Headphones Review Round Up [Hardware]: SIVGA SV021, VR500, UX3000, and VR2000
By Simon Reed
Update: SIVGA SV021 tested and rated!Boulies Elite Max Chair [Hardware] Review – Assemble, Adjust, Relax
By Adele Wilson
What do we think of the Boulies Elite Max Chair?Red Magic 9S Pro [Hardware] Review – The New Standard For Mobile Gaming?
By Sho Roberts
My Red Magic 9S Pro Review puts this incredible bit of tech through its paces to determine whether it's worth your money.
Category: Reviews
Deer Hunter 2014 Review
By Rob Rich
I've never been big on hunting games. It's not that I take issue with gunning down (mostly) defenseless virtual animals with ridiculously overpowered military hardware, although it is pretty ridiculous all things considered. It's just that I've never been able to get into them. And yet, oddly enough, I've found myself really getting into Deer Hunter 2014 and its simple yet oddly strategic gunplay.Deer Hunter 2014 is basically a collection of simple hunts for various types of wild animals. It's a bit less involved than most other hunting sims of course - most likely to cater to the pick-up-and-play mobile audience. Rather than tracking targets through the underbrush across acres of simulated woods, players simply strafe left and right across a limited area to get a better view of their prey. Instead of focusing on the chase, it's all about the kill shot. Where the animal is hit (head, heart, lungs, etc) can make all the difference."The money earned from each hunt can then be used to upgrade weapons or purchase new ones, which doesn't just make one a more efficient killing machine. Hunts have recommended loadouts (which can make success difficult if the advice isn't followed) and the occasional requirement that will prevent players from taking part until their gear is up to snuff, so no upgrades means no progress. Fortunately there are a number of different kinds of hunts to take on, including the more typical Hunting Series, the almost arcade-like Contract Hunt, and Trophy Hunts that can unlock new regions. There's almost always something to do to earn a bit of cash towards that next scope or rifle barrel.Dice+ Review
By Matt Thrower
The first game I ever played on an iPad was a free version of Liar's Dice where you shook the device to roll the bones. At first, it was novel. After three goes, it was annoying beyond belief. This demonstrates two things: firstly there's a good reason why most board games stick to digital dice; but second, that there's still an aching desire to physically interact with something when you play a board game. Enter Dice+.It's a little rubbery cube which communicates with a range of mobile devices, including those running iOS and Android via Bluetooth, and takes the place of a physical dice. You roll it, and the number flashes on the uppermost face and is communicated to the game. It's slightly bigger than an average dice, but still rolls comfortably from the hand with a pleasingly tactile and weighty feel.It seems to work a distance from the mobile, so your numbers come up even when Dice+ rolls under the table. However, some anti-cheating technology built into the device means a small proportion of rolls don't register. Annoying, but a small price to pay to stop fraudsters from finding the six face and repeatedly dropping it directly on the table. It's charged via a port revealed when you slide up the one face, and a full charge lasts ages: about 20 rolling hours.Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood Review
By Joe Jasko
A direct sequel to Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek, Enigmatis: The Mists of Ravenwood lets us put on the detective badge once again in a wonderful tale of intrigue and hidden object adventuring. On her continued search for the demonic preacher who eluded her at the end of the last game, our fearless detective comes across a frightened young girl named Becky at the edge of a campground. The detective's search for the little girl's parents ultimately leads her into the happy and idyllic campgrounds of Ravenwood, although everything is certainly not as it seems before long: from the oh-so-cheery camp workers, to the way the world seems to shift into darkness at regular turns, and of course, let's not forget the barrels of dead bodies and giant shadowy raven that tends to stop by from time to time.The game's presentation is particularly top-notch, with wonderfully painted visuals and smooth animations, not to mention impressive 3D character models that work like magic in the many engrossing cutscenes. What's great about this game is that The Mists of Ravenwood completely owns up to its rustic campground setting, and everything beyond it makes logical sense within the overall constraints of its own uniquely crafted world. Areas like the logging cabins, a giant tree that you can walk inside of, and even a short detour to the rocky beach below all feel realistic and connected, and you'll never veer off into that oversaturated futuristic temple that seems to make an appearance at the end of almost every hidden object adventure game these days."The Mists of Ravenwood does a lot of things that go the extra mile towards making the overall experience feel like so much more than your typical hidden object adventure. The most welcome of these features are in the deductions that your character can make by strategically placing found pieces of evidence on an investigative bulletin board of sorts (you are a detective after all!). While it's really just a matter of dragging the different evidence items over one of the various plot point circles until you find a match, it's still an extremely nice way of advancing the plot and giving players a nice refresher course at regular intervals as to what the underlying mysteries are.Puzzle Knights Review
