Halo: The Master Chief Collection consists of every title that Master Chief has ever been in; Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 4. If you are looking to play the shitacular awesome Halo 3: ODST and perhaps what is the more better attempt at telling a story without Master Chief; Halo: Reach, then you need to fire up your Xbox 360.

Each of the titles received some sort of graphical upgrade with the most attention going to Halo 2 due to the release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection being the 10 year anniversary of Halo 2. Never before seen cutscenes were added to Halo 2 that extend the time of the game and you can also swap between the old graphics of Halo 2 and the new upgraded high resolution graphics as you play comparing not only the old graphics, but also the additional cutscenes that were added with the old Halo 2. This "on the fly" graphic swap feature is also available in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition. Both Halo 3 and Halo 4 are already considered to have HD graphics so they did not receive the same treatment as their prior counterparts, however there is a slight difference in comparison to lighting, shadows, and minor details.

343 Industries and Microsoft boasted that all of the Halo games in this collection would have their multi-player modes brought over which the thought of reliving the days of Halo 2 multi-player nearly brought me to happy tears. However after multiple attempts at matchmaking to relive my glory days only proved to be a disappointment due to horrible matchmaking times and server connection issues, I gave up. The same with the other lobbies for the other multi-player modes. I was either able to join and then the server failed or I just sat in a lobby waiting for a period of time before I just ended matchmaking. To this day, I have not been able to complete a multi-player match.

As a response to the heat that 343 Industries and Microsoft has felt since the November launch of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, it was announced that those that played from day one through December 19th will be receiving a copy of Halo 3: ODST for free as DLC when it releases onto the Xbox One, an exclusive in game nameplate, an exclusive in game avatar, and one month of Xbox Live gold as a thank-you for sticking it out.

Once the tutorial is complete the rest of the menu is opened and you are free to enjoy all of the games modes. Campaign, Zombie Survival, Wave Survival, Gladiator matches, Base matches, Death matches, even a league of legends like Space Defense League.

The graphics are good for an indie title and the sound is excellent, but what really sets this game apart is the story and universe it creates. With a wonderful sense of humor I haven’t felt since the heyday of Sierra’s games Space Quest and King’s Quest, Ring Runner brings you in and doesn't let up until the nitros soaked thrill ride is over.

Gameplay can be executed though mouse and keyboard or gamepad. While ship movement does come with a steeper learning curve than most shoot-em ups, it has an even deeper payoff once mastered.

The companion novel that can be found on Amazon showcases the rich history and background this new mythos has to offer. Well-crafted and nicely setting the stage for a budding franchise, Derelict Dreams is that rare engaging story you get lost in, and then suddenly realize its 2 A.M.

Even if you’re not prone to indie games, this is the kind of franchise you want to get into on the ground floor and ride as far as it goes.

The latest game takes us back to the Hyrule from the SNES days. It not only takes us back there, but literally uses the exact same map from A Link To The Past and this is my only extremely minor complaint with the game. The map felt all too familiar and a tad bit lazy on Nintendo’s part. While this was a very slight downside to the game, it is in no way a detriment to the game and can also be viewed as strong suite. Much like a well worn pair of underpants, slipping back in to this world feels great. Yes, I’m aware of the contradiction in terms here, but if you’re under 20 years old and not in to classic gaming it will feel new to you. Besides, the rehashed map is literally an homage for what becomes an entirely new game when you begin to dig in to it and find the all new dungeons, progression system, and gameplay devices.

The story is pretty much the standard Zelda story. Sticking close to the original SNES story, the sages (Including Princess Zelda) are kidnapped by the dark wizard Yuga in the hopes to release Ganon’s spirit from his prison and give him the ultimate power, the Triforce of Power. Of course it’s up to our green tunic’d hero to save the day. The difference here is while Zelda rules over Hyrule, Princess Hilda rules over Lorule, which is being torn apart. As I said, standard Zelda story, but very intriguing with twists and turns that will keep you guessing.

The old way of progressing through a Zelda game required you to tackle the dungeons in a specific order to obtain the upgrades necessary to move on to the next. Those linear days are gone my friends. Now if you have the rupees, you can own the upgrades necessary to progress through any dungeon you want. You “rent” things like the boomerang, hookshot, and all the other standard Zelda items from Ravio. Once you have the items, it’s up to you to determine which one is used for which dungeon. The real catch to this rental structure is, if you die whatever items you were renting are returned to Ravio and you must rent them again. This can become troublesome in the boss battles, as they can be quite tough. However, it is a great way to remove the linearity from the game and make the formula we are used to feel fresh and new. There are a few exceptions to this “rental” structure, but they are easily worked in to the story. The other new gameplay mechanic is Link’s ability to become a painting on flat surfaces. Link literally becomes controllable art on the walls. This allows link to slip between cracks, escape through prison bars, and go through portals to reach Lorule. The new power also becomes a life saver when facing boss battles, as you are semi-invincible when in the walls. Both the wall phasing and items have a meter that limits the use of them, but it replenishes when not in use.

Of course, what new game would be complete without collectibles? There are collectibles in the game that allow you to not only upgrade your items as you progress, but also upgrade the Master Sword. Hidden within certain dungeons are materials that allow the Master Sword upgrades. Also, the fetch quest of finding 100 Maiamais for Mother Maiamai allows you to upgrade all the items from Ravio’s shop. While not completely necessary, this does give the game a tad bit more gameplay time. With how beautiful this game looks on the 3DS, who can blame you for wanting to spend more time in the 2 kingdoms?

Speaking of graphics, the game really is stunning to look at. The subtle things are what really make the game pop. Everything from the original SNES is there but they have been upgraded immensely. While everything is still small and doesn’t have the super-sharp HD look of bigger screen consoles, the 3DS really does a great job with this one. The 3D is put to decent use, but definitely not necessary to having the full experience. The music has also been reworked and fully orchestrated. The tunes will seem familiar to fans and have you humming along as you play right from the very beginning.

In summation, this is a Zelda fan’s dream. The beautiful graphics for a portable game are great and music that sticks with you. Gameplay is tight and exactly what you’d expect from a Zelda game. The new rental system works quite well and allows you to tackle the game like you’ve never been able to before. While a rehashed map may be a detriment to some, it doesn’t hurt an overall great experience. As I said in the beginning, A Link Between Worlds is one of the most enjoyable games I’ve had the pleasure of playing in years. I had brand new games sitting unopened that I had been anticipating for months and months, while I completed this one. While there has been no real shortage of great Zelda games in recent memory, this one really is this long time fan’s dream come true.

http://youtu.be/O_auhDR8VjU

Montague's Mount was a game that hadn't been too high on my radar, but did pique my interest when I saw the trailer of it. A dark and lonely place with tiny sparks of life still sputtering, begging for you to move onward and uncover its secrets.

As I fired up the game, beautiful music entranced me, pulling me in. It seemed a little too light-hearted for what was to come, but I cast doubt to the wind and started the game. Upon waking on a sandy and gray beach, John Doe realizes that his name is far too common and has forgotten what his momma gave him. Through the trials ahead you will aid him in his struggle for sanity and clarity, recollecting his shattered psyche from the strewn memories on the island.

I will do my best to not give any spoilers for this game, thankfully I couldn't get far enough to give many(more on that later). Now as far as sound goes for this game, i’d say it’s a solid winner, the ambient noises are ever-present but not overbearing, save for when they are a clue. The footsteps are quiet and varied so your focus won’t be interrupted by them.

The only gripe I have about anything audio in this game would have to be the children’s laughter, now I won’t say when, where, or why, but it is in a few moments in the game where you are subject to the wretched sound we all know as little ones frolicking and for some reason it is just a short audio clip that loops. Now I don’t mean to be harsh here, that is exactly how it hit me, it completely pulled me out of not only the game, but the moment that sound was supposed to be capitalizing on.

Everything else was done so very well, weather effects, rustic houses with parts creaking, haunting and mysterious music, all spot on. But that laughter was so bad… moving on then, shall we?

Now I've heard a million times from people “God, this just looks like an Irish Myst game”. First of all, I completely made that figure up, I consulted nobody on the aesthetic of this game, and secondly, who cares? Doesn't that sound great? The Myst series was pretty well received and this game does what those games do and does it well. As for the changes, I for one am happy for the constant in motion game-play, no fixed screen shots, there are not only extra things for you to find in the game, but entire secret areas.

I think that having full movement in a puzzle-mystery game is just natural progression. Does it make the game harder? Sure, you don’t have a limited number of screen angles to work with where you can just blindly click on everything until you progress, and I like that, I think it’s much better to have us rewarded with simpler puzzles but not have the ability to have all the angles set-up for us already. Have us think about the problem and really explore for answers. One more note on that end would be that I love that there is a button in this game that will tell you whatever you are looking at is, and this is where a lot of the Gaelic promotion comes in. All you have to do is right-click and it will tell you what it is both in English(or whatever language you may speak, they have a lot of options) and Gaelic.

Now unless you want to sit here all day reading this review instead of making a choice that this game is worth it or not, I’ll give you my final impressions. Montague's Mount is great, great at what it wants to do, and great at making me want to know more. The more i played this game, the more I wanted to delve deeper into the island and uncover the whole mystery. In fact the only disappointment was the roller-coaster of my experience was on a rise the entire time, waiting for any big revelation where dots connect and.. my game was stuck.

Yeah, I searched for hours, resorted to clicking on everything, but alas I was in an area where I could tread no further (dead-end after a cut-scene and couldn't come back the way i came because of the nature of what let me enter the area. So I tried reloading from the main menu (it works in a checkpoint system, numbered by progression) and wouldn't you know it? I had managed to skip a checkpoint, somehow. There was a point earlier before my character’s capture as it were where there was a split in the path, left or right. I wanted to go left but the game would not allow such bold actions, so i took the path of least resistance, obviously.

