Gamezebo
Open main menu
Search

I'm a video game critic, game designer and obsessive gamer. I play everything, but my real love is old school point-and-click adventure games so when the zombies come, I'll be hunkered down in a bunker with my Keurig, my dogs, and a copy of Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within.
  • Bubble Witch Saga 2 Review: Familiar Magic
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    Bubble Witch Saga 2 Review: Familiar Magic

    By

    Behemoth publisher King has ridden high the last few years on the success of its series of “Saga” games. Among them was Bubble Witch Saga, a spooky bubble popper (or as it could more correctly be termed, “bubble dropper”). This …
  • Snoopy’s Sugar Drop Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    Snoopy’s Sugar Drop Review

    By

    The Peanuts gang has been making people smile for more than sixty years now, and Snoopy, its popular pooch, can seemingly sell anything. That's what the Schultz estate and developer Beeline Interactive is banking on anyway, having created a match-three game mobile called Snoopy's Sugar Drop.The Sugar Drop's weakness is its gameplay, which clearly hops on the Candy Crush bandwagon. Its strength, though, is its charming Peanuts-themed aesthetic.The narrative framework for Snoopy's Sugar Drop is a hunt for Snoopy's bow-making sister Belle who has recently gone missing. Players help Snoopy find clues to Belle's whereabouts by matching three or more cute, Peanuts-themed candies. The candies add some much-needed distinctiveness to the game and are cleverly conceived as baseball mitts, footballs, pianos, doghouses and Woodstock-heads. Beeline further augments the Peanuts motif by creating match blockers shaped like crackers and paw prints. 
  • The Tribez & Castlez Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    The Tribez & Castlez Review

    By

    A couple of years ago, Russian game publisher Game Insight brought us the prehistoric village-builder The Tribez. In it, we took on the role of an adventurous scientist who helps a primitive tribe rebuild their village. In the new sequel to that game, The Tribez and Castlez, we once again don the scientist's lab coat, this time setting our sights on saving a medieval kingdom. Unfortunately, that change in scope is more or less the only way to differentiate the two games, which means Tribez veterans have little in the way of new experiences to enjoy in the sequel.The Tribez and Castlez begins with the first game's mad scientist (at least I think it's him; he seems to have grown some hair since then) and his pretty tribal sidekick Aurora touching down in the middle of a medieval kingdom. Actually, they don't just touch down—they crash land Dorothy-in-Oz-like on top of a magical crystal. In one way, this helps the Prince of the realm since it sends a marauding army of greenskins running. In another, it causes problems for him since he then needs a significant portion of his kingdom rebuilt.Being magically transformed from a scientist to a mage, you set out to help the Prince and his subjects by building structures, clearing land and collecting resources. This is where, if you've played The Tribez, deja vu is likely to set in. 
  • Puzzle Defense: Dragons Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    Puzzle Defense: Dragons Review

    By

    If two game genres ever deserved to be nominated for a "most over-used" designation, it's match-three and tower defense. Still, the shelf life of stale mechanics can often be extended a bit by creating unexpected combinations as new match-three/tower defense game Puzzle Defense: Dragons has managed to do. While this cute little game isn't exactly a paragon of innovation, it does offer a generous amount of free-to-play fun.Puzzle Defense: Dragons has two modes: Campaign and Battle. The significant difference between the two is that the first has combat happen in stages as you progress across a map, and the second has it go on indefinitely (or until you run out of reinforcements). Also, Campaign mode has a weensy bit of implied narrative (re: the dragon attack on your resident kingdom) and gives you five lives/chances to fulfill each level's objectives. Battle mode on the other hand, is continuous and does away with the story add-ons."Whichever the mode, the match-three element of Puzzle Defense: Dragons is clever, since rather than having you rearrange existing icons within a grid, it asks you to create matches by placing the icons yourself. In this case, the icons represent different types of military units starting with a basic swordsman (who's more or less useless) and continuing through more powerful units such as archers, snipers, king's archers, and heavy crossbowmen.The idea is to group three or more of the same unit next to one another. This combines the three and transforms them into a single, more powerful unit. The progression of this works in the order listed above—three swordsmen equal one archer, three archers equal one sniper, and so on. The strategic part comes in as you determine where to create these groupings, especially since once placed, units are immovable (in general).
  • Lost Yeti Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    Lost Yeti Review

    By

    Italy's not exactly considered a hotbed of video game development, but if Lost Yeti is any indication, it should be. This adorable retro puzzler hearkens back to a time before boob physics and ultra-realistic violence, when games were made for and played by everyone. With its pixelated, primary color approach and simple but challenging mechanics, it's like the charming descendant of games like Dig Dug and Burger Time. If not for its maddeningly repetitive (although admittedly fitting) music score and cruel "coming soon" level tease, it would get high marks all around.Lost Yeti begins as a troop of yeti (yetis?) is crossing the glacier-scape doing whatever it is yeti do. Among them is a wee, easily distracted, buck-toothed youngster. He spots a tasty popsicle, veers off the path, and—the horror!—finds himself lost. Fortunately, he has you to guide him back to safety. The gameplay here is based on three precepts: 1. Get the yeti (within an enclosed area) from his starting area to a safe zone; 2. Once the yeti starts moving, he doesn't stop until he runs into an enemy or reaches the safe zone; and 3. Every time the yeti hits a wall, he turns ninety degrees clockwise."These rules couldn't be simpler, but it's amazing how much gameplay developer Neutronized gets out of them. To start, things are fairly simple. You're given time to get your furry feet wet traversing very basic levels by manipulating ice blocks positioned within them. Even better, you get to tromp around picking up tasty popsicles before skipping along to safety. Soon enough however, you're faced with nasty things like pointy-headed blobs and fire-breathing mini-dragons who seem to have it in for you, not to mention tricky burrowing creatures and pits full of spikes. If you manage to get your baby yeti from point A to point B, you're allowed to move on; collected popsicles can be hoarded and used to buy your way past the more challenging levels.
  • Sugar Tales Review
    Reviews
    Sugar Tales Review

