Last year, Cipher Prime followed up their auricular puzzle game, Auditorium, with yet another puzzler, Fractal for the PC. Long story short, we enjoyed it. Short story long, the game featured simple yet challenging puzzles set to a mellow soundtrack. It stole the hours from under your oblivious feet.

The game is back and this time it’s for the iPad in the form of Fractal: Make Blooms Not War. After getting caught nearly numb pushing hexagons to an fro for who know how long, one must say that it’s as much a match made in heaven as a game and platform can get.

For those who haven’t played the first game, the premise is simple — push hexagons into a grouping of 7. This is called a bloom. Create blooms for points and fill your bloom quota to progress to the next level. Like the devil, the challenge is in the details.

In line with the original, Fractal: Make Blooms Not War eases the player into the campaign with a simple, one bloom board and a more than manageable number of pushes. With each level, the board expands and the quota increases. After a few more levels, the game starts offering up truer challenges like multiple colors. The number of pushes become a quagmire in their own right as they become a precious resource. Bombs and electricity start to play a factor as they can gain you more points, yet get in the way of making blooms.

By about half way in this 30 level set, even the most veteran puzzle player will appreciate how aggravatingly wonderful and addicting making blooms is. To up the replay, there is also a timed arcade mode and a puzzle mode (of course) full of various, one-off challenges. This has all been seen before with its PC predecessor, however. The main focus for this title is the interface.

There is no way around it, making blooms is best done on the iPad. With Apple’s ubiquitous tablet, the game takes on a special kind of life that it never had on the PC. The simple fact you can create a chain reaction of  colorful and violent explosions with one gentle touch can be exhilarating.

I can get philosophical and metaphoric by comparing the legion synaptic firings when a child first discovers how a calm pool of water ripples when s/he touches it, but I’m not going to. I’m just going to say puzzle games are pleasantly different when you’re touching instead of clicking or pressing a button, reminiscent of a childhood playing with jigsaw puzzles or building blocks. I’m also going to say that Fractal: Make Blooms Not War is a prime specimen.

So I’m not just gushing about tactile experience, the game does make some technical improvements over the original. Great example, checkpoints: in the original, players had to make it through ten levels before they reached the first checkpoint, lest they start excruciatingly from the beginning. This time, checkpoints come at increments of five. This is a vast improvement since filling that bloom quota can be extremely difficult with the number of pushes coming in shorter and shorter supply as you progress.

Cipher Prime also tweaked the art direction with slightly different fonts, sleeker icons and flashier bloom explosions. These are very small details, but, when put together they make a world of difference. Fractal: Make Blooms Not War is sharper and more mature than its predecessor because of it. And, in my opinion, its more enjoyable.

If I asked you what Spectrum Shock was, you may be mistaken in thinking it was an unheard of spiritual successor to System Shock, or maybe a bad TV show about a guy who can manipulate electromagnetism, or maybe even a movie with Alan Rickman. In fact, it is the debut game from Boxfrog Games featuring all the tilting and tapping you can fit into a device rife for tilting and tapping.

So how does it shape up to the other titles on the app store? Is it a Canabalt or a Can Of Ba… Okay, even I’m not crass enough to finish that pun. Hit the jump to find out why Spectrum Shock should be the next game you download to your iPhone.

A worrying trend in the indie game development community at present, fuelled heavily by the runaway successes of games utilising simple mechanics, is the seeming belief that simple means a lack of effort. You only have to hop on to an app store, or a ‘speciality store’ to realise just how much you need to wade through to find the quality entertainment, well wade no more as this one is a diamond in a sea of rough. Hm, I don’t think that metaphor went right.

The controls boil down to tilting the iPhone for rotation of your base, and tapping on the screen to fire, with a tap of the base you have sworn to defend creating an impulse that blasts any enemies on the screen away. However, there is a twist in how you can destroy the enemies which takes the gameplay beyond the conventional tap to shoot things mechanic, and into a realm of frustration and frantic tilting that can only be compared to balancing a basketball on a watermelon on a jello shaped like Paraguay. Or a somewhat less specific analogy that still involves alot of tilting.

If you can grasp the basic ’round peg goes into round hole and square peg goes into square hole’ idea, then you should be fine; as you have three turrets on your base (square,triangle and circle) which can only hit their respective shape-sake targets. It is this unique twist that gets the game going, as you swivel your base round in desperation before the enemies can latch onto you. If they do manage to do so, then they will begin to slowly drain your health with the only way to get rid of them being the impulse clearing the screen of any and all enemies.

