Game Reviews

The sign of a good mystery is that it keeps you guessing until the end. For all of its goofy characters, motion-based minigames, and occasional frustrations, Guilty Party does just that.

The easiest way to understand Guilty Party is to think of the old mystery board games Clue and Guess Who. Like Clue, you explore the different rooms surrounding the location of a crime scene, gathering evidence on the culprit. Like Guess Who, the clues help you whittle down the list of suspects by hinting at the physical attributes of the criminal -- their gender, hair length, height, and weight. You only have two options for each trait, which seems like it could make things too simplistic, but in every case I played through, I was uncertain right up until I uncovered the final clue.

Guilty Party is split into two modes: Story and Party. Story Mode has six main cases, plus a prologue and a finale. These mysteries have set criminals and clues, and each is bookended with a silly cutscene that moves the story along. The plot, about a family detective agency being tormented by the devious criminal mastermind Mr. Valentine, is inconsequential, but the dialogue and voice acting are funny enough to keep players of all ages entertained.The family runs the gamut of mystery story stereotypes, from the superhero wannabe Kid Riddle to the Sam & Max-style comedic noir detective coincidentally named Max. A kung-fu-wielding granny named Charlotte is thrown in for good measure. The other female family members play it straight to the point that they’re boring, but everyone else provides a few chuckles during the team’s absurd exploits. My personal favorite line: “Oh, Hugh the manatee!” screamed while a zeppelin explodes in the background.

I can't talk about Ivy the Kiwi? without mentioning famed Sonic programmer Yuji Naka. After parting ways with Sega in 2006, Naka founded Prope Ltd. and slowly started releasing quirky downloadable games that were nothing if not unique. While many of those minigames were good, clean fun, Ivy the Kiwi? has the kind of innovative spark that longtime Naka fans will love to see again.

Ivy the Kiwi? is both the hero of this game and an awkward reply to the game's main objective. As the omnipotent, ivy-clad hand of god, it's your task to wrangle the poor little hatchling named Ivy who needs help finding her mother. Since Ivy is so distraught about her mother's absence, you have to use three magical vines to guide and guard her to the exit. Sound a little tricky to pick up? Well, only for a little while.

Ivy the Kiwi? isn't like most standard puzzle games or platformers. Instead of using a D-pad or joystick to control the hapless bird, Ivy is on a manic autopilot that you must reign in with the vines that sprout from your Wii Remote's pointer. It's similar to "create-a-platformer" DS games like Kirby Canvas Curse, but managing your panicked little friend here takes a bit more planning and patience.

Instead of giving you free reign to doodle all over the place, you have three elastic strands of ivy that can function as platforms, trampolines, ramps, and pathways. Since your little hatchling is utterly defenseless (literally everything will take her out in a single blow), you?ve got to box her in and pay attention to where you fling her.

Amazingly enough, Worms: Reloaded is Worms. Do you like Worms? It’s Worms! You don’t like Worms? Move along, it’s just Worms. They may be higher resolution than they were back in the 90s, the backgrounds a little more interesting, and the weapons more explosive, but at heart this is exactly the same turn-based war of bazooka-wielding annelids we saw in 1995, 1998, and every other Worms game ever, ignoring the series’ brief jump into 3D back in 2003. It’s also much the same game as last year’s Worms 2: Armageddon over in Xbox 360 land, albeit with a few more toys thrown in.

Most games would struggle to keep going so long without radical changes, but Worms constantly manages to get away with it. As Worms 3D proved, it isn’t a template that benefits from too much messing around, and it never takes long to get hooked into the fun of blowing away enemies with a perfectly arced bazooka shell, or roping onto a cliff and giving an enemy’s last worm a humiliating poke into the nearest ocean. Reloaded’s new features build on that rather than reinventing it, offering new features like vertical maps, fighting atop open-air forts, and a dull Ninja Rope race mode.

Hardcore purists will chafe at specific balancing changes, notably the feel and physics of the Ninja Rope and only getting four worms per team. For everyone else, the biggest shift is the addition of more defensive weapons: Sentry Guns to help lock down parts of the map, and Electromagnets that deflect incoming attacks. These turn Worms into a slightly more tactical game, but somewhat spoil the purity of simply trading shots. If you like them, or the other, sillier new weapons, hurrah. If not, at least you can switch them off in the comprehensive but oddly clunky ruleset editor.Any changes to the single-player game are less interesting, mostly because single-player Worms is as pointless as Strip Solitaire in a nudist colony.

Anyone who's married knows weddings can be extremely stressful. Between the food, flowers, clothes, jewelry, and relatives, it can be enough to make any perfectly well-adjusted person break down in tears. However, it also makes for some really fun time-management gameplay.

As you may have guessed from the title, Wedding Dash 4-Ever is the fourth installment in the Wedding Dash series of games. Wedding Dash is a spin-off of Diner Dash, featuring the same style of gameplay in a wedding setting rather than a restaurant. The Wedding Dash series revolves around Quinn, a wedding planner and best friend to Flo, the star of Diner Dash. They work together in Quinn's business, with Quinn handling the general details and Flo serving the food.

The story picks up where the third game finished, with Quinn having just called off her wedding to Joe, the photographer. However, she hasn't had the nerve to break the news to her mother, who shows up unexpectedly to help Quinn plan her own wedding in addition to the other weddings she plans as part of her business. While cute and mildly amusing, the story isn't really that important to the game other than setting up the premise for multiple weddings in a variety of venues, including a vineyard, a greenhouse, and a Japanese garden. The premise is that Quinn is checking out these venues to see if they'll be suitable for her own wedding.

Shank is bloody, violent, adolescently indulgent, and absolutely beautiful in execution (and in its executions.) Two things absolutely need to be understood if you're even a little bit on the fence about the game: It's gorgeously, fluidly animated, in both its cut-scenes and within the actual gameplay, and the game's controls are split-second responsive even with the absurd amount of lovingly rendered action happening on screen. Even better, all these obsessively detailed eviscerations are animated in a style almost indistinguishable from Genndy Tartakovsky (Samurai Jack, Star Wars: Clone Wars) against a backdrop that's pure Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, Desperado, and the upcoming, and remarkably similarly titled Machete). All that makes for one stratospherically anticipated game.

hank doesn't disappoint. Slashing, dodging, pouncing, chainsawing, blocking, grappling, dodging, and every other ability in the game uses every button and button combination available on the controller, but it's all so intuitive that it somehow never overwhelms you. Even better, all of these options are strategically important. If the game has a strong point, its in the gameplay itself. Some of the surrounding tissue...well, that could have used a little more work.

