Just when you thought it was safe to remove the boards from your windows and doors, here comes Zombie Tycoon 2: Brainhov’s Revenge. This followup to the original 2009 PSP title designed by Frima studios puts you in control of a vicious zombie horde that will demolish anything on your path to total world domination.

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There are plenty of games that get a handheld version of their console brethren, but I can’t think of a time where it has gone the other direction until now.  Resident Evil Revelations came out on the Nintendo 3DS in early 2012, and a little over a year later we have a chance to check it out on the PlayStation 3, the Wii U, and the PC (it’s also out on Xbox 360).  We’ve seen portable versions of larger console titles be successful, but could it work in reverse?

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I can tell you the exact moment my opinions on Metro: Last Light crystallized. As I was making my way through subway system beneath a bombed out Moscow, I found I had to sneak through a Communist-occupied station. As I avoided detection by stalking through shadows and–I’m not ashamed to admit it—by knifing a few Reds, I came to a brightly lit hallway. Maybe it was the lateness of the hour? Maybe I was tired?  Who knows.  But for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to go through the light instead of searching for an alternate route. As I’m walking down the hallway I hear a Russian voice behind me quizzically ask “Who the fuck are you?” Instinctively, I whipped around and sent a knife flying into the Commie’s throat. I waited for the inevitable avalanche of heavily armed and armored Red soldiers to fall on me…except it never came. It struck me then that the guard hadn’t had time to alert anybody.  That was it.  That was the moment when I realized how much Kiev-based 4A Games had improved upon its debut effort, Metro 2033.

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Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D is — in a word — difficult.

I’d never had a chance to play through the eponymous ape’s latest quest the first time around on the Wii, But I’ve heard stories — nay, legends — of its ability to make grown men weep under the pressure. Luckily the 3DS version — essentially an updated port of the Wii game — appears to replicate the challenge while making it a bit more accessible to players less tolerant of video game masochism. Oh, and it also adds a few new levels for good measure.

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The thing about Stardrive is that it really knows how to draw you in as the latest entry in a struggling 4X genre (in which you eXplore space, eXpand your borders, eXploit your colonies, and eXterminate your adversaries).  The debut effort from Portland-based Zero Sum Games stands out from the crowd with it’s beautiful visuals, quirky sense of humor, and promises of unique action-based combat. It isn’t until you spend a few hours in the game that you’ll start to notice the cracks in the facade that ultimately keeps this one from reaching the heights of its idols Galactic Civilization 2 and Masters of Orion 2.

Read more on Limited Horizons–Stardrive Review…

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Arcade games came from a simpler time – you had a joystick, a few buttons and a coin slot. Your skill was used to determine how cheap your entertainment was. The games walked a fine line between killing players off and delivering gaming value with a sense of achievement. If you didn’t like the game, you voted with your quarters – and those games which failed to bring players back were carted off, never to be seen again. There was also a social aspect to arcade games – often you were there with friends, all working together (or against each other) to try and see who could last the longest or get the high score – ultimately it boiled down to who paid less for the same experience. Fast forward to today : on the various arcade-like platforms, we simply purchase a full license to play the game – in effect, we hand them all of our quarters first.

Read more on An axe to grind in the Sacred Citadel…

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Tower defense as a genre has gained a lot of traction in recent years, thanks in no small part to titles like Orcs Must Die, Revenge of the Titans, and Defense Grid: The Awakening making their rounds through Steam sales and indie bundles. The main gameplay mechanic of “here’s a wave of enemies, now kill them” is open-ended enough to be made to fit different settings, platforms, and demographics. Heck, even Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defense game in its own way. Apparently not content with making “just another tower defense game”, the team at Coffee Stain Studios have added in a unique twist with Sanctum and its successor Sanctum 2; the Sanctum series bills itself as the first tower defense/FPS fusion and for the most part, it lives up to the hype.

Read more on “The Lumes are coming!” – Sanctum 2 Review…

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There are a plethora of “Tycoon” games on the market.  The smartphone market is flooded with them, Steam has a ton, and there are new ones hitting the cheap deals stands at Walmart on a near constant basis.  Lemonade Stand Tycoon, Airline Tycoon I and II, Chocolate Tycoon, Zombie Tycoon, DinerTown Tycoon, Offshore Tycoon, Hotel Giant, four Prison Tycoon titles, and Zoo Tycoon doesn’t even begin to cover 1% of the Tycoon marketplace.  When Game Dev Tycoon hit the market, you can imagine that it didn’t even make it onto my radar because that genre is so saturated.  You can imagine my surprise when some of my friends simply couldn’t stop talking about it.  After more than a decade on this side of the fence, it was time to see how the other half lives – it was time to become a Game Developer.  Much to my surprise, it was time to review a Tycoon title.

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When I saw the JJ Abrams Star Trek movie, I walked out with mixed emotions. I enjoyed it, but I kept on saying to myself (*spoiler alert*), “Vulcan isn’t the planet that gets blown up, Romulus is. This isn’t REAL Star Trek.” Then I took a deep breath, and realized that it’s only a movie, and that it was a way to create new stories with familiar characters. When I saw Star Trek: The Video Game at E3, I had similar feelings. It had Kirk and Spock, and it looked like it could be a lot of fun, but there were some issues that needed to be dealt with. However, since it was a work in progress I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Now that it has been released, I took a fresh look at it to see if those issues were resolved.

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In the fifth Mario vs. DK title from Nintendo that began in 2004 with Mario vs. Donkey Kong, gaming’s oldest duo returns Mario and Donkey Kong: Mini’s on the Move. As with the last few installments, the game revolves around small wind-up figurines of Nintendo’s most popular characters, which the player is responsible for navigating through a whole mess of puzzles. Minis on the Move (MotM) takes the series into a new and refreshing direction by making the game more about controlling the environment and building the world around the minis, rather than just controlling the minis themselves.