Now I tried loading up my game and it would not allow me to change the course of fate, tinkering with what little there was, I could not for the life of me open up any avenue of progression. I had fully become stuck with nowhere to go.

So if you should take anything with you, it’s that this made me sad, i wanted to go further, I was enjoying this game and what it was presenting to me. If my copy had been different (or maybe me not so dimwitted) this would've been a much brighter review.

But perhaps that is what they had intended all along, for us to slowly enrapture our own minds with hysteria, to allow the creeping madness take hold of us and our frustrations and manifest them into reality.. in the form of a bugged version of the game I wanted to play.

I’m positive that any issues with the game with be fixed post-haste, but for now this is all I may offer to whoever it may concern.

To the wonderful people at Polypusher studios, thank you for the entrancing experience you crafted. I hope to be able to enjoy it to it's fullest in the near future.

I’ll be honest. Not well. I went into this game with the expectations not of the game surpassing the original Amnesia, but at least holding the same ground; the same terror, the same unsettling feel. Expecting too much would have just been letting myself down from the get-go, it's a formula for failure; but it's certainly fair enough to expect the game to be at least as successful as it's predecessor.

Without divulging too much of the storyline, it's difficult to explain exactly where A:AMfP went wrong. The first Amnesia was rich in story, giving a fairly detailed history of Daniel's journey prior to Brennenburg, his travels to Brennenburg itself, then what transpired within the castle. Amnesia is about rediscovering everything Daniel had done, and his attempts to atone for his perceived sins.

A:AMfP, while having a fantastically disturbing storyline, falls short on exposition and really drawing you in. They kind of briefly touch on Oswald Mandus's history, skipping here and there, and the Machine is never really EXPLAINED in all it's glory. Which is a shame, because it is truly a glorious Machine. But more importantly, the entire tone of the story has changed. While this may be intentional or not, and the Dark Descent invoked terror and sometimes disgust at the actions performed by both Alexander and Daniel, A:AMfP caused me just to feel.. well.. sad. I sympathized with my attackers, and began to loathe my own character. Again, this may have been intentional; but it was not exactly what I was expecting.

Regarding your attackers, however, is probably the most disappointing portion. They're beautifully rendered - no doubt - but lacking the fear factor that the Grunt and the Brute did. Why? A plethora of factors reigns in here. For starters, A:AMfP did away with the insanity effect, something I think was an extremely poor decision. Sure, Mandus may have been batshit insane to begin with, but technically so was Daniel by that point. The amount of times I was clearly able to see the 'monster' coming after me really ruined the fear of the unknown, and the complete lack of 'panic music' also took away. Yeah, that electric shredding guitar could get annoying in the Dark Descent sometimes, but it also made you absolutely panic as you knew that one of the monsters was hot on your tail. Instead here, you just have a pig squealing maniacally as it chases you (or doesn't, as I found out) and that's pretty much about it.

To boot, the AI is godawfully stupid. The Dark Descent didn't boast any sort of higher processing AI for certain, but I was hoping they'd at least improve upon it for A:AMfP. Not only did they seem to not add to it, but they also seemed to detract. I was able to slip around pigmen undetected in the weirdest situations, and as long as I had my lantern away, I could pretty much shove my face in theirs. My first patrol encounter I was terrified, until I realized how slow and utterly stupid they were. It became more of route memorization instead of a "oh god don't let it get me" moment.

And while the models again, were lovely, they utilized them too much. Sounds odd, I know. But unfortunately it’s true. Don’t worry about missing the pigman early in the game – you’ll be seeing them a lot further on. I mean, a lot. It’ll eventually become sort of boring, and he’ll just become a mobile surveillance camera that can stab you. It was nice to see them up close, but that’s something that detracts from the scares, not adds to them. The Grunt and Brute were even kind of silly in their own right once you finally knew what they looked like, but the insanity blur and consistent darkness prevented you from seeing them fully. You remained scared.

Dan Pinchbeck stated in his interviews over a year ago [courtesy Gamasutra]:

"The thing is, if we don't frighten people as much as the original, then we've failed. But now we have to frighten people that know what to expect," Pinchbeck said. "The big design challenge is: How do we protect the things that make Amnesia great, and how do we evolve everything else to make a really fresh experience?"

...

"With this new game, we want to create a world that is so rich and dramatic and beautiful that the player is constantly torn between wanting to go around the corner to see what's there and not wanting to go around the corner because they're frightened of what's there," said Pinchbeck."

...

"We want this game to be absolutely skin-crawlingly, heart-shatteringly, and nerve-jarringly terrifying -- that's the target. Everything is geared around that. Just turning people to complete ice and making them have complete meltdowns," he added."

Reading back on those, I'm surprised. While the experience was fresh, and definitely beautiful, there was absolutely no real reason to explore. Why? Because of the lack of inventory management and item collection. No lamp oil to grab, no tinderboxes to utilize. That sounds silly to some I'm sure (and a lot of people are just avid explorers) but having a lantern that never dies out, that flickers at the slightest hint of danger - completely removes the entire aspect of SURVIVAL horror. Instead, I felt like I was being told a scary story, and I was being yanked through a path semi-reluctantly. Some of the frustration that lead to being lost in the dungeons of Brennenburg was not knowing if you got all the items, or even the correct items – and that was both a good and bad thing. Sure, it pissed you off, but it got you actively spending time in the game SEARCHING for things. No stone left unturned, you generally tore apart every room to see if there was a glowing goodie in it. Items would begin to cause fear due to the high number of trigger events, and taking all of that away lead to a lot of disappointment.

And unfortunately, this leads to yet another issue. Lack of object interactivity. This was probably my major complaint, as weird as that sounds. Amnesia: TDD was great because you COULD have a rage moment and chuck a potato sack across the room, or try and protect yourself against a monster with a broom or a hammer (poorly advised, but people still did it anyway). I do realize that item stacking could cause game-breaking problems, but people set out to break the game will find ways anyway, so removing those things really made no sense to me. I enjoy playing a lot of Amnesia mods, and utilize the barrel trick; any large object works, really; you hold it up in front of the monster, and it can no longer “see” you, and as long as you don’t move, you can generally avoid an encounter. A problem, yes. Fixable? Yes. But not by removing your interaction with the world. Wow, I can touch a lamp! Oo, I can throw a chair? But I can’t shuffle these boxes, or pick up this book, or smash a bottle against the wall in frustration. Giant locks across cupboards and doors just reminded you how little you really could do.

The last negative I’ll touch upon is simply the ending. While I won’t spoil it for anyone, I will state that you get no choice. While the choices in the first Amnesia were fairly minute, you still had a CHOICE. You could let Alexander get away and be consumed by the Shadow, kill Alexander and emerge victorious from Brennenburg, or chuck Agrippa’s chatty head into the portal and help him get back to a realm he was better fit for (effectively killing Alexander anyway). All three endings had minor differences, and while not the same epic buildup as A:AmfP’s (the buildup to the ending is absolutely magnificent, save the odd choice of … erm... Pig Daddy?) you still felt satisfied that you could MAKE that choice. A:AMfP goes “lol nope” and forces their predetermined ending upon you. Unless there’s another path you can divert to (and I screwed around on a previous save 30 minutes prior, and even sat before the final climax for 5 minutes to see if waiting around made a difference) then that’s it. And it’s disappointing. And it makes no flipping sense. They missed so many opportunities, and I was so disheartened by it.

Now that I’ve complained a ton, let’s get onto the good stuff! Because there IS good stuff.

The soundtrack to this game is spectacular. The singing is beautiful and haunting, and the ambience is fantastic. I also couldn’t praise the voice actors more, for being fairly engaging for a character you play. Mandus himself was enjoyable to listen to, and I enjoyed hearing his bit pieces.

While I complained about the lack of interactivity, I will say that the world as a whole was absolutely beautiful. It was exciting to be able to go outside for once, and once you delve into the Machine, it visually gets more and more interesting. By the time you hit the end of the game, your eyes are feasting on delicious candy and wind up craving more. Disturbing candy, sure, but man is it good. I would stop and look around to just enjoy the environment from time to time, when I was sure I wasn’t being chased or otherwise. That, to me, is a great thing to experience.

While I did not feel the same terror and horror as the first Amnesia, there were a few very good scares in there. I’m not saying this isn’t a scary game. You do get frightened every now and again, and you do have to be stealthy and keep your wits about you. It’s a different sort of scared; less horror scared, and more stealth game scared. You don’t want the security to find you – but it doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable. One of my favourite scares involves the Bilge level, and I’m sure many of you will find out why. It’s subtle, and one that’ll only affect previous Amnesia players.

The storyline, yes, I did complain about it up above a bit, was a great concept. There’s very minor twists that are hinted at, and you have a notion of what’s going on – so when it’s revealed there’s a great amount of satisfaction in the discovery. Then you begin tying together the beginning of the story to where you’re at, realizing things you saw earlier in the game have a connection to what you’re seeing now; things that are so disturbing and messed up, if you’re anything like me you become giddy. I think the entire last hour of the game I kept saying “This is so messed up! This is so disgusting! THIS IS AWESOME!”. While the storytelling wasn’t as strong, or maybe as entrenched, coming up with your own theories, or even trying to flesh it out yourself can be satisfying in your own right. I was perturbed that they didn’t touch on things, but who knows? Maybe an expansion will come out?

I will say, Mandus had some fantastic notes written and scattered among the world. Right before the end, I went back and re-read ALL of them. While reading them during the game, some of it made sense, by the time you hit the very end, it all clicks together and every single note you go “Ah HAH! That’s what he meant by that!”. I didn’t mind the notes being vague so much as the story as a whole, and it’s always good to leave an active imagination up to imagine the most horrific of things.