Cut-scenes between levels are nothing short of gorgeous, but the sound work is spotty in places, with more than a few cut-scenes where sound effects are either absent or so softly mixed that I couldn't help wondering if I had water in one ear. The voice acting is passable, and features some excellent cheeseball one-liners ("I should call you Lazarus." "And I should call you... Fucked!") but on the whole, the script seems like it was written to impress a teenager. Maybe I missed the irony or something. Still, cheese be damned, I couldn't help but give a crap by the end. Enough that I've been pressganging people into playing through the multiplayer mode with me just so I can get more of the game's backstory (though cooperatively disemboweling a few hundred more mooks also feels pretty good even without the reward of plot.)

The days when young Tom Cruise climbed into his B-something-or-other jet and went to take on some bogeys has been reformulated into an App Store game application. As if Paramount Pictures haven’t milked-out this movie for what its worth, Top Gun is a fighter jet game that gets you dipping, dodging and barrel-rolling out of the way of missiles to crush your opposers with your own Scuds and Browning .50 caliber rounds all on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.If there is one thing that we had to chose to represent what we love about this game, it would have to be the controls. All the movement of the game is totally utilized through the iPhone’s accelerometer. The controls are extremely responsive and so natural! Just tipping your iPhone in any given direction makes the aircraft react. It gets real intense when you are dodging missiles and kamikazes. As far as weaponry, the controls are displayed on the screen. Dedicated buttons for the plane’s machine gun turret and guided missiles are accompanied by crosshairs in the center of the screen for targeting your enemy. The pause button is located at the top right of the screen, revealing a set of options that allow you to calibrate the positioning the iPhone so you can receive the right position for your bird. You can even swing your iPhone from left to right and do a barrel-roll.The graphics and sound of the game are really good. The frame rate of the game is something like Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The aircraft is smoothly detailed and presents an acceptable amount of jaggies in all graphical renditions, which we personally can more than live with. Explosions in the game after you have taken out an adversary look really good and smoke trails from rockets look good as well. The turret rounds look like you would see them in a movie. As far as sound goes, everything matches up with what you see visually. Explosions sound like explosions, turret rounds sound authentic and missile noise fade out as they get farther from you and closer to your target. The soundtrack is the original one from the movie, including the “Top Gun Anthem” by Harold Faltermeyer & Steve Stevens and “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins. No audio dialog for the characters, so you are gonna have to read to keep up with what’s going on.Overall, the game plays smooth! When you get many subjects on the screen, though, the game tends to lag a bit. You might find yourself using your missiles more than your gun for taking down bogeys. There is no toggle to turn up the game’s intensity to really have your iPhone dancing in your hand. However, in the first few levels, you kind of cruise the game. As you progress through the story,

Though often compared to Pokemon, the Monster Rancher series is more of a sub-species of the popular franchise rather than a clone. Centered on your relationships with beasts, you'll work to become the best monster breeder in the world by training, battling and combining creatures with the help of your peppy assistant, Cleo. With a similar collect-them-all mentality to the pocket monsters, it's fitting that Monster Rancher also has the same gameplay problem -- repetition grinds away the fun.

Originally a PlayStation game, Monster Rancher utilized some interesting technology back in the day. Instead of collecting creatures in a game world on the screen, you inserted another CD or DVD into your console and it would unlock a new species of monster for you to play with. Now, Monster Rancher DS is morphing its formula to fit the Nintendo DS's strengths -- the touch screen and microphone. This time around, you can summon new species by drawing a picture on the screen or speaking an incantation into the mic. There's theoretically some science behind these methods, but you can rattle off gibberish, curse words, or even nothing at all while summoning with your voice, so that has to be randomly generated. The idea is neat, but since what you do doesn't always matter it loses its luster. Once you've received your new special friend, you'll want to help him be the best he can be. To do this, you'll need to send him to ranked tournaments, which will help him level up his class. Instead of battling until your monster drops like you do in Pokemon, every fight is limited to one minute. You can either control the battle or let your monster fend for itself -- there doesn't seem to be an advantage either way. Letting it fend for itself does mean you get to have a minute-long nap, though. If both monsters are still standing at the end of that time period, the one with the most health wins. This is a good thing, because the hit ratio of your moves can be very low, meaning that fights would go on for an uncomfortably long period of time. Of course, the more skilled your monster is, the more damage he'll do and the quicker you'll win. To raise your monster's stats and create a bona fide killer, you'll need to train him. Every in-game week you'll choose one of four activities for your creature to perform that will raise a specific statistic, i.e.

Victoria II is set in 1835, a time when Queen Victoria ruled a kingdom that was so large its lands never saw the setting sun. In all the world was conflict as the major powers settled in or rising powers climbed the steps of the ages to make their mark, this is what you step into when you first log in.

As the game loads you will see various images from the pages of history which, after a moment, lead to a world map where you make your first major decision. There is an amazing amount of detail in this game and it takes a moment to load so be patient and enjoy the anticipation! At the world map you decide which land to call home, who’s future you will guide. This decision takes on more importance than just what beach you lounge on. Each country has certain resources, and not all of them are equal in advancements like human rights or technology. It is not so much building your own country as it is stepping into the past and playing, “what if”.

Gamers who crave control of every aspect of your lands to even some of the smallest choices of your countries management this game will not disappoint, to the rest of us it sometimes buries thisgames enjoyability. In Victoria II you have accepted the reigns of one country starting in the year 1835, determined to guide it through 100 years or politics, struggle, and war. History buffs will notice similarities to world events and universal issues while the rest of us will learn what we might have slept through in class. Victoria II does well to give you as much flexibility as it can while adhering to world changing events and giving you the chance to tackle them for yourself. This is one of the most interesting areas of the game, exploring what you will do about

Sports Interactive has done it again. The London based studio has been tinkering with Football Manager's interface for the second time in as many years. Last time this happened, in FM08, the sensation was something like going into your local supermarket only to find that the floor plan had been completely rearranged. This year, it's more like going to your usual place of work one morning to discover that the cubicle layout has been replaced by an open-plan office setup with empty spaces where racks of files used to be and a smiley faced young secretary in place of the withering old lady who looked like her next cigarette could be her last.

Football Manager's continual efforts to modernise have this time come at the expense of the game's navigational sidebar, which has been a staple of the series for decades, providing easy access to your team's squad interface, competition info, and manager options to name but a few. Navigating to these parts of the game is now catered for by tabs across the top of the interface, providing a setup that looks more like a Microsoft Office program than it does the FMs of old. Still, Sports Interactive has been gradually moving the interface in this direction for a few years now, so the transition is actually easier to get used to than you might initially think.

Joining these changes to the basic interface is an all-new setup for team tactics, which borrows from the Touchline Shouts feature of FM Live to produce a complete overhaul of the old tactics system. The new setup is confusing and frustrating at first - tactical sliders have been thrown out in favour of a team "philosophy" and "starting strategy", while the stalwart system of commanding player runs on the right mouse button is also a thing of the past. Replacing it is a system of micro-management for each player, which asks the manager whether their striker is a "complete forward" or "goal poacher", if their midfielder is of the "box to box" or "ball winning" archetypes, or whether a particular central defender should drop into cover while the other has the freedom to move forward.