A sleek and stylish theme underpins the entire game, with simplicity thankfully coming through as a design choice, and not as the unfortunate byproduct of apathy I mentioned before. Now, don’t fool yourselves if you think simple mechanics mean it is an easy game. Spectrum Shock is a game in which you may die rather quickly at first, and if you are anything like me, at second, third and all the way through to at about fifty-ninth, but stick with it, because there is a point the game just clicks. No mass epiphany happens, and don’t expect to be basked in a radiant ethereal glow, but at some point your hands and your brain suddenly look at the game and at once say “Oh, it’s on now” in a manly action movie way, not the camp way that it would come out if I actually said that out loud.

Gamer Limit gives Spectrum Shock for the iPhone 8.5/10

Indie games are coming in thick and fast on the 360, and with so many “Free MS Points” offers being peddled by various publishing firms, gamers are able to take advantage of titles they may never have noticed before.

Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess may not be a shoe-in for GOTY, but at just 240 MS Points, this addictive little title is sure to entertain you for a couple of hours.

Taking on the role of the egotistical – yet always amusing – Dracula-esque protagonist, players are required to aid in the “rescue” of The Duke’s princess by destroying several pesky monsters. Jumping to conclusions at every possible moment, your character assumes that, since his princess has vanished, the beasties inhabiting the local surrounds must be responsible.

Through five short-but-sweet single player missions, players must defeat some beautifully crafted monsters in order to progress to the next level – and ultimately find the princess. Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess takes on an upward-scrolling format that hearkens back to games of a few decades ago. Using a simple one-button, one-joystick configuration, The Duke must chase down each level’s perpetually climbing monster and defeat it before it reaches the top.

Sounds simple, yes? That’s because it is. Unfortunately, anyone that has played a video game for more than a couple of hours will be able to master Monsters in just a few minutes. There is no difficulty setting, so it’s silly to return to the main storyline for a second – more challenging – playthrough. The developers have attempted to counter the game’s simplicity by adding a Score Attack mode, but this only serves as “filler”, and repetition begins to set in after a couple of runs.

Apart from the lack of challenge, there is plenty to enjoy here. The storyline is entertaining, and The Duke’s constant mockery of monsters will remind you of at least one haughty friend. In terms of graphics, the cartoon vibe is polished and looks fantastic in HD. Gaining combos and attempting to one-up your own high scores is also sure to see gamers return from time to time.

As an indie game, Monsters is an ideal time length. I managed to kick out the single player mode in around 20 minutes, but Score Attack adds at least another hour, and a bit more of a challenge for completionists. At only five levels long, the game is able to run its course without becoming too samey, and for the relatively cheap price it will leave gamers with a sense of accomplishment at being able to master such a title in a relatively short amount of time.

While I can’t see people rushing out to buy Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess over Fable III or New Vegas, I can confirm that players will get a kick out of the left-of-centre gameplay, and if nothing else walk away with their heads held high and a smile on their faces. And isn’t that what every good game should be able to do?

Gamer Limit gives Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess 8.5/10

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Apple App Store. There’s a ton of games out there, and separating the wheat from the chaff can be an arduous task. Even when you do find the good games, there’s no consistency with pricing versus quality. A poor game can run you upwards of ten dollars, but the good news is that you can often find extremely well-designed and fun games there for next to nothing.

If there’s one thing I like more than a good game, it’s a good game that’s also cheap. If you’re of like mind, then read on! Gamer Limit’s got your back with four great titles that will only cost you a buck.

Helsing’s Fire

One of the most interesting takes on the puzzle genre that works so well on the iPhone platform, Helsing’s Fire puts you in the shoes of the storied vampire slayer. Played from an overhead perspective, your job is to destroy monsters by considering obstacles and then placing a torch on the screen to ensure that the light covers the right monsters. Your assistant makes tonics which you apply to the torch; different colored tonics will kill different monsters.

This is a game which starts out very simple and takes a while for the difficulty to ramp up, but recent updates have added content which bumps up the challenge considerably. It’s a simple core concept that stays fun and interesting for a surprisingly long time due to it’s uniqueness and clever design. Also, when you beat a level, you’ll see Helsing and his assistant celebrate with a high-5, a six-shooter point, or my favorite, the brofist. That’s enough by itself to justify a buck to me.

DungeonCore

While “arcadey” experiences seem to be dying out on home-consoles and PC gaming, the portable world seems primed for the passing of the torch. The success of time-attack and score-attack games like Canabalt, Robot Unicorn Attack, and Pix ‘N Love Rush show that there’s a major interest for this genre. DungeonCore twists the Canabalt theme by making the traversal vertical instead of horizontal, and by giving a light sprinkling of RPG seasoning.

With simple tilt controls, the screen scrolls downward through a vast pit, and it’s up to you to navigate past obstacles to keep up with the screen. On the way down you’ll hit enemies for coins which you can spend periodically at stores on the way down. With an easy to learn base mechanic, and some depth in how you outfit yourself gearwise on the way down, this game keeps you coming back to see if you can get just a few meters deeper.