Overall, Amnesia will be a good game for people who aren't thoroughly attached to the franchise. It's a solid horror story with beautiful design, gorgeous music and lovely voice acting. It will definitely entertain, and is well worth the $20. If it were more than that, I'd have to say "ehhhh", however $20 is a perfect price point for this. It seems like an overhauled expansion pack to say the least of it, and I enjoyed the time I did spend playing it. Die hard Amnesia fans may be disappointed, as I was, but for overall just playability - it's still pretty fun.

Apparently you not only make the player the president of the United States, but also give them superpowers. Saint's Row IV is a bit of a departure, even from how wacky the last game got. The Earth is threatened by evil alien overlord Zinyak, and the player and the gang are abducted right out of the oval office. Being trapped in a simulation a la The Matrix leads to some interesting gameplay possibilities, as well as tons of awesome references.

It's not long before you start getting super powers to play around with, and once you do, things change. A lot. I was pleasantly reminded of other power fantasy freeroamers like Crackdown and Prototype as I super sprinted, jumped over buildings, ran up walls, and glided through the air. I don't believe I even used a car more than was necessary for the few missions that required them.

Superpowers Kick Ass (sorry about that one).

All of the great humor is still intact, and maybe even taken a bit further. Saint's Row IV is chock full of references to movies and other games. At some points it almost feels like a grand video game parody similar to the recent Deadpool (even including a few metaphysical references), but Saint's Row IV still manages to rein it in with it's own crazy plotline beyond just hilariously exploiting other games.

When choosing your character's voice during character creation, you are given the usual Male and Female 1, 2, and 3 voices, with the humorous addition of Nolan North listed by name as a seventh option. I really enjoyed Troy Baker's (Male 1) voice for the main character in Saint's Row: The Third, but the choice was obvious when presented with these options. There are even some funny moments where he breaks the fourth wall as a voice actor. When asked to continue causing mayhem, the player is asked to "Just be yourself!", to which a character with the Nolan voice will respond, "Be... Nolan? Ok." This breaking of the fourth wall again reminds me of his recent performance in Deadpool.

Throughout the course of the game you are given plenty of new toys to play with. I will state outright that I loathe dubstep, but I couldn't help but find myself using the Dubstep Gun as my mainstay weapon early in the game, for how simply overpowered it was. It's a weapon that shoots out energy blasts in sync with the dubstep music it plays, and the track it plays can be changed by choosing a different skin for the weapon (all weapons now have skins that can change the entire look, skin, and sometimes firing effect and sound of the weapon). (Opinion) Hey dubstep's so bad you can kill people with it. Go figure. Later in the game you can get a weapon which launches out black holes to absorb and destroy all enemies in a certain radius, which when coupled with infinite ammo unlocked in the upgrades menu (as with the previous game), is a force to be reckoned with.

The graphics are just as good as they were in Saint's Row: The Third. You play through a digital version of Steelport, complete with signs and billboards proclaiming things like "Obey authority", as if you are in the movie They Live!, while statues of your alien overlord oppressor watch on. I was a little let down that a large part of the clothing options seem to have been simply carried over from Saint's Row: The Third. The soundtrack includes many popular songs from various genres to hear on the radio as with the previous game and now an option to hear the radio while on foot, which is handy when you can run faster than any vehicle in the game. The soundtrack is once again often used to humorous effect to add drama and cheesiness to certain scenes.

The sidequests in the game consist almost entirely of the activities you find on the map, from racing through markers with your superpowers, to insurance fraud, tank mayhem, and everything in between. The structuring is such that you are rewarded for doing particular sets of these activities with things like new weapons and upgrades for your superpowers, so you are incentivized to seek out these activities. Later on you can even perform special side missions for some of your Homies to unlock superpowers for them, which they can use when you call them for back up.

The controls for both keyboard/mouse and controller worked perfectly fine and were well mapped out (and reconfigurable), but I had a bit of an issue with the weapon selection radial wheel. When using a controller you hold the B or O button (I used a PS3 controller on my PC) to bring up the radial menu and select your weapon with the left analog stick. This menu disappears the moment you release the button. On the keyboard you can scroll through your weapons with the scroll wheel or select them with a hotkey, 1-8 (or in my case 1-4 and Z X C V since they all cluster around the left hand on the keyboard). The problem is that using a scroll wheel on a radial menu isn't very intuitive. It rotates around in the direction you scroll, and for some reason you can't seem to just hold a button and move the mouse in a certain direction to select your weapon. Worse, even if you memorize which hotkey is for which weapon, tapping the button will always bring up the menu on the screen where it will hang for a full second, obscuring what you are doing without freezing time. It doesn't disappear nearly as quickly as when using a controller.

One other thing that I wish was included, which hasn't been since Saint's Row 2, was the ability to replay specific missions. There are some fun ones that would be enjoyable to play again without having to manually keep a save before them or replay the whole game with a new character.

A lot of the clothing options are reused from The Third, but you can still be creative (or make a blatant cosplay)

Saint's Row IV was a blast to play. Some may say that it's hardly Saint's Row at all anymore (after all, I barely even used cars in the game), but it's gone in an interesting direction regardless. I'd almost say it's like a big parody of Saint's Row, in a good way, and somewhat a parody of games in general. The superpowers add a great amount of fun factor to the experience. Why spend 10 minutes driving across the city when you can hop over buildings and dash or glide over there in 2? The humor, the fun gameplay, and all of the awesome references make this truly an enjoyable gaming experience, and a great example of what can make a game fun without trying to be too serious (but don't worry, it still has its moments).

Q: What is the game about?

A: It's a game about solving puzzles to give dogs shade. You use different stuff to stack up and make sure the doggies are not too hot out in the sun. They look super hot until you get them some shade.

Q: How do you play it?

A: You use your finger on the iPad to move around coolers blocks or other stuff to stack up and make shade. You have to figure out the puzzles sometimes to get the pieces you need to make enough shade. Some of them are easy puzzles but they get harder as you play further in. I liked the robot stages the best.

Q: Do you like the graphics? Why?

A: I love the way everything looks. Everything is so cute and colorful. I especially like all the different doggies.

Q: Do you like the sounds and music? Why?

A: The sounds are funny sometimes. There's fart noises in sections that made me laugh (Dad Note: This is totally true, I heard the fart noise from his room and he laughed for a good 2 or 3 minutes straight). The music is jazzy and made me want to dance. I'm going to ask to have it on my MP3 player.

Q: Was it fun? Why?

A: It is super fun because it's fun. It made me feel good to help the cute doggies find shade. It made me feel smart when I finished the puzzles too. I hope they add more levels soon because it was sort or short.

Q: Would you recommend the game to your friends? Why?

A: I would tell my friends to play it. I think they would have fun playing it and I could help them if they wanted me to. I also think they would like the fart noises (Dad Note: They totally did like them. His buddies laughed just like he did when they heard it).

And there you have it folks, what I think is our first kid review of a game. After watching him play it on the iPad, I think it was a little easy for him and hope they bring some harder puzzles out in an update. However, overall, he, his friends, and his sister had a great time with it. For $0.99 you can't go wrong with fart noises, jazzy music, and cute doggies. If you have smaller kids, I think this would be right up their alley.

Metro’s story isn’t an entirely a new concept. Nuclear destruction wipes out society; society crumbles on itself and retreats underground to survive. Throw in a dash of mutants, terrifying and telepathic monsters known as the “Dark Ones”, set the stage in Russia with an economy based on trading military grade bullets and you pretty much get the point. Once again you’ll be filling the shoes of the previous protagonist, Artyom, although the storyline seems more focused on the inner turmoil and conflicts between various factions surviving underground as they look to control the weapons discovered within the military vaults of D6 rather than the perceived menace of the Dark Ones showcased in the prior game (Last Light assumes players experienced the “bad ending” of launching missiles to destroy them in Metro 2033).

Last Light is incredibly beautiful. I’m not kidding you on this. Despite the slightly linear experience of the game I spent a great deal of time slowly roaming through the corridors and tunnels marveling at the attention to detail. In my eyes not many games create such an eye-catching atmosphere which sucks me in and really makes the surrounding environment feel alive. In a completely aesthetic point of view Last Light is breathtaking.

The PC master race used to joke about their rigs, often querying one another “Yes, but can it run Crysis?” The benchmarks previously set have been absolutely shattered by 4A games with their self-titled 4A Engine, and that’s not an understatement considering the optimum system requirements calling for GeForce Titan (which also currently has an equally titanic price!). Even ported over to console it’s amazing to consider how much can be squeezed onto an Xbox 360 or PS3 disc while still looking this incredible. Gamercide was provided a review copy for the PC and I can tell you that my now aging MSI GeForce 460GTX wept silently in a corner while running the game, although I most likely shouldn’t use the term silently considering the card’s cooling fan usually was running full tilt under the stress placed upon it. That’s not to say I had to turn the resolution extremely low with all the fancy effects like tessellation and PhysX off, but this is definitely not a title you can expect to crank everything to max and expect a reasonable frame rate. Last Light is also optimized really for Nvidia cards (AMD cards lack PhysX support).

Although I played through the game on an easier setting (don’t judge me, I’m a horrible shot and needed all the ammo I could lay my hands on!) the AI from what I experience left a little to be desired. I understand stealth mechanics and remaining “hidden” when obscured from sources of light, but human enemies can almost be completely walked right up to and around. One would imagine that in low light situations you’d be able to detect someone who is literally a few feet away from you, but for some reason just about every single human enemy is in some serious need of corrective eyewear.