Not many racing games feature exploding silos that violently alter track layouts and redirect traffic onto an airstrip, requiring you to play chicken with a cargo plane apparently transporting fireballs. But Split/Second does.

Why all the explosive destruction? Split/Second is pitched as a "dynamic new TV show" in which contestants compete in high-speed races made more worthy of televising by throwing fiery carnage into the mix. Each track is lined with blast charges that will set tanker trucks alight or topple entire buildings, demolishing any car within range. Contestants can trigger these so-called Power Plays by performing drifts around corners, jumping over ramps, drafting behind opponents and narrowly avoiding a Power Play triggered by another driver. Build up your meter, see a Power Play opportunity, destroy your foes. Oh, and cross the finish line.

Split/Second, from the makers of Pure, is arcade racing plus explosions, like Mario Kart meets The Running Man, where every power up is a blue shell. Good idea?

Wrestling games have been around for almost as long as mainstream gaming, but in recent years they've really tried to enhance themselves and go beyond the games of old. With that in mind, Midway Studios - Los Angeles, were set the task of creating an engaging experience for fans of the wrestling promotional outfit called Total Nonstop Action (TNA). While a home console version of TNA iMPACT was released in 2008, the game has now come to the handhelds in the form of TNA iMPACT: Cross The Line.

In the story section of Cross the Line, players take control of a fictional wrestler called Suicide. He went against the wishes of fellow co-workers and ended up being ambushed, kidnapped and shipped to Mexico with a messed-up face - not really an issue considering he wears a mask seemingly all the time. To cap things off, the beating was so severe that he's developed amnesia. The only thing he remembers is a longing to compete in the ring and after winning a few minor challenges, he eventually manages to make his way back into the ranks of TNA.

Despite being pretty ridiculous in its premise (or is it?), the story does a good job of actually making players want to continue playing the game. That's a good thing when considering that the game is rather boring and bland. According to Cross the Line, each wrestler only has a literal handful of moves, and even then some of them are the same as others. Players are able to perform an irish whip, weak and heavy punch/kicks, a weak grapple move, a small selection of high-flying moves and a few heavy grapple moves. It means that matches almost have no variety, because the wrestlers have such a limited array of moves. There's also no customisation at all for Suicide, so the moves he starts with are the moves he ends with.To go alongside the lack of variety, the gameplay mechanics don't help things one bit. As players progress through the story, the AI, as one would expect, become much more adept. This means they can counter moves - something they do far too often, and something that is far too damaging for the player's character. It gets to the point where almost any grappling move that's attempted gets reversed, and it can become very frustrating. So, how do players get around this? By performing endless strings of melee moves until their opponent is stunned and cannot perform a reversal.This is all well and good, albeit boring, but players get style points for moves they perform. The better the move, the more style points they acquire. These help them to build up their 'Impact Bar', which when full, allows them to perform their finishing move. Now, there's nothing wrong with this system at all.

Alan Wake was a long time coming but not only was it worth the wait, it stands as one of the most unique Xbox 360 exclusives. The fact that it was released in the shadow of the excellent Red Dead Redemption was a shame, but for those of us that were enthralled by the psychological thriller the first "special episode" is a welcome arrival. Better yet, this add-on is free to anyone who bought Alan Wake new at retail (or 560 MS points to purchase).

Along with its compelling narrative and tense third-person gun play Alan Wake had a tight presentation that strung players along in the similar vein of a serial drama. There were plot twists aplenty, and in the dramatic conclusion Wake accomplished his primary goal but left open a number of mysteries woven throughout the story.

The Signal picks up right where we left off, with Alan literally and figuratively going off the deep end. In the original game, elements of reality were mixed with dark apparitions and it always seemed as though Alan's psyche was ready to burst through the seams of the world. Without spoiling anything, I can safely say that in this episode the demented mind of Alan Wake takes full control. He must battle his demons across a shifting dreamscape that resembles the setting of Season One, only far more twisted, and a lot more interesting. Alan faces familiar obstacles in The Signal including violently possessed objects and people. However, these threats are condensed into smaller, more interesting areas.The strange new environments have more interactive elements that add to a brand of combat that some people felt was too repetitive in Season One. Enemies are clustered more tightly together, there are more explosive elements, and Alan's written words have tumbled out into the world to act as item drops and puzzle triggers.In one section Alan's flashlight -- which has always acted as a shield from harm -- becomes a trigger to release more threats if the beam of light touches certain objects. In another, the flashlight can ignite explosions by passing over specially marked objects... it's amazing to me that these clever mechanics weren't in the original game.

Even if it were just a plain old Mario Kart-style kart racer, ModNation Racers would still be pretty fun. But it's the robust set of content-creation tools, and all the absurdity they enable, that make the game really memorable. ModNation provides a good mix of madcap weapon-based racing action with actual depth, and the sort of gleeful large-scale copyright infringement that only user-generated content can provide. As long as Sony's legal department doesn't get involved, this game will let you race as many tracks using as many characters and karts as you can download or create yourself.

There's nothing too surprising about the core kart-racin' formula here. You drift around curves, kicking up sparks as you go, and pick up weapons from little power-up boxes scattered around the track. Those weapons mostly fit into archetypal red shell-style categories, but you can power each weapon up by picking up extra boxes before you use it to change its properties and make it more devastating. The best thing about the racing system is the boost meter. You build it up slowly by doing anything the game considers a trick--powersliding, drafting, midair 360s, and so on--and then cash it in to... go faster. Crazy, right?But that's not all the boost meter is useful for. You can also use it to create an energy shield around your kart, which is crucial when you're about to get hit with something you can't avoid, like a homing missile. You can also cash in a chunk of the meter to physically kart-check a driver on either side of you. So there's a fast-paced risk/reward system at work here that encourages you to do tricks as often as possible to keep your boost meter high, and then makes you intelligently decide whether you want to use the meter offensively to get ahead, or save it up to save your butt when you're under attack.ModNation has your standard run of racing modes: career, quick race,and online multiplayer races that you can play as simple pick-up races or as "XP" races that will level up your persistent online dude.There are enough pre-made tracks included with the game to keep you busy for a while,

