Platformer

Back in 2010, it felt like Nintendo offered me a personal gift by reviving Donkey Kong Country for the Wii in all of its old timey, 2D platformer glory. Now the game has been ported over to the good ol’ 3DS and you know what? It’s just as much fun playing through a second time. There aren’t many changes to the core game beyond a 3D facelift, but that...

The Indies Keep Coming Sony continues its mandate to bring unique, independent games to the PS3 and Vita (one of the reasons probably being the Vita is in dire need of titles) and Thomas Was Alone is the latest addition to the parade. Like quite a few of these indie titles, this isn’t actually a new game, having originally debuted last year on the PC and Mac....

The name A Walk in the Dark seems to have been a cruel prank on the part of Portuguese developer Flying Turtle Software. Yes, for the first dozen or so levels you’d be forgiven for thinking the game would be “a walk in the park,” but by the end the average gamer will be out for blood. You see, A Walk in the Dark is a hardcore...

With freshly pressed discs of Epic Mickey 2 currently spinning in every platform known to man, Mickey’s first side-scrolling platformer since the ancient 16-bit days has slipped onto shelves with little notice. Since it’s also got Epic Mickey in the title, I’m sure most people assume that it’s a 3DS port. Well, not so fast folks. You are severely underestimating what the good people at DreamRift have whipped up...

ToonsIn Trouble Again You have to give credit where it’s due, Warren Spector is a man of vision and originality. Epic Mickey was, on the surface, a pretty whacky idea. And yet somehow, he managed to get the official blessing (and license) of the Disney company to take their most cherished characters and put them through a surprisingly dark story about the vendetta of Walt Disney’s forgotten,...

Well this is unprecedented. Are you telling me that Nintendo went ahead and created a new Mario title to go along with the release of their new console? What?! You’ve got to be kidding! Yep, good ol’ Mario is back as a launch title. Unfortunately this isn’t something like Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario 3D Land that shows off the capabilities of the new system to maximum effect...

For a whole generation of Nintendo fans, the introduction to the company’s cast of characters wasn’t Mario, Link, or Samus, but that lovable little puffball known as Kirby. When that suck n’ blow hero debuted on the Gameboy in 1992, he gave the world’s first handheld system a mascot. Within a year he was on the NES and a series of sequels and spinoffs would follow. Eventually he was...

It was a bit of a shocker when Nintendo pulled New Super Mario Brothers 2 out of their hat right before E3 this year and planned on launching it within a few months. New entries in the plucky plumber’s ongoing battles with Bowser are usually teased out for a least a year. Yet all of a sudden here was the first sidescrolling Mario adventure for Nintendo’s new handheld system....

Although I’ve never been the biggest fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, I have generally enjoyed the various Sonic games that have been released throughout the years. I absolutely loved the precursor to this game, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I, as it was a nice throwback to the original Sonic games, but with updated HD graphics, refined controls and a new mechanic to update the character’s moves. ...

Here’s a game that should make all those obsessive-compulsive gamers very happy for countless hours on end. For the others, A Valley Without Wind is still a decent game and a pretty fun platformer. The basic story is, after the apocalypse the world of Environ is in ruins and only a brave few souls with special powers can help save what’s left of humanity. There’s also...

The 3DS has been swimming in top tear titles lately from Resident Evil to Metal Gear Solid and even Kid Icarus’ unexpected return. They were all pretty solid games, but if there was one problem that they all share it’s that they didn’t really take advantage of the unique 3D display. Sure, having monsters pop out of the screen is fun and some of the epic Kid Icarus levels...

Scarygirl's Not So Scary GameNathan Jurevicius is the Australian transplant to Canada responsible for the Scarygirl graphic novel and vinyl toy series. Now the cult IP has made the jump from a humble, free flash game to a downloadable title on the PSN, XBL and PC. The short version of this review is, buy it if you're a hardcore, old school platform gamer that also happens...

Growing up I never had a Sega Genesis of my own, so my experiences with Sonic the Hedgehog were gained from those times I spent at friends’ houses playing their system. The Sonic games were fun and fast-paced, simple-looking but deceptively complex. Up until a few weeks ago, I didn’t even know that this game, Sonic the Hedgehog CD (shortened to Sonic CD) had even existed. It’s not hard...

As a gamer with a strong sense of nostalgia for my misspent youth in basements clinging to various console controllers, I’ll always have a soft spot for side-scrolling platformers. There’s something about the graphical simplicity and hair-pulling difficulty of the genre that is endlessly appealing to me. This is what most videogames were for years, and while I’m just as excited to dive into technical marvels like Uncharted 3...

Did you play Kingdom Hearts? Did you cringe openly when you realized that it was a Final Fantasy-style RPG with platforming elements, set in various Disney worlds, with Donald and Goofy as your party members? Did you find yourself surprised when it actually did the interaction with the movies well, and felt enjoyable? That was how I felt, and I can't help but...

A Surprising Stocking Stuffer Tintin may not be the most widely-recognized comic book character to North American readers, but in Europe, the intrepid reporter has been a fixture of comic culture since 1929. Now, with the Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson CG animated feature finally crossing the Atlantic, a new generation of kids have the opportunity to discover the sense of timeless adventure that Herge brought to Tintin,...

It’s too bad that many people are likely to overlook Sideway: New York due to its surface trappings when, despite a pretty lame aesthetic that apes hip-hop culture filtered by “kid-friendly” sensibilities, it's a pretty great game that’s likely to appeal to a far wider audience than it will ever reach. In Sideway, you play as Nox, an unfortunately named graffiti artist decked out in a hoodie,...

Return To The Old School Thanks to the efforts of Xbox Live and the Playstation Network, gamers aren’t completely reliant on big publishers and developers to release safe games that appeal to the broadest possible demographic. It’s because of these smaller, perhaps even more eccentric developers, that new ideas — and maybe even more importantly, old ideas that are no longer considered fashionable...