It’s easy to forget that not everyone who plays games came up through the pipeline of the 8-bit and 16-bit that have influenced so many platformers. As such, for an experienced gamer, it’s easy to dismiss Red Ball 4 as …
When you think about it, it’s pretty amazing that people are still making platformers feel fresh and relevant after 30+ years of innovative, fun games across every platform. Even mobile ones. The feeling of moving across a screen and jumping …
There I was, a barbarian, riding through the air upon my giant war bumblebee, buzzing onward to defeat the evil gorillas flying around me in spaceships. I was dodging thorny vines, sweeping away the pesky primates with my sword, and …
There was a time when a younger, more naive version of me believed that unwavering faithfulness to the source material was the key to any cross-media adaptation. Then I saw the Watchmen movie. Zack Snyder bashing aside, it was a relief to find out that Glitchsoft's Uncanny X-Men: Days of Future Past mobile game was based not on the current film but the classic comic book story with which it shares a name. It succeeds completely as a tribute but less so as a gameplay experience, muddling its old school platformer vibe with imprecise controls and repetitive enemies.You'll find no time-traveling Wolverines here, Hugh Jackman or otherwise. Just as Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin did in the early 80s, Glitchsoft centers the narrative on a future version (the far-flung future of 2013!) of Kate Pryde and her desperate attempt to change the past in order to prevent a nightmarish reality where the mutant-hunting Sentinel robots have taken complete control.
KeroBlaster is an action / shooting game from Studio Pixel. In this game, you hop on platforms and blast enemies as you progress from level to level. Gamezebo's handy strategy guide will provide you with some tips and hints that will keep your skin moist.
While 3D platformers in the vein of "collectathon" classics like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 have faded over the past two console generations (if you're looking for slap-stick 3D platformers it's basically just the Ratchet and Clank and the Sly Cooper franchises keeping the tradition alive), there are a number of independent game developers currently working on games designed with this nostalgic style in mind. Leading the charge of the resurgence is Mimimi Productions with their 3D platforming adventure, The Last Tinker: City of Colors.Debatably, what led to the decline of the old collectathon games was how tedious they became after awhile. Finding every golden puzzle piece or golden banana felt like a chore, and players were literally locked out of new areas until they scrapped previous areas clear of these golden collectables. The Last Tinker deals with this issue simply by not forcing players to find the golden paint brushes that are hidden within the game's environments.
KeroBlaster is a side-scrolling action game designed by Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya - the man behind the action indie hit Cave Story. Though it's ten years old, Cave Story is still widely regarded as one of the greatest action games of all time. Concocting a worthy follow-up act couldn't have been an easy task for Amaya, and it probably explains why KeroBlaster has been subject to delays.Happily, KeroBlaster is worth the wait. Though it aesthetically resembles Cave Story, KeroBlaster is unmistakably its own adventure thanks to an emphasis on shooting (tons of it) and jumping instead of exploration.Best of all, the action is driven by what's arguably the most responsive control scheme for a mobile game yet. It's not quite perfect, but it's darn near close.
A father and son battling harsh elements and demonic corruption as they attempt to restore the three guardian spirits of the land: This is Last Inua, a 2D side-scrolling tale of survival in the deep Arctic, a visually stunning game that approaches excellence but ultimately overstays its welcome.Last Inua is an "art-platformer," a term I just now made up to describe platformers with powerful aesthetics and unremarkable gameplay - although calling it "unremarkable" might in some instances be overly harsh. In most cases it's really just simplified, which I suspect is a conscious choice intended to encourage all players, even those of dubious skills, to reach the end and enjoy the entirety of the experience.Last Inua is very much like that. It's the the story of the Inuit Ataataq and his son Hiko, who are racing to restore three guardian spirits in order to foil an attack on the North by the demon Tonrar. Ataataq is a powerful man, able to leap great distances, climb frozen cliffs and shatter massive blocks of ice with a single blow. His son Hiko is sickly and weak, but possesses magical abilities that allow him to walk through the air and travel great distances in the blink of an eye. They must work together to survive and triumph, and you'll switch back and forth between them many times as you play, relying on both Ataataq's strength and Hiko's magic in equal measures.