Regardless of your opinion about Hideo Kojima’s stories you can’t argue that the man doesn’t create memorable characters and unique gameplay systems. Zone of the Enders is no different. Leo Stenbeck, Jehuty and BAHRAM are just as memorable and well-developed now as they were when the ZoE games were released on the PlayStation 2. READ MORE
Tower defense can be a difficult genre in which to innovate. If you take away either the towers or the creeps then you’re not really playing tower defense, and if you add other things to the formula then you begin to make a different type of game with tower defense elements. The folks behind Defender’s Quest: Valley of the Forgotten have managed it, though, by marrying an RPG to the tower defense formula. Your party makes up your towers, and there’s an interesting story to uncover along the way. READ MORE
The folks over at Wadjet Eye Games let us check out their upcoming adventure game, Primordia. You should remember them from titles like The Blackwell Legacy, Gemini Rue and, most recently, the excellent point-and-click Resonance. They know adventure games, and it looks like Primordia is shaping up to be another strong title in their adventure game catalog. READ MORE
Assassin’s Creed is an odd series. The first was burdened with repetition, the second was absolutely wonderful, its two sequels (forming a trilogy in the middle of a series) added great things just as often as they added needless cruft; much as I enjoy tower defense, those sections of Revelations weren’t fun and felt tacked on. Brotherhood added the stellar band of junior assassins at your command, which was expanded in Revelations in Mediterranean Defense (which I’m still convinced could be carved out and sold solo on XBLA or Steam).
At the end of the day, though, I miss the loveable rogue we had in Ezio. Connor is interesting, but Ezio was just plain more fun, and his games took place in cities with more verticality which really allowed the parkour system to shine. READ MORE
King’s Bounty is a riff on Heroes of Might and Magic which is, itself, a riff on the original King’s Bounty games, and 1C has created a series of games that are aware of what they are and have a great time being just that. Warriors of the North is the next chapter in the modern King’s Bounty series, and this time you’ll be raising armies and playing out hex battles in the frozen north with Vikings and Valkyries. READ MORE
