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EA Scrabble iPhone review
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Casual, Downloadable Content, Electronic Arts, Portable/Mobile, Puzzle, Reviews,
Last year, my interest in Scrabble was brought to life with the release of the Scrabulous Facebook application. It was a good time challenging Facebook friends to old-fashioned word battles, and destroying them all with my superior wordsmithing skills. Or not. If you wanna test me, feel free to challenge me on Facebook. So what’s the point? Well, the moment that I saw that EA had released a version of Scrabble for the iPhone and iPod touch, I had to grab it immediately. I mean, an official Scrabble game for the mobile device that I use more than any other? What’s not to love about that?
Well, we will tell you. Step on in for our full review of the Scrabble app for iPhone.
Click to continue reading EA Scrabble iPhone review
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echochrome hits the PlayStation Store
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Downloadable Content, Music, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Network, Portable/Mobile, PSP, Puzzle,
Oh, happy day, echochrome has arrived. In case you’ve been under a rock, echochrome is a delicious puzzle perspective game, which is simple and deceptive all at the same time. The graphics are simple, the concept is amazing, and we’ve been waiting for it since last year’s E3. It is now here, along with a few other pieces of content - like new Rock Band tracks - on this weeks PlayStation Store update.
Games and Demos
echochrome ($9.99) for PS3
echochrome ($9.99) for PSP
Dark Sector demo (free)
Expansions and Add-ons
Rock Band tracks ($1.99 per track) - “Zero” by Smashing Pumpkins, “Time-Sick Son of a Grizzly Bear” and “Red Tandy” The Mother Hips
Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore tracks ($1.49 per track)
Videos
Battlefield: Bad Company “Redford Blog” video
echochrome trailer
Dead Space “Announcement” trailer
Dead Space “Ship Date” trailer
Kung Fu Panda trailer
NBA Ballers: Chosen One TV spot
Turok “Kane Gameplay” trailer
Turok “Bring It” trailer
Themes and Wallpapers
4 echochrome wallpapers
3 Kung Fu Panda wallpapers
PixelJunk Monsters Encore expansion set for May
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Casual, Downloadable Content, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Network, Puzzle, Release Dates,
I’ve recently been playing the hell out of PixelJunk Monsters, a game that we feel is one of the shining stars of the Playstation Store. If you haven’t yet tried it, seriously, go download it. The 2D strategy game is something that we almost can’t stop playing once we start. This is why we are happy to hear that Q Games has made it known that the first expansion pack for the game, titled PixelJunk Monsters Encore, is set to drop on May 1. We can expect a new island, called “Toki,” which will feature an additional 15 levels, as well as a little bit of housecleaning behind the scenes to the overall game mechanics. Even better still, the expansion will include five new songs by Otograph.
Visually, there are a few tweaks here and there that we can expect - weather effects, new tree shapes, and a few other small upgrades. Nothing over the top.
No word yet on pricing details, but this is DLC for a fairly inexpensive game, so it shouldn’t cost much.
Destructoid
Latest Gear Live Videos
Some brave soul just immortalized their love of my favorite game, Portal, in the form of a tattoo. Our only comments: what will the cake look like in 50 years, and wouldn’t it have been more appropriate to put the companion cube over the heart, and the cake on the tummy?
Remember kids: Cake and lies on gamer thighs is the only way to show your true gamer colors!
Portal Review: Non-linear puzzlement at its best
Posted by Sparky Categories: Electronic Arts, Internet, PC, Platformers, Puzzle, Reviews, Xbox 360,
Valve’s big new gaming pack, The Orange Box, includes a stunning new kind of puzzle game called Portal. Portal is a non-linear puzzle platformer featuring M.C. Escher-like bending of space, and some of the most unique gameplay to hit gaming market in a long time.
Portal features Black Mesa’s newest research competitor- Aperture Sciences - creators of the aperture gun, a device capable of creating space-bending portals between almost any two points in space. It’s hard to describe the gameplay in words so check out Valve’s Portal page and view the trailers to try and wrap your head around it. Click through for Playfeed’s full thoughts on this fresh new gaming experience.