I encountered some other minor gripes within the game as well. I’m not sure if it’s a product of PhysX, but while watching an entertaining performance within the theatre I couldn’t help but notice the “assets” of the female dancing line which seemed to behave in a gravity defying display of awkwardness. Additionally, just as I noted in Metro 2033, it seems that copies of Glukhovsky’s novels are scattered everywhere. In the first chapter of the game alone I found three of them and I found myself checking around in every living area to see how many more existed (there are a lot of them). It’s prominently noted during the opening splash screen that the game is based upon a novel, so why do these survivors of an apocalypse have the actual books everywhere? Would that make everyone in the game a prophet of things to come since they’ve already read what is going to happen to them?

The game only hard crashed on me once forcing a restart from a previous checkpoint, but for a PC game in 2013 to have only one save game file is slightly unacceptable and I’ll tell you why. Partway through the game when I reached the aforementioned theatre the game saved a checkpoint. It’s a small area where the checkpoint saves for you in a hallway right outside of a tavern area. I walked into the tavern and discovered a non-responsive NPC that was standing with his back turned to me, frozen in time and halting my progress. A wandering ticket seller following his programmed path even kept walking back and forth straight through this mystery man barring my way forth. There was absolutely nothing I could do at this point as reloading the checkpoint threw me back into the hall only to discover the person still blocking further progress. I even reloaded and completed the previous whole chapter twice and encountered the same problem. On a third try I did find a small area I missed that had an “event” where I picked up a shotgun and was suddenly attacked by an enemy. When I reached the tavern that third time our friendly human barricade had completely disappeared as if he didn’t even exist in the first place. This was after over five hours of experimentation trying to discover a solution. I’m unsure if the scripted event had any effect on this or not, but having to replay whole chapters due to issues like this is frustrating.

Despite any issues, Last Light is engrossing and a joy to play. If you have a powerful PC and want to experience truly cutting edge graphics I recommend checking it out. Even if you’re unsure your PC can handle the crushing system requirements you’d be perfectly fine with a console port on the Xbox 360 or PS3 and could probably still say it’s the best looking game out at the moment for either system. Nuclear disaster has never looked better!

As I said, I have never touched a Dead Island game before and I was worried I wouldn’t be the right person to review its follow-up, however after playing the game; I think my fears were unwarranted. While the game isn’t great, it’s not terrible by any means. The visceral feeling of dismembering zombies with all sorts of weapons really works, especially in co-op. There are tons of quests, environments, weapons, and zombie types to keep things fresh throughout. Also, the character progression system is much like other games of the type and gives you the “One More Level” feeling that any good game should. You will find yourself up to the wee hours of the morning before you know it.

The game features, as expected, 4 player co-op and this is where the game really shines. I was only able to test it out with 2 players, but what I can imagine 4 players would only enhance the experience greatly. The character classes complement each other so well. I chose Sam B. and my co-op partner was Xian. Where Xian would work to sneak behind the zombies to use her bladed weapons with sneak attacks, I would face them head on and bash their heads in with mainly blunt weapons. The co-op is also great because no matter your level, you will always be fighting zombies at your same level. While your partner, who may be at a lower/higher level than you, will be fighting zombies at their same level. I’ve read this was patched in to the original game later and really is a good feature. This allows you to play with your buddies and keeps you from managing multiple characters at various levels.

Now, you may have noticed I have yet to mention anything about the story in Dead Island Riptide. This is for good reason and brings me to my first issue with the game. The story is useless here and very much seems like an afterthought. Almost as if the game and environment were created and the story was tacked on later. Picking up where the first game left off and moving the survivors (And a new survivor apparently) to a new island full of rampaging zombies just isn’t inventive or taking any type of story leap. The cut scenes move the story along fairly well. Voice acting is mixed here. Some are quite good, others are just awful. A useless story isn’t always a bad thing though. In this case, strategizing before heading out on a mission can be done at almost any time without worrying about missing anything in a cut scene or during dialogue.

Speaking of cut scenes, this brings me to my next semi-gripe with the game. It’s not pretty. Screen tearing, texture pop in/out, frame drop issues, etc all plague the game. It doesn’t ever become a real problem, but in today’s gaming world, these things shouldn’t ever be an issue. Reports online show that the PS3 shows the most problems and the PC is the most solid overall. Playing on the Xbox 360 did show some of these issues but I’ve not run in to anything game breaking.

Being an RPG, Riptide succeeds in keeping you busy. Story missions, side quests, team missions, and just general exploration keeps you from ever getting bored while on the island. All these things keep the game fun and help you to ignore its shortcomings. I think if these weren’t there the game would fare much worse. The only stumble the game makes in this area is not giving you an open world to explore after you complete the game. Be sure to get your missions done prior to making the push to the end.

Overall Dead Island Riptide is a solid RPG. Never playing the first game doesn’t pose any problems and honestly may help some to overlook some of the issues. Graphically the game isn’t a stunner, which is extremely disappointing in today’s gaming climate. Also, the story really needs to be looked at for any more sequels. Hopefully it can be salvaged down the line. However, the game play actually saves the day. Dismembering zombies with buddies and having an overflowing quest log of things to do is great fun. In summation, Dead Island Riptide is a decent game. If you’re looking for something fun to play with friends or are a fan of the first game, I’d recommend picking this one up.

AirBuccaneers originally was conceived back in 2004 as a mod within Unreal Tournament III during Epic's "Make Something Unreal" contest. Now almost ten years later a new and improved standalone version has graced my PC's hard drive and I have to admit to you I'm completely hooked! There is just something so mind-bogglingly satisfying about taking to the skies in a hot air balloon of death and watching your enemies plummet to the ground in a fiery blaze after a hail of cannon fire.

The game, while simple in premise, offers enough diversity to keep you occupied for a long time. Once you've selected your side, Viking or Buccaneer, you're thrown into a match and set off on your conquest to destroy your opponents and their ships. There really isn't any ground combat to speak of here, unless your enemies somehow manage to get close enough to your base to spawn camp you, so expect to spend practically all your time upon one of AirBuccaneer's four available ships.

• The fragile Kamikaze ship that explodes on impact. A balloon with no cannons who's pilot must maneuver through enemy cannon fire in order to bring down other balloons with a single blast. Generally piloted by a single player, although some brave souls may attempt to catch a ride with you leading usually to hilarious results.
  
• The single cannoned Cog ship. A small balloon usually reserved for two, helmsman and gunner.
  
• The mighty Battleship. This larger balloon, which I like to refer to as the "Party Boat", comes complete with a total of four cannons. A competent and complete crew can make this ship a force to be feared!
  
• The Flying Fortress. This huge floating island ship has three absolutely huge and devastating long range cannons. Unable to move unless using the "boost" ability, this ship is tricky to pilot and deadly when positioned properly.
  

AirBuccaneers is best played as a team game, and attempting to take on your enemies alone is almost always a recipe for doom (unless you're "that guy" who always takes the Kamikaze!). You'll need to coordinate with your team to make sure your balloon is manned properly. What good is your balloon if you don't have someone to fire the cannons as you fly? How are you going to keep your ship in the air unless you have a pal swinging his support staff (which I jokingly refer to as the "baby rattle") away to repair your hull? Those incoming cannonballs and air mines are going to put a hurt on you unless you have someone using their musket to knock them away! Feel like hopping off your balloon to attempt to board an enemy ship? Go for it! There are multiple roles to fill and they're all extremely important to your success.

Thankfully the game rewards players with experience depending on the role you've been filling (Helmsman, Gunner, Support). Featuring a large skill tree that unlocks both Perks and Flaws as your fulfill your duties will keep you coming back again and again as well as encourage you to try your hand at each of the three roles. I really enjoyed this system of Perks and Flaws as it becomes a tradeoff of sorts for your abilities. Want to be able to pilot your balloon faster? Be prepared to take a Flaw also, like being a drunken sailor that erratically moves your balloon in various directions at the most random of times! It's a great idea and often times leads to hilarious results.

I really only have two complaints about the game which are mostly minor detail stuff that hasn't really detracted from my experiences. The more major of the two is something I expected slightly considering this is an indie title. Occasionally they're just not many people playing the game. This makes choosing a server when you start something of a no-brainer and always going with the most populated one, although this tends to be a European one (Always Ireland it seems for me!). I haven't encountered really any lag so to speak that has hampered my gameplay, but it would be nice to have more options.

The second complaint is the melee combat. Boarding enemy ships is something that absolutely without a doubt happen to you, and mastering the sword has been a problem for me. There isn't any hit detection feedback that I've noticed, like staggering your opponent or even being able to tell if you hit your foe or not. This leads to furious clicking of the mouse and fumbling around your ship. More times than not I get killed by this as I'm trying to pilot my balloon and I've learned that an enemy boarding my ship is a death sentence for me. For this reason I always try to keep my distance and rely on my ship's weaponry (although getting in close to unleash my flamethrowers is tempting!).

AirBuccanneers is beautiful, hilarious, crazy and an incredible amount of fun for an indie game that is basically a rehash of a ten year old UTIII mod. It's not perfect, and no game is, but I'm going to continue to bark orders at my crewmates for many months to come!

Speaking of barking orders.....

^{*screenshots rehosted from Google images*}

The story centers on Dust, a somewhat cloaked figure that is woken up in the forest by a mystical talking sword called Ahrah and a flying sidekick named Fidget. As Dust awakens, he steps in to a world that is being overrun by monsters and runs across a village that needs to be saved from an impending monster horde. From there, the story of Dust's past and a war between races unfolds. With Fidget and Ahrah in tow, Dust sets out on his quest to regain his memories and determine what is going on in the world. I don’t want to go too much in to the story and ruin it, but suffice to say, it is an amazing ride and one of the better stories I’ve played through in a long while in gaming.

