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  • LYNE Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    • PC
    LYNE Review

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    The core gameplay of minimalist puzzler LYNE is reminiscent of classic Arukone: connect two like shapes anchored at different spots on a grid via a single, unbroken line.  There are multiple shapes on the board that must be connected—triangle to triangle, square to square—without their distinctly-colored lines crossing each other.  But LYNE expands upon this basic rule in a number of ways to enhance the challenge, depth, and ingenuity of an initially simple puzzle foundation.   The most obvious of these changes is that LYNE takes place on a graph paper-like grid, allowing lines to be drawn diagonally.  In more standard Arukone games, such as Flow Free or Trainyard, each move fills an entire block and can only be dragged horizontally or vertically.  LYNE's added dimension doubles the potential moves and strategies available, creating seemingly endless options on even small game boards.To both challenge players further and guide them toward the correct path of the many available, colored spaces that match the end shapes are scattered about the grid.  Each of these must be passed through when connecting their related shapes, and can only be touched by their like-colored lines.  This means a blue square's line cannot intersect a green diamond's, but you also cannot block off access to the diamond since the green line must reach it.  The result is often long, roundabout loops where a line circles the screen before returning to an end shape only one block away, and unexpected solutions to seemingly simple challenges.
  • Detective Grimoire Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    • PC
    Detective Grimoire Review

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    There has been a murder.  Richard Remington, the owner of the swampland tourist attraction Boggy's Bog, has been killed in the murky, mushy trenches outside his office.  The only suspect to start is Boggy himself, the legendary swamp creature that inspired the creation of the vacation destination and who may or may not actually exist.  As the eponymous Detective Grimoire, it's your job to explore Boggy's Bog, investigate the murder, and nab the culprit—human or myth.Players familiar with SFB Games' (formerly Super Flash Bros) 2007 Flash game of the same name will recognize the gameplay in Detective Grimoire.  A simplified and streamlined point-and-click adventure, much of your investigation is spent traveling around the swamp, examining beautifully animated scenes, locating clues, and interrogating potential suspects. While both Detective Grimoire and its Flash inspiration revolve around solving a murder in an amusement park, this newest entry into Grimoire's case history presents an entirely new story, cast of characters, and challenges, as well as a different, larger, and more fleshed-out world.  All of the dialogue is charmingly voiced, backstories are deeper, and mysteries more elusive.  At the same time, Grimoire fans will be treated to playful nods to the original, from jabs at Officer James's facial hair to an uncanny red-headed sidekick.This successful combination of lighthearted jokes and a weighty murder mystery keeps Detective Grimoire consistently engrossing.  While Grimoire finds himself in a variety of scenic-yet-creepy locations, from a darkened office lined with shadowy animal heads to a teetering bridge supporting one lone house, the mood of his investigation is upbeat and often humorous.  His tone with suspects is more confused than accusatory, and their reactions are unperturbed caricatures.
  • Murder in the Hotel Lisbon Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    Murder in the Hotel Lisbon Review

    By

    In the realm of video games, murders are typically solved by folks that are barely able to dress themselves. This time around we have a detective with an impossibly stupid-looking hat solving what's being incorrectly passed off as a suicide. Don't tell him his hat looks silly, though. You'll hurt his feelings.Murder in the Hotel Lisbon is a point-and-click adventure game from Nerd Monkeys. You play as Justin Case, an independent detective in desperate need of money (as detectives often are). One day, two unusual things show up in Justin's office: A clown robot, and an actual case to solve."The robot, known simply as "Clownbot," is supposedly an inheritance from a relative Detective Case is unfamiliar with. The timing of Clownbot's arrival is good: There's been a murder at the Hotel Lisbon that's being (poorly) passed off as a suicide. Exactly the kind of case that requires a robot's delicate, steely touch.As you might expect from a game about a detective in a goofy hat and his robot clown accomplice, the tone of Murder in the Hotel Lisbon is not the least bit serious. Detective Case cracks jokes constantly, and sarcasm flows like bitter water. Heck, one of Clownbot's functions is to tell bad jokes on command. There's even an "audience" that roars along with the zingers (and a single spectator that belts out laughter at the clunkers).
  • Legend of Equip Pants Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    Legend of Equip Pants Review

