Review: Hoard (PSN; PS3/ PSP)

Hoard is an addictive little game. It’s not going to set the world on fire, but for such a cheap asking price, it’s good to have sitting on the PS3 or PSP hard drive to relieve those moments of boredom.

I'm attacking your house, stealing your loots

Pre e3 Xbox Stats

Plenty to toot the proverbial horn about was broadcast by the Xbox's unofficial mascot, Major Nelson, today. Click through here to read the full story (complete with exciting chart!) but the long and the short is that the Xbox 360 is actually picking up steam in the sales department.

Where most other consoles have traditionally lost quite a bit of momentum in their sixth year at retail, the 360 isn't just holding strong but has seen a monster 29 per cent year on year sales increase and recently broke the 55 million sold plateau. And what of everyone's favorite online gaming service? 35 million users is a pretty big number.

It'll be very interesting to see what e3 brings in terms of LIVE Arcade and what's in store for the now traditional 'Summer of Arcade'. With this massive upswing in place, we may be in for quite a Holiday '11. Only a few days away guys and gals...

Cities in Motion Tokyo DLC to help Japan relief effort

In more good news for the Japan Nuclear Crisis relief, Paradox Interactive has dedicated a portion of the money made from sales of the newly released Cities in Motion DLC that features the city of Tokyo as a new challenge for the budding transport minister to charity.

The DLC offers a great deal of new content, with seven new vehicles, new campaign, monorail options and strategic options. For fans, this is great news, this excellent title gets a little more enjoyable, and a little more challenging.

Until June 5th 2011, 50 per cent of the net revenue, like that of Paradox's other DLC release Magicka, is set aside for the Nuclear Crisis Relief. This is a generous gesture by Paradox, and for a great cause.

Review: Battlefield Bad Company 2 HD (iPad)

On consoles Battlefield Bad Company is a really, really well regarded franchise. On the iPad, it is quite poor. It’s a problem that is not so much the fault of the game itself, but Battlefield Bad Company 2 HD just doesn’t work well with the touch screen.

... and those environments are one big long glorified pathway

X-Men Arcade leads the way to the App Store

A port of early the early 90’s action game is now heading to Apple’s platform for the price of $2.99 USD. The iOS version features drop-in multiplayer via Wi-Fi, as well as support for GameCenter, OpenFeint, and Facebook Connect.

We found X-Men Arcade for PSN and XBLA to be solid additions to their respective download services, so this is surely a good sign for fans of super heroes and beat-em-ups.

Will the gameplay translate well to touch-screens? The game’s controls are rather basic, seemingly lending themselves to the iOS platform, but it remains to be seen whether the transition will be a successful one.  

X-Men Arcade is available right now in the United States. A worldwide release is currently a large question mark.

Review: Red Johnson's Chronicles (PSN)

With the return of the PSN and the PS Store, the Sony faithful have been rewarded for their patience with some awesome deals, like 50 per cent off the wonderfully strategic gameplay of Under Siege that we reviewed here earlier this week. Personally, of course, I prefer to keep my RTS gameplay strictly to PC, but some point-click adventuring on the PS3? That I can get behind.

Helping round out the deals being offered is a cool new game called Red Johnson’s Chronicles. And when I say cool I mean cool; from the smooth jazz fusion and sharp artwork of the menu screen to the faux-Communist font utilised throughout the game just because, this is a game that oozes coolness from its very pores.

So much cool...

Five strong female characters from video games

This is inspired by a post I saw on Chic Pixel’s blog on women in video games, and how, especially in the Japanese games industry, they still tend to conform to stereotype and are designed to appeal to male gamers.

It got me thinking – what are some of the strong women in video games? By ‘strong’ I don’t necessarily mean physical strength, there are other ways a character can be a strong presence within a game – but I came up with a list of five ‘top’ examples of female characters that break through the stereotypes.

Buy new Magicka goodies, help Japan

And so the folks behind Magicka are at it again. Another piece of downloadable content, Magicka Nippon, is offering a Japanese themed armour peircing katana, the Yawarakai-Te, a protective staff and a kimono robe.

That's not a whole lot of content, but it is redeemed in that its purchase comes with a donation to a worthy cause; 50 per cent of the dollar it costs goes towards the Japan nuclear crisis relief effort.

For those especially keen, a Wizard's cowl for is also on offer for those who pay before June 5.

So get donating!

- Owen S

Fable III Demo Hits Xbox LIVE

Really? There wasn't already an Fable 3 demo? Huh...

Anyway, if you haven't already played the somewhat underwhelming, but still very enjoyable, third entry in Lionhead and Microsoft's Fable franchise; then you might be interested in the new demo. You'll be able to start the revolution and get a little taste of what the full game offers for the grand price of nuttin'.

And only seven months after release- Timely!

Get it here.

Review: Under Siege (PSN)

So as we all know now, the mighty PSN store is back. That in itself is good news, but even better news is we’re greeted with a gem of a new game on the service that satisfies a previously unscratched itch. That game is Under Siege and it marks a fine start to the PSN’s library of RTS games.

This is not going to end well...

Play Pac Man on Facebook

Facebook now has Pac-Man, with the little yellow champion now available in two different games, though it's not cheap.

3DS eShop launches in Japan... but it's not all good news

The 3DS’ eShop site has launched in Japan with a handful of games and the first Virtual Console Game Boy Games, and… well, it’s a whoops from us so far.

PSN Shop is back online

Happy shopping folks - apparently there's a mass of new stuff available.

