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  • The Wolf Among Us: Episode 1 – Faith Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    The Wolf Among Us: Episode 1 – Faith Review

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    A notable point on the lengthy list of sins committed by substandard series like Twilight and The Mortal Instruments is that stories about supernatural beings living amongst us now feel exclusively like the domain of bad teenage drama. In other words, sparkly vampires and the sneering teenage smart-asses that hunt them through city streets may immediately put you off the "modern fairy tale" premise for Telltale Games' The Wolf Among Us.Don't let that happen. The Wolf Among Us, based on Veritgo's long-running comic series by Bill Willingham, is sharp, funny, and full of intrigue. You'll be hooked the second Mr. Toad claps his bulbous eyes on the main character and hisses, "Shit.""The Wolf Among Us: Episode 1 - Faith is an episodic adventure game by Telltale, who has already demonstrated that they're really good at this sort of thing through The Walking Dead. You roam the foul streets of '80s-era New York as Bigby Wolf, a detective/policeman who's employed to help keep things peaceful amongst New York's population of Fables."Fables" are refugee characters from fairy tales who've been shoved out of The Homelands and forced to relocate in New York State. Bigby Wolf, once known as a certain "Big Bad," is primarily concerned about making sure the Fables living in New York City's Fabletown keep a low profile and a human guise. However, things take a violent turn one day, and Bigby finds himself responsible for solving the gristly murder of a certain Fable.
  • Type:Rider Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    Type:Rider Review

    By

    They say a picture can be worth a thousand words, but as I've learned already this week, a mobile game can sometimes speak for centuries. I have a long personal history with words and different types of fonts myself: after all, I read, write, and edit articles all day long here at Gamezebo, and then by night I take graduate courses about the publishing industry. So the idea of a Limbo-like mobile game that focused on the entire history of typography, and that let you play as two punctuation marks no doubt, seemed more than right up my alley. And luckily, writing fanatic or not, Type:Rider serves to provide one of the most whimsical and artistic adventures you're likely to ever experience on a mobile game device today.For such a relatively short game, the sheer amount of variety in Type:Rider is simply astounding, and each level serves as a wonderful visual homage to a different era in the history of typography. Throughout the course of your journey towards the modern day of typing, you'll experience the whirling mind work and ideas concurrent with the Didot period; you'll ride mine carts and dodge the bullets of a Wild Western shootout in the Clarendon era; you'll traverse an industrial world of grinding gears and churning typewriters by the time you get to Times New Roman; and you'll ski down the marvelous snowy white slopes in front of a blood-red sky during the Helvetica chapter."These are just a few of my many favorite moments throughout my Type:Rider adventure, and I was constantly amazed at every turn by how rich and engrossing the slight changes in scenery managed to be, and how the letters themselves were always incorporated into the platforming segments in fresh and exciting new ways. Although the bulk of Type:Rider is more about the experience, rather than the gameplay, you'll still be met with a few nice platforming sections and the occasional interactive puzzle or two: the latter of which are always extremely unique, and involve you getting a third white circle into a three-pronged ground slot, along with your two controllable punctuation marks.
  • Haunted House Mysteries Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    • PC
    Haunted House Mysteries Review

    By

    Hidden object games are best-suited for desktop computers, mainly because a large part of the gameplay involves searching densely-packed, highly-detailed scenes - a task that's clumsy to perform on a smaller screen. Moreover, the complex puzzles of adventure games are also better-solved with a mouse than with touchscreen controls. Haunted House Mysteries for iPad is a nice-looking game that suffers by appearing on an inappropriate platform.As so many hidden object adventures do, Haunted House Mysteries begins with a terrible tragedy. A famous archaeologist and his family are murdered in their New England vacation home, presumably because of a rare artifact being kept there. Years later, Nancy, a young graduate student writing a thesis on modern-day superstition, is called to the home by her elderly aunt. On the surface, the invitation is for Nancy to enjoy a few days' R&R, but she soon discovers her aunt's true intention is for her to investigate the site's alleged paranormal activity."Haunted House Mysteries was obviously made by a team of talented artists, since from the first spooky scene it makes a good impression. Nancy and her aunt are sharp and attractive by design, and so are all of the game's locations. (I'm fairly sure the exterior of the main house is the Norman Bates Psycho house.) The game also sounds pretty good thanks to a nice music score that effectively augments the lugubrious Victorian interiors.
  • Knock-Knock Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    Knock-Knock Review

    By

    It's surprising just how massively unsettling Knock-Knock becomes. Despite the artsy, comic-like visuals and 2D-on-3D animations, I could feel a knot in the pit of my stomach throughout my entire playthrough. I didn't think that I'd be roped into the game's dark world as much as I was; yet I felt on edge within moments of booting the game up.You can give the "gets horror right" box a great big tick, then - although other elements of the game aren't so well established, thanks to repetitive gameplay mechanics, dialogue that is touch-and-go, and some incredibly odd level inclusions. Knock-Knock is an extremely unique experience, and as with many unique games, it stumbles as much as it innovates."You are an unnamed crazy guy living in the woods. Said crazy man has a touch of the old insomnia, and chooses to wander the halls of his house at night instead of going to sleep. The problem is that every time he wakes up he's in a completely different house. Oh, and there are horrible monsters roaming the halls, and creaking and knocking coming from every direction.The aim of Knock-Knock is simple - survive each night until the sun comes up. As you tiptoe around each house, the clock in the corner of the screen will keep ticking away, and you can find special machines that will advance time more quickly. However, the further that time progresses, the more dangerous the monsters in the house will become. If one gives chase and touches you, the clock will rewind and you'll have to survive for even longer. If you touch too many monsters, you'll have to start all over again.
  • Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign Review
    Reviews
    • Android
    • iOS
    • PC
    Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign Review