officially licensed racing sims must be a mixed blessing to work on. On one hand you know, quite clearly what needs to be done, given that you've got quite strict guidelines to work within, yet on the other, trying to do anything above and beyond what people expect, and to therefore get noticed, can't be easy. This is what faced developer Monumental Games when it was handed the reins of MotoGP 09/10. So what did it do to make MotoGP 09/10 stand out? Well, it's essentially given you two years worth of MotoGP games in one.You see, that title isn't just because Capcom couldn't settle on a year to slap on the end. MotoGP 09/10 comes complete with all the season content from the 2009 championship, and will offer free downloadable content from the 2010 season as it happens. This means, strangely on the part of publisher Capcom, that there'll be no need to hope for another version of the game next year. You'll have all the officially licensed content you need in just the one game. It's certainly great for gamers and MotoGP fans alike, and something quite rare in today's DLC-centric gaming world.This aside, there are decent, albeit expected strides taken in the core game. Key to the whole package is the career mode, in which you create a rider and manage the team you ride for. The management side of things is fairly slight (this isn't MotoGP Manager 2010), but by building up rep as a rider you can attract new staff members that will handle various aspects of the team's business, with press officers, engineers and team managers all wanting to work with you as time moves on. Of course, these staff members will need paying, and this is where your performance on the track comes in.Your overall goal is to win the championship, starting with lowly 125cc bikes, then 250cc and finally the mega powerful 800cc monsters from the proper MotoGP series. Your career mode menu includes basic team management, but also your event calendar. Each event in the championship season includes a practice session, qualifying and the final race, and while only the race is compulsory, the two former options are essential if you want to build up your rider's reputation and gain a good spot on the starting grid.Reputation is the lifeblood of your rider. With it you can become more attractive to sponsors and manufacturers, in turn earning you more money and better bikes. On the track this is done through your riding ability. All good actions are rewarded with rep points,

Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light is a third person action-adventure game that focuses on our main character while keeping the integrity of the Tomb Raider Universe as a reference. The story focuses on an internal conflict between Totec, an ancient Mayan Warrior and the Guardian of Light, and Xolotl, a demonic force of darkness, set two thousand years prior. After Totec wins the battle, he traps Xolotl in the Temple of Light alongside an ancient artifact called the Mirror of Smoke. Fast forwarding to present day, Lara attempts to capture the special artifact but is trailed and immediately forced to let her enemies collect the prize. Unfortunately by exposing the Mirror of Light, Xolotl is able to break free from his prison and wreak havoc on the world around him. As a result of all these events, now Lara must team up with Totec to take down Xolotl and all his forces of evil. Overall this plot is nothing different from that of most feature films but with the added depth of presentation.

The creative team’s decision to make this a third person game generates a fixed camera that provides a view of the characters and the colossal world that surrounds them. Traditionally, one of the entertaining aspects about the classic Tomb Raider titles was in how the camera was positioned to suggest compromising shots of Lara’s body. This game doesn’t provide those angles but rather attempts to really express environments and interactivity.While this may appear to be a good idea, the actual camera system can at times be seen as either a gift or a curse. For example when trying to solve a puzzle, you’ll notice right away the extensive benefits you have in surveying all the possible scenarios to aid you in getting past traps. Graphically, the game’s icons and cast of characters aren’t perfect but are distinguishable enough for you to recognize them. However, by that same token as your traveling through levels you’ll notice that because of the scale of the world it’s often easy to get lost or skip over key areas where powerups are available on each map. This may not necessarily be the worst thing in the world, but if your someone who is trying to collect every item that the game has to offer then you almost certainly are recommended to playthrough multiple times.As far as the experience that a player can gain from this title, I can say that if you’re a fan of Tomb Raider there are plenty of reasons for you to pick this up.

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is releasing in a somewhat unenviable position. After controversy surrounding the last game and a generally lukewarm response from critics, some were surprised that a second game was greenlit so quickly. It's good then that Dog Days makes such a strong first impression, with its handheld video style visuals and the return of the violent, mature themes that defined Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. But what everyone wants to know is whether Dog Days solves the problems that plagued Dead Men: the dodgy controls, the story that fell apart, the lack of online co-op, and more. To a degree, it does, but issues remain in IO's tale of criminals in a desperate situation. Dog Days is a considerably streamlined affair in comparison to the first game. There are no more heists, not much in the way of stealth missions, hell, there's not even much variety in the whys of what you're doing. You're pretty much always shooting and moving forward. In a way, this is refreshing - that other stuff was not executed well in the last game.

Of course, the flaw there is increased repetition. The shooting mechanic in Dog Days is more functional than it was in Dead Men, but it still feels a little behind the times in comparison to third person shooters in 2010, and the cover system still frustrates as much as it helps. This is compounded by weapons that have been hobbled in effectiveness by IO's desire to make them feel more realistic. Guns early in the game are inaccurate pieces of junk, and you'll spend as much time looking for better guns as you will your plan of attack. This is more a problem for you than the enemies you'll face, as Dog Days is one of the few games I've ever played where fodder opponents take more punishment than the player can. The real draw of Kane & Lynch 2 is the story and presentation. At this point, you probably know about Dog Days' particular presentation style, evoking user created video content on sites like Youtube. However, the influence of modern and classic crime thrillers is also omni-present. Similar to the tonal similarities the original Kane & Lynch game shared with the film Heat, Dog Days evokes films like Collateral and The Departed.

Commander: Conquest of the Americas (hereafter known as C:CotA) is two distinct game types in a not entirely happy union. The two game areas are individually impressive, but both have some personality quirks that become even more apparent when they're together. It's not a dysfunctional relationship by any means, more like one that's in need of a bit more communication between the parties.
The premise is a strong one: control one of seven European powers hoping to exploit the hell out of America's resources in the 16th century. Trade your way to superiority and defend your economic interests with the finest warships the continent has ever seen. Scraps of land from Hudson Bay to the northern shores of (what is now) Brazil are ripe for some good old fashioned European colonialism.

We're talking top-down strategy here and, as this is title published by Paradox Interactive, you'd be correct in assuming it requires a reasonable amount of thought to play. The early part of the game's main campaign (which stretches from 1500 to 1630 and will comfortably eat up 30 hours or more of your time) is dedicated to establishing a fledgling colony or two and transporting the first handful of resources back to your chosen nation's home port. Colony management plays an important role, as without a few key buildings to keep up morale (such as Church, or Theatre) the people will become listless and apathetic about producing more goods for sale.It's necessary to keep transporting colonists from the home port to your American outposts as they never appear to reproduce. Nor, as far as I can tell, do they ever die. C:CotA's population acts like a static commodity - if you need people somewhere, simply move them there as you would with any other resource like iron ore or cotton.

Battle Tactics: There's accessible depth to Glory of Heracles, thanks to its robust magic and combat systems, which also take into account battle formations and elemental magic attributes. Players can choose to fight it out hand-to-hand, throw magic back and forth or utilize battle skills that enhance defensive and offensive moves. It's all relatively stock stuff, but with these various systems and options layered upon each other, the strategic elements of Glory of Heracles start to shine a few hours into the game. Add touchscreen based mini-games that can enhance your magical spells, with increasingly challenging technique modifiers that players can learn from Nymphs, and the battles can be entertaining.

The Ether System: As all characters have the ability to use magic, Glory of Heracles balances a reliance on spells (or one type of spell) with the Ether system. Ether's basically spell fuel, which recharges over time and with the help of Overkills. And that's the post-knock out attack that players can perform on downed opponents which turns enemies into rewarding Ether, part of the tactical considerations that serious players will have to think about, as ether and Magic Points aren't always easy to come by.

