's My Water? is a physics based water game, following the vein of Cut The Rope, which itself follows the same kind of formula of Angry Birds. Several levels in different episodes, introducing different mechanics and offering a three star score to those willing to go the extra mile.

Our cute mascot in this game is Swampy, an alligator who really loves showers, so much so that he invades various peoples' houses in order to use theirs. It's clearly not the same shower, because each one is connected to a series of confusing sewers in which the player must dig through dirt, turn valves and even convert liquids in order to get the water to the shower head. We start out with simple digging, but quickly move onto the different liquid types. There's a poison water which clears out algae but makes Swampy pissed off if it lands in his tub, and a gelatinous ooze that turns algae into hard rock.

Various mechanics are introduced as the episodes progress. There are convertor valves, hot coals that turn water into steam, switches that open up gates, but all are introduced at a steady pace, and don't need too much explanation. After a few levels of introduction, you can quickly learn to use all the different mechanics together with ease.

The real challenge, of course, comes with trying to get all the ducks scattered around the level. Similar to the stars in Cut The Rope, each one is a little bit out of the way, meaning you have to think a little differently than normal in order to spurt water in the right direction, or avoid soaking them with poison water, which kills them dead. It does take a fair amount of trial and error sometimes, but it's never difficult enough to be really frustrating.

The same can be said for the rest of the game too. The difficulty is not that hard, but in a game aimed at kids this is probably a good thing. I've breezed through most of the levels without much thought, so perhaps for seasoned gamers like myself it doesn't provide an overly satisfying challenge, but it's nice to not be stuck on the same level for hours trying to figure out what to do.

Where's My Water is a cute, colourful, fun game. It's not too hard, but there are various things to get used to while playing. If you've had enough of flinging birds at pigs or trudging through corridors shooting Russians, this game will certainly provide some entertainment for a good few hours.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Rayman Origins

I know I don't review too many games, mostly because it takes me a while to fully play through everything that is review worthy so I can give a balanced score. I certainly haven't finished Rayman Origins, but I feel I have seen enough to pass judgement.

Rayman was a 2D platformer back in the old Playstation days. I have played snippets of the original game, and found them to be quite enjoyable. It was Rayman's venture into 3D territory that was awesome though. Rayman 2 was one of the best games on the N64, much following the pattern established by Mario 64 and present in some of my other favourite games of all time, such as Banjo Kazooie. Nice, large levels, plenty to collect, interesting game mechanics, these were the golden days of the platforming genre.

Then the new generations of console came along and something terrible happened. Mario is still obviously going strong with his platforming games, but all the others seem to have faded. The latest Banjo Kazooie was a bit of a mess, introducing some unnecessary vehicle building gameplay, and the introduction of the annoying Rabbids devolved Rayman into mini game fodder, until eventually he was pushed out of the spotlight altogether to make way for legions of screaming rabbits.

But now Rayman is back in Rayman Origins, and origins is the correct word for it. This game is back to the basics. It's a 2D side scrolling platformer, which in this day and age seems a little strange, but the new technologies that have been developed have been employed to full potential here. The game is pretty large. I'm at the end of the fourth world, but there are about ten as far as I can see. Graphically, Rayman Origins is absolutely stunning. It would be so easy to skimp back a bit on the visuals in a simple platforming game, but there are vibrant colours everywhere, and elements in the background and foreground that have great detail put into them. The animations of Rayman and the enemies are great, and these happy, bright colours are a welcome change from the dingy greys and browns of modern shooters and other dark and dreary games.

The gameplay itself is excellent. Each world has its own theme, and within each one several gameplay mechanics are introduced. Skills are gained that can be used to navigate the environment, but pieces of the environment can also be used to progress through the levels. There are wall jumps, ziplines, luminescent sea creatures that guide you through hands that want to grab you in the dark, pretty much every level introduces something new that you'll soon learn to use with ease.

As far as difficulty goes, Rayman Origins is spot on. You can easily run through the levels without too much trouble, perhaps dying a few times, but there are several checkpoints throughout to make sure you don't lose much progress. The difficulty comes in obtaining all the bonus medals. In each level you must obtain 350 of the yellow floating Lums in order to obtain a medallion, and getting all of those can be pretty difficult, forcing you to go outside your comfort zone and pull off some tricky manoeuvres to get to hidden areas and stashes. There is also a bonus level in each world in which you chase a treasure chest through tricky terrain, which are very reminiscent of Super Meat Boy. In these levels, one slip up and you start from the beginning, so memorisation and precise jumps are the key to victory.

