Review: Defense Grid: The Awakening

Brought to us by Hidden Path Entertainment, Defense Grid: The Awakening was released for PC December 2008, Xbox Live Arcade September 2009 and also ported to Mac OS X in July 2010 by a different developer.  There have been a few DLC's released for it since then, and it wasn't until the Steam christmas sales 2011 I was even aware of the game when the complete pack with all DLC released was offered at a heavy discount.

Defense Grid: The Awakening is a traditional tower defense type of game, where the player is tasked with placing defensive towers to block and destroy big waves of invading alien enemies.  While nothing new is brought to the genre, the game is unique in its high production value presented by detailed 3D levels and enemies courtesy of the powerful gamebryo engine, perhaps better known for its use in games such as the Elder Scrolls III and IV, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, Warhammer Online and Civilization IV.

Ridge Racer Unbounded Track Editors!

I don't know about you, but for me this game went from completely not interesting to potentially completely bad ass in about 1 minute and 43 seconds!  Its extra funny because this very video is causing an uproar of Ridge Racer fans damning the game to oblivion for its rather different approach than the classic Ridge Racer titles.  Come to think of it, they do have a point, there's not exactly a lot left of the awesome that was the first few Ridge Racer games on the PS1.  But.. dat advanced editor!

Aion's Free to play model, and something for former Aion players.

What's Aion, then ?

As you may or may not know,  NCSoft's Aion is in the process of switching from the regular MMO monthly subscription form to a free to play model.  The reasons for this are of course the game not drawing enough subscribers to compete with the bigger MMORPG's out there,  despite the game recieving massive praise near its launch as a potential "WoW-killer".

Review: Trackmania 2: Canyon

A different kind of racing game


Trackmania 2: Canyon is developed by Nadeo and published by Ubisoft in september 2011.  Like the previous Trackmania titles, this game behaves quite a bit different than the kind of racing games most gamers might be used to.

Digging deeper and more greedily into Roguelikes

This morning I thought I'd go a bit more in depth on the phenomenon that is the roguelike genre, seeing as I've recently mentioned it in my reviews of Dungeons of Dredmor and The Binding of Isaac, and also because the genre remains completely unknown to perhaps even most of today's avid gamers.

Review: Dungeons of Dredmor

Dungeons of Dredmor + Realm of the Diggle Gods DLC

Brought to us by indie games developer Gaslamp Games, Dungeons of Dredmor (DoD) is something as rare as a commercial Roguelike game released July 2011 for online distribution on PC/Mac/Linux.  In it, the player takes on the role of an unfortunate soul shoved down into a dungeon filled with monsters and traps, but also the main villain himself Dredmor who must of course be vanquished.

Coming up:

Figure as I'm already back to writing here I might as well hit the ground running. In additions to the reviews posted tonight you can expect the following over the next few days:

Reviews for Dungeons of Dredmor, Defense Grid: The Awakening, Jamestown, Limbo, Trackmania 2:Canyon and more, in no particular order.

Review: The Binding of Isaac

The Binding of Isaac is a PC and Mac indie game available on Steam for around €5. Despite being written in Flash, this is a surprisingly deep game that has a lot of content.

How can you quit when this is the exit prompt?

In it, you control Isaac who lives a secluded but happy life with his mother in a house on a hill. He minds his own and she minds hers while watching christian TV. That is, all is well until mother hears the voice of God, telling her to kill her son to prove her faith.  Overhearing this, Isaac panics a bit in his room, but just before mother enters his room, knife in hand to finish the deed he finds a trap door in his room and escapes into the basement, where.. well, things just get worse to be honest.

Review: Batman: Arkham Asylum

Oh boy, this one has been so long overdue I don't even know where to begin apologizing.  Do note, this is not a review for Arkham City, this is Arkham Asylum. Yep. I got this game in one of the Game of the Year discounts on Steam, which was a pretty good while ago too.

To get the tech stuff done with, this review is based on gameplay on PC through Steam and Games for Windows Live on an average spec PC. Don't mind the not-maxed graphic settings and lack of extra anti aliasing on my screenshots please, I know this game is still a beauty to behold on the right specs and won't critizise looks.

Oh, snap!

Review: Age of Empires III

Sometimes, when you're as old as I, some classics stick out. This can be a good thing, or a bad thing based on how well they age. Many, many games older than say 5 years from release will simply refuse to play since they rely on outdated drivers and other programs that are no longer supported. Others may run, but seeing the game running again will probably completely ruin whatever childhood worships you once had on such games.  And don't even get me started on the games that are non-compatible on current systems, and most likely never will be enjoyed to their fullest rights.. Unless of course someone 5-10 years down the road from now decides to write a retro review, such as this one I'll admit, and prove me wrong.

Home boys in Amsterdam busy sending me stuff