cyhwuhx.com

Tetris and handhelds go hand in hand. After all, it was the original portable brick – the Game Boy – that made it a common household name. So it was quite sobering to discover that the PSP didn’t have a version of Tetris to call its own. Initially I thought it was a weird typo I must’ve misread, but no, until last week there was no Tetris for PSP. Luckily, it has a version now. And boy, does it rock!

(more…)

I just downright love WipEout HD. Yet, it suffered some serious neglect after other games were released right after its launch last year. Small wonder then, that when the Fury expansion was announced, I used it a springboard to return to its clean utopian anti-gravity racing tracks. There are multiple reasons why I like the game and oddly enough one of them received quite some flak the last couple of days:advertisements.

The future's bright. The future's branded.

Wait, hold on, did I just say I liked advertisements in WipEout?

I sure did! When the PlayStation was launched, it did so with the firstWipEout alongside it. Infuriatingly hard to play, the 3D and modern aesthetics still kept me interested. Back then The Designer’s Republic was already in charge of the game’s visual identity. But when its sequel WipEout 2097 (XL in the US) hit the market, it was something else entirely.

(more…)

Generally speaking, I don’t like physics in games. So in a way, I don’t likeTrash Panic. This downloadable PlayStation Network puzzle game for PS3 has a great concept: efficiently arrange random pieces of trash in a trash bin by destroying stuff. The most used technique to do this, will be to break your pieces of trash by smashing them into the bin with force. Logically, this is where the physics come into play and, sadly, start ruining the concept.

When you smash a light-bulb into the bin, it usually shatters into satisfying pieces. Not everything shatters instantly though, so when you get a dumbbell to use, you expect it to be some kind of rubbish killer. Surely it will flatten other items under its weight. But smashing it into the bin only seems to break the very first item it hits! Sure, that one item is then completely shattered, but for a ‘heavy’ item, the physics behind it feel weak.

(more…)

It has been ages since I have completed an 8-bit Mega Man title, so the release of Capcom’s Mega Man 9 has been nothing short of a blessing to me personally. Now the first thing people will tell you about the game is that it is hard. Not just hard, but rather the stuff of legends: “So hard you can’t possibly like it, you’re not hardcore!”

True, Mega Man 9 is hard. Yet at the same time, it was refreshingly ‘easy’. I have died more times than a year’s worth of death in other games, but the game always made it crystal clear where, when and how I died. I could anticipate it the next time, learn from mistakes and actually gain skill in navigating the level.

(more…)

This article was previously published in Dutch at games blog Bashers. What follows is the English translation and edited version of said article.

How you control a game defines the entire experience. Control is the only thing you can rely upon with the game world, so it would be rather efficient if the controls matched your expectations exactly. PixelJunk Eden (PS3) for PlayStation Network presents itself as a simple platform-title. But it doesn’t exactly have the controls to match that ‘simple’ approach…

(more…)