Click to continue reading Portal Review: Non-linear puzzlement at its best
“Trauma Center: New Blood” Premiere Trailer
Posted by Steve Van Neil Categories: Action, Nintendo, Puzzle, Trailers, Wii,
It looks like the Wii is turning the corner as far as compelling third-party content goes. Joining Zach & Wiki, Manhunt 2, and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles at the cool kids table in the not-too-distant future is Trauma Center: New Blood, the sequel to the popular medical/supernatural/arm-flailing/impossible-to-categorize DS and Wii game. Hot from the Atlus oven is this premiere trailer, which shows off more of that cool anime-inspired character design, a brand new co-op mode, as well as some pretty stilted voice acting. Looks like a must-buy. What other game lets you draw five-pointed stars on an unconscious patient’s gaping wound to keep him from flatlining?
The Wii-exclusive Trauma Center: New Blood is slated to come out this holiday season.
Read More 
| IGN
Console Downloads: Super Street Fighter Puzzle HD Remix
Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: CAPCOM, Downloadable Content, Platformers, Puzzle, Role Playing Games, SEGA, Virtual Console, Wii, Xbox Live Arcade,
This week on XBox Live Arcade comes the anticipated and graphically enhanced arcade cult classic Super Street Fighter Puzzle HD Remix. In addition to upping the graphical fidelity on the game, Capcom has also rebalanced the game with the new X’ mode, although the original version will also be available. The game will cost 800 Microsoft Points.
On Wii‘s Virtual Console this week seems to be sequel week, with the Contra sequel Super C (previously available on XBox Live Arcade) for 500 Wii Points, the SNES role-playing classic Breath of Fire II for 800 Wii Points and the Sega Genesis version of Ghouls n’ Ghosts, the follow-up to Ghosts n’ Goblins for another 800 Wii Points.
Ken Levine on Hacking in BioShock: “It’s a Little Out There.”
Posted by Steve Van Neil Categories: Action, Adventure, First Person Shooters, PC, Puzzle, Take2, Xbox 360,
Everybody loves BioShock. From the whale-like moans of the Big Daddy to the thrill of smashing a frozen Splicer into little bits, the game is quality. However, one aspect of the game that isn’t thrilling everyone is its hacking mechanism; if you want to break into a safe or turn enemy turrets into your own mechanized defense force, you first must succeed at a hacking minigame that plays a lot like the Lucasfilm Games classic, Pipe Dream. Well, as it turns out, BioShock’s own big daddy, Ken Levine, is also not in love with the mechanic. Shacknews sat down with Levine for an interview and got his take on it.
It’s a little out there. That’s why it was important that you could bypass it in two ways; you can buy it out or you can use the hack tools—or you can just ignore it. There’s only one hack you have to do in the game.
But I think if we could go back and do it again, we would have maybe rethought that a little bit. I think it was more a function of our limitations at the beginning of the project when we had a very limited budget, and then we zoomed in so many other areas that we sort of forgot to go back to that area.
The purely non-spoiler interview, linked below, goes on to cover all things BioShock and is well worth reading.
Read More | Shacknews
Half Life 2: Episode Two Stage Demo Video
Posted by Steve Van Neil Categories: Action, First Person Shooters, PC, PlayStation 3, Puzzle, Trailers, Xbox 360,
At the Games Conference in Leipzig, developer Valve walked the audience through the latest chapter of Half Life 2, due to arrive on Steam and as part of The Orange Box this fall. This video shows off Episode Two’s soft lighting effect, “cinematic physics,” and new enemies. Interestingly, the updated physics and lighting systems will make an appearance in the console versions of Episode One as well, so if you are first experiencing Episode One on your PS3 or Xbox 360 through The Orange Box, you get to bask in the more up-to-date technology.
And since I don’t see people dancing in the streets on a daily basis, I figure there must be some confusion out there about what this mysterious Orange Box really is. It’s quite simple, really. The Orange Box is the gaming deal of the millennium. On October 10th of this year, gamers will be able to buy one box which contains Half Life 2, Half Life 2: Episode One, Half Life 2: Episode Two, the multiplayer-based Team Fortress 2, and the puzzle game Portal…all for the price of one game. It’s scheduled to hit the PS3. Xbox 360, and PC, not to mention the global economy, all on the same day,
Read More | Valve
Beautiful Katamari Demo Rolls Onto Xbox Live
Posted by Steve Van Neil Categories: Internet, Microsoft, Namco, Puzzle, Wii, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Marketplace,
First the Big Daddy, now the Little Prince. Live demo madness continues as the latest installment of Namco’s popular roll-everything-into-a-ball-and-create-a-new-star franchise (how would you describe it?) has a little taster up on Xbox Live Marketplace. This gameplay tease, all too brief at three minutes, will hopefully give fans a little something to tide them over until the full game hits Xbox 360 and Wii later this year.
Read More | Major Nelson
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