While it’s not quite a firm release date, mega-publisher Activision confirmed a Q2 2012 window for the highly anticipated Diablo III in their most recent earnings call. This narrows the release date down to sometime between April and June of this year.

The game has already undergone changes, including some based on player feedback from the latest beta, but knowing Blizzard’s track record, it’s probably the safe bet the game’s going to be a hit. Diablo III takes place twenty years after the events of Diablo II. Though some familiar faces like Deckard Cain will make an appearance, the game features an all new set of heroes.

[Source: CVG]

Mechs are awesome. That’s one of the indisputable facts of the universe. And now the universe will get a little more awesome on December 12, 2012 when Adhesive Games’ Hawken blasts into action.

Read on for more info about this indie game you won’t want to miss.

Hawken is an online mech shooter that’s going to be free-to-play and will be published by Adhesive Games’ new publishing division, Meteor. The game was showed off at PAX in 2011, and it sported impressive visuals and fast, mech-based shooting action. While some mech games are plodding and slow, it looks like Hawken will try to capture more of that frantic Call of Duty-style feel.

According to an interview with VentureBeat, Khang Le–co-founder and Adhesive’s chief executive–said that “those with good PCs and decent broadband connections will be able to play the game at 60 frames per second. But [others] may experience the game at around 30 [fps].”

Beta sign-ups are also available. If you refer enough people to the beta, your spot is guaranteed. I imagine the site is receiving lots of traffic, so don’t get discouraged if you have to try multiple times to get it to load.

[Source: VentureBeat]

Fast-action multiplayer shooter Tribes: Ascend by Hi-Rez Studios is currently in closed beta, but a big update is coming. According to Hi-Rez’s Todd Harris these changes are “among those most requested by our Beta group.” For those of you in the closed beta, here’s some details about the changes coming your way.

The next update is set to include a more polished UI and more class customization. While the number of playable classes will be reduced from twelve to nine, each class is getting more weapon unlocks for more variety. Three of them–Light, Medium, and Heavy–will be available to new players right off the bat. No surprises there.

Tribes: Ascend is a free-to-play shooter for PC that’s coming out in 2012 based on the popular Tribes franchise. Players interested in getting in the closed beta can apply for a spot or can pre-purchase the Tribes: Ascend VIP Starter package. The package comes with automatic admission to the beta, permanent VIP status in the game, a 30-day Booster and 3000 Tribes Gold. I don’t know if I’d pay for access to a beta when the full game is going to be free-to-play, but if that’s your thing, go for it.

Capcom announced Thursday that Resident Evil 6 is in development and will be released November 20 this year for 360 and PS3, with a PC version to follow. Familiar protagonists Leon Kennedy and Chris Redfield will take the front stage in battling a surge of bio-terrorism. Government espionage! Jetsetting! A world in peril!

Surprising as this announcement may be, and even though the release is this year, it’s still ten months away. Here is more practical news: Resident Evil Revelations for the Nintendo 3DS will be upon us in less than a month. And guess what, you can download the demo straight from the Nintendo eShop right now.

Capcom knew how to tease us when they demo’d the game at 2011 E3. Even back then we knew the franchise will be making a big splash (pun intended) with this title. The E3 demo had some solid gameplay.

This go around, RE Revelations follows Jill Valentine and her partner Parker Luciani as they search for Chris on a seemingly abandoned cruise ship. What ensues is good ‘ol RE action, intrigue and the “revelation” of a new weapon, the T-Abyss virus. Will T-Abyss show up in Resident Evil 6? Irrelevant. Go get the demo.

It is chilling to think that ours may be the last generation to consider the term “social” as primarily being outgoing. With the deluge of so called social apps flooding the market, I can only expect, in somewhat hyperbole, that the definition of “social” will soon change. Maybe, it will become something like “the act of sharing your location, pictures, videos, thoughts and activities (in 140 characters or less) leveraging one of these apps”.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in the emergence of a new generation of social games. This new generation is legion, climbing out of (the) Facebook  onto PCs and mobile devices independent of any one client. At its worst, this generation bears cookie cutter copies of the villes, Mafia Wars and even StarCraft. There is a glimmer of hope, however, as some developers are pushing the social platform forward through innovation and creativity.

Earlier this week, SweetLabs, Inc. and Kabam announced that they have brought the first line of “hardcore” social games to the PC. Leveraging SweetLabs’ Pokki platform, gamers can download four Kabam titles, namely Dragons of Atlantis, Edgeworld, The Godfather: Five Families and Thirst of Night. Despite the delivery being free from the totalitarian chains of Facebook, there isn’t much else innovative or exciting about this announcement.

“Innovative” and “exciting” can be subjective terms. However, if we focus objectively on the games themselves, they are no different than the ones on Facebook. Take The Godfather: Five Families for example. Look passed the trademark  and the flashy interface, it’s just MafiaWars in a new suit. Edgeworld is another example. The blue woman image alone indicates that the game borrows from iconic titles like Halo. The gameplay, it turns out, is a watered down version of StarCraft.