One note though - the 'welcome back' package free games are not yet available. They're coming, but not for a few days yet.

For now, shop away!

Retailers and the App store price slashing mean you miss out

Retailers in the games industry have it tough. Because games are a commodity, the only real way they can compete with one another is by price, and throw in online retailers and digital distribution channels, and their margins are hit even harder. While there’s the occasional attempt to modernise the in-store experience, the fact remains that games retailers are being driven down two paths – slash the price on new games, and supplement the income with pre-owned games.

Might & Magic Heroes VI looks absolutely incredible

The beta for Might & Magic Heroes VI is about to open up, with three single player and one multiplayer map. And to celebrate, Ubisoft has released a teaser trailer.

Dead Space 2 Outbreak Map Pack Available Now

Free for Xbox LIVE Gold level members, the Dead Space 2 'Outbreak' map pack gives you a pair of new multiplayer maps to slice and dice your way through. Get it here.

Hunter-Killer Announced for XBLA

No, not Hunter-Killer like in Terminator, Hunter-Killer like in the '90s comic book series by Mark Waid and Marc Silvestri.

Co-created by comic powerhouses, Marc Silvestri (artist) and Mark Waid (writer), the story concerns a government program to create genetically-enhanced living super-weapons – known as “Ultras” – to combat the threat of nuclear war. When several Ultras go rogue, the government sets its loyal Ultras – the “Hunter-Killers” – to track down and “neutralise” them.

Good news: Backbreaker: Vengeance is coming to PSN too

We already knew that Backbreaker: Vengeance was coming to Xbox Live as a downloadable game, but PSN owners can relax - it's also getting a PSN release.

Magic the Gathering Online vs. Magic the Gathering Tactics

Magic the Gathering has been around for many years now, so it’s no surprise that by now there a number of ways to play it in videogame form. There’s been some that have failed (Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds wasn’t much fun), and others that have succeeded (Magic the Gathering: Duals of the Planeswalkers).

One digital form of the game has survived for years, though – an exact replica of the original collectible card game, Magic the Gathering Online. With a massive community and all the excitement and OCD collectability of the card game, it has persisted where other games have risen and fallen. It now faces its greatest threat in Magic the Gathering: Tactics, an attempt to take all that made the original game great, and fuse it with some modern videogame conventions. So, which is the better investment?

This...

Five favourite Frozen Synapse skirmishes (videos)

We love Frozen Synapse at Digitally Downloaded - it's one of the most addictive pick-up-n-play strategy games we've played in years. So just for fun we've got five of our favourite multiplayer games to date to share.

Dungeon Siege III Demo Sieges Xbox LIVE

Up right this very second on the LIVE servers is the demo for the much anticipated third entry in the long running and semi-hallowed Dungeon Siege series. The demo will allow for... actually there isn't much of a description for it but rest assured, there's hackin' and slashin' therein. Just grab it and confirm that it's more like the first one than the second one.

And hey, there's not an Uwe Boll in sight- that's got to be a good thing.

Review: Naval Warfare (PC)

Naval Warfare doesn’t play very well on my laptop. That a game struggles on this hardware is not too surprising – I’m hardly running with a powerhouse here, but the fact that such a simple game doesn’t feature options to get as many people playing as possible is an astounding design decision.

Given that I’m able to comfortably play far more complex games like Napoleon Total War, King Arthur and Mount & Blade means the developers were evidently shooting for a premium product with this game. The content is a bit thin for that to really work, though, and given this is a game that is designed for casual PC players (such as myself), then a basic visual setting would have been welcome.

One of the prettiest horde games ever

Review: Age of Fear: The Undead King (PC)

Age of Fear is an ugly game. I’m not even going to sugar coat it and say “don’t judge a book by its cover,” because when it’s this bad, The shoddy animation and blurry blob character models does have a negative impact on how much you can enjoy the game itself.

Age of Fear is a fantasy strategy game that lacks the attractive fantasy setting. It’s a character-driven skirmish game without characters you can care about. But it’s not a bad game. Though it’ll be a real struggle to appreciate at times, the gameplay mechanics are sound and there’s an addictive mix of strategy and RPG on offer.

This game makes me want to play Warhammer again

Step by Step: Panzer Corps Poland scenario

Earlier in the month, we took you through the first tutorial mission for the upcoming strategy game, Panzer Corps by Matrix Games. Now, it's time to take you through one of the 'proper' scenarios. Poland is probably the first scenario that people will play, as it's a relatively short and straightforward game, but it does feature aircraft and on the higher difficulty levels, it'll put up a challenge.

For the purposes of this walkthrough, this is played on the easiest difficulty level as the Axis army, and took me 11 turns to complete.

Retro Review: Wrecking Crew (Virtual Console)

Wrecking Crew is quite an oddity. Despite the appearance of video game icon Mario, the game went relatively unnoticed while Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros thrived. Up until this point, Mario had almost always starred in action games, while Wrecking Crew largely revolves around the puzzle genre. The release of several other renowned titles at the time certainly did not do any favors for the game’s recognition either. Fortunately, the game still holds up 25 years and many consoles later.

Hm, which ladder should I climb?

                                              

Review: Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury (XBLA)

Everyone loves flying robots, but what happens when you give one a fruit fetish and thousands of missiles? Apparently, you get one of the finest experiences on the Xbox Live Arcade and a thrilling soundtrack. Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury takes the series to new heights in this thrilling 2D shooter from Treasure.

Ok, this game is nuts