My eleven year old son Vinnie was passing by my desk at home and saw “Hive Carbon”. Normally he’d pause to take a look and eventually ask me what my newest arrival was all about, but in seeing the insects on the front of the box, he expressed an interest in playing it immediately. It was a Sunday afternoon and the rain was still running rampant in our area, so why not?
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Vampires are often misunderstood. A lot of people think that they are mythological beings that go around sucking the blood out of people…but see, people have gotten it wrong for all of these years. You see, real vampires sparkle. They also get a kick out of stalking and romancing seventeen year old girls, despite being well over a hundred themselves. I guess pedophile laws in the state of Washington don’t cover vampires…*shrug*…someone may want to write a letter to their local congressman.
It is with a heavy heart that I must say goodbye to a man who was my grandfather. Victor Cristofanelli passed away Saturday, July 28th 2012, roughly twelve hours after I had left his bedside earlier that day. It is hard to believe that just a short time ago, I was holding his hand and watching him sleep…and now he’s gone.
As a kid, I played a lot of video games that simulated warfare. I’m not sure why, but I always enjoyed setting up scenarios and the units on both sides of the map, just to see how it would turn out in the end. It’s either that, or I’ve watched Matthew Broderick break into WOPR (no, not the sandwich…watch your WarGames, kids) one too many times.
I’ve played many tower defense games, but I was unprepared for how both simple and complex this game turned out to be. You’re only tasked with managing five rows, but the sheer amount of different zombies that the game throws at you can be overwhelming if you aren’t familiar with your towers…erm…plants. This game turned out to be extremely popular…popular enough that Blizzard featured it in World of Warcraft as a mini-game. You’ve got plants and you’ve got zombies…what makes this game so special?
I played Virtual Villagers a while back, deemed it “OK”, and moved on. When I saw this game advertised on Big Fish Games, I figured it was more of the same until I got a closer look at it. Virtual Villagers, for those of you who have never played it, tasks players with managing a tribe that must complete all of the goals to win the game. Some of these goals are hidden and a lot of the gameplay involves the player figuring out what the next goal actually is through trial and error. Virtual Villagers runs even when the game is closed…which can be detrimental if you leave the game sit on its own for a while as your tribesmen/women can die off.
Life Quest was a recent purchase from Big Fish Games during their $2.99 blowout special. This is a single player game that places the user in the role of a teenager about to graduate high school. You’ll be competing against other classmates to finish certain goals before they do.
Virtual City shares a lot of commonalities with the Build-a-lot series, but manages to set itself apart through some pretty unique play mechanics. It still regards itself as a time management game and rightly so, as you’ll be struggling to find the best way to complete each mission’s set of goals before the time expires.
Airline Tycoon 2 had the Kalypso tag on it…and being a huge, huge fan of Tropico 3 and 4, it didn’t take much convincing for me to pick this up during Steam’s summer sale. The trailer promised customization of planes and routes…which appealed to me the most as I really enjoy finding the most efficient way of doing something. Did it live up to my expectations?
DOTA in space…at least, that is the first impression that I received when I fired up a practice game. DOTA, or Defense of the Ancients, is a mod for Warcraft III that took the game to a whole new level. To sum up DOTA, two sides have a base and towers in between. NPC armies spawn at the same time on both sides and automatically head toward the other base and attack anything in their path. The players themselves pick a hero and have free rein to attack the enemy NPCs and towers so that they can level up, earn money, and eventually make themselves strong enough to press through enemy lines.
A capture the flag real-time strategy game? Interesting. Under two bucks during Steam’s summer sale? Okay, I’ll bite…I can take the plunge for two dollars. I know how to live dangerously every now and again.
Ah…Camelot. How I respect thee. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always been a fan of knights, archers, catapults, and everything else related to stories involving King Arthur, the Round Table, and anything else medieval themed. Perhaps it is because these stories revolve around simpler times, or maybe because some of them involve magic. Whatever the case, the combination of “Camelot” and “Days of Wonder” on the box helped me to take the plunge…though I was unprepared by just how different this game turned out to be compared to everything else in my collection.
Welcome back to the second review of the series. As I explained in the review of episode one, all future reviews (including this one) will be a plot summary with my thoughts added in as I go. There will be spoilers, so do not read any further if you want to experience this episode for yourself.
My son Vinnie can have a very short attention span at times (as most kids often do), however if there is one thing that I can count on in keeping his attention, it’s television shows about nature. He will sit there for hours, letting his little mind soak in everything it can in regards to animals, reptiles, insects…you name it. He’s often commented that he likes watching Billy the Exterminator because they relocate intruders rather than kill them, not to mention that the show is highly educational. Thus, I was excited when the offer came in to review the game that I’m about to cover.
If I’ve been told once, I’ve been told a thousand times…”Stay out of my kitchen!” I make a mean homemade Hamburger Helper and can heat up Chef Boyardee like no one’s business, yet Jennifer is intent in cooking everything on her own. I’ve honored her wishes mainly so that I don’t show her up…give me a moment while I lock the door…and so that the kids don’t get spoiled by my cooking. I don’t want to toot my own horn or anything, but Gordon Ramsay once asked for my autograph. True story.
Having had a great time with Telltale’s “Back to the Future: The Game”, I took the plunge and purchased “The Walking Dead” during Steam’s summer sale. Like Back to the Future, this is a five episode series that is released in parts…usually one episode every month. I’ll be reviewing all five episodes of this game as they are released, though please be advised that (at the time of writing) not all of the episodes have been released yet. There may be a month delay in between reviews, unlike the recent episode reviews of Back to the Future that I wrote.