This sort of borrowing and copying is more prevalent in social games than one may think. Back in February, at the San Francisco Game Developer’s Workshop, John Romero and Brenda Brathwaite of Loot Drop explained that this is a go-to strategy for many social game developers. The reasoning behind it goes something like this — the average Facebook user plays x amount of games. They play, maybe, for five to ten minutes each game. If a game does not fit with the feel and gameplay of the other games, it will be skipped over. The idea is to copy other games in order to fit in the average Facebook-er’s library. For obvious reasons, while this may help gain an audience, it is not conducive to innovation.

It also explains Kabam’s mission to emulate, “Our goal? We are working to achieve in social gaming what Blizzard has achieved in PC games. We know that’s a high bar to clear, but we’re up for it. Besides, why would anyone want to aim to be mediocre?”. Ironically, mediocrity may be the end result if borrowing and copying is all a game company does. One may call this the reasoning behind the old generation of social games. Enter the new generation.

Sure, Idle Games’ upcoming Idle Worship picks up on the already explored theme of player-as-god. A key difference is that it’s not trying to be anything like the recent From Dust or the more dated Black & White. They are treading new ground in the social gaming space, given the player-as-god concept has not been tried to any avail with social channels built in. Indeed, Idle Worship can be seen as innovative as it takes a new look at what it means to be a social game.

Take your pick of any existing social game out there, and the main thing that makes it social is the ability to share gifts/resources or contribute to someone else’s iteration of the game. It’s a gameplay element that exists even though the game itself does not tie it in logically. For example, you may share some wood with a friend on Frontierville or tend to a friend’s lot in Ravenwood Fair, letting them know on their feed. After all is said and done, nothing is gained. It is just a cunning dynamic that encourages your friends to log on and do the same somewhat mindlessly, like pulling a slot machine lever.

Instead, Idle Worship takes special care to incorporate social in a way that makes sense for the gameplay, rather than conforming to what is in the player’s comfort zone. Case in point is the vast amount of things you can do to affect a friend’s game. Each player gets an island where they are tasked to build and rule over a civilization of mudlings. With faith as the game’s currency, you must make sure they are properly worshiping you. This is done by benevolently showering them with gifts like fluffy, pink bunnies, or malevolently striking them down with lighting and tossing them into volcanoes. It is in this way you get more power and more opportunity rule over your realm the way you please.

Friends can wreak havoc as they visit your island to turn your mudlings into theirs. This sparks friendly competition as to who is the better god. The game then takes a surprising turn as one power allows you to flick a mudling into the stratosphere, only to have it land on a random person’s island. This makes a social connection with a gamer you  potentially haven’t even met before, expanding your network and opening up new avenues to flex your god power. Idle Worship essentially introduces a new type of contextual social competition that has never been seen before.

Notice not once has there been a description of the game pausing to ask you if you want to share resources with a friend, or so you can broadcast your accomplishments.The game would instead let you know that someone messed with your island so you can log in to do damage control and maybe exact revenge. This definitely has more meaning as something you built, something you care about, is being threatened. It starts to sound more like game design 101, rather than the slot machine, k-factor mess of the older generation of social games.

Idle Worship offers a sensible goal, namely building your faith base while protecting it from others. This is vastly different from the villes — and in fact almost all other social games out there — where there is no clear goal, but only an endless amount of vapid mini-quests aimed at getting you to pull that proverbial slot machine lever.

Bear in mind that bucking the old trends has it’s inherent risks for the new generation of social games. As mentioned before, the Facebook gamer has a short supply of attention while logged onto the social network. Call it Social Network Onset ADD (my made up term). This is why those meaningless mini-quests have been recycled game after game — they are quick enough to make the player feel like there was something accomplished in that short amount of time. Idle Worship exposes that these are mostly empty accomplishments. At the same time, it introduces an alternative that may try to slow the player down, spend some more time on building something with more meaning.

Yes, it’s a risk. But, if the game is high in quality, it bears a much sweeter reward, namely more players playing for longer periods of time. Indeed, high quality is what this new generation of social game is bringing to the table. Many a Facebook gamer will see this quality once Idle Worship is released; and hopefully it is the start of a positive new trend.

As a game reviewer, I occasionally comes across an indie game that just strikes a chord with me. Either the art style captures something from the past, the story resonates with me on some level, or the gameplay is a refreshing take on an old genre. I have to say that I was extremely lucky to find a game that has all three of these, in this case the game is Gemini Rue.

Gemini Rue is a little indie game made by Wadjet Eye Games that combines the retro art style of games like Flashback and Out of this World with the great gameplay from classic Lucas Arts adventure games. To make it even better, the story comes across like a Phillip K. Dick novel with it’s neo-noir elements and mind bending discussion of identity. Long story short, if you’re a fan of science fiction or adventure games, you need to check out Gemini Rue.