Fastar!

A clever acronym standing for Fight Angry Squares: The Action RPG, Fastar! is a great time-attack RPG with a very addictive quality to it. The art seems simple and it is, but it really works for the title and lends it a great deal of charm. You run back and forth by tilting, and you tap the screen to swing your sword. The goal is to reach a goal marker, and standing in your way are squares of varying sizes and colors.

You’d think that the lack of variety in the enemy design would be a huge drawback, and you’d also be utterly wrong. Each color and size of square has its own behavior, and you’ll begin to recognize them over time. The first time I caught myself thinking “Man, the purple one is a total dick!”, I realized that the developers had caught lightning in a bottle. Any game that can get you to successfully anthropomorphize a simple geometric shape has got to be doing something right. Easily worth a single green rectangle.

Babel Rising

If you’ve got a bit of a superiority complex, this is undoubtedly the game for you. Babel Rising turns the concept of tower defense on its ear; instead of using towers to defend against units, you use your powers to defend against units who are attempting to build a tower up to Heaven. Of course, as the vengeful god of the Old Testament, insolence of this nature can’t be tolerated – it’s time to do some touchscreen smiting!

With a wide variety of abilities to play with, Babel Rising will satisfy all your old-school power fantasies. You can tap a builder to kill them individually, drag a line from the sky to fry a group with a lightning bolt, fling builders off the tower with a gust of wind, summon tidal waves, trigger earthquakes, and my personal favorite, the ever-stylish raining of fire and brimstone. The only thing missing from this game is the ability to make the builders speak different languages so they can’t work together any longer!

Fractal is the newest puzzler by Cipher Prime (makers of Auditorium), with a few unique twist that will have you pushing until you manage to pull your hair out, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The game feels much like Hexic HD and Frenzic met at a party and got a little too drunk, resulting in a love child with great music, awesome puzzles, and three very sexy play styles.

The game borrows the idea of  clearing a hexagon from the board from Hexic HD but puts a twist on the play in that you’re not rotating three pieces, but using a limited amount of pushes to get the pieces into place. The main challenge comes in seeing if you can complete the 30 level campaign in a straight shot using the amount of pushes given to you. Think of it as a puzzle marathon that you’ll likely lose, but that’s not a bad thing.

Fractal eases you into its music puzzle goodness by starting you with the basics: push a few pieces around to create blooms and clear a certain number of tiles without running out of pushes. This deceptively simple concept quickly turns into something infinitely more challenging as dual colors and smaller boards are introduced. Checkpoints are only offered every ten levels, which can be a tad frustrating, since levels ending in a nine tend to be a test of all your pushing skills you’ve developed up until the point. If you fail at nine, you’ve got to start over again.

Despite the checkpoint hurdle, Fractal’s campaign mode is decidedly addicting. Managing your pushes by pre-playing what will happen with each in your head is a common occurance and your success really depends on how well you can plan your moves around the board, especially in the later levels.

That is not to say the game doesn’t throw you a bone in variety. As you get up in the levels, new pieces like Electrify and Bomb appear, each offering some amazing benefits to the point where you might squander a few pushes for the extra pieces you can gain from getting that Electrify off of the board. Removing adjacent colored pieces and pushing bombs around the board for maximum removal is a strategy the game teaches you by requiring you to play certain ways in each level.

The levels are all uniquely designed so that each feels different; not only from a color scheme perspective, but each level requires a different understanding of the elements available  in order to clear the board without running out of pushes. The theme of each level is so subtle you may not realize the change in your play style until you’ve run out of pushes and must decide on a different strategy.

Of course, Fractal wouldn’t be a puzzle game without a puzzle mode. As with the campaign mode, puzzle mode starts you off nice and slow, offering you basic thought-provoking tasks, such as clearing blooms with no left overs or creating a pattern with a limited number of pushes. The puzzles are divided up into sets of 10, each with their own unique theme that is not glaringly obvious until you play around a bit.

In a recent interview for 2 Girls 1 Game with William and Dain, the guys spoke of not having finished the later puzzles despite it being their own game, as intern Ben Ells designed nearly all of the puzzles in Puzzle Mode. This really speaks volumes as to how challenging the later puzzles are, and since each is self contained, if you get stuck on one, you’re free to go to another. However, if you manage to complete all 50, you were probably exposed to a large amount of Einsteinium…or something.

Arcade mode is a pretty fun side mode that greatly tests your reflexes; it is a timed mode that lets you see how many blooms you can clear before you run out of time, with three distinct play styles in mind: speed, agility, and confidence. Each have different stipulations and are the most common play styles you will experience in campaign mode, all bundled into a fast paced, think on your feet style game.

