Why Bad Piggies is Good - Android Review

This game is from the makers of Angry Birds, but aside from starring the pigs from it the gameplay has very little to do with Angry Birds.  Which is a very good thing, because I for one didn't like Angry Birds much.

I love Bad Piggies though.  I just felt that should be stated, so if this review sounds one sided, that's probably why.  I'll try to keep it fair anyways.  In short summary though, I heartily recommend this game for just about everyone.  It's hard not to be entertained by the cartoon outcome of the game, and building the many contraptions, then seeing them in action brings about a simple joy that should not be missed.

Jak and Daxter quick series review

Here's my quick summaries of Jak and Daxter, all 4 of them, after playing through them all. (No, I didn't play the racing game, shame on me I know.)

Jak and Daxter: Precursor Legacy - or as I call it, Jak and Daxter: Spyro Egg Collecting Edition

Classic loot collecting platformer. Has a few minor annoying minigames, and difficulty is random, but other then that it's brilliant and a must play on PS2. Lots of classic platforming moments and the moveset you have is both devious and amazingly useful at the same time. I do have one thing to say however, and that is the game doesn't ever tell you that while rolling you can "long jump" with X. (If it did, I must have somehow missed the tutorial trigger.) So just remember that or you'll get stuck about 3/4th of the way into the game when that jump method becomes required to access a new area.


Jak 2 - or as I call it, Jak and Daxter: The Maddening Controller Selling Edition

Really bad GTA segments with really random frustrating timers on everything. Like seriously, everything. Deliver someone to point A and B and C, have a timer. Fight off the enemies, with a timer. Race through rings, with a really short timer that is reset each ring. Did I mention that the hovercars have very little health and that you only have 4 hits(you have 8 health, but everything does 2 damage so I don't see the point really.) The platforming isn't too bad, and brings some welcome difficulty, but then you'll get to a boss and quickly find out that fighting long often badly designed boss fights with 4 health and random, super rare health drops from crates(they would rather drop ammo even when your ammo is full) does not equal fun. Story is good, but not worth the frustration of the gameplay. Oh, and the minigames are hard too, in case you thought they would provide some fresh air.

The big killer though is that checkpoints save your progress(you'll spawn at the checkpoint), but they don't reset your ammo. This means you'll be tossed back into the boss fight due to your autosave(which cannot be turned off), but have to spend the next few runs just grinding for ammo instead of trying the boss fight properly. This is partly because the bosses are designed so that they will often do some cheap hits on you and so you need full health to fight them and full ammo to end the fight quick enough.

It's hard to say it, but this is one PS2 game that I cannot recommend to anyone unless you've got the patience of a saint to put up with all the cheap hits or bad runs you'll have when doing the objectives required to see the story. Skip this one.


Jak 3 - or as I call it, Jak 2: What we were trying to do in the first place

A bit of Jak 2 lives on, the story is a direct sequal to 2, but the gameplay is much improved. Just about everything that causes 2 to be the "Maddening Controller Selling Edition" has been fixed. Minigames now require much lower scores to pass for storyline, health actually gets upgraded and dropped more often, the gunplay actually works even if you can't see the enemy on the camera, and so on. While I died plenty of times, the platforming is much more sane then 2 and a lot more fun to retry, instead of feeling like a chore. One other thing that makes this game much more bearable is that it has lots of checkpoints.

There are just a few minor segments that are pretty difficult, one in particular is near the beginning when you need to race on these dinos that you haven't really had much practice controlling yet(they have a tricky double jump mechanic that makes it tricky to figure out how to move fastest with them). The rest of the potentially frustrating races are reserved for egg sidequests, and not required at all for storyline progress.

Don't get me wrong. Jak 3 is still difficult, and you will probably die a lot. But thanks to the checkpoints and the segments being shorter, or in the case of longer segments, being easier, the game redeems itself from the problems that plagued the 2nd game.


Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier - or Jak and Daxter: Sky Pirates Freelancer Edition

First of all, this one suffers from clearly being a port of the PSP version. However, it's still pretty well worth the time to play it once you get over the fact that the graphics are a bit dull and the camera is a bit more "auto-controlled" along paths(probably to make the PSP version easier to play, but it feels a bit weird when on the PS2.

The game still lets you "overwrite" it's camera angles for the most part if you want to, but I did notice that when I did that sometimes it would still try to "rotate around the corner" with the new angle I gave it, which just confuses the player and made me fall into a pit more then if I just went with the normal angle. The normal angles are usually pretty good though, and this issue only plagues the platforming sections of the game.

Most of this game will be spent in the cockpit of a ship, flying around arcade/Freelancer style, doing dogfights or exploring the many small but pretty detailed(for a PSP port) "area map overworlds". Basically each game location has one of these overworlds to fly in, and the platforming section's "landing pad" to get to it's platforming level. The result is a strange but really fun mix of Freelancer/arcade flight fighting and more standard Jak shooting/platforming/puzzle solving.

The platforming puzzles come in the form of different powerups Jak gains throughout the storyline, and often the puzzle requires 1 or more of these special powers to be applied to the level to continue on. By the end of the game, there are a few mind splitting combinations of powers needed to take down enemies or mix powers together for puzzles. But it's never overly complicated and exists mostly to separate areas, provide a break from shooting combat, or hide secrets in the levels.

Every now and then, you'll have to be Dark Daxter. These segments are a little weird, as you wander around some very simple levels as a severely overpowered monster. The combat is easy, as the main mechanic of these segments is that you can save up energy from monsters and then become an invincible tornado(it reminds me mostly of Taz from Loony Tunes, and is hilarious). While in tornado mode you break through stuff, and there is a bit of puzzles from the fact you can pick up different enemies too. Even if you find these segments boring due to being overpowered, they are all rather short and simple, so running through them shouldn't take too long.

Even though this one is clearly a port from the PSP, I still recommend it. The Jak difficulty is still there, but once again the designers were pretty generous with checkpoints. As a matter of fact, there are several checkpoint mid-battle in the Freelancer ship bosses that remember the bosses health but restore your own if you died mid-battle. Little touches like this help ease the difficulty so that the player keeps trying instead of giving up like Jak 2.


In summary, play Precursor Legacy, Jak 3, and if you want more Jak and love arcade spaceship shooting, Lost Frontier. Avoid 2, unless you're a really die hard fan who has the patience to put up with blatantly bad game design.

Rant: Sonic 4: Episode 1

I'm hesitant to call this a review, mostly because I haven't finished the game in question.  Generally I like to finish games before posting reviews to give them a chance to redeem themselves with later gameplay.  But I feel this must be said now, especially since Episode 2 is out on steam and contains an incentive designed to sell copies of the first game.  I'll be quick here.

For clarity, I'm talking about Sonic 4 Episode 1 only.  The developers have said that many of these issues are addressed in Sonic 4: Episode 2.  I'm a bit short on funds to find out for myself, so everything in this ramble is only about Episode 1 and may not apply to the new chapters.

Sonic 4 is a decent platforming game that is decently good at everything except being a Sonic Game.  I had heard from others that the physics were a bit broken in this game, but this is much worse then I had imagined.


I know, you don't believe me.  Ok, let me explain in greater detail.

Indie Spring Bundle and Review of Slydris

http://www.indieroyale.com/bundle/the-spring-bundle

The Spring Bundle is up but only for 2 more days as of this posting date and time.

This pack is actually quite good value for your money.  Mostly, I wanted to post about Slydris, as it's the only one I've had time to play but it already feels very worth the asking price for the bundle.  I can't vouch for the appropriateness of any of the other games in the pack as I've yet to play them myself and by the time I review them the bundle will more then likely be over.


Slydris, as you might have guessed from the name, is a tetris style block game.  It's tetris roots are obveous, solid rows of blocks clear themselves off the field, you make chains to get more points, if the blocks reach the top row you will lose, and between each move gravity takes over causing all the blocks to fall.  That's where the similarities stop however.  The block types are only horizontal bars, and you have no control over the new ones falling into the playfield.