One of The first thing you're going to notice about the game is how absolutely beautiful everything is. The game evokes a Studio Ghibli or old-school Disney feel with animations and overall art style. Everything is so amazingly well done and detailed; it is almost hard to put in to words. Dean's influences seem to stem from various different places within the game. You can see Eyvind Earle and many other great animators in his art style. The character animations of Dust, Fidget, all the enemies and NPCs are fluid and detailed. The environments almost become a character of their own, as well. Each new area is different enough to feel new, but cohesive enough to feel like one fantastical world. The new enemy designs fit right in with the new areas as well. It really is the most beautiful game on Xbox Live Arcade to date. Also, in the menus, you have the ability to customize the size of your HUD. A small touch, but not unwelcomed by this reviewer.

Controls for Dust are just as good as the animation. A fairly deep combo system is in place for you to switch between your various sword attacks and add in Fidget's attacks for screen spanning supers. Aerial combos are also added in to the mix. The combat feels a lot like a fighting game, more akin to a Marvel Vs. Capcom game and Dust's combos are just as deep as any of the characters in one of those games. Being a Metroidvania style game, you gain new abilities as you play through the game as well. Wall jumps, dodges, and more abilities are given as you progress. The RPG elements of the game are implemented extremely well. You upgrade your abilities with gems after each level. Abilities include the standard Health, Defense, and Luck. You can also upgrade Fidget’s abilities in the same manner, making her attacks stronger. Item upgrades that modify your different abilities are also implemented quite well. You get different armors for defense. Rings and necklaces are used for luck and attack. There is also a special abilities section of items that is good for a multitude of upgrades. The items can be found in the world, but they can also be crafted in Dust's crafting aspect. Throughout the game, you will find different blueprints and materials that can be used to create a good number of the different items in the game. This was really unexpected for me and is an addition layer in an already deep game. I really enjoyed seeking out the materials and deciding which items would do the most good to upgrade my abilities. I generally dislike the tedium of RPGs but somehow Dean has infused so much in the game that I quickly changed my mind. Along with all this, there are numerous main quests to be completed throughout the game to progress the story. Also, as you meet NPCs in the game and talk with them, they will give you various side missions to complete. One particular mission had you helping a character that you saved at the very beginning of the game find his lost pocket watch he lost during his scuffle with the monsters towards the beginning of the game. Coincidentally enough, the characters name is ‘Geehan’. One can only assume this character (Chris Geehan of Hyperduck-Love you Chris) and quite a few others are based on real life counterparts. There are also special appearances by other indie game characters that will give you permanent stat upgrades. These types of things only add to the charm of Dust.

The sound is another stellar aspect of the game. The sound effects are spot on for everything, right down to the sound of the wind blowing through the trees. Voice acting was something I didn’t expect in the game. Every main character and NPC is very well voice acted and fit right in to the beautiful graphics. Fidget is funny and has a sheepish sensibility that works well with Dust’s brash attitude. Ahrah is the mentor like voice or reason throughout and the various other characters are just as well done. The soundtrack is one of the strongest I’ve heard in gaming to date. Now I may be partial to their work, but Hyperduck Soundworks really hits a homerun with this one. Nothing is ever overbearing and everything meshes together so well, it’s truly amazing. I can’t say enough good things about the guy’s work and we look forward to being able to say ‘We knew these guys when…”. Don’t forget about us guys.

Overall the game is very, very good. The story will hold your interest at every turn and even surprise you in how good it is at points. The graphics are better than almost any game I’ve played in recent memory. Just knowing the game was animated by one man really makes things all the more impressive. Controls are spot on and give a good Symphony of the Night feel as you play through the game. The Castlevania nods can’t be overlooked and shouldn’t be. As I said above, the deep combo system and crafting of items is a very welcome and unexpected addition in the game. Sound effects and voiceovers go a long way in immersing you further in to the world of Dust. Hyperducks score is sweeping and engaging. I found myself wanting to just stand around and listen to the soundtrack. I can’t wait for it to release for purchase. In summation, if you enjoy beautiful and well crafted gaming on a Metroidvania level, go spend your 1200 Microsoft points on this game right now. It won’t disappoint you in the least and is my new favorite game of the year hands down.

There's not much room for evolution of the match-the-colour puzzle game, but there are many ways to spice things up, which is exactly what Zuma's Revenge accomplishes very well. There's not a big story behind the game, except that you are a frog, and there is an evil presence you have to eliminate by shooting coloured balls out of your mouth to match up with the same colour balls which are in columns all around you, before the columns get swallowed by a mouth of doom (that's what I call it). Sound crazy? That's what this game is, it's a frenzy of sight and sound, but the goal is to get past every one of the 70-some levels in the game by doing the same thing. It will test your reflexes, and your ability to breathe easily, but you will have a "ball" doing it!

The sequel has added a bunch of new powerups, score multipliers, bosses, and an interesting "spirit animal" system, which will be explained later. The default adventure mode is the main story, and it is where you unlock other aspects of the game. Each level has a set path and amount of balls you must eliminate before any reach the mouth of doom, or you must start over. Some of the powerups include a laser beam to pinpoint other powerups or multipliers, a spread cannon that will destroy all of the balls in it's path, and a bomb that once detonated, destroys all balls in it's radius. If you reach a certain level score and/or time to beat (you can come back to the levels later), you get spirit points that you can contribute to your spirit animal for various perks. The first animal that you can have is the monkey, and he gives you the chance to obtain fruit. The more spirit points you give your monkey, the more often fruit will show up, and the more points it will give you (kind of like the fruits in Pac-man).

Every ten levels in adventure mode you complete, you encounter a new boss. Your froggie's perspective changes from the center of the screen to the bottom, kind of like Arkanoid, the you have to destroy the barricades, then once you're able to, shoot enough balls at the boss to kill him. Every boss gets tougher, and some even have minions that will disable your froggie in different ways. One minion actually poisons your frog and he starts to hallucinate, making it tougher to destroy the barricade. These boss battles are the most fun you'll have, and the most humorous as well. When you defeat a boss, you unlock a different part of the world, and if you're lucky, you'll unlock another spirit animal (there are four in total). Going through adventure mode also unlocks different game types, such as a weekly challenge where you try to beat your friends' scores, and another game type which I didn't get around to trying at the time I wrote this review.

To advance in the later levels will require fast reflexes, and god forbid you are color-blind, they have included an option for you. The in-game sounds are vivid and will keep you coming back, and visuals are quite appealing as well. Replayability of the game is questionable, and unless you like to test your lightning fast reflexes over and over again, there's not much point to it. The novelty is fantastic, and you will have a blast through the first ten or so levels. The price is moderate, and quite a deal if you are a puzzle fanatic, but if you're not then I would pass on it.

All of what makes Orcs Must Die! fun to play is there, and improved. All of the traps, the strategy, the weapons. The gameplay is largely the same, but new weapons and traps abound, as well as a new upgrade system. Several new traps range from bug zapper-like shock turrets to bear traps, and an awesome new guardian, dwarves that throw explosives and can melee enemies that get too close.

Dwarven mud wrestlers. Always effective.

There are so many new weapons and traps that I barely had a chance to try them all by the time I finished all of the main story levels. I did find myself sticking to old favorites, but only because they worked so well. Namely the crossbow, excellent for picking orcs off from a distance and now with an added secondary stun attack that can stop enemies, including large ones, dead in their tracks; and the wind belt, which gives you a spell to push enemies, perfect for throwing them to their demise over a pit or back into your deadly traps, or buying yourself some time.

It never gets old.

All items (including the newly added trinkets, which give you a constant passive bonus when in the inventory, and an active spell when used) can now be upgraded with damage bonuses, perks, and more. For instance, the crossbow can gain a perk to generate extra mana with each headshot, allowing for more frequent use of spells like the push mentioned above.

A perfect place for the wind spell. You can keep the orcs in the kill zone you've created.

The name of the game now is replayability. You gain skulls as upgrade points for completing levels and occasionally mid-level for accomplishing feats such as kill combos. New modes like Endless, a 40 wave endurance challenge, give you more opportunity to collect skulls in addition to replaying levels on Nightmare difficulty. These skulls are then used to buy all of your upgrades. The game truly encourages you to develop your own play style, because there are a lot of tools and upgrades to choose from. Thankfully a respec option has been added, a feature that lets you refund all of the skulls that you've spent. This option was grudgingly absent from the first game, so it could get annoying when you bought a trap that didn't fit your play style. Unfortunately you can't individually remove upgrades so you just have to remember where you've put all your points if you want to refund some.

You can place up to 25 guardians at once. Glorious.

One thing I did find annoying is that in order to play the new character The Sorceress, you have to make a separate profile with completely separate unlocks. This means that none of your upgrades or unlocks carry over and it's like starting the game over. With how many unlocks there are this can be annoying. The draw of playing as the new character is that she has a few unique weapons such as the polymorph ring, a ring that can turn enemies into other things like harmless chickens, or turn the sorceress into a powerful ogre.

Some weapons are unique to the Sorceress, while the War Mage has a few of his own as well.

Of course having the second character means another great addition to the game: co-op. You can now have a friend join you for the slaughter. From the campaign menu you can invite a friend to join you. Once in game you each get 6 trap slots and each have your own money. Currency from kills seem to be shared to an extent, where you also get a few points from kills by your partner and their traps. The game certainly seems geared towards co-op, as playing a later level I was able to 5 star it, whereas I had difficulty completing it solo. With most of the later levels having the orcs come at you from at least two directions, having someone to focus on either side of the Rift makes things much easier.