Playing Puzzle Knights is much like buying a pack of cheap hot dogs. At first, you look at the packaging, notice how many hot dogs come to a pack, and you think, "This is a really good idea." As you take them home and start to make them, you slowly start to think that you may have made a mistake. By the time it's sitting in a bun, ready to be eaten, you realize that no amount of ketchup can save you now.Like cheap hot dogs, Puzzle Knights isn't necessarily a bad idea. Its gameplay is split into two portions: a match-three puzzle game and a rock-paper-scissors type of battle. For the most part, the match-three gameplay is standard fare. You'll swap the positions of two adjacent gems, making lines of three or more like-colored ones. Clearing four or more gems in one move will occasionally form a power gem, allowing you to clear large amounts of gems quickly. The only slight sense of uniqueness is the turn limit. Each puzzle has a set number of turns to score a set number of points which will influence the other phase of the game.When you're done with the puzzle, you'll enter the combat phase. Combat is the weaker point of Puzzle Knights, due to its lack of hands-on gameplay and a general feeling of pointlessness. When you complete the puzzle, you'll earn stamina. At the pre-fight screen, you'll use that stamina to plan your attack. Each slot of stamina can be filled with one of three options: Attack, Defend, or Counterattack. You'll simply set the order you wish to perform each action and your knight will do that in battle.Amigo Pancho Review
By David Oxford
Amigo Pancho is the tale of a man of adventure, a man who overcomes trials and adversity to rise to the loftiest of heights, all in the pursuit of living life the way it was meant to be lived. And he does it all with nothing more than a pair of balloons.Oh, and your help, of course.If you're familiar with Disney's Where's My…? series, you should find yourself in good shape to help Pancho rise to the top of the world. But make no mistake: this is hardly a clone of those popular titles. Rather than clearing a path for water to reach our hero, your task is to clear his way of any obstacles so that he can safely (and with both balloons intact, preferably) make his way to the top of the screen. As it turns out, there are indeed quite a number of challenges to overcome. Needle-spitting cacti, spikes, cannons, jet intakes that will suck you right in, sword-wielding matadors, and burly luchadores are just some of what lies in Pancho's way. Using the touch screen, you'll manipulate the environment in many ways, from dropping rocks to block the needles, to using fans to avoid the spikes; from using missiles to disable the cannons and jets, to using other hazards to deal with your pursuers. It's quite involved, and very engaging every step of the way.Toast Time Review
I'd imagine that Force of Habit, the Bristol based developers behind the zany arena shoot-em-up Toast Time, conjured up the idea for this game through a cocktail of sleep deprivation and missed meals. I can hear their mad proclamations in my head as I type: "We'd love to treat the team to a nice breakfast of eggs and soldiers, but our toaster's run off to save the world…"Toast Time begins with our heroic kitchen appliance-cum-agent of death TERRY (clever shorthand for Toast Ejecting Recoil & Reload system) taking a stand in the middle of a sky blue playfield as adorable alien assassins charge from all sides. This cosmic menace has their sights set on a ticking clock counting down to the end of one level and the beginning of the next, and it's up to TERRY to zap them with a lethal assortment of baked goods before they reach said timer, end the game, and impose Martian law on this fever dream of a planet.Dispatching enemies is as simple as touching them on your screen. TERRY will then launch his delicious projectiles in that direction, but to make the most out of the targeting system you'll often have to lead your shots. Movement is handled through the same system - instead of using an onscreen joystick, you fire at the ground, and the recoil from your blast sends you flying in the opposite direction in a gamey interpretation of Newtonian law.Greed for Glory: War Strategy Review
By John Anthony
Greed for Glory: War Strategy enters the freemium field with exciting but strangely run-of-the-mill gameplay. It's similar to titles like Battle Dragons and Clash of Clans: the only real difference being a new setting and art style. But despite lacking any sort of innovation, PerBlue's medieval-themed building/combat sim will keep you strangely captivated for weeks on end. Just go easy on the diamonds, okay?Greed for Glory puts you at the helm of a small village looking to become more than a collection of wooden huts. Build new structures as you mine iron and gold, collecting as much currency as you can so you can raise a massive army of archers, knights, and wizards. With all of those trained soldiers milling around, might as well head out and attack nearby villages, right? Increase your fame (and your loot) by sacking other towns, slowly expanding and upgrading your base to accommodate your newfound power and glory.Greed for Glory sticks with the basics as far as building and resource management are concerned. A simple icon-based menu system allows you to choose which structures to place and where to place them. Quarries and mines pull iron and gold out of the ground, while barracks let you train troops to send into battle. Builder shops house workers, trebuchets fling stones at enemies, and still more buildings help you store your riches, upgrade your armies, and keep your village safe from attack. The screen is a little cluttered with information, but it's something you quickly learn to ignore, as what's happening in the center is far more interesting!Chainsaw Warrior Review
By Matt Thrower
Back in 1987, Games Workshop released a solitaire board game called Chainsaw Warrior. It was an impressive innovation back then, before co-operative games or solo variants became common and it got bought and played for its novelty. Now it's been updated for the digital age, even though the intervening years have not been kind on the reputation of its cardboard parent.To play, you create a solider by rolling stats like hand-to-hand skill and reflexes on some dice and picking some equipment. Then you send your intrepid character into a skyscraper where an inter-dimensional rift has opened up, filling the building with zombies, rats, slime, and worse. Your journey proceeds by turning over cards and resolving the monsters and traps thereon, until you die, run up against the very strict turn limit, or meet and defeat the game's central villain for a victory."The original was cumbersome and time-consuming to set up and play, and gave you relatively little reward for all that effort. Mechanically, it communicated little sense of its action-packed premise and had virtually no strategy or decision-making, with almost everything being resolved by a dice roll. An app version obviously takes away the administrative overhead, which is a boon. And I was hoping it would follow up with slick presentation to get its sci-fi horror theme across.