The Upgrade System: Glory of Heracles loot and reward system reminds me, in some small way, of Diablo II's with an item crafting and equipment upgrading system that's simple but compelling. You'll occasionally find scrap metal, crystals and other raw materials on the battlefield, which can be forged into new weapons at a blacksmith or will add new skill attributes to existing ones at an alchemist. There are also rusted items players will find, which must be taken to a polisher to reveal their true nature. There's a bit of excitement provided by these mystery items and materials, ensuring that a visit to town will make for some new discovery in your inventory.

Although Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth is a spin-off from the original Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice games, it lacks none of the magic of its predecessors. Playing detective is as much fun as ever, with cool new features like third-person view, updated gameplay elements, and settings outside the courtroom to make things more interesting this time around. This is a game with depth and variety that effortlessly ties its elements together with a rich and engaging story. It's a little easy at times, and playing as Miles Edgeworth takes some getting used to, but the witty dialogue, colourful characters, and exciting gameplay turn Ace Attorney Investigations into a satisfying adventure. Ace Attorney Investigations centres on an entirely new story and protagonist in the shape of Miles Edgeworth, who is a level-headed prosecutor from previous Ace Attorney games (likes: justice and correct grammar; hates: incompetence). Each of the five chapters in the game focuses on a new case that is tied to the one before it, and eventually, the intertwining storylines are brought together. After dealing with a mysterious murder in his office, Miles gets caught up investigating an international smuggling ring, which in turn leads him to search for a mysterious thief called the Yatagarasu. His partner in crime (or is that justice?) is the bumbling and affable detective Dick Gumshoe. Dick is a returning character from the old series who will occasionally step aside from his role as sidekick to make way for new characters, as well as familiar ones. First, there is newcomer Kay--a sweet 17-year-old orphan who claims to be a great thief herself. Then, there is another returning character: feisty Franziska von Karma (likes: whipping people; dislikes: not whipping people). Of course, new circumstances call for new characters, and the game is full of wacky and perverse people that jump out from behind every corner to either help or hinder your journey to the truth. Always entertaining, these colourful personages help keep things interesting. The problem--at least at the very beginning of the game--is Miles himself. Regardless of his many nicknames, Edgey is a straightlaced prosecutor with a nagging disposition to always let justice prevail. He's not as goofy or immediately engaging as Phoenix Wright or even Apollo Justice. His sense of humour is kind of dry, and he's always correcting people on grammar usage or the correct application of the law. The game tries a little too hard to make Miles likeable--there are too many exaggerated facial expressions, as well as hurtful jabs at Gumshoe and his paycheck.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck, right? If there is one thing I've learned about axioms like these, it's that they're pretty much wrong as often as they are right. Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing walks and quacks just like a kart racer (yes, they quack), but turns out to be the love child of Sega's own OutRun and F-Zero GX in a pretty convincing duck outfit.

Sumo Digital's previous title, the excellent Sega Superstars Tennis, saw some of Sega's biggest icons (and a few nobodies) going head-to-head on the court. All-Stars Racing carries some definite stylistic echoes from that title, to the point that I found myself referring it as a sequel. This is a plus; Sumo's most impressive achievement in Superstars Tennis was how they managed to take characters and locales from such disparate genres and have them coalesce under a unified, attractive art direction. By miracle or black magic, seeing Ulala from the rhythm series Space Channel 5 hover alongside deposed Sega mascot Alex Kidd in a track right out Jet Set Radio Future feels perfectly natural. Even more realistic characters—Ryo of the ill-fated Shenmue series, for example—behave with enough exaggeration to fit right in.

Throwing these characters together on the track and calling it a day would have probably been good enough for plenty of nostalgic gamers. There's a certain unique appeal to seeing a gaggle of gaming icons jammed together under the banner of a single title, and time and again this draw has proven lucrative absent any significant innovations. Sumo Digital thankfully vaults over this low bar, imparting All-Stars Racing with solid racing mechanics that easily shine without any help from Sonic and his cohorts.

The cornerstone of these mechanics is the concept of drift. Drifting, as it pertains to motorsports, is defined by Wikipedia as "a driving technique...where the driver intentionally oversteers, causing loss of traction in the rear wheels through turns, while maintaining vehicle control and a high exit speed.

The press release for Bejeweled Twist is full of lies! There is not "no doubt" that "this is the world's greatest casual videogame"; just ask the world's millions of Tetris and Peggle fans. Bejeweled Twist does not "revolutionise fun". The visual and audio effects are not "stunning". And it's incorrect to say that "virtually every aspect of Bejeweled Twist is new". It's still played on a grid filled with multi-coloured gems. The gameplay still involves matching gems of the same colour to make them disappear, thereby racking up points. There are still special gems that have different effects when matched. The visuals are pretty enough, the music is as gently hypnotic as always and the nice clinky sound effects are as nice and clinky as they've ever been.

So not many aspects of Bejeweled Twist are new.

That said, not everything in the press release is a lie. There has been one simple yet fundamental change to the gameplay, and it does put "a completely new spin" on the game. It really does mean that Bejeweled Twist can be "relaxing, challenging, exciting or incredibly strategic, depending on your mood". In the original Bejeweled, the gameplay was about switching gems with their horizontal or vertical neighbours. In Bejeweled Twist, the gameplay revolves around, well, revolving them.

Instead of clicking on a single gem, you click on a two-by-two group of four. This causes each gem to rotate one place clockwise. If this results in three or more gems of the same colour becoming lined up horizontally or vertically, they disappear - just like in old Bejeweled. But in Bejeweled Twist, you don't have to make a match with every single move. You can keep clicking and rotating gems for as long as you like without scoring any points, and never see the "No more moves" message.At first, playing in Classic mode, it's hard to locate any challenge whatsoever. But as you progress, bomb gems start to appear. These have a numerical counter that clicks down with each move you make. To defuse them you have to match them with like-coloured gems, and this is trickier in later levels when you might see three or four bomb gems on-screen at once.

WarioWare D.I.Y. does for making games what the original WarioWare did for playing them. The series has always been about distilling the act of gameplay down to its simplest elements, so that a game can be learned and completed in five seconds or less. In this case, a simple, menu-driven interface, combined with the harsh time restrictions of the games, allows you to go from idea to full (but tiny) game in just minutes.After about an hour of tutorials (or, actually, somewhere halfway through), you'll have enough of a handle on the concepts of the game's utility to make a game. The tutorials walk you through the creation of three sample minigames step by step, with instruction from Dr. Crygor's granddaughter Penny and distraction from your fellow student Wario (the only Nintendo character who could get away with taking an emergency bathroom break during a tutorial). For further instruction, the game features a series of "challenges" in which you fill in one incomplete aspect of a more complex game.

