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Ahhhh….the classic point and click game, Machinarium is not just another piont and click game. I’m very impressed with its grunge-ish artistic styling as well as the sadness-like music. This once again proves to show crazy graphics, not that I have a problem with, do not necessary guarantee you a killer game. I seriously have not seen this type of games for the longest time, I think the last point and click adventure game was Syberia, another great game with machines as the theme. Another great adventage of not having crazy Crysis-like graphics is many people can run this game without crazy high-end computers. Definitely a plus!

Unfortunately this is only available for the PC, which baffles my mind. I know its probably not going to be a $59.99 game (I hope not) but at least release it as a downloadable game on PSN and Xbox LIVE.

I have my eyes on this one either way.

Found another potential sleeper game, this one is called Under Seige available exclusively for download from the PlayStation Network. Under Seige is an action RTS (real time strategy) game. Though this debut trailer is pretty short, which is just a bit longer than a minute. Given the fact that its a downloadable game, the graphics are surprisingly impressive! Then again, graphics aren’t everything but the little bit of game play shown in the trailer does look pretty intense.

Let’s hope this one is worthy of download when it becomes available in the third quarter of 2009. This is definitely another one to keep an eye on just like the Fat Princess, another action RTS. I personally think that one is even more fun than this!

Took me more than a day to finally convince myself to get this game. The main reason is because the game consists of only 12 levels and second reason is I’m a cheap gamer. In the end its the combination of sci-fi theme plus the fact that I’m a semi-hardcore fan of tower defense strategy games that made me make the purchase. I was a bit skeptical at first but after playing the first 4 levels, I must say this game offers a lot of content for the price I paid.

The goal of the game is simple, defend the mining operation from swamps of deadly alien insects called Insectocytes. The first 3 levels are basically tutorials, although you can switch off in the Options menu if you decide to replay those levels and I’m pretty sure you will. Just like any other tower defense strategy games, you will always start with the basic towers, just like PixelJunk Monsters, but instead of an arrow tower, your first tower will be a machine gun tower. By killing of waves and waves of enemies which gradually grow stronger than the previous waves, you will earn money to research new towers as well as upgrade your existing towers (up to level 5). You can als earn more money by advancing the enemy waves, if you feel that you can handle more without preparations.

Unlike PixelJunk Monsters where different types of enemies only take away one life from the total (one villager), different enemies take away different amount of health in Savage Moon. The stronger the enemy the more health or damage it will deal to your mining operation’s overall health.

As I mentioned before that this game offers more than what you are paying for, at least in my opinion. There are a couple of features that are not in PixelJunk Monsters – Command system, new types of towers that can be researched and you can rotate/zoom in and out of the map as well as camera mode from a particular tower.

Another difference between this game and PixelJunk Monsters is that you can only build a limited number of towers based on the available drop pods, even if you have the resources to build more. This makes the game more challenging as you need to plan carefully where you want to place the towers. A very nice feature. But don’t worry, the number will refill itself after each wave.

The command system has three aspects – more money per kill, stronger tower attacks and defense. At one time you can only have up to two of the three prioritized and sacrificing the third aspect. Or you can choose to have all three balanced. Early on you will pick more money per kill plus more fire power so that you can build up more, upgrade existing towers and research new ones.

There are also new types of towers to defend your mining operation such as the Repair Tower that will constantly repair nearby towers and Amp Tower that will make your nearby towers stronger as well as the very useful Block Tower that will allow you to block a path (not all paths can be blocked) by building multiple of these towers beside each other. Other towers can also be built on top of these Block Towers. There are more powerful ones as you progress through the game, I haven’t finished the game yet but I know there are more just by looking at different loading screens. I can’t wait til I get my hands on the Orbital Tower!

One negative comment I have for this game is the lack of multiplayer support (co-op) but I am sure a simple patch can change that?

Overall this game isn’t easy, except for the first 3 levels. The 4th level on Duergar on Xipe took me a few tries before figuring out what’s the best to deal with those pain-in-the-ass giant Insectocytes. This level is the first challenging level that will sure frustrates a lot of people playing for the first time. For those that are stuck on this level, just build a lot of Mortar Towers and you should be fine, at first I thought the Laser Towers would take them out quicker but I was wrong. And don’t forget to upgrade them as much as possible.

Most of the time you will use your money for researching, upgrading and building towers but occasionally you will want to use the Repair Base option to repair your damaged base.

PixelJunk Monsters has a relaxing and cartoonish feel to it, on the other hand Savage Moon has a totally different theme that takes place in space. Graphics are obviously more realistic, I am not criticizing PixelJunk Monsters’ graphics though because it was meant to be cartoonish and unrealistic. While its not Metal Gear Solid or Call of Duty quality, the graphics are more than enough to justify the price you pay.

