During your school career, you probably joined a lame-o club or two. Maybe it was a dilapidated ping-pong club. Or an anime club that owned one mouse-nibbled VHS of Fist of the North Star. Cherry Tree High Comedy Club is an adventure game that challenges you to recruit members into a high school comedy club. Video games typically ask you to slay monsters or venture into the darkest parts of your psyche, but putting together a high school club that doesn't suck? Whew! Talk about an unachievable goal.
RPGs have come a long way. Where once it was exciting when a protagonist had even somewhat of a discernible facial structure beneath their pixel veneer, nowadays realistic characters (and worlds) are all the rage. While that's all fine and dandy, sometimes it's nice to play a game that delivers a purely old school experience. If that's something you're in the market for, look no further than Moonchild.
While The Great Unknown: Houdini's Castle isn't the first hidden object game to focus on the magic of Harry Houdini, most past games deal with the man himself, his life, and his death. In The Great Unknown, however, we're given a story with ample creative liberty as you play a cat and mouse game with Harry's adopted son Whitehead, who has taken your husband hostage.
Dark Parables: The Red Riding Hood Sisters is made out of the same stuff as most hidden object games, but it has a couple of differences that make it stand out like a wolf amongst dogs. For one thing, it adds a dark but intriguing twist to the old fairy tale about that red-cloaked gal who took the wrong path on the way to grandmother's house. For another, it's easily one of the most gorgeous HOGs you'll ever clap eyes on.
As a society, it seems safe to say that we're collectively averse to prequels. I suppose we have George Lucas to thank for that. But looking back, some prequels have been fantastic. The Godfather Part II, Prometheus, X-Men First Class - all fantastic stories that take place before the start of the properties we've come to know and love. But what about Bad Piggies? Is it a prequel as worthy as those I've mentioned? Or is it more like The Phantom Menace?
We can't always find justification for a villain's actions. As the consistently astute Alfred tells us in The Dark Knight, "Some men just want to watch the world burn." And some, like King Oddball, want to do so while wearing the moon as a helmet.
In the eternal debate between style and substance, there's probably never going to be a definitive winner. Sorry GQ. You can have both, though, at least in your iOS action games. White Whale is making sure of that with God of Blades, a super atmospheric side-scroller that will have you hacking up bad guys by the dozens, flashing back to the 70s and possibly even visiting a library for more than just free wi-fi.
I want to love Jagged Alliance Online -- I really do. I have increasingly vague memories of playing the original Jagged Alliance back in the mid '90s and I can thus admire the spirit in which this newest incarnation was made, but the pricing structure involved makes me feel as though I'm actually hiring its mercenaries in real life. That's a shame, because otherwise it's pretty fun.