Pac-Man Monsters (iPad)
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Posted on July 11th, 2014 by
The last thing we’ll look at in our “Nutty Namco Week” is a free-to-play game for mobile devices (reviewed on iPad here), starring Namco’s most popular icon: Pac-Man. But this time he’s being featured in a pretty unusual game. One popular genre of tablet games that have really taken off are RPG puzzle battle games. Most use the similar match-three Bejeweled format to select your attacks, and then you can view the outcome on the top part of the screen. Probably the most well-known of these is Puzzle and Dragons, and I reviewed a similar one a while back called Monster Match. Now Pac-Man is getting into the fray with his own spin on the puzzle battle RPG craze.
Wonder Momo: Battle Idol Volume 1 (Book)
Posted on July 9th, 2014 by
The next entry in our “Nutty Namco Week” is another hardcover book collection of web comics, and this one is called “Wonder Momo: Battle Idol.” Wonder Momo was an arcade game in Japan made by Namco (creators of Pac-Man) in the late 80’s. In the game, you played as young girl Momo and kicked bad guys on a theater stage (there’s an audience and curtains and everything). If Momo ran into a tornado and spun really fast, she would turn into Wonder Momo, a stronger super-hero version of herself who could throw a hula hoop at bad guys. The game was meant to be a parody of “Magical Girl” anime cartoons like Sailor Moon, and spoofs of ‘sentai’ super hero shows like Power Rangers. It was never released in the US, probably due to its slightly suggestive themes. You had to avoid a photographer in the audience, for instance, who would try and take upskirt pictures of Momo from below. The flash from the camera would stun Momo for a moment. Anyhow, Wonder Momo has remained fairly popular in Japan and Namco has had cameo appearances of her in various other games. Shifty Look, an online web comics site, makes comic strips featuring classic Namco characters, and Wonder Momo is one of their most popular ones. It spawned a web anime series and now you can get a collection of the first 100 strips in a quality, hardcover book format! Let’s take a quick look at what’s inside.
Bravoman Volume 1 (Book)
Posted on July 7th, 2014 by
It’s “Nutty Namco Week” here at GamerDad, where we’ll take a look at new books and games featuring odd Namco characters! First up is Bravoman! Bravoman is a classic arcade game by Namco, makers of Pac-Man. The Bravoman arcade game was released in Japan only, but it did get ported to the US by way of the TurboGrafix-16 game console (and Wii Virtual Console). It’s a 2-D platformer beat ‘em up featuring a super hero who can stretch his arms and limbs to punch and kick bad guys. The game is meant to be a silly parody of super heroes and video games. While Bravoman has made cameo appearances in other Namco titles, he would’ve faded into obscurity had it not been for Shifty Look. Shifty Look is an online web comics site who has recently published strips featuring obscure Namco game characters. Bravoman is probably their most successful and long-running series, and has spawned into a high quality web cartoon (featuring prolific cartoon voice actors like Rob Paulsen), and even a tablet game (that one’s not so good). And now you can buy a hardcover book with the first 100 or so strips from the Bravoman web comic! Click here to take a closer look!
Cary’s Best Video Games of 2014 SO FAR Awards Show!
Posted on July 4th, 2014 by
Can you believe this year is already half over? What I like to do this time of year is write about the best games of the year 2014 so far. Most of the really good titles come out during the Christmas season at the tail end of the year, and the games that come out earlier tend to be forgotten. So this is where those games get their due.
Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (360, PS3, Vita, PC)
Posted on July 2nd, 2014 by
In a secret laboratory facility, little space blobs are kept locked up and have experiments performed on them. But one green, one-eyed blob doesn’t like it and isn’t going to take it anymore. He escapes and hides in a backpack belonging to a college kid on a student tour of the laboratory. Now the blob must brave obstacles in a college dorm and frat house, around town, at a military base, and even on the moon! He’ll have to eat and absorb as many things as he can so he can grow bigger and exact revenge on the lab that performed experiments on him and his blob friends! Tales form Space: Mutant Blobs Attack is a downloadable 2-D platforming action game with lots of zany madcap humor (360 version reviewed here).