Not that you need too much of a tutorial: the tools are so easy to understand that pretty much anyone, regardless of age or programming knowledge, should be able to make a game. The secret is the menu interface for "AI," with which you assign actions to your created objects (like movement, sound effects, or art changes) and triggers for those actions (tapping on them with the stylus, contact with another object, time, etc.) On their own, each action and each trigger is easy to understand, and they can all be stacked to create complex interactions -- even if, say, your only qualification as a programmer is that you married a programmer. Here's a microgame I made as proof. Link, the flames, and the buttons are all objects. Link's art changes in response to a change in direction, and stops in response to contact with the flame -- which also triggers the switch that wins the game. The buttons are set to trigger Link's movement, and also to change their colors. For reference, this took me -- maybe -- two hours.

The drawing and music interfaces are similarly streamlined, based entirely on icons for familiar drawing actions (and Mario Paint holdovers like the rocket eraser) and dots on a grid to represent music notes.

Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver is not in any way a new game. This latest from Nintendo is simply a re-release of the classic Game Boy game, Pokémon Gold/Silver; a port with shiny new graphics and all of the new Wi-Fi and multiplayer trappings of Diamond/Pearl. But any Pokémon collector knows that if you're still not playing these games, you're missing out on one of the most addictive RPGs available. HeartGold/SoulSilver doesn't do much new, but it does make the familiar formula feel polished to perfection.

For full disclosure, I did not completely finish this game. I cleared the first area, Johto, but barely scratched the surface of Kanto. The sheer scope of the game is one of the things that made it so terrific back in 2000 and that makes it equally great today. You not only have one massive world to explore, with a full set of trainers and eight badges, but when you beat them, you also open up the entire world from the original game (or the FireRed/LeafGreen world, for those whose memory doesn't stretch back quite so far).

Beyond the enhancements brought over from the previous DS Pokémon games, HeartGold/SoulSilver adds several additional boosts to the already familiar "level up and battle" gameplay. You can finally toggle running (no more holding any buttons down). You can set more than one item to your quick-use list (though only one is set to a button; you have to tap the screen to use your second item). And like Pokémon Yellow, you get to see your lead creature trailing along behind you in the game. It doesn't really "add" anything, but it's nice to be able to interact with these creatures that you put so much time and effort into.

But HeartGold/SoulSilver's biggest addition takes place outside the game entirely: The Pokéwalker. This simple pedometer packaged with the game lets you take one of the game's creatures, store them in a Pokéball-styled container, and go out walking together. The more steps you take, the more Watts you earn, a currency used to search for Pokémon and items out in the wild through simple minigames. Or you can save up your Watts to unlock new routes for you and your pal. Like the game itself, it's such a simple concept -- one that requires so little effort from you, that it's almost instantly endearing. You can even hook up with other trainers who might also be toting along their Pokéwalkers. And when you import your pet back into the game, you get a cute summary of all the things they've done. If you don't find the appeal in seeing that your Pokémon is "tugging at your shirt and seems to want to play some more," this is not in any way the game for you.

Again is the second interactive novel experience from Cing Inc, who also brought Hotel Dusk to the Nintendo DS. In this story, you slip into the shoes of FBI Agent Jonathan Weaver who is investigating a string of serial murders mirroring a similar chain of events as the Providence killings from 19 years earlier. Agent Weaver has special “visions” – flashbacks of the past – which have been bringing new evidence to light as you and your partner Kate Hathaway retrace and re-investigate the original crimes.Being an interactive novel adventure, Again is very reliant on the story-telling and dialogue. It is important that you exhaust all options in order to gain the most knowledge to help you in solving the case. Talking with one witness can unlock new text for another, which in turn might have you bothering the first witness once more. For the more interactive parts of dialogue, you will notice questions are presented in orange text and answers in white. For questioning people, select which lead you want to pursue until you have run through all of the available choices. Sometimes one set of questions will be replaced with a new one, depending on the answers received from the witness. When it comes to having Agent Weaver answer questions, you want to select the correct choice from the white text replies. If you choose the wrong answer it’s not a huge deal. After a brief comment from the person youare speaking with you can select another answer.Once you have access to new crime scenes you will get to experience Past Visions and the Psyche Gauge. In these Past Visions, one screen of your DS turns into a past version of the room you are in. The touch screen side remains the current version of the room, and using this screen you will move about the room and compare the differences in each scene. You need to find the variances and make the present scene the same as your Past Vision. This usually entails looking for items that are out of place, searching the room for clues on opening hidden safes, maybe even just turning on a tap. The Psyche Gauge will drain if you Focus on an area or item that does not trigger a Past memory. Once you have drained the gauge, you’ll get a Game Over screen. You can Retry from this point, taking you back into the room. Just be sure to remember what you have failed to flash on so you can avoid draining too much from the meter.

On June 6, 2010 the puzzle game Tetris celebrated its 26th birthday. Yes, it may be hard to believe, but those little annoying shapes have been bugging casual and hardcore gamers alike for the past 26 years. Tetris has been released in one form or another to a myriad of consoles, computers, handheld devices, and just about anything else that can be programmed over the course of those 26 years and now, building on the Tetris Party WiiWare release, Hudson Soft and Majesco have released Tetris Party Deluxe for both the DS and the Wii.

Concerning ourselves solely with the DS version in this review, what can be stated most clearly and emphatically is that it's Tetris. The game does contain a number of special modes, but even if those weren't any good (and some of them most definitely are a lot of fun), in the end, it still has the old-school version in a portable format and that very well may, by itself, make the game worth it.

As I say though, Tetris Party Deluxe does contain more than just regular old Tetris. The WiiWare version features 18 different game modes, and the Deluxe version contains a few more than that. In fact, the press release states that there are six new game modes included here – Bombliss, Sprint, VS Sprint, Master, Co-op VS Co-op, and All Clear Sprint. Bombliss requires you to clear lines of blocks with bombs to create chain reactions while Sprint asks you to clear 40 lines in the shortest amount of time. Master Mode is just the game starting off at full speed and Co-op VS Co-op features two teams of two going up against each other in a wide field.

The number of modes, what with being able to play via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and DS Download Play, as well as there being a Beginner's section, can really be quite misleading. In farmore simple terms, there are eight different single player modes (not including the Beginner's

Numbers games aside, the truly impressive thing about Tetris Party Deluxe is that while the makers of Tetris could rest on their laurels and simply rerelease the original version of the game over and over and over again and there are those of us out there who would buy it over and over and over again. Many of the additional modes included in Tetris Party Deluxe, however, are incredibly fun and not just cheap gimmicks included only to inflate the apparent content of the release.

It’s obvious to say that good licensed games are few and far between. But great DS games? They used to be released rather frequently but have significantly dried up in recent years. Imagine our surprise then, when one of the better DS games we’ve seen in the past year turned out to be a platform game based on the latest big Disney movie.

