Review: Yard Sale Hidden Treasures: Sunnyville (WiiWare)

Available on WiiWare, this game offers players a chance to seek and find various objects at their neighbours yard sales to decorate their homes. The game is quite simple, you select a yard sale to go to and then you are provided with a snapshot of that yard. From this snapshot you must find a series of different objects just like a Where's Wally.

I hate neighbours with yards that messy

Review: Zookeeper DX (iPad)

Zookeeper is a special game for me personally. It was one of the first Nintendo DS games I owned, way back when the console was new and there wasn’t much more, besides Mario and Polarium to play.

The difference between those other launch titles and this game was that this one was intensely social. The multiplayer, despite being a simple competitive match three game, was addictive. I’m talking two hour straight game play sessions addictive. Regular nights gaming until 2am was a great bonding experience with my various family members, and then again when I met my better half.

This game has no problem telling you when you've done poorly

Review: Greg Hastings Paintball 2 (PSN)

As with many people around the world, I enjoy a good game of paintball. I don’t follow it as a sport – or even truly consider it anything more than a fun pastime – but my friends and I enjoy playing the occasional game at one of the handful of paintball fields around our hometown. Of course, considering the cost and time dedication that is necessary for a game of paintball, we instead spend most of our time playing videogames. Instead of shooting real paintballs at each other, we shoot virtual bullets at each other.

But, hey, Greg Hastings heard that you like gamin’ in yo paintball so he put some paintballin’ in yo game.

Review: Donkey Kong (3DS Virtual Console)

With Donkey Kong on the virtual console, 3DS owners have a unique opportunity to turn their console into something akin to a fashion show; a before and after, if you will.

See, Donkey Kong (not to be mistaken as a port of the original arcade game, this is a complete reimagining) was the first in a series of games that has cumulated in the Mario vs Donkey Kong games; March of the Minis on DSiWare being one of the most recent entrants in the series.

The game is filled with homages to the early era of Donkey Kong... and Donkey Kong Junior

L.A. Noire Gets Electric

Ready for more Noire?

The Nicholson Electroplating arson case is all set to go live on Xbox LIVE and the PSN on June 21st:

When a devastating explosion at the Nicholson Electroplating plant rocks downtown Los Angeles, Arson detectives Phelps and Biggs are called to the scene. Was this just a tragic accident, or something more sinister at play?

Check out the trailer below:

Kinect SDK Available Now

The software development kit for the Kinect is now available for all to play around with. Be part of the movement and make some controllerless games - here.

Did we mention it's free?

Review: Critical Mass (PC)

For a game developed by a team of just two, Critical Mass is a brilliant start for Aussie startup, Manic Game Studios. It’s elegant and executed perfectly, falling into none of the control or over ambition issues that indie games are often guilty of. Manic Game Studios knows its limits and has opted to go for practical refinement over complex vision. And the result is a must-have puzzler.

It looks basic, but in action this is a very addictive game

Why Nintendo's isolation is a problem

Nintendo is becoming increasingly isolated – not just in the games industry, but the broader IT and entertainment industries.

A report over at Nintendo Life pointed out that the upcoming Nintendo U will not support either DVD or Blu-ray playback. In one way, this makes sense. Nintendo’s going to need to keep the cost of its console down to appeal to the casual gaming audience, and the licenses to allow DVD or Blu-ray playback would have made price minimisation difficult.

But there’s another side of things – here, once again, Nintendo is standing by itself, in its own little world of proprietry. It runs far deeper than movie playback, too. Microsoft acquires Skype for $8.5 billion. Nintendo promises voice and video chat, but its own brand of it. 
 

Review: Companions (iPad)

There’s still a big market for retro-flavoured RPGs. Stat-crunching, story-light, dungeon hacking RPGs. When done well, it’s a pure kind of game, and, like a good 2D platformer, a throwback to a simpler and more innocent time.

Companions aims to capture that warm, fuzzy nostalgia, and wears its indie nature on its sleeve. It’s not brilliant or a work of art, but as a grind-heavy hack-a-thon, it still provides a good time.

This game is halfway between two classics: Gauntlet, and Baldur's Gate

Magic the Gathering and Shuggy Available Now on LIVE

LIVE Arcade just got a pair of new releases; Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Plainswalkers 2012 and... Shuggy?

Win one of FIVE copies of Pride of Nations thanks to Paradox Interactive

Pride of Nations is a very good game; you can read Owen's excellent review of the game here.

Now, thanks to Paradox Interactive, we're able to offer five copies of the game for digital download.