I think the audio is what stands out the most besides the game play. When you kill waves after waves of enemies, you will constantly hear death screams which are very, very satisfying. I also love the sound each tower makes when it fires as well as when it upgrades and transforms into a stronger tower (great animation too!).

I highly recommend this little downloadable game on PlayStation Network for 9.99+tax. Fans of the sci-fi Tower Defense genre will not be disappointed with its refreshing style of game play. If I was to pick between PixelJunk Monsters and Savage Moon, I think I will pick Savage Moon over Monsters because there are just more things to do and the battles are much more intensive. Let’s hope there will be add-ons for this game in the future.

8.5/10

[Update]: If you are looking for Savage Moon walkthrough, there isn’t any so far, not even in gamefaq.com. But I have found video walkthrough from PSU’s Savage Moon Walkthrough

Image source: PlayStation.Blog @ Flickr

I have not played the original version of GTI Club which was released back in the 90s by Konami for the arcade. I gave this PS3 demo a try and I must say the game was better than I expected. Though I still am not convinced if the full version is worth it or not. Call me cheap but I like to buy games that I think is worth buying, even if its only $9.99!

So just like the original arcade game, this HD version still have that heavy arcade feel to it, from the graphics as well as from the commentator who I find somewhat annoying. The demo is pretty short, you only get to drive one car, a Volkswagen Golfs, with the default color and race around one single map. The race is pretty short, but sweet. I actually played three times non stop. One thing I absolutely hate is the demo doesn’t allow you to restart a race, which is stupid. You have to go all the way back from the first screen, pick everything again and start the race.

 

Forget about realistic car physics, there isn’t any. You hit something? Don’t worry just keep driving. I don’t think you should care much, unlike GT5 because this is an arcade game, its no simulation. Without the real physics, its a different way of driving and boy its fun because you can go out there and drive as reckless as you want. I think that’s the beauty of this game.

During the demo play, I was able to find a short cut as well so I can only assume there will be more hidden places and short cuts for all the courses. AIs DO actually drive into these short cuts.

Even though the graphics are no Metal Gear Solid quality, it doesn’t have to be nor does it need to. I think the graphics are sharp and vibrant. Everything from buildings to reflection from the cars are nicely designed, again for an arcade game.

Again, although I won’t be getting this game, because I just don’t see myself playing this game for more than a day or so, specially with such a short demo. Another reason might be the fact that all my attention AND patience are allocated to Killzone 2 which is coming out end of Feb. But I still think this one is perfect for GTI Club fans as well as those that are looking for casual video gaming, or should I say casual video driving. Not sure how many courses there will be in the full version, there will be more cars (obviously) like Mini Coopers and Volkswagen Golfs etc. The full game also supports up to 8 players online. And there is this game mode called Bombtag which actually sounds crazy fun.

If you haven’t tried it out, get it on PlayStation Network and go for a spin!

Image Source: GameSpot

Next time you want to buy a movie on the PSN, short for PlayStation Network, you might want to think again before you make the purchase. According to Sony, once you have purchased a movie, it can only be re-downloaded once and that’s with the assistance from SCEA’s consumer services. While I understand why Sony would want to implement such restriction on movies because of pirating/copy right issues. It is a major turn off for us consumers because we cannot keep what we rightfully purchased. Then what’s the point of purchasing online? Might as well buy the physical Blu-ray DVDs which you can watch anytime and don’t have to worry about re-purchasing them. I for one will continue to purchase physical Blu-ray DVDs for the foreseeable future.

And again it comes down to one question, even if there’s no DRM restriction on purchasing any content on PlayStation Network, do you rather have a stack of hard drive disks storing all your movies and contents or a stack of Blu-ray DVDs. I will go with the latter, at least for now and until someone invents affordable storage devices equal to or smaller than the size of a disc.

Source from: DaileyTech

As I am eagerly waiti for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo to finish downloading, I’ve downloaded The Last Guy demo. I knew it is going to be a fun game because I’ve seen trailer for this game before.

The goal of this game is simple, rescue at least the amount of people based on the mission within a given time. That’s it! You will be navigating through a detailed Google-Earth-like map from a top down view. There will be monsters and zombies roaming around waiting for you to get close. Its a one hit kill so don’t go too close to them. With a press of a button you can use the thermal imaging and check shortcuts that are otherwise too hard to see under the normal view and to find where people are hiding. The trade off is you won’t see the monsters using this view. You can also dash to make yourself and the people following you move faster, but the stamina get drained pretty fast. Luckily there are recovery, time stop and invisible items scattered all around the map, there’s only one stamina recharge item in the demo though but its not really needed.

 
 

Overall the demo is fun and I will probably play it again. The game really makes you think a bit before trying to rescue the people inside. You to (patiently) wait until the area is clear, otherwise you draw out the people and if a monster is near, it will kill them and that’s not good!

The demo takes place in Japan, the full version will let you rescue people from different cities around the world. What are you waiting for? Give it a try!