The game follows Azriel Odin, a former assassin turned cop who is looking for his brother who has been captured by the corrupt Orwellian government and sent to a hidden prison colony. This prison colony take political prisoners, erases their memory and then reprograms them to do the government’s bidding. As you’d expect from a Phillip K. Dick inspired story, the world of Gemini Rue is heavily intrenched in all the classic hard-boiled detective elements: perpetual rain, slums, back alley shootouts, etc. I don’t mean to make it sound like Blade Runner is the only inspiration for Gemini Rue, there are a wide variety of science fiction based Easter Eggs, references and shout outs. In fact,  at one point I got a little stuck so I just started exploring as much as I could. I was surprised to find Ed and Ein from Cowboy Bebop hiding on the top floor of an apartment. They didn’t have any bearing on the gameplay or story, but it was a nice way to put a smile on my face during a slightly frustrating moment.

The game plays like any classic adventure game. You click on the screen to move your character around, to interact with objects and with people. You’ll need to combine objects and utilize your environment to solve puzzles. For example, at one point in the game you’ll need to break into an apartment to gather some evidence. The doors are locked with an electronic card reader, so picking it is out of the question. Luckily the neighbor isn’t so concerned with security, so you can pick his lock, go out onto the back balcony, jump across to the next apartment, and break in the glass door with a metal pipe. Before you get upset about spoilers, please realize that this is just one small example from the dozens of puzzles you’ll need to solve.

As I mentioned above I did get stuck a few times, however you should understand that I rarely play adventure game. Asking me to play an adventure game where I don’t get stuck is like putting someone completely new to StarCraft in a game versus Jaedong or Flash. I don’t have the finely honed instincts and nose for trial and error that adventure game veterans have.

On top of the adventure game mechanics, there is also a shooting mini-game. Throughout the game you’ll find you character in shootouts. The game handles this by putting your character in cover and presenting you a new set of controls. ‘A’ and ‘D’ will make your character peek out of cover while ‘Space Bar’ fires your gun. Sure you can just peek out and spray bullets hoping to hit your target, however the more efficient way to score kills is with the aiming mechanic. While in cover you can hit ‘Control’ to bring up a little breath meter. Time your shots with when you’re holding your breath to score a one-hit kill. While this shooting mechanic may not be as thrilling as getting tons of killstreaks in Call of Duty, it’s a satisfying way to reward  patient and skillful gamers.

One thing that makes Gemini Rue so interesting is that you not only play as Azriel but also his brother,  known as Delta-Six, in the prison. As almost any point in the game you can switch between the two characters and work on their own objectives, a nice way to keep players busy if they hit a dead end on one character.

Overall Gemini Rue is an amazing game that deserves a look from anyone who likes science fiction stories, adventure games, or is feeling slightly nostalgic for games like Flashback and Out of this World. Gemini Rue should take you anywhere from five to eight hours to complete depending on how quickly you can solve the puzzles. That said, I have to admit that there’s little replay value in the game. The only incentive for a second play though is to listen to the developers commentary, which is very interesting and a great little addition, although it may only be for people who were really into the Gemini Rue world. Also note that Gemini Rue is an independent title that can be purchased on Steam for $9.99, so it’s not like you’re spending $59.99 on a game with little replay value. If you find yourself sitting around looking for something interesting to play, pick up Gemini Rue; its by far one of the most interesting, engaging games of this year.

Free-to-play games have a stigma that they are not free at all. Of course, you can play unencumbered up to a point; but, just when things are getting good, a horrible and unwelcome window pops up. The gist is if you want more content, if you want more leveling, if you want more of anything, you have to start emptying your wallet. This sad model has left the free-to-play (F2P) space practically a wasteland.

This all changes with the December U.S. release of SD Gundam Capsule Fighter. In a big way, Softmax and OGPlanet aim to turn the F2P stigma on its head with a free game that plays just like a paid title. In other words, every gameplay element, every mode of play, all progressions are available to the player without the solicitation of money. And, to be honest, it has shaped up to be a rather entertaining game to boot. AND it’s Gundam. What more can you ask for?

I had a chance to put the game through its paces and then some, whilst nestled in a corner suite on the 12th floor of the Serrano Hotel, just west of Union Square, San Francisco, Calif. A fairly comfortable setting, two representatives from OGPlanet accompanied my deep dive as we enjoyed the nondescript hotel furniture, each with his own laptop. There were no punches pulled, no holds barred. We went through all the gameplay elements a typical, non-paying user would go through — which means just about everything.

SD Gundam Capsule Fighter is a Massive Multiplayer Online Third Person Shooter (MMOTPS) reminiscent of Sega’s Virtual On series. Countless mechs descend upon each other in various modes of combat. On a high level, expect beam swords, gigantic machine guns, super powerful rail guns and other weapons that explode things. Key to making this game stand out visually amongst mech and Gundam titles, are the capsule based models. These are the Super Deformed (SD) Gundams, the cute toy-like mechs made famous in illustration and the snap-kit models fans can pick up at conventions. Complementing this visual style are the intuitive, simple controls and interfaces. Don’t mistake simple for lack of depth, however.

