Derrick the Deathfin Review

Derrick the Deathfin was one of those games that I just had to play the very second I saw a glimpse of it. The game is "the world's very first underwater papercraft videogame", and aside from games like Paper Mario that are made to look like paper, it's the first true papercraft video game I've ever seen at all! Seriously, watch the launch trailer below and avoid drooling before it's majesty, I dare you!

The sheer amount of papercraft, from Derrick himself to the cardboard numbers (and world!!!), animals, humans, explosions, life meter... It's just overwhelmingly awesome! Heck, the developer even has D.I.Y. paper kits on the webpage for you to freely download and create! You don't even have to buy the game to enjoy that awesomeness!

The game itself is all about speed. And carnage. And avenging the death of your parents. And the destruction, pollution and evilness of us humans. And collecting gems. And launching into the air to get through fiery rubber tires. So I guess it's all about a lot of things, but speed is definitely #1. It's like an underwater Sonic the Hedgehog meets Ecco the Dolphin's swimming abilities (and not dying 3 seconds after going underwater...). Speed comes from both the way you move through the water and the speed at which your life meter drops - you are a VERY hungry shark, so you need to munch on other critters quite frequently to survive through the end of the level. There are also timed levels, where you have to get through the level in a certain amount of time, those are extra speedy!

Catapult for Hire is on Kickstarter!

Catapult for Hire is a game that I'd heard a lot about over the last several months. When I ran across it on Kickstarter, I was really psyched - it means the game is getting closer to release! Tyrone, the developer, lovingly calls it a Nintendo 64 era world, and he's absolutely right - the art and aesthetic are reminiscent of games like Banjo Kazooie or Ocarina of Time in the very best of ways.

Shoot Many Robots XBLA Review

Shoot Many Robots is rated M (for Mature). Part of the reason for the rating is the violence , which I disagree with, but I DO agree with the "mature humor" part, as there's plenty of that - particularly jokes involving "nuts". As such, THIS REVIEW AND GAME AREN'T NECESSARILY SUITABLE FOR THOSE UNDER 18.

Shoot Many Robots was the free game for the second half of December 2013 for anyone who had Xbox Gold (sorry for writing this too late to get it free!), and while I have a stack of free games from the promotion over the last few months (and a slew of games to review!), I really wanted a game to play with my fiancee together and we gave it a shot. Over the last few weeks we gave the game a good 20+ hours of play and beat it, although we still have lots of levels to five-star. While I probably wouldn't suggest the game as a single player game, I enjoyed the two of us playing it together!

Like the game itself, the title is simple but awesome.

Old MacDonald Vs Zombies - Ludum Dare 28 Game Review

Old MacDonald Vs Zombies by @RogueNoodle is the last game I'm able to play before ratings end, and it's another keeper! This one focuses on a kindly old farmer and his cow... And an endless horde of zombies, of course. Like most zombies, they aren't there to party or go cow tipping - they want your brains! To stop them, all you've gotta do is clean up poop and make your cow go on a zombie-slaughtering rampage. Simple enough, right?

Them thar graphics sure are purdy, too! Okay, that's more mountain than farmer... I never said I was an expert at imitation!

So, how do you get your cow to go on a fatal zombie-tipping spree? Just like you'd expect - clean up the cow's poop, making it super happy (you'll see the happiness heart to let you know!) and then call it to you, trampling everything between it and you on the way. There's also a combo meter for each time you clean up cow feces, and of course the zombies don't stay still either... They move back and forth, roaming for delicious brainage!

Pffft, that number of zombies is NOTHING!

My record is 29,930, can you beat it? Play the game here, or check out the game's Ludum Dare page here!

Crossbore - Ludum Dare 28 Game Review

Two indies were speaking with me on Twitter about each others' games (because that's what awesome indies too - praise each others' games!), one of the games mentioned was Crossbore by @i_palmentieri. Man am I glad they told me about it!

Just because you play as a girl doesn't mean the baddies are any easier or less bad; just the way it should be!

Crossbore puts you in the shoes of Paige, tasking you with destroying the attacking Pupling onslaught before taking on the Queen Pupling. To do so, you only get one arrow. Each time you shoot it, you have to go pick it back up... Unless you hold the Space key too long and it goes off the screen, or you miss... In which case you'll be forced to find it glittering somewhere on the screen. On the bright side, you can use the Space key to kick when you don't have your arrow, but you'll need it when the Queen Pupling comes for you!

The game is, as the developer says, rather difficult. To make it more accessible to everyone, there's also an easy version of the game that makes each Pupling kill lower the bar and bring about the Queen Pupling easier. Speaking of the Queen Pupling, that's one fun, creative boss fight there!

