Review – Chronicles of Mystery: Curse of the Ancient Temple (DS)

In chronicles of Mystery; Curse of the Ancient Temple, players assume the role of Sylvie Leroux, a young archaeologist who is in search of her uncle. Rating: E (for Everyone) Publisher: City Interactive Release Date: November, 2009 Official Website RENT Sylvie’s uncle is a renowned historian working on uncovering the secrets behind the ancient temple. After she receives a distressing letter from him in the middle of his archaeological discoveries, she leaves for France in hopes of finding and returning him to his important work in uncovering the mysterious underground chapel.  The game is mostly a hidden object adventure game, where you look for not only clues, but hidden doors and passageways to open; and figuring how the clues fit together in the search for the professor and who may be causing all the trouble with the expedition. The cast of characters and the mystery factor kept me guessing until the

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Review: Alpha Protocol (PS3)

Sure, Alpha Protocol has some innovation. But one larger question will stand in your way when it comes to getting every ounce of possible enjoyment out of the title. Rating: M Players: 1 Genre: “Spy RPG” Publisher: SEGA Developers: Obsidian Entertainment Release Date: June 1, 2010 (US), May 28, 2010 (PAL) RENT In Alpha Protocol, you are Michael Thorton, rookie member of a black ops team known (rather appropriately) as Alpha Protocol. If you don’t know exactly what black ops are, well, it means that this team performs operations in the U.S. government’s interest but without falling under their jurisdiction. This strategy gives the United States plausible deniability should any of their operations become less than covert. In that case, the organization will be dissolved, and the people…well, they’re disposable. After the game hammers in that point for a bit, you find out exactly what it means to be abandoned

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Review: ModNation Racers (PS3)

ModNation Racers fits in with Sony’s mantra of “Create, Play, Share” like it was the inspiration for it. We know – LittleBigPlanet started it all, but in this world of three-letter acronyms, MNR fits in with LBP and CPS like they’re BFFs. Rating: E Players: Offline: 4; Online multiplayer: 2 local, 12 online Genre: Racing Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Developers: United Front Games Release Date: May 25, 2010 (NA), May 21, 2010 (PAL) BUY ModNation Racers is as deep or as shallow as you want it to be. As part of Sony’s “Create, Play, Share” initiative, spearheaded by LittleBigPlanet makers Media Molecule, you can choose to do all three or just leave it to one of the bullet points. I’ve done all three, and the experience is incredibly polished and a lot of fun. Sure, it looks like an incredibly polished HD kart racer, but it can be so much

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Review: Playmobil Knights

As a child I had spend a large portion of my time using my imagination and Playmobil has taken a physical toy and put them into a virtual world. ESRB: E (for Everyone) Genre: Action Number of Players: One-Two Publisher: Dreamcatcher Interactive Release Date: January 26, 2010 RENT For the most part, the graphics in Playmobil’s Knights measures up to what we have come to expect on the Nintendo DS. There are some cinematics in the game which detail when you’ve hurt your flying dragon one too many times, and at the very beginning of the game that provides the background reason you have become a knight. There’s a very epic opening screen which began my journey within the fantasy world. I don’t say that about many opening screens, yet I felt that I was ready to explore the world that Playmobil has set out of me.  There are no voice actions within the game, which

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Review: VectorTD (PSP Mini/PS3)

Candystand has taken their games away from your computer to the other gaming devices in your home. I’ve already reviewed their iPhone version of MatchMaker, but this game is from a completely different family tree. Rating: E Genre: Tower Defense (hence the “TD” in the name!) Number of Players: 1 Publisher: Candystand Cost: $3.99 BUY Say hello to VectorTD. It is a simple (but deep!) tower defense game. You have eight maps, which get ravaged by small pixel terrorists called “Vectoids” that move from one end of the map to the other. There are seven different kinds of Vectoids, and they get stronger from wave to wave. Every Vectoid that makes it across the entire map drains one life out of you and then goes back to the beginning of the map until they’ve all been eliminated (and each vaporized Vectoid nets you a little cash, as a bonus). After