Instead, you can grab and slide any block on the field horizontally.  After you slide a block and let go of it, gravity takes over and the blocks fall down.  The idea of course is to slide blocks to cause rows to be filled all the way across, and thus cleared.  It's a very simple mechanic and sounds boring on paper, but once you start playing you'll realize there is a great depth and even quite a bit of strategy to the game.

Dear Esther: A Review.

Ah, Dear Esther...

Not gonna lie, this game will either be two things to you. If you are not patient and not thrilled at the thought of taking a SLOW WALK through some scenery, while listening to pieces of a very broken someone's ramblings, with ample forced walking time between ramblings to think over what he is saying, this is NOT the "game" for you.  It will turn out to be one of the most boring things you've ever bought and you will quickly wish you had bought a few burgers instead.

It must be said, just to make things perfectly clear, there is NO INTERACTIVITY in the entire "game" besides using WASD to walk around(no run key), and mouse to aim where you are looking.  Clicking the mouse button simply zooms in a little bit on whatever you are looking at to examine it more closely.  No items, inventory, no puzzles to solve or people to talk to.  Not even zombies to run from or combat of any sort, not even a run button for those times you go the wrong way and need to walk back in silence(voices only trigger once per play).

There is a good reason for this, but I cannot explain it here lest I destroy what Dear Esther sets out and does so well.

Dear Esther is not a "game" in the traditional sense.  I think the best description of it would be "an activity that allows the player to explore and listen to a very broken man, while trying to make sense of what he is saying, with visuals that help support or add a physical backdrop to the audio."  In short, it's a jumbled audio book that you physically walk through at your own pace, that also relies on the scenery and sometimes which route you took through it to support telling it's story.

The fact you walk through it yourself and can choose to look deeper into things you come across helps distinguish it from what a movie can provide, while the otherwise stale lack of interactivity helps keep you from being distracted from the emotional roller coaster the story seeks to convey.  The fact most of the lines are randomized helps make each visit unique, while also revealing a bit more about the deeper meaning of Dear Esther as an entity.

Square Logic Rocks

If you want a good clean logic game, check out Everyday Genius: Square Logic.  It will test the logic part of your step by step puzzle solving without tossing complicated rules, math(the game will do all the maths for you, leaving you with the logic decisions), or chance based puzzles at you, and it will last you a long time.

Skyrim: Elder Scrolls 5

A lot of people have been playing this massive game called Skyrim: The Elder Scrolls V, myself included.  It's got so much content and story quests, it will honestly take me several years to get through it all.  Most of that time may be because I like playing a sneaky character.  Regardless of the reason, none of you want to wait several years to hear about it, so I'm posting a blind mini review based on my 20 hours of playtime so far.


Skyrim is an Open World Action Role Playing Game, in the most open, literal interpretation of the term.  Like Oblivion, and every Elder Scrolls game previously, Skyrim contains a massive world.  This world is populated by npcs who literally "live in the world", complete with daily/weekly activities they do, some legal, some not so much.

A quick note to parents.  This game is rated M, and I heartily support this rating.  By a "living world of NPCs", the designers literally made a world, everything good and bad included.  This world contains exactly everything questionable you'd expect in a fantasy setting world, from bars full of people who "look for the ladies" to very violent betrayals and brutal death "critical hits", and a strong case of racism.  In the world, there are very few NPCs who would stand up for "what is right", and many of the quests force the player character to choose the "lesser of two evils" with no good "Everyone can get along" ending.  Bethesda went for a very realistic world, only stopping from putting something in the world if it would threaten an A rating and prevent selling the game.

Skyrim's world is very much an adult world, and combined with the ability of the player to pretty much do whatever they wish to do in the world(for good, evil, or sometimes neither or both), this isn't a game for younger kids to play.  Honestly, a lot of the gameplay mechanics and storylines for the quests deal with adult topics anyway.  I would only buy or let an older kid play this if you are truly comfortable having them deal with such topics.

