Category Archives: Reviews

A Great, but Difficult, War

So close, yet they missed the mark. Hopefully the review that follows will make this statement clear. Iron Storm begins in March of 1964 and World War I (yep that is not a typo) is still in full swing. You play the part of Second Lieutenant James Anderson, who has grown up with this war being all he knows, and he knows it VERY WELL. Anderson is called on to undertake a series of missions that will stop the leader of the opposition from unleashing a terrible weapon on the good guys. And YOU are responsible to make sure he … Continue reading A Great, but Difficult, War

Tribunal Adds Creativity to Creation

I was so happy having just completed about 300 hours of role-playing, easily the largest amount of time I have spent on a single non-online only game in my life. Super bad guy Dagoth Ur fell to my blade, well, actually he fell to an earthquake after I completed the game-winning ritual, but I’ll take the credit for his death. I sat back to breathe a sigh of relief. Nothing to do now other than travel around the world fighting minor baddies like bandits living in caves or the occasional marauding Kagouti. And my manor home is decked out in … Continue reading Tribunal Adds Creativity to Creation

Content is King in Camelot

You asked for it and now you have it – more content for Dark Age of Camelot. I do not know how many articles I have read that listed the biggest drawback of Dark Age of Camelot as the lack of content and then go on to base this on a comparison to a game that has been on the market nearly four years with four expansions under its belt! So, hopefully Shrouded Isles may quiet these critics for awhile. What do you get? Shrouded Isles brings an upgraded graphics engine, with the down side being you need a relatively … Continue reading Content is King in Camelot

Primed for Action!

The original Metroid was one of the first games I played when I got my Nintendo Entertainment System. That was over 15 years ago, and back then it was a milestone in adventure games. Keep in mind that this was during an era when most adventure games only involved horizontal scrolling, and Metroid’s vertical depth added a unique addition to the mix. While it went unnoticed in Japan, Metroid was a huge hit in the States, and went on to span a GameBoy sequel, as well as the Super Nintendo successor, which expanded everything about the original game. I regret … Continue reading Primed for Action!

Hitting the Sweet Spot

He’s a bald geezer with a barcode tattooed onto the back of his burly neck, but somehow he still manages to walk in the shadows and dispose of his targets with deadly efficiency. I am of course talking about Codename 47, who has returned to dish out some harsh justice in Hitman 2: The Silent Assassin. Step into the genetically engineered shoes of uber hitman 47 for some stealth and sinister underbelly of society type shenanigans. When the game begins, 47 has hung up his silencer and retreated to the confines of a Sicilian monastery. But local mobsters have discovered … Continue reading Hitting the Sweet Spot

The Great Escapes

To me Prisoner of War was marketed as a cross between the movie Stalag 17 and the TV show Hogan’s Heroes for the computer. As a fan of both, when I saw that it was coming out, I ran to my editor and begged to be the reviewer. He is also a fan of the show and the movie, so we worked out a compromise, he agreed to take a look at the PC version, and the Xbox version was all mine. I figured it was a fair trade and I was not disappointed. The game is set during World … Continue reading The Great Escapes

And I Thought Nintendo’s Solstice Was Addictive

These two little gems, now finally available on one CD, have been around as Internet games at www.popcap.com. The Omni group has finally gone and catered to us (the uprising Mac-users) and polished them up a bit. Bejeweled & Alchemy provide all of the entertainment value you enjoyed back in the old days before the Internet. You know…Tetris…Dr. Mario…Bubble Bobble. Simple, yet exceedingly complicated as you go along, just like a good puzzle. If one of them isn’t your type, you’ll be sure to enjoy the other and all of its addictive qualities. "Bejeweled" features a series of multi-colored gems, … Continue reading And I Thought Nintendo’s Solstice Was Addictive

Russian Fairy Tales

Sometimes a puzzle game will come out where the entire purpose is to solve puzzles. While I could be perfectly happy solving puzzles all day long, I crave some atmosphere and story and characterization intermingled with good puzzles. Fortunately for me, there are games like Jazz & Faust. Jazz & Faust is a puzzle/adventure game set in a fantasy environment with medieval and Arabian Nights -style elements. In it you play one of the two title characters as you try to unravel a mystery and achieve an ancient treasure. The trick is, once you have solved one of the character’s … Continue reading Russian Fairy Tales

Robotech: Battlecry is Anime Action

Revival is a word becoming more and more common in the game industry. TV series that have gotten canceled are continually seeing their stories continuing through the art form that is video gaming. Such is the case with Dark Angel, the Fox sci-fi series that got the hook unfairly some months back. It’s getting a game continuation of its storyline. A similar case has been speculated to happen with Farscape, another sci-fi series that suffered the same fate as Dark Angel. There is currently one Farscape game on the market, though many people hope there will be a story-based sequel … Continue reading Robotech: Battlecry is Anime Action

Bubbles Everywhere!

The puzzle genre is to video games what the horror genre is to books; both are fading fast. Like horror in literature, at one time puzzle games were big business. Games like Tetris were popular with gamers because of their addictive nature, and how new and innovative those games were at the time. As time went on though, a lack of innovation in newer puzzle titles led many gamers to get bored with puzzle games. Gradually, the puzzle genre lost so many fans that it went from being a huge genre to what it is now, a niche genre. While … Continue reading Bubbles Everywhere!