The goal of this game is to control a die and navigate your way through a maze to reach the totem pole which marks the end of the level. This is easier said than done, as there are a lot problem solving that needs to be done before you can easily guide the die to its goal. Firstly, numerous dice are scattered throughout the levels and are blocking your way. The only way to destroy them is to roll your die to match the number which is facing up – e.g. if the enemy die shows the number one facing up you should roll your die so it also shows the number one. Other clever obstacles include a magnetic die that you can attach which enables you to get across gaps and holes. There’s also other blocks that you have to push and teleportation machines which allows you to transport yourself across previously inaccessible areas of a specific level. The gameplay can be frustrating at times, but once you learn the game’s mechanics it can be quite fun. You will be jumping for joy especially when you figure out a way to solve some of the most intense puzzles!
Normally, there’s not much to gripe about the visuals seen in most other puzzle games. Most of them just consist of one screen and a set of blocks. It’s a refreshing change to see that Voodoo Dice has some of the brightest and most colorful graphics ever seen in the puzzle genre. The levels are laid out like floating islands and the water effects glisten with clarity while the tress and grass that make up some of the levels fit in nicely with the overall theme.
The offline multiplayer mode is very addictive as there are four very humorous and fun game modes that you can choose from. First up is Race which is a 3-lap racing event involving you and another die. Who would have thought we would see the day that a pair of dice would race each other? As hilarious as that my sound, this was my personal favorite mode in multiplayer. There are several traps along your way which will slow down your opponents which can lead to unpredictable results.
Flag mode is where you have to hold on to a flag longer than your opponents within a time limit. Tactics is a like a game of chess where you have to use the game’s “facing up” mechanic to kill all your opponents’ dice. Last but not least is Arcade, where the objective is to destroy as much dice as possible within the time limit.
It's easy to see why some games make it from concept to market. No-one at EA was going to turn down DICE when they decided the next game in the Battlefield series would have a modern warfare setting. CliffyB and co weren't exactly going out on a limb when they decided to set Gears of War in a future that was grim and brown and while Dirt 2 might retain Colin McRae's name its fusion of experience points, energy drinks and Xtreme stylings might well have come from some kind of MTV concept-o-matic machine.
Then there are some games that are the complete opposite; those with surprising concepts and original ideas. While many of these – Katamari Damacy, Ico and Brutal Legend to name a few – are the product of fevered, obsessive, visionary geniuses, some left-field games strike you as being more the product of a lot of banned substances.
Snoopy Flying Ace is one such game. It features the cast of Peanuts – Snoopy, Woodstock, Linus, Lucy and of course, Charlie Brown – flying wooden World War One bi- and tri-planes armed to the teeth (Muzzle? Whiskers?) with weapons including homing missiles, sniper rifles and shotguns. Despite its cartoon characters, the proceedings are surprisingly violent, packing in high-paced arcade aerial combat complete with stunt rolls as evasive manoeuvres. Admit it. You think this sounds like complete tripe. A dog’s dinner, as it were. Surprisingly not: Snoopy Flying Ace is an entertaining and fast paced arcade game with a tough singleplayer campaign and comprehensive multiplayer options. As a downloadable title, retailing for 800 Microsoft points, it’s a bit of a bargain too.
The signs are good the moment you’re introduced to the controls. They manage what all good arcade inputs should: they’re fast, responsive, and strike a good balance between simple (for accessibility) and complexity (so there’s actually enough to do). You fly as Snoopy, the game opting for a third-dog point of view; the left joytstick controls the plane, while the right essentially gives you four special moves for avoiding incoming fire – two loop-the-loops and two barrel rolls. There’s also a speed boost and an air-brake, which are both critical in dogfights.
If you didn't know any better, you might see a game like Risk: Factions and assume it came from videogame crack dealer PopCap Games. After all, it's got the simple yet hopelessly addicting gameplay, colorful visuals, bizarre characters, and goofball charm of a typical PopCap release. And that is something of a compliment to EA and developer Stainless Games, which are the actual brains behind this reworking of the boardgame classic. That this update can invoke the pleasant feelings PopCap games usually tend to speaks highly of its design, and that it still feels like honest-to-God Risk speaks even higher.