    By

    Those of us old enough to remember playing the very first Dragon Warrior game on the NES can also remember giggling over the option to buy "Clothes" as a starter armor set for our hero. "What, was the hero naked before we bought the Clothes?" we asked each other.Of course, our 8-bit hero wasn't actually naked (or at least we couldn't see his shame because of the NES's graphical limitations and/or Nintendo's strict censorship policies at the time). However, the legacy of the naked hero continues with Legend of Equip Pants, an odd, odd adventure game fueled by jokes about underwear, shorts, and pantaloons."Legend of Equip Pants tells the complex tale of Sir Pantsalot, a knight living in a kingdom that's troubled by an "underwearwolf" (amongst other monsters based on garments that secure people's junk). Sir Pantsalot is noble and true, but he seemingly has problems with indecent exposure in a very pro-pants society. He sets out to find some manner of covering for his ding-dong, but his journey is destined to be difficult.Legend of Equip Pants is, in a word, silly. It tries very hard to be funny. The curious thing is it mostly succeeds, even though it retells the same joke over and over. Strange as it is to say, the game's juvenile themes just mesh well with its retro pixel-based graphics and solemn RPG soundtrack. You'll find yourself grinning even when you try and summon your inner grade three teacher ("Boogers, farts, and underwear are not funny!")
  • Reviews
    • PC
    Namco High Review

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    Namco High is the latest video game to come from ShiftyLook, the online branch of Namco Bandai which reinvigorates several of the company's various, more latent intellectual property as webcomics and cartoons. It's only fitting, then, that in this browser-based dating simulator from the creator of Homestuck, you get to pal around with various characters from ShiftyLook's comics and beyond.Well, they tout it as a dating sim, but from what we've played, that's a little bit of a misnomer. You get to engage and interact with numerous characters (15 on the Namco side, three from Homestuck), but things never get deeply romantic. They do, however, get rather humorous in a way which feels rather reminiscent of Capcom's Ace Attorney series—which is never a bad thing.You take on the role of a gender-neutral Cousin from Katamari, which you can rename anything you like, and you find yourself in detention with the odd crew of what Principal Dig Dug and his detention supervisor, King, call a group of "delinquents". Before long, though, you come to find out that your fellow captives aren't so bad after all. 
  • Awakening Kingdoms Review
    Reviews
    • PC
    Awakening Kingdoms Review

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    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.
  • The Walking Dead: Season 2, Episode 1 – All That Remains Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    The Walking Dead: Season 2, Episode 1 – All That Remains Review

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    Telltale's highly anticipated The Walking Dead: Season Two is finally here with its brisk and brutal first episode, All That Remains. While the main story picks up 16 months after the end of Season One, the game wastes no time in reminding us of its inner darkness, with unnerving decisions around every bend, the occasional walker or two to keep you on your toes, and of course, the dangerous and distrustful individuals in Clementine's path who serve to remind us that Telltale isn't holding anything back. If only the episode as a whole wasn't so short and actually let us take control for more than a few minutes!As the episode's title would suggest, there is a reoccurring theme of aloneness that permeates the entirety of All That Remains. After the events of Season One and the heartbreaking first few minutes of this new installment, Clementine has all but been left to fend for herself, with a large chunk of the episode being devoid of any other human interaction. The few poignant remnants of Lee's memory that are expertly woven into the surroundings pack a serious emotional punch, and the overall direction that Telltale chose to give to their little heroine (not the least of which making her the playable character) is nothing short of genius."But despite the more low-key direction of this opening episode, there's no doubt about it that All That Remains is easily one of the most brutal experiences that Telltale has ever crafted, and probably features a few of the darkest and most unsettling moments that we've seen in a Walking Dead game so far. I was constantly shocked and stunned by some of the violent twists that occurred within the opening first hour, and one event in particular that involved an abandoned dog literally had me begging for the encounter to end: and then so of course, Telltale designed the game to prolong it even further in a way more excruciating fashion.
  • Zombie Tycoon 2: Brainhov’s Revenge Review
    Reviews
    • PC
    Zombie Tycoon 2: Brainhov’s Revenge Review

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    Zombie Tycoon 2: Brainhov's Revenge is a sort-of-cute, vaguely-horrific and highly-streamlined real-time strategy game that wraps you in the lab coat of Orville Tycoon, a lab assistant who betrayed his mentor, Dr. Archibald Brainhov, stole his zombie-making formula and set off to conquer the world with hordes of subservient undead.But as you might surmise from the title, Brainhov isn't going to put up with this kind of guffola without a fight, and so it's Shamblers vs. Ferals (vs. police, the army, some mutant monsters and a whole bunch of hillbillies) in an all-out battle for supremacy."Familiarity with the original Zombie Tycoon (which, for the record, I don't have) is handy for understanding certain points about the sequel, like why Dr. Brainhov is a zombie and what Orville did to make him so angry. But if you can manage to avoid getting too hung up on the finer points of the plot - and believe me, that shouldn't be a problem - then Zombie Tycoon 2 works perfectly well on its own. Essentially, it comes down to this: There's a zombie holocaust, it's your fault, and now it's time to dig into the buffet o' brains.