Players will be surprised by the choices and customizations available to them upon game start. At any given time, there can be 24 Gundam units in the stable or more, ranked C to SS depending on their stats and rarity. Each unit also has a particular combat alignment corresponding to rock, paper, scissor — rock for close combat units, paper for long range and scissor for balanced. Each unit is particularly disadvantaged against the opposite alignment. In other words, scissors beats paper beats rock beats scissors. Knowledge of this system definitely comes in handy as in the game lobby you can view your team members’ rank and alignment as well as your enemies’. Progression allows players to build the stats of their mech and assign various power ups.

SD Gundam Capsule Fighter also lets players customize the appearance of their units, assigning paint to various parts of the Gundam for both sleek and wacky schemes. On top of that, there is a plethora of decals to choose from for even deeper customization. This would be a place where a typical F2P game starts charging money. Heck, even simply building your stable of Gundam units is prime opportunity for charges. Players need not pay for any of it, however.

Playing through the game is enough to earn the right to buy Gundam units, raise stats and customize to the heart’s content. While you can definitely invest real money into buying and customizing units, you can just as well plow through several single player levels and PvP rounds, earning game points to do the exact same thing. In that sense, SD Gundam Capsule Fighter is blazing new trails in the F2P space. It acts as a traditional game where players progress and earn rewards by playing and leveling up. At the same time, those who pay up front get easy access.

Eugene Choi, marketing manager for OGPlanet assures that there is no tom foolery in this model. Players won’t have to worry that paying customers are getting special items and extra power ups unavailable to those who do not pay. It’s just a matter of time that non-paying gamers also get the same units and power ups through game points. It is just a matter of asking the question, “do I want all the good stuff now, or do I want to play for it?”

If there is going to be any real difference between a paying player and a non-paying player, it is the size of the unit stable. As mentioned before, players can have 24 Gundam units or more. Well, the max for a non-paying player is 24 initially, where coin can unlock additional slots. Now, 24 Gundam units in a game where you can only use one unit at a time seems like more than enough. But these are SD Gundams. There is indeed an element of collecting involved, as one tries to catch em’ all like another game full of cutesy yet violent characters.

SD Gundam Capsule Fighter balances the stable limit for non-paying players through an aspect called blueprints. Blueprints in the game allows specific units to be traded for higher ranked, more powerful and better looking Gundams. So even if paying players unlock the good stuff faster, there is virtually no difference in fire power or ranking against a savvy player who chooses to not pay and instead builds a Gundam fleet from the ground up with good, ‘ol fashioned play.

Another aspect in which this game is bound to shine is the wealth of gameplay modes. There are single player and co-op missions steeped in Gundam’s 30+ year history. There are also several team based and free for all PvP modes sure to satisfy every taste. During the preview,Choi, associate producer Andrew West and I first jumped into a co-op mission where we had to destroy several mini bosses before time ran out. This is where the multiple exclamations that this game brought back childhood memories of Virtual On spewed forth. All in a good way, because Virtual On was very fast paced, fluid and exciting, SD Gundam Capsule Fighter brought that same level of intensity while adding its own spin on mech battle.

Whether in single player, co-op or PvP, there are generally three weapons available — beam sword, gun, rail gun, etc. depending on the alignment. Also, there is a unique super attack for each unit that is charged up with every effective hit. Players essentially find themselves gliding from opponent to opponent slashing and blasting away in a flurry of beam sword trails and explosions trying to unlock that special attack. Then, all hell breaks loose. The result is candy for the eyes.

For all intents and purposes, SD Gundam Capsule Fighter is a rather unique game if only for the fact that it’s treating the F2P space quite differently than its contemporaries. While I had the pleasure of previewing this game for a good amount of time, it only took a short description of their model and several minutes of menus and battle to understand this. SD Gundam Capsule Fighter is essentially a free game, with substantial depth and visuals that rival any MMO and TPS game out there.

That bears repeating: this is a FREE game with surprising quality. You would be a rather savvy gamer to download this title upon release. Whether you want to spend some cash on the game or not, that’s entirely your choice. No matter your wallet’s alignment, there is a promise of good times ahead with this one.

I’m not a big shmup fan, but Final Form Games’ Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony broke down my barriers. With it’s unique setting (17th Century Mars?!) memorable sprite-based artwork, and killer gameplay it became my favorite shmup.

Well, now I have a reason to play it again. Final Form Games have released the Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot DLC today! Hit the jump for more details.

According to the game’s official website, the DLC focuses on the Gunpowder Plot, but with a sci-fi, steampunk twist. Instead of being sentenced to death, the conspirators are sent on a suicide mission to Mars to destroy a Spanish munitions factory.

The best part about this whole package: new ships or Conveyances as the game calls them. According to the site, there are at least four new ones, each with their own abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Personally I think either Gunpowder or Plot would be my favorite.

Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot is available on Steam for just $2.00. Or you can buy the Deluxe Edition of the game which comes with the original game, DLC, and the official soundtrack for just a little over $10. The soundtrack features extended and remastered editions of some of the game’s songs. Considering how highly we thought of Jamestown in the first place, you’d be a fool to pass this up.

