Reviews & Articles

Underneath the amazing atmosphere, beautifully detailed graphics, immersive sounds and enveloping storyline, BioShock is a game about choices: the choices made by the characters in the creation and downfall of Rapture; the choices presented to the player that pull at your heartstrings and moral compass; and the choices of weapons and plasmids. How each of these choices affects the player and the world around him is one of BioShock’s greatest assets.

What comes to mind when you think of a typical fantasy game? Whatever your answer, Dragon Age: Origins has anything you could think of. Elves that live in the forest and have pointy ears? Check. Dwarves that drink a lot of alcohol and live underground? Check. Humans that lord their wealth over the others and generally act like arrogant pricks the whole time? Check. Dragons? Check and double check. Although Dragon Age: Origins doesn’t do too many new things, it does the familiar so well that it is more than worthy of being called “a role-playing game made by BioWare.”

Have you ever heard anyone tell you about an experience in which they felt more than themselves? A time when they felt they had ascended to something more? Me neither, but I think Brainpipe helped me see what someone experiencing that might see. Well, maybe that’s not the sort of thing they’d see, but it sure was fun nonetheless.

One of the biggest reasons chess has remained popular for hundreds of years is its nearly endless possible combination of moves and strategies. Zatikon, a free online indie game, taps into the infinite strategies of chess while also letting you customize your armies, adding another deep layer of strategy to the gameplay.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is actually two campaigns in one. In addition to the all new game Assault on Dark Athena, you also get Escape from Butcher Bay, originally released in 2004 for the original Xbox. Any temptation you may feel to call that a good deal will quickly fade once you actually start playing the game, which feels like playing paintball for the first time while blindfolded. Meanwhile, a team of elite players takes turns firing away at you until you’re a helpless, quivering mound with a fresh coat of paint.

Take a look at the third and final blog in an exclusive series from PlayFirst's time-management game Passport to Perfume. The entries are written from the perspective of Sophia, the main character. The game takes you around the world during the 1940s as you take charge of Sophia and her perfume shop, where you create scents, select from your bottle inventory and sell your creations. On weekends, you (as Sophia) travel the world searching for ingredients, bottles and recipes. It’s Sophia’s personal quest to find the recipe for Marie Antoinette’s perfume.

Take a look at the second blog in an exclusive series from PlayFirst's time-management game Passport to Perfume. The entries are written from the perspective of Sophia, the main character. The game takes you around the world during the 1940s as you take charge of Sophia and her perfume shop, where you create scents, select from your bottle inventory and sell your creations. On weekends, you (as Sophia) travel the world searching for ingredients, bottles and recipes. It’s Sophia’s personal quest to find the recipe for Marie Antoinette’s perfume.

Take a look at the first blog in an exclusive series from PlayFirst’s upcoming time-management game Passport to Perfume. The entries are written from the perspective of Sophia, the main character. The game takes you around the world during the 1940s as you take charge of Sophia and her perfume shop, where you create scents, select from your bottle inventory and sell your creations. On weekends, you (as Sophia) travel the world searching for ingredients, bottles and recipes. It’s Sophia’s personal quest to find the recipe for Marie Antoinette’s perfume.

Stifling an urge is much easier when you have access to your craving. Gaming is a vast landscape, filled with plenty of genres to tide over any number of gaming wants or needs. As time progresses, certain aspects of gaming shift and change, ebb and flow as if a mini evolutionary cycle were always occurring to thrive and adapt. With such a drastically changing landscape, some of gaming’s older habits or finer celebrations get left by the wayside, and survival horror is one of the biggest victims of neglect in recent years. Silent Hill: Homecoming marks another installment in the now classically running survival horror franchise and also is dealing with the horror of surviving in a day and age that would be as welcoming as the very residents of Silent Hill.

Since its debut in 1982, the Worldwide Soccer Manager series - and its predecessor, Championship Manager - has been the last word in football management simulations. It's a proper British success story, too, begun by the Collier brothers in their respective bedrooms and growing to a hulking global franchise.