To be in the running, it's easy: Sign up for these forums (it'll take no longer than a minute) and simply say hello in this thread (click here), letting us know what your favourite strategy game of all time is, and why.

The best five responses will win a copy of the game.

Competition closes on June 30, 9 PM (Australian, Sydney time), so get in early, and best of luck!

Gameloft hits massive App milestone

Since the launch of the Apple App Store, mobile specialists, Gameloft, has shifted no less than 200 million games.

Those games have been hit and miss, to say the least. Some, such as Star Front and Modern Combat, have been fun if derivative. Others, such as Order and Chaos and Eternal Legacy, have been simply derivative.

But love it or hate it, the Gameloft momentum train is not about to slow down. The developer/ publisher has no fewer than 20 more games headed to the App store this year alone.

We're interested to hear your thoughts on Gameloft: Guilty pleasure? iPad/ iPhone saviours or an evil company responsible for cheapening the value of games? Let us know in the comments below, or come say hi on our forums!

Review: Ticket to Ride (iPad)

As a board game fan, I’m spoiled for choice with the iPad. I love Reiner Knizia’s Samurai and Through the Desert, then there’s more traditional fare, such as Monopoly or Risk. Then there’s stuff like Small World, which is popular enough overseas, but not a game I’ve had easy access to in the past.

Ticket to Ride is a game from the same folks behind Small World, which means to me it is a fresh new board game to play on the iPad. It also happens to be the best, bar none, board game on the iPad in terms of presentation and quality.

Simple and elegant; anyone can get into this game

Retro Review: Parasite Eve 2 (PSN Download/ PSP and PS3)

This is one of the great tragedies of our industry – where Resident Evil has gone from strength to strength to become one of the most important franchises of Capcom’s stable, Parasite Eve has been all but lost to history, with just a half-hearted PSP attempt to resurrect Square Enix’ horror franchise.

So the point of this game is legs... horror. Yes. Horror.

Parasite Eve 2 does much of what the early Resident Evil games did, just better, and indeed it's arguably the best horror game that was released on the PlayStation. It’s atmospheric, addictive and intelligent.

Why Call of Duty: Elite is a good idea

There’s been a bit of controversy over the Call of Duty: Elite service, and whether subscription services on top of the price of a retail game are a good idea. Ignoring the fact that anything that has Bobby Kotick’s business intelligence behind it is going to annoy a lot of gamers, Elite is not worth the ire it’s drawing at all; and in fact I would argue that it’s the perfect demonstration that subscription models do still deserve a chance when the industry is currently so hung up on ‘freemium’ payment models.

E3 2011: Jason's Top Ten

Since everyone else is getting into the fun, I thought I'd join in too. Just one problem - there's no way I can sum up what I'm looking forward to in just five choices. So with that in mind, here's my top ten from the show floor...

DSiWare starter guide for new 3DS owners

Now that the 3DS eShop has fully up and operational, the full catalogue of over 200 DSiWare games and applications are available to download and play on Nintendo’s newest console.

For those with 3DSes that skipped on the DSi, that’s a whole lot of stuff to wade through. With that in mind, we’ve listed a few games and applications that are a good place to start. It’s not a ‘best of’ list, but rather a range of pointers for people looking to get the most out of their new console.

Preview: Runespell: Overture

We’ve been following the development of Runespell: Overture pretty closely here at Digitally Downloaded, and after playing the preview build of the game, it’s safe to say the anticipation is justified. Runespell is one heck of an addictive little experience, and when the game goes live, we recommend everyone get to downloading this one.

Review: Robo Surf (iPhone)

Picture this: the end of the world has arrived. The planet is basically an endless ocean, devoid of human life with only a few animals left to keep you company. You are robot who has managed to survive the destruction of the apocalypse and you're wondering what you should do. Obviously, the conclusion you come to is that you should spend your time surfing! Robo Surf doesn't claim to have a great storyline but it makes up for it with simple, entertaining gameplay and plenty of challenges to keep you playing for hours.

There's a lot of dodging to be done

Review: White Knight Chronicles: Origins (PSP)

On the PlayStation 3, White Knight Chronicles was a poorly received mix between MMO and JRPG. The reception was unfair – the game featured a large traditional RPG world and a fairly standard (but enjoyable) battle system that looked much like something from a World of Warcraft clone. It was pretty, but many felt soulless, and its robust online play was largely overlooked.

White Knight Chronicles: Origins is a wholly new game with an entirely different development team. Handheld RPG specialists, Matrix Games, have this one in collaboration with Sony’s Japan Studio. And despite being a very, very limited RPG, Origins is an addictive little game that owes as much to Monster Hunter as traditional JRPGs.

This is an epic battle