zombie

You know the old saying: If at first you do succeed, shamelessly exploit it until it stops making money. I previously reviewed a video game called Smashy Road , a fun experience in 8-bit car racing chaos for smart phones and tablets. Now, just a few weeks later, I found another game that's extremely similar to the look and feel of Smashy Road : Smashy City by Ace Viral . Read on for my complete review. In Smashy City , players select a giant monster to attack an endless cityscape, and the monster keeps going until enough tanks, missiles and attack choppers bring it down. The game begins with a giant ape that looks a lot like King Kong, and players unlock a variety of other monsters as they rack up points or make in-game purchases by using real money. If Smashy Road and the classic arcade coin-op Rampage had a child, it would be called Smashy City . Then again, Smashy Road recycles many of the ideas that were already present in Crossy Road , so all we need at this point is a gam...

As I've said before on this blog, I consider myself to be very fortunate to have lived through the early years of video games. I remember a time when the distribution cycle of a video game title would begin in coin-op arcades and continue through ports to PCs and home consoles. Now, the Internet, PCs, home consoles and portable media devices rule most of the video game world, while the few surviving coin-op arcades feature titles that will (probably) never appear in any other medium. The same is true about how the video games appear: Most current games are so beautifully designed that they largely sell themselves through clips of game play footage. Yet when video games had nothing but blocky graphics and clunky sounds to offer, they needed a little extra help to convince people to play them. In honor of the artwork produced during early years of video game advertising, Dynamite Entertainment is publishing The Art of Atari by Robert V. Conte and Tim Lapetino. According to the boo...

None of the recent hype for Batman vs. Superman made me want to go to the movie theater, but it did convince me to finally pick up a copy of TT Games' Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham video game for the Wii U. What can I say? I was in the mood for some superhero fun, and Lego Batman 3 is vastly more fun than the irritable, bloated and grumpy BvS . As the number in the title suggests, Lego Batman 3 follows two previous games in the series. The first game was strictly a stand-alone Lego Batman game, and the second game introduced Lego Superman during the game and the rest of the Lego Justice League in its conclusion. This third entry begins with Batman and the Justice League, and the game expands from there to all sorts of characters and locations within the DC universe. So how does the third entry fare as a video game? In a nutshell, Lego Batman 3 has both too much--and not enough--Batman. Read on for my complete review. If you've been following Lego superhero games like I have...

For what may very well be the most anticipated live-action superhero crossover movie ever, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice is shaping up to be quite a disaster. Even though it will probably make boatloads of money, critics and fans alike have so far been trashing BvS for its nonsensical plot, thin characterization, and pretentious mood. While I hate to say I told you so , I didn't have much faith in this project from the get-go. When it was first announced, it looked like the Warner Bros. executives wanted to take the Batman and Superman fight from the fourth issue of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns comic book miniseries and shoehorn it into a semi-sequel to Man of Steel . That's exactly what happened--a fragmented, under-developed idea has now blossomed into a fragmented, under-developed movie, so I'm going to pass on this one. Besides, there's only one good outcome for something called "Batman v. Superman": Batman gets to keep the Wayne fa...

This month marks the 20th anniversary of Capcom's iconic survival horror video game franchise, Resident Evil (a.k.a. Biohazard). Through two decades worth of hit games, Resident Evil proved that zombies were just as much of a reliable staple for video games as they were for low-budget horror movies. I didn't hop on the Resident Evil bandwagon when the franchise launched in the '90s. The promise of fighting off hordes of zombies, lizard people, giant spiders and other superfreaks just wasn't enough to overcome my aversion to the games' static camera angles and video clips that played every time players used stairs or opened a door. ( Every. Damn. Time. ) I finally saw the light of Resident Evil's appeal through the two rail shooters were released for the Nintendo Wii, The Umbrella Chronicles and The Darkness Chronicles . Some devoted fans hated these games, but I thought that they were great for gamers like me who just wanted to see what the franchise was like a...

Because of my video gaming geekery, I've been monitoring the recent releases of the "toys-to-life" market of video games--particularly Disney Infinity and Lego Dimensions --to see what this new format can contribute to the video gaming experience. While it looks like fun to be able to play with characters from various franchises, I'm not sure if this format provides anything so unique or original to justify purchasing a video game that requires even more purchases to get the full value out of the game. This is especially true for Lego, which already has many video games available with brick-based game play that don't require any additional components at all. However, one of the latest installments for Lego Dimensions looks extremely promising--at least for veteran gamers such as myself. It's called "Midway Arcade", and it is based on classic arcade games that were released by Midway during the '80s. According to what I've read, the Midway ...

As I've mentioned before in other posts, being a geeky fan means more than just picking up the latest novel, movie, or collectible from the genre and/or franchise of your preference-- anyone can do that. A true fan occasionally goes above and beyond the routine call of geekdom to locate and acquire rare items, items that either didn't sell well upon their initial release or were sold exclusively in another country. This post is about my recent effort to purchase one of my many, many white whales: Fatal Frame 4: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse , a 2008 Wii game that was only released in Japan. Fatal Frame 4 (or FF4 ) holds a special significance for a numbers of reasons. Not only was it designed exclusively with Wii's motion controls in mind, but a group of devoted fans got together to release an English subtitle patch for it back in 2010. If you're an avid survival horror fan who owns a Wii and isn't fluent in Japanese, now is the ideal time to pick up a copy of FF4 . R...

