Review: Astroslugs (iPad)

Astroslugs is one of those really irritating games that you’ll keep playing, even as you want to throw your iPad against a wall. Developers, Bit Baron, have managed to tap into that obsessive compulsive desire to complete every puzzle the game can throw at you, while at the same time providing a stiff challenge that requires some very creative thinking.

At its most basic level, this game is about joining dots. They look like giant space rocks, but they’re dots. In each level, you’re given a number of shapes to create using those dots, with the key challenge being each of those dots can only be used once.

The puzzles start easily enough...

Review: Kirby's Dream Land (3DS Virtual Console)

It takes about 20 minutes to skip through Kirby Dream Land’s four environments and defeat its five bosses. At no point through that time will you feel challenged and your reward for those 20 minutes? A slightly more difficult remix of the game.

This is a waste of time, frankly. It’s impossible to become involved in a game that flies past so rapidly. Though there’s a great variety in the enemies Kirby faces, they’re all “blink and you’ll miss it,” experiences. Though the environments themselves are interesting, there’s no time to step back and enjoy the experience – you’re shuffled on to the next level too quickly.

Giant apples. Yummy

Xbox LIVE Celebrates the Fourth with Sales Aplenty

Some great sale games up on Xbox LIVE this week, including some pretty recent titles. The discounts only last from now until July fourth (Independence Day in the US) though, so you might want to get to downloading.

• TMNT: Turtles in Time Reshelled -- was 800mspts, now 400
• Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light -- was 1200mspts, now 600
• X-Men Arcade -- was 800mspts, now 400
• Comic Jumper -- was 800mspts, now 400
• Hard Corps Uprising -- was 800mspts. now 400

If you missed out on any of those, now'd be the time to strike... in a proverbial way of course.  Oh, and if you're on the fence about TMNT, don't forget that it'll soon be pulled from Microsoft's servers for the foreseeable future.

Review: Sum Fighter (XBLA Indie Games)

Puzzles games are a dime-a-dozen on any downloadable service nowadays. While many puzzle games are just basic variations or rip-offs of other titles, Sum Fighter actually brings a unique gameplay element to the puzzle game genre; math, and it turns out to be a fun little puzzler that will not only sharpen your puzzle skills, but your basic addition skills as well.

Nerdy kid on the cover... check. This is maths

[Updated] Limbo is possibly coming to PS3

Update: Sony has confirmed on its Facebook fan page that Limbo is indeed coming to PSN. Further more Playdead's CEO and co-founder Dino Patti has confirmed that Limbo will be available soon on both PSN and Steam. Playdead is working on the ports internally along side a new IP.

I haven't yet played the superb, dark platformer on Limbo on XBLA, but that might soon change if the Korean Game Ratings Board is to believed. Sony Computer Entertainment Korea has filed a listing for Limbo and one can hope that it's actually true. This does not mean that Limbo is definitely coming out on Sony's platform but it's not without precedent that Summer of Arcade games get release on other platforms after a certain time has passed.

Bastion coming to XBLA July 20

The expertly narrated action RPG is set to release on the 20th of July exclusively on XBLA. Indie developer Supergiant Games is bringing Bastion out as a part of Microsoft's Summer of Live Arcade promotion which is looking to be quite the selection of interesting games.

Infested Planet is now in beta

Infested Planet is a manic strategy game by the indie studio Rocket Bear Games. The basic point of the game is to shoot lots and lots of alien bugs and take over a randomly generated map.

XBLA has a banner release week

It's a pretty big week for Xbox LIVE. There's lots of new releases and a very timely add-on to cult fave Pinball FX2 hitting the gaming download service as of today.

• Backbreaker Vengeance
• Pinball FX2 Captain America Table 
• Galaga Legions DX
• Half-Minute Hero Super Mega Neo Climax

In addition, any issues with Lucha Fury seem to have been straightened out as the game is readily available in the US market at least. With all of that, there's a lot of downloadable goodies vying for your virtual dollar- so what'll it be Xboxers?

Backbreaker puts the hurt on XBLA

This week sees a few Arcade titles hit Xbox LIVE, but only one features fake football and breaks backs with a vengeance. Backbreaker Vengeance - and in the middle of a lockout, maybe that's exactly what NFL fans are looking for.

Newsflash: Win an original Game Boy over at The Gamesmen

We don't often link over to competitions, but when it's this awesome, we want to get the word out. Australian independant retailer, The Gamesmen, is offering an original Game Boy as a Facebook competition prize.

All you need to do is tell them the first game you ever played. To check it out, head over to The Gamesmen Facebook page. But be quick - competition closes at 5:30.

Review: Sylia (PC)

JRPG’s (or Japanese role-playing games) are a funny genre. Every game usually has the same storyline and the same characters (or minor variations of either), yet there are very few of these types of games that don’t sell like hotcakes. Final Fantasy is the most recognizable brand of JRPG, but there are plenty of others: Legend of the Dragoon, Dragon Quest, Xenogears, Chrono Cross and Earthbound are examples of JRPG-styled games that were big titles in their own time. Usually these games are found on consoles, with the PlayStation, throughout all its iterations, seeming to have picked up from the NES and SNES in hosting the lion's share of them.

Sylia is a game based off the JRPG concept of turn-based combat and “random” encounters but comes to us on the PC. It is a typical game with the typical JRPG story and typical game mechanics. It is, by all measures, a typical game. Which of course means it is also riddled with the typical flaws that any typical game comes with.

Review: The Night Flier (iPhone)

Angry Birds has long dominated the list of bestsellers in the iTunes App Store, and for good reason: with an interesting yet simple design, a cutesy yet hardboiled premise and a continuous cycle of updates all with the same level of ingenuity, Angry Birds has remained one of the most addictive games to play on the go. Other games have attempted to knock Angry Birds off its perch, and some like Tiny Wings even managed to steal the spotlight for a time, but the Birds always come flocking back to the top spot.