Right off the bat, you'll undoubtedly want to know one thing: Can I just play Risk? Yes, you can. The classic strategy boardgame, with its map of the world, numbered units, and dice-rolling attacks are all here in more-or-less untouched fashion. If you like your Risk dry as a corpse in the desert, then you will find precisely what you're looking for here. But what if you are looking for a bit more in the way of whimsy in your Risk gaming? Factions has you covered. The Factions side of the game takes the core gameplay of Risk, and adds something like a billion new elements to it. Apart from several new maps, all with unique terrain, you'll also find yourself with various objectives and specialized weapons scattered all over the place. All of these revolve specifically around control of specific terrain. For instance, if you control the entirety of the terrain on which the “temple” weapon is built, and you're able to hold onto it, you can actually convert an enemy space on the board to your own, armies and all. Or, if you control the “dam” portion of the map, you can flood an entire continent and remove all enemy armies from it.
Acquiring these weapons, as well as hitting other objectives on the board (controlling specific continents, invading a certain number of territories in a single turn, etc.), give you badges that not only give you new bonus abilities (like being able to move multiple armies around before the end of your turn, or getting an extra dice to roll with when attacking), but if you collect three of them, you win the game, flat-out.
That little wrinkle there is actually what turns Risk: Factions from a sometimes plodding game to a frequently hectic one.
When discussing games that invoke an incredible amount of nostalgia, few games hit the nail on the head as directly as Earthworm Jim. The quirky tale of the lowly earthworm that gets involved with a super space suit was perhaps an unlikely classic when it was released in 1994, but sure enough, it has maintained a cult and mainstream following during the 16 years that it has been out. At one point, it was even rated at the 114th greatest game ever released on a Nintendo system by Nintendo Power magazine.
Gameloft is now testing the waters to see if a game of such age can survive in today’s vastly different market. While many games in the Sony Playstation/Nintendo 64 eras didn’t age quite as well, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis titles seem to age like fine wines. Earthworm Jim is no exception. With slightly more polished graphics and the same great controls and humor as before, Earthworm Jim HD for Xbox Live Arcade is, without a doubt, one of the more fun titles to come out on the virtual markets in recent memory.
For those unfamiliar with the concept of Earthworm Jim, you play as a simple earthworm just trying to make your way through the level without dying. Sound boring? Well howabout you fuse that earthworm with a space suit that enables you to run, jump, shoot and even swing through the various levels.
The gameplay is that of a typical classic platforming title. You run through the level (generally from left to right) while defeating any bad guys you may encounter along the way. Most levels will culminate in a boss battle of some sort. These boss battles are incredibly unique and often-times challenging. No two bosses are the same and most require large amounts of creativity to defeat. If you do have issues with figuring out how to go about facing a particular boss, however, you can take the easy way out and read tips that are programmed into the title. On the normal difficulty, these tips are automatically issued before the boss battle, so on a first playthrough, it does somewhat take away from the overall experience.A platforming title that has it’s control scheme down is only as good as it’s level design. Luckily for Earthworm Jim, the level designs are nothing short of brilliant. They accurately represent the game developers’ sense of humor and really shows why the 90′s were the best years for the platforming genre. From “New Junk City” to “What the Heck?” the levels fit perfectly in with the game’s overall sense of originality and humor.
Tower Defense is gaming's youngest genre and it shows: endless waves of clones clog up iTunes, many as irresistible as their inspiration but few displaying much innovation. That's natural. Evolution requires a large gene pool before baby-step iterations begin to generate true diversification.
For that reason, Monday Night Combat's giant leap forward for the genre is exciting. It's like nothing seen before and yet, in its borrowing of game elements from a variety of other well-known titles, it's immediately familiar.
Monday Night Combat is built upon an orthodox Tower Defence foundation. This much is made obvious in the first of the game's two core modes: Blitz. All of the elements of the fixed path Tower Defence form are present here. Your base is known as the 'Moneyball', which you must protect from waves of enemy bots that approach it along fixed paths.
To fend off the attacks, you erect turrets in predefined build locations using what limited funds you have. They automatically fire upon attackers when anything enters their range, and can be upgraded using money you earn from the enemies they take down. Survive a set number of increasingly challenging waves without losing all of your Moneyball base points and the game is won. So far, so StarCraft mod.The game's first innovation is in casting the player not as some disembodied mouse cursor, clicking on build points like an abstract strategy god, but rather as a soldier, on the ground, running in between and around the turrets and attackers. You essentially act as a turret with legs, able to line up shots on bots as in any third-person shooter, yet also tasked with running up to build points and erecting static turrets to provide back-up. Your character, as well as packing two projectile weapons, has three unique abilities to use on the playfield. Each of these can be upgraded with money from felled bots.