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    If the Marvel super heroes knew all they had to do to defeat all kinds of villains was to beat them at match-3, they'd probably be a lot less angst-ridden. To date, no comic book writer has actually decided to act on this idea, but Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign comes close. Taking the core gameplay from Puzzle Quest and fusing it with the video game version of an actual comics storyline might sound strange, but it actually comes together pretty well.Taking the baton from other Marvel mobile and social games like Marvel: Avengers Alliance, Marvel Puzzle Quest takes place after The Pulse, which sounds like something from Dimension Films but is actually a mysterious event that introduced the world to Isotope-8 (or just ISO-8, for short). The new element can make super-powered folks even stronger, and is thus coveted pretty highly by the forces of evil.Though you only get a cursory introduction to all of this if you haven't played the other games, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been keeping tabs on ISO-8. The new twist here is that Norman Osborn, the artist formerly known as the Green Goblin, has wormed his way into a position of power, and his H.A.M.M.E.R. organization has booted Nick Fury and company out of favor with the world's governments. This can all be a little overwhelming if you aren't versed in the source material, which might be the game's most glaring weakness.
  • Spud’s Quest Review
    Reviews
    • PC
    Spud’s Quest Review

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    I'll be honest: I kind of freaked out a little when I saw that Spud's Quest was a straight-up homage to Codemasters' iconic adventure game The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy. There was probably no other video game I played more when I was a kid, and it took my parents and I a solid three years to finally complete the fearless egg's adventure (back when there were no such things as save points or online walkthroughs). I saw the resemblance in Spud's Quest the second I booted up the game, but after actually playing it, I found that our little potato's big quest to help a prince-turned-frog is so much more than a simple homage to an adventure gaming great: it's a fantastically retro adventure that rightfully stands on its own as an essential crash course in inventory-based adventure gaming.Players familiar with the wildly fantastic worlds of Dizzy the egg (and in particular, The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy) will find that the majority of Spud's Quest plays out like a giant fine-tuned homage to one of gaming's greatest and oft-forgotten adventure heroes of old. Blatant echoes of Dizzy can be found at nearly every turn in the game: from the starting environments like the treehouse village and the rocky mines; to the familiar items you'll find and their overall uses; and even right down to the layout of the land itself, with the lake leading into the town to the left of the starting village. For compulsive Dizzy enthusiasts like myself, it provides a trip down nostalgia lane like very few other games I've ever played."But what's great about Spud's Quest is that for every reference the game gives to its Dizzy inspiration, it does three other things that are refreshingly new and unique to the adventure itself, and some of which I even wish we had seen way back in our prime Dizzy days. On a more basic level, you've got your much-needed save points, Zelda-like health upgrades, and a flurry of achievements and optional collectables to find. On the deeper end of the spectrum, you have engaging new environments like broken windmills and parked stagecoaches, and a slew of more complex features that accent the overall adventuring gameplay in a really wonderful way. Spud's Quest represents what The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy could have been like had the creators kept the series going well into the 2010s, and added in some timely new features.
  • Bush Whacker 2 Review
    Reviews
    • PC
    Bush Whacker 2 Review

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    Some people will tell you that Nintendo's Legend of Zelda series is all about exploring faraway lands, collecting treasure, and aiding a kingdom in peril. These people are wrong. The Legend of Zelda is about cutting down bushes and finding cool stuff under the foliage. Bush Whacker 2 obviously takes its inspiration from Zelda's weed-whacking, and the game is charming, if mindless, as a result. Unfortunately, a draconic energy system limits play to a stifling degree.Bush Whacker 2 casts you as a sea-faring hero who's in pursuit of princess-nabbing pirates. A storm whips up and blows you off-course. After some rocking and drifting, you eventually run ashore on a strange island with a weed problem. The key to moving ahead is to cut down as much of the fast-growing vegetation as possible."Bush Whacker 2 arms you with a sword, but the weapon isn't exclusively for giving enemies the business. As you progress from screen to screen, you come across dozens of bushes harboring items, prizes, and other secrets. Puzzle pieces are the most important thing you gain from cutting bushes, however. When you collect the allotted amount, you solve a jigsaw puzzle to open up a new path.
  • The Inner World Review
    Reviews
    • iOS
    • PC
    The Inner World Review

    By

    I strongly suspect that The Inner World is going to be one of those games that very cleanly divides adventure fans between those who enjoy its unapologetically old-school sensibilities, and those who find it unnecessarily drawn out and even tedious. It's quirky, cute, sometimes charming, and occasionally even clever, but it's also a paper-thin tale that's utterly, and somewhat tiresomely, dedicated to the warped conventions of "adventure game logic."The Inner World takes place on the inside-out world of Asposia, a hollow "planet" in a universe composed entirely of soil. The air that gives it life comes in through three great "wind fountains," and while the actual origin of the wind is a mystery, one thing is certain: it is slowly dying out. Only one wind fountain remains functional, guarded by the Abbott Conroy and his young assistant Robert. But things go  haywire when Robert, a rather simple sort of fellow, befriends a pigeon; the pigeon makes off with the Abbott's most treasured possession and before he can be stopped, Robert takes off in pursuit - his first-ever journey beyond the castle's protective walls."The opening sequence very quickly sets the tone for the game, with simple yet surprisingly emotive hand-drawn graphics and excellent voice acting; and if there's any question as to the gravitas of the narrative, it's answered immediately by the Abbott's baritone command following Robert's surprise departure: "Bring me the hedgehog!" I was smiling throughout the introduction and laughed out loud at that line, but as I dug into the game I found that it wasn't able to maintain that level of sweet (and wonderfully strange) charm.