Having said that, the fact Skyrim has such a detailed world is one of the main reasons it has become so popular.  Very few games dive this far into detail, or put this much effort into literally dropping the player into the world and asking them "where do you want to go, and what will you do?".

Review: Bastion

Bastion is a hard game to summarize without spoiling what makes it so powerful.  In few words, it has a deeply thought out story, and tells it in a very unique way.  It's one of those few times when a game becomes much more then just another game, and ascends into an art form.

At it's core, the gameplay is that of an isometric action game.  You will find different weapons throughout the game, which you will use to fight your way through stages in a linear fashion.  Enemies and destroying stuff in the levels gives you money that you can use to upgrade your weapons, buy different tonics(which act as equippable accessories), and so on.  Nothing particularly special here.

Exploration is very limited to non-existent, though there are many parts where you as the player decide how "the kid" takes care of the situation at hand.  The different weapons all act and feel different enough to keep the gameplay flowing smooth, but this isn't a pure action game, as often times there will be a quiet segment where the enemies stop coming to make way for the storytelling.

Throughout the gameplay, an announcer(we find out who he is and who he is talking to later) tells the tale.  Once again, I don't want to spoil too much, but let's just say it's a clever use of 2nd person storytelling, both during the events and from future/past tense.

Minecraft Review

My internet is back, and thanks to the steam winter sales I have a backlog of games to play and review.  But first, a requested Minecraft review.

(Note, if you are familiar with minecraft's gameplay, skip to the Review header in bold down below.)

First, a basic, but long, explanation of what minecraft is.  It's so unique that my review simply will not make much sense if you don't know what the game is.

Sonic Generations Review

First off, I'm reviewing the PC version, available off Steam.  The PC version is cheaper then it's console counterparts, but you also miss out on one minor thing, the inclusion of the original Sonic the Hedgehog.  It's worth noting that you're only paying 30 instead of 50-60 USD.  It's also worth noting that the PC requirements are pretty steep, this is an otherwise direct port of the Xbox version with the capabilities to crank the settings up well past the PS3's lighting settings.  It even has a 3D display support(I'm guessing the PS3 version probably does as well, given the trend in 3d vision that console has been doing), but alas I do not have a display to test that feature on.

The gameplay itself is brilliant.  Each of the 9 stages is a throwback to one stage out of Sonic's massive video game carrier, excluding spinoffs.  Some of the highlights include Chemical Plant, Sky Sanctuary, and surprisingly even the more modern sonic stages are done well.

Each "stage" is actually two separate stages, one for Classic Sonic, and one for the Modern Sonic.  

Trackmania 2: Canyon Review

For those not familar with how TM works, I'd like to explain the concept of "Environments", because it's going to come up quite a bit in this review, and I want to make sure you don't misinterpret it as levels or tracks like other games.  In the TrackMania universe, an "Environment" is like an area of the TM universe that the track is built in.  Each one comes with a full set of track blocks, which forms what other games call the "level style". These often come with unique parts only that environment will let you place.  The Environment also contains a specific car to match with the parts in that set.  It's better to think of the Environments in TM as "Car Handling Styles and Track Themes".

For example, the free TM:Nations has 1 "Environment", Stadium.  This comes with a stadium level, stadium themed track pieces, and a modified handling F1 Race Car(modified in that it grips loops and stunts much better then a real one would).


First, a bit of backstory.  When Nadeo planned out TM2, they planned 3 environments, to be released over the next few years as part of the bigger picture "Maniaplanet", along with Shootmania and Questmania.  Both the others are under development still.

The result is that TM2:Canyon is a lot smaller then TM:United Forever, at least as far as content is concerned.  However, it's important to keep in mind that TM:United's 7 environments are actually:

-3 new ones from TM:United(before the Forever series), each released over a years delay
-3 old classic ones from back in TM:Sunrise, which were released at once but with a 2 year development time
-Stadium, which was designed to be a free environment for TM:Nations Forever.

