The political struggles of 12th-century Japan set the backdrop for Ninjato, a Z-Man Games publication designed by Adam West (no, not that one) and Dan Schnake. Ninjato combines elements of push-your-luck, set collection, and a limited number of actions (and rounds) to provide an engaging strategic experience for two to four players. READ MORE
As I’ve mentioned many times in the several venues on this site through which you can hear me pontificate and whine about video games, I manage a video game store. From behind that counter, I see every type of gamer go by. There is the dude who wears a long black coat, fake fangs and a ponytail, and only buys Square Enix games. There’s the young asian girl who would be pretty attractive if she didn’t wear a foxtail out in public. And there’s a disturbingly large subset of people who come into my store, buy Madden or Call of Duty and leave, only to return when the next entry in one of these series is released. They terrify me. READ MORE
The shoot-em-up game has its die-hard following, a rabid base of fans that pick up one crazy release after another. They have to, really; the games are all quite short. The side effect of throwing crazy amounts of things at the player at once is that it’s basically like playing a game on fast-forward. Q-Games’ newest, PixelJunk SideScroller, fits right in with the genre, which may disappoint fans of its more puzzle-oriented, exploration-filled Shooter series. READ MORE
The Battlefield franchise has been around for years, remaining the king of competitive military shooters for the longest time. And until the first Modern Warfare game, there was really nothing else like it on consoles. Slowly, but surely, DICE began working on bringing their biggest franchise to non-PC players with the Bad Company series, which leads us to the next main game in the series, Battlefield 3. It may not be as impressive as its PC counterpart, but it still manages to hold its own fairly well. READ MORE
Okabu is entertaining but lacks polish. A lot of good games could have spent a little more time in the oven, but not every developer out there can afford to operate on Valve time. In Okabu, you, along with a friend if you’ve got one in the room, take control of two cloud whales traveling all over the world to stop the Doza and their terrible pollution. The pollution hurts the villagers and keeps their crops from growing, and it mingles with the clouds in the sky, preventing the cloud whales from flying high above the villagers. Naturally, the cloud whales descend to help the villagers, vanquish the Doza, and resume their life flying through the skies. READ MORE