Aside from the puzzling gameplay accompanied by absolutely stunning visuals, Cipher Prime treats us to the most unique way of incorporating music I’ve ever seen music in a game. As each level starts, you are treated to an upbeat track that plays, seemingly not judging you for wasting all of those pushes getting to a special piece. However, as you begin to run out of pushes, the music slows down and the screen becomes a bit dimmer, helping to create that “oh man, I’m not gonna make it” feeling much better than any other puzzler out there.

Fractal is definitely worth a play through if you enjoy puzzle games with great music. If you’re still not sold on the game, you can play the demo online on the main website, which is surprisingly meaty and an accurate representation of the entire game, though it includes only campaign mode.

Gamer Limit gives Fractal a 9.0 out of 10.

When you think of female characters in gaming, they tend to fall into one of two categories. On one hand, you’ve got your independent ass-kickers like Samus, Alyx Vance, and Jade. On the other, you have the damsels in distress, such as Peach and Zelda, who seem content to cheer from the sidelines and hang out in dungeons.

Throughout gaming, the word princess has been synonymous with useless… that is, until now. Enter Princess Fury for the iPhone. When her kingdom is threatened by all kind of evil creatures, she does what any self-respecting potential monarch should: she grabs an extremely over-sized sword and she hits the battlefield.

Now, you may think that a ruffly pastel dress, shiny silver shoes, and a tiara would be impractical for heavy combat. Well, the Princess is out to show us otherwise, and the result is an entertaining little title for the iPhone.

If you think of Castle Crashers with old-school JRPG sprites, you’ll be fairly close to the visual style of Princess Fury. The art assets are well crafted and give that retro throwback vibe, which works great with the strange anachronism of the Princess out there mixing it up with the common troops. Animations are smooth and clean, and I’ve only seen the game hiccup a handful of times.

The game is a single player side-scrolling beat-em-up in the same vein as a Streets of Rage, or perhaps Golden Axe would be a closer comparison due to the fact that she’s always rocking the uber-blade. Between her standard melee attack and some magical/special attacks that have cooldown times, the Princess gets to hack through wave after wave of baddies.

The combat is both satisfying and easy to pick up, which makes it well suited for the platform. The game sends just enough enemies at you to keep it interesting, although if enough of them are in your vicinity it’s very easy to lose the Princess in the shuffle and not know which way she’s facing. I’ve been forced to use special attacks before I was ready many times, just so I could locate her in the fray.

Missions are paced quickly, many with timers on them. These arbitrary time limits are great for gaming on the go, as you can always rely on your gameplay being pre-cut into bite sized chunks. Apart from your standard kill-everything-in-this-level levels, the game provides a little variety in the form of missions where you capture control points, take on bosses, and the odd escort mission. Escort missions are usually the bane of my existence, but this title handles them nicely. As long as you’re appropriately levelled-up, they never get out of hand.

Speaking of levelling up, this is where I do have some concerns with the game. The levels of enemies progress faster than yours do, so the game can become extremely grindy in spots and force you to repeat levels multiple times to gain the levels you need to face the next challenge.

This happens often enough that it begins to feel like it’s a way to artificially lengthen the game; the sad part is that there’s no need to pad the length, and as a reasonably priced release ($1.99) the game offered up more than enough content to justify a purchase without resorting to this technique. Whether it was a deliberate design choice or a lack of play testing and balancing, I can’t say.

As you advance in levels, you unlock more special attacks that you can map to one of three slots. You also gain followers – soldiers of different weapon types that will fight for you. These can also be slotted in and out like your special attacks, and so you can alter your coterie prior to starting each new level.

One thing I really enjoyed about how the followers were implemented was the ability to toggle their AI. A simple button flips their behavior from a defensive formation around the Princess to fanning out to actively engage the enemy. Despite the simplicity of this mechanic, I found a lot of depth in it.

During escort missions, I learned to send my troops out to engage all the little enemies while I would wait by the escortee and pick off any stragglers who made it through. When a big bad would show up to smash the NPC, then I would call my troops back in to draw attacks away and concentrate our fighting on the larger threat.

Princess Fury offers a charming take on the old beat-em-up formula; simple but fun combat, great art style, simple squad mechanics, and a great take on the main character all combine for a fun and laid-back experience that I definitely enjoyed. If you’ve got two dollars burning a hole in your pocket, you could do a whole lot worse than spending it here.

Gamer Limit gives Princess Fury an 8.0 out of 10.