Chocolatier has proved to be a different sort of animal. It's kind of a sim-chocolate-maker game, and it's kind of an action puzzle game. The whole thing is set in the time of trains and steamships, with artwork to match. Chocolatier has so much going on that I'm finding it difficult to describe it in any sort of organized fashion, so please, dear reader, bear with me.

Enchanted Gardens is an intriguing puzzle game by Yatec. Enchanted Gardens is Yatec's first offering. The company's goal is to build an entertainment industry in post-Katrina Louisiana. For their efforts to bring industry back to Louisiana, I would give this game an initial look. The quality of Enchanted Gardens game play is what keeps me coming back

Peter Molyneux is getting old. The great man is 47, positively Jurassic in the gaming world, and is slowly slipping into a graceful, and well earned semi-retirement. Once the creative force behind Bullfrog and, consequently, a stream of classics that has shaped modern gaming - just look at Dungeon Keeper, Populous, Syndicate, Theme Hospital and Theme Park - is now starting to slow down and pick safer ground for some of his creations - for every ground that is broken, safer turf is sometimes left untouched. Don’t get me wrong, however. This is not a bad thing. Sure, Black and White redefined the god game - which he invented, all those years ago - and stunned those who played it. The Movies isn’t nearly as revolutionary. It is, in all but name, a Theme or a Tycoon game. But this, as one of the most beloved and cherished series in all of gaming, is not a bad thing at all.

I have a confession to make: I wanna be a cowgirl. I've been tryin' awfully darned hard for the last three months. Bang! Howdy just roped me in like a Rodeo Clown on Saturday and I've been branded, so to speak, ever since. It's a bit of a genre bender, this one. So, in the style of my favorite Spaghetti Western, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, I'll give go at tellin' ya'll just what it's like. *queue the whistle*

This harmless little puzzle game is the first commercial offering from BrutoMemo Entertainment. The Duffer isnt sure where these guys are from, but its definitely somewhere far away from Texas. This game is a straightforward Bejeweled clone; that means it involves making two little gizmos in a big grid swap positions so they line up with other little gizmos of similar type. When you line up enough similar gizmos, that line vanishes, causing all the gizmos above it to fall down, changing the relationship of the whole grid.

A unique world, full of suprises, Myst captures your interest by enthralling you into an environment unlike any other. I, for one, haven't played any of the previous Myst titles or anything quite like it before. To say the least I was a little confused with the game. Myst V: End of Ages has a deep story line which I thought was hard to grasp without having any previous experience with the series. Never the less, I was constantly intrigued by the games beauty and depth.

I've been a fan of the Age of Empires series and enjoyed playing Age of Empires III. So, I was quite happy to get a chance to play the Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs expansion. I've just spent a week playing it, and it was a very good continuation of the AoE III experience.

I'm a fan of Amy Kim Ganter who has been drawing the Reman Mythology for the past few years. When I found out that she illustrated for another game (her first was Diner Dash), I quickly went to download Plantasia and have a go at it. I must say that Plantasia looks deceptively easy with the cute smiley flowers all around. Believe me, though, when I say that it's not that simple.

Alright, so who here hasn't wanted to be stranded on a remote island never to be found again? I know I sure have... do. OK, so maybe it involved a little less clothes than that, but still, you can practice right here in Virtual Villagers!

Here is a little warning Virtual Villagers is not a fast paced, hardcore game. This is a very slow game, it is very casual and you are only meant to play it for 5-10 mins per hour it runs, and as you progress more you can do it less. You let your guys work and come back and check on them. There is a certain level of micromanaging you can do, but don't expect to be entertained by constantly fiddling with your little peeps.

Five minutes after booting up Virtual Villagers, my son Mackenzie was hanging over my shoulder asking if he could play. He was willing to give up his time with Sims 2 for the game. Selfishly I refused and guarded my new game. “You can play it later. It’s my turn now!”