More inspired by Tim Burton’s latest than directly based upon it, Alice In Wonderland is a licensed game that happily puts gameplay first. You don’t control the title character, for instance. Instead, Alice trails behind as you alternate command between the supporting characters of the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, Absolem the caterpillar and white rabbit, McTwisp. There’s a hint of Ico to the gameplay as you escort Alice through the non-linear (dare we say ‘metroidvania’?) world, protecting her from the playing-card knights that try to abduct her and lending a helping hand at high ledges and wide gaps.

Each of the four playable characters has a unique set of abilities that must be called upon in order to traverse the rather puzzly locations. McTwisp comes over all Blinx The Time Sweeper with the ability to rewind, fast-forward or pause time in order to manipulate the environment around him. Absolem can switch gravity to walk along the ceiling. The Hatter can flip the game world 180 degrees to reveal hidden objects behind the scenes, while the Cheshire cat can make scenery appear or disappear at will. These puzzles are, admittedly, all prescribed junctions in the environment and do feel quite easy at first. A few hours in, however, they increase in complexity and imagination, requiring you to use multiple abilities in quick succession and occasionally think outside the box of the established mechanics.

This is one of the first DS games in a long time, actually, to take advantage of the hardware’s quirkiness in such a way. Take the playing card knights, for example; strike them a few times to strip them of their armour and you can then blow into the microphone to make the paper enemies float away in the breeze. The dungeon map, meanwhile, is made up of jigsaw pieces that can be accessed from the touch screen and re-arranged in order to change the very structure of the game world and create your own shortcuts.

The follow-up to the incredibly addictive puzzle game Picross DS, Picross 3D moves the picture finding gameplay into the next dimension, a game of block breaking and brain teasing that's also one of the best Nintendo DS games of the year.

Instead of presenting the player with a blank canvas and numbered clues with which a player must study to draw a simple, pixelated picture, Picross 3D hands the player a giant block from which to carve a 3D model. Numbers on the side of each remaining cube inform the player how many blocks must remain in each row or column. Smash the rest to discover what's underneath. Each hidden treasure is simple and abstract, a collection of ultra low fidelity 3D representations of dogs, scissors, breakdancers, pianos, hot air balloons and hundreds of other items.

Picross 3D is a game about paying attention, thinking logically to determine your next carving spot, and mostly about being awesome.

I was initially skeptical of Dementium II. I had a hard time believing that the DS' diminutive dimensions could offer a foreboding, atmospheric horror experience. But I couldn't deny the ambitous nature of the game's design, and while it doesn't always succeed, Dementium II surprised me with its quality and depth.

When the game begins, you awaken in a prison cell with no clue as to how you got there or who tossed you in and threw away the key. That initial head-scratcher, however, is put on hold when your prison turns into hell on earth. Prison guards are replaced by grotesquely misshapen monsters, and the prison itself mutates into an industrial torture facility. The world will shift back and forth from the mundane to the horrific in a heartbeat, leaving you to question your character's sanity while also keeping you on your toes. Unfortunately, the game's puzzles involve a fair bit of backtracking, which robs these otherwise memorable environments of their impact over time. Dementium II's lackluster save system, which is still a big improvement over its predecessor's near-non-existent series of checkpoints, also forces you to replay large sections of the game, leading to further fatigue. Dementium II's combat is similarly hit-or-miss. Guns handle well, and the game's first-person perspective means that it avoids many of the camera issues commonly associated with the survival-horror genre (think Resident Evil's fixed cameras). However, the enemy A.I. is particularly bad when it comes to aiming, meaning it misses far more often than it hits; it also exhibits some brain-dead behavior, like running smack into walls with an alarming frequency. Melee weapons are, excuse the pun, a double-edged sword, adding an extra layer of variety to combat, but lacking any real impact. Their blows land with the weight of plastic Halloween costume replicas.All of these issues cut into Dementium II's quality, which is a shame because, at its best, it's a legitimately spooky ride. The enemies' hair-raising howls and the game's ability to touch upon our deep-seeded fear of the dark lends a feeling of genuine dread to each encounter; combine this with a near-perfect take on the classic survival-horror trope of scarce ammo and health, and the game is able to create an atmosphere that is unrelentingly tense. The game's terrific visuals -- they exhibit surprising quality for a DS game -- help as well.

In 1996, Space Invaders company Tiato released a vertically-scrolling arcade shooter in Japanese arcades called Raystorm. A little bit later it showed up on the PlayStation, and was impressive looking on the system, especially considering the dated hardware. Nearly a decade and a half later, it is released onto XBLA and PSN (outside North America, for now) for 1200 Microsoft points, or $15. Is this classic shooter worth the price? Or are you better off spending you money elsewhere?

Raystorm was one of my favorite games on the PlayStation, so when the opportunity came for me to review it I had to take it and see how much they improved on the game. Unfortunately the answer here is not much. The game offers two different modes right away, with more to unlock later. Arcade mode is the original arcade game, while extra mode is a harder version of the game where some of the backgrounds are different, and the stage bosses change the way they attack and in some instances how to destroy them. There are eight total stages in the game, and depending on which mode you pick the stages change slightly. At the start of the game players have the option of choosing two different ships, one that fires bullets and directable lasers, and the other fires a straight forward laser and lightning. The first will, as the player collects power ups, start to resemble a spread gun. Likewise the second just gets a more powerful forward firing laser. The laser ship is more powerful; however it does not have the coverage that the bullet ship has. During game play there is a targeting reticle in front of the ship at all times. This is the locking mechanic, as targets are locked on to, players can fire a barrage of lightning or lasers at the target, depending on the ship. Some targets, including bosses, can be and are below the plane and thus can only be destroyed by using the lock on mechanic. Now for an HD release of an old arcade game, there is an expectation of some kind of improvement to be made, updated graphics, online play, etc. Unfortunately the only thing that was improved on were some textures, the rest stayed virtually the same.

Oh, look, another racing game for Xbox Live. Now, we wouldn’t be so dismissive if it weren’t for the glut of incredible four-wheelin’ games coming our way this month, including Split/Second and Blur. Still, something in our youth cried for us to try out Things On Wheels, a game that puts you in control of remote control cars as you race around tracks in and around a house, picking up power-ups to slow down the competition. After about a couple of hours, though, we could hear that same youth yawn out of sheer boredom.

Part of the problem is that Things On Wheels doesn’t really differ from the 80,000 other racing games available. There’s no stunt system, no variety to the power-ups (electric shocker, turbo boost, tire freezer and green shield, and occasional traps around the house), and nothing, aside from some creative track names, which shows any real ingenuity. The game is so average, we wanted to slap the word across every vehicle we drove in the game.