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Have you ever wanted to experience what it’s like to be a surgeon? It’s one of the more fascinating jobs out there, really – slicing open another human being’s body and, with the care and precision that can come only from thousands of hours of practice, performing delicate works of life-saving grace on a person whose well-being is entirely at your mercy. It’s as solid a premise for a game as anyone could hope for… but still, it’s missing something, isn’t it? It needs some character, some twist. Instead, how about you experience what it’s like to be a surgeon who can only use his left hand, clearly has no real medical training, has finger-dexterity of a three-toed sloth who’s been slamming vodka and Red Bull, and whose first ever surgical task is a heart transplant? If that sounds terrible to you, well, it’s all downhill from here. But if that sounds strangely compelling, then good news – Surgeon Simulator 2013 may be the title you’ve been waiting for.

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Black Rock Shooter is a newer manga and anime franchise that hasn’t really seen a ton of exposure to the North American market. The series is unique in that each form of media the series has taken place in has had its own story and universe. But each of them focuses around a mysterious girl with a glowing blue eye, a huge gun, and super powers. Black Rock Shooter: The Game on the PSP does in fact feature that same mysterious girl with the glowing blue eye, but it sets itself apart from previous stories in the franchise by taking place in the year 2051. The main character wakes up after being asleep for several decades and true to JRPG cliché she has lost her memory. Don’t let that fool you though, for the most part Black Rock Shooter is anything but your typical cliché driven Japanese Role Playing Game.

Read more on Black Rock Shooter: The Game, is this the PSP’s last great RPG?…

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Sometimes, the simplicity of gaming yesteryear creeps up in a nostalgic bid for our gaming dollars. Sadly, the experience is often attached to buyers remorse – either because the experience was inaccurate, or because the experience was far too genuine and we realize our memory of the game is shrouded by our younger  impression. It isn’t unique to games: consider re-watching Air Wolf.

Read more on Taking the easy way ain’t always easy – God Mode review…

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Conventional wisdom says that single player card games are only enjoyable for those who really like playing cards in real life. It makes sense, right? The best part of poker and other card games for all but the most hardcore of players is the chatter and camaraderie around the table. You don’t get that in a single player game, so unless you’re working on your strategy there’s not much of an experience to be had. To say that Poker Night 2 challenges this perception would be an understatement. Poker Night 2 takes the idea of single player video card games having limited appeal, shoots it through a portal, and leaves you wondering if the idea is still alive.

Read more on What happens with GLaDOS, stays with GLaDOS – Poker Night 2 Review…

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For those of you who have never had the pleasure of playing the original, let me tell you what you’re going to get from the Dragon’s Dogma universe. This is one of those games which manages to not only bring some compelling gameplay to the table, but does so while also creating an honest-to-God original fantasy world to play around in. You get the open world exploration of a Skyrim game, the at times fiendish difficulty of Dark Souls (while still being somewhat more forgiving), all spiked with the occasional heart-stopping encounters with humongous, intimidating beasts that feel like they came out of a Monster Hunter game with vastly better graphics. On top of all of this you’ve got crafting, an actually riveting story with great voice acting, and one of the most entertaining instantiations of asynchronous multiplayer that I’ve seen. And that was the original game! Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen gives you all that, and more.

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By now FEZ has made the rounds on Xbox 360 and rocked a lot of faces off, but for the last year or so my face remained un-rocked by its atmospheric 3D platforming action. Indeed, I was the guy who had not played FEZ yet. Don’t get me wrong here, I love indie games. I also have nothing against the Xbox 360 as a platform, so let this review stand as a person who simply saw FEZ for the first time as a PC title, just like many PC gamers who are into the indie game scene might also encounter it. That’s enough about me, let’s talk about FEZ…

FEZ is a story about a 2D man-thing named Gomez who is sent on an amazing adventure into a dimension that the rest of his village simply doesn’t believe exists. Shortly after waking up one morning, a fez which allows him to see into the third dimension is entrusted to him by a cubic god-thing. The game then allows you to explore a two-dimensional world by shifting your perspective of the levels around a third dimensional axis.  It’s really hard to say anything else about the plot without spoiling what the game has going for it, so I’m going to dive right into what FEZ got right.

Read more on What’s in a hat? — FEZ review….

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Nostalgia’s a hell of a thing.

The pink neon lights, the synthesizer-drenched tunes, the hammy voice acting — all of these things convinced me that Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon was one of the best things I’ve ever played.

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I tried to like Soul Sacrifice. I really did.

It has a lot of great ideas — some weirder than others — but it takes more than some crafty gimmicks to create a cohesive experience. Ultimately, that’s where Soul Sacrifice falters — its disparate elements never coalesce into a truly entertaining game.

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Right away, Strike Suit Infinity formed a strong first impression for me as both enjoyable and repetitive. This is a game that came into existence on a shoestring budget, but the final product still manages to come off as polished and fun, in spite of its own simplicity. Sometimes, terrible games can have terrific replay value – lots of variety, but no enjoyment – but this game seems to fall into the opposite category: pretty fun, but always the same (and inordinately difficult to boot).

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It’s only been a year since the first Rolling Western game made it’s way to the Nintendo 3DS, and with modest reception from its debut title and lots of things to fix, Dillon’s Rolling Western: The Last Ranger had a lot to prove. After having a chance to play through Rolling Western’s sequel, I’m sad to say that it largely failed to fix many of the game’s perceived flaws and ignored many of them outright.

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