If there's one genre of video games that has consistently fallen more by the wayside each and every year, it's without a doubt those open-world platformers like Banjo Kazooie and Super Mario 64 that made gaming on the Nintendo 64 like nothing else before, or nothing else since. That is why I'm so excited to talk about A Hat in Time, because this game already looks like everything us die-hard 3D platform fans have longed for all these years, and then some.
Just because you work in a high-tech laboratory and wear a prestigious lab coat, that doesn't make you any smarter than me. The League of Evil series has become well known around the App Store for its challenging, instant-death platforming gameplay, and for giving the world's smarty-pants scientists exactly what they had coming. But how does League of Evil 3 stand up against the same scientific bloodbaths we've already been enjoying for the last several years?
You might imagine that Gunpoint is a game about shooting things, given its name - but that's actually far from the truth. In fact, the game only gives you a gun around three-quarters of the way into play, and if you do choose to shoot someone, the situation can go completely downhill from that moment.
I've been known to indulge in the occasional indie puzzle-platformer or five, so The Swapper looked right up my street. Turns out I wasn't wrong either - while the underlying concept of using clones to solve puzzles made for multiple people isn't exactly unique, the gorgeous art design coupled with the distilled rooms of puzzling glory make for an experience that sticks with you for days to come.
Much like the simple life of the Barbarian, Tiny Barbarian DX is all about the basics. The game's two-button jump and attack control scheme works wonders towards achieving that old NES nostalgic vibe, and the vibrant Chiptune soundtrack makes me feel like I'm eight years-old again and playing Mega Man in my parents' basement. But despite the nice look and feel, the game is just too basic and repetitive to provide any real sort of lasting entertainment, and seems a bit barbaric in its own right.
If I told you that Rush Bros. took the platforming style of Super Meat Boy, with traps generated based on the music tracks you import into the game - plus a multiplayer mode reminiscent of Sonic 2 - then you may well jump onto the opportunity without reading the rest of this review. But that would be an unwise move, as Rush Bros. doesn't exactly deliver on its promise. There's definite potential in the level design and the focus on speed runs, but the controls simply aren't tight enough, and the music import feature is pretty flaky.
Every so often, an intriguing little indie game comes along to remind us why we ever fell in love with video games in the first place. Whether it's because of a unique and different presentation, or simply just the way it invites you to play, games like these are what make it so much fun to work at Gamezebo every morning. Well it looks like Mushroom 11 might just be one of those games. And it's not just me saying this either: the mesmerizing new game was even awarded "The Best of Indie Press Day" for 2013.
Sometimes you play a game so simple yet so effective that it leaves you wondering why no one has done it before. Meet Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe, a sort of Tetris match-3 and platformer mash-up that gives as good as it gets. With twinges of Spelunky in there too, this fast-paced, quick-thinking blaster will kill you every few minutes, and yet you'll keep coming back for more. The soundtrack is sublime, the controls are spot-on, and the challenge is very, very real. What I'm saying is, you're going to love this game.