I once baked a really awesome Oreo cake. It took a whole afternoon of some serious baking, and I even pulled in a couple of friends to help me do it. Going through each step, I feverishly awaited the moment when I could sink my teeth into the decadent and sinful combination of chocolate in chocolate, topped with chocolate, filled with chocolate and served with a side of chocolate.
It ended up being a huge mess.
Ninjas have them. Batman has one. Bionic commandos have one too. They’re grappling hooks and they are throwy, shooty, swingy good fun. They’re also nothing new in games. The afore-mentioned Bionic Commando could not jump at all and relied on his grappling arm to grab ledges and swing around the place like a crazy cybernetic monkey-man, all this as far back as pre-3D 1987.
So. Hot on the heels of my previous ShellBlast review comes this humble opinion of its new, Xbox-based cousin: ShellBlast HD. Vertigo Games was kind enough to supply me with a review copy for this sprightly bugger, so of course I latched onto it .
And hey, guess what? It’s just as good as the original. Continue reading
Ed: Yo Nandrew, where’s that ShellBlast review you promised me? You’re already a day late.
Me: Ah, er, bad news. I haven’t written it yet. I’ve been banging my head against this level 30 nuke defusal for most of the afternoon, and as far as I know I’ve still got oxidation and time-bombs to unlock.
Ed: What? Put the damn game down and get on with your writeup already!
Me: I’ll start it as soon as possible, I promise. I just wanna clear these next few levels first …
Ed: Grrrr …
Ed: (starts ticking)
Me: OHSHI-
Me: (throws a chaff grenade at Ed, defuses him, saves the day and progresses to the next level)
The short version: ShellBlast is a bomb defusal game which actually makes you feel like you’re defusing bombs. This is awesome. Continue reading
When a competition comes around with the theme “Advancing Wall of Doom”, you know that the games produces are going to be something special. Well, that’s exactly what the Ludum Dare 48 hour game competition did, as we reported a few weeks ago, and the submitted games certainly lived up to the challenge. The overall winner, however, was mrfun’s Mind Wall, a reflex/puzzle game that not only does full justice to the premise, but manages to be fun and innovative too.
Nandrew: Right, so, here we are with a review of Trino. Made by a bunch of guys that call themselvesTrinoTeam. Let’s kick off by mentioning that we’re going to try a new review scheme for this particular game.
Chippit: Yeah, something different for the guys who were nice enough to toss a copy of the game into our mailbox.
Glum Buster is a special game, in more ways than one. The core gameplay mechanic might be simple enough – a side scrolling platformer with puzzle elements – but the presentation of the game and the world of Glum is where the magic lies. The game utilises the concept of “charityware” – a certain percentage of donations to the developer will make their way to a charitable cause. Glum Buster developer Justin “CosMind” Leingang has chosen the worthy cause of the Starlight Children’s Foundation.
follow: Dev.Mag on Facebook RSS Tweet with me