The Queen means business!

I ended up trying the regular version several times before moving on to the easy one, and I had genuine fun with each play. The fact that there's even 360 controller support would have made the game even more fun if I had it hooked up. You definitely need to give the game (and/or the easy version of it) a play! You can also find the game's Ludum Dare page here.

Treasurebear: Humor, Exploration, Platforming, Treasure and Food!

Treasurebear combines two incredibly awesome things: good platforming action and LOTS of treasure! The game focuses on a duo of unlikely "heroes" - [From the Kickstarter page] "The greedy and unpredictable Chester, a charismatic treasure chest forever condemned by the treasure hunter's guild, and his sleepy sidekick Barry, a hungry bear who prefers sauce battles over boss battles." The story is driven as such: "Barry teams up with Chester following the promise of visiting foreign lands in order to locate and sample exquisite and tasty foods. Determined to locate his blackmailer and exonerate himself, Chester utilizes his uncanny talents for finding shiny and potentially valuable items while upholding his promise to Barry."

While the story is humorous and intriguing, it's the gameplay concepts that really sold me on the game. See, because of the way the two team up, you're able to do some really awesome things together! As you can see from the image below, Bear & Boar (the developers) have had no shortage of creative ideas! And this goes far beyond abilities, the depths of the story, crazy levels and treasure hunting all appear to go just as deep.

Concepts for upgrades. Why hasn't anyone come up with the gold coin machine gun before?

WackoBirds - An Action/Arcade Title by a Painter!

Don't let the name trick you - there are plenty of games with the word "Birds" in it that are clones of Angry Birds (not that all of them are bad, per se) - WackoBirds is an entirely different game! Yes, the protagonist is a bird, and yes you're fighting back against tyrannical foes trying to reclaim your lands, but you'll be doing so by creating barriers for your WackoBird to bounce off of on the fly instead of simply aiming and hoping for the best.

Draw lines with your fingers to direct your WackoBird!

One Finger Death Punch Review AND GIVEAWAY - FINALLY, True Kung-Fu!

There are two things you should know before you go any further with reading this review. One - I'm NOT going to do this game justice. It's simply not possible. Even after letting the game stew with me for a week or two, this game has become one of my favorite games of all time. Two - There's not much point in reading it, you should just go buy the game now, and then vote it up on Steam. It's as simple as that. It will be the best dollar you've ever spent on your 360 (or $2 on PC). And don't you DARE say "well, they're stick figures, so..." because the animations, destruction and absolute anarchy are perfect; in fact, because of the complexity of the enemies, there's no way this game would have worked with anything but stick figures!

Don't even look at these screenshots, they can't possibly do the game justice either!

EvilQuest Review AND GIVEAWAY - You Are the BAD Guy

Have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons, or any other pen and paper RPG for that matter, and chosen Chaotic Evil as your alignment assuming it'd be fun to be evil, but then had trouble actually playing the game in proper character? Galvis, the absolute antihero of EvilQuest, doesn't have that issue whatsoever. From the beginning of the game, killing your fellow prisoner despite promising to help him go free just because he snored at night, EvilQuest gives you what it promised.

Angvik Review - The Epitome of Difficulty

"Angvik is a platform action game set in a joyful but unforgiving land."
         - Alastair John Jack, the developer of the game.

Boom! My review is pretty much done, those 13 words explain most everything about the game. My only suggestion would be to put 'UNFORGIVING' entirely in bold, capital letters. In fact, while you're at it, throw a bunch of exclamation points after it.

"... set in a joyful but UNFORGIVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! land." There we go.

LOOK AT ALL OF THAT POTENTIAL DEATH!

Tiny Barbarian DX Review - Channel Your Inner Barbarian!

When's the last time a game made you battle endless, increasingly-brutal foes until you collapsed BEFORE the main menu even comes up??? That's Tiny Barbarian DX for you - a story that begins with our Tiny Barbarian falling in battle. This little challenge/amazing method of teaching you the simple controls is where you first learn that, while tiny, the barbarian is still brutal and fun to control!

Magicite - A Multiplayer RPG (Roguelike) Platformer on Kickstarter

Note: Although the game is on Kickstarter, it's just shy of the 400% mark as I write this! Since the Kickstarter was officially successful, you can get the perk goodness through Paypal as well.


Magicite (raise your hand if you've heard that term before!) is a Multiplayer RPG Platformer, and you'd may as well through Roguelike in there as well. The concept sounds rather simple - you create a character, fight baddies through procedurally generated instances and if you survive, you can move on to a randomized town to do all the awesome stuff that RPG towns are famous for before doing it all over again. Oh yeah, and you can put your hand back down now... Sorry, I forgot about that.