Out of all the character archetypes one regularly encounters in sci-fi, I have to say that one of my absolute favorites is the space smuggler/trader. From Han Solo to Malcolm Reynolds, I’m automatically on their side. The whole underdog, wing-and-a-prayer, murky ethical waters, and shooting from the hip thing just wins me over.

Back in the day, I used to live out my space captain fantasies with BBS (Bulletin Board System) door games like TradeWars 2002 and Solar Realms Elite. In more recent years, trader games have moved to two extremes. On the hardcore end you’ve got EVE Online, and on the opposite side of the spectrum, there are the simple pirate trader games like Tradewinds. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to sink into EVE, and the more casual offerings just don’t offer enough depth to keep me engaged for long.

Enter Warpgate for the iPhone. When I heard that Freeverse had launched a game that could possibly hit that happy medium for me, I immediately bought the game to see if the porridge was just right. 20+ hours of single-player handheld gaming later, I’m happy to report that playing it induced a relaxed experience – one might call it a sense of Serenity.

The core mechanics of any good trading game are present here in Warpgate. You pilot a starter ship with a finite cargo space and a core group of star systems to navigate through. Different commodities are available on different worlds for varying prices, and the success in the beginning of the game will be dependent on the player’s economic shrewdness. The ‘buy low, sell high’ mantra remains the name of the game here, and detail oriented players will advance more quickly by finding the trade routes with the highest potential for profit.

More money means being able to invest in more expensive goods which have a higher profit margin, as well as being able to purchase new ships or weapons. New ships come in all shapes and sizes, offering more cargo space, stronger shields, or more slots for weaponry. Some ship and weapon types can only be found on one planet, so if you want to be flying and firing the very best, you’ll need to keep your eyes peeled wherever you land. It’s an added incentive to explore the galaxy map.

Traversal in Warpgate is handled beautifully. When travelling through a star system, players have the option of swiping in the direction they want their ship to travel, or by tapping screen icons to take you to your planet or local warpgate of choice. An auto-course function makes travelling across multiple star-systems bearable. Once you’ve set your destination, there are always visual cues on the screen to guide you to the proper warpgate for the next leg of your trip.

Sometimes travel can be time-consuming when going from one end of the galaxy to another, especially once you start commanding the larger but slower ship available in the later game. However, a great soundtrack helps the time fly by, and players who are thinking ahead can make lucrative trading stops along the way to break up the monotony.

While the HD iPad version offers a naturally better looking game overall, the visuals in Warpgate for the iPhone were appealing just the same. The variety and detail in the stars and planets added a great deal to the game. I was very much impressed by the strength of the visual presentation.

Now, a game based solely on even an excellent trading gameplay mechanic would get dull before too long. While EVE Online has the benefit of other players collaborating to create a narrative through their actions and struggles, single-player trading games have traditionally relied on some form of mission/story content to keep players interested in the game. The problem is that most single-player offerings run out of story missions in short order.

Warpgate avoids this content shortfall in grand fashion; while I did some economic grinding at a few points to upgrade ships, the vast majority of my time was spent completing missions and participating in the story. Players can take on missions for 5 different factions in the game, which creates an interesting dynamic since most of the factions are at odds with one another.

It’s a great challenge to try and keep all the sides happy, as the more main story missions you complete, the more warpgates are opened up for you, which grants you access to new systems with new commodities, ships/weapons, and ports of sale to explore. Most missions are easily completed in short 5-10 minute bursts, making this a great game for playing on the go.

Once I had access to most of the map, there were one or two factions that I went out of my way to antagonize because I really didn’t like their attitudes, which was great fun. At varying points in the story, you will make enemies with different factions despite any pacifistic tendencies you might possess, which makes combat an eventuality. While fun in many ways, the ship-to-ship combat in Warpgate was the weakest part of the experience for me. This is a shame because it’s obvious that some care went into creating the system.

Different weapon types are available in the game, which are more or less effective depending on range and angle, among other factors. However, these tactical distinctions are quickly hamstrung by the poor combat controls. The game provides options for both touchscreen swipe maneuvering and accelerometer tilt controls, and both are equally clunky. By the time you’ve gotten your ship moving the way you want, you’re often on the brink of death.

This means your best option is usually to just spam your weapons and achieve victory through attrition. At the end, I found myself equipping solely beam weapons as they auto-targeted no matter which way my ship was facing or how far away I was.

While the combat controls don’t make the fighting entirely unsatisfying, they do force you to ensure you’re always bringing a bigger stick to the playground. Combat is somewhat fun when you’ve used your resources wisely to fly in fully kitted out and just juggernaut your way through encounters, but it does impact the variety I feel the developers intended. This is a point worth making, but I also feel compelled to say that it’s also not one worth dwelling on too much, as the game overall was still very enjoyable.