Howdy pardners! This here preview’s gonna be written in my best attempt at cowpoke talk. Now I brought home a right fine version of Bang! Howdy to my home PC unit. The dag gum game’s a'currently a rip-roarin through a beta test. I reckin I won’t just leave ya guessin how it is though. Here’s the two fingers of fun I had with it.

When I found out I had an appointment at E3 with Allegro for Piano Wizard, I wondered if I was assigned because I played the piano. I had taken lessons for about ten years and after I finished the Royal Conservatory of Music in Canada, I began teaching. I have been teaching part-time for almost another ten years (with some breaks in between.) I was very interested in seeing this new method of inspiring children to play the piano. From what I had read beforehand, Piano Wizard was really promoting the fact that a child can learn to play songs that they know within weeks versus months with a traditional music lesson approach.

CMY’s goal is to produce non-violent edutainment. That goal is evident in their newest game, Don Quijote. In several minutes of gameplay, the closest thing to violence was the offscreen death of a chicken to make chicken stew.

I get the odd ones. When I saw Piano Wizard, I found myself wondering “Is it a game? Is it a piano program?” After seeing it in action, I've decided that it’s a little of both. It’s software plus an electronic keyboard plugged into your computer with MIDI cables. It’s bright (the keys on the keyboard are color-coded). It’s definitely fun. Does it teach you (or your kid) how to play the piano? I’m not sure.

The Ultima series form Origins was my first intro to computer role playing games. At the time I had a Commodore 64 system, with which I purchased Ultima IV. Ah yes, talk about pure enjoyment as I roamed around Britannia, and my avatar met Lord British. As time went by additional series were produced. Ultima V - Lazarus was a followup where your character was transported back to Britannia to help defeat the sinister forces that took over, when Lord British disappeared while checking out a disturbance on an island.

I’m a Zoombinis addict. If you’re one who reads my reviews, you probably know that already. If you aren’t, then it might come as a surprise to find a grown woman confessing to actually love the Zoombinis series of games. But the fact is, I do. They appeal to the logical parts of my brain that love to over-analyze. It’s a nice relaxing way to spend a few hours, or just a few minutes of free time. And Zoombinis Mountain Rescue is no different in that regard from all the previous games. What is different this time around is that some of the interface problems I’ve had with previous games have been corrected, making it even more fun to play. The game can be played on both PC and Mac. I’ve played it on both systems, and it is equally stable. I’ve had no problems playing it on our Mac mini, which is a real plus for our family because that’s “the kids’ computer.”

So, imagine walking through the woods one day and you’re thinking about bugs. Then you get to thinking about how cool it would be to make a game about bugs – smaller bugs chased by bigger bugs, turning into butterflies and flying away, getting caught in spider webs and eaten, etc. You get back to the office and work on the design concept using a modified turn-based design concept for oh…say a year. And you come up with Bang! Howdy. Yeah, I know, that’s what I thought when Michael Bayne, “Magic Maker” of Three Rings Design told me the same thing.

A pool shark I am not… But I can play one thanks to Amju Super Cool Pool. The title of the game really says it all. This game is super cool. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll be hooked moments after you install the game. I love casual games like this that can be played for 5 minutes or an hour at a time, where you are challenging yourself to improve, really competing against no one but yourself.

When I previewed TubeTwist 7 months ago, I raved about the great concept that the folks at 21-6 Productions had developed - an Incredible Machine for the 21st century. Since then, they've been back to the drawing board. The core premise of the game hasn't changed, but it has been polished, and new features have been added. The end result? A fun, challenging take on Rube Goldberg-style machines.

"Neither of us had any idea where that night's experiment would lead…"

Didi and Ditto is an educational game for preschool and kindergarten children designed to help reinforce the skills they are learning in school. Created by the same company that makes the Mia series of games, Kutowa Kids, the game comes from people who understand what children of this age group are learning and how to capture their interest. I've played the game with my 4-year old son and my daughter, who has just completed first grade, to see how level appropriate it is. Overall the educational aspects of the game seem to be right on target, but the user-interface is a bit too difficult for this to be a game that my son can play by himself.