Sometimes, the best video games are the simplest to play and the most addictive in their appeal. They may not have complex plots or high resolution graphics, but such things don't matter if the games keep you coming back for more ... and more ... and more. This was the plan of success for most early game consoles and popular coin-op arcade games during the '80s. It is also the popularity strategy for Smashy Road , an isometric retro racing game by Bearbit Studios . Read on for my complete review. The premise behind Smashy Road is straightforward: Players steer a vehicle through a seemingly endless landscape of buildings, roads and bridges in order to avoid capture by pursuing police cars. The longer players dodge the police, the higher their scores will be. As soon as the vehicle is caught, the game ends and players can start again. Seeing just how much over-the-top vehicular wreckage and property damage one can cause during a car chase is the source of Smashy Road 's a...

Even though I'm a tech-loving geek, I've been reluctant to accept cell phones and tablets as mediums with which to regularly play video games. I've used my cell phone in the past to play simple games to pass the time, but I couldn't imagine this kind of gaming to equal or surpass PCs and game consoles. Yet upon recent consideration, I've come to realize that what makes this form of gaming worthwhile is the kind of game that one chooses to play on a cell phone or a tablet. The kind of game that I'm talking about in this post is Monument Valley by Ustwo. Monument Valley is a touchscreen-based puzzle game that depicts the silent Princess Ida's exploration of a lost civilization's "sacred geometry" to discover its secrets. Players use the touchscreen to move Ida through each level and manipulate the many knobs and levers that are hidden within the isometric puzzles. Currently, the game consists of ten levels with an extra level called "Ida...

Because I'm a video gaming geek, I think I'm very fortunate to have been born at a time when I could witness video gaming during its earliest days (e.g., the early generations of home gaming consoles, early video game magazines, coin-op arcades in shopping malls everywhere, etc.) and its subsequent evolution into what it has become today. While so many more changes are waiting on the horizon, here is my list of five things that I hope remain consistent in future generations of video game systems and titles. Read on ... Before I get to the list, here's a little bit about my personal gaming background. My first game console was the Atari 2600, followed by the Atari 7800 and the Sega Master System. I mostly tuned out of gaming during the '90s, but got back into home consoles when I picked up Nintendo's GameCube back in 2003. This was followed by Nintendo's Wii and Wii U, which is my current console of choice. As you can see from my list, my opinions have been stron...

The latest waves of remote control (RC) flying toys have fascinated me, and their falling prices have tempted me on more than one occassion into actually buying one. Yet while I may be a nerd by choice, I am also a klutz by nature; thus, I'm certain that I'd somehow wind up breaking the toy within days--if not hours or minutes--after purchase. Thankfully, someone at TACS Games understands my geeky dilemma and has recently released Quadcopter Pilot Challenge as a downloadable eShop game for the Wii U. Read on for my complete review. Quadcopter Pilot Challenge is an RC quadcopter simulator, which means that this game revolves around a simulation of a toy--not an unmanned combat drone or surveillance quadcopter. The Wii U Gamepad functions like an RC controller. The Gamepad screen also allows you to see through the quadcopter's built-in camera, while the main TV screen allows you to see the quadcopter from a third-person perspective. The activities in the game focus on an RC...

Being a fan of video games for as long as I can remember, I'm somewhat surprised over how my gaming preferences have changed over time. I've previously gravitated towards more complex and graphically sophisticated games in order to experience the latest advancements in gaming technology. Yet as my real life becomes more stressful and personal funds get smaller, I find myself going back to the basics: simple yet intriguing visuals matched with simple yet addictive game play. This post will look at three indie puzzle games that caught my attention-- Breezeblox by Brennan Maddox, and Rush and Edge by Two Tribes--and why they're the go-to games for unwinding when reality causes your brain to overheat. Breezeblox , Rush and Edge are puzzle games that focus on geometric shapes, spatial relations and limited movement. There are no end bosses to beat, weapons to find, or enemies to vaporize; these games are all about navigating movable cubes from one end of a platform environm...

Even though they're mostly associated with Nintendo's line of home gaming consoles, Italian plumber brothers Mario and Luigi started their journey to digital stardom in the coin-op arcades. In the early '80s, Mario first appeared in the arcade classic Donkey Kong , and Luigi made his debut in Mario Bros. They've spent most of their time since then in console-only games but it appears that Luigi hasn't forgotten his roots, since he's the star of the new Luigi Mansion Arcade game that was recently released in Japan. Luigi Mansion Arcade is a first-person rail shooter along the lines of House of the Dead , although it takes its plot, settings and characters from the Luigi Mansion games that were previously released on the Nintendo GameCube and 3DS. In the game, up to two players explore a haunted mansion and use the Poltergust 3000 to capture a selection of ghosts. As you can see from the video below, Luigi Mansion Arcade looks like loads of fun. I'm sure t...