A couple of years ago, Shifty Look, a site that hosted web comics, started featuring strips and other media like web animated series with various Namco game characters.  Many of these characters were very obscure ones, like Bravoman, Klonoa, Wonder Momo, etc.  I’m a classic Namco game junkie so I loved seeing all this happen.  I always wondered how they made money doing this, but I guess they didn’t make enough because sadly, Shifty Look closed its doors about a year or so ago.  I’m not sure if you can still read their comics online, but they did team up with Udon Entertainment to bring some of their Namco series to hardcover book collections.  Last year I reviewed the books based on Bravoman and Wonder Momo (I got a press release a while back that the Bravoman book won some sort of children’s book award in Canada).  And recently I just got a book with a collection of comics based around one of my favorite Namco games: Katamari Damacy!  So here’s a review of the Katamari: Volume One book!

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Tags: Misc

In Never Alone, you play as an Alaskan Native girl as she embarks on a quest to find out why her village is being pelted by an endless blizzard.  Along the way, she teams up with a white artic fox.  Together, they’ll solve 2-D platforming puzzles and obstacles on an adventure with characters and settings based on actual stories and myths from Native Alaskan people.  Originally a downloadable title for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, you can now play it on the Wii U (Wii U version reviewed here).

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Tags: Game Reviews

One day a green pixel decided he was tired of being part of the crowd and ventured off into the wide world on his own.  He found a video game museum and decided to have a 2-D platforming adventure through various 8- and 16-bit gaming computers and consoles.  Join Pixel on a trip down memory lane in this downloadable Wii U title.

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Tags: Game Reviews

So a few weeks ago I went to go see Inside Out, Pixar’s newest movie.  It’s about a girl and her personified emotions, and it’s a very touching, thought-provoking film.  During the previews, they had a commercial for a downloadable Inside Out free-to-play game on iOS and Google Play.  In the movie, the girl’s memories are represented by colored bubbles, so I guess someone got the idea to make a puzzle game out of it similar to Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move, or another game I reviewed recently called Bubble Bath Blast.  And since I liked the movie and Puzzle Bobble is one of my favorite puzzle games, I decided to review this game, too (reviewed on iPad here).

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Tags: Game Reviews, Movies with Children

We’ll conclude Squid Week (it’s like Shark Week, but with squids) with a look at some of my favorite tentacled creatures in video games.  This includes both squids and octopi (octopuses is actually an acceptable plural form of octopus, too, I looked it up).  So hide the calamari and let’s begin! more…

Tags: Misc

In the puzzle game Lines, your goal is to make sure your color fills up the most lines in each stage, represented by a pattern.  You’ll do this in several different game modes.  Lines is available for iOS devices and Windows phones, but reviewed on iPad here.

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Tags: Game Reviews

You know how the Discovery Cable Channel has Shark Week?  Well this week we’re going to have Squid Week, with squid themed blogs at the beginning and end of the week.  This first blog will be about Splatoon.  It’s been a very well-received Wii U title and a lot of people have praised it.  But not a lot have talked about the retro-styled mini-games in Splatoon, so I’m going to do that right now!

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Tags: Game Reviews

Lately I’ve been working on reviewing a lot of downloadable indie Wii U games lately.  I’ve got four on my list right now, with a good possibility of more to come later.  The Wii U has been doing a pretty good job of having a sizable list of indie games in their eShop roster lately.  They’ve been a godsend since it’s getting harder and harder to review mainstream titles recently.  And it got me to thinking about my favorite indie video game characters.  So here’s a blog about that.  Enjoy! more…

Tags: Misc

Dr. Mario, one of Nintendo’s most popular puzzle games, has been making house calls on nearly every Nintendo console since the NES.  But the gameplay has remained relatively unchanged.  And now Dr. Mario is on the 3DS eShop as a downloadable title, and includes not only Dr. Mario, but also Dr. Luigi and Virus Buster as well.  Better still, there is a new gameplay mechanic in the form of Miracle Cures, which are pills that can clear out even more viruses than before!  It’s a pretty neat collection of Dr. Mario fun, so let’s see what’s all in here.

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Tags: Game Reviews

Cristina Vee is a very popular voice actress, providing dialogue for many characters in anime and video games.  And now she’s in her own game!  Help her catch falling objects in space as she switches from a cosmic idol singer to an anime magical girl in this downloadable game for iOS devices (reviewed on iPad here).

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Tags: Game Reviews