Freeverse’s lighthearted approach to the writing fits right at home with the humorous undertones present in most space smuggler stories. While you as the protagonist remain silent, the characters you interact with are fun and usually portrayed in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion; it works really well. For example, I encountered a planet on the fringes of one star system that was literally flat. It turns out that the planet was terraformed by Flat Earth society types who couldn’t take being proven wrong when space travel became normal and everyone could see for themselves that Earth was round.

I would be remiss in reviewing a space trader game without addressing the level of value present in a potential purchase, especially considering that Warpgate comes with a higher price tag than most iPhone offerings ($4.99). While the price for entry might make some wary, you should know that there’s easily enough on offer here to justify the purchase price.

I spent over 20 hours on my first playthrough of the story, and gameplay continues even after the plot is concluded. That’s a lot of content for the money, and the ride is thoroughly entertaining. Warpgate straddles the fine line between tedious and simplistic with great aplomb, and keeps a grin on your face the whole time. A recommended purchase – just don’t forget to pay Jabba back his money in a timely fashion, okay?

Gamer Limit gives Warpgate for the iPhone an 8.5/10.

Since Booster Trooper is fresh in my head and the NBA lottery draft selection occurred only a few days ago, it’s only natural that I’ve been making many comparisons between the two. With some re-polishing, can Booster Trooper find its place in the video game industry? Do my lowly Clippers have an outside chance at picking Wesley Johnson or Al-Farouq Aminu? Among all the indie titles available this year, would I select this game in a draft; and how the hell did the Wizards steal the number one overall pick? GAHH!

With that being said, Booster Trooper is far from being the John Wall or Evan Turner of this year’s titles, but with some updates and time, can this game make its impression on the market?

Right from the get-go, players will notice the old-school side-scrolling design that hearkens back to XBLA’s smash hit Shadow Complex. In theory, a game that resembles a multiplayer version of a popular title seems like a fairly unique idea. In reality, that’s Booster Trooper’s biggest downfall. Not because it resembles another game, but because it is so heavily dependent on the multiplayer aspect.

Since the game has very little marketing appeal, it’s difficult to get players interested in it – no players equals no game. Most of the time you’ll be stuck playing with bots, and on occasion you’ll find a server with two or three other players, but that’s hardly enough to maintain interest.

In the game’s defense, there has been a steady increase in the number of dedicated servers, but again, there doesn’t seem to be a substantial rise in community activity.

Casting aside the game’s largest pitfall, there are a variety of different maps to explore, and surprisingly, DNS Development did a very good job at varying and balancing each of them. Some of the maps are horizontally challenging while others are vertically challenging. Not to mention, the different obstacles and multi-levels you can fly up and down do provide a unique style.

On the other hand, while the game succeeds in map balance, it fails in weapon balance. Players select between five different primary weapons, two secondary, and two different grenade types, and duke it out in your basic multiplayer scenarios: e.g. deathmatch, capture the flag, and team deathmatch.

There is a certain degree of potential and appeal in the gameplay, but there are blatant balancing issues between each of the weapons. It’s obvious the developers tried to go for a “Rock, Paper, Scissors” format, but in all honesty, if you were preparing to go to war and you had to choose between a shotgun or a rocket launcher, which one would you choose? I rest my case.

The developers did their best to nerf some of the stronger weapons, yet they still overpower the weaker ones. For example, if you’re running around with the minigun, it’ll cease fire once you leap into the air. Yet, it fires 10 rounds a second and packs a mega punch. If you have that much firepower, basically all you have to do is stand in one spot and quickly pull off a few rounds when you see an enemy. Those who try to out-tactician it without the sniper rifle, I tip my hat off to you; the odds are highly stacked against you.

There are obviously some issues the developers need to address, and it seems as though they’ve been diligently working out all the kinks. When you finally do get a decent game going, there are moments of intensity and fun to be found.

As it currently stands, the potential of the game is limited to the depth it produces. And with very little community interest, I’d have to pick this game as a late second round draft pick, at best.

Gamer Limit gives Booster Trooper a 4.0/10

Robert Boyd, creator of Breath of Death VII: The Beginning, is quite the RPG connoisseur; at least, I’d imagine that anyone who makes a blog about game design theory and references Vay is more than merely dabbling in the genre. Seeing a game made in the classic JRPG style from someone who knows his stuff is refreshing. BoDVII is a game that revels in the old-school JRPG experience while always keeping in mind what other JRPG developers seem to forget: that the old model can be made better.

The game starts out by explaining that the world is no longer populated by humans, thanks to a huge war that eradicated life as we know it. Instead, we live in the age of undead prosperity. Zombies, Skeletons, Ghosts, and Vampires live together peacefully. Suddenly, ‘evil’ is coming back to the world, and it’s up to Dem, the skeleton knight, to stop… the evil. It’s a little abstract, isn’t it?

