Zombies are attacking Nintendo’s digital platform and the only way to stop them is…a massive slingshot apparently. This new shooting gallery title from Gamers Digital pits survivors against an oncoming zombie horde.

Players will need to launch everything from anvils to boxes filled with dynamite to stop the undead menace (and maybe destroy a few buildings along the way). Zombii Attack is now available on WiiWare for 500 of Nintendo’s moon bucks.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is cool in every way. It has an awesome acronym — S:S&S EP. The soundtrack is killer. It has one of the most focused and ferocious storylines I’ve ever experienced. I can throw adjective after adjective out there and still won’t have enough to do this game justice, so I must settle for breaking it down technically.

The game played so well, I wrote a four piece feature on it back in May. Go ahead and read that if you want all the glorious minutia. Here’s the lite version of why it’s my game of the year.

Read more… »

I reviewed it; I created a guide for it; I lived and breathed it for over a month – Dark Souls is my game of the year.

As a follow up to the great Demon’s Souls (also my Game of the Year at the time), expectations couldn’t be higher. To my delight, it met pretty much all of them, and soared even higher than it’s predecessor in many respects. Read more… »

What can I say about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that hasn’t been said by almost every other gaming publication out there? I mean the game has it all; story, visuals, immersion, gameplay. Aside from the few bugs I encountered, there really isn’t aspect of the game that I found disappointing. I’ve dumped tons of hours into Skyrim leveling up my skills, slaying monsters, and just wandering around the wilderness waiting to see what’s in store for me around the next corner. If it wasn’t for my childish desire to be a pro StarCraft II player, I may have taken up permanent residence in Skyrim. Read more… »

Even though we’re supposed to pick a single game–hence the title Game of the Year–I couldn’t do it. In a year of great games like Batman Arkham City, Portal 2, Uncharted 3, Modern Warfare 3 (and that’s just the mainstream titles) I was able to narrow my choice down to two, one mainstream and one indie game that I felt deserved to be called my Games of the Year.

Read more… »

Officer Wagon has a big problem – a gang of sexy criminals have busted out of jail, and it’s up to her and her alone to put them behind bars again. Over sixteen levels, Wagon will sprint, leap, and blast her way through various obstacles and enemies to capture five fleety jailbirds per level.

Although she does have a gun, the game is primarily puzzle based (like Mighty Flip Champs) – but is it exciting enough to warrant a $5.99 price tag? Read more… »

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.

Read more… »

In case you were too busy nerf-herding, The Old Republic launched this week, and it’s kind of a big deal. Part KOTOR/Mass Effect style action-RPG, part MMO, the newest game in the Star Wars franchise has finally hit. Of course, you can never be too careful to protect yourself from online smugglers, so some extra security methods are available.

Similar to WoW’s extra authentication method, Bioware and EA are offering both a physical authenticator device (for a fee) or a free mobile app to help secure your account. Either option helps protect your account by generating a random number that you must input before logging into the game, or your online account. Considering how easy it is to keylog these days, I’d highly recommend picking up either option.

Also, as per the usual MMO routine, you’ll have to put a credit card or game card on file before utilizing your 30 day free period – to bypass this, you can use Paypal on the official website, or use a pre-paid Visa Giftcard (just make sure it has a 3 digit security code on the back, and an expiration date).

Let’s cut to the chase: you know those 10 new nifty Gameboy Advance Ambassador games you just bagged on your 3DS? There’s a trick to changing the resolution and shrinking the picture. Are you ready for the secret? Grab your notepad, because this one’s time consuming: hold select when your GBA game starts. There you go – your resolution is now the original size!

A lot of sources are reporting that they find the new mode “less ugly”, but personally, I’m used to the screen-stretching effect, and I couldn’t care less either way (but hey, the article gave me an excuse to post a Minish Cap picture, so I can’t really go wrong here).

Read more… »

[Update - the redesign is live! Go grab your games!]

2011 isn’t the greatest year on record for Nintendo news, but the year isn’t over with yet! Nintendo Everything is reporting that the new and improved Club Nintendo will offer something the original storefront was severely lacking: digital downloads. These downloads won’t break your virtual bank either – they’re reasonably priced at around ~100-150 coins per item (roughly 2-3 retail game redemptions).

The first reported offering consists of Fluidity (150 points), Super Mario Kart (100 points), 3D Classics: Xevious (100 points), and Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! (150 points). Thankfully, these games will be cycled out in quick succession for new ones on January 10th – could it be that Nintendo is finally making that big push for online infrastructure? Stay tuned in 2012 to find out, as the Wii-U will be the Big N’s biggest online test yet.

If you have a few Nintendo product codes lying around, make sure you create a free Club Nintendo account and register them!

Read more… »

Spoiler alert: This article contains some details about Skyrim’s Imperial-Stormcloak civil war quest line.

The other day I read an article on Motherboard, “Skyrim Should be a Game About Nothing”, where Joshua Kopstein claims that Skyrim should’ve been a game about nothing: “Of course I mean ‘nothing’ in the tabula rasa sense; a kind of videogaming zen that coaxes enlightenment from simplicity.” After admitting to being “spoiled” by games like Minecraft, he also says that Skyrim breaks his flow with “the fact that there is some grand quest I should be embarking on, some dragon I should be slaying or village I should be saving.” Read more… »

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. Read more… »