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• E3 2013
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Love video games, but hate spending money? Maybe this will lighten the load a bit – in conjunction with our partners at StackSocial, we’re giving Gamezebo’s readers a chance to win a $1000 Steam credit!

It seems like everywhere I turn these days, there’s another new 8-bit adventure that’s set on bringing me back to the days of playing The Legend of Zelda in my parent’s basement as a kid. But there’s a very good reason for this steady influx of new-age retro-inspired adventures: it’s because they were all just so seriously awesome, and Elliot Quest looks to be just as awesome as the rest.

If you had a stalker, and if one day this stalker told you he had hidden nine pieces of a treasure map in various places around the local National Park, then you’d probably want to find out just what the hell his deal was, right? Well so does the narrator and “misanthropic gamer” in Alone in the Park, a very low-key adventure game that functions more like a riveting visual novel than anything else. With sharp, succinct writing and lighthearted adventuring puzzles, this is one interactive experience that will weave its winding footsteps into your mind and stay there until every last inch of that park is explored.

Looking for a great hack’n’slash dungeon crawl that even gives Diablo a run for it’s money? GOG.com has kicked off their 2013 #noDRM Summer Sale, and to celebrate, they’re offering Torchlight for free for the first 48 hours.

Superman just can't seem to catch a break. First his planet blows up, taking his parents – and his entire society and culture – along with it, and now his new game Man of Steel keeps crashing.

Hi. Don Kirkland here, programmer/designer/etc. at GeekBrain Games. Diary entry #2 is upon us, and we’re still not quite at the point of putting the game in front of the big wide world.

When a little physics-puzzle game about an alligator named Swampy who just wanted to take a shower hit the App Store in 2011, I don’t think anyone was expecting the colossal hit that was about to rock the world of mobile gaming. It soon became clear that Disney’s Where My Water? was simply too big to be held in that underground bathtub, so next players saw a licensed sequel in Where’s My Perry?, based on the popular Disney cartoon, Phineas and Ferb. Well now we finally know what’s in store for the future of Where’s My…? games, and that future is starring none other than Disney’s own Mickey Mouse!

This Thursday, the mystical and well-received adventure game Anodyne will be released on mobile iOS devices as “Anodyne Mobile,” and will be playable on both smartphones and tablets for $4.99 (although if you pick up the game in the first few days after its release, you can get it for a discounted $2.99).

Cling Thing is the latest physics-puzzler game from Chillingo and Atom-Soft, and this one is all about helping a cutesy little squish creature traverse through various levels by clinging to the sticky walls around him. But even though Cling Thing features a ton of puzzling levels and deeper incentives to keep you clinging and swinging back for more, its vague denotation of “thing” in the title proves to be just as vague and bland as the actual adventure that’s contained within.

Upon first glance, Tribal Quest may seem like an infinite runner starring a guy who looks a bit like Kratos from God of War and who sounds like John Goodman. That assumption is correct, though it tries to be much more. Tribal Quest is presented as a difficult game. A difficulty boost to the genre would be a great thing at times, but much of the game’s difficulty stems from its controls and not its design.

There are blocks moving toward the bottom of the screen and when they get there, you’re done. CRUSH! is about as singular, straightforward, and intuitive as games get. While perhaps too determined to strip every atom of superfluity and chaff away, there’s a real challenge here for the right sort of people, and a fleeting distraction for the rest of us.

During Ubisoft’s typically polished press conference and booth presentations at E3 this year, the company showed it had a good handle on how a second screen could be used to enhance its upcoming lineup of console and PC games. It just didn’t make a tablet the centerpiece of any of these shows.

I get it. Games like Rage of Bahamut are quite good at making money, and game developers need to make money. But there has to be a better way than mimicking the formula. Steel Commanders mixes things up a little, so it’s not as big an offender as Reign of Dragons, but it’s still tough to get excited about playing what is essentially the same game I’ve been playing for well over a year now.

Same as every dog picks up a case of fleas sometime in its life, those of us that play video games on a regular basis have been burned by licensed games at least once. There are no exceptions. As a result, we immediately assume the worst about licensed fare, sometimes prodding at it with a tissue when interaction is necessary. But one benefit to approaching licensed games on the defensive is that it makes the decent games that much easier to appreciate. Despicable Me: Minion Rush, for example, is an endless running game that’s well-polished and surprisingly charming.

The latest adventure game book from Tin Man Games, Fighting Fantasy: The Forest of Doom is a challenging, but not terribly sophisticated sword-swinging romp through the foreboding, monster-infested Darkwood Forest.

Eternal beauty can be a real hassle. There's the fitness regimen, all those salads, tons of moisturizing cream, and the complete absence of chocolate in your diet. Plus, in the case of the queen in Living Legends: Frozen Beauty, there's the matter of tricking the most beautiful girls in the kingdom to periodically walk into your castle so you can steal their life force, all without anyone else finding out about it. What a bother!

We’ve heard rumblings about this one for quite some time now, but today 2K and Firaxis Games have officially confirmed that the popular and critically acclaimed turn-based tactical game XCOM: Enemy Unknown is coming to iOS this Thursday, June 20. This anticipated release will mark a substantial shift towards bringing full and in-tact console or PC gaming experiences to the mobile screen.

The big question: what happens to us after we die?  In the world of Master Reboot, the answer is clear: your soul is uploaded to the Soul Cloud.  All your memories and experiences are stored in dedicated servers that allow you to recall and relive your life even after it’s over.  “Saving your past to secure your future.”

Combo Crew is a beat'em'up for touch screen devices from The Game Bakers. The studio's creative director, Emeric Thoa, doesn't want you to get knocked out too quickly. He's been kind enough to share the following tips and tricks with Gamezebo's readers.

Skyrim is amazing. There’s a pretty good chance you already know this. The game snagged more Game of the Year awards in 2011 than you can shake a stick at. It’s huge, it’s addictive, and you could easily lose yourself in there for a few hundred hours. If you’re thinking of picking up the Legendary Edition that just launched, you won’t find a better deal than right here at Gamezebo.