The graphics are still just as fine as the original with a mildly cartoony style, and rock/adventure style music that sets the tone before the taunting victory theme that makes its return. There are actually fewer levels, 15 versus the first game's 24, but with the added Endless mode, and the inclusion of Classic mode (10 levels from the first game for those who own it), and all of the permutations that can be made to your loadout, there is tons of replayability. Orcs Must Die! 2 is a nice improvement over the first game and definitely worth checking out for fans of the tower defense or third person action genre, or anyone looking to have some plain old fun slaying orcs.

The Reapers have finally arrived, and have begun to lay siege to civilization around the entire galaxy. Even after all the warnings Commander Shepard had given, no was prepared, nor could they truly be even if they tried. The stage is set as the Reapers begin their assault on Earth and Shepard is forced to retreat aboard the Normandy. The only hope for Earth now is for Shepard to rally together as many of the other galactic races to stand together against the Reapers as he can for one last stand.

The core game has some awesome moments, good dialog, a stellar soundtrack, and great setpieces. The combat and gameplay mostly just expands upon the system from Mass Effect 2, which is hardly a bad thing, as its improvements over the first game were massive. The Reapers are enormous and really set the tone of helplessness as they ravage cities in the background. But then there's everything else.

For all its flaws, Mass Effect 3 has some very nice graphics and scenery, on a grand scale.

As much as it pains me to say it, Mass Effect 3 felt like a huge step back from the second title. Where Mass Effect 2 portrayed a dark, epic story to follow the mystery of the original, Mass Effect 3 just felt like it didn't accomplish as much. Outside of the main missions everything just felt awkward. Several incredibly awkard moments, particularly in a few of the romance scenes (namely the whole thing with EDI I won't spoil), completely unnecessary sidequests, an equally unnecessary feeling metagame in the galaxy map, and the worst quest log I have ever seen in a game, all start to bring down what otherwise is a fairly great game. The quest log consists of a single vague paragraph for each quest that never updates until the quest fades out after completion. The quests are mostly flying to a system and using the "upgraded" scanner that conveniently attracts Reapers you must fly around to avoid (and never really feel threatened by because you can keep reentering the star system to reset them), or talking to a few people around the Citadel. Often when I finally would figure out what to do in a quest it would just outright break and become unfinishable.

Just keep leaving the system and returning and you can get all of the hidden items by doing fly-by scan/grabs, regardless of the Reaper presence.

A multiplayer mode has been added to the game, which admittedly is good fun when you've unlocked a good class to play with. It is the first time you get to play as any of the other races in the series, after all. It only features one mode, defending against waves with one to four players, but it serves its purpose. You can level up your character similar to the single player leveling system, but in order to get new weapons and gear you have to spend credits you earn and simply hope you are lucky, as the items you get from the packs are random. You can buy them for real money via Bioware points (a dollar for a medium chance at good items, two for better chances), but that option just seems shady. Multiplayer isn't free from the design flaws either. A system known as Galactic Readiness modifies the amount of War Assets you have in game (points gathered by recruiting fleets that amount to how good of a defense force you have against the Reapers in the endgame.) By default it is at 50% and will never drop below that, but through multiplayer you can raise it up to 100%, so for example your 800 War Assets can become 1600. The problem here is that you are essentially forced to play multiplayer in a traditionally single player RPG where multiplayer by all accounts never really needed to be included. Many long time fans of the series may not want to bother with such a strange notion as a cooperative horde mode tacked onto their RPG, but in ignoring it will have a harder time of getting a better endgame result.

Being able to smash everything to death as a Krogan is a fun diversion from playing as Shepard.

Which brings me to my final gripe about the game: the ending. Without going into specifics, I was highly disappointed. In the last moments of Mass Effect 3, it felt like all the decisions I had made in the previous games had meant nothing. Not to say that there aren't (very slightly) different endings, but there isn't even an epilogue. A simple Fallout style narrated slideshow would have done wonders, explaining a little bit about the state of the galaxy in various regions you've affected. Instead, in the famous words of Willy Wonka, you get nothing. As per the description of many bad game endings, you make a choice, some weird stuff happens, then it just ends. With all of the good buildup and drama from the previous games, it was a major disappointment.

In space, no one can hear you scream. But they can hear all those swooshy sounds that spaceships somehow make.

It's such a pity that there were so many irksome things bringing this game down. I loved the first two, and really wanted to enjoy this one just as much. It may be a better game if you could ignore the sidequests entirely, but then you wouldn't get very many War Assets. You could ignore the tacked on multiplayer (which, to be fair, has its moments where it is pretty fun, despite its unnecessary nature), but then you'd have even less. And even after all that, it's hard not to be disappointed with the end result of the game either way. As it stands, Mass Effect 3 felt like it could have benefited greatly from a longer development time. Fix the questlog, spruce up the sidequests with something interesting like Mass Effect 2's, where every major sidequest had its own unique location, and put the effort into making a truly epic epilogue that the fans deserve after investing so many hours into the series as a whole. That the game is receiving perfect review scores from so many major sites is appalling. The underlying game is good, but dragged down by so many things that it just becomes mediocre despite all of the potential to become truly great.

The game starts out with a level very reminiscent of the final boss battle of N64 classic Sin and Punishment. You fly around using your lock-on projectiles to fight the entire freaking planet. Or rather a colossal, menacing entity emerging from it. The story is certainly very epic and Japanese, taking inspiration from various sources including anime and mixed Asian mythology. The entire structure of the game is modeled after an anime series, with levels being separated by episodes, including credits, commercial break wipes (where the logo and a screen shot transition in and out, and a commercial would normally happen in between), a big "TO BE CONTINUED" at the end of every level, and even previews for the next episode. After completing each episode you are also treated to some still scenes of artwork, some of which is fan made, explaining more of the story than what can be shown in the cutscenes. The entire game feels like an anime, with long scenes of crazy action and story, and gameplay sections in between. All of the superpowers and craziness of a good action anime are here for your entertainment needs, in addition to a well crafted, grand scale story the likes of which you'd expect from a good anime. There's even a Japanese voice over option for good measure.

Outside of the cutscenes, which are often interspersed with quick time events (which are well implemented and never seem unfair), the gameplay can be divided into two main categories: brawler and shooter. The shooting mechanics (all of which involve Asura shooting energy out of his fists rather than using weapons) are simple but effective, having you either fly or run around in an on-rails or 2D environment. You aim the reticule over targets to get multiple lock-ons for your energy missiles to blast at, while holding another button to shoot your basic projectile that simply fires straight at the reticule. It serves its purpose as a means for Asura to fight colossal things that are entirely out of pummeling-to-death range, but it's in the brawler mechanics that the game truly shines. You can run, jump, punch, dodge, enter aiming mode to fire your basic projectiles, and unleash a power attack that takes a short while to recharge. While most normal enemies do have health and can be defeated, your goal is to use all of Asura's moves to build up his rage so you can hit the Plot Advancement--er, Burst button, at which point Asura's rage will reach boiling point and he will destroy anything in his way until he gets to the next section of the game, usually through quick time events.

At the end of each level you are given a rank based on completion time, battle points, and your accuracy with quick time events. On top of the multiple difficulties (the hardest of which is thankfully available from the beginning), this adds a good amount of replay value to the game. The game isn't necessarily all that short, but it certainly can be beaten in only a day or two. There is still plenty of replay value for getting a better score, and enjoying some of the gameplay sections (the cutscenes can be paused and skipped, both of which should be standard in games today). The boss battles in particular can be great fun when you've learned all of the mechanics of the game.

Asura's Wrath isn't quite like any other game I've ever played. It is a perfect example of not only games as art, but how entertainment multimedia doesn't need to be so black and white. You could easily say this would have worked better as a pure anime, or with more gameplay. But as an anime it wouldn't have had the same impact, being surrounded by so many similar animes that inundate the market. And if the gameplay was extended, the game could get repetitive and drawn out (though personally I believe there could have been more gameplay segments, or at least some form of challenge mode to let you play around in). How the game is now, it never felt too repetitive, or like the cutscenes dragged on for too long without any interaction. Asura's Wrath takes the best elements of both and attempts to craft them into one innovative package. In this day and age of gray shooters and fetch-questing talking simulators, it's not an easy risk to take, especially with a game of Asura's Wrath's scale, but it paid off. Buy it, rent it, wait for it to go on sale, or whatever you're comfortable with. If you like anime, or even just a good, over-the-top story, Asura's Wrath is definitely worth checking out, solely on the merit of it being something completely innovative in gaming.

All the signature humor is there, with various areas, new and old, to explore. You start with none of your spellbook spells from the main adventure, but a few new ones await, such as a spell for pulling objects and enemies towards you, and a spell to place portals like those in the eponymous game (guess which). Having not played Magicka in ages, The Stars are Left provided an experience that was both familiar and new. There are new robes and items to find, and many new Lovecraftian enemies to combat. The boss fights in particular are quite well done, requiring quick thinking on the part of all players involved. The final showdown with Cthulhu (not much of a spoiler, who else did you expect to be the final boss in a Lovecraft inspired Magicka DLC?) was one of the most fun and challenging battles I've had in Magicka in a long time.

There were some changes that I noticed that I didn't care for, though many of these may have been from previous updates and not this latest DLC. Likely because of a rebalance due to the added player vs. player modes, many spells and effects seem to be much less effective, and last a shorter duration. Self shield (shield with no elements) in particular seems all but useless now, expiring in a few short seconds if you don't stop to boost it, and it can't be renewed with a healing spell anymore either.

These are only small complaints, and some of the updates are rather nice. It is now possible to queue up your next spell while casting, so you can ready your next beam attack and use it right after the previous one to keep up the assault on a tough enemy. In single player you can now find a faerie at checkpoints that will revive you once before you get a game over. And perhaps best of all, chapter select and the ability to resume from checkpoints have been added. You can choose the chapter you want to play when starting single player or hosting an online match. And now when you exit the game, you will restart at the last checkpoint you reached, rather than having to redo the whole level.