All these extra hard parts are optional though, so Rayman Origins is really suitable for the casual gamer and the completionist alike. This game is just pure fun, it looks wonderful, the music is wonderfully composed and never gets too annoying, and it really is a great thing to see in this modern age of bland shooters.

My rating: 5/5

Today's Review: The Gunstringer

Since I started this blog I have realised that games are a hell of a lot harder to review than anything else. For food, you just have to eat it. For movies, you just spend two hours of your life watching something. Perhaps you may miss minor plot points because you're too busy making up witty things to put in your review, but no biggie. But games are bastards, especially the massive ones that take ages to finish. I only play games in the late hours when everyone ghoes to bed, and while I can still finish a game in a steady week or two, by the time I've gotten round to finishing it everyone else already has it and a review seems quite pointless. Plus I may only have gone through the game one way of several, and can't be bothered to do it all over again, so it's hard to form a proper critique of everything the game has to offer. The few times I have reviewed games on this blog I have often only scratched the surface, and therefore have probably given a terrible and biased review.

But to hell with it this time, because The Gunstringer is awesome. Even though I have played it for less than an hour I feel I need to shout from the hills: "Hey everybody, there is a good Kinect game out!" The Gunstringer is the latest offering from Twisted Pixel, the people behind Splosion Man and Comic Jumper, the latter of which I haven't played, the former of which I have. Their style is quirky, humorous and original, which is probably the exact kind of people you want making a game for your quirky and original console peripheral.

The game starts with a video of a puppet show being set up. The audience is in place, the props are ready, all that remains is for you to pick up the main character's marionette. With a flick of your left hand the story begins. You play as the titular Gunstringer, an awesome looking skeletal cowboy whose old posse left him for dead. He is now on a mission to deliver them justice, armed with his sharp shooting pistol. After you find and deflate the Wavy Tube Man with ease, it's off to find the rest of your victims.

The game mostly plays like an on rails shooter. You can move the Gunstringer left and right using your left hand, and jump by moving it upwards, while your right hand selects targets and pull the trigger with a flick of the wrist. The game suggests you turn your right hand into a finger gun, and while this isn't necessary, it is fun. The gameplay does change up quite frequently though, briefly changing into a cover based shooter, a side scrolling platformer or a vehicle section. The stages themselves are quite short, but the gameplay switches up often enough to really keep it fresh so you never get bored.

The visuals are awesome. Glimpses of the audience from the beginning can be seen in the background at times, and the props range from authentic looking buildings and barrels to paper cut townsfolk and beer can horses. Often massive real life hands drop in to throw down obstacles and smash others. The graphics are crisp, the characters have great detail, overall it's just a great game to look at.

But of course, this is all a show, and it wouldn't be complete without some input from the audience. People cheer you on as you aim and shoot, and boo if you get hit or screw up in any other way. There's also an old time cowboy narrator whose lines are wonderfully written and delivered, injecting large amounts of humour into the events, or simply telling you the accomplishments you pulled off with your finger gun.

What of the gameplay? This is Kinect after all, and I'm sure a lot of people are still a bit skeptical about how well it all works. The truth is it's not perfect, but it's very easy to control, and not a huge amount of mistakes were noticeable. The left hand maneuvering is a tad off, sometimes overreacting, sometimes not at all. Perhaps it takes some getting used to in order to negotiate all the obstacles, but I found myself smashing into things when my hand was clearly trying to avoid them, or not jumping after a large flick of the wrist. The right hand control can't really be faulted. The crosshair follows your movement perfectly, and the targets are automatically picked out for you to easily dispatch.

So yes, The Gunstringer is the first Kinect game I have actually considered buying on release date. It has awesome visuals, original and fluid gameplay and a great sense of humour. While I've only played through the first of five acts, and haven't even scratched the surface of the extras you can buy for it, I can only assume that this will make the game more awesome than it already is. So while the control may be a little bit off at times, this is a must play for anyone who owns a Kinect.

My rating: 5/5