Gamezebo Archives - May 2012

If I had a nickel for every hidden object game that game out in a year, well… I’d probably have really heavy pockets. But despite the overabundance of titles available, a few developers have managed to stand out as the masters of the genre. And Blue Tea Games? That’s one of them.

Welcome to the quick start guide for Ravenshire Castle: a sequel to the popular Facebook games Ravenwood Fair and Ravenskye City. Build your castle and sneak into the castles of your rivals and loot them of their treasures.

Hot on the heels of their much-publicized emancipation from the Facebook platform, and self-proclaimed conversion to the church of mobile, social gaming mainstay CrowdStar is ready to take their show on the road, expanding a couple of their most popular franchises into the (ironically named) Wild West of mobile gaming: Southeast Asia. How will they make it out there? With the a little help from their friends, of course.

Take one part stealth action game, but give the protagonist an unlimited supply of bombs, and you end up with something close to Dynamite Jack. It’s a top-down 2D puzzle/action game where you play a space marine trying to escape a mine after ditching that whole captivity thing. Being chained down ain’t Jack’s bag, baby. Jack likes to blow stuff up.

As the Summer rolls in, there are few things that can bug you as much as, well, bugs do. You try and spray them, zap them, or even squish them, but the Earth’s insects are relentless. But if you thought bugs were annoying for insects, just imagine how annoying they are for our tiny friend Skippy the squirrel! He’s had enough of the bug invasion, and this means war.

What do you get when you combine Samus Aran’s morph ball with a bear? While these two entities would likely never co-exist, we’d like to think that the end result would look a little like Matmi’s upcoming iOS and Android title, Rollabear.

Let’s face it: most gamers aren’t particularly famous for their impressive physique. While we’re not saying the stereotype is always true, there’s a reason that it exists. With mobile devices, gamers have been getting plenty of new ways to integrate exercise into gaming. You can enter a zombie infestation in Zombies Run!, and even enter international conspiracy with CodeRunner, but Creative Freaks is about to take the fitness genre somewhere even crazier: dating.

As the iOS platform continues to get more and more graphically advanced (especially with the advent of the third-generation iPad), gamers continue to speculate whether or not it will one day be able to provide the same big-budget gameplay found only in console titles. While the debate is likely to rage on for the next few years, Gameloft’s N.O.V.A 3 is by far the strongest testament for a console-quality app to date.

If you’re wondering why Gamezebo’s a little late in its coverage of the release of Ravenshire Castle, the answer’s simple--for a couple of days, I was unable to do anything past the third or fourth quest thanks to a bug that prevented new missions from appearing. That in itself speaks of the obstacles surrounding the game’s release, and as I’ve ventured into the castle itself and beyond, I’m surprised to find less threatening shortcomings at almost every turn. It’s a shame, really, since there’s a good game lurking behind all these issues, and Ravenshire Castle goes to great lengths to prove that there’s still room for innovation in an aging genre.

Ah, adolescence. A time of growing up and becoming a young adult. The start of romance, education, the spikes, the buzz saws, the . . . what? It seems that Great Oak Villiage does things a little bit differently than kids these days are used to. Want to become an Oakguard? You’re going to have to defy death and escape the Path of Pain. Good luck.

Snark Busters: High Society is a letdown. It cleaves closely to the mechanics of the Snark Busters franchise but the qualities that made the first game great, and the second game near-great, turn out to be almost as elusive as the Snark itself.

Zynga was one of the first well-known developers on Facebook, but that pedigree doesn't guarantee the company's future success; in order to stay competitive in the increasingly competitive social game arena, it's got to keep innovating. Of late, the mega-developer – best known for its “Ville” titles – is making new flavors of casual entertainment, and one of the best thus far is jungle-themed bubble popper, Bubble Safari.

Welcome to the Snark Busters: High Society walkthrough on Gamezebo. Snark Busters: High Society is a hidden object adventure game created by Alawar Entertainment. This walkthrough includes tips and tricks, helpful hints, and a strategy guide to how to complete Snark Busters: High Society.

Blue Tea Games is known for making strong hidden object adventures, and that's what makes Fabled Legends: The Dark Piper so disappointing. From its ho-hum story concept to its shop-worn gameplay, The Dark Piper marches staidly along, offering little in the way of wonder, mystery, innovation or suspense. With little for veteran gamers to latch onto, The Dark Piper becomes an exercise in mediocrity meant for either the utterly inexperienced or the painfully undiscerning.

Last month, we reported that Zynga was ready to compete with $1.8 billion dollars in cash available for acquisitions, and that Zynga was very likely to be putting the majority of its spending money into the rapidly expanding mobile market. Less than a month later, Zynga has used their extra cash to buy mobile gaming startup Wild Needle.

Ah, boxing. The grunts of modern gladiators, the smack of blood hitting the canvas, the crunch of breaking cartilage—will not be found in Punch Hero for iOS. Gamevil’s boxing title doesn’t offer a very serious take on the sport, but it also doesn’t wallow in the goofy, simple fun that was achieved by Nintendo’s Punch-Out!! a full 28 years ago. The constant hocking of in-app purchases doesn’t exactly lend the game a sporting atmosphere, either.

Remember Ninja Chicken? It was that chicken-based platformer that released on Android in March. After over five million downloads, MoMinis decided to set the little guy loose for another outing. I typically enjoy scoffing at developers who rush the sequel to a solid game, especially when the original is less than two months old. In this case, I feel I need to make an exception. Not a ton has changed from the original, but Ninja Chicken Ooga Booga is another solid outing.

If you want to be a retro looking game and play in a 50 pixel by 50 pixel space, then really you need to be pretty simple. There’s only so much that can go on in such a tiny spot. In Gunbrick, you play as a tiny square who can rotate left and right with the keyboard and fire a gun that sticks out of one of your four sides. You can’t move the gun, you can only change which direction it’s pointed by rolling around. It’s a unique mechanic and it’s put to excellent use over the course of the game.

Most of us, when we hear the word "acme," skip the dictionary definition and make a mental beeline straight for the misadventures of Wile E. Coyote. At first glance, the connection between the mischievous character and Acme Planetary Defense - the new shooter from Taptoon Games - is tenuous at best, consisting only of the fact that your upgrades and resources are delivered in iconic crates. A little hands on time with the colorful, chaotic shooter however, reveals a game that would do the Looney Toons proud.

One of the biggest problems facing RPGs is the stagnation of turn-based combat. While it’s not something that ruins every game, it’s hard to deny that constantly clicking through a menu with limited interaction is very engaging. Juggernaut: Revenge of Sovereign breaks through this mold with an overhand swing by creating a touch-based combat system that’s fun and surprisingly deep. Did I mention that it has great visuals and is free to play?