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair is an interesting experiment. While it looks just like the 2D Castlevania games we've grown accustomed to since Symphony of the Night, it's actually very different than any previous entry in the series. This is a multiplayer adventure designed for up to six vampire hunters to jump into the game together. In six maps, they must find and defeat the boss before time runs out. When you get a group of people together and finally figure out how the game works, it's definitely fun. But it's not very enjoyable to play on your own, it fails to explain its mechanics to the player, and most of the assets look like they're pulled straight from existing Castlevania games. This one is for the hardcore Castlevania fans only, but I do think they will enjoy it.
There are six recognizable characters from the series to choose from and each behaves the way you would expect them to. For instance, Shanoa, from Order of Ecclesia, can use her Magnes ability to attach herself to magnets and use them to slingshot to hard-to-reach areas. The game doesn't tell you about the differences between the characters, though, so you may be left wondering why Shanoa isn't learning new spells or can't equip new weapons. That's a problem with the entire game. There is no in-game tutorial explaining how everything works – you're just dropped into the action to fend for yourself. You can read the "How to Play" section of the main menu, but that's not the most effective way of learning a game. Even if you do read the tutorial, it only explains a small fraction of what you can do in Harmony of Despair. If six maps don't sound like much, know that you'll have to play each one many, many times before you are able to reach the boss and put it to rest. When you first arrive in an area you will be underpowered and ill equipped to battle Dracula's minions. Harmony of Despair is all about finding loot that will make you a little bit stronger for the next time. You don't level up, but you're always finding better and better equipment and are slowly becoming more powerful. It is an addictive formula, but I wish it were even deeper and included an experience system like that of Symphony of the Night. The maps are intricate and you'll have to spend some time with them to learn the best path to the boss. Harmony of Despair is definitely designed to be a multiplayer game, so you may find a switch that one player can stand on to douse a fire so that another player can access a new area. Try to go it alone and you can't use these shortcuts, making the game considerably more difficult and denying the player the use of these fun devices. Solo players cannot add bots to help them.
Someone at Spike TV clearly understands mankind's need for far-fetched bloodsport, because Deadliest Warrior: The Game (and the television show that inspired it) taps right into the spirit of "this vs. that" internet discussions. Ever wonder what would happen if a Spartan hoplite went toe-to-toe with a ninja? What about an Apache warrior against a medieval knight? Deadliest Warrior takes those questions and answers them with a fighting game that's one part Soul Calibur, one part Bushido Blade, and almost entirely too generic for its own good. Nearly all of the game's eight characters are completely devoid of personality -- save for maybe the pirate, who looks like he's buckled some serious swash in his day. Aside from that sole, booty-plundering exception, however, each combatant in Deadliest Warrior conjures up memories of the crappy, off-brand merchandise you might find in a drug store toy aisle. Couple uninteresting character design with the fact that none of these guys have an actual name (the Viking is known simply as "Viking," for example) and you've got a roster of lifeless nobodies -- quite the feat when the entire game focuses on history's greatest badasses. The combat itself is simple, button-mashy...and a little unresponsive at times. Characters have comparatively less moves at their disposal than your average, modern-day fighter, with a few of the warriors playing a bit too similarly for my taste. Random dismemberment and instant-kill blows help keep the otherwise by-the-books action interesting, though. And while I'm not a pro-level player in any fighting game, I wouldn't be surprised to hear about the Evo-attending crowd discovering some hidden layer of depth to Deadliest Warrior. Sluggish controls and framerate issues be damned, those guys will fetishize just about anything with a life bar and a combo system. 
Strip the internet of all the pornography, box cat videos, and idiotic Facebook status updates and you're pretty much left with one thing: lots and lots of "Who would win" forum threads. From what I can tell, the only thing more universally appealing than conflict is conflict that's extremely unlikely or altogether impossible -- like we're hard-wired to argue about whether a bear could take a shark or something. Even the most recent Fight Night sported an imaginary bout between Muhammed Ali and Mike Tyson on its cover.