So while it looks like we are getting a lot less stuff with Canyon's single level style, when you compare the two you are actually comparing a "collectors edition with all expansions" with the "first released game" of a new series.  Furthermore, TM:Canyon is the first part of a much bigger idea that Nadeo has called ManiaPlanet, where all three games(TrackMainia, ShootMania, and QuestMania) are interconnected into one massive community program/project.  Of course, none of that has been fully launched yet since it's going to be a pretty big multi-year project.


Now that you've got it in perspective, let's review what Canyon has to offer:

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for the Wii review

Note: This post was supposed to be my Halloween post, to review the game I was playing during that time. In my silly stupidity I left it as a Draft Post, meaning it was never actually published to the blog. Everything still stands in it, and so I'm publishing it as my proper "review" of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Enjoy.


Ah, Silent Hill, it's good to be back, even if I am stuck being dragged into frozen hallucination worlds every now and then. Which actually helps to break up the problem the old games had of "Should I be solving this puzzle or running like hell" by separating the game into two very different "modes" as you play.

And thank you for doing motion controls right, for once. It makes the escape sequences and exploring, and even talking to people(due to the ability to look around during dialog) very immersive and actually good to play. That is, if "unnervingly creepy and real feeling" can be called good to play, which I say it can.

Every time I step away from the Wii Silent Hill game, I keep asking myself "why haven't other motion games done it this way instead of just replacing button presses with motion gestures?" And I keep coming short of an answer. It just...works.

Gotta say one negative thing about it though. It's really hard to read the cell phone text messages on a smaller TV. It's very clear this game is meant to be played on a widescreen TV, but unfortunetly our only TV that fits the bill is right in the middle of the living room...which is not where Silent Hill should be played when there are younger siblings about for obvious reasons. So I'll just have to put up with barely being able to read them. (So far, everything important to playing the game has been in audio tapes or had subtitles that are big enough to read even on small screens. I have no idea why they didn't think to include the text messages on the cell phone in this treatment.)


Edit from later: I've now since finished the game, and I can safely say that it's conclusion is well worth the effort of finishing it. It also helps to explain what is fully going on in the end if you're paying attention, which sadly makes the game suddenly less scary and more tragic on a replay.

Some recently played games and quick opinions

These arn't going to be proper reviews, so much as quick summaries.  I'm feeling really under the weather today and don't have time to properly review anything.  Nonetheless, here is a quick reference list of some games I've played recently and my quick 2 cents.

Nimbus

Simple concept, fun puzzles, nice challenging action sequences.  Goes from easy to bloody annoying difficulty very quickly.  Some of the levels, even on easy, are rather lacking in checkpoints.  If you can't stand having to get three keys again to attempt that final shot/glide for the goal, this game isn't for you.  If you are the type who loves that sort of punishing game design and twitch/skill/speed based gameplay, give Nimbus a shot.  I don't regret buying it, but some more casual players probably will.

Terraria

It's been called a 2d minecraft.  I'd like to point out that is a severe misconception, as the game plays out more like metroid.  It's got a few questionable design decisions that make multiplayer only good with trusted friends.  It also has a bit of item grinding to build some of the later armors, and suffers from not having a true end game goal.  (There are several epic boss fights, but they are repeatable and don't do anything to the world once you beat them).  Unfortunetly, without the unlimited building space of Minecraft(Terraria maps are not infinite, and have edges of the world to them), and thanks to the fact characters can take items from one world to another, the whole flow of the game kind of falls apart.  Worth visiting, barely, but because of the random generator and lack of any real goal, I can't fully be as excited about it as I wish I could be.  If anything, it will make you wish they had done something more solid and less "randomly generated adventures lol" with the game engine.

That will have to do for now.  More quick summaries to come probably, as I have been playing a lot of games but haven't been finishing them to be able to review them properly.

Review: Rock of Ages

Time for some reviews of stuff I've played recently.  I think I'll start with a long overdue Rock of Ages review.

