When you’re a barbarian, all your problems are solved with a sword. But what if you were a barbarian who preferred to solve your problems with a song? Such is the plight of Brad, a barbarian mercenary in the new iOS game Bardbarian, which was made by TreeFortress and published by BulkyPix. But in talking to TreeFortress illustrator and animator Mike Gaboury, their heroes penchant for music over might isn’t the only thing that makes Bardbarian unique.
Ever since Counter-Strike went from being a Half-Life mod to its own stand alone game, it’s been the dream of modders everywhere to have theirs make the same leap. The latest to do so is Insurgency, a tactical first-person shooter from New World Interactive that’s a spin-off of the Half-Life 2 mod Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat. But in talking to designer Andrew Spearin, it’s obvious that they’re not just trying to make Counter-Strike 2: Electric Boogaloo.
In many games, you’re a good person. You’re the superhero stopping the supervillian; you’re the human solider saving the Earth from invading aliens; you’re the cop fighting crime on the mean streets. But in the game Gregg — which Namco Bandai have released for both iOS and Android devices — you’re not the good guy, but an outside force trying to protect the good guy. Or the good bird as the case may be. Though as its creator, Play Fripp’s Yann Berthier, would like to point out, this isn’t like that other bird game you might know.
To promote the new Guinness World Records 2014 Gamer’s Edition, the publishers and their PR people chose four of the included records to highlight in their press materials. Included among them was “Longest Marathon On A Dance Video Game,” which was set by Carrie Swidecki, a second grade teacher who played Just Dance 4 for 49 Hours, 3 Minutes, and 22 Seconds. But Swidecki isn’t just some obsessive gamer, she’s also trying to spread the word about exergaming, the idea of using video games in schools as a way to get kids to exercise.
Having already brought their physical realistic but mechanically impossible pinball tables to the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS, and PlayStation Vita, the good people at Zen Studios are now going next-gen with Zen Pinball 2 for the PlayStation 4. And while it doesn’t include total graphic upgrade like some fans might’ve hoped, these tables are just as much fun as they were on those other systems.
The last thing anyone needs is another Candy Crush Saga-style connect-3 game. But while UFO Dad thankfully distinguishes itself by adding new gameplay elements — and by not having you connect three of the same gems or food items, again — its uniqueness isn’t enough to make this as addicting as, well, other Candy Crush Saga-style connect-3 games.
The Guinness World Records people — not to be confused with the Guinness Delicious Beer people — have announced that the Guinness World Records 2014 Gamers Edition has been released.
As a Halo fan who’s old enough to remember when shooters couldn’t be first-person, you’d think a Halo-flavored version of Robotron: 2084 or Smash TV would be right up my alley. But while Halo: Spartan Assault for the Xbox One never hits the effortless stride we’ve come to expect from a Halo game, it’s still has plenty of addictive arcade-y action.
If there’s one thing you can say about most next-gen games that’ve come out so far, it’s that they kind of feel last-gen. Sure, they look amazing, and are fun in their own ways, but when you play such games as Ryse: Son Of Rome (my review of which you can read here) or Forza Motorsport 5 on the Xbox One, or such PlayStation 4 games as Knack or Killzone: Shadow Fall (which I also reviewed), you quickly realize they’re nothing we haven’t seen before.
And the same can be said for Max: The Curse Of Brotherhood, a puzzling, side-scrolling platformer for the Xbox One that’s good looking and engaging, but doesn’t do anything on Microsoft’s new system that couldn’t be done on their previous machine.