    By

    Oy. Is it just me, or is everyone else getting tired of the Candy Crush ripoffs? Perhaps it's not fair to allow King's mega-match-three game own all things sweet, but with millions of people obsessively playing it, it's hard not to. Fair or not, it's hard not to measure all new match-threes against their super-successful predecessor, and match-three social game Sugar Tales is just the latest to suffer by the comparison.Like so many recent match-threes, Sugar Tales embraces a colorful, sweets-related visual theme. It makes a half-hearted attempt to differentiate itself by choosing cake instead of candy and by using a game board made up of hexagonal cells instead of square ones. As some newer match-three games have begun to do, it asks you to match three by clicking on groups of static icons (so long as they're adjacent), rather than moving any of them around. It does, however, change the formula a bit by tossing a cute, googly-eyed monster into the mix."The idea is to keep this cuddly gremlin happy by stuffing his face full of cake. You do that by moving him around the board; as long as there are three or more similar cakes next to one another, he can jump over and gobble them up. Your objective in the beginning is mainly to achieve a certain score within a set number of moves. Later on you're asked to do other things like clear away ice, crates, or angry-looking chocolate chip cookies. As with most match-three games, you're able to create power-ups by matching large groups of similar icons. Exploding croissants and rainbow "super cakes" then create explosive results, and as most of you know, the more explosive effects you achieve, the better.
  • Awakening Kingdoms Review
    Reviews
    • PC
    Awakening Kingdoms Review

    By

    Awakening is one of Big Fish Games' most popular series, and this month the publisher brings us what it hopes will be the next evolutionary step in the hidden object genre: namely a free-to-play hidden object/building sim hybrid called Awakening Kingdoms. While it skillfully combines many of the most prevalent casual game types—hidden object hunts, jigsaw puzzles, building simulations and collectibles—it also fails to overcome the repetitiousness seemingly inherent to the social game milieu.Kingdoms starts well by casting you as the steward of Queen Sophia's ill-fated Skyward Kingdom. Having clashed with and vanquished the evil mage Dreadmyre, the queen asks you to help her people recover and rebuild her war-torn lands. After choosing a name and an avatar, you get to work by becoming acquainted with the kingdom's various human and non-human inhabitants, and then Harry Potter-like, take on an owl assistant named Linea. Gamers familiar with the Awakening universe will feel immediately at home with the game's fantasy characters and landscapes, and social gamers will take its energy-based hidden object searches as a matter of course. Fortunately, in addition to these familiar things, there are a few new elements on offer to pique the interest of less-casual, casual gamers."Then again, Kingdoms'features aren't really new; it's the way they're presented that freshens them up. Since your job is to rebuild the kingdom, a good amount of your time is spent constructing and upgrading the queen's castle and environs. This is more satisfying than in most "ville"-type games because you're given a closer view of things as they improve. It's also better because you have to do something more engaging than clicking and waiting to gain money and resources. Both of these come from exploring various hidden object scenes; alas, this hidden-object-dependency is unfortunate because the process is so repetitive.
  • Frozen Free Fall Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    Frozen Free Fall Review

    By

    By many people's reckoning, Disney's Frozen might be one of the best animated films they've done in a while; even so, there's nothing that says the movie's ancillary products are up to snuff. Disney's team knows how to market with things like dolls, toys, and clothing, and these days they're reinforcing their cinematic brands with mobile games. Sadly, interactive entertainment is not their forte, as evidenced by the mediocre free-to-play match-three game Frozen Free Fall.It's no surprise that Free Fall tells more or less the same story as the film and banks on the film's appeal. Starting with sisters Elsa and Anna, it sets you to removing the snow and frost slowly taking over the kingdom of Arendelle. There's nothing earth (or ice)-shattering here; like a thousand other match-three games, you're asked to achieve a set score or clear the board by matching three or more same-colored crystals. Also like other games in the genre, power-ups like Icebergs are created when you match four or five crystals; other power-ups cause entire vertical or horizontal rows, or rectangular groups of nine crystals, to explode."Disney tries to connect the game with the movie by including some of its imagery in the game's backdrops, as well as its music. It also connects the two through the inclusion of various minor characters who appear here in the form of helpers. It tries to add some Frozen flavor by offering purchasable tools like Ice Picks that can remove a single tile, by scoring each level from one to three snowflakes, and by making you buy snowballs (which are used to add five additional moves if you come within a hair's breadth of winning a certain level). The problem is all of this is window-dressing.