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Nick Tylwalk enjoys writing about video games, comic books, pro wrestling and other things where people are often punching each other, regaardless of what that says about him. He prefers MMOs, RPGs, strategy and sports games but can be talked into playing just about anything.
  • Republique Episode 2: Metamorphosis Review
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    • iOS
    Republique Episode 2: Metamorphosis Review

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    Hope is still alive -- and if you didn't want any spoilers, you should go play the first episode of République before reading the rest of this review. The second installment is titled Metamorphosis, a word that has multiple meanings within Camouflaj's story-driven stealth and puzzle-solving epic. Happily, it doesn't mean the game is changing into something lesser, just building on a great first chapter by adding on a few new layers to both story and gameplay.Metamorphosis picks up right where Exordium left off, and in some ways, right where it started as well. Hope is trapped somewhere she'd rather not be, and to keep her safe, it's going to take a mastery of hacking into the network of surveillance cameras and computer systems in her environment. A default profile can be used to skip right to this chapter if so desired, but playing through its predecessor helps in understanding the core mechanics and is virtually mandatory for making sense of the plot.
  • Marvel meets XCOM in Avengers Alliance Tactics
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    Marvel meets XCOM in Avengers Alliance Tactics

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    Marvel: Avengers Alliance and XCOM: Enemy Unknown don't have much in common except for the colons in their names and the fact that they're both awesome games. But if we could somehow cause them to meet, fall in love and procreate, it's possible we'd end up with a turn-based tactics game with a full complement of Marvel super heroes and villains.If that sounds like something you'd play (and it should), you might be happy to know that we can skip the awkward courtship process and just wait a little bit. Marvel just announced Avengers Alliance Tactics, a squad-based game for Facebook that will hit the U.S. "soon."Borrowing from the successful XCOM formula, the new title puts players in the boots of a S.H.I.E.L.D. commander, controlling the actions of agents and Avengers alike. If Avengers Alliance is any indication, the game's story should spread from the Savage Land to familiar locations all over the Marvel Universe. Various heroes will be available for recruitment and advancement, no doubt showing off increasingly powerful abilities along the way.
  • Blast Zone! Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    Blast Zone! Review

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    Call it fate, destiny or whatever you'd like, but it's only fitting that a company named Kabam would eventually get around to creating a game called Blast Zone! Unabashedly inspired by Bomberman and its many progeny, it's fun to play solo but even more of a hoot to play with or against others. Admit it: you thought I was going to go for the easy one and say "blast" there, didn't you?Considering the gameplay involves running around mazes and planting bombs to blow up other players and AI-controlled characters, Kabam could have gone for something dark and dystopian here. Instead, Blast Zone! takes a cuter, more cheerful route by imagining its competitions as part of a popular TV show. As far as I can tell, no one actually dies despite the massive amounts of explosions that take place.
  • App Annie Adds Advertising Analytics, App Store Optimization
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    • Android
    • iOS
    App Annie Adds Advertising Analytics, App Store Optimization

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    "It's crazy. It's a real Wild West out there, and it's a problem that we're trying to figure out."That description of the situation facing developers and publishers of mobile games and apps of all kinds comes from Marcos Sanchez, the vice president of global corporate communications at App Annie. Bringing order to the chaos surrounding user acquisition and discoverability is his company's primary mission; one that got two new tools this week.App Annie announced two new additions to its free product offerings, both designed to give mobile publishers more insight into how they spend their time and money promoting their games and apps. The first is Advertising Analytics, an upgrade to the company's existing Analytics platform that tracks advertising revenue and ad spend across the iOS, Google Play and Amazon app stores.Sanchez says that App Annie recognized the need for publishers to have easy access to that kind of information after discovering how much effort they were going to just to keep track of their advertising dollars.
  • Bandai Namco: Late to the Free-to-Play Party, but Incredibly Well Dressed
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    • iOS
    • PC
    Bandai Namco: Late to the Free-to-Play Party, but Incredibly Well Dressed

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    Toward the end of a small group session at Bandai Namco's Global Gamers Day in Las Vegas, Director of Digital Games In Joo Hwang wandered in. He was ostensibly there to give some extra insight into the game on display, but instead, he did something unexpected: he admitted his company had made a mistake.Tilting the conversation toward free-to-play games, Hwang admitted that Bandai Namco had missed the boat and was now working hard to catch up. Stating that the only way to make up ground would be to deliver titles of very high quality, he also hinted at the difficulty in getting everyone involved to change mindsets from shipping products to delivering services.Hwang punctuated that last point by saying that he told employees to face the fact that "the most ugly form of your game is going to be the launch product."Though the event covered a lot of ground, the recurring theme of Bandai Namco embracing free-to-play games on all platforms was impossible to miss. It popped up in expected places like upcoming mobile games, but also in the revamping of established console franchises in F2P forms.
  • Roblox User-Generated Games Earning up to $10k a Month
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    • iOS
    • PC
    Roblox User-Generated Games Earning up to $10k a Month

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    When Roblox launched its Developer Exchange program last October, the thought was that some of the people using the platform to create their own games would be able to exchange enough virtual currency for real money that they'd be able to help pay for their educations or make some extra income on the side. Six months later, it's apparent that vision may have been too modest.Roblox announced this week that two teenage twin brothers from Ireland earned the first ever $10,000 monthly payout from the Developer Exchange, bringing their total earnings to $19,000. Conor and Darragh Griffin (known collectively as TheGamer101) are the minds behind Sword Fighting Tournament, a multiplayer fighting game that has racked up more than 25 million play sessions since its debut in 2009.Its continued growth has mirrored that of Roblox as a whole, and CEO David Baszucki says it's not a fluke.
  • Tip Tap Monsters Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    Tip Tap Monsters Review

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    Maybe it would be different if I had grown up in Asia, but mahjong isn't the first thing that comes to mind when pondering what would make a good mobile game for the whole family. Crazy Labs obviously thinks slightly differently than I do, which explains why Tip Tap Monsters is exactly what I just described. It uses inviting graphics and an intuitive interface to give it broad appeal, but not everyone will be crazy about the double-fisted monetization system.If you're not familiar with mahjong, it's outside of the realm of this review to explain it. Suffice it to say that it's a tile-matching game that was born in China many years ago, and it's been turned into video games many times over.And yet, maybe not ever like this. Tip Tap Monsters replaces the tiles with cute, rectangular monsters, distinguishable from one another by things like color and the number of eyes they have. They're animated too, blinking while they wait to be selected and jumping up and down when they've been picked as part of a match.
  • This War of Mine Preview
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    This War of Mine Preview

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    On the surface, that question sounds ridiculous. Historically, they've always been entertainment, diversions from the real world. Of course they're intended to be fun.The notion of games that could impact their players in different ways is a relatively recent one, and even now, the vast majority of them still opt for thrills over thoughtfulness. Even games that deal with the ugliest slices of human nature have been turned into lucrative amusements, a state of affairs that we rarely if ever question.Warsaw-based 11 bit studios is ready to challenge that thinking with This War of Mine. Inspired by the real experiences of regular people who have survived during times of armed conflict, it's about as far from the Call of Duty or Battlefield depiction of war as it's possible to get - which is precisely the point."It's a game about surviving war as a civilian, so we show the war from a different perspective than video games usually do." managing director Grzegorz Miechowski said to Gamezebo at PAX East." You usually play video games as a soldier. That's entertainment, and I'm fine with that. But we have to remember that in real life, war is not fun."