Changes aside, and back to the Stars are Left DLC, there is enough content-wise to make this a very worthy purchase. I've been waiting for a new adventure mode since I first beat Magicka, and am glad to see the new content, and also cannot wait to see what else Arrowhead Game Studios have in store for the game. If you are on the fence about purchasing the new adventure, you can join any player that owns the game in co-op without having to own it yourself. All the co-operative fun of griefing each other repeatedly until you eventually work together to overcome the next tricky area or boss is back in full force in this new DLC, making it a great addition to Magicka that any fan of the game should check out.

Almost all of the side activities return as well. You can buy shops, complete faction challenges, recruit assassins, and collect those notorious collectibles. The assassin recruit metagame is much the same, but now you can capture cities by doing certain contracts, and gain an income of money and ingredients. As for the collectibles, they're not so bad this time around. There are 100 data fragments and 10 memoir pages. After collecting half of them you can get an in-game map showing the location of the rest, so it's much less tedious this time around. Sadly, there are no hidden glyphs or puzzles to solve.

Being my first Assassin's Creed on the PC, the controls took a bit of getting used to. But once I figured them out and remapped a few buttons, the controls work quite well without a gamepad (though gamepads are supported). The only time I had any difficulty was when trying to jump sideways after running partway up a wall. Auto-climb (the button you need to hold to perform acrobatic moves) and jump are mapped to the same button, and it takes a little bit of effort to direct Ezio the way you want him to go, more so than a quick release and re-press of a gamepad button while rotating an analog stick.

There are a few new features, such as bomb crafting. You gather ingredients to create different types of bombs with effects ranging from distracting your enemies to outright killing them. Also added to Ezio's repertoire of tools is the hookblade. Essentially all it does is extend Ezio's reach when climbing, and add a few grapple moves, though the extra reach is often fairly helpful when climbing towers. Also added is another minigame where you defend your assassin's dens. It's a bit like tower defense, where you place units and walls to stop oncoming waves of enemies.

Despite these few new additions though, Revelations doesn't seem to have advanced much from Brotherhood. Brotherhood itself wasn't a huge step up from Assassin's Creed II, but at least it added enough cool new features to make it a great game. Revelations however doesn't seem to add very much on top of that. In fact a couple things are missing: horses and usable boats, granted they aren't very necessary in the Mediterranean city of Constantinople, which is a bit smaller than the vast expanses of Rome previously seen.

The game was still enjoyable, but I couldn't help but feel like I was playing an "in-between" game, before the next big Assassin's Creed game. The ending outright points to another game, and without spoiling too much, with a title like Revelations I expected more to be revealed. Most of the new conspiracy intrigue you get at the end is stuff you already know from AC II and Brotherhood at this rate. Granted, the ending to AC II is very hard to top, when it was the first major reveal of the series.

The multiplayer makes a return as well. In terms of gameplay it is essentially the same, but it can still be great fun. It's refreshing to play a multiplayer game where it's not all about the kill/death ratio. You get more points for skillful, calculated assassinations than running around stabbing everyone. New to the multiplayer are two modes, Artifact Assault and Corruption, capture the flag and infection respectively. In Artifact Assault each of the two teams has a flag to protect, while at the same time they can sprint or sneak over to the opponents side and steal their flag (I personally found sprinting and using chase breakers and decoy abilities to be the most effective). Corruption starts a few players out as "zombies" who must kill other players to convert them to their team, while the "humans" gain points from hiding and evading their hunters.

Overall Assassin's Creed: Revelations definitely had some cool moments in the story, and it was fun to play as Altaïr for the few flashback scenes he was in, but as I said, it just felt like an "in-between game". It essentially felt like Assassin's Creed Brotherhood in a new city. Most of the fun features are there from the previous game, but as much as I love the series, this entry sadly felt a bit like filler. Now, I'm not exactly saying that this game isn't worth getting. If you enjoyed Brotherhood, you will most likely have fun with this game and should by all means check it out, especially for the multiplayer. I just wish there was a little more variety and innovation.

As you search for clues to determine Doc's whereabouts, you will use some simple dialogue trees to talk with familiar and new faces around Hill Valley. Combine the bits of dialogue with different environmental elements and you get the main portion of the gameplay. These play out like puzzles. Taking the cues from the conversations and actions that characters take, you use different things in the area to solve these puzzles. It really does make for a good combination and you rarely feel stuck, which is big in a game like this. Controls are a bit hit and miss here. They work well enough but a get awkward every once in a while with certain camera angles and environmental elements getting in the way. It's not a game breaker but a little more refinement would have been good.

Graphically the game looks good. All the characters are easily identifiable from a glance and they really fit in with the overall aesthetic of the game. It's when the characters start to talk that the game really shines. The voice acting is truly top notch. Bringing in Christopher Lloyd was the greatest idea and A.J. LoCascio does an amazing job as Marty. There are times that even the biggest fan of Back to the Future would be hard pressed to identify whether it was really Michael J. Fox or A.J.

The game is broken in to 5 episodes and as you play through they get progressively better. The game stays very true to the series and is a very welcome addition for fans. The disc based version of the games on PS3 are the exact same as the PSN versions (All the episodes are available on PS3, PSN, PC, and iOS devices.) and that's really my only major problem with the games. It would have been really nice to get a few extras on the disc. Maybe a version with commentary by the voice actors and designers or even have Bob Gale come in for commentary. Small quibbles aside, any fan of Back to the Future should pick up every episode and play through them and relish every moment of the continued story. So, don't be a slacker like the McFly's and go pick this up.

After a brief little cutscene at the start of the game that has Nelson Tethers pondering about his past case, you are thrown into solving a small puzzle. Telltale Games couldn't call it Puzzle Agent 2 without there being puzzles after all. This puzzle is relatively easy. It is just a matter of moving around the circular bands and getting the symbols to not repeat themselves. This puzzle however is the only one you might enjoy. You are quickly thrown into repetitive and often lackluster puzzle solving of this point and click adventure that will make you wish that you had an actual puzzle in front of you to physcially solve with your own two hands, because it would make more sense and provide more entertainment. Some of the puzzles are difficult and will leave you scratching your head, but not for the reason you would expect or because of the difficulty considering the past level of difficulty in solving puzzles in the original Puzzle Agent. This was just sloppy and poor creative thinking on Telltale's part. Some of the puzzles do not have a direction that they point you in and you will find yourself either youtubing, chewing gum for hints, or looking for answers on Google, Bing, or whatever search engine you fancy.

Now not all of Puzzle Agent 2 is dreadful. The unique art design by Graham Annable stays true to the first Puzzle Agent and continues the tradition of creative graphics that look more hand drawn instead of the highly detailed graphics that we have all become accustomed to, bringing in a breath of air to an otherwise dull puzzler. Nelson's story involving the mysterious teeny town of Scoggins also helps to add a bit of luster to the experience. However that luster is not a constant as sometimes I found myself clicking to advance the cutscenes just to get to the next puzzle.

If you have the time and played the first Puzzle Agent, you should check out Puzzle Agent 2 just to see how the story unravels in the town of Scoggins. If not, then you can let this one stay on the shelf and app store.

In addition to these staple modes, Bejeweled 3 brings these unlockable modes; Diamond Mine, Poker, Ice Storm, and Butterflies. Diamond Mine allows players to “dig” for gold and treasure by swapping gems next to the dirt to expose the collectables. In Poker players must create the best hand by swapping gems on the main game board to have that gem appear in their hand of cards. Using the special gems in a swap will increase the total score for that hand. Ice Storm brings rising columns of ice that must be pushed back before they reach the top of the screen. Creating matches above or below the ice will decrease the column’s height. Making a vertical match within an ice column will shatter it completely. In Butterflies, players must release the butterflies by using them in a chain before they reach the top where a spider is waiting.

While game play at the core remains the same; swap one gem with an adjacent gem to create vertical or horizontal chains containing, at minimum, 3 matching gems; Bejeweled 3’s game play gets a boost from the various types of gems the player can match. Apart from the normal gem, Bejeweled 3 also has Flames gems, Star Gems, Hypercubes, Supernova Gems, Time Gems, Bomb Gems, and Butterfly Gems. Flame, Star, Hypercube and Supernova Gems are all created under specific circumstances within the game play and throughout all the modes. Time Gems only appear in Lightning Mode and add time to the clock when used in a chain. Bomb Gems are only found in the Time Bomb mini game within Quest mode. These must be exploded before their timer reaches zero. Butterfly Gems are only found in Butterfly mode and the Butterflies mini game in Quest mode.

Overall, Bejeweled 3 is a fresh take on a familiar favorite. The unlockable, or secret modes, bring new challenging twists to the gem swapping classic. It doesn’t take long to open them up, but you might find yourself swapping gems for hours trying to create that elusive flush hand in Poker or valiantly struggling against the rising tides of ice in Ice Storm. The dynamic backgrounds are beautiful to look at and lend a sense of story to a simplistic game. Eight modes of play provide hours of addictive fun. And, achievement hounds will be happy to know that in addition to the traditional 12 Xbox achievements for XBLA games, players can strive for badges of increasing difficulty in bronze, silver, gold and platinum.

After selecting a new save, you are whisked away to a planet type land where you are greeted by two friendly and extremely helpful faces from A World of Keflings. With their help, you quickly find out that these small pint sized creatures have crashed and need to get back home with your help of course. How is a giant avatar suppose to land a hand to something that is other worldly? By building them a kingdom!

Nothing has changed with the easy peasy controls when it comes to crafting supplies and buildings. The land that you are given from the start is small and confining to work with providing a tiny bit of a challenge when it comes to placement of your new buildings, however it quickly opens up leaving you with room to build and place your robotic and alien style buildings that you will need to aid you in your kingdom building for your new friends.

