Afterthoughts - Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light

So I finally finished my first play through of Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light. I must say, though I played 90% of the game single-player, I was quite impressed with the final product. This is the first in what (hopefully) should be many downloadable games featuring the buxom heroine from the Tomb Raider series. Unlike all of Lara's last games this ditches the third-person view for a 3/4 perspective overhead camera. This makes the game feel more akin to the Champions series or the Diablo series. One thing that seperates this game from those is the amount of puzzles and platforming involved.

Freeware Friday - An Untitled Story

If you are a fan of Metroidvania games, or even know what that term means, have I got a treat for you. For this edition of Freeware Friday I present An Untitled Story. This is a side-scrolling platform adventure game with a subtle storyline that reveals itself as you progress, read more after the jump.

First Impressions - Split/Second

Disney Interactive recently released the demo for Split/Second, if you own a PS3 or Xbox 360 I recommend you give it a try. This game looks to mix the high-energy fast-paced racing of Burnout with the battling fun of a Mario Kart game. Players speed around a track in beautifully rendered sports cars, drifting around corners and drafting behind each other. These actions accumulate power which can be used to set off environmental traps to destroy other racers. Find out more after the jump.

Plants vs. Zombies now in the App Store

Pop Cap games, maker of casual classics such as Peggle and Luxor, released a game a while back that mixed fort defense gameplay with vegetation and the recently undead. The resulting mash-up is a game known as Plants vs. Zombies. This game became an instant hit on the PC and word started circulating quickly that this game may have an iPhone companion soon enough. If you own an iPhone or iPod touch then today is your lucky day. Plants vs. Zombies has brought its own brand of humor and mayhem to the App Store for the low low price of $2.99. If you don't pick this up I guarantee you will regret it.

Review - Modern Warfare 2

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past few years you may not have heard of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare lineage of games. These are of course some of the best army-based first-person shooters around. I think that goes without saying. Well with the latest version Infinity Ward has basically dropped the Call of Duty from the name and re-branded this game with just Modern Warfare. A useless fact, yes, but I thought I would mention it anyway.

If you are unfamiliar with the series these games take place in the modern day battlefield and feature some of the greatest online mutliplayer battles you will ever take part in. Not only that but they have managed to add in their own leveling and upgrading system for weapons and 'perks'. We'll talk about 'perks' in a bit. What you have to know is this game, though set in a modern war zone is much more action based then you may think. This includes akimbo weapons, stylized shotguns to look cool with, as well as one-hit melee kills and sticky grenades. That isn't to say this is an over the top quake style shooter, far from it. This game will have you fearing any amount of bullets because your health is low and a well placed burst fire can take you down with ease. I find it the perfect balance between simulation and action.

Indie Review - ro9

Many of us grew up with turn based dungeon crawlers. Searching around for bad guys to take down so you can level-up and go to new and tougher dungeons. Scavenging for treasure amongst the dank dark caverns. It drew us into a whole new world of adventure. It's hard in todays era of gaming to find a game like that to play. The closest I have come is Wolfenstein RPG for the iPod Touch. Yet recently I played a game looking to bring that level of nostalgia back in a bite size format. ro9 by Justin Smith is a great homage to the classic dungeon crawler.

Lovingly Recreated in 8-bit glory.

Review - N.O.V.A.

If you are an avid iPod gamer like me, I know we are the few, you have already heard about N.O.V.A. You may have heard that it has some of the nicest 3D graphics, that it has online and local wi-fi multiplayer. You have probably also heard that it is very similar in look to Halo. These are all correct and at the same time, I don't feel it does the game itself any justice to hear.

First off I have to say this game in look is very similar to Halo. This is about the equivilent of saying that most first-person space shooters look like Halo. There are a very similar amount of similarities, a fully armored protaganist who has an attitude. An A.I. controlled companion on your missions. This is really as far as the similarities go if you actually play through the game. Oh, and the pistol, the pistol you start with is the same damn pistol as Halo.

The visuals are beautiful, it really shows what an iPod is capable of.

The story starts off with your character sipping a drink and being forcefully recruited back into the army to pull off some missions. Reluctantly you accept and meet your A.I. companion (cough Cortana cough) and she assists you as you make your way through a ship that has been taken over by hostile alien forces. Near the end you get an interesting communication from Prometheous. He is a strange being who seems to know something you don't about your leaders. After you escape your ship you have to find a way to the alien home world to end this. So your journey of the universe starts. This is all pretty generic but I think it does well for the game itself. This is also added to by all the fact that the whole games dialog is voiced over. The voice work is good, nothing amazing, but it definitely does improve the experience.

The visuals in N.O.V.A. are some of the best for the iPod currently. The game is fully 3D rendered and like all great looking games it will kill your battery quickly. This is one downfall of iPod gaming and not anything against the game. The places you go are all varied in look and you never find yourself running through generic corridors. I was very surprised as well at how detailed the environments and textures are. Everything looks great and I would more expect this out of a PSP or similar. Particle effects are great and enemies are, though limited in types, are very detailed and are very smoothly animated.

Aliens and a shotgun, do you need anything else for a good game?

The controls are something that I think gameloft has been getting very good at. They don't make gimmicky use out of the accelerometer and keep their touch controls to good ol' FPS goodness. You can swipe your finger around the bulk of the screen to look around which works very well and is very smooth. You have a digital control stick in the left bottom corner, if you can't already see it in the screenshots, which controls your forward, backward, and strafing. These two, once you get the hang of, are a very good combo. There is also the red circle on the right side that is your firing. The nice thing is with the automatic weapons one you hit the button you keep firing until you lift your finger. This allows you to sweep your fire around the screen as well to track enemies in your sites. The game also allows you to use the little lightning bolt symbol (check the screenshots) to freeze and enemy in place for a few seconds. I made it through the entire game and only used it about twice, once successfully. This is obviously a tacked on feature that I feel the game should have been without. Possibly replace with a melee attack would be nice.

The multiplayer experience, which again gameloft has been getting good at. Is very much like playing the old halo online. You can play online and shoot the crap out of all your buddies and if you have any friends around you who also have an iPod and N.O.V.A. you can also link up locally and then you get to trash talk as well. The nice thing is gameloft has implemented a new service called gameloft LIVE. (Sounds familiar again, right?). This holds all your scores and trophies in the multiplayer game and is a cool new feature. I hope they update a lot of their older games to use this as well so you can have it all in your profile. I also hope this means we will see a lot more multiplayer games from gameloft in the future.

So to sum it all up this is a beautiful game with a decent story and plenty of good action. Pull that in with tight controls and online multiplayer and I think you have a hit. Some may say it is a Halo-knock-off. To them I say, if you played the game you would know the difference, and I would ask, is it really so bad if it was? The iPod has been screaming for nicer better games and gameloft is delivering in full force. They games have become nicer looking and larger with each new release. Once gameloft makes a game in the same style as another great game, and it DOESN'T sell, then we have a problem. If you like to game on the iPod, buy this. Just go buy it already.