The world doesn’t end in 2012, at least that is not the check out date according to Fate of the World: Tipping Point. Also, there is no fugitive asteroid coming to claim us all. According to the game, the world will most likely suffer a slow, agonizing death full of drought, famine and civil unrest a century or two from now. This is good news for us, bad news for future generations and careless time travelers.

Despite the dark and sardonic outlook, this turn based card game manages to instill hope in an otherwise crumbling world. This is because in Fate of the World: Tipping Point, or FotW:TP for short, you’re placed in the mantle of power, with the chance to turn things around through real world solutions. This is no walk in the park, however, as with this power players must balance resources and public perception or they will wind up on the wrong end of a revolution. Are you up to the challenge?

Fate of the World: Tipping Point is actually comprised of the base game, FotW, and two DLC packs Migration and Denial. All makes up a total of 9 single player campaigns that put the player on one altruistic mission after another. Along the lines of raising the quality of life in Africa by 2045, or raising the world’s gross domestic product to $200 trillion by 2200, it’s safe to say these are not your typical save-the-world video game scenarios; and it is an understatement to say that they stray into the realm of the real world. In all honesty, every aspect of the game pits gamers smack dab in the real world.

Whichever campaign you choose, the game starts off with a series of devastating events. In 2018, the world’s first hypercane wipes out a massive number of the world’s population. Then, earth’s ice caps begin to shrink. In reaction, the world creates the Global Environment Organization (GEO). For some reason or another, this group winds up taking control of all aspects of the world’s development, from economics to technology, above the obvious environmental protection. Guess who is the next leader of the GEO?

On a high level, Fate of the World: Tipping Point is played on a turn by turn basis. The player visits each region of the world, laying down a number of cards representing anything from biotech research to water conservation to police funding. Depending on each region’s problems, the leader of the GEO must choose accordingly. Then, after all the cards are dealt, a simple click advances the world five years. This is when things get interesting.

Red Redemption Ltd. understands that nothing in the world goes according to plan. It shows in the reactive, randomized world they developed for FotW:TP. For example, playing that more expensive biotech card made 3rd generation biofuels available, but at the expense of civil unrest since jobs and industry were neglected. On top of that, a series of storms had struck both coasts forcing evacuation and panic. All of a sudden, the heart meter which show public sentiment goes down a notch or two. In this game, you truly have to think two steps ahead of the world, which makes for quite a challenge.

Thankfully, the game offers a wealth of analytics to help keep players abreast of all global machinations. In fact, it can get a little overwhelming if one really wants to dig in. How’s this for an inventory: Annual Emissions (MtCO2e), GDP, Life Expectancy, Education, Public Outlook (Consumerist, Materialist, etc.), Public Stability, Oil & Gas Need/Recoverable, Coal Used/Extracted, Agriculture GDP, Food ($/Capita), Forest Area Annual Change and Climate Refugees? Each one of these comes with its own graph/chart complete with bright colors and somewhat incomprehensible numbers.

Those who aren’t into numbers need not fear. Fate of the World: Tipping Point also has a news digest that gives context to all the analytics. Getting the news is as easy as clicking into region and then clicking on the envelope icon at the top of the screen. The digest lists both the accomplishments and problems that have happened over the past five years for each region, and is more important than it may seem at first. Each round can last twenty to thirty minutes, especially if one is prone to serious deliberation. Each round can therefore become a game in itself, with the digest as the player’s temporary leaderboard.

As far as the challenges go, that news digest can also become a primary tool in planning out the next round. The game boasts more than 1,000 dilemmas, from flash fires to global resource wars to political unrest. Depending on your view on challenge and punishment, you can be lucky and come face to face with 1,000 problems over the course of one campaign, as opposed to Jay-Z who only has 99. It is more than enough to keep you on your toes.

Albeit, it is important to vary one’s strategy. Reacting to the problem at hand is critical, if only to keep public sentiment on your side. At the same time, one cannot forget the main goal of the campaign as well as the various side goals to increase points. Add the fact that one must do all this with limited resources, FotW:TP is no piece of cake, not by a long shot. Keep your head on a swivel and start thinking in terms of decades in stead of day by day, and the game can get wildly addicting and gratifying for the amount of time you put into it.

Fate of the World: Tipping Point is not all about serious world issues, as it may seem. Red Redemption did have the foresight to add a campaign called Dr. Apocalypse. In this campaign, instead of saving the world, the player must drive the world into hell for as long as possible. Public sentiment plays a big part in the challenge for this campaign as playing the villain naturally creates enemies. Even if you fail here, you can fail with a bang, as a sniper’s bullet puts an end to your tyranny. In the end, this campaign is especially satisfying.

Ultimately, FotW:TP offers a beautifully designed card game to which I don’t mind giving an hour or two of my time per sitting. It dives headfirst into real world issues without climbing atop a soapbox or feeling too preachy. It just makes the player think, while at the same time hypnotizing with a very real experience of power and consequence. It’s a must have for card game vets and it’s worth a shot for those who have never touched a card game in their life. Bravo, Red Redemption.