But it’s time for a new king of the roost. It’s time that someone came and pecked the Birds off the power line they’ve been nesting on and cracked the egg that is the number one spot on the bestseller list. Someone like The Night Flier.

Okay, well, maybe not. But, as my girlfriend pointed out, damn that bat is cute.

See? So cute!

Last chance to enter our Pride of Nations competition!

There are just two more days to enter our competition to win one of five copies of the quite excellent Pride of Nations provided to us by Paradox Interactive.

It's one of the more impressive strategy games that we've played recently, and we scored it 4.5/5 for its impressive depth.

All you need to do is sign up on our forum and let us know what your favourite strategy game of all time is. The winners will be drawn on the 30th... just two days from now.

So head on over and enter!

Editorial: Why I love gaming on the iPad

I’ve been playing games since the original Game Boy, and I enjoy a bit of just about everything. And as I’ve become financially independent, I’ve been able to afford more consoles and more games – this generation I’ve got just about everything bar the Xbox 360, and the only reason I don’t have that one is, quite literally, a lack of physical space to put it.

Looking to the future, I’ve got my eyes set on the PlayStation Vita, the Wii U and I look forward to the 3DS hitting its stride. I’m also planning on investing in OnLive should it ever reach Australia’s shores and networks.

The iPad is my favourite gaming device. Here’s why:

Team Fortress 2 is now free to play

If you haven't already picked up Valve's charismatic multiplayer shooter in one of their many, many, many sales, you need not worry because now you can do so for even less. None, to be exact. Valve has announced that TF2 is going free-to-play and will be supporting the game through micro-transactions. But, if you still want to give something to Valve you can buy a virtual hat. Free to play trailer below.

Proun released: pay what you want

This game is surreal. You race a ball along a tube... eh yeah, that's it. Seriously psychedelic features trailer coming up:

Review: Puzzle Dimension (PSN)

Back in the days of the PlayStation One, a little puzzler by the name of Kula World was an underrated classic. It featured a beachball that you needed to manoeuvre around a platform that was suspended in the air, Monkey Ball style. In the game you need to collect various treasures while avoiding spikes and other nasty traps.

Puzzle Dimension is a spiritual sequel to that game. With heaps of levels, a vibrant aesthetic and some truly nasty challenges, this is a game that just like Kula World before it, manages to be both frighteningly addictive and incredibly frustrating.

Cool balls

Nintendo eShop error code 005-5691 a new headache for the 3DS

At a time where Nintendo has been talking up the improvements its made to its online shopping experience, a number of people have discovered that if anything, things have gone backwards - it now seems that just connecting can be a challenge.

A number of people over at the Nintendo Life forums and elsewhere have reported difficulties in accessing the eShop. In that they haven't been able to do so for days. Instead, they get an "error code 005-5691." Meanwhile, their other online services, such as online gaming, Friends lists and Internet browsing, are working fine.

The first reported cases started showing up soon after the most recent eShop and 3DS system updates.

Nintendo's official line is that that error code has to do with traffic congestion through the network as a result of that. In theory that is a nice solution - just wait for things to calm down - but that must be one pretty congested network for people (such as myself) to be unable to connect for five straight days. If this was the PlayStation Network, it would be time to start rolling out the free games.

That's a joke, but if this is the reason behind the outage for those people, then Nintendo might want to rethink that boast about an improving network. If it's the cause of other problems (and those problems would appear to be on Nintendo's end, as all the people reporting the problems, including myself, had access previously), then please fix it quickly, Nintendo. There's some Virtual Console games I'd like to download.

We'll be sure to keep you updated as we find out more. In the mean time, please do let us know if you're experiencing eShop difficulties as well.

Review: American McGee's Alice (PSN)

Alice: Madness Returns is one of the more artistic games that I’ve played in recent years. The graphical vision is truly a sight to behold. And as an extra bonus, retail copies of Alice come with a free download code for the original American McGee’s Alice – in glorious HD, no less, which means series fans can take a trip down memory lane, and series newcomers can see where it all started (this applies to both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, but it's the PS3 version that's reviewed here).

That rabbit still creeps me out

Review: Banzai Bugs (iPhone)

Banzai Bugs is, perhaps surprisingly considering the very Japanese-inspired name, the brainchild of a Canadian Team, Devillish Development. They have produced a quick, easily entertaining arcade experience for the iPhone that will drain many hours of your time. Pulling you out of the real world for a short time, the developers wistfully transport you to a semi-peaceful garden where some rather fruit-deprived lady bugs need assistance in obtaining nourishment.

Review: Akimi Village (PSN)

Akimi Village is the kind of game that children should be playing. It’s violence free and cute, yes, but it’s also engaging and challenging at the same time. Adults can enjoy it, younger kids will lap it up and, with the social interaction features this is a game you can lose a lot of time into.

A builder's work is never done

Review: Airport Mania 2: Wild Trips (iPhone)

Fancy yourself as a bit of a multi-tasker? Reckon you're a guru at time-management? Or do you just like playing fun, absorbing and challenging games? Answering “yes” to any of those questions means you need to get Airport Mania 2: Wild Trips, the fantastic sequel to the App Store's 2009 #1 game: Airport Mania (which has a very nice port currently available on the Nintendo DS and Wii download services). Reflexive Entertainment have delivered a game full of entertainment, for all ages, that will keep you playing for hours and hours.

The cute little planes are back!

Tim Schafer's Trenched Now Available on Xbox LIVE

Tim Schafer is pretty much best known as a guy with a lot of kooky games under his belt, and that's not going to change any with the release of his latest genre-merging title for the XBLA, Trenched.