Game Reviews

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EditorialsIndie Games

Indie Game Reviews: x3

When Grid Runner first appeared on the VIC-20 it was nothing more than a great but a simple and quite unassuming little budget game. Now, over 20 years later, Jeff Minter, the game’s original creator, has evolved it into the absolute shmup extravaganza, complete with tons of levels, fluffy sheepies, amazing pyrotechnics, eye-melting visuals, an ear-melting soundtrack, many extras and that quirky Llamasoft humour. Oh, and some finely tuned shmup gameplay with some brilliant touches, that even manages to subtly innovate. Losing a life, for a example, can be mitigated by picking up a nice sheep, whereas each life is represented by a different ship (not sheep, mind) with unique features..

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Game Reviews

ZX Spectrum book: 1982 to 199x

Obviously, they didn’t, as they went on and released the whole book for free. Yes! Exactly as I tweeted (?) almost a month ago (did feel the subject needed a proper post of its own though), the ZX Spectrum Book – 1982 to 199x can now be downloaded for free over at the World of Spectrum in its complete 258 pages glory. And, yes, it’s as good as I imagined. Even better really, what with the introduction by Sir Clive himself, the excellent quality of the game presentations and the tons of info.

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Game Reviews

Never say no to Panda

In these commercials, the main theme is people choosing not to use Panda cheese for one reason or another and then having the Panda get pissed at them pretty much bullying them into buying the cheese. Talk about hardcore marketing, this guy is like the mafia.

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Game Reviews

Vantage Point

It’s a concept that’s been done before, but perhaps not in such a high profile film. Whether it works well or not is debatable. Both I and apparently a test audience soon grew tired of the film rewinding to the start despite the fresh perspective offered by each character. However, the story is intriguing enough after to hold your attention and the initial frustrations soon die down as you enjoy the mounting tension as more and more information is revealed.

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SNES

Final Fantasy II

The game starts you off on a mission with Cecil, the dark knight and Kain, the dragoon. These two friends will soon find out they were tricked by the king on destroying a peaceful town and then separated against their own will. Don’t worry though, they’ll eventually meet up again but I don’t want to give away any more spoilers, that would be just awful. Nevertheless, the game is packed with a long enchanting adventure and a wonderful music score.

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Table Top Games

Zombies 2

Assuming those interested in Zombies!!! 2 are already Zombies!!! players (well, they really should be, as the original game is quite required to enjoy the Z!!!2 affair), I’ll get right to the new stuff. Ruleswise you get a slightly tweaked core ruleset, that helps speed the game up and clean up slight problems, a nice FAQ and quite a few brand new rules. Without wanting to spoil the overall fun-of-the-fan I’ll just mention two of them: 1) you get to ride vehicles, 2) tougher (government enhanced) zombies are introduced.

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Nintendo Wii

Sweety Puzzle

Non-gamers are Nintendo’s Wii little target, non-gamers were the people the PlayStation turned to gamers all those years ago and non-gamers are the market casual games are aiming for. But what are casual games (ask the masses in their booming and state-shattering voices)? Well, according to Wikipedia they are “a category of electronic or computer games targeted at the mass audience, which are peculiar for their simple rules, engaging game design, require no time commitment or special skills from an end user as well as comparatively low production and distribution costs from producer”.

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Game Reviews

Tales of a Driver: I’m not the only one who delivers

Maggie’s friends went over to the other women in the living room it didn’t take long until they were getting into it. Come with me young man I have my purse in the room” Maggie called to me. I walked into what I guess was a spare bedroom; Maggie took a hundred dollar bill out of her bag. “Have you ever seen this before” I smiled “Sure lady all the…” she then opened her robe to reveal herself. “I’ve seen that to…

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Spectrum

Deviants

In order to accomplish your mission, you must locate and arm each bomb whilst avoiding or shooting the green, zombie- like creatures (presumably the Deviants themselves) wandering around, going about their dastardly business. The rapid- fire assault rifle-type gun you’re equipped with takes them out within a few shots (which sees them crumble to the floor in a pile of dust) but it has a finite supply of ammo, so keep an eye out for the extra ammo icons dotted around here and there.

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Game Reviews

Whip It

The bottom line is, I watched this film because I liked Ellen Page in Juno and was intrigued to see Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, plain and simple. I’m not sure what I went in expecting, but this definitely wasn’t it! However, to say I was pleasantly surprised in an understatement – the events depicted are entirely inconsequential to all but those most directly involved, but that doesn’t stop this film from being an absolute joy to watch for it’s entire length.

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Game Reviews

Monsters & Mercenaries Collectors Guide

The most impressive thing in the ‘Monsters & Mercenaries Collectors Guide’’ though, is not it’s size or the amount of useful information included. Neither are the usual photos of Golden Demon winners’’ entries nor the dioramas and conversions presented. It is the fully converted Araby themed army by Justin Hill. It simply has to be seen to be believed.

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NES

Mega Man II

The Mega buster charge shot is missing in this game as it wasn’t introduced until Mega Man 4 so you’ll be having some tough times ahead. The regular Mega buster does damage the robot masters in strong quantities. In fact, you can defeat all the robot masters with just your mega buster in normal mode. Speaking of modes, the game comes with two modes, normal mode and hard mode.

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