With each building that you craft and new resources thay you gain, the joke filled and hilarious story continues. Seriously, how awesome would it be to live on planet "Yurbut"? Better yet how many jokes can you crack (no pun intended) from that one word?

It Came From Outer Space adds a few extra hours of addicting gameplay that is worth every point of the 320 Microsoft price tag. The story is not awkward unlike many of it's Xbox Live Marketplace downloadable content brothers and sisters where it seems like developers just make up some DLC, slap a price on it, and expect gamers to bow down at their feet. Instead what Ninja Bee did with It Came From Outer Space was kept the kefling humor alive and well, combined that with their secret ingredient of making hours of addicting gameplay, and then tossed in some old school movie references which if you happen to take notice to, makes the DLC all the more sweeter.

In my final opinion, my kefling fix has been completed and Ninja Bee continues to deliver time and time again with their creative and unique take on the content that they create. Here is to hoping that Ninja Bee keeps making not only kefling games to fill my every kefling need, but also continues to grow and nurture their fresh ideas that this gaming industry needs.

So please stop reading this review, head over to the either to the Xbox Live Marketplace, download this gem, It Came From Outer Space, and prepare to once again get sucked in to A World of Keflings which is brought to you by the creative minds at Ninja Bee.

Sequence is a bit of an odd mix. It's a rhythm game with RPG elements such as item drops, equipment and leveling, but it requires just as much skill progression on the player's end as it does for developing your character's level.

In the game you must fight a series of monsters and a boss on each of the seven floors of a tower, with your ultimate goal being to reach the top and escape. Three boxes with incoming notes are presented to you and you must switch between them to perform different tasks. One for defending by blocking enemy attack notes, one for gathering mana by hitting those notes, and one for casting spells by expending that mana. If you miss a note in a spell, it won't be casted but you'll have still lost the mana.

It all gets a bit hectic, but once you get the hang of it, it can be quite satisfying. Most of the music you jam to is by Youtube sensation Ronald Jenkees, so you get an array of interesting pop/techno/electronic tracks to play along to.

Probably one of my favorite things about the game was the dialog and humor. It has one of the funniest tutorials I have ever seen in a game, breaking the fourth wall and poking fun at things like experience points, and the correct pronunciation of "mana". It has a sarcastic wit about it, with a clear inspiration from Square Enix's The World Ends With You as stated by the developer, Jason Wishnov himself. With every boss encounter you are greeted by a hilariously deranged individual that will have you laughing at their ridiculousness. Their oddities mostly come from their speech mannerisms, ranging from a man who talks as if he is a text based choose your own adventure computer game, one who talks in excessive metaphors like a noir style detective, and others.

One of the best things about the game, it's only a $3 Xbox LIVE indie game, or $5 on Steam. The production values in the game easily rival those of indie games at three times the price. The game is fully voice acted and it will take over ten hours to complete the story mode. I myself put in over twenty hours, so there's plenty of value to be had. There is also a demo on the Xbox LIVE marketplace. If you are a gamer and don't laugh at the tutorial at least a little, then there is no hope for you.

Sequence is a fantastic game. Hilarious dialog, fun and strategic skill based gameplay, and addictive RPG elements synergize into one very unique and satisfying experience. And at the low price, it is a very easy recommendation to make if you are into rhythm based gameplay.

The game may sound easy on the surface, but a number of interesting blocks make the puzzles much more difficult then moving a few blocks out of your way. There are blocks that attract each other, ones that repel each other, spring loaded blocks, ice blocks that slide until they hit something, blocks that move together, and even a very tricky snake block that can move in multiple directions but carries its tail with it. Other blocks will stand in your way before you leave the Deep Sea of Blockado. When all these blocks are combined they make for a great but difficult puzzle experience.

Don't be discouraged though because the interface makes the game very enjoyable even if you are having trouble. In every puzzle you are given the option of stepping back a move with the quick touch of a finger. So if you accidentally made a move or even realized six moves too late you made a mistake you can simply step back to the point you want to. When you step back it also takes those moves off your total move count so they don't affect your star rating. Also to help you is a puzzle solver that will walk you through the steps to complete the puzzle. This is available in most puzzles except for those that are considered the most challenging puzzles.

On top of challenging puzzles the game provides a main adventure mode where you are after treasures from different parts of the sea. When you complete all the puzzles and unlock the treasure chest by completing its difficult puzzle you are awarded with some interesting information on the region you were in. It's not much, but I enjoyed the reward of reading about sunken treasures around the globe.

However, this game is mainly about solving puzzles and it does a fantastic job if you are in the market for a brain teaser to while away your time. The included puzzles number to 60 and if that isn't enough for you then you can use the built in scanner to scan in more from Blockado's Website. If that STILL isn't enough for you they have provided a puzzle editor ( Windows PC only ) that will allow you to create your own puzzles and then convert them to scan code. You can then scan them to play or even share them with your friends.

If you enjoy challenging puzzles then this game is for you. It has a simple to use interface with a simple concept made entertaining by a multitude of blocks that add to the challenge. The price couldn't be better for the sheer amount of content and the ability to scan in free extras or create your own. I would recommend it to anyone looking for an entertaining way to pass the time or if you just love puzzles. If you think the difficulty may be too steep you can always try their easier ones or download the free version to start.

The table has a ton of rail chutes and ramps that are integral to the different table missions. With spinning towers and magical trees, your ball is sent literally all around the table and with practice you'll rack up millions of points and complete each mission. Collecting the obsidian throughout will eventually lead you to the final showdown with the Sorcerer. Also, be sure to note the 4 flippers on the table. The flipper at the very top left of the table can be obscured in some views, but once you know it's there, it really becomes one of the most important aspects of the table to complete the challenges and different locations.

Speaking of challenges, there are tons included in the table. Creepy Cellar, Freaky Forest, Tower Crawler, Stairway Hurry Up, Whisper Hideout and Gates to the Void all bring a huge variety of things to do on this table. One challenge has you playing a game within the game almost by using Jake's slingshot to shoot spiders on a miniature table. As with the other tables, the challenges ramp up the replay value very well.

All in all Zen Studios has become the "go to" studio if you want a great tie-in pinball table, but this latest release shows that a tie-in IP is not necessary for them to make a great pinball table. 3 new achievements to go after, tons of different challenges, and the overall low cost (240 MSP or $3) really should entice even the non-pinball fans out there. It may take a bit of practice to get good at any of the tables, but once you do you will get hooked.

Orcs Must Die! is about the last of the War Mages defending the fortresses of the Order, an organization dedicated to stopping the orcs from invading their world. In each fortress there is a rift leading back to your home world, which you must stop the orcs from entering. You are given many traps to place as you progress through the game, as well as archers and paladins that will attack nearby enemies. You also have weapons ranging from your trusty crossbow and blade staff, to items that allow you to cast offensive magics. Using all of these, you must kill all of the invaders as they rush into the fortress.

In the beginning of a level you have time to set up your defenses before pressing a button to commence the battle, and you get other such breaks after every few waves. Otherwise, you normally only get about fifteen seconds between each attack. Attacking enemies vary from standard melee orcs, ranged crossbow-weilding orcs, weak kobolds that rush towards the rift, slow but powerful ogres, flying enemies, and others. You primarily gain money for traps and henchmen by killing enemies, and often will have to place traps during combat to strengthen your defenses. You can also purchase combat upgrades and other perks. You must choose between three different spell weavers to purchase these perks. Each grants you a different tree of abilities to use, focusing on player spells, traps and henchmen, and other bonuses.

When you're satisfied with your defenses, you can rush to meet the enemy head on with your crossbow, blade staff, or spells. Personally I found the sword to be underpowered, as you take much more damage while using it, whereas the crossbow can be used to great effect to pick off enemies with head shots from a distance.. The spells you can use include a pushing wind spell, a fire spell, an ice spell to freeze opponents in place, and a lightning spell. All weapons and spells have an alternate attack as well, with effects such as stunning.

Though the controls for the Xbox 360 controller are fairly good, I found the controls with a keyboard and mouse to be a bit more accessible and precise. This isn't really a fault of the game, just the nature of console controllers in general. There aren't many controls to memorize, but numerical mapping for traps and weapons is much faster than scrolling through weapons and abilities with a button.

Graphically there isn't much to say for the game, except maybe that it succeeds in having a decent, mildy cartoonish, stylistic look within the limitations of an arcade style game. Nothing looks particularly bad, but it's not as if you can zoom in and see lots of fine detail. The music also has a somewhat whimsical style, presenting you with an almost taunting sounding track as you complete a level.

Completing levels nets you a certain amount of skulls depending on your performance, with five being the maximum. These are used to upgrade your traps and make them more effective. You can go back to previous levels with newly unlocked and upgraded equipment to improve your score to get more skulls. This gives the game fairly good replayability, and makes it rather addictive. It also has a fair length with twenty-four fortresses to defend.

After completing the campaign you unlock Nightmare difficulty. In this mode you can replay the same levels but earn an entirely new set of skulls for each level you complete. What makes Nightmare mode so much harder is that you don't get more than three seconds between waves at any time to setup traps. Often you must set your traps during combat. It is much more hectic without the occasional pause to place your defenses.

Orcs Must Die! provides an interesting twist on tower defense style gameplay, and is yet another good example of genre mixing done well. It never feels too strategy heavy or entirely too much like a basic hack and slash game. It succeeds in having its own style and very solid gameplay. If you are looking for a fun but strategic game, Orcs Must Die! is a fine choice. It is currently out on the Xbox LIVE Arcade, and releases for the PC on October 12th.