Review – Rayman Origins

The last two years has been a great time for the 2D platforming genre with indie releases such as ‘Splosion Man and Super Meat Boy making their way to the Xbox Live market to huge sales. The classic genre has even seen a very important return to the big leagues thanks to Nintendo with titles like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Kirby’s Epic Yarn.

2011 has been pretty good to this once forgotten old school style of game and November alone saw the release of two games that proved to be a return to form for their respective properties. Sonic Generations and Rayman Origins both came out to outstanding reviews, but one is certainly much better than the other. Rayman, the charming character without limbs returns for the first time since Hoodlum Havoc back in 2003. How does his re-debut fair?

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Review – Monster Tale

DreamRift rewards fans of their previous sleeper hit, Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, with a room-crawling*, beat’em up, platforming adventure in Monster Tale.

* Since I’ve called a personal moratorium on the awful term “Metroidvania“, I’m going to define that type of game as a room-crawler.

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Defend Yourself Against Big Black Balls in Storm

There’s a storm a comin’ in upcoming title Storm by Social Loner Studios.  Known for their trivia games such as What The?! and other titles I’ve never heard of, SLS decided to stray away from that genre and make a 2D action game. In Storm, you must defend your base from an onslaught of meteors. It’s like Firefight in Halo, but with big… black… balls. You can upgrade your base with power-ups, shields for extra protection, and Power Shots, which make every shot much stronger. The game also offers 4-player co-op, so you and your friends can defend your bases and protect what’s yours.

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MORTAL KOMBAT! That Is To Say, A New Game…

Dark clouds foreshadow rain.  Similarly, the new Mortal Kombat live action video that made its way onto the web seemed to foreshadow a coming storm of new media for the almost-forgotten franchise.  Timing couldn’t have been better, in all honesty.  Just around the corner is E3, the place where video games can be reborn (or at least, given a second chance).  E3 is where many fans are expecting to see something new from the Mortal Kombat franchise, having just been acquired by a new developer.  It’s been a little less than a year since Midway went bankrupt and Mortal Kombat went to WB Games (now, NetherRealm). Continue reading…