The tower defense genre has always been one of my favorite ways to kill time when gaming. There’s something that is just so satisfying about building the perfect line of defense and watching your maze of death take care of everything. While this genre has previously been relegated to modifications and other derivative works (WarCraft III custom maps, etc.), now digital distribution services like Steam allow game developers to create fleshed out, full fledged titles. Orcs Must Die is one of these full fledged tower defense titles.

As the name implies, Orcs Must Die involves building a series of traps so that wave after wave of oncoming Orcs meet a grisly end. This sounds entertaining on paper but, as gamers know better than anyone, the proof is in the play. To see if Orcs Must Die is worth your money, hit the jump.

Long story short, yes. Orcs Must Die is a great little title that effectively combines the joy of building traps and mazes with the non-stop action of a third-person shooter.

The story of Orcs Must Die is pretty basic. There is a world full of Orcs and other beasts that is sealed off from the Human realm. There are portals that allow passage from one world to another, and it is up to an elite group of “War Mages” to keep the Orcs out. Unfortunately, these War Mages have been falling left and right to Orc hordes leaving only your character, the prototypical douchy bro who, despite his immaturity and ignorance, is the one person standing between the Orcs and the Human Realm.

In order to defend the Human Realm you need to set up a series of traps between the Orcs and the portals. Lucky for you there’s a wide variety of killing machines at your disposal. Spiked floors and Arrow Walls are just the basics. As you complete each level you’ll unlock a new tool of destruction. Expect to see some wacky devices like spring-board floors that send Orcs into pits of lava or a wall of blades that dice up any poor monster that steps too close to it. Unfortunately, these traps aren’t cheap.

The way the game works is that after each kill you get a small amount of money. In addition to these bounties, every time you clear a wave of monsters you get more money. Additional funds can also be found on the bodies of larger monsters like Ogres.

Speaking of larger monsters, there are a whole slew of beasts that want in on the Human Realm. On top of the basic Orc, which is relatively slow and pretty easy to put down, there are armored Orcs, fast but fragile Gnolls, Orcs with cross bows, giant Ogers that can stun your character with a bash from his club, and a whole host of other standard fantasy monsters.

One thing I really liked about Orcs Must Die is the third-person shooter aspect. I always get stressed out playing standard tower defense games because if there’s one hiccup in your tower line you lose the game. Orcs Must Die gives you a sense of urgency. If a few Orcs slip through you can put them down yourself thanks to a pretty hefty arsenal. You start the game with a crossbow (which can insta-kill most monsters with a head shot) and a sword. As you get further in the game you’ll unlock new weapons like the Wind Belt, which allows you to summon a gust of wind sending the Orcs into a pit of lava, or the Fire Bracers, which lets you cast a devastating fireball. Each weapon also has a secondary fire option allowing you more ways to stop the horde. For example the crossbow’s alternate fire stuns a small area of Orcs.

In addition to traps and weapons, you can also hire mercenaries to help the cause. Elven Archers and Paladin Guardians will eventually be unlocked when you hit a certain level. These mercenaries deal a decent bit of damage to the Orcs, but be careful. If you put them in a dangerous spot the Orcs won’t hesitate to bum rush them and take them down.

To add more depth to the gameplay, Robot Entertainment has included two systems for upgrading. First, at the end of each level you will be given a rating of one to five skulls based on your performance. If you don’t let a single Orc though the portal you’ll be taking home five skulls. These skulls can be used to upgrade your traps, mercenaries and weapons. For example, I upgraded my Elven Archers for fourteen skulls and in turn they now cost less money to deploy on the battlefield.

The other upgrade system is not persistent like spending skulls. Basically you can hire Weavers, magical sorceresses that will upgrade specific stats for your character and traps, once per level. There are two Weavers to choose from; Elemental and Steel. The Elemental Weaver will allow you to pay a certain amount of gold to have specific elemental damage upgraded. The Steel Weaver upgrades physical things like how much damage arrows do or how much money you get if an Orc dies in a trap. While these two upgrade systems are nothing new to gamers, they do add an additional level of strategy to the game.

My one complaint about Orcs Must Die is that there’s no multiplayer. I understand that the game is suppose to be an arcadey title with a heavy focus on leaderboards, but I can’t help but imagine how much fun this game would be with other players. It could be something as simple as co-op or a last-man-standing type of game mode, just something so that I can play with my friends. To be fair, Orcs Must Die is a $15 title, so the exclusion of multiplayer is totally justifiable. I just hope that Orcs Must Die sells well so that Robot Entertainment makes a more in depth sequel with multiplayer.

All in all, Orcs Must Die is a fantastic budget title with more than $15 worth of entertainment. Available on both Steam and Xbox Live Arcade, you should do yourself a favor and check it out. It’s a great way to kill time while killing Orcs.

This review of Dungeon Defenders must begin with a short study of M. Night Shyamalan’s film, Lady In The Water. It’s a worthy comparison in its own way. Both game and film feature casts of characters who must defend their precious jewels from evil (in the film it’s a lady and in the game it’s an actual jewel).