Okay, so the story isn’t going to blow your mind. In fact, BoDVII does the “suddenly reveal everything at the end” hooplah that I’ve always found to be too sudden and rushed to enjoy. I don’t think it was really meant to change the world, though. Instead, Breath of Death VII is meant to bring laughs and poke fun at the RPG genre (in case it wasn’t obvious by the name). This is mostly accomplished in two ways: by satirizing RPG tropes, and by using a lot of cheap nods to other RPGs.

The latter is really not my style. For one, it’s a bit alienating for people who don’t play a lot of RPGs. For example, I wonder how many people will undersand the “Langsong” reference? Additionally, they just rely entirely upon the player knowing the reference to be funny; in other words, they are generally not funny in the context of the game.

The weirdest thing is that Breath of Death is hilarious. When it focuses on satire, the writing really shines. Thankfully, there’s plenty of good humour, and the throwaway references don’t feel like a crutch in the place of solid jokes.

The gameplay in general mimicks the old Dragon Warrior-style of RPGs; there’s a bird’s eye view world map where everything looks happy, some beautiful towns, dark caves, and a solid black combat screen comprised mostly of large menu boxes. Combat also builds upon the Dragon Warrior style, with basic fight/magic. The wonder of the gameplay lies in how streamlined it is, though.

Dem can move around extremely quickly on the world map, in dungeons or in towns. The encounter rate is vastly better than most JRPGs, which works in tandem with Dem’s super speed to give players a sense that they’re actually making progress in a dungeon. Each dungeon also has a ‘random battle counter’, where after a certain quota of random battles has been met, players can walk through the dungeons freely (although players can choose to fight a battle through the menu).

It’s funny how just a few things like this can take an otherwise stale, monotonous genre and do a lot to make it more enjoyable. Breath of Death keeps the pace moving fast and keeps the game proportionally short. The game abstract on Xbox Live Indie says “4-6 hours of gameplay”, and that seems about right. I don’t need – and rarely want – a long, drawn-out epic adventure. I’d rather just have a good experience, no matter how long it is, and I feel like BoDVII would agree (if it could be personified, of course).

Combat is only troubled by one thing, though, and that would be the difficulty. To be frank, it’s a very easy game. As long I made sure to fight enough battles to buy the latest equipment in towns, I was able to steamroll every enemy I came across. It’s too bad; there’s a cool level-up system where players have to pick and choose between certain abilities or stat bonuses.

There’s even a combo meter, which counts the number of attacks the party has made during a fight and uses that number to amplify the damage of certain attacks. It all seems for naught, though, when every random battle can be finished by flipping out on the ‘A’ Button, and boss battles can be finished in about two turns.

And yet, Breath of Death VII: The Beginning still manages to be impressive by adding just a few subtle touches that aren’t seen in commercial JRPGs. Combine that with some genuinely funny dialogue, and we have ourselves a solid game. The lack of challenge is regrettable, but this is more of an inherent problem with vanilla turn-based combat than it is a serious blunder in design choice. Robert Boyd knows his stuff. I’m willing to bet that when he really tries to innovate a combat system, it will be a sight to behold. For now, though, Breath of Death serves as a wonderful sneak preview of good things to come.

Gamer Limit gives Breath of Death VII: The Beginning a 8/10.

When it comes to music, I’m a very open-minded individual. I’m willing to experience any genre and give each song a shot on its own merits. For example, I despise country for the most part, but I still very much enjoy Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.

In the same vein, casual games really aren’t my bag. That doesn’t mean I won’t give them a fair shake. Over the past year I’ve definitely fallen in love with a number of casual games, such as Plants vs. Zombies and Bookworm Adventures (1&2). I try very hard not to judge a game before I’ve played it.

Now that I’ve spent some quality time with Royal Envoy on my PC, I’m ready to render judgment. There’s a marked difference between a game that’s weak because it’s casual, and a weak casual game.

Royal Envoy starts off well enough. The story begins with the destruction of Islandshire by a massive storm. The ruler of Islandshire initially ignores the crisis, until he is informed that the residents of the islands will no longer be able to supply him with the fancy shoes he so loves to wear.

Springing immediately into action, he appoints the player as his envoy in charge of rebuilding the towns and villages of the 9 islands.

The presentation in this game is to be commended. The graphics are clean, bright, and appealing to look at. The user interface is friendly, easy to both navigate and find information on. The character models are very well done, if a bit childish in their appeal. This game is definitely easy on the eyes.

It’s obvious that Playrix has studied the visual style of other successful casual games; Royal Envoy‘s art and UI just smack of PopCap influence, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, the similarities to PopCap games end with the graphics.

