If there was one thing you could say about Yosumin!, one thing that was incontrovertible, it’d be that it’s addictive. Regardless of the simplistic and repetitive gameplay, it’s just one of those games that keeps you hooked with a “one more go” factor, hours after you’ve grown tired of its click, drag and repeat mechanic.
You Don't Know Jack has always set itself apart from the minigame glutted party genre by appealing more to the spiked-punch party crowd, not the sticky-fingered cake-and-ice cream crowd. In other words, the self-proclaimed "irreverent trivia party game" series has always been designed with grown-ups at actual parties in mind - or at least the sort of adults in the late '90s whose idea of a great time was crowding around the PC with the screaming-new CD-ROM drive. To those in the know, YDKJ's sassiness and multiple-choice questions relying equally on street and/or book smarts ("If Sybil has 17 multiple personalities, how many exemptions is she entitled to on a W-4?") was unparalleled. As such, it's not only remarkable that after an 11-year absence the snarky series is back, but it's back just as strong as it was in its heyday...
The basic idea of this Live Vision game is brilliant – set up a camera, play some EyeToy-style minigames that require different movements and chuck in some silly expressions and faces. Then, once the round is over, sit back and watch You’re in the Movies play back your actions in a series of B-Movie style film trailers.
The title may sound like a fight about to kick off (“you, me and the cubes, aaht-side NAOW!”), but the truth is more elegant. Somewhere, perhaps in the depths of developer Kenji Eno’s mind, a dreamy landscape of smoky cubes has fallen out of whack. The universe needs rebalancing. Barack Obama’s busy; you’ll have to do.
At just 1/20th the cost of a normal retail title, Young Thor is an oddly compelling game. It's got that je ne se quoi effect that certain games like Diablo are able to achieve that compels you to drive forward through each level simply by telling you you're not strong enough. Failing on one level only hardens the resolve to level-grind for a while so you can come back and trounce the place. However, qualities aside you get what you pay for with Young Thor, and in this case the low price on this PSP Mini is justified by its extreme lack of polish...
Some Yu-Gi-Oh! titles are perfectly playable without prior knowledge of the trading card game. Not so here. This, the latest in the World Championship series, is firmly for fans only and utterly impenetrable to the uninitiated. And why not? Dumbing it down for noobs would no doubt infuriate the faithful, who will of course know that 5D’s is the new anime series and the basis for this game outing.
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