Rune Raiders takes the turn based strategy dungeon crawler formula and boils it down to the bare minimum essence of the genre. It's light on story, graphics, music and seemingly every other metric for judging a game. For instance, the on-screen representation of your heroes are just pictures of their faces moving around a grid. Yet for a weirdly stripped down game it's compelling enough to be worth a look, though it might take some explaining.
I remember it like it was yesterday. My friends and I would pack up all our weaponry, stir up all our hubris, and go stomping off on adventure after adventure. We'd loose our arrows and cast our spells on whatever stood in our way. We didn't do it to catch the eye of the fair maidens, though many a lady's company was enjoyed. We didn't do it for the great feasts thrown in our honor, though many a flagon was hoisted to our thirsting gullets. No, friend, we did it all for the runes. Those sweet, majestic runes.
It's not easy being PopCap Games. Sure, they're one of the most successful casual game makers in the business - and deservingly so as they continuously publish critically-acclaimed and commercially-successful games. Need proof? How about Bejeweled, Chuzzle, Zuma, Insaniquarium, Feeding Frenzy, Bookworm Adventures and Peggle, to name a few.But as a result, gamers grow to expect nothing but greatness from them each and every time. They've raised the bar not just for the industry but for themselves.
The more things change, the more they play the same.Need proof?See Bugatron Worlds, a frantically-paced spaceship shooter that successfully apes 1981 arcade classic Galaga to excellent effect. Neither the deepest nor most engaging desktop amusement out there, it'll nonetheless captivate the entire family, offering an afternoon or two's worth of high-energy, button-mashing fun.