The problem I had with Royal Envoy is not that it was a bad game; it is attractive, polished, and the game functions flawlessly. The problem is that it was an extremely boring game. At its core, Royal Envoy is a resource management and city building game. Each level gives the player a different set of objectives; mostly you will be asked to build x amount of y structures, accumulate x gold, or generate x level of happiness from the people.

Objectives recycle and repeat quite often, and the proper way to beat a level is pretty much spelled out for you at the get-go. There’s no reason for the player to experiment with different structures or strategies; the game is all execution, turning a genre of game that usually challenges the player into a session of click-by-numbers.

There are only two resources to manage (gold and wood), only two types of units (workers and tax collectors), and the different building options you gain access to as the game progresses are mostly better versions of stuff you already had. All building is restricted to predetermined lots on the screen. The level of variety in the game is fairly abysmal.

I really get the impression that this game was targeted at a 12-and-under audience, so I recognize that it’s probably “not for me”. However, just because someone is young, it doesn’t mean that they need a game of this type over-simplified to the point where repetition sucks the fun out of it. Fun is pretty much the be all and end all for someone that age.

The fact that the game is sold at a $19.95 premium is a major point of contention for me. If you’re looking for a casual, child-friendly, resource/building sim type game, there are much better options.

I highly recommend A Kingdom for Keflings on XBLA, which offers more depth & variety, and even has avatar support – all for a $5 price tag.

Gamer Limit gives Royal Envoy a 6/10.

I have a distinct memory of playing Raiden II when I was younger, and loving the hell out of it.  There’s something immediately fun and nostalgic about playing a classic top down shmup.  This is why that memory of Raiden II stays with me to this very day, and also what led to my interest in Shoot 1UP.

An indie title from developer Mommys Best Games, Shoot 1UP is very much in the vain of the Raiden series, in that it’s full of the top-down goodness that has kept this genre prominent (and more importantly, fun) for so many years.  However, the game adds in a unique, and dare I say brilliant, mechanic that really differentiates it from the multitude of other similarly designed titles.

This mechanic revolves around the idea that, in place of building up a reserve store of lives to fall back on should you fall in combat, the game instead grants you any 1UPs you earn as active ships to aid your cause.  In other words, for every new life you get, a new ship appears on your screen immediately.  Should you be successful enough, you can take up a nice chunk (30 ships worth) of the screen with your squadron.  Not to mention, the game supports Co-Op play, upping the total ship count to 60 on screen at once, chugging away at your enemies.  And the great design doesn’t stop there.

Along with the ability to amass an army of fighters, the game also adds a layer of complex strategical maneuvering.  Basically, you have the option to spread your ships out across the map, or pull them all in for a single line of attack.  There is positive and negative strategic value for both of these options.  When spread out, your ships cover more area with their fire, and eliminate more enemies.  You also gain the ability to launch a beam of energy at your foes, great for tackling bosses.  However, the downside is that dodging incoming ships and fire is much more difficult when in a wider formation.  Should you choose to keep your squad close together, you will lose the ability to use the beam attack, but will ensure the survival of more units.

Graphically, the game exudes classic charm.  In the same way that Mega Man 9‘s retro visuals can still look pretty damn good, so too do Shoot 1UP‘s.  The level design in particular is also surprisingly interesting, albeit a little crowded with stuff to look at.  The basic enemy ship designs are generally pretty solid, if not too varied or detailed.  However, when it comes to boss designs, this game is awesome.  Every single boss battle is interesting and fun to look at – which is pretty rare in shooters these days.  However, since the firepower upgrades are nearly non-existent, it’s tough not to grow tired of the basic fire animations.

Another interesting design choice is the ability to choose your path at certain times in the game.  Mostly, this consists of simple commands such as “Continue Ahead” or “Go Back”, which plays out exactly as you’d expect.  At other intervals, you’ll receive the option to free roam.  While that concept is a bit deceiving (you can’t exactly fly wherever you want), you do switch to a diagonal-focused combat scenario.  It’s a refreshing break from the typical straightforward path of top down shooters, and it fits well.

I think Shoot 1UP is a fine addition to the genre, something that we don’t see nearly enough of nowadays.  Sure, it has a paper thin story (something about flagella and almost naked women decorating a level, I’m pretty sure), but for this genre, that neither comes as a surprise, nor particularly as a fault.

Games like this are meant to be played, enjoyed, and played again.  The only real problem I have with Shoot 1UP is how quickly it’s over.  In total, there are only six levels.  But for something this cheap ($1!), you’re definitely getting your moneys worth and more.  I hope to see this expanded on in the future.

Gamer Limit gives Shoot 1UP an 8.5/10