Rock of Ages

Good:

The concept is brilliant, and the execution superb.  Seriously, this is like one of the most amazing, original, and fun games I've played.

Basically you have a timer that counts down to when your next rock will be built, and play tower defense for this time period.  Once you're ready to roll, you swap into a Monkey Ball like rolling game to roll down your opponents side of the field, and hopefully smash their gate. Money is earned in this mode for smashing into other things as well, but your boulder will take damage and shrink, lowering your total damage done to the enemy gate.  The money is then used in between boulder runs to build more of your own defenses.

The resulting gameplay is a very potent mix of action and strategy that proves time and again to be very entertaining.  The balance between getting enough money to literally buy yourself more time through defensive layouts, and racing to break your opponent's gate before he/she/it breaks yours is the core of the game.  This simple but super complex concept is what sells me on Rock of Ages, it's so simple you can tell your friend in a minute how to play, yet it can take weeks of play to figure out the "ideal" defensive layout for each stage.

Thanks to very good balance between all the game elements, and plenty of stages, the game manages to be all around a very fun experience.  The single player story mode is especially random and wacky all the way through, and well worth the price of the game.

The team is still around, fixing and making the already great game even better.  Meaning a lot of bugs have been fixed so far and some new balancing features are added/tweaked every now and then to polish the game even more.

The game has the simple joy of finally breaking open a gate and watching your enemy scream in girly terror before you squish them with a boulder that's 20 times their height in a very anti-climatic fashion.  The spike of joy this hilarious cartoon joke brings will simply never get old. 

Bad: 

No offline mode save support.  Edit: This issue was fixed in a patch since my last play of the game, and no longer is an issue.  Game plays offline just fine now.

PC multiplayer is a bit of a pain.  Internet multiplayer is no problem, but you will need a steam account with a copy of the game for both players.  (You can't just play in offline mode, it will not connect to itself even over a LAN.  We tried.)  The game does have split screen like the console version, but currently you will need 2 wired X-box 360 controllers due to the game's use of the UT3 engine's control schemes.  Other controllers do not work, unless you use a third party emulator software to turn them into X-box360 input, which can be a pain to set up depending on how your controllers are connected and what buttons they have.  Because of these issues, I have yet to actually play a multiplayer game myself.

The AI is sometimes...well, not the brightest of players.  It's saying something when on one particular stage, I won the game by making them stuck on a series of fans rolling up the same hill again and again forever.  Thankfully this type of stage/stupidity isn't the common reaction for the AI, and requires quite a bit of out of the box thinking to set up usually.  Still, it's quite obvious that the AI pretty much never takes any shortcuts or tries anything special to get through your defenses.  Place a fan along their favorite route, and they will pretty much always run directly into it no matter how visible it is to them.

In fact, the way the later stages get "harder" is by giving the AI better preset defensive layouts to start with, while you start with nothing, of course.  The fact this makes it an even fight for a skilled player should tell you pretty much what to expect from the AI.

Good and Bad:

The boss fights.  The bosses themselves are basically a giant puzzle, which in principle tests your skills and timing with rock control, but in reality just feels like filler content when actually played (especially the second boss, which boils down to a tiny timing minigame with a lot of ground to climb up in between timing tries).  It's especially jarring that the gameplay for the boss fights are so generic when the rest of the game has so much creativity and inventiveness in it.

It should be noted I am only berating the actual gameplay of the boss fights, not the bosses themselves.  The artistic side of the bosses is easily one of the best parts of the game.  This is why I am split 50/50 on this issue, because while I didn't enjoy most of the time "fighting" the bosses, it wasn't exactly boring to play either, and if they were removed I would surely miss them.

Conclusion:

Even without the multiplayer, I still think Rock of Ages is well worth the very reasonable price of only $10.00 USD.  You can grab it for Steam, or if you hate steam with a passion or want easier split screen play, it's also on the Xbox360 Live marketplace.  (I don't know if the Xbox360 marketplace version will have the updates from the team since I don't have experience with that market.)  