That’s not to say it doesn’t handle all right. Things On Wheels is playable for the most part. You can navigate turns, come off jumps, and execute power-ups with ease. However, most of the time, you’ll find yourself slipping to last place because of the scattershot collision detection. You’ll hit walls, dead ends, piano legs, the works…all while trying to navigate around them. Focus Home Interactive probably should’ve spent a little more time cleaning up this title, especially since it’s been delayed for so long anyway.The game looks pretty good. It runs at a (mostly) smooth 60 frames per second, even in split-screen multiplayer. The car models look okay as well, although the lack of paint jobs (there are only so many colors in the rainbow to use) force you to stick with something neon-ish. As for the sound, ugh. We have routine background tunes here, and nothing that would last five seconds in Split/Second. The sound effects fare no better, with weak sounding RC engines. We’ve heard Radio Shack models that sound meatier than this.

First-person games tend to be limited in variety. The vast majority of them are shooters, and for good reason – first-person shooters are easy to make and modify (compared to other types of first-person games). Shooters also are mostly easy to play, in the sense that many of them share a similar control scheme. Some first-person games try to bend the shooter formula a bit, but few overhaul it entirely. Zeno Clash is one of those games that try to redefine the first-person game experience, and while it’s problematic in some critical areas, it’s got a good amount of innovation and entertainment value. Zeno Clash is billed as a first-person fighting game. First-person games that focus on close combat are not new – Mirror’s Edge, the Condemned series, and the first Bushido Blade game come to mind as other examples – but there’s been few enough such games that Zeno Clash seems like a breath of fresh air. In Zeno Clash, you play Ghat, a fugitive who’s been falsely accused of murdering the leader of his clan, called Father-Mother. At first the plot may seem like a standard “clear your name” story, but…well, as you might have figured out by the murder victim being named “Father-Mother,” let’s just say it gets really weird, really fast. Sometimes it gets confusing, but at least it’s compelling enough to give you a good context to punch lots of fools in the face. Backing up the weird plot are even weirder visuals – let it not be said that Zeno Clash doesn’t have a unique visual style. It’s a pretty surreal fantasy landscape that focuses more on the disturbing aspects of fantasy rather than the pleasant ones. Zeno Clash’s graphical style brings to mind some of the album art of certain early heavy metal records. Think Brutal Legend on acid…well, even more acid. It’s a refreshing take on graphics that is distinctive enough that you can overlook its few technical issues. As unique as the graphical style is, playing the game is still pretty straightforward, focus on brawling aside – get from point A to point B, beating down whoever’s unlucky enough to stand in your way. Thankfully the control scheme for brawling is easy to understand. The triggers launch weak or strong attacks, and these attacks change depending on context. When standing, you punch; when grabbing, you can either knee your opponent in the face or elbow him on the head; when sprinting, you elbow people in front of you; and when combined with blocking, can deliver devastating kicks as counter-attacks. Kicking ass in this manner can indeed feel satisfying, as you can pull off some impressive moves with a few button presses. It’s pretty simple in theory, but the finer points of brawling in this manner can be problematic. For one, the triggers aren’t the best place to put your primary attacks in a brawling game, considering their pressure sensitivity. Secondly, when there are multiple enemies, it can be hard to manage. Focusing on one opponent is easy enough, but to change targets, you have to look at them with the right stick and then hit the focus button again.

Twin-Stick Shooters and bullet-hell games are well known to today's gamers, but what happens when Naval Warfare is also thrown into the mix? Aqua is the answer. This Xbox Live Arcade title is the first game to be developed by Games Distillery, a fairly new team that has yet to prove themselves in today's gaming market.

Aqua follows the story of Captain Benjamin Grey, an elite military officer of the Emperean fleet who has just returned victorious from the Gothean War. Joined by his newly appointed Engineer, Polly Edison, Grey decides to search for treasure hidden among the wreckage left behind from battles past and in doing so discovers much more than he bargained for. The Gotheans are back, and this time they have new found technology to not only start the Gothean War all over again, but to ensure victory as well. It is up to Captain Grey to quell the Gothean uprising before it gets out of hand using only his ship, his crew and the few remnants of the Emperean fleet. The story is hardly original but it does tie the levels together well and also features a few likeable characters, it's good enough considering there are a lot worse examples out there.

The gameplay is fairly simple, players take control of Grey's ship with the left stick and shoot with the right, it's this simple control scheme that makes twin-stick shooters a joy to pick up and play. Grey's ship however has more tricks up its....porthole? The ship can also fire torpedoes with the right trigger and lay mines with the left trigger. These weapons are not imperative to use but make things a whole lot easier when faced with tougher opponents in larger numbers. Later on in the game, players will have access to three different ships, each boasting different pros and cons, more powerful weaponry, upgrades and a squad of ships to accompany them. It's these choices given to players that truly make this game great, as more powerful items are spread evenly throughout the levels to keep the gameplay challenging and fun.The world of Aqua is very beautiful, that is when not being shot at.

n the early 90′s, if you were a gamer, chances are that the Doom franchise was a staple of your gaming rotation. While Wolfenstein may have come first, Doom is widely accredited with popularizing the first-person shooter genre. It’s no secret that FPS’s may be the lifeblood of modern gaming systems, and to return the favor Doom, and now Doom II, have been released on the Xbox Live Arcade. The question that looms over Doom II is: “Is it really a timeless classic, or has Father Time been unkind to it?”

Depending on who you ask, it seems that everyone has a different favorite Doom game. Up until Doom 3, the games were very much the same, with new levels being the only major change between titles. For what it’s worth, I had always considered Doom II to be my favorite of the Doom titles, but this was probably because it was one of my first computer games as a kid.

Upon loading the game on my 360, I realized very quickly how different this experience would be than my hours spent on the PC version. As a tot, “idDQD”, “idKFA”, and “idCLIP” were more important to me than all the BFGs in the world. For those of you not in the know, in order, those are the cheat codes for God Mode, all keys, weapons, and full ammo, and the ability to walk through walls. Even on the first few levels on the lower difficulties, it was apparent how frustrating the game would become. It seems that Doom, while a pioneer for the space marine formula, does not afford you the luxury of being a complete bullet sponge like Master Chief and Marcus Fenix.

When starting a new game for the first time, you’re prompted to select between the Hell on Earth campaign and the No Rest for the Living campaign. Hell on Earth is the traditional Doom II campaign, and No Rest for the Living is a nine level (one of them being secret) add-on made specifically for the XBLA port. These two campaigns weigh in at a hefty total of 41 levels. That’s quite a bit of bang for your buck, if I may say so.

The gameplay itself is very much in the classic Doom vein. There are a ton of demons and monsters everywhere, and every switch you flip and every door you open just leads to lots more. Without the assistance of my trusty cheat codes, I found that the second best strategy is to heed the advice of Patches O’Houlihan – dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge. You’re going to need to constantly jump behind walls and avoid those pesky fireballs. As I mentioned before, your space marine’s health drops pretty quickly, so while there are usually a lot of health kits lying around, you don’t want to get too careless in the heat of the battle.