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Review: Just Cause 2 (PS3)

There’s a ridiculously good chance that if you buy Just Cause 2, you won’t be done with it for another six months (unless you’re playing 20 hours a day). Rating: M/PEGI 18 Players: 1 Genre: Action Publisher: Square Enix Developers: Avalanche Studios, Eidos Interactive Release Date: March 23, 2010 (NA) BUY In Just Cause 2, you are Rico Rodriguez, performing acts on behalf of a United States “Agency,” mostly called “The Agency,” because they’re super-inventive.  Your job: Oust Baby Panay from his dictatorship over the small island nation of Panau. He’s oppressing the people, first of all, but he’s also cut all ties to the United States. (Panau was once an ally to the U.S.) This makes you very unhappy. Adding to the confusion is the knowledge that Rico’s ex-commander, Tom Sheldon, has apparently gone rogue. Finding Tom is summarily added to your duties. He was previously a great friend

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Review: Dante’s Inferno (PS3)

Abandon all hope for original gameplay, ye who enter here. Rating: M (for violence and male and female nudity) Players: 1 Genre: Action/Hack-n-Slash Publisher: Electronic Arts Developer: Visceral Games, Artificial Mind and Movement Release Date: February 9, 2010 (NA) RENT You know that dream you have where it seems so awesome, that it ought to be a movie? And it’s not until it’s done and a day passes that you realize that – whoa, it already is one? Maybe that only happens to me, but the simile is still apt. Dante’s Inferno is like that. It’s a fantastic idea that starts out beautifully executed until you finally get to a point where you wonder if you’ve seen it before. And the thing is, if you’ve played any games in this genre before (specifically a series starring a certain Kratos character), you have seen it before. The game is inspired by

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Review: “No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle”

Want the fun of the original, but without the boring? Goichi Suda’s got the formula down in this ultra-violent action title. Rating: M Players: 1 Genre: Action Publisher: Ubisoft Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture Release Date: January 26, 2010 (NA) BUY No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is like a good steak. Delicious meat with just a little bit of fat mixed in, and a little bit of extra fat on the outside that you can do without. Designer Goichi Suda of Suda51 has done a good thing with this game, and it’s what every designer needs to do from now on: He actually looked at the previous title, decided what worked, made that better, and got rid of what didn’t. The tedious parts of the first game are gone: The Grand Theft Auto-esque overworld? Gone. Now, you just select where you want to go from a list menu. Raising a ton

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Review: MatchMaker (iPhone/iPod Touch)

Rating: 4+ Genre: Puzzle Number of Players: 1 Publisher: Candystand Release Date: Posted Jan. 7, 2010 Cost: $1.99 BUY MatchMaker’s rules are simple: Touch board pieces to rotate them 90°, match halves, and then they disappear and you get points and a tiny amount of time added to the clock. Got it? Good, ’cause there’s a little more. Get one match of each color, and you get a bonus. And this isn’t Bejeweled – you can actually rotate pieces in advance and set up some pretty epic chains. That means you have pretty much two play style options: Either set lots of chains up and hopefully get all of your time back when you finally turn the key, or just do things as you see them and let bonuses happen when they happen. Me, I tend to choose the second method, and I think that’s turned out just fine, since

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Plants vs Zombies Review!

Platform: PC or Mac ESRB: E Number of Players: 1 Publisher: PopCap Games Release Date: 05/05/2009 Official Website Basic Idea as I See it: How to keep brains inside one’s own skull: gather power from the sun and/or sunflowers to grow a botanical infantry strong in both offense and defense to slay zombies and prevent them from entering the house to dine on brains a la mode. Plant, gather sun, plant more, gather more sun, plant more, destroy zombies, gather, plant, destroy, and occasionally coins will appear that will allow visits to Crazy Dave’s trunk shop for more helpful plants and abilities to plant, gather, and destroy the zombies. The variety of zombies is pretty vast, so it is important to learn them as they come along and choose plant troops accordingly. There is an Almanac that conveniently stores all information about unlocked zombies and plants available for review in

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