One character in Shyamalan’s film also serves as a metaphor for the game as a whole. It’s Reggie the Guardian, that guy with one super buff arm and one regular arm. Translate that into Dungeon Defenders; from one side it seems to have true strength as a co-op RPG. Take a look from another angle, and it’s a rather bland tower defense title.

By looks alone Dungeon Defenders is bound to catch people’s interests and hold them for a good time. Graphically, the game delivers sharp, 3D cell shaded characters with smooth animation, who can be customized leveraging a wide color palate. The environments are also highly detailed — one can really get a sense of the grittiness of each stone on the castle wall, the inherent magic of glowing crystals, etc. It is apparent that Trendy Entertainment makes good use of the Unreal Engine in this regard.

If the game were to fall short presentation wise, it would be for the simple fact that it is full of completely worn fantasy tropes. The Squire (knight), Huntress (elf), Apprentice (wizard) and Monk (okay, wizard again) are not breaking away from convention. No matter how much one customizes their outward appearance or how wacky their names (and no matter that Trendy chose to render them as cute yet vicious children) they are just the same old characters with predictable abilities.

The environments fair no better. Triteness can be found in the snowy castle, the fiery forge, the cellar, etc. for a total of 13 levels. Then again, what is there to expect from a game with “dungeon” in its title? Dungeons are dungeons. At least, in this game, they are well designed and make for compelling strategy from a tower defense perspective.

A big part of what makes Dungeon Defenders fun is that, unlike other tower defense games, it challenges the player to strategize on multiple levels. Traditionally, the map is the player’s best friend. It is critical to have that bird’s eye view to determine the various choke points where you can catch baddies in crossfire, the places where you want to divert the flood of enemies. That’s only the beginning with this game.

Each round in Dungeon Defenders is broken up into a Build phase and Battle phase. This introduces the next level of strategy. During Build, the action is essentially paused, giving the player unlimited time to determine whether defense or offense is the best approach. The choices are really diverse since the game also allows you to cycle between characters and take advantage of their respective arsenals, accommodating any play style.

Examples — for those who like to hang back, it may be best to set up the Squire’s spiked barricades, with the Apprentice’s magic fireballs and the Monk’s lighting aura traps. Then, in Battle you can use the Huntress and her crossbow, dispatching enemies from afar while they spend their time trying to break down defenses. For the more adventurous, it may be fun to set up the Apprentice’s towers, Huntress’s mines and gas bombs and the Monk’s slow aura trap. Then, go gung ho with the Squire swinging his two sided broadsword in the midst of explosions and debris.

Dungeon Defenders offers a robust RPG experience on top of this all, making for the last level of strategy — character progression. Whereas Build phase allows switching between characters, only one can be used in Battle. Essentially, the game forces the player to think about which character she wants to level up since XP is rewarded only to the one used for finishing off the stage. The more a character is leveled up, the stronger her towers, traps and walls are. So, depending on play style once again, it will behoove you to favor certain characters, leveling up certain abilities at the expense of others.

There is also plenty of loot to be had. From more jewel resources to weapon upgrades to pets that augment the character’s stats and/or attack enemies, vanquishing the evil horde offers more reward than just satisfaction. Albeit, sometimes navigating the RPG portion of Dungeon Defenders screws with pacing.

Having a Build phase for the player to architect the perfect playhouse of death already brings the game to a halt. Having to cycle through menus, sort through items, sell items, lock certain ones, bank jewels, upgrade stats and so on, one can run out of breath. It doesn’t help that in the beginning characters are relatively slow as well. Sometimes it can feel like an eternity to travel from point A to point B just to set up a single tower or to repair a wall. Even when speed stats are accounted for, it is just hard not to yawn when traversing the map.

Another frustration comes from the fact that Dungeon Defenders favors co-op to the point that it marginalizes those who like to play solo. The game doesn’t scale, so the same amount of enemies that four players would experience is the same amount single players experience. In other words, if you play by yourself, you die. There may be a chance to survive solo on easy difficulty, but, who wants to be stuck playing on easy?

The game has a penchant for randomizing bosses, hammering this frustration deeper. The scenario happens something like this: you’ve managed to get to level X on your own (quite a feat!). You’ve gotten to the last stage of the level, and it seems like you’ll pwn this thing. Then the words pop on screen “an ogre has appeared”; that’s enough for a rage quit because that green behemoth has thousands and thousands in health points and the rest of the horde has broken through. Expect this to happen a lot; and if you’re not playing with three others, it’s a hopeless enterprise.

Pulling from the Reggie the Guardian metaphor from the beginning of this review, the game is strangely imbalanced, because the co-op side of things is great. Strategy takes on a whole new dimension when others are involved, and you feel the camaraderie in teamwork when taking down hordes of foes, including the seemingly juggernaut ogre. It has to be said that Trendy Entertainment had sought to build a co-op focused game early on, and they achieved their goal, even though the final product has one super buff arm and one mediocre arm.

My last week steeped in gore, I offer up to you Project Zomboid. It is an isometric zombie survival RPG. These last words may not whet your appetite, especially with last month’s release of Dead Island and the (re)release of Resident Evil CODE: Veronica X. You can say the world is pretty much zombie’d out.

