Oh, hello there commoner. I was just sitting here polishing my monocle and didn't notice a person of such low social standing come into the room. I of course realize you're a millionaire (otherwise the butler never would've let you in the room) but the rest of us are bazillionaires, so I don't think you can really play our little game of auctioning exquisite and fine luxury items. Oh what a stressful lot in life to maintain the standards of High Society.
Re-inventing classic concepts, even board games, can take a lot of effort. How does one take a standard crossword game and twist it into a whole new experience? If you're developer Nathaniel Gray, the answer is quite simple: put it in a hexagon. Think of HexaLex as a six-sided game of Scrabble and you'll be completely ready to tackle everything the game has to offer.
Cute woodland creatures aren't the first thing that comes to mind when I think of turn-based strategy games, but Everlands is here to change that. I've played a fair amount of hex based games, but while they usually involve spinning and moving hexes in order to clear them, in Everlands your hex pieces that represent different animals to attack your opponent. As it turns out, this leads to a fantastically fun game.
Poker isn't the most accessible game around, what with its complex rules and subtle nuances. Video game representations of the game tend to run the gamut between being overly realistic, and thus too complicated, or far too simple and lacking much in the way of depth. Governor of Poker 2 manages to find a nice balance in between these two extremes, offering up a poker game that is very accessible without being too simplistic. But if you played the first game, Governor of Poker 2 might be a little too familiar.
The premise of Landformer is incredibly basic. Use a set of limited tools to either lower or raise the landscape to get all the land back to a flat position. It reminded me of the God game Populous or SimCity's terraforming aspects. While in that game flattening the land was just the beginning (since you then needed to build on it), here making the land flat is its own reward... and the only goal you'll be chasing.
Red Bull Flugtag for the iPhone is based on the real world "sport" of the same name. I say "sport" because it seems to involve building what amounts to a parade float and jumping off a ramp into a lake, being scored for how far you "fly." They're less flying machines than they are fun and seem to be powered by alcohol alone. Seems a weird premise for a collectible card game type outing, no?
It's a premise we've all seen many times before: you control a block, moving one space at a time, and you'll have to make your way from one end of a level to the exit on the other side. From iPhone games like Edge to PC puzzlers like Puzzle Dimension, it's well tread territory. But in spite of this, Voodoo Dice manages to add enough new to the formula to make it worth playing, though at times it can be a little too frustrating for its own good.
Blokus from Gameloft is a digital version of the award winning board game of the same name. The board game has been popular for quite a while now and has a number of accolades under it's belt, including an endorsement from MENSA. It's a game I've always enjoyed and was excited to find out I could both have it portable and always have a willing (albeit digital) opponent. So, does digital Blokus stand up to it's analog brother?