fuchikoma

It's hard to say who this is for. First, it starts you very slow and lays a heap of tutorial on you like you've never played Picross... then it shovels on additional Pokemon mechanics to make it more complicated. Once you've done a few puzzles to warm up, it suddenly has you doing 15 x 15 puzzles with zero hints or helpers. They've Candy Crushed Picross. If you wish Picross had more in app purchases, this one's for you.

As adventure games go, this one has nice atmosphere. Charmingly weird characters and an odd sense of humor. Unfortunately, it's also a very classic point and click adventure game - it shows quite clearly why the genre died out years ago: There are lots of places where you would swear you've clicked on everything that's interactive everywhere you're allowed to go a thousand times over and tried to use every combination of every inventory item on every interactive spot, but it still won't advance you through the game. Ultimately, you'll just have to check a FAQ and wonder at how the designer expected anyone to come up with their particular take on it. This is often after trying a solution that should work for anyone with common sense. Also, it may sometimes involve clicking a spot that wasn't interactive before, but has become so at a certain point - who playtested this? This can be overcome in the main campaign with FAQs, just as the adventure games of yore were so certain to need cheat guides, they'd be official accessories, but once you get to the bonus chapter, you're on your own as no one seems to have figured it out yet. Personally I've been working on it for around 2 years and I'm ready to write this game off and dodge the sequel.

The game shows off 3D well. The dialogue is funny. There's hardly any skill involved though. Mainly you're just walking around and hoping not to get into another tedious, pointless battle that will neither harm you nor make any significant gains. Then, after you clear the first world, the second starts by gating you based on a rare sticker. So go explore all the levels in the first world again, turning them upside down looking for it and grinding (but not earning XP or anything) for hours just so you can take the next step! Seriously, who thought of that? The game starts off with a hearty dose of charm, but the gameplay turns it into a slow, plodding chore that wears out its welcome as you retread already overly simplistic stages again and again looking for rare stickers.

First off, Rocksmith is a great game with a few rough spots (technique challenges that are almost impossible because they require high-level mastery of other techniques not being tested. ie. Hammer-ons & pull-offs requires perfect, fast, frequent shifting without glancing at the guitar at all.) Overall though, it's a great way to push you forward to try harder techniques at a fast pace and make breakthroughs in ability, as well as keep practicing regularly. However... it's really irrelevant how well planned this software is when the PS3 version doesn't even function. It will lock up every 10-15 minutes of play, presenting a loading screen that never ends. This problem is well known and infamous on their forums, but Ubi's support staff basically take any open support tickets on it and declare that they have nothing to offer, and close the ticket as "solved." In other words, "it's really too bad you just spent $200 on this, but we got our money so you can buzz off now!" In a half hour session, this game will crash more than any other game I've played since PS3 launch has ever crashed, added up across all sessions I've ever played. It's broken. It's useless. It's buggier than an anthill. Stay away! The PC version is fairly decent, but the PS3 version isn't fit for an alpha test.

Telling you what happens would do the experience a disservice. This isn't a game to wield skills to triumph over tricky challenges - it's a place to feel wonder, camaraderie, adversity and joy. You've no doubt heard lots of vague over the top claims about it already, but you may even find the meaning of life in this game. It's that profound. It's not an hour - it's 2 or 3 the first time through. Still, that gives you good odds of encountering another player in the same area and even in the last 10 minutes it made me feel more than a whole box of 60-hour games could. It manages to convey more meaning than most games or movies, without using a single word (outside of the clumsy "how to play" overlays at the start...) In fact, it would have lost some impact if it tried to spell things out for you - instead, the moments you encounter may be the same as most other players find, but they are yours. Like life itself, you may be like countless others who went before you, but you are you and this is your story. Everything is fleeting, so just enjoy the moment and push on to what's next. Meeting other players, you may not be able to articulate your communication well, but there's a common understanding that the other who is with you is another living person and that changes the nature of the experience knowing that you're sharing it with someone else. It's a beautiful experience and I'd recommend it to anyone who feels some connection to other humans, no matter how little.

This is a great game. Some slam it for the difficulty curve, but I found it's pretty good. The problem there is that you're doing most of your work at very high altitudes, so if you flub some acrobatics, you may fall all the way to the ground and waste all your remaining time trying to climb back - it's stressful. Still, if you ration your time crystals and just pick up what you need, and just pursue the objectives, it's a game that really rewards mastery of the mechanics and adds interesting challenges as you progress. Additionally, the visuals are typical Pixeljunk - that is, they look unique, vibrantly colorful, animated and lively, and the music by fits perfectly - both products of multimedia artist "Baiyon." On the Q-Games side, things feel right: Everything seems to have its own weight and momentum. Some things are soft, some hard, others springy, with a bit of give. Swinging, you do sweep an arc, but it feels like your string has tension, and you need the right inertia to keep swinging. It makes a nice, varied world that may be challenging, but is consistent and feels fair. Oddly, you don't walk - you always jump. This isn't a big handicap, but adds a bit of challenge too - like how you can't "jump" in Bionic Commando. An expertly crafted game by the PixelJunk team. I strongly recommend it for people who like platformers, but want something really different.

This game is really fun. Sort of like the "Kirby" games, it is easy - if you want to beat it, you surely will. I found it was very short too - cleared it in under a couple days. So why the high score? The core mechanics feel really good to interact with. The visuals are crisp, distinct and lively. The music by High Frequency Bandwidth is awesome. Also, even after you blast through it, there's the challenge of finding all the hidden diamonds and climbing the leaderboards. It's a good balance - most people can see the whole game, but those who want more challenge can push themselves to do better. The sequel pretty much threw that out the window and went for the hardest thing they could possibly make, so beware of that - but here I'm reviewing the first game, and it's a must have for PSN shooter, or PixelJunk/Q Games fans.

The first game was easy, but great. I guess they took the first part of that very seriously, because no one could call this one easy. I like bullet hell shooters, and masochistic games like The Impossible Game, La-Mulana, Trials HD and so on... but this takes the cake. One or two levels into the game, I'm running into learn-by-dying boobie traps like lethal powerup dispensers, walls that grab you, and worst of all, infinitely growing green jelly you have to shoot 10 times a second just to tunnel through it. There is no rapid fire. Thanks, guys - you've made a game that cripples my wrists with RSI, and I can't even access over 90% of the game because it's literally unplayable. I thought Eden and Shooter are brilliant, but now I'm staying away from Sidescroller, etc because it's not worth the risk.