There are just so many things to love about this title, however; and considering that it’s still in alpha development gives cause for excitement. Not only for zombie aficionados, but also for fans of well crafted games in general, PZ is already a polished gem that is bound to have an uncanny luster by the time it’s considered a full fledged game.

For all the aficionados who are sold by the mere mention of zombies and a single lead image, you don’t have to wait biting your nails for an official release date. The alpha complete with ongoing updates is already available for the low price of $7.99 on Desura or Google Checkout (Steam is intended for the official release). So feel free to take on the zombie horde immediately. On the other hand, for those of you who are on the fence, here’s where my most recent hours went.

Standing Out Amongst The Horde

Project Zomboid is not trying to be unique. If you remember the original X-COM titles in the early nineties, you’ll see where PZ gets a good bit of gameplay inspiration. And, obviously, zombies have been done to (un)death. Traditional RPG elements like quests, crafting and good ‘ol role playing make the entire experience feel like a pair of shoe pulled out years after being stored in the closet. Yet, one cannot stress enough that these shoes are clean, they’re superbly comfortable and they have timeless style.

Note I say PZ is not trying to be unique. Uniqueness is just inherent to their approach. Developer Chris Simpson describes what can be the main element that sets this title apart, “you are inside the confines of a quarantine, squeezed in with a million zombies, and there’s no getting out. You’re fucked, if you pardon the language” (sic). Deconstruct any zombie game, movie, book and this is truly the end result — the inhabitants of this apocalypic world are indeed fucked.

While tellers of zombie stories like to focus on that epic moment when the main character(s) escape the city, save the endangered children and so on, fastforward for an undefined amount of time and those same heroes are always zombie fodder. (Recall the home style video during the credits of the most recent Dawn of the Dead film). PZ elegantly shifts focus from that epic win to that messy loss. The effect, even in alpha, is rather refreshing.

This essentially changes the way you engage the RPG.  You’re no longer striving to beat the game in a traditional sense, nor complete the game in the more modern achievement/badge happy sense. Instead, players will interact with the world as they really see fit, getting the most out of one life, truly striving. “The goal here is purely to have the most unique and remarkable adventure leading up to your eventual and inevitable demise,” Simpson says.

The Story, The Sandbox

Project Zomboid does not mince words. From the beginning, you know what’s going to happen, “[t]his is how you died” the game says amidst an otherwise blank screen, before you take control of Mr. Smith. The game then opens on Smith’s wife, Kate, injured with a broken and bleeding leg. There are hints of an epic escape, but, that’s in the past.

Instead, the beginning of the alpha preview offers a few tutorial type quests meant to acquaint you with rest of your life: craft bandages out of bedsheets for Kate, find a hammer, wood and nails to barricade the bottom story of the house, for instance. The game opens up in short order, however, and you’re literally left to your own devices within the expansive quarantine zone. This is where the sandbox comes in.

PZ is bound to be a survivalist’s dream. From jump, there are many factors that are critical to making it in this expansive, zombie infested land; and they all compound upon each other for one grueling bout of survival. Things like hunger and fatigue will dictate the more basic interactions with the world. Couple that with the game’s internal clock and the propensity for more zombies to roam the streets at night, and the player can find her/himself following a strict schedule of  exploration, foraging and retreating to shelter as predictable as night and day.

Albeit, you and Kate are not the only survivors of this nightmare. After the first foraging quest, a shotgun toting NPC shows up with not-so-nice intentions. One misstep and Mr. Smith’s brains can wind up on the walls. There will be many more NPC’s to experience in the game, both benign and evil, that will throw you off. Other things can muck up your plans, such as fires sparked from a neglected oven, unexpected illness and of course sudden zombie hordes.

For those who like to play within a more structured environment, there will be a story that you can choose to follow. “We have some exciting ideas on how to provide a strong but optional narrative that the player can choose to follow, for as long as they survive, that will help a lot to tie together an otherwise completely sand boxy and story-less game,” says Simpson. While this story isn’t fully fleshed yet, it involves an ineffective government and a sudden, significant power outage. “No longer are you raiding fridges for fresh food, or using ovens to cook it. Plunged into darkness at night means torches and batteries become a prized commodity, and the value of different items suddenly change.”

For The Love Of Zombies

With how limited the gameplay was, I am truly surprised by how much Project Zomboid has going for it. I don’t label myself as a zombie aficionado. Although, it doesn’t take an aficionado to appreciate that in its essence, the zombie is representative of all which threatens to wholly consume us in real life, to a point where we’re facing insurmountable odds. (Let’s face it, we all die in the end because of this world). PZ captures that essence, just as well as any other medium, if not better, and is bound to be a fun and in-depth experience.

The game has great momentum and hopefully it gains. At the time of this writing, PZ has a high 9.6/10 on Desura from all those who’ve downloaded the alpha. There is a robust fan made wiki . Additionally, The Indie Stone enjoys a rather active forum.

Note, quotes taken from Chris Simpson’s blog.