Remember Bit.Trip Beat melting our eyes a while back? Gaijin Games’ retro homage continues in Core, where the up/down Pong-alike evolves another axis. You’re the core, a stationary gun turret amid waves of pixel blips. As blips pass above, below or to the sides, you hold the respective D-pad direction and snag them with a 2-button laser jolt.
Before you start up Bit.Trip Runner, grab a sticky note and jot down this very important instruction. "DO NOT FORGET TO BLINK." Take the aforementioned note, and place it somewhere visible on your television screen, because you will forget...
We'll admit we were skeptical of Blast Works: Build, Fuse and Destroy the first time we saw it - but probably not for the reasons you'd think. The problem wasn't that Blast Works is a side-scrolling, 2D shooter - we like the old school stuff. And it wasn't that the graphics are so primitive and blocky that it looks like everything is made of LEGO bricks. No, the big problem we had was that it's basically a port of a PC indie
Full marks to whoever came up with the title. “We’re ripping off Arkanoid, guys. What shall we call it?” There’s a bit more to Block Breakers Deluxe than just borrowing a concept from a decades-old game, though, and it’s a decent effort at revitalising one of the old favourites. At heart, this is about the age-old struggle of ball versus brick: you bounce your ball off various bricks and a level ends when the
Oh cruel game, how you mock this poor baldy reviewer with your hairdressing theme. A grade one clippering for every person who worked on it. Personal affronts aside, this is really rather good. They say there’s a fine line between genius and madness and Zoonami are tip-toeing along it with what is surely the world’s first game where you style vegetables’ hair. Yeah, you read that right.
The description ‘all-singing, all-dancing’ could quite literally be applied to Boogie: Superstar, as it uses the karaoke/rhythm-action template of last year’s Boogie. But it’s not amazing enough to earn the same metaphorical praise. The story holding up the warbling and prancing has been rejigged so that this is now a casual, girl-centric, X Factor-style affair.
The story behind this struck us as a tad unlikely - the game Steven Spielberg always wanted to play with his family? Wasn’t he a bit busy with some movie when it was being made? But however it came about, Boom Blox is far better than it has any right to be. While we’d normally file celebrity-endorsed casual games alongside the likes of Carol Vorderman’s Sudoku, this is in a different league. It’s brilliant!
Boom Blox for everyone? We always thought the original was a decent sort of pass-the-remote party game, but this time the line between solo and multiplayer modes is less clearly defined, and the whole thing becomes an experience that works equally well with one or four competitors.
You know the drill by now, of course. Some pseudo-scientist in a white coat informs you how stupid you are, and then suggests a series of exercises to help improve your acuity. Brain Challenge offers math, logic and memory puzzles. None are particularly frustrating or ingenious in their design, but some can be tricky to complete against the clock.
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