Here's a handy link straight to the steam store page, which has three very entertaining trailers that might run the risk of being less entertaining then the game simply because of their short length(especally the rock beats everything trailer):

http://store.steampowered.com/app/22230/

Till next post, Gawain signing off.

Update, The Ball review

Just a quick summary of updates to prove this blog isn't totally dead, random stuff follows.

First off, if you haven't played it yet, and you don't mind a bit of blood, go play The Ball.  I just finished it yesterday, and it's a very solid puzzle/action/first person game with a heavy emphisis on puzzle.  The designers clearly put a lot of effort into making sure the puzzles were challenging without being frustrating.  Highly recommended!  It's also one of the few puzzle games that I'd be glad to play again from the beginning a second time, because the puzzles are just so fun to do for the most part.

I mean, you get a GIANT ball nearly twice your height to roll around with a push/pull gun, and that, plus your wits and mind, are your only weapon the entire 8+ hour game.  Brillantly fun!

In other news, I've begun to design/script some enemies for the random platforming project.  Currently working on a simple slime enemy.  It's actually pretty complicated making enemies that need to just be dropped into a level and deal with whatever is generated at the time.  But it's pretty fun to be drawing stuff again, for once.

Till next time, this is Gawain signing off.

5 Good Games off Steam for under 15 bucks.

So, you've got only a bit of money left, and you are wondering what game you can buy?

Well, here's a list of games off steam that are all under $10 to $15 USD, and are so well worth the money you'll wish you paid full price.  Some are shining examples of what an independant game development team can do, others are sweet sweet deals from bigger corps who've decided to cut in on the "smaller, but cheaper" game making budgets.

All are guranteed to be the same quality as some triple AAA $50 games, and maybe even surpass some of them in fun factor.  Enjoy, and happy shopping!

Beat Hazard

Music powered duel stick shooter.  Comes complete with Co-op and VS on the same PC, assuming you've got two controllers to play with.  The controller config is designed to support just about any two stick controller, myself I prefer some PS2 controllers with USB adapters.

You can load up any music you have on your PC, as well as audio cds(not sure if audio cds will save your scores, I have all mine ripped to my PC).

It's very graphically intense for a 2d shooter, so if you're prone to flashing lights like in rock concerts, be warned it has many similar graphical effects.

See shots of it in action, and grab a copy for yourself from the below URL.  You can also check out a demo, limited in plays and tracks, to test out if it will work on your system and get a taste of the gameplay.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/49600/


Shatter

Breakout game with real physics, gravity, interconnected pieces, and lots of good old-school chaos.

This one is worth the price of admission for the soundtrack alone, but it's also a very solid breakout game with a few twists.  Thanks to it's varied gameplay and well designed stages, it doesn't get old, and is fun to replay as well. 

One might also be surprised to find it has a storyline, loosely and minimally told, but it's there and a good one.  It's also got a couple 2 player Co-op modes, but the meat of the game is the single player story mode.

If you want some old school action with some new fancy physics and really cool effects, Shatter is a sure fire bet.  It's a work of art.

For those on PS3, there is a version of Shatter for the PS3 network.  I prefer using the mouse control on the PC version to a controller, but rest assured both versions have the same modes.

No demo, but the video does a good job showing you what to expect from the game.  Rest assured, you'll feel like you should have paid much more then the 10 bucks.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/20820/


Toki Tori

A beautiful puzzle/platformer with a heavy emphasis on planning ahead as you use tools and Toki-Tori's very simple movement to collect all the eggs.

To put it simply, this game is so well polished and has so many fantastic, devious, yet well designed levels, it should be a 20 dollar game.  It'll charm you from beginning to end, and each world has it's own little twist that reworks how solving the puzzles in that world feels.  The difficulty goes from rather easy to brick hard rather fast, while never feeling unfairly complex.  All the levels have some trick to them that once figured out, makes solving the level a joy.  I always felt a sense of satisfaction that I solved the puzzle, and rarely felt "cheated".

Oh, and Toki-Tori is like the cutest fellow ever.  I really doubt anyone could look at him and not smile at the way he wobbles about the levels and cheers when you finish them.  Simply adorable.

One bit of warning:  A couple of the levels require you to quickly use your tools, or use them with careful timing.  Thankfully this is the exception, but sadly it means that players slow on the trigger probably will need help from a friend later on to finish the game, as at least one of these type of levels is required to be finished in the main storyline puzzles.

Grab the game demo from here to try it out, or purchase the game from Steam for a measly 5 bucks.  That's less then a dinner out for a game that will entertain and puzzle you for at least a good 20 hours.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/38700/


Puzzle Dimension

Pure puzzle game.  The demo doesn't do it's difficulty justice, rest assured the full game makes much deeper use of the puzzle elements and unique spacial properties of the game.

Not a single timed section, you always can sit there and plan out your next move.  Even the "crumbling paths" only crumble once you decide to move off of them, serving their purpose of being one way while not making you rush over them.  There is no "monkey ball physics" or "elements of chance/skill" involved.  Instead, all the puzzles rely on your abilty to grasp the spacial design of the level and plot out a path that won't drop you off the edge.

This is the kind of puzzle game you can sit down and just stare at a puzzle for hours, solving it in your head without worry about time running out or not having the skill to roll the ball along the route. 

Only 100 puzzles may not sound like much, but once you see the scope and complexity of the later stages, you'll understand why they didn't make any more complex ones.  The game cuts off well above the "Genious" level of puzzle solving, becoming more of a Zen-like game.  You'll find yourself haunted by the last puzzle's layout you didn't solve, spinning it in your head at work/school as you suddenly comprehend a path you missed that makes everything click. 

One other thing that really makes it stand out is the atmosphere of the game.  When you start a puzzle, the music is like a chiptune and the graphics are very retro(in a stylish way).  As you roll the ball by tiles, they "upgrade" to their higher definition modern graphical standard look.  As the level is "depixelated", the music magically blends into a more modern mix.  The effect is that as you solve the puzzle in your mind, the puzzle visually and audiably "solves" itself, becoming more clear.  The sweet thing is that no matter which form the tiles are in, they are very recognizable, so this becomes a beautiful reward for exploring the puzzle completly without ruining the pure puzzle solving gameplay.

I can't recommend it enough, for 10 bucks it's the best spacial/logic puzzle game I ever bought.  Oh, and one more thing, it's for Mac too(and looks just as beautiful there)!

Get the game, check out the demo, and see a video of it in action here:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/57200/


Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Fully co-op, fully single player, top isometric shooter/action/puzzle/adventure game. 

The puzzles change between co-op and single player modes.  This game is basically one of the best Co-op games ever.  Both of you have different skills, and the puzzles are much more complex then just "this is for player 2 to solve while player 1 stands there".  They almost all the time require both of you to be working at once to solve the puzzle.

Add in some of the sweetest co-op battles and action sequences where you both have to think to look out for each other as well as survive yourself, and you've got a recipie for a beautiful Co-op experience.  It's also got a good storyline to boot.

I want to say setting up the controls is a bit confusing since the control setup can't be done in mid-game, and doesn't do a good job telling you what the buttons will be used for.  But this game is well worth the 15 minuites setup of controllers.

If you want to skip out on the controller setup, you can also get it for X-Box360, off the marketplace there.  I can't speak for if that version is better or worse then the PC version, but it does have the full co-op and single player gameplay.

Oh, and for those wondering if the character packs are worth it, yes, they certainly are.  It's much more then a character swap, they redid all the voice acting for the game to be the new characters, and even added a few new voice triggers to the puzzles.  The result is downright hillarious.  It makes replaying the levels to get all the artifacts pretty funny, but do make sure to play the game normally first, as the normal game is a work of art in itself.

Check out a demo, or buy the full game from steam for a mere 15 bucks.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/35130/

And with that, this is Gawain, signing off till next post.  Enjoy!